drsingh

The blacksmith tech cant be tiered like they were in Aoe2 games. Since 0AD is taking place in a single time period. Even AoE3 had to use single tier techs in arsenal. Because the techs have to make sense, cant make them in tiers just for sake of it. So I feel Blacksmith should have single techs each for - Infantry armor, Cav armor, and different weapon upgrades. With accompanying increase in unit cost. This could indicate that a working armory/blacksmith in city allows better equipments for the army.

I atleast can confirm that something is wrong with the torrent. I downloaded from torrent twice, but the game gave an error while installing upto 98%. Then I used the direct download option and was able to install it.

I support this. It is similar to my design proposal in the gameplay thread. Answer to the topic. No. CC shouldnt train Military. Actually no building should give access to both eco and military units. A player needs to decide between investing in eco and military. Currently lvl1 soldiers are both the military and the eco(best gather rate for wood, stone, metal). An addition of a Male Citizen (lvl 0) which is poor in combat but good for eco. And a subsequent nerf to gathering rates of lvl1 soldiers will help in rectifying to some extent. The important thing is to ensure that Citizen soldiers prove more profitable in combat rather than while gathering. So changes to promote attack and raiding are also beneficial. -Promoting eco to be spread out away from CC. -higher loot and new xp bonuses against weak eco units. -limiting the training possibilties of your best eco units(previously was every other building with any possible batch size. limit to cc and a few houses). limited units means, losing them means something. -changed ratio of eco to military units. previously eco unit (female) would be well protected behind base or around cc, and the units encountered in front were all military units of same calibre as the attackers. After changes- CC eco units train time10 sec. Barracks units- 20 sec. with batches of 5. 15sec per unit. And military unit production will start later, after building a barracks. So eventually there would be more eco units than military units on map. So more possibility of attacking forces to find easy victims rather than equal lvl fighters.

Having played Aoe3 competitively for some years, I can say for sure that it didn't have such problem. Units are easily distinguishable. And units selected in a group move and attack in formation automatically. So there is no clumping of units. For 0AD this is real because of realistic art. Most units look similar from a distance. And in absence of working formation are clumped together. An implementation of Soft or Hard Battallions will only go half way to correct this. Instead of modifying artwork, we can have a floating transluscent spear, or sword or arrow over the centre of a formation. To indicate the type of unit. This will preserve the realistic and beautiful artwork and still make gameplay smooth.

@DarcReaver i'll try to be concise 2) I guess its a matter of personal preference. 3) My last post was my last try. We still dont agree. I've already explained about this. There is no point debating further. Anyways since I'm not in position to showcase my design in a mod. So my views dont matter. 4) Already said before in this thread. No point repeating. 5) Hard battalions can work fine. But since I don't hate micro in games. I don't feel that strong need of them. Still any change would be good right now. The game right now is a mess. I look forward to what updates come up in future alpha. Though any base level reworking is sure to turn off one or the other part of gaming community.

1- related to realism. Since 1 citizen is trained in 10 seconds. But suddenly 25 soldiers come out in 30 seconds or so. maybe we can change the train times so nvm. Also this feature means that you have lesser variety of units on map in early part of game. Also hero units cant be added to battalions for their planned bonuses. There's no real reason why - we cant have single unit gatherers and battalion training military. except that current citizen soldier system would need changing Only thing is why cant we have goodness of both with Flexible Battalion system, if simple controls are also implemented. Like was laid out in plans originally. What does locked battalion training have above it?

@wowgetoffyourcellphone Economy has to be simple because. If you train armies in battalion units. Then your economic unit production would look weird as being produced singly. And battalion of gatherers wont make sense effective distribution is difficult. BFME2 doesnt have this problems since it produces farms as eco units. I'm only opposing units training in locked battalions. Unit can still train as individuals(single or batch). And selected to be in formation by player. The way formations work(they dont lol) now, only difference is they get locked as single unit after clicking on formation icon. It wouldnt need much micro on players part. He will simply double click on a unit and press the formation hotkey. this is similar to hoe Ctrl(+1,2 etc) group assigning works right now. And this way you get option to add hero units even to battalion of soldiers. I would love to see the formations and various tactics be implemented in the game. @niektb I'm sorry if appears like that. I dont mean to offend anyone. @DarcReaver

