Design: Combat

[EPW]

+30 attack for being a veteran? Now that's a little bit strong.

Comment on post #28 please

[Maquiladora]

+30 attack for being a veteran? Now that's a little bit strong.

Veteran (+50%) and running down a mountain (+100%), one tough SOB Still died though.

Comment on post #28 please

I'll try it tomorrow, before or after I remove the terrain attack bonus.

Bedtime now, goodnight.

[Maquiladora]

Nearly finished now.

The terrain attack bonus has been removed.

The attacking unit(s) (who initiated the battle) only use their attack stat in a battle.

The defending unit(s) only use their defence stat in a battle.

Ranged units only used ranged, until they're moved to the front line obviously.

City Buildings: When the defender is defending in a battle defensive buildings are added to it's defence, and attack buildings are not used. When the defender is counter-attacking the defence buildings are deducted and attack buildings are added to it's defence stat.

Possible % modifiers for defenders defence: terrain, veteran, elite*, and specific unit bonuses (e.g. pikemen against mounted bonus). These are cumulative.

Building attack & defence buildings are now not subject to modifiers, they are tagged on at the end. The govern.txt flag DefenseCoef modifies defensive buildings efficiency (e.g. a city wall in Tyranny gives +12, 0.85 of normal +15 defence). If there are no defensive buildings nothing is changed.

Possible % modifiers for attackers attack: any leader in an army**, veteran, elite, and specific unit bonuses (e.g. tank against foot units bonus). These are cumulative.

Possible % modifiers for ranged units: veteran, elite, and specific unit bonuses (e.g. mobile sam against fighter). These are cumulative.

* - elite is just veteran again, this needs an entry in constDB to be modifed like veteran coef.

** - gives +50% attack to all in attacking army, hardcoded - needs a constDB value.

Still need to check unit specific bonuses, check that original combat still works, and that the AI checking unit strength still works.

[EPW]

Cool

[Maquiladora]

I just noticed I forgot to add entrenched and fort bonuses to my post, but yeah there in there too.

It was amazing how much was in the code that didn't work, combat is totally different now. I fixed the IgnoreCityWalls unit flag too.

[Ekmek]

if you get into modifying the elite coefficent you might as go whole hog and add a civ4-like promotion system. its basically the same code as veteran but you just find an identifier to make the promotion only apply to certain units.

[Maquiladora]

if you get into modifying the elite coefficent you might as go whole hog and add a civ4-like promotion system. its basically the same code as veteran but you just find an identifier to make the promotion only apply to certain units.

Thanks E, I'll take a look.

BTW can you tell me if you added any unit bonuses to be used specifically on attack? I'm talking about ones like WoodenShipBonus, AttackBonusSubmarine, and AttackCityBonus. The others that you added like SiegeBonus, FootBonus etc I will put as defensive modifiers only, to keep them like the original MountedBonus and AirBonus.

Also what is "AgainstMountedBonus"? I'm assuming it was some kind of attacking version of MountedBonus, but it doesn't seem to be used anywhere.

And finally what are the "Army*Bonus" ones for?

Anything else you can tell me regarding combat (or related code), like things that are incomplete or not working etc. would be helpful too.

[Ekmek]

hmm i'm a bit fuzzy on those. i think i added the againsted mounted but it goes for a unit tha has a mounted flag. the unit.cdb file should show all the bonuses i added (i think helo was another). i recall it required editing in three files.

not sure what army bonus is. it might have been for the wonder/great general unit. i think i tried to add one where if that unit was in the stack it would give a bonus to all of the units

[Matthew Hayden]

I wrote a rather in-depth message and then lost it due to expiring

tokens. Basically, I agree with Maq' about terrain bonuses being applied

to a unit's attack value, but any fort bonus being lost.

However, I think attackers should use only thier attack stat, in addition

to the change made so far for defenders. I also think that Armor and

Damage should be scrapped, and their place in the User Interface taken up

by HitPoints and FirePower.

The stats of individual units could be balanced around that rule change I

imagine, but being without the vaguest programming nouse it's not my

place to judge others harshly for disagreeing with these ideas on

technical grounds, let alone taste ones.

Another curiosity of mine... can unit stats in CTP2 be rendered the way

they were in CTP1, with the most basic units having attack/defence values

of 1 and up? If not, how hard would it be to reprogram the game to work

that way?

{
EPW

{
Quote:
Actually the first version I made had the front line attackers losing HP

if they missed the defender, which is a similar thing. I just thought it

best to keep the same format of the battle, I don't want to create an

even bigger job for myself.
}

To me, this is more intuitive than the current system.

}


In the context of what you've said on this second page, I'm not sure what I've said above is terribly helpful, but it was gnawing at me and I felt I had to bring it up.

[Maquiladora]

I wrote a rather in-depth message and then lost it due to expiring tokens.

Hate that. I usually copy my longer posts to notepad before posting on 'Poly because of it.

However, I think attackers should use only thier attack stat, in addition to the change made so far for defenders.

Already in.

I also think that Armor and Damage should be scrapped, and their place in the User Interface taken up by HitPoints and FirePower.

"Damage" works in a different way, but it gives the same results (at least deciding when a unit is killed) as "firepower".

In CtP2 HP deducted from a unit is decided by firepower of attacker divided armour of defender.

In civ2 (and I guess CtP1) HP deducted from a unit is firepower of the attacker.

In unmodified CtP2 every unit has 10 HP, so +1 armour (after the first 1) basically equals +10HP. It just decides how many successful hits a unit can take.

The stats of individual units could be balanced around that rule change I imagine, but being without the vaguest programming nouse it's not my place to judge others harshly for disagreeing with these ideas on technical grounds, let alone taste ones.

A lot of unit stats need to be balanced much better, probably in the AE Mod. But I'd like to make as little changes to the original values as possible while trying to attain that balance. Probably the first job would be to make the "tanks or tanks" kind of "choices" more interesting.

Another curiosity of mine... can unit stats in CTP2 be rendered the way they were in CTP1, with the most basic units having attack/defence values of 1 and up? If not, how hard would it be to reprogram the game to work that way?

I think you can do that now, but it amounts to the same as using 10, 20, 30, etc. The only advantage I can think of is that it would be easier to remember unit stats, but using 1.5, 2.5 etc would be weird.

[Matthew Hayden]

Fairy nuff. So the attack/defence values in Call to Power 2 aren't exactly percentages? I can see the CTP2 scale's usefulness when taking the Armor modifier into account. Anyway the suggestions I stated probably correspond with what's been done already. It just really irked me that they added seemingly superfluous extra layers of calculation into the combat model when CTP2 first shipped... oh well. I wish you the best of luck, and thank you deeply for this project. If gives me a reason, after near a decade, to continue to play and love Call to Power 2

[Maquiladora]

Fairy nuff. So the attack/defence values in Call to Power 2 aren't exactly percentages?

They're not percentages at all. I never thought of it like that, but I can see they could give that impression.

It just really irked me that they added seemingly superfluous extra layers of calculation into the combat model when CTP2 first shipped... oh well.

I don't know why they did that either. Perhaps they wanted to make it clear combat was now much fairer, when in fact increasing hit points (which is what "armour" amounts to) for increasingly modern units was done long ago, in civ2 mods at least.

And anyway this has good and bad side effects. The good is that you get fair results 99.9% of the time, and no one complains of an unfair result. The bad is that combat is 99.9% predictable in this situations. I would prefer something less predictable, but not as unrealistic as other civ games.

I wish you the best of luck, and thank you deeply for this project. If gives me a reason, after near a decade, to continue to play and love Call to Power 2