Vokarya's Workshop: Units

[Vokarya]

I don't think we need new Rover artwork at this point. Keep in mind that the Rover comes available at Automated Traffic, which is at the very beginning of the Transhuman Era -- in other words, not that far from right now. So it's not supposed to be that much futuristic.

I will try and get the new Orbital Fighter and Bomber in place for my next build.

 

[Vokarya]

I'm still thinking about what to do with the Mailed Knight. I don't like that Knight and Mailed Knight are filling the same role and Knight is getting completely overshadowed. I am still convinced that the best route to go down is to make the MK a limited and civic-specific unit to turn it into an "elite".

So here are the changes that I'm going to include in my next build and we will see what results:

• Regular Knight gets +1 Strength (base Strength 12). This will allow it to fill the Medieval-Era Heavy-Cavalry role.
• Mailed Knight is renamed to Noble Knight.
• Noble Knight becomes a National Unit with a cap of 5.
• Noble Knight gets +1 Strength (base Strength 15) and the Led By Warlord promotion. I do not want to make Noble Knights too powerful to start, given the problems we had with Elephant Bombardier at Strength 20. I think Led By Warlord will make them very powerful, as that gives them access to the Warlord-only promotions like Tactics, Leadership, and Heroic. Having a Knight's Stable coupled with a few other bonuses will easily allow Noble Knights to start with 2 promotions.
• Noble Knight has a civic requirement: either Monarchy Government or Nobility Power or Vassalage Military. The idea here is that to train these Noble Knights, the player will have to use one civic that is not the "most advanced" civic of the time; Monarchy stands off against Republic, Nobility against Bureaucracy and Senate, and Vassalage against Standing Army.
• No unit will upgrade TO the Noble Knight, but it can still upgrade to the Cuirassier, and it will only be able to upgrade to the Cuirassier. I do not want players to be able to build and upgrade too many Noble Knights.

 

[Spirictum]

I think this idea is great! Also with the restriction on republic afforess has proposed it would make monarchy more used, and thus it would be easier to be able to build this unit (because if not paired with monarchy, nobility and vassalage seem poor choices)

 

[Vokarya]

Over in my Buildings thread, it was commented that it would be nice to be able to build Praetorians past the time you can build Swordsmen because the extra promotions are pretty nice to have and stay with the unit when it is upgraded. I think it would be a good idea to extend this to other UU's, by giving them an extra upgrade path. A unit does not disappear from the build list until all of its upgrades are available, so if we give them a second upgrade further down the line,

This would only apply to the following units:

• The UU must have free promotions as their UU bonus over the original unit. If there is no promotion, then there is no difference between an upgraded UU and the replacement unit.
• This would apply to units whose upgrade comes fairly close to the appearance of the UU itself. If there is a long gap, then you have plenty of time to build your UU.

The two main groups of UU's with alternate paths would be:

• Light Swordsman UU's: Praetorian (Loyalty, March, Tactics), Jaguar (Woodsman), Gallic Swordsman (Guerrilla). These all upgrade to Swordsman. I think we can allow these to upgrade to Heavy Swordsmen.
• Musketman UU's: Musketeer (Speed), Oromo Warrior (Drill). These units upgrade to Rifleman, which is again less than an era away. I think we can allow these to upgrade to Infantry.

Three other units that I think could benefit are:

• Quechua. It's a Warrior replacement, and it upgrades to Archer, Spearman, or Axeman. I think this should upgrade to Light Swordsman as well. This would give you some Combat I Light Swordsmen if you hoard them.
• Camel Archer. This is a Knight replacement that upgrades to Cuirassier. I think having Camel Archers upgrade to Lancer might be enough. This way you can decide if you want a heavy desert strike force or a light desert raider force.
• Samurai. I'm going to go out on a limb with this one. What if this was a Heavy Swordsman replacement instead of a Maceman replacement? I think in regular BTS, Samurai is a Maceman replacement because there simply aren't any other Medieval Melee units. We have the Heavy Sword and Heavy Pike, and the sword is the iconic weapon of the samurai, so I think it would be a good idea to convert the Samurai to a Heavy Swordsman replacement, keep the +1 Strength/2 first strikes/Drill option, and let it upgrade to Musketman or Rifleman, giving you over one full era to crank out Samurai.

 

[Spirictum]

other great ideas

 

[Lord Bigfoot]

I will have to take a look. There is the Iron Frigate which is available with Steel tech, but based on how I've reshuffled the techs, that might have pushed Steel into the mid-Industrial Era. The rule I have with new units is that a replacement unit should not show up in the same third of an era.

I do think there is some work that can be done in the Industrial Era navy, as I'd like to rename the Pre-Dreadnought to something less anachronistic, and the Battlecruiser seems too good for when it appears. There might be room for some other ships if we can find an appropriate role for them to play.

