wowgetoffyourcellphone

I'm not even sure that guy has ever played RTS game before... lol

Indeed. Happens with many large footprints, actually. See: Warships along the shoreline. Very ugly, not exclusive to DE. About the aura graphics, @Enrique has offered to create nice custom aura graphics for each culture if only the feature was there.

This is because the game uses the <Footprint> for ungarrison and training exit position. In DE, I use the footprint to add the Temple healing aura graphics--it's currently the only way to achieve what I wanted. Unfortunately,they are not fully compatible.

Throw away the current implementation. What I'm talking about is a different implementation.

@Lion.Kanzen, in my design, the Citizens are your militia, who are called to arms with a town bell at the civic center, storehouse, and farmstead. They have a muster time --reduced via techs-- and then they can fight back against attackers or raiders.

Another possible solution would be to remove the "no resources" option in game setup, only allow it for scenarios. I know people don't like to remove options, but think of it as streamlining. How many players really play matches with zero starting resource? I'd wager only 1 out of every 1000 match, if that. One thing i will admit is that this is a pretty big change to get used to at first. When I played a test match I totally forgot about my changes and wondered why my shuttlers were bypassing the civic center to drop their wares. lol It does take a change to the thinking of what your Civic Center's abilities are. You can't rely on the CC to be the dropsite anymore. But after that first match I was fine. Also, even in that match, once resources were cleared from the area around my CC and I had built farther out, the issue was resolved automatically.

That's what I was thinking too. We can come up with ways to make Polar Sea or any other map or gametype work with any new paradigm we come up with. It's all good, as my mother says.

It's true. I like how the Persians have a barracks and stable, while the Spartans have a barracks and military mess hall, and further the Romans only have a barracks. Maybe just have a basic rule than any civ with more than 2 cavalry types is to receive a stable building. I can't imagine forcing a stable building into the Spartan civ building roster. Side note: About AOM, I never understood the Barracks and Counter-Barracks for the Atlanteans. Why would you ever train any barracks units when your Counter-Barracks units hard counter everything? Especially if you're a good twitch gamer, microer, just always train the hard counter units. But I was never a fan of the Atlanteans. Zeus4lyfe.

, I meant player.xml.

I just remembered I don't need to use a tech hack, can just use player.js.

Indeed, a Stables/Barracks split could be possible. I might throw it in there. For your last point. I think maybe battalion formations could get more organized as the units promote to new ranks. Basic level troops their lines would be kind off messy, while Elite and Champion battalions would have laser-straight lines and files.

In my gameplay proposal thread, I proposed that you can build slaves from dropsites. They're econ units only. I could see the possibility for a strategy in a nomad match where the player miiiight want to build a few storehouses and farmstead first, before their starting CC and gather some more resources before they found their city and announce to the enemy where they are. Dunno.

I can do this right now with a hack. Field template <RequiredTechnology> would be something like "Unlock_Farms", which is an auto-research tech with prerequisite of a Farmstead class object. Then with Player.js, make it so for every 1 farmstead, up to 8 fields are unlocked. The first bit is a hack, the last bit isn't. The non-hacky way would be to code the game to allow templates to have a RequiredClass or a generic Requirements element, with different requirements possible within that element. Right now, the only requirement possible in the templates is RequiredTechnology. It's not a super ugly hack, really, and may be the preferred way to do it for all I know. Anyway, we can combine all of these things, really, since they all make sense separately and together.

Only skirmish maps for now. Easier for me, plus the skirmish maps can be made to exacting standards that maximize the gameplay changes I have made. Just way easier to test things with skirm maps.

I already synced the CC/dropsite change to git.

I hate hate hate hate committees. It's the reason I do not offer to work for or with the wfg team. IMHO, I don't care what analogues the Civic Center has with Age of Empires buildings. We are way beyond Age of Empire here. I want to make clear distinctions for buildings and units. It's why I want to alter the citizen-soldier concept. It's why I want to remove soldiers from the Civic Center and refocus them onto the Barracks and Merc Camps. It's a big reason I want to split the Civic Center from the Dropsites. In a zero resources at start match, first 2 dropsites can be free or something. Place them wisely.

