Thorfinn the Shallow Minded
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Posts posted by Thorfinn the Shallow Minded
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Could somebody clarify the spearman versus sword cavalry matchup? How does rank 1 versus 1 play out? Obviously in most cases sword cavalry cost 150 resources, meaning that engaging against spearmen with a narrow win is already inefficient, yet at the same time spearmen are extremely slow, meaning that cavalry rarely have to take these unfavourable engagements. It is that problem that I believe makes sword cavalry difficult; their counter to them has no easy way of getting close enough to force fights. The question that we maybe should ask ourselves is if spearmen are not an adequate counter, what is?
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21 hours ago, borg- said:
Some victories ofc, but nothing that in my view justifies a bonus. They were feared on land not at sea like the Athenians for example, although a Persian financing technology for some warships would be very interesting.
19 hours ago, wowgetoffyourcellphone said:Similar to Epigamia for Seleucids, Spartans could have a "Persian Patronage" tech that spawns X number of Triremes.
Precisely. I don't necessarily want a naval superpower Sparta, but I would like there to be some niche options available to the faction in which a sudden new flood of naval units could pave the way for a landing, where they could really shine.
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20 hours ago, borg- said:
5- Spartans lost tough naval battles in your history, why should there be any naval bonuses?
On the contrary they had a number of great successes in the latter half of the Peloponnesian War in part due to the genius of Lysander, but another major way in which they were able to turn the tide was through the funding of Persia. I could see there being a one time technology that would give x number of free ships to Sparta.
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There are a few minor quibbles here and there, but as a whole it seems good. Is there any reason that the Seleucids remain unchanged aside from the library?
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On 10/9/2021 at 2:21 AM, alre said:
- I have read in history sources, that polearms were often weapons of choice of footed soldiers against knights, on 1v1 just as much as in mass, and even if massed soldiers can more easily stop a cavalry charge, I don't really see what difference does the weapon make in that
The spear/polearm being specifically designed to combat cavalry is a bit of an RTS convention; simply by virtue of much better reach spears were used by and large by all infantry regardless of whether they were facing cavalry or not. Whether a spearman would outperform a horseman one-on-one is a triviality in which matters of other equipment, training, etc,... complicate the matter.
On 10/9/2021 at 2:21 AM, alre said:- consider that in 0AD soldiers don't fight in formation (ranged units may do, but not melee) so it doesn't make much sense to me to grant them any bonus. It is true that formations had a role, historically, in combat too, but for that you'd need formations much more flexible than those we have, so that soldiers can stay in formation while fighting
Even if the game does not embrace a battalion system, it would be nice for players to benefit from engaging in orderly formations. Even making it possible if only suboptimal would be a nice change of pace. I personally like to see my troops in proper battle lines, but the stand ground stance is annoyingly restrictive while the defensive stance goes too much in the other extreme.
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On 4/7/2021 at 2:44 PM, ChronA said:
do not dispute that reducing the turn rate or persistence of formations would make them unusable in 0 AD as it currently exists. However that's only because 0 AD fails so miserably at simulating some of the basic dynamics of ancient warfare. Without those simulation improvements there is really no point in having formations. They don't meaningfully interact with any other game systems. (Contrast AoE2, where they are at least used for micro against splash damage sources.)
That is an unfortunate aspect of the current gamestate. In the past there were a few ways the original team though that they could be more useful. These included making individual target random units in the formation in such a way that ranged units and melee could never focus fire a single unit. Others included a number of buffs and debuffs. Phalanx for instance made hoplites generally tougher at the expense of being slower. Seeing just a few of these ideas in the game could perhaps make the mosh pit battles a less common occurrence.
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A lot of people have been throwing flak at Biden, and while I would not say the withdrawal was the best parade out of a country, I find it unfair to push all of the blame on him. Clearly he was acting on some intelligence, and the idea that the government would collapse in a number of weeks I would say blindsided much of the world, myself included. The New York Times has an interesting article on the matter that might be worth a read. https://www.nytimes.com/2021/08/18/us/politics/afghanistan-intelligence-agencies.html
Obviously he could have delayed the pullout considering the warning signs, but that would have been political suicide. Keeping to the arranged time was arguably the best bad decision, but quite obviously mistakes were made by Biden and a large number of others.
