Philip the Swaggerless

I am trying to implement my above goal by having the Greek Academy structure produce a global aura that affects an allies' CivCentre, allowing it to produce a philosopher. I am using an aura instead of a technology because as far as I know technologies can only benefit the player themselves. Based on my understanding, Auras can implement the tech modifications, such as this: ProductionQueue/Entities/_string I interpreted this to mean that I could use an aura to give the structure "CivCentre," for all my allies, the ability to produce a philosopher unit. However, after building the structure containing the aura in-game, philosophers still cannot be produced from an ally's civic center. I don't think it is an issue with the philosopher unit itself because if I just put the unit in the "trainer" of the civic center I can see it, produce it, and research it's tech. { "type": "global", "affects": [ "CivCentre" ], "affectedPlayers": ["ExclusiveAlly"], "modifications": [ { "value": "ProductionQueue/Entities/_string", "add": "units/{civ}/support_philosopher_b.xml" } ], "auraDescription" : "Allies can create a Philosopher to research Greek philosophies", "auraName": "Greek Philosophy" } Is this supposed to work? If so what am I doing wrong? I don't get any errors, it just never appears. I have also tried using "replace" instead of "add" above. Below is my code for the unit. <

I assume this is impossible, but I'm checking just in case. Can one make a building that allies can select and research a technology that will apply only to them? And separate allies can also select the same building and research the same or a different technology for themselves? My idea is I want to give the Athenians an academy of philosophy that allows allies to research special technologies. Alternatively, I think I could implement this by having the academy of philosophy give an aura to allies that allows them to build a building or produce a philosopher that can research a technology. (This is possible, right?) If I do this, I worry that I'll have to have extra GUI icons in the panels for building structures or for producing the unit in the building that would produce the unit that would not be applicable must of the time, since they could only be made when there is an Athenian ally. (Is that correct? ) So I think it would be neater if there could be just one building in the Athenian player's territory that allies could research from.

Oh! The Macedonian market is still exploitable due to their barter bonus.

The idea makes sense. A hot key similar to the go-to-last-attacked-alert could also go along with it. A general comment on sound notifications and cool downs. We often operate as though unless a sound effect has played we are not under attack. Sometimes we come under attack but no sound effect has played and we are upset to see the damage we have suffered. (Is this because of cool-downs? What are the other conditions?) Having the outpost make a noise, especially inconsistently, might similarly frustrate players by habituating them to expect alert sounds.

I see. Okay, I will create a ticket when I get the email to reset my password. I forgot it already lol

Just when I thought I had it... I am trying to make it so that only allies can benefit from the cart garrison aura, not yourself. Is it the case that type garrison auras affect the garrisoned building regardless of the "affectedPlayers" line? I thougtht "ExclusiveAlly" would mean only my ally gets the bonus but I don't. I even tried changing it to just "Enemy" and it still gave the discount myself to my ally.

Ah, now I get it, lol. Oh yes, there it is under "visible classes." Nice, thank you.

Okay, I realized my error. I had the directory wrong for the location of the aura file in my cart unit template code. I've fixed that. I can now produce the cart in-game and garrison it into an ally's forge. However, there is no discount from the aura I made. I'm pretty sure it is because I just typed "forge" in it's "affects line." "affects": [ "forge" ], Having looked at the components page that @Langbart so kindly linked, I see that "affects" requires a class. So I need a class that will designate all forges but no other structure. How do I achieve that? Can I create a class? Actually, prior to adding "Support", I was not able to garrison a woman into the forge. Women have the Support class. After adding the Support class to the forge template I can now garrison women. So I reasoned that because I made the cart as a Support class unit I would need to include that in the garrison part of the forge template. Yes, he was my cheat sheet.

