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https://code.wildfiregames.com/rP26944 https://code.wildfiregames.com/rP26943 the distinction between grain and rice was removed, so they now only have the regular gather rate: https://code.wildfiregames.com/rP26937 https://code.wildfiregames.com/rP26891

Yeah, your problem is this: https://github.com/0ad-matters/community-maps-2/blob/master/maps/random/gaia.js#L363 So better to use addProps only on unreachable areas.

Hello Everyone, Rather than dig up the old topic for balancing han, I started a new one centered around RC1, which @Stan` has graciously provided us Since the Han is a new civ added, we will need to carefully ensure everything is well balanced. To start, here are concerns of mine: Stacking unique economic technologies: 1. Farming upgrades are +25%instead of 20% (p1) 5. Rice paddies are cheaper, smaller than farms (more can be protected) 3. higher rice gather rate for women (.6 vs .5) 4. ministers (slight eco bonus) 5. imperial ministry upgrades (cheaper buildings, non-forge techs) (p1,p2) 6. crossbows cheaper wood cost these will make han a top tier eco civ, possibly competing with ptols. Stackable military stats: hero: -50% promotion experience fort upgrade: -25% promotion experience This could be OP: nearly instant rank 3 units. Champions: 5 different champs, 3 champ cav. Some civs only have 2 (britons) and 1 (spartans). Very strong defenses: great tower, super CC, stronger walls, can build multiple laozi gates for pretty cheap. This is probably stronger defense than iberians. It seems they have the eco of the ptols, top tier heroes, probably the best military, and on top of it all: 220 pop. Everything that makes the other civs good, the han seem to have all in one package.

Hi team, I would like to request a new feature in the game - even if it is only used by modders. The feature would allow for your very own units to become disgruntled and turn on you. I would like to see a new class type "Leader" who gives the player various benefits but who is also at risk of betraying you and taking his soldiers with him - effectively becoming a new AI player (but with various limitations). To help illustrate how it would work, I will explain how I would implement it in my mod: You start the game with a Lord who represents you (the player) in game. The Lord offers a population cap (e.g. 30), rather than buildings. Houses are the only structure that can boost the population cap (by 2) but the Lord Player can only build 5 max. The Lord has the ability to grant Lordships (upgrade) to experienced Men at Arms. Making them your vassals. The vassal Lords further increase your population cap (eg by 20). The Lord Player is the only unit in game that can build a castle. The vassal Lord is able to build a manor that is at least 100 meters away from the Lords castle or any other manors. The vassal Lord can then build an additional 3 houses around his Manor (increasing population cap by 6). There are also limits on farms and so having vassal Lords allows them to build more farms on their manor for your overall benefit. What I would like to happen is that each vassal Lord could have a random personality. If you lose a lot of soldiers in a short amount of time, a vassal Lord might begin to think he could overthrow you and attack. Alternatively, if you play too defensively, another Lord might think you are a coward for not being aggressive enough and end up turning on you. There might also be a situation where the vassal Lord does not attack you, but him and the soldiers that were created via his manor house stop obeying your orders, or you begin receiving less resources from their gathering. The idea (in my mod) would be that having vassal Lords increases your population cap and farming ability while also increasing the speed in which you can raise an army (you can train soldiers via the manor and via your own barracks - which would also be limited to 1 in the game). If you have two vassal Lords plus your own barracks, you can train soldiers from three buildings rather than one. The downside to having vassal Lords is you risk your vassals turning against you with all the soldiers that you trained via their manor house. Outcomes for treacherous Lords: 1. They attack you. 2. They don't attack you but they also refuse to obey your orders. 3. Gather rates from units built at the manor house decrease by 25%, 50%, 75% (simulating the vassal lord not passing on the resources to you). 4. They actively help your enemy. 5. A combination. Loyalty variables: 1. Soldiers/villages that were built via a manor house are killed at a much higher rate than those built via the Lord Players barracks/castle or other manor houses. 2. Too much defensive play. 3. To much aggressive play. 4. Building a manor house close to enemy territory. 5. Your overall strategy/policies - a feature where you could choose a "defensive/aggressive/economic" strategy where the health of your units is increased by 10% or their attack is increased by 10% or villager gather rate is increased by 10%. Different vassal Lords will react differently to different strategies of the player. I imagine this being a feature where you can adopt specific policies for how villagers and soldiers are treated (each policy with its pros and cons) as well as different policies regarding military strategy. You can choose to be a "Just" Lord Player who focuses on "defense" and making decisions "Collaboratively". Each of those three policies (Just, Defence, Collaboration) would effect the vassal Lords relationship with you. Alternatively, you could be a "vengeful", "aggressive" Lord Player who "Dictates" decisions. Of course for the actual 0AD game, I imagine the player could appoint Governors/Consuls/Generals etc etc. And of course the advanced diplomacy could be a feature the player choses to turn on/off at the beginning of the game.

