Question about the Fortress improvement and defense values

[Greizer85]

(MGE, if it matters.)

I'm a little embarrassed about making new threads so often, but hey, there's hardly any traffic on this forum.

So, the current conundrum involves unit defense values and their interaction with the Fortress terrain improvement. In looking for a solution to the infamous '1 defender dies and your whole stack goes down with it' issue of Civ II, I stumbled upon an ingenious trick that was used in some mod or other: placing an invisible Fortress on every single square of the map! I decided to use this trick in my scenario, since I cannot stand the idiotic stack death mechanic. However, there's scarce resources on the net about the interaction of the various defense modifiers, and I cba to conduct tests myself (many rolls needed since the combat is so random), so here are my questions for now:

1) I tried to lower the default defense bonus of most terrains to -50% (so your defense gets halved, negating the Fortress' doubling effect); however, the in-game terrain info display still says the defense bonus of those terrains is 'Normal'. Is this a display issue only (i.e. the game is not designed to show negative 'bonuses'), or is it hard-coded that there can't be negative defense modifiers on the terrains?

2) Another way to tackle the issue would be to alter the defense bonus of the Fortress improvement, so that it would give no bonus. Is this possible, and if so, how? Also a follow-up question: the Civ II combat guide that I found here on CFC says that being in a Fortress negates the effect of the normal fortifying bonus. If I alter the Fortress to give no bonus, would fortifying then again provide its +50 %? (Hope that makes sense, I can't think of an easier way to say it atm.)

3) The third and most laborious option is to halve the defense values of all the units (or double the attack values). I'd rather not deal with this added hindrance, as balancing the various values is already hard enough without it. However, in the event that there is no other way, are there any potential ramifications that I'd have to take into account while cavalierly halving/doubling everything?

Cheers,
Greiz

EDIT: I thought of a clever way of testing #1. I changed the defense bonus of Grassland to 0, and sure enough, units cannot shoot back when attacked on said terrain. I then gave Armor 10 hp to cut down on the random noise in the combat, and it seems that the combat results are indeed consistent with the actual values given in Rules.txt. But the display issue remains. Ofc most people playing Civ II scenarios nowadays must be fairly well-acquainted with the game, and I could simply put "READ THIS FILE OR BLAME YOURSELF FOR LOSING!!!" as the title of the Readme and then detail the whole issue on the first few rows in red block letters (if Notepad allowed them ). However, that's not, as they say, neat. Still, #1 is strictly neater than #3, so only #2 (the ideal solution, imo) remains to be tackled. The biggest harm that could be done with it is that the player keeps fortifying his units in vain, and even that might be avoidable. So, I'm all ears.

EDIT2: One test solved 2/3 of my problems in 5 minutes. I think I'm getting the hang of this whole modding thing.

 

[minipow01]

Experimentation is your friend.

Option #2 is not viable AFAIK because the defense bonus of the fortress is hard-coded into the game. Option #1 is best. As a veteran Civ2 player, I can confirm that there is a bug in the display of the terrain defense bonus. It's really annoying. For some reason, a terrain defense value of "1" is listed as 'Normal' in the game, when it should state -50%.

If you choose to use option #1 in a scenario, be sure to place cities over special terrain. Otherwise, unwalled cities will be extremely vulnerable to ground attack (and walled cities will still be extra vulnerable to howitzers, ship bombardment, and air attack). This is because city placement overrides any prior terrain improvements (fortress, roads, irrigation, etc.). You should only place cities over terrain squares that have defense values of "2" or higher.

By the way, I really like your medium-sized Civ2 map It makes it more enjoyable to play as one of the European civs or the Japanese.

 

[Greizer85]

Experimentation is your friend.

Option #2 is not viable AFAIK because the defense bonus of the fortress is hard-coded into the game. Option #1 is best. As a veteran Civ2 player, I can confirm that there is a bug in the display of the terrain defense bonus. It's really annoying. For some reason, a terrain defense value of "1" is listed as 'Normal' in the game, when it should state -50%.

If you choose to use option #1 in a scenario, be sure to place cities over special terrain. Otherwise, unwalled cities will be extremely vulnerable to ground attack (and walled cities will still be extra vulnerable to howitzers, ship bombardment, and air attack). This is because city placement overrides any prior terrain improvements (fortress, roads, irrigation, etc.). You should only place cities over terrain squares that have defense values of "2" or higher.

While I thank you for this info -- which is invaluable, unobtainable elsewhere and could have ruined my scenario if I didn't know about it! -- it sinks my heart a little bit, because in my scenario (unlike in most) the cities will be founded as the game goes along, meaning that the clueless AI will found its cities anywhere it pleases. Also, imo City Walls are grossly over-powered and prevent meaningful conquests (other than by bribery) until Howitzers are available, so I intend to disable them, which further adds to the problem. I think #3 is my only viable option at this point. At least it avoids the graphical bug problem.

By the way, I really like your medium-sized Civ2 map It makes it more enjoyable to play as one of the European civs or the Japanese.

I'm glad to hear this! There was a new version uploaded on the 25th; be sure to re-download if you haven't, since there were numerous improvements made. It will be the last version for months at least, as I will focus on other projects (chiefly my scenario) for the foreseeable future.

I might make a slightly bigger world map down the line, because the one I made is slightly too small for my tastes after all is said and done -- I only noticed this when I actually started a few games on the map, so it was too late to switch to a bigger size at that point. Don't expect this new map in months or even a year though -- I want to make it pitch-perfect, the definitive Civ II world map, and after all these years that's quite an undertaking. Who knows, the best maps might be lost to the sands of time at this point.

 

[clightning]

You forgot one problem:
if double attack or half defence of units to compensate Fortress bonus on open field, when you attact a city, which has no bonus, the attackers still enjoys a 2:1 bonus, from the A/D value this time rather than from terrain bonus.