Vokarya's Workshop: Units

[Vokarya]

Horse Archer units predate Stirrup tech. I have set up, as best I can, a "leapfrog" effect with the heavy horse and the light horse units, so that the horse units aren't all concentrated on one tech. In this case, Horseman upgrades to Horse Archer before Chariot upgrades to Heavy Horseman. AND has multiple horse lines compared to just one in BTS, so I used the Horse Archer to fill in the light-horse/Classical Era niche. Filling in unit rosters isn't easy, so I would prefer to use whatever is already available. Given their niche, Horse Archers don't need a metal requirement.

I'm not going to make Elephant units into just a novelty. I like to support conceptual "what-ifs" if I can and if they fit into an existing line, and this is one of them. I hate the idea of "traps" built into the game.

 

[<Nexus>]

Fair enough. The new category includes the Guild Masters -- is there a better name than "Executives"?

"Business" or "Businessmen"?

I agree on Elephants. I even miss Camels... but that shall be a a future modmod

 

[Vokarya]

"Business" or "Businessmen"?

Still sounds too modern, and the non-guild corporations actually use "Executive" in their names.

I agree on Elephants. I even miss Camels... but that shall be a a future modmod

They'd be great for a modmod, but I would be concerned in terms of their usefulness compared to their impact on the game's memory usage for the artwork. I'll leave them to you, or whoever else wants to design them.

 

[<Nexus>]

BTW yet another idea:

Lawyer

• upgrade of Inquisitor
• can remove all non-state under Intolerant
• can remove all under Atheist
• can remove corporations (all at once or only one of your choice?)

Could it be done?

They'd be great for a modmod, but I would be concerned in terms of their usefulness compared to their impact on the game's memory usage for the artwork.

I strongly doubt that they would use more memory than the MegaPack
I imagine a single Camel line between the light and heavy cavalry, not as good as either but still you've got cavalry even if you lack horses. Also it would be an alternate resource for the mobile defense line - it doesn't matter how they ride to battle once they get off to fight.

 

[Pepo]

I wouldn't give an inquisitor unit for atheist, considering it would remove basically the only drawback it has

As for elephants, i'am fine with then up until the industrial age, considering they were use extensively in the Indian subcontinent and in Indochina during the time period. I have a problem with elephant cavalry because it makes no sense. Victorian era cavalry were use as a mounted infantry most of the time, with mass charges being less and less common and much more deadly to cavalry. Now if instead of horses they use elephant's, results would be catastrophic: Not only they present a bigger target and are somewhat slower, but they also tend of running amok. The British in Burma encountered elephants which they easily repealed with rockets. I know it hasn't anything to do with balanced, but is only that I find elephant cavalry completely out of place

 

[Pongui]

Inquisitor -> Lawyer in itself is a great idea. Imagine "what if" the modern world was dominated by lawyers.

 

[<Nexus>]

Imagine "what if" the modern world was dominated by lawyers.

I don't understand why that sentence is conditional
Actually still some countries do "inquisition" - in game play sense - as they persecute religions not tied to the government (google for Russia for example).

Still sounds too modern, and the non-guild corporations actually use "Executive" in their names.

"Executive" on its own sounds like law&punishment unit.
How about "Administrator" or "Representative"?

 

[HorseshoeHermit]

Corporatist?

What do guilds have in common with corporations?

 

[Vokarya]

Corporatist?

What do guilds have in common with corporations?

Probably not that much, but I like the idea of using the corporation mechanics for the guilds. The guild-corporations are much less powerful than the true corporations; the yield is about equal to 1 free Specialist. 1 free Specialist civilization-wide is about equal to Statue of Liberty, which is a mid-Industrial era effect. So for the Medieval Era guilds, it's appropriate to get that level of effect with more work (National Wonder - World Wonder - Guildmasters - spread guild), as has to be done with the current guilds.

