Vokarya's Workshop: Units

[Vokarya]

Someone mentioned they would like to see new artwork for the Special Infantry. I agree with this. There was a link posted to this shot: http://forums.civfanatics.com/showpost.php?p=13784720&postcount=5271. Unfortunately, I don't know enough about effects to properly replicate the blue laser blasts. When I plugged in the effects, I just got bright flashes from the barrels.

However, by fiddling around with the NIF files, I got a Special Infantry working with a blown-up version of the standard rifle fire like this:
View attachment 400089
The effect is the same as other modern rifles, but larger, and I think it looks appropriate for this time period. I got it from the Trooper in the Reconstruction mod.

I would also like to consider moving this unit around a little and/or giving it a rename. "Special Infantry" is just too vague. Tech-wise, I could see this unit at either Railgun (and call it Bolter Infantry) or Controlled Plasma (and call it Plasma Infantry). I'm open to other suggestions.

 

[Noyyau]

Bolter Infantry sounds and looks good to me!

 

[IPEX-731BA5DD06]

Laser infantry sounds better.

Having just had a run of the 6 star wars film franchise run on Free to air T.V.

It says what they are and use.

Spear man - Uses spears
Axe man - Uses Axes
Bow man - Uses Bows
Musket man - Uses Muskets
Rifle man - Uses Rifles
Laser man - Uses lasers (Hand held)

then it could evolve into various grades and names.

Such as Infantry, G.I. Trooper, Grunts etc.

 

[<Nexus>]

Someone mentioned they would like to see new artwork for the Special Infantry. I agree with this. There was a link posted to this shot: http://forums.civfanatics.com/showpost.php?p=13784720&postcount=5271. Unfortunately, I don't know enough about effects to properly replicate the blue laser blasts. When I plugged in the effects, I just got bright flashes from the barrels.

However, by fiddling around with the NIF files, I got a Special Infantry working with a blown-up version of the standard rifle fire like this:
View attachment 400089
The effect is the same as other modern rifles, but larger, and I think it looks appropriate for this time period. I got it from the Trooper in the Reconstruction mod.

I would also like to consider moving this unit around a little and/or giving it a rename. "Special Infantry" is just too vague. Tech-wise, I could see this unit at either Railgun (and call it Bolter Infantry) or Controlled Plasma (and call it Plasma Infantry). I'm open to other suggestions.

Nice
I don't recall whether Railgun or C.Plasma needs an extra trick more, but if it's plasma, than I'd suggest Plasma Trooper as name.


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An idea about animals:

Do we really need 10+ different Captured(...) units? It looks C2C-ish.
As I recall there are 7 animal associated with resources and 11 predators and each of them has a captured version, what sure makes sense for horse, pig, etc but the predators (save for a little yield difference for butchering) are all the same. I think they all could be replaced by a single Captured Beast unit (I guess we can find a man with a cage on a cart for a model). I think that would look more polished.

 

[Vokarya]

Controlled Plasma could use the extra trick more. It shares the Plasma Armor with Railgun, but the only other thing Controlled Plasma has is the ITER. Railgun has the Railgun Turret, one of the anti-nuke projects, and a couple promotions.

However, I'm starting to think that railgun infantry might be a little more plausible for its placement on the tech tree, and the artwork also looks more like conventional bullets than plasma (but there are at least a couple good plasma effects out there; Planetfall has Plasma Throwers and Quot Capita has Plasma Infantry that would work). Both techs are early Transhuman Era, so things that might be thought of as too close science fiction might be better if put off longer.

 

[Vokarya]

Something else that I have wanted to do for a while is find new unit models for the Colonist and Pioneer. Both are currently using the same models as Settler. So far, I have a set of Colonist models working. It looks like they originally came from Colonization, but they are perfectly good in-game. I haven't yet found another set for the Pioneer. I'm also going to see if I can recolor these models for some of the other ethnicities. Currently, only African and Indian art styles use different models for the Colonist and Pioneer, while there a few others that are just different for Settler. I can't make new 3D models, but I can recolor the DDS files that are used to wrap around the NIF skeletons.

