The Little One
Warlord
- Joined
- Sep 18, 2011
- Messages
- 274
i didn't have time to read the whole thread but if you still need help, PM me. I can help with XML and maybe some art but that's about it...
Pacific/Oceania Mod- Discussion Thread
- Thread starter CivOasis
- Start date
Ahriman
Tyrant
Art help would definitely be needed. We'll need leaderheads for various civs, unit art, building art, and resource art. Plus maybe for promotions and tech tree icons, and for social policy trees?
Ahriman
Tyrant
Combat units are where I need the most help.
So far I have:
That is a really short list, but I can't really think of anything else that would fit historically.
But then that is kind of lame if there is no military tech improvement after you get access to each unit.
One thought was; maybe we could leave these techs, but have some "superior" promotions that are unlocked only by higher level military techs? So you start with just 10% strength promotions, but then can get particular 20% promotions with higher techs?
Could we also have some interesting promotion specialization, so that there is a human player advantage to effectively using their specialized units?
What is the Maori warrior effect from Polynesia DLC (I don't have that), does it give a strength penalty to neighboring units? Maybe we could put that on the Raider unit, so that the Raider is basically there as a flanker?
What is the best way to distinguish Mere and Taiha units (I'd thought of giving Mere a city attack bonus and Taiha a defensive bonus?), and are there any other important Maori weapons we could consider?
We want warfare to be interesting, so my main thoughts are to give the musket units a 1 range ranged attack, have the European units all get a penalty in forests (maybe in all rough terrain?), have the one cavalry unit end its turn on rough terrain (like a chariot), make the European units tough but in low numbers, so that to fight the Europeans you really have to swarm them with lots of flanking bonuses. The 1-range ranged attack might not work, but its worth a try.
But even then, I worry that warfare will be pretty boring when we have very little except infantry.
Thoughts?
So far I have:
That is a really short list, but I can't really think of anything else that would fit historically.
But then that is kind of lame if there is no military tech improvement after you get access to each unit.
One thought was; maybe we could leave these techs, but have some "superior" promotions that are unlocked only by higher level military techs? So you start with just 10% strength promotions, but then can get particular 20% promotions with higher techs?
Could we also have some interesting promotion specialization, so that there is a human player advantage to effectively using their specialized units?
What is the Maori warrior effect from Polynesia DLC (I don't have that), does it give a strength penalty to neighboring units? Maybe we could put that on the Raider unit, so that the Raider is basically there as a flanker?
What is the best way to distinguish Mere and Taiha units (I'd thought of giving Mere a city attack bonus and Taiha a defensive bonus?), and are there any other important Maori weapons we could consider?
We want warfare to be interesting, so my main thoughts are to give the musket units a 1 range ranged attack, have the European units all get a penalty in forests (maybe in all rough terrain?), have the one cavalry unit end its turn on rough terrain (like a chariot), make the European units tough but in low numbers, so that to fight the Europeans you really have to swarm them with lots of flanking bonuses. The 1-range ranged attack might not work, but its worth a try.
But even then, I worry that warfare will be pretty boring when we have very little except infantry.
Thoughts?
Ahriman
Tyrant
Can a promotion give a boost to base strength? ie +X strength, rather than +Y% strength?
Can a promotion be made "free", ie doesn't require a levelup?
If so, then techs could boost the existing units.
The other alternative is to have "Mark I, Mark II, Mark III" versions of some units, but that just strikes me as.... lame.
Also: is it possible to block access to particular techs to particular civs?
Can a promotion be made "free", ie doesn't require a levelup?
If so, then techs could boost the existing units.
The other alternative is to have "Mark I, Mark II, Mark III" versions of some units, but that just strikes me as.... lame.
Also: is it possible to block access to particular techs to particular civs?
Spatzimaus
Mad Scientist
Just dropping in...
Not in XML, but Lua can adjust a unit's base strength value to whatever value you want. (Note that this won't work for ranged units; it'll change their Combat value, which they use on defense, but there's no equivalent Lua function to change the ranged combat value.)
