Partisans and Unit Creation

[Harry Tuttle]

Questions:

The techs Gunpowder and Communism determine how many partisans are generated when a city is captured, right?

Is city size another variable?

Can partisans be created only one time for each city?

[Boco]

It's Gue not Gun, right?

Don't have proven answers, yet, but I think size does matter.

[AGRICOLA]

Can partisans be created only one time for each city?

I've only run a quick and dirty test of this with TOT.

Assume that all civs have Gue and Cmn and city XXX is owned by civ A. If XXX is captured by civ B, partisans will appear and the number will depend on city size. If XXX is then recaptured by civ A, partisans do not appear.

Each city record in .sav files has a field that identifies the previous owner of the city. If XXX has always been owned by civ A or has been captured by civ B, civ A is the previous owner. Consequently, XXX will generate no partisans if civ A recaptures it from civ B. I imagine that the rationale is that the population is still loyal to the previous owner.

If civ B then captures XXX a second time from civ A, there will again be no partisans because the city record identifies civ B is the previous owner.

From the above, I suspect that there may be partisans every time if XXX is sequentially captured by civ B and civ C and so on.

The number of spawned units depends on city size as follows:

SIZE. . . UNITS
2-3. . . 1 guy with a gun
4-11 . . 5 fanatics
12-19. . 10 partisans
20-27. . 14 guerrillas
28-35. . 19 insurgents
>35. . . 20 freedom fighters


On a related topic, does anyone know if barbarian cities can spawn partisans? While playtesting Patine's Empire of the Rising Sun, where the Chinese Communists are the barb civ, I thought that it would be a good idea if capturing one of their cities would spawn partisans. The Hexedit Compendium suggests that, if the barbs are given Gue and Cmn, they should spawn like salmon. However, I can't seem to make it happen, even if they are given all techs.

[techumseh]

I don't think the barbs can hold on to any but the most basic techs. It could be the tech slots hard coded, or maybe it's all techs with nil, nil as pre-reqs.

[Harry Tuttle]

Your right guys it's Guerilla Warfare, not Gunpowder. My mistake.

Thank you Agricola for your in depth analysis. It's going to go a long way in what I'm hoping to do.

OK, crazy man talking...

I'm toying with the idea of creating units without events. The only hardcoded event that I know of that creates multiple units in one fell swoop is the partisan creation with capturing a city. I am hoping to create a design where partisans are spawned multiple times within a designated spawn area, specifically a spawn area away from gameplay, either on an alternate map or inside a main map. These partisans could then be moved to transport points away from the spawn area.

Another question: Will all spawned partisans have NONE as their home city or will they sync with the closest home city?

I hope to merge the spawned partisans with the AI's prospensity to build cities. If after each city within the spawning area is captured and partisans are spawned can I then wipe the area clear of cities with the CHANGETERRAIN event and then get the AI to found new cities? If the terrain tiles within the spawning area are able to produce a large amount of food I could have the new cities "plump up" before they are captured, recreating new partisans.

I thought of the idea after reading Eivind's doings with the AI founding new cities on another continent and remember the success I had with Mapcopy making my Gold Gulch city terrain favorable to the AI.

If this is possible we could be able to produce a large number of units while cutting down on event space. This could possibly create a mass attack swarm that would be useful in scenarios.

The only problem I see with this device is that the "create unit every turn" event might surpass in effectiveness. So let's think...

Turn 1: Settler created
Turn 2: City founded
Turn 3: City grows to size 2
Turn 4: City grows to size 3, attacker unit created
Turn 5: City grows to size 4, city captured, spawns 5 partisan units
Turn 6: Partisan units move away from spawn area.
Turn 7: Spawn area wiped, settlers created.

Total events needed:

1. Create settler
2. Create attacker
3. Moveunit event moves partisans
4. Spawn area wiped of cities

Now if this device uses only one city it is not worthwhile as a single createunit event will yield the same amount of units in the same time period, even giving the device a 100% success rate. Though, if the settler creation event was set on everyturn then a new settler would be spawned while city #1 is being founded. On turn 2 the second settler would found city #2. If on turn 5 both cities are captured then we would have six new units, a gain of one more unit over the singular create unit event.

I'll have to setup and test this, but I think I can make a net gain in regards to partisan creation through economies of scale. I surmise that I can beat the units created by the createunit everturn event if I increase the cities captured to at least 4.

It's gamble, but I think it might be possible.

[AGRICOLA]

I don't know if this helps your situation.

Again, while playtesting EOTR, I've been trying to figure out how to slow down Japanese conquest. Short of no roads whatsoever and using settlers rather than Engineers, which IMO creates a really boring game, the best that I have been able to come up with is to use the RANDOMIZE and COUNT options available in TOT.

The basic problem is one of modelling both the increased preparedness of Chinese, Indian and American cities as time goes on and the greater logistical difficulties the Japanese encounter as they move deeper into hostile territory. The only way that I can see doing this is to increase the number of defenders in cities at a much faster rate than cities can actually build units.

Assuming that there are 20 Chinese cities at the start of the scen, an IF statement such as

@IF
TURN
turn=every
@THEN
CREATEUNIT
owner=Chinese
unit=Garrison (Mv=0 or the AI will move them out of a city)
count=20 or some appropriate number
veteran=no
homecity=none
randomize
locations

Coords of 20 cities or whatever number is the max allowed by randomize.

endlocations
@ENDIF

would generate 20 more or less evenly distributed units in the 20 cities.

As the Japanese capture cities, the 20 units will be divided among fewer cities, so the garrisons of the remaining Chinese cities will increase more rapidly. Extrapolating to the last remaining Chinese city, it will be reinforced at a rate of 20 units per turn. The Japanese would have to kill 20 defenders each turn just to stay even.

