BreakfastBurrito_007

This is a good point about those farms. This is why I think their bonuses/costs system should be replaced by simply keeping their small area and giving them 5 workers per field as well as 100 wood cost. There is a huge bonus to having small farms in rush protection and eco management. Han would be crazy berry dependent if their farms costed extra wood per food output.

@Yekaterina @Lion.Kanzen @wowgetoffyourcellphone I wonder if there is any historical basis to put spearcav for han in p1 rather than archercav. Spearcav in a25 have been not very powerful, they will get a buff it seems for a26 (based on popularity, +1 hack/pierce). In a25 spearcav have been great for countering cav rushes and also doing their own sort of rushes. Spearcav are only in p1 for 2 other civs, mace and rome. I think archercav being changed out for spearcav would go a long way to protect them in p1. I also think crossbow rush would be epic/terrifying. It would be cool to have this as an option. Side note: @Yekaterina at this point I think iberians are most vulnerable to archer cav because their towers can't cover as much territory (250 stone vs 100 stone cost) their walls often work against them with horse archers, and they dont have any non skirm unit until p2. This is provided iber player has not gone for rush and has only 2-5 cav.

I think the scoring system is not perfect, but it is also not too misleading. Players who are concerned with the scoreboard usually understand that there are some factors influencing the score and that there are details they can look at if they want. Only way I see this being an issue is if ddos gets so bad that we need to use score to have closure on the games.

There have been huge problems with this with respect to gameplay. I agree that civs should be asymetric, but I don't think that the rules should be re-written for each civ. Keep in mind that Aoe4 might have interesting/unique civs, but the core battle mechanics are horrifically simple. AoE2 in my opinion has better civ differentiation/uniqueness and bonuses due to them being key distinctions from other factions rather than something entirely out of the framework of other civs (like in Aoe4) I think civ differentiation is certainly an area for improvement for 0ad, but it does not help to add all the uniqueness to one civ. It would be sad to see something unique, like ministers, or cs crossbowmen, get overly nerfed because the civ needed a food eco boost (.6 versus .5 gather rate) which is boring. @Yekaterina Do they get that pike unit in p1? If so, I think it's not the end of the world to have only archers in p1 as their ranged units. Many things seem op for the civ, the mangonels, the champions, the bigger eco, bigger pop, and unique upgrades. It is ok if much of the OP stuff stays, but we have add some things to other civs too (perhaps add some unique techs, civ bonuses, team bonuses). again pls consider @LetswaveaBook's proposed features mod.

It seems so far that Han have bonuses in almost every regard in eco. I think maybe it is best to remove all farming bonuses they have, and instead keep 5 women per paddy, but let it be 1/2 the area of grain field at same cost. This way it is just a bonus, but albeit a nice and unique one. What creates this greater demand? do their units cost differently?

hmm, its probably best not to worry too much about the values for acceleration right now. The values should probably be refined after we test the pre-release candidates with full MP games. It might seem smooth in tests, but if you factor in panic and lag and performance issues it might be too slow like a24. I was also interested in if anyone was interested in making any of the popular changes introduced by @LetswaveaBook's proposed features mod. That mod has made quite a few balancing changes that add to diversity and fun and balance of 0ad. The most liked features I think were: melee inf +10% attack skiritai rank 2 but +30% speed persians get spearcav and javcav p1 iber bonus is reduced to just -10% food, but affects slingers and javelins firecav -9 pierce attack merc cav->95 metal spearcav +1 hack and pierce armor and axecav +2 hack +1 pierce armor There are some other great changes in there that I would love to see more people test and consider for a26.

I tried acceleration with the holiday testing bundle, and saw that inf and cav had functionally similar acceleration values, and it seemed to reduce melee maneuverability as much as for cav. My worry was that it would be more frustrating to move units around overall. My hope for the acceleration feature was that cavalry would have a new exploitable weakness that an inf army can use. @Yekaterina has acceleration been tweaked since or is it the same as it was around dec 20th, 2021?

