National Units and <ForceObsoleteTech>

Vokarya · Oct 26, 2012

Here is something I want to bring up: using more of the <ForceObsoleteTech> tag on non-Culture National Units to prevent old ones from appearing on the build lists. I'm sure everyone has observed this: when Unit X upgrades to Unit Y, you no longer see Unit X on your build list as long as you can build Unit Y. If you can no longer build Unit Y, then Unit X reappears. For example, if you are in the Renaissance Era and build your three allowed Warlord Corporals, the Warlord Captain reappears on your build list unless you have both of your allowed Captains in play.

In the case of Hunter units, the <ForceObsoleteTech> tag prevents you from building an obsolete hunter. For example, Tracker has <ForceObsoleteTech>TECH_HUNTING_TACTICS</ForceObsoleteTech>, so when you gain the ability to train Hunters and train your allowed 5, the ForceObsoleteTech tag prevents you from training Trackers. I think we should also be doing this with the following types of units:

Criminal Units
Trade Units
Trade Ship Units
Vassal Units
Warlord Units

In some places, we have a <ForceObsoleteTech> already in place, but I think it should be moved to an earlier technology. Most of the Trade units don't force-obsolete until Motorized Transportation, and I think they should be obsoleting earlier than that.

These are the units that I think this should apply to:

The Vassal units (Noble, Lord, Warlord Vassal, and Viceroy) also seem a little confusing to me, in that they feel like they should be one merged line, instead of two separate lines (Noble - Lord, Warlord Vassal - Viceroy). It seems disconnected to me that even though they are all National Unit - 1 Allowed, you can have a Lord and a Viceroy in play at the same time. This is the current setup:

I think it should look more like this:

What do you think?

Dancing Hoskuld · Oct 26, 2012

Vokarya said:
Most of the Trade units don't force-obsolete until Motorized Transportation, and I think they should be obsoleting earlier than that.

If they did not require buildings then I would probably agree. However they do require buildings that you may not be able to build. Anyway I currently send a trade caravan and an early merchant with my settler to build the first two necessary buildings - the early merchant is for the storage pit and the caravan for the charcoal burner.

Vokarya · Oct 26, 2012

Dancing Hoskuld said:
If they did not require buildings then I would probably agree. However they do require buildings that you may not be able to build. Anyway I currently send a trade caravan and an early merchant with my settler to build the first two necessary buildings - the early merchant is for the storage pit and the caravan for the charcoal burner.

As far as the Trade units building prerequisites go, they aren't that complex:

Early Merchant requires no buildings.
Trade Caravan requires Caravan Post, which can be built by any Animal Trainer building. It should also be able to be built with Oxen Farm.
Supply Train requires Trading Post, which only requires Bricks or Wood, neither of which is difficult to get.

and that's it. Only the Caravan Post seems to have any problem with you not being able to build it.

I've gotten very leery of building the Charcoal Burner because of the air pollution effect. If the Global Warming thresholds were higher, I'd be more willing to build it (250 is way low for Global Warming).

Did you have any problems with the other suggestions, or just the Trade units?

Dancing Hoskuld · Oct 26, 2012

No other problems. I had not realised that the Supply Train had changed from castle. It will need to change then, it is supposed to be a Renaissance era unit. It is too costly for a Classic era one. In fact I should probably go over them again now that I know what the values actually do.

I never got around to doing the sea trade units - they are in Orion Veteran's mods.

Vokarya · Oct 26, 2012

Dancing Hoskuld said:
No other problems. I had not realised that the Supply Train had changed from castle. It will need to change then, it is supposed to be a Renaissance era unit. It is too costly for a Classic era one. In fact I should probably go over them again now that I know what the values actually do.

I never got around to doing the sea trade units - they are in Orion Veteran's mods.

Supply Train is actually very early Medieval. It requires Engineering, which is one of the kickoff techs of the Medieval Era.

What did you want done with the sea trade units? I could probably help out there. I'll do some work on my Wonder costs tonight.

Taxman66 · Oct 26, 2012

Wait, I thought it was a bug that prevented me from building older hunter units. If it's not then you build your hunters and your existing trackers are non-replacable. Are you saying it is supposed to work that way, and that you can only have 5 (once attrition is applied to older units) hunting units at a time?

Vokarya · Oct 26, 2012

Taxman66 said:
Wait, I thought it was a bug that prevented me from building older hunter units. If it's not then you build your hunters and your existing trackers are non-replacable. Are you saying it is supposed to work that way, and that you can only have 5 (once attrition is applied to older units) hunting units at a time?

Yes, that's a deliberate decision made by DancingHoskuld to keep old hunters off the build list. It came up when we were discussing my Chaser unit here: http://forums.civfanatics.com/showpost.php?p=11879899&postcount=1196. I think this is a good idea to keep old and practically-obsolete units off the build lists and make the National Unit limits stick. That's why I suggested applying the same concept to other National Units.

Dancing Hoskuld · Oct 26, 2012

Taxman66 said:
Wait, I thought it was a bug that prevented me from building older hunter units. If it's not then you build your hunters and your existing trackers are non-replacable. Are you saying it is supposed to work that way, and that you can only have 5 (once attrition is applied to older units) hunting units at a time?

Yes this is deliberate.

What I do is build my full set of trackers and send them out to get XP and promotions. Then when I can build hunters I bring the trackers home to "patrol borders" while my hunters are out hunting. Then when I can build rangers I upgrade my trackers and build as many more rangers as needed, send them out to hunt and bring my hunters home for a "rest". Switching them from "auto hunt" to "auto patrol" works without me having to bring them home myself. Note: i don't play with unlimited XP.

Vokarya said:
Yes, that's a deliberate decision made by DancingHoskuld to keep old hunters off the build list. It came up when we were discussing my Chaser unit here: http://forums.civfanatics.com/showpost.php?p=11879899&postcount=1196. I think this is a good idea to keep old and practically-obsolete units off the build lists and make the National Unit limits stick. That's why I suggested applying the same concept to other National Units.

I have been thinking we may need a Chaser II unit available at Dog Domestication but requiring a Kennel to build. The Chaser II would then be almost as good as a tracker, for graphics you could use a wolf in place of the stone thrower.

Vokarya said:
What did you want done with the sea trade units? I could probably help out there. I'll do some work on my Wonder costs tonight.

I have not thought much about them but go ahead, it should be only possible to build the most advanced. After all that is how it works with "normal" units.

Hydromancerx · Oct 26, 2012

I would say the Early Merchant should be kept longer since not everyone can build a Trade Caravan since it requires an animal resource, which not everyone would have.

Vokarya · Oct 26, 2012

Hydromancerx said:
I would say the Early Merchant should be kept longer since not everyone can build a Trade Caravan since it requires an animal resource, which not everyone would have.

How about if Early Merchant and Trade Caravan go obsolete together at Engineering? That is where the Supply Train appears.

Hydromancerx · Oct 26, 2012

That should work (I think).

Vokarya · Oct 26, 2012

Hydromancerx said:
That should work (I think).

OK, all the tweaks are on the SVN now. Let me know if there are any problems.

National Units and <ForceObsoleteTech>

Vokarya

Deity

Dancing Hoskuld

Deity

Vokarya

Deity

Dancing Hoskuld

Deity

Vokarya

Deity

Taxman66

King

Vokarya

Deity

Dancing Hoskuld

Deity

Hydromancerx

C2C Modder

Vokarya

Deity

Hydromancerx

C2C Modder

Vokarya

Deity

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