BreakfastBurrito_007

Are lancers and spearcav being differentiated in a25? It just sounds like they are/will be.

It is indeed a map issue, however I think it would be nice if forts and towers costed a bit more stone. In a23 stone ran out a bit before metal because of the amount of slingers everyone was making, usually this would happen around minute 30 rather than 20, in most games people never saw stone completely run out, unless you were unlucky enough to only get one 5000 stone source. In a24 about half the time players can expect to have only 1 metal mine. Right now choosing map to increase metal means choosing a larger map, many players don't like this due to sometimes increased lag and some players just don't like walking so far. I usually like playing on bigger maps for 4v4s. I would like it if there was a size between medium and large, or better yet, a slider between minimum map size and maximum, with a percentage listed for consistency. Beyond metal supply issues, there is also the problem of having a maximum rate of 24 people on metal for one mine. Probably this is also solved by your mod. It remains to be seen how bad the metal problem is in a25.

@alre@Freagarach If I understood you guys correctly, this would mean that when garrisoning the fortress with ranged units, the ranged units appear on top, like on stone walls, and can be killed. How would this mechanic work? I imagine it would go along with a more comprehensive siege/fortress overhaul. I might make a separate topic to discuss this. Increase garrison limit of fort to 40. First 20 units just stay in fortress and don't go on top, additional units get sorted so that only ranged units go on top. If there are 19 spears and 1 archer, then garrisoning 1 extra spear would make the 1 archer automatically go on top. Top capacity: 30 units. I think a UI button could be added as a formation for fort: where you choose "man the walls" or "hold the gate". "hold the gate" maximizes your internal garrison and leaves remaining ranged units on top. "man the walls" moves up to 30 ranged units from your overall garrison to the top positions. ranged units on top of walls/fort do not contribute to arrows or capture defense. Bonus to ranged units on top of Fort: +20% range+200% hack and pierce armor. On top of wall: +10% range, +200% hack and pierce armor Units that can damage units on top of walls/fort: bolt shooters, archers, catapults (with splash), siege towers (explained below) arrows/bolt from siege tower do 5x damage bonus versus units garrisoned on top of stone wall and fortress, and normal damage to all other units. These changes would make defending forts a more active situation: I think we should remove 1250 HP from forts and raise their stone cost back up to 1000. Also, removing their territory root would be good. Fort's strength, low cost, and territory root made forts less about defense and more about drawing out the game time in a24. I think that britons' and gauls' rams should get + some hack armor, because it is very frustrating to send 5 rams to a fort so that a few cheap swordsmen can quickly de-garrison and kill the rams. The overall changes would make a fort/wall siege a more interesting mechanic that takes effort and planning from both sides to be successful, but a process that can be finished fairly quickly, unlike real medieval and ancient sieges.

I would say that autotraining is considerably worse than manually training. I could only see it being useful to resume wood gathering during/after a big attack when you are already at max pop and are losing units. @YekaterinaI don't know how to tell which diffs are being added to the game, or how to navigate that page very well. There was one that reduced elephant pierce armor while increasing HP and there was another that extended the 3x counter to cavalry found in spears and pikes to also include elephants, also another was to give ranged units 3x counter versus eles. I personally don't like that last one since I would hate to have my ele get deleted by a single volley of archers while it gets stuck on a tree XD. As for eles 1-banging units in game, I would say a spread attack of hack would be ideal, for the 120 ˚ angle forward of the ele. For that matter I would like to see splash return in some form for catas.

Hanni once got 9 catas in one.

Ok, I imagine it is a frustrating bug, but there are many issues that are more exciting/rewarding to work on, like new artwork, game mechanics, pathfinding, balance ect. This is like people who played cyberpunk 2077 complaining about small gaps between wheels of car and the road (if you get the reference).

hmm, I have not heard anyone explain why seles shouldn't have spearcav. Ah, well I suppose its past the feature freeze anyway. It sure would be a shame not to use that actor wink wink.

Can someone photoshop Borat in here? I feel like it would be funny.

less goooooo does this mean spearcav might make it into a25 for seles?

I totally agree that siege towers (and for that matter archer eles) ought to be more interesting/dynamic units. History is definitely the right thing to use for inspiration in this regard, but we should not be slaves to it. I do quite dislike the way elephant archers are used in a24, as simply meatier archers. I think making siege towers garrisonable with a variety of unit types could be fun/ interesting and owe to their flexibility (I'm no historian but it seems people can't quite agree with what should go in them, so why not any ranged unit?), we would need to be careful with the accuracy while moving (decrease), range and repeat rate values to make sure it stays balanced. Elephant archers and siege towers remain great topics for discussion during a25.

