Units, Upgrade tree, Combat, Healing and Equipment

[Gedemon]

COMBAT : new healing mechanism with supply lines, introducing Morale value for units

Those who have played with R.E.D. WWII are familiar with the healing mechanism using supply lines, but it has been slightly modified.

Any fighting units will require multiple components (Personnel, Horses, Vehicles, Materiel) affected at different positions in the unit:

• Front Line : combat ready, units HP are restored only if there is enough reserve to move to front line for all required components
• Reserve : ready to reinforce front line, that's where reinforcements from cities, healed personnel and repaired Vehicles are affected first
• Rear : that's where the food (and other resources, except Materiel which is either used in front line or available for reinforcement in reserve) are stocked, it's also the position for the wounded personnel and damaged vehicles

Spoiler Warrior composition :

Here you can see a Warrior composition, it requires 2000 personnel and 30 materiel in front line to be at full "combat" health, the reserve values are the unit's base value, they have not been drained yet.

You can note that this unit is linked to Cairo at 28% efficiency (this is based on distance)

If the reserve were not at full capacity, the unit would ask for reinforcement, for example if it had 500 personnel left in reserve, it would ask Cairo to send 1000 to refill it, but with that efficiency it would receive at max 280 (if Cairo have this quantity of personnel available)

Spoiler Scout composition :

You may have noted that the warrior's food stock was going down, units feed on the terrain, using the food yield of the tile they are on, and a fraction of the adjacent tiles yield (shared with other units in the area, a large army may have food problem, as limited stacking is possible between ranged and melee units)

In a desert they don't find enough food, and will require stock from the city they are linked too.

The scout have less personnel than most units and can survive almost anywhere even when they are too far to be linked to a city.

Spoiler Warrior collecting and eating food :

At the beginning of your turn, there will be a floating text above your units to show the food collected from the terrain and eaten from the stock each turn, here you can see the Warrior restoring some of its stock after leaving the desert area...

Spoiler a Warrior far from home... :

Here you can see for the first time a negative effect on an unit's morale: it's now too far from Cairo to receive any reinforcement or supply, and if it's staying in the area, it's going to have food rationing problems (which also affect morale)

The Morale value only affect a desertion rate (personnel deserting from reserve then front line) when it goes down ATM, but there are a lot of potential use (retreating or forcing another unit to retreat for example), and I also plan to combine it with a "loyalty" value when implementing the Revolutions mechanisms.

Spoiler Floating texts from combat results :

Each combat will generate multiple lines of floating text expanding the result, that particular line shows the loss in personnel from the front line of this warrior after a ranged attack by the slinger: 93 deads, 0 prisonners (not possible for a ranged attack) and 279 wounded (send to the "rear")

On a side note, I hope that custom font icons will be possible soon.

Spoiler Warrior healing floating text :

At the beginning of a player turn, his units will "heal", which in the cas of our Warrior require transfer from a bit of materiel and a lot of personnel from the reserve to the front line.

The transfer amount is limited, an unit will not completely heal in one turn from an attack of an equivalent unit.

Still the combats are longer because of this and the base values that I have tweaked: I do want them to be longer, as in R.E.D. WWII, one shoot should not be possible.

Which means you can still have some reserve but a very low "combat" health, and when that health reach 0 (no more components in front line), the unit is destroyed (and the reserve and wounded may be captured)

"Strategical retreat" is an option to consider.

A quick note about the AI, this will of course not help it, but from the R.E.D. WWII experience (I did tell you it was made to test those mechanisms, didn't I ?) it's not that bad compared to vanilla AI, we may just have to scale the difficulty. And I'd like alliance mechanisms (military or economic) to be a good balance for runaway civ/player.

So on that picture above we can see 228 personnel and 2 materiel transferred from reserve to front line. A Modern Armor would require very different ratio, including vehicles (but stick to the very first eras if you want to play test the mod, I've not coded vehicles yet)

Spoiler Melee attack result :

As you can see, during a melee attack some of the front line personnel may be captured, the Warrior has lost 77 personnel this way here.

