MOD: Moraelin's Exponential Mod

[Moraelin]

New version: 1.04

---

I've called it the exponential mod, because that's what it does to the units'
strengths. Which isn't to say that it doesn't do anything else. It does. It
has actually grown into something geared more toward more historical accuracy
than merely a unit upgrade. But the main concern I've seemed to be spearmen
defeating tanks, hence the exponential scale. Now units that are several eras
apart are MUCH more different in combat. (It's still possible to win with
obsolete units, but it will take hordes, not one on one.)

Do not expect a totally easy conquest, though, because it might not happen.
The computer will also tend to produce better units, and the exponential
scale works just as well against you. The defense bonus of fortifications and
cities has increased two fold, too, and the defenders are better matched to
the attackers than before. Citizens and buildings are also harder to destroy
with bombardment. Briefly, even with an upgrade advantage, conquest isn't half
as easy as before. Also more units have zone of control, and more units tend
to provide fire support for each other, and/or are able to bombard. You may
need to actually apply combined arms tactics this time around. Also barbarians
will start MUCH stronger, and you will not enjoy as much of a bonus against
them on the lower difficulty levels.

Be sure you actually understand the new setting, rather than mechanically
applying the old tactics. They may, or may not work exactly as before.
Probably not. You have been warned.

To install it, just unzip with full paths in your game's directory. When you
want to play with it, simply load it as a scenario from the game's main menu.
When you don't want to play with it, just start the game normally. It does not
overwrite any of the game's own files, so you can just delete it if you want
to uninstall it.

The full details of what is changed follow below, and a few questions and
answers are at the end.

Changes in 1.04
---------------

Early war just got more expensive

- Upped the price of Archers (from 2 to 3), because they were better than
Spearmen, yet cost the same.

- Upped the price of Bowmen too, so they stay the same as the Archers.

- Upped the price of Pikemen a bit, too. (From 3 to 4.)

- Upped the price of Longbowmen from 4 to 5.
(Basically now there's a steady increase, both in capabilities and in price
for defense that goes: Spearmen, Archers, Pikemen, Longbowmen, Musketmen.)

- Upped the price of Swordsmen from 3 to 4.

- Upped the price for Immortals and Legionary to 4, too, so they stay in
sync with the Swordsmen as price goes.

- Upped the price of Horsemen from 4 to 5, too. (I.e., they still cost the
same as Longbowmen, have the same attack, only half the defense, but twice
the movement. IMHO it's reasonable.)

- Upped the price for Mounted Warriors to 5, too, so they stay a replacement
for Horsemen. Gave them ZOC, like the Horsemen, too.
(Basically now there's a steady increase in both price and abilities for
offense that goes: Warrior, Chariot & Archer, Swordsmen, Longbowmen & Horsemen,
Knights...)

- Upped the price for Cossacs, so now it's the same as Cavalry. (It already
has more attack power than cavalry, which should be advantage enough.)

- Gave Chinese Riders, Japanese Samurai and Indian War Elephants a ZOC, same
as Knights.

- Upped the price for Panzer, so it's the same as for the new Tanks.

- Upped the price for Man-o-War, so it's the same as the new Frigates.

- Upped the price for Destroyers a little bit, because it was the same as
the new Ironclads. Gave them +1 movement, to make up for it, though.
(Real destroyers ARE faster than battleships, and a lot faster than Subs.)

- Destroyers and Battleships now require Iron. (The Bismarck or Tirpitz
for example weighed almost 40,000 tons. 'Nuff said.)

Changes in 1.02
---------------

- Bug fix: oops. The editor thought it had a map, when it didn't, so the game
would crash if you start without customizing the world. Sorry.

Changes in 1.01
---------------

- Theocracy no longer has the standard trade bonus. Having both some free
troops AND more money was probably overkill, and made it too powerful. (BTW,
to make it clear, what I have in mind by "Theocracy" is somewhat more like
Vatican than some of the rabid fundamentalist regimes.)

- Gave Explorers a 2 square radius of sight, too. They appear so late in the
game anyway, that they weren't too useful otherwise.

