Unit strength overhaul
- Thread starter zappara
- Start date
I've been thinking that it could be an optional module that adds building requirements for units. This way player could choose what method he wants to use - I like making features optional whenever it's possible. However in some cases I think a building requirement is justified for certain, complex, unit types such as siege units - it's just not about training men to use those weapons, someone has to also manufacture those weapons before they can be used. Though in real life during classical/medieval era sieges the armies probably made the siege engines from trees that they cut down near the enemy city - 20 ton trebuchet wouldn't been easy to move several hundred kilometers... In game point of view this can't be used as you build all your units in the cities.
I'll take a look at those Mailed Knights and see if I can somehow improve the balance.
Galacticat42
Drifting through space, lost
I just thought of this while playing; I think archers should have a decreased ranged bombard accuracy down to 25%, then put in promos to increase accuracy because a person isn't naturally accurate at aiming a bow, they must practice. The Longbowmen should have 30% since longbows are slightly more accurate - but not by much, and crossbowmen should have 15% accuracy due to the fact that crossbows are even more inaccurate than regular bows, however they do give a bigger punch than a longbow.
Afforess
The White Wizard
I think that the bombards in the game (along with most of the other artillery) are too powerful. The AI will just make a huge stack of about 10 or so and devastate my cities, and I can't attack them because they have 17
I think that the bombards in the game (along with most of the other artillery) are too powerful. The AI will just make a huge stack of about 10 or so and devastate my cities, and I can't attack them because they have 17
Yes, siege units definitely need nerfing. Basically they should be strong at bombarding but weak in direct attack and especially weak in defence.
generalstaff
Steadfast
Completely Agree. It could be fixed with lower the strength of siege weapons and increasing accuracy of ranged bombardment and having city attack bonuses.
I have had issues with ranged bombardment lately. My siege weapons have been statistically inaccurate (Bombards hitting 10% of the time and Artillery hitting 30% of the time)
Afforess
The White Wizard
I agree, I haven't been able to play past the renaissance on the latest version for exactly this reason. I might not be the best player, but even on Prince the AI manages to come up with massive stacks of knights that lay waste to my seemingly well defended cities.
For example, I had a city with 140% defense bonus and 15 defending units, 10 of them heavy pikemen, just annihilated by 50 or so mailed knights from the French. It really sucked cause we were friends until he decided to backstab me. He took the city without heavy causality's either.
To be fair though, if he has an army three times the size of your defensive army, you are are almost bound to lose. I know I'm only a piddly Warlord player for now, but still, that would stand to reason I think.
Terrance888
Discord Reigns
Well, maybe have a promotion (Formation II? Drill III? Please have multiple ways!) to let a unit ignore flank damage, like Drill reduces collat damage (getting out of the way) and MGers ignores collat damage (Bunkers.)
Well this piddly Deity player is able to handle Mailed Knights fine (as they're well off the beaten tech path), but there's really little to be done about massive Bombard/Cannon stacks presently, short of deft diplomacy and cranking out loads of obsolete units to keep your ratios up in order to point aggro AI attention elsewhere.
At least give artillery higher attack values than defense. In any case, with the present values, there is never a reason to defend, rather than to preemptively attack, as the splash damage of the arty will just destroy you.
Since Civ 4 uses same strength value for both attack and defense it's bit hard to make units have different values for those situations (no defensive bonus -modifier is there of course). I think I'll have to try the negative terrain / feature defense modifiers for those units.
I believe that one of the scenarios that came with BtS (the dungeon one) had a tar demon that was 2/7. FFH has all sorts of units that have different attack/defense values, if I'm not mistaken.
I've checked FFH and it adds whole lot of new xml tags for units and yes there's defense strength value as well. These kind of changes require SDK changes ie. code from FFH would have to be merged to RevDCM and I don't see that happening anytime soon.
... I have analized FfH's SDK and I planning to merge most of the new tags to my addon's dll, when new RoM2.7 will available 
I was just thinking....
Close your eyes and imagine this : Two groups of rivaling axemen are meeting in a forrest. The first group shouts some foul language and then charges the second group. Blood and gore follows and after a long battle one of the groups stands victorious. ok?
