chrstgtr

I think it would be great if there was a game setting option that let players chose the amount of starting resources for each res. That would fix all problems by letting players decide what type of game they play. Doing anything else restricts player choice and assumes we know best for all people and all possible circumstances, which of course is impossible. EDIT: more to the point. This is a bandaid and doesn’t fix the thread’s topic of how the game design is currently flawed because at some (early) point stone becomes useless for many civs

There are game setting options that already do that. There are also options that provide more res at the start. We shouldn’t restrict player choice when it is not necessary. I see no reason to do that here. If you want to create a new starting setting (or better yet make a starting setting that allows players to input the number of starting res), I would have zero objections.

I have said in a few places that eco techs shouldn't be all wood/metal. It might make sense that you have to invest more of a res to collect more of it. So, for example, replace metal with stone for stone eco techs, replace metal with food for farming techs, etc. Alternatively, it may make sense to replace force players to spend time gathering more than just one resource, so the opposite should be done. For example, metal gathering techs should cost wood/stone and stone gathers techs should cost metal and wood. I personally prefer the second option that forces a more varied gameplay. It also makes sense to reintroduce stone into the military techs like it used to be. For this I would divide the current metal costs between stone and metal. The building and construction techs also make sense, but few players ever use those techs as is. And, if you are an aggressive attacking player then you will never use those techs. In short this proposal is insufficient to make stone useful again because a winning strategy (i.e., a strategy that requires you to attack) still won't require stone.

I don't think this should be a concern. Why should we treat civs that are stone dependent differently? There are civs that are metal dependent. And, there are civs that are wood dependent. Wood and metal are the two primary resources for techs right now. Every civ should have its advantages and disadvantages that vary from map to map and game to game.

Let's not just eliminate an entire resource group...One of the biggest complaints is that the game is becoming too standardized. So yes, eliminating literally 25% of the entire economy will have a huge difference because now instead of balancing 4 resources you will only have to balance 3 resources. Again, this was not a problem before this alpha. In a23 (and several alpha before that), stone was the 2nd most scarce resource for all civs. Several changes in a24 have since changed this (e.g., techs no longer cost as much stone, forts no longer cost as much much, catapults and slingers are no longer as good, etc.). The way we fix our new problem shouldn't be to make another change that assumes the current problem must exist when it didn't exist just last alpha. We also shouldn't take the lazy approach and say "this isn't necessary right now, let's eliminate 1/4 of the entire economy." Instead, we should revisit which changes brought us to the current situation, examine whether those changes are actually necessary, and make the appropriate changes. In part, this is already being done (e.g., there is a ticket to buff catapult, which will make stone more valuable). But there are other places where it can be done too (i.e., do we really need to make forts cost 600s/300w instead of 1000s?, do techs have to cost only wood/metal or should techs cost some mixture of more/other res, which includes stone).

I'm just speaking generally about the propensity to eliminate differentiating factors and to make these standardized. I understand why many of these things were done. But I think there are other, better ways to fix balancing issues than making everything the same except for a few bonuses or techs (i.e., if Maurya has difficulty killing buildings in a23 then maybe the solution for a24 should've been to make ele stronger instead of giving them rams). I know I am not alone when I say a24 is a lot less fun because civs are less unique than in previous alphas. With respect to the one specific thing I did reference in the text you quoted, I am referring to the unit balancing done for a24. A24 units are much better balanced than in a23. It's still a work in progress, but things are better now than before.

Most of the work seems to be focused on making things standardized and then adding "special" techs/bonuses to each civ. See athens threads on forum and the associated tickets for an example. I think that these techs/bonuses are great. But I don't think those need to be the only differentiators, and if you peruse the proposals for long enough you will begin to notice that the same ideas keep popping up (e.g., give a slinger tech to slinger civs like how there is an archery tradition, give a spear tech to certain civs like how there is a archery tech, cheaper techs for Athens like how some civs are universities that provide cheaper tech, heros that provide similar bonuses such as an attach buff of x% or healing rate of x, etc.) These aren't bad features, but they are repetitive features. Having some basic differentiating features like Iber starting with walls (which many now want to get rid of), celts getting a pop bonus for each building (which was eliminated this alpha), some civs not having rams (which was eliminated in this alpha), or ptol having free houses (which was eliminated this alpha) are all nice differentiators. There are still some things that are totally unique (e.g., Brennus giving metal for every kill) but these are less common than before. Making all buildings cost the same for every civ will only make the game more and more uniform with less and less differentiation. I question why this is necessary. To answer your question with another question: why do we keep eliminating differentiators and then racking our brains to come up with "new" ideas to differentiate civs in order to "fix" problems that didn't exist before the latest "improvements?" It makes a lot more sense to work within the current structure to balance what already exists and add differentiators as appropriate and as necessary. This is what was done to balance units this alpha, which is one of the most popular changes (and while still not perfect it is much closer than before).

