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chrstgtr

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Posts posted by chrstgtr

  1. New Civ for Alpha 28+?

    in General Discussion

    Posted · Edited by chrstgtr

    35 minutes ago, real_tabasco_sauce said:

    Why are the mayans considered out of scope?

    it’s also somewhat date range 

    As I’ve said before, though, I don’t care much for that restriction. But it would be way after anything we currently have

    • Like 1

  2. New Civ for Alpha 28+?

    in General Discussion

    Posted · Edited by chrstgtr

    1 hour ago, wowgetoffyourcellphone said:

    Options to crib from DE and which are already pretty advanced:

    Scythians & Xiongnu would add completely new styles of play. In DE, Scyth and Xion cavalry can construct buildings for example. EA's versions don't have to be as radical as DE's, but a focus on innovative playstyles would be important. They are "the nomads" after all.

    Suebians/Germans would have cheap, weak buildings like the Celts, but also have Ox Cart dropsites. Where the Celts/Brits/Gauls have plenty of armor, the Germans of Part 1 have almost no armor and would rely on speed and attack. Heavily wood-focused. 

    Those above already have custom building models. Those below crib models from civs already in the game:

    Syracusans are pretty advanced in DE and are what I'm working on currently. Although at first blush they'd seem like they'd be just like any other Greek civ, I think we could do some cool stuff with them: a "Hoplite" civ with "Successor" things such as Quinqueremes, Libraries, Gastraphetes, and come up with some cool special techs for them ("Archimedes' Screw", "Archimedes Claw", "Antikythera Mechanism", "Pythagorean Theorem", etc.). Not to mention nice hero and mercenary options. I wouldn't go too weird with Solar Towers or anything apocryphal.

    Thebans are 100% ready to go, but might be a bit bland since they are just a typical "Greek city-state Hoplite" civ. I kind of look at them like the "n00b civ" of DE: uncomplicated, but still strong.

    Epirotes are kind of like a variation of the Macedonians, but with a larger roster of mercenaries and access to War Elephants.

     

    The rest of DE's civs are out of time frame for EA's current focus or too far away: Imperial Romans, Gothic Germans, Yamatai Japanese, and Zapotecs.

     

     

    Options from other mods:

    Lusitanians: Getting there, but still need a lot of work to get them up to EA's art standards. 

    Thracians: Not even close to being close to done. I think people know and like the Thracian aesthetic though. Focused on skirmishing.

    Garamantes: Would be nice to add another African civ. Still need work.

    Mayas: Out of scope. The mod is advanced and already has a lot of nice things, but needs work for EA-standard.

    For me, the first Scythians & Xiongnu and  Suebians/Germans sound interesting. I’m a little tired of all the greek civs (not to mention the Alex the Great successors). 

    Others may disagree.  

    EDIT: I know it wasn’t mentioned, but I think it would be cool to get some post 1AD civs in the game. The game is currently lacking a lot (completely?) in that area despite being intended as a game that captures 500 BC to 500 AD. Roman Empire seems like an obvious candidate. Barbarian civs like the Vandals also seem obvious. A little outside that range, but I think some early Islamic conquests would be cool too. Showing content like the Islamic empire (or early mesoamerican) stuff might also help expand the player the base. 

    • Like 2

  3. New Civ for Alpha 28+?

    in General Discussion

    Posted

    31 minutes ago, wowgetoffyourcellphone said:

    Would it be cool to add another civ to the game after this alpha? It's too late for A27, but A28 or A29 is definitely doable. New civs are a nice way to add content and also keep the game fresh. There are many excellent options to choose from. It's also perfectly okay to choose 'No.' Either way, it'd be good to state reasons. :) 

    I would like some totally fresh content. We should be able to round Han out in the next alpha or two. Are any of the new options already built out? (Haven’t looked at DE in forever) 

    Your thought on the options?

