Truly unique units

[MikeLynch]

Has anybody figured out a way to make a Wonder that gives one, and only one, of a certain unit upon its construction? Sort of like Knights Templar but with only one unit emerging?

In ToT, I used to use Events to simulate this (Darwin's Voyage gave the builder the totally unique unit "HMS Beagle," for example; nobody else could get one of those units once the wonder had been built).

I've done some reading and I'm starting to think that the only way to do this is to somehow tie the completion of that Wonder/unit to a tech that makes the Wonder obsolete the very next turn. Anybody got ideas?

 

[W.i.n.t.e.r]

hmm, if you set the wonder's appearance frequency for this UUU (Ultra Unique Unit) to the exact minimum tech research duration possible, making the tech cost next-to nothing for ressearch, while making sure that this tech is the needed, and only possible tech to be researched next- i.e. at the end of an age- then this would most probably work (at least this is what I remember from discussions about this very subject with fellow modding buddies...

 

[Supa]

Except that a human player could always turn off his research and keep poping the unit.

 

[Dom Pedro II]

Yeah, there's really no good way to implement this I think... any solution is, at best, barely acceptable IMO.

 

[Neomega]

Make the building produce one unit every 100 turns or so. Make it cheap.

It'll be built fast, take for ever to make, and by the time it makes the second unit, it'll be obsolete.

 

[Supa]

Yeah, but let's say, if the Darwin Voyage is built in 1830, it would make an unit the 1900's, not very useful and accurate. :-/

 

[Dom Pedro II]

I'm not even particularly sure why the Beagle would be useful at all.

 

[MikeLynch]

Oh, to be sure, usefulness is of limited concern. It's a free unit with a wonder that already has a beneficial effect. I made it a faster naval vessel than most of its era, but mainly I was going for a little extra flavor and modding for the sake of experimentation/learning.

For this reason, it will probably not break my heart if indeed this effect is impossible to accomplish, especially since Civ3 has other venues for similar flavor (leaders, civ-specific units, and stuff like the Crusaders).

 

[W.i.n.t.e.r]

Turning off ones ressearch entirely to get more units- would be extremely counterproductive since it would make him/her lose out in science to the AI. Really, and that would be cheating on oneself- after all, what is the point of making a mod with a certain purpose and then cheating to avoid the implementation of this very same one?

The result you wish to achieve CAN be achieved if you follow my instructions- that is if you want to implement it. If you do this and while in-game realize that you have reservations to your own actions and eventualy turn to cheating, then whatever you wish to achieve can be thwarted anyhow...

 

[Mr. Do]

I was thinking that it would be counterproductive- but not necessarily, since instead you'll be gaining whole lot more gold, and many people buy techs instead of researching them anyway...

 

[W.i.n.t.e.r]

*cough*- uhm, there is a possibility of making techs non-purchaseable... With the spawn rate equaling the minimum tech research duration and the tech costing virtualy nothing this will assure (!) that only one of these units will be produced.

I see the problem in a different area: One would still need to build the Wonder first, in the very moment the tech makes it available- i.e. make the Wonder cost take one turn and reduce the spawn rate by one turn- voila... of course, should the wonder be built at a later time than in the very first turn this would mean the unit would not be build, or would it?

 

[Dom Pedro II]

*cough*- uhm, there is a possibility of making techs non-purchaseable...

I don't think he was referring to the particular tech, but rather that you could continue scientific endeavor even without researching the tech rendering the wonder obsolete.

But if you make it a prerequisite to all other techs, a bottleneck, then you'd have to.... but that could really foul up the rest of the tree to have one tech be so critical.

 

[W.i.n.t.e.r]

Yup, bottleneck is a good idea yet as you said, it will require more extensive tampering...

 

[Zeekater]

You could also give the wonder cost 100 gold per turn, that way it'll be costly to keep it much longer then needed
Or even unhappy faces in the city, or unhappy faces in all cities!

 

[Mr. Do]

*cough*- uhm, there is a possibility of making techs non-purchaseable...

Yes, DPII's interpretation is indeed correct. In fact since you uhmed and rolled your eyes at me, it made me think about this a bit more, and not only would make no sense whatsoever for a player to want to buy the tech that makes the wonder obselete sooner than if he had researched it, but in fact on closer examination this entire idea is pretty much moot as researching a tech =/= building a wonder.

That's quite a long run-on sentence, so I'll provide an example using the Darwin example:
1) England researches scientific method, which allows Darwin's Voyage to be built, whose only function is to spawn the Beagle unit in 26-49 turns
2) The only tech that can now be researched makes DV obselete, and takes 50 turns to research at any level
3) So what? England hasn't built the wonder yet anyway, and it may not have done for 40 turns...

 

[Zeekater]

The point is that the wonder would be very cheap so it would get build almost instantly

Of course, if the wonder is also a "regular" wonder, this doesn't count and everything that has been said can be thrown out of the window.

 

[Mr. Do]

Yeah, give it a cost of one shield and you can get around that, just seems like it relies too much on the AI to be a good sport and play the game how it makes sense (As do most tricks of the trade).

 

[W.i.n.t.e.r]

Yeah, give it a cost of one shield and you can get around that, just seems like it relies too much on the AI to be a good sport and play the game how it makes sense (As do most tricks of the trade).

IMO the AI's ability to cope with changes to gameplay is the key to a successful mod. In this example the Ai would definitly build it...

 

[Dom Pedro II]

Okay... after having run some tests... I have concluded that the folks at Atari are a bunch of buggers!

I tried setting it so that the wonder was built before the tech required to build the unit.... and I found out that the game builds the unit in spite of the tech issue.

Then I tried setting it so that the unit was replaced by its upgrade, and the wonder continued to produce the old version...

So basically, there's no way to modify the unit-producing other than rendering the building obsolete...