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Hey! Look what I found in Atlas!

Thanks Enrique, I made some small changes, but nothing major overall. I focused mainly on the texture, making it less noisy in some places and I reduced the triangle count slightly to ~1300. -nick

Disagree, not everybody has access to a pelta. But whatever, that isn't the point. Slingers are basic, that's why they're in the first age. Since they're on the first age, they can't be too strong and neither too fast (talking about moving speed), else they become OP, for they're ranged. They must also have low armor, so that the buildings themselves are a good counter against them. But later on, they become useless, unless they can be massed. And they can't be massed when their cost of stone, a resource needed for your defenses, is so high, their defense so low and their attack being nerfed. It's not that they can't be massed, it's that those who mass them would be dumb if they did so, a fort would do better with no food cost. That's what i think.

how do you win the game? If you can stay alive for an hour or something?This doesn't seem too hard with the currect AI, as they don't rally search for opponents, and they're bad at taking down buildings. Just watch how a game of AI players turn out. Most of the time, one AI is clearly lost, but the other doesn't bother to finish it.

That would be a cool game mode. Although the name "Horde" makes me think of Gears of War. I suggest the name "Invasion" would sound better. I like the idea. Different difficulties would depend on how early do waves appear. Easy would be 20 minutes, Normal would be 15, and Hard would be 10. A complete game would last 60 minutes. The more AI, the more diverse the troops and directions they spawn from.

Well, now you're talking about swapping the skirmisher and slinger. That's fine. Felt silly to me to just move the slinger to Town and then not replace it with anything in Village. Though, historically, slingers in Athens would have been low-born poor citizens, while skirmishers were hired mercenaries from Thrace, making it more realistic to have the slingers at village phase. But that's not really a huge consideration, just a minor one. Well, okay. The game is in alpha, btw. Balancing happens in beta. No harm in thinking about balance at this stage, but don't get too upset if no one else is jumping all over your suggestions. Anyway, "tackling the root problem" regarding the slinger would entail changing its stats to make it balanced rather than just moving it to a later phase, which is what we are now discussing since I chose to tackle it head on here. The problem with the team at this stage is that there is no one willing to make the changes in a consistent manner. It would be good if someone (quantumstate, pureon?) took up that mantle. I'd keep the bonus as-is and playtest with the suggested stats changes first. If those changes are insufficient, then perhaps 2x vs. just ranged infantry and 1.5x vs. melee infantry or something like that. If still OP, then maybe 1.5x vs. infantry.

If the stone cost is going to be raised, i suggest a tech to reduce it, so that later on slingers would still be an alternative, if you want to mass them.

Such a drastic action (moving slingers to Town phase, which doesn't really make sense anyway, since you can't get anymore basic than slingers) is not required when tackling the root problem is just as easy as what you propose. Here is what I propose:1. Attack Reduced From 15 pierce to 10 pierce. Make sure to adjust Advanced and Elite rank attack values downward accordingly. 2. Cost increased From 40 stone to 50 stone. 3. Playtest.

That is a nice feature to have, as I always played 30 minutes no rush in AoE3. Though I prefer if there was a way to easily counter rushing players in the first ten minutes of the game. I like to be crushed by an invading army, not by a handful of tribesmen.