Hello, I am just getting into modding and have looked at the wiki tutorials. I am modding SVN. Now, I am running into trouble in getting a unit to be produced from the gaul forge. My intention is to make the Gaul forge produce a unit that can garrison in ally forges and give them a resource and research time discount. I created the following directories in my new mod folder: simulation/templates/units/gaul/ gaul_armorer_cart.xml simulation/templates/structures/gaul forge.xml simulation/data/auras I wasn't sure if it was necessary, but I also included the "parent" units in the mod folder directories as well. (Do I need to do that?) So in the templates folder I have: gaul/forge.xml Parents: template_structure.xml,template_structure_military.xml, template_structure_military_forge.xml units/gaul/gaul_armorer_cart.xml Parents: template_unit.xml, template_unit_support.xml Besides creating the structure, unit, and aura, I also edited template_structure_military.xml to allow for garrison of Support units, as that is what my new unit is. That worked fine because I can garrison a woman in there now. When I play as Gauls and click on the forge, there are no options to do anything and I get a bunch of errors: GetTemplateData@gui/session/session.js:233:25 setupButton@gui/session/selectionpanels.js:984:33 setupUnitPanel@gui/session/unit_commands.js94:35 updateUnitCommands@gui/session/unit_commands.js:152:18 updateSelectionDetails@gui/session/selection_details.js:537:20 updateGUIObjects@gui/session/session.js:730:2 onSimulationUpdate@gui/session/session.js:680:2 __eventhandler54 (SimulationUpdate)@session SimulationUpdate1.1 Error calling component script function ScriptCall Errors executing script event "SimulationUdate" JavaScript error: gui/session/session.js:225:34 I looked at the JavaScript files but am way out of my depth in terms of knowing what to do about it. For the unit, I intended on just using the trade cart icon and visual actor, without changing them. Do I need to make directories for the trade cart icon and visual actor and put them in my new mod folder if I am not adjusting any of their values? Is there something else I need to do to make my unit appear in the gaul forge to make it producible? Below is my code: forge.xml gaul_armorer_cart.json (aura) template_structure_military_forge.xml gaul_armorer_cart.xml Thank you so much for taking the time.

Was it used for all ranged units or only siege? If it was used for all units, was it removed by popular demand?

This is a game where, for the most part, melee units have the "tank" role and ranged units have the "dps" role. Pikemen are incredible, as they should be, but for the wrong reason. They should excel against melee units in pure melee battles. But because ranged units do the majority of damage, making them tanky is how the game shows them to be powerful melee units. I think what makes getting good balance difficult between ranged and melee units in RTS games is the fact that ranged units are always doing damage to the enemy whenever they are in range (even through walls, and buildings, losing no accuracy), whereas the melee units only deal damage once they reach the target. In an actual battle this could not be (at least not to this extent) because ranged units would risk hitting their own allies. Would it be possible to add friendly- fire, not just for bolt shooters, but for archers, slingers, javelineers and crossbows? I would like to see friendly-fire in the game, but have units by default not fire if they may hit a friendly. However, you could change the behavior of units in-game to make them fire even if friendly fire might happen. I don't know how this would be achieved technically. It is my understanding that accuracy is not based on trajectory but on probability. Could you make it so that all units within 1 (or 2) meter(s) of the target have a probability of being hit? And if one unit is closer to the shooter, that unit has the highest probability of being hit? Then perhaps there could be accuracy upgrades, including tech and rank, that allow them to take more safe-shots. Champions and heroes of course would have the best accuracy. Would this destroy computer performance? This would radically change the game and a lot of re-balancing would have to be done I'm sure. But it could make balancing simpler in the long run. Battlefield positioning would become very important. Melee units would become more prominent (I think.) What do you think? Is it possible? Would you like to see it?

I like those suggestions. My initial suggestion about teammates getting all the upgrades if it makes it to the CC was too "all-or-nothing."

