Mod has been posted.
http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?p=5222386#post5222386
This thread contains the details and justifications behind the balance choices in the mod. Post #5 contains pretty much what was in the version #1 of the mod.
While working on my harder change [half-tradeable tech] and balance testing the simpler mod [insane barbarians], I thought I'd try an easy mod: change the withdraw chances of units.
The idea of units withdrawing is rather neat. So what if we boosted it up so that it was a more core part of the gameplay?
The motivation of this mod is my observation that Flanking promotions suck rather badly in a huge number of cases. The AI still buys them, so you can't just say "let the buyer beware".
In addition, the AI is rather poor at using stacks in a suicidal manner, even withe BetterAI improvement. By making more units withdraw, it makes the AI nastier -- and it opens up new unit tactics for human players.
First, change Base Withdraw Chances:
Mounted units granted a 0% to 30% withdraw chance. (elephants to cavalry)
Armor granted at 15% to 35% withdraw chance. (tank to modern armor)
Helicopters granted a 35% withdraw chance. (only one of them)
Archers granted a 10% to 25% withdraw chance. (archers to longbowmen)
Gunpowder granted a 10% to 30% widthdraw chance. (musketmen to mechanized)
Siege granted a 25% to 35% withdraw chance. (catapult to artillery)
For some of these units, it represents mobility -- for others, the ability to attack at range and discourage persuit with ranged combat abilities.
Second, changing Promotions:
Flanking grants up to +40% widthdraw. (up from +30%)
Tactics (great general) up to +20% withdraw. (down from +30%)
Drill up to +25% widthdraw (up from +0%)
Barrage up to +15% withdraw (up from +0%)
Guerilla III up to +20% withdraw (down from +30%)
The details:
Flanking (mounted, helicopter)
Flanking I: +20% withdraw chance (Boosted from +10%)
Flanking II: +20% withdraw chance, immune to first strikes.
Drill (archer, armor, gunpowder)
(Added +10%/+10%/+5% withdraw to L 1 2 and 3)
Drill I: +1/2 first strike, +10% widthdraw
Drill II: +1 first strike, +10% widthdraw
Drill III: +2/2 first strike, +5% widthdraw
Drill IV: +2 first strikes, +0% widthdraw
Barrage (armor, artillery)
(Added +10%/+5% withdraw to L 1 and 2)
Barrage I: +20% collateral, +10% withdraw
Barrage II: +30% collateral, +5% withdraw, +10 vs Melee
Barrage III: +50% collateral, +10% vs Gunpowder
Tactics (great general)
(Dropped Withdraw to 20% from 30%, added 2 first strikes)
Tactics: +2 first strikes, +20% widthdraw
Guerilla (Archer, Gunpowder)
(Lowered withdrawl to +20%, boosted hills attack to +50% from +25%, and added 1 first strike)
Guerilla III: +20% widthdraw, +50% hills attack, 1 first strike
So a Great General Cavalry can hit 30% base, 40% flanking, and 20% tactics = 90% withdraw chance.
A Great General Infantry can hit 25% base, 25% drill, 20% tactics, 20% geurilla = 90% withdraw chance
GG Choppers hit 95% (Base 35%, Flank II 40%, Tactics 20%)
GG Armor hit 95% (Base 35%, Drill 25%, Barrage 15%, Tactics 20%)
GG Mech. Inf hit 95% (Base 30%, Drill 25%, Geurilla 20%, Tactics 20%)
GG Artillery hit 95%. (Base 35%, Drill 25%, Barrage 15%, Tactics 20%)
GG Musketmen hit 75% (Base 10%, Drill 25%, Geurilla 20%, Tactics 20%)
GG Longbowmen hit 90%. (Base 25%, Drill 25%, Geurilla 20%, Tactics 20%)
GG Catapults hit 85%. (Base 25%, Drill 25%, Barrage 15%, Tactics 20%)
Mounted/Chopper: +60% with Flank and Tactics. (3 promo)
Range/Gun: +65% with Drill, Geurilla and Tactics. (7 promo)
Armor/Artillery: +60% with Drill, Barrage and Tactics (6 promo)
Design Philsophy:
I believe I carefully built it so that you withdraw chance caps out at 95%. I don't believe there is a promotion path that lets you get better than this, unless it is via a unique unit promotion path.