Here's the new Colonist compared to the current Settler.
View attachment 400471

 

[<Nexus>]

It's funny that both men are engaged in bigamy

But the models are good

 

[Vokarya]

Well, someone added the second woman and the animals and split the children into two definitions. I think all of this was done to facilitate the different African settler group. It has one male, one female, one boy (male with spear), one girl (smaller female) and one child, plus the animals. I don't know if we need that many models in one group. I might rewrite things a little.

 

[<Nexus>]

Well, someone added the second woman and the animals and split the children into two definitions. I think all of this was done to facilitate the different African settler group. It has one male, one female, one boy (male with spear), one girl (smaller female) and one child, plus the animals. I don't know if we need that many models in one group. I might rewrite things a little.

Don't take me serious ::
As I always play with Single Unit Graphics I don't usually see the Settler family

 

[Mordachai]

Maybe replace one of the women with a female child? It's small potatoes in the grand scheme of things - but really - where we can get rid of things which are an annoyance to women gamers it's just a good-thing. And why not?

But it isn't my time I'm advocating - so I'm just blathering that "if you have any desire to change it then do."

 

[IPEX-731BA5DD06]

SVN 996 - Rifles aren't using the correct icons for display.

Spoiler :

They show in the side picture correctly with Ethnic icon, but on on main mini icon

Solution - Change the icon display to reflect the Ethnic units display.

Note: Probably the same for ALL ethic unit displays, only noticed the rifles just now. Change for ALL ethnic unit displays.

And another thing, Units that have flanking, should be able to flank ALL the previous versions of those class of units.

If Flanking against siege, flanks against all earlier siege.

If flanking against Gunpowder, flanks against Melee and Archery as well.

One more thing - Both Louis of France and Alfonso of Portugal, use the Louis XIV as there base header, ok not a problem, but they BOTH use the same Concertina music.

Solution - Add a different sound track for Alfonso of Portugal

 

[Vokarya]

So here is what I was thinking we could do for the Pioneer. We could swap out the horse for a Wagon (I think it is Colonization's Wagon Train), change the male settler to the Colonist from LoR, and change the women and children to the ones we are also using for the Colonist. I still will try and do some recolors for some of the other ethnic art styles.

These are screenshots for comparison.

View attachment 400616View attachment 400617

 

[aggri1]

Hey Ipex, what's your unit naming scheme? Is that name "1st Squad, Alpha bla bla from bla..." automatic? If so, could you post how you've done it?

Cheers.

 

[IPEX-731BA5DD06]

Yes it is Automatic, here's the link to the web page.

Naming convention

Print it out and experiment with it.

On Pioneers, I feel they should build a city at Size 6, not 4, to make them a true upgrade. One population, with some extra buildings, doesn't seem quite enough.

With that infrastructure, you'd expect more population and growth.

 

[Vokarya]

I have some thoughts on ships to share. I'll break this into separate posts for easier discussion.

I think the Destroyer is supposed to be an anti-Submarine unit, but it currently doesn't do a very good job of it. Submarines get +50% against Steam Ships, including Destroyers, so the odds of a Destroyer beating a regular Submarine are only about 30%.

I think what we need to do with Destroyers is add +50% against Submarines (this class only, not Submarines as a unit combat type) and give them defend first against Subs (again, first Sub only).

 

[Vokarya]

I was looking at the Submarines in general and I noticed that the later submarines all have a bonus against the ordinary Submarine. I've tried to eliminate these very-situational bonuses whenever I can, and I don't think most subs need this particular bonus.

Stealth Sub is strength 110 and Fusion Sub is strength 200. Even against the 50-strength Sub after Advanced Rocketry, these are better than 200% of the Sub's strength, and 180% is all that is required to get 99%+ odds of survival. These subs do not need a bonus.

