Pineappledan's Congress-Winning (1st round) Recon Proposal

[Tekamthi]

misconceptions commonly held around time of 1st VP congress led to recon movement designs that could not be implemented: specifically, many of us believed that a "double move" bonus in hills would stack with the same bonus in forest/jungle, leading to quadruple movement bonuses -- however this is false -- double move bonuses don't stack

I've pulled over @pineappledan's winning proposal from round 1 of VP congress, for reference:

Spoiler :

Proposal Details
This is a counterproposal to @ilteroi's proposal for removing double movement abilities from the scout line.
His proposal adds % withdraw chances as recompense for the lost double movement abilities. Withdraw chances have already been removed from the scout line in the past, because they were random chance mechanics and unpopular with certain members of the community.

Here is what I propose:
All Recon Units have base 3 moves and lose "Ignore Terrain Cost" (affects Pathfinder, Scout, Paratrooper, Special Forces, XCOM. Explorer and Commando are Unaffected)

• Trailblazer 1:
  • +1 Sight.
  • Ignore movement penalties on forest, jungle, and hills.
• Trailblazer 2:
  • +1 moves.
  • Ignore movement penalties from desert, snow, marshes, and rivers.
  • no penalty for attacking over rivers.
• Trailblazer 3:
  • Ignores ZOC.
  • Can cross mountains and embark
  • +20% CS Outside friendly territory.

Other promotions:

• Scouting 1(Available at TB 2 and Survival 2): +1 Sight
• Scouting 2: +1 moves
• Scouting 3: removed
• Frogman (New promotion):
  • Available at TB III
  • Costs 1 Move to Embark and Disembark
  • No penalty to attack from embarked
  • +50%defense when Embarked

99.9% of the 1st round winning proposal can be implemented via database -- the only difference is where PD proposed "Ignore movement penalties on": we cannot "ignore" but we can give double moves, and double moves in a 2-move-cost plot = 1 MP cost = same as ignore. Gameplay-wise, the only differences you'll see by playing this modmod vs what PD proposed and most of you voted for, are the following:

• a forest/jungle/desert/snow hill & marsh will cost 1.5 MP instead of proposal's intended 1MP
• oasis & floodplain will cost 0.5 MP instead of proposal's intended 1MP

These are completely negligible differences if you ask me.

Now, I don't actually think this proposal is an ideal fix for recon issues -- there are some important issues left unaddressed, and in particular I find 5-MP recon just too mobile -- but it did WIN congress vote with 70.1% voting in favor. And it is better than status quo in that it eliminates stacking of ignore/double move. There's no good reason we've stalled out on fixing these units for so long.

 

[Anarcomu]

Just a note that it makes moving alongside desert floodplain extremely quick, in addition to oases.

 

[Tekamthi]

after posting this, I realized its likely that I can fix the oasis issue. Flood plain too. I can't fix the forest/etc. hills, though i enjoy that these cost a little more

edit: oops spoke too soon -- the fix I had in mind is negated in this implementation. Anyway, noted in OP

there are some very inelegant ways this could yet be accomplished, but my point here is just proof of concept, not gonna worry about this too much.