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On 22/8/2021 at 10:52 AM, wowgetoffyourcellphone said:
I would turn Skiritai into the "Eagle Warriors" from AOE2. Essentially really fast spearmen, good for raiding and flanking, but can get massacred by swordsmen and archers if they don't keep on the move.
That I could generally get behind. It could even open up the divergent upgrades, one that focusses on pierce armour and the other that ups their melee attack so that in one case they could have better survivability in raids or in attacking ranged units, or in the other case being a force to be reckoned with in a pitched battle.
On 28/8/2021 at 9:15 PM, Marbod said:Even though i like this very much, the most obvious simple thing to diversify would be the ability of champions to gain experience.
I attack you with new "trained" (called, bought) champions but you have still some who already seen 3 battles.
I'm not sure if I would extend an option for champions to gain for all cases, but it could be cool to have one or two do so. To paraphrase Syndrome, if all champions gain experience, no champions gain experience. I guess that didn't really make much sense, but the point still stands.
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I edited the initial post to include a few suggestions I thought were good ideas along with a few additional thoughts and clarifications I thought of following the post. Skiritae are kind of weird in that they are regarded as a champion unit but don't actually fulfil that role since they are citizen soldiers. With this change Spartans would be the only faction with one champion (two if they had access to Spartan pikemen but I digress). This would be an interesting difference from others. As for Skiritae, them being super swordsmen is not really a proper approach to them; a more accurate one would be that they were one of the more mobile elements of the army that was generally higher quality than other non-citizens, and doing this would help show that in my opinion.
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13 hours ago, chrstgtr said:
I like most of these. Balancing gets tough. But this makes them closer to somewhere between a hero and a CS instead of just being a stronger CS.
Glad you do; giving any suggestions for changes or additions is obviously welcome. As a clarifier, Spartan Hoplites would never be able to be batch trained. That could quite obviously abuse their lack of any cost.
14 hours ago, PyrrhicVictoryGuy said:kataphracts: more armor
hetairoi/agema: +speed, +small bonus vs infantry and reduced bonus vs cav.
One of the things I tried to do when writing up a list of examples was to go beyond the mere defined role. Think about Age of Empires II. A berserk was like a champion but also regenerated. Cataphracts were like knights but with a bonus versus infantry.
Kataphracts having more armour could maybe work if they have a speed reduction as well.
Hetairoi having more speed and a bonus versus infantry could work as viable trade off for not performing as well against cavalry. That said, I can't think of a historical justification for it, but not everything needs that.
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At the moment, aside from upgrades that exist for some civilisations, tests that I have made with champion units has revealed that they are for the most part completely identical. This means that in a one on one fight, an un-upgraded spartan fighting an immortal will always result in a tie. I am not criticising this vein of logic; it makes balancing easier by having identical stats for different classes, yet at the same time it seems like a lost opportunity. Champions should have defining features to them that flesh out the culture they came from. As such, I thought up a few potential changes to how some (not all) champions could be altered to better reflect this.
Immortal: capable of swapping to archer mode at the cost of lower armour.
Spartan Hoplite: free but extremely long training time and two population, can be trained in the Village Phase through a the Mess Hall, which has a building cap of one in the Village phase, 2 in the Town Phase, and 3 in the City Phase. They cannot be batch trained.
Consular Bodyguard: buffed when by a hero.
Sacred Band: buffs citizen soldiers within a small aura at the cost of taking up two population.
British Chariot: incorporate transport aspect (see Geneva’s thread.).
Naked Fanatic: ignores armour.
Scythian Archer: buffed when fighting in friendly territory. Is trained at the Civic Centre.
Marine: small movement buff to ships it is garrisoned within.
Cataphract: Higher armour but slower speed.
Hetairoi: Faster movement and bonus against infantry at the cost of a smaller bonus against cavalry.
Skiritae: faster movement speed and starts trained at advanced rank instead of elite.
These are just a few things I thought up that may not be practical to implement at the moment, but I think that a line of thinking like this would greatly help in characterising defining part of each civilisation.
