Is Barrage broken?

[KrikkitTwo]

Congratulations, you inadvertently buffed Cho-ko-nu (if I am correctly remembering that Chok's have a 50 in the XML file).

That wouldn't buff them... since they can't get Barrage promotions, it means that instead of

(3*3+D)/(3*D+3)*10 hp being what they do (3 being 50% strength)

they woud do

(3*6+D)/(3*D+6)*10 hp *50%

if you are talking about collateral damage against str 6 units then

(9+6)/(18+3)*10 = 7 hp
v.
(18+6)/(18+6) * 10 * 50% = 5 hp

it actually weakens them a bit

essentially the 'percentage of collateral damage done' should act the SAME for both base value and promotions.
first determine how much can be done baset on strength ratios
second take a Percentage of that damage and make it the actual damage (for a barrage 3 siege unit 200%, for a Barrage I tank 20%)

 

[VoiceOfUnreason]

Do you know if there is a quick way to fix it by changing the XML file, to get a similar collateral damage power for tanks in 3.13?

Similar? Not really. In 3.13, tanks had collateral damage of 0/20/50/100 depending on the number of barrage promotions they were carrying, which mean that the collateral strength scaled like 0/5/14/28.

If you want all tanks to inflict collateral damage, that's easily XMLed. Come up with an estimate of the strength you want them to have, and change the collateral damage property in the XML file to match.

 

[VoiceOfUnreason]

That wouldn't buff them...

My bad - I misinterpreted your implementation.

 

[DanF5771]

Suggestion for a quick way to fix collateral damage for tanks via XML:

in CIV4UnitInfos.xml give tanks a base collateral damage of 100 just like ordinary siege units:
<iCollateralDamage>100</iCollateralDamage>

in CIV4PromotionInfos.xml copy the Barrage1 promotion and rename to Barrage0 or whatever, change the gain from 20 to -100
<iCollateralDamageChange>-100</iCollateralDamageChange>

in CIV4UnitInfos.xml again let tanks start with this new Barrage0 "Promotion"
<FreePromotion>

<PromotionType>PROMOTION_BARRAGE0</PromotionType>
<bFreePromotion>1</bFreePromotion>
​

</FreePromotion>

This should mimic Krikkitone's suggestion in that way that tanks get their iCollateralDamage calculated according to their normal baseCombatStr but the automatic Barrage0 "Promotion" of -100 will modify it back to 0, thus no collateral damage without the normal Barrage1,2,3 promotions. So a tank promoted to Barrage2 will show "Causes Collateral Damage (-50%)"

tested it under 3.13 where it worked fine

Still looking for the 3.17 version of CvUnit.cpp. Has anybody tested collateral damage to units in bunkers under 3.17???

 

[r_rolo1]

That is not exactly a fix, because that does not solve the problem of Modern armor ( in spite of a similar thing could be done to it ) .

 

[DanF5771]

That is not exactly a fix, because that does not solve the problem of Modern armor ( in spite of a similar thing could be done to it ) .

Sure, and the German Panzer should be treated like that too, but it's just a few Ctrl-C / Ctrl-V...

 

[r_rolo1]

The big problem is that it is a quickfix.... made only to masquerade a faulty coding. If I want to mod a unit ( say, a battleship that can deliver collateral damage to land units ) i'll have to do all that XML editing all over again... when the only thing that is missing is 3 lines of code ( or maybe even less, depending of the implementation that you use )....

 

[DrJambo]

so, is there a fix anywhere?

 

[r_rolo1]

Solver said some hours ago that he was working on it... we will probably see something during this weekend top.

i have a idea for the fixing, that is to apply the old code to non siege units in barrage I ( for then to have some collateral strength )... but still had no time for doing it ( and passed the last hours playing and solving a XML problem of the patch ... besides not being familiar with the code language of the game )

 

[Solver]

Okay, I'll be able to investigate the issue today, so please be patient. A preliminary fix for the main issues should be forthcoming.

 

[Caboose]

Wow, I'm really impressed by some people at this forum

 

[oyzar]

So is barrage now decent for siege units or not? I find it a bit tendious to read through the code to find out...

 

[r_rolo1]

For siege it now works far more like it is advertised, with barrage II and III being really useful ( if you discount the rounding errors... I hate Civ IV integer mania ). for cats and trebs the rounding errors count a lot and for those barrage line is not that useful ( but is better than pre 3,17 counterpart ). For more modern stuff barrage line looks a worthwhile option now... in spite of me prefering CR

 

[CivCorpse]

For the open field, it is pretty much all you have now. So broken or not, it's better than nothing.

 

[Caboose]

Exactly. You can't put combat promotions on your siege units anymore. It also seems that the second and third barrage upgrades are a lot better than the first, espescially for cats and trebs. (source: Last page) Or maybe I misunderstood it and that was only vs enemies that were far stronger.. :S It was something about a rounding error anyway.

 

[alexman]

Hey guys, sorry for the mess-up.

As I mentioned to Solver, my suggestion would be to just remove the Barrage line from Armor units in the XML. I doubt that their usefulness would suffer because of it, and in BTS we have Mobile Artillery for that role anyway.

 

[Chieron]

Well, that wouldn't make it any less broken for Armored Units, just unavailable..
In the same turn, Battleships would lose the ability, iirc.

I'd prefer just to give the corresponding units -100% natural barrage damage with 100 Barage Strength (and make sure that it doesn't GIVE hitpoints then )

 

[Caboose]

I'm really fine with armor not doing collateral damage. They don't really do that much collateral damage in real life either. They pretty much hit what they aim at. Unless they're all ganged up in the same mosque of course

 

[DanF5771]

Nooo! Mobile Artillery comes so late and can not get the Blitz promotion + I don't want to lose my awesome Barrage3-Morale-Tank-GGs!

 

[r_rolo1]

Chieron hit the nail. Are we going to remove barrage from ships as well? That is by far the worst possible scenario....