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Doesn't justify anything It's the wording that makes you sound like an arrogant thug

1) Formations fix in my opinion should have the max priority because those are an already implemented feature and could even be improved. A formation lock system would finally set a junction point between battalion addicted and micro-management fanatics. 2) a simple balance would make online players happier. ( is this a bad thing? i see many people saying that's not important. Can you then justify all the recent complain on the forum please? Words won't calm down them and me neither ) I want you to know that some people stopped to play this game because of the balance. Yes, people leave because of balance. Are you really sure that balance is not important even at this stage? that sounds kinda hypocrite from SP players and uncaring from "the guy in charge" who i guess want people to actually use his code and numbers, producing the exact opposite result. Making mods in order to balance the game ( monkey wrench included) is stupid as long as their main target are online players and most of people online or doesn't care at all or won't invest their time to download something they will use 1 or 2 times per month. 3) indeed gameplay can be improved, but please bear in mind that there is already a lot of not optimized stuff already. Thus a temporary balance and some civ revision would already improve the game. Indeed there is really the need of a lighthouse as reference to consider variants and additions to the already existing content, there is a lot of redundance into playing different civs and this goes fare beyond the balance. That's a matter of decision power, proper motivation and, actually, real interest on the gameplay subject.

There are tons of possible strategies, the number of which are reduced due to the map and victory condition. The base fact is that if there is balance there can be diversity. In my mod, Vox Populi, I've rebalanced cavalry so that they counter each other in the sword>spear>skirm>sword way. Infantry have resumed their primary role in the composition of a basic army. Players can choose to delay the training of their own cavalry if they do infantry instead since cavalry can no longer win at such drastic ratios as in A22. One can opt for the cavalry rush which is still viable if you do it right (not just mindless train and blast the enemy) Or one can choose a risky but possibly rewarding boom involving a higher ratio of female population. In late game, you can access a Specialization mini tech-tree where you can go for melee/ranged and after that cavalry/infantry Meanwhile several other technologies added and little balances, additions. Remember this is a new mod under development but progressing. It aims to keep the unique 0ad concepts of citizen-soldier and those things you like to rant about so much They are all parts of a whole that is the unique 0 A.D. style So summing it up, I think balance and new possibilities in the form of pair techs and mini tech-trees can improve this game a lot. Like DE but without some of the bullshit.. There will always be spams but if those spams can be countered(possibly naturally) then it will result in many fun games especially where there are several players in a team. Many games feature spams, it's a specialized army that you need so that you can further research down that path. Mixes (sometimes called rainbows) will always be viable due to the different shielding, damage capacities of the given mixed units. Spams and mixes both have their advantages, bugs can be fixed, units can be balanced, things can be done if we work together in a CONSTRUCTIVE manner and not try to manufacture bigger and better Proof Bombs and the like to wipe out the defences of the other player who loves this game as much as you do. Work together and be sensible, the future of 0 A.D. lies in your hands so please don't drop it. Everyone has a place in this future, we need you all. We need @elexis with his neverending code fixes, commits and instructions; we need people like@wowgetoffyourcellphone to do their best, @Grugnas and the like to create mods to test potential features, @LordGood the artist, many others, and last but not least: people like @DarcReaver to incense us to such exorbitant heights that we end up doing something. I can't match you guys in post count and I guess there will be tons of counterarguments and whatnot by the time I check it out tomorrow afternoon so take your time in replying and stop playing argument volleyball. *Me out for today*

This kinda went off topic from the first post

Tried my best to make it similar, now i'm going for the neck guard and test it with helmet

