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The conversation is so long with one person repeating the same logic all the time, that I have to admit that I didn't completely read everything, but I will react to some things. @chrstgtr Welcome to RTG games! Unless the winning unit is faster, the losing unit can flee. That is not a problem, but a given fact. To chase and kill a fleeing unit, the chasing unit needs to be faster and only one of two units can be faster than the other. One unit being able to escape due to its speed is not a solvable problem, rather it should be considered as a given fact. There can not be a greater delusion than asking for an "issue" to be solved if it is clearly unsolvable by nature. Furthermore, you forget that a combined arms approach is possible. If the melee units win the battle and the losing javeleers flee, then they might escape. However if the winning player has just 10% cavalry units, then the losing javelineers cant escape the cavalry and if they stay to fight, then the chasing infantry might catch up. Okay, I will give an example that differs from what you mentioned. Consider two armies. Army A (Kushites/mauryas) consists of 20% archers, 40% spearmen, 40% swordsmen. Average DPS: 10.4 Army B (Guals) consists of 50% javelineers and 50% spearmen. Average DPS 10.9 Army A has the unit with most range and has more HP, whereas army B has the fastest unit (javelineers) and a little more DPS. Whereas army B can be agrued not to deviate to much from meatshield meta, army A does. Melee infantry in army A isn't the meatshield, but the core of the army. This example shows that the proposal is a fundamental change: You no longer need javelineers to have a competitive DPS. That is very much correct. It needs to be understood that ranged units might run away, but you wont win the game if you run away instead of defending your base. I hope everybody understands that.

It’s not a proposal at this stage, it is a working concept. Next steps are to evaluate the results rather than speculate.

I would like to offer a correction to this statement: "... being decided by whoever actually reached enemy ranged units with their melee" should be changed with "... being decided by whoever runs out of melee units first" because the main deciding factor is not that melee units can now damage enemy ranged units, its that ranged units can now shoot other ranged units. Sniping in no way solves the meat shield problem because the focus is all on the ranged units, ignoring the harmless melee units even if they manage to close the distance to attack ranged units. Now imagine the same scenario with higher dps melee units: the sniping player ignores the melee units and the melee units kill his army. Now both players need to make a value decision of what unit they want to kill first melee or ranged, as well as whether or not sniping is the best micro they can use, (as opposed to unit control micro).

@real_tabasco_sauce, I think you're misstating what the "meat shield" meta means and, as a result, the proposal isn't tailored to fix the meat shield meta that players complain about. The "meat shield" meta that people commonly complain about, is an overriding strategy where players primarily compose their armies of range units and use melee units as a distraction (i.e., melee units become a shield to the more important range units). The meat shield meta is fundamentally defined by how melee units interact with range units. Defined differently, the meat shield meta is defined by how melee units don't interact with range units. I've asked (in many threads, including this one), how increasing melee's dps and decreasing melee's armor changes the meat shield meta (as defined above) instead of just changing how quickly the meat shield dies and no one has ever explained it. There are at least four main ways the current meat shield meta (as defined above) can change: Melee units can get more dps than range units. Option (1) has been proposed several times but people typically reject it because of fears that the game will become a single unit melee spam. Melee units can get more armor to be able to reach enemy range units. Option (2) is more or less where a25 was with melee units becoming (slightly) more important and battles being decided by whoever actually reached enemy range units with their melee. Other strategies/tactics, such as sniping, can develop to avoid the meat shield meta. Option (3) is where we are at in a26 with players coming up with alternative stats to get around the meat shield. But most people think micro heavy strategies like this are not ideal and agreement can't be reached on what hard-coded tactics should be developed (e.g., people couldn't area on what attack ground should be). Melee units can be made quicker to reach enemy range units. Option (4) is what I think should be implemented because it's less likely to create the single unit spam problem of option (1) and hasn't already failed like options (2) and (3). You seem to be defining the meat shield as a reflection of stats where melee units can absorb a relatively large amount of dmg. People aren't complaining about that--see how no one complains about melee being able to kill range with their relatively high armor and low dps. People are complaining about the strategy where players mass large range armies. Your proposal doesn't appear to address this (but please correct me if I am wrong to believe that your proposal won't just change how quickly the meat shield dies).

I would like to know what @borg- thinks.

