ValihrAnt
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Posts posted by ValihrAnt
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The 4 games of playtesting I've done so far. Two 1v1 games and one 4v4, and one 3v3. Should give a decent impression to how the balance plays out.
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Yes, the only mod called BalanceTestMod
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The mod has now been updated. I initially stopped working on the mod after the revitalization on completing borg's balance mod, but as all activity on it has died down I'm back to finish up this mod.
VERSION 3.0 CHANGES
Technologies:
Loom: cost from 150F to 200F
Advanced Siege: 600W, 300M to 700W, 300M
Citizen cavalry:
Cavalry archers: Move speed from 17.5(same as javelin cavalry) to 15.4 and run speed from 29.2 to 25.7
Champions:
Archer Cav: Move speed from 20.3 to 17.8 and run speed from 33.8 to 29.7
Crush based champion metal cost increased by 30M:
Mauryan Yoddhas from 90F, 75W, 30M to 90F, 75W, 60M
Iberian Fire Cav from 150F, 90W, 45M to 150F, 90W, 75MMod can be downloaded from the initial thread.
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@borg- are you still working on the balance mod and if so, have you got any estimates as to when a playtestable version will be available?
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I'll list my concerns with some of the changes.
QuoteThis pretty much kills rushing. Being able to train infantry from the CC while cavalry can only be trained from stables or barracks means that you'll be far too behind in numbers to ever do anything and that's without counting in cav being unable to hunt now. All cavalry rushes rely on the initial cavalry paying for the next ones through hunting, so not only will players be unable to afford a cavalry rush, they'll need a military building on top of everything.
So in my opinion D2498 is terrible, but D896 can still be fine if the ability to train infantry from the CC is removed too like in @borg-'s mod.
QuoteD2300: Single walking speed for all citizen infantry.
I understand it's meant to even out unit overall gathering efficiency, but the side effects aren't even nearly worth it imo. Unit move speed is balanced according to their attack range for ranged units and armor for melee units. So archers are slower than slingers, who are slower than skirmishers (Same for cavalry) and pikemen are slower than spearmen, who are slower than swordsmen. So now we have the problem of archers being just as quick as skirmishers, but having 3 times more range and if you've ever dealt with camel archers you'll know that's a big design flaw. Even now it's a pain to chase down slingers or archers with skirmishers if they're controlled by someone with good micro. So now I can rush someone with just archers and whatever they do they'll fall behind. If they try to chase me with their skirmishers/slingers I will never be caught and can micro down their units. If they go for cavalry they'll need to invest loads of food until they have enough cav to scare me back to my base and while they're massing those cavalry they need to somehow survive. If my enemy goes for towers he will need a minimum of 2 and even then there's no guarantee I won't be able to hit his woodline due to how similar archer attack range is with tower range. In the case of a well towered woodline I still outrange the CC with my archers so I can easily harass food. Basically it is a camel archer rush but with infantry archers instead of cavalry archers.
Similar thing with infantry. The only thing which kept pikemen from being completely OP was their turtle move speed. Now they're basically a bullet sponge capable of outrunning Usain Bolt if they took off their chestpiece.
The other changes seem fine. I'll just have to really see the effects of fortress territory root to say what I think of it.
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Count me in this week too
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In my opinion graphics are fine. The only problem could be differentiating units. Gameplay wise I'm sure it will be top tier. What I'm most worried about is optimisation and the lobby system. Both of these things Aoe2:DE has problems with. Many players are avoiding TGs due to lag and the lobby system is mediocre at best. Hopefully the new engine will help in optimising the game and maybe the pathfinder will be better too. For the lobby system player profiles, PMs, easily spectatable and downloadable matches are a must imo.
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Can you outline what parts you're not planning to implement so everyone is on the same page?
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It's great to see that @borg- has got the motivation to go through with implementing the mod and that a lot of people are willing to help.
QuoteOn a different note, we could probably get more people interested in the mod by making a tournament in it. When there was a Hyrule Conquest tournament, it was the first time I found out about that mod and there were suddenly many people giving it a try. I don't feel like organizing this, but I don't strongly refuse to if none of the experienced organizers is interested. Maybe @HMS-Surprise, @Unknown_Player or @Stockfish?
Right, there is currently one tournament going on, but for now we could at least find some players that could possibly be interested. Let's make it the #4 goal of this thread to find out if there is interest. I would myself sign up for the Borg Expansion Pack tournament to help it gain more popularity.
