DarcReaver

I've already been more explicit in the past, and there was no response on issues pointed out that so far. I even went further and tried to get into contact with the balancer devs with no result. The game lacks a fundamental, underlying rule system, techs, and several game mechanics are counter-intuitive. I'm too lazy to repeat myself, just search for my posts in this forum. Without all this the game looks pretty, but apart from that there's no reason to play it at all.

There's no gameplay concept, so, no.

Easiest way to do that would be 2 stances for that. One is used for capturing, the other for attacking. Could be combined with the capture-kill system proposed in the "should women be convertable?" thread.

To be serious. The resource system is a lot of tedious, and partly, repetive micro management, just like it is in Age of Empires. It's a major task to micro your villagers to get the resources you need. Which is fine, as the game economics are sort of fun to manage. If you want an overall more macro/strategy oriented strategy you shouldn't build a game with a detailed resource system, a long lasting, repetitive phase of early resource collection and a single soldier system that is pretty intense on micro as units die very fast. There need to be way more teching options for macro based strategies. You're sort of contradicting the whole basic concept that's in place right now. For more macro you need: - teching paths with way more depth (Infantry upgrades, arhcer upgrades, cav upgrades, resource upgrades, base upgrades etc. pp) - resource collection needs to be less micro intensive (less workers, less micro necessary to collect resources) - hardcounter system soft counters always mean that you can micro your units for a much better effect than with a hard counter concept. Hard counters make unit choices (aka macro) more important than microing the individual army) - more map control options to zone your opponent - more options of securing/harvesting outer resource spots - bigger maps (which partly is ingame, because you can pick the map size) As long as there is possible room for APM below 120 the game isn't fast in any way. Some additional options for tactical micro do not hurt the game at all. Like I said before. If effect of collect slaves outweights the amount of micro necessary to do it that feature is completely fine. Things get complicated once you need to micro for no benefit. edit: Dont get me wrong, I like the approach that is done with the game right now, but like I stated, there need to be some major changes to be done to push the game into another direction. And it's not easy to do that.

Yes, that sysstem would work well enough, and would fit with the capture concept from 0 AD that you want to enforce.

speed belongs to a RTS. Repetition is relative - as long as the result of the process outweights the amount of micro needed to perform it it's fine. I personally would like to automatize this process as much as possible. Means that as long as there are no fighting is going on anymore, soldiers should take the slaves automatically. Maybe, with a stance system, or connecting it with the unit states. E.g. aggressive: kills the soldiers to experience. Defensive: capture them as slaves. Or something like that.

The idea that I had in mind was that ships cost food, wood, population and metal based on the units that are coming with them plus the cost of the ship, and then would serve as combat platforms aswell as transport ships. So the crew can enter/leave the ship, if you loose men in sea battles you can replace them with newly trained soldiers or mix them with other kind of troops, like archers or javelins for example. Training times would be pretty long for them (something like 50% of the time training the army on land would take + time for the ship itself). So getting a ship early on is a really decisive aspect, and with fishing boats being garrisonable you could help defending your sea economy in case of harassment (fishing boats would need to be manned manually though with units trained on land). Players could decide between getting a ship raid going with "real ships" or try to secure their economy with "fisher militias", or come up with a sea force themselves later on. Alternatively, peeps can go ahead and raid the coast like pirates with using those combat ships to get harassment units towards the enemy resource gatherers. And since you cannot have many ships you've got to decide what to do and can't do everything. This makes scouting very important. "does my enemy go for early wood/food to get naval warfare going? is he going for land attacks? are there fishing boats somewhere? Is it worth trying to raid his eco with naval units?" and so on. Question would be if those comabt ships would be trainable in age 1 or 2 though. Maybe there can be a regular military ship in age 1, and age 2 adds customization options (like another infantry type ship, or artillery upgrade options/trainable siege ships and so on). So there would be sea action in age 1, and age 2 would serve as a "real deal" for heavy naval battles opposed to skirmishes. Sort of like the jump from age 2 to 3 on land. edit: this would work similar to common "tech rushes" in other RTS games - you invest your villagers into many different resources to get a technological advantage in form of having a superior unit that can be used in various ways. And if your opponent scouts you he can react to that by raiding you on land to delay the ship or make the plan fail, or or to buy time to get a naval force by himself in time. Makes scouting very rewarding for whoever does it.

Something along that line. Finetuning about how many peeps can join the boat trip could be determined by playtesting.

Exactly, this creates another dynamic for naval combat, and it also lowers the risk tradeoff between "going full naval" and "going full land force" like it is in AoE. If you go full land on island maps you're pretty screwed because your enemy can take the sea without problems - and out econ you. So you're forced to go for the sea every time and hope you can manage your resources well enough to maintain sea control. With ships coming with garrisons you can play out both ways - going full sea is not such a huge risk since you still have soldiers that you can put on the shores. And with the herdable system on land, huntables and such you still can maintain good eco if you're not planning to rule the sea. As ships are very expensive to get and take long to train. The idea of fishing ships being garrisonable was my idea to get early dynamic into the naval warfare early on without having to rely on "real" ships in age 1 - it also fits well with the military citizen system that currently is in place. Promotes early action besides going eco on the sea at start. You can use those ships both ways - as defense and as offense. They shouldn't be able to ram though. But you can go ahead, harass and capture enemy ships this way. It shouldn't be so that you loose all your ships in the blink of an eye against marauding fishermen tho.

Hmm I agree. Food processing should be basic and work out balanced and well enough to not hinder the game flow. However, I really think the players should have more options instead of the pattern "collect berries -> kill some goats -> farm in t1". The herdable concept from AoM really is nice - however, it still was pretty basic and doesn't really affect the game much. My vision would be that players try to compete for huntables, with certain civs being able to hunt better than others (like celts/persians/seleucids for example) while others like Indians, romans and "regular greece" would go for a more farming style with defensive options of having better herdables. The idea of training herdables is pretty neat imo and I think that could be kept for sure. The idea of auto training is nice and the herdables - maybe the concept of either collecting herdables and killing them for food or putting them in the barn for faster herdable training. Like 2 additional goats increase auto producing by 25% each, up to a limit of + 100%. Then you'd need another barn building for more herdables. And you could put your own auto produced herdables in there, too to boom. So players have to make some interesting choices earlygame around their herdables - "Do I have enough basic food to boom some more herdable production power, or do I kill my herdables early to get a food advantage for training more villies?" This also gives more potencial for spending food early on besides booming villagers. There could be some techs included to strengthen these individual points on the civs, giving them a more unique feel - afterall, all civs play out similarly, even way more similar than civs in AoE 2, despite being less diverse in terms of tech trees and stuff. Farming could then come later as an additional food source that works without much micro involved - perfect for maintaining a focus on warfare and expansion for getting the "teching resources". Also, I think it might be worth considering to split metal and gold as a resource. Gold could be a unique resource for the mercenary system that was implemented at some point. Also, while we're at it: there should be some distinction between "aggressive" and "defensive" civs. Aggressive civs should be able to float the map early, being able to hunt and build and resource outside their regular cities, but have defensive weaknesses to a certain point.

Depending on how fast the capturing is done, you could simply leave a few men behind to take the slaves and move your main army to your enemy. Not much efford imo.

Maybe a bit off topic, but I don't want to spam mass topics in this forum. So I post here instead. What about ship warfare? I've read some cool stuff in your wiki about ramming and entering ships in naval combat. I REALLY love that idea - I also loved naval combat in Rome II, which has ramming and entering possibilities, too. If you look at age of empires, naval maps are pretty boring - just spam galleys all day long and hope you have more than your opponent. The idea of ships being real "tactical" weapons with flanking and ramming is just awesome. I'd love to see something like that. As for implementation, I'd love to see no transport ships at all. Instead, all regular ships are spawned with a garrison, but are rather expensive. For example you construct a Trireme, and it comes out armed with like ... idk 20 soldiers. When it's out the Trireme can be used to transport these troops to the shores to raid enemy villages. Additionally, you can later on build/upgrade them with ballistae, catapults and stuff like that (maybe even individually). Little fishing ships can be garrisoned with a few spear infantry units/archers to raid/capture/ram enemy fishing ships early on, creating a very unique dynamic on the sea. As a drawback, most ships would be VERY expensive, take long to train and be rather slow. That way, loosing ships/microing/repairing them becomes very important. That would be something entirely new and very awesome.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OvoeWHV2-D8 Actually, I think RTS engines are not really suited that well for cinematic stuff.. If you compare the link above with this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wb4iul35ZcM You see the difference... most fps engines deliver way more powerful tools for cool and awesome stuff.

