No. Flavors are essentially unused for units.
Zeppelin
- Thread starter Tekamthi
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No. Flavors are essentially unused for units.
pineappledan
Deity
cool...
Tekamthi
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In addition to the limitation G mentioned, flavors won't get at the issue the anti-sub change raises... at best I think these influence what the AI produces next (?) in some small way and I'm not sure that getting the AI to produce the unit would be the problem. I think the concern is more so that removing anti-sub from destroyer, one of two naval units of this era that the AI has been built to use already, and instead requiring that it start using zep seamlessly for this purpose, would be too big an adjustment w/o major rework of how it deploys units.
Adding an ability to Zep, w/o taking away from any other role, should be fine imo as long as the resulting effect is not way more powerful in human hands than it is in AI's. The CS bonus could work.. now that you mention it I think this is what I did in MB+ when I modded these units. I'm gonna look at expanding my work there w/ some of the ideas in this thread.
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pineappledan
Deity
Well, whatever would have to be done in order to have the AI recognize the unit as a naval unit that happens to be able to go onto land seamlessly, rather than a land unit that happens to be able to go on water
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Tekamthi
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I double checked my implementation in MB+; I have it as a land unit that can move into sea, and everyone seems to be able to use it in this way just fine? Is there something I'm not thinking about here? I could flag it as domain_sea instead of land I think fairly easily, though again I've observed AI putting it in ocean as-is. I did add navalassault and navalrecon AI to the unit I think. Does this accomplish what you're getting at?
I suspect the only difference will be stacking the unit.. as I recall on my last game with MB+, i could move zep into same tile as naval unit, just like an embarked land unit, except it wasn't embarked. If its domain_sea then I expect it would stack in this way with land units instead
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pineappledan
Deity
I have absolute faith that a human bean can figure this stuff out. We're only fussing over the AI, and I'm not even sure what I'm talking about myself. What I am saying is that the most obvious niche for this unit to fill is predominantly on the water, so whatever changes to Domain, UnitCombat, etc. would need to be made for the AI to identify the unit as something that would be best used by having it spend >50% of its time on ocean/coast tiles, then that's the best thing for the unit, IMO
Tekamthi
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gotcha, I think I'm on the same page then. I've copied the zeppelin code from my mod, below, just for sake of reference since I realize not everyone knows what I'm referring to. I think the Unit_AITypes insert up top sorta gets at this... though to a great degree I'm still guessing at how exactly these work, "in the wild"
Spoiler :
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Tekamthi
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from WW2 onwards they were naval focused primarily (if you accept a blimp as a zeppelin)... though maybe not exactly "anti-boat" in their role
"The United States was the only power to use airships during World War II, and the airships played a small but important role. The Navy used them for minesweeping, search and rescue, photographic reconnaissance, scouting, escorting convoys, and antisubmarine patrols. Airships accompanied many oceangoing ships, both military and civilian. Of the 89,000 ships escorted by airships during the war, not one was lost to enemy action.
The Navy airships patrolled an area of over three million square miles (7.8 million square kilometers) over the Atlantic and Pacific oceans and the Mediterranean Sea during the war. They could look down on the ocean surface and spot a rising submarine and radio its position to the convoy's surface ships. The Navy's blimps initially operated from bases on the east and west coasts of the United States, the Gulf of Mexico, the Caribbean, and as far south as Brazil. Later in the war, they also operated from bases at Cuers, France, and Pisa, Italy. In 1944, six K-ships flew across the Atlantic Ocean to Morocco, where they established a low-altitude antisubmarine barrier across the Strait of Gibraltar.
Only one airship was lost to enemy action. A surfaced German Uboat shot down the airship K-74 during a battle, but the K74 damaged the German submarine so badly that it could not submerge and was sunk by British bombers in the North Sea while it was en route to Germany for repairs."
https://www.centennialofflight.net/essay/Lighter_than_air/Airships_in_WWII/LTA10.htm
"The United States was the only power to use airships during World War II, and the airships played a small but important role. The Navy used them for minesweeping, search and rescue, photographic reconnaissance, scouting, escorting convoys, and antisubmarine patrols. Airships accompanied many oceangoing ships, both military and civilian. Of the 89,000 ships escorted by airships during the war, not one was lost to enemy action.
The Navy airships patrolled an area of over three million square miles (7.8 million square kilometers) over the Atlantic and Pacific oceans and the Mediterranean Sea during the war. They could look down on the ocean surface and spot a rising submarine and radio its position to the convoy's surface ships. The Navy's blimps initially operated from bases on the east and west coasts of the United States, the Gulf of Mexico, the Caribbean, and as far south as Brazil. Later in the war, they also operated from bases at Cuers, France, and Pisa, Italy. In 1944, six K-ships flew across the Atlantic Ocean to Morocco, where they established a low-altitude antisubmarine barrier across the Strait of Gibraltar.
