Spearman Upgrade to Numidian Mercenaries instead of PikeMen?

[dagta]

As Americans, I've upgraded spearmen directly to Mechanized Infantry in Conquests 1.22. I know it works for me. Perhaps you altered the upgrade path in your edited BIQ file.

[Gray_Lensman]

That's why I'm doing a reinstall. However, so far I've noted that the vanilla PTW and the 1.29 upgrade version of PTW both have implemented the change for Spearman to upgrade to Numidian Infantry (although the Civilopedia does not reflect this)

So this could be an intended change, but I suspect not. And the Civilopedia does not reflect it. Course that doesn't mean much...

I'm not gonna continue calling this bug, just a possible discrepancy.

ps Note the vanilla and v1.29 of the original Civ 3 game of course, had the upgrade path from Spearman to Pikeman.

[Gray_Lensman]

All right, finished reinstalling, and except for the original Civ3 and it's upgrade, the Spearman upgrade to Numidian Mercenaries in both the PTW and Conquests add-on.

My next question is, why didn't they bother to edit the Civilopedia after that many itinerations/upgrades. And is that what they really intended?

Also, for those who have played the PTW version before, as non-Carthagians, were you able to actually upgrade to Numidian Infantry from Spearman?

If so, then I must not have been meeting an upgrade criteria, because thet would cost more than the 20 gps that the Civilopedia quotes for upgrading to Pikemen.

I'll try to do a debug setup to test this.

[Gray_Lensman]

Interesting debug results...

Even though the Scenario file (biq) has the update set to Numidian Mercenaries, the upgrade takes place at a cost of 30 gold, but upgrades to a Pikeman, which really confuses the issue.... LOL.

I probably didn't have enough GPs and was misreading what I did have.

Oh well, bug not there in the first place. Duh! Just editor discrepancies. HeHeHe

[vondrack]

The upgrade paths described in the paedia are the "visible" ones - the ones players see/use. Carthage replaces spears with mercs, mercs upgrade to muskets. Others have spears upgrading to pikes. Works just fine this way.

The fact that there is a trick used to make things work like that (spears actually upgrade to mercs, mercs to pikes, and pikes to muskets - however, Carthage automatically skips pikes, others automatically skip mercs because of being unable to build them) would only confuse peadia readers.

[Gray_Lensman]

All that "skipping" is just fine, but how does the editor tie in? Is all this "skipping" hard coded in, regardless of the editor setup?

If so, the editor is just as fluky as the game software.

Basically a scenario designer must note all these little exceptions to the exceptions. Truly frustrating.

[Solomwi]

As I've been trying to say, the skipping is a result of whatever the two units are set to upgrade to. It's hardcoded in that anytime the "official" upgrade is not available, it looks for the next one in the path. There's nothing fluky about that.

[vondrack]

The only hardcoded thing is in the game itself - it will not let you upgrade to a unit which is not available to your civ (either because being a UU of some other civ or because you lack the necessary resources/techs).

So when you look at it this way, yes, it is "regardless of the editor setup". But that's how it's supposed to be, is it not?

[Gray_Lensman]

All I want to know is why the editor has the Spearman set to upgrade to the Numidian Mercenary instead of Pikeman, which in reality is what actually occurs.

Unless, for some reason in the code, it is the way that the Carthagian are enabled to produce Numidian Mercenaries. I'll have to check out how that jives with other Civs UUs.

[Gray_Lensman]

Ah, the Light has finally illuminated... After studying the editor, it is obvious that all UUs are immediately free upgrades to 'only' the owning Civ (being that the cost is set to the same).

The only thing that is still confusing, is how does the game actually know that it has to skip to a Pikeman, when it can't actually upgrade to a Numidian Merc, if it's not the Carthagians.

Since it seems to be hard coded to skip over, and then what to skip to. It would present a limitation to User designed scenarios that the user is trying to design his own UUs for his own specific Civs, in that the user could not change the hard coded upgrade.

hmmm...

[vulture]

Strictly, there is no reason why the spearman should upgarde to NM at all. You can have convergent upgrade paths...
spearman->pikeman->musketman
Numidian->musketman
(and hoplite->musketman for that matter).

