Unit Promotions

[Rmi]

I've been working on all the unique units and thus have also been looking at all the promotions.

I want to split double movement promotions away from the basic terrain promotions. For woods and hills this is already done but for other terrains not.
We also have a basic promo for a few types of terrains at 200000BC but not all.
Can we streamline the terrain promotions a bit?

For example these. You will need each one to get the next and to get any typeII you'll need combat1. This way you will have to invest to get double movement. but it isn't as easy to become invincible on a hill
Hills:

• Cliffwalker - +10% both offense and defense on hills & mountains
• Guerilla I - + Another +15%
• Guerilla II + Another +25%
• Hillsman - Double movement on hills

Forests:

• Greenwarden - +10% in forests and jungles
• Woodland I - Another +15%
• Woodland II - Another +25%
• Forestry - Double Movement in Forests and Jungles

Wetlands

• Swampthing - +10% on marsh and swamp & no river cross penalty
• Wetland I - Another +15%
• Wetland II - Another +25%
• Webbed feet - Double movement on marsh and swamp

Desert

• Dust Devil - +10% in desert, dunes and salt flats
• Desert I - Another +15%
• Desert II - Another +25%
• Hot feet - Double movement in deserts, dunes and salt flats

Barrens

• Bushman - +10% in Barren, Rocky and scrubland
• Barrens I - Another +15%
• Barrens II - Another +25%
• Hermit - Double movement in Barren, rocky and scrubland

Plains

• Scarecrow - +10% on grassland, plains and savanna
• Fieldsman I - Another +15%
• Fieldsman II - Another +25%
• Wind in the Back - Double movement in grassland, plains and savanna

Ice

• Winterborn - +10% in taiga, tundra, ice and permafrost
• Cold I - Another +15%
• Cold II - Another +25%
• Skis and skates - Double movement in taiga, tundra, ice and permafrost

Offroad Tactics - This unit gets terrain defensive bonuses (needs combat 2)

 

[Raledon]

Personally, I'd consider making the desert, wetland, ice and barrens promotions shorter/better.
Most of the terrain you fight/use either is woods, hills and plains.
The wetlands removing the river crossing downside is good, but you won't invest more than one point in it.

 

[Thunderbrd]

Your 4th stage promos, imo, should be an alternative route off from the first named promotion in the set, so that for example if I took Winterborn, I could then take Skis and Skates OR Cold I. Also, don't name any of them according to an equipment set - that would be the realm of equipment promos which are still in the works here.

At which promotion point, when on terrain damage, do you become immune to the damage of the terrains mentioned? Hydro set up, for example, the cold promotions so that each of the stages gives access to a deeper layer of cold terrain immunity.

I would also do away with the naming convention on the first level and instead just start the naming of the promotionline there. It will pay off later in the promotionline design process. Thus for the Ice promos, you'd just have Cold I-III.

I'd also adjust the bonuses to 15/20/25. And carry through the Combat Prereqs for lvls II and III but leave the first one open to all.

In summary, all of the above would then mean you'd have:
Ice

• Cold I - +15% in taiga, tundra, ice and permafrost, Immunity to Tundra damage
• Cold II - Another +20% (Prereq Combat I), Immunity to Taiga damage
• Cold III - Another +25% (Prereq Combat II) Immunity to Ice damage

• Winterborn - Double movement in taiga, tundra, ice and permafrost (Prereq Cold I)

Not sure if the immunities are in the right order there because Toffer changed up some of the stuff Hydro had and I haven't kept up on it very well but the point is made I think.

Offroad Tactics - This unit gets terrain defensive bonuses (needs combat 2)

I might have to make a new tag for this but it'd be worth it.

However, I'd suggest not to make it its own promo.

You have a neat suggestion to give access to removing river crossing penalties through the wetlands promotion set. This would really make this set more valuable as it is currently a bit weak due to the infrequency of such terrain. Barrens and plains also suffer from the same issue of unreliability and not doubling up where there are already terrain bonuses.

So I'd give the 'unit gets terrain defense bonus' (which overcomes the inability to get defensive bonuses that many mounted units have for example) at the second level of the Barrens. Then perhaps give the plains second level some equivalent benefit, and then give the river crossing benefit at the second level of the wetlands promos.


Also, DH had been pondering some adjustments to these and may have comments. He had some similar thoughts, as have I to what you proposed.

 

[Dancing Hoskuld]

First off these are not promotions you can select from EXP. They are initial promotions your unit may get when created based on the terrain near the city. The probability of getting them is strongly affected by your Civic choice with Military Tradition and Volunteer Army having the highest probabilities. We may have changed it so that only those Civics get a chance.

