chrstgtr

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.

Yeah, depends on how big the map is and when it is placed. I think this map is probably best played in a large map, which allows for quite a bit of seperation. Seems reasonable given some civs reliance on stone for slingers. The reason why I suggest this is so that players actually go after the mines. I like the idea. But I don't want it to be like Ngorongo where everyone ignores the center mines. I don't know how the math works out, but maybe making it so that you have to expand to get all military upgrades would help. Your choice on how dramatic to go.

Overall, though, it looks like a fun map. I really like maps that encourage early skirmishes like this. I would just try to make it a little more unique than hyrcannian shores.

I played around with it a little bit. It seems fine. A couple recommendations from me. First, I would make stone/metal more scarce in the starting positions by eliminating extra mines outside of the mountains and/or making the starting mines smaller. That would force players to decide between (1) pushing hard early; and (2) going for a long game where they control the mines on the edge of the map. I would make this dramatic by giving players only like 1-2K in starting metal/stone. Second, I would create a larger dead space between the trees and mines where there are no resources. Right now, a player could place a second CC where that would allow them to get a bunch of extra wood/mines. On maps like hyrcannian shores, players almost always expand for extra wood. When they expand for extra wood, players will also get mines at basically no extra cost. I would make the choice to get extra mines a conscience one where the player has to sacrifice an opportunity to get more wood. This would also have the effect of making wood more scarce. Third, I would make it a high food spawn map. That allows for lots of early rushes, which I think is fun on these maps where the players start so close. Edit: Fourth, I would make a lot of hunt on the inland side of the map. Having half the players have easy access to fish creates a natural imbalance in early game.

Thanks. I'll take a look and let you know if I have any thuoghts.

@real_tabasco_sauceDo you have a downloadable mod so that I can toy around with the map in the game? The map looks nice, but it looks really similar to hyrcannian shores, so I don't think I really appreciate the differences by just looking at the screenshot/description.

https://code.wildfiregames.com/D4676 It was done because of a dislike for for the capturing mechanic. There's a lot of legitimate gripe with that meta. This change attempts to thread the needle a bit. To say the least, the other competing proposals were much more complicated. I think there is no real harm in trying out the change in default unit AI behavior--you'll probably get used to it pretty quickly and adjust accordingly

Curious, but how much quicker would it be?

One of the many times people got exactly what they asked for and then immediately wanted it reverted I think that’s right. That’s why I think each unit would need to a “energy” meter that would need to recharge once depleted. So you can force a unit to run for up to 3 seconds but after 3 seconds you have to let their energy recharge, which would take like a minute, before the unit could move quicker than it’s normal walk pace again

Unless they click on the same enemy multiple times. Even still, a healer could only keep 1 or maybe 2 units alive for a little longer than normal? So you have to use 2 units (one of which can’t deal dmg) to fight 1 enemy? That isn’t a winning formula Anyways, buffing healers can lead to some pretty terrible snowball effects with armies leveling up at full health