Yes, a 1v1 tournament would be great to get people to play the mod. I don't think it going on at the same time as the SPG 1v1 league is a problem, since it is a quick weekend event.
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@borg-, @ValihrAnt Couldn't you guys work together as a team ?
Thanks for the initative btw
I'm not doing this all alone. I have mostly been cooperating with Feld as borg- is generally harder for me to reach, but both of them have given me their opinions on things, helped test and offered suggestions on how to improve the changes.
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This is a balance mod meant for testing changes before creating patches for them on trac. The changes are purposefully small and not drastic, and I don't plan to fix all of the balance issues as I don't have too much time available and additionally it makes it harder to get into the game. Additionally I'm also limited by other factors, such as map generation. Currently mines are spawned entirely randomly, which means that in team games one team will occasionally enjoy a huge metal advantage, while the other team has no extra metal mines or has to share 1 mine between all of them. This means that if champions are balanced in such a way that they are cost efficient vs citizen soldiers then we will much more frequently have the winning side decided on map generation.
CURRENT CHANGES
Team bonuses:
Iber: 20% to 10%
Rome: 20% to 10%
Kush: 20% to 10%
Technologies:
Loom: 50% to 100% and cost from 150F to 200F
Armor plating: 500W, 250M to 300W, 150M
Advanced Siege: 1000W, 500M to 700W, 300M
Citizen soldiers:
Slingers: 9.5P, 1C and 3.0 accuracy to 9.2P, 0.9C and 3.5 accuracy(right between skirms and archers).
Archers: 6P to 6.7P.
Citizen cavalry:
Cavalry archers: Move speed from 17.5(same as javelin cavalry) to 16.0 and run speed from 29.2 to 26.6
Elephants:
War Elephant: 250F, 250M to 300F, 200M
Elephant Archer: 200F, 80W, 20M to 150F, 75W
Champions:
Archer Cav: Move speed from 20.3 to 18.4 and run speed from 33.8 to 30.7
Catapults: Splash damage radius: 10m to 7m
Buildings:
Carthaginian temple: 400S to 300S
Kushite small pyramid: 300F, 300S to 300SVERSION 6.0 CHANGES
Actually changed archer damage to 6.7P from 6.8P
Fixed elephant archer speed, as I originally didn't realise they had cav archers as parent template.
Carthaginian temple cost from 400S to 300S
Kushite small pyramid cost reduced from 300F 300S to 300SSpoilerChanges in this mod.
Team bonuses:
Iber: 20% to 10%
Rome: 20% to 10%
Kush: 20% to 10%
Technologies:
Loom: 50% to 100% and cost from 150F to 200F
Armor plating: 500W, 250M to 300W, 150M
Advanced Siege: 1000W, 500M to 700W, 300M
Citizen soldiers:
Slingers: 9.5P, 1C and 3.0 accuracy to 9.2P, 0.9C and 3.5 accuracy(right between skirms and archers).
Archers: 6P to 6.7P.
Citizen cavalry:
Cavalry archers: Move speed from 17.5(same as javelin cavalry) to 16.0 and run speed from 29.2 to 26.6
Elephants:
War Elephant: 250F, 250M to 300F, 200M
Elephant Archer: 200F, 80W, 20M to 150F, 75W
Champions:
Archer Cav: Move speed from 20.3 to 18.4 and run speed from 33.8 to 30.7
Catapults: Splash damage radius: 10m to 7m
INITIAL CHANGESTeam bonuses:
Iber: 20% to 10%
Rome: 20% to 10%
Kush: 20% to 10%
Technologies:
Loom: 50% to 100%
Unlock champion units: 1000M and 90s to 300M and 120s.
Armor plating: 500W, 250M to 300W, 150M
Advanced Siege: 1000W, 500M to 600W, 300M
Citizen soldiers:
Slingers: 9.5P, 1C and 3.0 accuracy to 9.2P, 0.9C and 3.5 accuracy(right between skirms and archers).
Archers: 6P to 6.8P.
Elephants:
War Elephant: 250M, 250F to 225M, 225F
Elephant Archer: 200F, 80W, 20M to 150F, 75W
Champions:
Infantry: 125F, 75W, 100M, 20s to 90F, 75W, 30M, 15s
Cavalry: 250F, 100W, 100M, 30s to 150F, 90W, 45M 20s
Sword Cav: 250F, 100W, 100M to 150F, 80W, 55M
Merc Champs: Black Cloaks and Fanas the same. So they're still strong P2, but mostly uncompetitive P3.