Gameplay needs to be improved first as balancing and counters can be fixed later. I’m not expert player but I played many RTS and would like to play MP if IMO it’s a realistic game. It doesn’t matter if your skill level or experience is tremendous to warrant the developers to tailor the gameplay to your liking. The gameplay needs to be tailored to a strategic way. It doesn’t make sense that the gameplay needs to be tailored to MP. Majority of MP players are not pro. They like the game and they want to play with their friends, same level players(as they progress) and they have their own tastes. I take it easy on new players so that they can last longer and they can feel the game. I don’t mind if I lose as long as my co players enjoy it. Most pros complain about balancing which to me doesn’t make sense. If there is a need to be fixed then air it. There are mods that are showing progress on balancing. For now if you think the gameplay is this and that then exploit and play as what the game offers. I’ve seen some pros who got frustrated with skirm cavs rushes but now they adapt to it. DarcRaver has so many good opinions and some maybe not like delaying the military structure building to P3. AoE has university but RoN has very good Library and knowledge gameplay that makes the game more strategic. The more gameplay or strategy needed to play and win the less likely to occur a spam unit style of gameplay.

Well, the AI is definitely frustrating at present, since the AI pretty much just rushes to a blob of units without much strategy, but that can be improved in time, especially with formations.

The problem is : what do you want to balance in this state? The 6 units that are all available without teching and the 2-3 types of soldiers that are spammed lategame? There is nothing to balance because the game isn't finished and a lot of core gameplay features are either placeholders, missing or not thought out well enough to be ingame. Balancing is the last step after all design decisions are set. With the progress speed you may re-apply as head balancer in ~ 10 years from now, I think it's realistic that you can expect a finished beta by then.

It was not easy to find a leading figure for each civ that wasn't already present in the game and finding an ingame bonus that can be derived from actual history. I appreciate that the feature took a lot of time and some effort, but I would have suggested the team focus on something else instead. I think you would agree that even though it's an interesting addition to the game, it adds nothing to the core mechanics, yeah? So, when I talk about core mechanics changes, and someone counters with how many new random maps were added last alpha or look at the cool catafalque feature, it falls very very flat. Quite frustrating, actually. Also, it is true that when you have someone creating content for you, like random maps, you tend to just let them do their "thing" since they are motivated to do that. You take what you can get. But that doesn't mean you have to throw everything into the game just because someone creates it for you. Just saying you should be judicious. Does this fit our theme? Are we just adding content to add content? etc.

Deleted reply against the "lying" allegation. Not worth it.

You may try to host some competitive tournament if you think that this already is so great in terms of gameplay depth and is huge fun and listen to what other peoples say about this tech demo. People who actually play RTS games, on a decent - high level. Try visiting and putting advertisements on sites like https://www.aoczone.net/, https://www.gamereplays.org/portals.php (CnC Generals section maybe) and maybe https://www.coh2.org/. There you should find some players who might be interested. I'm actually quite interested how a competitive scene judges the game mechanics. Also I'd invite you to actually play some different game competitively to get a general overview how other game mechanics work. Also @everyone: Also, once again: I never said that that my concept should be used or that every aspect has to be done that I proposed. I said the game needs to be coherent and have a general direction. AoE clone, seperate game, single player game or whatever. I always said if I don't do it someone else has to decide it. And he has to be competent and experienced with game design. Unless he is meeting these criteria this will be a huge mess aswell. Maybe even a design TEAM would work aswell, but since noone here has experience in that area idk who should do it. But yea, whatever.

I can confirm that ptols may be really op. actually this strategy is overkill and OP in early game and counterable by siege towers in late game. an elephant could destroy your siege towers tho. The point is that towers with their distance restriction and low damage ( or cavalry with high hp if you like) can't prevent cavalry raids which is lame and let cavalry monopolize the whole game in any phase and state.

I can find tons of replays in which cavalry spam fails, where we can play a normal game IN SPITE of the cavalry balance problem of this alpha

For both 0ad and AoE2, very inexperienced players will just try to build a city, an army, and fight, while trying somehow to use the advantage the maps and civ give. I think it's irrelevant to compare like this, this doesnt show how gameplay is different between new players in 0ad and new players in aoe2. As for your AoE2 video, i cant watch it for now but at first sight seems like a match in an exotic map. As i said in an earlier post, in 0ad too you can do different strategies that are very special to some map (example : migration).

