The Honor tree and warmongering

[Thalassicus]

Due to a vanilla promotion-earning bug I'm not sure it will be possible to have unlockable promotions. I've tried various workarounds without success:

• Give the prerequisite an earnable combat classes but set CannotBeChosen=true.
  (failed, checks that)
• Give it no earnable combat classes, but leave CannotBeChosen=false.
  (checks for both)
• Make the prereq okay, but give the prereq a prereq that cannot be earned.
  (recursive)
• Instead of Policy_FreePromotions, use Policy_FreePromotionUnitCombats.
  (apparently the second table is not implemented in the c++)
• Manually code it with lua.
  (no event is available to detect when a policy is acquired. Network.SendUpdatePolicies can't be added to)

 

[void_genesis]

I did see something similar (called scurvy?) in the new world scenario where ships out of port lost one HP every turn. Perhaps the code for that could be adapted to scouts in unfriendly territory (though may be harder to specify friendly, unfriendly, unclaimed and enemy territory). I wonder how they got the AI to manage the damage to ships from exploring??

 

[Seek]

I wonder how they got the AI to manage the damage to ships from exploring??

I only played the scenario once, but I got the impression that the AI didn't handle it well. If anyone wants to contradict this impression, feel free!

 

[Dunkah]

I could see losing Hit Points f you are in a real explorer mode. Perhaps every turn that you reveal a hex from the Fog of War that you could receive a Scurvy Hit Point.

I could also see if you are in a shore line hex that has unfriendly CS or Civ that controls the land it is adjacent to that you could take a Point of Damage.

However if you are near a freindly hex or neutral hex you should be able to live off of the land, fish whatever for supplies.

Not sure if any of that is possible.

I also think ships should be able to enter anyone's territory early on as well.

 

[Thalassicus]

All of that would actually be very easy to code, but without access to the AI it'd be a human-only thing.

 

[void_genesis]

Hey Thal

Just a thought about the scout semi-open borders idea. You were worried about the AI having its scouts wander unknowingly into your territory and die, making it OP for human players. Could this be balanced out by reducing the damage rate to AI scouts, or lowering the production costs/increasing production probability for AI scouts?

Get the balance right and the AI will get some bonus information about your territory, but limit the damage to the AI in terms of scout loss, while also preventing the AI from clogging your territory with unmovable scouts, and giving some more fun to scouting AI territory while being careful to not lose your scouts. Doable?

 

[Thalassicus]

The base difficulty is damaged units on "explore" will stop and heal, so the moment the scout takes damage it'll just sit there. Without full access to the AI there's not really much we can do about it.

 

[Txurce]

The base difficulty is damaged units on "explore" will stop and heal, so the moment the scout takes damage it'll just sit there. Without full access to the AI there's not really much we can do about it.

Interesting... this explains why AI scouts hold in place and die by not moving out of range of barb archers.

 

[Txurce]

The Discipline buff was definitely a good idea - one of those where you wonder why it wasn't done earlier.

 

[Stalker0]

The Discipline buff was definitely a good idea - one of those where you wonder why it wasn't done earlier.

Actually, Thal I thought you were looking to avoid straight up combat buffs?

Flanking is already a damn good bonus, while I agree discipline is a bit boring I don't think doubling its strength is the answer. I think a secondary bonus is a better solution.

 

[Thalassicus]

The change is actually rather minor:

(1 + 0.2 + 0.4 + 0.2) / (1 + 0.2 + 0.4 + 0.1) = 5% higher strength in average circumstances with 2 promotions and a great general.

While I've been avoiding combat bonuses on the whole, I do feel players who invest heavily in the Honor tree deserve a slight edge over their opponents in toe-to-toe battles. This is the only direct combat bonus remaining in any of the trees until Autocracy's experience boost.

 

[Seek]

Playing an emperor Dom game with Denmark now - far and away the most difficult warring I've encountered in civ5, and loving it! The defense bonus for spears/pikes was a really great move, shouldn't been done a long time ago. (Pikes standing up against longswords!)

A couple notes that may be worth considering:

1) Spoils of War is *very* powerful. In any future game that looks like it will be at all bloody, I plan on getting it asap. I don't want to see it nerfed, but maybe rearranging the SP tree to make it less accessible would be a good thing. It also makes Professional Army look poor in comparison.
2) The removal of the unit malus for siege has essentially made regular ranged units obsolete. The only downsides to siege is that it needs to be set up first and it's a bit more expensive. The AI has noticed this as well - I saw almost no non-siege ranged units in play by them.

 

[Txurce]

Playing an emperor Dom game with Denmark now - far and away the most difficult warring I've encountered in civ5, and loving it! The defense bonus for spears/pikes was a really great move, shouldn't been done a long time ago. (Pikes standing up against longswords!)