That's another option for making a more automatic approach to economy. Both versions are equal in terms of innovation/unique style. The question is if you want to shift more action onto fighting or more onto economic management. Also, one problem may be with auto spawning herdables might be that you'll end up with huge amounts of auto generated goats etc. that are not killed and reduce game performance or create abusive options (spam them to block enemy soldiers and stuff). If you'd do something like that there needs to be a limit of how many herdables spawn.

It depends on the implementation of combat. If units die in the blink of an eye, and huge amounts of slaves occur on top of being able to only capture one at a time I agree that's way too micro intensive. However, you can automate this process. After fights units can capture enemy wounded automatically (just like regular units auto attack and follow enemy units), or you create area abilities that make them collect slaves in the target area (although I'd prefer automating the whole process). The counter would be that your enemy could also "capture" his own wounded soldiers to receive resources back. And while combat is going on, slaves cannot be captured.

While you do have a point - water maps usually contain fish as food source. By reducing farm land on the isles you pretty much force fighting for the sea to maintaining food flow.

Okay.. well, good. Did you consider the building type/size to influence the capturing process? I.e. a Town Center needs to take longer to capture than a regular house. Same with military buildings - fortresses shouldn't be captureable at all. Also, cavalry/fast units/ranged should capture slower than regular infantry - else you're promoting gameplay in which the players just train some knights and play "catch the mouse" around the map capping structures. Even if that would give permanent action, I think it should have drawbacks compared to having "regular" armies - especially considering that you're planning charge/trample damage on cavalry units, which makes those units pretty powerful.

Fields as map control element? Sounds overall interesting, but then you need to make sure that it's possible to create defensive options for your farms. But overall this seems to be a nice idea and gives your militia men a point. Either use women who are defenseless for harvesting fast, or use citizens to have a defense and harvest slower. However, you'd need the option to create defensive positions earlier in neutral territories - like palisades and wooden towers and maybe houses to protect your farmers to a certain degree. This is mostly about being able to keep your economy alive against raids. If the enemy tries to capture your base with a superior force he can do that ofc. I'd say desert maps could be treated just alike. Afterall there is no gameplay influence by weather and terrain on your units. Why should farming & building be affected then?

Fair enough then. But what if you destroy your building yourself before they start capturing?

As a side note for this matter: Act of War (a modern warfare RTS released back in 2005) introduced a unique feature: Prisoners of War. When you fought enemy infantry/vehciels and you destroyed them, there was a chance that the drivers/soldiers survive and can be captured by the winning side for additional money (only resource in the game). They were also imprisoned when you build a medical station, generating cash for your side. This made fights pretty intense, because the winning side got additional funds for killing stuff. There could be something like a "enslave" mechanic for your armies. Either enslave wounded soldiers, or kill them for additional experience on your army or something (like for civs like Sparta, Mace and Celts for example). So you either make your army to elite or you improve your economy. Enslaving could be displayed with a resource multiplier. Like 10 slaves give additional +5% gathering rate on your resources (just an example). And factions that in reality relied on slave armies/soldners could get better training times/lower resource costs for their infantry units instead. Or factions/units that can pillage from the weapons of their enemies. The possibilities are pretty much endless I guess I'm just throwing in this concept as it came into my head.

Actually, while we're talking about "destroying from the inside" - someone considered that people with more than a few brain cells actually will delete their buildings instead of letting them being captured? Just saying.

The funny thing is that the game seems to be meant to be played very fast in the current build (so very arcade style compared to "slow" Age of Empires 2 for example)- you can start off with all types of main units - skirms, pikes/swords and some sort of cavalry. Your units are trained very fast, and resource collection is also pretty fast.Even tho you can train all those units from the start and have this super collection rate on your villagers, this doesn't have much effect on rushing at all. The combination of not being able to expand, having cheap, disposable workers everywhere, having citizens for countering rushes, buildings being so tough simply kills the dynamics. The game plays out incredibly slow because booming is so strong and you can't rush properly because there is no real way to pressure your opponent. If some villies die - who cares? food is unlimited after minute 3 with farms, and a villager is trained in less than 10 secs. Also you have men for defending. On top of that, there is no early map competition or even option for economic spreading with forward bases etc, which also slows down the overall resource progress (mining stone/metal/food in the center of the map). That's most likely why most people get farming economy so fast - I think that shouldn't be available from the start. Unlimited food should be for later ages. The feature of herding animals by yourself is actually a much more unique concept. I love the idea that you can either raise your own goats or go out hunting somewhere in another part of the map - with a higher reward. A very nice tradeoff mechanic. Right now you build some fields after harvesting berries and your food eco is done. Yuck, boooooring. I'd really like to try out the new capture system. But I even with it I think there has to be quite some brainpower invested into the early game to improve the game flow. Edit: don't get me wrong on this matter tho. I mostly refer to rushing because it simply seems to be completely ineffective in this game. I don't have problems with slower paced games - I don't necessarily need PvP action from minute 1. But I still think that someone who dedicates his early economy for warfare should be rewarded if he does it well. Right now it seems like booming is simply superior.

