Prodigal Son
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Posts posted by Prodigal Son
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Yeah one of my favorites as well, it kept the core feeling of the game visuals which I liked, while adding more historicity and nice features. EB was great as well with it's extreme detail, but ctd-ed much and at times it's city building was too tedious to manage. RS II looked great but I disliked much of it's gameplay choices. I've probably played like 20+ RTW mods overall. EB II for MTW II is shaping up pretty nicely.
Favourite TW game being RTW overall, I'd love the return of the simple STW/MTW campaign system. It prevented all those pointless time consuming 2v15 unit battles you were forced to play (or autoresolve for high casualties) in later games of the series.
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26 minutes ago, wowgetoffyourcellphone said:
My ultimate ancient combat game would have the player in control of one single battalion within a larger army. This battalion itself becomes your character, which you level up, train, recruit, drill, outfit with kit, raise up soldiers within the ranks, and ultimately with which you coordinate with other players to destroy enemy armies.
That would be interesting indeed. TW arena approach isn't bad either, I'm just not too happy with modern total war games.
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9 hours ago, Nescio said:
There are many different procedures to balance a game. The specific approach someone uses when designing is irrelevant. However, to figure out if a game is balanced, not in theory, but in practice, lots of playtesting is necessary. Multiplayer and singleplayer games can be helpful, but AI vs AI games should certainly not be overlooked, and because the AI is constant, these test games are actually more reliable. Furthermore, one or two test games are not enough; large numbers are required to cancel out “luck”.
To clarify, I'm not advocating balance by trial and error. All I'm saying is that no matter how perfect the design (initially), playtesting (afterwards) is the only way to show a game is balanced at a game level.
I didn't say my way of balancing is the one and true way, I said it's my way. That alone doesn't make it relevant or irrelevant. I just got tired of recycling arguments as we both did in the previous posts and tried to lead the discussion to something more productive. You did this by keeping to defend your initially rather poor "longbow vs paladin" example while constantly editing it along the way, and then your "AI balancing as the best method" thesis, for which you avoided replying on what I proposed as it's weaknesses, instead you tried to find weaknesses only in my counterarguements, while making a lot of assumptions. I'm guilty as well, by often focusing on minor details, at times not expressing very clearly and continuing on and on already messed up parts of the conversation. So I thought, let's discuss on something more coherent, while it might also be more interesting for others as well. I'm also welcoming on learning my approach's faults.
Since we're still at it as it seems, AI balancing has it's uses, but it's vastly inferior to player vs player. The downsides of player vs player are indeed the ones you've mentioned, possible difference in player skill and hardship in finding many people available for it. But If you manage to find players of similar, preferably high skill and run many tests, that's the way to go. AI won't use many possible strategies, nor all possible units/unit combinations, won't tech reactively and will generally play very differently to humans, leaving huge parts of the possibilities out of consideration while giving us results, no matter how many tests you run. Human players will keep finding new strategies and tactics/micro, which will require additional balancing. The AI can't help with that either. The only thing it will be really more valid on is computer vs computer balance.
9 hours ago, Nescio said:Although rules of the thumb can occassionally be useful, there are no guarantees. Also, if a unit X has twice as much health, double attack damage, and increased armour compared to unit Y, X is not merely twice as strong, but actually about four times as effective.
What I failed to note is that I also keep track of the percentage changes for each field of each unit's stats, so in the end all units have those changes similar overall. Then, not all stats changed as a percentage have the same percent effect in unit strength. Here is where experience in working with such formulas and in game tests for possible imbalances come helpful. If someone finds this part interesting I can further expand.
9 hours ago, Nescio said:Here you're mistaken. Symmetry can make things easier, but it's not mandatory. An assymmetric design can be balanced (e.g. AoM). Also, a game can be balanced (macro-level) even if individual units etc. (micro-level) are not, and vice versa. “Overpowered” (I dislike that term, it's used far too often unappropiately) features do not necessarily amplify each other, they can cancel out as well, or have no larger consequences.
