Thorfinn the Shallow Minded
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Posts posted by Thorfinn the Shallow Minded
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I said that they should be implemented in a historically informed way; if that makes them rarer, then so be it. Likewise, I never said that women should be replaced with slaves. I instead stated that slaves should, for civilisations in which labour was primarily conducted by slaves, be the primary economic unit. I have otherwise simply pointed out some alternative ways to represent women that seem more informed.
In these discourses, respect is critical to healthy communication, and while I assure you that I am fallible, I do actually try to make coherent arguments; please look more carefully and criticise valid points. My apologies if this seems offensive, but I don't appreciate being taken out of context.
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9 hours ago, StopKillingMe said:
Not sure I can agree with the statement that "women shouldn't be available to a faction unless there is good precedent for them having a larger role". What would be the point of removing the ability to train women from some factions? Didn't all of these societies indeed have women in them?
I suppose I should clarify. Currently they seem to represent free women, and in that specific case, I can't really say it makes much sense except for factions in which women had an expanded role. If female slaves are available, I think that the argument for them doing hard labour is viable. It doesn't seem very accurate, but there is a point in which 0 A.D. has to separate itself from historical simulators.
I think that we can work to be more intention, however about accurate depictions. Perhaps Vestal Virgins could be a trainable healing unit for Rome. Also it seems that women were the priestesses for Athen's cult of Athena, and a handful Athenian women who were citizens apparently were merchants.
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Women in 0 A.D. basically fill the function of villagers in the game, but I don't think that enough consideration has been put into how they function especially for a game that attempts to pay close attention to history.
First, it is odd to have them as the primary economic unit when slaves by and large filled that role. This been mentioned before so I'll leave it there.
Next, while there are exceptions such as amongst various Celtic tribes and Sparta, most societies had women restricted to household related duties such as bearing and raising children, and doing other indoor activities at least to my understanding. This comes to my main point; women shouldn't be available to a faction unless there is good precedent for them having a larger role. Of course they didn't necessarily go out to chop wood or mine, but that is an RTS abstraction that I think can still exist. Granted, I am mainly speaking from a general knowledge of women's place in the ancient world from my familiarity with Roman and Athenian societies and at that, my study on the subject has hardly been thorough. I would appreciate any thoughts on the matter: especially concerning cultures I haven't mentioned.
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Not a specific unit, but I'd say that there should be a cheat code entitled: "End him rightly." This would make all sword units have ranged attacks that look like slinger projectiles.
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I would say, however, that the flaw isn't necessarily with the presence of citizen-soldiers but their implementation. It should take time to mobilise troops, which could make the effects of a rush significantly more devastating as working time can be lost during the time the soldiers are preparing to defend themselves and then during the time they demobilise. It could be even harder if the rusher continuously cycles between different gathering areas, forcing the defender to take an active role in defence if they wish to survive. I've mentioned this idea before, but in fairness, few people seem to appreciate this concept. Definitely though, Darkreaver's concept is much better than the current iteration of the citizen-soldier.
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Definitely slaves would be a fantastic addition. Another point to consider is that there could be a freeman class as well, having a hybrid role of fighting and gathering resources, but not being particularly good at either. The citizen then could be more like a champion but perhaps providing gathering boosts to other units.
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I think that the issue with the Royal Stoa is first of all, why is it royal? That makes it only refer to one of many stoas built. Next, it should be redesigned if it will still play a role in the game. As far as I am aware, there are two functions the stoa could serve, commercial and academic, possibly both. To outline my rationale, most of the time these were used for trading, and the Stoic school of philosophy was even named after this structure. I could see it having a purpose of being used to research various technologies based on the aforementioned points, but if it seems like just one more duplicity, then I won't miss its presence in the game.
As a definite point, the Spartans shouldn't have the stoa. They resented trade, and as far as I am aware, they never built a single one.
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In other words they were giving product placement for 0 A.D. this early. That's an impressive marketing campaign.
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What makes you skeptical regarding the eyes? Is there a more reliable source that contradicts Arrian's claim? If you're not aware, I might have been a bit sarcastic about the importance of depicting that in the actual game; I just found it to be an interesting physical description I had never heard before.
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Well done, but to quibble over a few points, Alexander the Great's appearance was best depicted (at least according to Plutarch) by a statue of Lysippus, of which there is a Roman copy. Emphasising the curls would be especially good. Arrian apparently also states that he had a brown and a blue eye. You can ignore the hair bit, but in game, the eyes will definitely be seen as an inaccuracy unless you painstakingly change them.
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The mentioned aspects are good, but I think that we could definitely think more out-of-the-box. For instance immortals were known to be constantly at the number of ten thousand because the empire always reinforced them to that number. I think that it would be neat to have an ability to promote an ordinary citizen soldier or archer to being an immortal at a cost based on the experience of that unit. It likewise would be cool if Spartiates were available in the village or even the town phase to open up new offensive and defensive purposes for the unit; after all it's weird to have the male citizens only present at the late phase of the game.