- Swordsmen now upgrade to Knights, too, so they don't stay in the unit list
for ever.

- Privateers upgrade to Destroyers, too.

Changes
-------

- Increased the number of born happy citizens, as follows:

Chieftain: 5
Warlord: 4
Regent: 3
Monarch: 2
Emperor: 1
Deity: 0

Basically it's only easier on the lower difficulty levels. (The AI should get
one extra happy citizen, too, if I understood correctly how this works. So
there, it's not just to unbalance it in the players' favour. In fact, it means
the higher difficulty levels should be harder than before for the player.)

- Reduced the bonus against barbarians, as follows:

Chieftain: 250
Warlord: 200
Regent: 150
Monarch: 100
Emperor: 50
Deity: 0

Frankly, the HUGE bonuses on the lower levels meant that barbarians were
never any threat at all and were just a source of cheap experience of your
units. Even setting the advanced barbarian unit to knight, a lousy Warrior
would cheerfully defeat them every time. In fact, given that barbarians
don't get any technology advances and are soon obsolete anyway, I'm thinking
of just removing the bonus completely. (I mean, really, if you don't want
barbarians to be a threat, just start the game without them completely.)

- Changed the default barbarian unit to spearman. (Still 1 attack, but they
should be better at defending themselves and their encampments.)

- Changed the advanced barbarian unit to Mounted Warrior. (Knight looked a
bit out of place when noone had discovered them yet.)

- Changed the barbarian sea unit to Privateer, (Which is to say: try to
either run or be the one who attacks, because otherwise they'll sink your
galley without breaking a sweat.) Pirates should be a terror, not something
you train your crews on. They also bombard coastal cities and tile
improvements now, so you WILL need to do something about them.

- Increased the optimal number of cities more fairly for the map size. (I
mean for example the small map is 6400 squares, while the tiny one is 3600
squares. The small map has almost double the space for cities, yet only gets
an optimal size increase from 12 to 14 cities. The standard map size is a
whole 10000 squares, more than 3 times the space of a tiny one, but only had
16 cities optimal size. Hence, the larger your map size, the quicker you'd
run into corruption problems. And this would get even more out of hand on
the higher difficulty levels, since the optimal number of cities would
further be decreased. Now I don't have a problem with the difficulty rising
when you choose a higher difficulty, but penalizing people for the map size
is IMHO overkill.)

- Doubled the defense bonuses of everything man-made: city, metropolis, city
walls, fortifications, etc. Conquest should be a lot less easy for both sides.
(Player AND AI alike.) I mean, really, that's how it was In Real Life.
Storming castle walls was just short of suicidal, and urban warfare is a
soldier's worst nightmare. Also increased the penalty for attacking across a
river, or of attacking a fortified unit.

- Scouts now see on a two square radius, instead of one, to give expansionist
civilizations more of an advantage early in the game.

- Gave Explorers a 2 square radius of sight, too. They appear so late in the
game anyway, that they weren't too useful otherwise.

- Increased the normal military unit strengths on an exponential scale: 1, 2,
4, 8, 16... This should make it less much likely (but still possible) for an
ancient unit to defeat a modern one.

- Many National Units now fall somewhere in between upgrade stages of normal
units. E.g., a Hoplite now falls between Spearmen and Pikemen, rather than
being up to date all the way until late middle ages. They also upgrade to that
next step. (E.g., Hoplites to Pikemen, Bowmen to Longbowmen, Impi to Pikemen,
and so on.) This may sound like a "why bother" small upgrade, but bear in mind
the above exponential scale: you might need all the advantage you can get.
Besides, you can always wait for the next upgrade, if you really want to.
Other national units continue to be just a replacement with more movement
points (e.g., Impi or Panzer), and others continue to be a replacement that
needs less resources (e.g., Samurai = knight without needing horses, and War
Elephant = knight without horses or iron.)

- Archers and their variants (e.g., Longbowmen) are now better at defense, but
slightly less of an offensive unit, to reflect their historical role better.
They can, however, now bombard weakly (e.g., Longbowmen are half a catapult in
that aspect), so they can be used in a combined arms fashion. They also have a
zone of control now.