In several previous discussions, forum participants have expressed discontent with the current role of melee in 0ad a26. In general, melee units do substantially less damage than ranged units, while having far greater armor. Because of this, melee units are often more effectively used to "shield" ranged units from other ranged attacks. Crucially, it is melee units durability which makes them strong versus ranged units and not their actual attack. Because of this, many players place low priority on melee upgrades to the point of skipping them entirely. Hack armor is researched to make melee attacks on ranged units weaker, but it is also a low priority tech. The "meat shield" meta is epitomized by the pikemen unit: 2 hack + 3 pierce in 2 seconds is a childish 2.5 dps on an unarmored enemy. Even the champion version is harmless. Meanwhile they have an absurd 10 hack 8 pierce armor before upgrades. It is time for a large scale rework of melee units, and try to name a better place to test this than the community mod. To summarize: infantry melee CS units "standard" armor is 3 hack, 3 pierce (more specialized units deviate slightly from this) Champions are 6h, 6p, with exceptions (ex pikemen) across the board damage has been doubled (extra for pikemen, and special case for macemen) Cavalry melee cavalry deal slightly more damage than their infantry counterpart (in keeping with current design) armor is similar to current values, but with less pierce armor. Ranged cav hack armor is decreased so they still lose vs melee cav. Try it as a mod: Current version: (50% more melee damage, 25% less ranged damage, 3h 3p melee inf armor, +0.5 m/s move speed) Get it on mod.io, might not work for a27. This is based on the community mod (edit: 0.26.4 now), so it is larger than necessary. My apologies. Keep in mind that melee units will still die first due to UnitAI, as they always have. This proposal seeks to enable melee units to be more impactful in battles, so that investing in their upgrades might allow you to defeat enemy melee units first and force a retreat. Stat chart (this is version 1): version 2 is this with -25% all unit damage, and +0.5 melee inf movespeed. melee rebalance CS infantry attack previous armor previous Champion attack armor spear 6h 5p (1.0s) 3h 2.5p (1.0s) 3h 3p 5h 5p spear 12h 10p (1.0s) 6h 5p (1.0s) 6h 6p 8h 8p sword 11h (0.75s) 5.5h (0.75s) 3h 3p 5h 5p sword 22h (0.75s) 11h (0.75s) 6h 6p 8h 8p pike 5h 9p (2.0s) 2h 3p (2.0s) 5h 5p 10h 8p pike 10h 18p (2.0s) 4h 6p (2.0s) 8h 8p 13h 11p axe 12h 4c (1.0s) 6h 2c (1.0s) 2h 3p 4h 5p axe 24h 8c (1.0s) 12h 4c (1.0s) 5h 6p 7h 8p mace 7c 7h (1.0s) 7c (1.0s) 3h 3p 4h 5p mace 14c 14h (1.0s) 14c (1.0s) 6h 6p 6h 6p cavalry (ranged armor) 2h 1p 3h 1p CS cavalry attack previous armor previous champion attack armor spear 7.7h 6.5p (1.25s) 4h 3p (1.25s*) 3h 3p 5h 3p spear 15.5h 13p (1.25) 8h 6p (1.25s) 7h 6p 8h 7p sword 12h (0.75s) 6.5h (0.75s) 3h 2.5p 3h 4p sword 24h (0.75s) 13h (0.75s) 6h 5.5p 7h 9p axe 14h 4.5c (1.0s) 8.7h (1.25s)(cm) 3h 2p 3h 2p axe 28h 8c (1.0s) 13.8h 4.6c (1s) 6h 5p 7h 7p mace 7.5c 7.5 (1.0s) 8c (1.0s) 2h 2p 4h 2p mace 15c 15h (1.0s) 16c (1.0s) 5h 5p 7h 6p

That's already the case. They only look for those. Here I proposed toget the most injured of the prefered units. http://trac.wildfiregames.com/ticket/6769#comment:1

Surely, any healing great or small will extend life. Dunno what you're upset about. lol

Very nice mention of 0 A.D. on a 180k channel

What wonderful screenshots Tito Vicent does.

Currently, making healers heal melee units (the class of units who need it the most) is rather tricky. Since Healers are ranged units, they are more likely to be closer to other ranged units (archers et al.) and will prioritize those units over farther units. If we have PreferredClasses =Melee, then they will prioritize the melee units and then heal whichever are closer (the nearby ranged units). The effect will be subtle to the eye, but positively effect melee units greatly. Keep in mind, you can always place the Healers behind the archer line to make it more likely to heal ranged units instead.

in a26 this is 6.5 dps, in melee mod, this is 11.6 in a26 this is 9.15, in melee mod, its 11.9. I admit. It is a miscalculation, but the conclusion remains the same.

Speaking of Healer behavior, if they are a part of a combat group and you task that group to attack the enemy, the Healers (since they have no attack [and shouldn't except in rare cases]) walk right up to the target to get slaughtered. Perhaps Healers in this case can hang back a certain number of meters (maybe 80% of healing range) and not walk right up to the enemy to be killed. Would this kind of change be helpful to people? Would make them last longer and, with a "Melee" preferred class for healing targeting, make them more integral to combat. @Freagarach

Something else I just came up with: Perhaps we can give a preferred class to healers of "melee" in addition to these other changes. It would make Healers more useful in bolstering the front line and less random.

That is a misconception that melee units need to hit ranged units in order to be effective. Also you have to remember that if sniping ranged units is less effective, then players will be able to control their units better, so you could just move some melee units to attack the enemy ranged during a fight. You are pretending that because melee units can't catch up to ranged units they can't deal any damage and thus overall are only useful for their armor. You have to remember that every unit fights from a stationary position, which means melee units can and will deal damage to ranged units and melee units alike. You say this as if you have tried or tested the mod, which is very interesting.

