serveurix
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Posts posted by serveurix
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Kicking_Bird :
Again, your post is very insightful, and thank you for it, but please don't call the designers lazy : they don't have a lot of resources and do the best they can.
For the "regional sets", factions of the same civs already share some building models (see the three greek factions and the two celt ones).
As for your persian house, like wraitii, I find it a bit too modern, and the round parts around the roof look like inflatable tubes. But if you can make some more historically accurate buildings with the same visibility characteristics, I'll totally go for it
Finally, I would like to add that I share Kicking_Bird impressions on the atmosphere : the game feels dark to me.
It's hard to explain, that's why I didn't tell it earlier : it doesn't *look* dark, it *feels* dark. In other words, it's a bit depressing, despite the lightning and the graphical quality. The reason is hard to identify, at first I thought it was because the fog of war was too dark, or that the lines of sight were too small, but as Kicking_Bird says, the lack of variations in the colors and shapes might be the reason (or one of the reasons) for the dull atmosphere. And I totally support the model variations depending on phase, even though I fear we don't have the manpower for it.
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Agressive but insightful. Contrast is definitely something to take in consideration (there's been other people saying that they had difficulties seeing the units and fauna).
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You forgot the vision range
The vision range of all objects (units and structures) has been increased to match the shooting range, is that right ?
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I've followed the svn commits and I've tried to roughly sum up the balance changes between a17 and a18. Please tell me if I'm wrong or if I missed something important.
A18 balance changes :
Units
- most human units deal more crush damage
- most melee units have a stronger armor and move faster, but their attack has been lowered
- the accuracy of land distant units (human and mechanical) has been reduced a bit, and their shooting rate has been increased
- archers, pedestrian or mounted, have a bigger range, but the damage of all arrows has been reduced
- javalinists, pedestrian or mounted, have a lower range,but their javelins deal more damage
- the minimal range of cavalry javelinists has been removed
- cavalry lancers deal more hack damage
- pikemen attack is slower and weaker, but their defense has been increased
- hard bonuses of pikemen and spearmen have been reactivated and increased : they now have a bonus of x3 against cavalry
- range siege weapons have a better attack, and their shooting range has been reduced
- elephants are stronger against buildings, but more sensitive to arrows
- mercenaries cost more food and less metal
- most of citizen-soldiers need a gigantic amount of experience to level up
- champions are more expensive, stronger and more resistant
- most heroes deal less damage and have a stronger armor
Structures
- seleucid and ptolemaïc colonies now have an attack, a little bit weaker than civ centers'
- palissades can now be built in phase 1
- towers have a bigger range
- most buildings have a better armor
Techs
- "Will to fight" cost has been halved
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Most important performance issue is pathfinding. Has been for a long time, since "January 2013" and before that date. Nothing come close. And Even after January 2013 many gameplay addition happen, so your arbitrary dismissing of my concern is foolish. If performance issue is #1 priority why no fix to pathfinding and why such big focus on poorly balancing the game? Big focus on balancing a game without many of its gameplay features yet committed. Says there is no stomach for adding more feature since are "balancing" game as it is, without new features. Why would you balance a game without its features implemented? No features coming is why. Meanwhile #1 performance priority is unfixed. And alphas are released with no discerned planned feature set.
I don't know which hardware you play on, but the renderer and UI fixes from a14 to a17 were a real improvement for me on the side of general lag. I'm looking forward to the new pathfinder because the lag pikes still remain, but everything's not negative, and the devs are doing a great job.
I agree on the fact that stuff like charging and trampling, delayed damage and spreading, secondary weapons and formation bonuses should be implemented before we can have a proper idea of the different units' strengths and weaknesses in the final state of the game, and balance them accordingly, but right now some people want to be able to play the game in its current state, and they are making the balance changes for it. Why whould you try to stop them ? If they are able to quicky balance the game now, they will be able to do it at every gameplay change, I have no worry about it. And they're not delaying the progress of the game either, not more than modeling new civs is delaying development : balancing the templates and implementing new features into the engine are different kind of jobs.
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Gameplay is most important.
The development team has decided in January 2013, and rightly so, that the most important was solving the performance issues.
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It is a "performance update" because team has stopped adding features.
It's more like the opposite : they didn't add new features because they were all busy improving performance.