- Longbowmen upgrade to Marines, so they don't stay in your list of units for
ever.

- Swordsmen upgrade to Knights, for the same reason.

- Infantry and Mech Infantry can bombard now, but only about half the strength
of a dedicated Artillery and Radar Artillery unit, respectively. They also
have only one square range and 1 rate of fire. (Historically, Infantry
divisions always had some heavier weapons with them. Like mortar squads and
howitzers, for example. And while you could argue whether you can bombard a
metropolis with mortars, I could answer that bombarding it with catapults
isn't any more realistic, either.) This also means that attacking a stack
of infantry will mean they provide fire support for each other, rather than
fighting one by one like in Jackie Chan movies. Their cost has been increased,
too, but they should (rightfully) be cheaper than Tanks and Modern Armour.

- Tanks and Modern Armour now require Iron instead of Latex (natural rubber).
I mean, really, who came with THAT idea? Rubber parts are a very small part
of a tank's weight, and are made of synthetic rubber, not latex. On the other
hand, a tank has tens of tons of steel in it, so it's just silly to make a
whole division of them without any Iron. Also gave them the same bombardment
capability as the Infantry and Mech Infantry. (Having an 120mm main gun and
HE ammo for it means you can actually USE it.) I've upped their price, too,
so they stay more expensive than their Infantry counterparts.

- Mech Infantry also requires Iron and Aluminum instead of Latex (natural
rubber.)

- Riflemen now require saltpeter, too.

- Increased the mounted troops' strength, for historical accuracy, but upped
their price. Also gave all of them a zone of control.

- Cavalry upgrades to Tanks. Mainly so it doesn't stay in your list for ever,
and hopefully to reduce the AI's chances of keeping manufacturing it for
ever.

- Privateers upgrade to Destroyers, for the same reason.

- Increased all air units' range to 8. Especially the fighters had a laughable
flight zone. And I've matched their strength to the scale used for the ground
troops. Also increased their price. Air superiority isn't cheap.

- Stealth Fighter now actually has an attack value, and can intercept bombers
too. (Why call it a Fighter if it can't act in a Fighter role, anyway? What it
really was boiled down to a smaller Stealth Bomber.) It should have less
attack than a Jet Fighter, and about the same bombardment value.

- Cruise Missile now has a full range of 8.

- Increased the defense rating of citizens and buildings during a bombardment,
so you'll need some heavy duty bombing to destroy either. Catapults will
likely no longer cut it, unless used in really large numbers. I'm not sure if
this is realistic, but then the rampant "let's massacre a whole town with
catapults so they don't revolt after I take it" tactic was IMHO getting just
as silly.

- Shakespeare's Theater changed from 8 happy faces only in the town building
it, to 4 in that town and 1 in the rest of your towns on the continent. I
mean, really, his plays are played all over the world, not just in his
hometown.

- Longevity changed to give 2 happy faces in home town, 1 to all other towns.
It was pretty useless at the late point you can build it otherwise, since your
cities would be full anyway.

- SETI is now also Scientific, not just expansionist. (Look at what other
distributed projects it's spawned in real life, like the search for cancer
cure.)

- Wall Street is now Commercial.

- Added Government: Theocracy. It is based on Monotheism, so it should appear
roughly between Republic or Monarchy and Democracy. (I'm pondering making it
a discovery of its own, though, so it requires one more research step.)

