chrstgtr

The key to beating fana is to not get into a bad fight. Dakara straight up said he didn’t have enough melee. No one is saying that fana are an awful unit. It’s the opposite where reza is saying that fana are always the best unit, which just isn’t true.

The fana player is going to be at a pop/resource deficit whenever they fight because fana are more expensive for a lot of reasons. A more realistic comparison might be where fana are outnumber by a 22:10 since that is the difference in their straight resource costs but, as you can see, they fana lose fights that are easier than that. The CS player also has the option to push earlier when the fana player will their weakest. it all goes to my original point that fana’s strength is very situational if you think t it should be a 1:1 comparison, that doesn’t make sense. Obviously the unit that requires its own specialized building and costs 2.2x as much should win in a 1:1 fight.

I honestly think they're a little weak against inf. I don't think that's necessarily a bad thing, though, because they should be an anti-cav unit, so they don't need to do well against inf. But fana aren't actually that good against cav right now either. The problem is that they're slower than cav so the enemy player can just run away. I've been most effective using fana when the enemy cav player misjudged how strong fana are against cav and took bad fights and prety ineffective with fana when trying to use them against inf or a cav player that just retreats. I think they need a slight speed buff.

To underline, the the CS, which cost 2000 in res, defeated the fana, which cost 1540 in res. The fana also cost more food, the slowest resource to gather, than the CS, so the 1540 vs 2000 res comparison understates how CS were fairly close in price and the below example shows it even more because that example has fana as more expensive. Moreover, the fana player had to build multiple temples, which cost adds extra cost and time, while the CS army was built those 20 units several minutes before the fana player even went p2. Consider that the CS player could easily push the fana player before this or get upgrades with those extra res cost and it is hard to imagine how anyone thinks fana are OP unless you let the fana player spam them or try to fight them with cav

Still slower with the extra upgrade. But it’s pretty close. And, all upgrades have cost. Any player going for fana will get all food/wood upgrades. They’ll also get at least some metal upgrades. Games go long enough that you need to get the upgrade and if the game is won or loss before the upgrade it’ll have nothing to do with how strong fana are

Almost every time you post a complaint it is because some unit/feature makes your Carth merc cav rush weak. Better players disagree. Not all cav requires metal. Others have given you examples on how fana can be countered but you just ignore it and repeat your same complaints. This doesn't really matter. Food is gathered more slowly and is also more vulnerable compared to metal. The only challenge with metal is that it sometimes runs out but that is less of a problem since the maps were redone to spam more metal. Games are rarely won because one side runs out of metal faster than the other, and when it does occur it is usually because the side running out of metal squandered their champs/mercs with a bad KD, which is the actual reason why they lost. Personally, I like that fana have different input costs because it allows for more diverse strategies. (@TheCJ: you aren't considering upgrades--metal and farms are both collected at the same rate without upgrades but food upgrades increase speed by 20% while metal upgrades increase speed by 25%. It nets out to where food is about 12% slower in p3 for most civs)

Food is the slowest resource to collect, easiest to interrupt, hardest to defend, and most difficult to relocate. If you regularly have too much food it’s because your economy is mismanaged. I agree with @Player of 0AD here. Fana don’t do particularly well in inf fights. But they shine in games where the enemy goes cav. If i know anything about Reza, he’s complaining because a handful of fana were able to easily defeat his much larger cav army. This is at least what happened last time I went fana against him.

Yeah, I never look at stats in game. But making them completely hidden, including on the structure tree is just hiding the ball. It's something that is frustrating about some techs like the Mace Silver Shield. I shouldn't need to go into the directory to understand how different units differ from one another or how a tech impacts units. This is especially annoying when stats like spread (accuracy) or projectile velocity vary from one unit (or building) to another. There's literally no reason for it

I don't think it necessarily says anything. It's interesting, sure. But there is noise here that limits it's usefulness. Notably, this doesn't account for differences in player skill for each civ. You would need to control for player differences to make real conclusions. It also obviously lacks any data for military strength. For example, I personally find ptol to be one of the stronger civs. But, in my perception, it isn't chosen by highly skilled players that often while it is frequently chosen by lesser skilled players. Many players using ptol also build settlements before min 13, which naturally slows down their eco boom, but may give them a strategic advantage that isn’t captured in the statistics I would also consider iber to be a decent to good civ. But whenever it is chosen it automatically boosts other civs too, especially gauls, because of it's team skirm bonus. So it's relative value is depressed.

it’s a fair assumption since this is true for all other CS units. I pushed back against the stats being this way for this reason—you shouldn’t have to look at stats or play the game hundreds of times to recognize the nuances of unit strength between different civs. If you’re missing this “differentiation” then I don’t know who actually can appreciate it

Why does that mean that heroes should come out of the forts? Off topic. But I don't think buildingAI has shown itself to work. We've had like 6 iterations at this point and there have been complaints with each one. And, there aren't any real proponents of the system aside from you. But whatever. If buildingAI stays the same, i do think forts need buff. I also think building strenth should be unified. Having each have different stats, hidden ones at that, makes it difficult to learn.

