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I proposed something similar with coalitions: Personnally I would prefer something enabling the possibility to have unique units, techs and buildings through the tribes chosen. Coalitions are how historically the "barbarians" and the small nations were able to defeat massive empires.

What you are asking can't be reasonably done. It's not about doing a statistically validated poll, but what one reads (I can read plenty in three months), and perceives when taking up the game (maybe this was too long ago for you and many), after all, this thread started with "several posts that suggest that the current Petra is too difficult". That’s a start for something, and everything else I keep reading here, on Reddit, etc, makes it valid for me, considering the gap between Very Easy and Sandbox has already been mentioned before. And it's not that I don't care that some are having a positive experience, it's that that doesn't indicate there's no problem for some. Regarding pacing, as I've mentioned, it's a fact that production times are much faster than in other games, as discussed in the link I provided from this forum. Regarding speed of the game itself, I see that as less relevant than the other two things, but I do still think all this is mostly cosmetic, since once you choose the Competitive Preset, it just stays there, and one would use that for everything. Why do experienced players care what the default setting was at the beginning, if it's clear what the accepted competitive setting is? There’s no breaking of what already works, it’s all under the corresponding Preset. Actually, besides cosmetics, I also proposed the addition of levels, which was also mentioned by the OP. To summarise, I think the difficulty levels should be (for Aggressive, while for Balanced and Defensive rushes should be tuned down even more) something along these lines (or whatever approximation possible): -Sandbox: as it is now. -Extremely Easy: no rushes, small armies and defenses. -Very Easy: small rushes, medium armies and defenses. -Easy: medium rushes, decent armies and defenses. -Normal: decent rushes, large armies and defenses, comparable to other games, no warning should be needed. -Hard, Very Hard and Extremely Hard: only now large rushes, huge armies and defenses, EH at least as hard as SC2 brutal (or whatever is possible), VH and H more or less equidistantly filling the gap down to Normal. For hard levels, yes, for easy levels, no. It's like all difficulty levels seem clustered somewhere above the usual Normal, but don't reach as far as SC2 Brutal, which is not that brutal considering I'm far from being a pro, yet managed just fine.

The inevitable conclusion it isn't that AI isn't hard at all. It's actually rather too easy, but the vanilla content 0AD offers isn't optimal for casual or new players for leisure games, nor for learning. There are some work in this area already like : https://gitea.wildfiregames.com/0ad/0ad/pulls/8861 https://gitea.wildfiregames.com/0ad/0ad/pulls/7785 Also a good foundation for making campaigns more immersive: https://gitea.wildfiregames.com/0ad/0ad/pulls/8614 We can thanks @Vantha which is the main dive in these areas. I recommend trying mods, such as Delenda-Est, hyrule-conquest and a tone more already ported and coming up for R28, that are just 2 clicks away for players to get a great load of content from. If you want to not be a multiplayer try-harder, you do have many options that doesn't involve trying to beat the hardest level of AI possible actually.

Nice post! I like how you mixed 0 A.D. and chess together. It shows smart thinking and good strategy of amazon wholesale suppliers skills. Keep sharing more cool game ideas like this!

When the playback stops because I closed Youtube / my browser I can just go to my phone's media overview (swipe down) and click play. The video now plays in the background / when my phone is locked. Or I use an app like PipePipe. Why would you even want that? That sounds horrible both from a usability aspect (tiny video on an already tiny screen) and for your brain (nuke your already shrinking attention span).

