MOD: Patch suggestion MOD

[player1]

Hello Apolytoners!

I need your feedback about one thing: LETHAL BOMBARD.

Here are my proposals (a conservative one):
Lethal sea to Fighters, Jet Fighters, F-15 and Stealth Fighter.
Why? they are TACTICAL bombers, thay shot from close range, and thus they are capable of destorying ships (startgeic bombers are not that accurate, and could be easlity destoryed by ships AA defense, due to their low speed)

Nothing to artillery or ships, they are just not enough accurate to kill units completly form 1 or 2 tile distance (and to preserve game balance).


One more thing:
How about lethal land to F-15 and Jet & Stealth Fighters? (but not to standard Fighters)

Would make them real tactical bombers.

But maybe it would be unbalancing (since they have ROF of 3, like bombers in this MOD).


I NEED feedback for this people.
As soon as possibile.

[zulu9812]

I would only give lethal bombardment of any kind to late modern age units - battleships, stealth bombers/fighters. radar artillery, F15s (not Jet Fighters, since there needs to be something to make the F15 special).

You could give lethal sea bombardment to fighters and jet fighters, but not lethal land bombard: it's easier to take cover on land than at sea. Bombers? - I never use them.

[player1]

Originally posted by zulu9812
I would only give lethal bombardment of any kind to late modern age units - battleships, stealth bombers/fighters. radar artillery, F15s (not Jet Fighters, since there needs to be something to make the F15 special).

You could give lethal sea bombardment to fighters and jet fighters, but not lethal land bombard: it's easier to take cover on land than at sea. Bombers? - I never use them.

For naval & land unit I think they should not need lethal land or sea since they fire from one or 2 tiles distance.
That to far away to be enough accurate to completey destroy some unit.

On the other hand Jet Fighters for ex. bombard from very close distance (not Bombers, they bombard from safe high altitude).

Now as for lethal land for jets & F-15 & stealth fighter.
I though to make this units more specail.
Like: Bombard with bombers, then finish off with jets. (same for sea, but with fighters included too, although you could call those fighters "dive bombers")

Now don't forget that they have much lower bombard rate (2 for jets, 4 for f-15 & stealth).
Aprox. every 2rd or 3rh strike would do any damage (with ROF of 3)

So they should be maily used to finish off some troops.
It's still much more easier to kill a ship insead of land unit, since units in cities has high defensive bonuses, and have higher defense overall.

Maybe lowering their ROF to original rate of 2, if lethal land looks too much powerfull.


P.S.
Don't forget that F-15 with bombard of 4 is actually twice more effective then Jet fighter. And is excellent precision bomber.

[=DrJambo=]

I gave lethal land/sea bombardment to:
Jet Fighters
F15s
Stealth Fighters/Bombers
BAttleships
AEGIS
Destroyers
Radar Artillery

I gave lethal land to:
Cannon and Artillery

I gave lethal sea to:
All bombarding sea vessels

Remember to label the air bombard to air units like Jet Fighters so that the AI will use them this way. And it does so very effectively too.

People really over estimate the unbalancing factor of lethal bombardment against the AI. Remember that Destroyers, Cannons and Artillery, my most questionable additions, can still reduce a unit to 1 hp effectively rendering that unit useless anyway and does actually killing it make that much of a difference?!

If you actually kill the unit you save the AI money (1 less maintenance fee) and time in returning the unit home to recuperate. Remember, in versions before 1.21f, AI ships would always run away to port once you bombarded them to red, not realising that you couldn't actually kill them outright. Human players would realise this and just keep on bombarding away, now this isn't the case. Human navies now have a reason to be scared once bombarded and a quick getaway often becomes necessary. To avoid this bring a carrier with jet fighters to protect your navy.

One thing i would advise though. Give modern ships +1 hp (AEGIS and Nuclear Subs +2) to help them a little. Also i made AEGIS have a defence of 16 and Battleships 14.

I had my navy (3 battleships, 1 destroyer, 2 subs, 1 carrier with 1 bomber and 3 jet fighers causing havoc to the Egyptians off their coast, when all of a sudden, their bombers rained in, artillery from the coast fired and a whole squad of battleships blocked their escape and are closing in... they appear to be well and truly doomed. Great excitment though as they could yet escape....! Previously i wouldn't have been bothered as bombers and jet fighters were never a threat as they couldn't kill them and they could have just kept out of range from their battleships...

This is all incorporated into the Real_Deal v1.2 if you wish to take a peek later today when i get time to update the thread.

[=DrJambo=]

I would be hesitant about just giving lethality to jet fighters/F15s since the AI will always prefer to use bombers and your additions, while very nice, will only really serve to aid the human player.

Once you experience having your navy in a scary predicament off the coast of the enemy far from safety you'll never look back at non-lethal bombardment.

[player1]

F-15 & Stealth Fighters alrady has bombard mission flag, so I think that AI will use them for bombard.

So I guess that jets and fighters should probably need bombard AI flag enabled.

[lockstep]

Originally posted by player1
Here are my proposals (a conservative one):
Lethal sea to Fighters, Jet Fighters, F-15 and Stealth Fighter ... Nothing to artillery or ships, they are just not enough accurate to kill units completly form 1 or 2 tile distance (and to preserve game balance).

I really like the idea, and hope it preserves balance.

[player1]

Version 1.25 is out!
Download from first page of this thread.

Changes in ver 1.25

Fighters get lethal sea bombardment.
Jet Fighters, F-15 and Stealth Fighters get lethal sea and land bombard.
All these units get Air bombard AI flag added.

