tau

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.

Yes this is what i meant, but it wasn't obvious for me initially that you suggest a tech to be a prerequisite for cav, not a corral itself. Its cost/research time can make the difference.

Weren't you playing at sandbox difficulty?

Well, since there is no such thing as dismounting, we can 'imagine' that a dude got off from his horse and kills chicken, but then he shouldn't have the same bonus for hunting which cavalry has. And in general, cavalry shouldn't have hunting bonus much bigger than infantry, since cavalry already has natural advantage in hunting due to their speed and capacity. Afaiu this bonus should reflect their 'skill': men are better in mining, women are better in farming, but why cav hunting skill is 5 times better than inf hunting skill - no idea.

Just a remark, this feature was one of the main reasons which inspired me to download this game about a year ago. This is both realistic and interesting. And i tend to believe that 'defined roles' in other games can be induced by complicatedness of implementation of switching roles, not only design decisions.

I'm afraid that a corral built will, on the contrary, encourage cav spamming (unless Plumo's suggestion will be implemented). Anyway, are you sure that the early cav problem still exists? I anticipate that with the next version players just won't train so many cav after they discover that cav has become effectively countered with ranged inf.

For the time being you could use dot hotkey for idle workers and slash hotkey for idle warriors. Imo, even more convinient than a button. http://trac.wildfiregames.com/wiki/HotKeys

Are you talking here about Maiden Guard Archers trainable by Mayurian Hero Elephant? Is your suggestion to make them trainable from fortresses instead Maiden Guards? Afaik they are considered mercenaries (Nubian), thus faster training time and higher cost.

About CC buildable by heroes: i think this concept should be reconsidered. From my a16 experience, virtually noone bothers to train a hero to build a CC. People either don't know about this feature or happy with colonies protected by fortresses (and i suspect the latter is true). Maybe a CC should be simply available in city phase or not available at all. Or maybe players will be more willing to build a CC if fortresses will become weaker (iirc there were plans to do so).

A Russian player here. I believe that this branch, if existed, would be dead, since this forum is not that active and amount of Russian players is small indeed. However, if i saw a question asked in both languages and i could help, i would. Maybe just try to ask your questions?

Really surprised to see someone advocating such bug. However, i see no point to discuss if it is more or less of a problem than a formation stuck; i just hope that this bug is easier to fix than pathfinder and it will be fixed before the release.

While the 'no-formation group' bug* still exists, this is trading one prob for another *some units in a selected group can ignore a move order

Some suggestions: 1) Cancel fortesses and towers number limit Never knew why the number of fortresses is limited to 10 and can't think of a good explanation. Maybe it is time to reconsider? 2) Autopause when a player leaves an MP game (as an option) When a player suddenly leaves a game, a common courtesy is to pause and wait for him for a while. Would be nice to have an option for autopause if a player left not through menu but because of a crash or connection issue. Should be unpausable from menu. 3) Do not allow warships/heavy wasrships in shallow waters Military ships in oases are a joke. If there is a way to know max depth of waters in a basin where a dock is, would be nice to disable warships/heavy warships building for depths less than some value. 4) Giving a rotary mill a functionality of a farmstead (so that workers can drop resources there) 5) Changing alert bell functionality Now, increasing the alert level is mostly useless option: normally, after an initial alert a CC and towers garrisoned with women, and this is pointless to hide citizen soldiers in houses, better to make them fight. I would suggest at least not let women to hide in towers on alert (or maybe give houses a priority to towers), so that after an alert level increase ranged inf could get there. Another idea is to replace an alert level increase feature with an independent alert for ranged troops, calling them to garrison in CC/towers/forts. 6) Remove player number tips from the map sizes control (eg make it just "Small" instead of "Small (2 players)" ) What we have now, leads to stereotypical thinking. In practice, an 'open' Medium map can be just perfect for 4 players game. This also depends on a game type: if you play 2v2 or 3v3 on a large map, this is ok; if you play all-vs-all, this can just become boring when only two stay alive. 7) "Shared" pop cap for locked teams, as an option A bit crazy, but... In 2v2, after one of the enemies is killed, it is normally won, not because it becomes 2v1, but because it eventually becomes "600v300". What if pop cap could be set per team, depending on initial number of players? 8) Disable teamchat for defeated players, so that they couldn't secretly give hints to their teammates, seeing a revealed map 9) Make foundations of health 1 (placed, but not being constructed yet) not visible to enemies

