Change A Unit Recruitment Cost¶

This example changes the amount of an existing recruitment cost for a unit.

It is a good first unit edit because it avoids tags, combat behavior, animations, and worker logic.

Goal¶

Change one existing RecruitmentCost amount.

Do not change unit GUIDs, tags, or components.

Step 1: Pick A Simple Unit¶

Open:

generated/catalog/filters/production/units-with-recruitment-cost.md

Good first candidates are simple workers such as:

Builder
Digger
Miner
Fisher
Explorer

Avoid combat units for the first experiment.

Step 2: Find The Unit¶

Search by unit name or GUID. For example:

rg --no-ignore "Builder|efb5e3be-f28a-4d86-84f4-9cc6ec428661" .\game-gdb\core\gdb\units.gd.xml

Find:

RecruitmentCost
ResourceCosts
Resource
Amount
NeedsManualRecruitment

Step 3: Change One Amount¶

Example style of change:

<Amount>1</Amount>

to:

<Amount>2</Amount>

Keep the resource GUID unchanged.

Step 4: Validate And Regenerate¶

Run:

powershell -NoProfile -ExecutionPolicy Bypass -File scripts\validate_database.ps1
powershell -NoProfile -ExecutionPolicy Bypass -File scripts\generate_catalog.ps1

Check:

generated/catalog/units.md
generated/catalog/filters/production/units-with-recruitment-cost.md

Step 5: Test Recruitment¶

In a new test save, check:

the unit can still be recruited
the recruitment UI shows the changed cost
the unit appears after recruitment
the unit can still take jobs
no required tutorial or objective became blocked

What Not To Change Yet¶

Avoid:

TaggedUnit
combat fields
animation names
SourceRecruitableUnit
NeedsManualRecruitment
component structure
unit GUIDs

Why This Example Is Useful¶

Recruitment cost changes teach three important patterns:

how resources are referenced by GUID
how unit data is cataloged
how a small XML amount change flows into gameplay

Once this is comfortable, you can compare worker costs, combat unit costs, and DLC unit costs.