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1 hour ago, Lightning38 said:
In terms of 2 handed axes, they are the natural predator against shields, the axe head could also potentially if of longer variety go around the shield and hit something from around. Also shields being wood and axes being axes... Perhaps a bonus vs shield infantry? Axes are more extreme in the sense that their minimum and maximum damage are far from each other. A dangerous weapon/tool, however not for professional soldiers as a soldier would want stability over damage.
I would disagree with the last statement. Axes were often used by professionals throughout history. I would agree with the points about shields. Being two-handed is also not the only qualifier to being well suited against shields. The head could easily work as a means of catching weapons and shields in such a way as to displace them and create an opening. The general way I could see that reflected could be through a decent cancellation of armour when attacking.
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On 13/8/2021 at 6:18 AM, AllanReyes said:
group games for family members
Player size is a major factor in choosing the right game for your family. Also, how competitive do they like games? How long of games are you looking for?
Codenames is an excellent four player+ game, and if you wish to restrict the number to two players or have the game cooperative, I'd recommend Codenames duet.
On a similar light complexity game, The Crew is an ingenious trick taking game that works well with three to four players but is functional at five.
If you're looking for something a bit more meaty, there is Pandemic the board game, but I would warn that although that is a fantastic cooperative game, it can lead to a bit of a problem if one person asserts over everyone else.
As a light asymmetrical wargame, I am a fan of Root, which functions best with 3-4 players, yet I would warn that it is very cutthroat and could vary in compatibility from one group to the next.
Isle of Skye is phenomenally well designed and worth investigating, works well with up to 5 players, and tends to clock at around 45 minutes of play-time.
RPG-wise, Gloomhaven is fantastic if you're willing to spend that much money (at this rate you might as well wait for it's sequel Frosthaven coming out next year.), yet I personally prefer Mage Knight; that game however is much more cerebral and might be for a more niche audience.
If you want a heavy-weight civilisation game, I cannot recommend another game more strongly than Through the Ages: A New Story of Civilisation.
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On 11/8/2021 at 12:42 AM, Freagarach said:
A trickle of slaves from a CC and/or market? And then one can slay enemies to "capture" more of them?
I think that introducing a completely different slave mechanic simply seems to be an arbitrary way to put in more complexity than necessary. Citizens are trained in game rather than naturally spawning. Why should slaves be too different in that respect?
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Axes derive most of their advantage from concentrating the mass at the head, making them generally better at penetrating through armour. The issue is that that amount of weight makes them more cumbersome to use. I would suggest a unit with higher damage output but with worse melee defence capabilities.
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On 31/7/2021 at 4:56 PM, wowgetoffyourcellphone said:
I think doing anything more than a citizen/slave dichotomy would be pushing it for an RTS.
For Delenda Est I would say that is a fair argument; 0 AD I think can afford more granularity. As is the only overall change I am proposing is limiting promotions, which I would say is fairly minor. The point to be understood is why would a perioikoi hoplite fight as hard as an Athenian hoplite who is a citizen? Would they be capable of as much socio-economic mobility? In my opinion no, and this would do a decent job modelling that.
On 31/7/2021 at 11:39 AM, hyperion said:Simplification of history is often used in politics, as such I have some aversion to such practice. Not putting you into that same boat, just saying. The current situation is so far off that it's sort of fine. I mean citizen has another meaning in modern society so we can easily hide behind that meaning.
Well can I assure you that I have never run for a political office and I would assume that most of my scholarly sources did not do the same; thus the system I proposed is not part of a political campaign. You warn against simplification but give no substantial objection to the proposed system, and if we look at the current game, it implicitly tells a variety of misconceptions about the societies through its labelling of almost everything 'citizen,' which I would say does not have a very different meaning today compared to then.
I'm not saying that the proposal I gave that would affect gameplay is the best thing since butter and bread; in fact it's because most people here seem to care more about preserving the meta than experimentation that I said that simply removing the label citizen from descriptors would be an easier solution that deserves serious consideration.
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22 hours ago, hyperion said:
Still there are quite a few question that come to mind which need be answered first:
- applicability across civs
- whether it doesn't distort truth as much or even more than citizen soldier (over simplification might be worse than omission)
- whether additional constraints on unit design have negative effects on "balancing"
- whether the possible added (even if only perceived) complexity is an issue (mostly for new players) or offsets the gain due to lore.
