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I would suppose that it would be fairly balanced. Against (ranged) units it deals about 55% more damage than sword cavalry, but it has -2 pierce armor. So that would mean it would deal about 1,55*-0.9^2=1.26 times as much damage before dying (or losing a set amount of HP) against range units while it costs +25 metal. Using that same method, we would expect mercenary swordsmen to deal 1.2*1.25/0.9=1.67 times as much damage before dying (compared to a CS sword cav). The proposed axe cav moves faster than the sword cavalry and is better at eliminating buildings, but it has the disadvantage that it can't serve that well as a meat shield and it can't promote. Furthermore, since it is a rank 3 cavalry unit, your opponents units will promote fairly quickly when they are fighting against it. So I would suppose it is balanced better than A25 sword merc cav.

Hello everyone! I hereby present a 0 A.D. mod aimed at evaluating the rating of players. Official mod page on GitLab here. Introduction Before diving into the description, let me introduce the problem this mod aims to solve. In 0 A.D., the ELO system is used to rank players in the lobby. This is good; but is it representative of the players' skills? As you know, the rating system in 0 A.D. only takes into account 1v1 rated games. Team games do not contribute to the ELO score of a player, as well as 1v1 unrated games. Also, the scoring system only takes into account the outcome of a game (victory/defeat) and not the "performance" during the game. Can we do better? This mod uses statistics. It extracts data from all the replays of games you (the mod user) have played. So, if you have played 20 games (1v1s, team games, other..) with a player in the lobby whose name is (for example) strangeJokes, the mod will assign a rating to strangeJokes based on the 20 games you've played with them. The rating system The functioning of the rating system is described in detail here, but in short what it does is: it considers the average performance of the player during the entire game (and not only at game's end). the rating assigned to a player is a percentage: for example, a player with a rating of 5.00 performs a 5% better than other players on average, while a player with a rating of -5.00 performs a 5% worse than other players on average. you can customize the rating system by giving more importance to military, economy, exploration or other factors to the aim of calculating ratings. Keep in mind that this mod is based on statistics; data are taken from your (the mod user) replays. Statistics might not be fully representative of reality; therefore, a player's rating could be inaccurate, especially if you have played few games with that player. The more you play with a player, the more accurate the rating of that player is. Installation ‣Recommended: LocalRatings can be downloaded from the game menu: Settings > Mod Selection > Download Mods. ‣Alternatively: Click here to download the latest release. Install following the official 0 A.D. guide: How to install mods? Alternative downloads: Latest Release (.pyromod) | Latest Release (.zip) | Older Releases Latest version announcement Explanatory pictures Contribute The public repository is at this page. Everybody is very welcome to contribute, suggest, fork or simply give feedback. Have fun!

Hello 0 A.D. friends! Many times I find myself in the situation of having many units under production from several buildings and I want to clear ALL the production queues simultaneously. This can happen for many reasons: maybe I want to get back some resources that had been allocated to units production; or maybe I suddenly need to change type of units being produced if I see that the game steers from the direction I expect. As far as I know (correct me if I'm wrong), there is no explicit hotkey that allows to clear all production queues simultaneously. It is also very annoying to clear production queues by clicking on icons one by one, especially when you have many buildings producing or many units being produced. So, I made a mod for this. The ResetQueue mod (official repository at this page) allows to bind a hotkey for clearing production queues of selected buildings. The default hotkeys can be changed from the Settings > Hotkeys menu. I find this feature very useful and I often use it in game. I hope this feature will be present in a future version of the game. What do you think? Installation Click here to download the latest release. Install following the official 0 A.D. guide: How to install mods? Alternative downloads: Latest Release (.pyromod) | Latest Release (.zip) | Older Releases Contribute The public repository is at this page. Everybody is very welcome to contribute, suggest, fork or simply give feedback. Have fun!