Well yes, you have a COUPLE of options. However, this isn't nearly comparable to a "real" Age of Empires 2, a Starcraft game or any other game that is played by a larger community in competition. Also see this, as I'm trying to explain my point: Well, i'd like to see why it isn't nearly comparable to a "real" age of empires 2. AoE2 has some kind of rushes : tower rush, dark rush, feodal rush, but 0ad too (cav rush, fanatic rush, that can come at different phase). And for AoE, build order is strictly defined with few changes that can come in actual game unlike 0ad. for AoE2 gaining map control by building castle is comparable to building CC, then protect a ressource by towering or building fortress near it. also, one way to expanding to gain a ressource in 0ad is to build many buildings to gain territory. And in imperial Age, it is about spamming the right mix of units.

Yes. But now think about the following: You have a very low limit for POSSIBLE strategies in 0 AD because the design is weak. You have even less VIABLE strategies becausethe bad unit balance. But now if you invest dozens/hundreds of hours to get the current game design balanced you still end up with a very low amount of POSSIBLE strategies. This makes me question: why would this be worth the effort? Why not make the game design good first and then balance the good game design to get a good game experience?

Well I admit I was a bit harsh. However, reading these posts "prove me" "give me exact points" "you don't know stuff I know it better" kind of posts seriously start to annoy me on these forums. Especially from people who have no clue and experience with game making in the first place. It's repeating stuff again and again and again and again and again without any benefit for anyone.

I'm okay with the strategical choices you said for the start of the game, this is about it. However, there is more of it middle and late game. I'll give a few examples here : In 1v1, p2 you can choose to early expand to grab territory (ressource monopolizing). This is useful in very late game if you need metal or if ennemy starts to be out of wood. However, its disadvantage is that for quite some time your opponent will have a batter economy and more population, so it could be bad. Another one (used by borg only as far as i know ...) is to advance p2 then p3 quickly while it is actually a rushing game and that the player doing so wont be able to spam lategame unit for quite some time. One explanation i found was the HP bonus for fighting units, another one i read was that it was about bluffing (opponent may wonder if the player has actually a good eco ...), or it could be to be able to build siege unit quickly. About 4v4 : more players so more possibility, some i can remember is (for open map like mainland) : take the center quickly for the ressources, and being able to strike an ennemy from all sides (an army take time to walk after all !). You can invest into trade, you can try to raid trade. Early 4v4 game, pocket players (those who are close to ally only) may decide to rush in order to help their nearby ally against his direct opponent. Or not to do so and boom for late game. This is not even considering what strategies other maps can offer. Also, this talk was about conquest mode. In FFA, for some reasons, there are a lot of ways of playing...

So you agree that a game with lack of strategical choices is bad because this results in bad balance and makes it less fun for the majority of players, am I right?

please consider also starcraft 2 which is imho a superb game I played AoEII in my childhood, a lot in single player only. Despite some tactical sneaky built barracks (AI likes a lot to build stuff in most disparate zones), i can't see the deal into control the wide map (matter of fact most of times AI build walls even faster than i could remember LOL) and i have the feeling that its not worth to use villagers to build mills far away from civic center in order to hunt deers. There are tons and tons of techs to research but I can't see concrete differences between civs if not for some and perhaps not very relevant civ bonuses. Also, I am skeptical on considering most of those technologies useful in a competitive environment ( i talk not knowing the competitive scene tho).

Okay once again, you said you're pro with AoE 2. So tell me, how many viable game options, depending on maptype (arabia, GA, Arena, water maps) and different military openings are in AoE 2? How many viable mid-game options (dependant on your civ) are ingame? How luck dependant is the game? Are there classic "phases" of earlygame/midgame/lategame in which you do certain meta strategies? How does lategame trash wars work and how are they influenced by factions and team bonuses? How does map control work? Difference between playing pockets and flank positions? General buildorders for civs? And how many do you have in 0 AD? And how are these point contained in 0 AD?