@wowgetoffyourcellphone Please also mind the recent commits. We removed the rice subtype. Han still have a grain gathering malus.

https://trac.wildfiregames.com/changeset/26945

they did not keep the balance. AoE 3 and AoM are assymetrical.

it's normal, it's their first alpha.

I can fix this rather quickly.

Everyone praises A25, but I think A25 has some problems and overlapping is a serious one.

I would say immediately: farm upgrades back to 20 percent instead of 25. only 1 laozi gate permitted. I bet these will be unanimously agreed upon. I expect further nerfs will be required on top of these two.

Perus em portugues.

Very nice! May I use for Delenda Est Zapotecs?

Actors should definitely be removed by building footprints.

Right. And why are we using them like natural written parts of names? I never see Brutus with a diacritic anywhere else, unlike for example José or René, where I'd say that's just how they're spelled. Because technically they are natural.

the game doesn't do anything to make you believe that persian sparabara (translated in game as shield bearer - spearman is only listed in little among their many classes) is the same unit as athenian hoplites. I believe it makes no sense to assume that random players understand that all CS units with a spear (but not a pike) have the same stats. whatever notion you have about history and fighting, you wouldn't think that persian shield bearers have the same stats than all other spearmen, and the only way the game tells you that is by showing you the units stats. change those and the problem is solved. they will just be used for walling like houses. I wouldn't assume that a mostly agricultural, patriarchal society like the ancient persian one, had many women learning to use the bow. just saying.

We can do it!

I always thought it came from Africa, nice

yes I think staying on the middle ground is good: the basic CS units are very similar, but civs have additional unique buildings, units, upgrades, and bonuses. Hopefully, we can do this for a couple more civs later as well.

I'd say we need to stay in the middle ground. AOE4 seems to go for too much asymmetry and it hurts gameplay. I think the Han dynasty civ is a step in the right direction: the heros are interesting, the CC upgrade is interesting, rice paddies interesting, and ministers interesting. I would say we are also taking a step in the right direction here with pers including @borg-'s changes, and hopefully (if it gets accepted) my hyrcanian cav patch.

uh...the gate...I hardly ever make it.

The gameplay and the player's sense of substitution are based on our restoration of historical reality. Adding non-existent facilities is like introducing dragons and magic. It may be interesting, but it is divorced from the theme of the game.

Fix this egregious grammatical error, then we can talk.

Because of their speed. Give archers a minimal distance and some dagger as melee defense.

we need to vote on this option once and for all. i'm tired of all civs playing the same way.

vamos a ver, si cabe o en que tamaño deberia yo de darle en el mapa. @Lopess hay que mover esto como eyecandy wonder.

