chrstgtr

It makes them vulnerable. If you lose the building while units are being trained then you just lost the building (and whatever time) and the res for the citizens is refunded. If you lose the men then you lose the resources too. The point is to create a cheap, but risky, alternative way to make champs.

My point is that if you want something unique then it should be unique and not a copy of what already exists. What you're proposing is derivative of what already exists--it's basically the same thing but easier and for a bigger benefit. Make it unique.

We basically already have that with garrisoning CS hoplites to rank up. If a unit is garrisoning or whatever to rank up then nothing else matters. No one does it. There's also basically no downside of doing that because it is the same cost as CS with all the upside. Defenseless sounds much more interesting to me

Maybe instead of garrison it is an aura outside like a temple so that the unit is vulnerable. Could also have a garrison option that is safer, but slower. We probably also have them train with one another (like with healers) so that they don’t need to be right next to a building. (This probably lends itself to some cool wresting art animations)

My two cents and some suggestions for improvement: Sounds like fun I like this a lot too. Very unique and helpful. I'm not a fan of getting rid of things that work and this seems like a change just for change's sake. I don't see anything wrong with the current bonus, which is very useful but not OP. The gold proposal also sounds very difficult to make useful without being OP. If the trickle is high enough to eliminate a need to gather metal for p2 techs then the bonus will probably be OP. If the bonus isn't strong enough to do that then it will provide almost no benefit. If you want to include some gold proposal then providing some gold discount for techs seems much easier to balance and more useful. Not a fan of deviating from standard stats for common units. It makes the game more difficult to learn and harder to balance. If so desired, I would introduce differences in the form of techs like "grain gather +20%; attack -10%" This seems really difficult to balance. Making them free seems it could make them very easy to spam and OP (i.e., build three extra houses at very start and train 30 Spartiates so that at min 6 you have an unbeatable army--enemies also can't do anything to stop this type of spam bc it just requires time, which no rush can stop). If the training is super slow then I don't think anyone will bother to train them because they will take up too much pop space without providing any benefit. My suggestion is that we create an alternate way to make spartiates. All history texts tell us that Spartan citizens used to train all the time to becomes spartiates. Why don't we create a male citizen that does nothing but can train himself into a spartiate. This way the male citizen just takes up space and resources (I would set cost to 50 food) while being vulnerable to attack. This would provide a new, unique, and cheap way to get champs. But this also avoids the "too easy to mass" problem because they will be super vulnerable while "training" out in the open and the loss would costly.

Eco Techs. Military techs. Heroes. Siege. Other p2 buildings like temples and markets. Basically every reason why you go p3 now. Most players don’t win now because they got p3 champs. All those current ways to win will still be possible

Sounds like fun

I think we’ve seen people claim all three in this one discussion. That suggests either there are a lot of charlatans or people just don’t know

It's pretty clear no one really knows...it's just one person guessing versus another. Even so, all the civs have such deep histories that you can justify almost anything with some historical context. At some point, this is just a game that we all play to have fun. Absent any glaring historical inaccuracies, gameplay should be taken into consideration.

150 metal is still way faster than 100 food and 50 wood. 1-food is the slowest gatherer resource 2-it requires upgrades for only one resource type 3-metal mines take a long time to deplete whereas wood is quickly chopped down. As a result, players must build multiple storehouses to always be close to wood while they only need to build two storehouses for metal mines. This means that collecting wood costs resources (the cost to build storehouses), time (the time spent building storehouses), and shuttling time (the amount of time wasted when units walk from the wood to the storehouse). These costs are almost nonexistent for metal.

I think making all civs play the same is undesirable.

+1 Isn't this a huge area of improvement, though? I thought the calvary straight lines that contain a bunch of overlapping units was one of the improvements in a26

How do we install this? It is a .patch file, which I have never seen before. Putting it in the mod folder doesn't work. This will open up some cool new build orders.

He wants something that is perfectly fair. Albeit, boring. Bal maps is still essentially mainland with equal res that are randomly distributed.

I don't think an extra cav will be that big of a deal in team games, but you're probably right for 1v1s. I'm not sure I understand. Do you mean Persia would start with 2 cav, 1 spear, 2 archers, and 4 women? I tested that a little bit and it seems fine at first glance. It does seem like it will create some unique build orders, which I think is your goal and would be nice. It also creates a nice defense tradeoff like you mention.

I already said I'm talking about team games. In team games, 2 cav isn’t enough to do an effective rush, especially if you are in the pocket. No one, especially pockets, will fear a rush just because there is a Persia on the enemy team. If there are extra berries, you’ll definitely be faster with a normal start. If there are no extra hunt/berries, you’re faster with a normal start. If hunt is hard to get (because it is spread out, limited, and/or far from the CC) then you’re better with a normal start. In a situation where there is good, easy hunt then you’ll be basically the same speed unless you want to rush, I’m which case you’ll be slightly faster. My point is: the proposal takes a slow civ and the makes it slower in the majority of situations. This does not mean that you can’t have two cav at the start, though. If you want two cav units at the start, you can easily modify the proposal to give an extra cav unit at the start (like how Maurya has an ele and Kush has a healer). This alternative will open up other build orders and doesn’t risk making Persia’s boom very slow.

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.