I use this function in my own mod for "Psi" units, which adjust their strength up or down depending on the strength of the unit they fight, and then I return it to the original value at the end of the combat. The standard Lua disclaimer applies: if you wait until the start of a fight to move its strength up, then the AI's decision on whether to attack or not will be made without this adjustment. But if you do the shift at the start of a turn, it WILL account for the discrepancy correctly, so depending on exactly how you want to handle this, the AI might be just fine with it.
If a promotion is selected through the level-up interface, then it increases the costs of the next ones automatically (although you can easily override this in Lua). However, a promotion given to a unit through any Lua function doesn't automatically increment this counter (although you can also change a unit's level very easily), so you can simply make various Lua triggers that give a promotion to certain types of units at certain times. It's basically the same mechanism the game already uses when giving promotions to units trained in cities containing a certain building.
Yes, but not easily. There are basically two ways to do it:
1> Set the techs as Disabled, and then create a Lua triggering mechanism that gives the techs to players who meet certain requirements.
I use this in my Alpha Centauri mod; on the turn after launching the spaceship, you're awarded the Centauri Ecology tech, which is a prerequisite for most of the future techs. On the plus side, there's very little UI modification needed; the only headache is in creating an appropriate Lua trigger mechanism. But as you can guess, this mechanism works far better for a single tech than it would for an entire race-specific tree.
2> Create a series of custom techs, one per civ. Using a fantasy setting, you might have the Elf technology, the Dwarf technology, and the Human technology. If you wanted any later techs to be Elf-only, you'd simply make the Elf tech be one of its prerequisites, and so on for the other races.
You'd have to heavily alter the Tech Tree UI code, though, to keep it from displaying the techs that your race will never have. And the worst part is the duplication; if you wanted two races to share the same unit, you'd have to create two separate-but-identical units (although they could share a unit class), and place one at each tech. For units and normal buildings this is just an annoyance, but for obvious reasons you can't put World Wonders at these techs.
Both of these methods share one severe drawback, though. City-states and Barbarians gain some of their techs through theft; more correctly, ALL Barbarian techs and some CS techs are gained this way.
What happens, from what I can tell, is that every turn that a civ has a tech that the CSs and barbs don't, they're given a random chance to gain it for free. The more civs that have it, the more likely they are to steal. This is why city-states can keep up technologically despite having only one city (and Barbarians despite having NO cities); as the game progresses they're getting most of their techs this way.
And yes, I've confirmed that they CAN steal disabled techs this way; I had to keep a very close eye on this process when I was developing the aforementioned Alpha Centauri logic. So in either of the above solutions, you'd have a serious problem where the city-states and barbarians can and will gain techs you have no intention of letting them have.
Not in XML, but Lua can adjust a unit's base strength value to whatever value you want. (Note that this won't work for ranged units; it'll change their Combat value, which they use on defense, but there's no equivalent Lua function to change the ranged combat value.)
I use this function in my own mod for "Psi" units, which adjust their strength up or down depending on the strength of the unit they fight, and then I return it to the original value at the end of the combat. The standard Lua disclaimer applies: if you wait until the start of a fight to move its strength up, then the AI's decision on whether to attack or not will be made without this adjustment. But if you do the shift at the start of a turn, it WILL account for the discrepancy correctly, so depending on exactly how you want to handle this, the AI might be just fine with it.
If a promotion is selected through the level-up interface, then it increases the costs of the next ones automatically (although you can easily override this in Lua). However, a promotion given to a unit through any Lua function doesn't automatically increment this counter (although you can also change a unit's level very easily), so you can simply make various Lua triggers that give a promotion to certain types of units at certain times. It's basically the same mechanism the game already uses when giving promotions to units trained in cities containing a certain building.
Yes, but not easily. There are basically two ways to do it:
1> Set the techs as Disabled, and then create a Lua triggering mechanism that gives the techs to players who meet certain requirements.
I use this in my Alpha Centauri mod; on the turn after launching the spaceship, you're awarded the Centauri Ecology tech, which is a prerequisite for most of the future techs. On the plus side, there's very little UI modification needed; the only headache is in creating an appropriate Lua trigger mechanism. But as you can guess, this mechanism works far better for a single tech than it would for an entire race-specific tree.