Although tweaking individual stats can be highly enjoyable, often they hardly influence the outcome of a game. What counts is balance at a game level. How you get there and what your design is doesn't really matter.
I didn't claim symmetry is mandatory and I'm not using symmetry, but varied volumes of assymetry, depending on game phase and specific design (say each of my mods or proposals for different games). I thought that would be pretty clear by reading my last post.
What I'm saying though is that it's hard (or maybe impossible) to reach perfect balance with assymetry. We can reach something acceptable, as AOM did before the titans expansion and many games with various levels of assymetry have. No game with huge assymetry and more than 3-4 civs comes to mind though (saying this because I consider we largely/partly have 0 A.D. balance in mind during this discussion).
As described in my previous post, I'm not just tweaking individual stats. Your indeed important point of balance at game level comes of as very incomplete and counter productive to me, due to the dismissive way you approach it. We need a process to build each phase of gameplay as balanced as well. Not every possible encounter needs to be balanced (nor it can be), but each decision by a player needs to be counterable by the other player. Who wins in the end (and having a balanced ratio among civs) consists of huge numbers of variables that need consideration. I've found my approach largely successful at that. So far you haven't really pointed on why it's wrong or irrelevant.
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On 3/5/2018 at 3:55 PM, Adeimantos said:
I like range units missing, and that does balance their attack some but up close they don't miss much, right?
I haven't tested to see exactly how it works, but if I imagine/remember it correctly they should miss less indeed. If I'm correct, spread should be working with angles so the further away a unit is, the harder it would be to hit it.
@Nescio You make some good points, but I still believe AI tests as the main focus aren't good enough or the best way to attempt RTS balance. When I say spreadsheet balancing and multiplayer testing, I'm not talking only about unit class vs unit class balancing.
I'll try to describe the entire logic I'm using, though on top of my head I'll probably miss a few things. I'm pretty confident that you're aware of much of it, but it might be useful as a whole to other people interested as well.
Tech-tree balancing:
- First there is the (very) early game. Here possible different unit interactions are preferably low and units across different civs are more or less cloned in stats or at least in function. Exceptions are possible, like a civ starting with ranged infantry instead of melee. Those make it harder, so I tend to avoid them, especially if many civs are present. Then relatively good balance is doable and essential, this is the most important part of the game to have as balanced possible. Early game advantage can snowball, and uncounterable situations more likely due to less options. Best is to start with a single available melee unit class, not very good at offense and speed so that very early rushing, while doable, is not potentially devastating. If the game is going with civ bonuses those may cause some imbalance, but they should be carefully selected not to be really powerful, while any particular civ shouldn't be strong or weak in a majority of phases, unless those strengths or weaknesses are really mild. If a civ can potentially rush with one more soldier or with it's troops moving slightly faster, the other civ should be able to reach the next tech tier a little faster, or have some minor advantange upon reaching it.
- Then as the game progresses, the techtrees gradually allow the training of more unit classes. Every new unit class available for a civ should be counter-able at the point it can attack the opposing base by any other civ, provided that both players are similarly skilled and the responding player has made the right choices. Likewise, upgrade and structure availability should be layered along those principles.
- With the full techtree unlocked, the number of possible imbalances is (rather) high, depending on design choices. Still approximate balance through carefull unit availability is doable and essential. For example, if a civ doesn't have heavy ranged siege due to historical concerns, they could have archers with fire arrows so that they can strike a heavily fortified possition without sacrificing extremely higher numbers of units or resources than the defender while trying to break through.
Unit & Overall Balancing:
- Clear unit roles. Preferably no two unit classes should play very similarly within any civ. This makes the game more interesting and every unit usefull at any state of the game if the circumstances are right, while giving more countering options. If we're going the historical way like in 0 A.D. those better be heavily inspired by real unit attributes.
