Yo-yo obsolescence

Elok · September 12, 2003, 20:08

I know the game refuses to acknowledge technology loops(pickling requires toasting, which requires roasting, which requires pickling...), but what about obsolescence loops(pickles replace toast which replace roasts which replace pickles...)? I'm not talking about actually discovering the required techs, but if you gave Pickling, Toasting, and Roasting to a civ with Leo's workshop, would the pickles turn into roasts, then toasts, then pickles again every time you made a discovery? I'm guessing not, and that it would crash the game, but it would make for one heckuva fun time if your units shuffled themselves around your empire every few turns!
(I just arbitrarily thought up the names for this example, and I just ate dinner, in case anybody is wondering.)

William Keenan · September 12, 2003, 20:55

Why don't you try it and let us know?

Elok · September 12, 2003, 21:11

Because I am unspeakably lazy...actually, I just figured somebody was bound to have tried it before. I'll give it a shot.

hardjoy · September 13, 2003, 06:05

Sounds very interesting ! Be happy to know the answer

-btw, since we are on Leo's workshop, how often does ones obsolete units get upgraded with this wonder? -And does events created obsolete units also get an upgrade eventually?

Panda · September 13, 2003, 06:11

IIRC Leo's only upgrades obsolete units to a superior design.

Panda · September 13, 2003, 06:13

Hardjoy: sorry, missed your post. With a non-obsolete Leo's the game checks every upkeep if you have any new obsolete units and upgrades them to a superior design of the same role.

Palaiologos · September 13, 2003, 07:36

Leo's workshop can be used in several cool ways, most notably in the reverse.

F.e if the Arabs capture Damascus the Romans get tech "Loss of Syria" which renders their normal heavy footmen obsolete and makes available another heavy infantry with worse stats, Leo's workshop will "upgrade" all your heavy footmen to the new worse troopers signifying the loss in Roman troop quality after their defeat by the Arabs.

Thoth · September 13, 2003, 09:28

Quote:

Originally posted by hardjoy
Sounds very interesting ! Be happy to know the answer

-btw, since we are on Leo's workshop, how often does ones obsolete units get upgraded with this wonder? -And does events created obsolete units also get an upgrade eventually?

Leo's looks for units to upgrade when the wonder is first constructed and again each time the owning civ discovers or acquires a new tech.

Mercator · September 13, 2003, 10:28

First test results:

I made Warriors become available with Warrior Code and go obsolete with Bronze Working. Phalanx were the other way around. I also changed the prerequisite for Archers to Feudalism otherwise they'd become the unit of choice. I then gave myself Invention and Leo's Workshop.

This didn't quite have the desired effect. Leo's would upgrade units from Warriors to Phalanx (the superior unit) only. One funny side effect: Every turn my Warrior producing city would switch production! One turn it changes production from Warriors to Phalanx, the next back to Warriors etc... That message gets annoying very quickly. And imagine getting that for an entire empire producing Warriors or so!

Second test results:

Very promising! I switched the stats around for Warriors and Phalanx this time. So Warriors have a defense of 2, Phalanx a defense of 1. Now, Leo's DOES continually upgrade back and forth everytime a tech is discovered.

Edit: and it doesn't matter which tech is discovered first either. The loop works works with Warrior Code as the first discovered tech (of the two), just as well as with Bronze Working. The only difference, obviously, is which unit you can get first.

I guess Civ2 assumes units further down the list are better, and only wants to upgrade to better units. But it gets confused when later units have worse stats, so it upgrades both ways.

Still the bad side effect though. City build orders will swap between units every single turn (= a pop-up every single turn).

Perhaps there are more possibilities, but I think this is enough proof that it works.

Elok · September 13, 2003, 12:34

Thank god there are people like Mercator around. I'm too idle to even satisfy my own curiosity. Speaking of which, I'd best get cracking on the CtF scenario again...maybe I can implement this.

N35t0r · September 16, 2003, 12:52

Mercator, IIRC that pop-up message can be disabled... in city report options... there must be some tag...

Mercator · September 17, 2003, 09:02

I'm not sure. I thought so too at first, but when I looked at the options, none of them really matched...

I just turned off all city report options, and the upgrade pop-up still appeared.

Boco · September 18, 2003, 20:02

Kinda tight on time to try this myself, but have you played with @UPGRADE in Game.txt? Maybe delete the section or just the lines under it?

Mercator · September 19, 2003, 12:33

...

Nope, doesn't work (it's @UPGRADED, by the way).
Deleting it (even the entire section) only deletes the text in the pop-up, not the pop-up itself.

That's because the two options, "Zoom to City" and "Continue" are not part of the section. So even if you delete the section, you'll get the pop-up with the new unit graphic and two options.

The text for the two options is stored in the Labels.txt. I doubt deleting it there would do much good, because that would then also affect all other city-related pop-ups.