I'd prefer we introduce more differentiating factors between civs rather than making them all more uniform. All civs already feel too similar. As it stands, it feels like there are 2 or 3 civs right now that are dressed differently to make the whole roster

Great post. I think one of the underlying issues is that techs have become almost singularly dependent on wood/metal. With respect to D3703 (i think you have the wrong ticket number for D307), I think it makes sense when paired with D3704. The % increase/res will go back to something closer to a23 (although still no where close to where it was), which provided more benefit to researching these techs. I agree, this ticket still isn't perfect, though. In my opinion, I would like to see food/stone involved in tech costs. Food/stone requirements in tech costs would invite more choice and allow players to focus their ecos in more than just two areas like the current alpha requires (current alpha is essentially just "get as much wood/metal as possible and then spend it where you want").

I think we agree. My point is wonders should be more useful than they currently are (which is not useful unless eco is zero difficulty and you can wait several minutes to see any benefit, if at all). The delay for any benefit is unnecessarily long. But that does not mean that these buildings buildings (which are almost by definition rare in their excellence) should be built in most games.

Wonders aren't used frequently. But it is helpful as a tiebreaker for those long games that otherwise never seem to end. My point is that right now there are a lot of games that last very long and yet still no one builds wonders. I see no reason to make a building that doesn't serve a purpose. Or to delete any building that does (or used to) have a purpose. Instead costs, usefulness, and research times should be adjusted. Agree on your last point that the research aspect provides an unfair advantage for what should otherwise be a "final upgrade" building.

This is one of my most disliked changes. Vision tech needs to be restored. Otherwise, it is not worth bothering with.

The lighthouse and the wonder changes were two bad changes from last alpha. Lighthouses went from being a critical building to being a virtually useless one. I honestly don't think making ships 20% fast will make it much more useful (and certainly not enough to ever make me want to build one). It also doesn't make sense why it is limited to just one construction but that is a different topic. Anyways, a revision to the old function of the lighthouse (or at least something much, much closer to it than its current vision range) would be useful. Wonders are still useful. The problem is that they cost way, way too much to much and take way, way too long to build. The cost is troublesome in this alpha because metal is so scarce with how expensive techs are (this will be improved in the next alpha, so I am not worried about that part). The build time is troublesome because (1) it just takes a long to build, so any benefits are delayed and (2) a lot of units will be off eco for awhile, so you won't be able to immediately research the tech. Even after building the wonder you still have to pay for a very, very expensive tech that takes a very, very long time to research. All this means is that you have you have a couple minutes of resources gathered just to build it, spend a couple minutes building it, spend a couple more minutes of resources to research the tech, then spend a couple more minutes actually researching the tech, then after the tech resource is completed you have to spending several minutes of resources and training (maybe also build) time to actually get the extra pop. In other words, wonders are just too time intensive and in most games you'll lost before you ever get the chance to actually use the benefits of all your res and time. I don't think making units/building cheaper would be helpful because if you can afford to build a wonder/research the tech then resources obviously aren't an issue for you. Similarly, making building times quicker doesn't make sense because you will have already made all your buildings by the late-stage of the game when wonders are built, so it provides little to no benefit. Before at least you could get an immediate +10 pop bonus, which still wasn't very good to be honest. I would take away the tech research time and provide that benefit immediately upon the wonder being built, make the wonder correspondingly more expensive (so 2K food, 3K wood, 500 stone/metal more expensive), and add whatever fun extra techs you want from that point on (i.e. maybe a super will to fight of an extra 15% or a super super defensive, which gives your units 15% more armour).

Some people think that the IPs have been recorded from some previous time and are just being attacked. Some people have avoided this by getting new IPs. This makes sense why it would only happen to "good" players because those are typically the ones who have been playing since the problem began ~9ish months ago. Some other people think it is someone with an axe to grind against certain known players. Maybe theories are abound about who that someone actually is.

The theory, as I understand it, is that someone is using a program to scan the games in the lobby, which provides the DDOSer with the host's IP. Once the DDOSer has a host's IP, he/she can make DDOS attacks. By protecting the game with a password, the scanning program cannot obtain the host's IP. So no what you propose is not possible.

