Negative Promotions: Leaking Hull (Ships) / Infected Wounds (Land Units) / ... [IMPLEMENTED]

[raystuttgart]

Hi guys,

another of my old concepts is this here:

"Negative Promotions" that only the game can give by Combat.
"Negative Promotions" can only be added if the Unit has less than 50% of Health.
(Basically they use the same modifiers as the "Positive Promotions" but just with negative values.)

Which Unit can get which Promotion will of course be configured in XML just right now.
(Using "UnitCombatTypes" in the Promotions.)

e.g.:

• During Combat (all) Ships have a chance to get "Leaking Hull" (causing damage every turn / inverted "Healing Bonus")
  
• During Combat (all) Ships have a chance to get "Damaged Sails" (reducing movement speed / inverted "Movement Bonus")
• During Combat (all) Ships have a chance to get "Damaged Rudder" (reducing movement speed / inverted "Movement Bonus" in Terrain Features Storm / Favourable Winds / Disfavourable Winds / Fog)
  
• During Combat War Ships have a chance to get "Damaged Cannons Deck" (reducing combat strength / inverted "Combat Strength Bonus")
• During Combat Transport Ships have a chance to get "Damaged Cargo Space" (reducing cargo slots / inverted "Cargo Slot Bonus")
  
• ...

• During Combat (all) Land Units have a chance to get "Infected Wounds" (causing damage every turn / inverted "Healing Bonus")
• During Combat Mounted Land Units have a chance to get "Wounded Horses" (reducing movement speed / inverted "Movement Bonus")
• During Combat (all) Land Units have a chance to get "Damaged Weapons" (reducing combat strength / inverted "Combat Strength Bonus")
• During Combat Land Transports have a chance to get "Damaged Cargo Space" (reducing cargo slots / inverted "Cargo Slot Bonus")
  
• ...

---

To heal (remove) those "Negative Promotions" you will need to rest 2 turns additionally to normal Healing of Health in a friendly City.
(AI will be taught to handle this. It is atually quite easy to do.)

If you do not heal them and go into Combat without care and then get a second "Negative Promotion" your Unit dies instantly.
(So you can take the risk of not healing them, but well ... it is dangerous.)

---

This feature is actually incredibly easy to implement.
Might spice up combat a bit ...

---

Let me know if you want to have it.
(Once the Combat System is enhanced to consider this other new "Negative Promotions" can be added easily.)

 

[Tugboatspotter]

This feature is actually incredibly easy to implement.
Might spice up combat a bit ...

I agree this could spice things up a bit. I can't say I am hugely excited about this, but if it is easy to implement then it gets my vote.

Also, what about damaged rudder? Very bad for a ship - It was the end for the Bismark if I remember correctly.

 

[raystuttgart]

Also, what about damaged rudder?

"Damaged Rudder" is about being able to set certain movement directions and control them.
There is no way to reasonably implement the "controlability" of a ship in any other way than "speed" (which is already "Damaged Sails").

It was the end for the Bismark if I remember correctly.

Yes, it could not properly control the direction of its movement anymore.
Thus it was more or less moving in circles and could not set a straight course.

But again:
There is no reasonable way to do implement something like this in Civ4Col.
I also doubt it would be any fun ...

 

[Tugboatspotter]

"Damaged Rudder" is about being able to set certain movement directions and control them.
There is no way to reasonably implement the "controlability" of a ship in any other way than "speed" (which is already "Damaged Sails").

.

Very true, but a 'damaged sail' and a 'damaged rudder' could just be the same thing ie reducing movement. It would just add extra flavour.

 

[raystuttgart]

It would just add extra flavour.

Why not.

I have no issue with having two "Negative Promotions" with the same effect.
One can give -1 Movement (Damaged Sails) and the other -2 Movement (Damaged Ruder).

 

[Nightinggale]

Sounds interesting, but we need to consider what happens when a value is lowered. What happens if a ship spends its last movement point on attacking and then it's damaged and gains a negative move promotion? If we do nothing, we could easily end up triggering an assert due to having spend more movement points than the unit has. How should it affect movement points when the promotion is removed? What happens when a fully loaded ship loses a cargo slot?

In short promotion tags, which is currently only used with positive numbers may or may not work with negative numbers. While a lot of the proposals will likely work, we can't be certain it will without testing. The good news is that fixing bugs caused by negative numbers doesn't seem to be that complex once the bugs have been proven to exist. It's more like something to be aware of rather than a feature killer.


While considering this, I wonder if we should add the concept of a promotion, which unsets itself once you click end turn. Favorable wind would be a good candidate for that as it currently triggers an assert for having more movement points than max of said unit. I don't want false assert failures, but I also don't want to disable the check as it's there to catch bugs. Adding a promotion, which lasts until the end of the turn will solve that and it can add a promotion icon for that unit. Precisely how to implement this is an open question. Adding the ability for events to run a python function at the end of turn sounds interesting in general.

 

[historix69]

I fear that the feature adds too much random bad luck forcing the players to reload the game more often to avoid unacceptable losses.

Have a superior ship like SoL or MoW engage 2 smaller units and it may be instantly killed by bad luck if it gets 2 negative promotions.
For smaller units who are often instantly killed in combat, the feature is less a problem.

Besides the randomness there should be clear rules which unit types are strong enough to inflict such damage on other unit types.

 

[raystuttgart]

What happens if a ship spends its last movement point on attacking and then it's damaged and gains a negative move promotion?

That should not be a problem if we write the code properly.

It is not the "remaining movement points" that will be lowered.
It is the "max movement points" that will be lowered.

