Monkey Wrench Balance Mod Alpha 22

[Servo]

I shuffle playing different mods on SP and downloaded your new one but deleted the previous ones. I wanted to retrieve back the previous one because I prefer the garrisoned turret so please don't discard it. 

[Servo]

I haven't played the vanilla up to the end but when I tried this new version of your mod it seems that the AI is more inteligent, retained its massive attack as in A21 and its the first time I see an AI capturing a tower then garrison it. The garrisoned units comes out of it (captured tower) to capture a nearby house then if I attack them they garrison back!

[wowgetoffyourcellphone]

51 minutes ago, Servo said:

I haven't played the vanilla up to the end but when I tried this new version of your mod it seems that the AI is more inteligent, retained its massive attack as in A21 and its the first time I see an AI capturing a tower then garrison it. The garrisoned units comes out of it (captured tower) to capture a nearby house then if I attack them they garrison back!

They do this in A22 too, actually. I played it today and that particular AI behavior was annoying af, if I'm honest. The pace in the game is just out of control and the AI plays like a top tier twitch gamer. That's a compliment to mimo in a way, in that his AI successfully takes advantage of the game as it currently exists.

[Grugnas]

12 hours ago, Servo said:

I shuffle playing different mods on SP and downloaded your new one but deleted the previous ones. I wanted to retrieve back the previous one because I prefer the garrisoned turret so please don't discard it. 

Don't worry, a changelog keep trac of the versions.

Next thing to di is to fix neutral walls decay for roman siege wall and athenian wall which actually decay in neutral / enemy territory if not garrisoned...

[Hannibal_Barca]

10 hours ago, Grugnas said:

Don't worry, a changelog keep trac of the versions.

Next thing to di is to fix neutral walls decay for roman siege wall and athenian wall which actually decay in neutral / enemy territory if not garrisoned...

I think that is actually not a bad feature.

[Grugnas]

it is if you can't garrison a wall turret decaying over time in enemy territory.

[Servo]

What sort of fix are you really trying to do?

Do you need to have a capture/recapture of walls and gates options so it can be garrisoned or gate activated?

i think you should retain garrisoning but not firing projectiles if a non range (melee with 2nd range weapon) unit is garrisoned. A tech could be added for weapon emplacements for each selected turret.

[Grugnas]

I am not sure but perhaps reducing decay rate would make the trick.

Perhaps capturing 2 adjacent wall turrets could make the wall layer in between decay.

Indeed having decaying ungarrisonable wall turrets is unwanted.

Also the purpose is to avoid wall towers build abuse.

[Hannibal_Barca]

     replace

        {"value": "Loot/food",            "add":      5                                        },
        {"value": "Loot/wood",         "add":      5,        "affects": "Infantry"            },
        {"value": "Loot/wood",         "add":      5,        "affects": "Cavalry"            },
        {"value": "Loot/stone",        "add":      5,        "affects": "Sling"                },
        {"value": "Loot/metal",        "add":      5,        "affects": "Sword"                },
        {"value": "Loot/xp",         "multiply":      1.2,        "affects": "Infantry"        },
        {"value": "Loot/xp",         "multiply":      1.2,        "affects": "Cavalry"        }

  with

		{"value": "Loot/food",            "add":      5                                        },
		{"value": "Loot/wood",         "add":      5			},
		{"value": "Loot/stone",        "add":      5,        "affects": "Sling"                },
		{"value": "Loot/metal",        "add":      5,        "affects": "Sword"                },
		{"value": "Loot/xp",         "multiply":      1.2}

It would work right?

Also thanks for showing me how to make unit loot modifiable as I have long wanted such a feature but didn't know how. Now implemented in Vox Populi.

 

[Grugnas]

Any promotable classes (into Advanced and Elite) would be affected if not specified.  ( wonder if an array could be used to contain all the affected classes in order to remove potential redundant lines)

Edited September 28, 2017 by Grugnas

[Hannibal_Barca]

9 minutes ago, Grugnas said:

Any promotable classes (into Advanced and Elite) would be affected if not specified.  ( wonder if an array could be used to contain all the affected classes in order to remove potential redundant lines)

But isn't specifying at the end of the file good enough?

and the thing you are looking for is "affects": ["Infantry", "Cavalry"]

(if you still think it's necessary)

Check Vox Populi, seems to work there

[Grugnas]

48 minutes ago, Hannibal_Barca said:

But isn't specifying at the end of the file good enough?

and the thing you are looking for is "affects": ["Infantry", "Cavalry"]

(if you still think it's necessary)

Check Vox Populi, seems to work there

afaik also elephant archers, healers and wardogs would be affected if you don't specify the class since they are promotable

[Hannibal_Barca]

Why would that be bad

also im sure you could create multiple things like "affects": ["Infantry", "Cavalry", "!Dog", "!Support"]

But I see that as a totally fine feature

[Grugnas]

can't find a valid reason why only food costly units should have other resources than food as loot.

[Hannibal_Barca]

It's why you use "multiply" and not add

although I experienced hardships trying to make outcome whole with multiply

[Grugnas]

There was a feeling that mauryan elephant workers have a never unleashed potential due the long time required to train them from civic center resulting in a bottle neck when boosting economy, now mauryan elephant workers can have a proper role into economy aspect.

Carthage, with their spear champion and limited embassies seemed to not benefit at all from the mercenaries advanced rank and feel a bit weak, thus now they have an extra boost with increased embassies limit and higher rank mercenaries.

