chrstgtr

How many alphas until we’ve reversed all the changes and are at a23 with a couple unit stat adjustments?

Fair. Restrictions have their place. I’m more just against Every. Single. Civ. looking exactly the same and then calling that an “innovative change” when really it is just a “change” that makes things more uniform and restrictive. Making something new while taking away something old leaves us with the same amount of stuff (no need to rehash the stable complaints of a24, but thats a good example of where we went from 2 buildings that can make cav to 1 building that can make cav. That doesn’t increase diversity)

I would also be interested in this (or the range as I say above). (Or either for Han and then bring the other to some other civ) (really I was just never a fan of the stable being a global feature)

I would like if such buildings were a civ differentiator for 1-2 civs that have a lot of range units. Kind of like how stables were for Persia in a23 (and before). Making a global change like that, though, takes away doesn't actually improve diversity: it replaces something that is uniform with something else that still uniform but more restricting. just my two cents, but having a lot of extra buildings that limit what can do isn’t much fun. If those buildings come with some other benefits (ie it’s not just restricting because there are benefits that come with restrictions aka a trade off is created) and are unique (ie a civ differentiator) then maybe there is some potential

Cool. Good to knowthere is progress

I would like that. I think everyone would like if the balancing was done by teams, which would make TGs and 1v1s "fair"

I would prefer not. Having everything balanced for every player makes things boring imo because it makes everything more predictable. I would rather have balanced teams, which currently does not exist. It's also worth noting that although many players have balanced maps, balanced mainland is almost never played in TGs.

There's a lot right here. But the just because a unit is rank 2 doesn't automatically make it OP. For example, look at skiratai. They're rank 3 and not OP in this alpha. I think this clearly means that the problem with mercs is their cost. Mercs cost only one res (super easy eco management) and total res cost is less than comparable unit. To the extent cav mercs are better than inf mercs, that is a function of the underlying cav/inf balance. This is a cav alpha and it is still an option question on whether that is desirable.

It's not. The fixes were never reasonably targeted to fixing the dancing problem and the frequency of people complaining about dancing is very low at this point. Even the people who advocate for the turn rates (or acceleration today) do so by referring to how realistic it looks. This is simply an aesthetic change. Personally, I am not a fan. But alas, here we are, again.

Didn't know. Doesn't seem like too many people have played it. Honestly, I didn't realize we were so close to a26.

After acceleration/turn times. That is a major change that will be hard to assess if you add this too. Borg’s comment has merit. Otherwise, I would 100% say now.

Same

We just disagree. Nothing you said makes sense to me in my experience or observations.

Didn't say this at all. I said i doubt it. Attack group reduces the basic micro that's already there is what i'm saying. You honestly can't disagree with this. How is painting an area to target units more micro than invdividually selecting unit per unit with alt? If that's how you feel we might aswell stop discussing this further with eachother. No one does that once you’re fighting with more than like 30 units. It’s just not worthwhile because you can’t click fast enough to do that and all your other tasks in mid-late game. If you want to spend all your time clicking on 10 out of my 120 units then that’s fine. You’ll kill those10 units but you won’t have reinforcements because you wasted all your focus trying to click on 10 of my units while i spent my time doing all the other necessary tasks to sustain a fight that large. One of the most common mistakes of new players is that they spend all their time trying to micro big fights while their enemy just runs them over by properly managing their macro eco/unit production and ignoring micro. The mirco you describe all but does not exist in large fights because it isn’t worth the other sacrifices you have to make to do it. You’re not getting it. I’m describing things that mostly do not exist now. I know what you think I am saying, but there is so much more to it than that. And to the extent that it is the “same,” it is in an entirely different context that will require different considerations than what exists now while still preserving what already exists.

I totally disagree. What you call “over complication” is just a use of more micro, which you said won’t exist. What you banally describe as an “over complication” most others would describe as skill and will differentiate good players from those who just understand all the basic features None of it will be the same anymore because you would be able to fundamentally direct armies in a different way that previously could only be achieve through the the impossible task of selecting hundreds of different units to individually attack hundred of other individual units. That will obviously bring new strategies and techniques that were not possible no matter how good you were. The fact is that right now you cannot truly micro large battles other than moving units away from or towards something because the attack mechanism is too basic. Will it make basic micro simpler? Maybe. But it certainly won’t be any easier than spamming units to a rally point like most players do now. I can tell you with certainty that what I described would be more micro intensive for me.