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Individual unit balancing according to it's cost, power etc. I'm using an edited version of a formula I found at GPWiki (which had a really nice article on RTS design, though it's sadly gone, even from internet archives, for some years now). It allows for easy balance changes and comparison of unit attributes. Each unit has it's stats adjusted according to it's level (L). Exact modifiers per stat can change. Say units prove too expensive, you can adjust the resource cost modifier to something lower universally. If kill rates make the game too fast, dps can be reduced universally. Units deviate in some of the attributes to get different roles, but usually no more than 20-30% from the standard of their level.
Pop Cost: 1xL
Resource Cost: 100xL
Train Time: 10xL
Hp: 100xL
Dps: 10xL
Armor: 5xL
Movement: Average
Range: Melee
Other: (Could be damage bonuses, vision, skills, etc) - Testing follows: Units in 1v1, many vs many and mixed unit combinations in the editor. AI testing checking whatever's included in the AI's menu. Multiplayer testing, both in normal games and arranged situations to catch things that the AI can't help you with, test everything in real multiplayer conditions and get observations by other people.
It's hard to achieve perfect balance, in fact impossible with assymetric civ design. But depending on design and balancing choices and how much time you spend on testing, acceptable results are possible. I'm pretty much content with results I've had in the past using more or less what I describe above.
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17 minutes ago, causative said:
Just a random thought: Greek city states fought each other mostly over arable farmland. We see fights over mines and trees in 0ad, but not farmland. It would be interesting to have a mod or perhaps a map that disables the building of farms and corrals, and has gaia farms scattered all around the map that can be captured but not damaged. A player's first CC could have only 3 gaia farms within its range. So, there would be battles to claim more farms.
I think @wowgetoffyourcellphone's mod DE has a kinda similar system, you might want to check it.
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20 hours ago, Nescio said:
The example I gave is unusual, yes, however, it's not impossible. 40 longbowmen could win against cavalry because a human player can command them to concentrate fire and kill off the enemy one by one. It won't work with 10 vs 10, simply because 10 arrows are not enough to kill any knight at once, thus requiring more than one shot. What I was trying to show is that when you increase numbers, the game balance could occassionally work out differently than intended. Long range units benefit more from large numbers than melee units (who block each other's path). Having some random spread affecting projectiles decreases the advantage large numbers of archers have, therefore it improves balance, in my opinion.
As for balance, you could micro-balance on paper, e.g. 1 archer will always win vs 1 pikeman, 1 pikeman will will always win vs 1 horseman, and 1 horseman will always win vs 1 archer. However, 1 vs 1 balance doesn't necessarily translate to many vs many battles, nor to balance at a game level.
Your example isn't impossible, but imo for reasons I've already described, is true only under extremely specific circumstances. That said your overall point is valid overall and one I've missed so far, thanks for that.
Still, it's hard to evaluate if it's superior or not over the other approach, cause issues with randomness/spread I've mentioned above are also valid. Another issue with spread that came to me through this discussion is that while it can reduce ranged unit effectiveness in big fights, it does even more so in small fights, where there are less units to hit, so even more attacks go completely wasted.
Looking at AOK, where the last tier of armor upgrades gives one additional point of pierce armor, it think the designers look for a solution to mass-ranged superiority by using it, so spread isn't the only possible way.
20 hours ago, Nescio said:The only way to properly balance the game, not in theory but in practice, would be as follows. Run e.g. 100 Athens vs Britons 1 AI vs 1 AI battles on different maps and sizes. Note down how often each faction wins. Repeat the experiment for all other combinations of factions. Also run a couple of 2 vs 2, 3 vs 3, and 4 vs 4 AI games to check if you get different results. If a game is balanced than every faction should win about as frequently as any other.
This would only somewhat balance AI fights under selected circumstances. It doesn't take account of every possible unit class vs each other, something that the AI won't do. Also computers play very differently to humans in general. Good old spreadsheet balancing and extensive manual testings, preferably in multiplayer seem far better to me.
