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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.

Seriously do I have to quote myself again?

Well… Have a good day

This is indeed a good question, and one I’m thoroughly unqualified to answer. I’d suspect Petra would be unable to deal with any of this and would need to also be modified, but this was just some brainstorming, @Asher is right on starting basic.

@guerringuerrin no, I'm basing my ideas on many premises, some are factual, some are opinions, and I think I've been quite clear which is which, but just in case (and going over everything I've said since my long post, you can check): it's a fact that the game states "the default AI level is quite challenging for new players", it's a fact production times are 3 times faster than SC2, I said I think that those wanting to explore the game wouldn't find that enjoyable, I said default options should be friendly for beginners (is this controversial?), it's a fact that the vast majority of players are only interested in SP (quoting AoE devs), I said I think the game a bit slower would be more attractive to most. I didn’t add I think when stating all would make the game more palatable for new players, but by now it should be obvious that’s my opinion, given all that came before. And then I brought up Achievements, which is obviously an idea coming from personal experience from other games, maybe others find them boring, but I would have liked hearing more opinions about that. I then said I think this would be a nice solution. Yet, you take issue with my subsequent statement (using your rephrasing, to which I agree) of “many people might get a bad impression of the game”, stating that that’s “based on personal opinions presented as if they were factual premises”. Well, here I gave you a summary of all what I’ve exactly said up to that point, so, where have I done that? So no, I’m not playing with semantics, that’s just how I’ve been stating things all along. I think I’ve been (luckily, I must say) quite clear on what is a fact, what I think, and what maybe could be, but you dismiss all that and take my last post (or its wording) as the basis of everything. Regarding my last post, first I just asked why not do this or that, based on what I’ve read, and personal experience, which I think is more aligned with SP experience, which is a fact is underrepresented online. Then, I didn’t fill it with “I think” like before not only because it was a fast response to someone, but because I was just rephrasing what I already said before with plenty of I think in front of it. And yes, I’ve read posts where some pushing for a more SP focused experience have been talked down into that they just don't understand the game, something I’ve argued already somewhere else is misleading. But, should I really scour the forum and quote all this? Quote the many times the default difficulty level issue has been brought up (particularly by newbies), quote the many opinions pushing the game towards more MP focus (like the proposal of removal of certain techs), quote the times it has been said this is a fast paced game? We both know these posts are there, and it would be a waste of time for me to do any of that. So, yes, I’d say many think like this, and I’m sure there are those that “hold a completely different view”, but those are not contradictory things, and that's not even the point, the point (or one of many) is that I’m not bringing up anything new (besides Achievements, I don’t think having read about that), I’m just packaging old ideas and combining them with the upgradeable Achievements idea.

The transportation would probably be better, but maybe just transportation for now, so it is not too hard, or too much of a change

Maybe we should start basic, like just having to transport the resources to a civc center, then we could go from there. Also, would it be possible to add second monitor support. The second one could be another camera, extend your main camera, or show stats (maybe like when you do quit and view summary)

Thank you so much, this worked!

Indeed this would have quite a few implications on settlement layout: Distanced dropsites would need longer to deliver their goods to the CC while currently distance is not relevant at all. Therefore, it might be advantageous to build another CC or camp or fortress or whatever is defined as a potential converter building (converting collected goods to goods inventorized to the player's account). Currently the converter building is the dropsite itself. If we now re-allocate that conversion function to the CC, camp, fortress or whatever, this could have implications. Question: would such constraint (distance to converter building) also affect Petra AI? We need to be careful suggesting these things as gameplay might become much more complex.

I’m not interested in discussing semantics. The point you’re making is clear: “many people might get a bad impression of the game,” and based on that premise, you’re defending your idea of recalibrating the difficulty levels. But the reality is that you have no actual evidence that this is a frustration point that is driving players away. To be clear: I don’t see a problem with recalibrating the AI. What I do see as a problem is making decisions based on personal opinions presented as if they were factual premises. Here’s another assumption without solid grounding: in your less than three months here, how many people from the community have you actually talked to in order to make that claim? How many members do you think the community has to assert that this is the “opinion of many”? And how many others don’t participate here and might hold a completely different view? The truth is, you don’t know. Yet you bring it up, assume it as a valid premise, and from there make proposals about how things "should be.” And how do you know that the majority of singleplayer players don’t enjoy the game at its current pacing? Do you have any statistics to support that? I’ve seen new players running the game at 1.25x speed, so does that mean the game is too slow? I understand that this may be your preference, and that others might agree with you. There’s nothing wrong with having a different opinion or proposing ideas, but it would be better not to defend them based on unproven assumptions.

I see it as either you implement it with ranges (a simplification), or you consider the transport (more realism). Using both at the same time seems adding conditions over conditions. Only ranges would cause clustered buildings. Besides the reasons already given, I favor (automatic) transport because it implies the need to lay out buildings in a realistic way (to have paths to go between them).