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I may be wrong, but as far as I remember, the developers have reached an agreement on a number of 12 for the factions of 0 A.D., and have made a choice of factions, among the most influencial of their time between Gibraltar and the Himalaya. They already require a lot of work, and I suppose adding any more faction would make the game a nightmare to balance.
I don't find the euro-mediterrannean-centric aspect shocking for a historical antiquity-based RTS game, since a lot of very influencial historical events took place in this part of the world. With the Mauryas, I'd say that 0 A.D. is among the less euro-centric RTS games I've seen.
But featuring subsharian african factions in an RTS would certainly be interesting. Rolandixor, why don't you propose a mod for that ?
Also, as me and -I suppose- most people on this forum are not very savvy on subsaharian african history, I suggest you tell us more about civilisations, politics, warfare, important battles and influencial historical events that took place in this part of the world during the 0 A.D. timeframe. This will maybe encourage people to join you and create.
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Not in the options, but this might help you : http://wildfiregames.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=15503&hl=isometric* Oh look options. Do they have Isometric view like Age of Empires II? Guess not
Could you tell us more about your eye problem ? Because it might explain some of the other impressions you had (models that look the same, berries that are hard to spot, etc.).* The game is pretty but I can't see what Im doing or read the text (personal eye problem)
For the hotkeys, see http://trac.wildfiregames.com/wiki/HotKeys or the "Learn to play" item in the main menu of the game.* where is the hotkey to make units. and the hotkey for my town center
The citizen-horsemen can carry meat from animals, but can't perform other economic tasks.* what are all the different units for, why can't the horse guy gather resources like the other guys and why do they all look the same
By click-and-drag or using the "[" "]" keys.* How do I rotate buildings? click menu, click manual
That's the principle of territories, you need to expand them to build further. Build Civ Centers or Colonies outside of your current territory and they will generate a territory around them.* Why can't i put buildings outside my territory? I don't get it.
The minimap alerts could still be improved indeed.* I was attacked message. didn't see where but i finally figured my scout died
The AI is very strong. You can choose a level of difficulty for the AI in Single Player mode to make it easier to beat.* Enemy attacks again, I barely survive, make horses army, it gets killed and he attacks again. finally get bored with my first game and come here to post about it
Have you tried "+/-" ?* No Isometric View, didn't realize I could zoom till I accidentally used the mouse wheel. Not everyone has a mouse wheel
If you move your mouse over the map after selecting a citizen, the cursor changes shape so you can easily notic the elements the units can interact with. But I agree the chickens could have a more noticeable design. There's a plan to change some units' models in future versions, I don't know if chickens are concerned by this.* Wildlife (the chickens next to my tc on the acropolis map) look like specks and I legitimately have trouble noticing them because they're sp small
Note that Alpha 18 should be released soon (in a few weeks probably), you might be interested in testing this one.No comments on strategy aspects of game, that comes after I figure out what I'm doing. thats my test run of Alpha 17, see what I think in a few days and post again
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It's just because i've seen it on the design document : http://trac.wildfiregames.com/wiki/Civ%3A_Britons#CHAMPIONUNITS
Garb:
* Basic - No collar.
* Advanced - Spiked collar.
* Elite - Spiked collar. Body paint.
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Is the collar still supposed to show the rank ? Or has this idea been abandoned ?
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I think forum users, or some category of forum users don't have the permission to see the pictures. When I'm not connected I see the pictures without problem.
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About them being slow, they should be faster than (most?) infantry.
I would intuitively say that elephants should be slower than infantry when walking, but would compete with cavalry when charging. But this is just intuition, we would need some testing to be sure (and the implementation of charging of course
).As for the "damage frenzy" property, this is planned too.
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The thing about elephants seems to be a bit more complicated: their vulnerability to pierce damage makes them not really good against garrisoned buildings. This especially affects Mauryans who have no siege engine. In phase3 you as Mauryans have few chances, if at all, against an equal opponent playing a cata civ.
Right. Elephants should be designed to be used *en masse*. It would be relevant to use one or two rams surrounded by soldiers to protect them/open a way for them until they reach the buildings, but such a tactic wouldn't be efficient with elephants. If you're using elephants you should make a lot of them : as they are vulnerable to arrows, one or two wouldn't be enough to take down a castle, and as they are good enough in combat they wouldn't need to be surrounded by bodyguards. Not mentioning the fact that they are cheaper (both in cost and pop, iirc) than rams, so you are encouraged to recruit packs of them.
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- Elephants are too weak for their cost and only semi-useful vs structures (very weak vs troops).
This is especially true when you compare them to rams. Currently rams are very good in melee combat : they can use their high resistance and attack against living units as efficiently as they do against buildings.
It isn't supposed to be like that. Rams are supposed to be very weak against living units but good against buildings and mechanical units, cavalry is supposed to be good against living units and mechanical units but weak against buildings, and elephants are supposed to be somewhere in the middle : very good against living units and mechanical ones, good against buildings (but not as good in this task as the rams), their only weaknesses being their low walking speed and their vulnerability to pierce damage.
If you can't solve the ram situation with normal statistics, I think it would be relevant to make an exception and give them hard maluses/bonuses.
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How can I launch the Units Demo?
It's in the scenario demo maps.
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AFAIK svn version only needs to cache the textures once, so if you launch the game a second time, the cached textures should take less time to load.
Right after you install a svn version, you can launch the "Units Demo" demo map and wait for a few seconds. This will cache the textures of all units and buildings of the game at once.
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@stanislas69 :
http://trac.wildfiregames.com/wiki/Civ%3A_Britons :
Dogs in Celtic warfare varied in breed and size, but were of key use to Celts, especially in intertribal war. Most famous were the great mastiffs of Britain, eventually adopted by the Romans as a means to replace Molossian hounds and other such animals.
I think there's a document or a post somewhere on the website where Mythos Ruler gives two different breed names for the briton dogs, but I can't find it.
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If it's not going to be used as a wonder, we might as well remove the stone circle and make it walkable.
It would make a great eyecandy in scenario maps
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I've tried to translate some of the related parts of the french Wikipedia. I don't guarantee the translation is 100% correct, since there are a lot of naval technical terms that I didn't even know in french, but I've used all the dictionaries I could find and I think I've done the best I could :Carthage should have a similar tech too. The french Wikipedia mentions that the Marsala punic shipwrecks have revealed that the carthaginians used a technology that allowed them to build warships, including big ones like quinqueremes, at a very fast rate. They already had this technology during the first punic war, which gave them a great advantage against the romans (but the romans were able to keep up because their politicians and upper-class citizen were constantly providing new ships and money for the war effort).
[...] According to the tracking letters painted on the hull pieces, those ships seem to have been built following a standardised process avoiding the long shaping of the gunwale pieces. This assessment would justify the statement made by the historians of Antiquity on the remarkable rapidity of construction of those ships, that wasn't considered very plausible till then. [...]
sources : https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Premi%C3%A8re_guerre_punique#Apports_de_l.E2.80.99arch.C3.A9ologie and https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C3%89paves_puniques_de_Marsala , license is CC by-sa 3.0 I think.[...] The ships of Marsala followed a very elaborated technique. Usually the antique naval shipyards used to set up the hull and the keel in a second phase, after they've made the keel, the sternpost and the gunwale. In Marsala the builders have put the garbords using tenons on the keel, then placed the strake elements of the planking under the waterline, then made the floors, and finally made the gunwale. The construction technique of the gunwale of the Marsala shipwreck is very particular, with a difference between the planks which are under the waterline and those which are above it, whose inferior edge has a bulge whose purpose is to avoid splashing on the deck when the ship sailed at a quick pace.
Every plank of the keel was tagged with alphabetic signs used for the assembly. Punics word have been identified too. The writings appeared on the inner sides of the keel and the hull. Each sign allowed to indicate the position of each piece. The elements of the ships were made by carpenters and given to the shipwrights. They were probably stocked in the warehouse of the port, and the naval shipyards could then work in every season. [...]
Appian signals that during the third punic war, around 147 B.C., despite the roman siege of Carthage, the Carthaginians built several dozens of ships, triremes and quinqueremes. Since the discovery of Marsala, we have no more reasons to doubt this statement. This construction system also allows to understand the story of Polybius which mentions the capture of a punic ship by the romans and its use as a model to build their own fleet. [...]
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For the three other posts :
I won't comment on the stat changes, I'm not an expert on this.
Most of the tech changes you propose are really interesting. I just have a few comments on them :
- Move all cavalry units (besides the starting scout) to the town phase. That's what all major RTS do for fast units, they have them at tier2+. A village wouldn't have a cavalry force anyway. Fits nicely with my stronger and costlier cavalry proposal as well.
