Vokarya's Workshop: Units

[Vokarya]

I've been noticing that the gap between the Knight and the Mailed Knight is small enough that the Mailed Knight is totally overshadowing the Knight. I had an idea to change the Mailed Knight into a Noble Knight, making it a National Unit that would be reserved for critical situations, and make the Knight just a little bit stronger since it would then carry the heavy cavalry role. My sense is that the Mailed Knight is originally supposed to be an "elite chivalric order" of units, so giving them national unit status would reinforce that.

This is exactly what I would do:

• Knight gets +1 strength
• Mailed Knight gets +1 strength
• Mailed Knight becomes a National Unit with limit 5
• All upgrades to Mailed Knight are removed; Mailed Knight can still upgrade (alt: units can upgrade to Mailed Knight but not auto-upgrade)
• Mailed Knight is renamed to Noble Knight

 

[BlindKitty]

Noble Knight sounds like a great idea. Maybe to differ them a little more it would be possible for Castles to grant some free XP to them (and only them)? It could represent them constatly training during times of peace, and could work well with giving them additional cost per turn.

 

[oldnooob]

Ok, so if you put that in then I can simply go into the proper xml and turn on or off auto upgrade for that specific unit, Correct? If that is possible then that would be a satisfactory solution for me.

In my opinion new features need to be introduced in such a way that they can be turned on or off by the player so as to allow that feature to be fully evaluated.

Another thing, while it is reasonable to expect that current players would read through a few pages of the forums when deciding to play a mod , However it is not reasonable to expect a new player to read through hundreds of threads next year to find out what happened today. Until he discovers a problem. I mention this because there is no warning of any kind inside the game to tell a player that the game will take such a radical turn before the event happens. This auto upgrade thing is unique to this particular mod out of hundreds of Civilization 4 mods. It certainly does not follow the upgrade logic of the game or any other mod that I know of. I assure you that this particular feature will be a constant source of comment by new players over the years because it comes as such a startling surprise. The player is blindsided, even if he looks at the civlopedia page, because , First of all while the page does show a picture of the dragoon as the upgrade, the description is absent so the player has to actually no option but to let the upgrade event happen only to find out that they have just lost all of their defensive gunpowder units. And when this happens during a war, what then? How can a player defend against an imminent attack? (Oh Sure, fortify the newly formed Dragoons who have two more hitpoints but no defensive bonus.) How satisfying do you think that will be to a new player? do you really think that losing your whole army to an unusual and illogical event will promote player immersion and player satisfaction if they do not realize it will happen and have no control of the result?

Let me tell you a story;
Joe Arquibuster is happily scrunched down in his comfy foxhole awaiting the imminent attack.
Up walks Sarge leading a horse and carrying a saddle.
Joe? says Sarge.
Uh yeah Sarge?
Joe, I brought you a horse.
Joe gets up, Sarge hands him the reins.
Joe.
Uh yeah Sarge?
Joe you are now a dragoon, take good care of this horse.
Sarge walks away, turns around and says.........
Oh by the way Joe here they come.
Poor Joe.

EDIT; Ok so after playing a few more turns I notice that Dragoons do indeed get the 25% fortify bonus. So maybe I have been to hasty to report my first impression, however I think that something like "Be sure to look at the new changed unit upgrade paths" in Sid's Tips and also in the Civlopedia would save some player frustrations.

 

[gay_Aleks]

On Noble Knight: Feels kind of niche unit. Unless it's much, much lower cost, why would you build a limited unit, even with +1 strength?

There has to be something that makes it exceptional. Maybe a Noble promotion (which could be expanded to some other units)? Or, even, make Knightly Orders on a Guild-like basis?

 

[aggri1]

On Noble Knight: Feels kind of niche unit. Unless it's much, much lower cost, why would you build a limited unit, even with +1 strength?

There has to be something that makes it exceptional. Maybe a Noble promotion (which could be expanded to some other units)? Or, even, make Knightly Orders on a Guild-like basis?

I concur, though I'd suggest not to do so via a promotion, but rather some inherent ability. Perhaps can use enemy roads, like Crusaders and Special Forces (?), or an extra move, etc.

The reason I'd prefer not a promotion is that promotions are kept when units upgrade. If it were a very special promotion, then you could have up to five very special units forever-after, as you upgrade your Noble Kniggits.

Then again, I do love using upgraded Crusaders; and there are a few really cool promotions which would indeed be very fun to be able to use...

Cheers,
A.

 

[<Nexus>]

I like the Noble Knight. I think it could get Warlord promotion.
Would it be possible to make its limitation not 5/civ, but 1/castle or 1/city?

 

[Noyyau]

I like the Noble Knight. I think it could get Warlord promotion.
Would it be possible to make its limitation not 5/civ, but 1/castle or 1/city?

seconded

 

[gay_Aleks]

Should Noble Knight be locked into civics? I'd rather not see a Republic building Noble Knights or something. If anything, at least Monarchy should get a build bonus to this unit.

 

[<Nexus>]

Should Noble Knight be locked into civics? I'd rather not see a Republic building Noble Knights or something. If anything, at least Monarchy should get a build bonus to this unit.

That's a very good idea!
I vote for this instead of the max 5/civ solution. Privateer works the same way but that doesn't have any cap.

