chrstgtr
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Posts posted by chrstgtr
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8 hours ago, wowgetoffyourcellphone said:
Empire Builder"
- Global
- All buildings -10% build time and resource cost
These types of heroes never get used. Would want it to be way, way better than this.
Other would be fine to me. Also like @real_tabasco_sauce’s suggestion
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2 hours ago, wowgetoffyourcellphone said:
I wish we could have made it like a storage place for animal "relics" you capture around the map.
Still can
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3 hours ago, real_tabasco_sauce said:
I am a little bit concerned about this feature.
If a corral can both garrison livestock and train livestock, then one could use autoqueue to establish an exponentially growing amount of unraidable, 0 pop food economy.
This wouldn't be great in the early game (I think) but later in the game, making more and more corrals and autoqueing to fill each one from one another could result in a disastrous gameplay consequences.
Players could make dozens of corrals just to garrison each one. Then, there is much more pop space for more champion cavalry AND it is economy that can't be raided, at least like women can be raided.
I think if the trickle is low enough to avoid this, then it will be weak/unused and if it is higher, then it will probably be used as above which I don't think is the intended use case of this feature.
There is a animal pop limit so it’s usefulness is limited and similar to ice houses. I’m not worried about it
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7 hours ago, wowgetoffyourcellphone said:
I do not want Spartans to become even more ahistorical than they already are (thinking of Skiritai spam, but maybe not a problem in this alpha).
Or any other civ for skirm champ. I don't care which--it was a fun unit and the game is worse without it.
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1 hour ago, Yekaterina said:
@chrstgtr On one hand, turn rates nerfs cav rush, so that you can boom in peace. On the other hand, you don't want it in late game because of lag, annoyance etc. So to achieve both, we can only introduce a finite turn rate for citizen javelin cav and citizen archer cav. Everything else, from rams to infantry to melee and Merc cav, all get infinite turn rate. This means no lag and frustration in late game, but early cavalry rushes are still reasonably nerfed. In code, that is 10^6 radians per second
You can select where you want turn rates.
1 minute ago, wowgetoffyourcellphone said:I personally just care more that the feature doesn't get taken out. lol
Instant speed and turning for cavalry though looks a bit weird to me. Maybe a little faster acceleration and turn rates for cavalry than now to make it more responsive, but still have it look a little better than instant acceleration and snapping around 180 degrees. The think for most units turn rate and acceleration should be subliminal. The only units where it should be noticeable are ships and siege maybe.
I don’t find it terrible now. But I’m generally not a fan. On ships, it makes sense, though. With rams there are definitely times where you just see rams constantly turning instead of moving
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2 hours ago, Helicity said:
I'm not sure what you mean by turn rates, but I think the response of units can definitely be improved. Right now, it seems like the units would freeze for a moment then respond to formation orders. When retreating, many units struggle to turn around and run before they are killed by a shower of enemy arrows. There were also instances when an enemy spearman was just waving in the air and the cavalry unit on 30% health that was already some distance away from him just dies suddenly.
Furthermore, I noticed that some units, especially cavalry and siege, have acceleration. If you order them to change direction, they stop themselves, then take a long time to rotate itself to the direction you pointed to, then gradually accelerate towards there. I think the acceleration is completely unnecessary; just let the speed be a step function and that will feel much smoother. If you must consider physics, then perhaps the unit can choose a curved trajectory towards your point, given its current position and momentum. A curved path is how a real human would walk if you wave at them from across the street. The rotation of units would ideally be instant, i.e. the angular velocity is very large. This will cause less stuttering as described above and less miscalculations, meanwhile improving the smoothness of the gameplay.
Turn rates refer to the time it takes for a unit to turn (like you’re describing in the second paragraph). So when a unit is facing north to move south there is like .1 seconds where turns around in place before it begins to walk south. When there are a lot of obstacles (I.e., units) blocking the way of a ram then the ram has to turn frequently in order to move. All those turns add up to a lot of time. Also, moving units means pathfinding is constantly recalculating and rerouting, which, again, leads to more turns and time where the rams aren’t actually moving.
I’m not a fan of turn rates, but some developers apparently really, really care about them. The current state is much, much more playable then it used to be (turn rates were introduced in a24 and made the game much less fun, imo, whereas now turn rates are mostly and annoyance, imo)
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8 hours ago, Yekaterina said:
This wasn't a very big problem back in A25, probably since we disabled unit overlapping, the rams can't squeeze through infantry anymore. So the solution is to decrease the effective size of rams or add a repulsion field for rams that automatically scatters nearby infantry, like a proton flying into a cloud of positrons.
I think it’s been a problem for awhile. Part of the problem is also turn rates. We tried to change turn rates for community mod, but I think it was voted down
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1 hour ago, real_tabasco_sauce said:
Champion skirms were great, I wouldn't be opposed to giving sparta a champ skirmisher. Might be super OP with brasidas.
They used to have but we’re removed from a23–>a24. I think another civ (Persia?) also used to have a champ skirm too that was removed at the same time.