As usual a "balancer" who doesn't understand the problem. Let me quote the issue in my FIRST sentence again: "There is no "best buildorder" because there is no teching" So? What does your post with "if you do that you will loose because *blablabla*" How do I loose? With what? By building units? By not building units? By booming? By rushing? I said you have the OPTION to spam women AND/OR citizen soldiers AND/OR the basic military units from your Commandcenter. I didn't say "OMG BUILD 3 WOMEN THEN 8 CAV ARCHERS AND THEN BOOM OP BEST BUILDORDER". To quote myself So maybe you should start to read something about "variety of choices" "strategical depth" and "gameflow" before lecturing me about how you beat up everyone else with your proness, okay? @Grugnas sort of agree with your points. One thing I'd like to add is that people leave because of "balance" - indeed. But most people will leave earlier because of poor gameplay mechanics. I'm currently asking friends I play other RTS games with to play 0 AD games with me and then come back with a small survey about feedback. People already have have Age 2 HD and all its variations with tenthousands of players and AoE IV + Definitive Edition coming soon. There no longer is a need for an AoE clone because the "real thing" will >>>>>>>>> 0 AD both in terms of game mechanics aswell as graphics. Leaving 0 AD with nothing behind.

The main thing that I see here, is that people that are legitimised for changing the design are the developers, cause an ethic ethos of "to say something, you have to get your hands dirty", and I don't see this as a negative thing. Although archiving a good design is not easy, with the currents features, a lot could be changed, but some designs are asking for news features... and only coders can do it. So a lot of discussion I think are gravitating around that, and it's understandable in volunteer project. IMHO a dedicated designer would come only legitimised by working in the engine, not with a game design from "outside". I would feel like people would tell me what to do, and this is not good as the main drive here of one person is motivation. I don't know if somebody have been hurt by my comments of need of change or proposals, but always I try to be constructive. People tends to talk always about what's wrong and not about what it's well done. I have said before, and I would say another time: maybe we can't agree on the main game design, but the free open-source engine that you're developing have no price. Replay and multiplayer support would help with or without balanced civs. That can change easy with people with low skills, but is not like adding this features. Yes, sure, it's more attractive and hyping adding formations than a gamesetup unification, but it's not wasted work. I have follow this game since the first alpha, and never thought that I would play with against an AI or entering easily in a lobby. A lot of time have passed, sure..

It's important because what keeps a game "alive" is its multiplayer and loyal players who play every day, even with a horrible balance. I think it's fair to give them at least a playable balance, regardless of whether they're ready or not.

Working counter system would do something, but not help in the current state imo. I think the whole damage system needs to be redone, and more damage types need to be applied to make it better. Also, penetration system might be helpful. If you have units that are virtually unharmed by some thing (like having heavy cavalry that takes no damage from slingers, or low damage from sword weapons etc.) would help to make armies more diverse and make people think about spam. AI is just a general problem but I think that would be fixable by giving it modifiers to economy booming (like maximum of workers per diffictulty level - like easy: 30, medium: 40, hard: 50 etc.

What is the problem with counter system?(I'm not speaking of old version - the hard counters)

I have already put me in total disposition to do the balance of the game, respecting the gamedesign of game, that is to say, with or without counters system. I'm sure i would do a great job. Probably the most experienced player of 0 a.d, with the most games, besides being the best player. Not only that, I am now 28 years old, and I have played rts games since my 8 years, most of the time competitively, a practical example is to be in the semi finals of an age of empires championship in this moment. I must be the one who understands the most here in the balancing part. The real problem I see is that with each small change, you should by voting and asking the opinion of many people, who most of the time do not even play the game, at least not multplayer. It makes no sense to me. The team should be small, with a maximum of 3 guys taking care of it.

Which is the opposite of what's currently ingame, yes.

This is a great paragraph I can fully agree with. Other than that, I've not encountered anything really interesting after quickly skimming most of that design document.

