Solver's unofficial BtS 3.17 patch

[KaytieKat]

Are people even reading this thread, DrJambo is the second or third person now to say Missiles with collateral would be interesting.

Missiles DO Collateral damage. They always have.

My question much earlier, was wondering if they still did, or if this collateral change affected just Tanks. So I had to go confirm it myself, since no one would answer.
And Solver's response, was he didn't use them for collateral, so even if it did change he wouldn't fix it.

Hi

I did a world builder test and the cruise missles I tried didnt do col dam. I have never really bothered with em much so I have no idea if it is new or has always been like that.

I also dont think missles can even get promotions so whether barrage would work or not with them is probabaly moot.

I am wondering if it means they have never had col dam. Since the change being discussed is how barrage has been changed and how that can affect units like tanks and seige. As far as I know no specific unit was directly changed--meaning no unites got native col damage they didnt have before or if they had native before none got taken away.

It is just that the reworked barrage promo NOW only works with units that already have native col damage. The result of change means barage works better with siege (and I am assuming with bats and MC's too) But with armored units who never had native col damage before and still dont now it doesnt work at all since they cant do any col damage from barrage promotion alone.

So that make sme think maybe missles never had it to begin with. Like I said I am not sure bout that but I am pretty sure they never had access to promotions (hard for units that die first time they are used to get much experience to go down promo lines hehe) and still dont so either way so they wouldnt benefit from barrage even if they do get col damage.

Kaytie

 

[grumbler]

Given that there are some questions about how to install, should I maybe also create an installer for this thing?

If it isn't a lot of trouble, an installer for those of us who aren't computer literate would be nice!

I've adapted the installer I had built for Bhruic's patch to Solver's - get it here.

Features:

• Install to core assets or as a mod
• Option to back up previous files
• Check if official 3.17 patch has been installed

Solver, perhaps you could add a link to the installer to your first post? Experience shows that links within these fast-moving patch threads have the tendency to get buried quickly.

(If you'd prefer to come up with your own installer, that'd be perfectly fine with me, too. I just thought your time would be better spent working on the patch than the installer and I had this one already on my hands. I'd continue to update the installer as new versions of your patch become available.)

 

[DrJambo]

Are people even reading this thread, DrJambo is the second or third person now to say Missiles with collateral would be interesting.

Missiles DO Collateral damage. They always have.

My question much earlier, was wondering if they still did, or if this collateral change affected just Tanks. So I had to go confirm it myself, since no one would answer.
And Solver's response, was he didn't use them for collateral, so even if it did change he wouldn't fix it.

I can't find anywhere in the xml to suggest that guided missiles do collateral. Having just built them and tried them in my recent game, they also only seem to attack one unit.

 

[Refar]

Guided missiles - beeing a lot cheaper than siege units - can't have the same impcat siege has (Siege used for collateral is expected to die after 1 use as well...). I also do not see why GM should have collateral damage - after all they are all about surgical precision strikes... I have no idea if they do or at some point did have collateral tho, as i dont remember using one.

I think the soultion for GM should be no collateral but higher damageto a single unit (or maybe a random chance of instant kill). Better yet the ability to choose the target from a stack... But i think that goes more in the direction of a mod than a patch.

 

[frekk]

Hmm ... I think missiles should do only collateral damage. It's not as if you're going to wipe out an entire infantry or armoured division using only cruise missiles. But you might damage assets from several divisions, perhaps heavily with a sufficiently large barrage.

 

[Woody1]

Actually, it's unrealistic to not allow tanks collateral damage.

Yeah, but so what? The whole point of a game is to keep things balanced, and gameplay is far more important that reality.

There are mods out there that make things more "realistic". But, IMO, they simply add needless complexity and reduce gameplay.

 

[PieceOfMind]

Firstly, for as long as I remember missiles never did collateral damage - the main reason I've found them to be fairly useless (that and I can't find too many cities with such low number of hammers to build them without overflow).

Secondly, frekk, if missiles did only collateral damage they would be IMO too useful. Then you certainly wouldn't need amphib siege units anyway. If they only damaged 3 units tops then it might be ok.

 

[Solver]

Balderstorm, kurtkage - missiles still don't do collateral, though. Their collateral damage value in XML is 0. That is by design. Think of them as precision missiles that hit a single target doing little damage otherwise. The AI is actually already capable of using them against ships, shouldn't be that much of a problem.

Missiles can do collateral damage same as air units as per the code, but they need the XML value to be non-zero for it.

Kurtkage, the reason why siege amphibious attacks were removed is different. AI quirks... Myself, I find it quite logical that taking the first city on a hostile continent is the most difficult in modern warfare. At that point you must land troops, your only air support comes from Carriers. Once you take the city you have a beachhead, so you can fly Bombers in and maybe start bringing reinforcements in via airlifting. That first city can sure be tough.

Kaytie, a couple of points. Alex is the lead designer of BtS, so yes, he's very much connected to the game Unofficial patches doing things not meant by Firaxis... I have a slightly different approach than Bhruic. He did, in my opinion, go a little bit too far with some of his changes. Of course, I can't say all the changes I make would be approved by Firaxis, either. However, I have now been working on the inside for over three years, so I believe that I have a pretty good feel by now of what they would like and wouldn't. You mention the inflation costs for the original BtS. High as they were, they were higher than the developers intended. What you end up with isn't always what you intend. Like now, they ended up not removing Barrage from armored units due to a mix-up, but they wanted to.

Grumbler, thank you. How did you make that installer? Is it some installshield thing? I'll see if I get around to making my own, and thanks for adapting the Bhruic patch installer.

