Updated Road and Transport boost subumod

[gdwitt]

I have updated the transport boost submod for DEI.
All campaigns now included except Attila.
Recall that I published this last summer, but it doesn't appear to have been adapted in the mod.
Discuss it here:

http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showt...Movement/page2
http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfile.../?id=268515127 to download.

It's also available via Steam directly.

[theredviper07]

non steam link please thanks

[Dresden]

When I was working on transport movement before 1.0, the issue was that any increase to army transport movement on the sea would give them a bonus when moving through a port. So armies landing at a port had an insane move range.

[Augustusng]

When I was working on transport movement before 1.0, the issue was that any increase to army transport movement on the sea would give them a bonus when moving through a port. So armies landing at a port had an insane move range.

Yeah, I tried doing a similar thing in Attila, and ran into the same problem with ports. Would be great if there was a way around it.

[gdwitt]

I haven't seen that issue. I just tested it again (1 minutes ago) by moving my army offshore and moving a turn forward. The army comes ashore with movement points minus whatever they used up on sea.
The sample used was Epirus, which has a port for the transition.
How else can I test it?
One difference I noticed is that your campaign ground types are maxed out as if you have another dynamic in-game that boosts range.
All I can find is rom_force_campaign_movement_range_mod in handicaps. I tested that effect extensively and it doesn't seem to do anything for transport movement.

The only significant negative to this minor change is that agents lose range and there's no personal factor to restore their range. This is why I limit the increase to only 35%, which works out to about at 25% increase for transports.
Do you happen to know an effect to increase agent range by themselves?
Here is a direct download: https://www.dropbox.com/s/wzc4ev13dw...vDEI.pack?dl=0
Testers and comments would be appreciated.

[Dresden]

We have increased land unit movement values but then use season effects that lower movement. That was our method for previously increasing the transport range but limiting that movement while on land (since the seasonal effects only affect armies in a province).

I will take a look at it again and use your submod to test. Thanks for the link

[gdwitt]

Give it a go.
rom_tech_module_military_tactics + #is an effect I discovered through trial an error from at least a week's worth of testing (over the course of a month).
It is not used in the game or any submods.
It certainly is not in Attila.

Don't overlook the other big advantage of this very tiny submod: it adds more road levels.
There's no reason to keep road levels at 3 that I can see.
I cut off the big table that adjust the road points for each building type because that can be adjusted in the roads table by increasing or decreasing movement cost threshold.

My biggest critique of DEI is that the buildings aren't worth building if it takes 80-120 turns to see a ROI. Giving them more effects like roads and other things would make the mod a winner for me.

[gdwitt]

After more testing, I have found the problem you spoke of. It seems that transport fleets on arriving at docks get about a 33% range increase on land that they didn't have before debarking.
However, I can't tell this for sure because of season effects.
This increase occurs the next turn as if there's something bugged about the way the game calculates that effect.
The quickest resolution is to increase the movement points needed to land (or depart I guess).
Where can this be done?

Also, is there an effect other than movement points that increase agents' movement range? I found that agent range maxes out pretty low.

[gdwitt]

Is there any variable in the game the would allow me to assign a movement point value to landing via a city port?

Reflection: This bug does not seem to affect landing on a shoreline so it has minimal strategic uses since you can't "land" into an enemy town or even a friendly town.
When you land an army at a distant port of your (something not common until you have a big empire), how common is it to keep marching?
I think it's advantages far outweigh this problem.
If we could increase agent range, we could boost transport movement even more, and that would make it extremely useful.
Right now I estimate it takes 3 years to cross the Mediterranean for transports. Realistic?

[Augustusng]

The only variables I know of affect landing on shorelines, but not ports; those are in campaign_variables: pathfinding_land_to_sea_beach_transition_action_point_cost and pathfinding_sea_to_land_beach_transition_action_point_cost.

[gdwitt]

As a developing programmer, it's my guess that the variable being used was built for transports.
However, they forgot to add in the check to see if the "army" was disembarking from a transport to land.
The check is there for embarking from land to sea.
When I just checked, there is no bonus when disembarking onto coastline; it takes nearly all the movement points no matter where you land.

Another pointer: Transports obey the movement points on water as if the water was land.
Naval groups seem to disregard these movement points ("ground_types") and have count their action points through some other variable.

You're pretty sharp about those variables. Two questions:
Can you explain what restricts the movement range of agents other than their move_points?
There are many bonuses they can gain to help out armies move, but are there any bonuses that affect them alone?

[Augustusng]

I don't really know what affects agent movement, besides the move_points. There are some traits that improve campaign movement range, I think.

For the army movement bonuses, I think there may be some bonuses that only affect them... but it's possible that they also affect transports. Seasonal movement effects only affect armies on land, of course.

[gdwitt]

Solved: Replace romforcecampaignmodmovementrange with romtechmodulemilitarytactics and you'll fix your transport problem.
The excess Move points issue on disembarking at your own port disappears.
I give you permission to put this in your mod.
Please cite me somewhere.
In the meantime, I'm going to alter this submod to cancel out romforcecampaignmodmovementrange.

[gdwitt]

I just tested romtechmodulemilitarytactics in Radious and Vanilla.
There is absolutely no evidence in these modes of any increase in land range from disembarking into a city.
The only difference I can see is that DEI has romforcecampaignmodmovement range setup in handicaps.
Is this effect really working? I tested that extensively and it doesn't seem to selectively improve army movement.
What other change has DEI done to cause this conflict with techmodule to occur?

(Another test: I set sea and coast movement points to 1 and noticed no difference versus 10 or even 25 for transports. When I set it above 150 I get a 1cm reduction in transport distance)

[Dresden]

Thanks gdwitt, of course credit will be listed without a doubt. You have been helpful many different times when trying to address this issue.

[Dresden]

After some testing, I think that the effects are the same. Both campaign mod movement range and module military tactics seem to do the exact same thing. Replacing the first one (the one in the mod now) yielded the exact same movement situations for both land and transports. The military tactics effect did not boost transport movement, at least not in my tests, any more than than the movement range effect. Both of these effects suffer from the same problem (that is currently in the mod now), an army landing at a port gets a large movement boost because the seasonal land movement reductions haven't been applied yet.

Here is an example, this was the way it looked both using the submod (and removing campaign movement effect) and using base DeI without the submod:

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

Army that just landed:


Army that has been on land 1 turn:

[gdwitt]

Having a new computer, I don't have access to the temp file screenshots that shows the new mod works.
My tests were all done back in 2014 and there was no doubt they worked then.
I retested it in August 2015, and it still seemed to work with DEI when I set the handicaps movement range to 0.
Why? When you add the rom_tech_module_military_tactics on top of rom_force_campaign_mod_movement_range, movement ranges' effects win out.
Some try this since I don't have the game installed.
Zero out movement range from DEI and just add the submod or additional lines in techmodulemilitarytactics.
Take photos.
I recommend Carthage or Epirus or Egypt because you start with an army standing on a port city.

[gdwitt]

I just spent 2 hours testing it on my old computer. I don't seem to notice a difference any more.
In 2014 I had season effects negated as I did in this test run.
It seems that romtechmodulemiltactics does the same thing now as your chosen force campaign movement mod.
Both effects cause a significant range boost.
It seems that the movement points for sea are only calculated when a unit is transitioning from land to sea or vice versa.
Otherwise coast mp could be 1 or 100 and the result is the same.
I could post the screenshots, but it's
If you test with Epirus, be sure to remove the elephant troop.

[FlashHeart07]

This should be moved to the submod forum