Feldfeld

Fanatic rushes can be very deadly. If you look away for 10 seconds you might find a lot of your women/cavalry dead. Here I provide in the pack 3 replays where I used them successfully. 1 of the replays is a 1v1 against ffm, the others are team games. fana rush.7z

Yes there are ... "Everybody can rush. Everybody can build armies and fight. No faction really specializes in any of that" For the rush, the factions that specialize in that in early game are roman and macedonian, because spear cavalry are available right are the start of the game, and they kill women way faster than skirmisher cavalry (though they lose to them if they fight at equal numbers). Especially romans since their starting cav are also spear cav, when macedonian starts with skirmisher cav. "Everybody can build armies and fight" Yes, but what would do a faction that can't build armies and can't figth ? ... That being said, i'll give an other example of differences among civilizations. Currently, I think that late game is dominated by macedonian and spartans because their spear champions are really strong. So we now have champion fights dominated by these civilizations... I can give other examples if needed. "For example, even with their walls the Iberians can still be raided almost as easily as any other faction" Hmm, I doubt that because i think that the iberians, if they want security, should go out and take their wood only when they have a good enough mass of citizen soldiers to counter cav, but i never tried it myself. The walls mainly defend their food income from raids. Also, an other difference in fations : iberians actually have the strongest defense structures in the game (not considering carthage's walls because walls are forbidden in good games...). The Mauryan worker elephant : Currently, in early game, yes, they are used to saving wood because of mobile dropsite, and build houses.Though, later in the game they start to require more micro, and are hence only used to gather ressources out of a player's territory. In late game, not only they need micro to be used effectively, but they take also 1 pop that can be precious in low pop games (150, though becoming 165 for mauryans due to their bonuses).So i think they currently give an advantage, and i forgot to speak about hunting using the worker elephant. Carthage's Embassies : It is true that they are currently not used a lot, but they will likely be in next alpha due to buff of mercenaries, it will encourages people to use mrecenaries and it will likely be a good argument for carthage. It is also true that the community can't see good player's games/playing due to lack of both replays/videos. Maybe i'll try to remediate that myself but it is some investment...

It is also important to have a good army composition, and in team game you better be coordinated with your allies. Currently, some very random maps impose to improvise and find a good strategy to win.

Here i give replay material Feldfeld(gauls) vs borg-(macedonians) Another (try to) boom against a spear cav rush. It was very close until the end where citizen soldiers battles decided the game. Now maybe Grugnas understands how i could beat JeanClaude's roman spear cav rush with gauls. Feldfeld (gauls) vs borg (mace).7z

So I post the replays as promised. Notice that 3 replays out of 6 are actually about sword cav rush. This should be surprising, because there are even more spent ressources committed only to make some sword cav. Indeed, you have to spend 500 food and 500 wood to get to phase 2 before 4 min, which is an huge investment at this time of the game. Furthermore, you have to add an additionnal 300 wood in order to get the barrack up before 5 min. Just to be able to train some sword cav. But the rush still works. Here we go : 3v3 game (focus = Feldfeld-Hannibal).7z I start with this game that shows the main purpose of cav rush : denying food income. (I take the example of my rush vs hannibal barca, but there were another cav raids that i didn't choose to focus on) The attack was not defended well, and for minutes of game my opponent couldn't make food. Feldfeld vs JeanClaude (Rome).7z A game about spear cav rush. I think JC did well his rush and was better at approximately 3 min of game. I think that going to the animals in the center was a mistake, and that he should have kept raiding me the same way I did in the first game shown. He then would have got a better economy than me. women hard boom (not advised) Feldfeld vs borg.7z Another sword cav rush. I tried pure boom, but I shouldn't have made this much women and got punished (I didn't expect sword cav rush, it was the first time i saw it in the game if i recall well). But keep in mind that between 2 strategies of pure boom, 1 making more women early, and the second making more men in case of a rush, the first i described (more women early) will have better eco later. Feldfeld vs defenderbenny naked fana rush.7z Naked fanatics rush, first time i saw that as well. You need to sacrifice huge eco just in order to train these fanatics (early phasing + many workers on metal, almost no food production). But this strategy works still very well. 4v4 endless raids, + promoted cav very strong.7z Rush with sword cav, then i kept the pressure all the game. At the end : huge eco damage, also my sword cav got promoted and became very strong, and had no issues fighting foot soldiers later. Notice that in team game, you can rush someone, the defender makes decisions to defend the rush, then you can simply switch and raid someone else, and later return on the first ennemy. 4v4 spear cav rush especially wang_wei.7z This game is similar to the last game i described, this time i focus on wang_wei that rushed early with spear cav then kept the pressures and raided more and more. You might want to download all the replays in 1 file instead of 6 : pack.7z note : Also, it is a bit naive to think that you can replace your losses with the tech to make women from houses. This tech is very expensive at 6 min of game and i don't think it is affordable, and even more, you need to have food to make women, and food is the ressources raided. By 6 min, you don't need that much buildings to make units anyway, economy is not developped enough.

