chrstgtr

I think a better idea would be to get rid of the building requirement to go p3. It would open up more build orders. You could do forgo any blacksmiths to get quick siege and push with a weak army. Or you could build a bunch of blacksmiths to get a strong army with multiple upgrades. Or maybe you do something in between. Right now, people are building a bunch of blacksmiths because it’s the cheapest way to get to p3. Getting rid of the building requirement would eliminate that motivation. If everyone still spams blacksmiths then we know we have a problem with the cost relative to its actual value and could increase it then (or increase the cost of upgrade techs). Good point. This is related to my discussion above. Probably also needed. Your two ideas with a little modification would be fine with me (as stated they’re too good to pass up, which kind of eliminates the “should I build it” choice) It happens more often than you’d think. Just two nights ago we played a game where low wood defined most of the game. I also think some of this is the tail wagging the dog. Some of those low wood biomes aren’t played because trade is annoying. If trade was fixed we’d probably play more biomes than just temperate and fall.

Also agree. But an extra 1K in food isn’t a hill I will die on.

A shocking suggestion from @wowgetoffyourcellphone!

Strong agree. I also think it should be immediately researched. Having to wait an extra 2 mins (or whatever the amount of time is) doesn’t make sense when the pop bonus is the only reason to ever build a wonder in the first place. The need for it to be immediately available is even stronger if basically roll the tech cost into the cost of the structure itself.

Eh, I think this is really bad logic. To the extent civs are unfair, we should work to make them more fair—not introduce more disadvantages. On most maps, in most games, everyone should get first two eco upgrades for every resource as soon as they can, which for the second upgrade should be immediately upon reaching p2. It’s the basic boom. So, this only hurts slinger civs. I think you’re conceding why metal is also unfair. Metal also makes other strategies more difficult (I.e., swords, siege heavy strategies, and champs). I don’t think we should make strategies that are already hard to pull off more difficult by further limiting their supply to a scarce resource. I don’t know why you’re discounting food so much. It’s the slowest gathered but also the most spent. It’s also the most likely resource for someone to have trouble with in p3 and force their resignation (people resign because they run out of food more often than when they resign because they run out of stone or metal, which are the most scarce resources on most maps). If someone has too much food in p2 it’s because they’re making mistakes elsewhere.

That unfairly penalizes slinger civs that depend on a finite resource, though. Why not make it so that it is more fair to all civs? Food does that. Or make the cost different based on civ. So add stone if it is not a slinger civ and add wood if it is a slinger civ. This just says that the total res cost is too low. What you want could be accomplished with just adding wood cost. The real problem is that forges are the most helpful p2 building AND the cheapest. It’s pretty easy to just increase the cost of forges so that they are no longer cheaper than all the other buildings without taking up a finite resource that some civs rely on.

Honestly, yes. And easy fix in p2 is to make them build your p2 buildings. Any Savannah map, especially if normal sized or smaller. Other biomes too. It would happen more often but people freak out if you ever choose a biome that isn’t temperate (or whatever). I guess. I just threw out a number without looking at current cost. You’re right, it should probably be something more like 50m

I find them to be different. I actually tend to prefer Stronghold. Ambush tends to have more cliffs, which can be good or bad depending on what you are looking for. It leads itself to towering and "ambushing" of units passing through valleys. I tend to disfavor Ambush because the cliffs tend to create chokepoints that are good for turtling and impossible to attack if your civ doesn't have catapults. Stronghold tends to be flatter and have more hilltops, which, unlike cliffs, can be attacked from all sides. It can also be more or less flat with mountains dividing the terrain. I've always found the random map generation to be too variable for both Ambush and Stronghold. Sometimes you get an awesome map. Other times you want to do a quick re for a better generation. I think these differences are significant enough to keep both maps. It's not like Hyranccian Shores, Kerela, and Phoencian Levant, which are all essentially the same map with just a larger and larger portion of the map being excess water that doesn't get used (and a random island for Phoencian Levant that isn't worth colonizing). Nonetheless, I think most people will confuse them.

Agree. Disagree on metal. It's too scarce and the upgrades already cost metal. But I do think it should cost more. I would add a food cost because it is the slowest to produce (yet is infinite so it is just a time trade-off) and would force a player to forgo pop to spam blacksmiths. This feels really cheap. The problem with traders is that they quickly become OP, so you don't want them to become too easy to spam. When resources get depleted on a map this is particularly true. I've played multiple games where the first player to get like 5 traders consistently safe wins. If traders are super cheap, then there will be a very narrow window in which you could effectively respond to your enemy switching to traders (either by raiding or making traders of your own). Because of that, I would keep metal cost higher (like 100m). An alternative fix would be to keep the cost the same but increase the min yield of traders. Right now, traveling between your base and your closest ally yields something like 4 resources. That is so little that it never makes sense to trade unless you are traveling super far distances. Increasing the min yield will make "safe" trading over short distances more viable.