Hi I am fairly new to the game but wanted to give some feedback in something that makes it a bit hard to get into. I don't know if I'm just getting old and my eyesight is not what it used to be but I find very hard to identify at a glance the units in the battlefield. While having the units be on a pretty correct scale compared to the buildings it makes it pretty hard to distinguish one unit from each other. I can zoom in but then I miss out a lot of peripheral vision. Besides that, units are very hard to tell between each other, they do look realistic but see in the screenshot attached, I have a very hard time distinguishing which ones are spearmen, swordsman skirmishers (and that screenshot is really zoomed in). Maybe emphasizing some aspect of the unit would make them more distinguishable. Ranged units make are specially frustrating because most of the time arrows are virtually invisible, I can't tell if my unit is being hit by a tower or a castle. I was wondering if this was something to be considered subject to change in the future. Or if there are any mods that make units/arrows more easily identifiable (even if it is less historically accurate). Also I have noticed almost by accident that the default camera angle makes the game laggy, I usually press "Ctrl + S" for a slightly more overhead view and performance improves dramatically. I wish there was a way to save the camera settings or set the default angle/zoom (maybe even lock zoom out) Besides of that I am enjoying the game a lot, I hope you guys don't take this as criticism, the game is amazing as it is. The soundtrack is outstanding, definitely has nothing to envy to other famous RTSs. I listen to it while I work Thanks for such a cool game!

I think this represents the core problem of the balancing team.

The ambiance sounds like this https://youtu.be/wmdEg3T8IOM?t=9

Amazing photo! Even the light sabre can be seen hanging on his belt. To the Romans: 'These are not the Judeans you are looking for.'

people seem very eager to discuss hypothetical balance changes and debate what to do, but not so eager to discuss the balance of actual changes. i have had 2 balancing advisor feedback on this (quite significant) change for hyrcanian cavalry: I made a mod and a patch, but still very little feedback from balancing people.

The pathfinder is quite inefficient with large groups of infantry so retreat is always slower than you think; it is especially difficult when enemy slingers are already in formation: 1 shower of stones will decimate what you have left. Theoretically, yes. However, the strange attack mechanic in A25 is such that your units don't die one by one but 10 at a time (for roughly equal battles). Again, this could be caused by lag, but it makes the queued units in stables unable to begin their training promptly, and therefore even if you have 10 stables, after the 12 seconds of production time and another 10 seconds of walking, your main army would have been reduced by 40 units and you still can't reinforce properly. This will happen to both sides so you won't get a lasting large battle but a trickle of units rushing each other in under a minute. The cavalry will also arrive one after another instead of all at the same time which also exposes weaknesses. The rate of killing is simply too fast compared to train time. The size of medium Mainland is too large for units to arrive in time, especially if you are a pocket player trying to push the enemy at your flank. Infantry stands no chance; only cavalry can get there in time but their train time and cost are too much. Most of the time, when I am fighting a weaker player, it's easy to maintain 200 population because my army outnumbered theirs. The A25 attack mechanic favours the more numerous side to the extent that I can exterminate an army 80% of my size with only half casualties. This, combined with the fast killing, leaves them very little chance to resist. On the other hand, when I am fighting another full army, my population will drop to 180 and maintain there, because the first 20 units sacrificed themselves in knocking out 30 enemy units, which reduced their speed of killing and hence an equilibrium is reached at 180. Given I have 7 barracks and 7 stables (which is above average number). In my early A25 games, I played 1v1s with someone and both of us made 8 barracks each, only to see the battle of what used to be 200 units disappearing in less than a minute, then both of us had to go back to base and do economy, then fight again, then back and forth... On the other hand, in A23, I can maintain a large battle with the AI at 200 pop or 300 easily, with only 5 barracks. The AI also resists for a few decent minutes (on only 3 barracks) before losing. I think this is a much more reasonable setting.