@DarcReaver I am also trying to be patient here. Like I mentioned in a previous post. There are different styles of rts. eg AoE2, Warcraft3, BFME2. Each appeals to different section of gamers. You seem to be very fond of Warcraft 3. It is not a good game to draw inspiration from. Yes single units matter more in it because of limited pop space, more hp and less attack. But at the same time the game was limited in strategic options and replayability. Same army composition for a faction every battle. Not much to differentiate by skill in eco management. Being more dependent on micro of hero abilities. As for AoE2. It is an old game. But still had more strategic depth and variety than Warcraft3. And there were many ways by which skilled players got an advantage. If you follow the game at competitive levels you'll see how even one unit matters. This is not true for 0Ad currently. Since the combat system is not balanced. And eco management is a nightmare. Also about formations. I liked the implementation in BFME2. The control over battle was easier, and more logical. But it had removed eco management to compensate. Because training a formation of gatherers doesn't make sense. It had essentially had only one resource. I cant see this happening with 0AD. Since it requires more eco management. While player managed 'flexible' battalions, as was planned for it. Seems perfectly fine here. In early battles in which handful of units are there and in raids, single unit system can be used as is. And later on in game when sizeable military has been built- players can activate formations for special bonuses and to make managing easier. We are on a different page here. While you want to simplify economy and battle. I think that for competitive aspect such simplification is not good. It prevents skill of player to give him advantage. The learning curve of game is very short and shallow. Aoe2 still has a huge dedicated player base, even after so many years. You cant see the same with warcraft and bfme. Because while they were eye candy and simple for new players, there was something missing to keep hardcore gamers interested. So I feel micro should be easier, not eliminated. It seems your main issue with 0AD is because it is based on AoE2 style of rts. And now you want ppl to abandon 0Ad project and start a new game WarcraftAD??? the above covers answer to Q1,2 and 7. Statement 9- There are changes in design included. Removing military from CC. Giving phase progression a meaning. Eco management changes, combat changes. Lot of other changes which would make easier to manage army and gatherers as compared to now. And Citizen soldiers were divided into - Male citizens (from CC) and Soldiers (from barracks). the stat changes were mainly as an example to balance citizen soldiers and champions. Q6- Last attempt to make you see the light. You probably dont have experience with balancing a game, or even optimising build orders for competitive play. Calculating eco efficiency is a major part of it. And you are doing it wrong again. Female citizen gathers food at 0.8. And Citizen Soldier at 0.4 First of all this means if both are used for gathering- female citizen pays for itself much faster. 2nd apart from the citizen soldier being more expensive. 60f 30m vs 50f. the difference in gathering rate means- female citizen gathers 0.4 food more with every second. And the difference in eco keeps piling up with time. The soldier will never provide profit at anytime. If resources are used to produce military, then it would be essential to make them attack to be useful. The soldier being able to fight doesnt matter, until a fight starts. The player going eco heavy can use his accumulated eco advantage to later train more soldiers than the enemy, and those soldiers which were gathering all this time wont seem that much useful anymore. Again you are assuming that there's not much in terms for eco growth options. A player which trains less military than his opponent(who is using them for gathering) will have more resources left which he can use for- Getting more eco upgrades, earlier Phase progression to 2(faster eco unit training), can boom with Fertility festival, invest in corral and traders. While CC will be continuously used to train units. Same is not true for barracks. A player who uses barracks as an eco production building. will fall behind another one who trained only a few soldiers and invested more in economy. And even further behind someone who didnt build barracks and rushed to phase 2. There is no 1 single ultimate build order, but everything is relative to what your opponent is doing. but in the end it remains true- since Male citizens(which gather wood/stone/metal the fastest) are trainable. the units from barracks wont be used as eco units. Also since you can upgrade your male citizens to soldiers at short notice. That double barracks was an example of phase 1 option- While one player can rush with double barracks. another player will use same amount of resources to go to phase 2. I don't understand why you are gathering metal with women. Females gather food- 0.8 . 1.5x on farmland. so 1.2 effectively Male citizen gather metal- 0.66(with aura bonus) Female -6.66 on food ; Male - 6 on metal. Train time for both- 8sec. Requires 96 seconds to train these. Double barracks cost- 300w 300 stone. Phase 2 + single barracks cost- 150w 550 stone. You can see here the double barracks guy is already ahead in eco before even training single soldier. Then once he attacks- all soldiers of both sides are engaged in combat. Defending player might get idled if he garrisons his gatherers. This was an example scenario. It shows that neither defending or attacking will be op. Only timing of attack matters. Skilled players will use Barracks to train units only shortly before they plan to attack. Some soldiers might be kept for defence. Attacking gets an indirect boost because of- More spread out gatherers outside territory. Limited eco unit production means every unit counts. 2X xp gain bonus- which is a huge thing in this design. A bad implementation of the concept. Because currently units trained from CC and Barracks are same. And fighters are essential to train for gathering purposes. The problem with citizen soldiers currently is because while they are expensive than eco unit(female) but also gather faster than them-wood, metal, stone(so eventually can balance out their increased cost). In my proposal their gathering rate is markedly reduced. And another eco unit - Male citizen is introduced which is both cheaper than soldier and gathers faster than them. So soldiers can never hope to match up in eco. This feature suddenly changes all dynamics. I hope I'm clear to you now. Even if not. The changes you propose are drastic(rework all mechanics) and will take longer to implement. It would be easier to try the minimal change approach first. There can be endless discussions about this. In the end we have to agree to disagree. Its better proof after seeing it in action.