    • Like 2

  6. Fixing Chinese Han

    in Gameplay Discussion

    Posted

    1 hour ago, real_tabasco_sauce said:

    Because of this, I have seen complains that the Han rice paddies are difficult to place, and this is true because their effective size is only slightly smaller than farms (22 versus 20). I suggest lowering the obstruction value for rice paddies to 18.

    Agree. I find the rice paddies super annoying

  7. Introducing the Official community mod for Alpha 26

    in Gameplay Discussion

    Posted

    35 minutes ago, BreakfastBurrito_007 said:

    @chrstgtr in regards to the difficulty getting rank 3 units for centurions. A few ways to do it come to mind: winning a sniping battle since your melee will survive longer, garrisoning in barracks (you only need 8), or training rank 2 from army camp. I agree there is a range between there being some planning and skill involved to get centurions and them being too hard to bother getting. I am not sure where the current system falls on that range to be honest.

    real tabasco actually managed to get them a few time and he seemed to find some success. I have not been playing as much since my main computer can't work with the new TLS encryption problem, but I would certainly also give them a shot as well.

    Han are a great civ when their crossbows can snipe, because if they take out your ranged units they can win a fight. I think a great use case for these centurions would be to focus on CS swordsmen in army mass and upgrade choices, and as they try to snipe your ranged units your swords would live long enough to reach rank 3, upgrade to centurions and then sway the fight from there. Rome also has a +1 armor hero that can help melee infantry live long enough to reach rank 3.

    @real_tabasco_sauce I would recommend adding an xp trickle to units garrisoned in the roman army camp, equal to barracks rate.

    I just haven't seen them, which makes me concerned that they are virtually unattainable. But you're right that barrack garrisoning may be a way to do it. 

    I wouldn't mind an xp trickle, which would help make centurions more attainable. To be honest, I miss how camps used to also heal garrisoned units, but I already think that camps are very strong as p2 buildings. 

    • Like 1

  8. Introducing the Official community mod for Alpha 26

    in Gameplay Discussion

    Posted · Edited by chrstgtr

    38 minutes ago, Fabius said:

    I have a question, was it intentional that melee cavalry get buffed by centurions? Cause that does juice Consular up even more lol

    I don’t know the answer, but something like centurions will amplify any underlying imbalances. As a way forward, we shouldn’t carve those imbalances out. Instead we should just fix whatever issues exist underneath. Otherwise, it gets really complicated and logically inconsistent. With that said, I welcome changes to champ Roman cav, which, in my opinion, is the best unit in the game 

    • Like 2

  9. Introducing the Official community mod for Alpha 26

    in Gameplay Discussion

    Posted

    6 hours ago, real_tabasco_sauce said:

    I am making a list of simple community mod shortcomings that would need to be addressed if/when it is implemented in a27.

    • Roman Civilization Overview (perhaps specific technologies) should mention ability of rank 3 melee infantry to become centurions, should also be listed on Spearmen and Swordsmen tooltip for romans.
    • Carthage team bonus should say "infantry mercenaries..." instead of "Mercenaries -50% train time"

    if you have anything else to add, mention it.

    Do we have any place to actually discuss whether the items from the community mod should be implemented into a27?

    I think everything should get in. I would be in favor of slight tweaks to the CC radius expansion to make it smaller and making centurions more available somehow (still haven't seen one used). 

    • Like 1

  11. Introducing the Official community mod for Alpha 26

    in Gameplay Discussion

    Posted · Edited by chrstgtr

    5 hours ago, BreakfastBurrito_007 said:

    Survivability also affects the damage output because they need to take damage while walking to a target. You need at least some disparity in % attack buff and %survivability nerf in order to even out the overall capability of the unit.

    I can see how that might be the case. But I can also see how the opposite would be true too. Have you run any tests? 

  12. Introducing the Official community mod for Alpha 26

    in Gameplay Discussion

    Posted

    4 hours ago, real_tabasco_sauce said:

    You are right that the crush units become less effective in comparison, but if you remember, I already have a crush rebalance branch that would be ideal for this.

