Adeimantos

How does the patch for switching weapons work, can the AI use it, and could it be included in a mod?

I prefer natural counters too, and like you're saying, what's important to me is to have a well developed counter system, not just lots of similar units where whoever sends more units wins. With 3 damage and armor types it is totally possible to have a robust counter system without damage multipliers, and I think we should do more to take advantage of that. For instance, the javelineers could have high pierce armor and low crush armor, making them good against archers and jav cavalry but vulnerable to slingers. Besides line units and counter units, etc i think some units should be more specialized and others more all purpose. I'd make the slingers really good at damaging armored infantry but really vulnerable to cavalry, while javelineers would be less somewhat effective against infantry but a bit less vulnerable to cavalry. Likewise pikemen would be more specialized against cavalry than spearmen but more vulnerable to archers.

It would be interesting to take the game in that direction, but it would be a pretty major overhaul unless we did it to just a couple elite units or something. Unless we decide to totally change course we should stick with making combat work similar to the way Age of Kings does.

If this game was going to be realistic there would need to be fewer units, most would be able to switch between two weapons, with major differences between civilizations. As it is, two different units often represent different roles or actions that the same soldiers would have in real life. With this system the 'rock-paper-scissors' system is an important part of strategy, and I like the general pattern Wow lays out, though I'd do some details differently.

I actually gave chariots a trample aura in a mod i was working on for a23. It might be better if it only dealt damage when moving, but I don't know how to do that. It basically makes chariots better against groups of weaker units, so you'd want to counter chariots with champion units like spear cavalry.

I would think chariots should be a more armored unit, horse archers faster.

Here's how I see it and think it should be: Crush is damage caused by the weight of the projectile or weapon, pierce is damage caused by a sharp and fast moving but lightweight weapon. If someone slings a heavy stone at you and you block it with a shield it's likely to break your arm, which an arrow wouldn't do, but the arrow is harder to dodge and more likely to kill you if it hits you in the bare chest. Hack is in-between; it's a close range attack with both weight and sharpness, and can best be blocked using another melee weapon like a sword. Agility means more crush armor, armor and especially shields give pierce armor, and both of those and having a good melee weapon gives hack armor. Wooden structures are most vulnerable to hack, stone buildings to crush, but both have high resistance to all attacks and siege weapons have high damage multipliers against them.

I like having multiple damage types, without it i think we would need more damage types or more hard counters.

I think of crush as damage that can best be avoided by dodging. So generally lightly armed, agile units would have the most crush resistance. Shields give pierce armor, and body armor and melee weapons both give hack armor. I prefer using regular unit stats rather than artificial counters to make some units good against others, but we need a full system of unit counters unless we add some other major effects to the game, like different terrains giving different advantages for instance; it's important that we be different from other games by having features they don't, not by lacking features they have. I'm neutral on the unit specific upgrades, I'd have to try them some to decide if they function as just general buffs or if they change the way units can be used. I think I like the fire arrows idea; they should slow the attack rate so for a lot of units they wouldn't help much, but should make archers effective against siege and wooden buildings. That would change archers role pretty significantly though, we'd have to test and see how it works out.

Should I put any of these ideas into the community mod?

My ideas: Archers should be good against unarmored units and slingers against armored ones; do this by reducing crush armor on armored units especially, add more crush damage on slingers, (so may need to increase crush armor on buildings and hard counters for siege). Archers should have a little more attack. Javelineers should counter archers and jav cavalry. I'd add armor, especially pierce, and reduce attack rate. Elephants and chariots should cause AoE damage. I think melee units are mostly good now, but I'd like to add an axeman unit with higher damage and lower armor; mainly good against siege.

I was looking forward to using the call to arms command, but it doesn't seem to be working. I added a hot key for it but when I press it nothing happens. Any tips, also general tips on useful hotkeys? I mostly just use idle worker (.) and garrison (ctrl).

A few years ago I helped a bit with a project making a mod kind of like age of mythology. It didn't get terribly far, but maybe the project could be resurrected, I'd like that.

Will there ever be a version that lasts several years without mod-breaking changes, so I can work on mods without feeling like it's a waste of time?

The main obstacle to modding is that every year or two the next version comes out and breaks the mods. For someone who doesn’t have a lot of free time that doesn’t give much time to make mods. I’m waiting till A24 before I do anything, and I hope we can make a permanent version soon, though we should continue with a development version in addition.

I wish we could make one version the standard one so I could build mods without worrying that they may be obsolete in a few months. Also I wondered if there are small tasks someone with moderate modding ability could do to help finish A24.

I wondered if there is anyway to make a unit use special attacks or switch between two weapons in a mod?

Is there any news on how the next edition is coming?

I can do basic modding, for instance, using existing material I put together an axeman unit and made it buildable. I think I am also good at balancing units’ strength and abilities. I’m not likely to have a lot of time though.

I’d love to be part of making this mod if I had the time. Mythology or fantasy is the best RTS setting because you have such a diverse range of units and possible abilities.

If the lag was fixed this game would be as good as the best RTS games out there. As it is I have to stick with smaller and more open map types, which really limits how much I play it. Is progress being made on fixing the lag? Is there anything a modded can do to affect it?

I like the changes that have been made, but the lag is even worse than before, so much that even 1v1 single player slows down to 3 fps right away, which is too slow to be worth playing. Haven’t played for a few months, has anything been done to improve that?

I replaced the A22 with A23, but was still using the old shortcut that's why that error happened it seems

Since I downloaded alpha 23, whenever I try to start a game it comes up with lots of errors and no units show up on the map, and I can't build any new ones either. Any idea why this is and how to fix it?

In the animations above the main downward attack is good, it's about how I split wood except left handed, of the other two one is clumsy and one is weak, though between feints and blocking you might do those in battle occasionally.