Not my intention at all. See below from my original post. I 100% agree with you and is, in large part, what I actually say. Also, glad to see you are back, Stan.

And again I cannot believe I have to explain this--devs should play the game and interact with players. Forum posts and comments that exist apart from the actual game only are important insofar as those posts/comments reflect actual gameplay/player experience no matter how self-important those posters/devs feel they are. Again, I'm not trying to indict the entire development team as there is obviously a lot of great work that is done and this isn't a pervasive opinion held by all the devs. But the attitude expressed above is simply toxic.

I don't want to get into the weeds here as I think I have already said my piece here, so the last thing I will is this: Just because a game is in alpha doesn't mean all of its pieces can or should be up for reconsideration all the time. If that was true then the game will never exit its alpha phase because everything will always be considered in flux and changes will always be getting made. It also means that we shouldn't revist things that have already been considered in the past unless there is good reason to do so (i.e. some other new feature has fundamentally changed the way the game relates to the subject that we are considering changing. For example, slingers were too strong in a21, so cav was made stronger in a22. But cav was too strong in a22 so cav was nerfed in a23 and slingers again became too strong. etc.). Fundamentally changing the way a city looks has apparently been considered several times throughout the years, but no action was taken. This indicates a choice that we are ok with the current arrangement. Additionally, this isn't like it is some feature that just hasn't been implemented yet--it has always been around but hasn't been changed. Nor has some new feature had an external effect on the way cities are built. Revisiting the same topics over and over again only distracts from the projections completion. And, saying the game is in "alpha" doesn't automatically justify changes.

My point is that no one actually knows how this will change things. But we do know that it can change gameplay a lot. It will be harder to protect fields. It will slow down gameplay a lot because you will now need to build a farmstand on the outskirts. Sentry towers and palisades won't be great at protecting fields at the start because those take res and time (which you will already be short on) and have their own deficiencies (i.e. a sentry tower can be quickly captured if men aren't closeby to engage in the fight; palisades can't stop archers' arrows) In short, it forces a radical change to gameplay to fix what is essentially an aesthetic problem. If players really want their cities to look "real" then they can still build their fields on the outskirts. There are also smaller, more incremental changes that can be made to encourage more spread out farmlands that don't entirely disrupt the current meta (i.e. Vali's suggestion of reducing the number of farmers). But changing the entire gameplay meta to fix a small problem like this doesn't feel wise.

I don't think this premise is right. If Mauryans are currently too OP (which I don't agree with--they are one of several good civs right now), Mauryans are good because (1) they have the best unit in the game right now (archers); (2) they have a higher pop cap than most civs; and (3) they have 75w houses. I've played a lot of games and I have seen resources "stolen" in very few games and in none of these games has actually changed the outcome. The fact that very few players actually make worker eles indicates that the unit isn't OP at all. The most immediate benefit (and arguably the most important too) of the ele is that you are able to start collecting res away from a CC without spending the initial 100 wood. Very few players ever make a worker ele and instead just rely on the initial ele plus storehouses that they build. So doing this would be a major nerf. @nani is right--we should make other civs better with their own unique features rather than eliminating the fun unique features that currently exist.

But it does. It makes gameplay sense because it will be very hard to defend fields that are away far from the cc in the early game (and possibly late game)e. This change will entirely change the meta. Frankly, it doesn't take a long read of the forums to realize that big changes like this aren't always appreciated or that big changes like this don't actually improve the gameplay. There isn't anything stopping you from building fields away from the CC if you so desire.

This feels like something that is a very small problem because gameplay diverges from historical reality, which already occurs in a ton of other places in the game. A lot of people don't even care about this "problem." Meanwhile, the change could potentially have huge gameplay consequences. I honestly don't think the game needs to be totally faithful to history insomuch as it should be inspired by history. For that reason, I prefer to keep the current setup.

@Nescio, can it be done with the code? @borg-and I talked about it last night and agreed it was a good idea but that code may be a limitation.

It makes sense for women (and men) to have lower LOS while doing eco because you will naturally be distracted while chopping a tree, mining, or farming and consequently less likely to notice a unit walking in the far off distance. I don't see how to say women/men have different vision ranges. I would prefer for LOS to be unified but for the LOS to be decreased when a unit is doing eco. (and maybe a intermediate LOS when a unit is walking/fighting/under attack) Edit: This should satisfy everyone who wants to see far off units when being attacked without creating weird situations where you can suddenly see farther than a unit is "able" to normally see.