Thorfinn the Shallow Minded
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Posts posted by Thorfinn the Shallow Minded
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44 minutes ago, PyrrhicVictoryGuy said:
What happened to Pyrrhus? His helmet is in the editor...
Pyrrhus would also be a great addition by far. Honestly I'm not sure how much this sort of a option would be enjoyed as a staple to the game, but I could definitely see it introduced either as a mod or an alternate game mode.
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1 hour ago, PyrrhicVictoryGuy said:
I think Iphicrates is nice, who would you include? Solon? Xnophon, who is already in the editor at least. As for poor Cleo's place, we already got the two ptolemies, so perhaps a prominent general or admiral in the ptolemaic army. Btw how hard is it to make an actor?
I would argue for either Kimon or Miltiades; we're thinking about the Athenian golden age, and that generally constrains us to the Persian or the Peloponnesian Wars. I could see a reason behind using Solon although his role would potentially overlap with Pericles to an extent. Xenophon would frankly be an awful choice; he was more sympathetic to Sparta than Athens. I do think think that heroes like him however would be interesting to have as mercenary heroes that could be recruited along with the likes of Memnon and Clearchus. Xenophon should be represented as a cavalry hero though, not an infantry one.
I'm not particularly familiar with Ptolemaic history to weigh in on a suitable replacement for Cleopatra, but I'm sure something could be found.
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13 hours ago, PyrrhicVictoryGuy said:
I don't know what u are talking about, he looks pissed, as all spartans should be. Anyway a more pressing matter would be why is he in the game? From what little I know he did little but get beaten by Antipater.
I have definitely argued against his inclusion; it is in conflict with the central point of the game, controlling civilisations during their apex. There are much better choices than him. Lysander could be an option, but he doesn't really reflect the core Spartan ethos. I would much rather argue for Agesilaus II.
Other heroes I would say should be replaced include Iphicrates and Cleopatra, neither of which represent the golden ages of their factions.
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11 hours ago, ChronA said:
The way I see it: APM is a resource. Player attention spent double clicking to make units sprint is time not spent making units at home. APM is also a skill with a high floor and a low ceiling, which means it has a fairly toxic character.
I don't really see it as such. It's just a double-click. You're not opening some new tab or searching the ui for a button or even pressing a different hotkey.
2 hours ago, alre said:On the other hand, it could be self-activated, but let's stop a moment to consider what we have now: running, the way it is now, is a confusing mechanic that noone in this thread new all the triggers for
This I can definitely agree with.
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I would say that a simple double click would do the job a lot better. Double-click and your unit starts running provided that it has stamina. Once its stamina is spent, it cannot continue running.
Obviously stamina could be extended to make the act of attacking even drain stamina and have a unit being idle regenerate stamina at a faster rate, but I digress.
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Additionally it would be nice to have more coherent borders for territories. This is purely arbitrary preference, but I would find a map done in the style of Ptolemy's description of the world to be a fun idea. This is obviously not the original, but it would be a fun representation.
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A key issue here is that at least according to the original vision running and walking could be toggled similarly to a Total War game, eating away at a stamina bar. Introducing this feature along with charging is something planned at least to my knowledge, but in the meantime we only have a very awkward iteration.
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22 hours ago, BreakfastBurrito_007 said:
The end result of the p1 mercs discussion was that we should see how they are in a25. If mercenaries are balanced to be less outrageous in metal cost, but still metal intense (like skiri) then I feel a p1 merc rush could be an easier thing to balance and implement. To be honest, modeling merc cost after skiritai cost would make everything related to mercenaries easier.
I did read it, which is why I think that it is viable and worthwhile to make camel archers mercenaries. Clearly it will take some time to figure out the mercenary meta, but that problem alone should not discourage the developers from experimenting by making a mercenary in name be actually a mercenary.
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5 minutes ago, LetswaveaBook said:
The hack attack could pose a treat vs. rams, so I am not sure about the hack attack.
As long as the opponent doesn't open with rams, I doubt that this would be a serious issue.
It seems that generally everyone is about as close as we can hope for regarding stats. Taking any one of these suggestions and seeing them in action would be the next step to seeing how this would affect gameplay over a series of test matches.
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50 minutes ago, BreakfastBurrito_007 said:
@alre I like this idea, but I don't like making camels a mercenary. Mercenaries are very bad right now, and camel rush is OP and frustrating, but also unique and diverse.
I'm glad that people are receptive to the idea of a farm bonus. Regarding the mercenaries, I do not want to eliminate the possibility of a rush; rather, it would merely change into something I would argue would be even more unique and diverse, both of which I would assume would be good things while hopefully providing a nerf making it less frustrating.
This sort of change would make the rush somewhat unsustainable as it would require heavy metal usage, but the units themselves would be higher quality than typical citizen soldier counterparts.
