Melee Naval Units: How to fix the Monster we made?

[Dunkah]

Yes I understand. The AI has it's limits.

I would just like to find a way to keep the peaceful use of hidden subs exploring and spying.

 

[Ahriman]

I would just like to find a way to keep the peaceful use of hidden subs exploring and spying.

I don't find this to be that significant a role to be worth trying to model. You can still do a lot of monitoring even by just sitting outside of cultural boundaries. I sympathize in that stealthy breaching of territorial waters for monitoring is something cool that subs did during the cold war, but mechanics like that would be about ignoring the need for open borders, not about literally detecting the unit or not with other military ships.

 

[mitsho]

Regarding the invisibility of submarines, in my recent games, focus fire by enemy airplanes is very effective. I fear if they can't hide in deep waters anymore, these melee ships (= first targets, as infantry units are on land) will go down too easy. Thus, just giving sonar to every third (fourth?) ship built seems reasonable

Agree that peaceful sub use is not important enough to warrant a specific role, the visibility radius + movement around cultural borders is enough for that.

 

[Thalassicus]

@Dunkah
The sonar promotion was actually supposed to be visible in the icons over the unit. If it wasn't doing that, it was a mistake.

There is a promotion I could give subs to let them ignore borders, even when visible. Missionaries have it.

@mystikx21
I like the idea of giving carriers anti-air promotions, for whenever they actually do get experience. About melee ships, my opinion remains it's unrealistic for naval crews to occupy cities. I filed it away under "necessary Civ abstractions" and focus on other priorities.

@Ahriman
Ship costs counterbalance the warehouse production bonus. Later ships are 33% more expensive than early ships (compared to the standard cost curve), and the warehouse increases ship production by 45% (smithy) 40% (factory) or 35% (power plant). I'd be okay with increasing the cost of medieval ships since they appear around the same time as warehouses. If ancient ships are too powerful, I'd prefer to reduce their strength instead of cost, so we don't reduce incentive to use ships for exploration. Which do you think needs changing - ancient ships, medieval, or both?

@mitsho
I decided to just remove sonar for now. Giving it to specific AI units would have mostly the same effect, but take more time to implement. I'm disappointed the core AI was not coded to use the effect.

You won't mind if post this thing once the other big changes go live.

I always like seeing new modders enter the scene.

 

[mystikx21]

I filed the melee ships away as escorting amphibious assault groups. More abstraction but plausible. I'm just waiting on the tech tree changes then as I think I got the promotions working correctly finally.

I figured the carrier, and possibly some other late missile ships should have some AA function. Both to give some utility to those ships and maybe help the AI with fending off our air forces.

 

[Ahriman]

. Later ships are 33% more expensive than early ships (compared to the standard cost curve)

Ok, but ships are much more cost-effective than land units, and I found early ships to be too cheap. In a game where gold can be easily turned into production and where there are a lot of ways to get production even in coastal cities, I think it is not necessary to work on the basis that ships need to be cheaper because coastal cities are less productive.

I decided to just remove sonar for now

And remove sub invisibility or move after attack? It is the combination of those together that is particularly problematic for the AI to deal with.

 

[mystikx21]

Changing move after attack to 1 move would be a big help.

 

[mystikx21]

New version changed the city attack functions on melee ships to 3 promos of 15% instead of one at 30. Warehouse bonus was reduced to 25% (was 100% with seaport and warehouse).

Sounds good there.

I'd say the carrack/galleass are/were the "too cheap" ships, though the strength nerf on carracks is pretty severe over the last few versions so I'd have to play a couple games to see how cheap they still feel (I only had them at 27 and galleons at 33/34 in my test games but costs for carracks were at 210). Liburna/trireme are only slightly cheaper than I have them set, with the liburna slightly weaker. If we're worried about early exploration, then changes to the carrack/galleass shouldn't be as big a deal.

"Hunter ship attacks consume all move points (was 1)." - Is this no move after attack or 1 move after? The move after attack was a big reason why they became useful. Extra strength, city attack bonuses, extra speed, etc were only gravy. Move after attacks gave them a particular role of swarming foes that was distinct in function from "form escort barrier for rest of fleet/capture or raid city", which is useful but not as common.

If it's too difficult to disperse the extra move down to 1 move after just for ships, I can understand the decision. I wasn't getting it to work in my mod either, but it would be extremely useful. Without it, some minor changes may be necessary to these ships to preserve their utility. The change to coastal attacks is one.

 

[Thalassicus]

@Ahriman
I'm okay with adding a cost hike. Should we nerf ancient, medieval, or all ships?

Most units cost 10 times their dominant strength value. I believe the exceptions are:

• 75% for early ships.
• Gatling/machine guns use their secondary strength value (30 ranged), instead of dominant one (40 melee).
• Modern armor and GDRs get a discount.
• I recently added a discount for warriors, and increase for archers.

@mystikx21
Thanks for pointing out the things I forgot in the patch notes. I added those now.

Unit promotions are difficult to customize. It's possible to create an "attacks use all but 1 move" promotion, but it will take time, and "attacks use all moves" is nearly the same thing for a short-term solution. I want to do it right - in a way that's not confusing for players.

I'm thinking of a line in unit tooltips which says something like...

Attacks Use: X moves​

It would show "all moves" for most units, "1 move" for mobile land, and "all but 1 move" for hunter ships.

 

[Ahriman]

75% for early ships.

