Solver's unofficial BtS 3.17 patch

[Wolfshanze]

• 
  [*] Access to the Barrage line removed from armored units. If units with access to Barrage and no inherent collateral damage are modded in, they will work.
• Fixed AI defender bug for newly captured cities.
• Fixed overproduction of transports in land wars courtesy of better BtS AI team.
• Made the AI more likely to use missiles on cruisers/subs to strike against enemy improvements.
• Made AI ships prioritize retreating if docked in a city which is in the danger of imminent capture by enemy.
• Civilopedia and mouseover help for units that cause collateral damage will now show the collateral damage limit (50% for Catapults, etc.)
• Somewhat experimental AI change: Aggressive AI now considerably less likely to want peace if it poses more of an immediate threat to enemy cities than it currently faces itself.
• Fixed unavailability of foreign civ demographics if playing with espionage disabled.
  [*]Barrage promotions made working again on Tanks and other units with no base collateral ability

Aren't the first and last lines kinda counter to one another?

Like I mentioned earlier, it might be helpful to name each release a different version number and list the changes in each separately instead of all-together... to help avoid confusion.

 

[Caboose]

No, because you can still mod tanks to have acess to Barrage promotion...

 

[r_rolo1]

No, wolfshanze... Solver in a first step regave collateral strenght to barrage promoted units without native collateral strenght, allowing the promo to work. In a second step, and after sugestion of alexman, he blocked the barrage promo line from armored units.

If you remove the armored restriction, barrage tanks will still be avaliable, but even without it , the already existing barrage tanks will function.

 

[Solver]

Sorry guys, I should get more used to working with real people I'll start numbering the versions.

Changelogs should be read from bottom to top. I do not aim to confuse

Fixing problems with the game may quite often mean changing rules. So this doesn't mean that I won't change any rules in the patch. I'm just not going to do major changes and make this "how BtS should be according to Solver" As for paratroopers specifically: I had actually discussed their inability to attack after dropping with the designers back then, they managed to convince me this is the right way

Oh, and to add: now if you theoretically mod, say, Knights to have access to Barrage, it will work, though it wouldn't have in 3.17.

 

[Wolfshanze]

No, because you can still mod tanks to have acess to Barrage promotion...

I would think the answer would be yes, because now you have to mod the mod?!?!? I don't really care one way or the other about the barrage promotion on tanks (I can live with it either way), but a change list should clarify what the current patch/mod does, not what you can do with it through modding.

That would be like saying paratroopers can sink battleships at sea in default Civ4... ummm... no it doesn't, but you could if you modified Civ4. I know what I can do with modding... I'm mostly interested in what this mod does on its own without modding.

I'm sorry... I'm just hoping to avoid confusion... Solver's work is great, just trying to clarify some issues.

 

[jkp1187]

Oh, and to add: now if you theoretically mod, say, Knights to have access to Barrage, it will work, though it wouldn't have in 3.17.

Thanks for making this change.

 

[Wolfshanze]

Oh, and to add: now if you theoretically mod, say, Knights to have access to Barrage, it will work, though it wouldn't have in 3.17.

Now thats' what I'm talking about!

 

[Kloreep]

I would think the answer would be yes, because now you have to mod the mod?!?!? I don't really care one way or the other about the barrage promotion on tanks (I can live with it either way), but a change list should clarify what the current patch/mod does, not what you can do with it through modding.

True... but it does have one very direct application. As Solver has said, you can keep the Barrage promotion on the Tank line simply by not extracting the unit promotions XML file. If I understand correctly, this should then lead the change to Barrage calculations to give Barrage armor some measure of collateral damage.

This means that if you want (working) Barrage tanks, it's not a matter of modding it yourself; rather, all you have to do is not install that particular part of Solver's patch.

 

[Balderstrom]

You know I didn't care either way. But this is so lame.