A couple notes that may be worth considering:

1) Spoils of War is *very* powerful. In any future game that looks like it will be at all bloody, I plan on getting it asap. I don't want to see it nerfed, but maybe rearranging the SP tree to make it less accessible would be a good thing. It also makes Professional Army look poor in comparison.
2) The removal of the unit malus for siege has essentially made regular ranged units obsolete. The only downsides to siege is that it needs to be set up first and it's a bit more expensive. The AI has noticed this as well - I saw almost no non-siege ranged units in play by them.

Are you saying it's been the most difficult warring because of the buffed spears and pikes? I'm dying to play Denmark, but am waiting to see if Thal nerfs the seemingly excess bonus movement points upon landing. What do you think, Seek?

I still see archers from the AI when they are low on resources, but they strongly prefer siege units. Why do you think they're obsolete? Are you saying that siege weapons don't have the 50% penalty vs units? I think they still do.

 

[Seek]

Are you saying it's been the most difficult warring because of the buffed spears and pikes? I'm dying to play Denmark, but am waiting to see if Thal nerfs the seemingly excess bonus movement points upon landing. What do you think, Seek?

Yeah, the spear/pike buff is definitely a part of it; the fact that I usually play at a lower level (old Emp) may have something to do with it, and the battle AI is certainly better with this patch as well.

I haven't launched a naval invasion with the Danes yet (and my savegames are all broken so I'll have to start another one sometime) but I'm finding them to be generally less OP than expected. In other words, I don't think the excess movement points should prevent you from playing them!

I still see archers from the AI when they are low on resources, but they strongly prefer siege units. Why do you think they're obsolete? Are you saying that siege weapons don't have the 50% penalty vs units? I think they still do.

You're right. I simply assumed that it was removed because cats were doing ~4 damage to my Berserkers! (I misremembered the 7.25 beta patch notes for siege - they were in reference to naval units.) Maybe it was just the bonus AI promotions that made me not double check that.

 

[Txurce]

I simply assumed that it was removed because cats were doing ~4 damage to my Berserkers! (I misremembered the 7.25 beta patch notes for siege - they were in reference to naval units.) Maybe it was just the bonus AI promotions that made me not double check that.

Yeah, I often attack unthinkingly with an apparently superior unit and then get spanked by those damned promotions of Thal's!

 

[Stalker0]

You're right. I simply assumed that it was removed because cats were doing ~4 damage to my Berserkers! (I misremembered the 7.25 beta patch notes for siege - they were in reference to naval units.) Maybe it was just the bonus AI promotions that made me not double check that.

This is something I've been watching myself.

While siege suffer the -50% against units, there strength is so high that a few promotions can jump that right back up. I think that ranged units are still a little bit better against units even with promotions, and the fact you don't have to set them up. However, since siege is so much better against cities...is it worth building ranged units when I can build siege that is almost as good against units and much much better against cities?

Something I'm watching.

 

[Txurce]

This is something I've been watching myself.

While siege suffer the -50% against units, there strength is so high that a few promotions can jump that right back up. I think that ranged units are still a little bit better against units even with promotions, and the fact you don't have to set them up. However, since siege is so much better against cities...is it worth building ranged units when I can build siege that is almost as good against units and much much better against cities?

Something I'm watching.

From a longterm perspective, cats promote all the way up to at least cannon, while archers don't get past crossbows.

 

[SlightlyMad]

I use archery units almost exclusively for defense. They absolutely excel at that, since you can pull back and attack, and they can do a large amount of damage against an invading force. Other than that, I'll put maybe 1-2 in with my own invasion force, to pick off defensive units. It would be nice though, if there was a renaissance era unit they could upgrade to, like grenadiers or something.

 

[Thalassicus]

I'm continuing to tweak Spoils of War. I've considered moving it around in the tree, and I'm open to suggestions.

The problem with siege units is Firaxis forgot to create a "siege" flavor. There's only offense, defense, mobile, and range (and a few other miscellaneous categories). Archers and cats are lumped into the same "range" flavor, so the AI fundamentally cannot distinguish between the two when deciding what to build. There's no way we can solve that without access to the c++.

One advantage of crossbows -> rifles is ranged units can get the March promotion earlier than melee, so I always build a few crossbows on the offensive. Rifles that never have to stop are very powerful. My cats/trebs get the Siege promotion instead, and don't get attacked as much, so March isn't very accessible or useful for them.

 

[Seek]

I think making Warrior Code and Military Caste prereqs for Spoils of War would make it enough of an investment to prevent it from becoming a nobrainer in every game that sees combat. As it is now, if I'm going to war and I don't want to veer too far from my victory plan it's very powerful and easy to get as a first tier sp.