[MOD] More Naval AI

[clearbeard]

It's a DLL change. You can try setting the iAirUnitCap XML tag for ships to 1. I think that will let them act as carriers. Was an option I was considering when you brought up the issue with hawks but I haven't tested that it works.

Haven't played with this setting in a while, but I'm pretty sure ships can either transport ground units OR air units, but never both.

If you're dead set against the default FFH hawk behavior, how about making hawks act like equipment instead? Not sure about ease or possibility of the coding, obviously, but you could make them buildable equipment units that could only be picked up by hunters, rangers, etc., giving the ability to use a "recon" effect. The hunter himself could be transported to another continent in the usual way, while he cannot while carrying a hawk currently. You could even add a "rebase" effect that would transfer the hawk to another hunter within a certain range, so they could still be rapidly redeployed within a given operational theater.

 

[Tholal]

Forgive my complete programming noobness, but exactly in what file should I search for that tag?

Never mind. Turns out it's more complex than I thought. I'll include some form of air unit transport by sea in the next beta release.

- Also, I was kind of wondering if people are finding that the AI is now quite unfair doing trades with this new patch.

Haven't noticed this particular issue, but I'll keep an eye out for it.

I encountered a weird situation where an enemy blockade never disappeared. Not even after the blockading nation itself was destroyed.

Are you using the most up-to-date version? This occurred w/ some fair regularity in previous versions, apparently because of privateers announcing their nationality while on blockade.

There was still an outstanding issue in 1.7 with units not removing blockades when they were killed. Should be fixed in the current beta and the next release.

Haven't played with this setting in a while, but I'm pretty sure ships can either transport ground units OR air units, but never both.

You're right about ships only being able to carry one type of cargo. Think I might assign attack-type ships as air unit transports.

 

[Tholal]

If you're dead set against the default FFH hawk behavior

My main issue with Hawks is that Rebasing was never altered to fit in with FFH. It was designed with the idea that it would be done with planes and that there would be some sort of anti-aircraft option, neither of which are in FFH. So the fact that a Hawk could simultaneously Rebase across the world and then go fly a scouting mission on the same turn with no penalty or downside or even a possibility for a negative result was just too ridiculous for me to keep ignoring. Admittedly, there are other ridiculous things in FFH, but this one bothered me more than most.

 

[BvBPL]

Why not just set the movement rate of a hawk to one then?

 

[Fafnir13]

Hawks are such odd units. Maybe there were plans early on in development to have more flying units, but that never happened and now they stand out like a sore thumb. It would better from a design standpoint and much simpler to nix the current hawk and create something more in line with the rest of the game.

For example: hunters, rangers, beast masters, and possible others all have a spell-like ability that summons a hawk (make sure the Amurite world spell doesn't block). It would work exactly like the floating eye spell.

For balance considerations, maybe block the ability until animal handling or other appropriate tech. It would certainly reward players who pursued that tech tree a bit more. I usually stop at hunting until much later in the game when I have nothing better to research or decide I want Duin.
Could also try blocking the ability until the unit has the animal handling promo. Either would be fitting.

Other Things:
Going to wait on any more games until the next patch. The citizen bug or whatever it is got too annoying. Having a half continent's worth of cities to keep track of didn't help either
I'm also reminding myself how much I hate war weariness. Was having my first successful game on Monarchy difficulty. Invaded a neighboring continent and ran into their giant stack. After just a couple turns of killing killing killing, I'm already up to 5 unhappiness in some cities. This despite losing only a couple specters.
If I'm interpreting things correctly, and if memory serves, war weariness is getting this high solely from the vast number of units I've had to kill.
I understand the AI needs such ridiculous numbers of troops to even have a chance of survival. I just wish I wasn't being punished for winning...
I know, gameplay change so probably outside the scope of the mod.
Are there any mods out there that could adjust it? Or perhaps someone could point me in the right direction for figuring out how to make my own mod? Er...mod mod mod I guess it would be called.

 

[Eviellan]

Newb question here, is there some way to merge notque's modmod (minor leaders as majors) with this one? Thanks!

 

[BvBPL]

For balance considerations, maybe block the ability until animal handling or other appropriate tech.

Having hawks at hunting is appropriate. There are a sufficient number of invisible units that civs shouldn’t have to go way out of their way to obtain hawks to detect invisible units.

