[SDK] Dale's Combat Mod!

I have been following this thread for a while waiting for release and now it's out I've installed it. I just played around a little so far and like a lot of how it works, but I have some queries about some things :)

1) AI has archer+catapult in a city, I have swordsman+catapult. I decided to attack with just the swordsman. He killed the archer. Combat over, the enemy's catapult didn't seem to play any part in the combat. If you have the option to attack one unit at a time (old style) does that not give you a combat advantage by doing so?

2) I then attacked the AI city (which had a catapult only) with a swordsman and a very weakened phalanx. The catapult died and both my units lived. It was reported as "while defending, your phalanx has killed a catapult". Which is unlike when catapult is full strength 5 and my phalanx was down to like strength 2. Maybe promotions played a role, but I was wondering... my units were attacking from a forest square, does that mean that when the AIs catapult "attacked", my phalanx received a defensive bonus? (excellent if this is the case - finally a use for woodsman promotion!)

3) What's the counter to horsemen? Why wouldn't you just build horsemen (excepting that someone might build all phalanxes) so that you can skip getting shot at by archers and stuff? Is there anything that stops your catapults in a mixed army getting eaten by horsemen (i.e. do horsemen fight other horsemen before they get to go for catapults)? What about pikemen, will they deploy to stop horsemen?

4) I thought I read earlier that you get prompted to choose a formation. However, this aspect seemed to be missing. Was it scrapped?

Take these with a grain of salt, I *may* have some conflict issues...
 
Can I play Warlord using this mod? This comments above on the subject were not clear to me.

Edit: Found the anser. No.

Too bad.
 
I do not know whether I had an extraordinary string of bad luck with this mod, or whether I just have no clue what how to wage a war with this combat mod. While using this mod I could not get anywhere. I could not use ranged field bombardment in my own territory to attack monte's suicide troops. Monte's troops apparently were immortal too. His horse archers constantly killed fortified macemen on hills and forests (thats strength 6.6 (no barbs) vrs. 10+ strength). Do mounted units get some kind of bizzare bonus or was it just some extraordinary string of bad luck?
 
just tested 1.0 and got a CTD on my first fight :( a stack of 10 (including swordmen, phalanx, catapults, archers and chariot) vs. 2 archers in a city
/edit: looks like the catapults are the problem... without them in the stack it works fine
 
Everything was going alright until the French attacked my city (on hills, city had walls and 2 longbowmen) with a chariot and a swordman. When they attacked the game crashed. I loaded the autosave from the turn before and tried it again and it still crashed.
 
Welcome to all the new posters to DCM. :)

Caesium: The code should be available shortly. I just need to fix the couple of small bugs detected and all's good. :)

Strategyonly: Thanks for the report. Yes, now it's a news item and on the table it'll be busy for a few weeks in here. ;) Actually I'm surprised Boneys hasn't posted yet. lol.

keldath: Not easily. Someone with SDK knowledge needs to merge the two code bases together and recompile into one DLL file. Usually bugging the hell out of the two people will result in one of them doing it. :)

shackleton: Welcome to DCM. :)
1. Due to some probs intergrating with the graphics engine (which is in the exe and unmodifiable :( ) a number of animations won't run during combat. The most obvious is the initial defenders bombardment phase will have no animations (not 100% but almost). Check the combat logs and you'll see the full battle report.
2. Yes that is correct, when the combat is in "response" phase the attacker receives their defensive bonuses like land, forest, hills, etc. In your case it's logical as the catapults would have a harder time hitting through the trees. All part of the parcel. :)
3. The flanking bit gets a tad complex. The easy answer is, if your enemy has a heavy horse army, attack with a heavy ranged/pike/spear army. Units line up against not a unit but an area of the opposing army. So your left-flank horse will be looking at: a couple of frontline (whether flank or melee), a couple of archers and a couple of bombards of the enemy. If there's a break in the frontline the horse charge through. If there's a continuous break through the ranged line too they keep charging. That's when they hit the bombards. But if the breaks in the lines are not continuous then the horse try to break through the frontline. It's quite neat how it works. :) But the effective response to a horse army is a spear/pike/arrow army. :)
4. Formations were scrapped.

solops: The Warlords version is next on my list. :)

Scizor: Could be just bad luck. I've had runs like that in test games. With ranged bombardment until artillery/battleships you can only bomb the adjacent tiles. Arty/battleships have 2 ranged bombardment. If it's some other problem please let me know. :)

Doc_knoeselfeld: Yes, seems a slight problem in certain situations with catapults. I'll be fixing that in an update.

jsolomon: Do you still have the save? Please attach to a post. :)

Dale
 
wow got your own little section on the homepage thing.:goodjob:

have you really been working on this for a year?:goodjob:

this is an amazing accomplishment really..:D
 
This mod sounds absolutely fabulous! :goodjob: :goodjob: :goodjob: (I just read about it on the frontpage, you're indeed going to get more attention because of that). When I first heard about civ4, I hoped that they would use a combat system similar to the Call to Power system. I was rather dissapointed that they didn't implement any stack combat and would never have expected that it was possible for a single modder to create such a combat system that the AI can even use. Absolutely great work. :goodjob:

I read the first post and read your responses in the thread. I have a few questions if you don't mind.

