Worker Promotions

[Wyrmhero]

Well, many people have been adding their ideas to the forum, so I thought I'd add my crazy one This idea has been plaguing on my mind, and it won't go away until I've actually submitted it to be shot down.

Worker Promotions

Worker promotions require a new unitclass (worker). Workers gain xp whenever they build any improvement except a road. They could also get some xp from wonders and other buildings that give xp to 'all land units'. This encourages more protectiong of your workers, as you are not just giving away a worker if it is taken, but a skilled one. Admittedly, these are biased against the Lurchirp, as they can't get promotions on their mud golems, but they are already better than normal golems.

Skilled I/II/III/IV/V

Each Skilled promotion increases the worker's build rate by 10%

Hardy I/II/III

Each Hardy promotion gives a unit 0/1. That's one defensive strength. This makes sure they go down with a fight. (I've had Lurchirp mud golems defend successfully from goblins before, so 0/2 does make a difference)

Mobility I/II & Sentry I/II

As usual. These allow better co-ordination, and it also allows a worker to see danger and flee from it.

 

[xienwolf]

I'm fairly fond of the idea myself. Though the Mud Golems probably should gain 1 or sight range so that a fully promoted human isn't FAR superior (ignoring move and Sight you can wind up with 0/1 better than a Mud Golem, but after a LOT of XP gain, so it seems about right). I would say add 1 more base to Mud Golems and it would work nicely.

Not sure how easily you could have the workers gain XP for building improvements, but it ought to be possible.

 

[Wyrmhero]

Do the Lurchirp actually need anything? After all, a fully maxed mud golem can have:

Empower 5, giving it 0/3
Fire 2, giving it Fireball
City Defense I (useless, as you shouldn't need a worker to defend, but I just added it anyway)

Maybe the Lurchirp should get a late game building that gives Mobility I to golems? I know they removed the Velox Workshop, so that could be used to give Mobility instead of Light.

 

[xienwolf]

Forgot about Barnaxus and Fireballs I sure guess they don't

 

[Wyrmhero]

I remember on my first game as the Lurchirp, bearing down on foolish AI with fireball-flinging mud golems... Good times.

 

[nihonjeff]

I dig this idea. When I capture workers in a war zone, I often just disband them to deny them to the enemy, or when an enemy captures mine, I often just write them off as a loss and build a new one. Having workers gain experience is a good way to increase the value of those experienced workers.

On the other hand, we might see an exploitation cycle where workers are sent out to terrain outside a city's FC to build an improvement, a military unit pillages, and the units rebuild. They could gain lots of experience in a short time, and then be sacrificed at the AV altar (or any of the other sacrifices where the reward depends on the unit's experience).

 

[Goodgimp]

I like this idea a lot actually, but maybe the upgraded construction times should be 5% per level rather than 10%. It'd be enough to make them useful and you'd still want to protect your veteran workers without overshadowing the flavor of the different racial workers.

If having them gain exp per improvement is difficult to code or exploitable in some way, just have workers similar to Arcane units and gain exp slowly over time. Also, a personality trait such as Industrious could have a bonus to how quickly they level, similar to Arcane trait (although i'd love to see it go to one of the "weaker" traits, like Defender, but it's not as fitting).

 

[Vehem]

I dig this idea. When I capture workers in a war zone, I often just disband them to deny them to the enemy, or when an enemy captures mine, I often just write them off as a loss and build a new one. Having workers gain experience is a good way to increase the value of those experienced workers.

On the other hand, we might see an exploitation cycle where workers are sent out to terrain outside a city's FC to build an improvement, a military unit pillages, and the units rebuild. They could gain lots of experience in a short time, and then be sacrificed at the AV altar (or any of the other sacrifices where the reward depends on the unit's experience).

The other issue on this is "which worker gets the experience?" Combat experience is earnt "one-on-one" - you know which unit killed which unit. With Workers, you don't always know which worker built the improvement. Is it the one who sat there building for 5 turns straight or his friend that ran in on the last turn and completed it? Is it all the workers in the stack? Do you know which workers were in the stack when it started building or does that even matter?

 

[Wyrmhero]

I dig this idea. When I capture workers in a war zone, I often just disband them to deny them to the enemy, or when an enemy captures mine, I often just write them off as a loss and build a new one. Having workers gain experience is a good way to increase the value of those experienced workers.

I dig this idea. When I capture workers in a war zone, I often just disband them to deny them to the enemy, or when an enemy captures mine, I often just write them off as a loss and build a new one. Having workers gain experience is a good way to increase the value of those experienced workers.

On the other hand, we might see an exploitation cycle where workers are sent out to terrain outside a city's FC to build an improvement, a military unit pillages, and the units rebuild. They could gain lots of experience in a short time, and then be sacrificed at the AV altar (or any of the other sacrifices where the reward depends on the unit's experience).

