Prodigal Son
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Posts posted by Prodigal Son
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I could see maybe a tech that makes a one-time purchase of war elephants.
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.
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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.
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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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- Both Seleucids and Ptolemies used military colonies, but it was more common for the Seleucids, who used them not only to make an army of non-natives (something both preferred as dynasties on foreign soil), but also as a much needed means of spreading combat-ready levies over a vast territory.
- On the other hand, not only the Ptolemies were an economic powerhouse, but the Seleucids as well. They controlled, for most of the dynasty's duration, the majority of the most important ancient trade routes, including the silk road (add to that the fertile Mesopotamia). And while all their fancy units may point to a purely militaristic faction, most of their wars (much like the Ptolemies) were defensive ones or against rebelling provinces. Both dynasties fielded relatively small armies as well, compared to their controlled territory size. So both should be balanced between military/economy, with a slight focus on navy and defenses for the Ptolemies (relied on garrisoned forts/towns and fleets for most of their wars) and on land armies for Seleucids (preferred decisive field battles mostly).
- I'm not sure how you guys figure out that (all?) Ptolemaic mercenaries where made settlers. Does the author claim this? From my impression on what I've read, they mostly went to gather mercenaries in times of war, which indicates short term service and not settlers. Sure they'd have mercenaries turned settlers (most factions actually did, even Spartans in their late years), but all of them or a vast majority, no.
So imo this leaves way for two representations:
- Seleucids and Ptolemies realistically sharing many traits (like the military settlements) which holds true but makes for less diversity.
- The direction things are taking now. Seleucid focus on settlers (because they had more of them*), Ptolemaics on mercenaries (because they had more of them). Makes sense without going too far unhistorical (most factions don't get many things they had due to balance reasons anyway) and adds more faction diversity.
* If you want to challenge this, try figuring out why the Ptolemies eventually had to train natives for about half of their phalanx to rival the Seleucid one in numbers.
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Hi, some nice work there Stico:) However since they don't exactly match something in the game or the exact artstyle, I'm not sure they would fit, or at least not all of them. Someone from the team could know better though.
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IMO Champoin units should stronger but less cost effective (have a lower cost/combat value ratio - in case I confuse terms).
That way it's good to have many civil soldiers and a few champions - and that's the way it was AFAIK.
It could very easily depend on the unit, for more variety. Also, having many champions (which usually are more expensive) also restricts your economy as you have less gatherers, so already each choice has pros and cons. Making them less cost effective as well wouldn't fit in well imo. Neither makes perfect sense historically. Some ancient armies were largely professional or based on cores of elite troops rather than a huge army of militia with a few elites. Some elite units were more cost effective than average troops, scoring victories vs seemlingly impossible odds, while other ones were not and got overwhelmed by lesser units. So the choice should be up to the player instead of almost forcing them to have mostly citizen soldiers and there could also be a variety of cost effectiveness as a balancing/historical flavor factor.
Anyway I suggested improved cost effectiveness rather than balanced one for the Briton chariot, to keep it weaker than scythed ones as it should, while worth as a champion at the same time. AOE 2 has some champions weaker but cheaper than normal units and it works.
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Didn't know where to put this so feel free to move it if its ill placed.
A bit of an inconsistency with the civilian/champion unit divide. Civilian persian chariots are stronger than british champion chariots in almost every respect. Realistically this might not be something that needs to be altered since balance needs to be looked at holistically as well. However, if there is need to nerf persian or buff Britons this is probably a good place to start. My feeling is that Britons are currently a bit too weak (but then again I lack any data) so I thought I'd bring this up. Personally the population is the thing I'd change.
I can't remember the stats/prices now but it makes sense to me that a heavy scythed chariot should be stronger than a simple one. Could make the Briton one more cost effective to validate it as a champion though.
However, as I've said again chariots are a bit strange for me currently. In the game's timeframe they were more of an outdated leftover from older times, and in almost all battles in the era they behaved poorly. I wouldn't have them rank up with new horses and different cart skeleton appearing out of thin air, nor as champion units since they weren't effective enough to justify it. One-rank unit like the spartan skyrites, with high trample damage (second only to elephants) but very easy to run amok would do.
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Fantastic track from Metric, about the economic collapse.