 

[PieceOfMind]

Yeah, but so what? The whole point of a game is to keep things balanced, and gameplay is far more important that reality.

There are mods out there that make things more "realistic". But, IMO, they simply add needless complexity and reduce gameplay.

Woody1, you certainly don't need to be telling Wodan this. He was arguing that realism arguments are not enough to justify the removal of barrage from tanks. Since he doesn't rely on this as the sole reason for his argument there's hardly any point you coming along and telling him about why realism is not the big issue.

 

[Solver]

Same here, realism is pretty low on my list of concerns.

 

[r_rolo1]

I'm somewhat over the fence about Barrage line on armored.... I understand alexman idea ( as it was Barrage tanks , due to their superior power, mobility and Blitz, were more effective as SoD counters than the siege units of the time ( not that I agree with the Civ IV "siege artilery<=>field artilery" idea but..... ) ) but saying that catapults can make collateral damage and tanks don't is a dificult concept to swallow..... Realism may be really down the list of priorities, but it is that low?

Oh well, either way is fine by me. Not that hard to give effective barrage back to tanks if I want....

 

[Solver]

Yeah, realism is low on the list of priorities In real life, catapults are also surely capable of killing enemy soldiers, they aren't in Civ4. And bombers can sink ships in real life, and all that

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.

 

[DMOC]

About the worst enemy spoiler info thing - I'll be looking into it, but a save is still good if anyone has it. I can't easily recreate the behaviour.

I am sorry, but I somehow lost the save of that game...or maybe I just never saved it....

Steps to reproduce (hopefully this will be quick):

Set up pangea map

Choose these AI's:

Lincoln
Shaka
Montezuma
Genghis Khan
Gilgamesh
Tokugawa
Ragnar

And try rerolling your starts until Lincoln is the first AI you met. Then send all scouts back to capital and don't explore anymore. Keep checking Lincoln's "Worst Enemy" feature: he's bound to have met some of the other AI's along the way that you haven't because you stopped exploring after meeting Lincoln. Due to base peaceweights, Lincoln will automatically be everyone's worst enemy.

 

[Wodan]

Well, discounting an argument is fine, but doesn't mean it's not valid.

Anyway I think Katie had a lot of other points which nobody responded to. The most telling to me is the one about removing an option from player's repertoires will always be perceived as a negative. How can this not be bad for Firaxis? It's like they said, "here's something cool. Oh, it's too good, we're going to take it away." Nice job, Firaxis.

Wouldn't it be just as easy to lower the strength just a bit? That seems a compromise solution that would make everybody happy.

Wodan

 

[r_rolo1]

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.

That is a good idea indeed. AI has the bad habit of making Huge naval SoD and to guard them lightly, making easy for the Human player to destroy the enemy navy if he moves swiftly.

But nothing can stop a carrack with marines of doing that in DoW moment anyway ....

 

[Caboose]

Well, discounting an argument is fine, but doesn't mean it's not valid.

Anyway I think Katie had a lot of other points which nobody responded to. The most telling to me is the one about removing an option from player's repertoires will always be perceived as a negative. How can this not be bad for Firaxis? It's like they said, "here's something cool. Oh, it's too good, we're going to take it away." Nice job, Firaxis.

Wouldn't it be just as easy to lower the strength just a bit? That seems a compromise solution that would make everybody happy.

Wodan

It's not about it being too strong. It isn't that strong at all if I understood it correctly. It's about consistency and simplicity. Consistency in that siege units are the ones to do siege and tanks to fill it's own role. Simplicity in that this removes an option which isn't needed, and doesn't unbalance the game by removing it.

And I stress it again, Solver states he wants to go in the general direction of Firaxis, so deal with it or find another guy to patch it, Kaytie. I don't think your example was very good, because corporation costs were way too high before it was fixed. Firaxis didn't intend corporations to break your economy totally.

 

[MusX]

my vote is for removing collateral damage promotions from tanks and modern armours too

 

[jkp1187]

Any chance that the AI can be 'taught' to actually blockade? Right now they might do it for a turn or two but the AI ships seem very ADHD and just wander off or bombard cities that will never be attacked.

The whole blockade feature is extremely well done for BtS and really encourages you to build a navy, but if the AI is incapable of using it properly (which it seems to be at the moment) then its just another advantage that human players get that the AIs dont share.

I had some hopes that after all this time the 'official' patch would tweak the AI to fix this. But unfortunately, it appears that this has not been addressed. Any chance the 'unofficial' patch could eventually cover this?

Thanks for all your effort!

I've noticed that when assigning pirate ships the "PIRATE_AI", they will blockade. I have noticed the AI occasionally blockading as well, though you're right, it isn't consistent.

It is a shame that inland cities cannot have their trade routes blockaded as well, but it doesn't seem like there's an easy solution to that problem.

 

[ICNP]

Well I never tried pure B3 Tanks as I always went with the CR3 with the next promotions (I love Cha) being Barrage and I may have never checked how much collat I did but it definitely didn't seem OP.

I think Para's and Bombers are going to need a boost after this patch. With Anti-tank (which nullify a lot of these anti-barrage sentiments) and Machine guns getting Interception Air units are going to be just shot. Considering that now with Anti-Tanks which is available at Artillery you've reduced your opponent to the slow 1 move armies. I can see why they did this to nerf Airships but the rest of the Air units are going to be at risk. This makes defensive wars to easy in the Modern Era IMO.

 

[MusX]

Solver, are you using Paratroopers? wouldn't you start to use them? we just need to improve them a little