Militia

[Ahriman]

I knew how you felt about the Rifle gap. I mentioned it to point out that the game (for better o worse) doesn't always advance in clean progressions.

Ok, but my point is that this isn't really a feature. At least, if you don't get rifling, you'll be blocked from upgrading anything to infantry.

Warriors without iron become useless as well - that's why I'm careful as to how many I build. Something similar could be said about pikemen.

There is a big difference between: warriors become useless without the iron strategic resource, vs pikemen become useless full stop.

Still, in an ideal worlds, we would have Civ4 style upgrading, where you could upgrade to multiple different units. I hate that they got rid of this.
I would love to be able to upgrade warriors to swordsmen or pikes, to upgrade rifles into Infantry or AT guns or AA guns, to upgrade knights into cavalry or lancers, etc.

This is one of the few areas where I think the "dumbing down" complaints were reasonable. The only reason to force a single upgrade line was to make the UI slightly simpler.

 

[Thalassicus]

I agree completely about upgrades. It's not like it's hard to have two different upgrade buttons, one for each unit type option.

I actually solved the pike problem at one point by upgrading them to lancers. The problem is I felt it made it too hard to use mounted units later on if we had lots of highly-experienced counter units running around. I also tried pike -> musket at one point, before I had the promotion swapping thing going on... which led to muskets overpowered vs horses.

I think it'll work out much better in the current climate.

 

[Txurce]

I think it'll work out much better now since non-UU promotions are lost with upgrade.

Because you'll build pikes if you need them (or are Germany), and otherwise go with Militias... right?

 

[Ahriman]

I agree completely about upgrades. It's not like it's hard to have two different upgrade buttons, one for each unit type option.

Is this possible to mod? Or is it basically hard-coded?
You'd also need to add AI so that the AI would know it had multiple options and would sensibly pick the one that best fit its circumstances. So it isn't a trivial change.

 

[Thalassicus]

The fundamentals of the AI are coded in the c++; we can only make small tweaks and adjustments. It was an early addition to my long term todo list:


C++
- waypoints for orders
- ctrl+A to move all units with orders
- fortify until healed or enemy
- multiple upgrade paths
- change defense-building healing to a hitpoint bonus
- put a circle around enemy units in territory instead of a sidebar notification
- Capability to make tables in tooltips (resource display)
- Building resource-yield bonuses not retroactive.
- Tech yield bonuses not retroactive. Also, seem to be affecting city-center tiles.
- Increase the animation speed of the bomber attack graphic
- Ships and units in forts have 2-tile ZOC, subs can ignore ZOC
- CS quest likelihood weights need to be a 2-dimensional table
- Camera moves to nearby units after finished with the current one.
- Camera snap to target if destination is far
- Gifting units to CS gives influence proportional to unit cost
- Free units appear inside the capital, instead of the southwest corner.
- Buildings that act like localized Great Walls, providing bonuses within the city radius.

 

[Ahriman]

These ones I think are high priority:

change defense-building healing to a hitpoint bonus
multiple upgrade paths
Gifting units to CS gives influence proportional to unit cost
Increase the animation speed of the bomber attack graphic
Ships and units in forts have 2-tile ZOC, subs can ignore ZOC - AS LONG AS AI CAN BE TAUGHT TO UNDERSTAND THE CHANGES

These seem like low priority:

Free units appear inside the capital, instead of the southwest corner.
Buildings that act like localized Great Walls, providing bonuses within the city radius.
Camera snap to target if destination is far
waypoints for orders
ctrl+A to move all units with orders
fortify until healed or enemy
put a circle around enemy units in territory instead of a sidebar notification
Capability to make tables in tooltips (resource display)

I don't understand these:

Building resource-yield bonuses not retroactive
Tech yield bonuses not retroactive
CS quest likelihood weights need to be a 2-dimensional table

 

[Thalassicus]

Personal notes often are a little cryptic.

The retroactive thing means someone who applies or updates the mod midgame won't get any effects from resource bonuses on buildings or technologies they've already built/researched. It's not retroactive. This is the main reason I have "start a new game" on the common problems list.

Citystate quests are currently in a format like this:

maritime_likes_questX
maritime_likes_questY
militaristic_likes_questZ
...etc...

This is cumbersome! There is one variable for each combination, and the game only reads the combinations Firaxis already uses. What's more logical is a table with "citystate type" on the columns and "quest type" on the rows. They use tables for most 2-dimensional information in this game, so the fact they didn't do so for such a major part of gameplay is bizzare!

 

[Ahriman]

Ok. These sound like low priority issues too (the citystate one sounds purely like clarity of code, with no gameplay impact?)

 

[The Boz]

So... the role of the Militia remains "Let's hope the AI targets the one unit that can regenerate all the damage it takes every turn while I slowly peg everything with crossbowmen"?

 

[Ahriman]

So... the role of the Militia remains "Let's hope the AI targets the one unit that can regenerate all the damage it takes every turn while I slowly peg everything with crossbowmen"?

Yup. Though of course you can influence which unit they attack by putting it in the front line in the most vulnerable spot.