It would take many turns of micro-management for this to be beneficial. And there are other ways to do this just as easily (Adepts), but maybe a block to stop workers being sacrificed/waned? And the idea of 'valuable workers' is one that I was hoping to install. The Skilled promotions increase the build speed by 10% each of a normal worker, so they are not as good as you make them out to be.

 

[xienwolf]

Doing it like Mages makes perfect sense actually. And you can make it so a worker can buy the advanced levels of XP gaining Promotions. Thus you would have to weigh the short term gain of better workrate against the longterm gain of quicker leveling.


So you would have to add in 4 more promotions (or however many, YMMV):

Aptitude 1: +10% XP gain Boost - all workers/slaves start with this
Aptitude 2: +10% XP gain Boost - Available with Aptitude 1
Aptitude 3: +20% XP gain Boost - Available with Aptitude 2 & Skilled 2
Aptitude 4: +20% XP gain Boost - Available with Aptitude 2 & Hardy 1



Then just set workers to be allowed to gain Free XP, like Arcane Units do. Chance of XP per turn is the % Boost minus the current XP (According to the best guess so far), so you won't get uber workers immediately, but eventually they'll be able to get all of the promotions.

Any promotions beyond 9 would mean you have to pick and choose, since a Worker is incapable of going past the 9th Level due to free XP cap of 100. Except of course Charismatic Leaders can get a Worker up to level 11.

So in this case, counting the 4 XP gaining Promotions you have 16 total, with 4 of those lost to just getting the XP... that's not so great. So I'll say cut it back down to just 3 promotions for gaining XP then (30/30/60 so that the total comes out to > 100 and the unit is actually capable of reaching the 100 Mark sometime), and you are at 15 total promotions, with 3 lost to gaining your XP. So a Charismatic Leader can get 8 Promotions per worker, and other leaders can get 6. Seems like it would add in enough need to choose to make it fun and varied.

 

[Wyrmhero]

Doing it like Mages makes perfect sense actually. And you can make it so a worker can buy the advanced levels of XP gaining Promotions. Thus you would have to weigh the short term gain of better workrate against the longterm gain of quicker leveling.


So you would have to add in 4 more promotions (or however many, YMMV):

Aptitude 1: +10% XP gain Boost - all workers/slaves start with this
Aptitude 2: +10% XP gain Boost - Available with Aptitude 1
Aptitude 3: +20% XP gain Boost - Available with Aptitude 2 & Skilled 2
Aptitude 4: +20% XP gain Boost - Available with Aptitude 2 & Hardy 1



Then just set workers to be allowed to gain Free XP, like Arcane Units do. Chance of XP per turn is the % Boost minus the current XP (According to the best guess so far), so you won't get uber workers immediately, but eventually they'll be able to get all of the promotions.

Any promotions beyond 9 would mean you have to pick and choose, since a Worker is incapable of going past the 9th Level due to free XP cap of 100. Except of course Charismatic Leaders can get a Worker up to level 11.

So in this case, counting the 4 XP gaining Promotions you have 16 total, with 4 of those lost to just getting the XP... that's not so great. So I'll say cut it back down to just 3 promotions for gaining XP then (30/30/60 so that the total comes out to > 100 and the unit is actually capable of reaching the 100 Mark sometime), and you are at 15 total promotions, with 3 lost to gaining your XP. So a Charismatic Leader can get 8 Promotions per worker, and other leaders can get 6. Seems like it would add in enough need to choose to make it fun and varied.

Is that particulaly difficult to code? And if not, would you be willing to do so for your modular modmod? And if you gave them the Hardy promotion, they could get over 100XP by attacking other Civs... Of course, whether or not you are willing to possibly loose your worker for 1XP, that's another matter. It would be a nice side effect if you are attacked...

 

[xienwolf]

I've already got it all coded except for putting the Workrate into the Promotions so that the Skilled set can actually be used. I'm about to inquire in the Moder's Guide on how to do that one.

It cannot be done Modularly though, because Promotion Pre-Req's don't work in Modules I'll probably need some Python for the Schema change anyway though, so no sweat there. But I have all of the XML written and buttons selected, it's pretty cool

Hardy wouldn't let you attack, it would let you defend. So you'd have to bait other Civs into attacking your workers, and pray that they survive

 

[Wyrmhero]

Well, I've had a mud golem survive a Clan of Embers goblin attack, because it was on a forested hill

 

[xienwolf]

Well, to get the Skilled Promotions working I have to Compile a new DLL, so not going to be able to do that this weekend. I attached everything in Modular form though. Add it to your XML (Promotions won't work as a module, the rest should) and it works, just omit the SKILL1-SKILLED5 entries for now or you'll mess up your XML (Besides, they do nothing yet)

EDIT: File removed, full mod posted in Mods subforum.