To bring a really valuable input to the discussion, one needs to try out the changes. Where can Mythos' balance branch be obtained now? And is any further balancing work in this branch planned? I'd say '3-4 guys playing intermittently' is an understatement for scythe' balance branch. And for sure, more people played sbb than svn since when sbb was created. However, groups playing together have some gameplay preferences so that some changes probably don't get enough attention. Does anyone have an idea how to find more players who are motivated to play both branches actively and give feedback? Also concerned that currently there is no easy way to follow balancing discussions. Some balancing topics being discussed on irc/at sbb lobby/etc stay not covered in this thread. At first sight, many changes from both branches really seem to be compatible. But one of the major questions is if the counter system should be removed or kept and refined. Would be interesting to read opinions on this.

I meant that this wasn't done to slower gathering in the early game. In short, no, and i have no clue what in my post could give you this impression. If speaking about researching, i see that the balance branch aims to force players to choose some tech strategies instead of researching all techs (that usually happens in a16) and consider this a good initiative. However, 'researching everything' is still possible in the branch, though has become harder. (I am aware that this is not the final version of techs and other techs are to be added.) For example, I continue to research many gathering techs: 1) because I can, 2) because they make a really huge difference, 3) because alternatives (trading or merchandising) are more micro and less fun. As a result, on many of the maps I can have lots of resources and it starts to feel like a deathmatch. This is why I suggested to decrease the coefficients. As for training/building everything, I am a little bit lost how to comment on this, I don't have such desires And which exactly change is supposed to prevent a player from this?

Hi all, i played the balancing branch quite a lot since the first balancing changes were made there and would like to summarize my impressions below. Slingers getting crush damage Very interesting change, that makes slingers more different from skirmishers, especially considering that hard counters were removed. With crush attack of 3 they were definitely op, not sure about 2; but anyway interesting. Women train time change I personally appreciate this return to a15 training time very much, as being both logical and more balanced. Farms easily destructable with melee attack only Happy to see this. Logical, and, all food eco cannot be easily destroyed with one unit type anymore. Skirm cav params decrease Was the most expected change that should have resolved the cav rush issue from a16. Afair, there was no cav rush prob in a15, they appeared after cav stats change. However, with some cav rush skills gained in a16, it was still possible to effectively cav rush in the balance branch or svn. But I think that in combination with other changes, like farms armor change, this stats change should resolve the cav prob. No formations I personally use formations very rarely but pretty sure many other players will be frustrated over this. Can't believe that this will stay this way for a17. And very curious why formations were removed. There are already various legends and rumours, would like to know what is true Techs unlocking Like the idea of unlocking itself, but the coefficients imo should be lowered. From my experience of playing after techs unlocking, I can say that there's still a desire to 'research everything'. When some resource tech is not researched, I start to have a real lack of this resource. And researching a tech seems to be a better solution than using a market. On the other hand, later in game, especially on maps rich with resources, a game feels like a deathmatch. Also would like to share a concern about farm tech available in age I. At first I was excited about it, but now I see that this makes the game less 'beautiful' from the historical point of view. Now there's no more reason to start with gathering fruits before building farms, the choice between bushes and farms depends only on a map. Melee units cost F/W/M No definite opinion on this yet. It became more realistic but not sure if more interesting. Again, players will have to use markets more. And less chances to predict which units an enemy will train, knowing which resources he has. Don't know if this is 'good' or 'bad', just different. CCs have better defence I guess this change was made because in a16, after fortresses had become stronger, in lategame this is np to destroy a cc when you have enough power to destroy a fortress. However in age I - I personally never aim to destroy a CC in age I, but spectated your games - CCs seems to be a bit too strong. I'd suggest CC stats to increase with phasing to balance this. Rams attacking units Had a concern that this makes rams op but after some testing I see this doesn't. However rams attacking units look weird and unrealistic. Heard that this is some kind of 'placeholder until pathfinder is fixed' (?). I hope it is; don't see this change as 'appropriate' for an alpha release. Walkspeed change Scared to touch this sensitive topic and won't go deep into it Generally, speed is a matter of taste. I don't see a constructive way to argue which speed is ok, fast or slow. I would like to point out that I understand the difference between walkspeed and overall speed, however, walkspeed influences gathering speed, so the game becomes generally faster, except construction speed. Together with eco techs changes requiring more actions in less time, this results in less controllable eco. Perhaps this is more realistic (but maybe less realistic). Anyway, when you are used to more controllable eco, this feels annoying. Again, I consider pointless to bring any logical arguments when it is about a matter of taste. Personally I prefer a16 to the balance branch despite all a16 issues, after the speed changes were made. I admit that sometimes I experience a prob with units slow movement and that first seconds of a game can be sort of empty. However I wouldn't like a solution for the slow movement prob to affect the game in so many ways. I would first think in the direction of implementing a run command, which is being discussed again in the Suggestions thread, so that it would increase speed only for selected group, only when a player wants it, without side-effects on eco. Gathering capacity change Played one game after this change. Together with walkspeed adjustment, this decreases the walkspeed change effect on eco in the very beginning of a game. Resources amount increases not only slower, but smoother Though obviously, this is not why this change was made, but to encourage a player to research wheelbarrow techs. Probably interesting, but together with other changes, one more thing to do in less time. Heard also that this change aims to prevent 'cav-based eco'. If so, then the suggestion to increase cav costs (which I disliked as a possible solution for cav rush prob) seems to be more elegant. In general, I like most of the military changes in the branch, though expected them to be more 'localized', aiming at specific a16 issues. Now it is more rebalancing than balancing. And I don't understand why to change eco. Eco was balanced imo, now have a fear that it will become worse.

