BreakfastBurrito_007

I feel like archers are close to being good. A few minor buffs here and there. We can look at a24 for ways to make them OP again lol.

A curiosity of this discussion is that all of the above traits for each civ are already addressed by bonuses/techs/heros ect in game. Surely there are others where mechanics can be adjusted or added. I think its important to distinguish between real gameplay uniqueness and perceived uniqueness. Example of real uniqueness: skirm cavalry for carthage has extra move speed, while skirm cavalry for iberians has reduced cost. The base unit is the same but the bonuses applied to it are not equal or similar. 0ad does a good job of not chasing cosmetic uniqueness. I look at aoe4 as an example for cosmetic uniqueness. At a surface level all the civs have dramatically different units, building types, bonuses, and even unique economic units. This creates a problem where there are almost no basic units in play, and no basic civ setup. As a result everything for every civ is unique, and so the uniqueness loses its value as the respective bonuses and unit strengths must be co-equal. When civilization balance is taken into account in aoe4 every civ must have a "unique" way of doing the same thing, for example every civ in aoe4 has some way of generating indefinite gold through various "unique" implementations. There is more diversity of strategy per civ for 53 civs in aoe2 than there is for 10 or so civs in aoe4. In 0ad and aoe2, the civs are asymmetrically balanced such that a civ's strongsuit can not be exactly matched by another civ and in order to accomplish this there must be a baseline roster and build order that civilizations share.

Well my point wasn’t to copy design decisions that aoe2 makes, but to highlight how automated features should be left unoptimized for better gameplay results. Aoe2 is just a good example of this. I agree that in general aoe2 has a much higher skill level than 0ad at the top level, but that doesn’t at all mean that we need “easier” mechanics, there should be no skill ceiling. Just because high apm can help players win the game, doesn’t mean apm is “demanded” by the game. A good game is one where a bad player can learn a lot of a certain mechanic, win more as a result, and still have a lot left to improve in that same mechanic.

I think the best balance is to have rudimentary automation features. Leaving those automated features un-optimized allows a player to manually outperform it if they decide to allocate their apm and attention to the task. A good example is auto-scout from aoe2. It has known behavior, like trending toward the bottom right corner of the map. One could think of many ways to optimize the path taken by autoscout like using map script knowledge to scout likely other high value locations, automatically avoiding danger ect. Some modders of 0ad would call these changes “quality of life” improvements, but the result is the destruction of gameplay.

Indeed we consistently see that "old" games which feature skill expression become e-sports because you can get infinitely better at the game without being perfect. The satisfaction with learning and improving and outplaying are also what makes games fun aside from just being competitive. Many modern games try to remove these "difficult" mechanics and the result is boring gameplay where the only distinguishing factors are simply choosing the stronger option whether thats a gun in a fps game or a civilization in an rts game. That is why aoe2 performs better than aoe3 aoe4 and AoM retold. Games 20 years ago were designed to be fun in order to succeed in sales. Now they are designed to have a marketing induced mass appeal for a short time, and sell skins in-game. For this its important that a player can feel like they are "good" at the game within a week or so of buying it (skill-based matchmaking also contributes to this). So removing any sort of mechanic with skill expression boosts sales. It seems like some people just want a modern slop game that they can play while yawning and watching movies on other monitors.

I like the distributed farmers idea. There would be lots of gameplay ramifications for eco efficiency and vulnerability to raids. One outstanding point is the slot ("trees" as mentioned by @DesertRose) priority per farmers. Instead of some script that would place each additional farmer at the best possible slot depending on dropsite and farm orientation, slot prioritization should be done based off the path the farmer takes to access the farm when tasked to farm on it (whichever slot is closest).

Sparta has no eco bonus and the buildings they use to train those champions are expensive. If you find a way to attack early with other civs that can boom faster such as gauls or germans or ptolemies then you might have a chance of not needing to fight the hoplites.

They get armor but not dmg from the forge. Also the splash buff and unit preference behavior change they received in a28 is quite significant. In my opinion they can be very strong in this alpha.

@ittihat_ve_terakkiBro you claim to be someone "actually playing the game" as if no one else here does, and yet what makes you come onto the forum is an issue like this? Have you not heard about sniping, champcav, booming/turling issues, fanas, and all sorts of other gameplay issues that we discuss. Definitely it seems that theres something extra bothersome to you about this change that you haven't mentioned.

TGs on the Pokeball will go crazy

"Bad developers you made a civ too fast, it should at least take a decade!"

As for gameplay appeal, mercs that cost more metal and less food (mercs not in the gaul embassy) can be accessed with faster build orders which use fewer farms. Costing more food and less metal doesn't make the unit universally better than standard mercs, especially if that cost change requires a tech first.

This an interesting take. I really like how melee units play in a27, but I'm fairly sure that melee actually die faster in a27 than they do in a26 due to the armor nerfs. The main feature has been their much increased damage that makes them contribute more to a fight besides their "meat shield" characteristic. I suppose faster rank ups due to increased damage might actually make them die slower in some situations. Definitely I notice the increased damage most.

Unit specific techs are an untapped treasure trove of gameplay value. I don't think we should get rid of the blacksmith techs of course, but I think unit specific techs could have more creativity in addition to rewarding focus on unit compositions.

Honestly in the current game a27, if there was a unit stance where buildings were completely ignored unless directly tasked I would use it.