Recon Line Changes

[Stalker0]

This is carried over from a long discussion on the discord and was collected by TwoPod. While I think this is still in rough draft phase, I think its worth cleaning up the text and using the forum to tidy things up so we can see what it actually looks like. I'll note I have made some adjustments based on what was noted in discord, so its not exactly the same.

The proposal is divided into a few areas:

Initial Pathfinder Removal / Scout "Free Upgrade Concept"

Spoiler :

• Scout unit is removed from the game.
• Pathfinder is renamed to Scout (but maintains its same stats)
• Upon researching sailing, all Scouts receive the Pathfinder promotion.
  • +3 CS
  • +1 vision
  • Reduces penalty from barbarians to -10%.
  • Aka this new scout + pathfinder promotion would be just as strong as the base scout is in the current version.

Rationale: One of the issues with the scout is that while it is a solid unit, it comes at a very awkward time. First, the sailing tech can be a tough tech to go for as there are so many key techs at this point in the game to get you going. Further, hammers are at an absolute premium, so building or buying a scout is the difference between a building, worker, or unit....one that you just can't always afford at this time in the game. Lastly, your initial pathfinder is often off scouting (aka its job) far away from your borders....and so even if you have the desire and the resources, it often takes a lot of backtracking to get the pathfinders back in your borders for the upgrade....which is a lot of lost scouting time.

This proposal effectively allows the pathfinder to "upgrade for free", just by gaining the tech. This way no matter where your initial recon unit is at, it can receive the important defense benefits associated with the upgrade. This proposal overall does not change the strength of the pathfinder or scout in any way, it just makes the transition from pathfinder -> scout faster and cheaper.

Issue: The main issue is that the upgrade ruins would now turn your initial unit into an Explorer. Its often believed that the current upgrade to a scout is too strong, this jump would clearly be far too good. If this proposal was adopted, it would mandate that the upgrade feature be removed from the ancient ruin system. While several people are already calling for that, it may not be popular with everyone.

Base Recon Line Changes

Spoiler :

• Remove "Ignore Terrain"
• Explorer: -1 movement
• Recon units gain Scouting I promotion: Can see 2 hexes regardless of terrain.

Rationale: The ignore terrain change is still available to recon but through promotions (see below). The idea here is to slow down exploration in the early game a bit. The Explorer change is also a compensation for some promotion ideas noted below.

The Scouting I concept was to address a common complaint about "surprise barb sniping"....aka the initial pathfinder often getting killed by a squad of barbs around a hill. This would also make recon units better at enemy surveying.

Issue: Some might argue that the unobstructed vision concept detracts from the exploration subgame. Effectively I now have a full view of two tiles around me, meaning I never have to backtrack to fill in map tiles. Some may see this as a negative.

Recon Promotion Changes

Spoiler :

Trailblazer

• TBI: +10% CS outside friendly borders. Double movement in jungle and forest. +1 movement and ignore ZOC.
• TBII: +10% CS outside friendly borders. Double movement in desert and snow. +1 movement and Ignore Terrain costs
• TBIII: Removed

Survivalism

• SI: +25% CS on Defense. +5 +10 HP healed in outside territory.
• SII: +25% CS on Defense. +5 HP healed in outside territory. Unit can heal after performing an action.
• SIII: Removed

Scouting

• Scouting I (default on all recon units): +1 vision Can see 2 hexes regardless of terrain.
• Scouting II: +1 vision. Gain +2 xp when you end a turn in enemy territory.
• Scouting III: +1 movement. Can see 3 hexes regardless of terrain.

Medic

• Medic I: Scouting I now is a prereq option. Aka scouts can now get medic right out of the gate.

Sapper (new promotion)

• Sapper I (no prereq, tech unlock: Machinery): Pillaging provides 5 xp and does not expend movement.
• Sapper II: Pillaging deals 10 damage to all adjacent enemy units

Ghostwalker (new promotion)

• Ghostwalker (no prereq): This unit counts as two for ally flanking bonuses.

Wanderer (new promotion)

• Wanderer I (no prereq): Unit can embark, cross mountains, and use enemy roads/railroads
• Wanderer II (tech unlock: Compass): Unit can cross ice. Embarking/Disembarking costs 1 movement.