Prisoners are sorted by nationality, they'll be converted to slave in cities (adding to the total population and so the city size) and may also be used diplomatically (nothing coded on that part yet)

Spoiler Morale is going down for the Slinger :

You can see all possible negative effect on the morale of an unit on the above picture.

Note the Arabian prisoners in the "rear" section (but do not note the typo please ), if the Warrior kill that Slinger they will be transferred back to the Warrior's reserve as personnel.

Spoiler The fate of the wounded :

Each turn, during the healing phase, some of the wounded will die and some will be healed and reintegrated in the unit's reserve. As everything else, the ratio will change by era, depending on tech, promotions, etc...

In the future, wounded will also be send back to a city if a link exist, the dead/healed ratio will be better there (also depending on era, buildings, etc...)

Small note while we're speaking of that, health will be a value used in city growth, and bad health could lead to spreading diseases.

Spoiler Warrior vs Spearmen combat result :

What is interesting to note here is the difference between the dead/captured/wounded ratio with the previous melee combat against the Slinger.

Units may have (and some already have, hence the difference) lower or higher antipersonnel values.

The Slinger has a low value, the personnel lost from front line is mostly wounded, while the Warrior and Spearmen have a normal value and the personnel lost is mostly killed.

In future updates Era difference may influence that (less dead when fighting a lower era unit, more dead when fighting a higher era unit)

 

[Gedemon]

Two new addition to the units healing mechanism, I think I'm almost done on that front...

Spoiler Introducing Medicine and Equipment for units :

ATM Medicine is produced by the Herborist building, using Plants (collected from marshes, jungles, forests), they will also be used to help health in cities, but the first mechanism using this resource is the treatment of the wounded in an unit.

In one of my first post, I've shown that a portion of the wounded personnel is either removed (dead) or send back to reserve (healed), both value where almost the same.

Now an unit with enough Medicine will have twice more healed personnel than dead from wounds, and an unit without medicine will suffer twice more dead personnel than healed. When you're cut from your cities for reinforcement, it may make the difference in a battle.

The Equipment is a special resource used to calculate combat health from the front lines components by some units, just like personnel or materiel.

It will represent vehicles (chariots on that screen) or some specific equipment (iron weapons and armors for example) made from strategic resources.

For testing, the Chariot Units require a "Chariot" resource made from Wood in a new building, the "Small Stable" available at Animal Husbandry.

Have also added a "Blacksmith" to make "Iron Materiel" from Iron, an equipment required by the Swordsman Units.

Updated on GitHub

Spoiler Change log :

Added Medicine and Equipment to healing and reinforcement for Units.
Added components definition to Naval units.
Tweaked some values (death rate from rationing, minimal stock for reinforcing units)
Removed vanilla strategic resource requirement (will be replaced by equipment requirement when building the units)

 

[dunkleosteus]

What's the current plan for resource management? In civ5, each unit consumed one quanta of the necessary resource, so for example 3 swordsman required 3 iron. Civ 6's approach is 2 resources to build a unit in a city without an encampment/harbour and 1 resource to build with an encampment or harbour or to upgrade. Losing access to your last copy of the resource prevents those units from repairing except through promotion.

I'd like to see a middle ground between these: units consume resources on the turn they are being built, upgraded or being repaired. For example: selecting to build a swordsman in a city "consumes" 1* iron resource for however many turns it takes to produce. If you switch production during that time, the iron is released until you resume production again. When you upgrade a warrior into a swordsman, 1* iron is consumed on that turn, but released the following turn. This limits how quickly you can upgrade. When a swordsman is damaged and being repaired, it consumes 1 iron, which is released when repairs are complete.

This is a compromise between the two systems from 5 and 6: the number of each resource you have does not force a hard cap on the number of units you can produce, as in 6 but not 5, but it DOES put a hard cap on how many you can produce or repair simultaneously, which 6 does not do. What do people think about this?

Also, I'd personally like to see all unique units require strategic resources. Playing as Rome without any iron mines feels dirty inside.