What exactly would you change the name of the Pre-Dreadnought to though? Until HMS Dreadnought came along they were called Battleships which you obviously can't call them. Also the first three cruisers should have their names switch around a bit. The Heavy should become the Battlecruiser, the Cruiser becomes the heavy and what is currently the Battlecruiser should become the cruiser. Reason for that is a Battlecruiser is more powerful then a regular or heavy cruiser due to being armed with guns anywhere from 12 to 16 inches. That's Battleship caliber right there and they were for the most part as powerful as any Battleship. The weakness was in the armor which was thin compared to Battleships. Also the unit for the Battlecruiser really needs to be changed to an actual Battlecruiser instead of the 3 stack monstrosity it currently is.

 

[<Nexus>]

@Vokaria

Thank you for your great work!

Please, also consider the korean UU, the hau... whatever. It is a catapult replacement with a base speed of 2, with no promotions. Upgrading to trebuchet makes it stronger, but slower too. I think it would be also nice to allow it coexist with the trebuchet, giving the choise of speed vs strength. Also, it being the earliest "gunpowder" unit, it seems more realistic to be replaced by the bombard (that's the next in the line iirc).

 

[Spirictum]

@Vokaria

Thank you for your great work!

Please, also consider the korean UU, the hau... whatever. It is a catapult replacement with a base speed of 2, with no promotions. Upgrading to trebuchet makes it stronger, but slower too. I think it would be also nice to allow it coexist with the trebuchet, giving the choise of speed vs strength. Also, it being the earliest "gunpowder" unit, it seems more realistic to be replaced by the bombard (that's the next in the line iirc).

Nothing better then to buy korea's hwachas! It's a shame they evolve to trebuchet because korea stopped building them . I still have 2 on my iroquois game, and they walk with my mounted division.

 

[Vokarya]

@Vokaria

Thank you for your great work!

Please, also consider the korean UU, the hau... whatever. It is a catapult replacement with a base speed of 2, with no promotions. Upgrading to trebuchet makes it stronger, but slower too. I think it would be also nice to allow it coexist with the trebuchet, giving the choise of speed vs strength. Also, it being the earliest "gunpowder" unit, it seems more realistic to be replaced by the bombard (that's the next in the line iirc).

Good catch. I hadn't noticed that the Hwacha has been upgunned compared to its BTS counterpart. I'll have it upgrade to either Trebuchet or Bombard. That way it can stay fast until Gunpowder shows up.

 

[Vokarya]

One thing that I have been trying to do is cut down on the number of "little bonuses" that don't seem to be adding much. Most tank units have varying attack bonuses against other tanks that, at least to me, look really small and I don't think we should be trying to load the combat dice that much for units that are relatively close together time-wise. On average, the better tank will win, but I think there should be a little latitude for lucky victories.

The exception is the bonus vs. Early Tanks. I agree that Early Tanks are fairly primitive compared to all newer tanks. So I think this is what we should do:

• Early Tank gets -50% against Tracked units. When Early Tank fights Early Tank, the penalties will cancel out. Any other Tank unit will almost certainly defeat an Early Tank.
• Delete all the other attack bonuses of Tanks vs. Tanks.

 

[Vokarya]

Also on the subject of pruning bonuses: the Machine Gun line doesn't need a bonus against Animals, as the strongest Animal is the Strength 4 Polar Bear and the weakest Gun is the Strength 30 Gatling Gun. I don't think they need bonuses against either Archery or Melee units either, as we are looking at Strength-9 Crossbows vs. Strength-30 Gatlings, and it looks like from this discussion (http://www.civfanatics.com/civ4/strategy/combat_explained.php) that anything more than 1.8 to 1 is 99% in favor of the stronger. Even Gatling Gun vs. Crusader is 2 to 1 (30 to 15). What do you think?

 

[JosEPh_II]

I find an over abundance of promotions/bonuses distracting and harder to make a decision on which ones to use. So it ends up that I use a core set and generally leave the rest alone.

I have no problem with anything in your last 2 posts as it all sounds reasonable and more straight forward to me.

I just wish some in C2C would've listened better to you while you were there. I'm happy you are here.

JosEPh

 

[Lord Bigfoot]

What exactly would you change the name of the Pre-Dreadnought to though? Until HMS Dreadnought came along they were called Battleships which you obviously can't call them. Also the first three cruisers should have their names switch around a bit. The Heavy should become the Battlecruiser, the Cruiser becomes the heavy and what is currently the Battlecruiser should become the cruiser. Reason for that is a Battlecruiser is more powerful then a regular or heavy cruiser due to being armed with guns anywhere from 12 to 16 inches. That's Battleship caliber right there and they were for the most part as powerful as any Battleship. The weakness was in the armor which was thin compared to Battleships. Also the unit for the Battlecruiser really needs to be changed to an actual Battlecruiser instead of the 3 stack monstrosity it currently is.

So no opinions anyone?

