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Prodigal Son

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Everything posted by Prodigal Son

  1. Prodigal Son
    Nice work, would love those in game as well. No clue on why any comment would be needing moderation though, like it isn't obvious:)
  2. Prodigal Son
    I had in mind plant oil (like olive oil, there's plenty of it around the Mediterranean), however never did any research on what they really used this way. Water wouldn't be that effective though compared to any kind of oil.
  3. Prodigal Son
    How about a Boiling Oil tech? It could work for towers and forts like in Age of Mythology (attacking enemies within melee/closer than minimum range) and it could also give an attack to gates, vs enemy units meleeing the gate or passing through if it's open.
  4. Prodigal Son
    Something like mini-civs was in the works (or at least in the plans), no clue of mercenaries will replace it as something simpler or both will work together someday.
  5. Prodigal Son
    Comments in Red.
  6. Prodigal Son
    That's not true. There were regions were mercenaries gathered awaiting to be hired, for example Cape Tainaron in ancient Greece, (south of Sparta). I actually proposed instant hiring, not training:)
  7. Prodigal Son
    I believe this way it's even simpler than capturing. Just click and hire. You don't even have to wait for capturing or go to an isolated building to set a training queue and wait for the units to come little by little, nor you have to guard it from attacks, it's just available to whoever sends a unit there. Only programming-wise it might be a little more complex.
  8. Prodigal Son
    I think something like the WC III system is great for mercenaries. The structure is invulnerable, non-capturable, you just need nearby units to activate the hiring (it's like a neutral shop where you can instantly purchase units). Makes sense since mercenaries go where the gold is, they don't have an owner. (If we want more realism we could make it destroyable, so one player could choose to purge the mercenary camp, but attacking it would mean the available units inside spawning as gaia to fight him). Then on hiring, again WC III style, each unit has a different replenishment rate, number of maximum availability in the camp, and even a starting delay (so you can't hire elephants to rush within the second minute of the game), depending on the units strength. So it works like, once the starting delay time of a unit has passed, the first unit of that type is available for you to hire it. Then, when it's replenishment time has passed, the unit is available for hiring again, but only in numbers up to it's maximum availability, no matter how much time has passed. Warcraft has max available numbers from 1 to 3 for each mercenary, but it has a pop cap of 100, so we could have something like triple that number. Another idea that came to mind, if mercenary camps are implemented, is moving several mercenary factional units to it and replace them with with some native unit in the civ's rooster. For example, Macedon has several unused cavalry units that that could replace the Thessalians if we move them to the mercenary camp, and Thessalians fought for other factions as well anyway.
  9. Prodigal Son
    I think this replaced the ability to carry cavalry for (some sizes of?) Persian ships when the trait got shared, so that other civs don't get some annoying "you can't transport cavalry" message. Not sure how I feel about it, training horses out of a ship is stranger than training marines though. A workaround could be horses needing two transport slots for all other civs, while 1 for persians due to their skill in transporting horses. This could apply to other big units, with bolt throwers needing 2 as well, elephants/rams/stonethrowers needing 4 and siege towers needing 8 or 10 if transportable at all.
  10. Prodigal Son
    Cretans, Aetolians and Illyrians could work as pirates as well. And, yes, Iberians desperately need some way of access to arrow ships and bigger transport capacity.
  11. Prodigal Son
    It currently works only for 1v1 games and even then not always, the "disconnect at game's end" bug won't allow the result to count in the leaderboard.
  12. Prodigal Son
    They also used celtic mercenaries, not just allies, certainly including cavalry as well.
  13. Prodigal Son
    Do you mean they did or didn't serve the Greek City-states? In any case, Thessaly is a mostly lowland a region between southern Greece and Macedon, famous for it's agriculture and big plains (by Greek standards at least) and in antiquity for it's cavalry. I've seen Thessalian horsemen depicted both as skirmishers and heavy cavalry, and both should probably be true. They also did fight on the sides of various city-states before becoming Macedonian subjects, and even joined the city-states against Macedon at least once after Alexander's death. Many of them migrated eastwards and served as horsemen in the Successor armies. Besides that, it was not uncommon to see Thessalian cities fight against each other or join two opposing sides of a war, not unlike the more famous southern states.
  14. Prodigal Son
    Macedonians used many units of different native and allied/vassal/mercenary cavalry. However most of them were either using javelins or lances (sometimes even shorter sarissas) as their main weapon, so gameplay - wise it would be kinda pointless to represent all of them.
  15. Prodigal Son
    Makes sense I guess:).
  16. Prodigal Son
    I've also listened to some other tips: - Stuck workers/units cause a lot of pathfinder lag (works, have reduced lag by searching and moving a stuck unit). - People with slow computers or connections cause lag (multiplayer, should be true). - Long distances between player locations, like one being in Canada and one in Europe, might cause lag (multiplayer, no clue if true). - Slower game speed (like x 0.75) reduces lag (no clue if true). For me graphic settings made no real difference on lag and I have a 2008 computer with 4GB ram (I guess this helps a lot) and an old Nvidia 9600GT graphic card.
