Hokath's Tweaks

Yes the Bandeirantes is more organic to use, that's true!
The idea with these modules is that each one can be a proposal (or, where appropriate, a few proposals) at the next congress. We have arrived at quite a few since the previous congress was hijacked by 4UC so maybe they will be spread out, but I think this recon one is pretty sound to go ahead.
I also really enjoy earlier map trading (at Navigation) with these Scout changes. As Brazil I made actually a moderate amount of Gold selling my completed map to everyone (got to find those natural wonders!)
 
Recon Rework
Can someone familiar here share some insight re: the highlights of this recon rework? I've been focused on my own recon stuff, and playtime is limited, hunting for inspiration...

I'd also like to shamelessly plug my Fast Rivers, Fast Coastal, and brand new Horse Thieves recon mod components :lol:, any and all of which should pair just fine with hokath's recon adjustments (lmk if they don't; see the "Recon Pay..." thread for more info), and add back some of the super :c5moves::c5moves::c5moves: speed we now have as default in base VP, but in a more thematically-satisfying way.
 
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Reading your changelog, I would say the compare-and-contrast checklist looks like
Spoiler :

  • We've both puts Scouts down to 2 Moves.
  • You have Riparian, Coastal, Artician; I have Amphibious, Frogman, Ski Infantry (these ones have strong overlap but not complete)
  • I've kept Ignore Terrain Costs on most "rough terrain", but not River-crossing or Marsh (or Snow or Mountains); whereas you have this post-combat-lost version on the two early units (I can't quite remember the details of TB1, TB2, etc. so I didn't manage to parse the difference between Pathfinder and Scout) and still Ignore Costs on Explorer+ (?)
  • You have the retreat mechanic on the above; I have retreat as a separate promo at Railroad (with Commando unlock)
  • You have ignore ZoC global, mine is on Trailblazer III
  • You have use-enemy-routes on SVII, I have it on all units at some late tech
  • Your cross mountains is on TBIII (?); I made crossing Mountains a T2 separate promo (so you can get it earlier)
  • You have have half move on mounted/armor for Trees, I don't touch them
  • You have Horse Thieves; I don't have anything like that
  • You have Change Port; I don't have anything like that
  • I have changed :c5strength: values for Recon; You didn't change them
  • I have (new and existing) :c5strength: changing promotions for Recon; Yours are all utility
  • My TBIII let's you move after combat (big); You don't have that anywhere
  • I messed with Tile and Improvement CS values; You didn't touch them

So I'd say there's quite a bit of overlap philosophically. Indeed some things (Horse Thieves I'm looking at you) are fully compatible as you mentioned. I am interested in your solution to super-scouts being this lost-promotion, I will try it when I'm done with the ideology modmod.

Questions:
  1. Riparian: can't you do this with the Songhai ability, or is it locked to Traits? (and given that's their only niche, should you encroach on it?)
  2. Coastal: Don't you feel it makes more sense to embark and sail down the coast, and therefore for the promotion to enable this sort of movement to be about embark/disembark cost or similar?
  3. Horses (with 5 moves) can in principle move 3 atm in "single rough" tiles, but it goes down to 2 in "double rough" (forest+hill), does that mean your half movement promotion makes it 2 in "single rough" and only 1 in "double rough"? This seems like a major balance change that is probably best discussed separately (though I understand why, for consistency, it should be seen with the Recon stuff)
  4. Does the AI use Change Port? I assume its tied to great admiral AI? (I was thinking about "Airlift" ability for the Harbor for all units -- was hoping AI would understand that naturally due to Airport code being generic)
  5. Would you agree that, to make Recon useful as a combat unit, the CS of recon units must be increased either on the base or on promotions, or both?
 