Then we finaly have the warlord

@Nescio: The references actually include a war-elephant statuette from Meroe, with mahout... In the Lepsius collection alone, six elephants are depicted, 2 of them held by a rope, one elephant can be seen between the feet of a ruler, the same way dogs and lions are sometimes depicted and one deity(?) can be seen riding an elephant: Elephant depictions feature prominently in Musawwarat es Sufra, and important sites in Meroe itself. Ptolemies to their North acquired part of their elephant-corps, specifically from the Island of Meroe, (the location of Musawwarat) as well as mahouts... Axumites, to the South of Kush, acquired some of their war-elephants from the southern reaches of Kush. Finally, I'll share the following image of the war elephants in Musawwarat again, showing it in a bigger context. An oversized Kushite ruler is seen standing with one foot on the back of each of the two elephants, leading prisoners of war by a rope, as if to say that victory was delivered on the backs of these elephants. Also, you said: "The usage of war elephants is well attested for...". I need to remark that most of that "attesting" is done by sometimes ambiguous classical authors, and blindly parroted by historians ever since. I'm not doubting the use of war-elephants in those empires, I'm just clarifying that even in those "logical examples", clear evidence is often lacking. Their history is just taken for granted, while that of Kush is simply overlooked even though there is a significant amount of really tangible information to go on compared to other states of the time. Either way, most academics in the field consider Kush to have fielded war-elephants, at least occasionally, including, but absolutely not limited to, David Nicolle Phd, who i quoted here. About siege-towers and battering rams: There is a very clear reference to the use of battering rams and siege-towers dating from the 8th century BCE. Written in stone, using hieroglyphs, a stela dedicated by Piye of the 25th (Kushite) dynasty narrates the conquest of Egypt. I have had no luck finding references that date to 500BCE - 1AD time-period though. I have to clearly remark that there were many impressive fortifications in Kush, and internal struggles unavoidably led to siege-warfare within Kushite territory. When rulers put down internal rebellions, it often included retaking forts and fortified towns/cities. The nature of these fortifications was such that siege was necessary. I will be sharing more images of Meroitic period fortifications soon. The frequent forays in to Southern Egypt also meant taking some mighty impressive forts, some originally built during the Middle Kingdom but reoccupied by Ptolemies at some point. I would prefer a simple battering ram over the complex tower though...

There wasn't any specific target. ---- Back to the original topic, for https://github.com/JustusAvramenko/delenda_est/commit/d2c5c5c26d8aac77b53a69100583c5b3b7a5e4cb#diff-2f0ab909a411c23f36da18f0c851b4e4 perhaps did you a typo with add and mul for the persian cavalry.

I don't see a problem with adding unique content proposed by others that keep players interested. Notice Capture The Relic feature is actually part of the design documents and @Sandarac originally implemented it because it was a feature which was desired since. The design documents described as an aoe2 clone variant where one picks it up and puts it into a building. We consciously decided to go a different path from what was described there and not make them garrisonable (actually more interesting gameplay if it's discoverable and players have to guard it) and not make them able to be picked up (how would a pickup feature add to the interest of the game and justify the cost of spending the time to implement that?). Agree (and never claimed that it would). Never claimed that relics or random maps add to the conquest gameplay. Relics and Danubius countered the claim that these features added have no relation to the historic aspect of 0 A.D. The team didn't work on this at all unless you mean me being judicious with Hannibal and the relic feature which was not historically related yet. What has stopped you from developing a feature of any proposed design plan yourself? Why did you spend time on adding Kushites to DE rather than on javascript tutorials? The fact that it will consume months to get a single feature done? I discovered this game three years ago and considered the game a technical demo too after reading many claims by the game promotion itself that the game would be an unplayable alpha. However after actually playing it, I immediately lost the impression that this is a tech demo, but an actually good game. Hence I do not and never did intended to turn the the way the game is played upside down (unless counters count). I would appreciate if someone would go through the trouble of implementing formations that mimic the actual historic usage, but that won't be me (sounds more like years than months to me). There were missing engine features (for instance replay and good multiplayer support) and many bugs (most things falling apart when looking at it wrong) that prevented the game from being what the existing game mechanics intended it to be. This is what motivated me to work on the code. The vast majority of that is fixed and implemented now. Was playing with the thought to implement a narrated historic SP campaign, but actually why would I want to do that if the primary feedback we get after 8 months of development is a complaint about one wrong number in the balancing? So technically, I'm done here.