@Lion.Kanzen when and where can you make ministers? I was thinking they could take up 2 pop so that they are not as good as fully upgraded eco in long term. I have not been able to test svn so I have not seen much of their mechanics. Ministers boosting eco in a range is a fantastic idea, but I think it should not be such a simple use case as for the eco upgrades available to all civs. My worry is that ministers wind up being functionally equivalent to more eco upgrades.

Except for rome, which has more powerful ones that train units and shoot arrows. unless you mean team bonus, then I could see it being very fun lol. I have been trying to get people to play this mod but of course it is hard.

Check to see if he has cheats enabled in lobby. I am not sure if you can find this without joining another host of his. The cheat that he used looks exactly like the one where you type "gift from the gods" in chat. We use that occasionally for testing unit/civ matchups and upgrades. If cheats were enabled on that host it is just a matter of noticing it and talking about it. If cheats were not enabled, and this dude was able to get them, then it seems to be a bigger problem.

@Yekaterina It is true that swordcav are most OP in phase 2, before players are able to retrain CS infantry due to their lack of food/wood stockpiles that they would accrue in p3, and also due to the massive economic damage that idle unit time in p2 creates. It would require a change in strategy (fast p3) that would make them not worse, but harder to execute. That being said, there is a hero that gives +30% attack to melee cav units in p3. I think moving them to p3 would make the unit boring again, and leave carthage to be a very weak civ in p2. The main place I draw the line with their power is being able to beat spearmen 1 to 1 with equal upgrades. If the unit is threatened by CS spearcav and spearmen (as it is in letswave mod), I think a prepared defense vs cav using palisades to control movement would be enough to make them manageable in p2 and p3. A price hike on the unit would be fair to make it proportional to CS inf/cav cost difference. This price hike will also make inf mercs more viable. I would like to test the updated mod sooner or later too!

@StockfishThere are many scary animals in Australia, but I am fine as long as I never see one of those chickens.

@LetswaveaBook nice work! I think you handled the iber bonus well, with both slingers and javelins being potential economic units. I also like the general team bonuses, blacksmith changes and splash. Very exciting stuff. Is the 1 free unit given for each new market or temple? or only once per game? Depending on how healers are treated in future alphas this might not be very powerful for britons. I had suggested a team bonus for britons on the team bonus page just yesterday: men have equal berry gather rate as women. To be honest I don't mind adding more than one team bonus per civ if the overall value is right. These should probably given to civs that don't have spearmen as their only cs melee unit. Or maybe it should be given to civs that have pikes as the only CS alternative to spearmen.

For TGs I think there is no way anything is better than indibil. The fact that the discount is percentage based means it scales with cavalry and champions to provide a much bigger cost savings than if you made infantry CS. For 1v1, I think there are a few options, but Ptol will have more than 1 on that list for sure. As for @Yekaterina's idea, I don't like it because part of selecting units while using a civ is the different civ peculiarities that apply to that unit. Even if all civs get spearmen, there are many different combinations of civ-specific effects that differentiate them. Would this civ have no actionable civ bonuses? or all of them? In my opinion, this reduces some of the strategy from the game. Perhaps it is possible this civ could be helpful to test units/upgrades/buildings without restarting a test game (some people including me test in MP using cheats). This might be useful if you could apply every bonus at will or use any single hero at will.

XD So the Han suffer from same ranged unit issues as Kush. Do han get any mercs? The chu-ko-nu was in part of the debate for a bit. I was thinking it could be low accuracy (lower than archers that dont have archer accuracy upgrade) but with slightly greater range and dps than slingers. Very high fire rate, but low damage per shot. Cost could be 50 food 40 wood 10 metal, which is unlike any other ranged unit.

@Yekaterinacould you please clarify? I have not been able to test this civ, but I would be willing if there was some easy install thing like a mod. Seems like some long ranged unit has high dps?

