Military Gameplay - Specializations instead of Promotion trees

[Hinin]

Hello everyone,

In the continuation of my first "Military Gameplay" thread, I also wanted discuss around another idea : replacing the current promotion trees with what I call "specialization", but would just be promotions providing a sum of bonuses and maluses to the unit and would be incompatible with other specializations.

Why do I propose all of this, you ask ? Well, there are several reasons :
- first, I do find that what I want for my units is a way for them to acquire some identity, and I think that the current "patchwork" system fail to deliver on that front
- second, I think the current system favors the human player too much, because it has such a high power ceiling that the AI, which isn't as good at preserving its own units, is constantly on the backfoot (this problem will surely be increased even further by the future rework of the supply system)
- finally, I do think it takes too much time for the units to acquire that "elite specialist" feeling you gain when you manage to gather the good amount of promotions for them to become reliable in a certain role

Thus, here is the system I propose.

Less levels, more impact

Each level would require double the experience. As in current VP, every unit starts at level 1

At level 2, the unit would gain the "Baptism by Fire" promotion, which grants +20% CS and RCS.

At level 3, depending on the unit line, four "basic" specializations would be made available to the unit. Selecting one of them would lock out the other ones. Each specialization would provide task-specific bonuses, but also some maluses.

At level 4, four new "advanced" specializations would be made available (see below). These specializations would be chosen freely of the choices for "basic" ones, but once against only one can be chosen.

At level 5, the unit would gain a final "Veterans" promotion, which grants +10 max HP and +5 HP when healing.

There would be no further levels. Furthermore, healing from promotions would be removed.

Examples of "basic" and "advanced" specializations for the Foot Melee unitline (Spearman / Swordsman / Tercio etc)

Basic Specializations :
- Guardians : +20 % CS when defending ; Suffers 3 less damages from all sources ; -10% CS when attacking
- Assailants : Heals 15 HP when killing an enemy unit in combat ; +10% CS bonus from flanking ; -10 max HP
- Besiegers : Heals 10 more HP when pillaging ; +30% CS when attacking Cities ; -5 HP when healing in owned territory
- Formation : +20 max HP ; +25% CS against Mounted and Armor Units ; -10% CS when defending against ranged attacks

Advanced Specializations :
- Rangers : +1 Movement ; Suffers no movement penalty from forest, jungle and hill tiles ; +25% CS when fighting in Rough terrain ; -10% CS when fighting in Open terrain
- Marines : Suffers no combat penalty when attacking over a River or from an Embarkation ; +50% CS when defending while embarked ; +10 HP when healing
- Grenadiers : Inflicts 10 damages per turn to adjacent enemy Units ; +30% CS when attacking fortified Units ; -10% CS when defending
- Infiltrators : +15% CS when attacking ; Can attack two times per turn and ignore ZOC ; -10% CS when attacking Units with more than 50% HP

Thus, a high level Swordsman can get the "Guardians" and "Grenadiers" promotions for a very versatile and resilient result, or specialize with the Besiegers and Infiltrators promotion for high anti-city potential. It can also find some middle-ground.

Furthermore, nothing forbids some advanced specialization to be added by specific wonders, policies or technologies. Of course, all of this would also require some rework for the experience-providing elements of the game.

Anyway, thanks for reading, and have a good day.

 

[caudheur]

I find your approach interesting, as I agree with your starting point that promotions can feel a bit bland and samey, giving little personality to units.
Your approach would also work well with the recent rework of supply, where you want to care more about fewer units.
A problem I see is making combat wilder and wackier. Sometimes I like predictability, where you feel the battlefield and its inertia. Your specializations can lead to some surprise, with hard to understand AI's turn possibly.

 

[gwennog]

I really like the idea but you don't say anything about the UU special promotions. Would they disappear? If not, they will probably have to be rebalanced because they risk giving proportionally more power to a unit that is limited to 5 levels.

 

[Hinin]

I really like the idea but you don't say anything about the UU special promotions. Would they disappear? If not, they will probably have to be rebalanced because they risk giving proportionally more power to a unit that is limited to 5 levels.

Of course, that would require a complete rethinking of UU promotions, in addition to those gained from civ kits.

 

[CppMaster]

It's an interesting idea, but I don't know if I like it. I kinda like near infinite potential with current promotions.

Maybe it'd be better to first create a modmod of it that assumes 4UC integration just to test it out.

Regarding current unique promotions, how about if they just stay like they are? That would be a lot of less work.

 

[hokath]

Currently the AI actually "cheats" with respect to promotions.
A rework like this would be what is required to remove that disparity between computer and player.
It would perhaps also be easier, with fewer options, to hardcode some of the AI behaviour.

