FfH2 0.14 Bugs

[vorshlumpf]

Oops, I lied. Bed can wait.

1) Enchant Weapon (for melee troops) is kept during an upgrade to other troop types (in my most recent case, from Soldiers of Kilmorph to Paramanders). Is this intended, or simply a minor issue that doesn't warrant a fix?

2) Sentry Towers give what is essentially Sentry II promotions to all units on them. I've noticed that this actually stacks with other such promotions, so if you take a Recon unit with Sentry II and put it on a tower, you get a really good view of the landscape. As well, when you step off the tower, your unit still has the temporary promotion when they first land on the adjacent square (though it is immediately taken away). This allows you to see more than what some standing on the tower would see - though this 'extra' viewing is immediately wrapped in fog of war, so all you get to see is the landscape, not units.

3) Guardian Vines are not removed when borders are closed to someone. I noticed this when the computer plopped down GVs next to an enemy city, and when peace was enacted (without an open borders agreement), all of the attackers troops were expelled except the vines.

4) Earthquake will completely take out towns. I don't know if the spell is intended to be this powerful compared to regular pillaging (which would take 4 pillages for the same effect). Sweet spell by the way. I like seeing a town shrink when I cast it, even if I have no idea which building was lost.

- Niilo

 

[vorshlumpf]

Guerilla I is defense only. Wont work with an attack i believe.

One of the latest changes Kael and Co. has implemented is that terrain bonuses work when attacking, as well as on defense. I feel its long overdue - never could figure out why those skill woodsmen would forget all their tactics once they assaulted any old enemy out in the woods.

- Niilo

 

[vorshlumpf]

Hm, I do like this idea...but the elves are the most powerful in the game right now......my first goal is to get everyone else "up to speed".
But yeah, i want that.
-Qes

Yeah, I agree about their power. That's why I was thinking of ways to decrease health (from animal resources), happiness (from invading troops and lack of animal pens), and mobility (strong incentive not to build roads). It's mainly just brainstorming, though, in case anything might trigger even better ideas from other people.

- Niilo

 

[QES]

One of the latest changes Kael and Co. has implemented is that terrain bonuses work when attacking, as well as on defense. I feel its long overdue - never could figure out why those skill woodsmen would forget all their tactics once they assaulted any old enemy out in the woods.

- Niilo

Hm, i always figured it was because they're playing on their own lands, and have time (a turn is a year) to set up the proper abushes and the like.......attacking others? well it should work, true, but maybe not at the full bonus. After all your entering THEIR occupied space. Though.....since the terrain gives bonuses, all its really doing is negating that.
-Qes

 

[QES]

Yeah, I agree about their power. That's why I was thinking of ways to decrease health (from animal resources), happiness (from invading troops and lack of animal pens), and mobility (strong incentive not to build roads). It's mainly just brainstorming, though, in case anything might trigger even better ideas from other people.

- Niilo

I was thinking roads should be invisable. And then call them "paths" and make them unpillageable. This would mean the AI would ignore them (in an invasion), the only people to benefit from them would be the elves and "commando" units, which makes sense.
-Qes

 

[SchpailsMan]

Okay, I did some testing and number crunching and found out a few interesting things about terrain defense. The "actual odds" below were reported in the combat log.

(...)

2) Guerilla I promotion appears to be completely ignored when attacking a hill, but more testing will be required to confirm this.

3) When an attacker with Woodsman I is attacking into a forest, the 40% benefit for the attacker is taken off the defender instead. It's great to see the game moving in the direction of accounting for an attacker's terrain promotions, but it's mathematically incorrect to use it on the defender's score. A 1.40 vs 1.00 situation does not have the same odds as a 1.00 vs 0.60 situation.

2/ -> IIRC, the change is not reported in the "combat odds" window. You've got to open the combat log (CTL-TAB to open event log, then click the 'combat log' tab) to manually check the modifiers that are actually applied during combat. I think Kael and the Team wanted to get some feedback before spending time just for an interface detail (although in my opinion it's a really handy "interface detail").