Rationale:

TB: This change is meant to address the issue that recon units are actually faster in rough terrain than they are in open terrain. Further, there incredible speed means that the map is explored very quickly, removing some of the exploration subgame. With this version, recon units gain general and equal speed in all conditions.

Survivalism: This change gives the recon unit access to faster healing and the ability to heal after action sooner, to give it a solid comparison to TB which gains the more general combat boost and much better mobility.

General Promotion Changes: So in general a lot of Tier III promotions were taken from the TB/Survivalism line and made into their own stems, generally with fewer preqs.

The recon line is an odd duck, serving many masters. While core military units are fine with a solid power boost through ever stronger promotions, often recon units are less about power and more versatility....filling in the various sub niches that a military requires. So this change allows a recon unit to mix and match more freely....taking on promotions to fit whatever niche that unit requires. It encourages players to build more recon units...each one tailored to a specialized job. Some examples below:

Early Game
Map Explorer: TBI and II for maximum mobility, followed by Scouting II/III for more sight. Or go into Wanderer I than TB for more water or mountain heavy maps.

Barb Hunter: Survivalism I and II for strong durability and ability to recover from melee attacks against barbs. Follow with Ghostwalker to augment your military units in their killing of barbs.

Enemy Sentry: Scout II and III gives you a good field of vision and lets you see around the forests and hills to spot your enemy wherever they are at.

Medic: While not as good a frontline medic as a ranged unit that can hang beyond the melee unit and heal them while attacking, recon medics can give you the fastest field hospital possible, and early access to medic II.

Mid Game (Explorer Phase)

Naval Explorer: Wanderer I and II will let you island hop quickly and cross ice to better get access to far away places.

Pillager: Sapper I and II lets you make an explorer tailored made to pillage lands, dealing damaging and gaining XP for the effort. Add in Survivalism for more durability.

Late Game (Military Academy Phase)

Support Engineer: Ghostwalker + Sapper I/II, you now have a unit that support main forces by dealing damage through pillaging and augmented the flank of your main troops.

Paradrop Pillager: TBI/II + Sapper I. This is your paratrooper that can paradrop deep into enemy territory, take out a key resource, and then make it back home.

Paradrop Deep Striker: Surv I/II + Scout II. Can drop into enemy lands and take a lot of punishment. Gets extra vision to augment further paradrops, and gets XP for doing their job.


In a nutshell, the idea here is to allow recon units to fulfill many different niches without requiring heavily promoted units. You can build a squad of recon specialists, each designed for a specific niche but never overpowered in a more general role.

 

[Stalker0]

So one thing I'll disagree with in the proposal, I think recon units should probably just keep ignore terrain costs. The goal was to normalize terrain for the scouts, but removing this I feel just penalizes jungle/forest heavy starts more. Further, it creates more gameplay changes like scouts unable to cross rivers easily (which could hurt them against barbs).

further, I don't think its really necessary. If TBI was just +1 movement, and TBII +1 move and ignore ZOC (with their CS boost) they would still be absolutely solid promotions. We would still have balanced the starts and slowed down the early exploration a bit, but without too much of an impact.

 

[Rekk]

Regarding the "Can see hexes regardless of terrain" part of Base Recon Change: it was mentioned that this would be completely new code and that perhaps it could use the fighter air reconnaissance code which gives the sight at the beginning of the turn. This would partially avoid the omnivision of the original proposal, but I don't think it would alleviate the "Barbarian around the corner" issue.

 

[Rekk]

I think removing both terrain as movement blocker (or booster) and as sight blocker makes the exploration game uninteresting. There's no incentive to rush to the hills for better sight lines or travel along the forest for better movement, so there are no interesting exploration paths.

If the entire goal of the change is to remove the weirdness of scouts getting faster whenever they enter rough terrain, that leaves sight lines as the limiting factor that needs to be kept. If getting jumped by barbarians is a problem, then I would rather reduce/remove the Barbarian penalty / turn it into an attack penalty to let the scout survive and signal a shift into survivalism.

 

[Rekk]

If I may add a recon-related movement promotion that would add some terrain benefits ( base /TB 1 leaf):

Portage: double movement when adjacent to rivers (and lakes?).

Now someone with a river heavy area can choose to delay their +1 movement for an immediate boost in exploration speed, but only along rivers, and it feels way less weird than zip-lining through unexplored forest.

