chrstgtr

Or forced on every map. For example, some people like regicide. Some people don't. It is an option in every game, but that doesn't mean it has to exist in every game. It seems like this should be able to be added via an optional victory condition to every map.

Based on the games I've played, sword cav feels OP. They're able to run around so much that they never have to take a bad fight and can quickly find good fights. They can quickly collapse onto units and then can quickly escape when enemy reinforcements arrive. And if you ignore them, they can wreck your city. Your points are well taken, but I've seem some pretty absurd KDs wracked up by using sword cav. I'm not saying it's a must-fix right now--we need some time to adjust to the meta. But many games seem to come down to who made the most CS sword cav and who made the most champ melee cav. While this problem is obviously relevant in mid-game rushes, it is also relevant in late game when players mostly leave their bases to attack. In these late stage games, a relatively small group of cav can decimate an enemy's eco. Because this wasn't the case in previous alphas, I assume it has something to do with a25, the most obvious possible culprit being unit pushing.

I don't think spear cav is OP, it is just sword cav, who have 55% more DPS than spear cav and on top of that they deal full hack damage. @Jofursloft Also I think the palisade fell, but it did a decent job of buying time. If there would be no pallisade, you would have lost 15 women in the situation. See above where I later say sword. with respect to point 2, I agree the palisade did exactly what it’s supposed to do—buy you time to respond. putting men in fields doesnt address half the problem here, which is sword cav is op. And putting men in fields (which is already possible) takes away unit differentiation (ie men and women are different). note: the fix shouldn’t be one where we get rid of field raids as that eliminates a part of the game. It should be just to balance it, which is achieved by making op sword cav more easily countered (which is a problem here and elsewhere in the game)

Disagree. As I said above, I don’t think palisades are too weak. They are the same strength as before as were a big part of the turtling problem in a24. — they’re cheap and quickly built. So I don’t think having weak palisades is a problem as I said above. Palisades are meant to slow down attackers and give your army a chance to react—not to stop the attack. to the extent palisades are too weak, slower cav would still help with the “problem” because inf would have more time to react. change rep rate would have a big effect on the strength of the unit which wasn’t a problem until a25, where the rep rate and attack strength wasn’t changed. This the problem is something else (ie, the better path finding makes them quicker (and hence stronger) than before, as I suggest above).

Biggest problem is that sword cav is too fast with unit pushing. I would start by decreasing speed by 1 or so and seeing how that looks.

This indicates that cav, I particular melee cav, are too strong this alpha—not that palisades are too weak. palisades and walls are just meant to delay attackers fir long enough for reinforcements to come. Palasaides and walls are not meant to be an impenetrable barrier (and they would be OP and result in the turtle mats he’s of a24 if they were). Palisades are also buoy extremely quickly, so they should not be too strong

But that's effectively the same thing, right?

I'm not sure I understand. Does this mean that each unit/batch effectively take .2 seconds longer when made with auto queue compared to when it is manually done?

Most 1v1 matches I’ve played in that are competitive for more than 15 minutes featured champs. For me it’s been TGs that are too frantic to wait to build champs

Yeah, this would require a big champ balance overhaul, but that’s ok IMO. Esp since initial reports from a25 seem to indicate that CS balance is good (I.e. nearing a potential final state). In terms of balancing, in some places, it might be easier to keep with we have (ie standardized champ units that are basically just stronger CS) and introduce all new units with these types of special characteristics. So for something like Sparta we could do as you suggest and then bring back a standardized sword champ or skirm champ. There are some civs that basically already do this (i.e. fire cav for iber is totally unique while Iber’s sword other sword champ is the standardized Doing something like what you describe above would bring back some of the civ differentiation/unique civ play that was lost in a24 and would also introduce some unit differentiation that people have (rightly) complained about without needing to totally restart balancing

I like most of these. Balancing gets tough. But this makes them closer to somewhere between a hero and a CS instead of just being a stronger CS.