Hills:

• Cliffwalker - +10% both offense and defense on hills & mountains

Forests:

• Greenwarden - +10% in forests and jungles

Wetlands

• Swampthing - +10% on marsh and swamp & no river cross penalty

Desert

• Dust Devil - +10% in desert, dunes and salt flats

Barrens

• Bushman - +10% in Barren, Rocky and scrubland

Plains

• Scarecrow - +10% on grassland, plains and savanna

Ice

• Winterborn - +10% in taiga, tundra, ice and permafrost

There is already a problem with existing the double movement in terrain promotions. If you have the forest and hills one for example your unit with a move of 2 can get to move 5 or 6 plots. I think that the promotions were originally supposed to make the units move as fast through slow terrain as through clear plains/grasslands not faster.

Some of the current promotions also have an increase to "chance to subdue animals" but it is not consistent.

Toffer90 has also posted a review of what he thinks should happen with these promotions.

As Thunderbrd has pointed out elsewhere all promotions have to be as good as the available Combat promotion or it wont be considered to be selected.

 

[Thunderbrd]

First off these are not promotions you can select from EXP. They are initial promotions your unit may get when created based on the terrain near the city. The probability of getting them is strongly affected by your Civic choice with Military Tradition and Volunteer Army having the highest probabilities. We may have changed it so that only those Civics get a chance.

Oh yeah... that's where those references are coming from. That's right.

So we should pretty much leave these as they are as separate addendums because they aren't part of the skill promo streams.

But the stages he mapped out was cool as step I - III

There is already a problem with existing the double movement in terrain promotions. If you have the forest and hills one for example your unit with a move of 2 can get to move 5 or 6 plots. I think that the promotions were originally supposed to make the units move as fast through slow terrain as through clear plains/grasslands not faster.

The math has always been interesting on this. Even back to vanilla if you got double hill mv you'd be able to get a melee 1 pt moving unit to move 2 spaces if the first was a hill (even wooded).

Double movement means the plot has half the move cost if it's of the qualifying type. That's how that works out. Due to some restructuring of the math, it is much more accurate to intention now in the code. Units with a lot of base movement can really get a long ways when a plot costs less than 1 movement total, which there are numerous situations where that can end up being the case now. Canines often get the full advantage here because they negate added movement costs on terrains but still benefit from slight improvements to cost such as from routes. And they have quite a string of promos that allow them speed.

After 3 or 4 edits to the movement rules, things are now working as a tremendous body of feedback has guided the design to become.

Some of the current promotions also have an increase to "chance to subdue animals" but it is not consistent.

You were wanting to remove all that from these anyhow according to your hunter promo restructuring project. I agree with that too.

As Thunderbrd has pointed out elsewhere all promotions have to be as good as the available Combat promotion or it wont be considered to be selected.

Thus why I suggested a small amount of adjustment to the bonus #s he was proposing at each stage. This is a very good point to keep in mind, all things balance to Combat I as the baseline minimum benefit really. Combat I is still good because it is NOT specialized but specialized combat bonuses have to be a little better than 10% usually unless there's something profound going on for that promotion in another manner, such as on Fight to the Death where the resistance to being captured is really the primary effect and a little combat benefit comes with it.

 

[Rmi]

I've been working on the promotions some more.
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1wk_qVwvhA8jiLdCtjpsCKQ9TLnDIDm3wRghHUMpWJDo/edit?usp=sharing

Here is the juxtaposition with the combat promotion.

The better the basic combat promotion, the better other promotions have to be to be viable. (promocreep)
The better promotions are, how more important is is to have a lot of them on each and every unit because you can't compete without them.
However more promotions does mean outdated units have a better shot against newer units, if you select your promotions and units carefully. Which a human can and the AI not so much.

If we back load the combat promotion and make it slightly weaker that takes a bit of the edge off.

Combat 1 - +5% power
Combat 2 - +7% power
Combat 3 - +8% power
Combat 4 - +10% power
Combat 5 - +15% power
Combat 6 - +25% power

As you can see in the chart i made, the combat 1 and 2 promotions are needed for most of the tactical promotions. If you go that route you will pick them anyway and like it.
But if you go for terrain specialty, you will get better results sooner, but off course you got to keep hugging those trees.

 

[Thunderbrd]

Combat 1 - +5% power
Combat 2 - +7% power
Combat 3 - +8% power
Combat 4 - +10% power
Combat 5 - +15% power
Combat 6 - +25% power

Really do not wish to do this. Given that every promo is balanced to vanilla standards this would be a catastrophe in the making.

