Germanic Heavy Infantry- Couple of Bugs

[Drewski]

You know the ones where it says in the description "weapon not upgradable"?

Yet if you retrain/train them through a city with a blacksmith, they get GOLD weapons, i.e. 3 upgrades. They go from a very decent 14 base attack (sword) to a nasty 17 attack. They even get a picture of a gold sword on the card, which I haven't seen since basic RTW.

And even more extreme (I wasnt trying to cheat here, it was a happy accident)...you can't get them until at least 190 BC, BUT you can hire them as mercs. Then if you retrain them through a blacksmith/Lvl 5 Factional MIC, with a deiwoz pillar, they instantly get 3 chevrons too...making them a base 20 Attack!

For the 2nd part, I'm surmising that even though you can't actually recruit them until the 190 BC reforms, once you have the LVL 5 MIC in place, they become a hidden unit, and you can retrain them as I did above...

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Anyways, surely the GOLD weapon is unintentional...I always wondered what the "weapon not upgradable" tag was for...having now found that it doesn't mean that.

Any answers Bovi or anyone?

[XSamatan]

I think the gold chevrons and the status as a "hidden" unit are linked together, if not that is clearly a bug. Could you try to upgrade such an unit after the reform takes place?

Could you also give me the internal name (the sweboz-name) for this unit to check the edu?

XSamatan

[Drewski]

I think the gold chevrons and the status as a "hidden" unit are linked together, if not that is clearly a bug. Could you try to upgrade such an unit after the reform takes place?

Could you also give me the internal name (the sweboz-name) for this unit to check the edu?

XSamatan

Bit of clarification:

I'm playing as Sweboz.

All the Dreugulozez Brunjadoi (Germanic Heavy Infantry) I'm talking about are ones recruited as Mercs. I'm absolutely no where near 190BC, and have never got that far as The Sweboz, so I don't know.

The chevrons (3 bronze) come from buildings:- game field (1), Circle of Deiwoz (2).

The Gold Weapon (+3 Attack) comes from The Blacksmith. The unit card states "weapon not upgradable". A far as I know, this is the only unit in the game with this tag. Note that they get the normal +1 to armor from the Blacksmith, but this strange +3 weapon.

Here's the EDU for the unit: See the siege definition I've highlighted. If I remember rightly, this is used for units that become available after certain reform conditions are met. I'm guessing it's not working properly in this case.

;135
type             germanic infantry gastiz
dictionary       germanic_infantry_gastiz      ; Thegnoz Drugule
category         infantry
class            heavy
voice_type       General_1
soldier          germanic_infantry_ferulharjoz_gastiz, 30, 0, 1.18
officer          ebofficer_germanic_standardbearer
mount_effect     elephant -4
attributes       sea_faring, hide_improved_forest, very_hardy, mercenary_unit
formation        0.85, 1.2, 1.2, 2.4, 4, square
stat_health      1, 1
stat_pri         14, 8, no, 0, 0, melee, siege, slashing, sword, 0 ,0.225
stat_pri_attr    no
stat_sec         19, 8, no, 0, 0, melee, simple, piercing, spear, 0 ,0.13
stat_sec_attr    light_spear
stat_pri_armour  9, 14, 2, metal
stat_sec_armour  0, 0, flesh
stat_heat        4
stat_ground      0, 0, 0, -1
stat_mental      16, disciplined, highly_trained
stat_charge_dist 30
stat_fire_delay  0
stat_food        60, 300
stat_cost        1, 2829, 707, 80, 130, 2829
ownership        germans, romans_julii, romans_brutii, numidia, macedon, thrace, greek_cities, egypt, carthage, romans_scipii, parthia, armenia, pontus, gauls, britons, scythia, dacia, spain, slave, seleucid, saba

[Drewski]

Now this is getting weird. Just fired up the game to take a screenshot, recruited 2 more of the same Merc units, retrained them and this time I DIDN'T get the GOLD swords (still got the 3 chevrons I shouldn't have yet though).



The unit shown is one I previously upgraded PRE LVL 5 MIC. Note the 2 others without the Gold Weapon. So this bug is unusual to say the least

[burn_again]

I think the gold chevrons and the status as a "hidden" unit are linked together, if not that is clearly a bug. Could you try to upgrade such an unit after the reform takes place?

It is linked together, the upgrade does not work anymore after the reforms, when the unit is recruitable.

[XSamatan]

As this does not bug your game too hard I would just continue with it.
Maybe someone with knowledge of the behavior of the units in RTW could fix that and post it as a minimod.

