Great Generals

[Kailric]

As I mentioned in the promotion thread I have never liked the weird and creepy way Great Generals tag along units. So, in M:C they can still award experience but then they just act like a high powered unit but they can not join a city or change profession.

I want to do something else with them and am looking for suggestions.

One thing I just recently thought of is after combat and a player has accumulated enough Great General Experience then the unit itself becomes a Great General and can function much like the rest of your subjects, maybe with some added functionality...

 

[drjest2000]

To be honest, I always thought the "great person" aspect of Civ 4 smelled like a crock of warm poo. I think they only exist to off-set the way the tech development curve falls out of synch with real world history. They added a bunch of techs and that ended up rendering the game somewhat unplayable, so they had to do something.

Then they carried forward the flaw into Civ4Col.

I think that a straightforward promotion is all that's needed. Instead of the largely useless veteran 3, 4, etc. In all the times that I've played Col, I have never seen that the Veteran 3 and higher promotions were really all that effective. Your unit still only has 2 "hit points" and will die just as easily as a fresh unit. Sure, if my unit survives long enough, I'll take the promotions, but I don't really feel anything significant is gained from them.

IMHO, the medic promotions need tweaked in the worst way. If one turn represents one year, then a unit down for three turns is really a unit that should be dead. Ray mentioned in another thread that he'd like to see more interesting combat in Civ4Col. I wouldn't mind that either, but the reductionist way that Civ has always used to represent conflict is not really all that different from most other turn-based games. No matter what the units are doing graphically, they may as well be taking turns throwing rocks at one another.

But back on topic, I think completely abandoning the great person gimmick and going with a simple promotion would be vastly more practical. After all, neither George Washington nor El Cid road a unicorn out of Heaven to save the day. But that was the best Firaxis could come up with....

 

[Nightinggale]

To be honest, I always thought the "great person" aspect of Civ 4 smelled like a crock of warm poo.

I think completely abandoning the great person gimmick and going with a simple promotion would be vastly more practical.

I fully agree with that. Not my choice of words, but the reason behind them is sound. I also agree that promotions should be made more interesting. Having a well trained army is not as important as it should be.

 

[Willi_Tell]

After all, neither George Washington nor El Cid road a unicorn out of Heaven to save the day.

Well, although I agree in general, it would still be a pitty not having a Great Warlord anymore (the present system - attaching Warlord to a unit - needs to be reworked of course).

This is a Medieval mod - back then, it was quite common that the Chief/King in persona led his army to the field. Even Roman (and later Eastern Roman/Byzantine) Emperors were leading their armies by themselves if necessary, some Emperors even died in battle too (or ended up as prisoner)...

 

[drjest2000]

I'm not opposed to having a hero unit of some sort, but as shipped from the factory, the great general in Civ4Col is pretty limp. And is that hero unit happens to be an avatar of the king/player, so much the better... although, I have some doubts about how well a 320 pound desk-jockey like myself would perform on a medieval battlefield >_<

what can I say, retirement turned me into an eating machine....

 

[Kailric]

I fully agree with that. Not my choice of words, but the reason behind them is sound. I also agree that promotions should be made more interesting. Having a well trained army is not as important as it should be.

Yeah, that's what are goal is. I already added a few interesting Promotions plus I made it so that in order to be an archer you have to have gained a level cause anyone can pick up a spear and stick the pointy end at someone but not everyone could pick up a bow and use it, you need to be trained. I would want to make it so that having a trained army is important but I wouldn't want it to be a tedious process...

I think that a straightforward promotion is all that's needed. Instead of the largely useless veteran 3, 4, etc. In all the times that I've played Col, I have never seen that the Veteran 3 and higher promotions were really all that effective. Your unit still only has 2 "hit points" and will die just as easily as a fresh unit. Sure, if my unit survives long enough, I'll take the promotions, but I don't really feel anything significant is gained from them.

IMHO, the medic promotions need tweaked in the worst way. If one turn represents one year, then a unit down for three turns is really a unit that should be dead. Ray mentioned in another thread that he'd like to see more interesting combat in Civ4Col. I wouldn't mind that either, but the reductionist way that Civ has always used to represent conflict is not really all that different from most other turn-based games. No matter what the units are doing graphically, they may as well be taking turns throwing rocks at one another.

But back on topic, I think completely abandoning the great person gimmick and going with a simple promotion would be vastly more practical.

Well, for one units have more than two hit points. You can't really tell but the Combat mechanics in M:C are a tad bit more complex than normal. I have added new "combat" attributes you can add to Professions and aspects such as mentioned below. The work is however incomplete and to see these results you have to view the Combat Log. In the Combat Log you can see if a timely Shield Block saved the unit or his Plate Armor caused a glancing blow that saved the unit. I wanted to add someway to make combat more interesting that's for sure and this was a start.

