BreakfastBurrito_007

I like the upgrade system as it has been implemented and suggested before, but I feel that it would not make the gameplay better in this case. I like the ship classes and roles you gave, but I think these are fine being trained straight from the dock rather than all starting at "light". The main problem that I can find off the bat is the need to upgrade those ships and wait for the upgrade while you are under attack from other ships.

Reminds me of that old Italian fellow with the different sized metal balls.

@Yekaterina I think one of the benefits that the charging feature could supply would be adding depth and skill to the battle micromanagement. Do you think the charging feature (if its problems get worked out) will make ranged units obsolete, or could they become a powerful units that usually need some protection from melee attacks? If it eventually works well, then it could certainly make melee units mega-op given the damage/speed/attack rate/ health that they currently have. Because the melee/ranged balance has been done all this time without the inclusion of a charge mechanic for melee units, that means the addition of such a feature will require a revisit of the ranged/ melee balance. I am not sure how things will go of course, but if ranged units die become obsolete from dying too fast, then I would advocate for adding some damage across the board for ranged units. My thinking is that this will make them valuable enough to make, yet vulnerable enough to melee charges to not make up the bulk of an army. This is probably already being considered, but perhaps heavier armored units should gain less speed from walk speed to charge speed, like pikemen. Perhaps this is also a mechanic that could help make a gameplay distinction between lancer cavalry and spear cavalry.

@azayrahmad Sorry for the misunderstanding about the video. Have these features (like charging) been added to a more recent RC? If so I would definitely want to know where to go download that to try them out. I downloaded the Release Candidate 25808 version and I have not found a more recent one to try.

@azayrahmad I see the point your video makes, thanks for sharing it. It is true that pikes+ skirmishers are a powerful combination. However, I am unsure what gave those pikemen such high speed? was it a charge mechanic? Also it is worth noting that in each situation, all of the damage of the red army groups was focused on the pikes, allowing the high dps of the skirms to come into effect. Most players would recognize this problem and attempt to kill the skirmishers first, and then exploit the limited mobility of the pikes to kill them. For example, in Battle #1 the archers should have been told to attack the skirmishers, and then move on to the pikemen. Because the archers did not do this, the skirms were able to kill the spears, and then the pikes were able to move on to the archers. @LetswaveaBook testing showed rank 1 swords to be able to beat rank 2 pikes, it is a good indicator of how inferior pikes are in direct engagements with other melee units, including spears. What do you guys think about the +40% hp to pikes hero for ptol? I think it is quite powerful and I would be in favor of reducing the range of effect to make organization with the pikes more important and less easy.

@alre Don't skirmishers do more damage?

Keep in mind that pikemen are very good against archers and are very helpful in masses. In a25 it is expected that archers will be less OP and people will use slingers and skirmishers more often. Skirmishers are better than archers versus pikes, so my guess is that pikes will not seem as indestructible in a25. Perhaps adjusting the +40% ptol hero bonus is a good idea, but otherwise I don't think general pikes are mega-op.

Indeed, so for realism it would probably need to be like a 180 degree angle from the front to back on the right side, then we would probably need a range indicator. This would mean that cav archers seeking to circle an army and continuously launch arrows would need to do so clockwise, and thus have a more predictable path if the defender knows this information. This is all quite complicated for non-chariot units, so I think it is a good thing to try chariots first. As for the Parthian shot, I totally should have remembered this from the history books!

@Yekaterina@Dragonoar I was just trying to say that you can not choose your target if you are moving while shooting from horses/chariots. Sorry for the confusion.

That makes sense. This will probably make chariots more fun to use. It is probably also more balance-risk to enable this for non-chariot units.

@Yekaterina I was wondering if it is possible to limit the shooting range for moving, non-chariot ranged units to the front 180 degrees? Reasons: no ones back is that flexible allows melee cav to chase gives the mechanic a weak side, so they should go toward or alongside an enemy but not away. This way they wont behave quite like siege towers.

Keep in mind that as it exists now, the mechanic does not operate on a volley basis (neither does anything in 0ad). You can't even choose what target to attack with the mouse. As for the first shot being more important, do you mean in real life, in 0ad, or in most RTS games? As far as I know, the first shot only matters in 0ad if you hope to take out a high value target quickly. Ideally there would still be advantages to stationary shooting from horses and it should probably make more dps overall.

It is true that horse archers are more powerful than regular archers, and adding this mechanic to them will make them more powerful. However, it is undeniable that there is potential added value for gameplay as well as realism. Which brings me to Dragonoar's point below. Horse riding takes balance and it is my guess that it is harder to shoot at the same rate as when you are stationary. Also I think bigger bows are stronger (provided other construction qualities are constant), and would tend to shoot farther, so it makes sense in general that horse archers should have shorter range. This is not a balance problem since horse archers are faster than regular archers. I feel going for a 1.5x multiplier to attack repeat time and an accuracy nerf while moving should be enough to balance the "shooting while moving" aspect. @Player of 0AD I know that horse archers are pretty OP in a24 and likely a25, but doing this is a way to fix them in the long term. The goal is to make the unit more distinct in usage, and to add skill depth to the unit. We are fortunate that we can add some realism while helping gameplay. I initially wanted to consider this mechanic for skirmisher cavalry but I am not so sure now...