It would be interesting if other units with this weapon tag are affected in the same way,and if it is a engine-related issue.

XSamatan

[burn_again]

As this "bug" gives you a unit that is much better than it is supposed to be, I don't think there will be much interest for "fixing" it.

This is the only unit that I'm aware of that is affected by this. It is also the only unit that is available as merc before it becomes available through reform. The upgrade is probably related to the fact that the reforms for Sweboz, Seleucids and Karthadastim work with the "siege" attribute in stat_pri (in the EDU) for the units. The reform marker buildings give "siege +1" which somehow makes the units with the "siege" attribute recruitable. Perhaps having the unit without the marker makes the upgrade possible.

[Drewski]

As this "bug" gives you a unit that is much better than it is supposed to be, I don't think there will be much interest for "fixing" it.

This is the only unit that I'm aware of that is affected by this. It is also the only unit that is available as merc before it becomes available through reform. The upgrade is probably related to the fact that the reforms for Sweboz, Seleucids and Karthadastim work with the "siege" attribute in stat_pri (in the EDU) for the units. The reform marker buildings give "siege +1" which somehow makes the units with the "siege" attribute recruitable. Perhaps having the unit without the marker makes the upgrade possible.

Probably true, but it's an interesting bug.

If you recruit said unit, and upgrade via a Blacksmith at a non LVL 5 HOME MIC, then you get the Gold swords. If you do the same AT a LVL 5 MIC, then you don't.

Regardless of this, if retrained at a LVL 5 MIC, you get the extra chevrons.

Matter closed as far as I'm concerned.

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On a side note, how the heck anyone plays The Sweboz to 190BC is beyond me. Even without superblitzing (I took 6 cities then basically hit return 40 times before more expansion), it's now 220BC, I have completed the full building tree in just about every city, and am content with my lands for the present (roughly 20 cities, including Britain). That's another 120 end turns till 190 BC...........

[bovi]

Actually, how it works is that the core building (governor's palace) has a -1 bonus to siege weapons. A unit with a negative weapon bonus becomes impossible to recruit, and enables to us an easy way to create reforms. It's basically one such reform per faction we can do this with (as all "siege" units are "upgraded" at the same time). The Romani reforms for instance use other, more "expensive" technical means as they have more than one reform.

I see now that there is an unfortunate side effect to this, we didn't think of mercenaries being able to "upgrade" to a -1 weapon. Apparently the game engine thinks that means +3 for retraining purposes. We could fix it by duplicating the unit and having the mercenary kind use "heavy" weapon rather than siege, and we probably would if EB1 wasn't considered finished. Also, it's really easy to not exploit the bug, so I don't think we'll spend any effort on it.

Still, thanks for reporting! I never knew about this bug before.

[Drewski]

No worries Bovi, Thanks for the technical explaination :)

[CanOmer]

I built level 5 MIC but I can't recruit Germanic Heavy Infantry. What is the solution?

[Arjos]

Need the scripted reform to happen:

At least 190BC,
-A (forum)(L3 Market) built in these provinces: Kimbriolandam, Swebolandam, Rugolandam, Herusklandam, Habukolandam, Mrog Actagone (previously Hattolandam)
- (army_barracks_U1)(L4 Regional MIC) in one of these provinces: Luvarottea, Sarmiszegethusa, Burdava, Eburonum, Vindobona, Iuvavoaeta, Veldideno, Aventicos, Vindelicoppidos, Vienna

[CanOmer]

Thanks. How many new units will be avaliable after the reform?

[Ca Putt]

Them and the heavy cavalrymen you underlined in your pic.

I see now that there is an unfortunate side effect to this, we didn't think of mercenaries being able to "upgrade" to a -1 weapon. Apparently the game engine thinks that means +3 for retraining purposes. We could fix it by duplicating the unit and having the mercenary kind use "heavy" weapon rather than siege, and we probably would if EB1 wasn't considered finished. Also, it's really easy to not exploit the bug, so I don't think we'll spend any effort on it.

very interesting, always funny to hear of wierd Ideas computers(or rather engines) have.

On a side note, how the heck anyone plays The Sweboz to 190BC is beyond me. Even without superblitzing (I took 6 cities then basically hit return 40 times before more expansion), it's now 220BC, I have completed the full building tree in just about every city, and am content with my lands for the present (roughly 20 cities, including Britain). That's another 120 end turns till 190 BC...........

Yeah beyond me aswell, Personally I think there should be the option to attain the reform by simply captureing a lot(more than currently) of Iron deposits and uprading their Infrastructure. Would be a sound idea for a sub mod, hmmm.