Also also, does anyone else not really like niter? It's hardly the limiting component of an army- sure it's necessary but niter itself is very common, and in historical instances when it wasn't, replacements like guano or manure were sufficient. I'm not an expert, but based on what I know of metallurgy, the bullet or shell (or shot) was probably more difficult to get than the gunpowder was. Saltpeter/niter is good-to-go almost right out of the earth.

Also also also, talking about innovations or applications, I'd honestly be in favour of having guns as an innovation on gunpowder. From what I understand, gunpowder was first only used to make fireworks. Later, rocket propelled arrows were developed, and at some point grenades, landmines and other bombs were made. It was hundreds of years before canons came around though and longer still before canons were miniaturized enough to be held in one's arms. Muskets are more like an end result of a long chain of innovations of gunpowder. Realistically though, it would probably be easier to do something like gunpowder itself gives some sort of firework-related culture bonus and canons are an innovation of gunpowder and muskets are an innovation of canons (or of gunpowder that requires canons). Unlocking canons would be required to outfit ships with them (you could still BUILD the ships, they just wouldn't have any firepower beyond arrows or bolts).

Edit: You mentioned getting a free application for being the first to research a tech. I'm not sure if that balances in the long run- it means you need at least one innovation for every single tech and none of them can be overly powerful of expensive without giving a powerful and free advantage to the tech leader. Civ 5's culture/tourism system is different to the literal tourism system that civ 6 uses, but if we sort of take a more 5-ish approach and talk about cultural influence, I could see that it would make sense that when another civ learns a tech from you, that increases your influence over them. Whether that entails economic advantages such as more lucrative trade or some other tourism-related system, I think that would be a just reward for being at the front of the pack: increased trade and cultural power over those behind you.

 

[Gedemon]

What's the current plan for resource management? In civ5, each unit consumed one quanta of the necessary resource, so for example 3 swordsman required 3 iron. Civ 6's approach is 2 resources to build a unit in a city without an encampment/harbour and 1 resource to build with an encampment or harbour or to upgrade. Losing access to your last copy of the resource prevents those units from repairing except through promotion.

I'd like to see a middle ground between these: units consume resources on the turn they are being built, upgraded or being repaired. For example: selecting to build a swordsman in a city "consumes" 1* iron resource for however many turns it takes to produce. If you switch production during that time, the iron is released until you resume production again. When you upgrade a warrior into a swordsman, 1* iron is consumed on that turn, but released the following turn. This limits how quickly you can upgrade. When a swordsman is damaged and being repaired, it consumes 1 iron, which is released when repairs are complete.

This is a compromise between the two systems from 5 and 6: the number of each resource you have does not force a hard cap on the number of units you can produce, as in 6 but not 5, but it DOES put a hard cap on how many you can produce or repair simultaneously, which 6 does not do. What do people think about this?

Also, I'd personally like to see all unique units require strategic resources. Playing as Rome without any iron mines feels dirty inside.

see https://forums.civfanatics.com/thre...development-phase.615222/page-3#post-14763543

basically "equipment" is required to build and heal some units, the equipment itself is made using strategic resources. See the other previous posts for the resources economy.

The mechanism is coded, but the "data" is only set for chariot and swordsmen units.

I plan to remove the tech prerequisite for all units (except maybe for some very high tech), the tech being a prerequisite for the building that will make the equipment.

This way we can have a civilization not knowing Iron Working, but using Iron Equipment gained from another civilization to build and "heal" Swordsmen units (ATM trade is unlimited as long as you have open border, but I'll add relations in the mix, for example friendly for strategic resources, DoF for equipment...)

Still about strategic resources, I plan to make it so you gain a small quantity of almost any strategic resource you know from your mine, at a higher cost than if the resource is available on the plot. See strategic resource on the map as rich deposit, but the resource itself being available everywhere.

 

[dunkleosteus]

Cool, I loved TFC back when I played Minecraft. Such a unique experience. It's always strange to find someone you saw on a different site on a completely unrelated one. If only I could find shoejuggler from the Fusion Fall forums. Only dude who's name I remember, pure white avatar. Only one on the site.

