Editors, how do you decide on Unit Cost?

[Brenshar]

As title says, how do you determine how much a unit should cost in shields in your scenarios and mods?

I count the unit stats of non-UUs to arive at their shield cost usually 10 shields per extra stat, but with much more powerful units of the late game this doesn't work as well, so after say 8 total unit stats (Like a unit with 3 attack, 3 defense, and say 3 (1+2) moves) Ill change to counting in 5 shields. But Im not always convinced this is an ideal system. I can see the value of assigning cost by relative ratio of strengths, but at some point should a 2x better unit be 2x in shields? That might result in excessive high production time and upgrade costs.

What are some other ways you determine unit shield costs?

 

[timerover51]

I look at the historical costs of the various units and pieces of equipment, and try not to go overboard. A 45,000 ton battleship is going to cost far, far more than a curragh or trireme, but you also have the industrial development between say Ancient Greece and the World War 2 United States to consider. A nuclear submarine should, in theory, cost about 5 times more that a conventional submarine, and perhaps I should use that, but then the issue of making the for the game enters. I have a stealth bomber costing as much as a battleship in shields, with the stealth fighter only a bit less. Realistically, an elephant unit should have a higher maintenance cost than a horse unit, simply because an elephant requires far more food and water than a horse unit. It also should cost more, because of the long breeding and growth time of an elephant verses a horse.

The whole issue of the shield costs of units is something that I have been playing around with for years, and have yet to come to a satisfactory solution.

 

[Predator145]

Late game units do not scale like they do from ancient to medieval times. Post industrialization even a cost hike of 10 shields is far more than what it looks like because that could sometimes be the difference between a unit being churned out in 2 or 3 turns. This hurts the AI, who doesn't know how to selectively build stuff to avoid waste, badly. To compensate, late game units get massive stat boosts for a modest shield increase. For just 20 shields, your Infantry gains 80% def stat, 100% atk stat and 100% speed. It's a huge bargain. The real cost is of course teching there. Those who have sunk their shields into multipliers instead of early military for conquest need to be rewarded with quality. Otherwise, tech backwards civs would just use sheer numbers to overwhelm more civilized ones. A lib+uni is worth 280 s. A market+bank is 260. If you built all 4 you'd had spent 540 shields. That's worth 18 swordsmen/horsemen or 7 knights. You deserve to not be steamrolled by human wave tactics.

But there are stock game costs that are very imbalanced like the pike to musket and knight to cavalry. Muskets gain 1 atk and 1 def. If they were to follow the ancient to medieval formula of 10 shields per 1 atk/def stat the muskets would cost 50 shields. If they were to switch to percentage then the muskets would cost 40 shields (would have made sense since real sell of early firearms were there cheap cost and ease of training). Cavalry on the other hand, gains 50% extra atk and 1 extra movement for just 10 shields. To make it worse, they can be bee-line teched into pretty quickly. This turns previously balanced game into a hyper-offensive one where all you build is cavalry. They're even better at defending than muskets since they can actually get the front in time. Balance to contemporary units is thus a factor to keep in mind when modding.

Personally, I find the tech advantage reward late game a tad too much. I've modded tanks and mech inf to cost a slight bit more. A Tank costing roughly the same as Infantry makes no sense to me considering it defends almost as well and moves twice as fast. A tank costing 135 s (50% than Infantry) makes sense IMO. This means the human player will also have the reason to look at late game foot units while the Deity AI continues to churn them out in 2 turns like before (It's horrible at optimizing shield output despite only needing 60spt to crank out 1 turn tanks). It's with the Sid AI that it will make the biggest difference since with the 60% discount they could regularly produce 1 turn tanks at the cost of 100s.

 

[timerover51]

I was looking at unit cost and trying to figure out how a Chariot costs less than a spearman.

 

[Brenshar]

After lots of hangwringing Im mostly just going to wing it, I think the important thing is to guage units relative to one another but with an eye that tech advancement can allow for slight power creep. To the former the civ calculator is very useful, as you wouldn't normally take things like fortifying or city size into account when those can result in massive boosts to for example defensive units, so its also important to calculate the range of a units potential power and ensure there isnt an unnecessary imbalance, but one which might perhaps lean towards the offensive or defensive depending on the era.

Referencing the historical record is also something Ive thought about, I think its important to have a view of the units as being rather abstractive and also taking into account that sometimes technology can break or malfunction, or tactically can be defeated. So as far as unit stats its not too concerning for me that occasionally a spearman might defeat a tank for example, I can imagine it.

I was looking at unit cost and trying to figure out how a Chariot costs less than a spearman.

In the base game? They should both cost 20 shields? But a chariot also requires a horse resource in addition, the availability of which can be taken to mean horses are available and cheap, if not free to requisition.

 

[timerover51]

Actually, you would have the cost of building the chariot, which required specific woods for the various parts, the harness for the horses, typically two, and the cost of equipping the crew of two men, along with training the driver. Either the spearman should be considerably cheaper, or the chariot considerably more costly. I am still thinking about that.

 

[Moff Jerjerrod]

What I have done in the past is akin to eyeballing it. Meaning I'll assign a range of shield costs to units based on what I think they should cost. For example I'll estimate a rifleman should cost about 50 shields, a tank should be about 150 shields, etc.