1. yes all our code is in that repo. 2. We do even though we don't often receive pull requests 3. It's SVN which means right now it's not compatible with A22 anymore

gameboy does the error happen when you start a new match with svn, or only when loading a savegame?

Spangenhelm (iron), Migration Period - Museum of the Cetinska Krajina Region - Sinj, Croatia The name Spangenhelm is of German origin. Spangen refers to the metal strips that form the framework for the helmet and could be translated as braces, and -helm simply means helmet. The strips connect three to six steel or bronze plates. The frame takes a conical design that curves with the shape of the head and culminates in a point. The front of the helmet may include a nose protector (a nasal). Older spangenhelms often include cheek flaps made from metal or leather. Spangenhelms may incorporate mail as neck protection, thus forming a partial aventail. Some spangenhelms include eye protection in a shape that resembles modern eyeglass frames, and are thus sometimes called "spectacle helmets". Other spangenhelms include a full face mask. The spangenhelm was an effective protection that was relatively easy to produce. Weakness of the design were its partial head protection and its jointed construction. It was replaced by similarly shaped helmets made with one-piece skulls (nasal helms), kettle hats and eventually the Great helm or casque Sarmatian warriors with Spangenhelms, Trajan's Column (around 110 A.D.) The spangenhelm arrived in Western Europe by way of what is now southern Russia and Ukraine, spread by nomadic Iranian tribes such as the Scythians and Sarmatians who lived among the Eurasian steppes. By the 6th century it was the most common helmet design in Europe and in popular use throughout the Middle East. However, helmets of the spangenhelm type were used much longer. Some of the Nasal helmets depicted on the Bayeux Tapestry from the 11th century appear to be built as a Spangenhelm construction. The same is true for illustrations of the Morgan Bible from the 13th century.

(Perhaps also people shouldn't spread rumors like there is nobody who do that, there is no clear vision, there is no design doc and so on. Lies become true when they are said too often. Divide et impera.)

I can't resist.

eh

A lot of opinion and little decision. This is the real problem.

Yes, from time to time we play it. Usually with @Feldfeld @elexis and some others No Foreign assets only from @wowgetoffyourcellphone (let's hope those tech portraits are ok) and @Sundiata Let's just call them Blemmyes As for all the stuff elsewise mentioned in the document, @Sundiata must realize that all that would just serve to make Kushites the most op civ and will make them stick out among the other civs. I think small additions could be done but no major stuff (unless we take something away in return)

I like the look of those big ol tower shields

You can spam units to gather without limit (no commerce cap easy spam). You can train any military units without limit (no military cap). No build order needed as long as you acquire resources to train desired units. Easy strategy (but hard to do) just click and little think/guess. I think Feldfed is saying build order is the strategy you need to do to play and win. But at present you need to have the best possible train/build with the prevailing circumstances to win. Some players leave because they don’t like the Alpha but the game is fair to all. If they rush you can rush too! There are still lots of MP gamers new/old. If you don’t like cavs set rules without cavs or limited. Play the Monkey, Vox or 0abc at least the cav production is lowered. If still not satisfied play not with low resources but rather the very low (better with mods imo).

Read these topics before bothering me again, kthx.

Apparently there exists some kind of design document; could it be published prominently at a clear location on these forums? This could help people understand what you works towards to, not just now, but also in months and years to come. Anyway, I do hope this thread is not too frustrating for you and the other team members. Even though criticisms are posted more frequently than compliments, do know that many people greatly appreciate what's been done so far, what you're still doing right now, and what you all intend to do in the future.