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Here ar a couple of pastes from the Med mod 4 Main Readme. They spell out my principles regarding the progression of units from one age to the next. The ages in the Med mod II will be slightly different, and I plan to have two types of mounted units per age when available, a ranged and a flanking unit.
Let's hold off on discussing the wonder units until I can put together a detailed listing of their stats and abilities.
"3.0 CONVENTIONAL UNITS:
I have made many changes to the Ancient and Renaissance units, in order to break up the Ancient age into an Ancient and a Medieval age, and I also ended up separating the Renaissance into Early and Late ages. I wanted each age to have a scout, a defensive and an offensive infantry, a ranged unit and a mounted assault unit. I have added several units to the game, and changed the roles of other units to accomplish these goals. Their new stats are listed in the Med Charts spreadsheet.
Unit strengths and abilities to increase by about 50%, generally speaking, from one age to the next, up to the Modern Age (this age begins with the Riflemen unit). Unit costs only increase by about 25% from one age to the next, so it definitely pays off militarily to keep science strong."
Later on in the readme:
"...This separation of the ages is also important because unit strengths double from one age to the next, beginning with the Modern Age. (This means that Riflemen are twice as powerful as Musketeers, and so on.) Unit costs and support continue to increase by about half the amount of the power increase. Beginning with the Modern Age, many units gain special air and/or naval abilities, which increase their cost as well. I have tried to arrange all the ages so that defensive units are the first obtained, thus granting the Militia upgrade, and offensive units the last obtained. This should give you a cushion if you are not the lead civ tech-wise, but if you get too far behind, and see Armor bearing down on you when you are still using Musketeers, you are dead meat. (Which is how it should be, imo.)"
Here is an explanation of the militia triggers. The units created will be different in some ages, but the principles will be the same. Cities will gain an additional militia when they increase in radius, up to a max of four units for Ctp2.
"I have added several SLIC triggers developed by Locutus and the SLIC group.
The first creates a defensive Militia unit when a city is founded. The unit created is the civ's current defensive unit at the time of the city's founding. This means that all cities will be defended by at least one unit, in addition to any martial law effects.
The second trigger keeps Militia units from being moved. It does this by destroying the unit when it leaves the city, and creating a replacement in the city that the unit left.
The third trigger automatically upgrades the Militia units whenever their civ gains knowledge which allows them to build the next age's defensive unit. It also allots additional militia units based upon the size of the city. Cities receive a second unit if they are size 9, a third if 17, and a fourth at 25. Additional units are allotted when the militias are upgraded. Militias left behind from destroyed or disbanded cities are also destroyed at this time.
The upgrade sequence for land and sea cities is: Phalanx, Fyrdman, Arquebusier, Musketeer, Riflemen, Machine Gunner and Plasmatica."
While I am at it, here is part of the section on sea and air units. Again, specifics might change, but the general principles will be the same.
"NAVAL UNITS:
The new aips have the AI constructing more ships, so I eliminated the pillage ability for Triremes,
Fire Galleys and Subs to avoid the aggravation of continually having to chase them off.
However, I gave the ability to pirate to the Ironclad, Sub and Battleship.
I gave all ships from the Caravel on up five extra hit points, and reduced their other values to off-set this. This was made because the extra hitpoints given by the Cohort-type Wonders were affecting ships more than they were land units, which was not what I intended.
I removed the ability of Ships-of-the-Line and Caravels to bombard land, because the AI would throw them away bombarding cities. However, they, and all gunpowder ships, can bombard water and counter-bombard, so if they are attacked from the sea, they can defend themselves.
The Destroyer can now carry 1 small land unit, and submarines can carry small land units as well. This gives you the ability to land special units onto shore from a warship (Destroyer), or undetected (subs.).
Battleships can now carry two Cruise Missiles.
The Missile Frigate is the earliest naval unit capable of bombarding air units. All earlier units are defenseless against air bombardment, except for aircraft-carrying Carriers.
The Carrier can carry Fighters, Dive Bombers, Bombers and Helicopters. The Aircraft Carrier has been re-named the Nuclear Carrier, and can carry all air units, plus Space Fighters.
AIR UNITS:
There is a bug in the game which renders aircraft defenseless when attacked over water. CD called this the "water bug". I found that if planes are bombarded over water, it produced normal results (i.e. no water bug). So, I took away the air_attack ability from all other units, and replaced it with the bombard_air ability. This seems to have effectively gotten rid of the water bug in engagements not involving the active air-defense ability. I then increased the hit points for all air units, as this gave good results for bombard combat. In order to keep the overall power of air and SAM units the same, I reduced their attack and defense values by the same percentage as their increase in hit points.
MISC. NOTES:
Every unit that can bombard can now counter-bombard."
The "Water bug" has been fixed for Ctp2, but at this time I think the philosophy of having air units bombard sea and air units, and vice versa, rather than engaging in hand-to-hand combat is both better for gameplay and more realistic.
Here is what I did to the DiffDB for Emporer level, which is what I play on. There are similar lines in Ctp2, where the AI is currently given no bonuses in any category.
"DiffDB (Emporer Level):
--------------------------------OLD
--------------------------------NEW
AI_TECHNOLOGY_COST -0.1 -0.1 -0.3 -0.4 -0.5
------------------ -0.1 -0.2 -0.2 -0.3 -0.3
AI_PRODUCTION_COST +0.35 +0.3 +0.25 +0.2 +0.1
-------------------+0.0 -0.1 -0.1 -0.2 -0.2
AI_GOLD_ADJUSTMENT +1.0 +1.0 +1.1 +1.2 +1.2
-------------------+1.0 +1.1 +1.1 +1.2 +1.2
"
Let's hold off on discussing the wonder units until I can put together a detailed listing of their stats and abilities.
