chrstgtr

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.

Alternatively, if you could let players choose their hero at the start of the game.

It would be nice to have PM functions in the lobby. Otherwise, in order to privately converse with someone you have to create a room to talk privately (and kick out everyone else who joins that you don't want).

Agree on opt-out if implemented. I would never want this standard--it gives away critical strategic info that can easily be scouted.

I would strongly recommend keeping barracks in p1. This would make gameplay very static because rushes would become much less viable. This in turn would make p1 a bit boring. It would also make it more difficult it more difficult to come back from rushes because it would be harder to produce soldiers if you are rushed. It also isn't true that there are many buildings in p1 and few in p2 when you consider how basically every building in p1 is required to build pop/do basic eco. P1: house, storehouse, farmhouse, field, corral, dock (but it can only function as a storehouse or to make eco fishing ships), barrack, stables, sentry tower, outpost, and palisades. P2: CC, blacksmith, temple, market, tower, and walls (some other civs have other buildings like ele stables, lighthouse, pyramids, etc.) So basically there are only 5 buildings in p1 that do anything beyond eco. And two of those basically don't do anything but let you see more (outlooks)or block movement (palisades). So taking out barracks/stables in p1 would leave civs with just towers and eco buildings. This change would also lengthen games considerably because pop would be slowed. Given DDoS, unstable internet connections, and players that leave games randomly that could be very problematic.

Because it would result in a 2/3 chance that you see something worthless since is about the chance of seeing either women around a CC or an army that you are already fighting. As opposed to now when you get a 100% chance of seeing something useful that you won't intuitively know (i.e. traders and whatever they walk by which could be useful and isn't likely to where the fight is or the farmers). It should be given a buff because no one uses it now. But spending units to see a woman farming isn't a buff.

My point is that changing it to all units or something instead of just traders means you would have like a 1/6 chance of seeing a woman in a field. And a 1/2 chance of seeing a solider fighting your own army. So about 2/3 of the time you would get useless information. Current structure means you would never get useless information as knowing where traders are is always useful. Edit: a change would be nice as the tech is basically never used now and it's a cool idea. But the most common suggestion is a nerf that would make it even less likely to be used in the future.

Why would anyone want to do this? I wouldn't want to spend resources just to see that the enemy has a soldier fighting my army. Just like I wouldn't want to spend resources to see that my enemy has women farming by their CC because I already assume this. Making it so that it reveals ALL traders would be useful since it gives a more information than the base fact that a trade line runs through one specific point.

I feel like most of these takes out a lot of skill (i.e. noticing that an enemy is nearby) or disadvantages scouting (i.e. being told when enemy is building wonder). I would like if we got more notifications from allies after team vision is researched. For example, a notification that an ally has begun to build a wonder, a notification that an ally has dropped below 100 pop or a notification than an ally has less than 100 resources.

The only one that would really be useful is offensive boost (economic boost won't help because if you can build a wonder and research the tech then resource scarcity isn't an issue and defensive boost doesn't make sense because if you are at risk of losing your base then you almost certainly can't afford a wonder and its tech). Other suggestions in this thread like unlocking additional units doesn't sound like much a boost (most civs share multiple common units already and getting a few extra unit types isn't going to be much help whereas extra pop is a huge boost). I would like the option of offensive boost and/or a pop boost. Honestly a lot of other discussion in this thread sounds like it should either be already implemented in other aspects (i.e. giving civs more differentiating factors), already are in the game (wonder victory condition is already an option, so why would we delete a useful construct to make something that we already have as an option standard and limit player choice) or will not be nearly as worthwhile a benefit as the current as the simple pop benefit that it currently gives (bribing traders isn't done right now because it isn't very useful).

I will build them occasionally. No one really bans them anymore like they used to. They are often necessary to break stalemates but this usually only occurs in very long games And to answer OP's question, yes. They can be very useful for the pop bonus. Although they are less useful in a24 than before because they no longer give the the auto +10 pop bonus, so no real benefit occurs for at least 2 minutes after building even if you assume resource scarcity isn't a problem (although it usually is). So now it takes a long time to get the resources to build the wonder, a long time to get resources for the tech, and a long time to research the tech before you get any benefit. I would re-add the +10 pop bonus and/or I would increase cost and make the +20% bonus automatic. I didn't even realize there was a resource trickle until I looked up stats just now, so I wouldn't say it matters (especially because no one builds wonders unless you already have a ton of res)

I agree/like with almost all of this. Expand the tower nerf to forts and (maybe) CCs and literally all of my big balancing complaints would be gone. I have reservations about the pike/spearman counter vs. eles. This would mean that all siege melee siege is dealt best with by melee. I kind of like how rams are best dealt with by melee while eles are best dealt with by range. It forces players to have both melee and range units or else a single ram/ele could destroy an entire base. Instead I would lessen ele's pierce armor.

For reference I had 9 cata in that game. Dizaka was all but dead at minute 18 but because of turtle game lasted 60 minutes. Game would've lasted longer too if it wasn't for the Dizaka's other flank dying and him getting attacked from both sides. For color on how long the match lasted and slow paced it was, Dizaka made his suggestion on the forum that walls should be limited in number as he was simultaneously spamming them faster than I could destroy his city.

Increase unit speed--it will make the archers distance adv smaller and make it less likely that projectiles will hit. Skirms last alpha couldn't advance on fully massed archers, so it shouldn't be a problem.