eWIP/eMOD Designable Roadbuilder & Settler Units v1 for Legendary Heroes

OK, after some delays, I've finally pretty much buttoned this mod up for use.  I'm calling it an eWIP for now, although it is pretty much done at this point.

This mod has one standalone file, that adds a Pioneer Gear Trait, a Roadbuilding Trait, and re-introduces the Weak trait (with a twist) into the Traits picker, and adds Roadbuilding Equipment under the Equipment picker of the unit design windows.  It should not affect any other mods you may have installed, as all traits/equipment in this mod have unique names, and hence should not interfere with other mods.  YMMV of course.

Designable_Roadbuilder_Settler_Units_v1.zip

The Pioneer Trait is available at the start of the game, and will allow you to design armed pioneers, mounted pioneers, or whatever. 

As Units are usually required to have weapons, Staff armed Pioneers have a slightly higher build cost than 'vanilla' Pioneers. (109 versus 103, assuming the weak trait is still in place).

The Roadbuilding Trait is currently tied to the Civics tech, and allows the purchase of roadbuilding equipment.

Roadbuilding equipment requires the Civics tech and the Roadbuilding Trait, one horse per member in the group, and 10 population per member in the group.  Roadbuilding equipment reduces movement by 62%, which will reduce a road building unit's speed to 1 square a turn, or two squares if a horse mount is also chosen.  BTW, If you don't have any horses/horse production, you may of course buy some from other kingdoms/empires if they have any that they are willing to trade, so as to equip your roadbuilding units.

The Roadbuilding Equipment Icon is appearing with the Civics Tech now... yay!

BTW, when units are equiped with Roadbuilding Gear, you will see the Build Road button in the lower left corner, along with the other unit action option buttons.  While Roadbuilding doesn't require any movement points, once all movement points are expended, no further road sections may be built that turn.  So, this means that 'foot' units can build one section of road per turn, while mounted units may build two sections.

This does not change any of the other units in the game, so the AI players will still be able to build pioneers and such.  This mod is primarily targetted at players who want this ability for their empire.

The weak trait is also re-introduced as a selectable trait, as scouts currently have this ability, and it seemed silly to me that you could edit those units (hence taking advantage of the weak trait) but couldn't select the trait directly.  One MAJOR change to this trait is that it now reduces attack strength by 50%, not by -2.  This was to help 'nerf' this ability in regard to stronger weapons and such.  It does still reduce build time by -10.

 

To install this mod, simply unzip the file, and drop the single enclosed .xml file into the mydocuments/mygames/LegendaryHeroes/Mods folder.  Start a new game, and voila!  Remember that Roadbuilding is tied to Civics, so you won't see that right off the bat in the Unit Design/Traits window.

 

Please report any issues you may have, and any suggestions as well. 

Note that this mod is intended to enjoy/further customize the player's experience, and that AI players will probably pretty much ignore this mod.  They still have vanilla Pioneers though, so no worries.  Also, the whole point in introducing a roadbuilding unit is to allow players to 'fix' any issues with automatic roadbuilding, which brought about the birth of this mod. 

And, if for some reason, someone wanted to combine these abilities in the same unit (Pioneers and Roadbuilding), well this mod will allow you to do that.  Of course, once you settle a new town, you'll be out your roadbuilding unit, but them's the breaks!

Changelog: 

File updated 6/18/13.  Minor change - Roadbuilding movement reduction is now .38, which will allow mounted roadbuilders to build up to 2 squares per turn.

 

7,853 views 4 replies
Reply #1 Top

Quick update regarding the as yet to be released version 2.

 

Working on monument building options at the moment.  I'm trying to keep this as a unit ability that doesn't convert the unit into a monument, using other resources instead, but this might be a tie in instead with a general/commander Champion trait...

Anyways, some form of Monument builders will be included in version 2. These units add production points to your city (tested/works), and may produce a separate resource pool used for building/modiying monuments, assuming I can work all the kinks out.  And they can also build/settle monuments directly, although the production bonus tends to eclipse this. 

If all else fails, I can always separate these abilities, and make two unit traits (monument builders and craftsmen), with appropriate population requirements and such for each.

Once I've tested the new concepts, and worked out a few things, I'll be ready to release the update to this mod.  Soon...

Reply #2 Top

Just about to try a new game, will try it out

 

Reply #3 Top

Quick update:

With the relocation of Mounted Warfare in LH 1.2, I'm rethinking the horses requirement for roadbuilding equipment at the moment.  I'll probably change this with the next release.

Also, now that I have the movement multiplier working more or less as planned, I may remove the roadbuilding equipment requirement, and move the ability completely to the Ability def.  The two reasons I went the equipment route were 1) I was hoping to fill the 'mount' slot with it, but that didn't work out (model disappeared), and 2) To get it to show up on the tech tree as an icon with a description, so it was clear which tech enabled the roadbuilding ability.  I'll play with this a bit between now and the next release.

BTW, I will also be including a Builders ability with the next release.  This will allow a unit that selects this perk/ability to increase production in whichever city it is in, and allow outpost upgrades to be done using Building Materials instead of labor, hence not tying up the build cue.  Said unit will produce said building materials.  Said units will also be able to build/convert themselves into outposts, and Sovs will have a new ability, that allows them to build outposts using Building Materials instead of mana.  This will probably be broken out into a separate file, so players can choose whether they want this ability in their game or not.

I plan to also add Building Materials production to the Workshop (and any Workshop upgrades), so that the AI will accumulate them regardless of whether they have the special unit or not.  Also, this will not affect the 'Normal' way to build outposts (Pioneer/ArcaneMonolith), only the way they are upgraded.  I may also add special 'prebuilt' Builder units for each existing race, similar to Pioneers and Scouts, assuming the AI is able to see/use them.

Finally, there will be a 'Boost Production' spell, which Sovs can use to boost production in a city for one turn, hence lowering the time needed to complete building/training a bit.  The amount usually won't instantly complete any units, there is another spell for that, but it could under some circumstances lower the completion time to one turn.

Builders and Boost Production could be race-specific abilities, but for now I will designate them as generally available.  I can easily make this a racial option under custom race creation.  Feedback will be appreciated.

Reply #4 Top

OK, I'm taking a poll before I button this up for an updated release.

There have been a few requests in other threads for Scouts that can build outposts. 

I already have a unit in this mod that can build outposts, other than Pioneers, which costs 15 population.  Said unit can't build cities, but I digress.

 

Anyways, if I modify the Scout ability to include Outpost building (or introduce Scout Mark II Ability, which has this capability), should there be an associated population cost (assuming Vanilla E:LH)?  If so, what is a reasonable populaton cost?  10? 15? 307?  Also, should labor costs, etc. for said Scout ability be the same, or a little higher?

 

Scout Ability currently costs (besides the perk slot):

Population: 0  (x3 of course), Additional Training Turns: 4

 

For reference, the Pioneer 'Ability' requires:

Population: 10 (x3 of course), Additional Training Turns: 30

 

of course, it might be best to incorporate this into the scout ability, so that the AI might use it more... unless you AI types can suggest to me how to 'weight' this for the AI, and the best values and such.  I'm kinda liking the ring of 'FrontiersmanAbility', though...

 

Suggestions?