Brit Posted November 7, 2009 Share Posted November 7, 2009 - Changed the unitset for more predictable, more regular combat results --- This was done by doubling the HP of all units and doubling the hit chances ----- Some effects: ------- Fewer surprises from combat ("I lost three infantry against his militia") ------- Combat time is more average (fewer very short or very long combat times). ------- Repair rates are the same, so repair effectively takes twice as long - Doubling the HP of aircraft means that they can be damaged. --- The "airbase" city-improvement repairs aircraft (1 HP / 2 turns) --- Aircraft carriers can repair aircraft. --- Airfields cannot repair aircraft. - Made aircraft attacks more predictable (strategic bombers go after city improvements, etc) - Tweaked some of the combat numbers - Increased the cost of building airfields from $20 to $32 - Added a x0.3 turn-replay speed - During the city-needs-orders popup phase, I moved the build window to the left side of the application, centered the visible map on the city - Added a button to trigger city-needs-orders popups - Added player restrictions to the scenario editor (cannot offer or accept peace, cannot declare war) - Added functionality to the Combat Simulator to handle ranged-combat - Added map labels - Added 'rounder' continents (listed as "Large Continents" in the game) - There are now three (optional) victory conditions: capture all cities (only player/team with cities left), capture 90% of the population, capture 80% of the population - Fixed some upload/download problems Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fangorn Posted November 7, 2009 Share Posted November 7, 2009 During the city-needs-orders popup phase, I moved the build window to the left side of the application, centered the visible map on the city Thank you so very much! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
N3rull Posted November 7, 2009 Share Posted November 7, 2009 edit. A tiny bug - Airbases don't seem to be buildable? They exist, according to the Help book, and have no prereqs, but are not buildable. Another awesome upgrade. EoS is getting more powerful every day ;D. GJ! Edit. The Large Continents are very nice. Thanks a lot for this. It was really a dreadful thought that battleships would be the winning thing on all random maps... This update is a huge leap forward I say. Except for more Ruleset Editor capabilities (which are all welcome) I can't think of any other mechanic improvement right now. There are only some Ruleset tweaks that could help a lot (buff aircraft, buff subs, differentiate the research trees a bit... stuff like that), but that's of lesser inportance. I'm very happy with the combat tweaks... I was tired of sweating like a horse every time I sent a Cruiser against a destroyer, a tank against a militia and the like. edit edit - altogether, you deserve a hug, Brit ;D Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Brit Posted November 7, 2009 Author Share Posted November 7, 2009 edit. A tiny bug - Airbases don't seem to be buildable? They exist, according to the Help book, and have no prereqs, but are not buildable. Strange. I'll take a look. Another awesome upgrade. EoS is getting more powerful every day ;D. GJ! Edit. The Large Continents are very nice. Thanks a lot for this. It was really a dreadful thought that battleships would be the winning thing on all random maps... This update is a huge leap forward I say. Except for more Ruleset Editor capabilities (which are all welcome) I can't think of any other mechanic improvement right now. There are only some Ruleset tweaks that could help a lot (buff aircraft, buff subs, differentiate the research trees a bit... stuff like that), but that's of lesser inportance. I'm very happy with the combat tweaks... I was tired of sweating like a horse every time I sent a Cruiser against a destroyer, a tank against a militia and the like. edit edit - altogether, you deserve a hug, Brit ;D Thanks! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
N3rull Posted November 7, 2009 Share Posted November 7, 2009 One note: "X damage" units (I checked cruise missiles only as of yet) seem to be broken after the patch. (well, not really broken, just their effectiveness nerfed by 50%) E.g. Cruise missiles used to be the only somewhat effective counter to battleships, excluding the obvious one - more battleships. You could send two and if your guess was right and the missiles found their target, they could effectively eliminate a careless BB. Right now it takes four cruise missiles, which makes it hardly worth the hassle - you have to send double the previous amount of missiles (4 cruise missiles ~ 2/3 of a BB) for certain death, not being sure if the target doesn't move an inch and all your missiles don't just run out of fuel without hitting anything. Needless to say that if one is shot down and the ship returns home with 2 hit points... you've just wasted quite a lot of money. In general, please consider giving the official 1900-2030 ruleset a final balancing touch in one of the upcoming patches, that would address the issues: - weak aircraft => useless anti-air units - dominating BBs (dominating everything - seas, air and anything that happens to be in range on the ground, which includes most cities on Demomap and all random maps except the Large Continents ones) - cost-ineffective subs - accidentally (?) nerfed missiles, possibly along with all fixed-damage units (didn't check nukes et al). ... of course, those are issues in my opinion, any or all may not agree. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Boris Balaban Posted November 7, 2009 Share Posted November 7, 2009 I have buld 2 air bases, one on a road and another in the open. It also did not want to start a build if the area was tight but it did allow me to select an area. Will check this again. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Boris Balaban Posted November 7, 2009 Share Posted November 7, 2009 I have buld 2 air bases, one on a road and another in the open. It also did not want to start a build if the area was tight but it did allow me to select an area. Will check this again. It did this time build where I asked.:confused: Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