So before the Promotion: 3 still available / out of 5 max
After the Promotion: 3 still available / out of 4 max

I do not really see many problems with implementing that.
Sure, we need to code properly but we already did much more risky features than this one.

What happens when a fully loaded ship loses a cargo slot?

We can easily check that case and prevent it to happen.
In that case we simply give another "Negative Promotion".
We need to have a check for all "Negative Promotions" being valid in the code anyways.

 

[raystuttgart]

How should it affect movement points when the promotion is removed?

By the "Healing of Negative Promotions" the Promotion modifer is simply removed as well.
We basically substract -1 --> Which will add +1 again.
(We can read that information from the Promotion before it is removed.)

I do not really see many problems with implementing that either.
Again, we already did much more risky and complex stuff that than this simple feature.

In short promotion tags, which is currently only used with positive numbers may or may not work with negative numbers.

It should really be no big issue to enhance the Promotion System like that.
(Unless my technical design was completely flawed ...)

While a lot of the proposals will likely work, we can't be certain it will without testing.

Of course we can not be 100% sure before having tried.
When have we ever implemented a feature without testing it?

It's more like something to be aware of rather than a feature killer.

True, but first prototype tests should really show it easily.
If there has ever been a feature with a "proof of concept" being easy to implement and test, it is this one.

 

[raystuttgart]

While considering this, I wonder if we should add the concept of a promotion, which unsets itself once you click end turn. Favorable wind ...

Awesome idea.

1. It will be visualized very nicely in UI (at the Unit)
2. It will not cause Asserts anymore.
3. It will be easy to store in Savegames
4. We might be able to create a lot more cool Events with these "Short Term Promotions"

 

[raystuttgart]

Have a superior ship like SoL or MoW engage 2 smaller units ...

Actually a fair point.

Let us settle for this:
Negative Promotions can only be added if the Unit has less than 50% of Health.
(To reflect that there actually was some serious damage.)

 

[ConjurerDragon]

I agree this could spice things up a bit. I can't say I am hugely excited about this, but if it is easy to implement then it gets my vote.

Also, what about damaged rudder? Very bad for a ship - It was the end for the Bismark if I remember correctly.

sssh. damaged rudders are a taboo thematic for germans since the sinking of the Bismarck...

 

[ConjurerDragon]

"Damaged Rudder" is about being able to set certain movement directions and control them.
There is no way to reasonably implement the "controlability" of a ship in any other way than "speed" (which is already "Damaged Sails").


Yes, it could not properly control the direction of its movement anymore.
Thus it was more or less moving in circles and could not set a straight course.

But again:
There is no reasonable way to do implement something like this in Civ4Col.
I also doubt it would be any fun ...

I don´t know about reasonable - but what about the events about calms, where a ship has to stop for a few turns for a lack of winds?
Damaged rudder can trigger an event occasionally that the wind takes control of the ship and pushes it say 3 squares east or other random direction (most likely directly into the sharp teeth of a newly built coastal reef slicing the hull like an iceberg the titanic...

 

[modmod]

Questions:

1. How a negative promotion can be removed - can be there some sort of hurry to repair?
Otherwise a ship just can sink with leaks.

Speed reduction/ damaged cargo:
2. You talked about negative values which can be prevented, but what if MAX. move points gets for example 0 (because cannot be negative)? Or lower than the actual?
3. What happens when damaged cargo space affect a fuly loaded ship? Is it instant loss of cargo? Then which cargo (like from the 6)?

 

[cain3456]

The Kris Swordsmen for Indonesia in Civ5 had random promotions, some good, some bad. It was NOT a popular feature.

 

[raystuttgart]

The Kris Swordsmen for Indonesia in Civ5 had random promotions, some good, some bad. It was NOT a popular feature.

They are not "just random" in terms it can happen whenever in game
They can only be given by Combat (if the Health is lower than 50%).

 

[raystuttgart]

How a negative promotion can be removed - can be there some sort of hurry to repair?

Read here:

To heal (remove) those "Negative Promotions" you will need to rest 2 turns additionally to normal Healing of Health in a friendly City.
(AI will be taught to handle this. It is atually quite easy to do.)

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... but what if MAX. move points gets for example 0 (because cannot be negative)? Or lower than the actual?

Trust me please that is easy to check and prevent in the code.
I do not just mess around in XML - I actually work in the source code as well and can check and prevent everything there if I do not want it to happen.

Otherwise I already answered to that here.

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There is no technical issue that prevents implementation of this.
I am 100% sure of that. This feature is damn simple.

 

[modmod]

Read here:

Read that.

Meant: at sea/ field (by action).
See a leaking hull/ infected wounds can kill the unit before reach a city. Mainly if move points are reduced too.

 

[raystuttgart]

See a leaking hull/ infected wounds can kill the unit before reach a city.

That is exactly what I want:
A bit more risk / challenge.

The damage per turn can be set as low as e.g. 5% or 10%.
The next friendly Native Village should thus always be reachable.

Otherwise it was bad luck but it still interesting / fun for me.
A game where I always win (or never have unwinable situations) is not interesting / fun for me at all

Because then there is no risk and challenge.
Also that is not realistic / immersive.

I see bad luck as interesting part of the game.
(It keeps it surprising, unpredictable and challenging.)

 

[modmod]

more risk / challenge.

Always can count on you in that: with most added/ changed stuff.

The negative effects (promotions) are real so no problem with that.

To balance out possible negative stuff:
- counter promotions (like unsinkable)
- actions (like emergency repair/ field hospital)
In that age that was not that much difference if a surgeon worked in a tent or a city (compared with modern hospitals from mid industrial revolution). And most ships had some tools/ materials (ropes, sailcloth, planks, tar) for quick repairs on sea.
So that is also real.