Hitting high withdraw chances is very easy with mounted units -- in fact, I'd expect most GG mounted units to buy the flanking and tactics path after this change.
Other types of units require a massive number of promotions to have a high withdraw chance. They can get it as high, but it takes dedication and ultra-elite units.
Drill was granted withdraw chance, because part of a well Drilled force is the idea of a fighting withdraw. Barrage was granted withdraw chance because I needed another promotion for Armor/Artillery to gain additional withdraw chance to balance against Geurilla III for gunpowerer and archery units.
I might toss in an extra -city attack penalty on mounted units to reflect the significant upgrade the high-withdraw chance has on their performance.
Thoughts on the change? Did I miss any UU promotion paths that would allow a greater than 95% withdraw chance?
Getting 95% withdraw requires having a GG in the unit. I find building GG units whose job is to attack with poor odds to be a bad idea -- so I'm pretty fine with allowing people to make GG's whose specialty is "I strike and withdraw".
Note that the addition of Withdraw abilities on Archers and Gunpowder boosts them on city attack compared to the melee units. You still need insanely high end units to get a reliable withdraw chance. (L 6 longbowmen can have 3 to 6 first strikes, a 70% withdraw chance, +50% hills attack +75% hills defence, and no boost to combat strength at all).
Edit:
Bah, Naval can get Flanking II and Drill III, for a total of +65% withdraw.
That means subs have to start out with as little as 30% withdraw (capping out at 95% withdraw), and zero-base withdraw boats can hit 65%.
That is too low for subs -- I might grant subs Drill I and II free of charge, giving them a 50% starting withdraw chance and +1.5 first strikes, and lowering their strength to 21 (from 24). That works. Or I could grant them Flanking I free (same 50% starting withdraw chance)...
Battleships can hit 80% withdraw (Barrage II), which makes some sense -- Battleships have huge range, and you only get to fight them if you can outrun them and engage them.
Can a boat have a GG attached? If so, that would mess things up.
http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?p=5222386#post5222386
This thread contains the details and justifications behind the balance choices in the mod. Post #5 contains pretty much what was in the version #1 of the mod.
While working on my harder change [half-tradeable tech] and balance testing the simpler mod [insane barbarians], I thought I'd try an easy mod: change the withdraw chances of units.
The idea of units withdrawing is rather neat. So what if we boosted it up so that it was a more core part of the gameplay?
The motivation of this mod is my observation that Flanking promotions suck rather badly in a huge number of cases. The AI still buys them, so you can't just say "let the buyer beware".
In addition, the AI is rather poor at using stacks in a suicidal manner, even withe BetterAI improvement. By making more units withdraw, it makes the AI nastier -- and it opens up new unit tactics for human players.
First, change Base Withdraw Chances:
Mounted units granted a 0% to 30% withdraw chance. (elephants to cavalry)
Armor granted at 15% to 35% withdraw chance. (tank to modern armor)
Helicopters granted a 35% withdraw chance. (only one of them)
Archers granted a 10% to 25% withdraw chance. (archers to longbowmen)
Gunpowder granted a 10% to 30% widthdraw chance. (musketmen to mechanized)
Siege granted a 25% to 35% withdraw chance. (catapult to artillery)
For some of these units, it represents mobility -- for others, the ability to attack at range and discourage persuit with ranged combat abilities.
Second, changing Promotions:
Flanking grants up to +40% widthdraw. (up from +30%)
Tactics (great general) up to +20% withdraw. (down from +30%)
Drill up to +25% widthdraw (up from +0%)
Barrage up to +15% withdraw (up from +0%)
Guerilla III up to +20% withdraw (down from +30%)
The details:
Flanking (mounted, helicopter)
Flanking I: +20% withdraw chance (Boosted from +10%)
Flanking II: +20% withdraw chance, immune to first strikes.