 

[Noyyau]

As a Civic-specific unit (and not limited in numbers) the Noble Knight might be more viable.

Maybe it should also require Knight's Stable? Or at least the Stable? Or a Stable/Castle combination?

 

[Vokarya]

The point of my suggesting the Noble Knight change is that I think that Mailed Knights are currently overshadowing Knights; so what I want is that you only have so many Noble Knights for critical situations and then Knights are the bulk of your medieval-era heavy cavalry. I did consider a civic limitation, and I will put that in as well. But I really want to keep the number of Noble Knights down, and that's why they will be a National Unit; I don't think there is a way to limit the total number of a unit based on buildings. Once you start looking at XML in detail, you discover just how limited it is.

I'm willing to add some more bonuses to make Noble Knights worth training. I do like Lead by Warlord, as it unlocks a lot of really interesting promotions and I would never use a Great General for Lead by Warlord when Field Commanders/Military Academy/Great Military Instructors are so nice.

 

[Vokarya]

Okay, so as you probably know, I've been looking at the units tree in very great detail. One thing that I don't understand is why we have two different kinds of Guild Master units. The first group are the Master X units, which act like regular Executives (require the Corporate HQ). But the second group are the X Master units, which come available at Jurisprudence, only require the appropriate Guild Hall national wonder, and can even spread a guild that hasn't been founded yet -- which really seems to me like it's breaking a rule.

Can anyone who knows the history of AND explain why we have both?

 

[Vokarya]

Something I want to do in the next build is to cut back on some of the abilities in the Workboat line. Right now, we have three Workboats (regular, Modern, and Constructor) and eight abilities, all of which are shared by all three:

• Build Fishing Boats [Fishing]
• Build Whaling Boats [Optics]
• Break Ice [Combustion]
• Sanitize Ocean [Aquaculture]
• Build Tunnel [Nanotechnology]
• Build Aquatic Forcefield [Shielding]
• Build Aquatic Anti-Air Defenses [Orbital Flight]
• Build Jumplane [Teleportation]

I think we'd be better off cutting the first Workboat back to just the first two abilities and the Modern Workboat to the first five. Otherwise, it encourages too much stockpiling of old Workboats. The Modern Workboat is available at Screw Propeller, so that's before any abilities other than Fishing Boat/Whaling Boat. The Constructor Ship shows up at Machine Learning, at the tail end of the Modern Era, so it's the only one that can build the Transhuman Era improvements.

 

[45°38'N-13°47'E]

Something I want to do in the next build is to cut back on some of the abilities in the Workboat line. Right now, we have three Workboats (regular, Modern, and Constructor) and eight abilities, all of which are shared by all three:

• Build Fishing Boats [Fishing]
• Build Whaling Boats [Optics]
• Break Ice [Combustion]
• Sanitize Ocean [Aquaculture]
• Build Tunnel [Nanotechnology]
• Build Aquatic Forcefield [Shielding]
• Build Aquatic Anti-Air Defenses [Orbital Flight]
• Build Jumplane [Teleportation]

I think we'd be better off cutting the first Workboat back to just the first two abilities and the Modern Workboat to the first five. Otherwise, it encourages too much stockpiling of old Workboats. The Modern Workboat is available at Screw Propeller, so that's before any abilities other than Fishing Boat/Whaling Boat. The Constructor Ship shows up at Machine Learning, at the tail end of the Modern Era, so it's the only one that can build the Transhuman Era improvements.

Sounds very good to me; this is something that has always bothered me as well; it's incredible how many little things there are still to improve. I've thought about many of them in the past but I kept forgetting about them. Thank you again for your work Vokarya.

 

[<Nexus>]

I can only agree. Great idea.

 

[Vokarya]

I took one more look at the original Work Boat. It has the abilities Can Not Enter Ice Until Astronomy and Can Move Through Impassable Terrain. I don't think it needs to have these abilities any longer -- it won't be able to break ice, so I don't think it should be able to move through it either. This makes more sense for a sail-powered boat. The Modern Workboat has steam engines and screw power, so it can have those abilities, but I'd like to take those off the basic workboat.

 

[Noyyau]

Makes sense.

 

[oldnooob]

I would like to express some observations from my v705 game. I am in the industrial era and have just acquired Flight.

1.The AI uses Mounted Infantry along with Grenadiers (who were their preferred garrison troops before Mounted Infantry) to garrison their cities. Thus completely ignoring both Infantry and Calvary which would historically have been used. The massive use of mounted soldiers completely ignores the huge expense of maintaining and acquiring and training of a mobile force. To me this demonstrates that you young people have never been around horses because they are VERY expensive to maintain! I would suggest adding a substantial cost of aquisitson, training and maintenance to all categories of mounted troops.

2. Mounted Infantry overpower every other unit in the field.

3. Ship of the Line and Iron Frigate both dovetail into Early Destroyer. This makes them redundant to me , why not have Ship of the Line become Pre Dreadnaught? It was after all, the most powerful ship according to the Civlopedia.

 

[Noyyau]

Maybe foot Infantry shouldn't be able to upgrade to their Mounted counterpart after all?

 

[45°38'N-13°47'E]

Many things have been improved since rev705, also regarding AI logic. I'm not sure it's necessary. More tests are needed. As for maintenance cost, I understand very well how it works in real life. But I fear it could cripple AI economy.