Not bad:) My take on the subject (what could fit on a short hardcore punk song and unfortunately no recording yet):
Life After Debt
There's nothing but air in your pockets
All that you've had, you've lost in a day
You look back to days you felt comfort and vanity
Indulged in pretension and gratifying ignorance
Your culture's erosion
Your conscience's a burden
The shame that you bear
Is avarice and apathy
All that you never confront
And all that you dream in the dark
Never tried to make it stop
Never fought but for yourself
You're caught in the wake, caught in the wake
Never tried to make it stop
Now seek saviors in your scourge
You're caught in the wake, caught in the wake
You've been conservative
And now you're buried ever deeper in your @#$%
You change your dirty so-called friends
By circumstantial needs
You speak of devotion
To ethics beyond
Our humanly worth
Excuses and solace
While all you need to see is
You are the hand that feeds
Never tried to make it stop
Never fought but for yourself
You're caught in the wake, caught in the wake
Never tried to make it stop
Now seek saviors in your scourge
You're caught in the wake, caught in the wake
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It won't work this way. Some minor cost/effectiveness imbalance could work as faction bonuses/debonuses, to add historical flavor when applicable, but certainly not on this scale. For example 10% cheaper (than their balanced cost) elephants for the Mauryans, 15% stronger champion cavalry for the Macedonians, or 20% faster trained swordmen for the Romans could work. Something simular is already in game if I'm not mistaken, for example spearmen of the same cost having slightly different stats for different factions.
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There are also claims (not sure if there are also facts on this) that there were a larger sub-species of indian elephants used in war, now extinct, even larger than the biggest african elephants. So elephant size and power is a tricky one to balance. Since ptolemaic elephants flead before the seleucid ones anyway, most likely would be (ranked by size):
1) Seleucid/Mauryan Indian Elephants
2) Ptolemaic African Elephants
3) Carthaginian (Forest) African Elephants
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I find the current way of building kinda realistic. A barracks or fort would almost always be built near owned lands or new colonies (new civ centers here), not at a random spot in the middle of nowhere. From a gameplay perspective both choices have pros and cons.
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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.
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Yup, that's the word I was trying to find Sanderd and after hearing how it works, your solution is probably better.
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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.
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Pyrogenesis XD
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).
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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.
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"pewpew! pew!"
"We're much higher up now, Consul!"
"Yeah I can see my house from here!"
"I liked the old one better, more roomy"
"We have to climb a ladder now?! I don't like it >:("
Nice remake and the roman tower could use a replacement, I'm full for having this in game if it's not already accepted.
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Turns out nice:) Not sure about his shirt thought, it doesn't really give an ancient/Celtic feeling to me.
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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.
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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?
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So from that quote you end up relating Dorians with so many different people? Based on what?
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Yeah according to a text book I have here which is in actual fact a type of atlas.
It states that the Dorians in 1000-1100 BC from north-west of Greece invaded and conquered in quote "the sophisticated Myceneans" and settled in an arc stretching from the Peloponnese through the Southern aegean islands to mainland Anatolia (Turky)
Now technically the Myceneans weren't technically Greek in the sense we know it, or before Greece was even born into a nation identified as Helenes.
And one can only imagine that note it said "sophisticated" which all this was was the first barbaric incursions reminiscent of the early Goth and Hunic invasions. Like a type of cycle that repeats every 1000 years or so.
The Huns and the like were the later descendants of the Dorians. This also explains the Mysterious appearance of the Turkish horse archers that overran the Byzantine Empire in Anatolia.
Horse archery was the art of the Mongols and the Huns and I bet the Turkish horse archers were Huns.
Here's the thing, after Atilla's war what happened to the Huns? They had to of gone somewhere and because they didn't have a country, colony or city you can know exactly or pin point a place of origin.
Parthia were exceptional horse archers but these people too were composition of assyrians/babylonians/persian and definitely the Dorian Hunic variants
But talking about the expanse and movement of peoples in a by-gone-era are just tautologies and its like talking about race and the Aryans and soon this crosses the line of controversy and certainly becomes folklore.
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?
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Programming-wise it shouldn't be hard. A proper concept and balance should be the main issues.
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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.
Why can't houses hold men?
in General Discussion
Posted
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.