BreakfastBurrito_007

hmm, I think player selection allows for more skill here, assuming the different houses are properly balanced. I am assuming that these houses should probably be more expensive, like a merger of a barracks and house the size of the Carthaginian "apartment building". Perhaps Judeans could only train one unit from cc and unlock others by building houses. Perhaps even next phases could unlock new choices for houses. I think it is a great Idea and it is something refreshing and exciting. After a major period of time working on unit/siege balance, graphics, and gameplay mechanics, many people are in favor of adding civilization and unit differentiation to make the game more exciting and fun. I think there is already a thread somewhere about Judeans and there have been some wild ideas, like making a Jesus hero.

I think it should be, and now really is, a high-risk boom. It most certainly is faster than a men boom, and I have seen it employed a few times in a25 in TGs to great success.

This is quite smart actually, however, we would probably want to disable it for hunting for food. I would still like it if units did not have such a strong preference of what to attack in the first place, and at least have their next targets be close to their last target. Its one thing to be unable to kill the hero, but another to be unable to ignore the hero :I.

As most of you know I am not aware of what things are challenging to make features and what things are not. I notice that when I tell 20 archers to attack a unit, they first kill that unit (with a lot of overkill), but then pass on to a unit of their choosing. It seems that ranged units have a strong preference for melee units when they are choosing what to attack (maybe its just choosing the closer units). I have tried a few times but it seems to be impossible to keep archers focused at shooting skirmishers behind a wall of pikes. If this is happening as I have observed, then it usually leads to skirmishers killing the enemy melee faster than archers can do the same, which makes them better units in many battles. What if there was a way to make units prioritize the type of unit they were originally ordered to kill?. I feel that this would not only help with hero micro/dancing and archer/slinger frustrations, but it would also add a large amount of controllability to the units that would raise the skill ceiling of fights and make them more fun. Perhaps it could be added as *hold hotkey*-> *right click*

Just get the p3 eye upgrade XD. (joke)

I got camel rushed 3 or 4 times by juarca, who is better than me. It is frustrating, but it seems you can go back to work fairly easily, and if you have 4-5 spearcav you can trap and kill 10 or more camels with a bit of patience and planning, I had some luck vs 8 camels with 2 spearcav and a sentry tower and 4 skirms (women stayed chopping).

In my opinion, the games seem more flexibile in what your options are: this is from the availability and versatility of metal as well as the increased ways to move around the map. Games seem to be much faster paced and exciting. Also, one of my favorite new observations is that people are much less hesitant to fight. In a24, people would paddle back and forth without ever committing to anything, while in a25 a fight can happen suddenly and without a forseen outcome. Let me know what you think!

Obviously in some countries where climate change is politically charged, it makes sense for governments to go after the "easiest" carbon cuts first, like renewable energy and electrification. If the two are pursued at the same time, the benefits of both are increased. Having a greater renewables percentage in electricity improves the environmental benefits of electric vehicles. Also, expanding electrification requires adding electric generation capacity to the grid, of which wind and solar are the cheapest. In the debate about environmental benefits of electrification and renewables proposals, people often forget that electric things are quite frequently better than the gas powered things they replace. For example, my car has a 200 mile range and a 65 USD fuel tank, while a standard electric car with the same range can cost about 7 USD to fully charge. Also it is worth mentioning the pace at which transportation-sized batteries are improving, both in the power they can deliver, the time they charge, energy-density, composition of expensive/environmentally damaging materials.

I know that climate progress does depend at least somewhat on individual choices, but we can't forget how the governments and industries play such a powerful role in our daily life choices. I think there are many ways in which corporations could lead change or be forced to change. For example, what if industries were required to make their packaging easily recycle-able? In the USA there is a bunch of "do your duty: recycle!" attitude about packaging waste. But in order to recycle the packaging you must practically disassemble the packaging, separating plastic from cardboard, which almost no-one does because it can take minutes. If packaging took 5-10 seconds to disassemble, then recycling would be way easier. Even better yet, there could be ways to make these companies financially responsible for the waste from packaging their consumers buy with the products.

To be honest, I am very exited for this Sunday :D. Since I still have not gotten the SVN build to work, this Sunday will be my first time trying it out in a real TG.

Well and then theres the cav :D. Yea for sure Persians will also be good.

@Yekaterina so are you more worried about pikes being OP than archers being UP? I guess either way we will find out soon enough. I think it is a good result that archers are still very poweful when used with some care and skill, rather than yeeting 120 of them across the map like in a24.

SaidRdz would say otherwise lol, this is even before the new sparta spear upgrade. Anyway in a25 so far a 30 m radius can contain very many units.

don't worry the other two heroes are good enough, they don't need a third XD.

Yes, big agree. This is why we ought to play at least 5-6 games on RC5 before making a conclusion.

My bet is Sparta 100% because of new spear technology and good heros and good skirmishers. My thinking is that if we test RC5 this weekend and if we agree archers seem bad enough, then we can do an emergency balance correction so that a25 is at least fairly balanced when it comes out. I am in favor of something simple such as a little damage nerf for skirmishers, and/or a little buff for damage of archers.

@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.