@Gurken Khan your dislike for a lot of maps is your dislike of the strategy involved, which is what make them fun (generally a need to expand if the game lasts longer than one push). The spawn spots are issues because the spots are so different from each other with some much, much better than others. Also, the positioning doesn’t have teammates aren’t next to each other (could be good or bad, but def not balanced).

See the attack area thread. Sniping exists. We should just implement attack area.

Thoughts. If you disagree with any I can explain. There's a pretty strong association between maps being based on a real place and the map being unenjoyable. Great Ambush Archipelago Continent Hyraccian Shores Mainland Cross Foothills Frontier Slopes Stronghold Unknown Wrench Fun African Plains Alpine Lakes Alpine Mountains (but basically the same as alpine valley) Alpine Valley (but basically the same as alpine mountains) Ardennes Forest Atlas Mountains Corinthian Isthmus (I personally hate it but others like it) Deep Forest Flood Gear Guadalquivir River Gulf of Bohemia Harbor Hell's Pass Lake (basically the same as Harbor, though. I would make these consolidated the way that Gulf of Bohemia is for frozen lake) Latium (I personally hate this map but others like it) Lorraine Plain Ngorongo (a bit unbalanced, though) Oasis (I personally hate this map but others like it) Persian Highlands (could use more wood, though. If it had more wood it would be a better version of Ngorongo) Pyrienne Sierra Ratumacus Rhine Marshlands Saharian Oasis (I personally hate this map but others like it) Schwarzwald (very similar to deep forest) Meh Arctic Winter Brittanic Road Cantabrian Highlands Canyon Kerela (just a worse version of Hyrancian Shores) Lion's Den Marmara Migration Neareastern Badlands Phoencian Levant (Just a much, much worse version of Hyrancian Shores) Rivers (basically Harbor but more ship focused) Sahel Watering Holes Syria (getting close to feeling the pain) Nile Feeling the pain Belgian Uplands (borderline painful but would be fun if wood wasn't awful) Botswana Haven (borderline painful but would be fun if wood wasn't awful) Caledeonian Meadows Fields of Meroe (the spam spot positioning on this are nonsense but if that was fixed it could be fun) Hellas (the spam spot positioning on this are nonsense but fixing that still won't make it fun) India (could be fun if wood wasn't awful) Lower Nubia (the spam spot positioning on this are nonsense but fixing that still won't make it fun) River Archipelago Sythian Rivulet Wild Lake (basically the same as other good maps except it throws AI units in to make it a bad map) Painful Anatolian Plateau Northern Lights Pompeii Snowflake Searocks Volanic Land (also basically the same as Pompeii) AI Maps Danubius Jebel Barkal Survival of the Fittest Gimmick Maps Empire Extinct Volcano Fortress Polar Sea (but really belongs in the painful category) Sahel (it's a trade map) "Atlas" Maps Mediterranean (the spam spot positioning on this map are nonsense and make balancing impossible) Red Sea (the spam spot positioning on this map are nonsense and make balancing impossible) "Creator" Maps RMS Test Wall Demo Naval (unplayable right now because of issues with ships but still deserving of their own category and shouldn't be deleted because hopefully ships become playable in the future) Aegean Sea Bahrain Corsica vs Sardinia Cycladic Archipeliago Dodecanese Elephantine English Channel Island Stronghold Islands

But that isn’t how any else of the cav-inf balance works. Less resources win on CS-CS and champ-champ balance. Needing a 6:1 (or whatever the exact number is) numerical advantage of what are supposed to be COUNTER units is silly. Add on top of that cav can easily just to run away from a massive army and you effectively have no counter system

Yeah. But there are two things at play. Spear counter vs inf cav AND spear counter vs champ cav. I’m saying CS Spear vs CS cav feels fine but CS spear vs champ cav isn’t. It’s very frustrating to see spears get slaughtered by melee champ cav when spear are supposed to be some sort of counter

It’s more than just speed. CS spear inf also get destroyed when fighting head on. Maybe it would make sense to give CS spears a slight additional bonus against champ cav to prevent the use of champ cav as a meat shield against CS units

Yeah. I’m just saying, unless you’re raiding with one unit (or asleep during the raid), non-random ai buildings isn’t countering champs. The whole non random behavior is another discussion that involves other factors. I just don’t think it involves champs

This makes sense. Champ cav shouldn't be able to capture barracks so fast. This isn't having any impact. I also don't think changing building AI is the correct way to deal with champ cav being too strong (changing champ cav is). But that's a different topic.

