BreakfastBurrito_007

I know that we are all looking to diversify civilizations, and I think it is great to focus the civilization on what they do best. However, I think we should avoid narrowing the options available to that civ. Britons, for example: The problem with this is it would make player behavior predictable. I prefer giving britons a great early game, and an average late game. If I can sum up my views on civs in one sentence it is: civilisations should not have playstyles, civilizations should have options, players should make the playstyles. Does this make sense? I think it is good to give each civ a few things they are great at, but not limit player choices because they feel the need to do what is "best" for that civ. I give an example of a bad civ for uniqueness/options balance in a25: Carthaginians. Carthage has one strategy that is "the best", it is almost impossible to counter. Uniqueness should come from unique options and not entire unique strategies.

35 years is nothing compared to the time wasted by hosting a game that will then be ddosed XD.

Assuming those cavalry are fixed from their current state right? Right now they are needing a -2 reduction in hack/pierce armor types, and probably also a small reduction in damage. Right now they don't need a bonus XD.

@Dizaka I like this idea as well, since it could break the usual boom or rush continuum. However, we need to be careful with starting resoures and starting buidlings. I would advocate for an upgrade unlocking champions in p1 to have a substantial food and wood cost as well as metal, since this would mean you need to have a food/ wood economic presence before taking metal and spamming champions. This reduces the effectiveness of the earliest merc rushes. Units that I could forsee as mercs in p1, skirmisher from ptol, slinger from carthage, and maybe macemen from kush in p1; javelin cavalry are a lot more problematic in p1 in my opinion. As for p2 champions, I think they should be the same stats as they are in p3, since the player is probably already making economic sacrifices in p2 to make those champs, he/she should be able to get the value they purchased. That being written, I don't think any cavalry champions should be available in p2, given that p2 is so transitional, it would be game ending to lose 20 women on food at that time because of the loss of population growth momentum, especially if it costs your enemy only 5-6 champions, which would not slow down the economy greatly.

Swordcavalry would still be better at most other things if spearcav were to have better DPS against swordcav after accounting for the 1.75x. I argue that instead of increasing spear damage, we reduce swordcav armor. If we increase spear damage, it would make cavalry even better overall, which I don't think we need. That way we would still train swordcav for dealing lots of damage to non-spear/pike infantry, and we would train spearcav to try to counter cavalry as well as resist spears/pikes slightly better than swordcav (not by killing them fast like we see with carth merc, but by not dying to them super quickly). I think this leaves a varied and diverse set of possibilities to use each unit, and prevents cavalry from becoming more op. @chrstgtr does this seem like a good compromise?

10 metal has always been pretty trivial, even in a24. It is a great point to raise, @LetswaveaBook Having better armor and better attack is too much, and leaves spearcav to 1) be spammed 2) fail to counter other cavalry (not enough dps) We don't want spearcavalry to have the same total armor and same total attack because that would be boring. I feel swordcavalry should have less armor and more dps, and spearcavalry less dps and more overall armor. A justification could be that sword usage requires more flexibility, and extra armor can impede that. Having different stats help to differentiate their roles as units. Keep in mind that this swordcav vs spearcav power imbalance is also a problem at the champion level, where consular bodyguard are head and shoulders over the rest.

Maybe Naked fanatic but if they costed the same lol. @Dizaka A while ago I had been discussing p1 mercenaries with the hopes to break the usual rush/ boom continuum. I think the (1) and (3) solution would see them to be better earlier and versus smaller groups of units, since they would not have enough time to rank up despite the rank up advantage.

I feel that adding upgrade based unit cost to the blacksmith would lead to the blacksmith losing some of its distinction from the other type of upgrades (the rank ones). There are a multitude of upgrades in the blacksmith, and those upgrades affect multiple units, so the units could get a bit economically unpredictable. If the blacksmith upgrades add cost to the unit, then I predict one of two things will happen: people will swallow the cost and just get all the upgrades anyway. people will be confused as to which upgrades to get to avoid cost increases on particular units. I think the blacksmith should remain an economically safe upgrade tool, if you know what I mean, with the hard choices lying with the (rank techs). The main reason I put those long research times was to prevent those techs from saving people who are in the process of losing. I think it should be a tool of strategy and not a crutch.

