chrstgtr

The more I play, the more I think this is the answer. Not sure if it is necessary for towers but I am leaning towards no. I don't think the meta has really been figured out yet. I think we still need to wait to see how things shake out. With that said...the below are all things that I was independently thinking. I also think there is a general problem with how champions aren't being made as much anymore. I like how melee is being made more now. But that diversity has come at the cost of less cav and champs. Personally, both neither system is better than the other for me. But I do think we could make the current system better to address the cav and champ issues.

Again, this is your preference. Some would say the old version makes a more dynamic game, which lends to more comebacks, strategic dives under CCs/forts, etc. etc. Let's let the community decide what they prefer. My comment above was responding to @Philip the Swaggerless where he said he thought CC dmg output would be lower but believed that the dmg output is actually higher in the current mod. That is incorrect. The dmg. output is lower in the current mod compared to previous versions. But, in the current mod, the kill count is higher, quicker. So, in the current mod, buildingAI is both stronger (kills units earlier) and weaker (takes longer to kill all units) than before. That stronger and weaker function will always exist with current buildingAI behavior (unless dmg output was increased so that it was stronger/stronger but that obviously won't happen). If we want the current buildingAI behavior then we have to get comfortable with that paradoxical strength/weakness.

It was. Buildings are at once stronger (kills units earlier) and weaker (takes longer to kill all units). That functionality is something that will always be a problem.

I’m still learning/adjusting my thinking, but right now, I think this might make sense. I’d like to see how a rush on the wood line works when someone 2x towers it, esp when it is an inf rush. For various reasons, I’m not liking any if the other ideas you mention. I don’t think I’ve heard any complaints about focus fire, which is a feature long overdue imo. I have really big concerns about this right now. I additionally have really big concerns about it making gameplay too turtle-ly late game because a player cannot stand under CCs/forts for any real amount of time, so melee taking out a CC is much harder and defenders can take out rams too easily.

I would recommend reserving judgment for a little bit and to cast your vote in a week. Right now, I would be one yes and one no for the two big changes (melee/buildingAI) but I could see both, either, or neither of my opinions changing so I haven’t voted yet. No matter what, I think this round of testing is a massive success for the community mod concept. We implemented two radical changes and we are getting real play testing to confirm, modify, or reject the proposed changes. It’s the first time it’ll be an actual experimental mod and not just an avenue for quicker updates.

Honestly, I think the best way to control sniping is to just make it an inherent part of the game that unitAI does automatically. There was a forum topic awhile where no one was able to agree on it--I think we should revisit it.

Check to see if you still have the replays on your HD. I had the same error until I made sure that the folder name for the old mod was "community-mod." Once I change the folder name and enabled the old community mod I could see my old replays.

To be honest, I never knew this existed. With that said, I think that removed bonus isn't very useful. On the Chanakya changes, I think they are an improvement overall and a pretty big buff to Chanakya because of how he can save a player thousands in resources and time via techs. However, I think the changes highlight how much better Chanakya's bonuses are than Cunobeline's bonus. Cunobeline has the benefit of being more difficult to kill and can attack himself. But Cunobeline is otherwise worse in every single way (res to make, time to make, lack of eco bonus, and a more a more expensive/time consuming building to produce from. I would nerf Chanakya's healing bonus and/or come up with a cool extra bonus for Cunobeline.

Can't remember the last time I saw someone "dance" effectively in a game. I can't recall a single instance when someone tried to "dance" around a defensive building. There are a ton of reasons not to like the proposal. Dancing isn't one of those. This whole dancing discussion is so specious

I think that is my preference too. But I understand how others could prefer the proposed patch. Again, this is all preferences--people can like different things and that is ok. I think we should try the patch and see if people prefer "non-random arrows" or "random arrows." Then let popular opinion decide. I think the next iteration of the community mod will be really helpful for that and the melee rebalance, which are both huge changes The control piece is really different feature that everyone seems to want.

More like a straw man that I don't think anyone wants. An alternative choice of something like "random arrows with control" would be better. I conceptually like random arrows more than non-random arrows. But no one will ever actually know until it is widely tested. Even then, this is ultimately just a preference issue. Regardless, I think we should give this a try to see if it is in fact more enjoyable and if it is balanced.