 

[Thalassicus]

The citystate one has probably the most gameplay impact out of what's on the todo list, because we cannot really alter which citystates offer which quests at all right now.

@The Boz
All combat is like that. The only reason units like catapults can do a siege at all is the AI doesn't usually target them. If catapults were prioritized the unit would be worthless.

 

[GrayingGamer]

Having played through a couple of games, I feel the militia could use tweaking in one or two areas:

1. I feel the natural 25% defensive bonus is too much.

or

2. I feel the 1 gold maintenance should be upped to 2 gold.

Personally, I like the 1 gold maintenance, and I think the defensive bonus should go. I think it would be more "realistic/immersive," too, going with the idea of an untrained, poorly equipped military force.

As it is, pikemen cost a little more to build, 3 times as much to maintain, and only have the bonus against cavalry going for them over militia. The only way I would build any pikemen is if an enemy AI simply has a ton of cavalry, and I rarely see this.

 

[Thalassicus]

Pikes have the defensive bonus too. Without the bonus, the strategic resource Medieval units can often kill pikes and militia in one hit. It's more difficult to get to Survivalism 2 promotion now for +50% defense, since Armories were moved back a full era.

Pikes can get up to 60% attack vs units and 35% vs cities, while Militia are very weak on the attack. If I could get the AI to build more horse units, would that help?

 

[GrayingGamer]

Pikes have the defensive bonus too. Without the bonus, the strategic resource Medieval units can often kill pikes and militia in one hit. It's more difficult to get to Survivalism 2 promotion now for +50% defense, since Armories were moved back a full era.

Pikes can get up to 60% attack vs units and 35% vs cities, while Militia are very weak on the attack. If I could get the AI to build more horse units, would that help?

It might. I'm worried the AI will just use them poorly (hit & run tactics seem to elude the AI in general - the total lack of the sense of 'when to withdraw/retreat' from the AI is one of its biggest problems... that and maintaining some sort of defensive force during war-tiime).

I've deleted about 4 paragraphs of thoughts / ideas so far. I'm not sure what I think - I really like the idea of the militia, but I'm not totally happy with the current implementation. I also recognize the problem of pike-spam, so I don't want to go back there. Idk.

edit: absolutely loving the mod, btw. If you're not getting paid, you should be.

 

[Txurce]

Pikes have the defensive bonus too. Without the bonus, the strategic resource Medieval units can often kill pikes and militia in one hit. It's more difficult to get to Survivalism 2 promotion now for +50% defense, since Armories were moved back a full era.

Pikes can get up to 60% attack vs units and 35% vs cities, while Militia are very weak on the attack. If I could get the AI to build more horse units, would that help?

I find that certain AI build horse units, but more don't. Keeping in mind how often people here say horse units aren't worth it, I don't see the AI horse-choice ration being too far off the human pace.

 

[rtw1323]

It might. I'm worried the AI will just use them poorly (hit & run tactics seem to elude the AI in general - the total lack of the sense of 'when to withdraw/retreat' from the AI is one of its biggest problems... that and maintaining some sort of defensive force during war-tiime).

I've deleted about 4 paragraphs of thoughts / ideas so far. I'm not sure what I think - I really like the idea of the militia, but I'm not totally happy with the current implementation. I also recognize the problem of pike-spam, so I don't want to go back there. Idk.

edit: absolutely loving the mod, btw. If you're not getting paid, you should be.

I'll second that on love for the mod... wouldn't even want to play CiV without it. Thanks Thal.

 

[Sneaks]

I'd rather see militia for what they are: Poorly trained citizen soldiers. I don't necessarily think they should have a separate upgrade path than muskets.

I would like to see militia having a +1 movement bonus in friendly territory and a combat flanking bonus or adjacent friendly unit bonus. 1 on 1, militia will lose badly to everything, but send in a few and they can gang up on people. You can obsolete the movement bonus on upgrade

 

[Txurce]

I'd rather see militia for what they are: Poorly trained citizen soldiers. I don't necessarily think they should have a separate upgrade path than muskets.

I would like to see militia having a +1 movement bonus in friendly territory and a combat flanking bonus or adjacent friendly unit bonus. 1 on 1, militia will lose badly to everything, but send in a few and they can gang up on people. You can obsolete the movement bonus on upgrade

This was basically what they were for about one beta version of the mod. It was my favorite (and where the name originated).

 

[sk065]

HI

Loving the mod

I have little experience in modding and was looking for some help please. I am looking to replace only the unit art (and I would imagine the animations) for the militia with

Deliverators Housecarl unit

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?p=9811023

I obviouly dont want to replace unit stats and still want the unit to be named militia.

Can anyone advise please?

Thanks

 

[Thalassicus]

That would be cool! I have very little experience with modding art.

I believe there's information on how to do so in the modding guide on the Civ5 - Modding Tutorials & Reference forum. There might also be more tutorials there on how to mod artwork. I've attached the most recent version of the ModBuddy project if you'd like to take a look in it.

@Sneaks
I really like the idea of a friendly-adjacent bonus! Sorta like the Discipline policy? I don't see a friendly-lands movement bonus option, but there's one for friendly-lands combat (Himeji Castle's effect).