WarKirby
Arty person
One thing that really excited me about FF, (and one of the primary reasons I downloaded it in the first place) was the concept of archers being able to bombard from a distance with arrows. This just seems so right and obvious, it's a shame it wasn't in vanilla civ to begin with.
But while the concept is great, it's actual implementation is kind of disappointing. I think it's too weak, for the most part, and perhaps overpowered in certain situations.
The way it works, as far as I can tell, is doing a random amount of damage, to a single unit in a stack, which is capped at 20%. Meaning that you can't weaken anyone below 80% health.
The cap is my biggest problem. 20% damage can be kind of useful, but it just doesn't feel like enough. I'd really love to see no cap at all, so it could actually be possible to kill things.
If the cap were just removed as is though, it would be horribly overpowered. BEcause as near as I can tell, the 20% damage it does seems to be just that, an arbitary application of roughly 20%, whether it's to a warrior, or a level 20 phalanx.
I think it would be nice to have the damage much more dependant on the strength of the unit. The amount of damage it does would be calculated based on the user's attack strength, versus the defender's defence strength. Roughly equivilant to what the odds would be for a battle.
For example, an archer shooting a warrior in open ground, would do roughly 50% damage, as they're exactly equal. Shooting an axeman should do significantly less, although not quite as much less as the archer's odds of attacking would be against the axeman, because that would be worthless.
I'm thinking, it should use only the base defence strength of the unit, not any additional bonuses they have, like Combat promotions, etc. However, some other things should affect it.
Some math work will be required here to find a suitable formula, but the main idea being that archers would be very effective against warriors, moderately good against axemen, and kind of poor (but not useless) against champions. Then moving up to longbowmen, they should make mincemeat of axemen(and warriors), do reasonably well against champions, and be somewhat mediocre against phalanxes (they have big shields)
Being in a city could offer 30% resistance to ranged attacks (you have buildings to hide in)
And having walls, or a palisade, could add another 20% resistance
Being in a forest could provide a 40% resistance bonus (arrows hit trees)
As I mentioned, I don't think most promotion bonuses should affect defence against ranged attacks, since how good you are at beating someone up, isn't going to save you from an arrow through the chest.
An exception however, the Cover promotion, since it relates directly. It's 40% versus archery units wouldn't be applied, but it would provide a 20% resistance to ranged attacks, which would be used.
Also, heroes should have a 40% natural resistance to it. Not because they're heroes. But because a hero is one man (or woman), and when you're firing arrows blindly into an area, you have a much lower chance of hitting someone if there's only one person there, as opposed to a small group of troops.
Similar to that concept, I think there should be additional resistance to ranged attacks, as you take damage. Equal to maybe 0.3* the percentage of damage currently taken, so a unit 60% damaged would have 20% resistance. The idea here, being that as people in the group are killed, their numbers thin out, and so there are less targets for the barrage to hit, meaning less chance of hitting something.
On the offensive side, I think standing on a hill, or inside a city, should provide a bonus to the archers doing the shooting. +25% each respectively. As the high vantage point gives them a better view of the target, and a longer effective range. There could also be a few ranged attack specific promotions, that would give % bonuses to ranged attack damage. These would compete with the City Defence promotions, giving players a tactical decision to make, as to how to promote archers.
I see archery combat in two different ways.
The first, is the direct combat. What happens when one unit moves onto the tile of another. In this, I imagine the archers unloading as many shots into the oncoming enemy as they can (that's where the first strikes come in), and then pulling out a sword/knife/club when they get in close.
The ranged combat, I see as a barrage. The archers all aiming high, and just firing arrows blindly into a general area, usually because the enemy isn't close enough to aim at properly yet.
With that in mind, I'm wondering about the targeting system of it. I'm thinking, rather than attacking the strongest unit in the stack, barrages should just hit one random unit in the stack.
This has been kind of long winded I know, but I feel the ranged combat system as is, is kind of missed potential. It makes a nice novelty, but a mage with maelstrom can do up to 50% damage to everything in a massive radius. And that doesn't feel overpowered.
Lastly, I think it would be nice to have a hard cap of 95% damage in one barrage. It should be possible, I think, to completely kill a unit with barrage, but not easy, and not really worth the effort. That cap would mean a full health unit would take at least two barrages. And in any case, only a highly promoted longbowman vs a weak warrior is really going to approach that much damage.