@Thalatta I’m not dismissing the negative experience that some players may have. What I’m saying is that it’s very difficult to establish that this negative experience is representative of every(or considerable amount) new player’s experience. I agree that the AI needs to be improved. Ideally, it shouldn’t rush under certain configurations. That’s something we all know is pending and difficult to implement. But that’s very different from wanting to modify the game’s pacing in its default state. I haven’t seen this kind of engagement approach in other RTS games. What I have seen are in-game tutorials, ranging from basic mechanics to complex build orders, along with campaigns and achievement systems, challenges. Establishing a slower pacing as the “normal” baseline would be a substantially disruptive change, and accepting it would require very solid evidence. Not just a handful of reports you might find on Reddit or that show up here from time to time in the forum. Furthermore, you will always have dissatisfied players. You can keep searching and maybe find 100 or 200 reports online about this issue. But is that sample representative? That’s roughly the same number of players who play multiplayer every day. The same group you’ve described as a minority (and I agree that’s likely the case). So those 100 or 200 reports should also be considered a minority, shouldn’t they? So, one thing is making the AI easier, and another is changing the game’s pacing. I think changing the AI’s default difficulty from Normal to Very Easy Defensive would be a positive change in this regard. Even so, without a basic guide to the game’s military and economic mechanics, it’s very likely that a new player will lose their first few attempts, for the simple reason that they don’t understand how the game works. I’ve seen many newbies build 50 farms with 100 civilians (people clearly coming from AoE). You have to give new players the tools to understand how to play. And if many of us recommend that people read some guides, it’s simply because the game doesn’t provide that kind of (good) how-to in-game. You should also care about those who are having a positive experience, they’re proof that something is being done right. I think you’re drawing conclusions far too quickly for how little time you’ve been here. Have you seen the developers play? Do you know them? There are all kinds of contributors: some play very well, others are complete noobs, and some, I think, don’t even play at all. I hope that over time you’ll come across other perspectives and have experiences that will lead you to see this differently. Casual players don’t necessary need the game to be slower; they need in-game tutorials and campaigns, they need guidance. It’s not about “making it easier so they stick around.” It’s about teaching them how to play, giving them content, storytelling, and engagement. And this is missing, not because of some “experienced-player corporatism,” but because there isn’t enough manpower to tackle tasks of that complexity and scope. There’s no need to break what already works; what’s needed is to improve what works and build what’s missing. Changing the game’s default speed to 0.8x is not a cosmetic change at all. It’s a significant design decision. Alright. I think it’s a good idea, and I’ll open the PR as soon as I have some free time. Basic PRs like this tend to be resolved fairly quickly, whether accepted or rejected. Btw, I don’t think you’re trying to impose your ideas. I just meant that some of them are based on assumptions without solid support.

My takes on TEAM BONUSES https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zbTjnx3sNX0

In Normal 0 A.D., same, after a couple of lost matches I realised one had to hurry, and since then Very Hard wasn't a problem. When the AI was improved recently, again I lost a couple of matches, and realised I had to play even better, so the following few matches I've won on Very Hard (set always on Aggressive). But it seems some people just can’t do this as easily as we can (I just hold back because I don’t like to confront a game like I’m on cocaine, I just step up as it's necessary). Regarding SC2, I went straight to Brutal, and yes, a couple of Protoss scenarios took me the whole day, but I knew what I was going against, and this is kind of my point, it’s all about expectations, and not only 0 A.D. Normal is not normal (I don’t think one should read a guide and watch some videos for it, and, yet again, there’s a warning in the game itself), but apparently on Very Easy people are getting rushed. This should not happen, there’s a clear gap between that level and Sandbox, and not because the AI is smart, but because it makes rushes, and this is the core of the problem with the easy levels, which might be trivial for you and I, and for many others, but I don’t want to lose sight of those who have some RTS experience and have their expectations on what those difficulty levels should actually mean. Most of the rest of your answer is just dismissing their experience, do negative responses cancel their opinions? Do positive reviews brush off those who are frustrated? Is it not fast-paced for some, even when for others that’s a conditional thing? I don’t care about those who have a positive experience, good for them, that’s a non-issue, I worry about those who seem to be left behind. I got those links in 5 minutes, I could keep going and you know it, so let’s not waste time on ignoring an issue that’s there. I don’t necessarily say it is deliberate, it could well be accidental, which could be because this is a game made mostly by gamers that like the genre so much (this is, being quite experienced in it) that are willing to volunteer to code to make it. There’s a lot of knowledge about gameplay and balance, but this, seems to me, has shifted game too much to their preferences. I feel a “corporate” game tries to take more into account casuals and total beginners, because selling it really matters for them. So, I think there’s tension between what experienced RTS players want, and growing the game, for which I think is vital to consider what casuals and total beginners can actually do without delving into guides and videos, which, unsurprisingly, they are not going to do, they just want to play a game as they have played others. My proposal is just a cosmetic thing, how the game is presented out of the box, given that I think there’s plenty of evidence many are getting frustrated (which, again, doesn’t contradict that many are not, as I know is the case). The 0.8x speed idea is also mostly cosmetic, so I’m not sure why it would be so terrible (and with upgradeable Achievements one would be motivating people to play with Competitive Presets, which is the concept that wraps up everything), although I wonder if it would make infantry and cavalry speed difference more relevant (particularly if cavalry is made a bit faster, but these are unrelated gameplay discussions). For all I care, batch training could be made more advantageous, and there could be techs improving this even more, to replenish late armies faster, my worry is what happens in the early game (early for newbies! that's not 5 mins, that could be at least 20 mins), particularly on the easier difficulty levels. I never coded in JavaScript, but have done it in many other languages. As I mentioned somewhere else, I don’t like to do PRs, at least for now, because I don’t like to overload what’s already there, and, contrary to what you might think, I don’t want to try to impose my ideas, but to discuss first and see if there’s agreement on if there’s some merit to them.

