BreakfastBurrito_007

I think he means to accomplish what AoE2 only did visually. All the civs look the same in first age and differentiate from there. You would select civ by clicking p1 upgrade for that civ is the way I understand it.

@borg- given that p1 is such a critical time but also quite a long process. Do you think it makes sense to achieve this goal by having an "earlier" phase? Something even more rudimentary where only women or maybe some near-universal unit like spearmen can be trained and houses/ storehouses/farmsteads built. A 200 food 100 wood 20 second up time to p1 would be ideal because it gives ranges of options, someone trying to rush would click p1 very soon, but someone trying to boom a little would wait a little before p1. 1 or 2 p0 buildings would be necessary for phase 1 click. Perhaps we could also make different civs have different costs of time or res to click p1 (maybe some civs cost stone? or metal?). Current unique starting units would appear at cc upon phase up (like spearcav, camel archer, han swordcav, maur elephant, kushite healer) and would be seen as a tiny buff for that civ. I think it makes sense for this first phase to take no longer than 5 minutes, and for only the baskets upgrade for berries available. I do think that such a change would make it even more important to balance the civs. We could also make p0 without the civ selection phase 1 research If we make p0, we could allow blacksmith in p1. I think that this early purchase of blacksmith would be much more expensive relative to blacksmith in p2 which people tend to spam without thinking of costs. This would provide some early boom/military differences that can be exploited (remember booming=turtling discussion?) I think this would make rushing a more interesting strategy too, because rushing in p0 would be challenging, and you would see some drastically different populations/ phase up times early on in the game.

Well there are mercenaries and champions for that. As well as cavalry. There are actually no melee units that do crush that have the full CS infantry economic capability. The only "eco unit" that does crush is slinger. I actually don't know how much work it would take to add "siege" damage to differentiate it from "crush" damage. I do know that there is currently no reason to differentiate the two because there are no issues that arise from them being the same damage type. I would accept such a complication if there was any need.

what in-game problem does this lead to? Is there any unit that is OP because it shares siege damage? is there any siege unit that is bad because it shares the damage type?

Perhaps to achieve this we don't need new damage types, but can just reduce crush armor of units that have high hack and pierce armor like pikemen, and reduce crush armor a little less for units like sword and spear inf and cav. We would need to keep in mind the effect of this on the effectiveness of slingers, catapults, and elephants.

I think rather than making them worse than standard in p3 it would be better to have a better than standard p2. If brits are worse in p3 then it forces gameplay too much.

@Philip the Swaggerless if the britons were a civilization that developed rapidly, then you could give them a -50% phase up time and cost team bonus. To make use of its value, you would need to maintain close communication for rushing different phases, perhaps one player rushes to p2 another tries to go fast p3 and the other 2 borders rush from the start (of course it could be applied in many ways). There is much complaining about iber and ptol bonuses and I think there need to be more creative and particular team bonuses that indirectly foster teamwork and challenge the throne of the existing good bonuses. Perhaps a team bonus where men could farm would be cool too, or perhaps one that increases cavalry carrying capacity.

Perhaps when there is a situation that calls for a vote, the vote can be mandatory for "Balancing Advisors" (perhaps with a reminder sent by forum message) and optional for others. Most votes on balancing discussions I have seen have very low participation. An example of a vote could stem from something people broadly agree on, for example: CS archer inf need a buff, vote for one of the following: return accuracy values to a24 add 1 or more pierce damage give them 1 pierce armor

KD ratio is for people who can't divide kills by deaths in the units category. LUL. No seriously, KD ratio can stay even if we add value ratio or something like it.

I think this would be good tbh. It helps show more relevant statistics for who won the game. It might help players improve too.

I agree that a bonus against infantry is not needed in this case as there is already the damage advantage that swords have. Perhaps it is because people want to have a game and not a historical military simulation. I would not denigrate the people who have worked on the game far longer than you and who made those decisions about units. You are also quick to assume anyone with a differing opinion holds that opinion because of some mental deficiency. You seem to be ok that soldiers are born out of the barracks, so I don't see why this makes you so upset. Gameplay can't be reduced to waves of spearmen poking each other to death just because it is more realistic. @wowgetoffyourcellphoneI look forward to testing these changes if I can.

I don't think thats what swordsmen were defined as in this discussion. In a25, there are situations where swords are better and where spears are better. The shorter sword is more maneuverable and it makes sense that it has a higher attack rate. Before tactics and formations are considered, which varied from place to place and time to time, it makes sense that a swordsman has a higher damage output than spearman. In one era and place it may be that spears were the more elite weapon, but the game is not modeled after one era and one place.