Why?
These units are tactical bombers. They do thier job from close distance. That way they can take out 1hp units. This won't be unbalanced since these units are much worser bombers then standard Bomber unit, and land units have huge defensive bonuses.

Fighters get only lethal sea, since historicaly fighters were used for atatcks on capital ships like dive bombers, but fighters were not used as tactical bombers on land, until jet fighters became available.

Helicopters get range of 8. Real problem with these unit was that it was diffcult to land your units behind enemy lines, since helicopters needed to start from your cities. hopefully this chage will make them more strategicaly usefull.

[Fidel]

hm, i really liked the lethal sea figthers idea. i am not sure about them being lethal on land. that might really unballance the game

as for other suggestions, i have the following. try making tech advance slower and lower AI to AI trading rate. i am aware that this is tricky to balance depending on the number of civs one plays against.

[player1]

Originally posted by LaRusso
hm, i really liked the lethal sea figthers idea. i am not sure about them being lethal on land. that might really unballance the game

as for other suggestions, i have the following. try making tech advance slower and lower AI to AI trading rate. i am aware that this is tricky to balance depending on the number of civs one plays against.

Only F-15, Jets and Stealth figters have lethal land.

Is it unbalancing?

This needs futher playtesting.
Personnaly I think it will be much difficult to kill land unit in city, but killing it on open will be more common (still not too much).


As for that AI to AI trade, it IS tricky.

You should also consider that when you tech trade yourself you DO sell tech cheaper if AI doesn't have enough money and sum he wants to give you is fine.
So this shouldn't be forbbiden to AI. Makes you a CHEATER, not AI.

The real problem is tech DEAVULATION.
That's not fixed in 1.21f.
When one civ has tech it's worh for ex. 1000gold.
When two civs have that tech, it's worth 500gold.
When three civs have that tech, it's worth 333gold.

This was tested with 1.21f patch.

And this kind of behavior looks wrong.

[lockstep]

Originally posted by player1
The real problem is tech DEAVULATION.
That's not fixed in 1.21f.
When one civ has tech it's worh for ex. 1000gold.
When two civs have that tech, it's worth 500gold.
When three civs have that tech, it's worth 333gold.

This was tested with 1.21f patch.

And this kind of behavior looks wrong.

Just a thought: What price would you (Civ A) charge Civ B for a tech that Civ C has also (and both you and Civ B know that fact)? Wouldn't you be afraid to be displaced by Civ C, and therefore give a discount?

Anyway, I'd be interested in details of your test setting.

[player1]

I used modified version of my New Earth sceanrio which starts in Industrial era and is based on Patch supepstion MOD.

As far as I know, if only two known civs have tech, base price is HALVED in tech value calulations.

That new value is used as BASE value, since it also makes tech cheper to research (less science points needed).

But AI would give it even CHEAPER if that Civ B doesn't have enough money to pay FULL new (halved) base price.
That additional discount is NEVER higher then max AI tech rate setting.

For expample, starting base price for tech is 1000.
Two known civs have that tech (civ1 & civ3) ==> base price 500
AI civ1 wants to sell it to civ2, but civ2 doesn't have 500gold. It has only 450 gold. Civ1, since game in monarch level makes minimum selling value 500*(100/140)=357. Since 450 is higher then minum of 357 Civ1 will sell Civ2 a tech for all money civ2 has (450). Same would happen if Civ2 had 360 gold.

But if civ2 had 300 gold, civ1 won't sell tech to him.

But lets say that some civ4 gets a tech. Then base value drops to 333.
Then civ1 could sell tech to civ2 since new minum value is 333*(100/140)=237, and civ2 has 300 gold. That way civ2 will give all of its money (300) to civ1 and get that tech. I civ2 had 400 gold, only 333 gold (which is base price) would be needed to pay the tech.

P.S.
I hope I haven't made some mistake here.

P.P.S.
Human players also use this startegy if AI gives a lot of money (but still less then full base price). They reson that it's better to sell tech for some money, instead of getting nothing for it.

P.P.P.S.
Tech rate value was 200 in 1.17f.

[alexman]

I'm confused. I thought that tech devaluation works this way:

CostDevaluation = BaseCost * I / N

where I = Number of known civs that know the tech.
and N = Number of civs in the game.

So a tech that would cost 1000 beakers to research if nobody known knows it, drops to 750 to research by civ2 if civ1 and civ3 already know it (assuming 8 civs in the game).

Have I completely lost it?

[chiefpaco]

alexman's theory is what I think happens too. (Is this the place to battle tech devaluation?)

Player1, IMHO, I don't think tech rate adjustments should be in your mod. It seems quite personal to how each person likes to play the game to adjust.

I also hope the AI will still use their fighters to stave off my bomber attacks!

[player1]

Originally posted by alexman
I'm confused. I thought that tech devaluation works this way:

CostDevaluation = BaseCost * I / N

where I = Number of known civs that know the tech.
and N = Number of civs in the game.

So a tech that would cost 1000 beakers to research if nobody known knows it, drops to 750 to research by civ2 if civ1 and civ3 already know it (assuming 8 civs in the game).

Have I completely lost it?

I am cofused too.
I though that formula realy works.

But,
In my test game I knew several civs. (3 or 4)
Only one know civ had Refining.
When I found out other civ who knew it also, techs vaule drop to 50%.
(In test game I had 50000gold, so I could always see how much valuable AI tech is.)
When I exchanged communications, base price stayed as it is. (no other civ knew Refining).

Maybe devaluation formula needs a little more testing.

Are there volunteers?