I would say for the most part that it would carry over to most cultures, but the tribal confederations of the Gauls and Iberians might require a slight bit of tweaking. Again, this is a general template.
As far as it distorting the truth, it allows for a simplistic yet at least viable representation of social classes. If we compare that to the current game... Everyone is a citizen. That frankly is not how ancient world worked. Citizenship was a privilege that usually required both parents to be citizens. With an RTS simplicity is necessary. Is it over simplified? It does so no more than many other games of the genre.
It would make some aspects of balancing the game a bit more rigid. Helots would be poor military units by and large, but I would point out that changes could be done to the roster to adjust. Supposing that a hypothetical mercenary camel archer was represented inaccurately as a citizen. It could be replaced by viable citizen alternative that reflects the social status of the unit and is more accurate. Honestly I think that these sorts of constraints would still generally work to diversify the somewhat homogenous rosters factions have. I would point out that distinctions between freemen and citizens at least as I mentioned above would probably not impact the game too dramatically. Changes like making them possibly worse at fighting in non-friendly territory to better reflect their general roles might affect this more though.
This would make civilisations more asymmetrical and definitely complicate the game. I think that provided that there would be a decent tutorial to fluidly teach these things, that would not be an issue, yet I could be wrong.
On 28/7/2021 at 7:29 PM, azayrahmad said:Also this, so for example gathering choice can be more varied than female vs CS vs horses. Different social classes could be given different gathering rate based on social classes.
I think that there could be potential for this, but it would have to be balanced with considering how much more complexity it might introduce that would not be immediately apparent. 0 A.D. already has a fairly convoluted economic system in which units that move faster for fighting purposes also end up gathering more quickly. Complexity should not be introduced for complexity's sake.
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3 hours ago, PyrrhicVictoryGuy said:
bonkers architecture and wardrobe were retained.
Because Fremen in the desert wearing black for camouflage makes perfect sense...
That was a weird movie.
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17 hours ago, hyperion said:
So basically it's just decoration and not a game mechanic. So the only benefit is potentially better immersion.
Do all current and possible future civs fit that scheme?
I don't see the problem with it being a so-called decoration; it affects the game as I think social classes should given the abstractions RTSs allow. Adding unnecessary complexity is generally a bad idea for any game design, especially so in RTS games where there is only so much time a player can commit to doing various actions. It integrates well in my opinion with the current paradigm. That all said, the Celts would probably follow a slightly different schema.
9 hours ago, azayrahmad said:Perhaps @Thorfinn the Shallow Minded could provide historical evidences for other, non-Greco Roman civs?
I am not much of an expert outside that area (for that matter I lack the academic qualifications to call myself even an 'expert' with Hellenic matters). For what little I do know about Celtic social structure, I could see a few key differences. First, there doesn't seem to be much of a large distinction between citizen and non-citizen to them, so citizen and freeman would probably be unnecessary designations given the slightly better social mobility they allowed. They did however clearly have a noble class, but probably the largest distinction that should be made was the important place druids had in the culture. By comparison, Greco-Romano priesthoods lacked the professionalism we might expect, and the office of Pontifex Maximus was more of a political than religious position (Julius Caesar even held it even though his Epicurean leanings would have probably clashed with the more traditional ideas behind the actions of gods with men.). Making druids appropriately capable of providing things such as gathering and combat buffs would reflect this. Slavery as well was a practice that could be represented.
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13 hours ago, hyperion said:
Then I didn't and won't read it.
Allow me to summarise then. There could be four broad classes: nobles, citizens, freemen, and slaves. For our purposes champions and mercenaries are not considered in the framework.
Nobles: for where this is pertinent, nobles would often be the cavalry units that would be composed of echelons of society. They would be trained at advanced rank and could have minor combat bonuses to their stats, possibly at the cost of taking up two population.
Citizens: generally the same function and designation as current citizen soldiers. Examples would be hastati, Macedonian pikemen, and some lower class cavalry.
Freemen: roughly the same as citizen soldiers. They would only promote to the advanced rank at most. Examples could include perioikoi, metics, and socii.
Slaves: purely economic units that would have a bonus to mining and quarrying. Capture of them would be possible.