Skirmishers: 100W, 150M to 75W, 90M
Heavy Swords and Cardaces Hoplite: 75W, 150M to 75W, 90MVERSION 3.0 CHANGES
Technologies:
Loom: 50% to 100% and cost from 150F to 200F
Advanced Siege: 1000W, 500M to 700W, 300M
Citizen cavalry:
Cavalry archers: Move speed from 17.5(same as javelin cavalry) to 15.4 and run speed from 29.2 to 25.7
Champions:
Archer Cav: Move speed from 20.3 to 17.8 and run speed from 33.8 to 29.7
Crush based champion metal cost increased by 30M:
Mauryan Yoddhas from 90F, 75W, 30M to 90F, 75W, 60M
Iberian Fire Cav from 150F, 90W, 45M to 150F, 90W, 75MVERSION 4.0 CHANGES
Champion cost increased:
Champ cav from 150F 90W 45M to 175F 90W 50M
Champ sword cav 150F 80W 55M to 175F 80W 60M
Champ infantry swords 90F 75W 30M to 90F 75W 40M
Mauryan Yoddhas 90F 75W 60M to 90F 75W 70M
Champ infantry spear and pike 90F 75W 30M to 90F 85W 30M
Champ infantry archers 90F 75W 30M to 90F 90W 30M
Cavalry archer speed change: move from 15.4 to 16.0 and run from 25.7 to 26.6
Champion cav archers speed change: from 17.8 to 18.4 and run from 29.7 to 30.7Merc Champs:
Skirmishers 75W 150M to 100W 90M
Heavy swords 75W 150M to 75W 105M
Cardaces Hoplite 75W 150M to 85W 90MVERSION 5.0 CHANGES
Reverted all champion changes, due to extra metal mine spawns being entirely random. This means that very often 1 team will have a considerable advantage, due to having access to extra metal. I've even played multiple matches just in this balancing mod where one team had only 1 or no extra metal mines at all, while the other team had safe access to all other metal spawns. Also removed the champion tech unlock change.
Citizen archers: 6.8P to 6.7P
War elephants: 225F and 225M to 300F and 200M
Catapults: Splash damage radius: 10m to 7mVERSION 6.0 CHANGES
Actually changed archer damage to 6.7P from 6.8P
Fixed elephant archer speed, as I originally didn't realise they had cav archers as parent template.
Carthaginian temple cost from 400S to 300S
Kushite small pyramid cost reduced from 300F 300S to 300S-
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All Vali games. Played with fgod and autociv.
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ill join too
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True but the streaming showcase the game
If one can take a balaanced mainland and just edit it a bit so that it looks gorgeous one should do so 
On high settings all of these maps look very good and this being a 1v1 event I doubt anyone will have trouble running the game at those settings. But I doubt anyone would be against graphical improvements if it doesn't affect performance.
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Ant is here too
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You can do this quite simply without any mods, but you will need to have cheats activated. So to play together both people will obviously need to be in the game together and when the match starts one of the players can open the developer overlay by pressing Alt + d or Alt + Shift + d. After that select the ''Change Perspective'' and ''Control all units'' options. After that simply change the player perspective (In top right) to the one you want to play as. (You can also do this if you enter the game as a spectator).
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So yeah it's definitely the blood that's killing performance :/ Would you say blood is nice to have ?
It's barely noticable, atleast in my experience. I'd gladly take the improved performance over it. I suppose a setting to turn it on/off would be nice.
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Can you try the no blood mod ? To see if it's really the corpses or just the blood ?
The mod had pretty much same fps as limiting corpses.
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Does that improve battle perfs ?
From the testing I did, yes it helps massively. I had max number set to 50 and saw 50-150% fps increase which kept increasing the longer the battle went on. During battles in which I had 2-5 fps I had around 15-30 with the corpse count limited. Lowest fps I hit with a limit of 50 corpses was 7fps.
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The Ptolemies are said to have the slowest Cavalry Rushes. So if you get clobbered by one, you have to re-evaluate your strategies countering them.
The Ptolemie camel rush usually happens well before a normal cavalry rush, while able to maintain a strong economy behind it. Which is why it's so hard to deal with as taking even a small amount of damage will make you fall behind any player who can multitask well.