What does everyone think?
But while the concept is great, it's actual implementation is kind of disappointing. I think it's too weak, for the most part, and perhaps overpowered in certain situations.
The way it works, as far as I can tell, is doing a random amount of damage, to a single unit in a stack, which is capped at 20%. Meaning that you can't weaken anyone below 80% health.
The cap is my biggest problem. 20% damage can be kind of useful, but it just doesn't feel like enough. I'd really love to see no cap at all, so it could actually be possible to kill things.
If the cap were just removed as is though, it would be horribly overpowered. BEcause as near as I can tell, the 20% damage it does seems to be just that, an arbitary application of roughly 20%, whether it's to a warrior, or a level 20 phalanx.
I think it would be nice to have the damage much more dependant on the strength of the unit. The amount of damage it does would be calculated based on the user's attack strength, versus the defender's defence strength. Roughly equivilant to what the odds would be for a battle.
For example, an archer shooting a warrior in open ground, would do roughly 50% damage, as they're exactly equal. Shooting an axeman should do significantly less, although not quite as much less as the archer's odds of attacking would be against the axeman, because that would be worthless.
I'm thinking, it should use only the base defence strength of the unit, not any additional bonuses they have, like Combat promotions, etc. However, some other things should affect it.
Some math work will be required here to find a suitable formula, but the main idea being that archers would be very effective against warriors, moderately good against axemen, and kind of poor (but not useless) against champions. Then moving up to longbowmen, they should make mincemeat of axemen(and warriors), do reasonably well against champions, and be somewhat mediocre against phalanxes (they have big shields)
Being in a city could offer 30% resistance to ranged attacks (you have buildings to hide in)
And having walls, or a palisade, could add another 20% resistance
Being in a forest could provide a 40% resistance bonus (arrows hit trees)
As I mentioned, I don't think most promotion bonuses should affect defence against ranged attacks, since how good you are at beating someone up, isn't going to save you from an arrow through the chest.
An exception however, the Cover promotion, since it relates directly. It's 40% versus archery units wouldn't be applied, but it would provide a 20% resistance to ranged attacks, which would be used.
Also, heroes should have a 40% natural resistance to it. Not because they're heroes. But because a hero is one man (or woman), and when you're firing arrows blindly into an area, you have a much lower chance of hitting someone if there's only one person there, as opposed to a small group of troops.
Similar to that concept, I think there should be additional resistance to ranged attacks, as you take damage. Equal to maybe 0.3* the percentage of damage currently taken, so a unit 60% damaged would have 20% resistance. The idea here, being that as people in the group are killed, their numbers thin out, and so there are less targets for the barrage to hit, meaning less chance of hitting something.
On the offensive side, I think standing on a hill, or inside a city, should provide a bonus to the archers doing the shooting. +25% each respectively. As the high vantage point gives them a better view of the target, and a longer effective range. There could also be a few ranged attack specific promotions, that would give % bonuses to ranged attack damage. These would compete with the City Defence promotions, giving players a tactical decision to make, as to how to promote archers.
I see archery combat in two different ways.
The first, is the direct combat. What happens when one unit moves onto the tile of another. In this, I imagine the archers unloading as many shots into the oncoming enemy as they can (that's where the first strikes come in), and then pulling out a sword/knife/club when they get in close.
The ranged combat, I see as a barrage. The archers all aiming high, and just firing arrows blindly into a general area, usually because the enemy isn't close enough to aim at properly yet.
With that in mind, I'm wondering about the targeting system of it. I'm thinking, rather than attacking the strongest unit in the stack, barrages should just hit one random unit in the stack.
This has been kind of long winded I know, but I feel the ranged combat system as is, is kind of missed potential. It makes a nice novelty, but a mage with maelstrom can do up to 50% damage to everything in a massive radius. And that doesn't feel overpowered.
Lastly, I think it would be nice to have a hard cap of 95% damage in one barrage. It should be possible, I think, to completely kill a unit with barrage, but not easy, and not really worth the effort. That cap would mean a full health unit would take at least two barrages. And in any case, only a highly promoted longbowman vs a weak warrior is really going to approach that much damage.
What does everyone think?