Having 50 archers shoot and repeatedly miss is obviously a big loss of offensive power. That is why there is "a lot" of incentive to organize your troops better to ensure that 50 units aren't doing a duplicative job. With that said, my critique applies mostly to non-hero units. The main problem I see with applying a max number of attackers to heros (which again do most of the dancing) is that this will limit players' ability to snipe heros, which is often a big strategy in regicide games. In this balance, I could go either way.

Setting a max number of attackers takes out a lot of strategy/micro in the game since it takes away a lot of the incentive to position your armies when attacking. An alternative solution that would have less unintended consequences would be to just make heros' turn rates even slower than they are now since dancing abuse tends to only really occur with heros. Also please note that heros' turn rates did not change from a24 to a25. Nonetheless, I have not seen this happen much, so I am inclined to just leave things as they are until it becomes a pervasive problem like it once was.

Camels have shorter range and are less accurate. Still, it remains to be seen if this will make a difference (I’ve only played against it with players who are clearly better or worse than me, so the jury is still out here for me)

I’m also very biased (and it is still a bit early), but I think A25 is great step in the right direction. I would like more civ differentiation in a26 that creates unique strategies (e.g., fanatics in a21, Athens champs/slingers in a23, mace siege rush in a23 and earlier alphas, etc.)

Jungle biome is a bit too heavy on trees. It makes it difficult to just place all buildings for a fully developed city. Otherwise, I’m happy with the current biomes. Edit: If you want that look, an easy fix would be to make trees less wood, so that they are cut quicker

Read OP post--it explicitly attributed the problem to int'l trade bonus. @Gurken Khan Here: There is a market somewhere on the map. Why should it matter if I own the market or my ally owns the market if the benefit is tied to distance. Put another way, if an American company is importing a natural resource from a country in Africa why should the amount extracted increase if the extractor is American or African? The amount extracted is the same. The only thing is how is the benefit split up. If the American company has to pay the African country then obviously the amount of income will be less.

Read OP post.

But why give a bonus? It is already beneficial to trade over long distances. Just split the fixed amt of res. The abstraction causes a problem, and the abstraction itself doesn't really make sense. So why keep it?

There is no need for an abstraction. Trading from far away places is beneficial. Usually trading with a far away place means international, but not necessarily. Given a fixed distance, trading amongst yourself should be more beneficial than trading with someone else bc then you don't have to share the fixed trade. Trading between different countries over a certain distance doesn't magically make it more profitable than trading over that same distance amongst yourself.

Trade only generate so much income--the amount of food/wood/stone/metal that was actually being carried by traders from one location to another. If you are trading with a seperate party instead of one of your own colonies then the income is being shared with the other party. Thus, the total income you capture is less. For example, let's say Rome traded 100 metal with Carth. Carth would would some portion of that metal in order to facilitate the trade. If, however, Rome captured Carth or built a Roman colony right next to Carth where they could access the metal then Rome wouldn't have to share the trade income and could keep it all to themselves. The "domestically available" bit isn't relevant because income is determined by distance (i.e., where the market is). The international bonus is on top of whatever trade income the route would naturally give, which just doesn't make sense. In other words, trading with a specific trading market shouldn't magically create additional trade income just because it is owned by someone else. If anything, that someone else would want a portion of the trade income bc they are facilitating the trade as a middleman.

You can still have a lot of units while having 0 pop cap/production capabilities.

Could also just get rid of international bonus. It doesn't really make sense--why should overall trade income increase when there is a middle man? It makes more sense that long distance trade would be most profitable when a player vertically integrates (i.e., when they build a CC far away and build a trade post there).

Bigger issue would be houses/pop cap. I think I have seen it only happen a few times before, and in those games the player was unable to help their teammates in any way except for a relatively large force of leveled up healers. Because all players at this point were unable to sustain large armies keeping men alive was very important, which made 20ish leveled up healers very potent. Edit: My point is: a player shouldn't be defeated when they can still be helpful to a team The only benefit to not requiring healers to be killed (or for that matter any other unit) is that it makes it easier for players to "officially" win when it is already obvious who has already won.

I've seen games where a player is essentially dead but for 10-20 level-3 priests that greatly helps the "dead" players' allies. This typically occurs in long games where players run out of wood, but food remains plentiful. But to your point, it is very rare.