[Extension] Pineappledan Tweaks for VP

[Denn]

+1 influence to cs for germany not working. ive given many units to 1 cs but influence per turn is -0.66 still

 

[pineappledan]

Even after the re-upload at noon yesterday? I wasn't having any issues with it

 

[Denn]

Even after the re-upload at noon yesterday? I wasn't having any issues with it

yep downloaded the new one and still no. In fact I noticed +5 influence level still applies and no +1 per turn

Yet, i dont know if this is the issue with Germany only but monuments make +2 tourism from the start.
Edit: my bad +1 from cs but the other +1 tourism is still unknown.

 

[Bruhmoment]

Is it on purpose that I can't gift barbarian brutes and the ullfhedin that converted it?
Edit: I think I need for them to be full health in order to gift, oops

 

[Bruhmoment]

Same problem as Denn, I don't get any more influence per turn with city states, even though I gifted more than 2 units. What could be the cause of this?
You did say remove whatever you want and it won't change anything, so I removed the power plants - changes too much for me. I doubt that's the cause, though

 

[pineappledan]

reuploaded. maybe it works now?
Tourism on monuments: No idea what that is; definitely not this most though

 

[Drakle]

Holy moly, do NOT use this reworked German UA with 4UC. The synergy between being able to gift off units you got for free in the early game, and an extremely cheap warrior unit you can still purchase up to Medieval is unreal. I can't even determine if the UA is fair or not, because the Ulfhedinn just combines with it with such devastating effect.

I am re-uploading a version for now that removes the unit level scaling. I'd like some feedback on this German UA design from someone who doesn't use 4UC.

I mean I did tell you, this issue would happen.

 

[Heinz_Guderian]

 

[ridjack]

So I'm planning to give it a bit longer, but I don't think I love the Swordsman changes. While I understand the rationale behind it and don't disagree with it in principle, losing Cover in favor of Sidearm sorta returns them to feeling the way they did before Cover was added; that is to say, I generally don't feel much impetus to build them. They don't feel markedly stronger than than Spearmen, but require connecting a resource, researching an entire other tech and (I believe?) have a higher production cost. In the time it takes one Swordsman to come online, I can easily have built three or four spearmen and have been researching a more useful tech. Longswordsmen would be a bit better, except that they have to go up against Knights, which are still the single strongest non-unique unit in the game relative to era. So at that point, unless my opponent somehow has no horses, I probably want Pikemen more anyway.

I think them having Cover gave them a solid niche specifically for conquering. Sidearm is a kind of uninteresting straight buff that doesn't enough to incline me towards the units.

 

[pineappledan]

I hoped to start a conversation about what kind of promotion bonuses would feel good for sword/longsword to have, not that Sidearm in its current iteration was the best, and only possible route.

The main criticism I have of Cover is that bonus ranged defense is the same as bonus as every other unit:

• Skirmisher line gets ranged defense
• late game gun units all get ranged defense
• Siege units also get cover for free.

Sword line is the please where getting free Cover is the least necessary. It was free Shock I for a long time until people complained that railroaded them into going down that line exclusively. Cover is just a promotion the community defaults to for lack of imagination. We can do better.

 

[Bruhmoment]

I hoped to start a conversation about what kind of promotion bonuses would feel good for sword/longsword to have, not that Sidearm in its current iteration was the best, and only possible route.

The main criticism I have of Cover is that bonus ranged defense is the same as bonus as every other unit:

• Skirmisher line gets ranged defense
• late game gun units all get ranged defense
• Siege units also get cover for free.

Sword line is the please where getting free Cover is the least necessary. It was free Shock I for a long time until people complained that railroaded them into going down that line exclusively. Cover is just a promotion the community defaults to for lack of imagination. We can do better.

You could maybe remove the cover from the catapult and replace it with something that maybe gives a bonus to city siege? But that's already in the game so who knows, I think the swordsman cover is fine enough, they're made to be built plenty because of the flanking bonus

 

[ridjack]

There's a discussion in the main forum about the City Assault promotion where I mention changing it around so that it focuses on doing damage to the garrison rather than actual city damage. That general idea sounds fitting for a unit whose weapon is entirely focused on close quarters, hand-to-hand combat.

 

[pineappledan]

No new code would be preferable.

I picked flanking and defense as bonuses because that leans into the primary benefits of swords: they are flexible and mainly defensive, rather than offensive weapons. Also, the old promotions were shock (flanking bonus) and Cover (defense bonus), so I thought to generalize the two.

Also keep in mind the promotion needs to make up for that 1CS point lost in my unit CS rebalance

Maybe increasing the defense to 15% is all that's necessary? That's just 10% less than a cover bonus and is more general. The flanking bonus is quite good on its own.

 

[Stalker0]

I hoped to start a conversation about what kind of promotion bonuses would feel good for sword/longsword to have, not that Sidearm in its current iteration was the best, and only possible route.

The main criticism I have of Cover is that bonus ranged defense is the same as bonus as every other unit:

• Skirmisher line gets ranged defense
• late game gun units all get ranged defense
• Siege units also get cover for free.

