BreakfastBurrito_007

@alre One thing I noticed is that all ranged units seem to prefer attacking the melee vs melee battle rather than the skirmishers in the back even if you target them. What you see in the pike+skirm versus spear+archer situation is archers wind up shooting only the pikes, where they do negligible damage, and the skirms are able to out dps the spears to win the melee fight and then pass on to the archers. My thinking is that if ranged units would "listen" to targeting orders, then the archers would be able to kill the skirms and allow the spears to beat the pikes. I am worried about archers too, and we are working on getting and RC4 (or RC5 if it is out then) game for this Sunday at 19 CET (same as before). I am hoping if we all use RC4 or RC5, then we are more likely to have the same version and we can do 2 or 3 games to see what the balance is like.

Those rapids look like a great ride! Has it ever been tried to artistically represent a standing wave like that in 0ad?

@MarcusAureliu#s@ValihrAnt Does anyone want to try the new RC#4 in a similar setup this Sunday at the same time? Since it appears to me that the "charging" bug was removed in RC4 I think we can get a feel for the balance of units and civs by playing this version.

^For now It might one day return as a balanced feature, could bring some extra tactics and excitement to 0ad.

We could make this balanced by only allowing garrisoned arrows to attack other ships, while "garrisoned-up" units could attack what they want. This way if you want to raid the coast it will not always be a one sided situation. Forts could also benefit from this, with a reduction in range of garrisoned arrows and adding a +5 pierce defense and +5 hack defense and +20% range to "garrisoned-up" units. Right now, the arrow count on the forts is a single function where players just throw units in to get the upper hand in a fight. I feel giving the units "garrisoned-up" in a fort a range bonus and a defense bonus could allow the player to make a choice of how to use the fort. I feel this would mean that the choice is more important. In a24 building two opposing forts usually means that that area of the map is basically removed from the playable area. If we reduced range of fort to that of cc, then it would be harder to defend them and easier to play around them. If this were combined with the opportunity to move some garrisoned units up to enjoy more range and defense, then forts would be less a "preventative" defense and more a defensive asset that helps with a defense.

I like the combination of attack methods proposed here. This means there are a number of different things to account for during a fight even between 2 ships. Also, this makes naval battles less all-or-nothing, since some or all units will get hurt despite being aboard the ship. Usually the losing ship has to retreat and drop off the units unless they want to lose 50 units to the lack of swimming (swimming OP).

I think this is a great idea. On a side note does anyone agree that more units should be able to pack up on stone walls? Right now it is 8 and usually it is not practical to have them up there. I feel having 16 would be more useful.

Yea, in a23 their cost/power relationship was not very distinct from CS, but still balanced so they were usable. I feel mercs should either be rank three and cost roughly the same as skiri or be rank 2 and have same cost from a23. I also would support some way to train mercenaries in p1, since this would allow some rush options that are not also economic, and add nuance to the usage of the starting metal (do you want mercs, or eco upgrades?).

I feel it is a fun thing that has the potential to improve gameplay. But there are big problems with it that need to be addressed if we want to make the bug into a feature. Adjust run speeds so that some things are not OP when charging for example: pikes Some way to allow charging when not in a formation and when the right-click attack command is used.

What should mercenaries cost? I am of the opinion that the pure metal cost is not beneifical to gameplay. I feel the 60 metal cost could be acceptable if the mercs were rank 3. The main thing that makes the 60 metal cost so big compared to champions cost/worth is that all players enter p3 with an existing food/wood economy that can pay for the high food and wood cost of champions. So as soon as you can afford the 60-80 metal of mercenaries, you can also afford the 20-40 more metal for vastly more powerful champions. I think mercenaries should cost overall 10-20% less than skiritai commandos, with price adjustments depending on if the unit is cavalry, sword, sling, or whatever. This seems appropriate to me because they will still cost plenty of metal, but will be economically feasible and powerful enough to justify their purchase, unlike in a24 and perhaps a25. In a25 as I have seen it so far it may be possible to have a large metal mining rate, and buy a moderate amount of mercenaries, while slowing down food and wood to buy less citizen units. However, only ptol are capable of this since they have the hero that gives -35% metal cost to mercenaries which is a problem itself.

champ anitram is cheaper than mercenary antiram in a24 currently My proposal would be to detract some metal and add some to either stone wood or food depending on the unit. Also, making them rank three would put them in-line with skiritai, which are a powerful, but well-rounded unit.

Thanks so much @Stan`, @seeh! I'll try Stan's approach this evening!

Hello there seeh, I tried to build with svn like you did above but I couldn't complete the make step. The error says i'm missing "boost/version.hpp". I looked for this file but didn't find it anywhere. Perhaps this is the problem you were referring to? This file is needed for source/lib/pch/pch_boost.h Any help would be appreciated!

Ok well it seems Apple did a cool thing and removed SVN from the most recent OS. It seems that it is still possible but it will probably take me until RC3 is released to do it lol. Could you guys just give a run-down of how the game went balance-wise? -GGs

I am worried that only 1 or 2 of us will have the right version. I also suspect that very few of us have played any multiplayer RC2. I think our testing today will be more successful if we just use RC2.

We should call it "The Bush" end of story XD

Are you guys willing to play on RC2 Tomorrow? My thinking is it will be easier to install and we have a higher likelihood of a bigger TG. Also, there are many changes affecting balance even just in RC2, that it would be worthwhile to try it to assess what the balance issues could be. CET is Central European Time, for me it converts to 10 AM Pacific Time.

Thats great to hear. To be frank, the pathfinding and unit responsiveness from a24 was a lot more tiresome than getting owned by Rauls' micro every game of a23.

If micro and formations become more important you can consider me killed lol.

I can make it. Are we testing RC2 or should we try to build a more recent version ourselves?

I think many of the old players that had the patience to stick through the peak ddos era (through July-December) last year, finally gave up upon seeing what the gameplay of a24 was like. My hope is that some of those players will be impressed enough by alpha 25 to come back. A24 games are by and large predictable among other things, and some excitement and skill depth can attract more players to 1v1s and TGs on multiplayer.

Ah, well that explains a lot. It seems when I set them to violent and just walk the formation without the attack order, they charge after they reach the move order destination. Could you imagine using skiritai like this? :O

@Yekaterina I went into single player for RC2 and tried doing the charge vs AI, but I could not seem to make it happen. Will formations be required to use the charge mechanic?

I am wondering if damage buff in the 5-10% range for archers and slingers, combined with proper adjustments to run speed for things that would otherwise be problematic is enough? Is there an RC3 or would I need to figure out a build to test the charging mechanic?

I have played fairly consistently over the past year and I observed a few big things that lead to loss of many long term players as well as less retention of new players. DDOS epidemic which used to impact nearly every game (not as bad now) issues with alpha 24 that made it less exciting and lowered the skill ceiling such as unit movement, building strength/ turtling, extremely long games, OP archers and eles and metal costs/availability. Many players (including myself) have less fun on an average a24 game than on an a23 game.