BreakfastBurrito_007

@maroder they don't have javelin cav right? It is quite powerful to have both spear and sword cavalry, but I think not having javelin cav makes that less op. It is a good roster, but I think its ok. My main concern is the individual balance of particular units such as the Pike(Ji), crossbow and the champions. Kush are another civ that has all three of the main melee inf types, but they have only one ranged CS inf, the archer.

One comment I have for ministers is that all of their eco buffs seem to be very small (2% per minister), and the most effective way to use ministers seems to be to garrison them in the ministry For the Minister over the Masses: I would prefer it to be some non-percentage based bonus that requires some management, like if its garrisoned in a storehouse or farmstead an extra 1/10 of the quantity dropped off by a unit will be added to the player's bank. For example: 10 wood dropped to minister occupied storehouse will result in 11 wood added to bank. For horse with 20 meat, 2 food will be dropped off. Garrison limit of 1 for storehouse and farmstead and docks (ministers only) Building speed one can stay but I think it should be increased to 4% per minister, this would be significant enough to allow unique building rush strategies. Ideally different uses for minsters could be used at different times, and for different strategies without one particular use that is better than them all. I am not sure if the dropsite garrison feature is possible, but it would be nice to have some more non-percentage based upgrades in the game. I think the garrison in ministry should be kept since a Han player might not always have time to manage the other bonuses, so garrisoning them in ministry might be a "safe" option for them to keep their huge investment 900 f 900 metal safe.

crush damage is basically negligible against units, so I think 9.2 pierce/s is more accurate for slingers.

@maroder that change would be assuming crossbow training is removed. Even if it is not removed, then 10 pierce/second would be greater than the slinger dps which is 9.2 pierce/second, so I would argue for a range reduction to 40 meters to accompany your change, or perhaps an accuracy disadvantage compared to slingers. The unfortunate result will be that the unit will play very similar to slingers (but with some key differences), despite seeming so unique. @real_tabasco_sauce told me he would be willing to work on a repeat crossbow concept mod similar to the quote above as a potential long term solution, however his computer right now is busted. I think a repeat crossbow is the best way to achieve a uniquely played ranged infantry unit for the Han. Another thing to look at is the Han champions and heroes, but I have heard there were already changes in this area. There has been some concern about p1 swordcav for Han. I don't think it will be the end of the world because javelin cavalry, spear cavalry and home infantry will be ok at countering them. It is possible that a fast rush: (no stable, no barracks, cav from cc to chickens, attack before 2 minutes) will be quite OP for Han, so I might suggest that swordcav can only come from the stable and not cc. I have only seen a few swordcav rushes in the RC, and none have been chicken-based like we see sometimes in a25, so it is something I will look out for in future RC multiplayer tests.

@Gurken Khan with enough tries I could reproduce. I have heard this one for as long as I can remember in 0ad, it does seem to happen more with cavalry than with infantry.

In any case, the crossbow unit should not be "trash" with low stats and low cost. A civ with bad CS infantry and OP cavalry and chamions will be impossible to balance and I would call it a flawed design strategy for that civ. I think the crossbow training tech is a way to accomodate that design, so if that design is changed like I suggest, then the upgrade should be removed or changed to not influence damage per second. No matter what happens to crossbow training, it should not apply to champions. The main issue with Han is that they have no high damage short range unit like slinger or javelin, other civs have javelin cavalry which can be used to overcome those limitations, Han do not have that. I would suggest making the CS crossbow into a "repeating crossbow" type unit. I am no historian, but on wikipedia glance I saw no shortage of mentions of repeating crossbows in China at various time periods from 400-800 BC and onward. Majority of those weapons seem to be hand held Possible stats of repeating crossbow: -50 food 40 wood 10 metal -40 range, 8.5 pierce damage, .75 repeat rate (unless this makes performance problems), and very low accuracy. This means that the have damage per second of 11.3 compared to 12.8 for skirmisher and 9.2 for slinger. This unit would fill in some gaps for Han infantry and allow other areas like champions or cavalry to be balanced without making the civ overall more vulnerable.

It seems the ban timed out or was lifted. Either way, thanks guys!

This is a phone pic of my computer.

Hello guys! It seems I am banned on 0ad forums on my computer but for some reason I can access from my phone. What caused the ban? what should I do about it? Any help would be appreciated, thanks a lot!

Dang, why is random civ so complicated? perhaps it should just be..... fully random?

It loses to any cavalry even plain javelin cavalry loses handily to spearmen despite costing 35 metal like skiritai spearcav can kill them very easily. So the main concern is its speed yes, I think @real_tabasco_sauce could tone it down a bit so that its easier to catch and trap them, but overall the unit is much more balanced than a p1 gimmick.

if the axe cav are in p1 what will happen is 2v1 of persians and mauryas where the mauryas rush and the pers boom until 4-5 mins and then kill the cc with 25-35 axe cav. Why should the unit become useless in p2 and p3? does that somehow make it balanced? merc cav are not very good late in p3 once other players have cav and/or fully massed CS armies, but does that make them balanced in p2? No of course. I think @real_tabasco_sauce's unit is more versatile, more balanced, and less sensational than your idea for the unit.

lol for me none han. If the Han civ design was intended to be "trash cs, OP economy, OP champions, OP cs cavalry" then the economic advantages and units need to be changed, because that is not a good design. To be honest, the Han don't need an anti-cavalry ranged unit or a mobile crush unit. They already have great siege in late game and extremely powerful options in general from p1 to p3. The main thing to consider is that their citizen soldier units are bad, they should be as good as normal civs units. Citizen solider crossbows are both redundant (between cavalry and infantry) and bad, so it feels like Han are swamped with this terrible unit that people will avoid making. That is a great tragedy. Can you copy the patch link?