Max science rate: 50% (as low as Despotism. Sorry, religion does not equal research.)
Worker rate: 100% (same as Republic, less than Democracy)
Assimilation rate: 2% (Same as Monarchy or Republic, less than Democracy or Communism)
Corruption: minimal
(I would have liked that instead, cathedrals deter corruption only under a
Theocracy. I don't think it's possible, though.)
Draft Limit: 2 (same as Monarchy or Communism)
Max MP: 2 (Same as Despotism, less than Monarchy)
Hurrying Production: Paid Labor
(Sorry, didn't want it to be Yet Another Forced Labor Regime.)
Resistance factors: basically except for Anarchy (-5) and Theocracy (0),
your own people will have a +5 to resist anyone, due to indoctrination,
but then the people from conquered cities will also have +5 to resist YOU.
War Weariness: Low (But not None. "Thou shalt not kill.")
Requires Maintenance (obviously)
NO Standard Trade Bonus (Less money than Republic or Democracy)
Cost Per Unit: 1 (Same as, say, Monarchy, Despotism or Communism)
Free units: 1/2/4 (Less free units than, say, Monarchy, Despotism or Communism)
Spies and Ambassadors: Conscript
Propaganda modifiers: Let's just say, don't set your hopes too high against Democracy or even Republic
Immunity: nothing

Basically I've tried making a somewhat balanced Goverment, that has both
advantages and disadvantages. (E.g., the 50% max research can be crippling if
you're already behind.)

- Changed Egypt, Persia and Aztec to prefer Theocracy. (Basically, Egypt and
Aztec preferred Despotism anyway, so I thought I'd give them a small upgrade.
Persia is based on geographic location.)

- Increased Jungle shield production to 1. It's still less than Forest, and
it still has the disease effect, and it still gives no shields from clearing.
I thought that as it was, it was just too crippled.

[Optimizer]

Looks great!

All these changes make sense, especially the ... wait - most these things are great!

Could you please write down the unit stats somewhere?

For more challenge from barbarians, one could make them Riders. They will look better than Knights.

[Moraelin]

Let's just say that the exponential scale goes all the way up to 64.

Modern Armour is 64 attack, 32 defense, while Mech Infantry is 32 attack and 64 defense. Quite well matched, I think. Both get 16 bombardment, 1 range, 1 rate of fire, as compared to 32 resistance of buildings and civilians in a city. (I.e., it will take more than one round to harm a city.)

Tanks are 32 attack, 16 defense, while plain Infantry is 16 attack, 32 defense.

By comparison, Pikemen kept their 4 defense, so even in a city they'll be less likely to defend against tanks.

Note however, that even with these stats, it IS possible to lose to hordes of enemy attackers. I lost like half a dozen cities in one fell swoop, to the huge stacks of archers that the post-patch AI sends, even though my cities had riflemen inside. Sure, my 1 riflemen would handily defeat 1 archer unit, but they'd slowly run out of health and die nevertheless.

Somewhat to my surprise, the AI seems to actually use the modified units well. (Either that, or I just set the flags well) E.g., he'd actually use the new archers in a combined arms fashion, as support troops. E.g., after I set the privateers as able to bombard AND made barbarians privateers, now the AI barbarian sea units actually bombard my cities and tile improvements.

As for the Barbarians, actually the mounted warrior looks pretty good IMHO as a barbarian. And remember what I've said about mounted units having had their stats upped, for historical accuracy. Those things can kick spearman donkey in the early game.

Unless my memory fails me the Chinese Rider (and the Knight) now is an 8 attack, 4 defense, so if I gave Barbarians THAT kind of unit, it would stand a decent chance of charging anyone's 4 defense pikemen. Even more so with the early game 2 defense Spearmen. Barbarians would be a bit TOO powerful, IMHO. Then again, I guess that if more people want very dangerous Barbarian, I can make Riders the advanced Barbarian unit after all.)

And Cavalry is now a 16 attack, 8 defense.

You get the idea. Each step is now 2x the previous unit.

And UU's that had more attack or defense than the original unit they replace, now are always exactly 1.5x the original unit in that aspect. (I.e., they get a 50% bonus.)

E.g., the new Musketeers are 6/8/1 instead of the new Musketmen's 4/8/1. (The defense matches the Knights' offense.)

E.g. the new Cossacs are 24/8/3, instead of the new Cavalry's 16/8/3. (The Cavalry's offense is matched by the Riflemen's 8/16/1.)

E.g., the new Mounted Warriors are 6/2/2, instead of a new Horseman's 4/2/2.