Q1- Thats batch production delayed only of CC. not barracks. Also no unnecessary micro is involved, because you can still queue units. In 0AD batch production doesnt have same train time as single unit. I mean 1 citizen trains in x seconds, suppose. The Batch of 5 in 0 Ad doesnt trains in x seconds. But it is 5x -25%. So batch training is a way to train units faster 25%. The training times in the game are very short already. and economy goes out of hand very fast. This is a way to limit the growth of economy. Currently the units can be trained in any batch size. each having a different train time per single citizen. Also since batch of 5 training gets unlocked in 2nd phase. So it becomes a motive to phase up. (see the options i described under- changed roles) Also in 2nd phase since the demand on economy increases the training rate of gatherers gets a boost with 5 batch tech. Q2- No allowing random storehouses to produce gatherers will only add to the chaos. You start getting more resources than you know what to do with. And the importance of skillfully raiding villagers is reduced. There already was this problem because of Fertility festival tech, which has been addressed by house limit and increased train time. The idea is we have a village/town. which has most of its buildings. But some gatherers like farmers, woodcutters etc traditionally used to go outside the town for their job. It also helps our gameplay because of wider distribution of units. Creating more CC is still important. For your economy as a source of more economic unit, to allow trade. And for the defensive bonuses to gatherers, due to close proximity of garrison and military structures. Also the 25% bonus exp, in your territory. Q4- I have given 2 alternative fixes for Corral. Because apparently it still has not achieved the function developers have in mind. My first option- It gives free trickle of food. If you already gathered some herds on the map then it is very cheap to set up. It doesnt need gatherers working on it like farm does. This hyper boost of food is not needed in Phase 1 because of limited ways to spend it. In my proposal phase 1 is meant to be a short lived stage, with access to limited structures (Corral and stable go together in phase 2 because of round up feature- which will be implemented in future). Q5- Blacksmith. This is related with the Phase roles. Phase 2 gives you everything to boom as hard as possible. Phase 3 has focus on better military- with champions, siege weapons, Blacksmith techs and tech which unlocks batch of 10 for military buildings. Also as the settlement progresses. The citizens become more specialized. According to this concept a fully fortified city is going to have an advanced blacksmith. Another reason is that having 2 tier techs doesnt make sense for 0AD. In other games where there was age progression the tiered blacksmith upgrades made sense, because of different innovations in different time periods. But here the time period is same. And no logic to explain 2 tier techs in blacksmith. You just build a blacksmith in your city and start getting better equipment for you army. Note- this also increases the cost of each unit. It needs to be in phase 3 because if you even have military upgrades in phase 2 then there is not much reason left for phase progression. See the 3 build orders I gave- between Eco and Military changes. Q6- You shouldn't equate Citizen soldiers to Female collectors for metal/stone/wood. Male citizens gather these better(even wood because of 10%aura). Also take in consideration the cost of the said unit.- 10 females gather wood = 15 citizen soldier (lvl 1 swordsman eg) 10 x 50 = 500 food.; 15 X 60 food 30 metal = 900 food 450 metal. Here 400 food and 450 metal excess requirement means - Barracks wont be used primarily for eco unit production. This means if you are training Military units. then its better to attack with them. Since enemy could be getting much better eco by investing in eco units. So Soldiers will be used to gather in limited numbers only while defending accompanying gatherers. And when you want to turtle in anticipation of rush. You'll train a few soldiers to be able to defend, and put them to gathering while waiting. In all other situations- since soldiers are very inefficient gatherers. If trained they must be used to fight. Or the player gets behind in eco by a huge margin. Also lvling up with XP can give you elite units even in phase 1. And since eco unit production has been controlled now. Every gatherer is important. And raids on eco units will reward more with double the xp. So an attacking player will be in position to damage enemy eco and get ahead. I think you are assuming that both players will have same number of soldiers. An attacking player will need to go double barracks and attack with a force much larger than defending force so as to cause damage. While those trying to defend - will try to scout better. to identify the number of military units enemy has. The defender will then try to keep his own army slightly smaller, so that he is able to defend succesfully and gains eco advantage at the same time. If a skilled player scouts. And sees that his enemy has as big military as his. He can either go for little less military and more gatheres to get an eco advantage. Or he can set up extra military buildings and attack with a much larger force. I sincerely believe that Citizen soldiers work fine with these specs. I dont have any better way to explain myself. If you still disagree. then perhaps trying this method first is better than letting go of a core feature of 0AD. Q7- Fertility festival doesnt restrict economic expansion in any way. It is not a mandatory tech since it's expensive currently. Also imo it only serves as way to come back for a failed all in rush by a Phase 1 player against another player who defended and advanced to phase 2. The changes regarding economic expansion are already there- Cheaper and faster building storehouse and farmstead without territory restriction. Farmland bonus. Cheaper progression to Phase 2. Cheaper CC. Statement 9- Please clarify which solution will not have desired effects..

