Updated list of After V.21 Patch requests

[cracker]

Now that the V1.21 patch is out and fixes some of the most fatal screw ups with corruption and AI out of control tech trading from V1.17, I wanted to post my coherent list of must have fixes and implementations for future patches:

I should observe that some of these things are trivial “just do it” and get on with life sort of issues, while others will have more complex impacts. We should recognize that getting the CIV3 AI players to be able to use the unit abilities and game elements in viable strategies is really tough. Of all the things we ask for and do, asking Firaxis to get the AI players up to speed is probably the most complex task. This is one of the reasons we see so much of what seems to be excessive AI advantage factoring as well as just rampant AI cheating. It is just easier to give the AI players false advantages and blatant cheats instead of strategically calculated decision making processes. SO I recognize that some of these issues are not just a matter of giving access to a unit variable or other code factor.

I have set up these lists in an updatable format and uploaded them to an MSN community directory at:

Directory of Patch requests for Post V.21

here is the raw URL in case the link does not parse:
http://communities.msn.com/1ki0mm3r0hka6jalm94bk40b15/documents.msnw?fc_a=0&fc_p=/Civ3_docs


Because the list is rather extensive and will grow with time, I have broken it down into the following subject areas:


Simple Standard Rules Setup Wishes

Simple Programming Changes

More complex/interrelated fixes to transport unit capabilities:

Basic issues relating units to city improvements, cities and wonders:
(adapts the programming concepts set up for control of Armies)

Fix ARMIES to eliminate bugs and programming errors:

Changes to City Display Page:

Changes to Histographic Display Page:

Changes to Military Advisor Page:

Changes to Trade Advisor Page:

Changes to Domestic Advisor Page:

Changes to Cultural Advisor Page:

Other Hard Coding Changes

Comments and additions are welcome, but I have specifically not included any additions or changes that would be labeled as new stuff that is not related to fixing something or using something that is already in the Firaxis code set.

... more later ... cracker

 

[cracker]

This list of changes, fixes, and requested additions to the next Civ3 patch includes only those items that should be fairly straightforward changes that should not require significant programming in the base code or AI player strategies.

Simple Standard rules setup changes:

1) The Option to ‘Allow Restarting of Players’ should be renamed to “Allow Re-spawning of AI Players” or “Allow Restarting of AI Players” since it applies only to the AI players and apparently the Human players get no second or third chances. Set this option to default to “NO” in the standard rules set so that new human players do not have to experience 3 or 4 months of frustration before they figure out the ‘Re-spawning’ problem.

2) Allow for lethal bombardment (both land and sea) by all standard bombardment capable units (Land, Sea, and Air) set this unit special ability as the default.

3) Allow workers, settlers, explorers, and scouts to be airlifted. Set this ability as the default rule

4) Increase the default range of cruise missiles to three (3) tiles and allow cruise missiles to load onto transports.

5) Set the hidden nationality special unit ability to be default ON for cruise missiles so that cruise missiles can be fired on an enemy without that single event provoking war. (this will effectively deal with the AI habit of hyperactively trolling (yes sp is correct here) warships in an about harbors that are well within a clearly defined cultural border.

6) Increase maximum allowable operating range for air units to more than 8 tiles. In CivIII, the culture corona for most human player cities in the era of Flight is at least 3 tiles deep, this means a range of 4 barely reaches to the currently visible boundary and a range of 6 tiles for bombers only reaches to at most one city deep.

7) Increase the operating range for all air units by two (2) tiles from the current default settings. The standard fighter with range of 4 tiles can’t recon anything.

8) Increase the default movement of Radar artillery to two (2) tiles to allow these units to keep up with Mechanized Infantry, if a player progresses as far as the robotics tech.

 

[cracker]

This list of items includes fixes for bugs as well as game play and editor additions that should be implemented to enhance both standard and developer game support issues.

Most of these items are true bugs with implementation of Armies.

Fix ARMIES to eliminate the following bugs:

1) Allow the units in an army to heal damage at the same rate as units outside the army. Currently (as of 4/21/02) the units in the army heal slower than their peers and receive no healing benefit from barracks. It can take 6 or 7 turns for a badly damaged army to heal whereas the individual units of the same caliber will heal in one turn if located in a city with barracks.