This is a massive oversimplification. As I process what micro would be in my head, I am honestly worried it will be too complicated. It involves: what units/unit types will I select, where will I put them, what group will I target, how many different focus group will I have l, how many attacking groups will I have, how often will I update each groups attacking orders, how close of attend do I have to pay to the groups being attacked so the attackers don’t default to the nearest unit, how big of groups do I target so my attackers don’t default to the closest unit, how do I position my army so if they do default to the nearest unit are they still in a good fighting position, how much do I lure units so the enemy walks into my melee, how close do I pay attention so I don’t get lured, how do I position my melee to take advantage of luring, how do I position my melee to take advantage of enemy units defaulting, etc. And that is just a list of things I can immediately think of before I began an idea repeated itself in my head. How can you do so simply categorize all micro strategy with no imagination? How someone can say it is easy with no risk (esp when compared to something where you literally just select a small area to shoot aimlessly at), I cannot understand.

You’re statements on attack group aren’t true. If you select a large area, attack group just makes you shoot father projectiles that are less likely to hit. If it also acts as a tower that randomly selects then that means that it will attack random units walking through the area that you probably don’t mean to target and are less likely to be hit because they’re moving. If attack group selects random units that you aim at until dead or at units that are nearest in that area then You will have to regularly re micro as that area will have units disappear and range units will go back to default attacks if nearest unit. Plus if you do attack group then new arriving units will need to be microed to attack group or they will just default to nearest units. This provides the benefit of being able to target ranged units in the back which is why this whole discussion exists so idk why you don’t think it provides player benefit and as I describe above it also requires regular micro and skill. I described these pros/cons in my initial comments on this thread. I believe those possibilities should be re-examined. The only person who spoke in opposition to that said they thought my proposal would be OP (despite no reason given for that) and that they preferred attack ground bc it would hit the footprint, which is obviously true but equally obvious that that would make attack ground only useful in the very limited situation where extreme chock points exist (which also probably creates balance issues that something like attack group with target of nearest unit doesn’t have a problem with) Not trying to say I told you so here, but attack ground has some very obvious deficiencies that makes it use extremely limited. And these deficiencies are severe enough to mean in the vast majority of situations on the vast majority of maps attack-ground won't address anyone's original concerns that led to this discussion, namely that range units overkill meat shields. If you want it, fine. But it is not something that excites me at all.

I think between a23–>a24, bolts used to have slash damage (or something like that). Their stats changed a lot and became less useful honestly, I would be happy reverting bolts back to their a23 stats. But so much has changed since then (ie champs) that the solution may not be that simple (Cata is another story…)

Javs only fought melee, though. It was basically archers using the new feature vs javs using the old (many units with overlapping targets) feature. Would need to see more Also, what targeting feature is this? Random ground targets? Or group targeting?

I think it's because misses become very important. All units are low health, but slight variations (i.e. a little more luck on accuracy in equal fights or just more units) can lead to totally different outcomes. This is another form of what i was talking about

I don’t get what you were disagreeing with then. but fine, the undeveloped option is (always) better than the option that is currently developed. My point is, we should strive for targeting of some type. If you want to implement some intermediate, transitionary option, fine. I don’t think it will be useful, but I’d be happy to be wrong I don’t have to use it if I am right. but development shouldn’t stop there, especially since we know a better option that just isn’t developed yet

You aren’t getting what I am saying: randomly targeting units within a defined area (the way a tower works) is always going to be better than randomly shooting projectiles within a defined area (imagine a tower, but half your projectiles go in the wrong direction) I laid out four different ways units can be targeted and only one of those is what you are describing

Because if you are shooting aimless then many (and likely most) of your units are guaranteed to be useless. It is like sending your men into battle and then setting 20% of them to passive. more to the point, how is random shooting at an area. Better than targeted shooting at an area? You can achieve the same thing that you want with random targeting of units with an area (1) above, but not have any of the downside.

Sure, there are confounding factors. But for every enemy change the attacking player can make an appropriate reaction. What I described is more or less optimal play that will lead to pretty wonky outcomes. But we’ll see regardless, unless the dev team wants to undertake a lot of work at the front end, we are going to need to pick one preferred choice and then test that option. My preference is known

Some things are just simple math. If all units in an area are randomly targeted then all units will die more or less at the same time. If I have 10% more units then my units will have ~10% health left when all the enemy dies, which will occur more or less all at the same time. An army of 100 (even if it just has 10% health) is going to roll over any enemy with an army of 0. Barracks won’t be able to spam quickly enough to even make a dent