I don't see a reason for this.
But I'm playing a land game now, I'll take a look at ships again later.

and "attacks use all moves" is nearly the same thing for a short-term solution

Well, it's not nearly the same thing (being able to move 1 tile would easy congestion), but its probably better than the just one movement, so is fine as an interim measure.

 

[mystikx21]

@mystikx21
Thanks for pointing out the things I forgot in the patch notes. I added those now.

There's a lot more than that in the patch that wasn't in the notes, but much of it was trivial text fixes and such or the new code for techs and buildings and units priorities, which documenting would be a pain.

I do try to keep on an eye on these things though

Unit promotions are difficult to customize. It's possible to create an "attacks use all but 1 move" promotion, but it will take time, and "attacks use all moves" is nearly the same thing for a short-term solution. I want to do it right - in a way that's not confusing for players.

I'm thinking of a line in unit tooltips which says something like...

Attacks Use: X moves​

It would show "all moves" for most units, "1 move" for mobile land, and "all but 1 move" for hunter ships.

Fair enough. I think an extra move after attack would be the ideal, but since it's time consuming, we should just put on the slate as a "todo" and when time is available, come back to it. I'll keep trying to mess with it. There's lua code for blitz checks that looks adaptable to that purpose. If I can figure out lua enough to make it work and then the issue would be telling it which units can use it.

 

[mystikx21]

I don't think its necessary to have early ships at "full" price, but 75% is too low (I assume melee ships have some kind of price discount on top of the 75%). Especially by the carracks and galleass.

I have liburna at 120/15, trireme at 110, galleass at 180, carrack at 200/25 and that seemed okay in testing. Though that's my preferences talking.

 

[Thalassicus]

The problem is G&K broke the way I did the Blitz limit. The vanilla sequence was:

1) Unit dies
2) Do mod stuff
3) Delete unit

Firaxis changed it to:

1) Unit dies
2) Delete unit
3) Do mod stuff

This means lua code (usual mods) can no longer detect when units die. It destroyed Spatz's Alpha Centauri mod. The effect on GEM was less drastic (had to delete the German and Aztec abilities), but the "1 move remaining" thing no longer applies when a unit kills another unit. This has minimal effect with blitz, since it's a high level promotion on units that move slow, but it would be more common and noticeable for melee ships. I believe it would confuse people.

 

[Stalker0]

I won't lie, I think these recent changes were a severe overreaction to the problem.

1) No more move after attack. I think Mystik is right, there is a night and day difference between this and "1 move after attack". The move after attack was the primary reason melee ships became useful. Without it, I think we are back to several months ago where melee ships will only see a small amount of use.

2) Warehouse bonus down to 25%, no more seaport bonus, 50% more maintenance for hunters. So in effect mid-late game ships are now 75% more expensive, and all hunter ships cost 50% more maintenance. With the other changes I don't see the justification here, that is a massive change.

3) City attack promotion split. I think this one does make sense, and it gives the siege promotion for elite ships more oompth. But again, another nerf stacked on a pile of other nerfs.

We all recognized that hunters needed a nerf, but I think this is simply too much too soon. Number 1 or Number 2 alone I think is a big enough nerf to warrant testing on its own.

 

[Thalassicus]

150% of 1.5 is 2.25, both of which round to 2. 150% might seem like a big number, but we're talking about a percentage of rather small values for most of the game, since all ships get a maintenance discount.

 

[Ahriman]

I agree on 1); 1 movement point left after attack for melee would be nice to see.
But attacks-take-all-moves is better than attacks-take-only-one-move, if those are our options.

I think the city attack promotion split is a big improvement.
And I think that the changes in 2) were basically bringing naval units back into line with land units. I don't think we should think of it as 75% more expensive and 50% more maintenance, I think we should think of it as removing advantages that weren't justified.

I think unit maintenance is a bit too high across the board, but I think its good that naval costs are similar to land costs. Note that naval melee units are still more effective at attacking cities than even their strategic-resource-requiring land counterparts, both in terms of strength and utility (and I think still get gold generation?).

But I haven't tested; I'll play a naval game next game and see how that goes.

 

[mystikx21]

1) I agree. As long as it's a temporary change, until the promo can be fixed correctly to a 1 move after, I'll deal with the intermediate stage as the moves after makes it hard to balance the units and tell what is too strong or weak.

2) Was probably fine. No land unit bonus was approaching 50% for production. The best you could get was stables+blast at 35%. 25% plus the coastal city production boosts is still pretty potent. The main reason I think that shows up more significantly is that there was an unintended 50% on seaports too. Upkeep on hunters and cost increases was necessary because they were too cost-efficient.

3) I liked that one a lot. 1a+2+3 were probably the correct approach, but without much as change to strength.

Ahriman, yeah they still have gold generation on city attacks. Given the other changes, I think they're probably fine to keep it as is. It also preserves some of the unit role utility while the move after attack is out of action.

 

[Thalassicus]

Due to changes in G&K, doing an effect where attacks consume all-but-1 move requires a game core mod, so it's not practical right now. Attacks consuming 1 or all moves are simple to do.

We could make hunter ships both powerful and easily balanced by making liburna/carracks strategic units. We'd have fleets of numerous common ships, plus a few strong and rare hunters. I'd place some resources on offshore islands to supply the hunters. Researching shipboard cannon (Navigation) would shift the focus from strategic melee to strategic ranged ships. I think Ahriman mentioned a couple months ago he'd like to see bigger changes in ship roles as the game progresses.

 

[Ahriman]

One easy way we could have both powerful and balanced hunter ships is to give early hunters an iron requirement.

I think this is probably not the right way to go. Let's playtest the latest version more before making further changes.