However this particular layout with 5 levels (at double XP) is still a fair bit of 'depth'. To accomplish the goal of parity you really need to ensure that the preservation of specifically high XP units is not rewarded, and that won't feel amazing for the player. Perhaps it cannot even really be accomplished when you get XP from combat?
Tough one.

 

[Hinin]

The limit is low enough that I think the AI could reach fairly regularly. The difference will be in the synergy between the chosen specializations and how armies are planned, but the AI will keep supply superiority in exchange.

 

[KlHannibal2]

I also like the principal idea. Some of the stronger current promotions also might have to disappear. Things like range, logistics or vanguard. Or be resticted in another way. Like only getting them from a CS quest or wonder etc. and only for a few units.

 

[paul_soryu]

To accomplish the goal of parity you really need to ensure that the preservation of specifically high XP units is not rewarded

I had an idea some time ago about this for the current promotions system:
- Units lose 50% the XP upon upgrading, also losing respective Promotions
- Units gain 50/75/100% more XP from fighting
- Units can not lose XP past the amount they were produced with (from Barracks, etc). Upon constructing a new XP building in a city all past units' low limit is updated (the same way Morale promotion is given)
OR ditch the bonus XP from buildings entirely, instead Barracks/Armory/MilitaryAcademy give 2/3/5 XP (1/2/3 for Ranged) to units from fighting, making them gain top promotions even faster. Is applied retroactively like Morale promotion.

Why and what this does:
- In a situation of an ogoing war AI can get to top promotions quicker and on par with a human. The idea here is that you can have top promotions during a war, but you can not (as easily) come prepared with promotions from past wars.
- The less XP you have, the less you lose and the easier it is to catch up with an enemy. Example: human has 160 XP -> goes down to 80, AI has 80 XP -> goes down to 40, after 8 melee fights (assuming +100% XP gain) human has 160 XP and AI has 120 XP, the difference is 40 instead of 80.
- If you want to have good promotions you need to go to war every so often. After 2 upgrades you lose 75% of your initial XP. Maybe train your units on that City-State that no one cares about?
- You can't just magically retain your prehistorical Archer's promotions for modern Bazookas, Swordsmen skills aren't translated automatically into Riflemen skills, etc.
- In some situations you might not even want to upgrade units yet (like having +1 Range, while there is no place on the battlefield for an upgraded unit without the bonus), which gives interesting choices of fighting with a weaker promoted unit or trying to start accumulating XP on an upgraded unit.
- If you are stuck in an attrition war, leveling up units can actually change the situation for both sides, and it doesn't even take that long. Units gain practical skills and innovate warfare as they fight in the current day and age, not as they sit for centuries around your capital. Cover promotion might be practically realised in one way in Antiquity and in other way in Atomic Era.
- While I understand the desire of gathering promotions through the entire game, this system makes promotions less linear, more dynamic and evenly distributed, with less worrying over some high XP units. You may need Amphibious promotion for one war, but for other war Woodsman will be preferable. Many of such intermediate Promotions are currently neglected in pursuit of other top Promotions, which are more versatile and usable in every situation.

Maybe there is a place for this idea in this rework.

 

[ma_kuh]

I agree with your premise: developing an identity for units is somewhat missing, and it's something I would want to address with a promotion tree rework.

I don't think I like the generic promotions (levels 2 and 5), at least the way they're presented here. In the current system you get to specialize (albeit weakly) from 10XP through 60XP, with a "big" specialization around 100XP and a second one at 150XP; with the brainstormed promotions you don't specialize until 120XP 60XP, with a second big specialization at 200XP 120XP. So it shifts the big specializations earlier, while delaying any initial specialization.

I'm somewhat skeptical this solves the issue of keeping high level units around, other than by weakening the overall value of promotions. But perhaps that is the intent, and by forcing a gap of 80XP 60XP you do give time for lagging XP units to catch up and fight on even footing, at least for a certain window. I can definitely get behind that concept (it's a comeback mechanic of sorts).

Edit: I think I had my XP math wrong. With the proposed XP thresholds (and current XP rates in place), "big" specializations occur earlier than currently, with the window of time where you fight with promotion parity increasing slightly.

 

[nekokon]

My take regarding the disparity between players and AI units: it's the maximum potential that matters, not how you're gonna reach it.
High level units can do so much, and if you only make it harder to reach that point (like lower xp gain) instead of lowering the bar (limit max level/promotion) you're just gonna extend the grind and potentially extend the disparity even further.

Honestly "unit level" in a 4x game, where you are expected to build a lot of units and also lost a lot during combat, is a very dumb design that encourages mindless grinding instead of tactical decision (like combining different types of units together). They're just another form of doom stack where instead of building more units to put into the stack, you grind xp more, and the only reason why games do this is because it's easier for AI to compete with players.

