unit progression

There is no particular reason why the number of UUs must be equal for all factions. Balance at the faction level, not the mechanic level.

Combat oriented factions like Harkonnen and Corrino can have more military UUs than trader civs or diplomatic civs or influence-meddling civs.
 
I can live with the turning of the Sardaukar against Corrino. After all, the Baron breaks Yueh's supposedly unbreakable conditioning.

Sounds good, keldath.

I do agree with Ahriman's points. If we do have three UUs per faction we should eventually make some that have a less military purpose to capture the spirit of each civ. For example, we have a unit called Acolyte which is an Elite unit right now. Acolyte should be a sort of junior UU for the Bene Gesserit with some non-military function. We can change things over time to give the less militarily oriented civs better flavour and more interesting UUs.
 
Lets distinguish between UUs and Heroes.
UUs are a unique unit available only to a particular civ.
Heroes are a specialist UU with a national limit of 1.
 
Why not call the "sardaukar" you can trade from the emperor Imperial levy? (or another fancy name) In the books the emperor levys the best of the best from each house yearly, wich are supposedly trained into sardaukar.
Getting real sardaukar to fight against the emperor seems totally wrong. They are supposedly indoctrinated from childhood to be loyal, where sukdoctors loyalty seems to be created by hypnoses and drugs.
 
Since this seems to be discussed again (and in David's simplifaction thread) I thought I'd consider laying out a simple unit design, just as an example.

Unit class and role:
Infantry. City defender, anti-air, anti-tank.
Melee. city attacker
Rover. recon, skirmish/harassment
Armor field superiority fighter
Aircraft recon, mobile, anti-melee.
Suspensor. all-terrain transport or escort
Siege. city bombardment and collateral damage.

Unit classes associated features (unless otherwise specified)
Infantry. 1 move, can enter desert waste, and deep desert within cultural borders (like triremes can enter coast, and ocean within cultural borders).
Melee. 1 move, ignores city walls, can enter desert waste, and deep desert within cultural borders.
Rover. 3 moves, can ender desert wastes, cannot enter deep desert.
Armor 2 moves, cannot enter desert, does not get defensive terrain bonus. Higher hammer cost than other units of the tier.
Aircraft Thopters: 3 moves, can enter any tile, can spot invisible, +1 visual range, does not get defensive terrain bonus. Also fighters and bombers (standard abilities).
Suspensor. 3 moves, can enter any tile.
Siege. 1 move. Cannot enter desert. Can bombard city defenses. Does collateral damage.

Tier0:
Soldier. Strength 2, 1 move, +25% city defence.
Scout thopter. Strength 2, 2 moves, better results from villages, can transport 2 units (infantry,

Tier1:
Infantry 1. Strength 3, +45% city defense, +25% hills defense.
Melee 1. Strength 4, +25% city attack.
Rover 1. +20% withdraw chance. Strength 3. +50% vs siege units.
Armor 1. Strength 5. -20% city strength.
Thopter 1. Strength 3. +50% vs melee units.
AT trooper 1 (infantry). Strength 4, +50% vs armor units, +25% vs suspensor units.
Suspensor transport 1. Strength 2, can carry 3 units, cannot attack.
Suspensor escort 1. Strength 4.
Siege 1. Strength 4. +40% withdraw chance.

Tier2:
Infantry 2. Strength 6, +35% city defense, +25% hills defense.
Melee 2. Strength 7, +25% city attack.
Rover 2. +20% withdraw chance. Strength 6. +50% vs siege units.
Armor 2. Strength 9. -20% city strength.
Thopter 2. Strength 6. +50% vs melee units.
AT trooper 2 (infantry). Strength 6, +50% vs armor units, +25% vs suspensor units.
AA trooper 1 (infantry). Strength 6, +50% vs aircraft, can intercept aircraft 50% chance.
Suspensor transport 2. Strength 4, can carry 4 units.
Suspensor escort 2. Strength 7.
Fighter 1. Strength 5, +50% vs aircraft. Range 5.
Bomber 1. Strength 5, Range 6.
Siege2. Strength 4. +100% city attack. Can bombard adjacent tile.