Glancing Blows- only do half damage
Crushing Blows- do twice damage (not currently used)

Shields- chance to block damage
Parry- chance to block damage (not Currently used)

Plate Armor- chance for Glancing blows

Well, although I agree in general, it would still be a pitty not having a Great Warlord anymore (the present system - attaching Warlord to a unit - needs to be reworked of course).

This is a Medieval mod - back then, it was quite common that the Chief/King in persona led his army to the field. Even Roman (and later Eastern Roman/Byzantine) Emperors were leading their armies by themselves if necessary, some Emperors even died in battle too (or ended up as prisoner)...

I agree with Willi_Tell in that it wold be a pitty no to use all those Great General art and remove the Warlords. Was it Civ2 or 3 that you played with your King Unit? That may be interesting addition but how to make it fun and interesting is the question.

(On a side note I just discovered the Multi Reply buttons... ahh, this makes my life so much easier!!!)

 

[drjest2000]

Sorry if I gave offense, I should have contextualized my statements better. I was aiming my remarks at vanilla Col and Civ4, not so much at M:C, because I haven't been able to get much past learning the economy in M:C to really get into the end game and heavy combat. :/

Even as I wrote it, I guessed "hit points" wasn't the right way to phrase it, but I couldn't think of a more direct way of saying it. I was speaking of the health bar and how it displays unit strength as a percentage bar with 2.0 being the usual strength score for most units in vanilla.

This is what I get for writing posts before my first cup of coffee *head-desk*

 

[Kailric]

Sorry if I gave offense, I should have contextualized my statements better. I was aiming my remarks at vanilla Col and Civ4, not so much at M:C, because I haven't been able to get much past learning the economy in M:C to really get into the end game and heavy combat. :/

Even as I wrote it, I guessed "hit points" wasn't the right way to phrase it, but I couldn't think of a more direct way of saying it. I was speaking of the health bar and how it displays unit strength as a percentage bar with 2.0 being the usual strength score for most units in vanilla.

This is what I get for writing posts before my first cup of coffee *head-desk*

No offense to me. Combat is pretty much the same in M:C as in Vanilla but I am to change that. All in do course.

 

[Nightinggale]

There is a really interesting update on generals in RaR: http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?p=12695301#post12695301
Naturally nothing is coded for RaR yet, but it still looks promising.

 

[Kailric]

There is a really interesting update on generals in RaR: http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?p=12695301#post12695301
Naturally nothing is coded for RaR yet, but it still looks promising.

I checked this out and it looks promising sure enough. It's concepts seemed pretty easy to code as well. I actually done something similar in the form of a Combat Engineer units and new promotions for Civ4 (I should find that post and see if it could have some relevancy for M:C). I really liked the final promotion that gives you the chance to attack again if you are at full strength, that would be cool and simple to add in itself, call it "momentum" and usuable by Knights.

Anyway, I think we have found a base for our generals. We could start with this modcomp and see how it plays in testing. Getting the AI to use it would be simple as well. If not at war GG's hang in cities if at war they shadow military units. And the promotions would be easy to code for AI use as well.

Edit: I looked up my old Combat Engineer mod and it does have concepts that would be useful for M:C such as Siege Engines can be repaired after being defeated and Combat Engineers offer bonuses to same units in tile.
http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=276825

Edit: wow, I also forgot about my Strategic and Tactical combat mod made for this time period. It's like I don't even know who I am anymore!
http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=274440

 

[Kailric]

Great Generals in M:C are not very exciting at the moment. They Attack and function like other units, they can't join cities however, but do have that one ability to grant XP. Their animations have no actual attack effects too so that is no good. They are kind of Gimp and I just haven't had the chance to address this issue yet.

I was thinking how to fix their graphic issue; I would have to paste the model onto another unit that had attack animations, like a swords man. And that got me to thinking that maybe instead of a New Unit being created for the GG, that the victorious Unit itself could be converted to a GG, with all the same promotions and the best of Unit bonuses like +100% to Fealty.

I don't know if I like it or not, it just popped in my head

 

[ethernidee]

How can archer be converted to knight general with sword?

 

[Kailric]

How can archer be converted to knight general with sword?

Good question. Well, this wouldn't work so well because say if a Master Carpenter was converted to a GG, then he would lose his master carpenter skills. So, a better solution would be to award the Unit with a promotion that can grant XP. But, GGs will be looked at extensively when we migrate to this part of the mod. There has been some good suggestions here though.

 

[ethernidee]

Currently it's nice that GG does not disappear after giving XP to selected unit. Strong 8 power general is good city defender.