This is like MUDS back in the day, where every 6-12 months new Arches/Gods would come in, decide that people use a certain Item/Tactic/Class "too much" - and nerf that thing that they decide is used "too much". Instead of making those other things more appealing. Its an extremely poor way to go about any kind of game design.
You DO NOT take away things you give players.
You make things better.

Sid always claimed, we want to make things more fun.
Yeah I gueess he's too busy w/ Revolutions.

[EDIT]
Also I apololgize re my mistake about Missiles/collateral, in the few games I actually got to the modern age, I guess I was building so many of them I'd just throw a half dozen at a city

If the dev's thought tanks were uber it would of made more sense to raise their cost, than nerf them. Very poor game design - this late in the series.

 

[grumbler]

Grumbler, thank you. How did you make that installer? Is it some installshield thing?

I made it with Inno Setup which is free to use for any purpose.

I'll see if I get around to making my own, and thanks for adapting the Bhruic patch installer.

You're welcome. In the meantime, here's the updated installer.

edit: good idea on numbering the versions!

 

[DanF5771]

The currently implemented formula makes absolutely no sense for units without inherent collateralDamage as the attacker's/defender's strength ratio will not influence the results.
The initial iCollateralDamage will be 3 for a Modern Armor whether it attacks an Archer or a MechInf...

I guess this formula will limit the modding fun!

 

[Caboose]

Come up with a solution to it then, Dan. I'm sure Solver will include a good solution that doesn't limit modding.

 

[DanF5771]

Come up with a solution to it then, Dan. I'm sure Solver will include a good solution that doesn't limit modding.

Lift up your eyes and look north/Page#7.

 

[Roland Johansen]

I'm with the majority on the issue of barrage on tanks/modern armor because I've always found that it reduced the necessity for combined arms. It made the artillery (and mobile artillery) units far less interesting as one of the main reasons of existence of these units was to do collateral damage. Combining the ability to do collateral damage with the strongest (2-move) units of their time (tanks and modern armor) made the slow normal artillery and mobile artillery fairly uninteresting units. I'd like to see a game where every unit has a role that it full fills best and that each of these units thus has a greater value in some specific situation than every other unit. The role for the artillery and mobile artillery units just gets very small when you have tanks and modern armor that can do collateral damage.

However, there are some arguments used in this thread in favour of removing the barrage promotion that I do not agree with. And to keep the discussion clean, I'm going to (try to) pick those arguments apart.

First argument: Firaxis wanted to remove the promotion from tanks but forgot to do it.

I'm not sure that is true. First of all, the change to collateral damage seems to be based upon the thread 'is Barrage broken' which discussed to great lengths how the barrage promotions didn't deliver what they promised. The barrage promotions say they increase collateral damage by 20%/30%/50% but that wasn't true before patch 3.17. It was changed in patch 3.17 so that the barrage promotions do what they promise, but as a side effect, units with 0 strength collateral damage attacks won't benefit from these promotions anymore.

Second, the Firaxian Alexman didn't say that Firaxis intended to remove the barrage promotion from tanks and modern armor. This is what he said in the 'is Barrage broken' thread:

Hey guys, sorry for the mess-up.

As I mentioned to Solver, my suggestion would be to just remove the Barrage line from Armor units in the XML. I doubt that their usefulness would suffer because of it, and in BTS we have Mobile Artillery for that role anyway.

This sounds more like: Oh, we made a mistake. This is the easy fix that I suggest. It doesn't sound like they intended to remove collateral damage from tanks. That doesn't mean that the unofficial patch shouldn't do it, but it does sound like the effects on the collateral damage promotions for units with no base-collateral damage is unintended.

Third, there are lots of units like tanks that suffer from the unintended side effect from the change in the barrage promotions. These units just aren't part of the epic game but part of the various mods that came with BTS: Road to War, Next War, Broken Star, Crossroads of the World, etc. (I didn't check them all). All of these mods have units that start with 0 collateral damage but can get the barrage promotion. I think that all of these units should get some worth out of that promotion or the promotion line should also be removed from these units.