For germans, I was wondering if we could explore the inverse of what the game used to do with with the "hellenes" faction. That is choosing a civ being Cimbri and others and phase 1 is specific with maybe some bonii techs and phase2 and 3 (and 4 for de) are common for civs that eventually unified.

@Frederick_1 Thanks for sharing these replays! I’ve uploaded them to the Replay Pallas. The other tournament replays I was able to recover are MacWolf vs 20R_Seb, and those are uploaded as well.

Now that the tournament is finished, it would be nice to have the game replays of the matches, or at least most important or remarkable Games. I do not know how it is appreciated to post Replays of games of other players for "privacy" reasons, but I will start with the Final Match ValihrAnt vs. SaidRtz. Sadly, as far as I know none of this was live streamed. I packed each game of this 5 rounds match into a zip. Hope it works. Vali-Said-Game_1.zip Vali-Said-Game2.zip Vali-Said-Game3.zip Vali-Said-Game4.zip Vali-Said-Game5.zip

I know, I saw it. And it is really a great idea you had. The idea is good. You are pointing out the issue about the Persians, but we could have the same issue with other civs no? Romans and Germans notably.

I don't know about the leaks and roofer comparison.. About autotrain, the feature wouldn't probably be considered for vanilla integration for good reasons. It introduces technicalities and over 20 buttons each supporting 3 different interactions (scroll, left click, right click..), even if it wasn't that hard to use, it was done too empirically resulting in something that complexify the UI by quite a bit... Which makes it ok as mod, but probably not for vanilla. Now I've recently proposed a system that offers the similar gameplay improvements, or even more in some areas, by having a very general way to queue production orders. This system currently introduce : 0 New UI elements 0 New hotkey Should-be perfect play-flow No automation feeling, since actions are initiated by user, and no overlay look like pupeting another like with autotrain. This, in my view, this makes it much more likely to be merged into vanilla. But currently I haven't got much feedback, so if you want to contribute on this feel free to do so here.

Sasanian special tech: https://www.wikiwand.com/en/Panjagan - Panjagān was either a projectile weapon or an archery technique used by the aswaran heavy cavalry of the late military of Sasanian Persia, by which a volley of five arrows was shot. No examples of the device have survived, but it is alluded to by later Islamic authors, in particular in their description of the Persian conquest of Yemen, wherein the application of the unknown panjagan was supposedly the deciding factor in Persian victory. If we can get a "multiple projectile" patch committed ( @real_tabasco_sauce ?), then this could increase the number of projectile their cavalry archers loose per volley. Otherwise, it could be a attack rate tech (fire faster).

Yeah, not to mention the batch training, which also increases the total training time to equal or more than "3x the speed of training" in SC II per batch. Or, you can change the setting in the Options and never be bothered about it again. Oh, and you can also disable the match-setting tips, so you aren't annoyed by that "Medium AI is too hard for beginners" message. Again, the "Normal" AI in AoE2 will destroy any new AoE 2 player, regardless of his/her experience with RTS.

Like this?

