Land unit transports

[timerover51]

Could you maybe post a screen shot of the data for your land transport unit? I would be interested in trying them out too. And for that city defense, given my boosts for city defense factor, that could get pretty nasty.

I think that just getting the AI to use them sometime is a major accomplishment, given the lack of source code. I have a hard time with the AI using sea transports well. Seems always to load 3 units regardless of the maximum number possible.

 

[Jorsalfare]

Here's a screenshot of Steph's editor displaying the settings for War Wagon. The defense boost you mentioned - did you accomplish that by changing the values in the defense bonus-section in the general settings-tab?

 

[timerover51]

Here's a screenshot of Steph's editor displaying the settings for War Wagon. The defense boost you mentioned - did you accomplish that by changing the values in the defense bonus-section in the general settings-tab?

Yes, I did. I did some work for the Marine Corps on urban warfare, and thought that the settings for the defense boost for cities were way too low. So town is 50, city is 100, metropolis is 200, fortress is 200. In reality, all of those could be doubled if someone wished to, but then taking a metropolis would probably border on nightmarish. Urban combat in any age is a real headache.

 

[Redback]

I can see you marked the option ""Load"... I did a little test... but Iam unable to load the unit (with infantry) into a ship. Even if I unload the infantry, it still doesn't go into the ship!

Anyone els have the same issue?

 

[Jorsalfare]

I can see you marked the option ""Load"... I did a little test... but Iam unable to load the unit (with infantry) into a ship. Even if I unload the infantry, it still doesn't go into the ship!

Anyone els have the same issue?

I believe I read in a thread somewhere in here that a unit with transport capacity (with the exception of armies) cannot be loaded into another transport unit - empty or not. The reason the "Load"-box is checked is that it is necessary in order to enable Offensive and Defensive AI strategies in Firaxis' editor. I try to avoid settings that are illegal in Firaxis' editor when possible. I don't know if removal of the "Load"-flag has any effect, though.

 

[Ares de Borg]

Units with the Load flag checked cannot be loaded into other transports of any kind.

 

[timerover51]

Units with the Load flag checked cannot be loaded into other transports of any kind.

I assume that Army is hard-coded as the only one then?

 

[Ares de Borg]

Exactly.

 

[Quintillus]

Exactly.

Well... not necessarily. The exception is either units that have the "Army" unit ability, or units that have the "Army" Land Strategy (I'm not sure quite which one yet). As an experiment, I decided to give the Archer the Army ability and strategy. After also giving the Granary the Build Armies Without Leader flag, I was able to build an Archer-Army and load units into it, resulting in an Archer leading my army. This unit was able to load onto a Galley with increased transport capacity:

So it is possible to have multiple army-like units that could load onto water transports. This could be a way to allow stronger armies as the game goes on, stronger armies to certain civs, or something of that sort. Though I should note that I haven't tested what happens when you get a Leader who can build armies and multiple ones are available - just that you can build them with a building that allows this (and you can choose which one you build - provided you have enough cities to allow an army).

Side note, it seemed like Civ did something kind of strange with civ-specific colors for the Archer-Army, as if it was treating more of the colors as civ-specific than normal. The Archer had a glimmery shine, and more red hues than normal, to it before I added anything to its army. Haven't looked into it in detail, though.

This is all possible, and tested with, Firaxis's editor.

Thanks for the screenshot, Jorsalfare. I wonder if you could make it loadable onto watercraft by enabling the Army flag as set above? Though as that has other side effects, too, it may well not be desirable to do so.

 

[timerover51]

Hmm, the key to the loading appears to be the Army flag, which does mean that it probably is hard-coded. The advantage to transport units is that you can load and then unload them, while I have never been able to unload an Army once units are added to it.

Has anyone successfully unloaded units from an Army? I have tried with both the "Load" and "Unload" flag checked for the Army, but never managed it.

 

[Jorsalfare]

I wonder if you could make it loadable onto watercraft by enabling the Army flag as set above? Though as that has other side effects, too, it may well not be desirable to do so.

You are absolutely right about the army-flag. I applied it to the war wagon, and when loaded with units, it could be loaded into a transport. I have never been able to unload units from an army, so this flag won't be any good for a transport unit. An odd thing I discovered is that the war wagon is not flagged as foot unit, and could not be loaded into vessels reserved for foot units - until a foot unit was loaded into the "Army"-war wagon. The lack of foot-unit-flag seems to be ignored once the army has foot units loaded.

The reason for the garbled colors is that units flagged as armies uses a reserved section of the colormap for indicating number of units loaded (the colors marked with arrows in the image). In regular units these colors are not reserved, but used as normal colors.

Units with the Load flag checked cannot be loaded into other transports of any kind.

I assume you mean "Transport flag" or "Unload flag" - not "Load flag"? Virtually all units have the "Load flag" checked (or do I totally misunderstand what you mean?).

 

[Ares de Borg]

I assume you mean "Transport flag" or "Unload flag" - not "Load flag"? Virtually all units have the "Load flag" checked (or do I totally misunderstand what you mean?).

This was what I meant, I'm sorry.

 

[Jorsalfare]

I did some further tests, and removing the "Unload" flag doesn't make it loadable into another transport. Setting the transport capacity to zero does. "Transport Capacity" settings above zero seems to be the "forbidding factor" when it comes to loading it into an other transport.

I remember now that I learned using this trick from Rise and Rule to make it impossible for large bombers to land on carriers: transport capacity of 1 and "Transports only aircraft" AND "Transports only foot units". The result is that while it has a transport capacity of 1, it cannot actually load any units - nor can it load into another transport (land on a carrier).

