Troops in Proportions Mod

PvK · #1 April 23rd, 2002, 05:33 PM

PsychoTechFreak asked me off-board about troops in the Proportions mod, and I thought my reply was interesting and good to know for all players of the mod, so I'm copying it here.

His observation was that large troops (i.e. vehicles) seemed to be getting killed off by infantry, and so he thought infantry were simply better than large troops. He also asked if Elite Infantry got any other bonus besides +1 to hit.

My reply:

Try mixing large troops with infantry, and/or using large troops with shields and/or armor. Infantry and vehicles have complementary effects - either one is weaker without the other. Infantry are cheap and quite hard to kill but have much lower firepower than vehicles. Vehicles without shields or armor are particularly vulnerable. Infantry by themselves don't do much damage. Vehicles by themselves (except maybe high-tech shielded designs) tend to get killed quickly. Vehicles and armor together add the bonuses and damage resistance of infantry to the firepower of vehicles. In theory and (I think/hope) in practice, this leads to some semi-interesting design trade-offs.

Elite infantry only have one other advantage - the silly way SE4 handles vehicle_size to-hit bonuses. I believe that (unlike weapon to-hit bonuses) both share and stack, so if you have 100-200 elite infantry, all your ground units in your army will hit each time, until your elite infantry gets killed off. So, it turns out to be a major advantage.

PvK

oleg · #2 April 24th, 2002, 12:03 PM

I ran into a curious situation: AI builds a lot of infantry on all its colonies and it is very hard to take them over, but had only weapon platforms on the homeworld ! One sneaky transport was able to conquire it - several military ships with weapons served as a decoy to draw fire.
I think it might be agood idea to boost militia - conceivably it will make taking AI homeworlds (and homeworlds only !) harder in case of AI troop building blunders.

New unit_building.txt file should solve this problem though...

Loser · #3 April 24th, 2002, 05:40 PM

Nice way to set up the infantry-tank co-dependency, but is it possible to make it more complicated?

Say, somehow, a representation of infantry, cavalry, artillery, and... something else like air-corps?

Also, can I please have a ninja?

mottlee · #4 April 24th, 2002, 05:40 PM

In the game I'm playing I am using troops and I have not found a problem with "Taking Em Out" I have tried inf to find out they got dead Real Fast! now IF we can combine this one with Dev's mod

Suicide Junkie · #5 April 24th, 2002, 06:18 PM

quote:
Also, can I please have a ninja?

Religious + Organic Manip in P&N will do that for you.
For play balance, you need a few hundred of them to subdue a few billion people.

PDF · #6 April 24th, 2002, 06:22 PM

And what tech do I need to have a clone working at office while I spend hours at this board ?

PvK · #7 April 24th, 2002, 08:27 PM

quote:
Originally posted by oleg:
I ran into a curious situation: AI builds a lot of infantry on all its colonies and it is very hard to take them over, but had only weapon platforms on the homeworld ! One sneaky transport was able to conquire it - several military ships with weapons served as a decoy to draw fire.
I think it might be agood idea to boost militia - conceivably it will make taking AI homeworlds (and homeworlds only !) harder in case of AI troop building blunders.

New unit_building.txt file should solve this problem though...

Ya, the current AI's will build troops on the homeworld, but may then carry them away and not replace them. As you say, adding entries to unit_building.txt to maintain homeworld garrisons will help. Some time after 2.2, when I add these to the AI, I may start getting feedback that no one will ever take a homeworld because of the mobs of weapon platforms and armies on them.

We'll see.

Your idea to increase militia strength a little makes some sense. A small ground force should be able to take an ungarrisoned colony pretty easily, but not one with a really large population. However, the problem there comes from SE4 - it automatically regerates militia every combat round, and in Proportions, combat is intentionally slowed down so that it will often Last more than one round. It seems to me that pretty much means militia should be kept pretty weak, although I suppose it could use some testing and experimenting.

PvK

PvK · #8 April 24th, 2002, 08:36 PM

quote:
Originally posted by Loser:
Nice way to set up the infantry-tank co-dependency, but is it possible to make it more complicated?

Say, somehow, a representation of infantry, cavalry, artillery, and... something else like air-corps?

Also, can I please have a ninja?

The SE4 ground combat system is pretty limited in what you can do with it, but I'll think about adding some more unit types for variety, even if it turns out to be mostly cosmetic.

What do you want in a ninja? For troops, I guess you're thinking of something more elite than the elite infantry? Historically, ninja would actually be intel units (assassins and spies), rather than conquest and main battle troops.

PvK

Baron Munchausen · #9 April 24th, 2002, 11:23 PM

quote:
Originally posted by PvK:

The SE4 ground combat system is pretty limited in what you can do with it, but I'll think about adding some more unit types for variety, even if it turns out to be mostly cosmetic.

What do you want in a ninja? For troops, I guess you're thinking of something more elite than the elite infantry? Historically, ninja would actually be intel units (assassins and spies), rather than conquest and main battle troops.

PvK

Have you tested whether the strategy set on a troop has any effect on what it does in combat? It would be nice if there were an affect allowed in the 'algorithm' that resolves ground combat for troop strategy.

PvK · #10 April 24th, 2002, 11:34 PM

quote:
Originally posted by Baron Munchausen:

Have you tested whether the strategy set on a troop has any effect on what it does in combat? It would be nice if there were an affect allowed in the 'algorithm' that resolves ground combat for troop strategy.

Good idea; no I haven't yet. Seems like probably the only thing that could be affected would be targetting priorities. Like, target smallest or largest might get troops to try to take out infantry or vehicles first. Someone should test it, but my guess is it won't have any effect, because the system seems to pig-pile everyone into two opposing armies, add up the abilities and damage inflicted by both sides, and then apply it. It's worth a test, though.

PvK