Sword line is the please where getting free Cover is the least necessary. It was free Shock I for a long time until people complained that railroaded them into going down that line exclusively. Cover is just a promotion the community defaults to for lack of imagination. We can do better.

So I do think its important to look at sword units individually, as the environment they enter into is pretty difference. Finding the "common ground" between them may help some of the discussion.

Swords are very "late" for their time in the game. A combination of late tech, low mobility, and high expense means that their ability to project force is a narrow window before more superior units start arriving on the field. The sword's nemesis is the c bow, a unit that has been around for a lot longer and is easy to mass. Swords are pretty decent walled city siegers, and curb stomp unwalled cities.

Longswords can come late or early depending on which path of the tree you are focusing on. Their main nemesis is the knight and heavy skirmisher, the crossbow is good against them once it comes out but that comes later. Longswords are not great city takers, even with Drill II CA.... castled cities tend to require siege units to break.

 

[ridjack]

No new code would be preferable.

I picked flanking and defense as bonuses because that leans into the primary benefits of swords: they are flexible and mainly defensive, rather than offensive weapons. Also, the old promotions were shock (flanking bonus) and Cover (defense bonus), so I thought to generalize the two.

Also keep in mind the promotion needs to make up for that 1CS point lost in my unit CS rebalance

Maybe increasing the defense to 15% is all that's necessary? That's just 10% less than a cover bonus and is more general. The flanking bonus is quite good on its own.

It doesn't feel like that would do the job for me, personally, but I'd certainly be willing to give it a shot.

So I do think its important to look at sword units individually, as the environment they enter into is pretty difference. Finding the "common ground" between them may help some of the discussion.

Swords are very "late" for their time in the game. A combination of late tech, low mobility, and high expense means that their ability to project force is a narrow window before more superior units start arriving on the field. The sword's nemesis is the c bow, a unit that has been around for a lot longer and is easy to mass. Swords are pretty decent walled city siegers, and curb stomp unwalled cities.

Longswords can come late or early depending on which path of the tree you are focusing on. Their main nemesis is the knight and heavy skirmisher, the crossbow is good against them once it comes out but that comes later. Longswords are not great city takers, even with Drill II CA.... castled cities tend to require siege units to break.

The more I think about it, the more I think Longswords actually suffer the most purely by their co-existence with Knights. If you have horses, you want Knights most of the time. If you don't have horses and any of your likely opponents do, you want Pikes. Knights do an acceptable of guarding your ranged and siege units, they can more easily blockade a city and they continue dominating the battlefield even when crossbows come online. The main advantage Longswords have is for warmongers who, for whatever reason, don't want to detour from the bottom half of tree to get Chivalry early. And even then, you get Pikes at the exact same tech.

 

[pineappledan]

If I'm a dedicated warmonger then I picked Authority and I'll just buy landsknecht/Free Companies and skip both pikes and swords.

They do everything a pike does, but with more CS, And while they don't have a bonus damage vs garrisons, they do get gold on attack.

So I think Longswords complicate this a lot, and it would be best to focus on getting swordsmen right, then just let it shake out on the longsword end

 

[Bruhmoment]

If I'm a dedicated warmonger I'll just buy landsknecht/Free Companies and skip both pikes and swords.

They do everything a pike does, but with more CS, And while they don't have a bonus damage vs garrisons, they do get gold on attack.

EYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY
there's my tactic
500 gpt is the way to go
Well - I build longswordsmen if I can, they're more powerful than the pikeman but most the time I just buy the Free Company

 

[Stalker0]

The main advantage Longswords have is for warmongers who, for whatever reason, don't want to detour from the bottom half of tree to get Chivalry early. And even then, you get Pikes at the exact same tech.

I think pikes are situationally more useful. In open terrain, yes a pike is a very good defensive unit (especially for the cost). But in rough terrain I would still rather have longswords, and longswords can actually do things against crossbows, pikes really can't.

One idea is to simply continue what melee units get later on...+HP and ranged defense.

Swords maybe get +5 HP and +5% ranged, longswords +10 and +10%....or maybe they both get the same benefit. Call it "heavy armor"

HP is always really useful, so a 16 CS with more HP could definately be equal to a 17 CS with less if the numbers are right.

 

[Hinin]

I think pikes are situationally more useful. In open terrain, yes a pike is a very good defensive unit (especially for the cost). But in rough terrain I would still rather have longswords, and longswords can actually do things against crossbows, pikes really can't.

One idea is to simply continue what melee units get later on...+HP and ranged defense.

Swords maybe get +5 HP and +5% ranged, longswords +10 and +10%....or maybe they both get the same benefit. Call it "heavy armor"

HP is always really useful, so a 16 CS with more HP could definately be equal to a 17 CS with less if the numbers are right.

I actually really like that. It also allows the production and strategic resources invested into Swordsmen and Longswordsmen to be carried over in a meaningful war to the Tercios and later units. I would be for giving both the "Superior Gear" (the name can be modified later) promotion (+10 HP, +10% CS when defending against Ranged attacks, +5% flanking bonus ; kept on upgrade) and reduce the base CS of the Swordsman to 16.

 

[pineappledan]

That is... way weaker than what currently exists, and weaker than cover.