chrstgtr

What do you do after you run out of chicken and there is no extra hunt? The standard four women is much, much faster because it is already has women on berries and already has the berry tech with no wasted units. It is how you are set up for the future. The regular build gets you there faster with no waste and waste and there is no drag moving forward. The regular build also gives you the flexibility to build an extra cav unit at the start and not be any slower because of it. This starting configuration is just going to be slower.

If you want to do something like that, I would just give one extra horse (like how kush gets a healer at the start) and keep the starting 4 women. Unless there is good hunt, the proposal will really slow down Persia's boom, which is already slow. For reference, a simple test shows that the proposal will result cause to already being 20 seconds slower at 20 pop (and that one extra cav unit will be a drag on the boom). With the proposal, I suspect no one would ever play Persia in team games because they would be too slow. In other words, 4 starting women and 1 cav can make an extra cav unit and still be about 20 seconds faster by the 20 pop mark. So 4 starting women is always superior. If there isn't extra hunt (i.e., no need to make a second cav unit, then 4 starting women will become much, much faster

Siege towers are slow, and require a lot of garrisoned units, and deal low dps/unit. Even with those limitations, they have been OP in the past. What I responded to would be not have any of those limitations.

Sounds cool, but likely OP. Sure. I just want something that isn't redundant. I'm open to other suggestions.

Redundant units are pointless. Why not just make them different. We could pretty easily adjust the stats so they aren't exactly the same. As for two options, (1) make chariots quicker but weaker; and/or (2) make chariots stronger but more expensive.

The more I think about this, the more I like the idea. I like the idea of a roving siege unit that can be a CC killer. But I'm really unsure if the values are right--in particular, I am concerned it can't be countered by other cav. But I'd like to test it out in a game if anyone else is willing.

As I’ve said before, Persia can easily have both sword and axe cav. In my opinion it should have both. Replacement isn’t evolution. It’s just creating something different than before. And, different can be better or worse.

Based on that logic then you shouldn’t change anything since you haven’t done any tests. By my count, only 2 people (including you) have said they want this. Several have expressed concern. In fact, as many people have proposed an alternative of just giving Persia sword cav. Again, it’s not hard to imagine a player massing 15-20 of axe cav early in p1 and being able to wipe out an entire enemy’s men and CC. If men are wiped out then those 15-20 axe cav can destroy a CC and eliminate a player by the 8 min mark. It will be particularly possible because axe cav use metal, which isn’t in demand in p1 and can be easily donated by allies. To demonstrate how this is possible, Vali has shown how merc axe inf can destroy CCs in p2 despite requiring multiple special buildings and reaching p2. None of those obstacles will be required in this proposal. The proposal doesn't even sound like good game design. By your sown admission, axe cav aren’t good in p2 and p3. Axe cav are also designed to be good at taking down buildings. Why should we make a unit available in p1 that specializes in taking down buildings? Why should we make CCs vulnerable when they have the least units to defend themselves and players are least able to recover?

That’s the point. Saying archers can’t escape charging javs is like saying inf can’t escape charging cav. Speed and higher DPS is the jav advantage. Range is the archer advantage What you suggest would cause the same problem for skirms relative to slings. All range units having the same speed was a big part of the problem with a24. There are a ton of ways to boost archers. This would probably be the last way I do it.

I had imagined something like (1) select all units you want to control; (2) while the units from (1) are selected, hold some button like the letter A and simultaneously double click an enemy unit type to attack. Then the units would work within their stances to attack the units that they would be able to otherwise attack if they ignore all other enemy unit types

I haven't had a chance to play a game with the mod. I'll abstain until I get a chance to play

This should happen regardless. Persia was always meant to be a “cav” civ with the full array of options.

I already said this. And it doesn't even need to be a 2v1. One player can easily do it by themselves if they get slightly boosted. It’s not hard to imagine a player getting boosted early and getting enough axe cav to destroy CCs at min 5 when there are hardly any men to defend. Putting all cav into p1 is very concerning. It would be like @Dizaka merc cav rushes this alpha except there would be cheaper, not have a phasing requirement, would come 3 minutes earlier when there are fewer defenders, and the result would be a loss of a CC, which would be gg for that player

Some of these changes won’t be noticeable to the average player. And if this exercise is done for all civs then the traditional spear/archer/sword/skirm/etc. stats will become meaningless because too many civs will have one off special stat adjustments. I would want something that is easier to understand so each unit type is same across civs. Different unit types will be different even if they are similar (for example, pikes and spears are pretty similar to each other but we all understand how they are different). Making a system where a Persian spear is different from a Athens spear, which is different from a Brit spear, which is different from a Roman spear, will very quickly create a complicated system that can’t be easily understood. This is fine. Perhaps the "Archery Tradition" tech should unlock this (instead of what it currently does, but I forget what it currently does lol Agree. Just make a tech. This would essentially be like the hoplite tradition for Sparta/Athens but with a focus on promotion/performance instead of promotion/train time. I like that slight twist. Sounds good Do it through a tech or make it a different unit type. I would lean towards a tech so that the player has the choice on what to do. Also, what you describe is pretty similar to how pikes will function in the next alpha. The main difference will be that Persian spears will be faster. Not sure that makes sense historically because this will probably mean that Persia gets the best of pikes (armor) and spears (speed) which will give them one of the better inf melee units. That might be good, but it seems misplaced with Persia being the civ to get that I don’t care about the woman change. Do that if you think that’ll be cool. I’m a little concerned about this. This will lead to more “cameling” rushes with the archer cav Can’t axe cav destroy CCs quickly (currently or as proposed)? That could be very difficult to counter in p1 which will lead to a lot of early GGs maybe it best to just keep the same roster from the stables (jav and spear) Yes

