LordGood

I would defer cavalry stables to phase 2, but I don't want different civs to have different paths to the same units. That's what makes balancing hell. The effectiveness and availability of different options once all the prerequisites are met are what are going to set these civs apart. In that spirit, it may be wise to add champion buildings. I never liked how certain civs got he ability to train champions from their barracks. Should that champion building stay the fortress? maybe. who knows. this could also indirectly buff mercenaries if we decide not to have them follow these prereqs, have a civ spend a lot more money for the full experienced sleeve of troop types I would like for stables and archery ranges to be prerequisites for ranged and cavalry champions respectively though. Requiring both a stable and range for ranged cavalry should put a good dent in the current camel-cavalry archer rush epidemic we have here now. This opens up a lot of options, I will do my best to capitalize on them as I move along, but I'm going to do so from a level playing field. That means making sure everyone has everything. phase 2 champions seemed a bit messy to me, I think the stoa and town champions were added to counteract the earlier prevailing naked fanatic rushes, but i dont know

iirc all civs have at least one unit in each category to warrant all 3 buildings, to not need to build one would throw off balance without another check. If a spartan player wants to build a stable and range just for cavalry skirms power to him lol

@fatherbushido Word of warning: range, stables, and workshop parent templates are all parented to the barracks template. Once all the art assets are finished, and the cavalry and archers are removed from the barracks parent template, things will look a bit more normal.

I'm not sure its the cloth, we've worked with more limited palettes than this. It feels a bit empty, the problem with markets is making them look 'lived in'. First fix that comes to mind are carts with goods in them. I would second wow's request for some 'iberian banners' as well, perhaps draped in between stalls? I dunno, use your judgement. it does feel a bit like 5 stall props dropped around a fountain as is

did you want me to make entity templates for them or did you have something planned? I know i don't usually optimize them as well as i could

empires ascendant cuts off at 1 AD with a little wiggle room, its a roman vaulted theater no doubt about it. It'll be a good atlas object when i get around to replacing it but like I said I'm in no rush to do so

have fun, kids

That information was out before I even uploaded the screenshots of the theater in this very thread. I know. I'm not in any rush to fix it either, but it's on the todo list.

i did really like those targets, and yes we'll be following your shape stan, maybe a little more squat in future iterations and with the tower being more of an option than a distinguishing feature I can get behind that, Iberians are sorely lacking in playercolor options aside from the banners and vases

of course, why didnt I think of that I dont have to defend my base if my base is their base

Their help tooltip had an excuse for tower upgrades being researched at the granary, something along the lines of 'with the onset of farming, villages needed ways of protecting their now stored food from their greedy or desperate hunter-gatherer neighbors, fortifications were erected to ward off these attackers and allowed sedentary lifestyle to thrive blah blah blah' whatever hey, its good enough for me. also towers don't cost pop because they free up your armies to attack. I know you remember that land grab mission, dont pretend you didnt build towers, cheeky, its hell without them

well shoot, i dunno lion, you try shooting a raiding horseman at full gallop from a tower with nowhere to practice. lol i have a hard enough time when my targets don't move. these tower archers are PROS

I guess there are also technically theoretical 'archers' in the towers. ooh that's something, imagine if the archery range was a village phase prereq for towers and fortresses?

hm, thats right, I guess mirroring the 'lego' proposal on its x and keep the tower to the corner like you have would show off the targets more readily.

Those are the basic shapes I would like for the stables, siege workshop and archery range to follow respectively. If all of the buildings of similar function are of a similar shape, then (especially once freshly implemented) players will be able to recognize the buildings between civs at a distance, without the need to zoom in and look at the props, like how the 0 AD barracks follow the AoK format, and are easily recognizable as a result. normally this wouldn't be much of a problem, but we're going to be adding a lot of 'military training buildings' and things could get confusing very quickly for a new player. Making these variations easily recognizable at any distance is a must now.

I do want to emphasize how nice this looks, the TLC shows. You have a knack for celtic/iberian architectural embellishment

noooo that looks way more suitable for a spartan wonder. caryatids? gah someone should have told them that doric columns dont have bases, and I'm left wondering if that superstructure is wooden thats an interesting mix of things, could be fun to model just for the hell of it. Your researching skills again exceed my expectations lol

I was afraid it would look too fortressy from the back, but it doesn't look so bad, has that nice strong Iberian look to it, and the open face horseshoe shape which is what I'm looking for with the archery ranges Red is required building/wall yellow is for architectural embellishment/additions. I think the range shape is unique enough, stables have the persian precedent and can hold its own fairly easily, but I'm having second thoughts about the siege workshop layout. it could easily fall into both the barracks and blacksmith layouts. The emphasis on the 'garage' is going to be what saves it most of the time, though i could push the garage into the left corner and have a strip of workshops along the back and right side and it would be able to hold its own through outline alone thoughts?

ha, nice! I was moving away from the AoE2 tower+range combo, and more back towards the AoE1 sprawling range (better view of targets and shooting stalls). As far as functionality goes this looks great. Perhaps make the tower look less like the Defense tower so the purpose of the building isn't muddied. I'll publish some 'recongnition shapes' for each of the new buildings so they remain recognizable at a distance between civs, if you'd like to continue helping with these, of course. I'm not happy entirely with the shape of the spartan buildings either so ill be prompt with that. good work, back view next time too!

lol this discussion doesn't take away that the sanctuary had a temenos wall around both temples. It's purpose here is making a smaller archaic temple fill out the wonder footprint

@wowgetoffyourcellphone Rooftiles are all grainy and still has this odd split. the 3D-ness is restored, though

It's bird poop, don't worry about it. I'm not sure what causes this rebellious parallax, I had a similar problem with the Iberian rooftiles. Might be solved by splitting the faces entirely, or else that would exacerbate the problem. Part of the reason why I quieted the parallax maps in the first place

its more of a terrain-hugging 'acropolis' temenos that jaggedly follows elevation contours, i find the shape to be much more visually interesting than a rectangular one. Unfortunately i couldnt find much on the sanctuary before the Romans, so i gleaned what I could from the archeological plan and injected a fair amount of 'artistic BS'

Kinda small wonder, the temenos fills out the footprint nicely. also pedestal is for a statue i haven't made yet or something blah bla bla bla cypresses are neat once again, the dock is last

thaaats age of empires for you. I like the upgrade systems in the original, armor/attack upgrades in the storehouse, tower upgrades in the granary. Makes about as much sense as tower upgrades being researched in the tower. slow gather rates really emphasize the importance of cost effective engagements. Age of empires felt tight because of how easy it was to keep track of everything, and how imperative it was to do so