Strategic Leader Trait
- Thread starter Silence101
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King of Town
Adventuring
Now I like that. Make your units like ballista elephants. I don't know which units to pick, but that sounds cool. I'd think maybe free geurilla or woodsman 2 type bonus. Sounds kind of fun.
Free Flanking I for melee & gunpowder units would work well for strategic as even at Flanking III units will still die frequently enough and the addition of first strike immunity with Flanking II (I think) definately sounds 'strategic' to me. It would also mix well with both aggressive and protective, well... depending on what you've already changed with them 
Now you can have some fun with production modifiers, they're a lot more powerful than most people give them credit for and there are so many units & buildings to apply it to that you can easily avoid duplication. So, from a strategic standpoint you have buildings like the Pentagon (yes you can add mods to specific wonders), airports and the usual suggestions. For units, think strategic... galleys, galleons and transports come to mind (ok, maybe more logistics than strategy) and you can always go with catapults, trebs, cannons and artillery. Increased unit production speed represents getting units to the field quicker, not always having more of them, and this is how the AI will use it if you're curious (players will just build more )
I can also tell you from my own playing around that even though traits use the same schema as civilizations you can't give UU's and UB's to traits which is unfortunate as that would be kind of cool. Hapiness modifiers for traits don't work on special build classes (e.g. temples) you have to apply it to the individual buildings (e.g hindu temple). Trait production modifiers don't work on build orders (improvements) even though those come from the unit schema. Yeah, I tried some whacky things, save yourself the time they don't work
Now you can have some fun with production modifiers, they're a lot more powerful than most people give them credit for and there are so many units & buildings to apply it to that you can easily avoid duplication. So, from a strategic standpoint you have buildings like the Pentagon (yes you can add mods to specific wonders), airports and the usual suggestions. For units, think strategic... galleys, galleons and transports come to mind (ok, maybe more logistics than strategy) and you can always go with catapults, trebs, cannons and artillery. Increased unit production speed represents getting units to the field quicker, not always having more of them, and this is how the AI will use it if you're curious (players will just build more
)I can also tell you from my own playing around that even though traits use the same schema as civilizations you can't give UU's and UB's to traits which is unfortunate as that would be kind of cool. Hapiness modifiers for traits don't work on special build classes (e.g. temples) you have to apply it to the individual buildings (e.g hindu temple). Trait production modifiers don't work on build orders (improvements) even though those come from the unit schema. Yeah, I tried some whacky things, save yourself the time they don't work
The_Reckoning
Prince
^ Flanking III?
If Ragnar had this, his boats would be a beast, with Navigation II available with +2 xp in some form.
If Ragnar had this, his boats would be a beast, with Navigation II available with +2 xp in some form.
Silence101
King
Free Flanking I for melee & gunpowder units would work well for strategic as even at Flanking III units will still die frequently enough and the addition of first strike immunity with Flanking II (I think) definately sounds 'strategic' to me. It would also mix well with both aggressive and protective, well... depending on what you've already changed with them
I'm honestly not a big fan of Flanking - I picture it as retreating, where a strategic leader should be someone known for preparation going into battle and finding ways to win when the odds are against them. Lately I've been testing it with Drill I for melee and gunpowder - it's not very powerful (initially), but it seems to fit the flavor of the trait better. Plus, at level 2, the unit could pick up Shock or Cover instead of having to go with Combat I. I also gave strategic a +50% build bonus to scouts and explorers for a bit of a boost. (Keep in mind that I modded both scouts and explorers with a free Sentry promotion to give them a bit of flavor.)
I was playing around with the idea of having Strategic give units a free Drill II promotion instead of Drill I. Normally, of course, you'd have to have Drill I before you could use Drill II - does anyone know if Drill I + Drill II = One first strike & One additional first strike chance? Or does the Drill II promotion override the Drill I promotion and just give one first strike?
Silence101
King
If you know a way to mod that, please let me know. I don't think it can be done in XML - but otherwise it's not a bad idea.
COnsidering how abstract combat is in CIV I always viewed Flanking as breaking off the attack before you were completely slaughtered since you don't actually retreat and it only works for the attacker. As for Drill II, all of the promotion bonuses stack, they don't get replaced by the next one. So starting with Drill II is not the same as starting with Drill I & Drill II. This also will afect prereq's for other promotions if the specifically require Drill I.
