Vokarya's Workshop: Units

[jackelgull]

Did anyone have any thoughts about this? I'm going to be releasing a build sometime soon and I would like to add this to the changes, but if it isn't liked, I won't.

The math just doesn't add up for a -75% malus being cancelled by a 250% bonus.
For example, take a city with 100 hammers, with a 75% penalty it now has 25 hammers. Now with the 250% bonus that city has 25+ 25*2.5 or 87.5 hammers. The city is worse off than before. That's how it works right?

 

[Noyyau]

Aren't all % boni calculated off the base ? So the +250% would be based on 100, not 25.

Also I'd like to point out that, while the AI wouldn't know how to do it, such a huge bonus is easily exploitable:
Build the cheapest unit you can and queue a building after that. The overflow that will go to the building the next turn will probably be more than if you built it normally with another civic.
(While this is normal behaviour for Civ, it does become excessive when such huge boni are applied)

 

[Vokarya]

I think let's leave the hammer penalty at -50%, and also decrease the bonus to 150%; I went back and looked some more and it does appear that all the bonuses/penalties are calculated off the original base. Then the other new penalties will also stay. This will make it less attractive but still useful if you need lots of troops.

 

[Lord Azalin Rex]

Hello guys! I'm here to offer you a couple of humble suggestions about Great Generals (GGs)/Great Commanders (GCs). First and foremost, I'm sorry for the oncoming long text! I'll try to expose my ideas on the shortest way possible.

In my experience with AND2 (since it's first versions), I've observed that A.I. used to employ GCs in their armies, specially to defend cities. However, in the most recent versions of this mod, A.I. behavior has changed: it now prefers to employ all GGs as Great Specialists in one of their cities (the "military focused city"), instead of turning (at least one of) them into unit-attached GGs or GCs.

As to GGs themselves, I've never seen A.I. attaching them to their units (in old and recent versions of AND2 as well), which seems to be a tendency shared with some other Civ4 mods (like History Rewritten and Realism Invictus).

Such predicted A.I. behavior about GGs/GCs takes away most of the fun and the tactical potential related to the use of these units, because us players are the only ones who (sometimes) use GGs/GCs in combat at all. In particular, the employment of GCs shifts the balance of war in players favor, since A.I. does not use GCs nor seems to understand their power when they wage war against us.

One last problem with AND2 GGs is the method used for their naming. This mod still keeps Civ4 aleatory naming system for GGs (and other GPs), which most of times causes a cultural and historical disparity between a civ and its Generals.

For the reasons exposed above, I propose the following suggestions to AND2 modders:

1. GGs naming system based on the civ where it emerges. It was a feature successfully applied on Realism Invictus mod and it seems to be an easy change (although I'm fully ignorant about programing).

2. GGs that could be freely attached and dettached from units. This feature can be seen in mods like Fall From Heaven 2 and History of Three Kingdoms. The idea of a General forever chained in a military unit is odd and restricts the tactical value of GGs (and the fun in using them as well). Such change in GGs could include give them (some or all of) GCs promotions, in order to confer GGs a real tactical value (instead of only offer small benefits to the unit attached to them). Obviously, this suggestion includes the elimination of GCs as individual and unattachable units.

3. Limit the number of units benefited by GGs/GCs bonuses. Considering the application of our 2nd suggestion, I think we should also restrict the quantity of units that a GG can affect on a tile, based on GGs experience. To determine which units shall be affected, a system similar with the "Hero Units" from History of Three Kingdoms could be used: a GG can attach itself with one or more units at a time, based on GGs experience, and its bonuses are only applied to those units. This feature limits the power of GGs and also increases its tactical value. GGs experience could be determined, obviously, by the number of battles won by the armies they command, and they should require more experience to grow that current GCs (or a system of Dynamic XP could be applied to them as well).

4. Capturable GGs. In AND2 and most of other mods, when GGs are directly attacked by a unit, they simply disappear. I think that GGs should be capturable and employeable by enemy civs (for a cost based on its experience, of course ), as well as used as currency for money or techs in exchange for its liberation. Again, I cite History of Three Kingdoms as a mod where some of these features were implemented and a possible source of inspiration for you.

5. Forbid GGs transformation into Great Specialists as a game option. In order to force the A.I. to use GGs as units, their transformation into GSs could be forbidden (as a game option and not as a fixed feature). This feature would fit perfectly with the last three suggestions presented above.

I hope that these suggestions can be taken seriously and, at least, partially implemented by AND2 modders in the future, considering that (in my humble opinion) GGs/GCs are one of the Achilles heels of this mod (which is fantastic in most of its aspects).