[Harry Tuttle]

OK, here's what I found out after some tests.

The defender civ needs com and gue.

The lower the tech the attacker civ has, the more partisans created. (2 when tech equal - size 6 city, 6 when tech lower at nil, - size 6 city)

The defender doesn't need a defending unit within the city to have partisans created.

Units within cities seem to stay around after changeterrain event.

The attacking unit stops attacking after taking one city.

Partisans will by default be fortified upon creation, but can be made to move with moveunit event. The amount actually moved depends on the path traveled without the "ignore zone of control" flag turned on as units cannot go to an adjacent square of an enemy city from an adjacent square of an enemy city.

The defending city must be at least size 4 for partisans to be created, in any amount.

If the attacker has a high defense it will not move out from a city with itself as the sole defender.

Partisans will not attack a strong attacker unit.

Upon turn 6, with cities already founded on turn 1, 6 partisans can be created from one captured city.

-----------

Defending civ: AI
Attacking civ: AI

So, the idea here is that we have at least 2 events. Create the settlers, create attackers. Let's forget about changeterrain and moveunit as they don't come into play unless the designer needs to move units and create space.

In at least 6 turns 6 partisans can be created from 1 city. 5 units can be created using 1 createunit event. 2 events used for partisan device.

In at least 6 turns 12 partisans can be created from 2 cities. 10 units can be created using 2 create unit events. 4 events used for partisan device.

In at least 6 turns 18 partisans can be created from 3 cities. 15 units can be created using 3 create unit events. 6 events used for partisan device....

Not advantageous....

------------

Defending civ: Human/AI
Attacking civ: AI

I tried using just 2 cities and I made the city size for each at 20 where it remained capped till turn 6 when the partisans were created. This yielded 33 partisans when the defending civ and attacking civ was AI, but only 6 apiece when I made the defending civ human! The govt was democracy...


Very bizarre. I bet the govt has something to do with it too.

I think I'll try some more tests later. This might still work....

[Harry Tuttle]

Well crap, if ToT has the count option then my idea will only help out MGE. Event space isn't even a problem then.

Ah well. I need some sleep.

[jim panse]

My 2 cents ...

In MGE the barbarians which are event-created randomly depend on how far advanced your civ is (it has something to do with the Invention tech slot as far as I know). Also, this depends on the difficulty setting how many barbarians in what number of turns are randomly created, i.e. more barbs are created on higher difficulty settings (which, of course is also related to the size of barbarian activity that is determined if you start a new game, i.e. "only goody huts", etc.).

Does this help?

[Harry Tuttle]

Originally posted by jim panse
My 2 cents ...

In MGE the barbarians which are event-created randomly depend on how far advanced your civ is (it has something to do with the Invention tech slot as far as I know). Also, this depends on the difficulty setting how many barbarians in what number of turns are randomly created, i.e. more barbs are created on higher difficulty settings (which, of course is also related to the size of barbarian activity that is determined if you start a new game, i.e. "only goody huts", etc.).

Does this help?

Well we're talking about just the partisans that are created when a city is captured. Though you may be right about the propensity for units to pop up.

I dunno, my crazy idea was just that, a crazy idea. I might as well have tried to build a ship using only lead. The ship might eventually float, but it would be the size of the Atlantic.

I do however think there is a definate formula to the partisan creation. Maybe I can test it out sometime.

[Boco]

Originally posted by AGRICOLA
The number of spawned units depends on city size as follows:

SIZE. . . UNITS
2-3. . . 1 guy with a gun
4-11 . . 5 fanatics
12-19. . 10 partisans
20-27. . 14 guerrillas
28-35. . 19 insurgents
>35. . . 20 freedom fighters


On a related topic, does anyone know if barbarian cities can spawn partisans? While playtesting Patine's Empire of the Rising Sun, where the Chinese Communists are the barb civ, I thought that it would be a good idea if capturing one of their cities would spawn partisans. The Hexedit Compendium suggests that, if the barbs are given Gue and Cmn, they should spawn like salmon. However, I can't seem to make it happen, even if they are given all techs.

Nice work.

Just to be sure, you didn't see units from the fanatics slot pop up after a city was taken, did you?

I suspect barbarian partisans aren't possible. Perhaps if barbs were given Gue and Cmn (and partisan preq = Gue) immediately prior to city capture, maybe that might work. I don't think CityTaken would do it, but how about UnitKilled (victim = any barb unit) —> GiveTechnology Gue & Cmn? Then garrison barb cities with immobile barbs.

[AGRICOLA]

The units that popped up definitely occupied the Partisan slot, the ninth in the units table.

The game save that I used to test whether barb cities can produce partisans was first hexedited to give the barb civ all techs. Then I made partisans buildable by the barbs and increased the size of their city to 35. I still could not get it to spawn partisans.

From what I can tell, in TOT, barbs can build any unit whose prerequisite is "nil" and whose "tribe may build mask" has a 1 as the eighth digit ..... xxxxxxx1. I'm sure that's not news to any designer who has worked with TOT.

Also, giving the barbs all techs did not allow their cities to build any improvement except barracks. They can build barracks with the techs that they automatically have at the start of the scen.

[Boco]

Good test. Out of curiosity, did the barbs still have the techs at the end of the human turn? After one barb turn? It sure sounds like techs don't do diddly for the barbs, but I'm still curious.

Btw, I found that if I use a CityTaken/CreateUnit combo to place a barb unit in a city captured by barbs, the city then builds the created unit type, not the unit type that captured the city.