Philip the Swaggerless

The Hoplite tradition tech of sparta decreases training time for all Hoplites, including champions, by 20% I believe. So there ends up not being much difference in train time. They are still the best spear infantry champion.

Carth are very strong if you use the infantry mercs

Previously they only had the chariots. I believe the team is working on making the chariot have extra features. Some of the ideas were making the scythes coming out of the wheels do damage and/or making it so the soldier on top can jump off of it.

What is unrealistic is that you can instantly delete all of the buildings with the press of a button, as if by modern explosive demolitions. You don't have to have men walk to them and set fire to them.

One of the most satisfying experiences I've had in a game is taking someone's CC, and then their superior army cames back to reclaim it, and then I deleted their whole city. xD Of course I acknowledge this is unrealistic. @alre Does auto demolishing mean pressing the delete key to destroy the selected building(s), or are you talking about how the AI deletes its buildings before you can claim them?

Maybe like @Vanthasaid, the Macedonian siege tower could be enhanced. Longer build time, more cost, but it also shoots a bolt or 2. We could limit the number that can be built at one time, like the juggernaut ships.

Wait, what? I think just make the pikemen (and siege?) faster. I think the siege would be a good place to differentiate them. Currently, they have a hero that boosts siege damage/range, and a team bonus that makes siege get produced faster. So they have buffs, but they don't have anything actually unique about the siege itself. In previous alphas they were the only civ that could make an Arsenal. All other civs had to produce siege from the fortress. But everyone has an arsenal now.

Faster pikemen. From Wikipedia: "All of the armor and weaponry a phalangite would carry totaled about 40 pounds, which was close to 10 pounds less than the weight of Greek hoplite equipment.[1]" https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Macedonian_phalanx

@real_tabasco_sauce I am a little confused. Did you mean "pop is 160/1600 = 10%"? And is the 80% boost an arbitrary number or is it based on the game pop/world pop cap? In a 4v4, a rusher may have better stats than the 1-2 people they rushed for much of the game, but the other 5-6 players likely have better stats for the majority of the gametime. It is a likely scenario that the longer the game goes, the better the score for the non-rushers (at least on the winning team). Can the population percentage boost account for this in a way that we think correctly reflects effectiveness of the rusher? Also, as the losing team's population diminishes, the winning team's kills will become increasingly more valuable in the score relative to when most players have full pop. Such a boost would be beyond what is intended. I apologize if this is all obvious, but I submit that: One of the reasons early kills are effective is because the person that loses a unit loses that unit's economic and military productivity for the rest of the game's duration. So the value of that kill continues to increase the longer the game goes on. (Or to be more precise, until that player reaches their pop cap, or whichever comes first). I don't think that ratings that don't consider time of kill compared with game duration (or time until the affected player's pop cap is reached) can capture the value of rushes. Since this mod is based on averaging scores of different frames, it may not be well suited for this. Is that right @Mentula? Actually, if we consider the value of the kill in terms of the productivity it denies the other player, there may even be a rough way to consider military and economic score as different aspects of a single dimension. Admittedly, this method would not account for the value of rushes which do not kill units but which cause a lot of idle time for the target of the rush.

COLOR Feedback: The grey is VERY hard to see on the mini-map. The silhouettes are also sneaky when in the trees.

@Sodaliteby the way, are you referring to technologies only or structures? The are scenarios and skirmish maps where you begin with a city full of structures.

@real_tabasco_sauce I am not bothered by the clutter. I have 2 main thoughts: It will be interesting to explore the options and come up with new plans. It will add to the learning curve, and potentially increase the gap between experts on non-experts. More broadly, this is an overall buff for soldiers. Even more so than at present, time and resources will be invested in soldiers rather than defensive & civil structures and technologies, and trade. Umm, just one beef. Who asked for tankier swordcav? They already feel like Medieval Knights with Iron Plate Armor who time traveled into antiquity!

I just remembered that there is a pretty critical AI problem with soldiers on walls. Namely, melee soldiers who are aggroed by them will continuously walk toward them, unable to reach them, and die. Melee units ought to never attempt to attack units mounted on walls. Probably best for them to ignore wall-mounted units if they have either an order or other targets are available, or flee if there are no alternate targets and no orders given.

I don't build stone walls, not because they are weak, but because I devote my workers and resources to making an army, military production buildings, and getting blacksmith upgrades. If you wall off your town that is nice, but you generally cannot wall off a safe space for woodcutters. If you are stuck behind your walls with an inferior army, your opponent can continue to outgrow you, take map control, and attack you when you venture out. I think there is a case for making walls when your opponent is using cav armies and I'm interested in exploring that.

I agree. Awhile back I was working on a Team Bonuses mod that required actions for teammates to receive team bonuses, rather than the innate buffs we have now. A lot of that involved new civic units and structures. I came to the conclusion that all that coordination and added micromanagement would likely end up losing to people who, instead of making said units and structures, make extra cavalry javelineers and raid you.