Promotions

[davidlallen]

is it possible to limit the distance that melee units can travel into desert squares? for example melee units can't be more than 5 squares from soild rock?

I don't think we can make three types of terrain, including "deep" desert and "really deep" desert. But, we could do more with desert waste (coast), like vanilla galleys. Today most units get desert waste and deep desert movement at the same time. We could make some units or techs able to move onto desert waste; those units might get deep desert movement much later, or maybe never. What do you think?

 

[Deliverator]

I guess that an appropriate effect for a Stillsuit might be to reduce unit maintenance, but that is probably not a very exciting promotion, and/or might be too powerful economy-wise.

 

[Slvynn]

I like this idea alot. Actually if any melee unit somehow aquire stillsuit (which is quite possible, espessially for Atreides/BG melee units (lore wise), and anyone at all (game wise, its a game, and Harkonnen found Mahdi sometimes too) , it should be able to , at least, peek into a desert.

 

[Ahriman]

But, we could do more with desert waste (coast), like vanilla galleys. Today most units get desert waste and deep desert movement at the same time. We could make some units or techs able to move onto desert waste; those units might get deep desert movement much later, or maybe never. What do you think?

This sounds plausible.
We would have to think about how this would interact with expansion across islands in the early game, and Fremen expansion and (potential) new AI in particular.
Supposing we got Fremen to be able to use sandrider settlers well, we might kill Fremen again by making their settlers unable to cross deep desert.

My worry is that a lot of the time you could start on an island that was separated from all other islands by a narrow strip of deep desert, and so that faction woudl be choked off in terms of expansion. This could also limit access to the polar area.

But as a potential implementation:
Thopters and suspensors, at game start, can only enter desert waste tiles (and polar desert wastse).
Thopters and suspensors gain the ability to enter deep desert with the dune topography tech.

Sandrider promtion allows Fremen units to enter desert waste tiles (and polar desert waste), either from game start or with the Stillsuit tech.
Sandrider units can enter deep desert only with the renamed Riding the Worm tech (which is now "desert ways", or something?).

And potentially if this was too restrictive, we could change the mapscripts so that desert waste spread out 2 tiles from land, rather than 1 tile. So travel between islands would be blocked if there was a 5 tile gap between them, rather than a 3 tile gap.

I guess that an appropriate effect for a Stillsuit might be to reduce unit maintenance

Interestnig, but I think unit maintenance is already probably not important enough.

 

[davidlallen]

Supposing we got Fremen to be able to use sandrider settlers well, we might kill Fremen again by making their settlers unable to cross deep desert.

Any change we make with this would improve non-Fremen desert movement, without changing Fremen desert movement.

But as a potential implementation:
Thopters and suspensors, at game start, can only enter desert waste tiles (and polar desert wastse).
Thopters and suspensors gain the ability to enter deep desert with the dune topography tech.

If we prevent thopters from moving into deep desert until midgame, then we do have to worry more about isolated islands. My thought was that the stillsuit promotion would enable infantry, only, to move into desert waste / polar waste, only. So it is adding some mobility, not taking any away.

The only implementation problem with adding desert waste movement to infantry is that desert waste is internally "ocean", which means any unit to move onto desert waste needs to be an "all terrain" unit. We have not tested all the different combinations of unitai and all terrain; it is not really clear how well the existing units would use this capability. We can try it, and see if the AI uses it well.

 

[Ahriman]

Any change we make with this would improve non-Fremen desert movement, without changing Fremen desert movement.

Are you suggesting that non-Fremen ground units should be entering desert tiles? I thought you were very very opposed to that. It could mess up the transport AI too.

Moving thopter/suspensors to needing a tech to cross deep desert without doing the same for Fremen would just mean that human-controlled Fremen and fixed-AI fremen would have easy first access to the polar region (which is blocked by deep desert).
So that't probably not a great idea.

Also, there used to be an issue (still is?) where units blocked from deep desert could still enter it if on a spice resource.

My thought was that the stillsuit promotion would enable infantry, only, to move into desert waste / polar waste, only. So it is adding some mobility, not taking any away.

I suggested this a while ago (within cultural borders at least), you hated it
I'm not sure which of us are right anymore.

We can try it, and see if the AI uses it well

We can, but my guess is it would not. Probably internal testing of this would be wise, its too major to include in a public release without testing.

So what you're proposing is:
Sandrider units can enter desert waste tiles and deep desert tiles from game start.
Suspensors and thotpers can enter desert waste tiles and deep desert tiles from game start.
Non sandrider suspensors and thopters can enter desert waste tiles after stillsuit tech, and can never enter deep desert.

 

[davidlallen]

So what you're proposing is:
Sandrider units can enter desert waste tiles and deep desert tiles from game start.
Suspensors and thotpers can enter desert waste tiles and deep desert tiles from game start.
Non sandrider suspensors and thopters can enter desert waste tiles after stillsuit tech, and can never enter deep desert.

Yes, that is correct. This recent sub-thread was started by PL, and I was trying to find some alternative approach which would be possible to implement. Now we can discuss whether this is a good idea and how important it is to try, compared to other possible projects. I would prefer to wait a little while before making this type of change.

 

[Ahriman]

Non sandrider suspensors and thopters can enter desert waste tiles after stillsuit tech, and can never enter deep desert.

Now we can discuss whether this is a good idea

Pros:
Fremen guardsmen would be able to cross desert waste without neednig sandrider or transports.
Places higher value on Stillsuits tech.
Arguably more "logical" (why can't infantry walk into deserts?).
Makes worms more interesting if there are more things for them to eat.
Makes desert warfare a potentially valuable promotion for normal infantry units.
Improves infantry movement rates by foot.

Potential issues:
AI may not recognize that its units can enter desert waste tiles. Or it may not see enemy units in desert waste tiles as a threat (are they a different AI domain?): potentially you could walk an infantry stack up to an enemy city, saying in desert waste tiles, without them being able to attack you. Certainly they wouldn't be able to attack your infantry stack with vehicles (who couldn't enter desert).
The AI tends to move its units in stacks, and can get badly confused or behave suboptimally if some units in the stack can't enter tiles that other units in the stack can enter. An AI stack of infantry with even a single siege unit or vehicle could get confused and stick to land.
Also this means that the human (who knows how to separate their units) could gain more than the AI.
Humans will also potentially gain an exploit if they understand that their settlers can cross desert waste, while the AI doesn't and must move them in transports.

If the AI issues are solved:
Thopter raiding is no longer possible (start 1 tile offshore, move, pillage, move back to safety of desert waste tile), which significantly reduces the utility of thopters.
Suspensor/thopter stacks brining amphibious invasions are much more vulnerable; if they stop one-tile offshore, they can be assaulted by land units before unloading, potnetially destroying the transports and their cargo.
Fremen desert access is less unique.