3/ -> This is the base CivIV combat mechanism. See Arathorn's excellent "Combat Rules" thread for more explanation. You're right to say that 1.00 vs 0.60 is not the same as 1.40 vs 1.00, obviously the people at Firaxis missed that, or didn't find it important enough to let go the optimization it allowed (basically calculating once and only once the base strengh value for the currently selected unit, and then determining the best defender in each tile applying on the fly only those modifiers that would affect -- eg: a str2 Warrior with +10%str from Combat I and +25%str vs Melee has 2.2 base strengh, which is calculated only once, against any unit ; and applies its Shock bonus only against Melee units when determining the best defender in each tile).

 

[vorshlumpf]

2/ -> IIRC, the change is not reported in the "combat odds" window. You've got to open the combat log (CTL-TAB to open event log, then click the 'combat log' tab) to manually check the modifiers that are actually applied during combat. I think Kael and the Team wanted to get some feedback before spending time just for an interface detail (although in my opinion it's a really handy "interface detail").

Yup, the combat log is what I used, and I manually calculated the odds as well as used the odds supplied by the log. I mentioned that in my post.

3/ -> This is the base CivIV combat mechanism. See Arathorn's excellent "Combat Rules" thread for more explanation. You're right to say that 1.00 vs 0.60 is not the same as 1.40 vs 1.00, obviously the people at Firaxis missed that, or didn't find it important enough to let go the optimization it allowed

Really? Huh. I'll have to check out that thread. I have never noticed this combat odds discrepancy before. But, then again, I was never looking at it so closely as now.

- Niilo

 

[vorshlumpf]

Hm, i always figured it was because they're playing on their own lands, and have time (a turn is a year) to set up the proper abushes and the like.......attacking others? well it should work, true, but maybe not at the full bonus. After all your entering THEIR occupied space. Though.....since the terrain gives bonuses, all its really doing is negating that.
-Qes

The bonus for fortifying (5% per turn) represents the troops setting themselves up (i.e., digging themselves in).

The default bonus for terrain simply represents the difficulty in assaulting someone in said terrain. And it's not necessarily the defender's own lands, either. Also keep in mind that, unless a unit spends at least one turn stationary in a square, they are effectively passing through and only doing basic defensive preparations when setting up camp every night.

The bonus promotions for terrain (such as Woodsman), in my opinion, represents the unit's ability to fight in that type of terrain. This shouldn't differentiate between attacking or defending (unless you want to really complicate the combat system in the pursuit of realism). An experienced attacker could possibly sneak up on an inexperienced one because it uses the terrain better.

And, no, you are not just negating the base terrain bonuses. Take forest, for example. If you have some newb unit defending it, they don't know how to take full advantage of the trees, so they're left with only 50%. If the attacker is also newb, then that's how it stands. But, say the attacker has Woodsman I, representing their training in woodland combat. They now get 40% to their attack, which almost negates the defender's advantage (ignoring relative base STR values).

Woodsman II shows complete mastery of woodland combat, which rightfully gives an advantage to the attacker (100% vs 50% if the defender is untrained/inexperienced).

Of course, with a defender who is trained in woodland combat, the playing field is evened out again, leaving just the base terrain bonus to make a difference. Again, that makes sense to me.

I don't know if I'm explaining myself properly at this late hour.

- Niilo

 

[QES]

The bonus for fortifying (5% per turn) represents the troops setting themselves up (i.e., digging themselves in).

The default bonus for terrain simply represents the difficulty in assaulting someone in said terrain. And it's not necessarily the defender's own lands, either. Also keep in mind that, unless a unit spends at least one turn stationary in a square, they are effectively passing through and only doing basic defensive preparations when setting up camp every night.

The bonus promotions for terrain (such as Woodsman), in my opinion, represents the unit's ability to fight in that type of terrain. This shouldn't differentiate between attacking or defending (unless you want to really complicate the combat system in the pursuit of realism). An experienced attacker could possibly sneak up on an inexperienced one because it uses the terrain better.

And, no, you are not just negating the base terrain bonuses. Take forest, for example. If you have some newb unit defending it, they don't know how to take full advantage of the trees, so they're left with only 50%. If the attacker is also newb, then that's how it stands. But, say the attacker has Woodsman I, representing their training in woodland combat. They now get 40% to their attack, which almost negates the defender's advantage (ignoring relative base STR values).