I'm also reminding myself how much I hate war weariness. Was having my first successful game on Monarchy difficulty. Invaded a neighboring continent and ran into their giant stack. After just a couple turns of killing killing killing, I'm already up to 5 unhappiness in some cities. This despite losing only a couple specters.
If I'm interpreting things correctly, and if memory serves, war weariness is getting this high solely from the vast number of units I've had to kill.

I think war weariness comes from the number of YOUR units that die during a war and that units that die in enemy terrian contribute more to war weariness than those that die within your borders.

If you want to reduce war weariness, you can build dungeons, but you have to build them before you receive the war weariness. That is, dungeos reduce the weariness you receive, but do not remove the weariness you already have.

One quick was to bring down unhappiness is to raise your cultural slider. Every 10% on the slider is one more happiness.

 

[Horatius]

I think war weariness comes from the number of YOUR units that die during a war and that units that die in enemy terrian contribute more to war weariness than those that die within your borders.

Killed units as well, though causes less WW pts.
His complaint is justified in this game actually. I had games with WW going ridiculous in just 6 turns in the late game (simply with hundreds of killed units).

 

[Aline]

Why would you get WW for killing units makes no sense, especaly with the FFH lore in mind, so i do not see much harm in changing that.

 

[Fafnir13]

Having hawks at hunting is appropriate. There are a sufficient number of invisible units that civs shouldn’t have to go way out of their way to obtain hawks to detect invisible units.

With the exception of the Sidar world spell, you won't be getting much in the way of invisible units for a long time. That and the annoying mist form even and dungeon spawn.
Why is it that there are at least two types of stealth and two types of detection? It seems a tad redundant, especially since the detection for both is located at the same tech.

 

[Horatius]

Why would you get WW for killing units makes no sense, especaly with the FFH lore in mind, so i do not see much harm in changing that.

I believe FfH2 has the same WW BTS mechanics.
It makes sense to me, but it can get outrageous in this game with the bigger stacks.

With the exception of the Sidar world spell, you won't be getting much in the way of invisible units for a long time.

Animals (I also want to see where's that silly griffon, you know what I mean? - it's not just invisible units).

 

[arcticnightwolf]

on the hawks topic:

well ... shadows can be quite PITA and also don't underestimate espionage ...
i have lost several MP games by neglecting hawks

 

[clearbeard]

Why would you get WW for killing units makes no sense, especaly with the FFH lore in mind, so i do not see much harm in changing that.

People get tired of killing. It's not a natural desire in most people, and even when their side is winning, civilians get sick of it. There's plenty of real world rationale for the concept, and in BtS it works pretty well.

That said, FFH is a different beast. There certainly wouldn't be as much when you're killing not other humans in neighboring tribes (who you may have been friendly and trading with before hostilities broke out), but infidels (or even infernals), with whom you have no common ground. Even there, though, consider the feeling "we just keep killing them, and it never ends! I'm so depressed..."

However, it's a pretty major mechanic to mess around with. War weariness ties into the core of warfare in Civ 4, regardless of the mod. Bottom line: if you can't afford or mitigate the happiness consequences of prolonged struggles, then avoid them.

 

[Tholal]

1.8 beta3 (should be compatible with previous saves from 1.8beta2).

Main Changes:

• AI will be a little less aggressive about attacking easy targets
• City Governors should be less zealous about assigning citizens as Specialists
• Barbarians should be more reckless in general and undead barbarians should be less interested in pillaging
• UI - change to Great People Rate, Maintenance and Research due to Mana bonuses will now be displayed in the associated popup mouseover help in the city screen
• Bug fix - Royal Guards are now never obsolete
• Gameplay change - Frigates can now carry Hawks (note: I meant to expand this ability to other ships but didnt get to it with this revision.)

 

[Horatius]

AI will be a little less aggressive about attacking easy targets

Could you explain your rationale for this? is this about the early warrior wars? or something else?

Gameplay change - Frigates can now carry Hawks (note: I meant to expand this ability to other ships but didnt get to it with this revision.)

Cool.

 

[Fafnir13]

However, it's a pretty major mechanic to mess around with. War weariness ties into the core of warfare in Civ 4, regardless of the mod. Bottom line: if you can't afford or mitigate the happiness consequences of prolonged struggles, then avoid them.

Three turns is not a prolonged struggle. I've got 5 unhappiness in my larger towns already, due to a stack of 20 units or so killing non stop.
In a more perfect simulation, the troops themselves would be suffering morale problems. They're the guys fighting nonstop battles. The people at home might have heard there was fierce fighting, but any decent overlord would have propaganda campaigns in place to spur the national spirit.
The WW in Civ does get a number of things right and, as an imperfect simulation, works more or less okay. My objection is the speed at which I'm accumulating it which is a direct consequence of changes made by the mod.