Tier3:
Infantry 3. Strength 10, +25% city defense, +15% hills defense, can intercept aircraft (25% chance).
Melee 3. Strength 10, +25% city attack.
Rover 3. +30% withdraw chance. Strength 9. +50% vs siege units, cause collateral damage to siege units.
Armor 3. Strength 14. -20% city strength.
Thopter 3. Strength 9. +50% vs melee units.
AT trooper 3 (infantry). Strength 10, +50% vs armor units, +25% vs suspensor units.
AA trooper 2 (infantry). Strength 10, +50% vs aircraft, can intercept aircraft 50% chance.
Suspensor transport 3. Strength 7, can carry 5 units. 4 moves
Suspensor escort 3. Strength 10. 4 moves
Fighter 2. Strength 8, +50% vs aircraft. Range 6.
Bomber 2. Strength 8, Range 7.
Siege 3. Strength 10. +30% withdraw chance. Can bombard adjacent tile.

Tier4
Infantry 4. Strength 16, +25% city defense, +15% hills defense, can intercept aircraft (25% chance).
Melee 4. Strength 18, +25% city attack.
Rover 4. +30% withdraw chance. Strength 15. +50% vs siege units, cause collateral damage to siege units.
Armor 4. Strength 22. -20% city strength.
Thopter 4. Strength 15. +50% vs melee units.
AT trooper 4 (infantry). Strength 16, +50% vs armor units, +25% vs suspensor units.
AA trooper 3 (infantry). Strength 16, +50% vs aircraft, can intercept aircraft 50% chance.
Suspensor transport 4. Strength 10, can carry 5 units. 5 moves
Suspensor escort 4. Strength 15. 5 moves
Fighter 3. Strength 12, +50% vs aircraft. Range 6.
Bomber 3. Strength 12, Range 7.
Siege 4. Strength 15. 2 moves. +25% withdraw chance. Can bombard in 2-tile range.

Now, you might need to slightly tweak units so that units that come earlier in a tier are weaker and units that come later in a tier are stronger; so maybe in tier1 armor units and AT units come later and so are stronger, and maybe in tier2 the AA unit comes early and you have 2 stages of city defender infantry and melee infantry, etc.

So you could add an extra basic infantry and melee unit to some tiers, and maybe a few elite/specialist units, like grenadiers in vanilla civ, or burseg/sardaukar type units.

And so some example UUs might be:

Fedaykin 1 (Fremen UU). Replaces melee 2. Strength 8, +25% city attack, 2 moves, can enter desert tiles.
Fedaykin 2 (Fremen UU) Replaces melee 3. Strength 12, +25% city attack, 2 moves, can enter desert tiles.
Worm riders 1. Replaces suspensor transport 1, strength 4, 4 moves, can carry 3 units (infantry only).
Worm riders 2. Replaces suspensor transport 2, strength 7, 5 moves, can carry 4 units (infantry only)
And Fremen lack access to siege units beyond level 1, and maybe armor and/or rover units too, and maybe get combat bonuses in deep desert tiles.

Devastator (Harkonnen UU). Replaces armor 4. Strength 30, 1 move, -20% city strength.

Trike (Ordos UU), replaces rover 1, strength 4, 10% withdraw chance.

Sonic tank (Atreides UU), replaces armor 4, strength 20, 2 moves, -20% city strength, does collateral damage.
 
Well, you'll probably have to adjust the tech tree a little, but here's a rough guide using the current tech tree

Note that it would be good to get feedback from others on whether some of these are too strong or too weak, and the strengths also need to get tweaked depending on whether the unit arrives early or late in the tier; later units need to be relatively more powerful.