    But why? You can do crush that adjusts still. Doing it by armor here makes a problem where one doesn't exist.

    4 hours ago, real_tabasco_sauce said:

    However, remember that these cav will be in close quarters with much more damaging melee infantry, especially spearmen and pikemen that have a cav counter.

    Yeah, I'm more concerned about range units taking them out first, though. 

    4 hours ago, real_tabasco_sauce said:

    I was actually thinking something more asymmetric would be ideal. On the order of 10 % less survivable and 25% to 30% increase in attack. The attack is really more important.

    I thought you said you wanted to keep melee/range balance? How does this keep it? 

  14. Introducing the Official community mod for Alpha 26

    in Gameplay Discussion

    Posted · Edited by chrstgtr

    30 minutes ago, real_tabasco_sauce said:

    exactly.

    I would probably do this for melee inf in the community mod, and see where things are at for cavalry.

    Ok that makes more sense. Thanks for bearing with me.

    I think it's a valid goal and one that makes sense for the community mod. 

    I, however, see three main pitfalls right now. For the first one, I think you can make a slight adjustment to get rid of it before testing. For the second and third issues, I think you just have to test it. 

    1. It should be a health nerf instead of an armor nerf. Otherwise units that rely on crush for damage, such as slingers, clubs, axes, and cata, will get relatively weaker (esp. clubs and axes, which are already so rarely used). Also, while changing armor for spear/sword is easy (because they have the same armor) it is hard for pike (because they have different pierce/hack armor values relative to their armor counterpart and relative to other melee units). Health is also just easier to deal with because it will make even changes across the board (instead of doing calculations for pike armor changes and possible crush armor changes). 
    2. This will impact melee units' strength relative to defensive buildings because they will not be able to stand under buildings as long. I don't feel great about this, but I'm on board for testing it. You can't really adjust for this because any adjustment will also impact range units' survivability under defensive buildings. 
    3. This will impact impact infantry's strength relative to cav. Right now, spear should be the counter to cav (query on whether that is actually true...). Making spear die faster will exacerbate any imbalances that exist for inf relative to cav. It also will outright make melee cav stronger relative to melee inf. This could be dealt with by adjusting cav health, but we've already seen proposals on that fail. Whatever you do to melee infantry I think has to be done to melee cav too because otherwise melee inf will get too big of a nerf relative to melee cav. Even if you do that, I think there might be some problems because of already existing imbalances. I don't feel great about this, but it's just something that has to be tested.

    What values are you thinking? I would want to keep the decreases in line with the increases so we can test if change actually adjusts the meta in a desirable way. Something like a 10% decrease to survivability and a 10% increase in attack? Maybe a 20%-20%? I wouldn't go as far as making melee dps equal to range dps because that would require like a 50% reduction in survivability, which would make them die really fast. 

    Unlike everything included in previous community mods, I have no idea whether this will succeed. This is exactly the type of thing that I think should be tested in the mod, though. 

    • Like 1

  15. Introducing the Official community mod for Alpha 26

    in Gameplay Discussion

    Posted · Edited by chrstgtr

    5 minutes ago, real_tabasco_sauce said:

    The goal is resolving the issue of the meat shield meta.

    I propose to do this by most importantly increasing melee damage to be closer to ranged classes' damage per second.

    The decrease in armor is to avoid all melee quickly becoming OP, and it would be a small decrease 4 hack 4 pierce instead of 5 perhaps.

    So is the goal to keep melee's balance relative to other melee and keep melee's balance relative to range by decreasing survivability and increasing attack by corresponding amount? And to do this you propose to decrease pierce and hack armor by the same amount? I'm just trying to figure out your goals and why you are messing with armor instead of health. 

    Edit:typo

  16. Introducing the Official community mod for Alpha 26

    in Gameplay Discussion

    Posted

    15 minutes ago, real_tabasco_sauce said:

    Melee units serve as a "meat shield" because they are all tanky with 5 hack and 5 pierce armor. The idea is decrease armor a little, increase damage. 