What sounds to be the bigger problem in this case is the state of mercenaries more than anything else. As things are tweaked for the eventual alpha 26, I suspect that we will be able to better consider this proposal.
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5 hours ago, alre said:
Actually I said that it strongly discourages casual cavalry rushes. I meant those isolated kills that you may do while scouting.
Okay. That's a perfectly fair point to bring up; it seems that there were misunderstandings on both sides.
5 hours ago, alre said:By the way, I still don't get what have your arguments to to with this scout unit. Is the scout really relevant to your idea of changing how cav works?
Good question; honestly I have never bothered trying to think about cavalry from wholistic perspective with scouts in mind. Mainly, I just dislike the fact that a large number of cavalry can be fielded at all in the village phase. Cavalry tended to be the social elite, and maybe making them even higher quality at the cost of lowering the quantity would be the way to go. As we both seem to agree, that topic is another can of worms. Again, I was mainly bringing up those points for a different purpose, i.e. stating that the historical inaccuracies inherent to scout cavalry is not necessarily in conflict with the game's stated theme.
1 hour ago, Yekaterina said:1. Melee AttackRange? For reference spearmen have 3m, Pikes have 6, Swords and women have 2.
2. Type of attack (doesn't matter too much for now unless axe or knife are given a specific bonus)
3. Speed
4. Armour and Health
5. The actual attack values: hack, pierce and crush
Probably 2 range.
I would give hack attack.
It should maybe move as quickly as sword cavalry.
I would push for 125 hitpoints and 15 crush, 3 hack, and 4 pierce armour.
I would push for 5 hack attack.
I just drew those up looking at a few units for comparison, and would not claim that it's anything perfect. It be able to pick off ranged units and women reasonably well but be far less comfortable with melee infantry.
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2 hours ago, alre said:
introducing scouts does nothing to make chicken farming more realistic, nor it does disallow building "large numbers" of cav in village phase.
Neither of those were precisely my points. You merely pointed to cavalry rushes being a generally good thing and used the logic of scouts not being a historically accurate notion.
I pointed to the idea of a horseman tending to chickens being another patently absurd mechanic from a history perspective; it may seem to be off topic, but that is a major source for propelling a sustainable cavalry engine. You yourself said that it strongly discourages cavalry rushes, which themselves are weird for villages; I don't see that as a negative. The point is this game cherry-picks historical accuracy in a way that a scouting unit is not necessarily a major problem to its vision.
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2 hours ago, alre said:
you know that unharmed scouts were not really a thing
So were chicken farmer cavalry and yet...
2 hours ago, alre said:On one hand, it strongly discourages casual cavalry rushes, which are particularly fun IMO
The idea of a village fielding large numbers of cavalry sounds problematic too.
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57 minutes ago, Yekaterina said:
1. Bonus in food gather rate - removes the need for cavalry.
2. Replace the camel with something different, e.g. an extra infantry unit like the Thebans
Either ways, the camel rush is gone.
Was there any other historical unit that the Ptolemies can use to rush / defend? Or should the Ptolemies be a rush-free civ?
Note: Pikemen rush is not feasible. Slinger rush is almost useless in A25.
Feasible rushes in A25: archer, skirmisher, cavalry, Sword infantry.
Good points to know. A food gather rate bonus for berries as you mentioned would be a reasonable idea. I do wonder if making camel archers mercenaries would remove the possibility of a rush entirely. Obviously they would contribute nothing to the economic engine, which would make the choice a gamble, but I wouldn't write that off completely (That all said, I have never strived to play 0 AD on a competitive level and as such lack the ability to comment on the meta as much as a good number of others.).
Your mentioning the Ptolemies being being unable to rush doesn't sound horrible either honestly. When I think of factions that should be able to play aggressively, ones like the Romans, Britons, and Gauls come to mind, yet I'm sure that sort of choice might upset a good number of players.
I would maybe aim to make slingers into more viable units for rushing as that sounds like the bigger problem at hand more than anything else. Is there any specific reason to make them significantly worse than other classes other than for the purpose nerfing some factions?
55 minutes ago, Yekaterina said:You make Ptolemies sound very similar to the Han Chinese in Terra Magna (not Stan's version). I think a berry collection bonus is more effective than farming bonus for early game and wouldn't upset other balancing issues. The farming bonus in A23 was removed for a reason.
I'm not sure what the farming bonus in alpha 23 was, but there are a large number of available options for farming bonuses aside from a flat increase to gather rates such as decreasing the cost; that all said, if farming has few effects in the early game, I suppose that this has little value for this topic specifically.