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2 minutes ago, Nescio said:
The complexity of a calculation is irrelevant. And a victory at a game level does not depend on a single unit hit or miss.
I can mostly agree on the first part, ease of balancing isn't the most important factor here. I disagree on the second though, since be it a rare occasion or through a snowball effect it can still happen. Anyway I think the rest of my point still stands.
6 minutes ago, Nescio said:It is probably not supposed to succeed in AI vs AI, however, I did manage to slaughter my brother's paladins without losing any of my 40 E. longbowmen (in TC they can have 6+6 range). By the way, AoK's trebuchet also had a randomness affecting its accuracy to keep it somewhat balanced.
Well, if it's not taking in account equal levels of player control I doubt it's a strong point. It also seems strange to me that the stronger and faster unit would lose 40-0 under whatever circumstances, excluding path-blocked paladins, their controlling player just walking them around or maybe extreme difference in tech upgrades (btw there's the thumb ring tech which gives perfect accuracy to archers - which like trebuchets, they normally don't have). But what I'm mostly interested in and I failed to phrase properly, is where/how do we draw the line of single unit power vs critical mass effect, to decide if this upside of spread vs full accuracy makes it worth it over it's drawbacks? Unless we fully understand it's advantage I'll tend to believe that SC2 designers know something more on this.
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Randomness could be accounted for in theory, while making balancing calculations more complex. But in practice, nothing prevents the game from generating 3 or 4 unexpected misses in a row, or having a game win/loss defining last hit miss. Or both your archers missing in what would "statisticly" kill the approaching horseman and result in getting the archers killed. Imbalanced situations messing with the cost effectiveness of units will happen and some of them, even if rare will be extreme.
@Nescio I fail to get how 40 AOK longbowmen would take off 40 paladins with minimal losses, unless superiorly microed. Same with the rest of the example. Could you explain better?
@Grugnas Warcraft III has a solution to the half-hit display. Missiles don't stray sideways, and a "miss" label floats over the targeted unit. I guess not ideal for 0 A.D. though.
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3 minutes ago, Nescio said:
Actually I think the ranged attack random spread is a great feature. It adds realism, complexity, and balance. Also, the randomness affects the position, which means ranged attacks can hit units they are not aiming at. This makes archers better vs closely packed masses than they would be in 1:1 fights.
As far as I understood it, lag has primarily to do with the pathfinder, not with ranged attacks.
It adds realism and complexity for sure. I also agree with your last point on archers. But about balance I disagree. To balance an encounter as much as possible you would want the same results everytime it happens and there's always the chance of very bad luck messing things up completely. Starcraft II, that takes multiplayer more seriously than any other RTS I know of, has removed randomness/variation in attack damage and miss chances while it's predecessors had them. It's not a "must-remove" feature for me, there are good points for keeping it, but it's something to consider in case we want things as balanced as possible.
I know that the pathfinder is the main issue, just asking, as a clueless person on the subject, since I can imagine hundreds of accuracy calculations on top of everything else making large battles a bit heavier for the engine.
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@av93 The heavy skirmishers (Thureophoroi) would often be mercenaries, other times levies. Kardakes were of debatable origins and combat role. Theories that I'm aware of describe them as Kurds (or others) in Persian service or as a Persian unit after reforms, as light troops with varied equipment or as hoplite influenced.
@MlemandPurrs Stoa has no relation to mercenaries.
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3 hours ago, Grugnas said:
Accuracy is something realistic but I am not a real fan as it simply too many other factors like units moving back and forth resulting in an exploitable dance. I guess that, when formations will be fixed, spread will be a lesser factor as units within formations are displayed in row and columns very close each other.
Accuracy is also bad towards balance as it adds randomness, especially in small engagements where more shots completely miss. A programmer could correct me here, but perhaps it's removal could also reduce lag in large battles?