I'm not really an expert on history, but It doesn't shock me that a village or a small city is able to use a citizen cavalry. Horses were used a lot more than now, and in a village you could always find men that would be able to ride a horse (I'm mostly thinking about celts when I say this, but this is maybe less true for greek or persians). Of course we're not talking about a heavy organised cavalry force here.
Maybe it would be more realistic to make the light cavalry expensive at phase 1, and less expensive at phase 2, where proper cavalry training could be assimilated to "mass-production".
And maybe this could depend on the faction. Didn't the romans have a cavalry force from the very early times of Rome ?
- Naval Prestige: Tech for Hellenistic factions (Macedon, Seleucid, Egypt) related to constructing big warships faster/cheaper/stronger. Macedon could use a top tier ship. It had a very strong navy including huge ships for a while.
Carthage should have a similar tech too. The french Wikipedia mentions that the Marsala punic shipwrecks have revealed that the carthaginians used a technology that allowed them to build warships, including big ones like quinqueremes, at a very fast rate. They already had this technology during the first punic war, which gave them a great advantage against the romans (but the romans were able to keep up because their politicians and upper-class citizen were constantly providing new ships and money for the war effort).
- God choice: Several linked techs at the temple. Choosing a patron god would provide bonuses linked to the culture their worship would develop and their supposed attributes. Like Poseidon (Ships and Cavalry), Vulcan (Weapons/Armor) upgrades, Demeter (Farming), Melquart (Trade) etc. A number from 3 to anything per temple would work and also be a nice base for a mythology mode.
If this has to be implemented we should be very careful to show that the bonuses are linked to the culture that the people developed, and not to the god itself. Otherwise it would indeed look like a mythology game, which is almost the opposite of the goal of the project.
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- I'm not going to mention unit tooltips needing changes or updating, they were too many to note or notice all of them.
Have you tried to activate the detailed tooltips in the options ? There are still a few things missing, but it's much better than basic tooltips.
- Siege unit cost reduction techs are expensive for their purpose, considering siege units aren't spammable. Stone cost seems a bit out of place as well.
It doesn't shock me that stone throwers cost stone.
- "Sturdy Foundations" should either be cheaper or stronger. Or they could affect forts as well. Towers and Forts could get a population cost (of 1/3), simulating default arrow crews and making you choose between extensive defenses and a bigger mobile army.
I don't agree with this. In the current state, empty towers and forts are not enough to make your city impenetrable, even when upgraded. If you want to make them really strong you need to garrison them/put units on your walls and this forces you to significantly reduce the size of your mobile army.
- Marian Reforms shouldn't be hard to implement. Just a tech that replaces Hastati, Triarii and Extrardinarii with (existing in editor) Marian Legionaries and possibly adds some also existing auxiliaries. More detail later on.
Aren't Marian reforms planned for Part 2 ?
- Same with priests and food. At least give them half metal cost, they shouldn't be a spammable unit.
I agree. Priests should be a bit more expensive : they should be hard to protect and worth fighting for.
- If we want Carthage to be the ultimate naval faction, let's not handicap them by having naval architects only at/for the military dock.
I have proposed in an other post to make the carthage military dock a special building to unlock some techs or bonuses, because it is big and hard to place, and if carthaginians have to build several of them, (along with regular docks for fishing and trade), it gives them more of a disadvantage than an advantage on sea.
(but adding military ships to the regular dock is already a change in the good direction)
I agree with most of the other things you say in this first post, or find them interesting enough to be worth considering.
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In addition, having no formations seems to make the game less laggy (this may or may not be true, but it feels that way
)It's a lot less laggy for most cases, but it's still as laggy as before (or perhaps a bit more) when you try to move a large group of units (over ~90 on my case). There it generates a big spike of lag as the units start moving, and the perf progressively goes back to normal as units move to the target.
I think it is because units are in a unorganised, very tight pack at the beginning, and when you ask them to go somewhere they independently try to find they way out of the crowd, so they constantly try to turn around each other. This is also the reason they don't arrive to the target as a dense pack : they first try to avoid the units in front of them, then move in a direction free of obstacles, then go to the target.
New Release: 0 A.D. Alpha 18 Rhododactylos
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