Is it possible to make travels harmful?

[Carmina]

Hi all,

I'm very bored by seeing AI unit crossing desert, jungle and ice with no damage. So I wonder : is it possible to reverse the healing effect of some land tiles, for exemple : heal -10% / turn in Jungle , -15 or 20% in snow & sand deserts. This way land tiles would be more strategic, and having our cities surrounded by a desert would no more be a curse
And why not a Healer/Field Medic unit with healing at level 2 ?

Maybe do the same for early ships? -5 or -10% in deep ocean tiles for exemple...

Second point : It seems that AI always grants free pass through its countries. Is it possible to make it only allow this treaty when relations are good ?

Thanks in advances,

 

[JDexter]

Very good idea, I estimate that this is easy when the SDK comes out or even possible now (but I don't think there's a check for terrain type in the healing function).

Second point, usually the civs that declare war on me have mostly very good relations with other AIs... the AI doesn't fight itself as much as in other Civ games IMO (maybe it's because I mostly play FFH or on noble or whatever ).

 

[Carmina]

It's good to know I'm not alone

About the terrain, I think that natural healing is based upon the type of tile the unit is on ( isn't it the green bar next to the health?) So my idea was to invert it for some terrain...

EDIT : I found it : /XML/terrain/CIV4FeatureInfos.xml
there is a line : iHealPercent .
I'm going to try to put negative percent, i'll report here in a while

 

[Carmina]

Jungle has already -50 (in Sevomod )
I tried -200, without effet...
Maybe another variable?

 

[Che Guava]

Please do report back soon! If you can switch a terrain heal value to a negative number than maybe you could add an improvement like that: a landmine perhaps?

 

[Carmina]

As I told above, a negative number doesn't seems to hurt the unit...

 

[Che Guava]

Sorry 'bout that. I posted just as you did (well, before my computer had updated the page..)

What I think is happening is that healing is based on a rate that is dictated by the iHealPercent line. Since it's a rate, and not an actual number, you can't make it decrease health, just adjust the speed at which the unit recovers (eg units in jungles take 50% longer to heal). As for why -200 didn't seem to do anything, there's probably a max/min rate healing rate so that units can't be healed in 'negative time' (iHealPercent>100)

 

[Kidinnu]

I believe it's been posted that automatic healing is only triggered by damaged units, so that undamaged units moving through rough terrain won't be hurt.

It's possible to do manually through code, but you'd almost certainly have problems getting the AI to understand it.

 

[Magma]

I useally builds forts in deserts when my workers have done everything else, just for good orders sake.

 

[suspendinlight]

I think one of the problems with this is that the AI cannot cope with it and will just allow their units to be damaged continuously. In my game, I've just disallowed early units from crossing desert, ice and jungle.

 

[Carmina]

It's a good idea , I'll probably do that! Thanx !

 

[matthewv]

I've just disallowed early units from crossing desert, ice and jungle.

when you did this, were could the units still travel in these terrains while in your own culture borders?

 

[suspendinlight]

when you did this, were could the units still travel in these terrains while in your own culture borders?

Yes they can go on any territory in your borders (similar to galleys), and units can also walk on floodplains.

 

[Muttoneer]

Would it be possible instead to introduce a tiny random chance that an early unit will simply die if it ends up in a desert or ice square? A bit like the in old Civs when your Galleys strayed a bit far from the shore...

 

[Kidinnu]

Muttoneer: easy, but again, the AI won't understand until the SDK's out, so it'll throw its units away. But this is off topic. How about them Platonic Ideals?