hhyloc

This is indeed a special feature of the Persians, a Sparabara is 10 Wood cheaper, slightly better armor overall than a Hoplite. On the other hand the Hoplite has 20 more hp and stronger IIRC.

Great! Let's see what we'll come up with the unit stats. Balancing is my favorite part when it come to developing a game (I've never made a game though)

Thanks for the post! I've try your strategy and it has worked out real good for me, although admittedly I still struggled to win because I'm a noob player.

Not in Part 1 I guess, but in the future we could have Chinese and Indian as faction and then cattle (water buffaloes, cows) would be available. According to the wiki article, only the Indian used it so the kheddah should be a structure exclusive to Indians only.

Right now most units in every civilizations have very similar stats so we can't really say they're balanced or not. I guess when the game go into beta phase and units have more diversity in stats, only then should we think about the balance between factions.

Good idea! I'd like to suggest that for a tutorial, we should only focus on the first few battles of Cyrus in his revolt against the Median Empire like the battle of Hyrba, battle of the Persian Border. Later battles when Cyrus earn the title "the Great" and the rise to power of the Achaemenid Empire should be saved for the main Persian campaign.

This happened on other maps as well, in my game of Celts vs Hellenes I rush him after 5~6 minutes and constantly attack his base but he only recruit female citizens. After around 15 minutes he repelled my raid with his superior economy and troops trained from those newly constructed bases.

I've notice some units and building don't have a historical name. Some of them: - Celtic Tavern (special structure) and Celtic Fanatic - Italian Allied Swordsman (recruit from the Italian Embassy of the Carthaginian) Do these units and building were actually existed in history or they're just added for gameplay purpose?

I believe new players should at least learn to play one specific faction in the tutorial before moving on to others in different campaign. Let say he learn the Hellenes first, the tutorial will teach him about basic things like "hoplites are the basic infantry of the Hellenes, they have good attack and armor, they can march in the phalanx formation which will give them bonuses blahblahblah..." and he'll get familiar with it. How to train a unit or how to use formation is easy to learn IMHO and could be packed into one scenario, but what about knowing the actual benefit of formations (line formation is good for moving to an enemy base, box formation to protect weaker units inside, phalanx formation good at front but bad at rear and flank and may require support to protect vulnerable flank)? Or knowing how to recruit what units vs enemy units (Infantry Spearman counter Cavalry but countered by Archer)? They can't be taught in one scenario, Hellenes have phalanx formation while Celts don't. Hellenes have Hoplites (spearman) as the basic infantry in civ center but Roman have Hastati (swordman) instead. What I'm trying to say here is that if we want the players to understand the concept of strategic thinking, we should introduce him to one faction only and make sure he understand it, not jumping faction to faction in each scenario and make he confused.

I don't like the idea of different factions for each scenarios, different factions may have very different gameplay and require adequate strategies to play, this is something we shouldn't have in a tutorial campaign - a campaign to teach newbies.

The number of scenarios will probably depend on how long a tutorial would take i.e how much do we want to put into a single scenario and the tutorial in general. Personally I would like the tutorial to teach player some advanced things resource management, how to counter enemy recruits, etc... beside the basics. Scenario 1: The player control a hero and some troops, learn to move, attack, get to know the UI and unit statistics. Scenario 2: The player now get a small base, learn how to gather resource, build, expand territory. Recruit troops to defend against an enemy raid. Scenario 3: The player in charge of a much large army, learn how to move in formation for added bonus (Hoplites would be a prime example for this). Build several siege engines and bring down enemy fortress. Scenario 4: Advanced things?

Judging from the svn version, I think the Roman will be available in Alpha 9 My vote for Imperium

Ninja'd A tutorial in the form of a mini-campaign with 6 - 8 scenarios would be best, I think. We should definitely rip off learn from the William Wallace Learning Campaign in AOE 2, explain everything from basics like marching, attacking, building, gathering, unit statistics to advanced things like formation, rock-scissor-paper system, resource management,...

Err, the name needs to begin with the letter I

My bad, I messed up the Immortals fought for the Achaemenid Empire with those Immortals of Sassanid Empire.

The wait is totally worth it!

A tutorial scenario to teach the basics of game to new players would be nice to have, IMHO.

Those Immortals can mount their horses, right? So they'll have 2 mode: infantry and cavalry?

Awesome! But who are those troops stand between the Kardakes?

The same happened to me, too. qbot sent several female citizens in an early rush to my base, accompanied by some troops.

Merry Christmas!

Hey some new soundtracks! These must be the new WIP soundtracks for Alpha 8

This give me an idea: How about a default team colour for each faction? Maybe purple for Carthaginians, red for Romans and Hellenes, i'm not sure about other factions though. These colours will further depicts the factions in antiquity time period. Of course the players can still change his team colour if he wishes.

Just in case you don't know: If you can't wait for Alpha 8, you can always get the svn version and try it out