BreakfastBurrito_007

If I understand correctly archer cav only have a small damage buff over archer infantry, while javelin cavalry get a whole +2 pierce attack. I think skirmisher cavalry should go from 18 --> 16 pierce damage because: people effectively use them as buffed skirm infantry, ignoring all the mobility benefits they have chicken rush is OP and this is javelin cavalry 95% of the time. javelin cav still beat spear cav in many situations (+ pierce armor is needed for spearcav anyway) Players who take civs such as gauls, seleucids, persians, or rome and make strong melee cav and melee cav champions always gradually mix in more and more skirm cav until they are producing almost purely skirm cav, and this is usually more effective overall than the melee/ranged mix or champions mix. In most TG's if the game is not decided after fighting in the 12-18 minute range, everyone usually tries to make javelin cavalry because for almost all civs javelin cavalry is the best available unit that is easy to produce in a standard game.

I thought corrals were fine in a25 and there really was no need to limit cows to p3. With autoqueue, I think the challenge in corrals is getting the right ratio of horses to corrals, if you have a big enough steady state gain in cow numbers then you can actually be losing food, and on the opposite end, it can be very annoying to re-task horses onto corrals. I agree with @Dakara that the best solution probably is to mix farms and corrals so that there is at least some steady component to food income. I think there is definitely gameplay benefit to having corral food eco as a viable, but non-meta, option. On one hand you have more population efficient food eco that can fight if need be, and on the other hand it can be disrupted by sudden large expenditures of food.

Games usually end before metal runs out, also there is trade for games on maps such as Corinthian isthmus.

how about mainland? yes its common to be able to reach 2-3 metal mines with ease on mainland. Throwing away a unit that costs 250 food? that's not how healers are used. Its very important to keep healers alive so they can reach rank 3 and become way more powerful. not ultimately. It depends. Also 6 healers cost way more than 1 ram, I don't understand why you focus on the metal price of things and ignore the other resources that make up costs.

There is a subset of random maps and biome selections that are widely considered to be good for multiplayer. I can't remember them all off the top of my head, but so far mainland, guadalquivir river, lake, arctic summer, continent (on large). There is another map that has circular walls and players start in pockets around the outside, this one should also be played in large. There are also different Unknown map generations which you can adjust to some extent. For a good set of MP maps: no places for units (in particular rams) to become stuck, in general focus on making pathfinding easy (not the same as making the map obstruction-free) enough wood, few "straggler trees/bushes" that prevent building placement variety of resource amounts, distributions, locations purposeful terrain generation- cliffs, mountains, and hills avoidance of focus on water combat (water combat is not in a good state: sadness), small water sources in places with fish to exploit could be fun. @badosu had a great mod with a variety of MP maps, some of which were modifications from standard 0ad maps. I should say that adding even 1 or 2 maps that challenge mainland in terms of depth of strategies, resource fairness, and general playability would be fantastic.

Well said! I definitely prefer the inaccuracy system aoe2 has over aoe4 which basically turns ranged units into melee units with long arms. Highly manageable rng such as accuracy system or monk conversions are good touches to the game, especially as compared to resource RNG that you are helpless to mitigate.

WOW, I had no idea that if you select 4 blacksmiths and click all techs it will spread them out if you do it slowly. I just make my blacksmiths in a line so I can click each of them like a robot. (tbh maybe blacksmiths shouldn't be so cheap, but its for another discussion).

Dang, I guess I haven't played with them in a while. I don't know why I remembered them as fast.

They deal a lot of damage and are fast. They are quite fun to use but are not always a fantastic meatshield. Well I believe the answer to the discussion title has turned out to be "Yes" and "yes"

The difference between the two is that one is a choice between two options (bow or spear) and the other is a task that must be done in every situation (change from tool to weapon). The latter makes sense to be automated because the player exerts no choice in the switch from tool to weapons and it is just a waste of clicks and player attention.

the manual change from spearmen to archers and back allows the player to make decisions about his units. If the weapon switching is something automated, then I think it loses some gameplay value unless you are doing something more creative than that.

Sometimes it depends on balance. If your team is balanced with 3 noobs and then some 1800, you can't really afford to have the 1800 slowed down by rushing. The main issue with cavalry rushing is before 3 minutes, where it is easy to mass a devastating amount of cavalry and enemies will be slowed down if they prepare or not, since you can just move on to the next player if your first enemy is prepared. The chicken rush is OP for sure, but I am not sure how we should nerf it in particular.

That's a good point. While I think we can test some gameplay things the mod still needs to be fun to play, which is the primary reason for it being as popular as it is, and that is what gives us good feedback and good voting.

If voting is even between yes and no, then I think it makes sense to err on the side of adding content. What do you think?