  17. Prodigal Son
    As the title says. I believe it would be useful for discussion, guides etc.
  18. Prodigal Son
    Could work, but could also re-encourage the dominance of ranged units. A bonus damage nerf while re-adding a bonus for any unit could work better imo.
  19. Prodigal Son
    Slightly out of topic, but is some nerf for garrisoned ships planned? Their firepower is extremely powerful currently, imo they shouldn't be that much more powerful than ungarrisoned ones. Also naval warfare overall. As the Iberians I had no chance to land on a fortified, protected by navy, island, no overpowered garrisoned arrowships for them. So if those don't get nerfed, Iberians will need one as well. They also need a ship with bigger transport capacity anyway. Besides that, garrisoned buildings are the same way of overpowered as well. Less of a trouble as they are immobile, but still the most successful tactic (and hard to beat as many civs) seems to be forward building garrisoned forts. The only other viable (and overpowered as well) tactic is mass ranged units, but this is going to be fixed I believe for the next alpha. If you look at AOE/AOM garrisons add many times less firepower, and for a good reason.
  20. Prodigal Son
    Since most factions could use more upgrades/techs/reforms, since historical changes are the most interesting way to introduce them in game, and as it seems like Romans get Marian reforms, Seleucids get their own (although I'd prefer those slightly different), Athens gets Iphicratian Reforms (I've also thought of better ways for this after some reading), Sparta could get pike phalanx/land reforms, Persians could get Kardakes etc, I can't see why we can't have Macedonians initially represent Alexander's army and then have reforms for them as well. Alexander's lifespan was small, so this could be restrictive compared to most factions. I'm in favor of expanding on such ideas for all factions. There are many possibilities around it for new gameplay and better historical representation. I certainly get that a mix of easier balancing, personal choices and available time restrictions can work against it though.
  21. Prodigal Son
    Yeah while it is interesting to get troops from different sources other than training, this way is specially tricky to balance and for me it can't balance at all. Even if you have something like that exactly the same way/with the same power for all factions (like the AOM titans), you have timing and irreversibility thrown in besides cost and power.
  22. Prodigal Son
    I believe it's for gameplay purposes, preventing you to have your entire army protected unless you build walls. Towers, forts and city centers act as defensive points, while only large walled cities can host an entire large army, so it makes some real sense as well. Fight for your homes (in your homes) is more of an "everything's lost" scenario anyway, not an advisable strategy.
  23. Prodigal Son
    We've discussed this in the past as well. Imo one-time major power boost is not a good idea. It can make for too much strength or loss of a one time chance depending on timing, external circumstances (other player actions) and player skill. See the titans on AOM, or the unit shipments in AOE3 for what I mean. An unlock tech and a build limit should work better.
  24. Prodigal Son
    Sure:) Some quick ones: Siege of Megara, 266BC. Antigonos Gonatas' elephants routed by flaming pigs (when researching silly rome total war units teaches history:p). I remember he also had elephants earlier against Pyrrhus, he lost some of them to him in a mountain pass battle, while he captured some of Pyrrhus elephants in return after his death in the Siege of Argos.Ptolemy Keraunos, as king of Macedon, was killed in battle with the Galatians in 279BC while riding his elephant. It's possible that he was the one who gave some of his elephants to Pyrrhus, while Antigonus Gonatas got the rest of them by succeeding him on the Macedonian Throne.If we add early Antigonids (Antigonos Monopthalmos, Demetrios Poliorketes) who controlled Macedon or parts of it during the successor wars, the instances of Macedonian war elephants become quite frequent. If we add to that other generals who commanded parts of Alexander's original army while not controlling Macedon (but not being Ptolemaics or Seleucids, just contenders for the Macedonian throne or champions of some contender) such as Perdikas, Eumenes of Kardia and others, it becomes extremely often.Edit: I'm not suggesting Elephants as a regular unit for Macedon, as it's not native to the region anyway. Could become trainable with an import tech, and possibly with a build limit as well. The same could work for the Persians.
  25. Prodigal Son
    Alexander got elephants during his invasion of India, succesors maintained them even after his death and got new ones as well. Even the factions that held Macedonia proper had elephants in their armies, at least in the first 6-7 decades after Alexanders death. Some brought from the east, some from Egypt (when the ptolemies had one of their own princes as king of Macedon for a short while), some captured in battles against Pyrrhus of Epirus. They were used in the fights for the throne of Macedon, against the Galatian invasion and against some Greek city-states. Macedonian army could also get many reforms, including ranged heavy cavalry, thureophoroi, royal peltasts in place of hypaspists, late pikemen with more armor and goes on. I could provide more detail if it's something desired. The Romans used elephants occasionally, mostly allied Numidians (and once Pergamenes), but I don't think they even had them in the core roman army. Sparta should get back it's phalangites, I'd say as a late game reform, they didn't appear until short before it's end as a power. Both they and Athens could also get some Thureophoroi at the late game. On Athens having pikemen I've read several debates, no direct source, I'd say no then, let's not have every Greek/Hellenistic faction have pikes.
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