 

[TwoPodRay]

• TBI: +10% CS outside friendly borders. Double movement in jungle and forest. +1 movement and ignore ZOC.
• TBII: +10% CS outside friendly borders. Double movement in desert and snow. +1 movement and Ignore Terrain costs
• TBIII: Removed

Current TB line total CS is 30%. If TB3 is removed and we want to keep that 30%, we may need to either increase the proposed TB1 and 2 to 15% each, or we can add 10% somewhere else, perhaps on the proposed Ghostwalker line.

• Scouting I (default on all recon units): +1 vision Can see 2 hexes regardless of terrain.
• Scouting II: +1 vision. Gain +2 xp when you end a turn in enemy territory.

The current Recon line can get up to 5 total vision range (base 3 with Scout+, +1 for both Scouting 1 and 2). If we remove the +1 vision here, we may be looking at only 4 total vision range. Just bringing this up for clarity.

So one thing I'll disagree with in the proposal, I think recon units should probably just keep ignore terrain costs.

I would be fine with that, as the reason it was removed was to address Recon units zipping around everywhere. With the changes to the TB line, it would be fair to keep it as a free promotion.

There's no incentive to rush to the hills for better sight lines or travel along the forest for better movement, so there are no interesting exploration paths.

If keeping the Unobstructed vision confined to either start of turn only or at a limited range (2-3 tiles, while normal vision range is higher), it would still promote moving onto hills for better sight lines. However, if that idea isn't favored, I wouldn't be upset to see it removed. I think that was a PAD idea to address some barb concerns, but could be a unique feature of the Recon line.

If getting jumped by barbarians is a problem, then I would rather reduce/remove the Barbarian penalty / turn it into an attack penalty to let the scout survive and signal a shift into survivalism

I brought this up on Discord as well, but why don't we change it to -20% Offensive CS, to both avoid Scouts being able to stomp all over barbs in place of using other combat troops and also avoid early Scout units from being ganked by barbs? Seems better placed than a full -20% CS vs barbs.

Portage: double movement when adjacent to rivers (and lakes?).

I think this is a flavorful promotion, and would be curious to see it in action. At least with this you would have a better chance to challenge Songhai when they are surrounded on all sides by rivers.

 

[azum4roll]

I think the recon line is fine and doesn't require any changes.

 

[cerk]

I quite like the idea of support engineers. They could finally make tank rushes worthwhile.

The xp gain on a few activities also looks like a positive change. Should allow for making mid and late game recon units that don't get stuck with the starter promotions simply because my ancient era scout explored the whole world

 

[pineappledan]

XP gain on selectable promotions - we've been down this road before. No one likes spending XP to get more XP and it was removed off the scout lines years ago. XP reward promotions work well as free promotions, but I supported their removal from promo trees, and I don't support them being added back in.

The scout line is fine. Ruins need another pass, but the only thing scouts need IMO is a few more late game utility promotions, unlocking at Compass or later.

 

[TwoPodRay]

I know it's been debated many times before, but I will again bring up that there are many who do not like the "Double Movement in Rough" feature. It doesn't make any sense at all that you can move faster in rough than you can in open. Moving the same speed (Ignores Terrain cost) is fair and understandable. Double movement is not. It gives too much power in movement, such that you cannot make other changes to the rest of the kit without breaking balance. This is compounded when you get deeper in the tech tree, as a Commando+ can hold their own quite well, and if you have upgraded them from the start and are running around with max or nearly max level units at this stage, you can easily decimate both backlines and flanks, shrugging off any damage with the Survivalism defense CS boosts and all of the self healing, then bolting to the other side of the continent out of follow-up attack range. There is also the problem that the AI doesn't quite utilize recon units very well.

I, and many others according to the many discussions over time, would prefer to see the movement at least baselined, removing the "Double movement in Rough" in favor of a bit more flat movement. This creates space in the power budget to give more room in additional power/flexibility to the Recon line via other promotions, but if nothing else changes except the movement, I would personally be content. I understand there were many recent discussions (and many in the past) that might cause hesitance for another round of balance changes, but given there are still a good number of people who have issue with the current mechanisms of the recon line, it is at least worth revisiting to see if we can get closer to a solution that is more agreeable to all. That was my motivation for trying to simply capture all of the discussion that was recently re-occurring into a proposal.

XP reward promotions work well as free promotions, but I supported their removal from promo trees, and I don't support them being added back in.

