BreakfastBurrito_007

This is actually a great idea. Its not something that could really help them win in p2 like merc-cav, but its something they could use to pressure and gain an advantageous position as the civs head into p3. Roman camps are kind of hard to time correctly and this would give them more options. You make good points about the blacksmith cost too btw, I guess we will think about this more in a26 and see if people want blacksmith changes then.

true and we have @ValihrAnt for that anyway lol

why more than 1 market? usually I build 4 blacksmiths unless I am ptol and 2 if I am ptol. If my eco balance is good I often just forget to build a market (bad habit). To be honest I think 50 stone would be a nice cost addition for blacksmiths which would make it harder to get upgrades while being on a metal only economy (merc cav lol). Nearly all civs actually have good options in p2 (athens and rome are the main worst ones imo), and I think these are diminished in a25 by how powerful the merc cav are. Even iberians can do a building rush if they are close to an enemy. Iberian monument can often mean that any fight over those forward buildings is winnable by Iberians if they put it in the right spot.

@real_tabasco_sauce I agree hyrcanian cavs are garbage I like skiritai commandos and their price and power kind of between champion and CS. They are strong, but never impossible to deal with. I would like to see some other units in other civs potentially have this stat relationship. Perhaps even some champions for some civs could be made cheaper but worse. I think even if we can't agree on the particular stats you came up with, giving hrycanians more dps than swordcav to account for their very weak pierce armor would be great change.

@real_tabasco_sauce yea it amazing seeing all these baby strollers "powered by AI". Not to mention all the bingbongs who got caught in cryptocurrency scams just because they heard people got rich off of Dogecoin. Much of the hype over emerging technology comes from people who don't understand it, and is fueled by media who want to get views on "amazing" "flashy" or "end of the world" type stories.

It nice. It will never be as op as the civ that can build them.

@Donair One thing that can help against rams is swordsmen or swordcavalry. Just keep some in a nearby high value building like temple, cc, or fort and you can ungarrison to kill rams if they are spammed. 5 swordsmen can kill a ram in about 4 seconds if it is stationary (like when its hitting a building).

I have an idea: what do you think?

It would not be too hard to ungarrison them in time. From gameplay standpoint it’s not a big deal to have to degarrison the walls. Sounds good.

Hmm perhaps I oversimplified the situation due to not knowing much about how the game is coded.

There are upcoming changes in a26 that make formations move much more smoothly. Perhaps the pikemen frontal armor directional damage could be added for that formation (syntagma?) and that way it might have a controllable and counterable effect on gameplay depending on how the formation behaves.

@chrstgtr This, or something similiar was brought up in that thread about "meatshield meta". As much as I dislike the meatshield meta, I feel that this would not be a good alternative. No matter how balanced the units are there will always be a unit to prioritize killing in battle, and I think such a system as choosing a particular unit to kill while ignoring others would be too automatic and we would lose some skill-factor to the game. The reason I liked attack-ground was that its applications depends on the situation and there would still be ways to counter it. Also, attack-ground or area-attack would be more imprecise than selecting a particular unit and would also have its own skill factor. A true attack-ground such as the one from that youtube video would offer reduced hit-rate as a tradeoff for targeting a particular area of an enemy army.

And because the range and effectiveness of archers reduced the area that was safe to travel through.

@Sevda perhaps giving melee inf more speed would be nice, but it could also be problematic. I don't think this issue would be solved well without a nicely thought out charging mechanic. I also don't think champion spearcav need any extra armor if that is what we were talking about.

Ideally an infantry army could take them down quickly but cav not. I would prefer a .3x counter of cavalry vs palisades. It might give reason to make inf for rushing in p1, a strategy which usually fails this alpha due to cav.

A turtlers' dream lul. I don't think that defensive structures need any overall buff, but I do think that an infantry player should have some ways to restrict cavalry movement. Palisades work as long as you are not facing any melee cav which can kill it in 5-10 seconds. Stone walls would be nice as they are stat-wise, but they are too hard to place since they can't be put over trees and can't be in neutral territory like palisades.

Ideally it would be upon wall completion. But I suppose we actually dont have to delete the trees, it just might look a bit weird. Walls provide a great way to stop attacks that would outmaneuver your army and attack your economy. Extra hp for walls would just slow down gameplay too much. This would make sense if you only ever played infantry vs infantry. Since rams/eles are required to break walls, it means cavalry need to be there to protect them also which limits their mobility and makes defending with infantry easier even if there is a breach. I like the idea of walls being useful but I am very afraid of an a24 type situation where it is impossible to move anywhere.