But yes, I would like a champ skirm inf unit in the game again
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3 hours ago, wowgetoffyourcellphone said:
Mmm, not quite. A new Syracusan civ can reuse numerous assets from existing civ sets. So the art problems are largely irrelevant. Balance etc. still remain.
Fair. Thanks. I guess it would still apply to civs like Xiongnu, though, so maybe that’s the more apt comparison.
I guess a civ like Syracuse truly is easier. But more Greek civs just sounds so boring
Edit: sorry to derail the thread--I was just curious about a reappearing theme re the timeframe that I didn't understand.
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8 hours ago, Genava55 said:
I work with mods for other games. Mostly Total War and Bannerlord M&B.
Ah, I thought you meant for 0AD. But yeah, 0AD always could use more helping hands.
6 hours ago, Stan` said:That is correct. Ensuring consistent quality and balancing between a huge number of civilizations is hard and even more so with a tiny amount of people to work on it. We have scripts of course, but before I joined the team, there were a lot of missing assets, broken models, unfinished ones etc.
I had been advocating for years when I was a modder for more civilizations integration, kinda gave up on it when I joined the team because some team members were really adamant because of the reasons I quoted above. Then the kushites got in, and finally the han.
Another big barrier to the addition of new civs is the scrutiny they go under. Everything is fine with a mod until it gets in SVN, or wants to get in it. Then you need to redo everything.
Another thing that is much less mentioned and is starting to be a problem is the art "quality" in the performance sense. @Alexandermb did an incredible job in updating the assets to be more beautiful and more historically accurate (at least I think so) but we now have FPS quality assets in an RTS game, which on the lower end computers is a big issue because of the number of Drawcalls (200 for ships due to lack of instancing) We have models that have useless unseen faces, too many textures variations too (Although I absolutely love it) Shields are made of umbo, ring, front face, back face, which all use a different texture, maybe they could be mapped in a texture atlas, but then we'd need a lot of meshes. Ideally we could control the UVMap position in the actor, but I'm not sure how costly that is.
More civs, more assets, more textures => less performance if not careful.
Isn't this all true for any new civs? I get the concerns--they are very valid--but how are these relevant to timeframe restriction? A new Syracuse civ seems to pose the same issues above that a new American civ would. Or am I missing something?
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2 minutes ago, Genava55 said:
I think it was motivated mostly by the amount of work, the necessity to reach a good level of quality for each civ and the difficulty to balance the civs. Splitting the workload is not a bad idea, but putting a strict limit was not a smart way to deal with the workload.
Yeah, I get why the initial decision was made, but I agree with you that a bright line rule may not make sense, especially now/in the future. It also seems like that initial incubation phase may have already passed (or, at a minimum, will eventually pass).
3 minutes ago, Genava55 said:Edit: btw there is less people working on 3d models and textures here than in any mods I work with.
Can't that work be transferred over to EA? I thought they all run on the same engines.
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54 minutes ago, Genava55 said:
It was split in two. With the idea of an expansion or a second game.
46 minutes ago, Stan` said:The idea was to have Empires Ascendant and Empires Besieged both covering 500 years of history. Then you get Millenium AD covering the 500 years after that.
Interesting--thanks for clarifying. Do you know why it is intended as a separate game? It seems like a logical extension to just expand the date range so you can have a larger number of civs play against each other. Not saying we're there yet, I just don't understand what seems to be a permanent arbitrary cutoff. At some point it seems like EA will stall because new interesting civs become less interesting (see discussion in other thread on why additional greek fractions are unappealing). Yet, EA will never truly be finished. And, starting a new game from scratch will be tough to get initial buy-in (why play with 4 civs when you can play with 16+ in EA, why split the player base, etc.).
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15 hours ago, Genava55 said:
We must remember that 0 A.D. is dedicated to a period of time ranging from 500 BC to 1 AD.
Where does this come from? I’ve seen people say this a few times, but I don’t know what supports this proposition. As others have pointed out, that timeline isn’t strictly followed. The about page on the website also identifies the timeframe as 500BC to 500AD: https://play0ad.com/game-info/project-overview/.
(Personally, date ranges seem arbitrary until you start introducing gunpowder, but I’m more curious where this date framework comes from)
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3 minutes ago, Genava55 said:
They were historically and geographically disconnected.
You're missing my point. It's a game, not a simulation. And, your statement that you want American civs cannot exist if you believe the above.
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45 minutes ago, wowgetoffyourcellphone said:
I'm think a "Nomads" alpha release (Scythians and Xiongnu) and a "Mesoamerican" alpha release (Zapotecs and Maya) would be really cool.
Yeah, I want both. All I'm saying is that I'm not keen on the logic that would always exclude American civs
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1 hour ago, Yekaterina said:
It's just a game, no need to be perfectly historically accurate.
That's my point--excluding American civs for "historical" reasons is silly
3 hours ago, Genava55 said:I simply mean they are not interacting with any current civs
3 hours ago, Genava55 said:Actually I am in favor of having American civs.