We will never forget him @nani

Bowtech (aka ElefanteKing) There are no other top players

Perhaps indibil should make +25% train time instead of -25% that way caping production buildings could stop it. another thing could be to change indibil from percentage cost reduction to reduction of a set amount of resources. For example “20 wood less” or “10 metal less”. since champs and cav cost more, the bonus scales with them better.

I am wondering about firecav whether a true damage nerf is best or some other kind of change. Keep in mind there is also briton chariot, but its not as easy as firecav in a25. It is also much easier to prevent a briton champion spam than iberians, because food eco can be attacked much easier. range reduction accuracy reduction less fire damage to strong and important structures like cc, fort (give those structures 2x as much fire resistance) reduce pierce armor by 1 The power of firecav in a25 has made ibers a cav civ. Also, they have 1 other powerful champion, so a direct damage nerf is certainly a good option too. A good end result would be that firecav take more losses in more situations, and are not as game-ending when fully massed.

@LetswaveaBook has a mod in "proposed features" discussion that is pretty universally liked. There has not been a great deal of testing, but the testing that has happened has been great. A remaining point of uncertainty are the civ bonuses that might be changed or added. But its probably best to look at it separately.

I believe Demitrius the Besieger already does this.

If athenians get a team bonus that gives a metal or stone trickle, then it should be quite slow (maybe 1/2 speed of ptol bonus) and also start at a later time, perhaps upon completion of p2 phase-up for each player in the alliance. This would be to prevent players from starting p2 with almost all the ingredients for p3 already accumulated. Perhaps another Persian civ bonus could be double horse carrying capacity. Something to do with horse breeding. The reason for this is to allow pers to have an easier time making use of horses for food eco. Sure persians have 2 kinds of horses in p1, but they still depend on cavalry for p1 and p2 security, which means if they don't have any hunt, then they will not be able to stop rushes in p1 and stop encroachment in p2. If persians can hunt more efficiently (better carrying capacity) then a pers player can feel better about making cavalry to not die. @LetswaveaBook what is the reason for the first trader or first healer being free in brit and carthaginian team bonuses? To me, this seems more like a token and less like an actionable team bonus. my thoughts were: Athens, "democracy" -50% phase up cost and time. britons, maurs, or carth (whichever makes more sense): -15% batch training time for women. (for a persian stable -10% batch train time changes train time from 1:34 to 1:15 for 10 hyrcanian cav). The gameplay benefits of this would be a faster eco for the team of this bonus, but also greater risk of exploiting the bonus. Melee inf +10% move speed. This is an economic bonus, because it would be a little easier to stop rushes and melee would have faster return rates to res, and a military bonus because maneuvering would be easier. seles could get their civ bonus buffed a bit, since -20% is not very much. -25% would be better and maybe add -25% build time too. Macedonian civ bonus has a big problem with it (res generation), so it could get changed to be the same as kush bonus but for siege instead of eles. Maurs: current bonus, but +garrisoned heal rate also Persians: stables -50% cost and build time, and stable upgrades -50% time (like @LetswaveaBook had said). (just -50% time does not compare to gauls bonus for military upgrades). Some civ (maybe brit): citizen soldiers get same berry rate as women this helps that team take berries that are in dangerous places and have an easier time transitioning to farms. The current situation is that most civ bonuses are weak besides gaul, iber, ptol, and rome. If we nerf the powerful civ bonuses, it is basically like removing civ bonuses from the game, since they would not be considered during civ selection. Because of this, it makes much more sense to make new civ bonuses or buff old ones for civs like brits, athens, pers, maur, carth, and maybe sele

@LetswaveaBook what are your thoughts on changing the team bonuses for civs in this mod. I suppose we could quickly think of some for britons, carthaginians, persians, and athenians. Perhaps also a replacement for Mace team bonus since that is busted. Maybe +catapult splash dmg if it is possible?

Why imagine when you can feel it multiple times lol