Update 22.1.4.1:

• Mauryans can't train elephant workers from civic center anymore
• Elephant worker can build basic civic and economy structures and research economy technologies
• Elephant stable available in village phase
• Embassies limit count increased from 2 to 3.
• Carthage now can research a technology to upgrade mercenaries to Elite rank.
• All embassies share same cost and build time now.

Edited October 7, 2017 by Grugnas

[Hannibal_Barca]

3 hours ago, Grugnas said:

There was a feeling that mauryan elephant workers have a never unleashed potential due the long time required to train them from civic center resulting in a bottle neck when boosting economy, now mauryan elephant workers can have a proper role into economy aspect.

Carthage, with their spear champion and limited embassies seemed to not benefit at all from the mercenaries advanced rank and feel a bit weak, thus now they have an extra boost with increased embassies limit and higher rank mercenaries.

Update 22.1.4.1:

• Mauryans can't train elephant workers from civic center anymore
• Elephant worker can build basic civic and economy structures and research economy technologies
• Elephant stable available in village phase
• Embassies limit count increased from 2 to 3.
• Carthage now can research a technology to upgrade mercenaries to Elite rank.
• All embassies share same cost and build time now.

 

Should be fixed:

• Elephant Stables should be in class town, currently 4 houses + elephant stables and you can't research town phase.
• Archer elephants should not be limited to 1 without barracks. I know barracks are usually built but you cannot make barracks compulsory for elephants from elephant stables

 

Personal opinion

• Worker elephants should not be able to set buildings, they should only start what has already been laid out
• Embassy limit 2 is good, you have to choose 2 of the 3, each offers slightly different units. Likewise the costs, it diversifies and actually represents the mercenary faction. (cheap barbarians, stone-greedy iberians and costly italians)
• Elite mercenaries could possibly conditionally and theoretically be good, but this upgrade should come with overall cost increase (time is a cost too). Even if this is done, embassy limit of 2 should be kept to avoid full-scale spamming.

Edited October 7, 2017 by Hannibal_Barca

[Grugnas]

2 hours ago, Hannibal_Barca said:

 

Should be fixed:

• Archer elephants should not be limited to 1 without barracks. I know barracks are usually built but you cannot make barracks compulsory for elephants from elephant stables

that's something i didn't understand how to fix.  Elephant archer template inherit cavalry archer template but it removes cavalry class though.

[Grugnas]

Quick update to 22.1.4.2:

• now carthage can build 1 embassy per type, for a total of 3 different embassies at same time.

[Hannibal_Barca]

You need to disable TrainingRestrictions in the unit file

[Grugnas]

yep, ty for the tip. updated the previously uploaded file.

[Grugnas]

What will come:

Specialization:

I'd really like to put the mod a step further by adding a kind of specialization for every class, giving more choices for different situations. Not fully convinced if that may be a good idea because choosing different paths by researching a pair technology where the decision is about further improve  melee / ranged offensive stats and armor / movement speed would also be interesting, still not satisfying though.

Here is just a specialization example: swordsman-fc.pdf

Diversify Civilizations:

Factions may have different traits which should be historically accurate and merge with the current gameplay.

Sparta women able to increase arrows count while garrisoning a tower and eventually a Civic Center.

Iberians could have advantage into making corrals.

Seleucids could choose between army reforms depending of the fortress entity, thus being able to train different type of champions for different fortresses.

Gaul druids could increase attack speed of nearby units.

and so on.

Update to 22.1.4.3:

What's new:

Technology:

Houses:

REMOVED! Home Garden

NEW! Pair Tech:

Home Garden:

•  Increases houses garrison limit from 3 to 4 and big houses limit from 6 to 8
• Increases by 20% the population limit given by houses

Home Harem:

•  -50% training time for women trained from houses.
• Increases by 20% the population limit given by houses

Units:

The game feels quite frenetic, thus women and all infantry and champion units train slower.

Women: training time increased from 8 to 10.

Citizen Infantry: training time increased from 10 to 12.

Ranged:

Javelin: Pierce damage reduced from 16 to 15

Slinger: Pierce damage reduced from 9.5 to 9

Archer: Pierce damage reduced from 6 to 5

Citizen Cavalry: training time increased from 15 to 16.

Archer: Pierce damage reduced from 7 to 6

Champions Infantry: training time increased from 20 to 24.

Javelin: Pierce damage reduced from 26 to 24

Slinger: Pierce damage reduced from 9.5 to 9

Archer: Pierce damage reduced from 6.5 to 6

Champions Cavalry: training time increased from 30 to 32.

Archer: Pierce damage reduced from 14 to 12

[Lion.Kanzen]

What about this?

[Grugnas]

29 minutes ago, Lion.Kanzen said:

What about this?

Actually using a banner as background would be really amazing!

Anyway I have no idea how this addition could be used.

Basically because it literally invade the display which may be really bad while playing. this should be 1 time choice only in order to let that invade the  UI for a valid reason.

But there are few occasions where that may be a fancy addition:

• choosing between heroes to pick in Regicide mode at game start.
• choosing between army reforms for seleucids,  thus using that "huge selection panel" to research a 0 build time technology.
• choosing some kind of unit specialization ( although i talked about units Specialization, which would be really amazing something like replacing sword + shield units with dual welding units ) with following unlock of researchable techs available for the selected unit only.
• some kind of civ specific specialization like the temple specialization by @Hannibal_Barca

 

Edited October 20, 2017 by Grugnas

[Lion.Kanzen]

I can do it if you implement this like AoM.