Note that there would be exceptions to these rules. Skiritai would be one as well as helots in all probability. These would merely serve as a template that would adapt based on the societal norms of each faction.
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9 hours ago, hyperion said:
As for Citizen, I admit is wasn't a perfect choice, just a reasonably good one. So once you have a complete concept about how to integrate social classes into gameplay witch is in line with the theme of the game (primary warfare with a bit of eco) and it conflicts with that term, then the fallout becomes worth it.
I would personally like to contend that I have developed a fairly good system. The only major source of dissent is the potentially insensitive treatment it might imply with slaves, but generally I haven't heard much backlash against it, and there has been plenty of time for critics to voice their objections (in fairness I posted that on the balance forum). A few people seem to have liked it in fact. That said, it is only a broad suggestion; I would not bother working any more into hassling with the specifics unless there was a fairly good assurance that it would be incorporated into the game. If you have any suggestions or a different idea, I would be glad to hear some feedback.
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On 18/7/2021 at 2:45 PM, LetswaveaBook said:
I think the problem arises from the fact that social systems were complex and differed between the factions as well. In the game we have for the citizen class:
-helots
-high ranking citizens such as the triarius or equites
-low class citizens such as the velites
-people who are not part of the core of the empire such as Nabetean camel riders and Parthian cavalry.
Probably there are more examples. However it shows that if we aim for true historic faithfulness, we have to introduce several new classes.
True. I think that the first action should be to differentiate between citizen and non-citizen. Then, I think that things such as technologies could do a good job of capturing some social dynamics within civilisations.
For Rome it could be maybe a technology pairing of siding with the optimates or the populares. The former side could improve champions, cavalry, principes, etc,... The latter could improve the recruitment costs of infantry.
For Athens it could be a technology related to juries and could give their ships extra movement and their basic rank (citizen) units a minor buff.
On 11/7/2021 at 4:37 PM, hyperion said:So I get your point and a better name might have been chosen once upon the time but I doubt you will find a dev willing to do all that work now and take the blame for the fallout.
I will admit that a mere name change is probably a hassle, but I doubt that it would cause mass outrage. Given that maybe an overhaul would be better.
6 hours ago, Wijitmaker said:It seemed to make sense to use at the time (20 years ago) that many of the ancients typically didn't support a standing army, they would fight during fighting season and then return home and gather/build during the off season. A hybrid of both roles. So, the idea of a citizen soldier was born.
Thanks for weighing in. My point is that there could be a bit of a spectrum here that could both better reflect some of the social classes and helping to allow for a system that could even improve the gameplay by introducing more depth with each civilisation.
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9 hours ago, wowgetoffyourcellphone said:
With respect, legionaires and hoplites were the primary offensive arm of their respective military traditions. Pikemen on the other hand were designed specifically to perform what we would call the "meat shield" function in a Macedonian-style army: to soak up the enemy attack until lighter (skirmishers) and faster (cavalry) units could flank the enemy line and make the killer blow.
You are correct, but there is a major distinction. Killer blows were mostly done by hoplites and armies in general once the opposing army was retreating and had their backs turned and their shields thrown away. Macedonians using cavalry is a bit circumspect to the issue; it made their phalanx significantly more effective, but not necessarily less capable in the offence.
2 hours ago, alre said:Name me one battle where light infantry is reported to have done more damage than the phalanx.
This is a bit of an exception to the norm, but the Battle of Sphacteria was one in which light infantry alone practically defeated the enemy army. A point to be made is that when enemies rout, that is when they are most vulnerable to getting killed by things like projectiles, and most casualties took place after the battle itself; light infantry excel in that role.
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36 minutes ago, wowgetoffyourcellphone said:
Basically any historical game with pikemen turns them into meat shields. This is to mimic their real-world combat role as meat shields.
Meat shields.
Not to necessarily outright contradict you, but that description fits for practically all heavy infantry: hoplites, legionnaires, etc,... The question at hand is to ask which tank should be the tankiest and how.
[a25] Merc Cav (Carthage + replay)
in Balancing Discussions
Posted
Sword cavalry cost more than spearmen. Provided that spearmen handily beat cavalry when resources are balanced out, that is the relevant point.