I think a very critical reason for the "chicken rush" (building up cav mass from 0:00 from cc, by gathering chickens) being so effective is simply due to how fast cavalry can be trained from the cc as well as how overtuned skirmcav are. The main reason the "chicken rush" is so effective is because it is usually too early for the enemy to even scout it, much less make defensive units. This means the only way to beat it is to prepare for the uncertainty, which costs a lot (your own cav, men, towers, early barracks) and will continue to affect the player for the rest of the game progression. nerfing skirmcav overall (they are OP in all phases and against most units), I would recommend -2 pierce attack, and perhaps an hp decrease if needed. removing cavalry from civic center: this would mean that a stable has to be built first which will delay even the fastest "chicken rushes" by at least 45 seconds to 1:15, which gives the defending player more time to prepare and scout cost effectively. Some downsides of this will be that someone seeking to just scout or hunt with 1 or 2 cavalry will be forced to buy a whole stable. I am not entirely sure how improvements should be made, but I do think that the chicken rush is currently way too easy, and players that try to prepare have to slow themselves down even when they can't know if they will be chicken-rushed.

Swordcav are already better than spearcav at this, so I don't see how this issue gets any worse if spearcav and swordcav switch their current pierce armor stats. I think it would be nice if players were able to control or focus the arrows from defensive structures to some extent, and this would help versus melee units and raiding.

I think in late game (not raiding, but general battles) people often complain about cavalry being OP, but fail to realize that the primary unit in those cavalry compositions is skirmcav. I think we can nerf cavalry overall by prioritizing this unit. It has 2.2x the hp, +2 pierce attack, and +2 hack armor from skirmisher infantry, even ignoring the speed advantage it has like many cavalry players do (ignoring their speed advantage is already a red flag for the unit). Skirmcav is the most OP unit that everyone accepts in gameplay to be balanced. You can tell that it is the main driver of cavalry being OP because most cavalry compositions start out with players making Skirmcav mixed in with a melee champion or spearcav or swordcav, but as the game goes on they gradually shift to make almost purely javelin cavalry as they realize it is the most dependably OP unit for any battle scenario. I would recommend nerfing damage from 18 to 16 (same as skirm inf). Its also worth noting that Unit specific Upgrades removes the "free" cavalry buff upgrades from the stable.

if swordcav and spearcav have the same armor, (4 pierce versus 4 pierce, most damage is pierce) and swordcav have more attack, then they are the better unit for general purpose. If spearcav is only better than swordcav against other cav, then it is an inferior unit. Please also consider that despite the buffs given to spearcav they still have a hard time beating skirmcav in larger numbers because of their low pierce armor. Giving spearcav better armor than swordcav would account for them having less damage and create situations where one is better than the other. Current spearcav situation: you have less armor AND less damage, but in return you get the great benefit of barely beating swordcavalry and still losing to skirmcavalry. No, its obvious spearcav need a stat boost.

No one plays the game unintentionally. If team bonuses are intended to be weak enough to disregard, then you may as well not have them. Keep in mind that team bonuses won't be stronger overall because of these changes, the goal is just to provide each civ with a balanced, but actionable one. How does this justify removing the team bonuses?

I haven't watched the replay, but I can imagine what happened lol. Whoever did this is devious for sure. Yes I would recommend that selection of the cheats allowed box in the game setup automatically makes the game unrated.

This is a great exaggeration and does not reflect how civs are chosen in real life team games. There are team bonuses that are more powerful than others, but very frequently players pick a civ such as Persians despite their lack of a team bonus. There is also more civ diversification when different combinations of civs can lead to alternative playstyles, because of interaction between civ specific bonuses and team bonuses. -15% ship construction time is not an actionable bonus since there is nothing a player can do to take better advantage of the bonus. Reduced cc upgrades cost and time is a VERY actionable bonus because a player can decide which phase to prioritize and it opens up an endless box of new playstyles. I think team bonuses are great because they can form part of the strategy of the team game. A team game is not 4 simultaneous 1v1s, and people pick their civs not just for their own interests. @wowgetoffyourcellphone other games such as AoE2 have much less noticeable civ bonuses than team bonuses, but also its worth recognizing that there is much more gameplay depth in 1v1s than TGs in AoE2 and that this is not the case in 0ad.

The problem with a team naval-specific bonus is that in order for it to be useful it will need to be powerful (on par with iberians or gauls or ptol bonuses). If Athens has a strong naval team bonus, then on naval maps each team will need one Athens player, which will negate the effect of the bonus (if everyone always has it).

Lol, I don't see the same amount of hysterical renunciation of the ptolemies, romans, iberians, or macedonian team bonuses, which have about the same degree of historical inspiration for their team bonuses.

As far as I am aware democracy is not listed under any of the other bonuses or attributes of the civ. Democracy is the main thing that sets Athens apart from other civilizations, so I don't see why it can't be a team bonus.

Sniping has become more important and if more and more players use this (they want to win battles right?), then melee units' damage will become more important because they won't necessarily be the first units to die. Personally I think it would be a shame to oppose the Athens team bonus due to its historical justification, of course another justification can be found later if the current one is deemed improper. I am very excited to consider more than just 4-5 team bonuses when selecting civs in a TG.