1) You write in the first post (in the section about stacked combat):
"- Defender retains initiative by completing their phases of combat first before the attacker. Defender does not receive a melee phase"

The section " Defender does not receive a melee phase" confuses me a bit. What would happen if a mixed stack attacked a stack consisting of melee units? Since there's no combat fase for the defending melee units, do they just die? Or are they combatting the attacking melee units in their combat fase? And what happens when the attacker doesn't have any melee units left? Are the defending melee units just slaughtered without a round in which they can do damage? I'm probably just misunderstanding this information.

2) In normal civ4, the AI sometimes attacks a stack of units with one lone unit in order to weaken the stack of units. Since normal civ4 combat is one unit vs one unit, this tactic is not going to be very bad for the AI. But I assume that it normally is quite suicidal in your mod to attack a stack of units with a lonely unit. Will one unit do a considerable amount of damage to a stack? Will one unit have a chance to destroy a unit in a stack of units (before being killed)?

3) Is movement speed of any influence in the stacked combat mechanism? Do flankers have a better chance to reach the artillery type units when they have a higher movement speed?

4) Is there a limit on ranged field bombardment damage, like in civ3 (redline a unit)? Can you kill units with ranged field bombardment or is there an xml entry that governs the maximum damage (like there is for collateral damage)? What stops you from weakening any stack of AI units that you encounter using a large stack of artillery type units (was very effective in civ3, making combat easy)?

5) When considering the value of a unit, can the AI see that a missile unit is not that valuable because it can only be used once? To be more precise: If two units with similar strength values can be produced and one is a missile unit, does the AI recognize that it is less valuable because it can only be used once?

6) Is the reduction of the defence bonus of cities still separate from the stack attack? Do you first remove the defence bonusses with artillery type units and then attack the city with your stack?

7) What is the chance of succesfully destroying tile improvements by bombarding them?

8) Is one-on-one combat now a special case of your stack combat or does it function the same as in the original combat system?

I can imagine that it must be very very tough to get the AI to use all of this in a competent way. It's already great that you have somehow enabled the AI to use it.

Thank you in advance for any answers provided.
 
Spartan: Yep, for a year. Like I mention on the download page this mod idea came from a discussion between me, Soren, Trip and a couple of other stack combat supporters. :)

Roland: Welcome to DCM, and I hope it lives up to expectation. :)
1. The defender phase simply represents the ranged and bombard units getting "one free shot" as the attacker marches to the walls and forms up. This can quite often end as a "miss" but can also "hit" as shown in the combat log. One must remember that in this model the defender is still just the defender and doesn't need to move to meet the attacker. Since the attacker is moving, the stationary defender can respond with a single volley. This is how standard war works.
2. One single unit versus a stack is a bad thing now. The AI has been changed to stop suiciding single units. :)
3. No, movement speed is not taken into consideration in this model. However any normal Civ4 combat bonuses are taken into account.
4. Yes, similar to air bombardment. Down to 50% I think.
5. Unit values are controlled through unitclass and unit xml files. So this is easily changed if required. :)
6. Yes. In a full siege you move your stack to the city then bombard the defenses down whilst pillaging around the city. The defender may sorte from the city if they want. After bombing the defenses down you attack with the full stack.
7. Except for non-bombardable improvements, the chance is actually reasonable high. Makes for good pillaging if you don't want the gold. :)
8. One to one is covered under stack attacking. It functions as the new model too. This means a defending ranged/bombard unit still gets its free shot.
 
Had a degree of Zone of Control been instituted?

Say in the defensive bombard, does it also react to enemy troops trying to bypass your own?
 
Dale said:
jsolomon: Do you still have the save? Please attach to a post. :)
Click to expand...


Unfortunately I saved over it. I'm starting a new game as France. If I run into anything similar again I'll remember to hold on to the save file for you.
 
After running a few tests in the worldbuilder, the combat system looks great. That being said, I hate having to choose between this and warlords. Any idea how difficult it's gonna be to make it Warlords compatible? Y'know just so I can get a guess on the ETA?

One thing though. I noticed that when my 2 Navy SEAL, 1 gunship stack attacked Saladin's 2 Artillery stack, after I win the battle, my troops don't move to where the Art's were. My stack stays on the forested hill it was on. The game queues up the move, stays focused on the unit, and if I use the hotkey to move queued units, it will move, but not until. Is this intended or is it a (minor) bug?
 
Bugs to be fixed for 1.01:

- crash bug
- not moving bug
- workers/settlers/GP's fighting first (and hence being captured before any combat)

saleg37:
Warlords version will be a couple of days after 1.01, which is a couple of days off. :)

Dale
 
Sorry Dale haven't been doing much testing lately my mrs sister just found out her 8 month old baby has leukaemia so we haven't had much spare time but i'll get back on it as soon as I have a mo. I'm glad to see its moving on nicely though :thumbsup:
 
Thank you for all the answers.

