Grugnas

so you think that killing 5 units is fair enough to let you win the game? None changed at all as long as cavalry still has same hp and trainin time of vanilla, the way to counter cavalry rush is always the same... cavalry. Charriots requiring double pop is a bad idea as long as they are ordinary champions and the fact that they are Charriots it is only a visual thing. Basically they will be like normal citizen soldier skirmish cavalry (maybe even weaker) while all the other cav champion will dominate the game (Roman sword cavalry champions will be even stronger after the champion spear cav nerf ).

Watching at the replay I managed to train 8 skirmish cavalry while you had 4 only + 3 producing from the Civic Center. In the attempt to scout your base, your civic center constantly attacked my skirmish cavalry and instead of retreat, i continued my attack with the civic center still attacking my cavalry and in the meanwhile 2 soldiers came closer to my cavalry and killed 1 only as long as infantry soldiers are simple dummies then i lost half of my "army". With a better micro and retiring while in time i could have survived. After that lost battle, i finished food ( cavalry cost tons of food for the first minutes of the game ) and the only defense i could focus on was sentry turret because it costs food. Matter of fact something like 15 skirmish cavalry destroyed that sentry tower with ease and at that point the game finished for me. The point is that more cavalry shouldn't be the only counter to cavalry as long as there are other stuff to train / build. In this mod, just like in vanilla, once a player has a relevant cavalry disadvantage ( something like 5 skirmish cavalry number of difference) it is game over already since he has no way to turn back. Anyway I think that 2 techs in order to being able to train all the cavalry available is too much as long as cavalry raids become less effective after the minute 5. Simply having barracks as prerequisite to train cavalry would slow down cavalry rushes even more since the time required to build it is more than building the corral + research the tech and that the resources spent are somehow equals ( then the issue is adressed to the different cost barracks have per civ).

The hope for a Warcraft 4 release is one of the reasons that keeps me alive ( ).

if their hp is so low, I bet that they won't survive anyway

The purpose is to make rushes less deadly but not too slow to perform. Which kind of deadly rush? Starting Considerations: 1v1, Low resources ( 300 ) and small size map (often larger maps with more players kinda respect the the distance proportion between neighbors of different teams) Mainland. Most of random generated map share same amount of starting resources aka 5 berries bushes, something like 10 chickens, 40 starting trees in range (or the equivalent in wood), 1 stone mine and 1 metal mine. Usually starting off with cavalry only is quite easy on low resources games as long as hunting chickens provides a temporary food boost that puts in secondary scene buildings like the storehouse and the farmstead, often built to grow the starting economy by reducing resources deliver time and because of the technologies available to research, because it allows to train 5 -6 extra cavalry units ( time and amount of units also depends by the skill of a player) and send them to raid an opponent. (In no starting chickens maps like Pompeii [ or was it Volcano ?? ] successful cavalry raids are really hard to accomplish). This tactic is very effective because it let enough food to the attacker to continue training workers and grow economy (mostly women because all the wood is spent into cavalry) while the defender will have hard times because men gather food much slower than women and it requires too much micromanagement in order to prevent the attacking cavalry to kill the most of the women trained. Successful raids badly slow down the opponent who can't counter attack because of his lack of workers, while the attacker is free to gain resources with the most cheap but weak workers he can train, women. This happens even before a player has the time to build a house and benefit from the "The Loom" technology. It isn't hard to imagine that soldiers can't be trained with no wood and that having the wood gather spot covered with infantry spearmen and sentry towers would be the best possible defense in terms of costs/performance against spear cavalry (whom attacks require melee distance) or infantry skirmishers and sentry towers against skirmish cavalry, but both requires quite some wood and even garrisoned soldiers in the case of sentry towers, and that having women to gather wood is much more convenient than men gathering berries (an obvious advantage for who invests all his wood into cavalry!). On the other hand, while protecting the wood lane is quite doable, the "gridless" structures placement system makes hard to defend grainfields from cavalry rushes on the very begin of the game because, unless you are really fast and precise to build a house wall with no holes (thing that is indoable in the first 3 min of game), even building palisades would be counter-productive if they can't protect the whole area around the civic center and even work as obstacle from storehouses to place near the mines. If palisades would be able of such a task, they would be too expensive anyway and in that case their use would still keep open holes into your food production. Despite my first approach was to keep as most of vanilla stuff as possible and to use tweaks only, perhaps having a researchable food costly tech from corral as prerequisite to train cavalry from the civic center and slow their initial rush could be a working idea. Indeed rushing with infantry is most of times unworthy because of the economy lose (e.g. mauryans are nice infantry rushers because of their amazing worker elephants! ). Starting rushes are only 1 of the issues that (in my opinion) "over healthy" cavalry creates on the overall game balance but perhaps one of the most problematic.

