Units Combat Evaluation Data Sheet

[Sparth]

Hello fellow modders and players.

As promised here is Units Combat Evaluation Data Sheet.
For now its for Land Units only.

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1zQnKxSB-a7dAPhYZPvulxIZBjglY3x6UjKg_DYSmjjc/edit?usp=sharing

With this document we can easy check all units combat stats.
Ill try to update this sheet but 1st I need to know If you guys changed anything in units combat stats.

 

[Sparth]

Ok some loose suggestions:

- all Mounted units should flank every siege unit in-game. There is no special different in real world to flank Catapult, Trebuchet or Cannon. All of these siege units are slow to move and easy to outmaneuver

- Mounted units should have additional bonus to Attack in Barren, Salt Flat, Tundra and Lush Terrain but in Marsh, Hill, Peak, City they should got minus % to Attack.

- Almost every unit should need building in city to be abel to construct. Armourer for Armoured Infantry, Fletcher for Archers etc. Similar like Horse Trainer for Mounted (Horse) units

 

[Taxman66]

Exceptions:
Dragoon type units that only use mounts for extra movement, not to fight from.

Mechanized/mobile artillery

 

[Sparth]

Mechanized/mobile artillery

I know about these units but I think we can skip this because in Late Modern Era there is no Mounted Units in 99% of games.

As for Dragoons/Mounted Infantry or even heavy armoured cavalry (Knights etc.) - yea they should be excluded from Flanking.

 

[Toffer90]

Exceptions:
Dragoon type units that only use mounts for extra movement, not to fight from.

I still think they should have the flank bonus against siege, flanking is more about maneuverability between fights than during them. But I see the arguments for the opposite as well.

 

[Thunderbrd]

- all Mounted units should flank every siege unit in-game. There is no special different in real world to flank Catapult, Trebuchet or Cannon. All of these siege units are slow to move and easy to outmaneuver

There is currently a game philosophy with these that states that a mounted unit generally shouldn't be able to flank siege units that are more advanced than they are tech-wise. To support this and make it easier to define, I added a flank unit combat tag so that the siege units could be more sweepingly defined and we could get away from defining each unit that can be flanked by a particular unit. I had figured we could use one of the siege sub-categories, so we could define flankable siege as one or more of the following:
UNITCOMBAT_SIEGE_WOODEN
UNITCOMBAT_SIEGE_GUNPOWDER
UNITCOMBAT_SIEGE_ROCKETRY
UNITCOMBAT_SIEGE_ENERGY

I suppose, alternatively, we could just use UNITCOMBAT_SIEGE for all of them.

As for the mounted soldier type units, not only do we eventually need to flesh out the whole line based on the general definitions they were given in AND by Vokarya (we don't have them all here in C2C so there's gaps in the upgrade chain) but keeping them from flanking might help to offset their ability to gain defensive bonuses. Primarily in C2C I have intended them to be a great unit for defending against withdrawing units by making them the only units capable of gaining defensive bonuses while still gaining access to premium pursuit statistics and promos.

- Mounted units should have additional bonus to Attack in Barren, Salt Flat, Tundra and Lush Terrain but in Marsh, Hill, Peak, City they should got minus % to Attack.

You can use the mounted UnitCombat definition to define this for all mounted units. However, some few mounted units may defy these general rules. This probably differs by mount so the mount unitcombats:
UNITCOMBAT_MOUNT_HORSE
UNITCOMBAT_MOUNT_MULE
UNITCOMBAT_MOUNT_CAMEL
UNITCOMBAT_MOUNT_LLAMA
UNITCOMBAT_MOUNT_ELEPHANT
UNITCOMBAT_MOUNT_GIRAFFE
UNITCOMBAT_MOUNT_BEAR
UNITCOMBAT_MOUNT_DEER
UNITCOMBAT_MOUNT_BISON
UNITCOMBAT_MOUNT_RHINO
UNITCOMBAT_MOUNT_MAMMOTH
UNITCOMBAT_MOUNT_ZEBRA
could take some varieties here. Ex: Llamas should be very GOOD at fighting on Peaks and Hills.