 

[nionios]

I notice that stealth sub is the last unit in timeline which can infiltrate your spies to enemy land without open borders.In transhuman era there's no unit that can do such work.Without open borders, Fusion transport cannot enter enemy waters and Fusion sub no more carries spies,great people, etc.Please correct me if I'm wrong.
Generally talking about Transhuman Era, I believe it's overloaded with many techs,buildings,units,projects.It's the first time I play Transhuman and it seems a bit chaotic.

 

[Vokarya]

I notice that stealth sub is the last unit in timeline which can infiltrate your spies to enemy land without open borders.In transhuman era there's no unit that can do such work.Without open borders, Fusion transport cannot enter enemy waters and Fusion sub no more carries spies,great people, etc.Please correct me if I'm wrong.
Generally talking about Transhuman Era, I believe it's overloaded with many techs,buildings,units,projects.It's the first time I play Transhuman and it seems a bit chaotic.

I will fix the Fusion Sub to allow it to carry one of the People units.

The Transhuman Era is supposed to be the biggest era. It has 45 techs, compared to 40 for the Industrial and Modern Eras. Many of its units are upgrades of existing Modern Era units, but there are some new unit lines. Some of it is designed to take advantage of existing art assets from the NextWar, Afterworld, and Final Frontier mods. Also, some things are designed to be "take the existing rule, but it's the Transhuman Era, so break it".

 

[Vokarya]

Some musings on tweaking units.

Mobile SAM
This unit has a lot of bullet points. They are probably realistic but I think they are easy to overlook, so they serve as traps for the player, which aren't fun.

Mobile SAM has -75% Jungle Attack and -50% Forest Attack that I think are unnecessary. I really don't like these terrain penalties because I think they are attempting to be overly-precise on the effects of defensive terrain, which I don't think is appropriate for a strategic-level game like we have. In a tactical game with much more unit maneuvering, then it would be appropriate. In this case, I think having a single defense bonus from terrain is enough.

Mobile SAM also has Doesn't Receive Defensive Bonuses which isn't appropriate here. This drawback is for offensive units where the goal is to discourage players from building a single-type stack. Mobile SAM is a defensive/counter unit and so it should be able to get defensive bonuses.

In exchange for removing these penalties, I am going to lower Mobile SAM's base Strength from 70 to 65. 65 Strength with +75% vs. Helicopters is enough to easily outfight Gunships at Strength 80, but come up a little short against Hybrid Gunships at 110; by this point, you should be very close to the ACV SAM.

ACV SAM
This unit also has a problem of creeping bullet points. In this case, the problem is all of -25% vs. Gunpowder, Hi-Tech, and Mecha units. That covers most of the Transhuman Era battlefield (leaving out Tracked and Nanites). This many penalties tells me the baseline should be adjusted instead.

I think the appropriate numbers here are 85 Strength and +125% vs. Helicopters. This gives them a really good matchup against even Dropships, with 191.25 Strength to Dropship's 150, while leaving them below ACV's base strength of 100.

 

[Vokarya]

Dragoon is also probably too strong when it shows up. It's moving to Matchlock with the removal of Cavalry Tactics as a tech.

Arquebusier is dropping to Strength 13 to give Medieval units a slightly longer lifespan. Dragoon is currently 17.

Is 15 Strength enough for it to be viable? I can give it a Strength bonus at Flintlock which I don't like to do but is probably a fair solution. The next upgrade is Mounted Riflemen.

The other option is a fixed Strength 16 at Matchlock, with no improvements throughout the Renaissance. By the end, it has to deal with Strength-22 Cuirassiers and Grenadiers. But Dragoons were never intended to serve as the final word in defense; they are field defense for cavalry stacks and emergency defense for cities until you can get the Gunpowder units in place.

 

[<Nexus>]

All seem good.

Have you seen the new ship models from EU IV in the download section?

Spoiler :

I know you are currently working with graphics and maybe you want to update some of the ships.

 

[Arakhor]

Did whoever uploaded them get permission to do so?