EDIT: Spear cavalry seems to be still advantaged in the few minutes as long as it is able to gain enough food from chickens to get enough units for a quick raid. as long as more tests are needed, the cavalry can still be trained from cc with no need of a required technology.

could it be because the host was always the same player?

Hi and thanks for the interest. I am afraid that the bad experience you had due freezes and crahses are unrelated to the applied mod as long as it only modify few templates.

we successfully played some multiplayer games despite an error displayed at start of the session. Anyway it was fun to try the new content. I'll upload some replays tomorrow

All the modifies done by the blacksmith are visible in the tooltips of the unit ( you have to click on the shield icon under their portrait in the middle panel ). Anyway to be sure to display all the infos i suggest you to go in the Game Options and enable the checkbox Detailed Tooltips. About the women aura:

This simple mod wants to modify the current alpha 22 version balance in a "conservative" way with no use of any counter system as long as units in the current version already have different attributes and this concept tries to stay away from a massive use of hard and soft counters. The patch isn't finished since technologies aren't included yet but they will surely included in the next release of this patch as long as can I do some tests first. Why did i publish this mod? I think that the intent to introduce soft and hard counters by setting the attributes of all units with a given value then add counter bonuses is time spending and the result would be partially the same as simply tweaking the already existing values with the difference that the latter requires less effort, it is more polished and doesn't remove the "realism" factor like light armored units being faster than heavier equipped soldiers. A counter system requires the player to remember the bonuses and the weakness of each unit against each unit. As long as it is a mod, here will be implemented new features and units / structures rearrangement. Newest Version: Monkey Wrench 22.1.4.3! Download You can download the mod here: Changelog: 22.1.2: monkey_wrench_22.2.zip 22.1.3.1: monkey_wrench_22.1.3.1.zip 22.1.4.1: monkey_wrench_22.1.4.1.zip 22.1.4.2: monkey_wrench_22.1.4.2.zip 22.1.4.3: monkey_wrench_22.1.4.3.zip Installation Drag and drop the content of the .zip archivie in one of the folders listed below depending on your operative system. Vista or newer: C:\Users\USERNAME\Documents\My Games\0ad\mods\ XP / 2000: C:\Documents and Settings\USERNAME\My Documents\My Games\0ad\mods\ OS X: ~/Library/Application\ Support/0ad/mods/ Linux: ~/.local/share/0ad/mods/ from https://trac.wildfiregames.com/wiki/GameDataPaths Launch 0AD and click on Tools & Options -> Mod Selection then select the mod Monkey Wrench from the list of the Available Mods and click Enable, Save Configuration and Start Mods. At this point the mod is ready to be played. What Does it Changes? Units Now citizen soldiers loot increases with rank. Woman training time increased to 10 Elephant Worker Now can build basic civic structures and research economy technologies. Cavalry Citizen Solzier Increased training time to 16. Capture Rate decreased from 2 to 1. Ranged Cavalry base HP decreased from 120 to 100. Melee Cavalry base HP decreased from 160 to 150. Decreased Vision Range to 50. NEW! Barracks removes the limit of 1 Cavalry only. NEW! gain more Vision Range per phase. Spear Cost increased by 5 wood. Now has 1.25x bonus damage against Cavalry class. Attack rate decreased from 3.5 seconds to 3.0. Movement speed decreased from 22 to 20. Sword Cost increased by 5 wood. Movement speed increased from 20 to 21. Javelin Attack Max Range reduced from 28 to 24. Archer Attack Max Range reduced from 72 to 60. Champion Capture Rate decreased from 5 to 4. Ranged Cavalry base HP decreased from 270 to 180. Reduced training time to 32. Spear Now has 1.25x bonus damage against Cavalry class. Attack rate decreased from 3.5 seconds to 3.0. Movement speed decreased from 25 to 23. Sword Pierce Armor reduced from 7 to 6. Movement speed increased from 23 to 24. Javelin Iberian unit Crush damage increased from 13 to 18. Iberian unit Pierce damage increased from 5 to 18. Archer Pierce damage decreased to 12 Infantry