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8 hours ago, wowgetoffyourcellphone said:
I'd say it's biggest problem was the extremely overpowered heroes. I am sympathetic to your dislike of heroes in 0 A.D.
Indeed for BFME series, though some other were underpowered, making things even worse. On 0 A.D. heroes I'm not sure for their removal but I mostly lean towards it. Besides balance issues, for me they limit historical immersion to a degree. I don't like to see, say, Leonidas available in every Spartan match-up in which I might want to simulate a completely unrelated conflict.
8 hours ago, wowgetoffyourcellphone said:I would say including battalions in 0 A.D. with the econ as-is would already result in a net reduction in APM/management.
Depends on the battalion mechanics. If you have to manage facing, morale, charge/running, stamina, stance, skills or any combination of a good number of those for each battalion, I strongly disagree. A simple, fixed battalion system, essentialy just a single multi-actor entity per battalion, would certainly have that effect of reduced micro, but to me it would feel incomplete, while removing the single unit micro that is interesting to many people. Perhaps a Cossacks-like system as @Nescio suggested could work as well, it isn't that heavy-duty. Personally if going with battalions I'd prefer to simplify eco and go to total war levels of combat detail.
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41 minutes ago, WhiteTreePaladin said:
That's true to a degree, although I found the "battalions" (5-10 units usually) to be very easy to manage in the BFME series.
True but BFME series have a very basic economy and rather simple (in the first one very simple) base building compared to 0 A.D. or AOE. That leaves you with plenty of time to manage it's relatively simple hero system, the battalion upgrades and the very simple combat tactics. On a point towards previous discussion, it's balance is pretty horrible, especially in the second game.
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Yes it can work that way. A mix units with varied attributes (melee units with high and low attack/hp, same for ranged) can also work. Or ranged units having low dps but being cheaper. For the weapon switching thing you could try using the "pack" mechanic of siege weapons or the upgrade system (both far from ideal though).
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This approach generally means that melee units become tanks and ranged units damage dealers. It's functional but not ideal for representing ancient warfare. In most cases ranged units would skirmish before melee combat started or in peripheral locations while melee units would do the main clash and most damage. But that's hard to represent in an classic RTS setting.
The ratio of attack/defense capabilities of a unit is one of the factors that will affect how it plays in game. A melee unit with high attack and low health will do loads of damage if in possition to attack, but will also die easily, especially to ranged units (unless it has high ranged/pierce armor and/or speed).
Heavy javelins make sense to have high damage ( low attack rate for balance/realism). Light javelins not so much, while pilum could slow down enemies or reduce their armor, but to my knowledge that's not currently possible in the game's engine (and roman foot are just swordsmen in game).
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53 minutes ago, WhiteTreePaladin said:
I think the reason unit ranking works well with battalions is because the units in battalions regenerate (albeit slowly) which allows steady progress to be made when gradually levelling during battles. The current promotion system has individual units which die too easily. This makes it too difficult to retreat and salvage your veteran troops. You end up with a mix of low and high ranks that just tend to cycle rather than gradually increase in strength; the net effect of a few higher ranked units mixed in is negligible. "Champion" units are always preferred and resources are the only limiting factor. It is orders of magnitude more effective to work on resource management and train champion units, than it is to micromanage unit training to create an army of elite (veteran) troops. These "elite" troops also happen to be weaker than champion units which makes the situation worse.
As you mentioned, in other games individual unit ranking is reserved for very strong, unique units like true elite warriors and heroes. I just feel that it isn't really working well currently which is sad because there is likely a lot of potential. It doesn't break anything and the game is still enjoyable, so it's mostly just been left alone.
The balance between ranked up citizen soldiers and champions could be easily changed, it's just editing a few numbers in the desired direction. That said, I don't like them ranking up in the current gameplay form for reasons I've already mentioned. Your point of idealy having to single out and save individuals in order to have max army efficiency is another in that direction.