When I searched on the internet for Persian Ice houses, the idea of adding the to the game felt very good. The most logical bonus would be food related and I like the idea of a food trickle as it encourages to build more than a single one. It seems natural to compare the cost of the ice house to a farmer. So for 5 farmers we have a cost of 250 food for training 5 women 100 wood for a field + 75 wood for building the housing for 5 women, 75 seconds construction time. Without farming upgrades, they produce as much as 5 ice houses (as proposed) in the mod. But the cost of the Ice houses is 500 wood and 250 seconds build time. So fields seem preferable to me even if you lack all farming upgrades. Currently the main advantage of the building seems to be that it does not require population space. @borg- I am interested what your ideas are behind these numbers. I think this is a better idea. If the cost and the gain per Ice house are higher, then instead of being spammed, each one brings a more noticeable impact. My suggestion would be 100 wood+100 stone+50 seconds build time. So at the start of the game, you have a unique way of using your stone. If you have some leftover stone at the start, you can fully utilize it for ice houses, but it means you need to go to stone before getting the 3rd barracks. So that would give the interesting question on how many ice houses you build at the start of the game and how you combine it with your build order. Farming gets more efficient as more eco technologies are being researched. The Ice house seems to lag behind more and more for every farming technology that gets researched. I think it would be fitting if the Persian Architecture tech also provided +20% resource tickle for ice houses (as well as a +20% territory boost).

The distance just needs to be large enough to prevent walling. 10 or 20 meters.

I was referring to the same concept that you described as avoiding "Fastest click wins". Namely, I had in mind those players that discuss and propose new features trying to preserve or even raise the level of "skill" required to win fights, where "skill" is basically APM.

Right. And why are we using them like natural written parts of names? I never see Brutus with a diacritic anywhere else, unlike for example José or René, where I'd say that's just how they're spelled. Still not a fan of grass hiding stuff. I think the AI could use some tweaking regarding docks and ships. I played Wild Lake with five AIs and none of them were using any. (Only saw one foundation of a dock as a desperate last attempt before extinction.)

Estoy deseando ver que iconos creas.

Lots of people have proposed adding later periods of Rome to the game. Just wait until your next hero is Imperator Caesar Divi Filius Augustus Pontifex Maximus Consul XIII Tribunicia Potestas XXXVII Imperator XXI Pater Patriae.

How do we install this? It is a .patch file, which I have never seen before. Putting it in the mod folder doesn't work. This will open up some cool new build orders.

We were discussing this in IRC. I want to have them back for Documentation purposes. They can be excluded for the translators if need be another way. But I think they are good for game culture and mood etc.

I am going to develop icons for astronomy and another one for Astrology. I must correct the archer icon. I'm going to help lopess with the Mayans, I've been indebted to that for a long time.

An useless unit is good, because it doesn't break a civ like the fire cavs of Iberians or Carthaginians' mercenaries. If you think the Gaul trumpeter is useless, then don't train it! If someone else spammed it, since it's useless, it can't hurt you too much. But, this useless unit opened up possibilities for new unit types and new strategies involving them. For example, if I was in a situation where I had to spam infantry with the Gauls, I would add in a few trumpeters to boost the performance of my army. But if you don't want to do that, it's your choice.

Some of these changes won’t be noticeable to the average player. And if this exercise is done for all civs then the traditional spear/archer/sword/skirm/etc. stats will become meaningless because too many civs will have one off special stat adjustments. I would want something that is easier to understand so each unit type is same across civs. Different unit types will be different even if they are similar (for example, pikes and spears are pretty similar to each other but we all understand how they are different). Making a system where a Persian spear is different from a Athens spear, which is different from a Brit spear, which is different from a Roman spear, will very quickly create a complicated system that can’t be easily understood. This is fine. Perhaps the "Archery Tradition" tech should unlock this (instead of what it currently does, but I forget what it currently does lol Agree. Just make a tech. This would essentially be like the hoplite tradition for Sparta/Athens but with a focus on promotion/performance instead of promotion/train time. I like that slight twist. Sounds good Do it through a tech or make it a different unit type. I would lean towards a tech so that the player has the choice on what to do. Also, what you describe is pretty similar to how pikes will function in the next alpha. The main difference will be that Persian spears will be faster. Not sure that makes sense historically because this will probably mean that Persia gets the best of pikes (armor) and spears (speed) which will give them one of the better inf melee units. That might be good, but it seems misplaced with Persia being the civ to get that I don’t care about the woman change. Do that if you think that’ll be cool. I’m a little concerned about this. This will lead to more “cameling” rushes with the archer cav Can’t axe cav destroy CCs quickly (currently or as proposed)? That could be very difficult to counter in p1 which will lead to a lot of early GGs maybe it best to just keep the same roster from the stables (jav and spear) Yes