However that doesn't work for any UUs not at the bottom of the upgrade path., e.g. legions, immortals and other sword UUs. You want to be able to upgrade to them from warriors, hence the odd rules, and the upgrade path going something like:

warrior->swordsman->legion->immortal-->medieval infantry->geurilla (?)

Note that the immortal costs less than the medieval infantry, but has the same stats. You don't want to do that upgrade.

So the rules for upgrading are: skip any units that the player is unable to build (due to being the UU of another civ, or due to lack of resources such as iron), and skip any units that have equal or worse stats than the unit being upgraded. As I understand it (or is it possible to 'upgrade' immortals to MI?)

Once you know that, all upgrades are predictable, and allow for various UUs to fit in in their required places. The only hardcoding is a generic rule that makes sense, rather than an a priori 'hoplites can't upgrade to pikes' special case.

Since you'd never want a unit to upgrade to one with worse stats, I don't think it presents any serious problems to scenario designers. The only contention might come when upgrading a 2/2/1 unit to a 1/3/1 unit, or equivalent, where it is probably a matter of personal preference (and the current situation) which unit is better.

[Solomwi]

GL, the way it knows to skip pikemen for Carthage is that pikemen aren't available to Carthage. Open up the editor, go to the units tab and select pikeman. Now look at the "Available to:" box (don't remember the actual label, but it's somewhere in the bottom left, and has a list of all the civs, with some highlighted in blue and some not). You'll notice that Carthage is not highlighted. Therefore, they can't build pikemen and upgrade NM directly to muskets.

[Catt]

Originally posted by Gray_Lensman
The only thing that is still confusing, is how does the game actually know that it has to skip to a Pikeman, when it can't actually upgrade to a Numidian Merc, if it's not the Carthagians.

There is a path that goes from spear -> NM -> pike -> musket -> swiss mercenary -> musketeer -> rifleman. You trace the path simply by checking out each unit's editor page and seeing what it upgrades to (and following the chain).

The "hard-coded" part is that, when checking on available upgrades, the game searches the entire upgrade path and makes available the unit that is highest up the chain for which the civ in question (1) has discovered any prerequisite technology; (2) possesses any required resources; and (3) is identified in the "available to" box displayed in the editor.

The same path works for all civs. Examples:

You're Carthage and you discover Bronze Working -- the NM becomes available (not the spear). The next unit in the upgrade path that is available to Carthage is the Muketman, for which Gunpowder and Saltpeter are required.

You're America and you discover Bronze Working -- the spearman becomes available. The next unit in the upgrade path available to America is the Pike, requiring Feudalism and Iron. The next available to America is the musket ad then the rifle.

You're the Dutch and you discover Bronze Working -- the spearman becomes available. The next unit in the upgrade path available to the Dutch is the Swiss Mercenary which requires Feudalism and Iron (next would be rifleman).

You're the French and you discover Bronze Working -- the spearman becoes available. The next unit in the upgrade path available to the French is the Pikeman which requires Feudalism and Iron (next would be Musketeer and then Rifleman).

Since it seems to be hard coded to skip over, and then what to skip to. It would present a limitation to User designed scenarios that the user is trying to design his own UUs for his own specific Civs, in that the user could not change the hard coded upgrade.

hmmm...

Once you understand the concept, it shouldn't present any problems in modding -- just inserting the UU into the right place in the upgrade path and marking the appropriate "available to" boxes would do the trick.

For example, let's say I wanted to create Catt's Civ with a UU called Catt's Guard that replaced the Pikeman with a 1/4/1 unit. I would make the Pikeman upgrade to the Catt's Guard unit, make the Catt's Guard unit upgrade to the Swiss Mercenary (i.e., just inserting my unit in the pre-existing upgrade path), make sure that the Catt's Guard unit is available only to Catt's Civ and make sure the Pikeman is not available to Catt's Civ. Playing as Catt's Civ, if I tried to upgrade my spearman the game would check the upgrade path, skip Pike's since they're not available to my civ, and determine whether I had the prerequisites for the Catt's Guard unit. If I later wanted to upgrade my Catt's Guard unit, the game would next hit Musket on the upgrade path and check for prerequisites. The next attempted upgrade would take me all the way up to Rifleman since the game skip's the Swiss Merc and the Musketeer since they're not available to my civ.

The "search up the path" concept described above and the "available to" box that Solomwi references is the key to your misunderstanding, I think.

Catt