I'd agree with any suggestion that lower the maximum power of high level units (or get rid of unit level all together, and let us pick a specialization when the unit is built)
I'd even suggest giving more incentives to disbanding unit (something like giving hammer for that type of unit in the build queue, so you can pump out units very quickly when needed)

Also should be noted that a lot of specializations collapse with the base role of some other unit types already (like + movement on infantry would bring it close to + CS in rough terrain on calvary), thus there should be a limitation of unit types (something like reduce amount of strategic resource or require more) to incentivize diversify units of the same type instead of just building another unit type for that particular role.

 

[hokath]

A radical thing to do would be removing the ability to upgrade units.

The other side of the coin: remove XP from combat altogether.

 

[CppMaster]

A radical thing to do would be removing the ability to upgrade units.

The other side of the coin: remove XP from combat altogether.

Both remove fun, though. I doubt it'd be popular.

 

[BornDownUnder]

In keeping with the theme of bonus/malus, what about a morale effect for several turns for combat engagement?

Examples:
No combat for x turns, you have +5% morale for the first attack (Yearning for battle)
Combat that was succesful, +5/10/15% morale for the first attack (Recent battle experience) for x turns.
For retreating from combat, -5% morale for x turns if outcome of engagement was a greater loss of health (Would have to handle move after attack units with an exception)

Against higher era enemies one could also use something similar to the fear malus that is provided by war elephants, which would push the incentive to maintain a modernised army.

 

[nekokon]

Both remove fun, though. I doubt it'd be popular.

Grinding xp is not fun, what you think of "fun" is the result of your units becoming so much stronger than the AIs and you dominate the war.
If the later can be archived, then the former can disappear and nobody would care.
In order to do that there can be a lot of non-grindy ways, like powerful but limited units, or bonus coming from executing your combat in specific order/combining different units, etc...
Don't tell me it's not fun when you realized you can place units behind enemy before hussar charge for big dmg, or when you purposefully damage the enemy just enough to have your grenadier unit sweep in nuking 3 4 enemies at once. That (tactical decision) should be what the player's advantage over AIs, not "I have bigger numbers"

 

[trinket]

Of course, that would require a complete rethinking of UU promotions, in addition to those gained from civ kits.

imo the XP gain mechanic, which is designed for the current promotions system, should be considered beforehand as well
this means buildings, UA, policies, and wonders that give XP bonuses; as well as abilities that give bonuses on unit promotion

 

[rusbeh]

I really dislike the current system of trying to preserve early units so you can have OP super units late game so I like the sound of this. One possible solution could also be that units lose like 15-20% xp when upgrading.

 

[ma_kuh]

I really dislike the current system of trying to preserve early units so you can have OP super units late game so I like the sound of this. One possible solution could also be that units lose like 15-20% xp when upgrading.

We did already propose this once before and it failed to pass. Sentiment may have changed since then of course, but just noting it.

(2-50) Units Lose XP On Upgrade

Just what it says in the title. Inspired by the "immortal human units vs endless AI unit spam" discussion. When a unit is upgraded, it loses half of its XP. But it does keep all the promotions. Just needs a longer time to reach the next level. Obviously the percentage is debatable. But it...

forums.civfanatics.com

I'll throw out another way we could tweak XP and promotions which mixes a few of the suggestions in this and other threads:

Retool XP as "Veterancy":

• New promotions: Veterancy 1-3
  • Veterancy 1-3: +8% CS
  • Keep this low enough that it's never better to keep a Veteran 3 unit compared to upgrading it
• Other promotions are no longer choosable
  • Existing unique promotion trees can replace Veterancy, e.g. Buffalo __
  • They may need adjustment for power, TBD
• Increase XP required per level, max level at 4
  • E.g. 25XP per level, non-scaling
  • 3 level-ups, for a max of Veterancy 3
• Lose all XP and levels on upgrade
  • Existing unique promotion trees aren't lost; this becomes a perk of the trait

Add specialization promotions via new projects:

• Certain buildings unlock new projects, e.g. Shock Training, Accuracy Training, Siege Training, etc.
  • Barracks unlocks: Shock, Drill, Accuracy, Barrage, Siege, Field
  • Lighthouse unlocks: Hull, Boarding Party, Targeting, Bombardment
  • etc.
• Units produced in the city gain the promotion; promotion power is condensed to compensate
  • E.g. Shock becomes: "+15% CS, +10% Flank Attack Modifier"
• Each unit class may only train one option per tier, e.g.:
  • Completing Shock Training would block Drill Training (granted by Barracks)
  • Completing Forlorn Hope would block Stalwart, March, Overrun (granted by Armory)
• (This is basically one of the suggestions for implementing Doctrines, but the promotions it grants would be better suited for unit-by-unit specializations, whereas Doctrines are geared towards how the army as a whole would be modified.)

Some promotions might get repurposed as Doctrines, or granted via Wonders. Specific training and promotion names and values also subject to discussion.