There is already a dicsussion about victory conditions: http://www.wildfiregames.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=18570 Perhaps these topics should be combined.

Found out that in A16 Gallic Tavern cannot be used for the purpose of phasing from II to III unlike other special buildings. De facto it is a special building (and a Town phase building after all). But technically it is not because it has template_structure_civic_house as a parent instead of template_structure_special. I would suggest changing this but then taverns become useless structures until age III since women cannot be trained there. However training women requires the Fertility Festival tech which i personally do not research every time and when i do i use houses. Training women in a tavern looks to me a bit questionable Anyway, a tavern can be built in age II but remains almost useless until III. Maybe consider making Tavern a special building and training women or some other units there without researching a tech (and probably increasing taverns' cost)? On the other hand, 7(?) of 13 civs don't have a Town phase special structure at all and in A15 such structures didn't count for phasing to III. However this was a bit misleading since the hint says you need 4 Town phase structures.

I would like to write here about what i think is the root cause of the walls issue (in game itself). I believe this is not walls being unbalanced but the lag. So rebalancing walls depends on how soon the lag will be fixed. Why lag is the root cause? I believe this is the only reason why people generally don't play unlimited pop games. From my experience, the smaller pop cap is, the longer time a game takes. Often at some point you clearly see who will win but it takes additional 10-20-30 minutes because of walls and such things. With pop cap you can control 90% of a map, have lots of resources but you are still with max 300 units at your enemy's gates with his 300 behind. And the smaller pop cap is, the less territory you need to reach it. Then there is that 10 fortresses limit (which i believe has nothing to do with lag but maybe it does?). It works in the same way as pop cap: one player has 10 fortresses on a small piece of land and another has to manage large territory with the same number of fortresses. As for CCC i haven't made up my mind yet on this thing. There are too many ifs and stuff. Sometimes i want a quick fun game, sometimes a no-rules-at-all game. I think if i want a quick fun game i will ask players to agree on that if you feel like losing and no hope then don't prolong the game by walling and other methods but resign.

Today i tried to reproduce the bug on small/tiny Continent maps and it was being reproduced quite well even with one trade ship. And a batch of 10 ships got stuck at the origin market and never moved. Attaching files for a one ship case (or should i post it on Trac?) The state of the ship was APPROACHINGFIRSTMARKET. trade_ships.zip

I see this sometimes too. Trade ships do their job for a while then they just stop. I believe this happens when there is too many ships having one dock as an origin\destination market (or there are other ships near that dock). If you have few ships trading normally works fine.

Same; maybe Standground should be a default option?

At least it would be nice to have an option to check the settings while in game.

I guess this wall is intended to protect existing ships and a dock itself from attacks from the sea. Maybe it could be implemented as an upgrade for a dock\shipyard with standard sizes and position and be built by units from the shoreline just like docks are built. Though yesterday i played Iberians vs Carthaginians on a naval map and in this situation i would wish they wouldn't have walled docks The Carthage player built walls around his island exactly on the shoreline. It was nearly impossible to destroy them with Iberian navy and the only reasonable way to get on his land was through the dock.

Well maybe slow construction actually balances this.