This will be a challenge, especially for less experienced players and those who do not understand English or the common language well. But I think ultimately it would be for the best. Even as it is now, at least in the higher level games there is typically a discussion of strategy in in game chat involving location of enemies, "you boom," "I'll rush," "I'll spam merc cav and destroy all!, etc... Per Let'swaveabook's point, I will respond about tribute fees in the other topic page. https://wildfiregames.com/forum/topic/66538-tribute-fees-and-related-ptol-team-bonus-nerf-and-persian-civ-buff/ About Ptol becoming stronger in 1 v 1's I definitely want to avoid that because I think they are already OP. The farming bonus instead of the food trickle would help their mid and late game, but make them less strong against early rushes. I think that might be okay, but there are other methods to have their team bonus require team work. But for comparison, with all farm upgrades they would have a total 75% in farm rate bonuses. This is the same as what the Han Chinese will have, and a little higher than the Gauls. An alternate method to have their bonus use teamwork would be to have a P1 building (granary?) that generates donate-only food over time. The donate-only food cannot be used by the Ptolemy player, it can only be donated to others. If the building is captured while some of the donate-only food has still not been donated, the capturer gets it into his stockpile! It could be: 100 donate-only food per minute in P1 200 donate-only food per minute in P2 300 donate-only food per minute in P3 Or, there can be researchable upgrades within the granary to boost the donate-only generation rate. Or, the donate-only food generation can be calculated in real time as a percentage of the actual amount of food the Ptol player obtains from farms. I like this option the best because it requires that the Ptol player actually have the farms that are supposed to be making the food. I like this granary building idea better because then Ptolemies can be nerfed by losing food trickle (or the proposed innate farm rate buff) bonus. Also, the granary may be a strategic building for enemy players to destroy.

