Prodigal Son

Pyrovolos would be the right one, meaning fire striker/launcher/thrower. "Pallo" means swing, "Vallo" means launch/fire/strike/throw and they are verbs so "Pyropallo" (I doubt this word even exists/makes any sense at all) or "Pyrovallo" would be the verb forms of it.

Didn't know, didn't even try actually:p, thinking they wouldn't add damage, like in land garrisons. Still the power of garrisoned vs ungarrisoned ships and vs land units needs some major check. I don't really like this, not even just more micro, but also inability for the attacker to know what bonus damage he will suffer for attacking, and complete lack of realism (you can't deploy a spear/pike phalanx in a tower). Yup, indeed, still they'll probably be overpowered though, even if less, when with garrison they can one-shot almost any unit.

You got me completely wrong there. I never said there shouldn't be a counter to elephants, nor my point about was Skirmishers/Javelinmen. I said that the elephants are the only counter to Helepolis full of ranged units, and only if they are too many. But, if the ranged units in the Helepolis are Javelinmen, (which Macedon has available) they can ungarrison them and kill the elephants easily. So there's NO counter for the Helepolis + Javelinman combo. And only one counter for Helepolis + other ranged troops, mass elephants, which is not even available to all civs. With ships you can counter that by doing the same, but still ships like that can unrealisticly and easily wreck any units on the shore, and it feels just wrong to have 40 units inside every ship to have a competent naval force while the entire population cap is 300 or less. Added to that, it makes ranged troops the only good option as ship crews, and a must have-one way strategy making naval engagements boring. So reducing the bonus there, to make ungarrisoned ships at least competent against (ofc still weaker than) garrisoned would make much sense. Coupled with other options (bonus for melee crews, ramming, capturing etc), which I guess can wait till naval warfare gets some major love.

Thebans would be nice and not too much work. Could also consider having Parthians (approx 250BC-250AD) for the first part and with Sassinids instead of them for the Second part. The Parthians were an main rival for the Seleucids, from as early as their beginnings and fought the Romans as well, well before the AD times. They could use a mix of Persian (mostly) and maybe some Seleucid assets to make them easily.

Speaking of alpha 15, not SVN (if you mean that). And even if at half, 231 damage, it one-shots almost anything. They are definitely overpowered. Full army (me) vs most army (scythetwirler - as he used some to distract my ally). Scythe has 160 skirmishers, most of them in 6 HelepolisI have on first occasion 100+ archers, 30+ Armored Elephants, 50+ other troops (mostly spearmen)I have on second occasion almost full pop of Melee cavalry-First occasion, the spearmen soak some missiles, the elephants could beat the helepolis with crush damage upon reaching them, but tada! Skirmishers ungarrisoned, bye elephants. Obviously lost the fight with minor losses for scythe. -Second occasion, I lost around 200 melee cavalry in seconds, without even killing a tower or unit. And melee cavalry is supposed to be anti-siege. Ofc scythe's a great micro-er and far better than me in general, but still I think you get the point. Nothing can counter those in the current game state. Loaded ships with missile troops are the water version of this.

Starting units are always of 3 different types (excluding females), as many as the civ center units. No matter what the opponent trains, you'll have a counter or an equal available. It's a bit of a gamble, but scouting can reduce that. The rush attack army has to walk to you, not working and not having fast reinforcements, giving the advantage to the defender. Besides player skill only luck in troop composition and position of strike can be of advantage to the attacker, but they may as well be for the defender. Overall rushes can feel like a cheat/sure victory, but that's just cause they are usually preferred by good players (especially at micro). Those players would usually win anyway, even if it goes to booming for both. The game is not that racing, it's actually well bellow average speed for RTS, something I do like. Usually I'm annoyed by rushes as well, but they're not unfair or game-breaking, you just need to learn dealing with them. This could work, but not changing it too much. Also, about building range/base attack, i haven't noticed, are they slightly above archer stats? I think they should. Another issue. The Macedonian tower "Helepolis" is seriously broken/overpowered. It can reach 462 attack with 20 ranged units inside, it attacks while moving and has enough protection to kill anything sent against it (only a huge elephant army could beat 6 of those towers with heavy loses, only to fail when the skirmishers inside got ungarrisoned striking the eles with bonus damage, and even an almost full pop melee cavalry force failed to get even one of the towers! There's no real counter to them if the controller knows what he's doing). They should either be limited to 1 (the Helepolis was 1 anyway) Or be given something like 1/4 of the attack per garrisoned unit Or have garrison size reduced. Make them unable to attack while moving (however they could attack while moving in reality so not best fix imo) Further nerf their hit points (not their biggest issue though, could even be buffed again if the attack gets really debuffed)Same could apply to ships as well (fix 2 could be a good universal fix, as small transport capacity would make transporting really tedious), as they get extremely strong with garrisoned ranged units, and maybe buildings (especially forts) as well, but to a lesser extend since they are immobile at least. 1/4rth bonus damage for each ranger for Helepolis and Ships and 1/2 for Structures (or just forts) would be great imo.

