BreakfastBurrito_007

I hope that merc cav are at the sweet spot in balance this alpha. It was really quite sad that they are so OP that they are unplayable in a25, since their gameplay role could be quite interesting and help

yes indeed, an increasing damage advantage will cause the winning unit to win with more remaining hp. The damage advantage increases due to the upgrades being percentage based.

There has been a nerf to the Han crossbow that took its base damage to 28 pierce from 30. I did tests in p1 and then after all upgrades, and I found that the Han crossbow always kills an enemy ranged infantry citizen in 2 hits. This is problematic because 2 hits only require 1 repeat time cycle, so the total time to kill is prepare time + repeat time. A slinger takes 5 hits to kill a ranged unit in p1 and also 5 in p3, so it is prepare time + 4x repeat time, which means that even though the crossbow does less damage per second, it kills ranged units way faster. People who use alt to snipe are going to be very deadly with this unit.

for this you just need to look at the damage values in the tooltip. I would argue 1.2x seems simpler, but creates some balance issues. the hp percentage changes before and after upgrades.

@LetswaveaBook I was thinking within the context of ranged units killing other units. Doesn’t really matter what the other unit is, just that it’s hp is subtracted by enemy attacks. The rate at which skirmishers outpace slingers in the killing of the unit grows with each upgrade. And of course the rate at which firecav/Brit chariots damage grows is much greater than any other unit. Of course there are other things that affect balance like range, accuracy move speed, and acceleration. These values for the most part, do not increase with blacksmith upgrades. Those balance factors remain constants, so the increasing damage of the higher damage units swings balance in their favor. For the 3 citizen soldier ranged infantry units this is not a huge problem since balance has been refined each alpha primarily focusing on those units. But now we need to keep in mind the 1.2x damage does not provide an even boost in damage. To be frank, the balance state before and after upgrades is different.

@real_tabasco_sauce Nice work, its looking great. The fire archers could help ease the frustration from not having ranged siege in cases.

lol @Lion.Kanzen the Ukraine war is totally unrelated. Also I don't use gas so what you posted wouldn't "be scary" even if it were true. Maybe put that part in the "socialism and globalism corporatist topic".

What do you mean it has nothing to do with religion? As far as I understand he doesn't like the magic that the priets and druids use to heal other units because of his religious background. To be honest I don't see how this is offensive because this is all happening before jesus or any of that stuff.

No tenemos que cambiar el juego para cumplir con su religión. También es importante realizar que los civis en 0ad no tienen nada que ver con el dios del cristianismo. Y por eso no hay problemas con otros religiones representados por el templo de cada civ.

@hyperion these are not blacksmith techs, and do not replace the general upgrades that players get every game these upgrades are not mandatory in all circumstances prior to using the unit, they are meant to reward players who are intentional with their unit choices the upgrades before that forge rework were problematic for a variety of other reasons, and you must also consider how limited metal was in those times and how expensive those upgrades were. where blacksmith techs used to be the main thing standing in the way of transitioning from infantry to cavalry, now it is stables, so the situation is different in a number of ways

Keep in mind that it is a goal to have units properly balanced so that all are useful. @real_tabasco_sauce worked together to come up with the upgrades, and all the work to implement them was his. We designed each upgrade to provide a bonus to that unit that can sometimes be very useful. The idea is not to simply buy each upgrade every game like the current blacksmith upgrades, but to buy the ones you plan to make use of.

@Genava55 The system aoe4 had before is laughable. The new one is an improvement, but ultimately the overall balance scheme is ruined by homing projectiles and overly strict rock-paper-scissors counters. People like to say that the Aoe4 civs have such great differentiation, but the reality is that most of it are gimmicky mechanics that are unique, but not special, because they have no baseline to stand out from. Aoe4 differentiation strategy seems to be inventing whole systems for each civ rather than simply adding extra properties or abilities to existing unit classes or buildings. This aspect of the game design seems to be intended for novelty rather than gameplay quality.