I offered to post them but it was called """"" off-topic """"". Anyway, when i will have enough free-time, i'll gather the replays then post them.

But did you read my answer ? 1- You're actually the first who derailed completely the thread, you could make a new one to say there is no point in balance testing. 2- You first said that booming like a madman is the one and only strategy and that it is because of this citizens system so we have to change it, changing the gameplay I answered to that by saying that it is possible to balance with the current gameplay, so it is supposed to refute your point. Still you completely avoid my point and say that it is off-topic. I'll need explanation on that. So the conclusion of my point would be that the gameplay is good as it is. That's why i'm not answering off-topic.

Apart from that there is no point in discussing the "overpoweredness" of some horses in a game stage like this. But I'll try that myself when I should bother playing 0ad again. I'm pretty sure however, that there is no point in cavalry harassment early on if pretty much every civ has basic spearmen in their town hall as basic resource gatherers. About cavalry harassment : First of all, spearmen can kill cavalry, but only if the attacker isn't paying enough attention. By microing well, the player can keep his cav alive. And yes, there is actually a point in cavalry harassment. If citizens soldiers that gather wood are massed enough, it is not worth it to attack them with cav. But cavalry can still kill women gathering food. Cavalry can prevent food production and without food, you can't make soldiers/women anymore. Also, to me, there is a point in discussing the "overpoweredness" of some horses in a game stage like this. You said earlier that booming is clearly the strategy to go. My example was about spear cav : I said it was overpowered, but actually it is only in raiding, in killing women, in preventing that food income. It loses actually if it fights at equal numbers against other types of cavalry. So assuming that following this strategy (spear cav rush) is overpowered : it makes that better than booming. It means that in a game between players of same strength, the player spear cav rushing will win more than the other one booming : can't we simply conclude that it IS possible to balance the game with that citizens soldiers system ? That it will really be possible to make this game unique with that ? The least we could say is that at this current stage, we can balance the game in a way that there is no obvious strategy to follow. In this thread : it seems that game is being close to beta and that balancing takes sense. I have no experience about game making, etc so i won't be sure about what i'm going to say. If we consider that the citizens soldiers system is a good aspect of this game, thus the only issue should be balancing. If the game can be balanced, then we can go on with citizens soldiers. From what i have shown just before, assuming spear cav rush is overpowered, the game can in some way be balanced. So it is relevant to discuss about that (overpowered strats) in order to know if yes or no, the game can be balanced. Not sure i explained well my point, i am now waiting for answers. EDIT : I forgot to mention, but i can, if needed bring replays about successful cav rushes (that prevented food production, captured buildings to destroy it)

Yes, but rushing is also used very often. borg (the best player) often uses sword cav rush for exemple. In 1v1 and in team games, early cav rush is used, and not only that, but the roman spear cav rush is considered overpowered by many players. So from my experience in lobby, booming is not the one and only strategy, and in each game we play, we don't know for sure what will happen in early game.

What ? Sorry I have read almost nothing in the thread, but I want to say one thing, and it is that booming is clearly NOT the ultimate strategy to go with. Rushing can be very efficient and it is used very often. I don't know if that subject has been discussed already but if not i want explanations.