2> Create a series of custom techs, one per civ. Using a fantasy setting, you might have the Elf technology, the Dwarf technology, and the Human technology. If you wanted any later techs to be Elf-only, you'd simply make the Elf tech be one of its prerequisites, and so on for the other races.
You'd have to heavily alter the Tech Tree UI code, though, to keep it from displaying the techs that your race will never have. And the worst part is the duplication; if you wanted two races to share the same unit, you'd have to create two separate-but-identical units (although they could share a unit class), and place one at each tech. For units and normal buildings this is just an annoyance, but for obvious reasons you can't put World Wonders at these techs.
Both of these methods share one severe drawback, though. City-states and Barbarians gain some of their techs through theft; more correctly, ALL Barbarian techs and some CS techs are gained this way.
What happens, from what I can tell, is that every turn that a civ has a tech that the CSs and barbs don't, they're given a random chance to gain it for free. The more civs that have it, the more likely they are to steal. This is why city-states can keep up technologically despite having only one city (and Barbarians despite having NO cities); as the game progresses they're getting most of their techs this way.
And yes, I've confirmed that they CAN steal disabled techs this way; I had to keep a very close eye on this process when I was developing the aforementioned Alpha Centauri logic. So in either of the above solutions, you'd have a serious problem where the city-states and barbarians can and will gain techs you have no intention of letting them have.
CMKMStephens
Serious.
The lifespan of the units (Maori) could be increased by a parallel set of technologies/auto promotions concerning fortification. Historically, the 60 years from 1800 to 1860 saw continuous innovation in fortification for dealing with the increased level of warfare and arrival of muskets, through to dealing with rifling, the English, proper artillery.
For example something like Entrenchment / Palisades / Pa / Earth-and-Flax work Palisades (flexibility of flax plus stopping power of earth proved effective against the low velocity muskets) / 'Modern Pa' / Redoubt
If there are specific Maori names for some of the other ones, I'm not sure.
Ahriman
Tyrant
Certainly there will be multiple stages of fortification building, I have those in the building list (palisade, pa, gunfighter's pa; I think three will be enough for a mod with a modest-sized tech tree) and I could see some scope for entrenchment-based promotions, but this doesn't help much for expanding the set of units. I think it is important for gameplay purposes that technological advancement increases your military strength. Otherwise it is possible to just focus purely on military all game, get none of the economy stuff, none of the tech stuff, and just blitz through to a conquest win.
*edit* I have some deadlines coming up so won't be able to work on this more until next week
*edit* I have some deadlines coming up so won't be able to work on this more until next week
CMKMStephens
Serious.
Sure, though like I said I can only help out in basic map editing when it comes to content.
And for the fortification I was thinking that fortification on the fly (as in, the units able to build them) might be a big part of the scenario.
And for the fortification I was thinking that fortification on the fly (as in, the units able to build them) might be a big part of the scenario.
Ahriman
Tyrant
I do not think this would work very well.
The AI is no good at building forts or citadels in Civ5, and it has never been any good at using on-map fort improvements in any version of Civ. It's just too hard to get an AI to do well.
I think it is farm better to limit fortification to city buildings, the fortify command and unit promotions, rather than creating a major mechanic that the AI can't use.
Ahriman
Tyrant
For the Maori scenario, or for the Pacific?
For the Maori scenario, I have 7 Maori civs (see the Civs tab of the attached design doc), each would have a UA, but probably no need for a UU or UB. There would also be (AI-only civs) Great Britain and France; these could have UAs or not, and Britain would be heavily scripted with reinforcements (free military units, settlers, land agents with culture bomb that appear in particular places).
Attached is where I'm at for the moment on the NZ/Maori scenario, haven't had time to do much extra work.
Priority needs to be on clarifying the military side, along with any tech-dependent upgrades or promotions, and then pulling the military, buildings and improvements together into a tech tree.
Any further suggestions for Christianity social policies and affects would be helpful too. I'm not sure that a "happiness" tree really works very well as a concept. Maybe it should just be a builder tree? Perhaps it could give some settler units to allow Maori players to expand? [Settlers will be unbuildable, so a settler would be very precious.]
A few more Wonder suggestions would also be helpful.
Ahriman
Tyrant
Brainstorming ideas or feedback for the Maori scenario would be appreciated.