I think the best way would be to do the multiplication first, and then add to the result. This way, the added damage does not get grown by the percentage bonuses.

I don't know either, but ideally it would not be problematic if implemented. There is a known framework for doing these calculations called order of operations, the current system maybe doesn't use it since nearly everything is percentage-based, but I think the capability to handle addition would be a major win for making interesting and balanced upgrades.

I have been considering unit upgrades in 0ad for a while now and I have come across a variety of ways that they are problematic. Issues with percentage based upgrades: boring: percentages are nearly the exclusive method for upgrades to units and there are interesting cases for addition based upgrades imbalance: units that do higher damage per second are benefitted more by the same 1.2x damage upgrade than lower-damage units. Even more concerning is that the gains in damage per upgrade grows with each upgrade, which means the discrepancy between lower damage units and higher damage units increases at an increasing rate. This certainly is one of the contributing factors for champion cavalry skirmishers (firecav/brit chariots) being so OP. Another example is indibil's cost reduction percentage giving a bigger savings for champions and cavalry more than citizens and infantry. I know that eons of balancing efforts have been done with these percentage based upgrades in mind, which is evident in the quite good balance between skirmisher infantry, slinger infantry and archer infantry. Because of this, I think that rather than making a drastic overhaul of the blacksmith, we need to consider addition based upgrades in certain problematic spots or for future creative upgrades. One option for the blacksmith could be to make the final attack upgrades a +1 rather than a percentage change, and then also addition based upgrades could be considered for certain civ bonuses, team bonuses and heros. I think for the development of the game it would make a lot of sense if addition based upgrades could work in sync with percentage upgrades by the use of order of operations from math. Would you be interested in seeing more addition based upgrades in the game? please tell me what you think!

@alre thanks for the explanation, it is still a welcome change that regions are not selected first, and that it is now random with even chances.

Heavy you mean performance-wise? I was thinking it could just do the exact same damage to adjoining wall or post sections, regardless of range or distance.

I think I would like to see some gameplay oriented random maps that play as easily as mainland, but have interesting features that can influence gameplay. There were some maps like this in the BadMod from @badosu if I recall correctly.

nah, random has to have even chance. I suppose in the gaming world, when people say RNG they mean more that the mechanic isn't purely skill driven and has some chance factors.

@Gurken Khan I have built it in MP when I play kush occasionally. Usually when I play kush I like to do "fun stuff" in p2 that usually makes me lose economy compared to other players so I never boom enough to make that building. 600 stone is maybe a bit much for it tho. About the RNG dealt you thing. Unless it was a26, it was not rng XD because it was not random. There is the region-based selected randomization that makes you more likely to get a civ with no other civs in its "region"

Grand temple of Amun can be used to make healers start at rank 3. Not so useful in a25 because of healers' behavior and the meatshield meta. In a26 I could see this becoming quite powerful for elephants, swordsmen, and archers that Kushites get. Also, it is a massive temple, which has the following benefits: 40 unit garrison space teleport distance is insane large hp

I think the outpost and defense tower have vastly different purposes and use cases. It would only be a loss to make them related. On a separate note I do think it would be nice to make arrow fire from garrisoned buildings targetable.

I feel like that would wind up being simply a more OP version of the wall turret arrows that were removed from a24 to a25. I think the existing mechanic is ok, theres just not enough up there to make a difference in most defensive battles.

I think adding to arrows to walls would be more boring to be honest. The main issue with using walls for troop garrison is that only 8 can fit up there, which is useless for most gameplay situations. If the number of spots could be changed to 20, then I think it would be used much more.

I would like to see palisades gain effectiveness versus cavalry and lose some versus siege. Increasing the gap between posts would mean that it is easier for cavalry to get through once they break one section. If siege attacking one piece of wall did exactly the same damage to the adjacent pieces of wall, then larger sections could be opened up by the same attack. On a side note, it would be very nice if melee cavalry could get a .3x or .5x multiplier versus palisade walls.