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I'd say that the second temple would be a cool asset even if it's only for scenario purposes.
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Although champions have high combat utility and a lack of resource gathering and construction ability to differentiate them from citizen-soldiers, they feel boring since they are basically just the unit design of old school rts and nothing more. I'm not saying that those characteristics are bad; they just are stale without anything else at play. If we compare them to the unique units of Age of Empires II, there is a stark contrast. Every unique unit in that game has a nuanced function even if they are heavily based on a preexisting unit.
The argument I mainly wish to make is that 0 A.D. and affiliated mods should take a similar approach in the available champions. As they currently are, players only take them in my opinion because they are typically the most efficient unit in terms of combat and nothing more. I'm not saying that there aren't some that follow this line of reasoning; the Iberian champion cavalry are a good example of a cool design.
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I wonder though what sort of variables are accounted for for those claims. What kind of poundage does the bow have for these tests? Also, as far as I'm aware, it's difficult to know the techniques and length of the sling used, both of which I'd say would have a massive impact on the possible range.
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It would be interesting to, in addition to representing Japan proper, to also include some of the cultures from Hokkaido like the Emishi, as Geneva mentioned.
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If I might suggest an option, as you probably are aware, in the middle ages, most castles were first wooden motte-and-bailey designs that were later renovated and expanded as subsequent rulers came through. This especially apparent in Northern Ireland, which first had the castles built by John de Courcey and then remodelled by Hugh de Lacey.
There could perhaps be a mechanic for a similar aspect in your mod. Any expansion to the walls begins as simple wood, which can be replaced by stone, that is further developed by things such as hoardings and machicolations.
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Using the American spelling exclusively does seem a bit partial; I'd favour an option to have both British and American spellings available as a language option since this is not targeted towards any one specific country, and all countries in the dominion, as far as I'm aware, use the former system. It's quibble of a point, but a point nonetheless.
I would also agree with Nescio's assessment of the naming.
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As is, there is little differentiation between the barracks and civic centre's purposes in regards to production, which both feel like military or economic production centres, and the awkward result is that the barracks becomes a means of booming in the early-game and little else. I'd like to offer thoughts on how this could be changed to better improve immersion.
First, a unit trained from a barracks should have a higher experience level compared to a civic centre's unit. Suddenly instead of making more workers to bolster the economy, the player would have make a risky economic investment at best that would probably be better used for a military push. With this could perhaps come a higher experience level ceiling than is currently in game, in some respects mirroring what I believe Nescio has done for his own mod of the game.
Second, it would be good if military units standing idle within a particular distance of a barracks would be able to drill, providing a trickle of experience for them. Since experience does hamper economic efficiency, this effect could perhaps be toggled on or off depending on preference. As of now, when soldiers are in a player's base, the best thing except in some situational circumstances to do is to collect resources; this option would not only provide an additional purpose to the barracks but also would add another viable strategy for using units during lapses in combat.
Third, if the following things are introduced, I would strongly recommend that experience play a more decisive role in battles and the game as a whole. Granted, I only looked at a few stats, but of what I saw, the impact of one level to the next seemed nearly marginal. I could be wrong on this, yet I think that regardless, experience does not reward the player enough for being careful to keep veterans alive.
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Although incendiary weapons were fielded, the risk of fire was zero since wood can't burn.
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In the spirit of the following article http://www.cysion.be/aocbox/?p=188, I thought it would be nice to share some of the remarkable things we have learned from 0 AD about the past. To start off:
In the ancient times, people (other than women) always wore full armour even when going about their daily activities, quickly making them disappear whenever they needed to grab tools.
Soldiers often liked to make victory poses in the middle of battle. This resulted in a completely new outfit and temporary immortality. Unfortunately, posing never caught on as a mainstream tactic due to the presence of champions, who refused to pose because they thought they were already cool enough.
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While trading seems like a reasonable possibility, that doesn't work that well when considering the fact that merchants would usually sell their goods and bring back other ones for an even greater profit. Personally, I'd say that there could be a few different ways producing coins, but one that hasn't been mentioned is having the player has a mint that converts metal into coins when active. Similarly to the taxes, maybe the player could set tariffs for their trade.
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The quality of the art is obvious to be sure, but I would be skeptical regarding the use of shields; the peltast holding a shield weighing something to the figure of 15 lbs. Likewise, I am fairly sure that the aspis was not designed to be strapped onto the back. I've never seen or read any primary sources which attests to this practice. If anyone can provide evidence against either of these points, please do so, I am genuinely interested to know if I am wrong. I should probably stop since this might derail the topic too much.
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Perhaps it could have some aura as well such as improved movement speed within a particular range. This might seem deceptively useless, but could help with fishing and trade longterm while also giving a better escape window for damaged units.
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Age of Empires 2 Definitive Edition
in Introductions & Off-Topic Discussion
Posted
I just wish that popular culture based its understandings of the Middle Ages from this game. "Yeah, all of the male peasants made Schwarznagger look like a wimp."