Dale said:
1. The defender phase simply represents the ranged and bombard units getting "one free shot" as the attacker marches to the walls and forms up. This can quite often end as a "miss" but can also "hit" as shown in the combat log. One must remember that in this model the defender is still just the defender and doesn't need to move to meet the attacker. Since the attacker is moving, the stationary defender can respond with a single volley. This is how standard war works.
Click to expand...

Sorry to bug you with so many questions, but I would like to understand precisely how stack combat works. This is important for balancing the unit strength values when you make a mod based on this new combat model. It's impossible to balance a mod if you don't understand exactly how the combat model works.
In normal vanilla civ4 combat, both units involved in a combat round have a chance to damage the other and in one combat round, one of them is going to get damaged (except first strike and collateral damage rounds where only one side can get damaged). In stack combat, you want to enable a whole stack to damage the other side, so I guess that combat rounds work a bit different. You first start with the 'first strike round' of the defenders for all of the ranged units (which you explained above). Then I guess every unit of the attacker gets to hack/fire/crush its designated opponent for one round and then every unit of the defender gets to hack/fire/crush its designated opponent for one round and so on until one side retreats or is killed. Each time only one side can damage the other, unlike regular vanilla civ4 combat. So strength in numbers is important as more units get to hit one single opponent. 1) Do I understand this correctly?
2) Are retreats based on individual units or will the whole stack retreat at the same moment? Are retreats considered after a certain number of combat rounds? Are retreats purely based on the retreat percentage value of the unit involved? What happens when a unit retreats when under attack of multiple units? Must it retreat from each unit or will the first retreat order result in a retreat and any further attacks on the unit are not calculated?
3) Can in one combat round all 10 units attack 1 unit of the opponent (if only one unit of the opponent is left)?
4) Will the designated opponent of one unit in combat remain the same until this unit is either destroyed or retreated or will it be reevaluated every combat round?
5) Can you explain a bit how the units designate their opponents?
6) Ranged units have an advantage when they are the defender because they can fire first. But in a purely melee vs melee combat, melee units have an advantage when they are the attackers because they can strike first, correct?
7) Has the first strike promotion/ability still any use in this mod?

2. One single unit versus a stack is a bad thing now. The AI has been changed to stop suiciding single units. :)
Click to expand...

Wow, I guess you understand how the AI works. Good job!:goodjob:

Thank you for all of the other answers!

8) Since the ranged units get to strike earlier in the combat resolution, the ranged units have an advantage over non-ranged units which needs to be balanced by unit building costs or unit strength values. And one can make the AI understand the real unit value by some other xml-entry. Correct?

9) If the defender retreats, does it still occupy its tile?

Thank you in advance for any answers provided. I don't think, I'll have many more questions. ;)
 
Dale said:
Roland: Welcome to DCM, and I hope it lives up to expectation. :)
1. The defender phase simply represents the ranged and bombard units getting "one free shot" as the attacker marches to the walls and forms up. This can quite often end as a "miss" but can also "hit" as shown in the combat log. One must remember that in this model the defender is still just the defender and doesn't need to move to meet the attacker. Since the attacker is moving, the stationary defender can respond with a single volley. This is how standard war works.
Click to expand...

I am interested in first strike too, now. Does immunity to first strikes prevent this "free attack" for the defender? Don't forget that by the blitz warfare doctrine, you sort of run around the defenders dug-in lines and rob them of their precious first shot. How does first strike work in your modification, exactly? Don't forget that defending is bad if the other guy gets your flanks :)

Looking forward to trying this mod on Warlords. Im using New Balance mod by Dearmad right now, hope these two will play together.
 
Dale, great ideas and mods, I really liked what I've herd, so I'm trying to incorporate this into a collection of mods I have going, total realism, regiments, and hopefully Dales combat mod, so far I've basically copied and pasted your .dll file, located all the changes you made in the interface, unitinfos, schema, missions, applied those values to the corresponding values in my total realism mod folder, and created a few like the bombard.

When I tried to reload my game, it won't let me, really bummed about this cause I was far into the game, so I tried a fresh start and loaded a new game, and it works, well the field bombardment, which is what I'm really after, I used world builder to test it out, and it seemed to be working. The only changes I made to it was I increased the bombard distances, ie, catuplts can bombard the next 2 squares, to clear friendly units, cannon's can now bombard 3 tiles up, and arty I gave a hefty 4 value to. Arty is rarely very near the combat these days, and this also gives a sec to bombard your targets well before closeing with combat arms troops.

I'm not sure why I can't use my old game, maybe because I simply copied and pasted the .dll, or schema? I got lazy there, but on the schema I think it was only 4 new lines added, nothing taken away. So I'm betting it's the .dll.

Second, and more importantly, I'd love to add this feature to most ranged units, giving archer units the ability to reign arrows down on adjacent squares would be amazing, so I was wondering if you think this would work with ranged units, or would it be cheesy explosions from arrows?

One more thing,
"Counter-battery fire (bombard vs bombard & ranged vs ranged)"
Is this right, if so, bravo, so you're telling me when I'm fired on by enemy arty I automatically get counter battery fire back at em. Nice work.


Other than that sounds like you've got a great mod here, thanks for sharing.
 
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