Silence101
King
Your explaination of Flanking is reasonable, but I still don't see it as having a real Strategic flavor. I think of strategy as more of a strong preparation phase before going into battle. The Sun Tzu quote sums it up nicely: "Victorious warriors win first and then go to war, while defeated warriors go to war first and then seek to win." I picture the stratigic leader being synominous with Sun Tzu's description of the victorious warrior, but when I think of the Flanking promotion - it seems to me to be more reactionary than a part of proactive planning. So, from that perspective it doesn't fit the flavor of the trait.
EDIT: Thanks for the explaination on Drill - That's what I thought happened, but I wasn't positive... I didn't really know of a way to test it.
MyOtherName
Emperor
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"In ancient times, those skilled in warfare make themselves invincible and then wait for the enemy to become vulnerable." -- Sun Tzu
Flanking isn't quite invincibility, but it has the same flavor. It has great use as a "hit and run" maneuver; when facing a powerful foe, rather than sending troops to certain death, you instead seek to damage him and withdraw before you suffer defeat.
Silence101
King
I would agree with except that flanking has a low percentage of actually working and requires you to lose the battle. At least Drill I has 50/50 odds and isn't contingent on you losing. I can't imagine the tactician that comes in saying, "I have this great hit and run strategy that is guaranteed to work 10% of the time... the other 90% of the time, you're dead."
Flanking II negates the major bonus of Drill I, II and III, nothing negates your chance to withdraw other than wining. Since protective already gives Drill I to gunpowder units having another trait that does the same won't add a whole lot to the game and will make Strategic/Protective a nerfed combination. The advantage of Drill enabling Shock & Cover is negated in an Aggressive/Strategic combination. There are other promotions to consider, however most of them are either redundant with UU's, too powerful for free promotions (march, commando, etc) or inappropriate for land units with 1 move (blitz, mobility). You could always try a new promotion if all else fails. I think a good goal for a trait's free promotion is something unique, with the most immediately beneficial promotions in use by other traits adding something not normally available to the unit receiving the promotion is always a cool effect. Just some food for thought, if you have your heart set on Drill then by all means use it, it's your mod
MyOtherName
Emperor
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(1) It isn't 10% of the time. If you're using flanking seriously, then it's 30% at a minimum, and more if the unit comes with a base withdrawl chance. (e.g. it's 60% for cavalry, 80% for submarines)
(2) Try looking at it as "I have this tactic that will do damage while only losing half of your forces -- you would lose almost all of your forces if you tried to do the same damage with brute force alone!"
(3) I have hard numbers for an example: if you are facing a City Garrison II archers in a city with 100% cultural defense, then it costs you 33.17 hammers (on average) to kill an archer with City Raider III swordsmen. However, if you first use Flanking II Horse Archers to deal the first few blows, the cost drops to 30.35 hammers. If you use Flanking II chariots to deal the very first blow to such an archer, the cost drops further to 28.96 hammers.
Even against a weaker enemy... say, the same archer but with 40% cultural defense. It costs 28.41 hammers to kill it with City Raider II swordsmen. It only costs 24.13 if you use Flanking II chariots to deal the first blow. And it only 21.56 hammers to kill it purely with Flanking II horse archers. The cost drops to 20.15 hammers if you also use combat 2 horse archers, and there is essentially no benefit to mixing City Raider II swordsmen with your horse archers. (except to leech experience from weakened archers, so they can become City Raider III)
Silence101
King
It seems that you've altered the discussion to support the value of Flanking. This was never my point - I wasn't attacking the Flanking promotion or saying that it wasn't valuable. In fact, quoting my last post, I wrote specifically that, "I would agree with except that flanking has a low percentage of actually working and requires you to lose the battle." You bring up stats and figures regarding the value of Flanking II horse archers and chariots, but I was refering specifically to a free Flanking I promotion to melee and gunpowerder units. Flanking I adds a withdrawal chance of 10%. It's just 10%... not 30%, not 60%, and not 80%. Even promoted to Flanking II, while I admit that it does negate First Strikes, the withdrawal percentage is only 20% on these units. My point was that a tactic that only works such a low percentage of the time doesn't seem very "strategic" to me.
The_Reckoning
Prince
IIRC, it's in the SMAC/X mod (Planetfall). I think it was missile units which negate terrain defense penalties.
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