Well rushing is perfectly ok for some reasons (besides being annoying sometimes, for new players and people liking other playstyles more, myself included): People see it as a way to spend less time per match.Usually it can be countered without major loses unless the attacker is a clearly better player.It's just another possible playstyle, and it would be mean to people who like it to have it forbidden.

Probably means something like naming the one hoplite "Mike" and the other "Agathocles".

I'm not saying it's that hard to find:) But the vast majority of people keep playing cluelessly or ask for advice in game. It's their choice being lazy but makes it hard to find a proper match. That's why I would like to have it somewhere directly in front of their eyes to make them remember to check for tips:p.

The econ tutorial is that "challenge" at which you have to build things in time before the next are suggested? Having it at a more obvious position might be a nice start, it's kinda hidden where it is. Edit: Feuner, this part actuall looks pretty good for a general direction, if only it was at a more obvious place as well. I'd say placing a guide link directly on the frontpage, or a bot comment at upon lobby entrance saying "new players go there and check that for help".

Were they mercenaries, not vassal allies?

I think most new players would prefer something more basic, like "mind your dropside distances", "build an early barracks", "check what unit is stronger against the units you face" etc. Like a short-ish compilation of begginer tips.

Yeah that's a good idea:) It could have bits about everything game-related, while guides should be linked to the frontpage of the wiki. Then the wiki could be linked to the frontpage of 0 AD or the main page of the forums. Or perhaps a guides subforum of this is too much trouble.

Hey vmos did we play yesterday:)? I was thinking of making a basic multiplayer guide (since I'm no expert myself), with tips on efficiency, speed, generic build orders etc, also including issues like hosting problems. Thing is, where would it be linked to be obvious/visible to people? I find myself facing new players all they time and giving them tips instead of having a real fight. And pretty often, people who can't really host create a game, wait, none joins and none can explain to them what's the issue, cause the chats aren't linked in same way, and then log off, probably never to return for some of them.

Wait, there's worse than scythetwirler?

Nice:) Will they replace the Bactrians or just an extra champion? Limmited elephants could work for other factions as well, like Rome (maybe after marian reforms at the auxiliary camp?) and Macedon (actually used the quite a lot, if you consider Alexander and Western based Successors like the Antigonids, they probably used more elephants than the Ptolemies and almost certainly the Persians). The Persians could also use some change/buff in the early game, they seem the weaker by far (ranged micro player ability excluded).

Agreed with this. And they definitely were used more by the Persians than the Seleucids that now have them.

Yup port needs to be opened both on rooter and firewall, I forgot that at first. Btw I'm still slacking around the lobby, move there for a match forumers!

For anyone having host issues (people not being able to join etc) for me it didn't work by UPnP, but worked with port forwarding. It also seems like the server has lag issues when people attempt to host more than one game at the same time. It needs work but it's a great step for the game. Already had great fun in two matches so far and multiplayer gameplay is already shaping up nicely:)

Oh yeah, I downloaded alpha 14:p. So who's gonna host games at the lobby? Will some people/team members have that extra ability so it works somehow for sure? Or it will work at times while others not for now?

I'm currently downloading the new alpha and I'd love to join the lobby and start having multiplayer matches. However I remember reading somewhere that you'll still need to do something with the IP to join. Is it just giving your address? Opening some port (if so which one)? Could someone explain?

Congrats and thanks for the hard work:)

It looks nice. Maybe make the teeth advertisment-ish-ly white as well:)

The bushes idea seems the most interesting to me on this. And perhaps Iberians could get some short of better cover or bigger damage bonus when ambushing. Warcraft actually hides night elf, bandit and other units in the night, as long as they remain idle. So implementing a day and night circle could provide an alternative ambush mechanic this way.

If possible programing-wise, it would be nice to have ships land a number of marines for ground operations/raids. Then, unless some of the marines return, the ship can't move again/gets destroyed/gets reduced combat ability. (Inspired by Rome II) Marines could depend on faction. For example greeks could have hoplites without body armor (only helmet/shield and spear or sword) and later on thyreophoroi, Romans could have hastati/princeps, Persians could have archers. A tech could adjust/alter marine type on ships (maybe one melee and one ranged per faction), which besides different traits while landed, could give different combat bonuses to the ship. Another tech could increase the number of marines but slow down the ships. An Athenian tech "Chorigoi" (I thought this was the name but a google search applies it to threatrical play sponsorship, might be something else for ships I can't recall now) could reduce Trireme cost, simulating rich citizens taking the duty to found the cost of a trireme.