Did a few 2v2s and 3v3s, tried han, merc cav, ptols, cav speed in general cav acceleration is fine in my opinion, might be worse during lag Occasional lag spikes after mouse action, it seemed a variety of actions can trigger this lag spike Han CS infantry seem to be pretty bad (I suggest turning the CS infantry xbow into a "Chu Ko Nu" unit like from Aoe2, with slinger range, bad accuracy, and dps of skirmisher with high repeat rate and longer prepare time). Otherwise there are too many redundant types of crossbow for han, excluding the champion crossbow which at first seems very op. Sword cav in p1 are powerful, but it seems skirm cav might be ok vs them Han farms are too fast. I know there has already been a .6 to .5 change of their rate, but I suggest giving them identical farming rate to basic civs (including 5 woman on farm). I think small area farms are a fantastic buff for food eco security by themsleves. I think the merc changes are probably not enough, but I will wait for more testing to be sure. Maybe HP value increases of ranking up cav can be changed to be same as infantry. Replays: In one replay with 2v3, you can see merc cav from kush, iberian cav rush, and han champ crossbow In another replay with 2v2 you can see ptolemies and Han p1 swordcav rush In another replay with 3v3 you can see old civs but plenty of cav and firecav gameplay. metadata.json commands.txt metadata.json commands.txt metadata.json commands.txt

Yes @wraitii I think the acceleration can also be used by an infantry defender too. I have been testing merc cav and they are of course still very powerful but I am trying to see if they can be countered by restricting their movement, this was just using a few 1v1s in RC lobby. I am trying to organize big TGs on the new release candidate and we will hopefully see a variety of situations on those games.

@wraitii this might make it easier to defend against cavalry using palisades. This would be a great change, because if they have to squeeze through breaks in palisades, then it might create opportunities for defenders to get more hits. One of the things making general cavalry a bit op in a25 (some cav are more op than others) is that it is very hard to counter the movement advantage that they get. :D

Pers will be/ already are a cav civ. Does it make sense to add meat drop off capability to ice houses or would this just be op? I think it might be a way to justify the early cost of ice houses while supporting a cav army that Persians usually require to not die in the first 10 mins.

Cavalry acceleration is fine but I think their minimum speed should be increased a bit. Ok I have not played any MP yet, but just taking a look at han civ and their bonuses: han farming upgrades: +25%---> +20%, or remove town phase farming upgrade han farming base rate .6-->.5 like other civs, perhaps increase farm occupancy to 5 keep in mind the small sized farms/rice paddies are a great bonus by themselves laozi gate should have same minimum distance as iberian monument and perhaps increased cost 2x infantry balance seems ok, a wide array of choices for infantry, cavalry, and champions could be op, as well as new CS and champion crossbow units. This will need to be determined by testing because it is not blatantly op like the han food bonuses. One thing for certain needs to be changed and that is the food/population rate of Han, 1.17 is so much greater than the next contender .95 (gauls) who dont have +10% population space. Han will have 10-15 fewer farmers and 20 more population space against regular civs, this will mean the largest han army will have 30-35 more men than the largest regular civ army. In addition to this, having fewer women makes it easier to withstand raids, and easier to reallocate units onto wood and metal for the production of champions. The civ needs some serious work and we won't be able to balance its units properly if the farming bonus remains this overpowered.

This has actually been determined to be op. There was a test of a mod that gave building AI to ranged units and it was really bad. Even a more balanced version might be super busted against infantry. I would probably say 1/3 fire rate 1/3 accuracy while firing and moving, I admit it’s a cool feature but we want to add good gameplay mechanics and not frustration.

@Player of 0AD my main failing for those army camps is forgetting to train from them lol. Those rank 2 units are overlooked by many players in a25 and they will probably be more useful in a26 with those camp changes. As for balance issues in a26 my main concern are the Han and also merc cav. When I have time this weekend I would love to join a testing session in multiplayer.

catapults have been buffed and so have spear cav. Keep in mind that new features are not the only way to improve a civ, and seemingly unrelated balance changes may open up many more gameplay opportunities for that civ.

I wonder if it is ok to add slinger in p2 or javelin in p2 for some of those civs that suffer most from this. If merc cav are eventually nerfed appropriately, this might save some of those civs from being bad.

BTW there is another way that I like to use with units that have higher dps like champion archers, crossbowmen, or slingers. Alt (option) allows one target for each unit in your selection. For example, if your enemy lacks final pierce upgrade and you have mace champion hero, or if you have will to fight and champion hero, then you can kill ranged units in one hit with one crossbow, Alt(option) click the enemy units and they will go down as fast as you can click (if you have around 15 crossbows). I am not sure which method is best but I suspect that there are times to use shift queues or Alt(option) queues.

It is currently possible to overcome the ranged units' preference for close targets, but it requires concentration, fast clicks, and good micro. This was the main reason behind the attempts in the past months to make an attack-ground or area-attack mechanic for ranged units (or maybe just archers if it seems right to do so balance wise).