The Next Big Thing(tm): Experience Changes

[Vehem]

What of Calabim archers, cavalry and recon? The effort to make them level 6 usually kept me on the melee line. Could this cause balance issues involving more 500 xp longbowmen? Rooting those out of cities will not be easy.

I don't think they'll make it to level 6 through passive XP alone in a hurry - at the base rate they will need 702 turns to earn that much. It may help however if they reach level 3 or so through passive gain and that helps keep them alive to gain the rest...

 

[heisenberg]

I suppose a somewhat easier to reach level "target" would be Elohim monks.
With additional starting XP boosts from a few levels of the Altar and the usual +XP civics, they should be able to hit level 4 pretty easily waiting around, and bashing in a couple of goblin skulls should net them enough XP for spirit affinity.
Not as game-breaking as vampires, but churning out a few more affinity monks can make quite a difference if you could get them early on, especially if you started next to sirona's (which happens somewhat often if you leave flavour start on )

 

[Hanny]

Hero Promotion
It will now be possible to have "lesser heroes" - some units that have not qualified for a full hero promotion in the past may be able to gain 0.25 XP per turn rather than the more impressive 1XP that a standard hero might. Likewise, some of the less heroic-hero's may find themselves demoted to a "Champion" level unit. Equally - it's possible that certain super-beings (Hyborem, Basium) may be capable of gaining 1.5 or more XP per turn...
.

Can you give more detail of the mechanics of this?, is it that units can become minor heroes and minor heroes become major heroes by virtue of promotions gained?, ie all the levels in two fields open up a minor hero promotion when achieved. Or is this minor hero upgrade only provided via other means?.

I was looking at what Marnok was doing with adventurers, and got to thinking that a minor hero reward promotion, that only comes via lair/dungeon exploration might work well with what you have so far.

 

[Arctic Circle]

This also nicely leaves golems out in the cold, no passive XP there I assume. And gives some more reason to have living units.

 

[heisenberg]

Aye, I did make a post earlier in the main forums regarding Luchuirp's golems.

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=295646

For a while now we could have seen how the addition of worker XP made workers simply catch up very fast with their mud golem counterparts (which are expensive), and radically outstrip them once they reach horseback riding and gain mobility promotions--moving into an untamed forest and immediately start building a road anyone?
However it was still kind of a minor issue, but its kind of an analogy to the issue here, though this is on a much larger scale.

On the whole though, I'd like to really see the implementation of this new XP system in FF before making real comparisons to the golems, and seeing if there's really a balance issue there.

 

[xienwolf]

There could be decent reason to claim that a golem in a city can be worked on and tweaked by the local Dwarves here and there. As such, designing a UNITCOMBAT_GOLEM and flagging them to never recieve XP in battle may be the appropriate step.

Then, Golem Workshops can offer TrainingXP to the local Golems, who will then be able to select from a variety of enhancements (quite likely all based on prereq's of other buildings in the city).


This way, you still do not have golems randomly promoting out in the field, but they begin to have some customization and growth available.

 

[Vehem]

I've just posted the changes relating to this into the changelog - reposted here for any discussion

Spoiler ChangeLog :

44. "Training Yard" renamed to "Barracks".
45. New building "Training Yard", requires Warfare, +10 Passive XP Cap for Melee.
46. "Archery Range" renamed to "Fletcher".
47. New building "Archery Range", requires Archery, +10 Passive XP Cap for Archer.
48. New building "Jousting Tilt", requires Feudalism, +16 Passive XP Cap for Mounted.
49. Hunting Lodge and House of the Grey (Sidar UB for Hunting Lodge) gain +5 Passive XP Cap for Recon.
50. Exploration Guild (Austrin UB for Hunting Lodge) gains +10 Passive XP Cap for Recon.
51. Command Post gains +20% Passive XP Gain Rate for Melee, Mounted and Archer.
52. Mages Guild and Alchemy Lab both gain +10% Passive XP Gain Rate for Adept.
53. Meditation Hall (Kahdi UB Alchemy Lab) gains +20% Passive XP Gain Rate for Adept.
54. Pagan Temple gains +10% Passive XP Gain Rate for Disciple.
55. Temple of Temporance gains +30% Passive XP Gain Rate for Disciple.
56. Jousting Tilt grants +2 Happiness with Aristocracy
57. Archery Range grants +1 Happiness with Aristocracy