- Almost every unit should need building in city to be abel to construct. Armourer for Armoured Infantry, Fletcher for Archers etc. Similar like Horse Trainer for Mounted (Horse) units

This would screw up the trait that enables units to be upgraded anywhere. (Progressist) My suggestion would be to enforce only tech access, and in some cases resource access requirements for most CORE military units but units like law enforcement, criminals, strike teams and other very special and unique capability based units and perhaps naval units should all require buildings.

It's for this reason that in my planning on this end I've defined quite a few new buildings to create when fleshing out the criminal and strike team lines. There's a few that won't require a building but not many.




This document may prove somewhat helpful for my efforts but we'll see. I'll try to keep you updated on any changes anyhow because I can see how for most of us it could be very useful.

 

[Sparth]

I had figured we could use one of the siege sub-categories, so we could define flankable siege as one or more of the following:
UNITCOMBAT_SIEGE_WOODEN
UNITCOMBAT_SIEGE_GUNPOWDER
UNITCOMBAT_SIEGE_ROCKETRY
UNITCOMBAT_SIEGE_ENERGY

Ok this work even better then my idea.

As for the mounted soldier type units, not only do we eventually need to flesh out the whole line based on the general definitions they were given in AND by Vokarya (we don't have them all here in C2C so there's gaps in the upgrade chain) but keeping them from flanking might help to offset their ability to gain defensive bonuses. Primarily in C2C I have intended them to be a great unit for defending against withdrawing units by making them the only units capable of gaining defensive bonuses while still gaining access to premium pursuit statistics and promos.

Adding new units should wait for v37 but for sure we add new units for this line.

You can use the mounted UnitCombat definition to define this for all mounted units. However, some few mounted units may defy these general rules. This probably differs by mount so the mount unitcombats:
[...]
could take some varieties here. Ex: Llamas should be very GOOD at fighting on Peaks and Hills.

Thanks for this hint.

This would screw up the trait that enables units to be upgraded anywhere. (Progressist) My suggestion would be to enforce only tech access, and in some cases resource access requirements for most CORE military units but units like law enforcement, criminals, strike teams and other very special and unique capability based units and perhaps naval units should all require buildings.

I propose this idea becuase I think training most units some sort of Buildings to be available in city. For example Heavy Axeman need Heavy Armour and Axe and both of them can produce Armourer. We can use for this job already existed in mode buildings.

Without buildings city should train just really rudimental units, such like militia or basic infantry.

Anyway Ill wait with any changes for v37 because I dont want to screw anything in v36. Still we can discuss

 

[Thunderbrd]

I propose this idea becuase I think training most units some sort of Buildings to be available in city. For example Heavy Axeman need Heavy Armour and Axe and both of them can produce Armourer. We can use for this job already existed in mode buildings.

Without buildings city should train just really rudimental units, such like militia or basic infantry.

I'd completely agree if it didn't screw up Progressist. It would force that all units must return to a city radius in which their upgrade can qualify to be trained so that they can be upgraded. This completely mutes the capability to 'upgrade anywhere'.

However...

The full trait plan was to have trait lines that could be improved as you went, so for example, Aggressive I, Aggressive II, Aggressive III and thus with Progressist as well. I had intended to create some layers of potency for Progressist progression. This would certainly accomplish that as I could also make it so that the building prereqs don't matter for upgrades at a point.

However, this could NOT be done overnight. Coding would be involved and the long awaited FULL planned out traits tree would need to be implemented. It would also only work for Developing Leaders (though I could simply make the non-developing leader Progressist trait carry the capability of ignoring the building prereqs for upgrades.)

So the ability to ignore building prereqs for upgrading could be implemented into the code for the core Progressist trait to make for the quicker fix that would then enable such building prerequisitizing for all units. Probably wouldn't take too long either.

But yeah, all for v37. I also have 3 major bugs to work out for the release yet. Hopefully will find time this weekend to address most of it.

 

[Sparth]

If this building idea its too complicated then screw it
Lets stick with simple solutions for C2C for now.

In long run this building thing hit more in AI then in players because one more building in the city its not a big deal and teaching AI about this can be tricky.

 

[Thunderbrd]

AI is already taught about it.

 

[Sparth]

Ok

Another question:
Can you tell me about differences between

<BonusType>BONUS_HORSE</BonusType>

and

			<TrainCondition>
				<And>
					<Has>
						<GOMType>GOM_BONUS</GOMType>
						<ID>BONUS_HORSE</ID>
					</Has>
				</And>
			</TrainCondition>

and

			<PrereqBonuses>
				<BonusType>BONUS_HORSE</BonusType>
			</PrereqBonuses>

 

[Toffer90]

			<PrereqBonuses>
				<BonusType>BONUS_A</BonusType>
				<BonusType>BONUS_B</BonusType>
			</PrereqBonuses>

This one can list many resources, where you only need one of them.