In terms of balancing @hyperion is on the right track, we need good quality data to decide what action needs to be taken. I would be happy to assist, to the level that my skills allow it. We need 1 of two things (or both), at least to start measuring the top level metrics: Simulate some games without the graphics part, I think there is something like that already implemented? Run say 10000 games, 1v1 all civs against all civs with same AI. I understand this can be resources intensive, but considering the fact that the work can be distributed across different members, it should be doable. Even better, since we already we have a lot of games in multiplayer, once a game is finished, to report not only winner, but also civs. Or the whole game log file even better. The server can collect the data and these data can be used for balancing. We can later go deeper in unit stats, and specific features. These statistics in later phase can be incorporated in the lobby as well for everyone to access easily. In the end balance is about the advantage or disadvantage that a civ provides to the player that is translated to victory or loss. So this is what needs to be tracked. We don't need to know which specific advantage is offering the edge, all we need to know is which civs have an "edge" and then apply any type of nerf. We could use both: In an ideal situation, we do balancing based on point 2 (real player matches). Before every new release we "run" point 1 (simulations between the ai), to make sure any new features and changes or even balancing actions have not "broken" the balance. Extra Thoughts: I think first we can focus in implementing the above for 1v1 games and then expand to more complicated scenarios like ffa and tg that team bonuses play a role. Land and Water: The drawback here is that the current state of rated 1v1 is mostly land, so it will not "balance" properly island maps. Maybe we can create 2 categories of civ stas. Land games, and water games, cause there are big differences between civs for the 2 of those. In general Civs must be balanced in both land alone and water alone, we shouldn't have civs that are weak in land and strong in water or vice versa. It sounds nice, but in terms of balancing I think all civs should be equally capable in all scenarios, maybe it does not make a lot of historical/accurate sense, but it makes for proper-fun gameplay. For example Athenian champion training from ships is quite OP, especially with a25 where the ships are shredding organic units, but in general they are considered weak civ for 1v1, because they are almost always land maps. This whole water power, land power is a big discussion, all I want to say is we need to keep it in mind if we implement a system like the one above. But we know which civs need nerfing/buffing. After-all we have people here that play 100s of games per release. Well, 25 releases show that we struggle to find a good balance and we always end up with strong and weak civs. But even so, I can accept the fact that some members have the experience to say which civs are stronger,weaker. Even in this case at least point 1 should be done and "run" before release and compared with previous release, so we know that the implemented balance "fix" will improve the game and not transfer imbalance from one civ to another. Next action: Create a component that takes in the saved file from a game and generates statistics for civs, segmented per relaease. We can even create a thread for people to upload their saved games so we can feed them to the calculator manually.

You should always expect the worst of the human being.

Not a bad plan. 2 years seems excessive. Maybe 2 alphas. 1 alpha to enact some changes, and 1 more to fix/tweak these changes.

This would be good, yes. I'll update the proposal to reflect this. The eventual design document should include this, certainly. However, for this proposal I'm only listing any features that I think should be changed or which I think need to clarified. This sounds like a good idea, but I'm not sure if it really fits in the general design document. This could be done along with the pages for the individual civilisations, but I think the overall design document should describe how the game should play in general, not the specifics of civilisation design. I will add the information about viable counters, thank you. Perhaps, but I'd like to keep this issue as centralised as possible for now. I have tried to avoid adding anything too controversial, so I don't think that should be too much of an issue at the moment.