    17 minutes ago, real_tabasco_sauce said:

    its not about melee vs ranged, it's about melee in general. The idea is shift melee's strength away from tankiness and towards higher damage. The net "effectiveness" as you say, should be roughly zero.

    I don't understand what your goal is. Is it to change melee's relative strength versus range, versus melee, or versus melee and range? If you just want melee to do be a glass cannon without changing the overall balance relative to other melee or range then you should just decrease health and leave armor unchanged. Messing with armor changes melee's strength relative to other unit classes and uses two variables to do what one cold do. 

    Also, note that if you are going to make melee die faster then that will inevitably shift more strength to cav (unless there is a correspond change there--which already failed by vote). 

  17. Introducing the Official community mod for Alpha 26

    in Gameplay Discussion

    Posted

    You're starting to lose me. Some of this is inconsistent. I'm with you for a hack armor decrease (and a possible speed buff), but I don't understand the pierce armor decrease. And an attack damage increase seems like extra noise on top of armor changes, which will do the same thing in a more targeted manner. 

    54 minutes ago, real_tabasco_sauce said:

    This, as it turns out, has more to do with their armor than their damage (and the fact that so few players get hack armor).

    The same is true of players not getting melee attack, though, and the same thing happens when players do get upgrades. Melee units are just strong versus range units when the units actually engage. Getting them to engage has always been a problem. 

    55 minutes ago, real_tabasco_sauce said:

    Usually when ranged units start to get hit by melee there is plenty of time to just start running away.

    I'm not sure this is true. Running away still means you will lose a lot of units. 

    But even if this is true, increasing attack damage won't change this--units will still run away.

    If this is true, isn't the fix then to also add melee speed buff (in addition to whatever else happens)?

    59 minutes ago, real_tabasco_sauce said:

    For one reason, one wouldn't want melee units to be much more susceptible to hack versus pierce, as this would basically make swords much better than they already are.

    So, currently, is melee is fine versus range or not? This is inconsistent with the above. 

    1 hour ago, real_tabasco_sauce said:

    They should be highly damaging to ranged units but still killable

    Isn't this the case now? If this wasn't true then why would there be any need for a change? Players could walk past meat shields now, but don't because it is too damaging. 

    1 hour ago, real_tabasco_sauce said:

    If my ranged units can find decent damage now versus enemy melee units (which are also more valuable to kill due to their higher damage), maybe I will let them target melee instead of always sniping.

    This already exists. Sniping is a response to "over-killing," where more units target an enemy than necessary to kill it. Over-killing will continue to exist with your proposal. Without micro, your proposal will make over-killing more common because units will have less armor. 

    --------

    I'm having trouble understanding why you think think pierce armor should change. It's difficult to follow what you are actually trying to respond to with respect to melee versus range. At once, you seem to be saying that melee is too weak versus range but also too strong versus range and then proposing to change everything. By changing multiple variables in opposite directions it makes the outcomes unpredictable. Either melee should be stronger versus range or it should be weaker versus range, but you seem to be saying it should be both stronger and weaker and the actual net outcome of proposed changes will be unknown. 

    I'm also having difficult understanding by attack damage should increase. Decreasing armor effectively increases attack damage effectiveness, but can be more targeted (i.e., you can make attacks more effective versus melee or versus range). I don't understand why you want to change attack damage's effectiveness versus melee (via a decrease in hack armor), versus range (via a decrease in pierce armor), and versus both melee/range (via an increase melee attack). Why not just change the armor (of hack or pierce--which will let you more efficiently target effectiveness)? 

  18. Introducing the Official community mod for Alpha 26

    in Gameplay Discussion

    Posted

    2 hours ago, real_tabasco_sauce said:

    Importantly, however, it makes melee units and their relative strength to enemy melee units more impactful in the outcome of battles.