That is for "Lookouts" on ships, cost food and increases ship vision range. Could also be used for a scouting tech. It's taken from the box art of AOE1. "Cloaca Maxima" could maybe look like this:

You addressed zero of my points.

Hi. Let's remove dropsite ability from the Civic Center. Why would I propose this? Forces building storehouses and farmsteads from the start of a typical match, introducing the concept early. Refocuses the Civic Center on its primary purposes: training citizens, upgrading your settlement, and claiming territory. The player places new Civic Centers for optimal territorial claim, rather than as a forward dropsite which more often than not is not an optimal territorial claim. It's a soft encouragement to place farms around the farmstead instead of around the Civic Center. I can get rid of the "Civic Spaces" farming penalty. I know that there's also the defensive benefit to placing around the Civic Center, but it's a step in the right direction here.

Yes, need ones like these: I recently made these one from scratch for "Two-Man Saw" and "Bow Saw":

Not bad ideas guys. 1. I think real logistics might be going too far, unless we metagame it a bit like Rise of Nations did. Or, there is attrition while in enemy territory, that can be alleviated by building Supply Depots that cost Food, which have an aura that prevents attrition. I don't officially propose this, just throwing the idea out there. 2. I like the idea that the village phase civic center looks really primitive. It should look primitive, since this is the very first founding of the city. 3. I am like your idea @Bazar about 2 different settlement or civic center types. This mirrors a lot what @DarcReaver has been saying and I was resisting, but you kind of put it in a way that made it click with me. Maybe it's possible for the player found different kinds of settlements, like trading posts and farming villages. They're essentially just like a city settlement, but can't advance beyond town phase and is prevented from building things like barracks and stone walls within their provinces, while a city settlement is a full settlement with all buildings available and phase advancement up to and including Capital Phase. What do other people think of this development? Is it too limiting? I could see unlocking these "econ settlements" in phase 1 or phase 2, then unlocking "city settlements" in phase 2 or 3. And capturing these different provinces inherently gives different outcomes or benefits, while losing them strikes different blows to your civilization. It hurts to lose them, but each in their own way, just like it's a boost to capture them, each in their own way. ----------------------------------- I'll sum up my proposal for units here, really quick. Slave - pure econ, very slowly dies when gathering, maybe heals when idle with a tech; perhaps has male and female versions with slightly different roles; see Delenda Est civ Principate Romans. Citizen - who can muster into militia when called via a town bell at Civic Center and at dropsites; has aura that boosts slave gathering, aka "Slave Masters"; who is the primary builder unit. Citizen-Solders - these are your cheap barracks military units that you use to mass for attacks or defense, who also boost slave gathering rates because they are citizens with the "Slave Masters" aura; who can build military buildings, but do not gather; who are trained as battalions. Champions - trained in battalions from fortress or special buildings; your professional soldiers; can upgrade each battalion individually with cool units to boost their battalion effectiveness or boost nearby citizen soldier battalions; limited training in some way, either hard limit or some sort of soft limit. Heroes - some, usually fighters like Leonidas or Scipio Africanus, are trained in battalions, while others, like Chanakya or Cleopatra, are trained as singles; number of auras is reduced and/or rebalanced.

I'm going to stick to my proposal of: Slave - pure econ, very slowly dies when gathering, perhaps has male and female versions with slightly different roles Citizen - who can muster into militia when called; has aura that boosts slave gathering, aka "Slave Ownership"; who is the primary builder unit Citizen-Solders - these are your cheap barracks military units that you use to mass for attacks or defense, who also boost slave gathering rates because they are citizens with the "Slave Ownership" aura; who can build military buildings, but do not gather; who are trained as battalions Champions - trained in battalions from fortress or special buildings; your professional soldiers; can upgrade each battalion individually with cool units to boost their battalion effectiveness or boost nearby citizen soldier battalions; limited training in some way, either hard limit or some sort of soft limit. Heroes - some, usually fighters like Leonidas or Scipio Africanus, are trained in battalions, while others, like Chanakya for example, are trained as singles; number of auras is reduced and/or rebalanced.

The current state of the game is dire. This is about changing it.

If we look at poll, look like the status quo is only at 36%, while change is at 64%.