Thank you for your attention!

 

[Vokarya]

I don't think so, to any of this. We're really not looking for new mechanics at this point, just tweaking and adjusting for what we already have. Suggestions like #1 really, really anger me. I can't stand straitjackets of any kind, even historical ones. I don't care about trying to be "realistic", because I see that as an overused term which seems to be a cover for "let's make everybody jump through MY particular hoops". Also, #5 is absolutely NOT going to happen as long as I am here. I want to preserve multiple paths to use GGs, not how one person thinks they should be used.

 

[45°38'N-13°47'E]

I have to say I completely agree with Vokarya.

 

[<Nexus>]

1.
No. It would mean a lot of work for a little change. Not to mention the Mega Civ Pack with its 100+ civs...

2.

change in GGs could include give them (some or all of) GCs promotions, in order to confer GGs a real tactical value (instead of only offer small benefits to the unit attached to them). Obviously, this suggestion includes the elimination of GCs as individual and unattachable units.

Well, this one makes sense IMHO. If Great Commanders AI cannot be fixed moving there promotion tree to require Warlord promotion could be a solution I think.

3.
I don't understand this one, but sounds rather complicated.

4.
Sounds complicated. And any way, I wouldn't like to see GGs betraying their nation in any form.

5.
I doubt many players would like this idea. But you can change your game easily to achieve this feature for yourself if you want:

Open your CIV4UnitInfos.XML with some editor.
Find <Class>UNITCLASS_GREAT_GENERAL</Class>

Find this part:

<GreatPeoples>
	<GreatPeople>
		<GreatPeopleType>SPECIALIST_GREAT_GENERAL</GreatPeopleType>
		<bGreatPeople>1</bGreatPeople>
	</GreatPeople>
</GreatPeoples>

Erase and replace them with this

<GreatPeoples/>

 

[Lord Azalin Rex]

I don't think so, to any of this. We're really not looking for new mechanics at this point, just tweaking and adjusting for what we already have. Suggestions like #1 really, really anger me. I can't stand straitjackets of any kind, even historical ones. I don't care about trying to be "realistic", because I see that as an overused term which seems to be a cover for "let's make everybody jump through MY particular hoops". Also, #5 is absolutely NOT going to happen as long as I am here. I want to preserve multiple paths to use GGs, not how one person thinks they should be used.

I'm sorry if I have offended you in any way, Vokarya. That wasn't my intention at all! As I said, my suggestions were exactly that: humble suggestions, from a player with much less experience than any of you guys, nothing more. I'll keep playing AND2 because it's my prefered mod by far, whichever GG/GC system you use on this mod! Suggestion #1, specially, was the least important of all the ones I've proposed!

The essence of my last post was the fact that, despite player's freedom to use GGs/GCs as units or GPs (which I appreciate mostly!), A.I. doesn't seem to enjoy such freedom. This causes a disparity between player's and A.I. forces in warfare, specially if GCs are available.

That's the fact that I hope you to think about, Vokarya. I guess I wasn't the only one who perceived how players can benefit themselves enormously from the use of GCs, to the point that a single unit (GC) positioned in an army can grant total victory in any situation (field battles or city sieges). If this is not a problem for any of you, I'm sorry for my ignorance and lack of vision. But, if you also consider it a problem, we may at least think about possible solutions.

If you ignore suggestion #1 (please do it!), all other suggestions I've proposed were parts of a possible solution for the problem exposed above. Another solution (much more obvious) is to change A.I. behavior, in order for it to use GCs more often and to understand the tactical value of their enemies' GCs (both things don't seem to happen nowadays). But I have no idea if is harder to implement any changes to GGs/GCs or to make A.I. more intelligent in the matter of GCs.

Once more, I offer you my apologies, Vokarya! I hope you can understand how much I do appreciate your work! I don't want AND2 to be turned into another mod (like RI, which has a different proposal)... I only think we can learn good things from other mods (specially the less famous ones)...

Thank you for your attention!

 

[45°38'N-13°47'E]

I don't think anybody got offended. Just understand that we don't want to change the code that much since it's not that easy. We're aware of AI not using Field Commanders. At some point it's been removed too if I'm not mistaken, because it was considered cheating. We've left it in just because it might be fun in multiplayer.

 

[Lord Azalin Rex]

I don't think anybody got offended. Just understand that we don't want to change the code that much since it's not that easy. We're aware of AI not using Field Commanders. At some point it's been removed too if I'm not mistaken, because it was considered cheating. We've left it in just because it might be fun in multiplayer.