I spent some time to provide my version of suggestion regarding gameplay improvements. Some of these which I already posted before, have been updated. This is a complete summary about a generic faction, and can be applied to all factions with additions. Aimed at doing the least changes to get maxm benefit in gameplay, while staying true to identity of game. I think except the rank upgrade mechanic, all of this can be implemented in a mod right now without needing much coding or artwork. I have thought hard about all the specifics. If you have doubts about anything, I can explain my position on it. For completeness sake- Here are the list of problems these are aimed at resolving. This is the summary of my suggestion regarding Traders.

Though we can judge better only after seeing the concept in action. But my current opinion on it is- 5 Resources It might be needed to split metal. though i'm not sure yet. Usually more than 5 resources make a game too complex. Though we can simplify it so that. Only 4 resources matter at a point in game.- Food, Wood, Stone, Iron in early part of game. And Food, Wood, Iron, Silver in late game (after most important structures are built already, and stone is not needed much) Conversely. Maybe this change can wait till the end. After other gameplay improvements are done, this might not be needed. Gathering Dynamics I dont think gathering spots should be limited per resource site. Lets talk about Warcraft 3 for eg- It has only 2 resources- gold, wood. And Pop space. Even in that game only gold mines are limited. not wood. Also all of the gold mines have same graphic, and same value (eg 5000 gold). It has very limited options in terms of economy and economy management. These games are very combat oriented and in general are very different from 0AD. 0AD Map shows a world with realistic terrain. Each resource has a variety of presentation. eg- Stone- Large an small mines of different size. stone runes, statues. Limiting it wouldnt seem logical to player. Population cap I agree population should be restricted by phase. But limiting house to 10 in 1st phase. and multiplying pop capacity in 2nd and 3rd phase is not the correct way, imo. Also military units are not constantly at war. They do gather a bit. or can be idle. Changing so that only gatherers require pop space. and not military. would be changing a lot. It would become a different game altogether. After reading it all. I have realised that though we agree that something seems off about the game currently. Most of us disagree on what are the real issues here. While trying to rectify the situation. We should be careful to not change the game completely if smaller changes can get the desired result. First lets talk about what is good in 0AD. What parts of it appeals to the players. Things which are unique in it, which give its identity.- Things are (mostly) logical. The soldiers are designed to be like what used to be in those times (Citizen-Soldier). There are both male and female gatherers with their respective strengths in gathering based on what would actually be. The resources used in game are all the basic resources which are there. Instead of having only gold and wood like some other games. Though I dont agree with resource cost choices for many units and techs. There is a beautiful terrain composed of different forms of these 4 resources. A player harvests from his surroundings. Not like some games in which most of the terrain is barren and only some focal points have resources. I'm not saying one approach is better or worse. There are different types of RTS- AoE2, BFME2, Warcraft 3. these 3 are very different types of games and play very different. They have their pros and cons. Imo AoE2 had much more strategic depth and replayability than Warcraft 3. I like BFME2 better than these 2, but thats not because of the non existing economy management present in it. Coming back to 0AD. Players appreciate the realism in the game. How many things make sense. It wouldnt be good to lose its identity, if we can help it. So we should first try smaller measure before drastically changing everything and creating a different game. Now about the issues present currently. My view of them- 1) Buildings don't have specific roles. CC can be used to produce military. Barracks is usually built near forests to build workers. This is important because player never has to chose between focusing on economy or on military(by building barracks). everything(eco nd military) is available in all buildings, no variations to allow different strategies. 2) There's no control on the unit production rate from buildings. Especially economic unit production. 3) The citizen soldier concept is not implemented properly. Too much chaos when attacking or defending. 4) Similar to above- the gathering is not done as was intended. Only females created in beginning. only Champions in the end. Citizen soldiers jack of all trades, good at nothing. 5) Eco management is very tough. By this I mean to efficiently use it. An good player in other games would be able to keep resource collected in bank close to zero, by spending them as soon as collected, and using gatherers efficiently by switching them over according to his build order. This task is near impossible in 0AD. First because of 2 types of gatherers- food gatherer and rest. And also because theres no fixed or constant rate of economic growth. The gathers can be trained singly, in batches of 5 or 10, 15 etc. Also the fertility festival tech at house is broken. Also a major population of gatherers also fights. And after fights its usually not clear how many gatherers you lost per resource. 6) Battle strategy is non existent. Currently it includes massing any one type of unit and laming it. Either Javelin cav in beginning, or chariots or sword champions later. This is because of lack of effective counters. Hard countering shouldn't be removed unless Soft countering is ensured by combat mechanics. 7) Imbalance between Champion units and Citizen soldiers. It not only decreases the value of citizen soldiers but also creates imbalance between factions. which have led to a trend to give every faction 4 champions. which doesn't solve the issue but increases it. Champions should have been just a unique unit of each faction. 8) Phase progression doesn't mean much currently. So what, you get champions in phase 3. But its perfectly possible that someone in phase 1 has better economy and beats someone who is in phase 2. 9) Hack and Pierce attack. Pierce attack of an archer and of a spearman are not the same. One is shrugged off by heavy armour rider, one is deadly for the horse. And then siege damage is added to emulate crush attacks. Siege damage to buildings should always be a separate entity. eg it becomes difficult to implement upgrades like fire arrows, which mainly increase siege capacity, and a lesser increase in anti unit damage. Also Units like Mauryan- Yodha which have siege damage only. And become weak against all units inspite of having capacity to cause good crush damage. 10) Trader, Corral. This much comes to mind right now. These are the things which prevent 0Ad from having more depth in strategy and a fun gameplay. I dont think locust gathering as described is important. Though being spread out on map is much better, but it can be achieved with less drastic solutions. Also man spam trains of military units is definitely bad. Because that means units(mostly a single type) are constantly spammed without any tactics and strategy. But this concept is not the same for economic units. To hold a large army your economic support must also be larger. If the gameplay requires to control the distribution of economic units according to build orders and keep redistributing them as needed. then its not a spam, and doesnt matter if the number of units around a mine are more, till it looks realistic. In the end. My view is that- smaller changes should be tried first. which i believe can easily solve the issues I oultined above without changing the feel of the game.