@real_tabasco_sauce I think basically every map with water should have a bunch of fish unless there is some compelling reason not to. Compelling reasons include: (1) the water is extremely easy to defend and cannot be rushed (e.g., marsh rhinelands, which has tiny ponds that can be easily defended with a CC, towers, etc) and (2) a strategic reason why you don't want to encourage fishing (e.g., oasis, which already emphasizes control of the central water). Otherwise, I think fishing should be a compelling option anytime there is water.

Again, let's be honest about the genesis of ProGui. The reason why it was difficult to "ban" is because the community was overly deferential to ProGUI's creator who refused any requests to voluntarily stop using ProGUI. Look at its introduction thread. People were tripping over themselves to say how the creator's efforts were pure and to avoid the use of the word "cheat." But, when asked not to use ProGUI, the mod's creator declined the request. In game lobbies, people said they though ProGUI was unfair. But those same people didn't want to be "mean" and ban the creator, who, again, refused to voluntarily cease their use of ProGUI. The creator then would say things like "if you don't like it, don't play with me." At some point along the way, other players decided to avail themselves to the advantages of ProGUI and used the mod. In short, ProGUI wasn't banned because the creator relied on others' hesitancy to outright ban the creator. Then one day I decided to host games and ban the use of ProGUI. The creator, again, refused to stop using the mod (notably, every other player accepted my host's rules with minimal pushback). The creator was then was not allowed to play in games I hosted. The creator then told everyone how it was unfair that they were not allowed to play and how they were being picked on. Soon thereafter, most other host during the hours I am active instituted rules that banned the use of ProGUI. So, again, if we are honest about why ProGUI has been difficult to ban is because the creator refused to compromise at all. This is specious. Most users of ProGUI downloaded it. They did not create it. If you want to ban ProGUI stop letting the creator publish it in mod.io and advertise its github version on the forums. If you are really concerned with someone writing a patch to bypass checks then the obvious solution is to ban the creator of ProGUI, who, as I outline above, has been resistant to any rule making around their mod. @guerringuerrin's work seems promising to me.

There is literally just ONE mod that everyone is complaining about. All the rest of this is noise to make it look like we are not signaling any one person or mod out. Let's call a spade a spade and disallow progui. Everything else is overly complicated and/or incomplete.

No matter how many times you say this doesn’t make it right. Players should be allowed to chose who they play with and what advantages (mods) their opponents have access to. If you are cheating I (and others) don’t want to play with you. The end. If you openly cheat, I don’t want to play with you. If you secretly cheat, I don’t want to play with you. @Dunedan’s proposal is aimed at letting players decide what mods their opponents have access to. Your insistence on weakening that just further suggests that you somehow believe your wants are more important than the desires of anyone you play with. It doesn’t work that way. Multiplayer games are meant for everyone’s enjoyment—not only yours.

@RangerK Name and shame. Also, you are describing ProGui. I (and many others) consider it cheating. I (and many others) do not allow it in my (their) hosted games. So if you see it ever occurring in any of my hosts feel free to let me know and I will fix it. This is seriously concerning. Mods are supposed to go through the review process in order to go through a security screening. Creating a mod and advertising it on Wildfire's servers is a workaround to these security procedures.

Perfect

These are necessary too. But does it get at the issue that I am getting at and that you are getting at here: My understand is that 6948 was just meant to deal with the building vs. unit issue. A unit will still be high priority (despite not being hittable) if it is within min range.

This is all so specious and clearly only reflects how you don’t pay attention to balance changes, which really makes it odd that you even involve yourself in this discussion. In community mod (unlike alphas) you are told exactly what changes happen. In the community mod, bolts were rarely used, then used a lot, and now suddenly not that much. The change is usage reflects how good the unit was/wasn't. It isn’t OP. Also, in a22, common game rules literally banned bolts within about a week because they were so op. Players very quickly figure out what units are OP and then spam them. This has not occurred with bolts in their current form and we can therefore deduce that they are not OP like you say. You have to consider all strategies. Not considering bolts lack of mobility is akin to not considering cav’s mobility. It clearly gives an incomplete picture. This is particularly important here because the main nerf to bolts was changing their movement speed. Again, you need to pay attention to community mod changes to have an informed discussion. I’ll try to resend the replays when I am by my computer. In short, bolts stop working when some units get too close. It doesn’t matter that there are other units within range but out of min distance. The bolts just sit idle on stand ground or unpack to move away on aggressive. @real_tabasco_sauce describes this exact situation above. This isn’t desirable gameplay.