Ok! I'm more relieved now (specially if Vokarya shares your feelings about this! )!
Do you think that even dettachable GGs are a hard thing to implement? And how about giving GGs some of GC promotions? Anyway, I can barely imagine how difficult must be any code changes in Civ4, even (apparently) small ones! You must have had a lot of work to make AND2 what it is today!
Anyway, thanks again!

 

[45°38'N-13°47'E]

Ok! I'm more relieved now (specially if Vokarya shares your feelings about this! )!
Do you think that even dettachable GGs are a hard thing to implement? And how about giving GGs some of GC promotions? Anyway, I can barely imagine how difficult must be any code changes in Civ4, even (apparently) small ones! You must have had a lot of work to make AND2 what it is today!
Anyway, thanks again! [emoji106]

It's not going to be on a to do list. Mod is almost complete and we're not interested in adding more changes like these. Priority is bug fixing and minor adjustments.

 

[Lord Azalin Rex]

It's not going to be on a to do list. Mod is almost complete and we're not interested in adding more changes like these. Priority is bug fixing and minor adjustments.

Ok! Let me ask you something else: do you plan any adjustments on AND2 AI in terms of warfare?

 

[45°38'N-13°47'E]

Ok! Let me ask you something else: do you plan any adjustments on AND2 AI in terms of warfare?

Definitely.

 

[Vokarya]

Minor adjustment: the Reinforced Structure promotion doesn't need a prerequisite tech. It is available only to Mecha units and after my next revision, all Mecha units require Powered Exoskeleton tech and Mech Assembly Plant. Since there is no unit that would not be eligible for the promotion, putting the tech prerequisite on the promotion is meaningless.

 

[<Nexus>]

IMHO Mountaineer promotion is way overvalued in the mod. It currently requires Initiative IV or Heroic, which means a very high level unit/field commander. I would never waste my promo choice on a high level "hero" for a promotion that is soon to obsolete; by the time you level a unit this high Mountaineering tech is about to be discovered.

I would suggest to change Guerilla III to allow not only the passing of peaks but also to lead units through peaks and change Mountaineering to a filed commander only promotion with a much lower requirement.
Mountaineering doesn't grant such a great advantage to be so hard to reach.

 

[youmakemefart]

IMHO I think without improvements only Worker-, Settler-, Infantry-, Scout- and Animal units should be able to access peaks (even after the tech mountaineering).
The idea of a battle tank driving around in the mountains without any infrastructure is just silly.

That would make the promotion a lot more valuable for units like cavalry and would also make later combat slightly more interesting with regards to terrain use...

I just find it a bit of a shame that from around the renaissance mountains suddenly cease to cause any movement or transportation issues.

 

[Rezca]

IMHO I think without improvements only Worker-, Settler-, Infantry-, Scout- and Animal units should be able to access peaks (even after the tech mountaineering).
The idea of a battle tank driving around in the mountains without any infrastructure is just silly.

Galleys and Triremes can also pillage deep sea tunnels...

That would make the promotion a lot more valuable for units like cavalry and would also make later combat slightly more interesting with regards to terrain use...

I just find it a bit of a shame that from around the renaissance mountains suddenly cease to cause any movement or transportation issues.

Maybe Peaks could have a hefty movement penalty on them, so even if you *can* traverse them, it eats up a lot of movement points and so crossing a mountain line is impractical without some sophisticated route being installed on them prior?

 

[Samson]

Galleys and Triremes can also pillage deep sea tunnels...




Maybe Peaks could have a hefty movement penalty on them, so even if you *can* traverse them, it eats up a lot of movement points and so crossing a mountain line is impractical without some sophisticated route being installed on them prior?

Is it possible to reduce movement further than 1 tile / turn? If not, then that just means everything moves at the speed of the infantry / siege, so not that slow.

 

[Vokarya]

I've been looking for a name for the Hi-Tech Robot. I agree with what's been said before that it's not a very good name. What if we just call it a Warbot instead?

 

[Rezca]

I've been looking for a name for the Hi-Tech Robot. I agree with what's been said before that it's not a very good name. What if we just call it a Warbot instead?

I mentioned 'Sentient Warmech' and/or having it take the retired Sentinel's place once before.

Warbot's better than Hi-Tech Robot (At this point, isn't everything Hi-Tech? ) but IMO it's still a bit lacking. Sentient Warmech is a bit lacking too I think, given the long road it took to unlock that thing.