Well, with Civ4 its almost always the second group that will win. Why? Because they had +50% defense in the forrest. Maybe something is wrong with my imagination, but in my vision I had a really hard time picturing the advantage. Where they hiding behind trees? Did they climp them and jumped from them? Did they cut the trees so they fell on the charging group. I can understand a 10% maybe even a 15% bonus (doing the above things), but a 50% !
Just a thought.....
edit: now I'm at it.... how about putting a defense bonus on
cottage (5%) (hey guys! lets hide in that barn!)
Hamlet (10%) (hey guys! lets hide in those barns!)
Village (15%) (hey guys! spread out and hide in all the barns) and
town (25%) (lets block those roads! archers to the roofs! cavalry on the main street and snipers to the church tower!)
The above changes could result in interesting AI approach as they now sneek from forrest to forrest.
Close your eyes and imagine this : Two groups of rivaling axemen are meeting in a forrest. The first group shouts some foul language and then charges the second group. Blood and gore follows and after a long battle one of the groups stands victorious. ok?
Well, with Civ4 its almost always the second group that will win. Why? Because they had +50% defense in the forrest. Maybe something is wrong with my imagination, but in my vision I had a really hard time picturing the advantage. Where they hiding behind trees? Did they climp them and jumped from them? Did they cut the trees so they fell on the charging group. I can understand a 10% maybe even a 15% bonus (doing the above things), but a 50% !
Just a thought.....
edit: now I'm at it.... how about putting a defense bonus on
cottage (5%) (hey guys! lets hide in that barn!)
Hamlet (10%) (hey guys! lets hide in those barns!)
Village (15%) (hey guys! spread out and hide in all the barns) and
town (25%) (lets block those roads! archers to the roofs! cavalry on the main street and snipers to the church tower!)
The above changes could result in interesting AI approach as they now sneek from forrest to forrest.
Hehe, I tend to agree that a 50% bonus seems high in this situation. Realistically the cover afforded by a forest would help ranged units (archers, soldiers armed with guns, tanks etc) much more than melee units... unless the melee units somehow managed hide in the trees and spring an ambush. But I guess it would be too complicated to have different levels of cover for different units.
most of it is already made. like the knights get - when attacking forrests.
I dont know if its possible to give archers and gunpowder units as a group the defensive bonus and then scale down the overall defense. And already almost all the units have +100% against this or that so putting in an extra +25% to 50% forrest defense shouldnt be that difficult (time consuming, but not difficult).
I personally put in the following (see spoiler) to siegeweapons because I was tired of attacking catapults with axemen in a forrest and loosing bigtime. I could understand if the catapults launched stones and greek fire at my encampment, but it was I who actually attacked them, resulting in 15 deaths of my axemen and none to the 10 catapults dropped of by ships.
I dont know if its possible to give archers and gunpowder units as a group the defensive bonus and then scale down the overall defense. And already almost all the units have +100% against this or that so putting in an extra +25% to 50% forrest defense shouldnt be that difficult (time consuming, but not difficult).
I personally put in the following (see spoiler) to siegeweapons because I was tired of attacking catapults with axemen in a forrest and loosing bigtime. I could understand if the catapults launched stones and greek fire at my encampment, but it was I who actually attacked them, resulting in 15 deaths of my axemen and none to the 10 catapults dropped of by ships.
Spoiler :
Just on a note. There was a pretty good reason why USA didnt use tanks, but a hell of lot of napalm in the Vietnam war. Gunpowder units should definitely have defense bonuses, while tanks should have a lot of trouble in jungles/forrests.
Baskedyt
Concerned citizen
I've already done that, though I made it Hamlet 10%, Village 20%, Town 30%, but I feel that village and town should maybe be higher, because city combat is very hard to fight - especially for the attacker because there is so many places to hide and make ambushes from. So maybe Cottage 5%, Hamlet 10%, Village 25% and Town 40%
And that is probably why forest gives +50%, because you can fight guerrilla style combat with ambushes and hit-and-rum tactics. If you are a defending axeman you don't show up in force like in the beginning of The Gladiator movie, you hide and make an ambush like the Germanic Tribes did in the Teutoburg Forest in 9 AD where they anhiliated three roman legions.
But 50% for forest is perhaps a bit high. Maybe +25% for forest and +50% for Jungle, because that is still the easiest place to make the life hard for the attacker.