You'd be very surprised to see the depth of promotion selection AI in the code. However, more role specialization of unit AI settings is the key here to getting them to really be as smart as a human (or even more clever considering some variation possibilities that could keep humans having to be on their toes better) in this regard.

The power creep isn't so much an issue. Just consider that 15% of a specific commonly applicable combat modifier = 10% general combat modifier. And 20% of a specific uncommonly applicable combat modifier = 10% general combat modifier. It's about the commonality of how often the combat modifier would be applicable.

The Combat 6 point of getting +25% after a long slog of +10% mods is a C2C standard by now that I'd also like to keep for a host of reasons that are hard to explain that has to do with setting up the 'interesting decision' of not only how hard do you want to push to get those levels right out the gate but also having a neat bonus for the truly dedicated generic combatant. It also conflicts with other cool bonus paths, particularly on size matters.

Been making some suggestions on your form tho.

 

[Thunderbrd]

Was tooling around in the coding here and noticed we DO have a promo tag for changing units from defensive only status! Cool

So that would be awesome to come up via the rocky promos imo. Still considering what would be a good bonus benefit for flat terrain.

Also:
bCanMovePeaks would be super cool for an extra promo that becomes available only on Useable Mountains, that becomes available when you have the third stage of what we currently call guerilla (the hills and peaks combat promos) AND the double move on hills promotion. This makes it possible for the promoted unit to move onto peaks early.

Perhaps the promotion could obsolete when all units become capable of this by tech.

 

[Rmi]

Seems a perfect fit to put mountaineering in there.

 

[Thunderbrd]

Seems a perfect fit to put mountaineering in there.

Sometimes the prereqs are supposed to vary between 2 or more promos that basically do the same thing. You could re-use the name and icon for mountaineering, but before we change it to having these prereqs, we need to make sure that we're not disturbing the current means to obtain it if we want to maintain that path for it. So what I'm saying is we might benefit from a new promo that reflects THIS method of obtaining the ability while keeping mountaineering with the current prereq structure... maybe. Hard to say until we look at the existing prereqs.

EDIT: I suggested a 5% defense modifier as the side bonus to one of the lines. Perhaps a 5% general attack modifier for flatlands at the same stage.

 

[Thunderbrd]

I have previously suggested that these promos contain both attack and defense values. I just realized why this is actually a bad idea.

If a unit is defensive only, they won't be able to take these promos if they have terrain defense values on them.

Maybe there should be 2 terrain sets for each terrain, one for attack values and another for defense values, both having the same strength of modifier as their opposing types. This might make a difference to any plans for side benefits.

 

[Rmi]

In the Unit code, if i want to give a unit +25%in forests, i have to do that by giving it both attack and defense.

I haven't studied the promotions xml yet, i would guess it works somehow the same there?

I'll go delve into the promos later todat, right now i'm going to a LEGO event with my nephew!! ^^

 

[Thunderbrd]

In the unit schema under promotioninfos, only these tags show up for terrain and feature combat modifiers:

<element type="TerrainAttacks" minOccurs="0"/>
<element type="TerrainDefenses" minOccurs="0"/>
<element type="FeatureAttacks" minOccurs="0"/>
<element type="FeatureDefenses" minOccurs="0"/>

We'd need a new tag entirely for a terrain combat modifiers that are active for both attack and defense and I can see why vanilla didn't include that.

This is why I'm suggesting each terrain get 2 sets of 3 promos, one for improving attacks and another for improving defenses, rather than having them both be in the same. Though I'm wondering what @Toffer90 & @Dancing Hoskuld & @Hydromancerx think about that.

 

[Thunderbrd]

Well, I figured out that we didn't have a tag for removing or adding the No Defensive Bonuses penalty to a unit. So my last commit gave us that ability. If you're still looking at reworking the terrain/feature promos and using it in there, it's available for that use now.

 

[Rmi]

Great =)

I have fixed the broken and useless units in the code and posted those files in the unit topic, some time ago.


After we have made definite plans for the cultures concerning the idea project we can reevaluate the cultural heroes, units and buildings.
Right now i don't really now how the cultures will be used so i paused the work on units and focused on research.

 

[Thunderbrd]

I have fixed the broken and useless units in the code and posted those files in the unit topic, some time ago.

This is about the terrain promotions project rather than the units. Though I do know I need to finish reviewing those units and getting the work you've done merged into the game.

Could you link me to the post where you uploaded your unit 'corrections' again? Can't seem to find it.

 

[Rmi]

Here they are agan.

 

[Thunderbrd]

Thanks!