Vokarya's Workshop: Units

[IPEX-731BA5DD06]

Why not leave at Stone tools, with 2 and 50% v's animals/mounted.
Crafting, it upgrades to 3 and still 50% v's animals/mounted.

 

[<Nexus>]

• 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 think this is the better choice.

 

[Vokarya]

Why not leave at Stone tools, with 2 and 50% v's animals/mounted.
Crafting, it upgrades to 3 and still 50% v's animals/mounted.

I would prefer not to use that mechanic if I don't have to. I think it makes for "trap" scenarios where you can't just look at the unit to remember what it can do. It also messes up the Power calculations as Power is an independent variable and can't be adjusted during a game, so an army of units that have a Strength bonus from techs will look weaker than it really is.

 

[Vokarya]

Actually, this brings up a question I have been pondering. How strong do Archers need to be? Is 3 Strength enough to last until Mechanics?

Archers are supposed to provide city defense throughout the Ancient and Classical Eras. In terms of combat strength, the worst they would go up against would be Light Swordsmen/Swordsmen and Elephant Riders/War Elephants. For Elephants, Spearmen are a match for Elephant Riders even before they appear, which encourages mixing your defenses; for players without metals, Javelineers with +50% against mounted and +25% from fortification should be sufficient.

Light Swordsmen attack cities at 7.7 (7 base, +10% for city attack) without promotions. Archers without tech bonuses defend at 5.25 (3 base, +50% city defense, +25% fortification) without city defenses or promotions. The ratio is 1.47 which hits a jump point in favor of the Sword. I don't want early attacks to be too successful but there has to be something to allow early war. Archers with +1 strength would defend at 7 Str which would be a much closer match. Would a flat 4-Strength Archer be too powerful if you beeline Archery?

Archers definitely need a bonus somewhere in the Classical Era if they are going to defend against regular Swordsmen. 9 Str will easily cut through Archers that are only 3. I don't really want to bother with a separate Classical Era archery unit, so I'm willing to accept giving them a bonus in the Classical Era. Having the baseline Archer and an upgrade in the same era is what does not feel right.

 

[Vokarya]

Three out of the four Elephant units that we have in AND are double-teched. This is what I think we should do with them.

Elephant Rider: Currently requires Horseback Riding and Warfare. This is one of the very rare cases where I don't think it's a good idea to drop either tech. If we drop Horseback Riding we lose a serious level of verisimilitude. I'm not a super-stickler for realism, but it does need to feel plausible, and riding Elephants without Horses loses that. Without Warfare, I am afraid that Elephant Riders would show up too early and be too difficult to defeat on the battlefield, especially as it is longer to get to Bronze Working and Spearmen than Horseback Riding. HBR just requires Agriculture/Hunting -> AH -> HBR. Bronze Working requires Agriculture + Stone Tools -> Crafting and Mining -> Bronze Working.

Also, Elephant Rider has +25% City Attack that I don't think it needs. Elephant Rider's 6 Strength is better than just about anything else at this point and I don't want taking early cities to be easy.

War Elephant: Currently requires Construction and Horseback Riding, exactly the same as in BTS. I actually think it would be a good idea to swap the War Elephant over to Stirrup to match the Heavy Horseman.

To slightly clean up the War Elephant, I also think it should have base Strength 9, no bonus at Mechanics, and at least +3 Strength at Siegecraft. This way it starts off slightly stronger, then is not as strong as it used to be in the late Classical, then returns to its previous strength in the Medieval.

Elephant Bombardier: Currently requires Chivalry and Gunpowder. With the new requirement of Stirrup for Feudalism, Chivalry isn't as necessary. Before, you could get to Gunpowder without even Animal Husbandry. Now you can't. So dropping Chivalry is easy enough.

 

[Urza1234]

Three out of the four Elephant units that we have in AND are double-teched. This is what I think we should do with them.

Elephant Rider: Currently requires Horseback Riding and Warfare. This is one of the very rare cases where I don't think it's a good idea to drop either tech. If we drop Horseback Riding we lose a serious level of verisimilitude. I'm not a super-stickler for realism, but it does need to feel plausible, and riding Elephants without Horses loses that. Without Warfare, I am afraid that Elephant Riders would show up too early and be too difficult to defeat on the battlefield, especially as it is longer to get to Bronze Working and Spearmen than Horseback Riding. HBR just requires Agriculture/Hunting -> AH -> HBR. Bronze Working requires Agriculture + Stone Tools -> Crafting and Mining -> Bronze Working.

Also, Elephant Rider has +25% City Attack that I don't think it needs. Elephant Rider's 6 Strength is better than just about anything else at this point and I don't want taking early cities to be easy.

War Elephant: Currently requires Construction and Horseback Riding, exactly the same as in BTS. I actually think it would be a good idea to swap the War Elephant over to Stirrup to match the Heavy Horseman.

To slightly clean up the War Elephant, I also think it should have base Strength 9, no bonus at Mechanics, and at least +3 Strength at Siegecraft. This way it starts off slightly stronger, then is not as strong as it used to be in the late Classical, then returns to its previous strength in the Medieval.