2) Allow units in an army to exercise their zone of control powers such as taking pot shots at passing units. Currently (as of 4/21/02) an army 3 infantry does nothing as enemy units run past the army. The standard features of the Army indicate that it should confer a zone of control on all units, just like a fortress, but this feature does not work.

3) Fix the Armies defensive priority calculations to determine if the units in the army are intended for attack or defense purposes. Currently (as of 4/21/02) an army of 3 veteran Cavalry will be the priority defender even when stack with 3 veteran musket men. This appears to be due to the algorithm that calculates the defender power of the army as 4 hit points times 3 units times a D value of 3. The Army has to stand there and get pummeled until it loses at least 7 of its 12 hit points before a musket man with a stronger D value of 4 will take over and defend the stack.

4) Fix the unit attack and movement points calculations for armies to address the current bugs as described: “An army of 3 or 4 cavalry can only attack once in a turn. When faced by three spearmen defenders, an advancing army of cavalry will take three turns to reduce the defenders while a group of three separate cavalry units will almost always reduce the 3 spearmen defenders in a single turn.”

5) When disbanded in a city, Armies should yield the salvage shield points of the army AND the salvage shield points for the units contained in the army. Currently (as of 4/21/02) the units in the army just evaporate.

6) Increase the range of defensive visibility for Armies by 1 extra tile in radius to simulate the multi-unit capability of the army.

7) Give Armies the ability to pillage improvements in some appropriate scale to the units in the army.

8) Give an Army 1 extra defensive point to simulate at least the minimum power that a leader will have in military police or resistance and culture flipping suppression. Currently (as of 4/21/02) an army of 3 cavalry has no greater impact in these areas than just a group of three warriors. Since the army is a military unit with combat capabilities it should have some leadership and military police value. Answering the question “should it be easier to revolt against an army of powerful military units or against an equal number of similar but less well organized units.”

 

[damunzy]

1) Agreed
2) Agreed
3) Don't agree with this. I would like there to be an option to choose the defense priorities of the units but the way defense is used in this game I would rather have the Army defend since there is less chance of losing it. I would probably not want the Army to ever defend since I feel it's best use is destorying defending units (although I still lament the loss of my conscript army of babylon UU archers to one spearman defending a city without walls. From 9 HP to 0 without even damaging the defender, while my Swordman went in there and kicked butt).
4) Firaxis has stated that this is the trade off for using an Army.
5) Agreed
6) Not sure about this.
7) Not sure how this could work
8) 1 point of D extra is a lot. I like the way it works currently.

 

[cracker]

I should clarify this problem a bit more because I have run a couple of experimental games where I reduced the cost of armies for AIs and for myslef just to see what the effect of armies would really be.

Using armies in defense is a real problem, even with defensive units, but first we should address the attack factor of armies.

I played several monarch and emporer level games where I could almost never use my cavalry armies in the attack because the defensive priority selection would let them get pummeled into a such a weakened hit point status that they had to withdraw. This is in spite of the fact that the cavalry armies were well defended by supporting cannons and musketmen. The AI would smack them with one or two Longbowman and a Cavalry and this would knock their hit points down from the 12 to 15 range to under 5 in almost every case.

The problem is the algorithm that says a 15 hit point unit with an attach of 6 and defense of 3 is a better defender than a 4 hit point unit with a defense of 4. Watching numerous of the enemy counter attack cycles against an advancing Army of three Veteran or Elite cav units accompanied by three extra vet cavalry units and defended by three musketmen and three cannons: the cycle almost alway proceeds with the attacking army elements of the stack getting disabled before the defensive units even come into play.

Here's a description of the typical sequence:

First veteran AI cavalry attacks our stack and a cannon fires in defense missing 1 hit point 50% of the time. The AI cavalry (4 hits at 6) usually knocks off 5 or 6 hit points from the cavalry army (12 hits at 3) before being destroyed. The second Veteran AI cavalry attacks and a cannon fires destroying a hit point 50% of the time. The AI cavalry (3 remaining hits at 6) then knocks off 4 or 5 additinal hit points from the army before being destroyed. The attacking army has now lost between 9 and 11 hit points and is virtually worthless in the planned attack even though it should have been defended by the accompanying escort force.

