ValihrAnt

A very minor issue that we found for the Islands map, probably also happens on other naval maps, biomes with grass (India, Savanna) have it overlapping into water.

Nah, it happens with anything in Phase 1. You can capture a barrack and you will lose capture points unless you garrison 4 or more units.

@mysticjimCould you update the first post with the new test versions? Got people downloading the old versions and causing OOS and confusion when trying to playtest. Thanks.

What the patch does is just make them play the anim longer before moving again. A24 had the issue of cav play just being very weak which of course does lead to them not being used and stuff like this not being noticed. A25 from what I've played is more aggressive and cavalry are a more viable option so it should be more visible. In normal fights it doesn't change anything, just in chasing. Unit bumping has made melee better able to chase so this should be a pretty fair trade off.

More specifically, we had an initail oos due to someone with a different revision joining but the weird thing was that after he left and we resumed the game we immediately had another oos with no player listed and the game freezing immediately after, which meant that we had to start a new match. Don't have the oos dump anymore as we had another oos in the next game and I didn't think to back it up, so I don't know how much can be done about it or if it is any important to fix as it seems quite rare, specific and hard to replicate.

You mean the melee Cav thta's attacking the retreating camels? It seems to me they're actually hitting, it's only the animation that's cut short. Yep. I didn't go to replays to check if they actually hit as we were right about to start the next game but the lack of sound and the cut short anim put me off there. Would be nice if just atleast the sound played as then you'd have confirmation that something did happen with the attack despite the animation being cut in half.

Played a game on 25760 and my sword cavalry had issues hitting cavalry archers that were retreating. They'd get in range, start attacking and then stop as the enemy had ran outside of their attack range(?). 2021-06-11_0001.zip

FYI the current autoqueue will re-use batch training if it's been setup. Yeah and it doesn't have the situational awareness to adjust the batch size appropriately depending on any outside factors.

In regards to the autotrain thing, I really don't see a problem with it having the same efficient implementation as autociv. Batch training means that it won't be as efficient as queing units manually. If the game didn't have batch training then it'd be advantageous over manual training. I suppose it will lower the skill floor but it certainly won't lower the skill ceiling.

It only forces same amount of starting metal and stone every game, food is random each time but the total amount for each player remains equal. Being able to have equal food per team and not just player would be a cool addition too.

There already is the balanced maps mod which does this and more. Was very used in a23 but didn't really take off for this release. Probably comes down to it not being on the ingame mod downloader and a few specific people not being bothered to push for it to be more widely used as their map gen rng is through the roof.

It definitely feels much less frequent than it was in a23, but that might also be down to Hannibal not being around for his antics and inspiration to others to replicate it. On playtesting A25 units seem to bunch up a lot closer than in the current release and it can get quite difficult to tell how many units there are, but stacking doesn't seem possible beyond 2 units. Also, I managed to get a bug @wraitiion r25745. Basically, I can get units to switch from their normal walk speed and animation to the running speed. So I can move across the map much quicker or have gatherers move at hyper speed. The way to replicate is to set units to formation, click them around in the middle of the formation and move them to no formation whilst units are in the running animation. The speed remains after attack move or other kinds of orders, garrisoning. 2021-06-08_0009.zip

It would certainly help on improving performance at the cost of removing some identity of the biome. India gives off a really cool and unique vibe compared to the others, at the cost of performance. The biome is similar to what Jungle is currently. Fine for 1v1s and small tgs but with more players the performance drop compared to the usual is very noticeable. Can certainly try and mess around with the tree resource value and spawn count, but I'd prefer for the biome to keep its identity.

On the Alpine biome stone spawns are scuffed. 10k or 15k of stone spawning in the same spot. I suppose the 1k mines were replaced with 5k mines but the generation wasn't changed. For Mainland the Eurasian Steppe biome is the only without its own preview picture and instead shares one with the Temperate biome. The Nubia biome has some superbly unfair wood spawns (on Mainland atleast). The Acacia canopies look very nice but make it nigh impossible to tell how many trees there are near them. The India biome description advertises tigers that aren't spawned. This is probably more for the next release but would it be possible to select which biomes you want the game to choose between. The India biome is very resource intensive and thus will be avoided for TGs and maps with scarce resources are also generally disliked, leading to a lot of hosts just sticking to 1 picked biome entirely. Would mean that the disliked biomes don't make Alpine into the default biome for a lot of hosts. It's about the same as it was A23. Going for a very fast P3 slightly easier but riskier as towers don't count for the required buildings. The high metal costs for eco techs slow things down slightly for people being eco focused.

Not differentiating ranged unit speeds but lowering rotation times will make archers absurdly strong. Same thing as camels archers were in a23. It is impossible to balance units in such a way that they're equal economically (which was the goal of making all move speeds equal) and militarily. The goal of lowering archer move speed wasn't to make them worse defensively but to make them counterable and not invulnerable to other ranged infantry. Yes, it does make archer rush weaker and it should. It should be possible for the defending player to punish the other for overextending by using skirmishers or slingers. The archer player still has the early edge, they simply need to now put in some thought in how they position their units to not be cut off when the other player masses enough units to fight back. If you only sit next to a defensive position you completely give up map control. It is an advantage that a lot of players don't know how to utilise. In regards to skirmisher strength, I really don't see why they're not good fighters. They don't get the early range advantage like the archers but when they make up the ground they're strong enough and with the movement speed difference they will now be able to punish if the archer player misjudges a fight. It won't be only archers that can punish the other player retreating.

