DESIGN: Unit Values

[Maquiladora]

Originally posted by HuangShang
The m.archer used to have 20 range, but only the seventh unit can use this, now that it is ranged, even the second unit can use it, so I'm saying that m.archer attack should be 15. Also, it comes before the legion so it shouldn't be better.

How about M. Archer has 15 attack then?

Tank buster idea is very good, when we see a tank, just change the missile to AP.

AP?

I prefer war walker and plasmatica to move 2.

What if Plasmatica moves 2 and HoverInf 3? The main reason I put Plasmatica as 2 originally was because it was so late in the game, where most units have 2+ moves.

The thing about samurai coming one advance before pikes is that legions are newer and better than hoplites.

Well spotted. To be honest I think Feudalism is already too crowded. At the moment it gives, Knights, Samurai, Pikemen and Longbowmen, that's silly.

As you say Pikemen should come before their counter Samurai.

I don't want to go too deep into restructuring the tech tree now, but what do you think of something like multiple requirements, IIRC I think it was added to units.txt?

Knight - Horse Riding + Feudalism
Samurai - Iron Working + Feudalism
Pikemen - Iron Working + Horse Riding
Longbowman - Ballistics + Feudalism

This would have to mean however Feudalism does not require Horse Riding, Iron Working or Ballistics in it's path. So for example if you lost your capital, you could effectively race to Feudalism for the capital building, then backtrack for the military techs. As opposed to now, where you need to follow history more strictly but get a lot of techs you don't want to get to Feudalism. Just another option anyway.

[LemurMadness]

Originally posted by Maquiladora
What if Plasmatica moves 2 and HoverInf 3? The main reason I put Plasmatica as 2 originally was because it was so late in the game, where most units have 2+ moves.

Bingo

Originally posted by Maquiladora
Well spotted. To be honest I think Feudalism is already too crowded. At the moment it gives, Knights, Samurai, Pikemen and Longbowmen, that's silly.

As you say Pikemen should come before their counter Samurai.

I don't want to go too deep into restructuring the tech tree now, but what do you think of something like multiple requirements, IIRC I think it was added to units.txt?

Knight - Horse Riding + Feudalism
Samurai - Iron Working + Feudalism
Pikemen - Iron Working + Horse Riding
Longbowman - Ballistics + Feudalism

This would have to mean however Feudalism does not require Horse Riding, Iron Working or Ballistics in it's path. So for example if you lost your capital, you could effectively race to Feudalism for the capital building, then backtrack for the military techs. As opposed to now, where you need to follow history more strictly but get a lot of techs you don't want to get to Feudalism. Just another option anyway.

It's very nice, but I don't quite understand something, the Advance will be there, but then to enable such units, it would be necesary to complete the other advances being not a requirement for Feudalism?

I understand that making an independent Advance for each unit would be just too much, since the original game doesn't exceeds 4 Advances from it's "Mother" Advance.

I guess that would be the same case for Gunpowder and Plasma Weaponry, the first one because it has too many "Child" Advances (with the addition of "Infantry Tactics"), and the second one enables too much units.

[HuangShang]

well then there will be a lot of tech tree work

[Maquiladora]

Originally posted by LemurMadness

It's very nice, but I don't quite understand something, the Advance will be there, but then to enable such units, it would be necesary to complete the other advances being not a requirement for Feudalism?

Yeah that's it. The aim is that you have a straightforward peaceful/diplomatic/scientific/economic tree, but with military units requiring a "fuller" tree to be researched.

I guess that would be the same case for Gunpowder and Plasma Weaponry, the first one because it has too many "Child" Advances (with the addition of "Infantry Tactics"), and the second one enables too much units.

As long as we keep the 2 (or more) advances varied for different units, we won't enable so many units with one advance, or have to scatter them around the tech tree at inappropriate advances (Samurai at Bureaucracy). Although the Pikemen/Knights/Samurai/Longbowmen is the worst case of this. Rather than splitting them up among different single advances, they all require Feudalism, but something else specific (perhaps cheaper) aswell.

Another one is Horse Riding requiring Ballistics, this makes no sense, but it's done so the Mounted Archer fits in. Actually Horse Riding should require Agriculture (or Animal Husbandry if you like), so then you could get the Trading Post quickly, but the M. Archer itself should require Horse Riding and Ballistics.

So units don't govern the tech tree, the tech tree governs the units, as it should be.

[Maquiladora]

Originally posted by HuangShang
well then there will be a lot of tech tree work

Probably a lot of planning. It was only a suggestion anyway.

I've nearly finished adding all the stuff and updated the great library etc.