Tier0:
Soldier. Tech: none.
Scout thopter. Tech: exploration

Tier1:
Infantry 1. Tech: Defense tactics.
Melee 1. Tech: Stillsuits
Rover 1. Tech: Desert warfare
Armor 1. Tech: crystal materials
Thopter 1. Tech: Desert engineering
AT trooper 1 (infantry). Tech:Holy Jihad
Suspensor transport 1. Tech:Suspensor devices
Suspensor escort 1. Tech: Suspensor devices
Siege 1. Strength 4.Tech: Imperialism

Tier2:
Infantry 2. Tech: Desert culture
Melee 2. Water of life
Rover 2. Tech: desert pathfinding
Armor 2. Tech: knowledge engine
Thopter 2. Tech: Winds of Arrakis
AT trooper 2 (infantry). Tech: spacing guild
AA trooper 1 (infantry). Tech: spacing guild
Suspensor transport 2. Riding the worm
Suspensor escort 2. riding the worm
Fighter 1.Tech: Desert power
Bomber 1. Desert power
Siege2. Strength 4. Tech: way of the wicked

Tier3:
Infantry 3. Tech: lasgun weapons
Melee 3. kindjal
Rover 3. Tech:Way of the desert
Armor 3. Tech: desert industry
Thopter 3. Tech: aerial tactics
AT trooper 3 (infantry). Tech: heat shields ??
AA trooper 2 (infantry). Tech: heat shields ??
Suspensor transport 3. nullentropy
Suspensor escort 3. nullentropy
Fighter 2. Tech: aerial tactics
Bomber 2. Tech: aerial tactics
Siege 3. Tech: economy of war

Tier4
Infantry 4. Tech:way of the weirding
Melee 4. Tech:holtzmann effect
Rover 4. Tech: low energy vehicle
Armor 4. Tech: mass industry
Thopter 4. Tech: aerial combat
AT trooper 4 (infantry). plasteel
AA trooper 3 (infantry). weirding module
Suspensor transport 4. Tech: cooling systems
Suspensor escort 4. Tech: cooling systems
Fighter 3. Tech: aerial combat
Bomber 3. aerial combat
Siege 4. Tech: sonic warfare

But as I said, the tech tree doesn't make a ton of sense as it is; its not clear what a lot of the techs are supposed to represent, or why they're in the order that they are.

And there are lot of fairly empty techs at the top of the tree.

I'd consider reworking the techs significantly into more distinct tech lines.

Government techs
Culture techs
Infantry techs
Mechanized techs
Engineering techs
Commerce techs
Religious techs
Education/philosophy techs.
 
It is hard to give any feedback except for "looks reasonable" without coding it and playing it. In the "reduced" mod mod thread I am doing something similar, but all the details are different. I hope to put up a first version today.
 
Ok, some thoughts on how to tweak the current unit list to fit better with the new tech tree.

There are several problems atm.
Strength jumps across tiers can be too large.
Some strength bonuses currently make no sense. Why should thopters get a bonus against guardsmen (which includes anti-thopter missile troops).
No reason for shock troops to be a separate unit category.
High end of tech tree gets weird - lots of special units, few core units.
Scorpions are insufficient threats. They should be very powerful on open ground.
Not enough specialist AA/AT infantry.
Hornet design confused.
Not enough siege units.

* signifies an added unit.

Core units.
Guardsmen (=ranged infantry): All 1 move.
Soldier. Strength 2, +25% city defense.
Infantry. Strength 3, 1 first strike +45% city defense, +25% hills defense.
Master guardsman. Strength 5, 1 first strike +45% city defense, +25% hills defense.
Heavy trooper. Strength 9, 1 first strike, +30% city defense.
Lasgun soldier. Strength 13, 1 first strike, +25% vs melee units. (melee units can't use their shields). Requires diamonds.
Lasgun trooper. Strength 18, 1 first strike, +25% vs melee units (melee units can't use their shields)
Requires diamonds.
Grenadier. Strength 6, does collateral damage, +50% attack vs melee.
Requires nitrates.