  1. Riparian: can't you do this with the Songhai ability, or is it locked to Traits? (and given that's their only niche, should you encroach on it?)
I've been chipping away at this stuff for years, so I can't always say that things work the way now that they did when I made the attempt -- but yes last i checked anyway its locked to traits or hardcoded in a way that is not accessible to DB modding. I've asked for a UnitPromotions_FakeFeatures table to match the ones we have for features and terrain movement, but idk if there will ever be any uptake from devs. RE: overlap with songhai, there's a promotion that overlaps for any other terrain movement UA so i dont see why not, plus songhai gets it for all units, not just some recon -- for songhai i guess this makes this choice less valuable, but same goes for aztecs/iroquois choosing tb1 etc.

edit: i just noticed a "RiverDoubleMove" in the promo tables -- must be a relatively recent addition, but will look into this and update if its suitable. This could become a db-only component

edit 2: seems to work, can run this as db-only
Edit
  1. Coastal: Don't you feel it makes more sense to embark and sail down the coast, and therefore for the promotion to enable this sort of movement to be about embark/disembark cost or similar?
valid interpretation certainly, there was a reason i did this on-land originally -- i was taking away fast forests and jungles and giving back fast rivers and coastal. But now this swap is not so much the case. There was also no way to control embark back then, not so now... but the work is already done so :dunno: jk imo it still plays alright too. But this direction you've suggested is probably even better, i'm thinking a promo with double move in coast and flat embark but NOT disembark

edit 3: also working! db-only too!
  1. Horses (with 5 moves) can in principle move 3 atm in "single rough" tiles, but it goes down to 2 in "double rough" (forest+hill), does that mean your half movement promotion makes it 2 in "single rough" and only 1 in "double rough"? This seems like a major balance change that is probably best discussed separately (though I understand why, for consistency, it should be seen with the Recon stuff)
yeah this one is heavy nerf to horse, but the thematic value seems high to me, plus i like to include community requests when i can.. This works by applying both half move and extra move simultaneously, which seem to take effect in that order (ie 2 plot cost turns into 4 then gets the extra move for 5 -- i suspect the tree hill will thus take 7 moves.) Call it an acquired taste
  1. Does the AI use Change Port? I assume its tied to great admiral AI? (I was thinking about "Airlift" ability for the Harbor for all units -- was hoping AI would understand that naturally due to Airport code being generic)
i have never noticed it using it unfortunately. I am thinking of writing a simple Ai logic to make this actually viable for play: on each move, will check if recon is in a coast city ie a port -> will get the unit's destination and compare its distance to distance from other port cities... if theres a faster option the code will just teleport the unit -- so it wouldnt 'use' the ability directly but we could make it seem like it does. Its a very flat ability however, only available per unit (not promo) -- I think we need bigger updates to it to make it useful to modders.
  1. Would you agree that, to make Recon useful as a combat unit, the CS of recon units must be increased either on the base or on promotions, or both?
yes absolutely, that brings me to the point of cross-posting into your thread. Right now we're missing "something" combat-wise on TB, but once we add it, it will feel like survivalism too light in contrast. There are a lot of CS options though, just have to be clever about it.

i will be turning back to my "counter-recon" mod shortly, which is where I include any non-movement, non-xp related changes... its a little outdated currently. I have some ideas, but I'm looking to you and others as a starting point for recommendations on what non-movement stuff works best, ie what have you tried that fits really well?

I'll share some additional thoughts here re minimum that needs to be done for recon, if nothing else so i don't forget them later :lol: some of these are addressed in various ways in my mod but not always sticking to the db, will need to review db options:
  • we lost the balance-off-the-start -- many of us don't care, but many of us do; this must be fixed
  • fast recon are not a problem, much of the community wants fast recon, its where and how they are fast that matters. fast trees are thematically jarring. fast everywhere is somehow boring and OP at the same time.
  • vision on its own feels like an administrative bonus of sorts aka boring, and can be over-applied. these need to be redistributed, i'm thinking one set on tb3, one set on surv3 -- only super recon with both branches will stack super vision
  • cs of both branches needs to be rebalanced -- there isn't only one way of doing this, but tb branch needs something at each node, and imo it should never be active at same time as surv. there is a "stronger when not adjacent to any friendly unit" ability in promo tables that is almost perfect for the recon role -- if this could be split into attack and defend bonus, we put the defend on surv and the attack on tb -- i think this could work well. The current 'outside of friendly' is kinda silly thematically
 
