Servo

0AD has battalion formations, WTH do you want more? All they gave to do is smoothen it up and everything will be fine! You can produce battalions from rax or stables but hey what's wrong with each unit in the battalion can move individually?!

Yes it's good to exploit defects in programming as long as you enjoy it. There will come a time that you will long for more harder difficulty like against maybe 7 hardest AI. It's going to be a big challenge. And pop cap will have effect in the end game. I normally don't kill AI. I play the game in such a manner that there will come a time when massive battle will occur. IMO AI in 0AD and most RTS games I played have weaknesses in raids. Their behavior is not intelligent enough to make it harder for human players to beat them. Now if you are only allowed to produce in battalions before you can even raid AI will swarm over you. If you don't produce raiders then AI will outboom you. In multiplayer games most pro make sure that every unit works to maximize their efficiency. Any idle citizens or soldiers doing nothing are part of inefficient gameplay.

I play mostly against Hardest AI and mostly if not all winning against 1. Now playing against multiple AI is imo more fun so I need more population. I mostly neutralize AI or multiple Hardest AIs then play defensive. I don't enjoy beating AI easily. I don't enjoy playing much against humans since my skills are not good enough to become pro. I played with the best in RoN multiplayer but got tired of ossing or crashing games or even laggers. But I enjoy playing multiplayer teaming up with very good humans against multiple AI be it in team games or diplomacy. At present I'm playing 0AD against 3 very hard and I'm enjoying it. I have all my units promoted to max 10 each of slingers, javeliner, hopelites, Athenian archers, cavalry skirmisher and cavalry swordsmen. Call me a cheater but I make sure I have no unit lost until I get my objective of walling, protecting the trees and animals from being destroyed. Once my objective is achieve I will let the AI to boom, advance to P3 so he can build armies and I guarantee you they can build massive armies and I will have huge battle ahead. If units are in battalions I guess it's very hard to play games like this. And I don't like this game become another BFME. RTS ganes like this may not really result in real battles where huge armies face each other in the battlefield due to the mechanics but it makes you to exploit and utilize every possible strategy to win the game.

I don't know about the technicalities of making games but I can make more units than allowed during gameplay and in BFME there was no safeguard. Here is how to do and it's very simple. Spam units as much as you can and send them to battle. In BFME I used and like Gondor units. Micro units so that you don't totally lose the whole battalion. Keep the survivor inside the castle and away from the healing building. You might end up having so many unheald single units either cavalry or foot soldiers. Once you reach maximum population which I think 200 then begin healing those units. As long as units are not promoted they won't auto heal. Once you have the banner carrier the units self heal. If 0AD has this kind of mechanics I can just make a cage get a wolf and put the units until the battalion has one unit left. As long as you don't upgrade the temple for organic units to heal you can spam more units than allowed.

BFME not BFME 2 my bad. Though I never had the game installed anymore but just in case I can still activate it. I bought almost 3 sets of each cd/DVD almost 2 anthology and one individual cd/DVD and not to boast for the love of that game spent almost or more than $500. BFME has no safeguard for pop hack. RoN has 3 heads of1 infantry unit but probably since there's no promotion the pop hack won't work

BFME works in battalions and if you lose 4 units from a battalion you can avail extra 4 units for production. If you have 2 battalions and you lost 4 units of each then you have 8 units cap to produce another battalion. You can do this repeatedly and you will end up having more units than allowed. I have done this many times that I could end up having 240 pop on a 200 pop max pop cap if I remember. Therefore a good player can hack to have more units. Until you can make provisions for this not to happen then the mechanics will always end up like this. If you can prove to me that this is not possible in BFME then explain why. I haven't read any explanation from you or anyone that this pop hacking can't be done. You only say it's not. Now I give a little insight as to the BFME now prove that I'm wrong. Now with regards to experience when you combine inexperienced to experience and then by average the battalion of course could change in experience if you can do programming. Not my worries actually but my worry is you are trying to take away from what an experienced unit has achieved! Soldiers are rewarded, they get medals, monitary and other rewards and you will deprive them? Im not trying to take away your visions, hard work and desire to better this game in fact I like some of the changes you want for this game but not your military battalion mechanics. I'm not nitpicking I'm just a meticulous person who likes to pay attention to details. I'm trying to pay attention as to what real things could happen. And one of the best feature 0AD have is this individual unit promotions. As I said I'm fine with production in battalions from barracks but just in a batch training style. If I'm a soldier I want to be like those heros who rose to fame because of their achievements. If I'm an emperor I will promote those heroic, may put them in the company or level of those who had done glory before him.