The gigantic pull request: https://gitea.wildfiregames.com/0ad/0ad/pulls/8881

Plenty of times? How many times—10, 20, 30? What number would actually be needed to consider it truly representative or a majority? Do negative responses to that claim, even from SP players, not count? And why couldn’t a “normal” level be challenging? (even though it really isn’t…) I personally never found the normal level challenging; I lost a couple of times and then started beating it. You yourself have said you didn’t find it very challenging. So how should it be, beatable on the first try? And I’m pretty sure that the newbies who didn’t find it challenging didn’t go to the forum to comment on it… For me, moving from Normal to Hard in StarCraft II took quite a lot of matches… It’s a much more challenging and intelligent AI, with vastly better combat micro than in 0 A.D., and also superior economic management. And regarding the excess of clicks, this game is far less click-intensive than AoE 2 and SCII, starting with the auto-queue feature present in the vanilla version, which drastically reduces APM when producing units. What’s the evidence? Two friends: one who may or may not have stopped playing, and the other who apparently kept playing on medium? Okay, now let’s move on to your reviews about the fast-paced: This guy wasn’t even used to playing RTS games, and after his third match he began to feel like he’d gotten a handle on things. Great, the guy recommends the game and gives it a positive review. Another person who recommends the game and says it’s very addictive. He explains that the pace is determined by the difficulty: if you want a relaxed experience, you play on easy; otherwise, you increase the difficulty. The mention of pacing is quite conditional; he says: “I tried playing medium level and the enemy advanced faster and attacked faster. So it was more of a fast-paced game than a slow leisure game.” In his own words: “So far though, this game is pretty addictive as it's only my 2nd day playing it and I have only tried Acropolis Bay. I definitely look forward to trying more and even the one with 1v4 game play.” Great! he loved the game. Two days in and he’s already hooked. Playing on Single Player only for 2 days, counts as a casual for me. These three posts include suggestions from other players giving advice on how to win, along with guides. Do those testimonies count as well? Or are they all tryhards??? An experienced RTS player who always loses against the Petra bot on easy, come on man… read a guide, watch some videos... I do take this from that last frustrated player, though: “0 A.D. has such a hard time explaining its mechanics clearly and providing a proper easy difficulty that it makes it really hard to get into, and with the game's low popularity, it's hard to find up-to-date guidance online too.” A good tutorial is necessary so that new players don’t jump into fighting the AI blindly without understanding not only the basic game mechanics, but also more advanced concepts. And I think achievements are great. As for balance, I do think it’s primarily shaped around PvP, and that’s for obvious reasons seen in many other RTS games. It’s natural for balance to evolve based on different playstyles and strategies that players discover over time as they refine techniques, explore units and civilization-specific features, and push the gameplay in different directions. It should also be possible to separate both realms to some extent. In the SP environment, there can be technologies and units that don’t exist in MP. This is quite common in many RTS games too and adds an interesting layer to the single-player experience. And it’s not really the case that multiplayer being only for “tryharders”. While it’s true that there’s a group of very intense tryhards like myself, you can also find daily matches that last for hours, with very laid-back players who just play and have fun without an overly competitive mindset. This is what I mean: you keep referring to the game as prioritizing multiplayer as if that were a deliberate design decision and it isn’t. There have been campaigns in the past, but they’re difficult to keep updated from version to version due to technical constraints and the very limited manpower available to maintain everything. There’s currently one person working on updating the old campaign, and another developer working on a more advanced narrative system for creating campaigns. I understand that some people may have told you that, but it’s not a premeditated design decision at all. If the proposal is to set the easy level as the default, fine, that can be done very easily. I don’t see why the developers wouldn’t accept it. I’ve seen in another post that you have some knowledge of JavaScript; you could make the PR yourself in very little time. Now, reducing the normal game speed to 0.8x and trying to set 1.25x as the “competitive option” seems like a terrible idea to me. But it’s not as if this is there because it’s designed with multiplayer players in mind.

I think around houses/storehouses, etc. could be more dirt-like. Otherwise, nice direction established here.

That makes sense to me Maybe the nearest structure? That would be nice at least, because they are pretty vital and carry a lot of resources, and I wouldn't want to loose them

From my point of view 100 seems a good start. This is about bulk transport, possibly adding another dimension to the game. What happens if a storehouse is full. The worker would walk to the next nearest dropsite? Question: IN an alarm situation, would we allow garrisoning of transporter units into houses/barracks/stables etc. or only into storehouses/fortresses/camps and CC?

How many resource could the wagon/transporter unit take. Maybe 100 base, but there are upgrades that can get it up to 300? Also, I think there should be some changes to the AI, because they build some of their structures at the edge of their territory, and they usually don't have them well defended at the start of the game at least

Thanks for providing evidence to what I think is quite obvious. To add some more, a couple of reviews stating it’s fast-paced: https://blowingupbits.com/2014/02/0-a-d-the-land-between-time/ https://peakd.com/hive-140217/@macchiata/0ad-free-open-source-rts-game--a-gameplay And just to grab one of many posts in this forum, many here mentioning what I think, to the point that “the most competitive players are proposing some pretty extreme things” is stated, and indeed, there one can clearly see what I think is the "state of mind many in the community have" (I never said "all"): https://wildfiregames.com/forum/topic/130185-training-times-or-why-the-fastest-click-wins/ Here some frustrated players on Reddit, only over the last 3 months (but hey, these people don't exist for the tryharders): https://www.reddit.com/r/0ad/comments/1so1gzp/transition_from_very_easy_easy_is_too_hard/ https://www.reddit.com/r/0ad/comments/1ruix38/example_of_my_very_easy_mode_what/ https://www.reddit.com/r/0ad/comments/1qdf6qz/getting_smashed_fast_in_single_player_demo_a271/ An older post from someone that never had problems with AoE2 (mentioned as a hard game), but for 0 A.D. "just feels like noobs aren't welcomed" (!!!): https://www.reddit.com/r/0ad/comments/1hshm2g/why_is_easy_so_hard/ Indeed I think making things a bit slower would improve the experience for these people and many more, and actually, with this small sample of all the available evidence, I would say one could state that this is a fact. And to repeat myself yet again, this would only happen for a default Normal Preset, the Competitive Preset would leave everything as it is right now, and surely would be the preferred one for MP. Exactly. This is how casuals play. Let alone RTS beginners. This is my main premise.