N3rull Posted November 7, 2009 Share Posted November 7, 2009 I'm talking about those new airBASES, not the airFIELDS we've all seen a zillion times by now. --- The "airbase" city-improvement repairs aircraft (1 HP / 2 turns) --- Aircraft carriers can repair aircraft. --- Airfields cannot repair aircraft. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Soul Posted November 8, 2009 Share Posted November 8, 2009 Yea great patch, just the missles and nukes need to increase their damage by 25-50% because of the HP buff, which was needed Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Brit Posted November 8, 2009 Author Share Posted November 8, 2009 One note: "X damage" units (I checked cruise missiles only as of yet) seem to be broken after the patch. (well, not really broken, just their effectiveness nerfed by 50%) Ah. You're right. I remembered to bump-up the damage of nukes, but forgot cruise missiles. E.g. Cruise missiles used to be the only somewhat effective counter to battleships, excluding the obvious one - more battleships. You could send two and if your guess was right and the missiles found their target, they could effectively eliminate a careless BB. Right now it takes four cruise missiles, which makes it hardly worth the hassle - you have to send double the previous amount of missiles (4 cruise missiles ~ 2/3 of a BB) for certain death, not being sure if the target doesn't move an inch and all your missiles don't just run out of fuel without hitting anything. Needless to say that if one is shot down and the ship returns home with 2 hit points... you've just wasted quite a lot of money. In general, please consider giving the official 1900-2030 ruleset a final balancing touch in one of the upcoming patches, that would address the issues: - weak aircraft => useless anti-air units - dominating BBs (dominating everything - seas, air and anything that happens to be in range on the ground, which includes most cities on Demomap and all random maps except the Large Continents ones) - cost-ineffective subs - accidentally (?) nerfed missiles, possibly along with all fixed-damage units (didn't check nukes et al). ... of course, those are issues in my opinion, any or all may not agree. I tweaked a number of units in the last ruleset update. The AA units should be a little better, and artillery are better at fighting ships. I don't remember what other tweaks I made. (I guess I should've written it down.) A tiny bug - Airbases don't seem to be buildable? They exist, according to the Help book, and have no prereqs, but are not buildable. Yup, you're right. It looks like I forgot to set it as 'initially buildable' and it's not in the tech tree. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
N3rull Posted November 8, 2009 Share Posted November 8, 2009 I tweaked a number of units in the last ruleset update. The AA units should be a little better, and artillery are better at fighting ships. I don't remember what other tweaks I made. (I guess I should've written it down.)I ran a few combat simulator tests and it didn't really feel like anything's changed. Assuming all units' classes are on similiar tech levels, the simulator says that over 4000 calculations you are still much more likely to lose two or even three subs, or 5 tactical bombers, than have them kill one BB, which means there is still no cost-effective counter to BBs. The fact that artillery is better against ships is very good news though. It may not be particularly historically accurate, but there has to be at least one way to scare a BB away from your most precious cities, other than by bringing two BBs of your own! It is not a counter though - you can't kill a BB with arty unless it's commander is plain stupid ^^. I will have to play a few more longer games with the last update to check it all out, but I don't really have much time to fart recently, let alone do a 250 turn game a few times. I'll post my feedback as I have it. It is funny that you improved AA units, though. They were never bad... in fact, the few aircraft that I did send somewhere near enemy AA defenses usually went down. They were useless because Aircraft sucked in general, against everything - what use of making a specialized AA unit when any unit can defend itself against aircraft relatively well? It was (and still is, according to the simulator) a suicide to send top class strategic bombers against a city with two infantry units inside. Who ever needs SAM sites? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Clarke Posted November 8, 2009 Share Posted November 8, 2009 It appears that the hit point changes are not in effect in my game. Do I need to start a new game for the upgrade to apply? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