Currently all units have pitchforks while capturing buildings. New animations will be present in next alpha I think.

Thanks. I think I can do playtesting fine, and with some help will learn to report errors. But due to upcoming PG exams and personal commitments after that. I am actually restricting myself from playing for now. After 4-6 months I'll become more active...

I have been playing rts since AoE1. I knew about the mod in those days. Rediscovered the project last year. And have read through a lot on the forum and that page you linked. I just want to help this game reach its potential faster. but i dont have any necessary skills to aid.

@DarcReaver we also have hero mechanic similar to warcraft. CC and area concept similar to RON. Expanding boundary concept taken from Settler. Most of the game including market and trader mechanic is heavily inspired from AoE2. But 0AD is still unique, because it takes the best of everything and mixes it into a RTS which we always wanted. And because of that the implementation i described above (imo) is an upgrade over what was in AoE2. I think the distance shouldnt factor in the resource gather rate. Otherwise it becomes impossible to monitor and balance between different kinds of maps. But the min'm distance between CC helps in standardising it. I dont see why we cant have the trained traders selected and do some shift clicks to create a curved longer trade route avoiding the enemy. I mean it shouldnt be difficult to implement. Anyways this will decrease the amount gained from traders because of longer routes, so wouldnt be used unless really necessary.

@Hannibal_Barca I'm sorry. I thought that the team bonus affect the faction itself too. Anyways we can let minor inter faction cost balancing slide till beta. This would remove one of the main features of the market building-not really that good IMO The market still is a building used to train and upgrade Traders. Like most other buildings. + Its main function is actually to allow buying and selling resources. And this remains the same. Letting trade happen between CC is a simple and logical option. Adding a minimum distance between markets. Is addition of another unnecessary complex mechanic. And it would be difficult to explain to a player why he is not allowed to build markets closer. And it is difficult to monitor and control resource gathering rate of traders with this system. because you wont have a maximum distance limit. CC are already at a fixed distance from each other. have their own minimum distance restrictions which makes sense to player. And traders moving between them would signify trade between your cities. While traders moving between markets would just show as trading between 2 of your buildings in the vast territory. What I mean is- It will be possible that Traders move perpendicular to the line joining your two Cities(CC), if you place both markets in such a way along the border of the territory. I feel the appeal to let market be that building. Is because of habit. Since this was the way in many games before. But it can be improved upon in 0AD because we have Settlement concept with multiple settlements in an empire. Trader limit can solve the end game problem. But wont be a correct design. Because it doesnt change the fact that traders are much (faster) effective resource gatherers. With build limits people will just rush to maximise the traders when they are able to train them. And after maxing the limit (each and every game) they will shift attention to other forms of gathering. This might balance the end game scene. But would be a missed opportunity to add strategic depth. The different resource gathering options should be balanced at their core level. Like how Farms and Hunting are. Farms require investment(100w). (And should be slower to gather). Hunting is a finite resource and is gathered faster(with cav only). (But the corral makes them infinite and makes other food sources redundant). Mines are a finite resource. While Traders are infinite resource. So Traders should require more investment.