I tried the Han Chinese on the SVN version and was impressed by the implementation of ministers. It made the game feel a little immersive. It makes me think that if we are more creative with our team bonuses we can have a more unique and fun game. Many of the team bonuses are just innate buffs or bonuses added to your civilization because another player happens to be a certain civilization. If your teammate is Ptolemies, you get an automatic food trickle. If your teammate is Iberians, your skirmishers are automatically cheaper, and so forth. You can actually choose to play very similarly to a 1 v 1 game and still get a special bonus. What I am envisioning is a Team Bonus concept where to benefit from the Team Bonus, you actually have to do some teamwork. The Carth bonus already requires teamwork. You have to actually create and send traders to benefit. The rest of the bonuses do not require any teamwork to benefit from. If teamwork is required to achieve a worthwhile benefit this will add character to the civilizations, and even mini-objectives to achieve advantages. Below I've put a few ideas, exact values for the bonuses can be debated later. Athenians Current Bonus: Delian League. Warships -25% Construction Time New Bonus Idea: Greek Philosophy. Athenians can build a "Greek Academy" that will give themselves and allies -50% research time for Civic technologies. Further, once the Academy is standing: The Athenian player themselves can train 1 of 5 Philosophers from the academy. Philosophers give a benefit to the player for the duration of their life and only one can exist at a time: Platonic - Non-military technologies -5% cost. Plato may be most known for his theory of Universals. Aristotelian - All technologies -20% Research Time. Aristotle, one of the most influential philosophers, gave an essential contribution to the development of logic, especially syllogism. Stoic - Non-mercenary humans immune to debuffs and negative status effects. Stoics sought independence from their needs. (I have not worked out how to make them immune to debuffs. I think functionality to add a class to units already having a given class would be needed.) Epicurean - All humans +10% food cost, +1.0 idle health regeneration rate. The life worth being lived is spent seeking pleasure. Skeptic - Non-military technologies -15% cost, but +25% research time. There is nothing that cannot be doubted, including the fact that everything can be doubted. The Teammates of the Athenian player can create a Student of Philosophy. The Student of Philosophy can can research 1 of the above 5 bonuses, and it will be in effect for the duration of their life. Once a bonus has been researched, no further Students of Philosophy can be created. The cost to research is expensive, 500 food & 500 wood and takes 200 seconds, but if the Student of Philosophy stands next to the Greek Academy the cost is reduced by 90%. (50 food, 50 wood, 20 seconds) Romans Current Bonus: "Conscription." Citizen Infantry -10% faster. You could change it by having only the Romans themselves keep a 10% train speed bonus, but allow them to build special infantry production buildings in allied territory which train units an additional 10% faster. Maybe there would need to be a limit on the amount of buildings placed in allied territory. This allows this team to have fast reinforcements from the Roman player for staging attacks or defending from them. Gauls Current Bonus: "Products from Gaul." Forges -15% research cost and research time. This could become a teamwork bonus if you give the Gauls a special forge factory/export building besides their forge. Once they have researched a technology for themselves in their forge, they can unlock that technology in the factory/export building for their allies instantly at -50% cost. The GUI for that building could look like the current one with it's images, but with extra rows designating each teammate: ALLY 1 [MELEE ATK] [RANGE ATK] [HACK DEF] [PIERCE DEF] ALLY 2 [MELEE ATK] [RANGE ATK] [HACK DEF] [PIERCE DEF] ALLY 3 [MELEE ATK] [RANGE ATK] [HACK DEF] [PIERCE DEF] etc... Since Gauls do not have archer accuracy and crossbows upgrades, nor the Wootz/Toledo Steel upgrade, they cannot unlock those for others. 2 Alternate Implementations (Thanks to @LetswaveaBook) The Gaul's current forge could produce a delivery unit that looks like a large wagon. If that delivery unit can successfully garrison in an allied blacksmith it allows the allied player to research blacksmith techs at a lower cost, similar to the Mauryan healer. But it would be a deeper discount than the Mauryan hero gives since it only applies to the blacksmith. Another idea would be that Gauls can produce a cart and unpack it in allied territory and donate a "special" forge with lower upgrade costs to their allies. The cart and the special forge would be capturable by your opponents. Either way, if the Gaul team is able to take advantage of it, they would get upgrades at a great overall savings for the team. However, if the Gaul team do not individually get forge upgrades because they are waiting on the Gaul player to receive them, the enemy team could gain an advantage by destroying the Gaul export building/delivery unit. Carthaginians Current bonus: "Trademasters" +10% International Trade Bonus. I would take it further make it so you only get the bonus when trading with the Carth player, but increase the bonus to 20% due to this limitation. Persians Current Bonus: "The Royal Road" 15% Land Traders bonus. I have 2 ideas for the Persians. Similar to Carth above, you could make it +25% bonus when Land trading with a Persian player only. My other idea needs some background explanation. First of all and generally speaking, it is my opinion that there should be a fee for donating resources to other players, 10% maybe. So if you spend 100 food to donate to an ally, they only receive 90, and the other 10 is lost. If that were to be implemented, a bonus for the Persian player could be that when an ally makes a contribution, the 10% fee goes directly to the Persian player's stockpile. If there is more than 1 Persian on a team it is divided equally between the Persian teammates so that it can not generate extra resources. (By the way, I see Han Chinese are being given a 20% international trade bonus, which is higher than the both the Carth and Persian current team bonuses. If it were implemented in this teamwork scheme at a higher value than Persia and Carth, it would justify an additional bonus for Persia like the one I've described above, and a different one for Carth.) Ptolemies Current Bonus: "Breadbasket of the Mediterranean." +1.0 Food trickle rate. NEW IDEA: Instead of this, a bonus using teamwork would be to let Ptolemies build a P1 building (granary?) that generates donate-only food. The donate-only food cannot be used by the Ptolemies player, it can only be donated to others. The donate-only food generation could be calculated in real time as a percentage of the actual amount of food the Ptolemies player obtains from farms. The Ptolemies player receives into his stockpile the full amount of food he farms, and besides that donate-only food amounting to, for example 10% of what he farms is available to donate to allies. I like this granary building idea better because then Ptolemies can be nerfed by losing food trickle. Also, the granary can be a strategic building for enemy players to destroy. Mauryans Current Bonus: Ashoka's Religious Support. Temples -50% resource cost and building time, temple technologies -50% resource cost and research time. NEW IDEA: "Arthashastra." Free Cartography. In the writing "Arthashastra," much direction is given on using informants extensively within the kingdom and on using spies among neighboring kingdoms. Iberians Current Bonus: Saripeko - Citizen Javelineers -10% resource cost. NEW IDEA: Allied players can build an Iberian embassy to make mercenaries at a 10% discount. (Sword cav will not be discounted and may have an upcharge until balanced better.) The basis for the original bonus is the fact that people of Iberia were known for fighting for others as mercenaries. Allies being able to make Iberian mercenaries reflects this better, and requires more of a player action to benefit from than the generic discount. Seleucids Current Bonus: Syrian Tetrapolis. Allies can make CC for -20% resource cost. New Bonus: Marriage Alliance. This is a reference to the historical event where a Helena, the daughter of Seleucid Nikator, was married to Chandragupta Maurya. The Seleucids gave the Mauryas territory and the Mauryas gave the Seleucids war elephants. The Seleucid player can produce a "Princess" unit from any hero. The Princess can only be made once. The Princess will have a Royalty aura, making all ally heroes have -50% cost and train time. The Princess can research one marriage Betrothal tech from among the Allied Civs. Once researched, all allies gain 7% territory influence, and the Seleucid player loses 7% territory influence. The Princess will now be able to gather a "dowry token," from the hero producing structure of the civ she is betrothed to. (Exception: Ptolemies - must gather from Fortress, not Civic Center.) Once gathered she will be able to train either 12 Infantry Champs of a single type, 8 Cavalry Champs of a single type, or 5 elephants (6 for Kushites,) instantly for free. The producible champions are champions of the allied civ, so for example if the allied civ has no elephants she can't make elephants. These are the ideas I have so far. Do you have any good ones?