These two statements can't coexist. Until you start adding American civ then no new American civ will ever have any real historical connections during 0ad's timeframe.
Besides, it's a game. It's not a historical simulation. Sparta and Athens both existed at the same time and did interact with each other. We don't need the game to perfectly replay every one of their interactions. If the outcome was already determined then it wouldn't be a game.
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1 hour ago, Genava55 said:
Possible but I would say they are lower on the list because they are farther and less related to the others
This is specious.
Until American civs are added this will always be the case. If other non-American civs continue to get added then American civs will only become less related
Han were far away and unrelated before yet they were added. Earlier in the thread you said Xiongnu now have to be added because Han are now in the game.
You’re falling into a self-fulfilling prophecy. The game should go where there is demand
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3 hours ago, real_tabasco_sauce said:
My thoughts are if the mod adopts a more experimental approach, like a community test environment, the majority of games will take place on a27, with those curious to try out new content playing occasionally on the mod.
This couldn’t happen in a26 because of the Han farming issue, which made the mod the de facto version of a26 for anyone who cared about balance at all.
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1 hour ago, wowgetoffyourcellphone said:
Another option is to add ranking/promotion to warships.
I’d rather do what’s discussed above. Plus it’s already really tough to recover if you lose an initial naval battle—promotions would just make it more difficult
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1 hour ago, Freagarach said:
@real_tabasco_sauce If I were you I would make that patch on Phabricator, not the community mod. This since we're 'close' (TM) to a RC and that would provide better context for the change. Up to you though.
@FreagarachI largely agree that your suggested changes would make walls more effective. But there was a pretty massive backlash the last time the game went in a turtle-ly direction (a24) and one of the reasons for that backlash was people didn't like turtling. Since this potentially involves a meta change that could significantly change the length of games, I would make in community mod. Just my opinion.
In general, I also think there's a lack of imagination with the way people build walls. Walls don't need to be an outermost defense that only separate armies. They can be built other places, like immediately around your forts, CCs, and, towers, which would make those defensive buildings much stronger.
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5 minutes ago, real_tabasco_sauce said:
yeah, my point was it would be nice if they could be better used to bide precious time to gather a defensive response. Ideally, the defender can benefit from the time the attacker wasted by pathing around or having to take down the walls (ie more time for a technology to complete researching before starting to fight).
I agree, they should also be a significant advantage for a defending army, but I think this should come from adding another row to turret space, rather than giving wall turrets arrows again.
Yeah, my point is more the later. Walls should actually do something besides delay an attacker by a few seconds to power through or path around. Until then, walls are just annoying
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1 hour ago, real_tabasco_sauce said:
This is true, but it would be nice if walls could be more useful for quick defenses, rather than exclusively for turtling (i guess palisades are used just to limit the movement of cavalry around one's base, but this is done long in advance). I think build times should be reduced for both palisades and walls.
For instance, you have just scouted a large group of infantry moving to your town from rather far away. In this case, one should be able to at least put up some palisades in anticipation.
Kind of. The better the player the more optimized the eco, the less time to build. If you get countered then there should also be a teammate that can help cover your base while you continue to push, etc. But I hear your point.
Walls largely don’t work now because they’re nothing but an obstacle—a larger army can kill a smaller army that’s hiding behind a wall. The wall just gives the defender a chance to coalescence units. This is why I’ve said elsewhere that I think walls should largely function like towers
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13 hours ago, phosit said:17 hours ago, Player of 0AD said:
If no top player's do build walls, walls should be made stronger (or siege and ellephants weaker). Walls are a part of the game.
This isn’t quite true. It happens in some circumstances.
Also, top players usually have the responsibility of dealing damage and do not need to build walls because they are a top player against inferior competition
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10 hours ago, BreakfastBurrito_007 said:
I like the additional stone miners and I think it should be done for metal too. The issue is if you only have 1 metal mine your rate of metal gathering is capped, but with 2 mines you can have more than 24. Raising this level to 48, or even 36, would give players time to expand to other sources, which would make the single source mineral less disadvantageous.
The difference has been around for a little bit now (a25?).
Having extra res always gives benefits. Extra metal mining slots also opens up potential for mercs to be abused, which not all civs can do (really a problem with mercs). Same with military techs and champs. I’m fine with it metal being capped.Extra stone slots means slinger civs aren’t disadvantaged vs civs that only need wood, which isn’t capped and generally available on all maps. I’m fine with some stone having extra slots.
It adds some nuance that I’m fine with. But I think most people would adjust to whatever number of slots are permitted so long as stone gets at least like 20 on the initial stone.
All Civilizations are my favorite.
in Gameplay Discussion
Posted · Edited by chrstgtr
Ah, i see. But to be honest, eco/building auras aren't very useful when you get hero in late game
Edit: to be useful they would have to have a big enough of an impact that a player will go out of their way to phase super quickly. I imagine that would be way, way more than the 10% you have listed.