(Cost, another CC). And also at the same time should yield less resources per pop space. Also as an infinite resource Traders should not gather food. Then it competes directly with farms. And replaces them. Right now players can just build a lot of traders and forget about their macro. they can anytime change their scales of which resource is being traded, and are saved the trouble to have proper planning of citizen distribution and re-distribution to various resources. If we get this much right. then there wont be any need of build limit of Traders. players will soon learn, and meta will evolve. Because it would become less efficient to rely on traders till you have mines easily accessible. And traders would be able to gather only metal. So farms will always be important to gather food. And getting only metal(/gold) from traders would mean that you use market building to barter resources if you need stone or wood(market - more important). To make less efficient- 1 trader(2 pop) going between two CC(placed as close as possible) should generate metal(/gold if metal is split) per second. Half(or maybe 60%) of what 2 male citizens can gather from a mine per second. Then if the CC are placed farther away. then the increase in amount should be in proportion to the increased time required to travel, so that the gathering rate per second remains constant. Speed upgrades to trade cart will increase the gather rate, but still should be taken care that it is 80% or less as compared to gathering directly from mine. About cost- Food and wood are still needed to train. So the choice would be- should i gather more food and wood for traders. or use workers to gather metal for age up. this requires more preparation and forethought than deciding what to build with metal present in bank. Also Food and wood. because they are likely to be available to player when mines run out. If metal is included in cost of Traders. then player is forced to train them before mines run out, because aftewards he wont have resources to train it. You can see here- which approach gives more strategic options and decisions to player, and in which approach player mindlessley follows same routine everytime. @DarcReaver Though your proposal is novel and doesnt have hard caps on trader limit. But it is essentially same as Hard caps. Players will soon learn with experience that because of the coin regeneration rate at market, 'X' number of Traders is what can be used maxm per market (hard cap). And then they will try to train X number of traders- first thing after reaching phase 2. always. Players should have an option to either invest in a short lived faster gathering resource or a long term slow gathering resource. Depending on the matchups, maps etc. this provides variety and strategy to gameplay.

I tried 2 versions. One in this thread and the one from the dedicated website. Both resulted in no unit/building spawning on the maps. And lots of errors popped up. I dont know how to access the logs. Also the tech tree didnt open up. I am willing to learn, to help better. with a little guidance.

Players are also used to terms - Age, aging up. But we have Phase's - town, city. Because of what makes sense with the theme of the game. There's a wierd mix of races. Persian can be civilization or empire not a faction. But Ptolemies cant be a civ. Or maybe faction even. Civilization refers to a large community of people with common culture. Faction refers to smaller group based on a location in a larger group(civ). (Persian, Mauryan can not be faction) Some of these races - like Seleucid, Ptolemies, mauryan. take their name not from a location, or a group of people. but from the ruler. And thus are a dynatsy. Here we can either choose 'Faction' since it can work with majority of races. Or coin a new term - like "Empire" or its synonyms- like 'kingdom' or 'culture' i personally feel Empire could fit best in this weird mix of races. And it is more easy to interpret as compared with factions. Even though some of them like athens, sparta, gauls. never had an empire historically. but they had the potential to make one. And this is what can change in this game. Allowing player to expand Sparta beyond its borders to form an empire.

I feel "Empire" suffix will go better with the selection of races we have. Since Civilization is usually represents people. eg Sumerian civ. But Empires are based on a dynasty or certain ruler in a civ. But can be used to indicate a very large group united by conquest. Eg. Seleucid Empire, Roman Empire, Mauryan Empire. Greek goes well with civilization. But Macedonian Empire sounds better. Faction sounds like a smaller group. But could be true for Spartans. Gauls etc.