Hello. I downloaded and played SVN single player yesterday. I think the acceleration looks like a bumper car. I think it would be better if the units didn't begin accelerating from zero, but move at half their normal top movement speed (not chase speed) to begin with and accelerate from their. Or perhaps ALL units could start at the same speed, 5, if the intention is to make it harder for cavalry to disengage. That's probably better. And most acceleration should happen at the beginning.

Do the players involved schedule the match among themselves? I notice the time 1600 CET on the website.

King Aqua

I lost to deathwing (whom I trust is a new player) this weekend, and while it is embarrassing to have played this game for years and lose to someone who just started , I am happy deathwing plays and hope he stays around. So I will say you're assessment is generally inaccurate. It's the frustration of trying to have good games and knowing that you didn't because someone deliberately and deceitfully threw off the balancing process. Like your chess contrast, if we had hundreds of players on 0ad at each skill level with a reliable rating system it wouldn't matter. It would be easy to get fair, competitive games. The best way to get competitive games right now in our small community is... to not have experienced players pretend to be beginners.

I think it would be a cool feature to have enemy civs not disclosed as an option so people need to scout it out. But my friend but I gotta say if you're not Borg, Feldfeld, or Valihrant it is delusional to think you need to smurf to avoid targeting. Since carth merc cav are known to be OP anyone who is playing as them should expect to be targeted for a rush. It is carth merc cav being targeted moreso than any player. Some hosts even ban carth.

I don't like smurfing. It may not be trolling exactly, but it is at least cousin of the troll. It is unnecessary and exploits the other players. People play at different times and not the same time every day so not everyone recognizes a smurf after the smurf has played a couple games. Saying that there are other balance issues in the alpha is irrelevant to a person concealing their identity or level and ruining the balance. "There are already balance problems, so let's make balance worse by hiding our level" ? Whenever you ask an unknown their level they either don't say it or say something inaccurate like "1300". If a person lost their password or something and makes a second account they can straight-forwardly tell people who they are and balance can be achieved. Adding to the list: 1. You can pretend to be noob and ruin a TG 2. You can ruin your opponents rating. Playing half the time on a smurf account also prevents your rating from getting what it needs to be. The points that your main account should have gained, are not awarded. Thus your rating is kept artificially low. Smurfing might be as bad as quitting rated games. 3. As Yekaterina pointed out, it creates "paranoia." I think Yekaterina made it seem like it is the fault of the non-smurfs for being paranoid, but it is not. When people are deliberately deceiving you, you become less trusting.

I think a regicide mode where: 1: you select the hero, and 2: the hero's attack, defense, and health scaled up based on phase level would be nice. For example, for an infantry hero's hp: 250 in p1, 500 in p2, 1000 in p3. The heroes are way too strong for the early game. But if heroes were defenseless like the kings in age of empires I think it would be too scary to try to utilize their combat bonuses. This idea of scalable hero stats might also be useful in non-regicide games modes if development ever goes the route of making certain heroes available before p3.

I think I am inclined to agree with you. I don't like that I find myself choosing a civ based on whether or not our team has any of the op team bonuses.

A civ-only bonus that is strong enough to make the civ a competitive choice in a team game against other civs whose bonuses benefit up to 4 players... would have to be a very strong bonus. One would expect a bonus of that level to be OP in 1v1 games. Not that perfect balance will ever be achieved, some things will always be situational.

Are you suggesting an additional civ-only bonus be given to civilizations that have weak team bonuses? I don't like that idea. Or are you suggesting that their team bonus should be replaced by a more powerful team bonus?

Nice!