[LemurMadness]

Originally posted by Maquiladora
Yeah that's it. The aim is that you have a straightforward peaceful/diplomatic/scientific/economic tree, but with military units requiring a "fuller" tree to be researched.

...

So units don't govern the tech tree, the tech tree governs the units, as it should be.

Maq, this is a very rough change. One of CTP2's basics doing research for adquiring specific units, even if it requires getting an advance -- for example: Cavalry, Marine, Tank, Battleship; all dead-end advances. The objetive is switching goverments, from a scientific (passive) into a military (aggresive) one (might not be the case of technocracy).

What I would advice is, adding new advances, cheaper than its "mother" advance, but being limited to 4 child advances, like in vanilla CTP2.

However, ill be subject to any changes, supported by popular request.

[Maquiladora]

Originally posted by LemurMadness

What I would advice is, adding new advances, cheaper than its "mother" advance, but being limited to 4 child advances, like in vanilla CTP2.

Well this would be a LOT easier to plan, it's just a case of adding branches where needed, and being careful not to go over the 4 limit like you say.

My basic problem with the original tree was that you would get some units even on a peaceful path. Whereas military should be harder and costlier to obtain. There are some that are fine, like the 4 you mention, but earlier they tend to be linked to crucial advances.

[Maquiladora]

Protra has suggested that Nukes are too powerful, I agreed they are here: http://apolyton.net/forums/showthrea...88#post4921688

What about these changes?

Kills 75% pop > Kills 25% pop
Costs 4000 > 6000
Support 50 > 75

Another option is to make Anti-Ballistic Missile building cheaper.

The pollution I didn't want to change as I don't know enough about the balance of that.

[Ekmek]

Maybe just go to 100 for support. AFAIk, even nuclear powers find it to expensive to maintain a large arsenal (except us and ussr of course)

the rest i'm fine with and I think anti-ballistic should be cheaper. Would the Mobile Missile System be able to intercept, I don't remember...

[Maquiladora]

Originally posted by E
Would the Mobile Missile System be able to intercept, I don't remember...

The MMS can actively-defend against air, but it doesn't detect the Nuke, but does shoot down Cruise Missiles. Looking over units.txt the only things that differentiates the two are CM have bombardround/range and nukes have special forces and nuclear attack effect.

I just noticed that Cruise Missiles don't actually do any damage to Tanks I raised their firepower to 4 same as Tanks and it's working as it should. I don't know why they were only at 1 firepower though.

edit: strange that it works in the non-playtest vanilla game, even with 1 firepower. It appears it isn't actually bombarding in the playtest, just attacking, and obviously having no effect with 1 FP.

[Maquiladora]

I noticed that E had put forest, jungle, tundra, swamp, hills and glacier as impassable (without roads) except by foot units, the same as mountains act. Should we use this?

http://apolyton.net/forums/showthread.php?postid=4922676#post4922676

As I said there I personally don't like it as it's too strict. Impassable mountains without roads is enough IMO.

But there is a good point that Infantry units need to be made more useful after Tanks/Fusion Tanks somehow.

[cap601]

One more radical option would be to change the code to give terrain different movement costs for different unit types. This would allow you to give infantry the same movement as present through the hard terrain whilst penalising Tanks that try the same. If the actual values were set by a text file (defining movement classes to be used in Units.txt) then the default game could still be left unchanged. It would be quite a bit of work, though.

[Maquiladora]

I think we basically already do this anyway, or rather we don't need to specify that much.

For example all foot (with the exception of future ones) already move 1 over any terrain. Tanks can only move 1 (plus 1 extra grassland/plains in some cases) over all those terrains above anyway, so when it comes to exclusively moving through rough terrains they're equal on moves.

[Tamerlin]

Originally posted by cap601
One more radical option would be to change the code to give terrain different movement costs for different unit types. This would allow you to give infantry the same movement as present through the hard terrain whilst penalising Tanks that try the same. If the actual values were set by a text file (defining movement classes to be used in Units.txt) then the default game could still be left unchanged. It would be quite a bit of work, though.

I think that both cap601 and Maquiladora are right, only mountains should be impossible to cross without a road, a high movement cost is enough for all the other terrains.

By the way, I haven't tested it since a very long time but I hope that units are no more eliminated when they cross a forbidden terrain (whether they are stacked or not). The player should only be warned that movement is impossible.

[Ekmek]

Originally posted by Tamerlin
By the way, I haven't tested it since a very long time but I hope that units are no more eliminated when they cross a forbidden terrain (whether they are stacked or not). The player should only be warned that movement is impossible.

hostile terrain is still available to modders but AFAIK not in the AE