Citizen Solzier Decreased Vision Range to 40. NEW! gain more Vision Range per phase. Javelin Attack Max Range reduced from 24 to 20. Pierce damage decreased to 15. Slinger Attack Max Range reduced from 42 to 40. Pierce damage decreased to 9. Archer Attack Max Range reduced from 72 to 60. Pierce damage decreased to 5. Champion Reduced training time to 24. Sword Mauryan Yoddha Crush damage increased from 10.5 to 11. Mauryan Yoddha Hack and Pierce armor increasedfrom 6 to 7. Javelin Pierce damage decreased to 24. Archer Attack Max Range reduced to 6. Siege Bolt Shooter Included fixing patch for a bug that allowed bolt shooters to deal more damage than intended. Decreased pierce damage from 150 to 130. Decreased crush damage from 25 to 10. Decreased splash pierce damage from 75 to 65. Decreased splash crush damage from 10 to 5. Increased training time from 20 seconds to 25. Siege Tower Decreased training time from 60 seconds to 40. Decreased Crush damage from 2.5 to 2. Now has attack minimum range of 8.0 . Support Healer Reduced cost from 250 food to 200 food. Reduced xp required from 200 to 150 from Basic to Advanced. Structure Civic Center Increased Vision Range from 90 to 100. Barracks Now they cost some stone for any civ. Embassy Limit increased from 2 to 3. Now all embassies have same cost and build time. Military Colony Removed the max arrow limit. Sentry Tower Decreased Vision Range to 75. Attack Max Range decreased to 72. Defense Tower Decreased Vision Range to 80. Attack Max Range decreased to 78. Outpost Decreased Vision Range to 70. Fortress reduced batch time multiplier from 0.8 to 0.7. Wall Towers Now can't be garrisoned. Technology Blacksmith armour and attack technologies have been revisited. Iron Hero Armour removed the effect +50 metal cost for heroes. NEW! Now this technologies reduces hero training time by 20%. Houses: REMOVED! Home Garden NEW! Pair Tech: Home Garden: Increases houses garrison limit from 3 to 4 and big houses limit from 6 to 8 Increases by 20% the population limit given by houses Home Harem: -50% training time for women trained from houses. Increases by 20% the population limit given by houses Elephant Stable Now the elephant stable is buildable in village phase. Farmstead Grainfields gather technologies increase from 15% -> 15 -> 50% to 25 % -> 25% -> 25% Storehouse Wood/stone/metal gather technologies increase from 15% -> 15 -> 50% to 25 % -> 25% -> 25% Library NEW! Improved Siege Tower Defense tower technology "Crenellations" affects also siege tower. Defense tower technology "Arrow Shooters" affects also siege tower. Defense tower technology "Murder Holes" affects also siege tower. Defense tower technology "Sturdy Foundations" affects also siege tower. Fortress / Siege Workshop Armor plating Now increases also Crush and Pierce armor by 2 levels. Hero Athene Themistocle NEW! Now Naval Commander aura globally affects units trainable in docks. Gauls Brennus Metal loot increased from 15 to 20. Rome Fabius Maximus Now the aura has a 60 mts range. Scipio Aura range increaed from 10 to 60. Seleucid Anthiucus the Great Now the aura has a 60 mts range. Ptolemies Cleopatra Consort aura range increased from 30 to 45. Civ Bonus Athene NEW! The bonus is limited to infantry citizen soldiers only. Carthage NEW! Now Carthage can research a technology to upgrade mercenaries to Elite rank. Team Bonus Rome The bonus is limited to infantry citizen soldiers only. Enjoy the few changes.

The intent was to have the same fortress template but fortress entities able to train different units through a technologies pair researchable every time a new fortress entity is placed, but using upgrades would certainly work.

Cvic Centers, Military Colony, Fortresses, Sentry/Defense Towers, Outposts have a build restriction distance independently if the chosen place is or not in your territory influence.

Thanks for you advice, I did it. I have one more question: as long as researched technologies applies to units templates ( f.e. already trained mace champions, spartan champions, mercenaries get the technologies effects ) is this "rule" valid also for structures entities? I was trying to have more Seleucid fortresses entities have different reserached technologies in order to let some fortresses train roman army units and other which train traditional army, but I fear I should abandon the idea.