My idea would be to reduce the experience to promote to rank 2 to 50. That means that if you put the unit in a barracks/stable for 50 seconds, you have a unit that is better than the sword cavalry in combat and has the crush damage to take out buildings. That would also give people a chance to think about the experience gain that barracks and stable provide. So it introduces a new way of thinking. Also I think they could benefit from having +1 hack armor

I am probably the minority in this, but while those were definitely a pain, a decent roman player like myself could play turtle and grind done those blocks with attrition and siege. And it was greatly satisfying True Roman experience was A23, fight Gauls all day every day, and the holy Roman bolter, I still miss the unit sprite for it, was it necessary to change it Also immortal heroes for maximum one man army shenanigans and roll play. Honestly in a way A23 felt more forgiving than the later alphas.

people love that approach.

you can micro at the moment, just not very much. Perhaps battles seem longer to me due to lag XD. I bet if the game performed perfectly, they would appear much faster too. Instead of lowering damage values, raise repeat times. If my understanding is correct, this would reduce the number of range queries needed per unit time. I played a23 btw. The main thing that stood out to me were the slinger death balls.

There is precious little to conquer anyway, it is rather fun building elaborate fortifications and watching others break them, but that is irrelevant in A25. Its all boom and go, I like to enjoy my games like I would a good meal, not a ten minute stop at the fast food place and then off I go to do something else. There is more to playing than just winning. It would be nice to have a satisfying experience too. Which we did have in A23 and progressively seems to have evaporated with each alpha. I personally feel quite jaded with the whole thing, if I had the opportunity I would have stayed with A23, at least there was more to personally enjoy.

I think some features would be very helpful. a time limiter option that uses replays from past month or year finding a recommended/default parameter valuation that best represents skill in 0ad, if players discuss skill levels, it would be helpful to have a default system to measure against. Right now rushes are undervalued, so I would recommend adding time-value to the parameters rather than using the values at the end of the game. I appreciate the work done for the mod and I am talking to other players to get them to check it out. I think with some refinement and some accuracy improvement (for default/recommended values) we could see this become an in-game feature in a future alpha.

