Later Giant Death Robot

[Trigan Emperor]

I was thinking of making a mod to make the Giant Death Robot appear a bit later.

Here it is in the Tech Tree:



I was thinking of making all six of the previous stage of technologies required to be researched first.

Are there any reasons, such as gameplay balance, why this would be a bad idea?

Also, do the connecting lines on the Tech Tree update automatically, or are they fixed background graphics?

 

[Trigan Emperor]

I tried it out.

I just added three new lines of code under the default Robotics requirements.

        <Row Technology="TECH_ROBOTICS" PrereqTech="TECH_COMPOSITES"/>
        <Row Technology="TECH_ROBOTICS" PrereqTech="TECH_STEALTH_TECHNOLOGY"/>
        <Row Technology="TECH_ROBOTICS" PrereqTech="TECH_TELECOMMUNICATIONS"/>

The modded connections to Robotics have shown up on the tree. However, the connection onwards from Robotics has disappeared.



It's a bit odd. The only things I can think of is that either it's showing it wrong graphically, or that there's some limit on the number of connections to and/or from a technology.

 

[Trigan Emperor]

Oh wait, I think I figured it out. It's because the technologies in the Future Tech Age are randomly ordered and have random prerequisites.

So it looks like it's all good.

 

[Trigan Emperor]

Another alternative I might try is to only make the Giant Death Robot available to build when any one of the three Future Techs that provide GDR upgrades - Advanced AI, Advanced Power Cells, Cybernetics - are researched.

That would mean setting three technologies as possible prerequisites for GDR. Hopefully the coding will allow this.

Would also need to set Robotics as a prerequisite for Advanced AI, Advanced Power Cells, Cybernetics. Not sure how this will affect the randomisation process of Future Techs.

 

[Trigan Emperor]

I prefer the latter option of only making GDR available to build when one of the Future Tech GDR boosts are researched.

I think the best way of implementing this, if possible, would be to add extra Prerequisite Techs to the GDR Unit. Normally in the game, a Unit has only one PrereqTech, so it may not be possible to add extra ones.

Ideally, it would go something like this:

PrereqTech="TECH_ROBOTICS"

AND

"TECH_ADVANCED_AI"

OR

"TECH_ADVANCED_POWER_CELLS"

OR

"TECH_CYBERNETICS"

/>

Not sure what the correct coding syntax for that would be.

The other alternative would be to edit Technologies and add PrereqTech="TECH_ROBOTICS" to the requirements for "TECH_ADVANCED_AI", "TECH_ADVANCED_POWER_CELLS" and "TECH_CYBERNETICS", and then set GDR Unit's PrereqTech at "TECH_ADVANCED_AI", "TECH_ADVANCED_POWER_CELLS" and "TECH_CYBERNETICS".

 

[Trigan Emperor]

Inserting the code in red to the PrereqTech for the GDR Unit didn't work (create game error):

PrereqTech="TECH_ROBOTICS" AND "TECH_ADVANCED_AI" OR "TECH_ADVANCED_POWER_CELLS" OR "TECH_CYBERNETICS"/>

So yet another alternative could be to increase the research cost of Robotics, and then reduce the research costs of the GDR booster techs.

 

[LeeS]

AND and OR are never valid in any XML file regardless of the type of game-element being coded.

AND and OR are only valid commands in SQL coding.

The game expects one tech only to be listed in table Units column PrereqTech, so attempting to add a complex set of Boolean conditions as a PrereqTech will not work in SQL either.

 

[Trigan Emperor]

Thanks.

This is proving a harder task than I thought.

1,738 people have subscribed to the Remove GDR mod.

The problem with the GDR, in my opinion, is not the GDR itself, but rather that it appears too early.

 

[Trigan Emperor]

What about creating three duplicates of the GDR code and giving them unique IDs, so there'd be four identical GDR units in the game. Then they could each be assigned to become available at each of the four GDR-Boosting Future Techs.

The downside is that there'd be up to four GDRs listed in the City Build List, but that's a minor quibble.

To get really fancy and paper over the cracks, each of the four GDR units could be colorized different colours. Or maybe a more simple differentiation could be that each of the four GDRs would start with the corresponding upgrade unlocked by the tech, as default. Could potentially increase cost of GDR slightly to compensate.

 

[Trigan Emperor]

New idea:

What about creating a new Future Tech, just for the GDR. Its RandomPrereqs="true" could be set to "false" and the prequisite of Robotics tech could be added.

It would be interesting to see how the Future Tech randomizer handles that.

The three Future Techs that just provide GDR boosts could have their research cost slightly reduced to compensate.

Would add a little bit of random on top as to when the GDR would appear.

 

[Trigan Emperor]

Another idea:

GDRs, in addition to requiring Uranium, could also require 1 of new resource Unobtanium. Researching each one of the four GDR-boosting Future Techs could grant five Unobtanium to the Civ, and allow them to build GDRs.

ETA: Looks like probably only one resource allowed per unit.

 

[Laurana Kanan]

ETA: Looks like probably only one resource allowed per unit.

Outside of Lua, you could have two resources - one under the StrategicResource column and another under the ResourceMaintenanceType column.

 

[Trigan Emperor]

I'm not quite sure what to do.

I'm hesitant to add extra prerequisite technologies, as that might mean Science Victory gets delayed, which could affect game balance.

Maybe the best would be for GDR to appear later, but for it to be cheaper to build, to compensate.