What is the role of trading in this game? To provide an infinite source of resources, when finite sources run out. Its similar to farming. So the resources are not coming out of nowhere. Infinite sources need to be expensive to set up, and give slower gather rate than finite resources, in the beginning. Can be tech'ed up to be little faster later. What i feel are the issues in the current trading system-- They have too fast(efficient) gather rates- for an infinite source. thus they get priority over finite resources, making the finite resources redundant. They are very defensible. can be put at the back of your base and enemy many times wouldnt be able to raid them before killing you CC. (this is true only for land routes) Traders dont make sense- they cost metal. and can gather food. I dont think the number of traders is the issue here. since nobody complains about number of women on farms. or citizen soldiers on wood. they become a problem when they are good enough to replace everything else. @DarcReaver option 1- this sounds similar to Trading posts of AoE3. while it works well for that game and makes sense in it. It doesnt fit in the settlement concept of 0AD. Why would traders be shuttling resources between 2 random buildings which are outside all nearby settlements? Also this mechanic puts a lot of emphasis on map control. So much so that Turtling is non existent in AoE3. option 2- 'market producing coin at a limited rate. which gets converted to resources by traders.' this also adds unnecessary complexity. it adds a pseudo resource. but only thing it achieves is a build limit on traders, which would be unclear to many players and add to the confusion. option 3- its simple. but doesnt address the real issues with current trading system. and will make raiding them even more difficult. @Hannibal_Barca @av93 Restriction to number of buildings is fine. Since it only controls the production rate of units. But restrictions or limits to number of units is a strict no in rts games. It many times makes the limited unit useless (but wont for traders) Traders do play an important role in the end game. Limiting number of them would make the game and battle suddenly slow down to standstill when fininte resources run out. If you make the limit larger or make them more efficient then it didnt solve the problem in first place. My solution- Change cost- 150f 100w instead of 100f 80m. Slightly costly(10-20w) for factions with trade bonus. Reduced speed(how much can be tested- for starting 8 instead of 9.5). Pop cost- 2. Efficiency of any economic unit is defined mainly by the pop cost. Since it is only resource required for it. This should be enough to lower the per pop gathering efficiency of traders as compared to a citizen mining. But this shouldn't be too low to hamper the game experience after mines run out. There shouldn't be any overlap with farms(another infinite resource). So Traders should earn only metal(or gold). Wood is usually abundant. And Stone is not that essential. If required players can barter in market- metal for wood/stone. Making them more raid-able- Speed change does help a bit. Also the land trading should place between 2 CC only. This brings the trading line from the back of the bases to the centre of cities, more accesible. Also reinforce the concept of CC as the economic centre and core of the city. So trading between cities is between respective CC. Delaying the access- Traders as an infinite resource supply, should be a luxury. So you get them either when you have allies(same benefit to both teams) or in 1v1 when you have Expanded you empire with a 2nd city. Sea trade is already very raid-able. but for 1v1 access can be delayed by restricting 1 dock per CC. This limit is also important to make the faster batch training techs of dock useful. How this can affect the meta- Players starting the game with finite resource. Faster gathering. finite resources require map control. the player who lost map control switched on to infinite resources. Takes investment to set up. And have slower rates as compared to finite. So suddenly at a disadvantage. But holds position somehow, until the finite resources of other player also run out. Then he has an advantage because he as already set up his economy and also got some upgrades for them to be faster. Now he has a window to strike back and take control while the other player is transitioning. this would give players various strategic options. either to invest heavy in long game resources which give returns much later. or invest in current resources and kill the enemy before they run out. Also Raiding needs a boost- eg 2X the experience gained from attacking enemy support units (male and female citizens, traders, priest) There should be a mechanic which favours map control. Similar to what was mentioned in option 1 by DarcReaver. But it should'nt give an op advantage. Which makes all games a rush to establish make control. or instant lose if you lost map. this is what happens with AoE3. More balanced ways are finite gold mines, and Neutral Mercenary camps. Also I feel like Corrals need a rework too.. will need its own post later.

A simple fix could be that. traders move between CC instead of markets. a single player cant trade until he adds another city to his empire. The distance will automatically get controlled because off CC placement restrictions. (docks could have a limit of 1 per CC) To limit the dependence of economy on trader as compared to citizen gatherers its pop requirement can be increased. to 2. Since Pop space is the most imp resource in late game. Also worth considering the traders are unrealistically fast right now. A 50% speed reduction will make them less efficient and more easily raidable. So only an option after running out of resources- stone and metal. Also cost should be food+wood. food for the human and cattle. wood for cart. what purpose does metal have here? Trader is supposed to earn profit by shuttling goods from high supply to high demand. And this profit is in the form of in game currency. If metal is divided into iron and a currency resource(silver or gold or coin). then it should be the resource which gets earned. The way it works right now. it doesnt make sense how food/wood/stone are gathered by trading.