Rocket trooper. Strength 4, +50% vs vehicle, +50% vs thopter, +50% vs hornet, can intercept aircraft 50%.
Missile trooper. Strength 8, +50% vs vehicle, +50% vs thopter, +50% vs hornet, can intercept aircraft 50%.
Mongoose trooper. Strength 12, +50% vs vehicle, +50% vs thopter, +50% vs hornet, can intercept aircraft 50%. Requires nitrates.
Bee-sting trooper. Strength 16, +50% vs vehicle, +50% vs thopter, +50% vs hornet, can intercept aircraft 50%. Requires nitrates.

Reverend mother (Bene Gesserit UU, as current)
Atreides heir (Atreides UU, as current)

Melee: All 1 move.
Bladesman. Strength 6. Ignores city walls. +10% city attack.
Elite bladesman. Strength 8. Ignores city walls. +25% city attack.
Shock trooper. Strength 12 Ignores city walls. +25% city attack.
*Elite shock trooper. Strength 18. Ignores city walls. +35% city attack. Requires Kindjal blades tech.

Vehicle: All 2 moves, does not get defensive bonuses from terrain or fortification, cannot enter peaks, -20% hill strength, -20% city strength.
*Quad. Strength 5. 30% withdraw chance. (requires sand rovers tech)
Light scorpion. Strength 11. 20% withdraw chance
Medium scorpion. Strength 18 10% withdraw chance.
Heavy scorpion. Strength 28. Requires stradvium.

Thopter: all ignore terrain costs, do not get defensive benefits, cannot pillage.
Scout thopter. Strength 1, capacity 2 (guardsmen and melee only), 2 moves, cannot attack.
Light carryall. Strength 5, capacity 5, 4 moves, cannot attack.
Medium carryall. Strength 7, capacity 6, 5 moves, cannot attack.
Heavy carryall. Strength 10, capacity 6, 6 moves, cannot attack. Requires stradvium.
Hawk thopter. Strength 5, 2 moves, +40% vs melee.
Falcon Thopter. Strength 8, 3 moves, +40% vs melee. Requires crystals.
Buzzard thopter. Strength 12, 4 moves, +40% vs melee. Requires crystals.
Eagle thopter. Strength 18, 4 moves, +40% vs melee. Requires crystals.
*No-ship. Strength 18, invisible, targets weakest unit. National limit 2. Requires crystals. Requires stradvium.

Hornet:
Wasp (was light hornet). Strength 8. +50% vs hornet. Fighter abilities. Range 5.
Firefly (was assault hornet). Strength 10. Range 6. Bomber abilities. Does collateral damage. Requires crystals.
Locust (was medium hornet). Strength 12, +50% vs hornet, fighter, can intercept, range 7. Requires crystals.
Dragonfly (was heavy hornet). Strength 18. Bomber, does collateral damage. Range 8, Requires stradvium.
Stealth hornet. Strength 22. Bomber abilities, does colleteral damage. Range 9. 80% evades interception. Requires stradvium, requires crystals.


Suspensor. All get double movement on desert waste and deep desert, cannot pillage.
Suspensor transport. Strength 2, Capacity 3. 2 moves.
Suspensor carrier. Strength 8, Capacity 3 (hornet only). 3 moves.
Suspensor gunship. Strength 5. +25% vs thopter, 2 moves.
Suspensor destroyer. Strength 8. +25% vs thopter, 2 moves.
Suspensor frigate. Strength 12. +25% vs thopter, 3 moves.
Suspensor cruiser. Strength 16. +25% vs thopter, 3 moves.
[thopter bonus is designed to make them win vs thopters, otherwise the suspensors have no real role to play]

Siege
Maula mortar. Strength 4. 1 movement, can bombard city walls, does collateral damage, +50% city attack.
*Maula cannon. Strength 8. 1 movement, can bombard city walls, does collateral damage. Requires liquid fuel tech
Maula turret. Strength 10. 1 movement, can bombard city walls, can bombard units, does collateral damage.
Rocket artillery Strength 16. 2 movement, can bombard city walls, can bombard units, does collateral damage. Requires nitrates. Requires stradvium.