Hmm, interesting points from everyone who's chimed in I think. I think the real question now is, where do we go from here? Personally, given the feedback and notes from everyone in this topic/thread, I'm thinking the following: We need an easy way to communicate things that have been completed, and/or progress on the project; since not all of it is apparent. Balance, somehow, needs to be more accessible to the communty; and changes to balance need to be added to the primary 0ad repo, not a fork. Some level of direction is needed; I'm probably out of the loop, and way off base with this, but it seems that the project is kind-of just "going" ... but not necessarily towards a specific destination. We REALLY somehow need to improve morale in the community ... honestly these posts seem to be quite a downer. We have to get over this rut and move forward with a positive outlook. The community, and internal view of the project very much dictates external impressions; at least in my opinion it does to some degree. If anyone has any adjustments/additions to that list ... please make mention and number them accordingly. Of course, if one of my numbered items there, seems invalid, we can just delete it and consider it not a priority. So now ... I have a proposal! The proposal is ... If you post a problem, post a solution. If you don't have a solution, state how you imagine things would be if the problem was solved; as that would at least give us a destination, but not how to get there. So to practice what I preach ... here's some possible solutions to the points above: Further breakdown project milestones/versions (for example A27) into subprojects. There are a couple options here ... we could have an overarching goal for the milestone (for example, "Refactor rendering to remove nvtt and make way for vulkan support"; completely guessing here lol). Then during A27, the majority of work would be on that. Another option could be to have subprojects for the milestone; for example, Art could have a goal, Balance could have a goal, etc, etc. Then once they're all complete, A{n} is complete. Another possibly better option could be to have alternating milestone focus. So for example, in the case of A27. Maybe A27.0 could be focused on getting balance stuff in (maybe it's only a 1 or 2 week sprint). Then after that A27.1 would focus on non-balance related things. This would give time for the devs to do what they want, while also dedicating some time to balance issues. With solution 1 there ... there are some things that could help this. Alternativelty, if balance is just mostly xml configurations ... there could be some functionality added (idk if it's already there), to allow people to merge balance configurations. So for example, have a balance menu in-game where they could select the xml to load settings from. Then optionally, have an in-game balance vote (for example after a SP or MP game), on what the players thought of the balance. This would give some real feedback on each balance configuration, and differences/implications could be drawn when comparing concrete versions of the settings. It would give balance people and programmers a better technical understanding of what setting influences balance the most, or at least is the most controversial. Direction can come with the solution in point 1. Honestly ... my thought is that having a stream if tickets isn't the best solution for projects goal-wise. It doesn't give a clear outlook of progress (in my opinion). Having smaller goals would give a better sense of completion. Seeing those goals accumulate will give a better sense of success. One idea here would be to adopt something with some kind of project-based progress bars. The visual feedback of it is amazing in my mind. For example, there's this https://github.com/opf/openproject With it you can do progress bars like these: Of course, this is just an example, there's probably other software out there that does the same. Maybe gitlab does this? (just checked, it does, here's a screenshot) Ultimately, if we can have something like this on the homepage, that could be cool too! It could be a point-of-interest for anyone looking at the project ... if they're interested in helping, having current workings, or areas of real need posted publicly would be a benefit; and I think would draw in more people. Part of increasing morale is not to focus on the problems, or negatives, but solutions. That's part of the proposal above, and what I'm trying to do in posting these ideas. I REALLY want to see this project succeed and grow. Part of making that happen is being the change I want to see. So ... that was a bit of a brain dump lol. Thoughts? @Stan`I know (or at least it seems) much of the management side of things is on your shoulders. I'd be happy to help with project management where needed. I'd even go through the trouble of building a project management solution for the team if it's needed (I've honestly wanted to for a while lol ... but never had a specific target in mind); but that might be extreme. On a side note ... personally, I've worked for a few companies in the past years (not boasting or anything, don't take it that way ... I'm just using it as my reference of experience) ... all of which had some critical issues with project management. Unfortunately in my position(s) at the time ... I wasn't able to do much to change the management practices for the better. Here ... I'm starting with throwing out some ideas; if people like it, good, if not ... then we can adjust/delete/create/adapt as needed. To some degree, yes. Too much openness is bad, especially when no-one is declared the final decision maker. This is true in many cases. One that comes to mind (I've been watching a lot of Gordon Ramsay lately lol), is in businesses like hotels, restaurants. With a group of "owners", if there's no-one who has a final say, decisions rot. Part of what Ramsay does is instill a position of power in a single person ... that changes the entire organization, and how it runs as a whole. Maybe having a elected "official" would help the project. Alternatively ... we could also adopt a voting system of sorts, where solutions are presented, and voted on with a deadline within the community. Of course, there's a ton of ways about this. We could also make the project configurable by default. So like ... at any point if there's something that's a core concern, or clear divide in the community ... make a checkbox for it ... then we get BOTH those sides remaining interested, while also satisfying their personal needs/opinions. As always ... everyone please post ideas/feedback, thanks for reading my rambles!

thanks much again for this great updates. i am in the top 10

It's hard for me to understand. When we had slinger + ram spam in every game on a23, they complained that the game was basically limited to these few units. I remember very well many players asking for melee cavalry to be more powerful and appear more in the game. I also remember that they asked for melee infantry to be more powerful in the game, as we now have cavalry and melee infantry appearing much more, along with mercenaries that were once a completely equal unit. I agree that there are still some fine balance adjustments to be made, but bringing up arguments like "we should go back to being like a23" or "remove stables" is extremely ridiculous. It seems that most people would rather go the easy way of simply removing what's bad than working harder to try to fix it for the next alphas.

https://releases.wildfiregames.com/

@Mentula I would recommend adding an uncertainty label after the main rating, calculated based on how many games they have played with you. This will prevent players with just 1 fluked match getting ridiculously high ratings. For example, leGrosRobert is at the first place although he is arguably not the best player in your list. Furthermore, 2 of Yekaterina's smurf accounts are way better than you and weirdJokes, although I doubt whether she is actually that talented.