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Terrain revert changes that simplified the combat bonuses on tiles -- -10% Defense in Tundra and Desert -- -15% Defense in Snow -- +15% Defense in Marsh and Oasis -- +10% Defense in Flood Plains
i think i missed when this change occurred, but i gather that most tiles don't provide defense bonus anymore? what are we left with now, +25% in forest,/jungle? that it?
Improvements -- +15% Defense on Town -- +10% Defense on Village and Manufactory
are these available to all recon? all units generally?
Unit Promotions the theme here is to either negate or flip terrain effects first rework the Trailblazer line -- Trailblazer I +25% Attack in Forest and Jungle +10% Strength outside Friendly Territory -- Trailblazer II +20% Defense in Tundra and Desert +10% Strength outside Friendly Territory -- Trailblazer III +1 Move (on land) Can move after attacking Ignore Zone of Control
i think this is the right direction for both main branches of the promos; I have a few design-related questions:
  1. why didn't you mod surv alongside these tb cs changes? is this intended to be minimalist adjustment back to good gameplay, or is there another reason?
  2. is there no hills cs bonus on purpose? i realize it can stack with others, but then so can the 'outside friendly' stuff
  3. why do we avoid the general open/rough bonuses on this line? i understand the general issue across the others, but it seems apt here
 
>defense bonuses
+25% in trees, +10% on hills, and then I think Oasis is at +5% or something like this, maybe flood plains too. I would have to check the database.

>are these available to all units?
Yes, all units. I was trying to make a promotion like "Guerilla Fighter" that gave CS in Towns and Villages but I gave up for some reason and made it global.

1. I think the SV-line already has a fun identity of this tankier, auto-healing unit. In fact most of the motivation for doing these changes is that I felt Recon is mostly forced down TB-line to be useful and you don't get to play with the SV units.

2. There's a 20% Hills attack boost on the Altitude Training (Mountain crossing) Promo. Or did you mean something else?

3. Well my TB boosts to CS are just meant to be slightly-more specific (i.e. controlled) versions of +CS in rough terrain. TB1 removes the trees defense boost letting you attack into them normally, then TB2 let's you fortify in desert/tundra (that I gave the CS malus so you dont really want to park there to heal). Together you become terrain-agnostic (and then TB3 let's you actually hit-and-run in there). So the comparison is between the SV3 "tank" that still cares about the terrain and then TB3 "rogue" that is more fragile but you can't defend against them so easily. Now to come up with the "mage" :D
 
i've implemented some of your suggestions re: movement, such that we have a nice assortment of +++speed alternatives without the flat bonus, and several are now db-only too

I think the SV-line already has a fun identity of this tankier, auto-healing unit. In fact most of the motivation for doing these changes is that I felt Recon is mostly forced down TB-line to be useful and you don't get to play with the SV units.
agreed -- with all my components loaded, there is a better mix of movement balance between the two main branches... for example enemy roads and ignore zoc move over to surv, but then there is double move available in select tiles via tb -- especially with the balancer loaded, the choice between the two main branches feels very even early on

2. There's a 20% Hills attack boost on the Altitude Training (Mountain crossing) Promo. Or did you mean something else?
you're right, i missed this, i was only looking at the main branch adjustments.. you did forest and jungle in tb branch though, and hills in a leaf... i think i might group them all since their movement is grouped

Well my TB boosts to CS are just meant to be slightly-more specific (i.e. controlled) versions of +CS in rough terrain. TB1 removes the trees defense boost letting you attack into them normally, then TB2 let's you fortify in desert/tundra (that I gave the CS malus so you dont really want to park there to heal). Together you become terrain-agnostic (and then TB3 let's you actually hit-and-run in there). So the comparison is between the SV3 "tank" that still cares about the terrain and then TB3 "rogue" that is more fragile but you can't defend against them so easily. Now to come up with the "mage"
I like these concepts... with lua we can do a lot to make these roles more distinct, without its a matter of being more clever in how the abilities are arranged, and where in the tree etc.

The general idea i have in mind rn is to have it so that with all the main branch promos (both surv and tb), CS is evened out across all the terrains and features... so using a mix of specific bonuses to offset the terrain defense as you've done, and some bonuses for open etc. so that fully promo'd super recon fights at same strength in every unimproved plot, maybe leaving a small advantage to rough. Need cs bonus at each node, generally thinking surv will be open/defense focused, and tb rough/attack focused, though with some overlap
 
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