Mythos_Ruler

For Mauryans, I'd go ahead and move the Maiden Archer to fortress and then, if you wanted to keep the Maurya Hero's training ability, make the sword Maiden the one he trains. Though I would point out that the Yoddha melee champion in the Fortress was basically designed to be more of a suicidal mini-siege weapon instead of a standard swordsman (unless his stats have been changed lately).

There isn't a need per se for battalions or formations in order to form a meat shield (though battalions and formations are cool and add depth if done right). Games like Age of Mythology use the meat shield tactic just fine without them. The changes aren't "radical" because they are based on how soldiers in those times were logically used and how a player would expect them to be used, which was a problem with the old counter setup. The previous countering setup was designed way back in Summer 2003 and wasn't essentially updated until now (see: Game's Design Document, which is woefully out of date) and used some logic that was counterintuitive to most players accustomed to these types of games.

Here's the guideline I went off of (though the final stats of what I committed may be a bit "off"). These stats assume that charging will be implemented. Highlights: Skirmish Cav (Javelin Cavalry) are countered quite well by Javelin Infantry (almost every civ has these) and Sword Cavalry (the one civ that doesn't have JavInf has SwordCav). If you've done "2 quick tests" and JavCav seem overpowered, it's because your opponent is unaware of the counter.Both types of Melee Cav are now better counters against ranged units.Spearmen and Pikemen are differentiated by their armor, speed, severity of their CavBonus and attack damage. Spearmen have a heavier base attack and charge, but less armor and smaller bonus against Cav in comparison to Pikemen. Because of their low attack and high bonus vs. Cavalry, Pikemen at first seem like a one-trick pony cav-counter, but because of their high armor functionally they also act as a good meatshield unit. Melee Cavalry are differentiated by their base attack and charge bonuses. SwordCav = higher base attack, but smaller charge bonus. SpearCav are the opposite.Like Melee Cavalry, Spear Infantry and Sword Infantry are differentiated by flip flopping their base attack and charge bonuses.If you don't have a meat shield for your ranged units, you're gonna have a bad time.I didn't do much in regards to Fortress, Civic Center, Defense Tower, Siege Weapon balancing.You can mix and match your balancing ideas with this or discard it altogether. However, I think the counters I have set up make a lot of sense, definitely more sense than the old counters and I didn't do weird things like give Slingers crush attack. In my commit I also fixed some special techs not working (Nisean War Horses, Hellenistic Metropolis, et al.) that no one has seemed to bother fixing.Things could be balanced further by removing ranged cav from Phase 1 and giving every civ a Phase 1 melee cav instead. Or look at ways and unit combos in Phase 1 that keep a simple rock/paper/scissors dynamic (that does not mean give every civ the same starting units, but look at different combos that can work; some civs have historical considerations too, they are important). Sorry about the "surprise" commit, but there needs to be discussion about multiple ways to balance, not just one "balance branch" with 3 or 4 guys playing it intermittently. Also, this game is still in alpha. There are good gameplay items still not implemented. Balancing will become even more fun and challenging for you (and rewarding) once everything that affects combat is in (charging, formations).

Actually the idea was that any citizen-soldier could build the sap point (looks like a shed or mantlet) just like any building (except of course you can build it in enemy territory) and once built, the more infantry units you garrison inside the faster the tunnel was built. No need for a special 'Engineer' unit. The major disagreement was whether the enemy could see the tunnel approaching or not (think, Bugs Bunny tunneling under the ground). Certainly the owning player can see its progress but we never agreed on whether or not the enemy could see it too.

@2:11

It's also my understanding that the changes proposed by alpha123 would make the swordsman and spearman largely identical in Village Phase, differentiating them later in Town and City phases. If this happens (IMHO it's a very good idea), then it would mitigate or outright solve the problem regarding the Romans and Iberians. I didn't have any historical justification for making the swordsman a tier 1 unit for the Iberians. I did it to make them more unique. I knew it would cause balance issues, but I had faith the team could solve them. Now, for the Romans, historically the sworsdman was the first-line and main infantry unit for them. I can't really see any historical justification for making the Triarius (Roman spearman) their tier 1 melee infantry unit, since the Triarius was a highly armored and experienced veteran. But if alpha123's changes are implemented, then the issue would be moot and the Hastatus can remain the tier 1 melee infantry for the Romans with no problem.

Just to add some reason why cav skirms are the current tier 1 cav unit: The reason the Cav Skirm is a tier 1 (village phase) unit is for hunting purposes. Since hunting has largely, but not completely, been fixed for melee units, there is no gameplay reason to keep cav skirms the tier 1 civic center cavalry unit, because melee cav can hunt now too when they couldn't before because of annoying pathfinding issues. The pathfinding issues have been circumvented for now until a more comprehensive solution is found, so In fact, it now makes sense to make the tier 1 "civic center" cav unit a melee cav unit. This creates a simple paper rock scissors dynamic in village phase (melee cav >ranged infantry> melee infantry), allowing things to get more complicated in town phase (tier 2, unlocked at the barracks) with ranged cav and all the other additional unit types. So, in conclusion, I would go with incog's simplest solution of moving the cav skirm to tier 2 and a melee cav unit to tier 1. Back to lurking.

Yep, you need both the xml and pmp. The PMP file has all the terrain data.

Lots of animals listed here: http://www.wildfiregames.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=15562

When you talk about tech "trade offs" like greater hitpoints, but longer train time, we call that concept in the game design "self-balancing." In-fact, the concept has been rolling around the project since nearly the beginning. There are a bunch of stats that go well together under this concept. The easiest examples: Health <-> Train Time Cost <-> Attack Armor <-> Speed It was always my idea to have about half of the game's techs reside in such "self-balancing" pairs, while the other half could be standalone techs. Another note: Techs that unlock a feature or ability are way more interesting than techs that merely alter stats. A few abilities that could be "unlocked" off the top of my head: A new formation.Pair: Priests can convert enemy soldiers <-> Priests gain an aura that boosts the attack of nearby soldiers.Batch training. Unlock batch training of units in Town Phase. Unlock batch training of siege weapons and ships in the City Phase.The ability to train Champions at the barracks (already implemented).Train women from houses (already implemented).Shared allied vision in Town Phase.Ramming for warships.

The point of a rush is to win quickly. If you've gone for a rush and it stalls, I think you deserve to get penalized for it. But when we talk about econ upgrades, we allow for the player to "change his mind" so to speak in the example of stone vs. metal because there are (intentionally) multiple layers of these techs to choose from. So, if you go for the stone upgrade in Village but your slinger rush fails, then you can get the two subsequent metal upgrades in Town and City to compensate and transition to your new strategy.

I think this is supposition on his part. There is still much debate.

You would need to come up with a hero to replace Variato for the generic Iberians.

Well, I did say skip it.