Jump to content

Feldfeld

Balancing Advisors
  • Posts

    481
  • Joined

  • Days Won

    11

Posts posted by Feldfeld

  1.   

    38 minutes ago, alre said:

    Not really. I made tests, a support javelineer makes your melee survive better than a priest. I tried 100% spearmen battles, and also 50% pikemen + 50% javelines. I don't know why but not even level 3 healers could save those pikemen from an army with extra skirmishers (the opposing army had skirmishers instead of healers, 1 to 1). I also tried spearmen champions, and they work better with healers instead.

    I have to admit I didn't make specific tests yet. Which side won the fight with citizen soldiers?

    38 minutes ago, alre said:

    Metal? No please! At least now you can train priests without problems when you have extra food. Stone maybe? As in temples?

    Well there are multiple objectives I want to reach in order to give healers a good place in game, not being too weak or OP. First of all they should be affordable/ the player should be able to regularly train more healers. Right now it's absolutely not the case, training 4 healers burn 1000 food, and having a unit only present for a player to rebalance his eco is bad in my opinion, good players will/should not have big eco imbalances.

    So healers should cost less food, but as they are intended to be a useful unit they should not cost only food otherwise they would be OP. Stone will just look unnatural I think. I think metal is the best.  I don't know how much though. 

     

    Also, here healers were compared to skirmishers but that's not all there is to it. Personally I think skirmishers are a bit strong this alpha and could take a damage nerf, but it is only the beginning of the alpha anyway and I know not everyone share this opinion for now, so we'll see about that later.
    The second thing is that one of the advantages of other ranged units (slingers/archers) over skirmishers is that with their higher range they deal damage before the other army engages. Healers however can start healing immediately so they are better in that case. Also healers should be helpful against harrassment (although I don't see a lot of harrassment this alpha)

  2.   

    9 hours ago, alre said:

    a single javelineer deals more damage a priest can heal.

    Not necessarily after armor is factored in

    9 hours ago, alre said:

    The value of priests is given by the fact that they can keep healing your troops after they stop fighting.

    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.

    6 hours ago, Dizaka said:

    I think healers aren't used nowadays because of champions.  Champions just mow through units.  It's more prudent/reasonable to go get champions versus healers, especially with the metal and food costs of their upgrades.

    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. 

    • Like 1
  3. 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):

    Spoiler
    • Like 5
    • Thanks 2
  4. 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.

    • Like 1
  5. 8 hours ago, Yekaterina said:

    Agreed as well, I prefer 10 pop house, but some experienced players and maths say otherwise...

    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

    • Thanks 1
  6. 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.

    • Like 1
  7. 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:

    tp.thumb.png.cdbb30f69706ea6d16f1f0b383126cbc.png

    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.

    • Like 5
  8. 4 hours ago, alre said:

    how can one access the heightmap from random map generation?

    g_Map.height[x][y] could be what you want

    4 hours ago, alre said:

    how can one apply a specific texture to impassable terrains?

    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.

    • Thanks 1
  9. 1 hour ago, badosu said:

    Actually on competitive aoe the hunt micro is very intensive due to this, and to be honest it seems silly to me. I'm not advocating any way or another.

    Perhaps @ValihrAnt or @Feldfeld can share their insight as both have experience on this topic.

    There isn't much hunt micro in AoE2. If you decide to mill a pack of deer all you have to do is shift click.
    If you're speaking of dealing with dark age and managing sheep, then yes it's a bit of effort to kill them one at a time while doing other tasks, however there isn't really any equivalent right now in 0 A.D.
    (edit: and if you're thinking about luring deer all the way to TC, that is gather efficiency micro and avoiding to spend wood for farm/mill, not related to decaying)

    About animal decaying in 0 A.D., I don't think it will have much impact on how hunting is microed, due to how the cavalry gathers meat quite fast. However that is still a nerf to hunting in general and some animals could take a higher starting food amount, even right now in a24 I feel 100 is a quite low, not to mention the 70 goats have.

    • Like 1
  10. 34 minutes ago, seeh said:

    Presumably the Rams have always been like that? At this point I don't understand why 4 rams don't come through to this  house wall? Maybe the Rams were given a wrong target?
    https://youtu.be/8mphSKH2K_E?t=2108 

     

    2021-02-26_0007rams.zip 168 kB · 0 downloads

    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.

    • Like 1
  11. 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.

    • Like 5
  12. 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.

    • Like 8
    • Thanks 4
  13. 2 minutes ago, facts said:

    Why has rating reset in a24? It only shows the 2 1v1s I played in a24 and none of the previous 60 I played in a23. I saw quite a few people with their rating reset but at the same time a lot of people didn't have their rating affected at all. Why is this?

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

    • Like 1
  14. 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)

    • Like 1
×
×
  • Create New...