wowgetoffyourcellphone

Think about it this way. Every feature we add to the combat takes more APM. So, if we want ramming and ranged attack switching, you're looking at reducing the number of ships you're going to want to micro. At least with ramming, it could be semi-automatic (once the ability recharges, the ship's unitAI could wait X number of seconds before self-initiating a ram, a rather simple thing to do; the player can always override and initiate the ram manually or manually task the ship to something else). With ships weapon switching, can there be any semi-automation there? I take it, each attack type should have its own unique benefits and drawbacks, but can the unitAI self-determine which attack to use based on the benefits and drawbacks? Do you need additional manual input from the player?

I agree.

I thought at one point they did? (a small visual that would otherwise be inconsequential, just big enough to be selected and see its progress/health). Position of the units.

I honestly think this would go hand-in-hand with a charging and running feature for land units. Same concept, just extended to ships. So, if someone were to want to add charging to soldiers, they could easily add it to ships at the same time with little essential difference between the 2, unless we wanted to add some kind of cool-down time between ram attacks (which we might want to add to soldier charging anyway too).

Yeah, that's where a ramming feature (essentially the same as a charging feature for land units) would be nice. I think originally, arrows were supposed to kill the enemy ship's crew, while the ram or siege projectiles would kill the ship.

My suggestions: Simplify warships with an upgrade progression. Light -> Medium -> Heavy. Add a bolt shooter to Medium ships, add a Catapult to Heavy ships (Light ships shoot arrows).

I need ideas for these guys so I can finish the heroes for A25. I could scour Wikiwand, but I think you guys might have better ideas!

Meh

Meh

Basically any historical game with pikemen turns them into meat shields. This is to mimic their real-world combat role as meat shields. Meat shields.

Dangit

Indeed. Now units all smoosh together like R2TW 1.0 before it was patched, so that the pikes' "range" benefit means nothing (except possibly they get the first stab in on the enemy in a scrum, but since part of their attack is pierce, even this "benefit" is reduced).

I think it would be worth it to make camel units different from horse units, but only maybe in 1 or 2 stats. No need to get super granular with it.

Good catch. This is probably the answer.

There's nothing wrong with discussing the issue.

I think base game should just go the AOE route and skip all the notions of realistic size, movement, garrisoning siege engines on deck, etc. Just have an upgrade progression (like in AOE). Light Warship -> Medium Warship -> Heavy Warship, and size the ships down a little for better pathfinding. The only "cool" feature I'd maybe implement is ramming, since it's just an extension of charging, a feature we all want for soldiers anyway. But other than that, just stick to the AOE formula for ships, because anything else (besides ramming) will be too complicated to get right, unless someone comes swooping in and wants to put 100 hours into it. Better to make them playable than to spend time and capital on making them half-realistic.

@Stan` @wraitii @Freagarach @Angen Is it possible to make this happen? Screenshots capturing the pointer (perhaps as a config option)?

I don't think there was any "realism" argument originally, just to make the merchant ship a little more useful.

AFAIK any treasure can be collected by merchant ships and land units as long as they are reachable

To me, Aurelian feels a lot like a Principate emperor because of how much he promoted the pagan Sol Invictus cult. Aurelian's imperial army also still largely functioned as it did during the era of the 5 Good Emperors. I understand where you're coming from (the Crisis of the 3rd Century would generally feel like a good dividing line), but I'd prefer to depict the Dominate Romans starting at Constantine I and his founding of Nova Roma and promotion of the Christ cult. With the rise of Constantine, things really start to feel different. Things start heading down the road toward Belisarius and Justinian. Definitely possible as campaign or Atlas units. lol

Agreed. It's like if we made a game about modern warfare and folks insisted the Saudi faction include female soldiers. Just an example. There are ways to include women in the game. The two-gender citizens patch is a good way. Most Athenian citizen women, for example, would have been cloistered inside, but there were likely plenty of lower class and metic women who had to tend the family shop or do some farm work, not to mention the pornoi (prostitutes) and hetaerae (companions), who were out and about. And then there were festival days when women of all classes could leave home and participate. So, as an abstraction, having a mix of female and male citizens can make sense. Mixing in female variants into the soldiery, there isn't much justification there. Though, we don't have to completely dismiss any female representation in the ranks, as there are a handful of extraordinary examples we can include in the game, especially in campaigns. And then there are a couple possible factions, such as Scythians and Xiongnu, where we can justify some significant female presence on the battlefield (or at least in some supportive roles).

Could there have been black Roman soldiers? Yes, but they would have been rare. Would it make sense to include a super rare black legionnaire or auxiliary variant? Yeah, it could make sense. It would be a nice little detail. It just takes someone with motivation to add such a variant (texture, actor work). Is it a bad thing that they have not yet been included? No. You can't expect an historical game to include every outlier imaginable.