[ajbera]

Re: MOD: Moraelin's Exponential Mod

This sounds very interesting...I'm curious to see how the units stat changes play out.

Originally posted by Moraelin
Corruption: minimal
(I would have liked that instead, cathedrals deter corruption only under a Theocracy. I don't think it's possible, though.)

Could you make gov't specific improvement that reduces corruption? You could have it replace cathedrals, and give it a low cost to ease the pain of building redundant improvements; or you could perk it up a bit - maybe an extra happy citizen or two, or something that makes it worthwhile to have to build.

[Moraelin]

I've already posted this in the general forum, but how it plays like is: hordes of archers can still defeat riflemen, but it takes larger hordes this time.

At the same tech era, and on flat ground, with an offensive unit attacking a defensive unit (incidentally: or viceversa) combat can go either way, 50-50. E.g., Cavalry vs Riflemen, or Tanks vs Infantry.

When the units are 1 era apart, e.g., Knights or Riders attacking Riflemen, it's basically like Warriors attacking Spearmen. The Knights have a 33% percentage of winning a round, but in a whole battle between, say, veterans, the Riflemen will tend to win most of the time. Chances are, however, they'll take some damage in the process. So enough knights can eventually kill the Riflemen.

When units are two eras apart, e.g., Horsemen against Riflemen, it's like Warriors against Pikemen. They might win sometimes, but don't set your hopes too high. Each round there's only 20% the Horsemen will do any damage, but 80% that the Riflemen will do damage. On the whole, in 1-on-1 fights I'd bet on the Riflemen. Hordes of horsemen can still win, though, but it will take even bigger hordes.

Fighting in cities (size 6 or above) or towns with city walls, doubles the defender's value. I.e., Cavalry vs Riflemen is no longer 50-50. (It becomes like Knights vs Riflemen on flat ground.) Fighting in a metropolis triples the defender's value. Attacking across the river doubles the defender's value, too.

Basically now defense is slightly easier and waging a war of conquest is more expensive. (Though if you have the tech advantage, conquest becomes manageable again. Think Spain vs Aztecs.) At least in theory. In practice, though... *sigh* I really wish that in the next patch they'd make the AI upgrade its obsolete units, because even with that defense bonus there's no saving a unit that's 3 or 4 eras obsolete.

The Teocracy, basically is a good regime to switch to when you're massively in the lead, and hit the 4 turn lower research cap even with only 50% research. It's somewhat easier to wage wars for God than for Democracy, and military police can really help keep your cities from revolting. (But then again, it's debatably just as easy -- if not easier -- to fight wars and use MP as Monarchy or Communism, which don't have that tech limit.) That still getting 4 turns with only 50% research, however only happens if you have a huge territory. And a lot of techs have had their cost increased after the patch. Generally I find that I often have to settle for 5 or 6 turns instead as a Theocracy, even when I have a decently large number of cities.

[Optimizer]

Theocracy seems a bit too strong.

Maybe the science cap should be even lower for Theocracies, like 20%.

[Moraelin]

Hmm... You may be right, but unfortunately most of that is the effect of abrupt research caps... 20% seems a bit TOO low, though. I mean, at that point there would probably be no reason to play as a Theocracy at all. Maybe I should take away the free units, so it requires upkeep for everything, like Democracy does?

[Martinus Magnificus]

This looks really great!
The original combat system IMO is rather unrealistic, and other mods that adressed this issue also altered things I dind't want altered. Moreover, many modmakers do not realize that is very important that the AI understands the modifications and makes proper use of them. This mod seems to do just that. Maybe I'll keep this one for a while!

Very good work!

[eccentricity]

Moraelin! This is the MOD we've been needing since the release of the game, thanks a bunch! and the extra improvements like the barbarian units, obselete unit upgrades are a definite goodie! keep up the good work!

[Lord Gek]

Don't spearmen need a bit of altering now? Why have archers and spearmen cost the same to produce when archers are now a far superior unit now? Perhaps archers can have their cost increased to balance out their new functionality?

[Primarch]

Hi!

