[MOD] SD Unit XP

[Stone-D]

SD-UnitXP 1.00
by Stone-D ( Laga Mahesa )
For Civilization IV
Compatibility : 1.00+
Data Source   : 1.09
New Game Req  : NO
Requires      : sdToolKit 1.22+ (1.22 is included)

This began life as SD-StackXP, which is probably not going to be updated anymore. This combination mod serves the same purpose, plus more.

Initially, I started this because I found myself micromanaging unit stacks. I'd monitor who's got the least experience and try to focus on that unit in combat. Sometimes I would forfeit a higher level unit's combat round so that he wouldn't get too far ahead with XP.

This mod does away with that. At the end of a combat round, the winner's experience is shared with other units of the same type who have lower experience.

Additionally, and possibly of more interest to you, is that upgraded units are no longer set to 10 XP - they keep their original experience.

Note that some battles will be a bit harder as a result of all this.

Some of you will no doubt hate one of these features. Because of this, I have provided two switches. You can find them near the top of sdUnitXP.py - open it with notepad.

These are what are called 'Boolean' values - they are either True or False.


bUpgradeXP = Default is True. Protect your upgraded units' experience levels. Set to 'False' in order to disable.
bShareXP = Default is True. Share the combat round winner's XP with the lower rank plebians. Set to 'False' in order to disable.


History
=-=-=-=

v1.00 :
Initial Release, name change from SD-StackXP.

 

[Seven05]

So far so good, it just dropped right into my mod without any work, I knew there was a resons I wasn't messing with python files

One quick question, how does it determine which units are in a stack? After several battle it appears as though everything is working ok but I'm never sure if the lower level units are sharing the XP because they were grouped with the attacking unit before or after the combat. For example, if I have three units attacking two defenders: Attacker 1 kills defender 1 then attacker 2 kills defender 2 and both attacker 2 and attacker 3 move into the new tile but attacker 1 stays behind, do all three attackers count as a stack? or do only attacker 2 & 3 count as a stack since they're together after the combat has been resolved? or, is combat resolved and experience shared before anyone moves at all?

Anyway, it appears to be working without any problems that I've found. It's nice to just grab a stack of units and charge without having to look at who needs the XP the most

 

[Stone-D]

The last - the sharing happens prior to movement. BTW, its annoying isn't it, quite often I'd rather they stay put instead of moving to the target location.

Glad you like it, and even more glad it works well for you.

 

[Seven05]

Yeah, there are times I won't attack the last unit in a stack just to keep my group together, especially if it's a big battle and I have several damaged units in the same stack.

I'm personally planning on working on that (attack without moving) and propper bombardments in the future. Perhaps you can offer some experienced input, I'd like to have the option to attack any adjacent tile without moving and I was thinking about having that attack work like aircraft do now. In other words you'd select the attack command, then the target tile and then combat would be resolved much like it is now with aircraft so you couldn't kill the target but you could damage them. Of course that would render the "flank" promotion useless. Anyway, do you think anything like that is possible with the python scripts? I know it's not with XML alone and I'm suspecting I'll have to wait for the SDK. Erm... I don't want to hijack this thread though, you can PM me here if you'd rather keep this post clean.

 

[Stone-D]

Heh, thread hijacking is fine with me... besides, the topic is still unit related, right?

I'm pretty sure you can't *stop* the movement, but I believe you can kludge it - follow the movement, move them back. Have to look into it a bit more tho.

 

[Seven05]

Wow, only 19 downloads? This is an absolutely awesome effect when you warmonger your way through a long game. You take your experienced units, split them off and group them up with less experienced units, fight for a while, rinse and repeat

It also has the rather pleasant effect of bringing a fresh replacement unit up to par with the rest of the group over time, granted the effect makes it take a bit longer for the experienced units to level up further. I don't know, I'm floored, this thing is great

 

[Stone-D]

Seven05: Glad you like it. How're the unit upgrades working out? Had to make a workaround for that one.

 

[Seven05]

Everything works fine as long as you don't stack too many units together otherwise it takes forever to actually get to an upgrade. It's also working in my latest test with a bunch of custom promotions.

 

[Stone-D]

What's the stack size 'barrier' as you see it? I keep forgetting that some players have massive stacks... I myself rarely have more than 4 units per stack.

 

[Stone-D]

Wait, never mind, I see what you mean now. I thought you were getting a performance hit!

 

[Lloyd]

Thanks very much

Great Mod - I Love it!

Very small and subtle changes to gameplay - though very significant especially with unit upgrades over time!

Keep up the good work