[TNS] Unit special abilities

[Casual Tactician]

Yep, I know what you're saying. And I'm sincerely asking: how would you set up Mumakil recruitment for the AI, in order to make its appearance more common? Which constraints that the player faces would you relax? Would you make the unit available without the SB? Would you make it available everywhere in Harad, even far away from the provinces where Mumakil supposedly live?

Back in the time I made my own mini-submod, that enhanced the chance of the AI fielding Trolls, Mumakil playing as RK. But I'm not sure what I excatly did. Let me come back on that in a few minutes...

[Nehcrum]

You seem pretty confident speaking for every FATW player when you say "we all want this and that"...

The hardest unit to get access to are Mumakil. Atm they are available (for the player) in 3 provinces of Harad, they require the highest provincial development level and also a specific City Specialisation bldg. Feel free to propose an alternative recruitment plan.

I object.

The hardest unit to get access to is Warg units.
They also require highest provincial development as well as max forge, max temple and max barracks.
And only available in a few provinces which start out with very low population and few buildings and a very long way to go before getting to Warg units.....
I have seen mumakil in campaigns, and I think I've even seen olog-hai, but I have never seen warg units unless I'm the one playing as adunabar.

[Aradan]

I'm talking about DoM. Wargs are available in 16 provinces + 3 orkish strongholds, and they need a much shorter building chain to become available. Trolls in 12 orkish strongholds, also with a short building chain.

[Basileos Predator]

^^ that will surely make a much more interesting game.

[Casual Tactician]

Yep, I know what you're saying. And I'm sincerely asking: how would you set up Mumakil recruitment for the AI, in order to make its appearance more common? Which constraints that the player faces would you relax? Would you make the unit available without the SB? Would you make it available everywhere in Harad, even far away from the provinces where Mumakil supposedly live?

For the player there shouldn't be any relaxation in recruiting special units as Mumakil, Trolls...

But considering the AI:

- In regions where recruitment of special units (of e.g. Mumakil, Trolls...) is possible (= due to hidden resources) for the AI, there may only be max. 2-3 building-lines/tiers possible. And one of these inevitably should lead to recruitment facilities for special units.
- In a few hand-picked regions (picked by the DoM team; where the hidden resources allow the recruitment of special units), the AI can only build lines/tiers, that inevitably lead to recruitment facilities for special units.

[Nehcrum]

For the player there shouldn't be any relaxation in recruiting special units as Mumakil, Trolls...

But considering the AI:

- In regions where recruitment of special units (of e.g. Mumakil, Trolls...) is possible (= due to hidden resources) for the AI, there may only be max. 2-3 building-lines/tiers possible. And one of these inevitably should lead to recruitment facilities for special units.
- In a few hand-picked regions (picked by the DoM team; where the hidden resources allow the recruitment of special units), the AI can only build lines/tiers, that inevitably lead to recruitment facilities for special units.

One cheaty and slightly boring way would be to make it so you can only build one special unit (or special building that allows for such units) per region.
Or rather, that where there are mutually exclusive building lines and that are reliant on some province specific resource (such as Adunabars CD for Minas Ithil, which can lead to olog-hai OR uruk breeder) then there will only be one such resource per province.
Yes, it cuts down on choices for the player, but it means the AI will be "forced" to build those buildings because it can't pick another choice that disables it.

For example, Adunabar, Uruk breeder can be built in three cities, Minas Ithil, Durthang and that third city whatever it's called. In Minas Ithil and Durthang you can also build olog-hai caverns.
That means the AI can build uruk breeders in all three cities and thereby disable olog-hai for himself (since he doesn't tear down buildings).
But if you were to remove the province resource for uruk breeder in Durthang, that would leave the olog-hai cavern option open and means the AI will build it, it's only a matter of time and money.



One thing I really really really like about this mod though is that the starting conditions are such that the AI actually builds up his cities.
That really annoys me in Vanilla RTW, where the AI tends to mass-recruit crap units which drains his population (and lower population means lower population growth in absolute numbers) and sends them in hordes towards the player who struggles to build up his cities AND his armies.
So that once you get to higher units that can beat the opponents hordes and you push out to lay siege to their cities you discover that they are still at the same level as they started, they haven't built up their cities in the least bit, either because of lack of money due to recruiting low-lvl units and paying upkeep for them, or simply because their population hasn't been able to grow to the extent where they can upgrade the city to the next level.
It's just so frustrating to come upon a city that the AI has owned since the beginning and it has 400 population or thereabouts because the AI recruits more people from the city than it's growth.