AU mod: Minor changes to reduce Micromanagement

[alexman]

The philosophy of the mod does not address the issue of micromanagement, but here are some minor changes that would improve this aspect of the game, without seriously affecting gameplay:

1. Remove 'Explore' ability from Settler, Worker, ground bombardment units, Tactical Nuke, Leader, Army, and King units. These units were not meant to explore the map, in fact, their zero defensive strength makes it dangerous for them to do so. Accidentally sending these units exploring in harm's way is quite common, especially since the 'E' key is right next to the 'W' key.
2. Add airlift flag to ground bombardment units, scout, Explorer. This change would somewhat affect gameplay, as it would allow the fast transfer of artillery to another continent. But if airlifting Modern Armor is allowed, why not Artillery? It's a pain to have to use transports only for these units, when there is no clear reason to do so in terms of game play.
3. Add foot unit flag to scout and Explorer, so they can be transported by Helicopters, just like Infantry. This restriction rarely comes into play, but there is no clear reason why it should be there.

Should we incorporate these changes into the AU mod, even if they do not improve the AI or enhance strategy? And ideas for similar changes?

[Dominae]

All those things sound fine to me.

The only "exploit" that I can see is using Radar Artillery against a target on one continent, then airlifting it to defend a position on another continent. But this is not likely to break the game in any way, and actually sounds like kind of a cool strategy.


Dominae

[nbarclay]

Airlifting uses up all a unit's remaining movement, so the only target a RA could defend on the other continent would be the city it's airlifted to. That doesn't seem especially exploitable.

My biggest issue with the change is that if no important units have to be carried by sea, there is no need to maintain and defend transports after an airport is in place on the other continent. Requiring that artillery and radar artillery be carried by sea makes heavily bombardment-oriented strategies (something humans are a lot better at than AIs) more difficult because the player has to invest in the ability to transport the needed units safely by sea.

Regarding the realism aspect, can anyone say definitively how the size of an Abrams tank compares with that of relatively and heay artillery pieces? I'm not an expert in that field, but I do know that the guns on tanks are not as big as heavy artillery guns.

Nathan

[Dominae]

Both are airliftable in real life.

[ducki]

there is no need to maintain and defend transports after an airport is in place on the other continent.

The important part here, to me, is that once you've gone to all the trouble of establishing s solid beached and building a place for airplanes to land, I think you should be able to airlift just about anything.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but you are limited to one airlift per turn per departure-location, right? Managing the pain of sending all your units to different cities to be airlifted on a given turn seems like just about as much trouble as moving and escorting transports.

IMO, if the AI deals better with Airlifts than it does Naval transport and intercontinental wars, that change is good.

Except that it would seem, to me, to actually increase micromanagement - or at the very least, shift if from the sea and docks to the airports.

If they changed the "one airlift per departure-location airport per turn thing", ignore this.

[nbarclay]

It's still one airlift per departure location. If we were talking about anything but artillery, I would view airlifting as at least potentially something AIs could get good advantage from. But with no more than AIs use artillery (and the fact that they don't seem to use it at all offensively), the ability to airlift artillery would be a potentially significant advantage that only human players receive any meaningful benefit from.

Edit: By the way, my feelings about the ability to airlift artillery units are, somewhat ironically, driven in part by a game in which I would have liked to have been able to do so but couldn't. The fact that I couldn't airlift artillery and didn't have the means to transport them safely over water forced me to adapt my strategy. Removing a game feature that forces players to adapt their strategy seems contrary to the spirit of the AU Mod.

[lockstep]

Originally posted by alexman
But if airlifting Modern Armor is allowed, why not Artillery?

Exactly.

I like all these changes, and I'd also like to point out that the changes to airlifting and exploring were also part of the PtW AU mod. If these tweaks aren't acceptable, we might as well only play under stock rules.

BTW, alexman, any reasons not to make leaders airliftable, too? (This was included in v1.17 of the AU mod.)

[alexman]

Getting a leader to where you want him quickly can affect the outcome of the game much more than transporting a few artillery to another continent.

It's not a realism concern, it's a minimum change reason. For example, is the benefit of transporting your MGL back home worth the transportation delay and risk of losing him to a submarine attack, or is it better to rush that SS component on the continent where you're fighting, and risk losing that city to a flip?

[alexman]

Under consideration:

1. Yes/No: Remove 'Explore' ability from Settler, Worker, all ground bombardment units, Tactical Nuke, Leader, Army, and King units.
2. Yes/No: Add airlift flag to all ground bombardment units, scout, Explorer.
3. Yes/No: Add foot unit flag to scout and Explorer.

Voting on Friday.

[Dominae]

Yes to all.

[alexman]

Time to vote (hey, it's Friday in most of Asia).

My vote:

1. Yes: Remove 'Explore' ability from Settler, Worker, all ground bombardment units, Tactical Nuke, Leader, Army, and King units.
2. Yes: Add airlift flag to all ground bombardment units, scout, Explorer.
3. Yes: Add foot unit flag to scout and Explorer.

[lockstep]

1: YES
2: YES
3: YES

[Theseus]

YYY

[Stuie]

1. Yes
2. Yes
3. Yes

[pauli]

yes, yes, yes.

[Nor Me]

1,2,3: Yes

[Theseus]

[Announcer]

"And this race is shaping up to be the only unanimous vote in the history of PolyU... probably ever!"

[/Announcer]