The sequence is similar for counterattacks made up of Longmen and/or swordmen and immortals only it take three of these foot soldiers to attack the reinforce cavalry army stack and acheive the same disabling effect.

Putting defenders into the Army to up the defensive mix is not a viable option because it cripples the movement power of the army down to 1 while still leaving the army exposed to attack as the strongest defender in an stack.

Simply put, defender progression should proceed down the defensive side of the unit array first and then proceed to offensive units.

In the big picture, armies can be great, but in the implementation effects it is still a slugfest between individual units at the combat level. To select the units in the army as the priority defenders just because the army has 3 times as many hit points of a weaker defense factor is not appropriate and has the effect of disabling both the attackers and their accompanying defensive escorts.

I used the stack movement exploit (that has been eliminated in v21) to disassemble the cavalry armies in these sequences so that I would have the individual cavalry units. The results were compelling in that the armies almost never won the battle sequences while the indivdual cavalry units almost always did.

I had three different game scenarios with 3 to 4 cavalry armies each. The counter attacks Out of a total of 10 cavalry armies in the 3 attack scenarios, 1 was destroyed, 6 were maimed severely enough to render them useless for at least the next 4 to 5 turns, 1 was only damaged slightly and 2 were not attacked at all. In three of the 10 cases, the counter attacks proceed to hit against the defenders a bit, but only 2 out of 30 musketmen were killed with 5 out of 30 being damaged. So the total was 3 cavalry killed and 18 cavalry maimed. The attacks succeeded in only the 3 of the ten cases, and armies played a role in only 3 attacks. One of the attacks with a cavalry army failed even though the cavalry army won its cycle because the numerical unit count factor and movement withdrawal hocus-pocus did not let a vet Cavalry army and 3 extra vet cavalry defeat 1 musketman and a pikeman and a spearman.

When the armies were disassembled and left behind with only the individual units proceeding in the attack, the results were significantly different. None of the 60 attacking cavalry (30 individuals and 30 from the armies) were damaged by the AI opening counterattacks. I lost 3 out of the 30 defending musketmen escorts and had 28 of them take 1 or more hit points of damage but that was the plan. 8 out of 10 of the attacks on cities was successful in the next turn.

... more later ... cracker

 

[cracker]

I should explain this a bit further because the response that you " like the way it currently works" may indaicate you misunderstand the issue here.

Originally posted by cracker

8) Give an Army 1 extra defensive point to simulate at least the minimum power that a leader will have in military police or resistance and culture flipping suppression. Currently (as of 4/21/02) an army of 3 cavalry has no greater impact in these areas than just a group of three warriors. Since the army is a military unit with combat capabilities it should have some leadership and military police value. Answering the question “should it be easier to revolt against an army of powerful military units or against an equal number of similar but less well organized units.” [/B]

The suggestion of one extra D point is just my take on what may be the best way to use the existing Firaxis code to fix the lack of effectiveness of armies in two key areas. It would probably be equally effective give the army an A value of 1 as an alternative approach.

Culture Flipping is a big issue and it really is more than richter scale annoying to lose a 400 shield value army in a culture flipped city. Armies are supposed to be more powerful and more effective than the same number of equivalent units. Armies should be able to hold territory when individual units would fail. Currently the opposite rules apply.

The firaxis code recognizes a military police effect and culture flipping suppression effect only from units that have an A or D rating of more than 1. Artillery type units have no culture suppression effect. Workers, scouts, and explorers have no culture flipping suppression effect.

Leaders and Armies currently have no military police or culture suppression effect. This is just plain flawed logic. A Great Leader would technically have more effect on suppressing culture flipping than say for example a single warrior unit. Adding a D value point to leaders and armies would not really make them very defensive compared to Cavalry or Tanks, but would activate their military police and culture suppression value.