Elephant Bombardier: Currently requires Chivalry and Gunpowder. With the new requirement of Stirrup for Feudalism, Chivalry isn't as necessary. Before, you could get to Gunpowder without even Animal Husbandry. Now you can't. So dropping Chivalry is easy enough.

Its a bit difficult to visualize this without the context of the updated tech tree, especially without playing through it. In general even in the current rev. however I find taking cities to be way too easy. If I play with raging barbs, which I would generally prefer to do, 10-15 of the AI civs die before the classical era. Part of that is that the AI doesnt seem to prioritize defensive buildings at all, and they also over-prioritize scouts, which wastes their resources.

 

[Vokarya]

Its a bit difficult to visualize this without the context of the updated tech tree, especially without playing through it. In general even in the current rev. however I find taking cities to be way too easy. If I play with raging barbs, which I would generally prefer to do, 10-15 of the AI civs die before the classical era. Part of that is that the AI doesnt seem to prioritize defensive buildings at all, and they also over-prioritize scouts, which wastes their resources.

What are you using for taking cities? I tend to go with individual stacks of 6/6/6 Swordsmen/Archers/Catapults, plus some support units. I usually build my first stack around the mid-Classical Era and then assemble new ones once I get more Great Generals.

I know I really like to pile up a lot of changes and release them all at once. I don't want to have graphics files floating around outside the FPK files, and I don't want to make everyone have to re-download the FPK's. They are the biggest files in the mod.

 

[Pepo]

About archer's, that's why I suggested long ago to introduced a new archer unit for late classical warfare/early medieval. I don't know why you are so opposed to introduced a new unit, but it is the best solution for this problem. You can have early archers balanced around spearmen and axemen, and the new archer unit balanced against swordsman and Cav. Also I think that adding strength though tech is a bad design, as it not only improve your units without cost compare to upgrades, but it also make then more cost efficient,, in the archer case being completely wacko (you pay the same for a 3 str vs a 5str after all improvements) Honestly a new unit would be a better fix

 

[Urza1234]

What are you using for taking cities? I tend to go with individual stacks of 6/6/6 Swordsmen/Archers/Catapults, plus some support units. I usually build my first stack around the mid-Classical Era and then assemble new ones once I get more Great Generals.

I know I really like to pile up a lot of changes and release them all at once. I don't want to have graphics files floating around outside the FPK files, and I don't want to make everyone have to re-download the FPK's. They are the biggest files in the mod.

I usually literally just use Archers and maybe 2 Elephants or something, ranged bombard gets the job done with almost no risk. I also wasnt implying that I personally was killing 10-15 civs in that time period, I usually dont have cause to take more than a few cities, its the barbs that do it all. Its really annoying too since the DLL limit for the number of Civs is 50, and on the largest map size 25 slots are already used at the start of the game by default. That many dead civs that early seems to prevent Rev from working later on. I've also had games where all the starting civs besides myself are dead before the end of the classical era, that was... boring.

The palisade and walls are extremely helpful, but the AI pretty much refuses to build them. The only thing thats really made the AI able to survive is to hack Javilineers to have bonus city defense and increasing the city defense of Slingers. The AI usually die before they even discover Archery.

 

[<Nexus>]

A Str 3 Archer is already strong in the early game. I also use them for city bombardment and use no catapults in the early game. Enough archers often bombard-and-damage faster than the defending units heal.

 

[Urza1234]

A Str 3 Archer is already strong in the early game. I also use them for city bombardment and use no catapults in the early game. Enough archers often bombard-and-damage faster than the defending units heal.

Especially when the AI refuses to prioritize things like a healer's hut.

 

[Vokarya]

I can boost Slingers to +50% city defense. That will give them Str 3 when defending. We may need some kind of DLL hack to increase the military flavor for all AI's if Raging Barbarians is on, but I am not up to DLL modding yet.

 

[Vokarya]

About archer's, that's why I suggested long ago to introduced a new archer unit for late classical warfare/early medieval. I don't know why you are so opposed to introduced a new unit, but it is the best solution for this problem. You can have early archers balanced around spearmen and axemen, and the new archer unit balanced against swordsman and Cav. Also I think that adding strength though tech is a bad design, as it not only improve your units without cost compare to upgrades, but it also make then more cost efficient,, in the archer case being completely wacko (you pay the same for a 3 str vs a 5str after all improvements) Honestly a new unit would be a better fix

My primary issue with new units at this point is logistical. Every unit requires new unit artwork, and non-mechanized units require several models to get a proper level of ethnic diversity. There is a cap lurking out there that limits how many models you can have, although I don't know exactly where that cap is. Once you reach the "Memory Allocation Fault" stage, that's when you've hit the cap. I have a few modmod project ideas in mind and I want to make sure there is enough space for additional units to make the ideas still work without having to sacrifice anything. I'm willing to do the new Armored Cruiser because it's only going to need a single model.

 

[Vokarya]

There are two double-teched Medieval Era units I haven't brought up yet for simplification: the Maceman and the Rider.