Drill (archer, armor, gunpowder)
(Added +10%/+10%/+5% withdraw to L 1 2 and 3)
Drill I: +1/2 first strike, +10% widthdraw
Drill II: +1 first strike, +10% widthdraw
Drill III: +2/2 first strike, +5% widthdraw
Drill IV: +2 first strikes, +0% widthdraw
Barrage (armor, artillery)
(Added +10%/+5% withdraw to L 1 and 2)
Barrage I: +20% collateral, +10% withdraw
Barrage II: +30% collateral, +5% withdraw, +10 vs Melee
Barrage III: +50% collateral, +10% vs Gunpowder
Tactics (great general)
(Dropped Withdraw to 20% from 30%, added 2 first strikes)
Tactics: +2 first strikes, +20% widthdraw
Guerilla (Archer, Gunpowder)
(Lowered withdrawl to +20%, boosted hills attack to +50% from +25%, and added 1 first strike)
Guerilla III: +20% widthdraw, +50% hills attack, 1 first strike
So a Great General Cavalry can hit 30% base, 40% flanking, and 20% tactics = 90% withdraw chance.
A Great General Infantry can hit 25% base, 25% drill, 20% tactics, 20% geurilla = 90% withdraw chance
GG Choppers hit 95% (Base 35%, Flank II 40%, Tactics 20%)
GG Armor hit 95% (Base 35%, Drill 25%, Barrage 15%, Tactics 20%)
GG Mech. Inf hit 95% (Base 30%, Drill 25%, Geurilla 20%, Tactics 20%)
GG Artillery hit 95%. (Base 35%, Drill 25%, Barrage 15%, Tactics 20%)
GG Musketmen hit 75% (Base 10%, Drill 25%, Geurilla 20%, Tactics 20%)
GG Longbowmen hit 90%. (Base 25%, Drill 25%, Geurilla 20%, Tactics 20%)
GG Catapults hit 85%. (Base 25%, Drill 25%, Barrage 15%, Tactics 20%)
Mounted/Chopper: +60% with Flank and Tactics. (3 promo)
Range/Gun: +65% with Drill, Geurilla and Tactics. (7 promo)
Armor/Artillery: +60% with Drill, Barrage and Tactics (6 promo)
Design Philsophy:
I believe I carefully built it so that you withdraw chance caps out at 95%. I don't believe there is a promotion path that lets you get better than this, unless it is via a unique unit promotion path.
Hitting high withdraw chances is very easy with mounted units -- in fact, I'd expect most GG mounted units to buy the flanking and tactics path after this change.
Other types of units require a massive number of promotions to have a high withdraw chance. They can get it as high, but it takes dedication and ultra-elite units.
Drill was granted withdraw chance, because part of a well Drilled force is the idea of a fighting withdraw. Barrage was granted withdraw chance because I needed another promotion for Armor/Artillery to gain additional withdraw chance to balance against Geurilla III for gunpowerer and archery units.
I might toss in an extra -city attack penalty on mounted units to reflect the significant upgrade the high-withdraw chance has on their performance.
Thoughts on the change? Did I miss any UU promotion paths that would allow a greater than 95% withdraw chance?
Getting 95% withdraw requires having a GG in the unit. I find building GG units whose job is to attack with poor odds to be a bad idea -- so I'm pretty fine with allowing people to make GG's whose specialty is "I strike and withdraw".
Note that the addition of Withdraw abilities on Archers and Gunpowder boosts them on city attack compared to the melee units. You still need insanely high end units to get a reliable withdraw chance. (L 6 longbowmen can have 3 to 6 first strikes, a 70% withdraw chance, +50% hills attack +75% hills defence, and no boost to combat strength at all).
Edit:
Bah, Naval can get Flanking II and Drill III, for a total of +65% withdraw.
That means subs have to start out with as little as 30% withdraw (capping out at 95% withdraw), and zero-base withdraw boats can hit 65%.
That is too low for subs -- I might grant subs Drill I and II free of charge, giving them a 50% starting withdraw chance and +1.5 first strikes, and lowering their strength to 21 (from 24). That works. Or I could grant them Flanking I free (same 50% starting withdraw chance)...
Battleships can hit 80% withdraw (Barrage II), which makes some sense -- Battleships have huge range, and you only get to fight them if you can outrun them and engage them.
Can a boat have a GG attached? If so, that would mess things up.