• Melee have to develop Warfare in order to train passively, but this also opens up some of their more useful promotions anyway so it is normally a good move. They also require a new building.
• Archers have access to training at the same time as the basic archer unit, but require an additional building expense to achieve it. They also gain +1 Happiness under Aristocracy from the new Archery Range.
• Mounted units have to reach Feudalism to train passively, but have the highest cap available from a basic building (16XP). The Jousting Tilt also grants +2 Happiness under Aristocracy.
• Recon units have minimal passive training abilities as it does not really fit their purpose to spend a lot of time hanging around a city. The Austrin however do train their recon units slightly better. The training ability is attached to the standard Hunting Lodge (or equivalent). The experience gained in this case represents them hunting in the area around the city grounds.
• Adept and Disciple units already have an inherent ability to gain XP, so the buildings simply increase their rate. Adepts gain an increase from Mage Guilds and Alchemy labs whilst the Disciples need either a Pagan Temple or (for a significant boost) The Temple of Temporence (traditionally seen as a "good temple" - the site is significant for any religion, being the first point in Creation).

 

[[to_xp]Gekko]

good changes, 0.43 is gonna rock

while we're on the topic of XP changes, one thing comes to mind: right now if an attacking unit withdraws, it gets 1 XP while the defender gets none. it would seem more fair to also let the defender get 1 XP imho.

 

[Breez]

good changes, 0.43 is gonna rock

while we're on the topic of XP changes, one thing comes to mind:

Will you being incorperating the changes to fractions of an XP point (or rasing all xp related items by a factor of 100) in this patch also?

I guess I was/am expecting the passive XP and fractial XP to go hand in hand.

 

[MagisterCultuum]

Not bad. I'm not sure I like the idea of making these buildings have a bonus with Aristocracy though.

Also, I would have thought that the Hippodrome would have allowed passive xp gain. They may not train to actually fight there, but competitive racing can be pretty intense. (The fatality rate of those racing in the Circus Maximus was higher than of gladiators in the Flavian Amphitheater.)

 

[Vehem]

Will you being incorperating the changes to fractions of an XP point (or rasing all xp related items by a factor of 100) in this patch also?

I guess I was/am expecting the passive XP and fractial XP to go hand in hand.

Aye - they were both added at the same time as the passive XP relies upon the decimal XP.

Not bad. I'm not sure I like the idea of making these buildings have a bonus with Aristocracy though.

Also, I would have thought that the Hippodrome would have allowed passive xp gain. They may not train to actually fight there, but competitive racing can be pretty intense. (The fatality rate of those racing in the Circus Maximus was higher than of gladiators in the Flavian Amphitheater.)

Xienwolf suggested something similar after I posted the changelog as well as suggesting a few other buildings (Cave of Ancestors, Planar Gate, Dwarven Vaults). Definitely makes sense and I think there's room there to have them included without overdoing the mechanic.

 

[MagisterCultuum]

Now that I think of it it would probably make the most sense thematically if chariots/war chariots benefited more from Hippodromes while Horsemen/horsearchers/knights benefited from jousting tilts. It would probably be complicated to set it up like that though.

 

[Vehem]

Now that I think of it it would probably make the most sense thematically if chariots/war chariots benefited more from Hippodromes while Horsemen/horsearchers/knights benefited from jousting tilts. It would probably be complicated to set it up like that though.

Would require an additional UnitCombat, though that's not a terrible idea in that Chariots operate utterly differently to other unit types. Might be an interesting idea to look at later, but not for the moment.

 

[Tarquelne]

Would require an additional UnitCombat, though that's not a terrible idea in that Chariots operate utterly differently to other unit types.

FFH's handling of chariots has always - from the beginning of time! - struck me as odd. Didn't chariots come long before mounted units historically? How about we strap a few mages to them, develop some fast-strike tactics and invade a small neighboring country in a bid for global hegemony?