I'll load my mod and choose one of the powerhouse nations. Take an average of production output (using the F1 screen) and then divide my unit costs by that average. Example, say my production average for all my cities is 10 shields, my 50 shield rifleman will take 5 turns to complete and my tank will take 15 turns. I don't like how that feels so I'll lower the rifleman cost to 40 and the tank to 120. There are other factors I consider such as how much production potential a cities will have once their populations increase and all the tiles are worked. Again I'll re-evaluate costs after playing 20 to 30 turns.

For me it's not about setting realistic costs based on real world examples. It is, however, all about making my mod fun to play and not being hamstrung by a bunch of cities that will take 35 turns to produce one tank. That's just too much imho. I can live with 10 to 12 turns for a tank, but not 35 turns.

 

[Brenshar]

Actually, you would have the cost of building the chariot, which required specific woods for the various parts, the harness for the horses, typically two, and the cost of equipping the crew of two men, along with training the driver. Either the spearman should be considerably cheaper, or the chariot considerably more costly. I am still thinking about that.

Thats true, but you could also view the spearman as representing a larger grouping of soldiers compared to the chariot.

I also have a question for you timerover, unrelated to this thread that Im hoping you could help me with. Basically Ive come to view the vanilla destroyer as a bit pointless, so Ive thought of turning it into a resourceless transport/naval power unit meant to be available for civs without resources so they arent doomed to relying on galleons and even worse galleys still in the industrial era. Would you know of any class or example that can fit that role that has similar enough graphics to the base game destroyer?

Im thinking of turning the cruiser into the dedicated transporter ship that would replace the existing transport while also more capable, which I think Ill call an amphibious assault ship or just assault ship, while dreadnaughts and battleships are specialized for the naval power role.

For me it's not about setting realistic costs based on real world examples. It is, however, all about making my mod fun to play and not being hamstrung by a bunch of cities that will take 35 turns to produce one tank. That's just too much imho. I can live with 10 to 12 turns for a tank, but not 35 turns.

One thing I am worried about is I've tended to cheapen most unit costs, while also increasing the amount of production improvements available to civs. I don't mind it when units become quick to produce but Im trying to avoid too many kinds of units that can be produced within 2-3 turns by certain points of the game. There's a lot to balance indeed, and what Im working on doesnt have a premade map so it can be hard to judge without playing several playthroughs that reach the later eras.

 

[timerover51]

I also have a question for you timerover, unrelated to this thread that Im hoping you could help me with. Basically Ive come to view the vanilla destroyer as a bit pointless, so Ive thought of turning it into a resourceless transport/naval power unit meant to be available for civs without resources so they arent doomed to relying on galleons and even worse galleys still in the industrial era. Would you know of any class or example that can fit that role that has similar enough graphics to the base game destroyer?

With respect to this, the U.S. Navy converted a number of World War One 4-piper destroyers into fast transports for World War 2. The APDs served throughout the war and were very useful ships. Delta Strife did a 4-piper of the Clemson class that you could use.

Clemson Class Destroyer

The Clemson class was a series of 156 destroyers which served with the United States Navy from after World War I through World War II. The Clemson-class ships were commissioned by the United States Navy from 1919 to 1922, built by Newport News...

forums.civfanatics.com

Im thinking of turning the cruiser into the dedicated transporter ship that would replace the existing transport while also more capable, which I think Ill call an amphibious assault ship or just assault ship, while dreadnaughts and battleships are specialized for the naval power role.

Delta Strife has also done several ships that would fit what you are looking for. One is a WW2 Japanese fast landing ship. https://forums.civfanatics.com/resources/no-1-class-landing-ship.30116/

Then he has also done two nice amphibious assault ships that are more modern. The Fearless Class ships were used in combat during the 1982 Falkland Islands War.

Fearless Class Landing Platform Dock

The Fearless class amphibious assault ships were the first purpose-built amphibious warfare vessels in the Royal Navy. The class comprised two ships: HMS Fearless and HMS Intrepid. Designed as Landing Platform Docks, they were designed to...

forums.civfanatics.com

The second is the current U.S. Navy's amphibious ship.

San Antonio Class Amphibious Transport Dock

The San Antonio class is a class of amphibious transport dock (LPD) warships used by the United States Navy. These warships replace the older Austin class LPDs (including Cleveland and Trenton sub-classes), as well as the Newport class tank...

forums.civfanatics.com

 

[JJKYT]

As a modder, For example; If I'm making an infantry unit, depending on what era (industrial or modern) I will either choose between 70-100 if industrial and 80-130 for modern, but it also depends on the country. For example, on average African and Middle Eastern units will have cheaper infantry because they're most commonly known for carrying cheap weapons like the AK 47, but on average, European & American troops will be more expensive because of their increased equipment and training.

 

[Civinator]

Im thinking of turning the cruiser into the dedicated transporter ship that would replace the existing transport while also more capable, which I think Ill call an amphibious assault ship or just assault ship, while dreadnaughts and battleships are specialized for the naval power role.

With the setting of escort ship limitations in the Flintlock mod, I consider to give the transport ships in my mod the defense values of cruisers and the normal transport values of the transport ships of that time and name them convoy.

Wotan49 made a wonderful convoy unit, including a protected cruiser, for the era before and around WW1, that can be found here: https://forums.civfanatics.com/resources/mtrampconvoysea.30645/

He also made a WW2 convoy unit, with a 4-stacker destroyer, that can be found here:
https://forums.civfanatics.com/resources/convoy-ww2.30664/

So the unit is nice, too, here I would prefer an escorting light cruiser considering the defense stats of such a unit.