Unit ability/promotion feature idea based on terrain

[smorgasborgas]

This is the only game I've played for years, so I've naturally built up a bit of a wish list. This post is in no way indicating any dissatisfaction with the mod as it is! Very big fan!

I've seen a few threads about the balance of Unique Abilities and unit promotions granted by Natural Wonders. I thought of a tweak to soften the effects of this. Let me preface this by saying that I program regularly for work, but I'm not familiar enough with the code to know if this suggestion is impractically difficult or easy to implement.

Idea: Give units certain abilities or promotions depending on the state of the city in which they were created.

For example:
1. If a city has a Barracks and is adjacent to a mountain, then newly created units have the hill promotion
2. If a city has an Armory and is adjacent to a mountain, then newly created units can traverse Mountains, like the Inca.
3. City with Barracks and Coast and River --> Amphibious.
4. City with Barracks and adjacent to >3 forest/jungle tiles --> Woodsmen
5. City with lots of plain Desert, Armory --> Treat desert like plains
5. Capitol City with Monument, Market, Armory --> Gift of the Pharaoh for Skirmisher class units.
6. City with Temple, Amphitheater, Armory, and NO library --> Faith From Kills (now it's getting convoluted, but you get the idea)
7. Etc.

Benefits: Removes the oddness of a modern military being unable to do what an incan warrior with a wooden stick could do (they got strong thighs i guess). Adds a little flavor. Doesn't really mess with balance since it would benefit all civs equally. Doesn't really cause much power creep, since it's just one promotion per unit.
Cons: Somewhat weakens the UI of certain civs, although those civs can produce their UI units from any city with no building and terrain requirements. Can get arbitrarily convoluted.

What do you think?

 

[JamesNinelives]

I like the idea! It's very cool and would be flavourful. Also make setting unusual locations much more interesting.

I think the main issue is balance. People are already complaining that natural wonders like Kilimanjaro which grant bonus movement through hills are too strong. Especially when you are giving units something that is a part of another civ's Unique Ability, it kind of cheapens that civ's kit.

 

[smorgasborgas]

Well balance is actually why I thought of this in the first place. If you give civs a way to get these abilities without the Natural Wonder then it balances things out quite a bit. It doesn't quite nullify the benefit since Kilimanjaro for example works empire wide, it just makes the Kilimanjaro benefit less massive.

 

[Recursive]

This is the only game I've played for years, so I've naturally built up a bit of a wish list. This post is in no way indicating any dissatisfaction with the mod as it is! Very big fan!

I've seen a few threads about the balance of Unique Abilities and unit promotions granted by Natural Wonders. I thought of a tweak to soften the effects of this. Let me preface this by saying that I program regularly for work, but I'm not familiar enough with the code to know if this suggestion is impractically difficult or easy to implement.

Idea: Give units certain abilities or promotions depending on the state of the city in which they were created.

For example:
1. If a city has a Barracks and is adjacent to a mountain, then newly created units have the hill promotion
2. If a city has an Armory and is adjacent to a mountain, then newly created units can traverse Mountains, like the Inca.
3. City with Barracks and Coast and River --> Amphibious.
4. City with Barracks and adjacent to >3 forest/jungle tiles --> Woodsmen
5. City with lots of plain Desert, Armory --> Treat desert like plains
5. Capitol City with Monument, Market, Armory --> Gift of the Pharaoh for Skirmisher class units.
6. City with Temple, Amphitheater, Armory, and NO library --> Faith From Kills (now it's getting convoluted, but you get the idea)
7. Etc.

Benefits: Removes the oddness of a modern military being unable to do what an incan warrior with a wooden stick could do (they got strong thighs i guess). Adds a little flavor. Doesn't really mess with balance since it would benefit all civs equally. Doesn't really cause much power creep, since it's just one promotion per unit.
Cons: Somewhat weakens the UI of certain civs, although those civs can produce their UI units from any city with no building and terrain requirements. Can get arbitrarily convoluted.

What do you think?

It could be done in the code without too much difficulty if you know how - I'd be more worried about the balance/complexity concerns.

 

[JamesNinelives]

Well balance is actually why I thought of this in the first place. If you give civs a way to get these abilities without the Natural Wonder then it balances things out quite a bit. It doesn't quite nullify the benefit since Kilimanjaro for example works empire wide, it just makes the Kilimanjaro benefit less massive.

I get where you're coming from but either way the civs who already have that UA gain nothing so ultimately it hurts them relative to the other civs.

 

[Hinin]

I think it's an interesting modmod idea, but that would require, as Recursive said, a whole rebalance for a lot of civs.

First, for civs who already have specific terrain promotions (so Iroquois, Incans, Songhai from UA, Aztecs, Celts, Danemark for their UU), the fact that they have terrain bias means that with your idea they'll usually gain their terrain promotion without needing the UA. Thus, other bonus would be needed in each case to replace these.

Second, for military civs with powerful promotions balanced around not having access to these terrain promotions (Mongols and Zulus unique promotions; French, Danish, Austrian and Moroccan UUs etc), they have to be toned-down a bit or at least given some kind of limitations (imagine mountain-crossing, ZOC ignoring Mongolian Skirmishers).

Finally, it would mean some basic promotions (woodsman, amphibious etc) have to be reworked.

All in all, I don't think it's a necessarily bad idea, but the amount of work needed to make it "acceptable" in term of balance makes it a quite massive endeavour. If you're motivated enough, then don't hesitate to create a dedicated thread in the "mods repository" section. Personally, I would like to help you with ideas and playtesting if you accept (can't code, unfortunately, though).

 

[smorgasborgas]

You're totally right. I only play with the same 5-6 civs so I didn't really consider the wider effect. Either the mod has to be trivially small or a lot of things need to be re-balanced with it.

 

[Hinin]

I actually think that with some tweaking and middle-options, that can actually be something quite interesting, provided of course we consider this seriously and do tests.

For example, instead of simply having a very-impactful promotion from the moment you build unit in a city near terrain features, why not make so that each city provides a bonus which scales with time (scaling with game speed of course), showing how the local population attunes with their environnement.

Ex. : You build a city near some swamp and rivers, and so your land units gains the following bonus when built (you can use a dummy building which gives promotions to units produced in the city, and provides stronger versions to these units after a certain number of turns since city founding)
Within 1-50 turns after city founding : +10 % CS when defending in swamp tiles ; half CS penalty when attacking through river
Within 50-150 turns after city founding : +20 % CS when defending or attacking in swamp tiles ; no CS penalty when attacking through river
After 150 turns : no more mobility penalty when going through river, and double speed through swamp.