BreakfastBurrito_007

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.

People have been complaining about how powerful iberian cavalry is even without firecav. I think a main reason for this is how iberians are impervious to late-game raids on food eco (except for archer cav). An iberian player can put enough fields for full cavalry eco inside the cc and they can depend on that food income never being dirupted. Perhaps it makes sense to decrease the amount of area covered by iberian walls. Perhaps making the maximum internal farm number at 6 or 7. I think this is doable but it might cause problems with stone/metal generation within walls.

good point. I think we can and should take inspiration from game-mechanics of other games such as those, but we should not just port them over just because those games are more popular. For example, "arson" attack mechanic from aoe3 and 4.

Everything is underrated when @Player of 0AD plays it. @Player of 0AD what is worst civ in your opinion then?

You can progress economically with the res that starts in p1, but players already do venture away from their base for metal mines, extra berries, hunt and sometimes a preferred woodline. Restrictions 1,2, and 6 would do nothing but bring frustration to building the base. I could not image playing with these artificial and uncomfortable rules. The other things such as auras sound nice but I would be worried about having too many auras as I think I heard this contributes to performance issues. There are frequently mercenary rushes, border skirmishes, cavalry harassment, and the occasional all out attack in p2. P2 does have way to take out buildings, but no siege. Keep in mind that destroying the cc is not the only way to deal damage. This game is, in fact, not AoE3 and not Age of Mythology. I can't understand why you want to make 0ad into those games.

One of the most challenging and fun aspects of 0ad is the boom/rush battles that happen in p1. These are very influential on game outcome and have many different strategies variables and levels of preparedness to keep track of. I would be very sad to see p1 be dedicated to booming alone. @AIEND do you play in multiplayer? or vs AI?

cavalry mercenaries are getting more expensive in the next alpha. In general, mercenaries' low price is balanced from a military standpoint and carrying the assumption that mercenaries can not add to the economy of a player. If mercenaries costed the exact same as citizen soldiers and could gather, they would have no unique qualities left. Mercenaries cost the way they do because they fill a particular gameplay niche that other units do not. This is why "unifying" everything and "simplifying" everything is not always good. You complain a lot about the design of the game but you seem to have no idea why any design or balance choices are made.

In phase one it makes sense to train women because food economy is so easy to get started first (berries and hunting). Every good player who wants to maximize economy will start off with women. Unless there is a map with lots of animals to hunt in which case they may start with cavalry. You need to take cost into consideration. You treat each game design feature like its a bug that annoys you and needs to be fixed. Mercenaries are quite cheaper than non-mercenaries and it they could gather resources they would be the only units that are trained.

that is one purpose of cavalry meat gather rate. But the main one is that cavalry can not gather other resources so in order for the citizen-soldier concept to apply to cavalry, they needed to be good at the only economic thing they can do. Since cavalry have such a high food cost, and can gather hunt at a high rate it enables cavalry to be trained early on. Cavalry also make corrals worthwhile to make for food eco. I am glad that the economy side of 0ad has so many ways to improve rather than the simplicity of simply assigning villagers to tasks that do not need to be managed. There is strategy, and there is also skill. AoE2, and 0ad have not only strategy but also skill. This means it is just as important what you do as how well you do it. Later AoE games (Microsoft) lean more toward strategy, with more civ differentiation and less opportunities for skill (ranged units are 100% accurate) Strategy: I will gather lots of food to make women, and transition to metal for mercenaries. Skill: hunt gathering optimization with cavalry.

AoE3 went for simplicity, with no drop sites whatsoever. I think they did this to make the game easier for new players to learn and play on the casual level. You mentioned there is a problem, what is the problem?