Yeah, that's me. Wasn't expecting to get recognized though glad you liked the work I did!

But yeah, since TFC was a mod that focused very heavily on prehistory, metallurgy, primitive technologies etc. I learned a lot that's now applicable to a mod like this one through the research I did. I guess it's not surprising that people that liked my mod would also like this one since I like this one so much



Back on topic though, I also feel like armies start too large. I talked to Gedemon about that before, but it seems pretty apparent now. 2000 soldiers at the beginning of the game is way out of the question. 300 perhaps, but not 2000 (with 1500 in reserve?).

I also feel like the barbarians reinforce waaay too much. In my opinion, barbarians should be very weak compared to Civ units. They should be poorly equipped, rationed and without reinforcements- they don't have the wealth of a nation backing them, they're barbarians.

 

[Gedemon]

We need more units type, the warrior and spearman are used on a long period in which armies have seen there size multiplied by a factor 100, and I can't do variable max health for a unit.

I can change the numbers for reserve to be unit specific, that would automatically fix the barbarian "issue" (they never get external "reinforcement", but they use reserve)

 

[dunkleosteus]

I don't think you have to do variable health. Just spawn units with low health ie spawn the first unit at 5/100 health or something. You can make it so that units will only heal above a certain amount with big cities so for example a size 1 city won't heal units past 5 health, but a size 2 city might heal them up to 10 health. As I understand it, that's how healing works, right? You resupply units from the nearest city.

 

[Gedemon]

Supplies are send to the units reserve then reserve is used to reinforce the frontline, "health" being a representation of combat readiness, ie frontline.

I could cap the max HP to 10 or 50 for some unit, I can also edit the UI to use those capped values when representing the health bar, but I can't change the damage dealt/received by those capped units.

I'm fine if an iron age army anihilates a pre-bronze age army in less than 3 turns, but I'd like 2 pre-bronze army to fight a few turn before being "killed".

But if both are at less than 10hp, combats would always end in one turn. (and if I lower damage even more, unit at 50-100hp will never die)

"Realist" at the time scale of the game, but not my intended gameplay. We could have faster battle in early game but not so much.

Now we can add more early age units with less personnel and less combat strenght, say "Warrior I" , "Warrior II" and "Warrior III" before "Swordsmen"

 

[Laurentinum]

Would it be possible to scale unit damage relative to unit health? Or is it fixed?

You could try to use Corps and Armies to simulate things like "Warrior I", "Warrior II", "Warrior III" and so on.

 

[Gedemon]

Damage scales with health, but not enough to avoid the problem of one shot to kill.

I don't know if corps and army will be compatible with the current mechanism by the way (ATM the mod does not handle the scale change for personnel, materiel, equipment in a corps/army)

 

[dunkleosteus]

I'm no expert of ancient military tactics, but I'm not even sure if ancient armies organized themselves into front-line and reserve forces. That sounds like the sort of thing you'd figure out from a tech like "military tactics" or something of that nature. Just a thought.

 

[Gedemon]

Neither I am, but I'm sure you're right.

But for my code I need an intermediate state between "personnel in a city" or "wounded being treated" and "personnel in the middle of the combat"

 

[dunkleosteus]

How does damage calculation work in the mod? In vanilla Civ 6 it's very simple (and boring once you figure out how it works) where they just look at relative combat strength and deterministically calculate flat damage.

The other problem with combat in Civ is that killing enemies isn't very realistic. People generally don't like being killed. In more recent times (with highly accurate guns) many people don't have a choice. In ancient warfare however, I believe running away was very common especially when it's clear you won't win. There was certainly death in ancient warfare, but the idea of fighting to the last man standing is not accurate at all. I just don't know how you could represent that very well. In Europa Universalis 4, units have both a health (number of men) and a morale value. If the morale value drops to 0, the army surrenders and flees to the nearest friendly tile it can. In that game, it cannot do any action until it gets there and you're not allowed to attack it (you might be able to, but it would be like a war crime or something idk).

