[Question] Trained Unit Classes

Did this get missed with the release of 1.1?  I was hoping for some feedback from you guys.

I thought you were going to edit it. What you posted was a bunch of names of classes, but not what you intend to do with them.

Yeah, I kind of see that you have a list of classes - but not sure what the point is yet.    You say there will be a separate list of classes and inventory, but not really why.   Why will the AI use them any better if its coded to existing logic?

Abstracting out for the sake of discussion - the below list may not encompass all useability

Melee                Light_Militia, Medium_Skirmisher, Heavy_Defender, Mounted_Light, Mounted_Heavy, Golems, Juggernauts

Range               Light_Archer, Medium_Archer, Mounted_LightArcher, Artillary

For instance:  Scout, pioneer, light_skirmisher (I'm assuming militia is city produced)  along with some reference to:  heavy damage, low defense vs high defense, low damage

You add demons, which exist in vanilla.  How about Angles, how are they coming about?

Alright I am torn on how to do this as you can either go the heavy medium light unit dispersion as in each one represent how much weight capacity that unit can carry.  This is the only real way of limiting a units gear capacity other than class.  However it also makes sense thematically as in a heavy unit was generally heavily armored.  Light Cavalry was generally harasser units where as knight were go in and pound the front lines by smashing lines into bits.

The other way of doing this is to ignore the weight classes and just make it a weapon restriction so you could have a axeman which can only use axes and so forth.  With this comes a true distinction as you could have set bonuses as in an axeman might have a reduced accuracy but have a higher attack beyond what the weapon gives them or some other bonus.  We have had some very good debates as to weapons but what about unit starting bonuses.  By doing this we could create mini classes with level up bonuses similar to henchman but only make those bonuses available at certain levels as mini perks whereas henchman would get perks each level.  Not sure that is possible or not.

Finally this is just a further extension of making more distinction from one unit to the next instead of homogenizing all of the units into they have a weapon and armor and maybe a mount.  I want specific bonuses and minuses for each unit type that make sense to make tactical combat more fun. 

Also I figured out how to make city defense more interesting but not sure this is the area to discuss it or leave as a surprise for the armor mod.  Needless to say when you attack a city you may find more than you expected if someone builds properly.

Anyhow I want to make tactical well more tactical through class differentiation but still allow some customization for each.  Think about it like this, each sov has to choose a path this just makes it that the class is chosen at the trained units creation instead of down the road.  I am honestly more inclined to the weapon classes as apposed to the weight classes as this makes more sense.  I am sure I am rambling a little at this point as its late and I am tired.  Anyhow this is what I was thinking.  Let me know what yo guys think.

Currently we select a mould and can build any unit, a light infantry unit, a heavy cavalry unit, a juggernaut, anything. I'm not sure I see how breaking that up into separate classes is going to improve tactical combat. The most important thing you'll need to flesh out is what the bonuses for each class are.

Also at this point you should start thinking how the AI is going to use all this. You say you want to make tactical combat more tactical, but the AI is still going to be governed by the same rules as before.

That is the main thing I am worried about.  We can make tactical more tactical bt will the AI even recognize this or will it just ignore it.  I am curious if there is a way to set up the AI to recognize different troop build ups and respond accordingly.  Once we define spears as anti cavalry can you have the AI build pike in response to them or will it just build what it was going to.  An AI weighting system that we can predefine would be great here.

Mainly I think this is a good idea but like you said it may be pointless at this time until we can make those predefined tables so this may be a shelved idea for now but something to think about when/if they add that feature.  An adaptable AI using unit tags would be nice.  Add in scout units/spells so the AI can tell what you have and then it would be a good game for tactical.

The most we can do right now is to set some priority... which really doesn't help in the situation that you're describing. However, even if the AI somehow recognizes that spears are good vs cavalry, the problem of build up and preparation remains. When an army of cavalry arrives at its door step, it's simply too late to start building spearmens to counter them. By the time you can field enough to be useful, the war would be almost over (this isn't galciv2 where you might have time to react). Instead, you'd have to make sure the AI always fields some spearmens, even if there is no cavalry problems... yet. The same applies for just about every other class/counter-class that you make. As such, the more of these you make, the more the AI's army have to diversify (they have to be ready for all type of threats), and it becomes completely counter productive, because diversified armies would still get mowed over by a fully focused cavalry charge.

You mean like making a quota system where the computer always makes 20% of total units spear 10% cavalry and then everything else is mixed between everything else (foot, archers, mages).  That would work as well.  One thing I have noticed when I was doing my research for the armor mod, historically town militias were at best wearing chain armors but almost invariably they used a staff, spear or pike and then the garrison were the ones that wore more advanced armors with shields.  So in this case the computer could defend a city against cavalry but in the field would not be able to counter cavalry unless you implemented a way to force the AI to build unit X to counter unit Y.  Meh tired after watching the hobbit hope this makes sense that I agree with you and just trying to make sure I am looking at what we need help from the devs on.  If this is spot on I will add it as a new post on the modders request forum post Heavenfall made.

If there is something where you can say - if unit has trait A and has an Axe - do "blah"

If that exists you may be able to accomplish what I think your goals are on a global level and leave it to unit design

There currently seem to be the miscellaneous group (i.e. weak, scout), defensive group, and offensive group of traits.

You could make an equipment group of traits - if shield equiped AND defensive trait selected, then THIS trait gives a "shield bash" counterstrike at 50%

Then take it a step further - Tier 3 armor (Chain or plate?) + shield + 1H weapon = sword and board = tank = damage absorption trait (from unit creation) kicks in for -5 damage. 

Or for your example above - Armor (of any sort) + 2H spear + Piker trait = 100% additional damage to mounted units.

Then in terms of the AI, I'm not sure how it selects which unit to build.  You could pre-build a pack of units with the new traits and see what the AI does with them.

Note that the AI actually doesn't design its own units, it uses default designs, hidden AI designs, and player designs. So if you "leave" it to unit design, you basically have to go in and design all the units for all the races.

And even if the AI can somehow build the right unit (might be possible via custom resources), you'd also have to teach it how to compose its armies (I haven't seen anything to indicate that this is possible).

That is exactly the problem I was discussing after you pointed it out.  We can make the units manually but would the AI use them effectively.  So while I would love to make some custom units and trait to go with it this is likely a shelved concept for now.