The AIs produce more champs on phase 3 with more merchants. I played 1v2 very hard(Carthage and Macedonia vs me Athenian) and their massive armies and champs keep on coming. The AI forward build some offensive towers and forts too. As long as you allow them to trade their champ units will keep on coming. But you have to encite them to go to where your bulk of forces are so that massive battles can occur. Easy to defend with more healers. I try to choose enemies that produce only range siege because they can move better that get stuck sometimes when they use Rams. I enjoy really!

When you leave the AI alone they will boom and produce more units especially champions. When I play 1v3 very hard AI I neutralize them with raids, promote all units, make defenses and core units then enjoy their attacks.

I hope the Iberian walls around its main CC can be included to be captured too when that city gets captured.

Maybe off topic but if a 6 player multi game is working good but my single player with 4 player(3AI),200 pop cap tends to lag when I can estimate that total pop is almost near max. My PC works really well in other RTS games with 8 players in single player mode.

If new updates come in would the previous ones be deleted, unplayable or will just superimpose the previous? All data like saved games be auto deleted?

Btw, I agree that you can reinforce any battalion with any units but taking out some experience from an experienced unit seems to have no sense. In fact experience units should even be able to acquire more experience when combined with other units because they could become mentors. In addition experience units could form an elite groups thru further trainings or studies or further promotions.

Ahaa now I can see that the mechanics that you're trying to have is like BFME. In this case no more healers thru temple and temple units and no more wounded units. Barracks units will reinforce in barracks and or stable units will reinforce in stables. Now there will come a scenario that players could hack their units to produce more than allowed pop cap. In 0AD this will be easy.

How would they replenish if the units that must come out is also another battalion consisting of 20 units? Will you turn the battalion production off and resort back to individual production? Then they will combine the inexperienced replenishment with experienced ones? What kind of mechanics is that? Engineering Mechanics?

Replenish without spending resources like another fantasy? Then what happens to the experience? Promotions? Can the new replenishment be of equal experience with the surviving battle tested units? It's like an enchanted barracks or buildings?! Lol .Idk what they want to do. So why mess up a quite good existing mechanics?! The formations/stances that are presently working just fine with corresponding benefits or even beauty wanted to be replaced with fantasy is just not right.

So if I have maximum pop cap then I go to battle with 3 battalions consisting of 20 units each then I lost 10 units each per battalion I am not allowed to make any more units? Are we going to wait until divine intervention comes and those dead units come alive? Is that what you mean?

Ok I give you a situation. You train 1 battalion (say 20 units). Assuming you have 100 pop cap you can only build 4 more battalions. I don't know how you gonnna make the mechanics but I assume the battalion has only one HP and for every unit in that battalion dies the HP reduces. Assuming you won the battle or you pullback with couple member units left in that battalion you decided to heal them will it come back to 20 units? Does the monk or priest pray that those who died in the battle comes back to life again?! if assuming you don't want to heal or there will be no healing mechanism you want to reinforce with any other units then your new battalion becomes ragtag! If you want to reinforce with the same type of unit then if you produce another battalion because maybe you like the type then you will have a battalion consisting of 30 units. I'm confused what's the mechanics of you battalion thing. So how? explain to me how your battalion style works. I played BFME and maybe it has the same mechanics. I like BFME but I want more real games. No fantasy. No magic or any not real possibility. If my guess is correct and healing back to original numbers is allowed then maybe I can produce 270 population despite having 200 pop cap if I'm lucky to neutralize my opponent and toy with him all the way until he gets bored and surrender.

I don't think you understand my point while most others do.

@wowgetoffyourcellphoneIt's not about satisfying individual it's about having a real and justifiable intent to do better. You train battalion, you lost unit/units in a battalion then you garrison or heal it and the units came back alive is that real?! Another magic game? What is your intent? Well you can Mod it but I hope the developers won't go this way. The game has a very strong fundamentals already in terms of military. Only little tweaks are needed in military like barracks produce only in "battalion batches", stable(horses) and unit balancing. The game IMO needs more civic, economic and structural mechanics improvement.