The balancing team's job is to balance. The balancing team isn't in charge of determining what is interesting of desirable. Anyone can express interest or support for a new feature. For this particular feature, no one has expressed interest or support. It's a waste of time for the balancing team to weigh in on every proposal because half of the tickets basically only receive support from the patch's author. With that said, three people besides the patch's creator have substantively commented on the patch. Two of those three, including myself, are part of the balancing team. All three have expressed skepticism about the proposal. One person said that the proposal likely won't actually add anything because it will be a useless unit. New features are great. But is anyone excited about trumpeters? No, because it was a new unit that didn't actually add anything. It appears that the proposal simply doesn't have support.

It's only been two days... Honestly, a lot of time there is silence it is because there isn't a lot of enthusiasm for the proposed change and the balance team only speaks up once it appears that a patch a legs. I suspect that may be the case here because no one (balancing team or otherwise) have expressed any interest in the proposed patch being implemented.

Because merc cav are imbalanced. It is well known. Discussing walls distracts from the actual problem--that merc cav are just broken Edit: if you are asking why they are broken--it is because they're so cheap and easy to spam. There is a ticket for that that was committed. We'll see if it goes far enough.

Or just balance the cav...If cav are too strong in the open fields that is still a problem. The discussed solution does nothing to solve that

I do not think walls should be considered in the context of merc cav. The problem with merc cav is that they are too strong. Making them less strong where walls are doesn't fix the problem of them being too strong where walls are not. I'm not sure how the garrisoning of men in walls helps. They are still vulnerable to attacks. The extra range can only be so helpful

The problem with walls is that their only current purpose is to delay defeat. They don’t change the outcome of fights. They just make the defeat slower. In other words, they’re just meant to frustrate—that doesn’t seem like good game design to me. Walls act this way for two main reasons. 1-Rams can’t be defended from behind walls. To do so you either (A) need ranged counter siege (better cata like @Fabius has said), which isn’t a unit available to all civs; or (B) make ram attacks less viable. (A) already has a ticket made, but that only addresses the few civs that have cata. (B) wasn’t as big of a problem until all civs got rams in a24 (ele can be killed from behind walls whereas rams cannot be). I think the decision to make rams available to all civs should be reconsidered. 2-Walls don’t do anything. They’re just a barrier. There should be more garrison capacity so they function more like towers. Note, shooting turrets were taken out from a24–>a25, I think that change should be reconsidered and/or other garrison features should be considered to replace it Until (1) and/or (2) are addressed walls will be nothing more than annoying blockades that temporarily separate warring range armies.

So we break healing rate and repair rate to prettify some numbers? I suspect people like @chrstgtr are only bothered with those numbers because they have to look at them regularly for checking the opponents upgrades. If they weren't reflected or only accessible via other means, like entity model changes or let's say changes to the spy interface they couldn't be bothered. If you want to go ahead with this please also state how you intend to handle healing/repair It’s just not intuitive, which makes the game inaccessible to new players. It doesn’t impact me much. New players will ask me questions all the time that are like “what wins—one spear or one jav?” That shouldn’t be a difficult question and we shouldn’t need to play the game for hours to have an intuitive feel. Even though I know how units perform against one another, I can’t guess what units stats are and that’s probably a problem. its not probably not a problem for anyone commenting here, but I think it would be good for new players.

Yeah, I'm not suggesting changing the actual balance. Just that health should be the biggest indicator. And then things should have something like 10 armor standard for piece and hack and that can be slightly increased or decreased. Right now the values are all over the place, which makes looking at stats impossible to understand Unfortunately, this would be quite a math project.

We should just rebase all the health and armor, so that a unit's base armor and health points are more representative of the true health. Right now, it requires a lot of calculations (or gameplay to get a feel for it). Stats should be more intuitive. @letsplay0adwe can do this without changing any of their values...Just make it more intuitive to read by looking at health.

I would imagine that units revert to their normal behavior if theirs orders are now longer available—so same as now. If there units are chasing one unit in the back then that is the players issue to micro. I’m not trying to automate the game. I also imagine that range units would be the ones getting ordered to target specific units types I would see this as possible in what j suggest—you select all u it’s you want to control and tell them what to do, which is the same as now but you can tell them to target a ubit type instead of just and individual unit. Again, not trying to automate the game-just trying to give control to the player and avoid the problem where players have to click a 100 times to do this now.

Same reason why some people want some version of an 'attack ground': melee units don't deal as much damage as the ranged units. Melee units also have more non-attacking time because they have to walk up to the enemy to do damage whereas range units can just slightly change their aim and continue attacking without having to walk up to another unit. Additionally, Range units tend to 'overkill' melee untis because melee units have a tendency to walk to specific a fighting point whereas range units form a line. So what I am suggesting will pragmatically mean that more units are being shot at because two lines of range units may form where the units shoot at the unit standing directly across from them. The reason why the meatshield winner wins is because once a player loses their meatshield then their range units, which are more susceptible to damage, will get quickly overrun. Basically, I am just trying to propose an alternative to the attack ground debate that occurred in another thread where no one could agree how an attack ground should function (i.e. range units shooting randomly within an area vs range units targeting specific units in an area vs. etc.).