Tentative Project - New Units

[MrFun]

Here I will explain only three of the new units to explain their special abilities or uses.

Name: Hot Air Balloon
Type: Aerial
Cost: 900
Support: 6
Attack: 15
Range: 0
Defense: 15
Armor: 1
Damage: 1
Vision: 3
Movement: 5
Fuel: 15
Abilities: Aerial - used for 19th century reconnaisance

Name: Provincial Governor
Type: Governor
Cost: 500
Support: 4
Attack: 0
Range: 0
Defense: 10
Armor: 1
Damage: 1
Vision: 2
Movement: 2
Fuel: --
Abilities: 25% reduction in production costs for all Defense units and Attack units in cities where Provincial Governors are sentried, BUT decreases those citie's happiness by 2 and by 4 after 20 turns a PG is present in those cities

Name: Modern Surveyor
Type: Surveyor
Cost: 820
Support: 6
Attack: 0
Range: 0
Defense: 10
Armor: 1
Damage: 1
Vision: 2
Movement: 2
Fuel: --
Abilities: establishes permnament national border from position where sentried for five consecutive turns of no disturbance

Let me know if the special abilities of the Provincial Governor and Modern Surveyor are impossible to implement or if they are too elaborate. Thanks for any input.

[MrFun]

Must be the New Year's Eve fever!

[Triumphus Romanus]

I definately like the Balloon and Provincial Governor,
cool ideas

[MrFun]

Thanks for your input, Romanus, but do you know how I would be able to implement these new abilities? Would they be too elaborate to add in the game's text files?

You didn't mention the Modern Surveyor - should that be changed or dropped?

[Chris B]

Shoudn't the baloon have ranged Strength????
Also, It should have low HP. All an infantryman would have to do would be to hit the top and watch the thing go spinning
-CB

[Triumphus Romanus]

MrFun,
while I have tinkered with some of the basic txt files, trying to improve the AI, thats about all ive done. i havent done anything more hardcore than that. I would imagine actually adding a unit may not be that hard, but the abilities it has could be the challenge. Im sure WesW would be a good one to ask.
My main gripe is that tanks are too powerful. The tank should be toned down, or maybe an anti-tank unit added.
Once I start building tanks, its usually game over. Several 12 stacks and I can roll over the opposition.

[Darkknight]

Basically the abilities that other units already in units.txt have are the only ones available you might be able to come close but the border expansion is almost definetly impossible atleast with just editing the text files. You might ask someone like Harlan about slic abiliteis in that area.
" Abilities: Aerial - used for 19th century reconnaisance " is that trying to get it to only be available between 1900 and 2000?



------------------
" mind over body "

[MrFun]

The Hot Air Balloon is nothing but a 19th century reconnaissance unit - it is not an attack unit and I did not intend for it to be a Ranged unit. And even with its defense at low of 15 (only 5 more than the Ancient Hoplite unit), other 19th century units will still destroy the Hot Air Balloon with no problems.

[MrFun]

Damn - I know nothing about SLIC language, and I have barely any basic computer programming knowledge. So Wes - would you able to help me out with any insight?

[JSnider]

A question, not a new unit but a mod to existing. Given that the AI doesn't really use carriers with aircraft has anyone considered changing the carrier to have a air wing on it when built and give a bombarb range and attack acordingly?? This if they (ai's) build it then they can really use it. would also dramatically increase support cost for the thing and raise cost a little. This would enable the AI to actually have a carrier that can do something besides sink. some warts on it but was wondering if a possibility

john snider

[Locutus]

MrFun,
If it's about SLIC, don't count on Wes or Harlan, they know very little about it. I'm afraid that so far I'm one of the few, maybe even the only person on Apolyton (not counting the Activioners of course) that knows what is and isn't possible in SLIC.

Your Modern Surveyor is totally impossible, at least with SLIC (and I don't think text-files can do it either). There's no way you can manipulate borders in SLIC, other then by building/destroying fortresses or cities.

The Provincial Governor is possible but requires a fair amount of work. What is needed is that you need to have all units that you want to be cheaper with a governer twice: these 'doubles' should be exactly identical except for the text-files name (though the in-game name should remain the same - so you need UNIT_WARRIOR and UNIT_WARRIOR2, but both should be called Warrior gl_str.txt)) and the production cost.

Then you need to use the SLIC function mod_CanCitBuildUnit and list all these units like this:

int_f mod_CanCityBuildUnit(city_t theCity, int_t theUnit) {
city_t	tmpCity;
unit_t	tmpUnit;
int_t	i;
int_t	thisUnit;
	thisUnit = theUnit;
	tmpCity = theCity;

	cheapunits = 0;
	for (i = 0; i < GetUnitsAtLocation(tmpCity.location); i = i + 1) {
		GetUnitFromCell(tmpCity.location, i, tmpUnit);
			if (tmpUnit.type == UnitDB(UNIT_PROVINCIAL_GOVERNOR)) {
				cheapunits = 1;
			}
		}
	}
	if (cheapunits == 0) {		// if a governor is present then...
		if (thisUnit == UnitDB(UNIT_WARRIOR)) {
			return 1;	// ...you can build this
		}
		if (thisUnit == UnitDB(UNIT_WARRIOR2) {
			return 0;	// ...you can't build this
		}
		if (thisUnit == UnitDB(UNIT_ARCHER)) {
			return 1;	// ...you can build this
		}
		if (thisUnit == UnitDB(UNIT_ARCHER2) {
			return 0;	// ...you can't build this
		}
		// etc. for all units that have two versions
	} elseif (cheapunits == 1) {		// if no governor is present then...
		if (thisUnit == UnitDB(UNIT_WARRIOR)) {
			return 0;	// ...you can't build this
		}
		if (thisUnit == UnitDB(UNIT_WARRIOR2) {
			return 1;	// ...you can build this
		}
		if (thisUnit == UnitDB(UNIT_ARCHER)) {
			return 0;	// ...you can't build this
		}
		if (thisUnit == UnitDB(UNIT_ARCHER2) {
			return 1;	// ...you can build this
		}
		// etc. for all units that have two versions
	}
	return 1;	// units with only one version can always be built
}

And finally you'd also need to write a happiness-trigger which is slightly more complicated and I don't have time to write that now.

Hope this helps.
[This message has been edited by Locutus (edited January 04, 2001).]

[MrFun]

I have to write this amount of SLIC data for EACH AND EVERY UNIT? Wow - I might just forget about the Provincial Governor or else make up a more simple ability.

As for Modern Surveyor - I will have to trash that too or else make a more simple ability. damn

[Locutus]

No, Mr Fun, if you had studied my code a little you would have seen that the code for a single unit only requires 6 lines of code and most of it can be done by the good old copy&paste method (the code includes the example code for a warrior and archer as an example, the rest of the code only needs to be written once and I already did that for you). I guess I should have formulated that better in my post. But it's still a fair amount of work, that's true (hey, welcome to the world of modmaking, my friend).
One thing I should point out though, is that I haven't actually tested this code so there might be some typos in it or other minor bugs.

[MrFun]

Hmmm . . . I will bookmark this post then and then refer to it if I decide to make the Provincial Governor's ability a possibility. Thanks for your help Locust - I appreciate it.