Woodsman II shows complete mastery of woodland combat, which rightfully gives an advantage to the attacker (100% vs 50% if the defender is untrained/inexperienced).

Of course, with a defender who is trained in woodland combat, the playing field is evened out again, leaving just the base terrain bonus to make a difference. Again, that makes sense to me.

I don't know if I'm explaining myself properly at this late hour.

- Niilo

Actually that makes perfect sense and i have nothing to counter it with. I'm satisfied that this is correct.
-Qes

 

[pa12ick]

Kael,
Regarding the Heroic Strength promotions, I noticed that after the Blood of the Pheonix wonder/ritual is finished, if a Hero with HS is killed, when he regenerates in the capital he still has the promotion(s), but his strength is back to what it would be without them. I.e. Bambur starts with Str 7, upgrades to 9 w/HS I & II, but regenerates back in the capital with only Str 7, even though his promotions list HS I & II still.

 

[pa12ick]

Oh, and yes I was playing with patch "d", so the other upgrade issue w/ HS I & II was fixed...

 

[Kael]

Kael,
Regarding the Heroic Strength promotions, I noticed that after the Blood of the Pheonix wonder/ritual is finished, if a Hero with HS is killed, when he regenerates in the capital he still has the promotion(s), but his strength is back to what it would be without them. I.e. Bambur starts with Str 7, upgrades to 9 w/HS I & II, but regenerates back in the capital with only Str 7, even though his promotions list HS I & II still.

Ahh, good point. I'll add ressurection to the things that check for extracombatstr.

 

[Nikis-Knight]

Lizard Beastmasters can't pass impassable terrain.

 

[Kael]

Lizard Beastmasters can't pass impassable terrain.

Right you are, fixed.

 

[Cybid]

Hey Devs!

1) Really, really, really great MOD. Best one around IMHO.

2) Found the following bug, playing as Kuoritate on 0.14d on prince level (I think):

After having built 4 settlements, I built a 5th one. Problem: I can only build two buildings in this one: memorial and walls. Also, on the main screen, in the tag with the city's name, there's ": (set)" behind the name.
The same goes for a city that I captured from another opponent (single player game).

3) Do you plan to somehow integrate the Warlords expansion?

Did I just miss a feature or is this a bug?

Keep up the great work, you're making a lot of people quite happy and take their sleep away at night.

 

[Nikis-Knight]

1) agreed!
2) Check out Kuriotes thread for full details, but yeah, that's a feature. Notice that the full blown cities are able to set workers further out. It scales to map size, so on large, any cities after the 4th are settlements that exist just to get you access to resources.
3) check back tomorrow, I guess.

 

[xumio]

when using regenerate map, the gold of khazad players vanishes.
also, it might be good, to remove contact with other civilizations if the map is regenerated.

 

[Hian the Frog]

Kael and Co,

I was playing a gameplay as Elohim when i met a strange problem. Is it a bug or what intended ? I think it's not logical....
Explanation:
I was at war with Balseraphs and besieging his second largest city with my campaign army stack ( Corlindale, the Baron, 18 Longbowmen, 6 Mages, 3 Hills Giants, 3 Catapults, a Healer Priest and a Monk ). I first used Corlindale's spell "Contagion" (Death Sphere, Sorcery II) to weakened the garisson. Then, four of my mages created fireballs (Fire Spher, Sorcery II) whereas the two last used Valor (Law Sphere, Sorcery II) and Courage (Spirit Sphere, Sorcery I). To destroy the def bonus, i used my Hills Giants and my Catapults. To finish, my fireballs were thrown to make some collateral damage... And then, the big surprise !
The fireballs spreaded disease on my own army....
How can spells spread disease ? Don't you think that is not logical ?
The result was awesome : Corlindale was ill (not insane !, just ill ) as the Baron and most of my improved campaign army (all my 18 longbowmen are around 80 xp and waiting for a gunpowder ressource to be improved )

So, what do you think of that ?

The Frog.

 

[Sashaddin]

Altar of the Luonnotar gives the Blessed promotion in every city, not just the one the Altar is built in.

 

[BeefontheBone]

I think it's meant to, and the description text is wrong. I could be wrong, though.