I can interpret the moment when a production decision is made, such as clicking on a barracks and queueing up units, as a player action, and this doesn’t necessarily have to involve camera movement, it could be done using shortcuts assigned to numbers on the keyboard. However, I’d be inclined not to classify the units that are automatically produced from that queue as player actions. 1 unit queued in each of 10 barracks can create quite a bit of noise, especially when combined with losses during combat. In terms of terminology, something like “Follow Development” might make sense. But “Follow Player” doesn’t seem entirely accurate, since the player isn’t actively clicking on or engaging with those units at that moment. The player might not even be aware of how many barracks are doing what, which ones are still producing or which ones have run out. Therefore, I think this complex tracking experience causes this feature to lose its meaning. Thanks Atrik. You’re like a roofer who finds and fixes leaks. Although I don’t approve of some mods that can introduce hidden unfairness in games like autotrain, these are still valuable touches. That said, I would have preferred if we could all play a single, shared version of the game, an improved common experience that doesn’t rely on various mods. Rather than insisting on keeping flaws, it would be a better approach to address and fix them.

@Thalatta One of the posts from the topic you've shared summs it up perfectly. "Progression systems and other stuff that don’t belong in RTS games is what kills them. After the golden age of RTS games they started to over-complicate the formula by adding all kinds of stuff in an effort to further bring innovation just for the sake of it. When they realized RTS games became too complicated for people to bother, they started simplifying them by removing things that were good, instead of the things that were superfluous. For example, removing base building, many of the units, maps and game modes, but keeping the progression systems. So now not only you can’t just jump into an RTS to build a nice base and use all the stuff in the game, but you have to grind over time in some progression system to be able to use everything which is already scarce as a whole." Most of the RTS players are veterans of older titles. As people get older, they have little time to adapt to new complex features, and prefer playing something they already know. New RTS games are no longer simple build->expand->conquer games of old.

I noticed that ModernGUI now has compatibility check enabled, well this in fact just a meme. Even my cat can change it, I know I didn't used the correct name for the function, but I know it was perfectly understood. Still I see players that avoid to host so others can't see they use ModernGUI/autotrain, but I know the behaviour of that as my palm hand. But well, I just don't play with those players, I do the compatibility check. Now I understand why the debate, those players are winning things they shouldn't. If some of them really use it for stats or for the units selections, the ultimate solution is put autotrain out of ModernGUI. Good Games.

The reports should give an idea about the amount of people that will never post in a game's forum. In any case, I'm saying "won't necessarily have", it's not about solid proof, but about why to risk it, and have an artificial warning. Why not just have a normal Normal. I was surprised about how hard it was, not because it's hard in absolute terms (after all I finished SC2 on Brutal), but because it's hard for a normal level, and if on top of this there's a gap between Sandbox and Very Easy, then some adjustments seem recommendable. RTS in general (https://forums.ageofempires.com/t/honest-discussion-why-do-developers-struggle-to-design-good-rts/32757). Regarding your other questions, more like there's even an effort to remove SP features if they have no point in MP, as I've mentioned has happened in the case of certain techs. It's a state of mind many in the community have. It's not realising that production times 3 times faster than SC2, a clearly competitive game, is not the most enjoyable experience for the casual, which are the vast majority of players. I agree. I think of it more the other way though: ideas and content have to be driven by SP experience, balance and final mechanics by MP, in a way that accommodates enough interesting content so as not to make it dull and MP focused only.

@Asher Most likely you are right - realisitically we should aim at the next step with highter priority, but it is often useful to have a strategic goal as well to work towards.

Another idea is that you have to have a generating structure, let's say barracks, in side of a range of the dropsite, so the barracks can get the resources from the dropsite, to generate units. Then you may have to transport to the dropsite. But, like the other ones, this may be hard to implement. It also would be hard if we don't really have a coder. And like Emacz was saying: Maybe we should focus on what we have, make sure it is working properly, then we can add in new bigger ideas

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Were these points addressed to AoE in particular or talking about the struggle for single player experience in general? I'm also a bit confused about what it means to have a multiplayer focused game? is that for the design of units, civs, and gameplay mechanics? or just that not enough effort goes into single player features? I would be one to argue that the competitive experience should always drive development of gameplay mechanics, and that this should not cause any detriment to SP or beginner MP players. Good gameplay features are ones that can be enjoyed by all levels but are difficult to master at the top level, and in order to get the skill depth it is important to consider how those features are used at the top level.

Testing Snow Layer for winter maps. But that prob Will need an extra plane roof mesh

Whoa! Since when do we have in sunny Ithaca? Is it a new snow texture?

I understand that there may be some reports from frustrated players who quit the game because they couldn’t beat the AI, but there’s no solid evidence that “a lot of people” have a negative impression and/or abandon the game because of that. RTS games have always been known for being quite challenging. And if I had to put forward a hypothesis, I’d say that having engaging campaigns is far more effective for player retention.

Continuing with the civ decal's next one is hellenic civilizations.

Fixed in ModernGUI https://gitlab.com/4trik/ModernGUI/-/commit/7286640d11c85197e1c345dd720dd0e730b76cd0 Proposed fix for vanilla https://gitea.wildfiregames.com/0ad/0ad/pulls/8880