I noticed that most of the questions are gathered here thus I just joined the crowd.

Like the title says: is it possible to modify affected units by a technology through another researched technology? What i have in mind isn't a technology required to unlock another technology but a technology reduired to unlock another affected unit by a previously researched technology: e.g: I want all the previously researched and the next new researched techs affecting defense tower technologies to affect also siege towers.

May i please get the reason behind this suggestion? I really can't get it and I fear I have no time to download an old alpha for a test only. Indeed I can imagine what would happen with bolt shooters "equipped" of more crush damage.

I never played alpha 17, i had knowledge of the game at the end of alpha20. After a quick look I saw that there was a big crush damage nerf to bolt shooter as long as it was able to destroy buildings. While buildings armor didn't change at all after the giant rebalance. bolt shooters had more tweaks until a20 where their attack rate has been reduced by 1 second from 5 seconds to 4. Is that relevant? I can't get your point, explain please. For sure bolt shooters are more effective also against champions since champions were nerfed in a21 ( pretty good stats nerf even if this is true for infantry champions only as long as ranged champion cavalry has 270 hp and melee champion cavalry has 300 hp despite the performance gap, but this is another topic), thus bolt shooters are able to kill waves of enemies and make pressure on buildings aswell. Basically training bolt shooters is faster than training champions as long as bolt shooters have 20 sec training time and roman army camp has a quite low batch time multiplier.

what about this replay? We played a game with user1 Pro Balance Mod and what we noticed is that Scorpios can be a quite nice support as long as it kills champion cavalry with 2 hits and "snipes" fortresses from great distance. Scorpios had armor and increased crush damage technologies researched (not Will of Fight). This isn't a pretension to change and rechange stuff but a concern on an unit that may influence games in alpha 23 (if there aren't any balance plans on the agenda) in a way that someone likes to call "OP". boltshootmod.zip

I am ok with that, but the point is that if 1 bolt shooter can deal that damage to many units, consider when there are many bolt shooters at once (they cost 2 population and train in 20 seconds). If no organic unit can reach the bolt shooter in order to get melee range, perhaps a siege could (bolt shooter crush damage doesn't really help on this point). As you said, alpha 22 is really misleading. Pehaps in svn they aren't that "uncounterable" even if massed.

Bolt shooters in a21 weren't worth the effort because they had lowed hp and slingers used to crush any siege (we can say that in a21 bolt shooters were never used in multiplayer games i had the pleasure to partecipate). the point is that at equal population cap a player should be able to counter any unit indipendently from the civ.

why not, if you believe that value is more appropriate. (i updated the first post with an example replay).

yes, probably they should have 0 crush damage unless there is a way to win mass bolt shooters training.

Despite the vector bug, bolt shooters can be massed with ease as long as they require 2 population and their training time is of 20 seconds (quite low in comparison to other sieges). Their role isn't really clear to me. If they are meant to be used against waves of units, i guess this is the reason of their 150 pierce damage (50% of their pierce damage as linear splash damage seems a bit high), why do they even have part of damage dealt as crush damage? They can bait units as long as they can destroy buildings and kill waves of units resulting in a slow but sure victory especially for Roman Scorpios. Would be nice if there would be a counter unit (with the term counter i don't mean a counter system but a unit that uses its actual statistics as advantage) required to get rid of bolt shooters e.g. a player could use sieges like rams (garrisoning rams and perhaps ungarrison near the bolt shooters and try to capture them) and catapults to destroy them, but the bolt shooters high pierce damage and the part of crush damage let them destroy sieges with ease. EDIT: Replay of what I am talking about: boltshooters.zip full bolt shooters army against the strongest infanatry champions in game (spartan infantry spearmen) and rams. I guess that the replay is reproducible also with the bug fix.

f.e. this feature is really interesting and would be nice to also have randomly generated maps support this feature and have sparse farmlands around the map. The minstre figure of chinese civ is really original. Despite the corral gather rate "brokeness" and the animral corraling not implemented yet, it would be nice if vanilla game would have more animals to train from corrals to better manage units and perhaps reduce the low food yielding animals spam. Also the blacksmith pair techs as additional feature to the already existing techs makes games more interesting and situations related.