Or maybe skip everything else and keep the mages: Have chariots be battle-mage platforms. I'm thinking not full scale mages with higher move scores, but specialists with perhaps a spell or two, but mostly interesting basic characteristics.

Might be an interesting idea to look at later, but not for the moment.

Or maybe not.

 

[MagisterCultuum]

I don't thinking that having chariots as mage platforms is a good idea. I might consider an Amurite UU with such abilities acceptable, but it shouldn't be how they normally apperate.


For not I kind of liking making Chariots and War Chariots a little stronger than the horsemen equivalents (and making War Chariots have collateral damage from the blades on their wheels) but unable to enter rougher terrains, like those with forests/ancient forests/new forests/scrub. I would like it if I could keep them out of hills too though.



Hmm....I just got to thinking that it could actually be pretty cool if Chariots has a cargo capacity that let you carry 1 archer/melee/disciple/arcane unit to and from the battlefield. If the AI understood using land units to carry cargo I'd probably do it. (Can you try get the AI to understand it? It probably isn't important enough to delay the next release, but it could be nice in future versions.)



That also got me thinking that I'd really like units to be able to carry units of multiple domains and special unit types, perhaps with different limits on the number of each or perhaps making certain special unit types take up more space than others. Letting units carrying cargo be cargo (probably having their cargo count against the cargo limit of the unit caarrying it too) would be very nice too, and would make birds more useful.

 

[Vehem]

Having played with the numbers and run a few side-by-side tests of units with increased rate buildings vs basic units, I've increased the Rate% for all of the buildings.

If listed as 10% previously, the new rate is 25%
If listed as 20% or 25% previously, the new rate is 50%
If listed as 30% previously, the new rate is 75%

====

The reason here is that the difference between increased rate passive experience and base rate was not quite sufficient to justify the expense of the buildings. Now for instance, level 4 is achievable around 20 turns quicker with a Command Post than it is without one (from 0 XP in both cases)

 

[hbar]

FFH's handling of chariots has always - from the beginning of time! - struck me as odd. Didn't chariots come long before mounted units historically? How about we strap a few mages to them, develop some fast-strike tactics and invade a small neighboring country in a bid for global hegemony?

I think the reason chariots came first was because horses originally were only slightly bigger than dogs. It took generations of selective breeding to get them to be big enough to ride. Since Erebus is just coming out of an ice age, I'd imagine that the horses are already big. Thus, its easier to jump on a horse then it is to build a wheeled cart and harness to strap on a horse.

Could the war/chariots maybe be given a huge bonus on roads/penalty off roads? Maybe prevent them from entering forests/jungles/swamps/snow/ice without roads? Maybe give them the slow promotion in these terrain? A chariot would be really useless in the woods

 

[Tarquelne]

I think the reason chariots came first was because horses originally were only slightly bigger than dogs. It took generations of selective breeding to get them to be big enough to ride.

True, I'd forgotten about that. You can see the same thing with N.A. buffalo. Look at old photos - Even in the early 1800's they were only about 1/2 size. When Europeans arrived they were about 1/4 the size they're seen now. The "big as cows" buffalo are a wholly modern phenomena.

 

[Kjara]

Some random thoughts with this(I know you are going further with it) Have you considered having a high level melee unit speed the training rate of other melee units in the city. Could take this a bit further and even have training promotions that speed the training rate of all other units in the city(drillmaster).

Also it would be cool to have bannor or crusade also give a boost to training rate(even if they wouldn't use it that much while crusading), but it would be nice to have the option to route all of the free crusade troops into a city with a training yard for a few turns to get a promotion or 2 before throwing them at the enemy.
(or if not them, perhaps another civic, race or trait(organized?)).

 

[Vehem]

Some random thoughts with this(I know you are going further with it) Have you considered having a high level melee unit speed the training rate of other melee units in the city. Could take this a bit further and even have training promotions that speed the training rate of all other units in the city(drillmaster).

There's code in place to do that as a "CityBonus" field - both increasing the maximum XP gained and/or the gain rate. Hasn't been used yet, though we speculated that it'd make a nice ability to grant to a hero...