Second argument: Some like to argue that tanks and modern armor don't have a counter unit like below. Being too strong they thus should be nerfed.

* Tanks counter units:
- anti tank: 14 base + 125% = 32. Waow, against a 40 + barrage, let's die in stacks,
- chopper: 24 base + 50% = 36. Waow again: you need two to kill a tank, but are you ready to spend 320 hammer for that? No no, buy a modern tank. 10 times more versatile.

This argument is flawed. Anti tanks are a decent counter for strength 28 tanks. And gunships get a 100% bonus against armoured units making them effectively strength 48 against the strength 40 modern armors. And on top of that, gunships can get a promotion against armoured units, but tanks can't get a promotions against helicopter units. So gunships can comfortably take out modern armor.

 

[CivCorpse]

I agree with Kaytie. And not just because I like to use barrage tanks as well. A patch should fix gameplay issues not gameplaying styles. And to be honest, I think tanks losing barrage was a side effect of an attempt to fix the barrage promotion rather than something intended by Firaxis. If Firaxis had meant to remove collateral damage from tanks they would have removed the promotion line as well. I really don't think Firaxis is too concerned with "overpowered" units. If they were, then the Praetorians would have been nerfed a long time ago. I am not sure why they removed the combat line from siege units. Even an Explorer can get the combat promotion and the unit can't even attack.
I applaud Firaxis for releasing a patch this late in the games history. But it looks like a halfhearted effort. The "no espionage" option appears to be poorly thought out with almost no thought given to all the aspects of the game that espionage affects. The spy specialist should be removed. The security bureau and intel agency should have been removed. Espionage points from all buildings including the palace should have been removed rather than converting them into culture.
The "we meant to remove collateral damage from tanks" explanation sounds like "oooops, we forgot about that". They meant to fix the barrage promotion. Which was broken. The problem being that barrage is based on collateral damage strength which tanks do not have. If I knew how to write code I would make a MOD myself. For those of you that do know how. Here is a possible way to fix things. (Are you listening Firaxis?) It does require quite a bit of work. Remove all the collateral damage strengths from all units. Make collateral damage based on unit strength. Example Barrage 1 does collateral damage of 10% of a units strength. Barrage2 does 12% and Barrage3 does 15%
Units that automatically do collateral damage without promotions start with barrage0 which does 10% of base strength as collateral damage. The exact percentages would be up to the programmer. This also fixes a gameplay imbalance with CR trebs. You can take any city during the era with enough trebs. In all the games played in the forums the invading SoD of a player is a HUGELY disproportionate amount of trebs. Most cities are taken without the loss of a single melee or mounted unit. Collateral damage is greatly overpowered. Especially since the AI does not take advantage of it.
As for the people saying tanks doing collateral damage is not realistic. It is obvious you don't know much about real life military ordnance. Giving a barrage promotion to a tank unit is simply saying you supplied them with flechette rounds or white phosphorous rounds. I spent 4 years as a U.S. Marine Corps infantryman. Tanks CAN do collateral damage.
I think removing amphibious attacks from siege units is a great idea. Cannons and Artillery are offloaded AFTER the beachhead is established. Yes this will make amphibious attacks much more difficult. And it should. Amphibious assaults are nasty bloody affairs. The have the highest casualty numbers of any military manuever during wartime. And that includes airborne assaults.
On the topic of paratroopers, they should NOT be able to attack on the turn they drop. Airborne units drop a distance away from the actual battle. If they drop close enough attack immediately then they are close enough to shoot at in midair. And they should be able to be intercepted. If you were at war and saw a bunch of enemy planes flying around, would you ignore them?
Just my 2 cents. For now, I am going to hold off on D/L'ing 3.17. It doesn't fix anything great and has more negatives than postives.