The example from fantasy games was about a different approach to late game units, one with great variety, not about level up and heroes. It often mixes with that though and that's another big discussion with many pros and cons in gameplay. In general leveling units, much like battalions (or a combination of both), better fit in games with simpler economy because they usually require more individual micro. They are also very hard to balance. Especially in the case of leveling heroes with active skills and the like, the game becomes prone to focusing too much around them. They might lead to win or lose moments, where your leveled up hero can do too much if kept alive or leave your army helpless if killed and possibly provide a lot of experience to the killing player's heroes causing irreversible situations. The game becomes very dynamic but also very random and "snowbally". In other games with weaker heroes, those add unit variety and possibly some army enhancement, while causing distraction from other parts of the game in order to control and keep them alive. In the end it's all about a mix of personal preferance and striking the right balance with other game elements.
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Maybe it makes more sense to wait for the new structures to get in game. Then forts will have more room for extra champions, or some could fit in barracks/stables etc or merc camps accordingly to civ and decisions.
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Champions in general could use a redesign to be more interesting from a gameplay perspective.
Some of the extra scenario (champion) units, added to the main game or not, were even more common than units from the core rosters, while others, added or not fit with the respective civs only as anachronisms (taking in account the design decision to depict each civ during one period and not the entirety of antiquity). I think Stoa was like the only available greek structure so it ended up hosting units
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2 minutes ago, WhiteTreePaladin said:
That sounds more like AoK. Not that that's a bad thing. AoK has a lot of good things. Many seem against small battalions, so AoK continues to remain the most closely related game. I don't find unit promotion useful at all from a gameplay perspective the way it is currently implemented. I do hope it could be kept, but it will need some adjustments. As it is, promotion doesn't really hurt anything, but it's almost completely useless. Ranking up by a technology (like AoK) affects gameplay more directly by giving the player more control of when and what to upgrade, and is also easier to balance. (Viable promotion would be difficult to balance. It currently doesn't affect the balance, but that's because it doesn't really affect the gameplay either.) It would be possible to have class upgrades and use promotion for other effects rather than remove entirely. Promotion could also be a way to access classes early for a limited group of your units before you research a class upgrade tech. Once you researched it, all the other units you have at that rank would "catch up" to the new class/rank.
Indeed it sounds like AOK. And imo it's not about copying or not copying a game, it's about doing the best we can do. In AOK unique units are truely unique in function, by not being just stronger versions of low-tech troops. In other games with fantasy settings another approach is used, with late game units of various shapes, sizes and functions (a mix of flyers, monsters, giants, elite warriors, use of active abilities, magic etc). Both are superior from a gameplay perspective to the approach used in 0 A.D. but the AOK one is the only I can see fit for use in the game. Perhaps someone could come up with more unique ideas on champions that still fit in.
I'm not against battalions, but I can see them a bit hard to implement on the coding side. Here I expand a bit on this.
On ranking up vs tech upgrades, mostly agreed, excluding the fact that ranking up has a snowball effect so it affects gameplay. One extra issue I see with ranking up is that it encourages tedious microing. To be as effective as you can, you need to keep separating low rank soldiers for labor and higher rank soldiers for combat.
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7 hours ago, Nescio said:
How thoroughly have you played A22? Have you tried installing the svn development version? Have you played A23? Do you have any experience in programming projects' teamwork?
What exactly are you applying for? What could you contribute? What would you be able to do you can't do currently?
As can be seen on the forums, there is no shortage of good ideas. If you ask a dozen people for a proposal, you'll get at least a dozen different suggestions. Getting consensus is much harder. Also, would you be comfortable with assisting in implementing ideas you don't agree with?
Hopefully you don't mind me asking questions. I'm just curious
Ofc I don't mind answering your questions, that said many of them are pretty much answered in the application already.