@Yekaterina This looks great. I am thinking this mechanic will go far to differentiate cavalry archers from regular archers in use. Maybe as archer cavalry rank up, they can shoot more accurately or at a higher fire rate while moving, as obviously it would take a lot of experience to improve with shooting while galloping. Four questions for everybody who wants to contribute an opinion: Should moving while shooting be less accurate, less range, less damage, or less fire rate? Should mounted archers improve this ability as they rank up? Should cavalry/chariot javelineers be capable of this as well?, and should the mechanic have special rules for them? Should chariot based units be better at shooting while moving? I would argue sure since chariot units are champions, and they are already expensive. I think it is important to make sure that there are advantages to shooting while moving and shooting while stationary, this way it is a more skillful gameplay decision on how to use ranged cavalry.

@wowgetoffyourcellphone It is a cool feature to have the units hop off the chariot when the horses die, but I was talking about having the unit in the back of the chariot launching projectiles even if the chariot is moving, just at some decreased stats from when told to attack a particular target.

@Yekaterina I don't know if you did a good enough job of scratching out the name of the player XD. This player's point about the power of the pop bonus being nearly the free equivalent of a wonder. The player makes a good point about the status effect champions, but at least for iberians, their champion does not have as good a hero as Boudicca to empower them. If it becomes possible, I think it would be cool to allow ranged chariot units to shoot independently from their movement perhaps at a reduced accuracy, range and/or fire rate. if you click to attack a unit normally, it is a normal stationary attack, but if you are moving and the unit sees an enemy it will shoot at it without changing its velocity.

I think it would be my preference to give something else to other civs rather than take away from some unique aspects. I know it is not always possible balance-wise but it helps to get creative.

@wowgetoffyourcellphone what is a battalion system? only other RTS I have played is AoE3 and that had some very frustrating pathfinding and battle mechanics. If I remember correctly, any group of units were always in a formation of some kind. One thing I liked about 0ad when I joined was the freedom with which units moved.

It is true I am pretty ignorant of what is possible/easy to program or easier/harder for the engine to run, so I thought a simpler solution would automatically be better. The more I think about it, the charge mechanic could be pretty good. If people like this charge mechanic, then I think we would like a way to select the units that are ready to charge, or at least see how many of the units are ready to charge. Please could you just be a little bit nicer when you talk to me? I was not saying I would be incapable of microing such a situation, I was saying that there needs to be some kind of way to micromanage this effect, like there is for most other things in 0ad. I was also not trying to denigrate your idea, in fact I like it quite a bit. I was just coming up with what I thought was a simpler alternative for people to consider.

I like this quite a bit but I am worried about the timing, what if you attack once with 20 spears and then add 20 more spears, then your army separates from each other and it could get frustrating. What do you guys think about melee units simply moving at a faster (x% faster) when they are 10 or 20 m from an enemy? I feel this is simple, but there might be situations where this is frustrating that are not coming to mind. I don't think it can be eco-abused at least. maybe the x% faster within 10 m mechanic could be used only when an attack order is given, so they could not retreat at the same speed which would be super annoying. I have been bugged by this for a long time and I am very appreciative of you guys for starting to do something about it

This is an awesome idea and I like the creativity of having blended buildings. From this, I expect the traders of this civ to be easier to protect, and to have a more blended economy. The only thing about the general design of the civ is that people will want to play it on land too. I love the idea of making a dock/military colony/market, but I am worried about how infrequently 0ad players in general use water maps. Perhaps there can be added a function similar to iber starting walls, where on an all land map a pond spawns somewhere along the p1 border of territory so that a syracuse playe could at least build one "fortified port". This would enable the civ to be played more comfortably on land maps. I think this civ idea is unique and awesome. Good work

I just tried romans and I really like the compromise that was reached at the army camps. Training the rank 2 units is a nice perk for the camps and the rams make them a lethal threat. I think I prefer this so far to the a23 camps where a great variety of ranged siege was available to torture civs like ptol and gauls/brits from the back of the base. In a23, the army camps were mostly used either to quickly spam out some siege weapons without a fort or to do what I previously described. Nice work!

I saw the 1,2,3 tiers of upgrades are available in the blacksmith. I think I like this change so far. Would it be good to correlate the tier 1,2,3 techs with phase 1,2,3 and make blacksmith available in p1? I feel this would be an interesting option to allow players to somewhat counter that booming=turtling situation that we have discussed a lot. If I remember correctly @ValihrAnt you came up with the third tier? what do you think?

Ok I got the svn version and tried it with my brother, it seems the fighting is much faster paced which I like. Who wants to setup some kind of TG on the svn version? I think we could do a TG using as many different civs as possible, to get a feel for the balance.

From what I remember, this was to allow mauryas to more easily train that archer champion. Sparta has an identically functioning building called "mess hall" that can be built as much as needed as well.