@Fabius @real_tabasco_sauce I think the biggest deterrent to making walls is how hard it is to make them sealed. What if walls deleted trees that would obstruct them so that you could build them across forests? I see many players building stone walls up to forests and these can simply be walked around by raiding units. I think another thing that makes cavalry so OP is the infeasibility of walls and palisades in multiplayer.

If other civs can only make it from barracks while mace can from siege workshop this will help mace because they would have another p2 building option, one that is cheaper than a barracks and would not take up training time from other units. It would also mean they can make p3 rams with less delay than other civs. I think this option gives mace strategic ambiguity. If a player sees Enemy mace siege works in p2 they need to get ready for either p2 rams or p3 rams 1-2 mins later. This is a challenge to be sure.

I think this would be fine, with some considerations. IMO, the ram should cost at least 175 wood, 75 metal despite the ram maybe not having any metal on-board. In addition it should take the usual pop space. The unit should be for players who are confident they can take down a player in a phase 2 fight and are willing to spend extra metal in p2 to do it. The issue is if the attack fails then it would be very costly and the target might reach p3 before you. I like this trade-off and it would make people who usually boom through p2 a little more concious of the defenses they might need/want. It seems the main task is which civs should get this and from where to train it. Also the unit's hp, armor, and damage. I think all civs should get it maybe with a few exceptions, but it should be more viable for romans, spartans, and macedonians. Perhaps spartan one has small speed bonus, roman one smaller cost, and macedonian one greater pierce armor. 3 pop space 1/2 crush attack as full ram comes from barracks for most civs, but mace get them from siege workshop they get to build in p2 ( @Dizaka) same default speed as regular ram 175 wood 75 metal current ram has 50 pierce armor, this would go down to 15 (or 20 for mace) also, no garrisoning I am thinking this will add to gameplay and create a greater diversity in attack times and strategies. It will also make walls a bit more appealing in some situations. @alre I see your point about clubmen, it would be sad if they were useless. IMO we should reduce the crush armor of heavily armored units so clubs and axes can be effective against those classes of units. the idea was that these crushing weapons can cave in the armor. That way clubmen would better for taking out fringe buildings like houses towers, as well as battling other units, and p2 rams would be better for a fully fledged battle.

I think I remember there used to be a feature where you could "highten" the alert by clicking the bell again, this would send all men to garrisonable places as well. The problems with it were that you could accidentally double click and cause a catastrophe with all your units in places you don't want. I remember when this happened there was always difficulty making sure all people were where they were supposed to be. I have heard of a "back to work" button that might make this more practical to use in game. 9/10 times, however, emergency garrisoning all your men is a bad idea. It will allow your enemy to find a better position, take out your buildings and isolate groups of units that degarrison from those destroyed buildings.

The goal would be to make them competetive with skirmisher dps which is more reasonable for the cost and population space. On second thoughts your values are probably better.

For alpha 25, archer elephants were given 2 population per elephant and this makes them really bad in a cost/power relationship. I think the 2 population should stay, but they should be given a fire rate bonus for each rank up. This would be a good way to represent the extra archers that visually appear on rank-up. Considering this would be a substantial buff, perhaps it makes sense to add some XP to rank ups, but this could be determined in testing. rank 1: 1 second rank 2: .5 second rank 3: .333 second This would mean that extended battles with a few elephant archers would yield dividends in the long term, but big masses would get killed and not be as effective. rank 3 elephants would also be something for an enemy to prioritize in battle, so a mauryans player would want to keep them alive. From a balancing and realism perspective, I think it makes good sense and offers a functionally unique unit.

This is true. You would also have to build more barracks overall and be careful about which ones you upgrade to make champions. I have advocated for this in the past with the OP champions in mind (consular bodyguard, firecav). But I soon realized that the main issues with champions are not that the unlock is so cheap but that their actual power and survivability is so great. Also, it is not all champions but only a few that are problematically powerful. firecav are getting a big nerf this next alpha, and I think consular bodyguard are getting an armor nerf if I am not mistaken. I certainly think that if we have unstoppable masses of champions in the future that come from barracks or stable that this would be a great solution.

That is completely unrelated to what I wrote earlier. I don't know how to respond.