The thing is, javelineers usually never range the horse archers. Javelineer inf are already highly effective at beating horse archers without the counter if the horse archers don't run away. This is a good example of a situation where counters don't provide a benefit to gameplay. An example of where counters would be a fantastic change: catapult bonus versus fort. ram bonus versus walls. both still do good dmg versus houses, production buildings, ccs ect.

Perhaps, this is the best way to do those "anti building" units. Since you gave swordsmen a speed boost in your run-down, perhaps clubs/axes would not get that speed and instead be the same speed as other melee inf. I like these ideas and would be happy to participate in testing for them if it were a mod. Although I am a bit concerned about the extensive use of counters. Counters are great for particular unit roles, but I am not sure about creating particular roles out of originally multipurpose units, few civs get all of those basic units, so the problems of not having a counter would be very frequent. I also like the idea of champions not being massively powerful but closer to the skiritai cost/power proportion. Not sure how I feel about the population amounts, if it were implemented we would probably want to adjust house occupancy size and start using a bigger pop size in games. I do think pop capacity is an under-utilized balancing tool though. I also think a 1 population size for women and traders compared to 2 for inf would cause them to dominate eco in all games, turning matches into raid-offs. kiting effect sounds OP and/or artificial. I think people cause enough frustration with manual control of those.

Its a lot easier to understand why slingers have crush damage if you understood or had any appreciation for the gameplay role they play with their unique ability to take out light structures from a range. You can't just come in to a game and say everything is wrong because you have an idea about what is "common", as if that is some great merit. While I like the current damage system, I would not be opposed to counters for particular situations. For example: palisades can hardly be used to slow down melee cavalry to stop raids, therefore give 0.3x counter for melee cav vs palisades.

This is something I have suggested before. 0.3x multiplier versus melee cavalry damage to palisade walls. I think it is currently too easy to raid with cavalry and the counter play is usually to make your own cavalry. Players often build palisade walls to restrict movement of raiding javelin cavalry, and this works fairly well. The issue is that sword cavalry can take down palisades so quickly that infantry can hardly catch up to deal any damage. Making palisades able to slow down all varieties of cavalry within the base would allow palisades to be genuinely useful. The counter would not make palisades OP of course and it would not make them frustrating in late game (a24+pathfinders). Melee infantry would be a better choice to break palisades in rushes and so it could give some value to infantry rushes (they have been bad in a25).

Units that have crush damage as part of their attack are quite weak due to their overall dps being reduced versus regular units. What if we reconsidered the crush armor values of some units rather than them all being 20?

What is your least favorite balance thing in Aoe2? I saw a video from Spirit of the Law where he talked about how attack-move might be a bit op. He said it gives so much extra speed to archers while they move and shoot that it makes it too hard for them to be targeted by melee pathfinding.

Yea. I agree the similarities are definitely not enough to argue ripoff, especially considering these things have been discussed as concepts in probably a few games. Seeing a few of these things in the same expansion was pretty interesting though.

Forgot. lol. Its in there now.

Some interesting similarities to 0ad things. In the video there are: buildings to build along trade routes, which heal and speed up traders. Garrisoning livestock in mills to generate food at a slow rate. Rath Chariots (can switch weapons from archer to swordsmen) elephants that are used more as rams than general battle units. Hmmmm. Tell me what you think.

I agree with @faction02 that the citizen soldier system makes this a much more complicated thing to balance. There is still plenty of unfinished business with this next alpha like CS skirmcav. @AIEND I would be fine with such a system and would test a mod if one was made. I just think it is very important to consider the current anti-building units and the overall balance of strategies.

The system in aoe3 and 4 is primarily to satisfy people who care a lot about realism in the game, it does not add very much gameplay value. As far as designing one for 0ad I would say be careful not to displace the roles of units such as slingers, club men,hyrcanian cavalry, and axemen and firecav. These units take on buildings in unique situations and adding a basic arson capability to most units would render these specialties useless. Another issue is different units resistance to cc arrows. Obviously skirmishers will die in a fraction of the time it takes a pikeman to die from cc arrows. If the arson mechanic is balanced for spearmen, then it will be OP for pikemen who won’t take losses while burning the building.

The whole world known to themselves? so basically the whole world is territory they control.

Excuse me, did you just say: