great commanders

[Vesuvius]

Hola all. I am new to this game/mod and am enjoying it. Just a quick question. I was wondering how you know which of your troops is under the influence of a great (field) commander. I haven't noticed anything that would indicate this. Thanks and have a good day

Ves

 

[GreedyManul]

They're under the influence of such when the commander is inside their stack and has command points left. When he has promotions that increase their strength, it shows through the unit having added strength or first strikes which they don't have innately or through promotions.

 

[Vesuvius]

ah k thx a bunch

 

[Rezca]

Just be aware that playing with the Great Commanders option will cripple the AI, since they don't know how to use it and won't settle their generals anymore.

 

[Vokarya]

They're under the influence of such when the commander is inside their stack and has command points left. When he has promotions that increase their strength, it shows through the unit having added strength or first strikes which they don't have innately or through promotions.

The commander doesn't have to be in the stack. I think what matters is the commander that provides the biggest bonus within 1 tile of the tile where the combat is taking place. So a Great Commander can affect an attacking unit of the same civ 2 tiles away if the unit is attacking into a tile adjacent to the commander. The Operations II and Operations III promotions are supposed to increase this range by 1. I tend to go for Operations I and then go down the Morale line.

 

[PPQ_Purple]

Just be aware that playing with the Great Commanders option will cripple the AI, since they don't know how to use it and won't settle their generals anymore.

Why is that in any way crippling?

Unless they have become massively extremely better than in the regular game or the spawn rate has been increased 1000 fold or something great commanders should be relatively rare and frankly useless.The XP you get from settling them really isn't that overwhelming. It's not like one extra promotion for units from just one of your production cities is going to matter much

 

[Rezca]

Why is that in any way crippling?

Unless they have become massively extremely better than in the regular game or the spawn rate has been increased 1000 fold or something great commanders should be relatively rare and frankly useless.The XP you get from settling them really isn't that overwhelming. It's not like one extra promotion for units from just one of your production cities is going to matter much

After you play with it for a while, you'll see the difference. When you're pushing units out with instant level 5+ and the AI are still using level 1 or 2, AND you have a Commander making your stack of units near immune to all forms of damage.... It's crippling to the AI. The AI will eventually get a number of generals, and having all of them wasted will indeed affect them.

 

[PPQ_Purple]

After you play with it for a while, you'll see the difference. When you're pushing units out with instant level 5+ and the AI are still using level 1 or 2, AND you have a Commander making your stack of units near immune to all forms of damage....

It's crippling to the AI. The AI will eventually get a number of generals, and having all of them wasted will indeed affect them.

Just how much have you increased their spawn rate in this mod?

Like, in my current game of regular BTS, large map, epic speed, domination victory in the 2010's, I managed to get all 5 of them to spawn throughout the entire game.And whilst I could in theory have settled them all in one city to get level 5 units it would have been entirely worthless as it would have bottle necked my production something fierce.
You seem to be implying that enough of them will spawn to actually improve many cities so as to actually make the whole thing worth while. So like... wow! Does this mod hand them out like candy?

If so, I might seriously need to start using them for something in my upcoming game. Usually these guys are just too few and far between to be of any real use to me so they just hang around pointlessly in one of my cities. In hindsight it would definitively explain why you have chosen to start coding extra layers of functionality for them.

 

[<Nexus>]

In my games on huge/giant size and snail speed the game runs out of Great General names at around the Renaissance or so.
I'm not a warmonger but a builder type player and go to war only when victory is guaranteed.
I use GGs to promote some well-educated unit to Warlord and than also select Morale, Heroic and Leadership. Leadership gives +100% (or just +50%) Xp for the unit. IIRC this also increases GreatCommander point for battles fought by this unit. The next GG also goes to a good unit and now I have two GC point hoovers. And it goes on like this...

 

[PPQ_Purple]

I see. That definitively means that the spawn rate is massively greater. Definitively something I'd need to keep track of than.

Still, the game option should be fine as long as I don't settle my generals either, right?

 

[45°38'N-13°47'E]

I might consider reducing gg spawn rate. Also in MP game they're disabled because they were causing OOS and ctd issues. But thinking about it, if they're not so common I might re enable them in MP for human players only, and only for fun in human vs human battles

 

[<Nexus>]

Still, the game option should be fine as long as I don't settle my generals either, right?

No, you still don't get it.
The AI will turn its Great Generals into Field Commanders but it doesn't know how to use them = The AI is not using Field Commanders for its wars.

Of course you can start your games with this option to have an advantage over the AI. It's a good idea when you play this mod the first X times, but...

But when the game starts to feel too easy, turn it off instead of complaining for the lack of chalange

 

[PPQ_Purple]

No, you still don't get it.
The AI will turn its Great Generals into Field Commanders but it doesn't know how to use them = The AI is not using Field Commanders for its wars.

Of course you can start your games with this option to have an advantage over the AI. It's a good idea when you play this mod the first X times, but...

But when the game starts to feel too easy, turn it off instead of complaining for the lack of chalange

Completely random question here.

How does the system compare to the whole army/general thing that ROTK has in terms of the way it works? That's basically the only reference I have for this sort of thing.

 

[<Nexus>]

What's "ROTK" stand for?

 

[PPQ_Purple]

Its supposed to be HTOK. I was in a rush so I went and screwed up the acronym.
https://forums.civfanatics.com/forums/civ4-the-history-of-three-kingdoms.346/

 

[<Nexus>]

That's dead for a long time. Not even a download available. I never tried so I have no idea.
If you have a copy of it, please, could you upload it somewhere?

 

[Rezca]

I see. That definitively means that the spawn rate is massively greater. Definitively something I'd need to keep track of than.

Still, the game option should be fine as long as I don't settle my generals either, right?

With Great Commanders enabled, you'll be given the option to turn generals into Field Commanders. This removes the ability for them to be settled or attach to a unit, but it allows them to level up and gain promotions exclusive to them. The AI will never attach generals or settle them, nor will they ever promote their commander or have them lead troops - hence the crippling part.

It gets even worse when you consider the promotions that the commanders get. It can grant large amounts of healing, withdrawl, strength, and so on to your entire stack at once. On top of their existing promotions of course. When they level even further, the commanders can apply these buffs to adjacent stacks too. You can literally make your army immortal and the AI simply has no answer for these stacks.


That's why I said it cripples them, because they lose the ability to settle generals for exp, while you gain a potentially overpowered tool that the AI can't and won't use. It's fun to play around with sure, and once you use it a few times you'll understand why it shouldn't be enabled if you're looking for a balanced solo game

 

[45°38'N-13°47'E]

Are you sure GG are never being settled when using Great Commanders option? If so I might restrict their use in MP for humans vs humans but force AI to settle them so they don't get wasted and human advantage is reduced. Unfortunately teaching AI how to use them properly is beyond my ability.

 

[GreedyManul]

The Sengoku mod had a good Great General system that could also be used by the AI. You should check it out sometime.

 

[Vokarya]

I really like Great Commanders and want the option to keep using them in single player, but I agree the AI shouldn't being using them if it can't use them properly. I will occasionally see an AI Great Commander get a promotion or two but rarely more than that. You would have to teach the AI a lot of routines to use GC's effectively, like mixing only one into a stack and hitting enemy defending stacks only enough times to use up the GC's command points to milk them for extra XP.

Do you think you could get away with a single global define to tell the AI "don't use Great Commanders"? I think that would be the most straightforward.