My answers directly in blue as idk how to split quotes in this forum software. I actually don't get why people talk about balance in this game all the time. There can't be a real balance until the core game is finished and set in stone. That's what I've been trying to say with the last posts I've written in here. And unless that is done you cannot finish it as there will be always stuff to change which leads to another overhaul. Idk, but I think people have often the wrong impression what "balance" really is or how it is achieved, and what the requirements for balance are. Also, I really hate how people always come up with realism. Seriously. If someone wants realism go play a war sim game like Rome or some other Total War game, which gets pretty close to realism. RTS is not about realism. It's about interesting gameplay. Choosing a strategy building counter units and countering your opponents strategy and units. Having many strategic options for comebacks and surprising your opponent. About a working counter system. Also, how is having a game with 200-300 intended pop cap realistic in terms of warfare? Ancient larger cities usually had thousands of citizens alone, on top of armies consisting of thousands of men stationed everywhere. Edit: Don't get me wrong, it's good to have realism to a certain amount - it adds up logical points to the game. E.g. Spears being good against cavalry units, or Skirmishers having high damage on their javelins against enemy infantry and stuff like that. Additional features like flanking attacks and so on also create more depth and tactical options ingame. Optical, historical accuracy for buildings and units is also important for the game's atmosphere. And I certainly appreciate stuff like that. What I don't appreciate is what I call "overburdening features" or "unnecessary realism". Game features should be interesting, intuitive, rewarding and overall, most importantly, FUN. If they aren't, they're not worth integrating into the game. And whoever executes his strategies, tactics faster/better and/or surprises his opponent wins. That's RTS. Everything else is not RTS. It's called Real-Time-Strategy for a reason. Time is one of the most important resources in this game type.

Reminds me of Warcraft III cinematic duels. In theory this can be pretty cool, however, you need stuff like lighting effects, explosions to make awesome videos, which this game is lacking - at least from my point of view. For just watching some models this engine is too weak, there are much better alternatives.

*EDITED* Yes, I agree that "balancing" an alpha is useless if the design and core game mechanics are is not set up yet. For an alpha it doesn't matter much if Archers deal 5 or 10 damage, or have 50 hitpoints or 25 or costs 25 food or 50. Those are stats tweaks that follow up once the game core has been finished (which isn't the case as you stated above). And I agree that stuff like this is a waste of time, as you're likely to change it version for version. The point that I wanted to make is that there are functions in this current game which are not necessarily good for the gameplay - if archers tear down everything, work as efficient citizens to get resources while out of combat, and their intended counters cannot counter them and has no option for harvesting resources there should be done something about it. Of course you can go ahead and nerf archers, but from what I've seen you'll always have a critical mass of archers which won't be defeatable at a certain point. And this is not related to costs or unit stats, but because of how the game design is right now. I just take the Archer topic, as this is pretty obvious to notice - there might be other more subtle issues somewhere. What I was talking about is the general idea on how the game is setup - if the setup is done everything else is cake and only code work. Personally, I'd focus on reworking the resource system in the first place before doing anything else for once. By rework I mean that you need to decide which resources are needed for what, and how fast players can/should aquire them. Once that is "set in stone" you can rework the unit/building costs towards the resource distribution that you're planning. Once that is done you can adjust costs - providing you've included the buildings the way you want them to be. Then you need to decide which unit is available at which time (apparently you did a very nice job so far, it feels pretty well rounded apart from missing siege options). We on Eastern front mod also work with SVN, I'll check the version out. I'm not good at coding tho. If the unit tables and stuff are xml libraries or something similar I might be able to contribute if you guys are interested. I have quite some patience with reworking large amounts of numbers. I've done that for Eastern Front with thousands of files.