Given I wasn't around for the last discussion on this, I would be curious to learn more on the rationale for removing those other XP reward promotions. They don't seem overly strong, and reward the recon line for doing recon activities, which makes sense to me. The same as how recon units are rewarded for clearing fog of war.

As for the AR changes, I can post those here in a separate thread for further review, as there haven't been any conflicting comments thus far from Discord.

 

[Rekk]

Given I wasn't around for the last discussion on this, I would be curious to learn more on the rationale for removing those other XP reward promotions. They don't seem overly strong, and reward the recon line for doing recon activities, which makes sense to me. The same as how recon units are rewarded for clearing fog of war

Later era units already get these as free promotions.

He already gave you the rational: spending XP on a promotion that gives you XP is not fun, which is why we have them as free promotions.

 

[TwoPodRay]

Later era units already get these as free promotions.

He already gave you the rational: spending XP on a promotion that gives you XP is not fun, which is why we have them as free promotions.

To clarify what I was asking about, later era units having them doesn't address why earlier ones do not, that is the rationale I was looking for. And I was proposing for them to be free promotions for all units in the recon line, not tied to a promotion, as he mentioned above.

Even so, I wouldn't be opposed at all to taking a promotion that gives you XP or acts as an XP multiplier, even if that was all the promotion was. As a quick example, if you had a unit that you thought "hey, I plan to get this unit fully upgraded anyway, but maybe I could take this promotion to get there a bit faster", I would do it. Say if you picked this promotion it gave nothing more than "+25% Experience earned" and called it "Quick study/Understudy/etc.", you would obviously not see any initial effect on the promotion, it would perhaps feel "wasted". You wouldn't pick this on a newly created Paratrooper or Special Forces unit perhaps, since you might currently want to just take all the Survivalism promos to get busy doing the job of the unit right away. But if you have a new Scout in earlier eras and plan to do lots of exploring, you might be able to "break even" on promotion speed at something like Level 6, and after Level 6, you would be ahead of a Scout who didn't take the bonus experience promotion. Etc.

 

[pineappledan]

Later units have them because they aren't getting any more XP from exploring, but earlier ones have lots of tiles left to explore. In other words, earlier units don't get them because they don't need them.

% XP bonuses only affect combat XP, so they would have less effect on scout line units than some source of alternative XP. Pathfinders and scouts can get XP from revealing your own continent. Explorers get XP from revealing distant continents and the ocean, Commandos and later have pillaging as an alternative source for XP, since they aren't mainline combat units.

 

[phantomaxl1207]

One change I want to see is Paratroopers and above getting 3 movement like Explorers and Commandos.

 

[TwoPodRay]

One change I want to see is Paratroopers and above getting 3 movement like Explorers and Commandos.

In the current proposal, Explorers lose 1 movement, but stand to gain +2 movement total from Trailblazer, equaling the 4 max movement available currently (Commandos should also match this I think).

Are you thinking Explorers and above should have 5 movement max (3 base, plus 2 total from TB line), or 4 movement max (2 base, plus 2 total from TB line)?

 

[notaspambot]

My gut feeling here is that I'm not too fond about most of the changes. The one thing I agree the most with is that the double movement on terrain bonuses don't really make much sense, but I also like the current dynamic of how recon units play out gameplay-wise. I also don't agree with the need to slow down early scouting. Scouting only really sets off once you get Trailblazer 2 and Scouting 1, which takes a while. Scouting actually feels quite limited for the most part in the early game. I'll need some more time to go through everything though.

Focusing on just the Pathfinder/Scout rework for now: While I somewhat empathise with the rationale given here, I don't really see the need for the changes listed. I would support the changes if: A) Pathfinders need to upgrade into Scouts to scout effectively, B) Scouts are being completely overshadowed by its price tag into irrelevancy. Neither of which are true. Maybe the Scout could use a discount though? As for AR issues; no real opinion as long as I can continue to pretend they don't exist.

 

[DeAnno]

I want to focus in on the Scout-Pathfinder thing. I think that the annoyance of Scout-line upgrades is a real issue, but solving it this way is pretty gimmicky. I'd prefer that any solution which applied to Pathfinder->Scout also applied to Scout->Explorer and the rest. Maybe the Scout-line could just have an ability to be upgraded in neutral territory? I'm not sure how possible that is, but it seems a lot more palatable.