Feldfeld

Not necessarily after armor is factored in They also can keep a units alive while fighting, allowing them to promote in combat. That said I don't know how useful this is compared to having more units of the same type fighting. But if you want melee units to get promoted / stay alive it's probably better to add healers rather than skirmishers. I think they aren't used primarily because of their cost, and the cost of their upgrades. Healers are expensive, and cost 100% food, so if you want to train them you have to rebalance your economy quite a bit. On top of that, their technologies are also expensive. Champions + healers could be a combo worth doing even in this alpha, however only possible if a game stays more or less stalematy/equal for a long time, which rarely happens right now. My suggestion for healers themselves is to reduce their overall cost, and add a metal cost. At some point before A26 they will be changed I think.

Healers are much more useful healing melee / tanky units, or champions, than weak ranged units that get overkilled anyway. They also make better use of promotion mechanic for melee units

What would make sense to me is that spectators could use flare to point other spectators interesting locations of the map, and when a player is eliminated / has won, he is considered a spectator.

Doom incoming

This mod adds the map "Mainland balanced" (https://code.wildfiregames.com/D4232) Thanks @badosu for fulfilling the community's interest in balanced maps by providing a nice bunch of balanced maps for a23 and a24 Currently, only the starting food surrounding players is modified. Also, straggler berries are not modified yet (which can lead to imbalances). And the biome only slightly affects the total amount of food, and it currently doesn't affect the berry/hunt ratio, this is something I will change later. This removes Jungle (too laggy) and Nubia (wood too imbalanced) biomes until they get fixed. Alpine Mountains is also included (https://code.wildfiregames.com/D2830, ) The mod is now available through the in game downloader! (mod.io). Manual download here otherwise (updated a26, current version 1.0.1): feldmap-1.0.1.pyromod feldmap-1.0.1.zip a26 archive: Old (a25 version):

In 0 A.D., even in 1v1 it's possible to comeback, I myself managed a small comeback in a 1v1 yesterday, but I agree it can be hard and the game is quite snowbally. In order to comeback from a disadvantage in 1v1 I see 2 main strategies possible: - In early game, if you are around equal in military might, you can try training more soldiers and overrunning the opponent in an all out attack - If it is going to late game no matter what, or if you have less military than the opponent, then play very conservative and try to defend early p3. Hopefully after some time you will have stabilized the economy situation. I think the promotion system is nice and the snowball is not its only use: for example, making use of healers in the army benefits a lot from promotion system, and by that I mean not just the healers, since the units getting healed don't die they get promoted, also healing strong units is better than healing weak ones. For looting however, although I believe right now it's only a small factor and has very small effect even in snowballs, I agree that the looting of fighting army is quite hidden and difficult to feel in the game. Killing traders also loots the resource they're transporting, which his however quite nice, but if the defender microes well he can delete the trader before which is unnice.

I am not sure if maths say otherwise, you will note that the build time of 10-pop house is smaller than the build time of 2 5-pop houses, this compensates at least partially for the other advantages you can get with 5-pop houses

Did you try SlopeConstraint? What exactly, in your case is defined as not passable? If, for example, you want to select not only the flank of the mountain but the top where the slope becomes small again, in order to paint it, then you can try (SlopeConstraint or HeightConstraint), or you can also try floodfilling (https://code.wildfiregames.com/D2828) if you want to check the area reachable starting from a specific point in the map.

One particular thing which concerns me in this game is the balance of trading, and the international bonus. I would really wish for trading to be viable in 1v1 games but as things stand, if trading was balanced in 1v1 it would be OP in team games and if it was balanced in team games, it would be almost useless in 1v1s. That is because of both the international bonus and the map size, but particularly the international bonus. My feeling is that therefore the international bonus, although a nice touch of realism, kinda hurts gameplay. Also Carthaginians have international trade as a civ bonus and are also hurt by that. One solution I precedently thought of was to simply have a bonus for all trade when game settings don't reliably allow for international trade, for example in 1v1s on in no diplomacy FFAs. However this solution looks a bit unintuitive. But recently I saw that AoE4 has this thing called the Trade Post: So we could have neutral trade posts spawn in maps, and have international trade bonus apply to them. We could have other bonuses, for example technologies becoming available in a trade post when enough trade has been done with it, or perhaps training mercenaries. There could be an additionnal bonus for traders which relay 2 trade posts, instead of a player market and a trade post. Also as a consequence, trade routes would not necessarily be in the back, so this also puts more importance to territory and map control.

If he wants, the enemy can delete his own palisades at any time

Just make it so that when one palisade is destroyed, all palisades within a radius are destroyed as well, there problem solved

... Heh ...

g_Map.height[x][y] could be what you want Depending on what you want, adding a PassableMapAreaConstraint, or a SlopeConstraint to your painter could be a solution. If you want an example for SlopeConstraint check the map in the thread you linked.

They are worth it, but are forbidden in multiplayer games because more pop => too much lag. Or at least that was the case back in A21, players seem to just have forgotten it now.

That campaign was pretty good

They were probably tasked to attack the civic center, but couldn't find a path as it was completely surrounded by buildings, so they end up stuck.