I think this (rank upgrades) is a great dimension to add to the game. It can go some lengths to distinguish booming versus military empowerment. I think there should be a longer term economic cost to these upgrades, and it I wonder if you would support the possibility that getting all of these upgrades for all units is actually a strategic failure. rank 2/3 units get worse at gathering, and an enemies rank 2/3 unit composition is beating your rank 2/3 composition, but your units in your base gathering res are also rank 2, so you are losing overall. I have been wondering what these Advanced, and Elite upgrades should cost: Advanced: 300 food 300 wood 200 metal 1:45 research time, adds 5 metal cost (and +25 food for cav) to unit and 10% training time Elite: 500 food 500 wood 500 metal 2:00 research time, adds another 10 metal cost (and +40 food for cav) to unit and further 20% training time This adds the economic question for the player: do I want to get blacksmith upgrades, postpone the choices for advanced/elite upgrades, and maintain my eco, or do I want to get this upgrade that empowers my units, but add an economic liability to them. Getting these upgrades is basically a "bet" on that unit, and since the upgrade has a long time to research, the timing could be complicated, so you could not always get it as an emergency reaction. Should any civs get a p1 advanced rank upgrade, or would this be to easy to do a rush with, despite the large cost and economic situation? My thinking is that champions could stay being trained at barracks, but upgrade to enable it could add some extra food and some metal and stone cost, by default train at fort with no unlock. I certainly agree that in a25 it is too easy to mass champions at a sudden time, but I think there should be a way to go: non-rank-upgraded CS, +champions strategy. @Dizaka @chrstgtr @ValihrAnt @Palaiologos @LetswaveaBook what do you think about @wowgetoffyourcellphone's concept, and my ideas on those upgrades?

We want to avoid one-trick pony. A civ should not be "ok" if it is op at one thing and bad at everything else.

Keep in mind, this was back when archers were very overpowered. In the current game, the biggest complaint there has been with ranged units is that they always shoot the closest target, and players are unable to choose targets. The resulting conundrum is that infantry fights are centered around whose melee is killed first, whoever loses their melee will lose the fight (in a realistic scenario). Archers would be more useful if they were effectively able to attack units of a players choosing. Overall the proposed changes (see it in "proposals for formations": look for "attack-ground") would add depth to the game and improve balancing to a few citizen soldier units.

Many people are upset by the loss of the briton/gaul economic structures losing their +2 population space. What if it returned, but it added 20 wood cost to the storehouse or farmstead? This gives them a bonus in population but will make it a little less simple and OP as it was in a23. It will be harder to get the resources for those storehouses if you are in a pinch.

In most 0ad games of multiplayer, women are the unit that is produced early when a player wants to boom. Players who switch to citizen soldiers or cavalry earlier will have slower population growth than those who stay on women longer. Keep in mind that women are only slightly slower on wood and most eco for the first 7-8 minutes of typical 0ad game is food and wood eco. To make a long story short, women are nearly equal economic units to CS in the early game, so the balance between economy and army is something players are careful with, especially in the beginning of a match.

It was very frustrating to watch. I do not remember this type of ddos behavior from the previous waves of attacks.

@Dizaka it seems they would be a fast civ then, I was not aware of the price reduction ideas.

As it stands right now, the small pyramid costs 300 stone 100 metal. It means someone will need to be mining stone if they want barracks and pyramid. This also makes the booming of the civ a little more variable and creates room for improvement there. I don't think it will make them as fast or faster than civs like ptol rome or iber.

I like this a lot, I could imagine it would help to do a building rush against another player.

It seems like I owe some clarification. The first post I read was very suspect to me, which I hope you guys understand in retrospect. A few alarm bells went off in my head before he replied. Obviously I understand that there is no way a ransom would be paid, but it is not out of the question that someone could try to set this up.

I think AoE 4 could be great. To be honest, just adding hill bonus and proper projectile mechanics like they exist in AoE2 would be wonderful. People complain that noobs don’t want to have to learn these skills, but in my opinion it’s ok if there is room to improve in the game. If there is no room to improve, it will become boring very quickly. Personally I liked the castle mechanics, as well as the battlefield siege construction. There is some balancing to be done of course, and also the “fighting on walls” seemed comedically broken during open beta.

@bad player I don't get your sense of humor. And to be honest, I had been thinking you could be a perpetrator seeking a ransom, since your profile name is "bad player" and you found the situation funny.

@bad player why is it funny?

I can't believe I just realized this, but apparently in AoE4, all projectiles are 100% accurate, even to the point where an arrow can exceed maximum range if the target was in range when the arrow was fired. I thought it was a fun gameplay mechanic from AoE 2, and I can't understand why they decided to remove it, or even strike a middle ground and have only moderate inaccuracy.

We should add back splash damage and reduce the amount of damage that ranged units do to catas. That way, it will still be possible to kill catapults from distance, but you would likely take lots of damage from splash. attack-ground would be great to have with catapults.

weirdjokes usually makes corrals, so that would explain the huge amount of food. it might make it easy to get a bunch of eco upgrades as they become available. If you have a bunch of resources into p3, then you can get a bunch of eco upgrades very quickly. I think this would also help with blacksmiths.

Yea, it is getting pretty consistent. It's like they know when we are having a good time.