    Your logic/goal is starting to make more sense--you want melee fights to be a true fight as opposed to a sideshow. That seems like a valid goal. (Note, my solution of making melee units faster so they can just get to enemy range units didn't address this, so I think you might be onto something). 

    2 hours ago, real_tabasco_sauce said:

    Currently however, the survival of my spearmen versus the enemy's spearmen is determined by the health/armor of my melee units and the damage of the enemy ranged units. The damage the melee units do to each other is not very important.

    This sounds like you can achieve it with just a hack armor decrease, right? 

    Why would you need to increase attack? If you decrease melee's hack armor then that will make melee's attacks more powerful against other melee, which seems like your goal. Increasing melee's attack will also make melee more impactful against range, but melee is already very strong against range when they actually engage. 

    Why do you want to decrease melee's pierce armor? That will make range even stronger vs. melee (i.e., it could eliminate the need for a meat shield because range would be more able to fight with melee head-on). 

    • Like 1

  19. Introducing the Official community mod for Alpha 26

    in Gameplay Discussion

    Posted

    2 hours ago, real_tabasco_sauce said:
    • Melee champ cav nerf (armor + hp), maybe a tiny bit more for consular bodyguards.

    Agree in main. 

     

    2 hours ago, real_tabasco_sauce said:
    • Spearcav damage buff (to correct the aformentioned inconsistency)

    Makes sense--good call out. Worried about its impact on champ spear cav, though. But the other nerf above should address that. 
     

    2 hours ago, real_tabasco_sauce said:
    • Han ministers 1 pop, higher percentage effectiveness

    Agree. 

    2 hours ago, real_tabasco_sauce said:
    • Revised unit specific upgrades.

    I'm still planning to look and give you feedback from last time. 

    2 hours ago, real_tabasco_sauce said:
    • Broad melee damage increase, armor decrease (help resolve meatshield meta)

    We tried to talk about this before in the lobby but didn't get the chance. What are you intending to do? How is it different, if at all, from the linked discussion?

     

  20. Introducing the Official community mod for Alpha 26

    in Gameplay Discussion

    Posted · Edited by chrstgtr

    2 hours ago, binobo said:

    The problem is that they are too tank like. They need either/or a health reduction or changes to armor. Personally I think an overall cav health reduction would be great but since that is rather controversial, I think both units should receive a -1 hack resistance reduction and a -2 pierce resistance reduction from their current states

    Agree in the main. But this failed on a vote. (Also, a -2 to hack and a -1 to pierce is probably better for you state is the goal--making them more vulnerable when fighting straight up). 

    I feel like we could get broad support for a melee champ cav nerf, which I think @real_tabasco_sauce is going to put forward in the next round. 

    2 hours ago, binobo said:

    I think a fun technology would be to reduce the swordsman training time to 7 seconds but increase cavalry training time by 25%.

    Sounds interesting. I think these inf vs cav tradeoff techs have potential. 

    2 hours ago, binobo said:

    Or it could just be  a technology that trains all infantry to 8 seconds.

    Really, this is just a buff to champ inf, which I think should happen.

    ----

    Relatedly, this is all inspired from a game you spectated with me, right?

  24. Fixing Chinese Han

    in Gameplay Discussion

    Posted

    50 minutes ago, wowgetoffyourcellphone said:

    Do you think this is something for the Community mod or a Phab patch?

    Both. I think it has to change--2% is obviously too low. I'm not certain 5% is right, but I'm pretty sure it won't be OP. Community mod gets it into game quicker. Phab makes it permanent. Could go with something more radical like 10% in the community mod and test first, though. 

  25. Fixing Chinese Han

    in Gameplay Discussion

    Posted

    28 minutes ago, real_tabasco_sauce said:

    I think this could be good, might make the ministers more accessible. Also, there is no need for ministers to cost 2 pop, the cost is prohibitive enough to spam.

    Ministers also have to be buffed if you want anyone to make them. Right now, you're better off just making a unit that can eco because the discounts are so small. I would suggest 5% instead of the 2%. 

    • Like 1
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