I also think that the Firaxis code for an Army would ignore the D value point for the army in adding up the A and D values for the units loaded into the army, so therefore it would probably have no effect on the defensive effectiveness of the army. A three vet cavalry army would still have 12 vit points at 3 value and the D value of the empty army would be of no impact.

I have not yet used the editor to experimentally add a D value point to Armies and Leaders but I suspect that it will not have any effect on any combat case except the rare case when an enemy would attack and destroy or capture an undefended army that contains no combat units. Even in this case, the army would still fall victim to the attacker in almost every case other than the ridiculous cases where a 1 attack point unit would sneak up and surprize an undefended army. Can't foresee this case ever happening.

(Note that you should detect that I am on a lobbying path the argue for adding a defensive point to Great Leaders and to add an attack point to artillery (not catapults and cannons) units as well. Artillery units need to stay with a D value of zero if they are to be captured, but adding an A point would make them effective as increasing the culture flipping suppression effect but not make them effective attackers. Technically you would be able to now attack a defender directly with a 1 A value artillery, but that would be suicidal in 99.99% of the cases since a 1 A value artillery against the equivalent 6 of 10 D value defender with a 50% city defense or terrain bonus would be totally annihilated without even chinking a single hit point.)

 

[Park Ranger]

Originally posted by cracker

4) Fix the unit attack and movement points calculations for armies to address the current bugs as described: “An army of 3 or 4 cavalry can only attack once in a turn. When faced by three spearmen defenders, an advancing army of cavalry will take three turns to reduce the defenders while a group of three separate cavalry units will almost always reduce the 3 spearmen defenders in a single turn.”

Err, I've been blitzing with my cavalry armies under 1.17f....did they take this away in 1.21? I don't always get a second attack, seems to work best when first attack is with full 3 movement and the attack is on a stack so there is no advance after combat. Also I recall getting a second attack with a tank army ONCE, but haven't duplicated this. Maybe I was dreaming..

I would also like to see my lone musket/rifleman defend first when stacked with cavalry armies. Same applies when knights/pike are stacked together. Even if the pike has fewer HP, I generally prefer to lose a cheap defensive unit than weaken the attack units which are more valuable in a counterstrike.

 

[cracker]

I set up a test game with armies set to have one hit point of defense. This required that we use the edit to unselect the special unit ability that classifies the "Army" unit as an "Army" and then set the hit point before setting the special unit ability back to "Army". When the special label of Army is selected it blocks out changes to the A and D values.

Once the one point of D is set, it remains after the unit is classified as an Army.

The one point of D for the army has no impact on the defensive total for the units in the Army, but it does make the army unit recognizable as a military police unit and for the purposes of suppressing culture flipping.

This is an easy fix that does not require programming changes and should be included in the next patch.

... more later ...

 

[Lt. 'Killer' M.]

cracker: especially on the army defence issue. I`ve been complaining about that ofr a long time. But it also goes for other units, like when I have a healthy attacker and a weak Warrior in a city and there`s only one enemy unit attacking. Usually, the attacker will die defending and I can`t counterattck with the Warrior. If I could choose the Warrior to defend.....


One thing I didn`t find in your list:

Why can`t we get an alphabethically sorted search list for cities????

 

[cracker]

Killer, I will add "alphabetical" to the sort order options request list for the sort drop down boxes on the advisor pages. I agree that alphabetical might be of use to many players. It just wasn't my first thought focus.

For other readers, this discussion relates to the list of changes that we feel should be implemented in the next patch and the list can be found at:

Directory containing lists of patch requests listed by Civ3 Advisor page of major function:


List of patch requests to the Domestic Advisor:

Thansk to Killer for contributing with focus. All we need to do now is get Firaxis' attention.

 

[cracker]

Just to help everyone experience these units and lethal bombardment, I uploaded a simple Tiny test map for V1.21 that includes making these units available to all civs very early in the Ancient age.

You can download the zipped version of the map from the separate thread under this General Discussions forum.

It is very educational to use these units early and see what effect they can have.

happy civing,


... cracker

 

[epikur]

all those links are forbidden or private area, you have to be member of that msn community, i've requested and this is the feedback when i used the here is the raw URL in case the link does not parse

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