Hopefully this thread can address a few of the complaints I have read there: I won't go into details about the others yet. Personally I'm fine with the gameplay being slower, including unit movement speed. Sometimes in a23 I had the feeling maps for teamgame were quite small, the enemy could be reached very fast (in bigger map size settings was not an option due to lag). Now with the slower movement this looks more like AoE2 in term of 'map size feeling', and I think this alpha puts more emphasis on map control in general, something I felt was missing in a23. Regarding a balance patch mod, there are a few problems with that. - Potentially difficult to get people to use it - Very easy to disagree with the changes there - Most importantly, it will necessarily diverge from the changes of the new a25 version. First of all, a number of the changes that would go to the balance mod would not be changes that can get in the next version of the game, due to consistency and historical accuracy requirements. Secondly those changes would be more like a patch, and not enhancements to gameplay, which is still an objective for the next version of the game (= more divergence). Thirdly, engine changes can affect how the game is played. All in all, those points will make it so that the balance reached with such a patch will have to be thrown away for the next version of the game, so they could end up not being helpful for tuning the a25 balance. To end this post, I would like to point out that the state of the balance of this a24 version has not been figured out yet (see the thread I linked to have explanations and examples). I also think like @Nescio that we should give it one month or two before being too critical with this new version. There are a few things I don't like of course but all in all I think a24 is an improvement.

Hello, I want to inaugurate this new A24 replay section by dumping a few of my multiplayer replays, showcasing the new unit balance and the increased diversity of units that can be reliably trained. I have a feeling sometimes players don't make use of all tools available to them. Champions, trade and siege (3v3).zip This teamgame showcases a lot of different unit types, but notably champions swordsmen, some champion archers, some trading, catapult+ballistas attack, and camel archer lategame composition on the other side. Roman sword cavalry champions (3v3).zip Features roman sword cavalry champions, quite a powerful unit. Cavalry and champions (3v3).zip Features sword infantry champions from Seleucids, cavalry compositions from mauryan and ibers (with a few firecav champions) Archer cavalry and roman champion cav (3v3).zip A teamgame that shows those 2 units in action. Valihrant (Koushites) vs Feldfeld (Mauryas).zip Small rush early game. Features town phase CC expansion, archers and elephant archers from Maurya, against archers and nuba skirmisher cavalry from Koushites Valihrant (Mauryas) vs Feldfeld (Macedonians).zip Features town phase CC expansion from macedonians. Skirmishers and champion infantry spearmen from mace against chariot archer champions from maur. Valihrant (Macedonians) vs Feldfeld (Athenians).zip Features a moderate early game rush. CC expansion from macedonians in the town to city phase transition. Gastraphetes from mace against slingers + ballistas from athenians. Feldfeld (Ptolemies) vs cl2488 (Ptolemies).zip Features mercenary swordsmen and mostly slingers against pikemen and slingers. StarAtt (Iberians) vs Feldfeld (Carthaginans).zip Features mercenary cavalry from Carthage. ElDragon (Kushites) vs Feldfeld (Carthaginans).zip Features village phase expansion from Carthage, with a composition of Sacred Band infantry supported by archers later. Archers and pikemen/spearmen from Kushites. You can download all replays bundled here: Feldfeld's replay dump.zip Hopefully that can address a few of the complaints I have read about the new version. For example, the diversity between civilizations has been reduced, yes, however keep in mind to compensate that the new balance between units should make some civilization specific strategies (eg. a unique champion, mercenaries) viable whereas it was not the case in A23 (which was notably a lot of slinger spam). About archers being OP: yes it is true that they have a very good accuracy, possibly making them OP, but they are less efficient than other ranged units against melee units (which have been improved in this version). Remeber there are other options than making citizen soldiers ranged units. Of course this doesn't mean we won't find OP units in the future. Champion melee cavalry look quite strong, champion archer cavalry maybe too.

Ratings have not been migrated yet. The ratings you see now are the ratings from the start of a23

Movement in formation has been improved but still has flaws in the way it deals with obstruction. If you want to pass through a chokepoint small enough, the formation will not find a path here and will need to go around, whereas in 'no formation' they can go through. Also when there are small objects which obstructs the path, the formation will be slowed down, sometimes more than necessary. Also there is no option to temporarily select 'no formation' to deal with these cases. For these reasons I deactivated it. Edit: That said it is true it might still be faster for when there are small objects obstructions. However it makes the movements less predictable (could hurt when you enter a fight)

I think you should call your ISP like @smiley suggested

If you think that 8 cav rush is that powerful, you should be able to climb ranks with it, being able to kill all the woodline should be a great advantage. The balance for cavalry was very different, but still the rush came later anyway I think

The weird part is that he actually recommands positioning it in the back in priority in the guide. I don't understand. In all seriousness though, if for once we want to discuss the actual arguments, I think that the assumption that the enemy will want to cut off woodworkers is wrong. Typically the cavalry rusher will not be able to overpower the woodline, therefore he will want to come from the shortest path to see if he can do something (and fast) and if he can't, find another target.

Works well for me though

Just take the one in the back lol