On the rest. I've installed svn, followed it for years, and based my mod on it. While working on the mod (and other projects for other games) there has been some teamwork involved and on the past I've worked with people from the team towards fixing minor issues with the main 0 A.D. project. I guess, to some people, I may sometimes sound like a smartass in the forums, but if you get to know me, even by online terms, I'm a friendly and when motivated hard-working person, that now feels awkward for the moderate self-promotion. Getting consensus accurately is almost impossible and for me, not a top priority anyway; not all ideas belong together in one gameplay proposal. We need to set a goal and then evaluate which ideas suit it or not and why.
I'm no programmer and I didn't apply for a programmer position. Gameplay developer is pretty clear I think, and already explained in context by the application, but I could expand on it if you wish. On implementing ideas I don't agree with, answer is yes, and I think I've already answered that as well, even if not 100% directly.
QuoteWhat could you contribute? What would you be able to do you can't do currently?
Ideas towards a cohesive gameplay goal (exactly what remains to be seen and I don't expect to decide alone), backed by critical thinking and relatively good knowledge of RTS design and ancient history. Also idea implementation, balancing, updates in general unless new code is needed. What else I could learn along the way to help the project if I'm welcomed in, the future will tell.
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@Nescio I mostly agree with the above and especially on the historical examples my disagreements would only be small bits.
Thing is, do we want to represent just citizens, mercenaries and elites by making all the male population in game belong to these categories, while in fact those combined were fewer than, currently non-existant "simple" male workers? What I'm saying is that the current system in game is not great, not because CC didn't exist, but because it's not the best way to represent them from a historical or gameplay perspective. If you read the rest of this thread (if you haven't) it's full of discussion around that, and mostly on the more important, imo, gameplay part.
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5 hours ago, Palaxin said:
@Prodigal Son your application makes me write my first post after 8 months... One of the best things I've read on this forums so far, giving me new hope for the future of this game... I wish you and the team the best (may they accept your offer!)... Hopefully gameplay will no longer limit the true potential of 0 A.D.!
Thanks for the kind words, I hope so too
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10 hours ago, Nescio said:
Actually it's the other way around. The war season was typically in the summer (when there was less work in agriculture); afterwards, armies were disbanded, and the warriors would return to their farms. These warriors were typically citizens who were rich enough to afford their own weapons. Only in times of real emergency the rich provided funds to arm the lower classes of society (the poor, serfs, slaves, etc.). Military power meant political power, at least in city-states and tribal societies.
Warriors were usually untrained amateurs. Even Spartans were only professional in comparison: state-serfs worked the land, enabling the Spartan citizens (the elite) to form a leisure class. Their “rigorous training” consisted of dancing, some athletics, chasing hares into traps, and subsequently clubbing those to death.
Mercenaries came typically from areas with a lack of good farmland and thus a population surplus; younger sons would typically leave home to have a chance to make a living as fighters elsewhere (they were the actual “professionals”). However, the priorities of a mercenary were obviously different from those of a citizen: the latter fought to defend their land and family, the former to be able to buy enough food to eat and to avoid getting killed in combat.
Macedon and the late Roman Republic had standing armies; they were the only ones who actually had real soldiers (i.e. men who received a salary in return for military service). Their military training consisted mostly of one thing: marching. The ability to move around armies quicker than their opponents expected enabled the expansive conquests of Macedon and Rome. After some years of active duty, veterans were given emough farmland to support a family and settled down in military colonies.
Summary: citizen-warriors were actually the de facto standard in Antiquity.
Going to war during summertime and the (upper classes of the) farmer population as soldiers would be culture/region-dependant things, that said, mostly true. I think though summer was the prefered wartime due to favorable weather conditions (especially important to supply lines and ancient galley navies which had troubles in rough seas). However, the citizen levy wasn't that big as a percentage. To my knowledge, Athens with an estimated peak population between 300000-500000 people never fielded more than 15000 own troops, and that not speaking of single battles, but war-wide. Perhaps a few thousand more if you add fleet rowers, but still... A majority of the population would keep doing their jobs, unless under threat of immidiate annihilation, usually when trapped in siege defense, so in most cases every worker as a citizen soldier doesn't make sense. Maybe a bit more sensible for tribes and small states that were under grave threat more frequently.
