Recon Terrain Specialization 2

[Tekamthi]

Compatible up to (and including) VP v3.7.12, mod retired for VP 3.8+

This mod began as an experiment to mitigate high-mobility cheese on recon, primarily targeting the removal of "ignore terrain cost" and improving thematic aspects of the recon promos. Though I enjoy the in-game effect here, I am putting this one aside (will not be updated further by me); but the version here is complete & works/plays well in VP 3.7.12. I expect VP v3.8 will have some overlapping promotions, requiring re-distribution of effects given here to accommodate properly. Some other aspects of this mod will be difficult to build/maintain wide compatibility for w/ other modmods -- I'd prefer to focus on other, simpler ways to address problems with recon.

For those interested, I outlined this idea originally in this thread. Following from that discussion, turns out it is possible to create mutually exclusive promo lines. I've created an alternative to the "Trailblazer" promo line, "Riverine", loosely splitting recon movement bonuses between rough vs. water-related terrain. Also filled-out recon's access to naval-oriented bonuses inspired by the winning/stalled congress proposal, and spread out some important abilities to different branches of the promo tree. I'll describe in more detail here later; may take me some time but the mod itself is 100% playable: it all works, bonuses & (english) text etc. are all good, EXCEPT the promo tree UI screen, I don't know how to get it to show up correctly -- but the promotion paths work for gameplay purposes.

Built this out a little further in summer 2023, fixing a few small bugs, and added AI logic to help choose appropriate promotions.

Besides removing "ignore terrain cost", the main functionality is as follows:

	I​	II​	III​	IV​
Riverine	+10% Combat Strength Outside of Friendly Territory +10% Attack Strength and Double Movement in open terrain plots adjacent to Rivers.	+10% Combat Strength Outside of Friendly Territory +10% Attack Strength and Double Movement in Marsh & Oasis Eliminates movement & attack penalties across rivers, and unit can embark	+10% Combat Strength Outside of Friendly Territory +10% Attack Strength and Double Movement in open terrain plots adjacent to Ocean & Coast Eliminates penalties for attacks from the sea, and unit can embark	+10% Attack Strength and Double Movement in Snow Can cross Ice
	OR​	OR​	OR​	OR​
Trailblazer	+10% Combat Strength Outside of Friendly Territory +10% Attack Strength and Double Movement in Jungles.	+10% Combat Strength Outside of Friendly Territory +10% Attack Strength and Double Movement in Forest	+10% Combat Strength Outside of Friendly Territory +10% Attack Strength and Double Movement in Hills Unit can cross Mountains	+10% Attack Strength and Double Movement in Desert Double heal in Oasis

There is also an added promotion branch for embarked movement & vision that roughly matches the already-existing land-based branch

Recon Terrain Specialization (VP)

Reduces VP's recon movement cheese via redistribution of movement bonuses, adding alternative promotion path to VP's "Trailblazer" recon promos, as well as naval-oriented recon bonuses.

forums.civfanatics.com

As of late summer 2023, I'm running only Exploration Heritage & Counter-Reconnaissance to fix-up the AI/human recon imbalances and recon mobility abuse in VP; these are a bit more subtle and better fit for VP & commonly-played modmods.

 

[Tekamthi]

Tekamthi updated Recon Terrain Specialization (VP) with a new update entry:

final update (by me, anyone else welcome to takeover/adjust further if desired)

• bug fixes with movement in some plots
• added simple AI logic for selection of appropriate promo according to AI player's owned terrain

Read the rest of this update entry...