 

[Blackmantle]

Like this idea alot.

But perhaps if implemented also reduce "fresh" workers speed to one then. Whould perhaps balance it a bit especially compared to Luchirp and take a bit more time to make them really valuable and nice.. (then a change of Body one to grant Mobility 1 permanently instead of Hasted short-term to all, including non-living-units would also be nice / not anymore so hefty to save promotions and stramline the spell more + help AI and reduce micro.)

 

[MacGyverInSpace]

Yeah, have them start movement 0, yet a barracks in town would encourage them to be a bit more mobile...

Except mobility requires Horseback riding.

 

[MagisterCultuum]

I too think this could be quite nice. I do think that Mud Golems would have to be greatly increases and/or normal workers seriously nefed though.

The ability of promotions to affect wort rate would also be very good for Arcane units. I think that promotions like Arcane, Channeling 1-3, and Meta Magic 1-3 should make constructing Mana Nodes faster.

If you are going to make SDK changes to make worker promotions useful, you might as well go all out. I really think that Promotions should have the ability to allow new build orders. Some latter builds like wind mills and water mills might require promotions, and some really experienced workers might be able to skip the cottage or Fort Stage, going straight to Towns or Castles.

It might also be nice to allow FoL workers (or workers in FoL civs with Hidden Paths) to get a promotion (which FoL UUs might also start with) that allows them to build forest preserves. Ideally, I'd also like to let RoK workers get a promotion that lets them move through impassible terrain (peaks) to build mines, quarries, and roads there. Unfortunately workers (even if allowed to move impassible) can't build anything on Peaks right now. Changing Peaks' <bWater>1</bWater> to <bWater>0</bWater> in CIV4TerrainInfos.xml allows roads there, but I haven't found a way to allow improvements, even on the appropriate resources (placed in worldbuilder or a python spell). You might be able to copy the <bHillsMakesValid>1</bHillsMakesValid> tag and SDK code to make a <bPeaksMakesValid>1</bPeaksMakesValid> tag though, but I'm not familiar enough with SDK modding to try it yet.


Unit Religion, State Religion, Civic, and alignment requirements for build orders could be quite nice too, as would unit religion requirements for promotions.

 

[Fader55]

I like the idea of workers upgrading, maybe they could learn to do things in Mountains(roads,mines) & mud golems might be able to start out with this, instead of promoting.

I very fondly remember the "engineers" which could level mountains, & also the Terraformers fron Alpha Centuri.

I'd love to see some stuff like that.

Fader

 

[cthom]

the best ideas are the obvious ones! it never crossed my mind to upgrade workers like that. i'm glad to see this idea being taken up so quickly.

 

[Zechnophobe]

I too think this could be quite nice. I do think that Mud Golems would have to be greatly increases and/or normal workers seriously nefed though.

The ability of promotions to affect wort rate would also be very good for Arcane units. I think that promotions like Arcane, Channeling 1-3, and Meta Magic 1-3 should make constructing Mana Nodes faster.

If you are going to make SDK changes to make worker promotions useful, you might as well go all out. I really think that Promotions should have the ability to allow new build orders. Some latter builds like wind mills and water mills might require promotions, and some really experienced workers might be able to skip the cottage or Fort Stage, going straight to Towns or Castles.

It might also be nice to allow FoL workers (or workers in FoL civs with Hidden Paths) to get a promotion (which FoL UUs might also start with) that allows them to build forest preserves. Ideally, I'd also like to let RoK workers get a promotion that lets them move through impassible terrain (peaks) to build mines, quarries, and roads there. Unfortunately workers (even if allowed to move impassible) can't build anything on Peaks right now. Changing Peaks' <bWater>1</bWater> to <bWater>0</bWater> in CIV4TerrainInfos.xml allows roads there, but I haven't found a way to allow improvements, even on the appropriate resources (placed in worldbuilder or a python spell). You might be able to copy the <bHillsMakesValid>1</bHillsMakesValid> tag and SDK code to make a <bPeaksMakesValid>1</bPeaksMakesValid> tag though, but I'm not familiar enough with SDK modding to try it yet.


Unit Religion, State Religion, Civic, and alignment requirements for build orders could be quite nice too, as would unit religion requirements for promotions.

Y"know, overall, it might make more sense if only a certain FACTION had this going on, as a unique effect for them. I'm not sure it makes sense to give everyone this ability. Especially considering how spiffy it'd be for it to be 'one of your things'.

Also, it makes the Mud Golems less interesting by far.