Maceman: This currently has BTS's original prerequisites of Civil Service and Machinery. I'm not sure what about Macemen makes them so powerful that they need to be double-teched. Most likely, it is due to how easy to looks to beeline one or the other. Civil Service has a known slingshot, and Machinery can be jumped to as soon as you have Metal Casting. AND's Tech Tree is deeper and has less opportunity for such slingshots, so I don't think there is any problem with simplifying Macemen down to just Machinery. Civil Service can survive with 4 tricks (Bureaucracy civic, Prefecture, Servants Guild Hall, Clerks Guild).

Rider: This currently requires Heraldry and Invention. Here I think Heraldry is the better choice. Invention is not a tech I really like. It does appear in Civ I-III, but in Civ I it's a filler before Gunpowder, in Civ II it just enables Leonardo's Workshop, and in Civ III it is required for both Leonardo's and the Longbowman. Invention's current placement on the AND tech tree is too late for Longbows. They need to be earlier to pick up the banner from Archers. It's also too late for Leonardo's Workshop. That should be later to place it in the Renaissance. I don't want to cut the tech because I want to keep the Medieval Era at an even 30 techs. Either way, Stirrup is already required via Feudalism, and there is a counter unit available in Pikemen. I don't see any issues with making Riders available slightly earlier.

 

[Vokarya]

One more thing I noticed when looking at the Medieval Era. I think the Mongol Keshik should be a Rider replacement rather than a Horse Archer replacement. The proper place for the Keshik appears to be the Medieval Era and not the Classical where it currently is. I also would like to not have 2 UU (Keshik and Numidian Cavalry) in the same unit class.

This would be the additional abilities for the Keshik over the Rider:

• 3 Moves rather than 2; this is not a promotion, so it is not kept when the unit upgrades.
• Requires only Horses, compared to Horses + (Copper OR Iron) for the Rider.
• Keep the 1-2 First Strikes.

This will make Keshik a powerful skirmisher unit for the Medieval Era, but not overwhelming.

 

[Vokarya]

There are three other Renaissance units that I can trim down to a single tech.

Fluyt: Keep Astronomy, drop Gunpowder. Fluyt is a transport ship, not a warship, so I don't think a military tech is necessary.

Privateer: Keep Mercantilism, drop Flintlock. Privateer is also not a major warship. It does already require Gunpowder through the Leadership - Colonialism - Mercantilism line.

Grenadier: Move to Grand War. I originally gave the Grenadier to Absolutism so it wouldn't be a Wonder-only tech when it was first implemented. Now that Absolutism has the Autocracy civic, that is not necessary. Flintlock alone is also too early, because it would make Grenadier show up at the same time as Musketman. Some space is necessary. I'm picking Grand War over Military Tradition because MT currently has more tricks. That might change in the future if we move over things around.

Also, Grenadier does not need an attack bonus vs. Arquebusier. By the time Grenadiers show up, Arquebusiers should have been replaced by Musketmen. The strength difference is also enough (22 vs. 13) that the attack bonus just makes it more overwhelming.

 

[Vokarya]

I was studying resources to look at how possible it would be to knock Steel or Aluminum off the Omnifactory and thereby decrease the number of resources the Omnifactory provides. What I noticed was that we seem to be inconsistent with resource requirements on modern units.

In BTS, you can run a modern army on just Oil, with Aluminum required for the most high-tech units -- Modern Armor, Jet Fighter, Stealth Bomber -- and Uranium for nuclear units. In AND, we have crafted resources, but I think we should be applying them across the board to all unit categories. Tanks require Steel, but Helicopters and most Air units don't.

So this is what I am going to add:

• Fighter, Seaplane, Early Bomber, Bomber, Strategic Bomber, Helicopter, Gunship all require Steel or Aluminum.
• Hybrid Gunship requires Aluminum or Durasteel.
• Motorized Infantry requires Vulcanized Rubber.
• A-Bomb requires Oil Products.
• Power Armored Infantry, Scout Mech, Assault Mech require Microchips. (This keeps all Mecha units consistent.)

 

[<Nexus>]

My primary issue with new units at this point is logistical. Every unit requires new unit artwork, and non-mechanized units require several models to get a proper level of ethnic diversity. There is a cap lurking out there that limits how many models you can have, although I don't know exactly where that cap is.

Just made a "very quick" search and I estimate C2C to have about twice as many art defines as AND2+MegaPack, though I don't know how often MAF happens in C2C.

 

[rtt4a]

I have experience problems with too many units.. in my personal AND modmods i have tested this and usually i start to have weird problems AND units + MegaPack + about 1200-1300 unit graphics.

 

[Vokarya]

Just made a "very quick" search and I estimate C2C to have about twice as many art defines as AND2+MegaPack, though I don't know how often MAF happens in C2C.

Didn't they have to go to static leaderheads? That counts too. I would never want to do static leaderheads. I feel the art "budget" is better spent on the things that you see throughout the entire game, not units that last a few turns and then disappear.