timerover51
Deity
How do you modify the game to allow a unit to traverse both water and land, as that would be ideal for a unit such as a Zeppelin or one of the aerial battleships from Burroughs' Barsoom or the aerial flyers in Space 1889?
Land unit transports
- Thread starter timerover51
- Start date
How do you modify the game to allow a unit to traverse both water and land, as that would be ideal for a unit such as a Zeppelin or one of the aerial battleships from Burroughs' Barsoom or the aerial flyers in Space 1889?
nick0515
C7 Fanatic
From an image in that link it looks like the map is actually entirely land tiles but looks like water and land. So the ships might in fact just be land units.
Is that right, xiaoxiaoa?
Is that right, xiaoxiaoa?
You got it
- Joined
- May 5, 2005
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I supposed something like that (that´s why I wrote "units looking like ships).
xiaoxiaoa, that´s a nice idea.
The backside of that concept is, the AI can´t transport other units on the landunits looking like ships across the terrain, looking like water.
xiaoxiaoa, that´s a nice idea.
The backside of that concept is, the AI can´t transport other units on the landunits looking like ships across the terrain, looking like water.
Jorsalfare
Prince
I might misunderstand what you mean here, so for what it's worth: I have land transport units in my mod, and I've managed to trick AI to use them to transport other land units. It doesn't use them very frequently, but land transports with loaded units can be seen occasionaly in open terrain (see attached image). When attacking an enemy land transport loaded with units, you will have to fight each of the loaded units before destroying the land transport (unlike sea transport where the vessel is attacked first and the loaded units drown when it is sunk).
Attachments
nick0515
C7 Fanatic
Wow is that a known occurrence? I thought, until now, that the AI NEVER used land transports. How exactly did you trick the AI into using them? Is there a thread about it somewhere?
Jorsalfare
Prince
I haven't found any thread anywhere regarding AI using land transports.
I used Steph's editor (or maybe it was Quitillus') and checked the box "Transport" in Strategies/Air without defining it as an air unit (still land unit). I first tried to check the "transport" box in Strategies/Sea, but although AI loaded the transport with units, it would always be built in a coastal city, and would never leave the city square.
Another important thing to remember when using this trick is that Firaxis' editor will remove the Strategies/Air/Transport-flag from land units whenever they are edited. In an un-edited unit it will strangely enough indicate the box as checked (even though it is greyed out). Quintillus' editor seems to struggle with these settings when loading a biq edited by other programs, as the upgrade paths sometimes vanishes. I haven't tested this trick thoroughly in his (otherwise excellent) editor and don't know what causes this.
The settings I use in the land transport units have both attack and defense strength in addition to bombard range of 1 (and of course transport capacity > 0 and movement of 2 or more).
I used Steph's editor (or maybe it was Quitillus') and checked the box "Transport" in Strategies/Air without defining it as an air unit (still land unit). I first tried to check the "transport" box in Strategies/Sea, but although AI loaded the transport with units, it would always be built in a coastal city, and would never leave the city square.
Another important thing to remember when using this trick is that Firaxis' editor will remove the Strategies/Air/Transport-flag from land units whenever they are edited. In an un-edited unit it will strangely enough indicate the box as checked (even though it is greyed out). Quintillus' editor seems to struggle with these settings when loading a biq edited by other programs, as the upgrade paths sometimes vanishes. I haven't tested this trick thoroughly in his (otherwise excellent) editor and don't know what causes this.
The settings I use in the land transport units have both attack and defense strength in addition to bombard range of 1 (and of course transport capacity > 0 and movement of 2 or more).
Wolfshade
Little Winger
Excellent finding, Jorsalfare! I never tried to make unit as a land transport in any different then regular editor - and it worked for me but never for AI. Seems like a bug in the editor itself and AI may know how to use it.
My old dream was to create a Celtic Chariot unit which can transport 1 foot unit - swordsman ideally, but any other would be OK too.
My old dream was to create a Celtic Chariot unit which can transport 1 foot unit - swordsman ideally, but any other would be OK too.
Ares de Borg
Norman Knight
Excellent find! I have lots of land transports (APCs) in my mod, but until now the AI was unwilling to use them. This might do the trick!
timerover51
Deity
If it is a land unit, then it is not a ship.
Yeah, but it looks like it. Got it ?
timerover51
Deity
While this might astonish you, Themanuneed, I do, in fact, get it. I also had my first class in computers 9 years before you were born, and was playing board and miniature war games 7 years before you were born. In fact, I was serving my Army time in Alaska when you were born, and medically retired from the Army the year after you were born. I was working for game companies in game development and design well before your 10th birthday, along with helping run the GenCon game convention when it was still at the University of Wisconsin-Parkside, in Racine, Wisconsin.
Wolfshade
Little Winger
Timerover, TheManUNeed, please, don't make the storm from just wording (on of you is french-speaking guy, so his English vocabulary is more limited). Please!
Is your mod available on CFC, Jorsalfare? I'm interested to see the AI actually using land transports - I've never seen that before. I'm also curious to try it out in my editor and see if I can figure out what is making it behave strangely - I have not experimented with units with strategies not appropriate to their class before. If it isn't currently available, that's all right, and I can experiment with it myself. Just figured I'd ask since it's easier to start with things already working.
Glad you're experimenting with the new editors, too, whether it was Steph's or my own you discovered this with (it looks like this is possible in both). This is the sort of thing I was hoping might be discovered by making the editor less strict than Firaxis's. The behavior you describe in Firaxis's editor sounds like what I'd expect - it will indeed check things that are turned on but can't be edited, even though they're grayed out, and it does sometimes overwrite them when saving.
Glad you're experimenting with the new editors, too, whether it was Steph's or my own you discovered this with (it looks like this is possible in both). This is the sort of thing I was hoping might be discovered by making the editor less strict than Firaxis's. The behavior you describe in Firaxis's editor sounds like what I'd expect - it will indeed check things that are turned on but can't be edited, even though they're grayed out, and it does sometimes overwrite them when saving.
Jorsalfare
Prince
Hi Quintillus. My mod is not released anywhere, I'm afraid (it's one of those pesky mod-mods discouraged on CFC
). I have started work on a new mod built from scratch, but it won't be finished for years (if ever). Some info on the settings I have used in my mod:
I have given my land transport defensive strategies in addition to air transport, but maybe a offensive strategy could entice AI to use them more actively? Or does AI assign only one of the strategies to a unit - never two? I tried to only have air transport as strategy, but then I didn't see AI building them. Also, making them too weak seems to discourage AI from building them.
As Civinator points out here, land transports gives the human player an advantage even when AI is using them. I agree with him, but I think they add new fun strategies, more gameplay and variety to my mod, so I choose to use them. I try to make sure they are not too powerful, since that of course ruins the fun (wheeled, carry only foot units and unable to embark early transport vessels).
However:
Land transports can actually also give AI an advantage (although small) in certain situations. When a land transport loaded with units is in a city, the loaded units will not be visible for an attacker until combat is initiated. The human player can therefore get a nasty surprise when then city's strongest defender turns out to be (for example) an elite pikeman rather than the injured regular spearman visible in the city prior to the attack. If the pikeman is defeated, the injured spearman once again becomes visible in the city. I'm not sure what happens if the pikeman wins the battle unscaved (if he is reloaded into the land transport or becomes visible as a city defender). I have several times failed to capture a city because two or three loaded land transports were present there. Other than that, the AI is inferior to a human player when it comes to utilize land transports for mobile warfare - at least as far as I have experienced.