I have used several mods and this is by far the best one. The reasons are:

1. Doesn't make make too many sweeping changes and additions- I like mods that "fix" what I think is wrong with the current game NOT add things to dilute the problems (or make them worse).

2. The "exponential" quality really makes combat a lot more satisfying. Defenders have a good edge when the attackers technonolgy is on par. IF you are ahead it's somewhat easier, but the AI really strives to upgrade itself to be able to defend itself. The spearman versus tank syndrome is finally put to rest.

3. The AI USES the changes. I currently finished a game on a standard map, 8 civs at monarch level. While I won it via cultural victory, I was surprised on how well the AI upgraded its defenses to slow down my invasions. The main competeing civ (the Indians) got to place infantry in their cities and my panzers assault really got bogged down. I had to use 2-3 times more units than I usually do to finally overcome them. The yalso seem to defend better against attacks from several fronts by using centrally located cities as reserve depots.

Overall, conquest is achievable but much harder since the computer WILL upgrade as soon as it can. Very satisfaying Mod.

Primarch

[Moraelin]

Thanks for the kind words everyone, and it's nice to see that I'm not the only one who thinks like that.

Hmm... The point about archers is a good one, though. It looks like I've definitely missed the price issue there. Thanks for finding that bug. Not exactly sure how to go about it, though, because those archers are squeezed in between Spearmen which cost 2 and Pikemen which cost 3. Since I can't give them 2.5 as a cost, raising the cost would create the same problem vs pikemen. A pikeman would cost as much as an archer, yet have twice the defense and the same offense, so why bother making archers, then?

I guess I'll have to raise the price of pikemen a bit, too. (They'd still stay cheaper than musketmen.) And then the price of Longbowmen, while I'm at it. Hope I don't create more screw-ups in the process.

[Lord Gek]

Hey Moraelin,
My weak answer so far is to have the spearman cost 10 (basically making warriors something you only make when you're unable to make better units) but I'm not sure how to handle all of the special spearman units like the hoplite...maybe that should be 20 as well, like the archer and I'm having the bowman 30 since its actually in the realm of a Pikeman/Swordsman level units under your mod.

[Moraelin]

Well, as you can see, version 1.04 is already uploaded.

In a few words, some ancient and early medieval units did get made more expensive, but the effect decreases as you move forward in time. E.g., Horsemen and Longbowmen are only 25% more expensive than in 1.02, and beyond that point the prices are unchanged. (Except for some UU's, which had the wrong price in 1.02, so they counted as bugs that had to be fixed.) Basically, if you make it up to Knights and/or Musketeers, then you're not affected by this any more. And neither is the AI.

IMHO the change to early units isn't THAT bad, since it flattens some irregularities in the bang-per-buck curve too, and makes modern units slightly even more attractive. (For the AI, too, if it can afford them.)

And it can be argued that it IS historically accurate. Iron tended to be pretty expensive for ancient civilizations. E.g., if my memory doesn't fail me, the Gauls invented chain armour, but only the chieftains actually wore it. And even then it was only a byrnie (i.e., a sort of a maille t-shirt.) It took the economic might of the Roman empire to get whole legions equipped with it. (Well, there were other factors, too, like the fact that Romans had the brains to accumulate it, while Gaul chieftains were buried wearing it. But nevertheless, it was expensive.) And plate armour was prohibitively expensive all the way until firearms made it obsolete.

As for the Hoplites (and other UU's) I've kept them exactly as expensive as the normal unit they're supposed to replace. I mean, Hoplites are supposed to be an advantage for the Greeks. For the same price they get a better unit. If I upped their price above that of the normal unit, the whole advantage would be lost. (And if the price was lower than the normal unit, as was the case for some UU's in 1.02... well, you can guess it becomes TOO much of a kick-ass unit.)

It might make (very) early war slightly less of an attractive option, though. Which, for me, isn't that bad an idea.

[lobosan]

Hi Moraelin,

I enjoy your Exponential Mod very much. Have you considered applying your mod to Marla's excellent Earth Map (http://apolyton.net/forums/showthrea...threadid=36212)?