Buffing/nerfing or moving units around to different phases isn't the only way to incentivize aggression. Another way would be to make players actually think about map control. Currently, a new CC is something that you see very rarely. Reducing their territory influence will force players to think about expanding and give more importance to map control. Of course, reducing the cost of CCs would be needed in effect. With all the ideas for offensive options there need to be more defensive options. Giving Military Colonies to every civ would be a positive too. They work as a defensive and offensive option. Secure a vulnerable or important part of your base, or establish a forward foothold if you're the attacker. In general, I dislike forcing players to just pick between set options.

I did list a number of solutions to this problem earlier in the thread. Pushing the Syssiton to Phase 2 is only one option, and the problem with economy and military technologies sounds like an entirely different problem. Having champions available at the start of the game would be an interesting difference that no other civilisation at least at the moment has, and it would be a shame if it were moved to a different phase just for that reason. That all said, I understand the basis behind your argument; honestly I'm just happy that Sparta can train Spartans earlier. What I said there was referred to this statement: Simply, I believe that phase 2 currently provides too little benefit, but that's a different problem. I'm not against trying P1 champs either because it is an Alpha after all. Again that is a fair concern, but there can be a difference in stats of a champion in the Town Phase that are immediately improved upon advancing to the City Phase. Yeah, that kind of solution can also be tried.

I don't mind giving some civs more citizen soldier options, but keep in mind that civs having weaknesses is also a good thing. Pushing champions to phase 2 is something that should be experimented with, though moving cavalry champions and ranged champions would likely be a bit too much. Phase 2 siege can be interesting but I don't think it should ever be more than rams. I disagree, going to P2 gives you absolutely no benefit if you plan to play aggressive. The eco techs are quite expensive and military techs are much too expensive. There's a reason you don't see players getting military upgrades in P2 and why the P2 eco techs frequently get left until after clicking P3. For Athen P2 champs, there is this patch: https://code.wildfiregames.com/D3930

The rotation times become quite noticeable on 90+ degree turns. The units walk speed also plays a role so with swordsmen it's much more noticeable than skirmishers. I guess it is mostly a difference of viewpoint.

Rotation times aren't removed, they're still there and are simply reduced. That's because in 0 ad age 2 is not very useful, and that's another problem still. I'm not sure I get your point. The early rushes aren't a thing only because P2 options are more limited in this release. In a23 I used to play cavalry rush into Athenian P2 champions which were the most expensive unit available then and it was a valid approach that could win against top players like borg. With P2 having more options the early P1 rushes won't go anywhere.

Move-attack micro wasn't a thing even in a23 when there was instant unit movement. Fights in 0 A.D. come down mostly to positioning. In my changes I only adjust the rotation times of citizen soldiers. Heroes and champions with their current rotation times are completely useless at trying to dance, that's been wiped out. I feel like that's already the case for us. There are rare strategies that start with instant military and many of the rushes are at the enemies base quite quickly.

I articulated myself badly there. What I mean is that in my opinion there's no good reason to limit the amount of barracks or really any building for that matter. I believe that spam is something that should be part of the game and used as part of a strategy if the player deems it the correct approach. Say one player tries to rush up to the City phase with low investment in military, the other player recognizes that and spams out military to try and overwhelm the other.

Yeah, that is the unavoidable side effect of citizen soldiers. Though, I really don't see why them having a gather rate debuff would make the barracks a risky investment. Where else are you going to put the resources? If they're trained at an advanced rank that would hurt early aggression too as units trained from the CC would have to face off against some units that are a rank higher and thus stronger. I can't speak for SC2 but keep in mind that AoE2 is played at 1.7 speed. Best comparison in AoE2 to the current boominess of 0 A.D. would be an Arena or Black Forest game as those are most generally boomfests and the lategame action starts a bit before or on minute 30, 30/1.7=17.5 minutes real life. Compared to 0 A.D. where the big late game figts break out a bit before or on min 15. I don't think the pace difference is that big especially if we consider how slow the Dark Age in Aoe2 is. There's no reason to cap barracks. The best solution is to offer military options and have players slow themselves and others by utilising them. Of course easier said than done, but that's what I believe is the best approach to be worked towards to over time. Players trying to remain in P1 and hold on just by sheer numbers is an approach that should be atleast semi viable in my opinion. Keep in mind that it gets hard to reach resources if you stay in P1 for long.

Played 2 3v3 matches with the mod. Here are the games. Would be nice to get some 4v4s with more people before I start making patches for these changes and make sure there's wider support for them. Edit: removed the files as there's a new version and the replays are now outdated

Upon having thought about this more, I think the better way to solve this problem is to offer more military options in P2. Things like the now gone Athenian P2 champs or the Spartan Skiritai, or the now very weak Gaul Naked fanatics. In combination with more accessible military upgrades it should combine to make aggression in P2 more viable and reward good scouting, but obviously would require a lot of effort and change to get there.