I've posted my proposal for a general design document at https://wildfiregames.com/forum/topic/78095-design-document-proposal/

the purpose of a design document is to fix things and avoid always rediscussing them. the document is not enough in itself, a real leadership is necessary to make people respect the document. we actually already have one, the problem is noone cares (the base principles of 0AD design could still be taken as valid, and they say some very clear things about micromanagement, but I remember seing micro role in the game being questioned many many times, and noone ever pointing out the design principles).

I mean taking the lead in the sense of trying to organize the update or the rewriting of the documentation, so yeah writing how it works might help. Indeed, and just like I can't give you a release date for A26 I cannot give you that ... However it's not because features are there that we need to use them.

taking the lead is a bit of a blurry description. Do you mean as in 'writing down how the game currently works' or as in 'how it should work' ? The latter will probably cause some conflict e.g. making or contributing to a design document would also require some kind of decision or knowledge about what features will be implemented in the future and which just won't make the cut. E.g. secondary weapons. phase 4, new civs ect. Generally I would like to help out with that task, but it is unclear what *exactly* the task contains. ______ Hmm sure, some things are better / quicker to discuss in real time (so it might be a good option to have some kind of regular internal chats), but I think the asynchronous communication is actually a strength of the development process. I think it's mostly a problem of diverging ideas about how the game should play and discussing something like that means emotional investment which just cost a lot of energy.

Good thing we added an option for it finally in A26! Do you mean something like this http://docs.wildfiregames.com/templatesanalyzer/ ? Indeed each team member has its own agenda. It can be disastrous sometimes. The issue lies between the way people expect to be played I guess. I remember @mysticjim and @superflytom commending the turn rate feature while everyone else on the forums seemed to hate it. This could work maybe. As much as I'd like to, I cannot listen to everyone, and since I don't have a big experience on the game I have to rely on trustworthy people to help me make good decisions. Some might say it's weak, but I think it's better to admit when you don't know instead of blindly doing things. I think I need to find a good image for social media. I'd like that. The design document is actually versioned and changes can be made to it. https://docs.wildfiregames.com/design/ But I need people to step up and take the lead. This would be nice. I offered (and still do) to help anyone on IRC or Discord installing it. Because I'm a bit at loss there. I'm good at being honest, not sugar coating things, feel free to suggest an improved version if you have some time. Indeed, although noise is a thing on these forums, people going of track and stuff. I guess actual moderation could fix it though. Maybe the issue is the medium of communication rather than the actual thing being discussed ? Maybe audio chat could help? This is a big thing. Some people are legitimately scared of making changes, and other get very frustrated when they had the courage to make them and have to take them down. Thank you. I do it for the people that like 0 A.D. even though I must admit the rest has taken a huge toll on me. Hopefully being able to go to events where people are actually happy to discover or talk about the game will bring back some energy on my side. This is why I wanted someone to take the role and make decisions. This is too heavy for me on top of everything else. I hoped it would work with @borg- but it seems even his ideas were not to the liking of most people...

The only other thing I really have to say is that a lot of people (too many in my opinion) see problems in the the current game and want to create their own ‘perfect’ game from scratch. But everyone has a different idea of perfect and everyone can’t have their own perfect game that everyone plays. At some point, someone will be unhappy. We have what we have and unless you want to be like Wow and create your own game from new cloth then revisions can’t forget everything and become something brand new. Change will be gradual and frustrating because it isn’t anyone’s perfect game. But it’s also worth noting that there is wide consensus that this slow gradual change is an improvement from where we came. It’s not ‘perfect’ but let’s appreciate that it is ‘better’

Most ethnic groups do not have swords cavalry. In fact, the cavalry of almost all countries only use the sword as a backup weapon for the spear cavalry. And the javelin cavalry is rare outside the Mediterranean.

In other words, the innate properties of the units (armor, speed, dps, cost, range) should be enough for unit differentiation. I like the idea of adding some bonuses/debuffs to the current matchup between units, like cav debuff for palisades, or catapult buff to fortress, but I dislike rock-paper-scissors balance.