One of my favorite old games. It's a diamond in a rough and one of the reasons why I'm so interested in ancient Rome. My retro mod Imperia Vetera is heavily inspired by that game. Ah, I agree. My reasoning is that Petra had sufficient units to destroy you in that 1v3, but terrible grouping logic (formations!) and major lack of unit upgrades is what caused it to throw that game.

I think this is a good and valid point. The only way I can make sense of it is by normalizing it in the following way: the game also tells you, “Notice: This game is under development.” Therefore combining these two statements, I conclude that the AI difficulty levels are simply not fully settled yet. And that is exactly what our discussion is about. I agree that new players struggle with Petra. Two of my real-life friends whom I recommended the game to told me exactly this. The first one said something like, “The game looks interesting but I’m getting absolutely destroyed!” After that he never mentioned the game again, so I assume he stopped playing. The other friend told me, “I’m playing on Medium and I haven’t managed to beat it yet.” I then had to respond with something like, “Try Easy or Very Easy, then increase the difficulty as you win.” However, I suspect that a 30year old man who has played many computer games might feel some embarrassment playing on Very Easy. So I assume he stayed on Medium. Also, what I would like to emphasize is that what makes the game hard for beginners is not the game’s core mechanics themselves. A new player can easily understand what building a stable means or the difference between archers and spearmen. They can easily build towers, chop wood, and so on. The real issue is that they don’t understand the need to race against time. They don’t seem to care that their units spend a long time walking between distant wood lines and the storehouse. Or rather, they haven’t yet developed that sense of urgency. Petra behaves almost robotically in that sense, it is programmed to be. But what I’ve also observed from my beginner friends is that, they take their time. They’re basically on a picnic. They build a barracks, maybe produce a few units and then their attention drifts elsewhere. They think one barracks is enough: “I need soldiers, I built a barracks, done.” The idea of building 2, 5, or 7 barracks doesn’t even occur to them, which is understandable. They wander around, enjoy the map and the atmosphere, until they get attacked around the 10-minute mark and lose. Therefore since the root of the problem with beginner guy vs. Petra is the eco race, I think some features could be added to easier modes to simplify eco management. For example, in Very Easy, passive resource generation could be the case. There could be reminder-like visual cues for barracks such as: “produce soldiers.” These are just rough ideas, not actual suggestions. It also takes time for a new player to understand what they are supposed to do against the enemy’s CC and buildings. Some end up attacking it with 10–15 units, slowly die, while others (if they have discovered the capture mechanic) might try to capture it with too few troops. It seems like they could really benefit from some kind of guidance in this area. As I mentioned above and also visible in the replays, Very Hard needs improvement as well. For me, playing against Petra is almost a claustrophobic experience. It feels closed off and small scale, against a predictable opponent whose “soul” I can’t really feel. I don’t have this feeling in other single-player games I guess. A close example in terms of style would be "Praetorians". I’m not sure what the exact difference is, but I suspect the lack of an economy plays a major role. When there’s no economy, the game becomes much more strategic. For those unfamiliar: Praetorians is an RTS game without resources like wood or gold. Instead, it uses other mechanics, such as capturing villages that determine population limits and gaining experience points through combat, which unlock stronger units. The campaign experience on Very Hard was one of the best gaming experiences ever. The campaign itself was solid, personally, I find the game excellent. However it is probably weak in multiplayer. I’m not sure what to say about “AI cheating.” I guess at some point you have to do it. In Call of Duty, for example, enemy bullets become stronger and more accurate as difficulty increases. It’s worth examining what actually changes between difficulty levels in different games. Basically what I expect from Very Hard is improved tactical depth, better decision making, more varied options and stronger map analysis. - @Deicide4u If Petra only attacks me with cavalry, I will respond with a pikeman heavy army. Because I know Petra will always do that and that’s exactly the problem: predictability, robotic behavior, monotony. I have also won 2v1 VH matches without using slingers at all, as shown in the Macedonian examples of my replays above. You can do this with any civilization. I don’t want to fill here with replays anymore (I can share them if specifically requested). The main point is not why I win, but why the Very Hard loses so easily even in 2v1 or 3v1 scenarios. It’s about its tactical limitations, its predictability and its simplicity to defeat.