Espionage

Special units:
Ixian walker. Vehicle class. Strength 8. 1 move. 1 first strike. +50% vs melee. Requires Thinking Machines. National limit 8.
Ixian Avatar. Vehicle class. Strength 11. 1 move. +25% vs thopter, +25% vs hornet, +25% vs vehicles, 25% intercept chance. Requires Thinking Machines. National limit 8
Ixian cymek. Vehicle class. Strength 14. 1 move. +25% vs thopter, +25% vs hornet, +25% vs vehicles, 25% intercept chance. Requires Thinking Machines. National limit 8
Ixian spider. Vehicle class. Strength 20. 1 move. +25% vs melee. Requires Thinking Machines. National limit 6

Imperial militia (Corrino UU, replace Master guardsman). Guardsman class. Strength 6, 1 first strike +25% city defense, +25% hills defense.

*Sardaukar Legionary. Strength 14. Melee class. 1 move. Ignore city walls. +15% city attack. Requires Sardaukar cooperation. National limit 10 Requires personal shields tech.

Sardaukar Noukker (was: Sardaukar). Strength 20. Melee class. 1 move. Ignore city walls. +35% city attack. Requires Sardaukar cooperation. National limit 10

Worm rider. Strength 13. Melee class. 2 moves. Sandrider. Ignore city walls. Requires Water Debt.
Fedaykin. Strength 18. Ignores city walls. Sand rider. +25% vs melee. Requires Water Debt.
Ginaz swordmaster (was ginaz swordsmen). Strength 12. 1 move. +50% vs melee units. Ignore city walls. national limit 10. Requires Kindjal resource (rename Swordmaster training).

Mentat assassin. Strength 12. 2 moves. Targets weakest unit in stack. National limit 10. Requires Sapho.
Desert raider. Melee class. Strength 4, 2 moves, sandrider. Ignores city walls. Requires Water debt.
* Trike. (Ordos UU, replaces Quad). As quad, but +1 move.
* Devastator. Harkonnen UU. Replaces Heavy scorpion. Strength 35. 1 move. -30% city strength. Cannot enter peaks or hills.
* Sonic tank. Atreides UU. Replaces medium scorpion. Same as medium scorpion, but does colleteral damage.
 
These seem like good refinements overall.

Could we give the later Suspensors the ability to Bombard cities? AA seems like quite a limited role for them.

It would be nice to have some slightly more interesting names and not resort to Light/Medium/Heavy so often. For the Hornets we could have insects - Wasp, Locust, Firefly. If needs be put 'Fighter' or 'Fighter Bomber' so that the purpose is more clear - Wasp Fighter, Locust Fighter Bomber, etc. For the scorpion perhaps have Sandspider, Scorpion, Tarantula and rename the Ixian Spider to something else. Perhaps also we could change Shock Trooper to Swordmaster as I don't really associate the term with Melee infantry. If you had Swordmaster and Elite Swordmaster then you can still have Ginaz Swordmaster being the best ones.
 
The main suspensor role isn't as AA, its as highly mobile transport escorts across the desert. The reason why they are AA is so that they aren't easy prey for thopters, and so they do a better job as escorts than thopters would.

I agree that the names could use some work. I'd like to get rid of "Elite x" and "Light y" type names.

Shock troops are assault troops, which historically (and in the Dune universe) *were* close-quarters combat fighters; either with melee weapons, bayonets, or submachine guns (as opposed to longer range rifles). I'm comfortable with shock troops as melee (though they need new art), I'd rather leave Swordmasters as just coming from the trade good research. Swordmaster is a formal title that comes only from attending the Ginaz school.

I like Wasp, Locust and Firefly for aircraft.
Sandspider sounds a bit weak, but scorpion and tarantula are good. Are there any Dune-canon desert arachnids or insects?

Other general names:
Enforcer, Guardian, Defender, Gunner, Escort, Vanguard
 
This will be the fifth major design of the units.
1. Keldath's original
2. Koma's, which introduced the scout thopter transport
3. Mine, which introduced the mongoose unit for example
4. Keldath changed all the unit strengths and tiers in the old tech tree
5. This one.