 

[Wodan]

This argument is flawed. Anti tanks are a decent counter for strength 28 tanks. And gunships get a 100% bonus against armoured units making them effectively strength 48 against the strength 40 modern armors. And on top of that, gunships can get a promotion against armoured units, but tanks can't get a promotions against helicopter units. So gunships can comfortably take out modern armor.

That argument also ignores unit cost. I don't know them off the top of my head, but I wouldn't be surprised if an anti-tank costs half that of a tank.

This is the same kind of argument that happens when people say Pikeman isn't a counter for Cavalry. Yes, it is.

(Now does the AI know how to suicide one cheap unit in order for a second cheap unit to win... I doubt it. On the defensive, however, this isn't so critical.)

Wodan

 

[Woody1]

New version coming up. Changes (I should sometimes document what I change before uploading, not after!):

• Access to the Barrage line removed from armored units. If units with access to Barrage and no inherent collateral damage are modded in, they will work.
• Fixed AI defender bug for newly captured cities.
• Fixed overproduction of transports in land wars courtesy of better BtS AI team.
• Made the AI more likely to use missiles on cruisers/subs to strike against enemy improvements.
• Made AI ships prioritize retreating if docked in a city which is in the danger of imminent capture by enemy.
• Civilopedia and mouseover help for units that cause collateral damage will now show the collateral damage limit (50% for Catapults, etc.)
• Somewhat experimental AI change: Aggressive AI now considerably less likely to want peace if it poses more of an immediate threat to enemy cities than it currently faces itself.

Thanks for the fixes! That said, I'm a little concerned you may be fixing more than just "bugs". Are you sure that the changes won't have negative consequences? (5) and (7) seem like fairly significant AI changes. I like the intent of them, but what if it prevents the AI from moving troops around or stuck in an endless war?

Anyway, just my two cents. I prefer that the unoffical patch only fix things that are clearly broken. Perhaps the "better AI" patch should be reserved for tweaking the AI behaviour. (Unless it's clearly broken.)

 

[Solver]

I see AI improvements as something well within the scope of a patch. Official patches do that, both previous unofficial patches did that. I can obviously not guarantee anything, but the AI change I make here should be safe. At least not causing endless loops or such things.

Besides, if I do break something, you won't have to wait a month for a fix

 

[Caboose]

The Praetorians are a unique unit, and Romans have Imperialistic trait, which is not the best trait. It's not the same. Praetorians are a part of a bigger picture when it comes to balance, but YES they are freaking strong.

 

[Balderstrom]

Solver's Fix, should do the following, which is basically, what I posted previously except have the iModifier be 0, and +=100 for AirCraft & units w/ native collateral damage.
This "fix" just set's the iCollateralStrength equal to baseCombatStr();
And relies on the Collateral Promotion's value as the final multiplier (for non-native Collateral units).

iCollateralStrength = ((((getDomainType() == DOMAIN_AIR) ? airBaseCombatStr() : baseCombatStr()) * collateralDamage()) / 100);

	if (iCollateralStrength == 0)
	{
		if (getExtraCollateralDamage() > 0)
		{
			iCollateralStrength = baseCombatStr();
		}
		if (iCollateralStrength == 0)
		{
			return;
		}
	}

below where iModifier is assigned:

	int iModifier = 0;
	if (getDomainType() == DOMAIN_AIR || collateralDamage())
	{
		iModifer += 100;
	}

Anyways, my last foray on this topic, but this is what I recommend it will
allow modders to do one of two things:
1) Give Bombard to Tanks : which will function at 20%/50%/100% vs Artillery's 120%/150%/200%
2) Add a new line of promotions for tanks, Shell I/II/II, that increases collateral more. Something along the lines of my previous suggestion, of +70/+100/+150 - So its not useless nor overpowered.
Or if they really wanted, +120/+150/+200 - but I'd recommend the former, to give Artillery a purpose still ;-)

Cheers.