N3rull Posted November 8, 2009 Share Posted November 8, 2009 Yes, you have to run a new game. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Brit Posted November 8, 2009 Author Share Posted November 8, 2009 It appears that the hit point changes are not in effect in my game. Do I need to start a new game for the upgrade to apply? Yes. The way the rules system is setup, your old games continue to use old versions of the rules. There are some cases when you'd want to use the new rules, but some other cases when you'd want to use the old ones. For example, if some of the names of the units, buildings, or technologies change, it can mess things up. (Today, I changed the name of the "Airbase" city-improvement to "Airforce Base" to avoid confusion. If you had built an Airbase in a city, and moved up to the new rules, the game would've magically erased your Airbase from the game.) I also wanted to prevent cheating - since players can change the details of a ruleset. This would be especially important during multiplayer games. So, I just set it up so that old games (and scenarios) are linked to whatever game rules they started with. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Brit Posted November 8, 2009 Author Share Posted November 8, 2009 I ran a few combat simulator tests and it didn't really feel like anything's changed. Assuming all units' classes are on similiar tech levels, the simulator says that over 4000 calculations you are still much more likely to lose two or even three subs, or 5 tactical bombers, than have them kill one BB, which means there is still no cost-effective counter to BBs. The fact that artillery is better against ships is very good news though. It may not be particularly historically accurate, but there has to be at least one way to scare a BB away from your most precious cities, other than by bringing two BBs of your own! It is not a counter though - you can't kill a BB with arty unless it's commander is plain stupid ^^. I ran some tests putting a battleship against artillery. It's true that the battleship is going to win against a single artillery, but if you look at the 'production loss' on the bottom of the combat simulator, the artillery function about 50% better against battleships than with the old rules. Under the new rules, battleships take about 60 production worth of damage and artillery take about 60 production worth of damage in a fight. The artillery would be dead, and the battleship could sail back home to get repaired (*which is, at least, a good way to get battleships out of your territory and take them out of the game for a few turns until they get repaired), but things would be a little different if the artillery-player built a lot more artillery. (Note: A battleship costs about the same as five artillery.) Under the old rules, the battleship would've taken about 40 production worth of damage. Also, none of these numbers take into account the terrain defensive bonuses that artillery would get. It was (and still is, according to the simulator) a suicide to send top class strategic bombers against a city with two infantry units inside. Who ever needs SAM sites? The strategic bombers now preferentially target cities now. One of the problems with the old combat system was that strategic bombers would often target the units inside the city. When strategic bombers do that, the units get a counterattack, and often destroy the strategic bomber. Now that the strategic bomber targets city-improvements, in-production items, and population, those other units don't get an automatic counterattack, which improves the strategic-bomber's survival. You can open up the combat simulator and pit a bomber against an infantry. The bomber doesn't survive very well. Now, hit "add location" and add a city. Now, the bomber is targetting the city, rather than the infantry. They do a lot better. The infantry doesn't really get much of a counterattack against the bomber because they're not setup for that. But, if you drop-in a flak gun, the bomber does worse again. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
N3rull Posted November 8, 2009 Share Posted November 8, 2009 I ran some tests putting a battleship against artillery.... You misunderstood me. I see that artillery is very nice against BBs now. However, artillery - a land-bound unit that has to stick to roads or else it will move at a fifth of the BBs speed - is not a counter. It is a decent defense so that the BBs can't bombard the city for 10 turns, obliterate everything and sail away in peace as they could before. The arty will not, however, sail to the middle of the ocean to kill that BB fleet waiting to wipe an invasion force you might want to send. The arty will not kill those BBs half a screen away from the shore, waiting to make a one-turn raid on your coastal city as soon as any ship pops out of the shipyard. The first half of my text that you quoted was related to other potential anti-BB weapons - subs and tactical bombers - and neither work any better than they did before, or so it seems, which means they still suck. The strategic bombers now preferentially target cities now. One of the problems with the old combat system was that strategic bombers would often target the units inside the city. Well, that's news. Strat bombers were so weak that I've never used them since the fifth time I played the game. It's good you gave them a little... heat Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
N3rull Posted November 9, 2009 Share Posted November 9, 2009 Brit, would you mind hotfixing the airbase/airforce base thingy before the end of the week? It kinda cripples the airforce completely when you have to develop and build carriers solely to have these flying buckets of screws repaired... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Brit Posted November 10, 2009 Author Share Posted November 10, 2009 Brit, would you mind hotfixing the airbase/airforce base thingy before the end of the week? It kinda cripples the airforce completely when you have to develop and build carriers solely to have these flying buckets of screws repaired... Sure. I'll either get out a new version or hand-off the updated ruleset. (The ruleset is where the fix to this problem is.) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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