unit-promotion balance thread

[mystikx21]

I was not a huge fan of the city capture options that were put in place and I don't think they were working correctly as it was. They didn't really add anything fundamental and we should have other ways to deal with conquered populations now.

I think the city health was partly dealt with by making walls possible (but not certain) to capture. I don't know if that was a glitch caused by the hit points and an order of operations issue that was never caught in default because the amount of secondary hit points from defence buildings was much smaller. Or if it was a default bug that occurred sometimes (possibly for that reason).

I would not mind a policy in honor or autocracy that gathered yields from conquests, culture or the faith from conquests effect that CEP used for Spain.

 

[Gazebo]

That can be added if we want via the DLL very easily. I say we leave it out for now, but we can keep in on the 'to-do' list.
G

Also, Tirian, that model looks fantastic. I prefer the big one. Nothing says 'Britannia Rules the Waves' like a tsunami-causing ship.
G

 

[Chrisbburn]

In case people care about aesthetics, I'm making progress with the cruiser - I got a basic rigged model into the game:

Spoiler :

The animation still has issues, but I'm hopeful that I'll be able to improve upon it. Seeing the texture in-game is helpful too for improving upon it (that's the reason for the comparison shot, I want to match to overall colour schemes, the warm tones are largely driven my personal preference, that will be fixed now!).

EDIT: If you spot anything else that's off or could be improved/changed, please post. Perfectionist here, I want it to feel as "civ" as possible.

Great Model love it can someone make it a standalone unit so that I can use it Pretty please

 

[Funak]

Imho(and I'm no expert on anything to take that for what it is) the early ranged ship in cep (Bireme) was awesome and I totally think it should stay. However the barbarian pirates were way overpowered, maybe lower them to range 1 if they need to be in the game.

About the lancer/gunship/chariotarcher/WhatEverElseYouAreArguingAbout, the easiest solution i see would be just to fix everything at the same time by making a mobile ranged unitline, ChariotArcher -> New Unit (Ranged knight at chivalry) -> Lancer (Or Cav if it makes more sense switching them) -> Something new? -> Gunship (make it ranged?) all those units would have 1 range and the abilty to move after attacking. Would probably have to make even weaker vs cities than normal ranged units. (50% penalty?)
This would also help the mongols by allowing them to have knights to back their keshiks up, extremely silly having them using horsemen, or even worse having to bribe citystates hoping to get normal knights. However I have no clue what unit could be between the Dragoon and the helicopter, the antitank gun makes no sense at all.
Alternative would be ending the mobile ranged line with the dragoon/lancer and just keeping the helicopter as a standalone unit.

Edit: Also I'd prefer that volleygun over the grenadier, just feels like it makes more sense. A grenadier would upgrade to a mortar, not a gatling gun, imho.

 

[mystikx21]

That sounds like a lot of additional units...

 

[Funak]

That sounds like a lot of additional units...

Well, you either have to add new units or remove old one to fix that unitline. I'm just saying that a ranged horse line would make sense, and would probably make the camelarcher/keshik less of a unstoppable overpowered unit but give them better transition.

 

[Dunkah]

I love the idea of a ranged horse line. Don't know if it can be done but love it!

 

[Funak]

I love the idea of a ranged horse line. Don't know if it can be done but love it!

Ofcourse it can be done, it would probably be a lot of work however. But imo it is smart and kinda fitting.


Also going to take this time to mention something related to Leader balance. I really hate civs having 2 military unique units, In theory they either give you 2 periods where you can press your attack(If they are split up) or one era where you can dominate everything(if they are the same era). In practice you have two temporary buffs while others have buildings or improvements or great people that last you the entire game. Not to mention that most of the time atleast one of the UU are complete garbage to balance it out. Also while the AI take their UUs into mind when planning to attack they don't really do this well and would probably be better off with a building.

 

[Stalker0]

I agree, especially when the uus occur near the same time

 

[mystikx21]

If the UU provides a free or unique promotion that sticks rather than just a strength buff, then it should be a more persistent benefit. There are specific leaders where this doubling up makes less sense (Rome being an obvious one).

 

[ExpiredReign]

Mounted ranged units can be done but...

There are a couple of provisos to that statement.

Firaxis, in its wisdom (or lack thereof) assigned only a certain number of COMBAT_CLASSES to be used. You may be aware of the once infamous 'Mounted archer bug' as described here.