Does this show *any* signs of ever converging?

When we do this mass renaming, I wind up cleaning a lot of things:
* All the XML tags, for example, UNIT_SWORDSMAN for a thopter unit
* All the related text such as pedia and strategy
* The unit art, so sword units have sword animation, even if it's a vanilla unit
* The button selection, so all the walkers have a walker icon and nobody else does

I know keldath has complained that when I do this, he winds up cleaning a lot of things, such as the upgrade tree.

Doing it once or twice is worth the pain, but not so much after 4-5 times.
 
I feel that this design could be fairly final, at least as final as the tech tree.
This is also heavily based on the current design, there are only a few differences, not many new units mostly just name changes and strength tweaks, and cleaning the classes.

Certainly I think this is much better than the current, because of the problems I identified in the post. Combat is such a big part of civ that I think its really important to get it right. It isn't really right at the moment. For example, going from a strength 5 city defender to a strength 12.
Or how falcon thopters (strength 10 thopter) beat missile troopers (strength 10 anti-air) because the falcon thopter has a 60% bonus vs guardsmen.
Or the fact that the scorpion class has only 3 units, or how the shock trooper class includes both melee and ranged units.

Also, it was inevitable that there would have to be unit tweaking as part of adopting a new tech tree.

Up to you guys obviously.

I would suggest that people try to do criticisms and comments in this thread to clean this design, before anyone spends the time to actually implement it.
 
Does this show *any* signs of ever converging?

I agree with Ahriman - this isn't a major redesign really, it is just making the units we have work better with the new tech tree and adding/renaming some units for more flavour. The five steps you list are really steps in the evolution of what we have now - not all of them were comprehensive designs.

Modding is an iterative process. Each iteration needs to be a significant improvement over the last for it to be worth it. I think we are getting to close to a decent unit progression now. I understand the reluctance to keep refining this area, but it would be a shame to stop improving things just because it is painful. I am happy to do some XML if people are getting jaded.

We should probably get the unit upgrade paths clearly specified as well, since that is an important part of unit design.
 
The intended unit upgrades are implied by the design; units were placed in blocks of upgrade paths.
So:Soldier->Infantry->Heavy trooper->Lasgun soldier->lasgun trooper
Grenadier -> heavy trooper
Bladesman -> Elite bladesman -> Shock trooper -> elite shock trooper
Scout thopter -> light carryall -> medium carryall -> heavy carryall

Ixian meks all in a single upgrade path.

Worm rider -> Fedaykin.
Ginaz swordsmen -> elite shock trooper

Nothing upgrades to worm rider or sardaukar.

etc.

One other issue I thought of;
There could be an AI problem with fighter/bombers IF they have to be assigned either/or roles for the AI. The AI uses fighters on intercept missions, and doesn't bombard with them, and the AI bombards with bombers but doesn't intercept with them AFAIK.
Certainly I've found the AI building lots of light hornets and putting them on interception, but never bombarding with them and never really building assault hornets.
So maybe we need to create fighters AND bombers at each tier, or just make each one a fighter OR bomber. So we have light hornet/assault hornet, and then medium hornet = bomber, heavy hornet = fighter, stealth hornet = bomber.

*edit*
I should also note, I am indifferent from a design perspective about between merging all the aircraft in and leaving thopters/hornets/carryalls in separate categories.
Just whatever makes book-keeping simpler. If there are various code hooks that just refer to thopters, then thats fine, leave them separate, just make all the missile troops get the bonus vs thopters and hornets.
 
I should also note, I am indifferent from a design perspective about between merging all the aircraft in and leaving thopters/hornets/carryalls in separate categories.

The main reason for multiple unitcombats is for promotions. The promotions are made available by unitcombat and they generally give advantages against unitcombats. If we merge all three categories into one, then we can't give just thopters, for example, a bonus against guardsmen. So I recommend keeping three unitcombats, unless you agree that all three will have identical strengths/weaknesses against other unitcombats.
 
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