Did what I wrote make any sense?

 

[timerover51]

I did some further tests, and removing the "Unload" flag doesn't make it loadable into another transport. Setting the transport capacity to zero does. "Transport Capacity" settings above zero seems to be the "forbidding factor" when it comes to loading it into an other transport.

I remember now that I learned using this trick from Rise and Rule to make it impossible for large bombers to land on carriers: transport capacity of 1 and "Transports only aircraft" AND "Transports only foot units". The result is that while it has a transport capacity of 1, it cannot actually load any units - nor can it load into another transport (land on a carrier).

Did what I wrote make any sense?

Yes, it does. Just needed to think about it a couple of seconds. I should experiment with that in the WW2 Pacific scenario with the B-29.

 

[Virote_Considon]

So it is possible to have multiple army-like units that could load onto water transports. This could be a way to allow stronger armies as the game goes on, stronger armies to certain civs, or something of that sort. Though I should note that I haven't tested what happens when you get a Leader who can build armies and multiple ones are available - just that you can build them with a building that allows this (and you can choose which one you build - provided you have enough cities to allow an army).

The unit the leader creates with the Build Army flag is always the unit specified on the General Settings tab, and this unit doesn't need to be flagged as Army in either ability or strategy. I also don't think any civ needs to be able to build the unit for a Leader to create it, so this needs testing. Great if you want a generic unit available in limited numbers (limited by amount of leaders generated), and can always upgrade to civ-specific varients by making the upgrades King units.

Naturally, this means you can also have different armies which are autoproduced, or available in cities which have built wonders enabling Build Armies.

(Sorry about spelling errors; on my ipod)

 

[Quintillus]

I did some further tests, and removing the "Unload" flag doesn't make it loadable into another transport. Setting the transport capacity to zero does. "Transport Capacity" settings above zero seems to be the "forbidding factor" when it comes to loading it into an other transport.

I remember now that I learned using this trick from Rise and Rule to make it impossible for large bombers to land on carriers: transport capacity of 1 and "Transports only aircraft" AND "Transports only foot units". The result is that while it has a transport capacity of 1, it cannot actually load any units - nor can it load into another transport (land on a carrier).

Did what I wrote make any sense?

That does make sense, reading through a second time. Both this and your previous post have some very useful information. This thread is turning into quite the treasure chest.

The unit the leader creates with the Build Army flag is always the unit specified on the General Settings tab, and this unit doesn't need to be flagged as Army in either ability or strategy. I also don't think any civ needs to be able to build the unit for a Leader to create it, so this needs testing. Great if you want a generic unit available in limited numbers (limited by amount of leaders generated), and can always upgrade to civ-specific varients by making the upgrades King units.

Naturally, this means you can also have different armies which are autoproduced, or available in cities which have built wonders enabling Build Armies.

(Sorry about spelling errors; on my ipod)

Good catch about the setting on the General tab; I'd forgotten about that one.

 

[AnthonyBoscia]

Ah, yes I'd forgotten about Jorsalfare's discovery - thanks. A bit off-topic here, but do you use the same settings that he used? And, would you mind explaining 'how" the AI uses the transports? Does it randomly load and unload units around it's territory or is it strategic and load units to get them to a war zone quicker? Also, what kind of units does it load? Offensive troops, defensive troops, workers?

OK, I wanted to pull this discussion from gwendoline's thread back here to clarify a couple things. So I understand the settings correctly:

• Land units can be transports if they have both a regular land strategy, and the air transport strategy from Steph's editor. If either strategy is unchecked, I'm assuming it will not work.
• The AI will build this unit on its own, but the unit needs stats good enough to make it competitive with other unit build options. Otherwise it would need autoproduction to for the AI to use it.
• The transport will defend after its loaded units, even if the transport itself has a higher defensive rating.
• The land transport can be carried by sea transports, but only if flagged as an army unit (without the army strategy). This would require the unit to have no offensive or defensive stats and an army pallete, which would also limit its production to army-building cities and the armies/city ratio. Such a unit would only be able to unload its passengers the way an army can: ie. by upgrading to a non-transport 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.

Sounds like a way to limit certain units to be built only in coastal cities...coastal fortresses that can bombard and house a foot unit perhaps?

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.

I think the offensive flag is the way to go, as the AI will defend with offensive units but usually keeps defensive units locked up in cities. It would pose an issue with AI building choices, though.

 

[clamel]

Such a unit would only be able to unload its passengers the way an army can: ie. by upgrading to a non-transport unit.

?????
Didn´t know that any army unit could UNLOAD and even upgrade.
Is this tested and working ???

?????

Land units can be transports if they have both a regular land strategy, and the air transport strategy from Steph's editor. If either strategy is unchecked, I'm assuming it will not work.

Could this result in that one could create a transport chopper that could almost perform what choppers should do. A new type of unit, land based with heavy movement, that could be "airdropped" into an area with foot units. Have these load into the chopper and perhaps with enough movement and ignore all terrain move away from danger.
Complicated and probably never used by the AI, so it´s just a thought.

 

[Blue Monkey]

Land transports exist and are functional in the EFZI series of scenarios. Get in the car, ride, jump out, shoot things, jump in the car, ride ... all in one turn, depending on how many movement points the passengers have. Can't drive through some terrains, ... Look at what flags, etc. are set there.

 

[Takhisis]

Yes, but the AI can't use them. Still, when we played it as a multiplayer game, it was fun.