Seems ok but slaves maybe not real.

AI has something to do with my post because as I said I mostly play single player mode. I don't know what code are you talking about but game developer should have idea how a player can go beyond a maximum limit like in the case of BFME. It's very simple and only needs a common sense. My game or how I play my game is influenced by the AI behavior. It's like as simple as if I play against easy AI what will I get? Will I enjoy? If so I go to hardest, will I enjoy? If not I will think of what makes me enjoy. Maybe against 3 hardest AI will I enjoy? Can I succeed? Did I achieve what I like the game to go to? Did I protect the trees from being cut in my area? Did I preserve more animals, did I protect the apple tree of not getting harvested. Did I make my units promoted? Did I have zero losses against 3 hardest AI? Did I cheat?! Is there a cheat?! These are things I try to enjoy playing 0AD. There are things that I like to enjoy from RTS PC games and so far 0AD is the best I can have in playing against AI but this game has more potential to be more enjoyable and I guess making units in battalions is going to make the game unreal. why I play the game heavily it's because of unit promotions, individual units, walls, and quite real historical civilization. I can understand that units that comes out of the barracks should be in battalions but make it more realistic. Don't make this units become gay. Every man should be given a chance to mingle with a woman. As Leo Karsen said disband. Yeah I saw this in some games like Stronghold you can have battalions but every unit in a battalion can be ordered individually, either disband or raid etc. Detach is a simple word and also applied in military terms. Btw when I said disciplined army I'm referring to a battalion.

@DarcReaver I have no problem with pop cap in fact I like it. I even reduce my pop cap whenever possible just to find a better AI behavior(note: I play single player mostly except RoN). What I'm pointing out is battalion production is ok but units can individually detacth and it's normal and real. I found BFME 2 as a better application of an undetached battalion because I think I was able to make more units than the pop cap(I guess I can make 260/200) and AI behavior is nice too but not real. Its fine too with games concentrating singly/more on military strategy. But with economic activity there are so many strategy involved and creating a disciplined army are almost possible only in the beginning of aggression and when the opponent is neutralized and you relax.

My point of having units created in battalions is that a unit can't detach from it. If the battalion is almost wiped out some remnants could go back and heal then regenerate into the same battalion? If this is so then it's not Real. In BFME 2 I like it in such a manner that I could produce more units despite population capped and units can be coupled with ease because you produce only 5 units. But in RoN it's not because the 3 units count as one even if two units out of 3 died. When I play 0AD I make sure that I have 10 units of each citizen soldiers that can be fully promoted so they can operate in battalion formations. I produce battalions of champions but guess what does the AI fight in battalions? In multiplayer the players play to win in many ways real battle between huge armies doesn't occur unless there will have mutual agreement as to when and where battle occurs. Or in scenarios where players are to follow specific instructions. But when the battle commences units scatter all over the place. In real battle it's the same units could end up fighting individually. In 0AD when I put my units in formations it's so hard to extricate wounded units if they are attached or it's very hard to maneuver when marching in tight spaces. I hope a hot key can be provided to deselect the heavily wounded units from a group like the one in RoN which i select all units then I think press "alt-number" and heavily wounded units are highlighted.

The only thing I don't like is the battalion. You can train in battalions or batches but units should operate individually. Formations should make up for battalion. Battalion is one of my dislike in RoN but it adds to gameplay. Yeah Rise of Nations has very good gameplay mechanics. My favorite game before I come across 0AD. AI's have better intelligence. Attrition, roads, limited caravan, supply wagon, border push, university, upgrade buildings, scouts, spies, leader or generals abilities. So many things can be done without much headaches but could make the game more enjoyable. I hope you focus more on single player mode because imo this game becomes dull when all the trees and animals die. Like in AoE2 when AI destroys the environment the game become so boring.

Alarm should be in place so all economic activity should stop and all workers go inside any livable places like houses and CC. Like a little darkness near the CC in short time. Make medics and clinics or equivalent and not only monks can heal. I want to bring my wounded to a medical house and not on the temple. Well all units should be able to heal in any buildings that can be garrisoned. Either available in techs or not.