I wonder if a similar mechanic would be possible in Civ?

 

[Gedemon]

How does damage calculation work in the mod? In vanilla Civ 6 it's very simple (and boring once you figure out how it works) where they just look at relative combat strength and deterministically calculate flat damage.

The mod can't change the formula.

you may find it here:
https://forums.civfanatics.com/threads/hans-lemurson-figures-out-the-combat-formula.606147/

And what we can change is here, with default value:
(assuming all are used in the DLL source code)

        <Row Name="COMBAT_AIR_SUPPORT_BONUS_MODIFIER" Value="5" />       
        <Row Name="COMBAT_AMPHIBIOUS_ATTACK_PENALTY" Value="-10" />       
        <Row Name="COMBAT_ANTI_AIR_SUPPORT_BONUS_MODIFIER" Value="5" />       
        <Row Name="COMBAT_ARMY_STRENGTH_MODIFIER" Value="17" />       
        <Row Name="COMBAT_BASE_CAPTURE_STRENGTH_DIFFERENCE" Value="20" />       
        <Row Name="COMBAT_BASE_DAMAGE" Value="24" />       
        <Row Name="COMBAT_BOMBARD_VS_UNIT_STRENGTH_MODIFIER" Value="17" />       
        <Row Name="COMBAT_CITY_RANGED_DAMAGE_THRESHOLD" Value="50" />       
        <Row Name="COMBAT_CORPS_STRENGTH_MODIFIER" Value="10" />       
        <Row Name="COMBAT_DAMAGE_MULTIPLIER_MINIMUM" Value="0.25" />       
        <Row Name="COMBAT_DEFENSE_DAMAGE_PERCENT_BOMBARD" Value="100" />       
        <Row Name="COMBAT_DEFENSE_DAMAGE_PERCENT_MELEE" Value="15" />       
        <Row Name="COMBAT_DEFENSE_DAMAGE_PERCENT_RANGED" Value="50" />       
        <Row Name="COMBAT_DISTRICT_STRENGTH_REDUCTION" Value="15" />       
        <Row Name="COMBAT_FLANKING_BONUS_MODIFIER" Value="2" />       
        <Row Name="COMBAT_GARRISON_MILITIA_MODIFIER" Value="10" />       
        <Row Name="COMBAT_MAX_EXTRA_DAMAGE" Value="12" />       
        <Row Name="COMBAT_MAX_HIT_POINTS" Value="100" />       
        <Row Name="COMBAT_MAX_NUM_ATTACKS" Value="1" />       
        <Row Name="COMBAT_MIN_CIVILIAN_DAMAGE_PERCENT" Value="65" />       
        <Row Name="COMBAT_MIN_HEALTH_PERCENT_TO_ADVANCED_AIR_PILLAGE" Value="1" />       
        <Row Name="COMBAT_MIN_HEALTH_PERCENT_TO_AIR_PILLAGE" Value="50" />       
        <Row Name="COMBAT_MINIMUM_CITY_STRIKE_STRENGTH" Value="3" />       
        <Row Name="COMBAT_MINIMUM_DAMAGE" Value="1" />       
        <Row Name="COMBAT_MINIMUM_GARRISON_STRENGTH" Value="0" />       
        <Row Name="COMBAT_POPULATION_PER_STRENGTH" Value="2" />       
        <Row Name="COMBAT_POWER_DAMPENER" Value="5" />       
        <Row Name="COMBAT_POWER_SCALING" Value="0.04" />       
        <Row Name="COMBAT_PUSHBACK_STRENGTH_MODIFIER" Value="10" />       
        <Row Name="COMBAT_RANGED_VS_DISTRICT_STRENGTH_MODIFIER" Value="17" />
        <Row Name="COMBAT_RELIGIOUS_FOLLOWING_CITY_TILE" Value="5" />       
        <Row Name="COMBAT_RELIGIOUS_HOLY_CITY_TILE" Value="15" />       
        <Row Name="COMBAT_RIVER_DEFENSE" Value="5" />       
        <Row Name="COMBAT_STRENGTH_FROM_ENVOYS" Value="1.0" />       
        <Row Name="COMBAT_SUPPORT_BONUS_MODIFIER" Value="2" />       
        <Row Name="COMBAT_WOUNDED_DAMAGE_MULTIPLIER" Value="10" />       
        <Row Name="COMBAT_WOUNDED_DISTRICT_DAMAGE_MULTIPLIER" Value="10" />