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2 hours ago, Yekaterina said:
So I guess the camel balance is good. If you want to turn it into a mercenary unit then Ptolemies will have no citizen soldier cavalry, which might not be a good thing. I don't know how Ptolemies will do with a javelin cavalry, I will need you to test that for me. (I will put it in bellum mod)
This is not necessarily about balance strictly speaking although it would impact the civilisation. I'm not approaching this from a perspective of camel archers being overpowered. You do make a fair point about the citizen soldier cavalry aspect, but I would say that the Ptolemies were more famous for being the breadbasket of the Mediterranean than hunter-gathers. I could see the introduction of some farming bonus being a good way of reflecting that and maybe compensating for their weaker early game economy. I'd even say it would be a good, substantive way of differentiating the faction from others as their approach to cavalry rushes would as a result differ.
With those points in mind, does that sound more viable to any degree?
On a separate note, I expect people to disagree with my suggestions and argumentations. I am a fallible individual with a vision for the game that probably differs from everyone to some degree, but if there is dissent over my suggestions, I would advise actually attacking the arguments themselves rather than merely putting a confused emoji over my posts. That does nothing to further constructive dialogue.
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At the moment camel archers are simply citizen soldiers. One of the first problem with this approach is that they are Nabatean, an area that as far as I am aware was never formally under Ptolemaic rule. I would support instead having them be mercenary units to better make the distinction between citizen soldiers and mercenaries in the game more consistent while also working to reflect the emphasis this kingdom placed on mercenary based armies.
I would appreciate anyone with more knowledge on the Ptolemaic kingdom to voice their thoughts as the successor states are not an area of expertise for me.
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50 minutes ago, Gurken Khan said:
I just wanted to mention that I'm not happy with p2 towers not counting towards the phase-up prerequisites anymore. It's a considerable investment, especially since stone is back in the tech upgrades cost. Also they usually have more practical worth for me in p2 than the blacksmith (which I usually don't use until p3).
#towerscount
Personally that all sounds like a good thing to me. It makes the prospect of setting up defences to be a way of delaying potentially key upgrades. That means that there is the potential for a meaningful choice.
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2 hours ago, Yekaterina said:
Camels get higher health but slower speed, cavalry get lower health but higher speed.
There was a patch proposed for that.
12 minutes ago, Player of 0AD said:Doesnt help much: Ranged cav can just flee then in danger without punishment. And go somewhere else to strike there.
Provided that they would be countered by ranged infantry, that wouldn't be a problem. Personally I prefer not forcing players to default to one major unit type as a counter however.
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I would agree generally with what you have said, and at one point I proposed the first phase generally starting with only one infantry, one ranged infantry, and one melee cavalry available to train.
I would however contend that Sparta would be better served starting with a Skiritae unit (assuming that they actually would be fast like they were in alpha 23) as a replacement for a cavalry unit. This would have to be balanced in a way so that they could not be overly penalised from an economic perspective.
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And here I was expecting them to be incorporated into Alpha 26.
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2 hours ago, Gurken Khan said:
@Thorfinn the Shallow Minded Or maybe a more general 'forced click on ground' mode; pretty often when I try to order units to go near/between buildings I find myself trying different zoom or angles so my cursor doesn't get caught by the structures.
That too could help.
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15 hours ago, PyrrhicVictoryGuy said:
Trying to figure out what would Etruscan use, I mean they would probably have equipment similar to the Latins.
The best sort of way of bridging that gap would be to look at Etruscan art. That's essentially where artists like the person who did this got inspiration from. Of the little representation I have seen of their depictions of soldiers, this does not seem accurate, but absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.
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It would be nice to disable gathering in enemy territory or at least have a cursor mode for that. It was especially annoying when I was trying to kite with a group of archers at some infantry in a wooded area but kept on accidentally ordering them to gather wood.
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10 minutes ago, Yekaterina said:
Dear historians @Genava55 @Ultimate Aurelian @Thorfinn the Shallow Minded what do you think about adding this civs? Can you suggest any unit rosters, structure tree and heroes, as well as bonuses? Can these civs be merged into one big civ?
It would be theoretically possible. The point would be considering which nations could have distinctive identities; merely because there were cultural similarities from one civilisation to another does not mean that introducing them to the game would be impossible. Personally I would find more pseudo-greek cultures to help round out the map to be reasonable additions. Areas such as Illyria and Thrace come to mind.
Pergamum would perhaps be a favourite of mine since it was a prominent regional power by its own right. There are other, more extreme approaches that could be done however...
https://wildfiregames.com/forum/topic/27864-april-update/
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Add generals
in Introductions & Off-Topic Discussion
Posted
The thing is that Greek mercenaries were a common thing. Greeks hired them, as did Persians. Obviously you could add other notable mercenary leaders that were not Greek; I only mention Greeks because Hellenic studies is kind of my thing. That said, heroes do not require factions to exist. Xenophon is an example of this.