As for Britons and Gauls. It doesn't matter how good unit balance is. They will still dominate even if it's perfect. Why? They have something no other civilization has - an economy bonus. It simply gives them a big advantage over every other civ.
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Some reasons why Celts are op;
1) Great eco bonuses. Nearly all of their buildings give extra population space in addition to having the lowest build times of all civs. This lets them save wood, time and grow their population much quicker. The Rotary Mill is very good for food income aswell.
2) No inherent weaknesses. While other civilizations lack swordsmen to counter siege weapons (Macedonians) or require specific buildings to do so (Seleucids, Ptolemies, Carthaginians, Persians), the Celts have access to sword cav in their barracks.
The Celts can easily function with only food and wood while most other civilizations are severely crippled without access to minerals (Ptolemies most severely).
They have good heroes and the good ol' rams. Caratacos, Cunobelin, Brennus and Vercingetorix are very strong heroes. And rams are a strong and capable siege weapon capable of quick and deadly attacks, which are only helped by the strong economic boost.
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Yeah, I really like this idea. It gives the Kushites some nice new options, but I feel like it would be best if the camp doesn't decay to Gaia even when ungarrisoned in Neutral territory because having 3 units sitting in each camp really adds up over time, especially since the camps are fast to destroy/capture and they don't have any defensive capabilities.
Though the main weakness of Kushites in a23 is the same as all other archer civilizations - archers being nearly useless. And another problem for them is their siege options, which are only siege towers and elephants. To achieve anything with siege towers you need to base your entire strategy about them (which is currently one of their better options against the meta civs imo) and elephants simply are too expensive to be relied upon. Elephants are killed far too easily. So I'd suggest changing their cost to 200F/200M from 250F/250M.
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1) Is it possible to assign a unit to multiple control groups, e.g., to have a unit in Group 1 as well as Group 2?
Units and buildings can only be in a single control group, so currently this is impossible.
Quote2) Is it possible to jump to the site of the most recent attack from another player, instead of just relying on flashing dots in the minimap to find where the attack happened?
This isn't possible either. But you can also try looking for the enemy players units in the minimap, to find the attack location more easily. Also clear out any aggressive Gaia units like Tigers before they wander into your woodline and kill many innocent people.
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The current problem for siege towers in my opinion is that they are easily killed by rams, catas or sword units. This is what makes them not so useful in the battle. I personally thing that, if the speed has to be decreased, the damage should be increased or noone will even train them.
The only real threat to siege towers are catapults and cavalry swordsmen/spearmen, and war elephants. All siege weapons should be made slightly slower and all civilisations should be at least given swordsmen (Macedonians don't have a single sword unit). Giving siege towers ability to capture buildings would be interesting.
QuoteFor example, 2 rams from another player could easily kill 7 siege towers in a game I did, that is quite exagerated.
Losing 7 siege towers to 2 rams can only be summed up to very severe user error. Siege towers have good crush damage and easily destroy buildings, siege machinery and units, while outrunning swordsmen, spearmen and rams. The reason most have an impression that siege towers deal low damage is that they send the siege towers into the middle of the enemy base where the siege towers are firing upon 15+ buildings and probably some units, making them appear weak.
The real reason they aren't used is their cost. Each siege tower costs 500 wood and 300 metal, and also requires to have 10 units garrisoned in it for maximum efficiency. That is 1800 resource cost and 13 pop for each siege tower. It's simply just a bit too much for most.
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Balance Mod to test changes.
in Game Modification
Posted
Through these days I've played and spectated a lot of matches with the mod. And so far I'm satisfied with the citizen soldier and technology changes and I haven't received complaints about them either. What I have received complaints about, though, are the champion changes where the feedback was very split. Some people were happy about them and some not so much.
In my experience champion infantry melee units are in a good spot. It isn't a rush to get to them and then losing is impossible, they can be dealt with by players utilizing fully citizen soldier armies, but that's not so much the case for ranged infantry or cavalry, which currently seem a bit too strong. Ranged infantry are generally a fair distance away from the frontline and that way suffer much fewer casualties meaning they are more cost efficient, due to which I think it would be warranted for them to have a higher cost. Cavalry champ cost in general is too low now I think, so that's something I'll change for the next version.
I would also really like to know the opinions of the players on this since I generally only know the stance and not the reasoning behind it.