The mod already changes those values:

UPDATE GlobalParameters SET Value = 12        WHERE Name = 'COMBAT_BASE_DAMAGE';        -- default = 24
UPDATE GlobalParameters SET Value = 6        WHERE Name = 'COMBAT_MAX_EXTRA_DAMAGE';    -- default = 12
UPDATE GlobalParameters SET Value = 7        WHERE Name = 'COMBAT_BOMBARD_VS_UNIT_STRENGTH_MODIFIER';    -- default = 17 -- Lower Bombard Combat Strenght vs units by this amount
UPDATE GlobalParameters SET Value = 14        WHERE Name = 'COMBAT_RANGED_VS_DISTRICT_STRENGTH_MODIFIER';    -- default = 17 -- Lower Ranged Combat Strenght vs districts by this amount
UPDATE GlobalParameters SET Value = 75        WHERE Name = 'COMBAT_CITY_RANGED_DAMAGE_THRESHOLD';    -- default = 50

On those I've no idea of what does COMBAT_CITY_RANGED_DAMAGE_THRESHOLD

I'm open to any suggestions, you can edit CombatRules.sql to test things.

The other problem with combat in Civ is that killing enemies isn't very realistic. People generally don't like being killed. In more recent times (with highly accurate guns) many people don't have a choice. In ancient warfare however, I believe running away was very common especially when it's clear you won't win. There was certainly death in ancient warfare, but the idea of fighting to the last man standing is not accurate at all. I just don't know how you could represent that very well. In Europa Universalis 4, units have both a health (number of men) and a morale value. If the morale value drops to 0, the army surrenders and flees to the nearest friendly tile it can. In that game, it cannot do any action until it gets there and you're not allowed to attack it (you might be able to, but it would be like a war crime or something idk).

I wonder if a similar mechanic would be possible in Civ?

I used a retreat mechanism in my WWII mod, I plan to add it at some point.

There is already a morale variable, not linked to combat efficiency yet, but it will. ATM it only result in desertion, I plan to have it influence retreat probability and maybe desertion when attacked too.

In the mod ATM all personnel left in a defeated unit (wounded, reserve not ready to battle) are captured or "vanish" in case of defeat by ranged attack. This will surely be modified (% of escaping prisoners, ...) not sure how much and what/when yet.

 

[Gedemon]

Not directly related but the discussion about disbanding units reminds me that I have some gameplay mechanisms for units that I'd like to share

First, since some time (ie civ5 time) I'm pondering some change to the helicopter units to make it less of a land unit and more of an air unit.

- Helicopter could "rebase"
- Helicopter should move like a land unit, being able to capture and attack other units, but at the end of the turn (or after using all moves) they should return to their current "base"
- AA units should use "opportunity fire" against helicopter (need DLL)
- Helicopter should be able to hover over water during their turn (and could be based on specific ships) (may not be possible even with DLL source)

Now I think that the second point (returning to a specific plot at end of turn) is already possible on the code side, and could have multiple usage (like slow down a bit expension in early game, maybe useful with historical spawn dates)

- Early "tribe" unit (settler with small combat value, one movement point and no ability to build city) linked to a early scout unit (4 movement points but teleported back to the tribe unit at the end of the turn)
- Early militia units, teleported back to a city after x turns or when loosing their supply line

About unit losing a fight with low morale, disbanding is a possibility, with parts of the components (personnel, materiel, equipment,...) returned to the closest city, or even the unit itself at some additional cost in health/components

Edit: about the "tribe start", you'll get research point dependind on the food resources near the tribe unit, then the ability to create a city when sailing, trapping or agriculture has been discovered.