Yeah, I'm spitballing here. I'm just saying where the hero comes from for any given civ is basically random, which doesn't feel like good game design. Strong agree. I said this at one point and it was completely dismissed.

Sure. But we're talking vanilla. Com mod is also disliked for that reason, among others, so I don't see that being implemented. And, if it is then @guerringuerrin's complaints will be even more valid. This just leads to booming and turtling. Makes more sense to make an offensive tech be some place else. No reason to give turtling offensive advantages in addition to defense ones.

I never thought of it like that but you're right. I dislike it because it makes wtf much more unattainable--you have have resources to build a fort, you have actually build the fort, you lose eco time while building, then you have to research and wait for a very expensive tech. All my same complaints about wonders. Hoops just to have hoops to jump through. Agree. Although a lot of people just build a fort anywhere and it serves little strategic defensive purpose. This is especially true with current building AI/strength. Yeah. But there is not real reason for any of this other than being "different." All this could just as easily be put in any other existing buildings or new buildings all together. A more cohesive framework would be something like iber, a defensive civ, is the only civ to get heroes from the fort , a defensive building, while Rome, an offensive civ, could only get heroes from an army camp, an offensive building. Something else could be Mace being able to train it's siege hero from the siege factory while other heroes are trainable from the CC with longer train times. Right now, it just seems that the building any particular civ uses to train their heroes is random and without any actual purpose (aside from Sele that get heroes from CC more quickly than other civs can).

Balancing with how quickly/cheaply you can get a hero and wtf. I personally find hero-dedicated buildings annoying and cluttering of your mental space (i sometimes forget to make the building for civs I play less often, for example) and game maps (it takes up actual space in your base and basically never matters if captured/destroyed). I would rather heroes just train slower/more expensively from the CC than from a dedicated buildings. But I think others disagree and it’s not a hill I’ll die on. Already having a fort makes it easier to eventually get wtf. I don’t think that should be placed in a fort either but that’s a different issue and a relatively low priority one too.

They are. I should they should match speed. The counter doesn't really work otherwise--when enemy has a speed hero fana are basically useless since they lose against inf spam and can't engage cav. Anyways, the easiest way to counter fana is with inf spear becauce fana are too expensive to match spam. I'm pretty sure @Seleucidsmade this post while watching me play fana earlier today. I've been playing fana a lot lately. I've found that they're actually strongest in champ cav games provided that enemy doesn't have speed hero. Fana easily beat enemy champ cav and make that player effectively useless while still being able to do raiding damage.

Also probably makes sense to only clock idle time when a player is below max pop. Anyways, these are cool graphs.

Right. I read a bit too quickly and didn't realize when you said idle time you were referring only to barrack idle time

This should be really easy for you self diagnosis and correct. Just look at the idle worker count in the bottom right corner of the mini map. If the number is above 0 then you made a mistake. Keeping an eye on this counter, pressing the period button to find the idle worker, and assigning a task to the idle worker is eco management 101.

It is true you (usually) do not use your mod when I host (or other hosts) tell you not to use it. But I would hardly say that doing this is changing your behavior to address other players’ concerns if you only do it under threat of a room ban.

This is clearly wrong. @guerringuerrin has already pointed this out as "awareness." I would go further to say this is actually multitasking, which @borg- has already identified as the primary skill in R(eal)T(ime)S(trategy) games. It is also not just "repetitive meaningless actions." First, your mod doesn't repeat the same thing. It optizimies based on how many you can make to reach your ideal population composition. Without the mod, you would have to decide what batch size to make and of what units to make. At all times, do you know how many jav inf you have at all times? Do you know how many sword cav you have at any moment? Do you know how many slingers you need to make to reach your ideal population percentage? I don't know. But I can make guesses informed by experience (i.e., skill). Your mod does this all for you. If you truly want something to eliminate repetitive clicks then that already exists as part of the base game. You have created something that does more and creates a competitive advantage. Most importantly, you've been told other players don't like it and choosing to use it anyways

When I google "0 AD" the first result if the game. When I google "zero AD," the game is the second result. What you're claiming doesn't appear to be empirically backed, which makes sense since 0 AD is not an actual date.

My understanding is that it is the current plan. But there are exceptions to it. This most often comes up in the context of whether Rome should represent parts of the Roman Empire or just the Roman Republic.

Most of what you're describing could be fine. But it doesn't match the resource cost of cav, which is 50% more than inf. Champ melee cav, especially, is very difficult to justify the cost of if they die so quickly and cannot effectively capture/kill CCs. Cav rushes will also be easier to defend (because CS cav is nerfed) and come with a heavier cost since cav cannot simply go back and go eco after a rush the way the inf can. Also, I don't think the bolded was ever the intended purpose. The problem was always champ cav--not CS cav. The community mod simply uses to blunt an instrument that nerfs all cav when a more tailored approach was necessary.

I played several com mod games today. I basically only paid attention to cav balance, which I think is off. Champ cav balance seems ok-ish. CS cav dies way too fast to inf, though. Cav is very easy to counter by just making spear and using formations. CCs seem to be much more difficult for cav to capture. I think this is probably a good thing. I, again, state that I think the bonus multiplier should be added for champ cav but not for CS cav.