Ok.. I tried it. didnt work..

I like this about directionality. Single units shouldn't have any direction or flanks. It can easily turn sideways if needed. But a close formation of pikes for example is locked together and units are oriented in a certain direction. About realism. Its nice to have and is kind of the theme of this game. But there should be a line drawn at some point (which seperates an interactive educational software from a game). Including children would certainly be over that line. About the age progression. Other games have. Its different for 0ad because it has settlement progression. At same point in history at 250bc eg There were different scale of settlements. A small village of farmers with no military capacity. A larger village with a military building capable to arm the militia and produce Basic infantry. And access to outposts and palisade walls. A town which has more population of varied occupation. Having access to stables to build mounted units. And sentry towers and better walls. The population is big enough to have their own religious building in their town. And has started to trade with other towns. A city which houses maxm population. And home to elite warriors and fortified structures. Has specialised citizens like philosophers (& blacksmith?). Due to the concept of the game and timeline. It shouldn't be similar to age progression of other games. But design should include population restriction, building access restriction. And techs should be designed accordingly, instead of mimicking AoE2.(eg no need of two tier techs in blacksmith). This should also extend to resources. Food and wood only needed in a village. Stone needed to advance to town and needed from then on for improved structures. Metal(which plays role of both iron and coin)- needed in small amounts in a village or town. But gets more role in a city. And also used along with stone to advance to city. Following this concept it is essential to make some changes- CC changes in appearance with progression. (wooden structure in phase 1?) CC should have role as an economic centre only. Barracks should be present in a village which commands military. Currently cc can be used to produce military and barracks be used to produce economic units. And most civ don't have seperate stables for mounted units. This is design flaw. Which doesn't follow the game concept and degrades gameplay strategy. Hence the male citizen concept in my previous post. Which can take up arms in a barracks. But are vulnerable if present out in open. And trained soldiers with their pride and heavy gear. Should receive a penalty(enough to prevent their use as first choice for economic purposes) to gathering and carrying capacity outside of war. To simplify the implementation - Make either mele or a ranged male citizen from CC. Which has 70f+20w cost. But no training. Only a Basic wood weapon and no armor. So effective for hunting but not for fighting a trained soldier. Barracks should train - lvl 1 citizen soldiers. Which have better armor, weapon. And worse at gathering. Optional to upgrade your male citizens to citizen soldiers- Either through combat experience, or through minor wood or metal cost in upto 10 batches requiring 30 sec time. (giving the feel of villagers getting trained to prepare for battle) A reverse conversion back to common citizens shouldn't be possible. Because of their combat experience, pride and habit of wearing armor. It is not a new concept. The game already does this with citizen soldiers who lvl upto advanced or elite not being able to go back to fast gathering mode. So this mechanic will fit well into the general game theme. Subsequently it would make sense to have a few soldiers bunched up with male and female citizens gathering a distant mine. To protect them and be useful in gathering a bit at the same time. The Basic difference from current system is- CC can train only lvl 0 citizen soldiers. Which have the maxm gathering capacity. Barracks train only lvl 1 citizen soldier. Which is poor at gathering. Fortress can train only lvl 3 soldiers which can't gather. Option to train existing soldiers to gain lvls at barracks. Should require some resource and time. To make it 2nd option to lvling up with experience. This training at barracks is limited by the current phase. Upto lvl 1 in phase 1. Upto lvl3 in phase 3. I feel that with lvling up mechanic. Citizen soldiers concept can be retained without any problems to gameplay. Thoughts? Edit- Also this assisted lvling up/ upgrade mechanic if developed- can be used in multiple ways. Elephant and Horse round-up -> In description it says 5 gathered elephants will decrease cost by 25%. This makes the factions who have it very op on certain maps. while lesser cost reduction would be weaker than using elephants for food. (balance issues) Solution can be- upgrading each herded elephant in the stable, at a cost reduction to elephant soldier. eg using 1 herded elephant to one time train a 250f + 250metal costing unit for - 50 food + 250 metal. maybe with additional -5%train time as an overall bonus. the benefit here is not just 200 food (as compared with 500? food gathered by an enemy from 1 elephant), but also gathering time is saved. So its a short lived spike. which could give players option for a timing attack.

Does this work on alpha 21? I won't mind small bugs..

Swordsman champion from fortress. after a tech can be unlocked in Barracks. Archer Champion from Hero Chandragupta. You can have only 1 hero at a time.