 

[Laurentinum]

Not directly related but the discussion about disbanding units reminds me that I have some gameplay mechanisms for units that I'd like to share

First, since some time (ie civ5 time) I'm pondering some change to the helicopter units to make it less of a land unit and more of an air unit.

- Helicopter could "rebase"
- Helicopter should move like a land unit, being able to capture and attack other units, but at the end of the turn (or after using all moves) they should return to their current "base"
- AA units should use "opportunity fire" against helicopter (need DLL)
- Helicopter should be able to hover over water during their turn (and could be based on specific ships) (may not be possible even with DLL source)

Now I think that the second point (returning to a specific plot at end of turn) is already possible on the code side, and could have multiple usage (like slow down a bit expension in early game, maybe useful with historical spawn dates)

- Early "tribe" unit (settler with small combat value, one movement point and no ability to build city) linked to a early scout unit (4 movement points but teleported back to the tribe unit at the end of the turn)
- Early militia units, teleported back to a city after x turns or when loosing their supply line

About unit losing a fight with low morale, disbanding is a possibility, with parts of the components (personnel, materiel, equipment,...) returned to the closest city, or even the unit itself at some additional cost in health/components

So essentially a melee unit, but with a range of more than 1? Don't units which can move after attacking do the same thing?

I guess you can apply attrition damage to Helicopters which end their turn outside a city, same with the early militia and "tribe".

Edit: About the tribe and nomadic mechanic, is Rising Tide aquatic city-style movement possible?

 

[Gedemon]

No "range", but 8 or more movement points for the Helicopter and no terrain cost.

Attrition would penalize the AI a lot as I have no way to override its units control (to move them back near their cities)

Kind of the same problem I have with healing naval units in harbors (cities) without supply lines: when the AI will know that it can buit and use a navy (hopefully in some patch to come), it will be penalized a lot if I do not switch to a supply line mechanism like land units (which still penalize it, but less)

Edit: About the tribe and nomadic mechanic, is Rising Tide aquatic city-style movement possible?

I haven't played with BE or its extension, what's the mechanism?

 

[Gedemon]

Speaking of units, I'd like to discuss the unit tree, classes and abilities (including promotions)

Don't limit your thoughts to the scope of civ6, I'm assuming that we'll get DLL access at some point, here are some of my design plan

• limited stacking
  • 1 melee unit + 2 support unit (numbers could changes with eras / policies, not sure if we'll use/need the corps/army mechanism of civ6 then)
  • translated to modern terms, "melee" would be division sized, "support" would be regiment sized
  • "support" include ranged, recon, and other regiment sized unit like heavy tanks, assault guns, etc... (think R.E.D. WWII if you used it)
• most current "support" units will be removed and their effect reintroduced as promotions (keeping anti-air unit as regiments)
  • medic promotion -> field hospital (less dead from wounded, heals wounded faster, applied to all units on the same tile)
  • engineer-like promotions : unit could automatically spawn city-assault units (siege tower, battering ram, if it has enough materiel) when near an enemy city with walls
• techs unlock equipment (bronze equipment, iron equipment, steel equipment, chariot, crossbow, musket, rifle, cannon, ...)
• a city that has access to enough of that equipment (using trade for example) can build the corresponding units, even without the corresponding technology
• each units has an small upgrade path with an equipment type, unlocked using projects, you need the equipment tech to research those project
  • for example bronze equipment allows spearmen, the "base" unit, and a military project unlocked by the same tech as bronze equipment allows phalanx units based on spearmen

Now what I'd like to discuss based on this is the global unit tree, IE what kind of units we should have for each era, and what should be the rock/paper/scissor for the gameplay

 

[heinous_hat]

Are you planning to eventually introduce the reactive combat feature from the RED BNW project? Such as preparatory fire, counter-fire, etc. That keeps combat flowing nicely and somewhat influences how strong RPS relationships should be.

 

[Gedemon]

Yes, that's planned, but will require DLL access (or new events and methods for direct AI units control from Lua)