I'd say Spartans were a bit more hardened than that, even if their myth is indeed over the top, especially at periods when the agoge was esteemed. Wrestling, phalanx drills (and encouragement of helot bullying/murders by spartan youth) come to mind, as well as a very basic diet. Likewise, phalanx drills and generally military service/training in peacetime (including catapult shots for every athenian recruit at least during a period) happened for other states.
Not every mercenary would just seek to eat and survive, many would become rather rich, well armored and powerhungry/politically successful. Others seem to have seeked adventures in general, but I agree that in most cases poverty was the main driving factor. More or less like today, but propaganda plays a bigger part now.
Besides Macedon and Rome (btw Alexander's pikemen were able to perform some impressive maneuvers in full kit), most kingdoms would have a kind of professional/standing army. Think seleucid silvershields, persian "immortals" and royal guards in general. Even tribal chief retainers. Elite hoplite units like athenian logades and theban sacred band were probably something similar, even if not in the thousands.
Anyway I'm partly getting careed away, but I largely disagree with your assumption if it is to suggest that citizen soldiers should be the standard in game terms, for historical reasons. Yes they were the majority of combat troops for most states/wars/periods of antiquity, but there were still a rather small percentage of the male population in most cases. Historicaly speaking, most workers in game should just be workers.
In short, this:
"They were probably added for historical accuracy and to differentiate early 0 A.D. from AOK. But even taking historical accuracy into account, not every male citizen, non-citizen (person with reduced rights, such as immigrants) or slave was a soldier in war times. In fact a minority in most cases. The classic RTS way of recruitment can be argued to be equally or more historical, representing the ones who went for training or picking up arms in the barracks as soldiers, while the rest as workers."
3 hours ago, WhiteTreePaladin said:I guess I'm thinking more middle age feudal timeframes then.
Hmm, then a lot of our champion units don't make sense for some civs. Perhaps we should remove most champions and make that an elective (manual) upgrade for an elite citizen soldier. Loosing champions in battle would be a much bigger deal as they couldn't quickly be replaced making a full champion army rather valuable. (You could speed up the process with barracks garrisoning training.) I think champion is a poor name for them currently. It's better than the old "super" units, but still not good. They are supposed to represent professionals - royals guards and seasoned warriors (but not mercenaries). I don't think the currently way we obtain them makes sense, at least not for all of them. I miss the unit class upgrades in AoK (again medieval timeframe). I guess I find the promotion system incomplete. It's not a large enough boost to make ranks worthwhile (especially when champions exist). I wish unit ranking were more useful.
Maybe it would be better to remove it entirely as I don't feel it really adds much currently. Perhaps there's a way to make it more relevant and central to gameplay? As you mentioned, the citizens would return for future battles. Surely those with experience would have a dramatic advantage. Perhaps there's some other way to handle it. Just thinking.
Champions could be reshaped to be unique units with unique functions accordingly to civ, instead of just late game super-buffed-troops universally. Unit class upgrades would be superior to rank-up through combat from a gameplay perspective cause they don't snowball with each kill and provide strategic options (I have some resources to spend, do I need stronger spearmen or swordsmen? Or should I just train more?).
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Format gets messed up while it displays fine in edit mode
Nevermind, acceptably fixed.
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in Balancing Discussions
Posted
We did that almost from the start by going far from the thread's original purpose. I believe though it was an interesting discussion overall with valid points made by both of us and other people.
I don't think I'm missing your overall point, with which I largely agree, I just happen to disagree with much of "your approach" towards it and some of your comments on "my approach". Winning an argument by all means is counter-productive. Winning an argument to propose something useful is fine though. I make such discussions for the shake of personal/mutual/general improvement, though everyone's ego can get in the way to some degree.
Balance at game level is the end goal, but discussing ways to get there is also very useful and interesting to me.