Solver's unofficial BtS 3.17 patch

[Solver]

Yeah I know what you're talking about, I'm not sure why the AI doesn't retreat its air force, I'm pretty sure it's programmed to do so.

On the other hand I just found that the AI wouldn't change civics while in a golden age and removed that holdover.

 

[Roland Johansen]

I agree with Krikkitone and DanF5771 on how barrage should be implemented for units with no natural collateral damage but with access to barrage promotions.

 

[Balderstrom]

If you want to believe you are right. Feel free. I am not arguing with anyone about this anymore.
And I'll kindly keep from insulting the people who's only contribution to this thread is to continually argue and try to show up others.
current firaxian code:
int iModifier = 100;
mine:

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

Thus I am not suggesting giving anything to AirCraft/Siege. The firaxian code code already does it. the +100 means when it is divided by 100 it is 1.
If you don't understand the code, stop arguing about it.

Have a lovely day.

 

[Solver]

Actually I fixed the AI aerial retreat code a bit. Turned out it wouldn't retreat wounded planes and would actually try to retreat offensively instead of retreating defensively. Now it should try to retreat where it can from endangered cities.

 

[Wolfshanze]

Actually I fixed the AI aerial retreat code a bit. Turned out it wouldn't retreat wounded planes and would actually try to retreat offensively instead of retreating defensively. Now it should try to retreat where it can from endangered cities.

Cool... new version coming out?

 

[Solver]

Eventually

 

[r_rolo1]

How do you retreat offensivelly? Kamikaze style?

 

[Solver]

Retreating offensively in this context means moving the planes to some city from which they would be able to attack the enemy.

 

[lilnev]

I'd like repeat my request that you fix the bug which buries most starts in forests. It's annoying, it provides information that clearly shouldn't be available ("Hm, I bet that unforested hill has a hidden resource!"), and it greatly reduces options in the early game (I used to tech Pottery before BW somewhat regularly, to get cottages growing. Now that's simply not an option because there's literally nowhere to put a cottage, unless it's a hidden resource). It's been degrading gameplay for too long.

thanks,
lilnev

 

[Solver]

I will probably get around to it. I haven't dealt with map generation code a lot, so I'll need to take a better look at it. Don't worry though, I haven't missed that post.

 

[r_rolo1]

I don't think you have to do much work. Last version of Bh patch already had code for correcting the map generation bugs ( that places forests like a madman... ).

 

[Roland Johansen]

I will probably get around to it. I haven't dealt with map generation code a lot, so I'll need to take a better look at it. Don't worry though, I haven't missed that post.

If you want to have a starting point to make any changes:

The discussion about the starting position started in post 1304 of Bhruics unofficial patch thread and it goes on for quite some posts. See post 1314 for instance. I also commented on the river desert tiles (instead of flood plains) that can arise during the starting position improvement which I think are a small bug and were also fixed by Bhruic (post 1315). You can also take a look at the changes Bhruic made in the last version of his unofficial patch to fix these starting position errors.

I personally value these changes in the last version of Bhruics unofficial patch pretty highly because they greatly increase the variation in starting positions and therefore make the various strategic options at the start of the game more diverse. Going for bronze working to remove the forests isn't always best when the starting positions are generated by the bug free starting position enhancement algorithm. We civ players always speak highly about the replayability of this game and that replayability is largely based on the diverseness of tactics due to the diversity of maps. The bugs in the starting position enhancement algorithm diminish the diverseness of the maps and thus the diversity in tactics and replayability.

 

[JosEPh_II]

Is the current solver patch version 2?

1st one has been updated already?

JosEPh

 

[Inky]

The issue of encouraging combined arms by taking away collateral damaging 2-movement units (ie tanks) doesn't make sense to me.
One would assume the following scenario: Pre-Flight you could move a stack of 10 tanks into enemy territory, 4 promoted with Barrage, 4 with City Raider, and a couple of combat/drills for defense and here you have the makings of seige, city attack, and defense, all with one unit type! And meanwhile all those elite infantry upgraded throughout the years to CRIII, and successfully upgraded Accuracy/Barrage seige stand by and watch unable to catch up with the fearsome stack of tanks. With the advent of Flight, the Tanks job becomes easier and wars would be so speedy, the term 'war weariness' only applied for the AI's inablity to wage wars efficiently against each other. But where combined arms come to the fray in the age of the tank is when you need to hold what you've taken. Those ten damaged tanks can't successfully hold against a counterattack by themselves.
However I find in most of my warmongering games, the age of the tank is rather short lived (if you call a few hundred years of peace after the battering ram to regroup and confide in the economists, short lived) when I find suddenly all I need are a few paratroopers, lots of air/naval support and a lot of Gunships, and airlifted defense, to quickly wipe out an unsuspecting civilization or 2. I think combined arms is always relevant in any situation, barrage tanks or not.
My argument against taking away the barrage promotion for tanks is that the ten tanks scenario won't work, you will have to rely on the slow movers, war weariness does become an issue, and, well, its just not as much fun.

Infantry upgrade to Mech Infantry, and though it is a while after tanks it isn't that long. But cannons don't upgrade to move 2 artillery so easily, and I agree that is a play balance problem.