Maybe the lobby message could be a JSON with a link array that would work like the option tabs. I don't know much about the GUI @maroder @rossenburg

Hi @user1, Player djj quit a rated game without resigning. My name in the lobby is `e.v`. Thanks! commands.txt

You appear to be over thinking this. Yes, it changes how quickly melee units die, but you are missing one very important point: What units are doing the damage? Currently, melee units do not determine when the meat shield dies. This is exclusively ranged units, and thats a problem. Melee units and ranged units can have any stats determined randomly from 1 to 10000 and the melee units will always die first. simply because of unitAI. Ok, then consider the proposal option 1.

Fair. Good to know. Sure, reserve judgment until we actually see it in effect, but this just looks like an item where a very strong unit loses basically nothing and gets their attack doubled. Why? The changes are supposed to address problems. I just don't see and haven't heard any real complaints about a cav meat shield problem. Definitely doesn't exist for cav fighting straight up against inf (except for melee champ cav imo, but that is another issue). I haven't seen it much, if at all. Cav produces too slowly and are too expensive for there to really be a meat shield meta imo. I've always found micro (movement to get into a good army position, not sniping and dancing) with cav way more valuable and effective enough that endless spam and meat shields don't come into play. To get enough units to do a true cav meat shield also requires you to sacrifice a ton of fire power. Besides, it usually makes more sense and is easier to just use an inf meat shield to pair with your cav armies. Ok. But why is that a problem? Doesn't it achieve the desired result of melee winning vs ranged? How is this different than the current meta, though? I get that that it will be more likely that melee will decide who wins the front (as opposed to range units in the back), but it still looks the same with units just killing each other in front. Yeah, it will decrease the need for sniping (which would be great), but the gameplay is still otherwise the same--spamming front melee units to make sure they never reach the back range units. It seems like the proposal will basically just keep the meta but make melee actually contribute to killing enemy meat shield but not actually involved in the fighting vs range. Isn't the point of the desired change to introduce new tactics and get melee more involved (i.e., players want more "tactics")?

you have to try the combats in different situations. not just 1 v1. As they said above, the Pathfinder is important, you have to see how it behaves under formations and other pathfinder issues.

This all needs testing (read: community mod implementation), but a few things stand off the page to me. Items (1), (2), and (3) deal with the actual stats you propose (i.e., their balance relative to other units, straight up) while item (3) concerns the general nature of your approach. Pike look too strong relative to spear. Sword cav looks like they get way too much of a buff. They're already the strongest CS unit. They easily destroy ranged units when they encounter them (which they can do because of cav speed). The step down in pierce armor will help, but I doubt it is enough to compensate for their attack doubling. Sword cav also can beat melee units. Basically their only current weakness is against spear/pike (i.e., units with a 3x counter). But, under your proposal, sword cav will get a doubling of attack with no decrease in hack armor. In effect, sword cav's strengths are doubled (attacked) or unchanged (speed) while their weakness is unchanged (hack armor stays the same). Why did you include cav in this at all? Cav aren't part of the meat shield meta. Players use cav's speed to move around and flank ranged armies without having to engage meat shields. And when cav do fight against meat shields that are heavy on spears, the cav army suffers unstainable losses (cost and time to replenish). As far as cav vs. cav fights are concerned, I don't think there is a meat shield meta problem nor have I widely heard people complain of one. (I know you want to buff CS spear cav, which I agree with, but that's different because it is just a weak unit relative to other melee and range cav. I know you also want to change axe cav, which I agree need to be changed, but axe cav just need a re-conception into something else like becoming a glass cannon meant to destroy buildings.). This doesn't directly change the incentive to create a meat shield--it only changes the pace at which the meat shield will die. Currently, melee troops regularly beat range troops when they can actually engage in straight up fights. But these units never get a chance to engage because they're too slow relative to range units. Making melee units faster would introduce more maneuvering strategy and allow the current units to actually engage in fights with range. Without a change to speed, I question whether any attack/health/armor changes will impact anything (because the melee units will still just fight one another in a meat shield meta Other stuff just needs to be tested to see if they're balanced vs. one another and to see if the desired effect (elimination of the the meat shield) actually takes effect.

I feel like it could be different upgrade paths. normal wall => D shape wall => D shape wall with roof normal wall => wooden hoardings normal wall => gate Manually, in the template. You need a wallset template for that. And all the templates.

New shaman hat

I heard the album, @Pemulis. I loved it! I haven't listened to that style of Rock in a long time. It brought back a lot of memories of King Crimson, Genesis; Emerson, Lake & Palmer... At times very beautiful baroque passages could be appreciated. I must admit that I had never heard rock sung in Italian. The singer's voice and style, also very interesting. I felt like I was in a theater, inside a play. I will listen to it again. I am sure that, once the cognitive stress is over, I will be able to enjoy it even more. Thank you.