Only one airship was lost to enemy action. A surfaced German Uboat shot down the airship K-74 during a battle, but the K74 damaged the German submarine so badly that it could not submerge and was sunk by British bombers in the North Sea while it was en route to Germany for repairs."
https://www.centennialofflight.net/essay/Lighter_than_air/Airships_in_WWII/LTA10.htm
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pineappledan
Deity
I didn't say that, I said airships (including zeppelins) were used most frequently and effectively by the navy. More specifically they were used to track ship movements, patrol coastlines, detect submarines, monitor and clear enemy mine-laying operations, and relay communications. While the popular culture thinks of zeppelins bombing London, that's not where they made their main impact on the war.
Excerpt from the Zeppelin wikipedia page:
Tekamthi
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...singing in the sunshine, laughing in the rain...
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Right, but that's a role that's undefined and somewhat 'gamey' in civ terms, as melee naval units can't attack a land unit on water. Not really the angle I'm looking for.
G
Tekamthi
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I think you've exceeded even your own civ-dev expectations in some past VP iteration (I vaguely remember this being an issue in non-dll vanilla mods, too). Test case using firetuner, mod w/ early feb VP & MB+:
Spoiler :
...Singing to an ocean, I can hear the ocean's roar...
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tu_79
Deity
Here's how I see current Zepps.
It's the first scout unit that I can use to hit enemies confidently. It's not that the Zeppelin is going to hurt anything, but hitting enemies lets this scout unit level up. They are also slightly useful for protecting ranged units. And, IIRC, they can fight over sea tiles too.
But,
it's so slow that it's really difficult to use it to provide flanking. Not being able to use roads is what really kills me. When I need to move my units to another war front, I must say no to my zeppelins.
I'd stand the slow movement if zepps could use roads.
It's the first scout unit that I can use to hit enemies confidently. It's not that the Zeppelin is going to hurt anything, but hitting enemies lets this scout unit level up. They are also slightly useful for protecting ranged units. And, IIRC, they can fight over sea tiles too.
But,
it's so slow that it's really difficult to use it to provide flanking. Not being able to use roads is what really kills me. When I need to move my units to another war front, I must say no to my zeppelins.
I'd stand the slow movement if zepps could use roads.
ElliotS
Warmonger
The other problem is that Zepps with ForestWalk and DesertWalk are basically default Zepps, but they take way longer to improve. @Gazebo could Zepplins with those promotions instead get +25% Attack and Defense in those terrains instead, reveting to the previous style when Paratroopers come around? If not any other ideas based on what is in the code?
Also I think the obvious solution is to give Zepplins 5-6 moves and let them fly over ocean for other stuff.
Also I think the obvious solution is to give Zepplins 5-6 moves and let them fly over ocean for other stuff.
What if ‘Spotters’ gave Zeps extra vision and they got +1 move base? Slower but wider view?
G
Tekamthi
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This makes sense to me, and fits well for VP as a subtle change at this late stage. I'm not a fan of zeps getting a road movement bonus, as was suggested a few posts back, although I acknowledge that I stand far on the historical/realism side of the spectrum amongst the VP crowd. Ignore terrain costs (Zep has this in pure VP, right? i've been playing too many mod-modded games lately) w/ 4 base moves would be a great unit imo. attack-and-move would be OP though I think, and would make it a little redundant of w/e the mobile ranged unit of the era is. Throw in a modest withdraw-before-melee chance, and I think we suddenly have a reasonable analog for reality, as well as a better in-game niche for the era, as recon transitions to combat.
Though I'm a big fan of no-embark in ocean, I would only want this change if zep lost ability to pillage. It'll be too annoying gameplay-wise, and abusable by human I think, w/o this trade-off. I've already made the pillage/ocean changes in MB+ anyway (G I have no idea how you keep tabs on VP as an entire project.. I can't even properly remember SQL I wrote ~2months ago for a single unit), so the choice ultimately already exists for players, and will look at taking things a few steps further in that mod once VP has finalized any revisions of the zep.
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tu_79
Deity
Now I am confused. Zeppelins have to embark now to get to water? Last time I checked they were flying, so no embark needed. They weren't brilliant at sea, anyways. Any ranged ship could take them.
Not sure an additional movement point makes any difference. At this point I have cavalry moving 8 tiles per turn using railroads.
They hover on coast tiles but embark when you get to ocean
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