Pikemen definitely need a buff. I made some 1v1 tests on svn ( with a hack attack of 1 and a pierce attack of 3 ) and here are the results : Spear infantry wins against pike ( and have 37 hp left out of 100) skirm infantry wins (14hp/50) slinger wins (4/50) skirm cav wins (16/120) sword cav loses (pike got promoted and have 15/120 hp) spear cav loses (pike got promoted and have 37/120 hp) didn't try archer nor sword infantry. For ranged units, they started to fire before pikes could reach them. So clearly, even if pikes, with their slow pace, can reach ennemy units, they don't deal much damage : spear infantry still destroy them, and even ranged infantry units can win when pikes are in melee with them ... (on the other hand, in 1v1, if spear attack skirm infantry for example spear will win convincingly) Not only that, even if pikes naturally win against sword and spear cav ... they still lose against skirm cav ! What an useless unit, but anyway it can't possibly reach cav.. So the only advantage pikes can claim is tanking fire ... But even with less armour, spear infantry do that job very well too, as they also deal relevant damages. And finally, pike infantry champs aren't used in pro games for obvious reasons.

About priests researching tech, this could be hellenic and roman's priests special ailities following Lion.Kanzen's idea

Yes, I guess that the changes proposed by borg need some time programming. But some other balances like mauryan archer on elephant don't need nothing but a change in unit fighting statistics (sry don't have the word).

Only reducing their price won't change anything, because their influence is minimal, you can make them cost 50 food, even 1 food, I, and I think many other lobby players still won't make them because they just do nothing, it's a waste of micromanaging and a waste of population, most lobby players have more important thing to do.

1° That can work 2° But the issue is that not only you need to build that medical center, you also need your temple up and 1250 food for priests which is quite expensive at this stage of the game, it prevents you from growing economy.

1° Interesting proposition but have to be balanced wisely, with a group of priests maybe you can make a group of champions invicible for seconds. But at a certain point it can be useful even without being broken. Also, with this fast heal, you can consider that some can, in let's say 300 pop game, mass healers enough to constantly area heal army, because some priests would still heal while the cooldown has passed for others, so infinite heal. also, keep in mind that in fight infantry champions takes not that much place to fight so easy to heal. Healing wisely would maybe counter massed ranged units. 2°I think medical center as you described it would be not that much used, pretty slow healing rate, if you don't have 5 healers in you better go back to nearest temple but i might be wrong. Priests definitely need a change.

This is interesting, I said that because you said in top of your first post that you'll speak about underused upgrades but finally this is a thread about balancing all the tech. This is interesting indeed to make the player have to make a choice about whether upgrades he will choose ... because to me in the current state it is not difficult, I always make wood upgrade, and I make stone/metal if I have at least 1 additionnal stone/metal mine. So as stone tech would cost wood, maybe i can't choose all tech even if i'm interested in them ... Then maybe we have to discuss why a player would choose this stone tech instead of metal/wood/armour ... Certainly not to make the first fortress, you need it quickly so you make it before having the tech, exchanging ressources in market if necessary. So to my mind it would be to mass slingers or make a lot of towers.... This tech might become underused..

I agree to change all the techs except servants. I use sometimes servants, and making this tech cost wood would make it more expensive. When you get to age 3, if you plan to fight with infantry, you need to use infantry armour tech, they cost 1000 wood each. But you also need the eco techs, including wood, and metal if you have more metal mines that you can access. They also cost 1000 wood each. So I don't understand why you suggest the stone tech should cost wood.

I also have an azerty keyboard, and had the same issue. Indeed, I changed the keyboard shorcuts to make it work. Also, I am on windows if it can be helpful.

We can also consider increasing their starting grade (instead of increasing base HP and armour, which still seem very logical to me), so they won't only be tank but also will deal more damage. It is just an idea.

If you speak about rate of fire, it is the same as others horse archers. Sure. My question wasn't well asked. I'm speaking about game balance so that's why i took the exemple of lobby players. To my mind they need a buff because they're clearly worse than horse archers from other civs.

Why a mauryan player would make them ? Compared to horse archers from other civs, this unit is way slower despite having almost the same stats. They got a little HP bonus but it is clearly not enough to make them worth it. Not only they are slow, but they can't be as massed as other horse archers because they're elephants and take more place. So their pathfinding is also difficult, and that makes them really weak against spearmen, or if they want to retreat it's also tricky anyway. They also can't collect ressources. No wonder i never see them in pro games. Also, I guess the "go berserk" in description is not implemented. Will they be buffed in next alpha ?