"3.0 CONVENTIONAL UNITS:
I have made many changes to the Ancient and Renaissance units, in order to break up the Ancient age into an Ancient and a Medieval age, and I also ended up separating the Renaissance into Early and Late ages. I wanted each age to have a scout, a defensive and an offensive infantry, a ranged unit and a mounted assault unit. I have added several units to the game, and changed the roles of other units to accomplish these goals. Their new stats are listed in the Med Charts spreadsheet.
Unit strengths and abilities to increase by about 50%, generally speaking, from one age to the next, up to the Modern Age (this age begins with the Riflemen unit). Unit costs only increase by about 25% from one age to the next, so it definitely pays off militarily to keep science strong."
Later on in the readme:
"...This separation of the ages is also important because unit strengths double from one age to the next, beginning with the Modern Age. (This means that Riflemen are twice as powerful as Musketeers, and so on.) Unit costs and support continue to increase by about half the amount of the power increase. Beginning with the Modern Age, many units gain special air and/or naval abilities, which increase their cost as well. I have tried to arrange all the ages so that defensive units are the first obtained, thus granting the Militia upgrade, and offensive units the last obtained. This should give you a cushion if you are not the lead civ tech-wise, but if you get too far behind, and see Armor bearing down on you when you are still using Musketeers, you are dead meat. (Which is how it should be, imo.)"
Here is an explanation of the militia triggers. The units created will be different in some ages, but the principles will be the same. Cities will gain an additional militia when they increase in radius, up to a max of four units for Ctp2.
"I have added several SLIC triggers developed by Locutus and the SLIC group.
The first creates a defensive Militia unit when a city is founded. The unit created is the civ's current defensive unit at the time of the city's founding. This means that all cities will be defended by at least one unit, in addition to any martial law effects.
The second trigger keeps Militia units from being moved. It does this by destroying the unit when it leaves the city, and creating a replacement in the city that the unit left.
The third trigger automatically upgrades the Militia units whenever their civ gains knowledge which allows them to build the next age's defensive unit. It also allots additional militia units based upon the size of the city. Cities receive a second unit if they are size 9, a third if 17, and a fourth at 25. Additional units are allotted when the militias are upgraded. Militias left behind from destroyed or disbanded cities are also destroyed at this time.
The upgrade sequence for land and sea cities is: Phalanx, Fyrdman, Arquebusier, Musketeer, Riflemen, Machine Gunner and Plasmatica."
While I am at it, here is part of the section on sea and air units. Again, specifics might change, but the general principles will be the same.
"NAVAL UNITS:
The new aips have the AI constructing more ships, so I eliminated the pillage ability for Triremes,
Fire Galleys and Subs to avoid the aggravation of continually having to chase them off.
However, I gave the ability to pirate to the Ironclad, Sub and Battleship.
I gave all ships from the Caravel on up five extra hit points, and reduced their other values to off-set this. This was made because the extra hitpoints given by the Cohort-type Wonders were affecting ships more than they were land units, which was not what I intended.
I removed the ability of Ships-of-the-Line and Caravels to bombard land, because the AI would throw them away bombarding cities. However, they, and all gunpowder ships, can bombard water and counter-bombard, so if they are attacked from the sea, they can defend themselves.
The Destroyer can now carry 1 small land unit, and submarines can carry small land units as well. This gives you the ability to land special units onto shore from a warship (Destroyer), or undetected (subs.).
Battleships can now carry two Cruise Missiles.
The Missile Frigate is the earliest naval unit capable of bombarding air units. All earlier units are defenseless against air bombardment, except for aircraft-carrying Carriers.
The Carrier can carry Fighters, Dive Bombers, Bombers and Helicopters. The Aircraft Carrier has been re-named the Nuclear Carrier, and can carry all air units, plus Space Fighters.
AIR UNITS:
There is a bug in the game which renders aircraft defenseless when attacked over water. CD called this the "water bug". I found that if planes are bombarded over water, it produced normal results (i.e. no water bug). So, I took away the air_attack ability from all other units, and replaced it with the bombard_air ability. This seems to have effectively gotten rid of the water bug in engagements not involving the active air-defense ability. I then increased the hit points for all air units, as this gave good results for bombard combat. In order to keep the overall power of air and SAM units the same, I reduced their attack and defense values by the same percentage as their increase in hit points.
MISC. NOTES:
Every unit that can bombard can now counter-bombard."
The "Water bug" has been fixed for Ctp2, but at this time I think the philosophy of having air units bombard sea and air units, and vice versa, rather than engaging in hand-to-hand combat is both better for gameplay and more realistic.
Here is what I did to the DiffDB for Emporer level, which is what I play on. There are similar lines in Ctp2, where the AI is currently given no bonuses in any category.
"DiffDB (Emporer Level):
--------------------------------OLD
--------------------------------NEW
AI_TECHNOLOGY_COST -0.1 -0.1 -0.3 -0.4 -0.5
------------------ -0.1 -0.2 -0.2 -0.3 -0.3
AI_PRODUCTION_COST +0.35 +0.3 +0.25 +0.2 +0.1
-------------------+0.0 -0.1 -0.1 -0.2 -0.2
AI_GOLD_ADJUSTMENT +1.0 +1.0 +1.1 +1.2 +1.2
-------------------+1.0 +1.1 +1.1 +1.2 +1.2
"
Which reminds me...think it's possible to make stealth units "non-stealth" if they stack?
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