Any reason why, if tanks lose barrage promotions, that artillery couldn't be changed to move 2? I don't see any obvious balance issues -- artillery can't take two shots, and you don't want to move too far ahead of defending units, so in many cases you won't go faster. But for blitzkrieg, the strategy that tanks were invented for, you absolutely must have speed in your main attack force.

 

[JujuLautre]

Another change I just made and will include... AI ships that are sitting in a city should now prioritize getting out of there in case the city is endangered. This is an attempt to make situations where the AI docks its navy into a city you're about to take, allowing you to wipe the navy out, less common.

If you're at it... I remember one time a player telling that, one time, he saw sone ennemy ships stoping in a fort near the coast in a neutral land. All he had to do was to go into the fort with a land unit and destroy the whole fleet. Do you intend to fix that at the same time?

 

[Caboose]

Ok, you guys still don't get it. (some of you)

Solver fixes flaws in the official patches, and tries to make them as close to what Firaxis intended as possible, ok?

Try to separate these two things: Fix official patch --- change gameplay in a way that Firaxis hasn't intended to. Maybe someone else is willing to do a different patch with more gameplay changes. Isn't Bhruic already doing that? Why don't you talk to him?

If Solver should make such a patch, then it should be separate from this one. I doubt he will do it, but what do I know. I do know that it shouldn't be mixed up with this one.

Get it people - this patch is for fixing flaws in official and tweaking AI only.

 

[Nishdog]

I've noticed a few of the other modpacks out there incorporating Solver's patch, so if that's what your hope is, check out this forum:
http://forums.civfanatics.com/forumdisplay.php?f=171

The first post in that forum, entitled "Sticky: Modpacks release dates:" should help you out quite a bit in sorting out what's available there...

 

[SilentHunter]

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.



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.

Ho I'm sorry, I made a mistake, due to 3.13 "up to dat" reference, that states a +50%. Anyway, main reason why it never seemed absurd to me is that choppers are just dead meat if you have one SAM inf. Never saw any of them killing a modern armor (and no, I don't play at chieftain level )

BtW I remain quite sure that having a killing/barrage capable unit when artillery cannot at least be as effective in it's own role (-85% at best) is not what was intended by Firaxis... time will say.

Main gameplay avantage of barrage/artillery is avoiding SoD tactics. It's probably why they gave it to tanks and ships. But as it gave a too big edge to the main arty owner, they also gave flanking to the cavalry.
We will see what they decide in 3.20

 

[Roland Johansen]

Ho I'm sorry, I made a mistake, due to 3.13 "up to dat" reference, that states a +50%. Anyway, main reason why it never seemed absurd to me is that choppers are just dead meat if you have one SAM inf. Never saw any of them killing a modern armor (and no, I don't play at chieftain level )

Don't be annoyed by my comment. I also don't want barrage tanks as I pointed out at the start of my post. I just wanted to remove some false arguments from the discussion. Yours was one of them. Apparently, you got your numbers from some erroneous source. I didn't want to critique you, just your statement.

SAM Infantry and Mobile SAMs are a great counter unit against Gunships. Even regular Mechanized Infantry are a tough opponent for Gunships. Gunships shouldn't attack stacks protected by such units before those stacks are heavily bombarded. The anti-gunpowder promotion is also very useful for gunships when they encounter these units.

However, your main argument was that modern armor didn't have a real counter unit and I just wanted to show the error in that statement. Civ 4 was created in such a way that units are fairly safe in a balanced stack. But of course, that doesn't make a single unit inside that stack overpowered or without counter.

We will see what they decide in 3.20

I don't know if Firaxis will create another patch. This was the third one for BTS and BTS is already on the market a long time. I wouldn't be surprised if they move on. However, it would be nice if they try to get a really good reputation on supporting their previous games by creating more patches.

 

[SilentHunter]

However, your main argument was that modern armor didn't have a real counter unit and I just wanted to show the error in that statement. Civ 4 was created in such a way that units are fairly safe in a balanced stack. But of course, that doesn't make a single unit inside that stack overpowered or without counter.

I'm not annoyed at all, you were right and I made a false statement, (based on false information downloaded here at CivFanatics ). My mistake, I should have checked in-game.

Were I failled, is that you say it was my main argument. I should never have spoken of counters because my main argument was that:

- artillery cannot kill ennemi units, only reduce them, and that's why they have collateral.
- tanks with barrage can reduce and kill.

I was pointing out that after changing artillery system in BtS, Firaxis kept the same old barrage system for tanks, which seems illogical now.

But let speak gameplay: what the difference between barrage for arty and tanks:
- for arty, when using barrage, you specialize in field, when choosing CR, in cities,
- for tanks, I really don't know. Maybe some test could show us how enabling/disenabling barrage impacts the game. I strongly suspect that giving Barrage was (3.13) always the best solution, killing the fact that the game should always favor the player that can recon and adapt. But I'm not 100% sure, so maybe if I'm courageous, I'll conduct some test and start a new thread in order to stop spamming this one with my comments. (Sorry Solver )