It can be used together with:

<BonusType>BONUS_C</BonusType>

which would results in you needing C AND (A OR B).

			<TrainCondition>
				<And>
					<Has>
						<GOMType>GOM_BONUS</GOMType>
						<ID>BONUS_HORSE</ID>
					</Has>
				</And>
			</TrainCondition>

This one can do more interesting things. But in this example it would be misleading as it would not display the same way in the pedia. Example of what it might do:
make a mounted unit require (Horse OR "Building_Horse_Importer") AND Stable.

It would also be the only way to making a unit require 3 resources (A AND B AND C) to be trained.

 

[Dancing Hoskuld]

Having units require bonuses or buildings to build breaks the Barbarians. It is a major cause of the problems I am seeing with barbarians as they are now.

If we had equipment that the barbarians, and others, could capture and use to upgrade their troops this would be better in many ways. It would give you the opportunity to bribe a stack of barbarians to go off and and attack someone else. You could also arm your friends....

 

[Thunderbrd]

I'm getting closer on that equipment stuff. My development track has it nearing rapidly. If only I could get away from bug squashing...

 

[Sparth]

Having units require bonuses or buildings to build breaks the Barbarians. It is a major cause of the problems I am seeing with barbarians as they are now.

IMO barbarians should build only basic units. They are in barbaric state of civilization and more sophisticated weapons/training are beyond for them.

 

[Toffer90]

IMO barbarians should build only basic units. They are in barbaric state of civilization and more sophisticated weapons/training are beyond for them.

At a later stage I'm going to experiments on ways to change the weapon model of a unit graphically based on its combat classes that can be changed through promotions and possibly buildings. Weapons available to a specific unit would be limited to it's base model and animation set though; unless we find a way to change this as well..

 

[Yudishtira]

I know about these units but I think we can skip this because in Late Modern Era there is no Mounted Units in 99% of games.

Just because you're in late Modern, it doesn't mean everyone else is.

 

[Thunderbrd]

At a later stage I'm going to experiments on ways to change the weapon model of a unit graphically based on its combat classes that can be changed through promotions and possibly buildings. Weapons available to a specific unit would be limited to it's base model and animation set though; unless we find a way to change this as well..

Sparth and I were discussing doing something along these lines. I believe it should require some coding BUT if you can find a way that it wouldn't and it could be based on combat classes, that would be spectacular! Even if equipment promos needed to add a combat class to the unit to make this work in the end, the programming for enabling that alone is fully established. So see what you can figure out but I do suspect we'll need to do some coding and tagging work to make it work properly. What I'd LIKE is if units had a base tag that gave an assumed weapon for the unit and promotions had a tag that could change it for them.

However, if I'm not mistaken, any change in weapon is likely to indicate the need for a change in animation. Am I correct? Just how complex will this need to get to make it work right?

 

[Sparth]

Just because you're in late Modern, it doesn't mean everyone else is.

Do you belive that for example Cavalry have a chance with Mobile Artillery unit?
Anyway we use TB idea with Flanking vs Subclasses. We can kill two birds with one stone

 

[Toffer90]

However, if I'm not mistaken, any change in weapon is likely to indicate the need for a change in animation. Am I correct? Just how complex will this need to get to make it work right?

Angle of attack:
1 - Are there any animation flow code in the dll or is this entirely in the exe?
I could make more attack animation variations that could be chosen by the game dll based on combat class.

2 - Can we manipulate which KFM file is associated to a specific unit in the dll?
I could standardize unit model armatures so more animation sets would be compatible with each unit models.

3 - I would have to make more variations of each unit model that uses different animation sets and we would have to find a way to make a promotion change soldier(sword).nif to soldier(spear).nif. the nifs would be identical but they would have different animation sets.
Soldier(spear).nif could then have one of many different spear models (halberd, pike, etc.) attached to it's hand armature bone through the attachment system; if, I manage to get combat classes to influence the attachment system I know is already in the game.

This might turn out to be far from plausible altogether.