Now, I'm pretty sure Firaxis hasn't fixed that problem but CEP did manage to circumvent it with some shuffling of the classes to free up one that could be used for these type of units. So... if we want a mounted ranged unit be prepared to work out how some existing units might be reassigned AND what that might mean for any future addon mods written that don't know of those changes. Weirdness may ensue. Additionally system wide stat changes need to be very carefully thought out with these changes as not every unit fits the class it appears to in game.
e.g. the barbarian axman in the vanilla game is UNITCLASS_CHARIOT_ARCHER. I've already put a change in place to fix that and it is now its own class, but other oddities do exist.

 

[mystikx21]

We can do some hacky things because of the dll to get around the need for a different combat class.

I am not convinced that a ranged mounted chain is needed either. Optional at best.

 

[Gazebo]

Don't forget the almighty power of...DLL edits! We can probably fix that, ya know (adding a new combat class). That said, I'm a bit confused– I added a new combat class in CSD (so that CSD production boosts would only apply to CSD units) with just XML. What was the problem, specifically?

Edit: Ah, it appears it was an animation thing. That's not fun. I too do not think we need a full mounted unit path. Plus with the ability to have divergent promotions. Why not just have The mounted melee/ranged lines split and merge as the game goes along? That's fairly accurate, historically (some types of ranged combat were simply dominant at certain times), and allows for the best of both worlds.

Really, though, the problem with the all mounted units is that spear infantry are just plain better than them 99% of the time because of their cost and their % bonuses. I'd be okay with increasing the base strength of mounted units, and increasing their flanking power to give them more survivability and tactical punch. That alone would make the Lancer more valuable in the Renaissance (as it is the only truly mobile land unit of the era) and would make its transition into the Cavalry unit more graceful.

Lastly, I think it is okay if some units just merge into 'infantry' (i.e. the main line) at some point. It is easy to get worked up over accuracy above gameplay, when all that matters is if it is fun or not.

G

 

[mystikx21]

Combat animations I believe.

 

[ExpiredReign]

Yeah we can add as many classes as we like but the combat animations just wouldn't... animate!

You would attack with your unit, hear the combat go on, see the damage to health occur and then your unit was free to move again. Particularly bothersome with units that have the attack/move promotion.

 

[Gazebo]

I'd rather not mess with it, then. When in doubt, the simplest solution is the best. Merge lines, simplify promotion trees, etc.
G

 

[ExpiredReign]

There isn't really a problem as such, just something that needs to be made aware to all when the time for adjusting units again comes around.

CEP made this change to have combat animations work for units that ordinarily would have that bug:

Spoiler :

--
-- Combat Classes
--


/*
Mounted Archers need a combat class,
but we cannot associate combat animations with a new combat class.
I therefore reassigned the low-importance "gun" class to serve as mounted archers.

-- Thalassicus
*/

UPDATE Units
SET CombatClass = 'UNITCOMBAT_MELEE'
WHERE CombatClass = 'UNITCOMBAT_GUN';

UPDATE Units
SET CombatClass = 'UNITCOMBAT_GUN'
WHERE CombatClass = 'UNITCOMBAT_ARCHER' AND MoveRate NOT IN (
	'BIPED'			,
	'HEAVY_BIPED'	
);

UPDATE Units
SET CombatClass = 'UNITCOMBAT_GUN'	
WHERE Class IN (
	'UNITCLASS_CAVALRY'				
);

Simple!

The point in raising it was just to make everyone aware of the flow-on effects from small changes.

 

[Stalker0]

I'm going to throw in my usual party pooping....why do we need this?

I was tentatively on board with the idea of just putting the lancer between the knight and Calvary...but I don't see a reason to shake it up and build out a whole new line. Lets keep it simple!

 

[mystikx21]

That's my feeling as well and how I have it setup for now in what edits I did for it. Someone could do it, but I don't see the need for it.

 

[Funak]

I'm going to throw in my usual party pooping....why do we need this?

I was tentatively on board with the idea of just putting the lancer between the knight and Calvary...but I don't see a reason to shake it up and build out a whole new line. Lets keep it simple!

Honestly? I'll make a list of what I think.
1. Mounted archers have been a big deal in many cultures in history
2. Mounted archery is pretty damn cool
3. Mounted archers would be pretty damn strong (but would be countered by the faster mounted non-archers, giving them a better role to fill)
4. A mounted archery line would make it easier to balance the retardedly overpowered mounted archeryunits that already exists (Camel-archers, Keshik). While also helping those units have a better natural transition (Upgradepath) which would also help the Chariot-replacements.
5. It would make all the Dragoon/Lancer UUs(And there really are a crazy amount of those...) feel less useless by adding an actual purpose to them.


I'm not saying you need to have a Mounted unit and a mounted archer every era, but I really feel that a stable mounted archer-line would improve the game (Which is what we are trying to do here, isn't it? =D)