@real_tabasco_sauce and I did some testing tonight. We tested it using 120 skirm armies on both sides. In the first test, we had 20 units garrisoned in CC. In the second test, had 0 units garrisoned in the CC. Although the defender seemed to do better when ungarrisioned, the effect wasn't super dramatic (something like 28ish units left over when garrisioned vs 40ish units when ungarrisioned). This addressed a lot of my late game concerns. If people like the idea, I think we should try it. If people prefer the current/old way, we can revert in a28 (or the community mod). I expect gameplay will be impacted in more ways than we can immediately tell but the community can weigh in on whether those changes are desirable later. TLDR: My concerns were present but I don't think they were dramatic enough to warrant blocking this patch. Up to the community to decide if it's desirable.

Big words coming from you.

Again, I 100% support the ability to control. It’s a total change to default behavior that is concerning to me. You keep talking about how it isn’t a preference. But it is. You keep saying it’s more exciting but we don’t actually know that. RandomAI can lead to dramatic shifts in battles very fast. Whereas this would require a 1 by 1 change. Is that more exciting? I don’t know. It probably depends on the person too. Yeah, it’s a problem, which I way I think we need a useful community mod like thing

But this isn’t necessarily true. The change in default targetingAI can very easily eliminate any benefit to garrisoning because it fundamentally creates an “overkill” issue with all garrisoned units aiming at one unit. That might make garrisoning only “useful” where a defender is vastly outnumbered, which isn’t particularly desirable in late game and creates balance issues in early game. And, that isn’t something that can just be fixed with balance because early game and late game concerns demand opposite balancing changes (early game would need CCs/towers to be nerfed while late game would need CCs/towers/forts to be buffed). Thus the default targetingAI change could have very large meta change impacts, which may or may not be desirable. Even if you don’t buy any of the above, the change is fundamentally a preference issue, which may or may not be inline with the player base general preferences. It’s not like there is a chorus of people demanding this type of change. So it is far from clear that this undoubtedly an improvement like you suggest. Honestly, I’m happy with the way towers/forts/CCs are balanced now (and it seems like most others are too) so the change is entirely a change of behavior instead of a balance issue. The problem is it isn’t even clear that change of behavior is actually desired. I'm not entirely opposed to it. But I do have some big concerns. This is the type of thing that could entirely change the game meta, so I think it’s important we get it right. Testing in RCs has obviously missed some very big meta changing balance issues in the past.

Yeah, I’m all for it in the community mod. To the extent my opinion matters, I think giving the player option to target enemies is good too. I don’t see too much downside to letting a player specifically target enemy units I’m just a little concerned (about rushing and other things too) when default behavior is to attack nearest enemy. That’s why I’d really like to see this be widespread tested. It would also be available to towers too. Anyways, any judgment is premature

I think that’s a concern, though, for the targetingAI. Rushing right now is pretty balanced. Losing one out of 3 quick rushing cav hurts pretty bad (don’t care if a player targets with tower/cc—that’s skill the same as targeting one cav with your units) Anyways, I think all this will be hard to predict actual gameplay effects without actual tests and this could have very large meta impacts. That’s why I would really like it to be in community mod

Agree with borg—would separate. it would be really nice to test if this targetingAI functionality is desired through the community mod

Agree. Like what’s the point? They do the same as the other ships (can garrison and move units) but less (no fighting).

I always thought giving generals or some other special unit category to a civ would be a nice differentiator for a civ. Kind of like Han ministers but more than just a generic eco boost. Something like where you can select a special type of minister to give a super boost to a single resource (Han seems like a good candidate since the groundwork is already there) or a general that is really good in one respect but nothing else (Athens seems like a good candidate given how their government worked).

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Fair. My point is that something is better than nothing. And, I wouldn't let the giant mass of work to paralyze you from doing something to improve the current state of SP. Just my two cents. You do you.

Perfect is the enemy of good.

I think this (and the lack of a smarter AI) is the biggest obstacle to gaining a larger player base. The lack of a campaign mode (and a smarter AI) makes new players less likely to engage with the game for a sustained period of time. Anecdotally, I know when I started playing 0AD, I played the game for about a week until I learned the basics and could regularly beat AI. Then I stopped playing for a week or so because it didn't feel like I was "building" towards anything. Then I started playing again until I beat the hard AI on every map. Then I stopped playing again for like a month because I felt like everything was repetitive and boring. Then I randomly decided to try the multiplayer lobby and haven't really stopped playing since.

This. Saying fishing has no purpose is completely wrong. Fishing requires an upfront, risky investment that pays off handsomely when done well. Heavy fishing maps are also vulnerable to ship attacks late, which can’t be defended without also making ships. If you try to out boom a fishing player with a lot of berries/farms, you will lose 100% of the time against a good player. Making fishing infinite won’t make fishing more viable—it will make farms/berries useless.