Prodigal Son
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Posts posted by Prodigal Son
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Have you seen the internet lately? Or have you checked out NPR?
http://gawker.com/npr-pulled-a-brilliant-april-fools-prank-on-people-who-1557745710
Nice one! Actually I've noticed something similar in the 0AD facebook in the meanwhile.
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What's obvious?
We're not editing posts anymore - we were just joking around
I mean it even has "Date of announcement, 1st April 2014", who could miss that even if lazy with remembering the date and not estranged by the content. Anyway I'm thinking too much I guess:p
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I used the corral and cavalry to gather from the sheep trained there for a while in multiplayer, in combination with a rather small number of farms. It was extremely effective after some point in the game, having a huge food income (that constantly booms when you start being able to train bigger and bigger batches of sheep) gathered by just 2-3 cavalrymen. It needed too much attention though, especially in the early to mid game and I couldn't cope so well against most decent players, so soon I reverted back to the lazy ways of only farming. But in long games that you're not under heavy pressure, it should become increasingly superior over farming. As the Mauryans I was able to support huge numbers of food-draining elephants with this strategy while having a bigger army and more spare workers for the needed metal as well.
Have in mind that it's function will change though, I believe to something like a steady source of food from each sheep garrisoned in the corral, rather than killing the sheep and gathering from them and it will get balanced afterwards. Edit: Just noticed Lion already mentioned this.
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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:)
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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.
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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.
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Nice writeup Lion.
Thanks for clarifying. Then couldn't we do this with 'mini cultures'? They have only a small economy and many warriors. If you are manage to hire them, they stay loyal until they lose trust in your success and defect.
You are right! I must have tomatoes on my eyes!
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.
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If we are to include mercenaries and mercenary camps, it is important that we don't add too much for for the poor art team to add these units to the game.
Sometimes I like to start designing an idea as outlandish as possible, then pare it down in subsequent design iterations. But since the game is in an advanced state, I think it would be better to start an idea small and simple, then expand it later when time becomes available.To that end, I think the list of mercenaries should be a lot smaller than you have here. I think it's okay to list as many mercenaries as you can think of, then pick and choose the more interesting or historically important from that list.
First, I think we can decide on a list of biomes or cultures we would like to represent as mercenary camps/mercenaries, then go from there. I think these cultures would work, starting from the East and moving West, and I'll give some merc ideas with them:
Hindu Kush/India
- Kushan Cavalry
- Indian War Elephant
Eastern
- Eastern Archer
- Eastern Light Cavalry
- Indian War Elephant
Steppes
- Scythian Horse Archer (male and female variations)
- Scythian Axeman (How about some melee cavalry instead, certainly more common than infantry. Steppe Cataphracts would be good for flavor over any other)
Arabia
- Camel Raider (Cav Skirmisher)
- Arabian Javelineer
Levant (this is represented as a mercenary dock or port)
- Phoenician Trireme
- Judean Sikarios (knifeman) (A thureophoros version would be more common, and a Syrian archer should be a must)
Cilicia (this is represented as a mercenary dock or port)
- Cilician Pirate (skirmisher)
- Cilician Pirate Ship (Hemiolia)
Anatolia
- Galatian Swordsman
- Armenian Cataphract (Cappadocian Cavalry would have a far more common factional range than Armenian Catafracts, and is an exact Anatolian unit, not something slightly off geographically)
Egyptian
- Nubian Archer (take this out of the Ptolemies roster)
- Mercenary Thureophoros (something natively egyptian istead, like a levy spearman?)
Balkans
- Thracian Peltast
- Thracian Black Cloak (swordsman)
- Illyrian Spearman (Illyrians would mostly be peltasts as well, Also many famous tribes had Cavalry, we should probably include a Paeonian or Thracian one)
Greece
- Mercenary Hoplite
- Aetolian Euzenos (skirmisher) (It's spelled Euzonos. However, a peltast would be far more common and a Rhodian Slinger more interesting/worth the recruit for most factions. Most famous Aetolian unit would be it's Cavalry, even if not in great numbers. We could also include a ship here, most city states granted ships to bigger powers all the time, and Cretans and Aetolians were often pirates)
- Thessalian Lancer
- Cretan Archer
Magna Grecia
- Tarentine Cavalry
- Samnite Swordsman (Samnite should more often than not be spearman, and Mamertines were for only a tiny period. How about Samnite Spear + a Syracusan Ship or Siege weapon, or a Gastraphetes)
- Mamertine Spearman
Italia
- ? (Italiot Ship - the early roman navy based on them, Etruscan Hoplite, Capuan Cavalry, any Celtic unit)
- ?
North Africa
- Numidian Cavalry
- Masaesylian Spearman (A skismisher would be more common, or a Libyan Spearman, or a (Gaetuli/Garamantine?) chariot for flavor and since they used chariots quite late in the era)
- North African War Elephant
Celtica
- Celtic Auxiliary Spearman
- Gallic Auxiliary Cavalry
Iberia
- Celt-Iberian Swordsman
- Balearic Slinger
- Iberian Allied Cavalry
And then each civ could add 1-3 of their own specific mercs once they capture one of the above. (Actually this gives some sense to capturing instead of having neutral camps, even if I'm still in favor of the later and could be implemented either way)
For instance:
Persians
- Kardakes Hoplite
- Kardakes Takabara
Macedonians
- War Elephant (this is how we give them the War Elephant without making it a "standard" unit for them)
- Greek Allied Hoplite
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But in general I doubt that a mercenary camp is neutral, standing around in the countryside, waiting until a leader comes and asks for help ... (if it were like that why then train units? why not get the recruits immediately .. they had time enough to be trained already ...)
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:)
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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They also used celtic mercenaries, not just allies, certainly including cavalry as well.
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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.
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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.
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Makes sense I guess:).
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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.
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As the title says. I believe it would be useful for discussion, guides etc.
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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.
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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.
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I'd rather just have the Macedonians represent the Macedonian army of Alexander's time.
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.
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that was one most mistakes with AOE 3. I play the Saturday with Asians factions and very limited. But with mercenaries I haven't see it as a real problem.
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.
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Where are you from?
in Introductions & Off-Topic Discussion
Posted
I'm from Athens, Greece, which means I'm at gmt +2/+3 I believe, depending on the time of year (with the changes applied to save electricity). My nickname comes from the Bad Religion song of the same name, not directly from the bible. I've always been lazy/weak at finding good short names, such as usernames and song titles, while on the other hand I've got no issues writing long texts or several songs a day.