Possible fixes:
Make it take X number of turns for 1 WW unhappiness to appear. This unhappiness will continue to spawn until it reaches the level dictated by total WW.

More "role playing" additions. Warlike civs (Hippus, Bannor, anything barbaian) get a % reduction to total WW. Civs pursuing wars against hated rivals (determined by diplomacy attitude and lore) get a similar reduction. Finally, good civs fighting evil civs (and vice versa) get another reduction.
In all these cases, the population and those in governance would be in support of such wars and much more willing to support a protracted effort.

For example: Ljosalfar vs Svartalfar could last for centuries with only minimal WW as they have WW reductions from lore, alignment, and probably diplomatic attitued. Malakim vs Kuriotates could not last very long given a probably shared alignment, good diplomatic relations, and no lore based reduction.

Finally, no WW from the loss of summons, golems, or other appropriate non-living things like the various zombies.

All such changes would appropriately update WW to match the gameplay and world of FFH to a better degree. Sorry for going so long on the subject, especially since it's a gameplay change and note likely to be implemented.

Thanks for the non-save-breaking patch Tholal! I'm glad I don't have to give up on the epic game I've got going.

 

[Tholal]

Could you explain your rationale for this? is this about the early warrior wars? or something else?

This is about your complaints that it was too easy to lure the AI out of cities.

 

[Tholal]

Did a little research on War Weariness today by looking at the code. The only change I could find that Kael made to War Weariness is that temporary summons and units flagged with the NoWarWeariness tag (only mercenaries and meteors) dont cause any Weariness. Hidden Nationality units also don't cause Weariness, though this is part of base civ.

First off, the numbers for War Weariness are set in the base Civ 4 files as such.

Spoiler :

	<Define>
		<DefineName>WW_UNIT_KILLED_ATTACKING</DefineName>
		<iDefineIntVal>3</iDefineIntVal>
	</Define>
	<Define>
		<DefineName>WW_KILLED_UNIT_DEFENDING</DefineName>
		<iDefineIntVal>1</iDefineIntVal>
	</Define>
	<Define>
		<DefineName>WW_UNIT_KILLED_DEFENDING</DefineName>
		<iDefineIntVal>2</iDefineIntVal>
	</Define>
	<Define>
		<DefineName>WW_KILLED_UNIT_ATTACKING</DefineName>
		<iDefineIntVal>2</iDefineIntVal>
	</Define>
	<Define>
		<DefineName>WW_UNIT_CAPTURED</DefineName>
		<iDefineIntVal>2</iDefineIntVal>
	</Define>
	<Define>
		<DefineName>WW_CAPTURED_UNIT</DefineName>
		<iDefineIntVal>1</iDefineIntVal>
	</Define>
	<Define>
		<DefineName>WW_CAPTURED_CITY</DefineName>
		<iDefineIntVal>6</iDefineIntVal>
	</Define>
	<Define>
		<DefineName>WW_HIT_BY_NUKE</DefineName>
		<iDefineIntVal>3</iDefineIntVal>
	</Define>
	<Define>
		<DefineName>WW_ATTACKED_WITH_NUKE</DefineName>
		<iDefineIntVal>12</iDefineIntVal>
	</Define>

The next part I found particularly interesting. As it turns out, the only other thing that affects the amount of War Weariness gained is where the battle is fought!

void CvTeam::changeWarWeariness(TeamTypes eOtherTeam, const CvPlot& kPlot, int iFactor)
{
	int iOurCulture = kPlot.countFriendlyCulture(getID());
	int iTheirCulture = kPlot.countFriendlyCulture(eOtherTeam);

	int iRatio = 100;
	if (0 != iOurCulture + iTheirCulture)
	{
		iRatio = (100 * iTheirCulture) / (iOurCulture + iTheirCulture);
	}

	changeWarWeariness(eOtherTeam, iRatio * iFactor);
}

 

[Grunthex]

1.8 beta3 (should be compatible with previous saves from 1.8beta2).

Quick installation question - is it just install FFH2 v041.N, install patch o overtop, then install this latest patch, or do I need more steps?

 

[Tholal]

Quick installation question - is it just install FFH2 v041.N, install patch o overtop, then install this latest patch, or do I need more steps?

That will do it.