Making Giant Death Robots OP for fun?

Currently, the unit is just kind of lol, since by the time you get there, the game should be about over. So why not have the unit be something different, almost like a walking nuclear weapon.

Say, give it 150 Strength, Blitz, Dreadnaught, (or give it a 125 strength ranged attack with Logistics Instead) and have it cost some obscene amount of hammers. So if you do manage to build it, you can have a laugh stomping over the AI as your Spaceship is getting ready to launch.

 

I believe @pineappledan 's Unit Tweaks mod does exactly this.

 

My unit tweaks mod, among other changes to unit lines, gives death robots armor plating (same as the tank units it upgrades from) and a new promotion: Killing Machine.

killing machine: +200% attack. Heals fully on kills. Ignores rivers.

 

We had a spitball of a few ideas (including the one PAD just mentioned which is a pretty good one) in this thread: https://forums.civfanatics.com/threads/armored-units.651952/#post-15604230

I am personally in favor of another GDR buff. And not just for fun "lol its a giant robot" reasons. I think it actually adds to the gameplay to have an end game unit that is so strong it actually shakes up gameplay at that point. When a small group of these units are so OP that they can wreck your civ in a matter of turns if you don't prepare, I think that gives counter options for runaways beyond just the "nuke them to hell" strats you have now.

 

+1 support! I don't think it would be broken to keep their production costs somewhat normal. Like others have pointed out, the game is very likely ending in a few turns anyway.

 

Giant Death Robots should be GIANT DEATH ROBOTS.

It's bad enough that they don't fire frickin' laser beams. They need to be killing machines.

 

It feels like they should definitely be able to fire at range. Freaking lasers and all.

Giant Death Robot Mark 2:
CS 125 RCS 125
Armor Plating
Logistics
Can Move After Attacking
Can Move Over Rivers

 

I like OP GDRs but wont it wreck tall empires? Now you can argue that a tall empire at that point should be the tech lead and get access to GDRs sooner but it might not have (enough) uranium for fielding its own death robots.

 

I'd support a small buff (they should definitely spawn with armour plating), but I wouldn't like to see them become too OP. Especially if they're still going to require uranium, as if you only get a few uranium you'd be left very vulnerable to a neighbour who has it in spades. Players who get GDRs or XCOMs first already have a significant military advantage anyway - in my last game I used GDRs to quickly destroy Suleiman who was about to win a science victory on another continent. He didn't have any of his own due to a lack of uranium since he went tall tradition.

I do think they should get immunity to fallout, since their main use as I see it is to rush in after a nuclear strike and mop up anything that still moves. Then you pillage everything and surround and capture enemy cities with impunity. Fallout immunity would make a lot of sense thematically as well imo.

I know you could argue that none of this really matters anyway, since the game should be over by this stage. But sometimes games do go very late, especially if you're like me and tend to get lazy and sim-city for many turns in between conquests. So I think we should maintain late game balance for these kind of scenarios.

 

Build you own Giant Death Robot. Modify the UnitCombat.sql
Change the strength and range of a unit to meet your fancy.

UPDATE Units SET Combat = '999' WHERE Type = 'UNIT_SPEARMAN' ...

Conquer the world with a Giant Death Spearman.
Game with a different name.

 

I like the method in @Enginseer 's mod World Congress Reformation, where XCOM and GDRs are unlocked with World Congress projects.

Then we are free to remove the strategic resource requirements, since you can stop the units through the world congress.

Also is nice because XCOM and GDR are the only two future era units.

 

I just got a chance to use Giant Death Robots. I had snowballed really hard and was in Information Era while my opponents were still in Industrial, so it's not exactly a good test of the GDR's balance, but I just wanted to report that they were absurdly powerful. They could easily one-shot any units my opponents threw at me while taking barely any damage in return. And it only takes four hits from a GDR to take out a city with an arsenal. So two GDRs with Blitz can take a city in a single turn. I had a couple tanks as well as a comparison point, and the difference was enormous. The enemy's fusiliers and gatling guns were giving my tanks some trouble, while GDRs can cut through them like butter. And it certainly was very enjoyable. So for the goal of making GDRs OP for fun, you certainly succeeded.

 

In my opinion the unit should be removed.

Joke units shouldn't be part of the game. Why should it be a thing that after investing dozens of hours into a game we are all supposed to find GDRs funny?

Remove them, and increase the power of ICBMs so we can enjoy a more realistic apocalypse.

 

From what I understand, the pattern of VP has been to either add new elements or rebalance existing ones, but I can't think of many that have been removed entirely from the base game.

Even the removed UUs can still be obtained from militaristic City-States IIRC.

 

That is a fair point. I doubt many would have agreed with my opinion anyway.

I still would like to see ICBMs powered up. They should be many magnitudes of power up from atomic bombs and that is sadly not the case.

 

I got no problem with GDRs or what have you. I don’t agree that a “realistic apocalypse” is only enjoyable if it uses 60 year old tech. The apocalypse will happen using weapons that aren’t declassified yet and the cave paintings from the people left behind are gonna be fuggin' crazy. If it helps with your immersive experience, just try to use your imagination and think of GDRs as shorthand for theoretical weapons systems that I would give good odds already exist, like Rods from God or Gay Bombs.

EDIT: Or maybe GDRs already exist and this debate is pointless? Those Boston Dynamics hosers have gotten billions in military contracts already; they are going to kill us all.

 

That wouldn't help but thanks anyway for the suggestion.

 

Well to be fair, if your fighting an enemy with units 2 eras ahead your pretty much going to steamroll regardless. So its not the best viewing of how strong the new GDR is.

 

I've actually never seen them. Do they still exist?

 

I have gotten longbows from CSs before