 

[Vokarya]

The one unit that I still think is missing is the Armored Cruiser. This is an early Industrial Era steam ship. Its purpose is to make the Man'O'War the first Cruiser-line ship, proceeding down the upgrade path of Man'O'War - Armored Cruiser - Battlecruiser - Cruiser - Missile Cruiser - Littoral Combat Ship - Fusion Cruiser. Ship of the Line becomes the very first unit in the Battleship upgrade path. (I didn't create the Armored Cruiser yet because I didn't want to force everyone to re-download Units.FPK along with Graphics.FPK, although I did include the button I eventually will use.)

First, some tweaks to existing ships: Ship of the Line should be speed 4, not 5. The fastest ships of the era are the Sloop and Frigate, and the Ship of the Line should not be tied with them. Also, the Man'O'War and Ship of the Line should have their bombard strengths switched. MOW should have bombard 12% per turn and SotL 15%.

Now for the stats for the Armored Cruiser:

• Strength 35. This is halfway between Iron Frigate at 30 and Ironclad Battleship at 39, and also about halfway between Man'O'War at 24 and Battlecruiser at 42.
• Speed 4. The early steamships are slow, but they ignore terrain movement costs, which requires the Maneuvering promotion on wooden ships. So you can get either faster or more powerful steamships.
  
• Bombard rate 14%. Again, halfway between the (fixed) MoW at 12% and the Battlecruiser at 16%.
• Everything else pretty much follows the standard of steam ships.

 

[Vokarya]

Also, I think Galleass should have its Strength raised to 10. I don't think Caravel should outshine Galleass in the "warship" role. Caravel is supposed to be a scout ship, not a heavy hitter, but it currently outpoints the Galleass. Of course, Renaissance Era warships do much better.

 

[Vokarya]

A little bit of unnecessary prerequisite removal: I don't think either Martial Arts (Meditation) or Transport I (Ship Building) really need any kind of tech prerequisite.

Martial Arts requires the Taoism religion to take as a promotion on level-up. By the time Taoism comes around, most players should be at Meditation already. I don't think the promotion itself is worth taking as a level-up (+5% vs. Archer, +15% vs. Melee, +25% vs. Animal) so if it's really a special promotion handed out by the Taoist Monastery and Shaolin Temple, it's not a problem.

Transport I is a rare self-limited promotion as the extra transport space comes with a strength penalty. Using this requires you to spend extra hammers building escort units or risk losing more units in a single mission, so I think we should just let it be available freely. Also, because it comes available at the same time that the first unit that can take the promotion (Galley) comes available, it's not really a limitation. Naval XP is also much tighter than land unit XP until the Renaissance, so locking off promotions isn't necessary.

 

[HorseshoeHermit]

Probably not that much, but I like the idea of using the corporation mechanics for the guilds. The guild-corporations are much less powerful than the true corporations; the yield is about equal to 1 free Specialist. 1 free Specialist civilization-wide is about equal to Statue of Liberty, which is a mid-Industrial era effect. So for the Medieval Era guilds, it's appropriate to get that level of effect with more work (National Wonder - World Wonder - Guildmasters - spread guild), as has to be done with the current guilds.

For the name of the unit class for the guilds and corporations, again. . .

How 'bout Liveryman ? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Livery_company

 

[Vokarya]

One other thing that I am looking to do with units is crack down on the units that have multiple technology prerequisites. I feel like this is a "bait-and-switch" when the splash screen shows you as getting a new unit for the tech, but the fine print says you need another tech.

The first unit that does this is Javelineer. It requires Hunting + Stone Tools. Hunting already has both the Slinger and the Scout, so I don't think it needs a third unit. With a flat 3 Strength and absolutely no other abilities, Javelineer also feels too generic. But there are two ways I could go with it:

• Leave it at just Stone Tools, reduce its Strength to 2, but give it +50% vs. Animals and Mounted Units. I don't want a civ with just Stone Tools to crank out 3-Strength units just yet. Strength 2 with 3 vs. Animals immediately, and 3 vs. Mounted later on, would be fine.
  
• Move it up to Crafting, keep its Strength at 3, and give it +50% vs. Mounted. (When it upgrades to Spearman, it gets +100% vs. Mounted).

I'm wondering which would be better.