Prodigal Son

Welcome Jack:) Your defeat could be what you said, or you can always lower the AI difficulty if you retry and still get beaten. Do you have any previous experience with other RTS games? You can join the multiplayer lobby for online games, from the game menu.

Yup, that's the word I was trying to find Sanderd and after hearing how it works, your solution is probably better.

A simple fix would be to increase their "footprint" to their actual model size so they can't overlap each other for almost half of their size.

Made me think, Alpha XVI : Pureon, and then, why not, Alpha XVI : Prodigal Son. Stupid jokes aside, Pythagoras and Prometheus sound good to me. Or something more Seleucid related, like Panium (which also includes Ptolemies).

While they look interesting, I think Persian motifs on major buildings (and possibly the color scheme as well) wouldn't be accurate. While parts of the empire certainly maintained their old look/architecture, Seleucid-built towns and structures should have looked more Hellenistic. Not sure what's the best way to keep them different from Greek factions in this aspect and still have them look historically authentic. Maybe Hellenistic style (with minor eastern influences) for major and military buildings and a mix of Hellenistic and Eastern style (maybe as variants and not combined) on civic ones, like houses, storehouses, farmsteads, markets etc.

Nice remake and the roman tower could use a replacement, I'm full for having this in game if it's not already accepted.

Turns out nice:) Not sure about his shirt thought, it doesn't really give an ancient/Celtic feeling to me.

By "all we know about Dorians is them being a part of ancient Greeks" I mean we only have documented accounts of them as migriting and mostly living in the Aegean/Greek region. This does not include all of their background of course, which we don't know currently and might never learn. But what you claim makes no perfect sense, maybe no sense at all, especially the way you support it. Other people moved from the north to Greece as well. Other people moved elsewhere from other regions. See, if I say that Huns, Celts, Turks, Parthians, Mongols, Assyrians, Babylonians and Persians are subgroups of the Ionians or Slavs or Goths, it makes exactly the same amount of sense as saying all those people were subgroups of Dorians.

Even if all those people are somehow related (we all are after all, but I mean them being off-shots of the same large group, to which I can hardly see any evidence), how do you conclude in naming the large group Dorians, while all we know about Dorians is them being a part of ancient Greeks?

So from that quote you end up relating Dorians with so many different people? Based on what?

Many parts of this don't make sense at all. Is that your description of it missing some arguments or you did include every point from the original text?

Programming-wise it shouldn't be hard. A proper concept and balance should be the main issues.

Do you mean they were the first "Greek" settlers? Or the first settlers in general for those regions? The first depends on how you define Greeks. Second one is certainly wrong. On the rest agreed, it's not impossible but it's too hard to know, so we'd better accept we don't know (yet, might find out sometime), rather than make such things appear like facts.

Haven't seen a source for that either. Can't be certain against it, as times before the Dorians reached Southern Greece are actually pre-historic, but I guess that's mostly a theory rather than something with proof.

Dorians were one of various tribes amongst the latest ancient settlers of the Greek region. They certainly wouldn't be the first Greeks, by regional definition. (On "racial" definition don't get me started, most people here in Greece believe in bullshit due to nationalist propaganda). However they were not that many, so if what you say holds true (first time I hear about it though) it's more possible that Dorians were a branch of Celts than the opposite.

Vassals are interesting in RTS, always thought about them missing. Their main features could be a percentage of gathered resources going to their overlord, and possibly the ability for him to train or control some of their troops. Or even reducing their pop cap and adding that amound to the overlord's pop cap. However I'm not sure what's the best way to implement them. Instant defeat if they choose to break off like Lion said (did i get it right?), might be ok-ish as gameplay but not realistic. But then if they can break off, what's the purpose of keeping them instead of annihilating them. It could be somehow desired for exploiting the benefits and then maybe crush them before the totally rebuild though. Or, make them totally fixed for the rest of the match. Overall it could be a nice mechanic but needs a lot of work and balancing.

They are the most balanced and best looking (together with the scenarios, but the later have less host options), so I like them as the first option. Random maps might have more choices, but until texture blending and map generation are improved, they won't look that great (on balance I'm not sure which of them are intended to be unbalanced and which are not). So it's better for the game to promote it's currently best maps. Btw, are the generic Hellenes and Celts updated/rebalanced in line with the main factions? I thought they wouldn't be so I'm skipping the scenarios including them so far.

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".