 

[Vokarya]

I changed Pre-Dreadnought to Ironclad Battleship a few revisions ago. I know it's a little clunky, but I'm keeping it and I think it forms a nice parallel with the existing Ironclad and Iron Frigate.

I'm also not changing the cruiser names. The heyday of the Battlecruiser is the WWI era, which is where it currently appears. The Cruiser and Heavy Cruiser are WWII-era ships, which I'm fine with. There is also no other battlecruiser art in the downloads database to use.

 

[Lord Bigfoot]

I changed Pre-Dreadnought to Ironclad Battleship a few revisions ago. I know it's a little clunky, but I'm keeping it and I think it forms a nice parallel with the existing Ironclad and Iron Frigate.

I'm also not changing the cruiser names. The heyday of the Battlecruiser is the WWI era, which is where it currently appears. The Cruiser and Heavy Cruiser are WWII-era ships, which I'm fine with. There is also no other battlecruiser art in the downloads database to use.

Heyday of WW1!? You do realize that if we're going by that logic then there shouldn't be any other battleship options after you upgrade them from dreadnoughts since after WW2 they were with the exception of the Iowa's(which were at various points put into the reserve fleet.) all phased out of service by the 60's. Also the British used a fair number of Battlecruisers during WW2 and as I said before they are as powerful as battleships so having them weaker then them is a bad thing.(i'm not just talking about WW1 Era ships the HMS hood rivaled everything but the Yamato class BB's and the US BB's that were made post WW1.) Give them a weakness against BB's due to the armor difference but other then that they were really just battleships by another name. Also FYI HMS Hood which was a Battlecruiser was the British navy's flagship until she was sunk by the Bismark in WW2.(Which was due to that armor weakness I mentioned.) Sorry if i'm sounding like an a-hole with this but naval history is my forte and when I see something like this it gets me a bit mad.

 

[Spirictum]

Hey vokarya, can you give an explanation of the Early Destroyer?

I'm trying to help Bigfoot with the 1900 AD scenario, and by researching Russian Imperial Navy list of Destroyers I realized there are many things they called destroyers, including small mine deployers or torpedo boats. So I'm not sure which of these to categorize as the Early Destroyer

 

[Rezca]

Heyday of WW1!? You do realize that if we're going by that logic then there shouldn't be any other battleship options after you upgrade them from dreadnoughts since after WW2 they were with the exception of the Iowa's(which were at various points put into the reserve fleet.) all phased out of service by the 60's. Also the British used a fair number of Battlecruisers during WW2 and as I said before they are as powerful as battleships so having them weaker then them is a bad thing.(i'm not just talking about WW1 Era ships the HMS hood rivaled everything but the Yamato class BB's and the US BB's that were made post WW1.) Give them a weakness against BB's due to the armor difference but other then that they were really just battleships by another name. Also FYI HMS Hood which was a Battlecruiser was the British navy's flagship until she was sunk by the Bismark in WW2.(Which was due to that armor weakness I mentioned.) Sorry if i'm sounding like an a-hole with this but naval history is my forte and when I see something like this it gets me a bit mad.

There's a lot of minor inaccuracies in Civilization, which my friend likes pointing out regularly (His favorite nitpicks being the Greek and Roman UU's). AND does do a bit better with "accuracy" in terms of units, but that doesn't seem to be the Number #1 priority for it. Realism Invictus is closer along those lines and is coincidentally the only Civ mod my friend will play for that reason (Some Greek unit with a name I can never remember, also the Winged Hussars? Yeah, he's veeery nitpicky with unit naming at times and getting things historically right )

 

[Lord Bigfoot]

There's a lot of minor inaccuracies in Civilization, which my friend likes pointing out regularly (His favorite nitpicks being the Greek and Roman UU's). AND does do a bit better with "accuracy" in terms of units, but that doesn't seem to be the Number #1 priority for it. Realism Invictus is closer along those lines and is coincidentally the only Civ mod my friend will play for that reason (Some Greek unit with a name I can never remember, also the Winged Hussars? Yeah, he's veeery nitpicky with unit naming at times and getting things historically right )

I know but still this fact is this is something that needs to be corrected. Also after 5 seconds of searching I found this http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?p=5440929#post5440929 and this http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=253473. That my friends is the HMS Hood and a skin upgrade for her. If nothing else change the unit to look like that at least. Again sorry if i'm sounding like an A-hole but as I mentioned i'm a bit of a historical nutter when it comes to these things.

 

[Noyyau]

After some wikipedia searching I do kinda agree with Lord Bigfoot as far as historical inaccuracies in AND go.
Though not being a naval history buff myself I'm not that annoyed.

Lord Bigfoot, apart from names switching around and the graphics change, did you want to also change stats of the ships or not?

 

[Rezca]

I don't really see how this is a problem that needs to be corrected, but since it's not affecting gameplay in any way there's no reason not to change it. Of course on the other hand, there's no real problem in leaving it the way it is either.


I just play the game and leave the 'accuracy' stuff to the people who know more about it