Missile Sub is strength 70. I don't think Missile Subs should be hunting enemy subs. I also think it would be good to give players without Uranium a unit that has a chance to take down a missile sub, but it isn't in the regular sub's favor unless using swarm techniques (50 vs. 70 is 71%, in the 10-13% survival range for the first attack).

Attack Sub is strength 80. This is 1.6x that of post-Advanced Rocketry submarines, which is 95% survival for the Attack Sub. I think that is fair enough odds.

Overall, I think we don't need this sub-vs.-sub bonus anywhere. If necessary, we can lower the bonus from Advanced Rocketry to +10 Strength, giving Modern-Era subs Strength 45 instead of 50.

 

[Vokarya]

Now for a general question about ship combat. When, exactly, is the strength of a naval unit used? Is it ever used other than in ship-to-ship combat? I have noticed that most modern ships get big combat bonuses against older ship classes (especially Wooden Ships) and I am wondering if it might be better to recalibrate the Strengths of newer vessels so these bonuses are unnecessary. However, I don't want to do this if it will mess up any other kind of combat.

Does anyone understand naval combat enough to help me out? Especially if it's ever possible for a sea unit to use its strength against a land unit or how interception works.

 

[Rezca]

I don't really understand Naval Combat in CivIV much myself. I just spam Battleships and then slap a destroyer or two onto their stack to make sure any potential subs don't sneak past to pillage, and I never ever attack a ship if it's on the coast.

I stopped bothering with Interception promotions too, since they never seemed to do anything - or if they are doing something their bonus is negligible.
+40% to intercept, on the best ship of the game, with all the possible Anti-Air promotions it can get.... And the aircraft of that time have 100% evasion chance when un-promoted.... Can't even tell if naval-air interception works with odds like that. Of course, I didn't know how it worked before mind you. Does it only attempt to intercept aircraft that attack that tile? Can it intercept aircraft trying to bomb nearby improvements??

 

[Vokarya]

I was doing the XML work for the Durasteel resource and I noticed we have an anomaly in the resources required for Siege units. The first gunpowder siege units require metal resources to build, then the Modern Era ones only require Oil Products, and then the Siege Droid has its own requirements.

• Bombard requires Iron to build.
• Cannon requires Iron or Steel to build. You can sneak in one Steel resource from Ironworks even if you don't have any Iron.
• Artillery and Howitzer require Steel. These also require post-Steel techs, so you can build either Ironworks or Steel Mill and get your Steel before these come available.
• Then we have the Mobile Artillery, Rocket Artillery, and NLOS Cannon. These require no metal resources, only Oil Products.
• Finally, we have the Siege Droid. This goes back to requiring metal, either Aluminum or Nanotubes, plus Microchips.

Mobile Artillery is the first regular Siege unit with 2 moves. I think it is appropriate to require Oil Products here, and keep requiring it for most of the units. While I think it's far too complex to manage fuel resources for individual units, I think access to fuel needs to be reflected for modern units (beyond a defensive core that should be kept resource-free).

So this is what I think would be best here.

• Mobile Artillery: Add Requires Steel.
• Rocket Artillery: Add Requires Steel or Aluminum.
• NLOS Cannon: Add Requires Aluminum or Nanotubes.

NLOS Cannon and Siege Droid will also be able to be built with Durasteel.

 

[Vokarya]

I did a couple first tests to see some effects of air vs. naval units, because I would really like it if naval units could be recalibrated to avoid having all these +X% bonuses against other units. I know naval units can't attack land units, and land units that take a city or fort with a naval unit inside destroy the naval unit (even if it's as mismatched as Warrior vs. Fusion Battleship; however, invisible naval units are expelled, not destroyed!)

Naval unit strength does have an impact on how much damage a naval unit takes from air strikes. An Aurora Scramjet airstriking a Galley deals 85% damage, while an Aurora Scramjet airstriking a Galleon only deals 70%. Damage doesn't seem to be random, though. Four Bombers against four Caravels did 46% damage each time. I'm trying to read the source files and I can't find where airstrike damage is calculated. I haven't even gotten to interception yet.