Not really. Just think about the time it takes to go p3 from p1, even with instantaneous buildings, and infinite resources it would take you 1 minute and 20 seconds just to go p3. then 30 seconds for the first ram. It would be impossible to get 1 ram by minute 5 if you have 300 f 300 w 300 s 300 m starting res. Anyway, 1 ram at minute 5 is no problem, just use women to kill it. Just because you can get p3 early does not mean you can get a p3 eco early. Also, people would see you phase up based upon the expansion of your territory, they would see the ram coming minutes in advance.

At first this seems outrageous, but is actually hella logical. This also opens up a bunch of possible strategies that are out of the envelope due to building constraints on going p2/p3.

don't they still have the spearcav, javelin cav, and champion "fire-cav"? I hope so. :I +speaking of adding cavalry...... How about adding a spearcav unit to seleucids? :D.

@Thorfinn the Shallow Minded So what would the gameplay role of siege towers be? would they kill infantry from 90 m, with bolt shooters? would they be stronger than rams in health, or in melee damage vs buildings? would they be able to destroy buildings from a distance? would they still need to be garrisoned by inf? From your description of their actual historical characteristics it seems like they would be a merge of all the siege engines available.

Sorry @Yekaterina, while you may be no artist, I am neither an artist or programmer. I am simple gamer. What I can say is that I dislike mercenary cost reduction as a tech or hero bonus that is available for only a few civs. This means that no one will use the mercs that can't use those bonuses. Also, we should not need a tech/hero bonus just to make mercs affordable for a subset of factions, they should be affordable for all civs that have mercs. Perhaps a mercenary armor buff like +3 hack +3 pierce would be nice with a range of 60 m. After all, mercenaries are in a tough position, and I don't expect them to be usable in a25 either.

Is it ok for a civ to have fewer heros? I mean sparta at the moment only has 2, one being pretty much useless. If Jesus were to be a great and versatile hero, I don't think people would complain if he was the only one from the civ.

Can't this already be done? If you garrison Caros (iber arrow hero) in a siege tower, the arrows go from 10 to 17, +75%. This is almost equal to 3 defense towers. unless the +75% arrows does not work for siege towers.

Formations were exclusively used to position units and dance. Since formations do not change unit stats, like the effect of "phalanx", it is not a loss to the game. It is still possible to use that one formation that puts healers in the middle which is obviously still useful. Also, players can still use a more manual approach to get effects in their fights. One time @Dizaka's ele spam was overcome by my border ally, and I think he ran out of metal ---> archie spam. I (with many metal mines) simply take 2 halves of my cav army and split early and converge on his archer ball and he is trapped. I think smooth movement in general will be much more welcome as a replacement for the formations which were necessitated by the bad pathing of units in a24.

Well I don't know if we want to have bolt shooters be that mobile.

I think a great way to nerf siege towers would be to make their arrow output equal to a fully garrisoned tower. Unless I am forgetting, siege towers have 10 arrows when fully garrisoned. 6 arrows instead of 10 would be nice. Also, improved pathfinding may make it easier for melee units to properly damage the siege towers as they retreat, which, in a24 is usually when melee units get stuck around each other w/rotation.

It indeed can be hard to position these siege pieces, as eles are quite fast. The payoff is big if you can position them nicely and force your enemy to fight under them, usually you need to estimate the level of ele threat and make sure you are ready for them when they come; 20-40 skirms can make eles die in 1-4 volleys, but they can die so fast that its hard to keep them in the army.

I should have elaborated about my advice about Mace. I don't know squat about 1v1s :D, I had been assuming TG. It is possible that mercs are actually usable in 1v1s because from what I see of the map generations, there is usually 2-3 times as much metal available. @LetswaveaBook in a balanced 1v1 have you had success using merc archers vs standard archers? I'm just curious, since this would be unheard of in a 4v4. I also wonder if mercs are more common in general in 1v1s?

Ay @chrstgtr do you think some degree of individuality should be added back into blacksmith?

As #1 A game consumer As #2 someone who has played many games with paired techs and without As #3 a guy who advocated for blacksmith to be generalized for a24 I feel like I can answer @Gurken Khan, just remember I am not a developer, rather an enthusiast. Paired techs are intended to introduce strategy to upgrade selection. I feel the a24 system is ok for armor, but perhaps it could be a bit more specific for the attack bonuses. For a player, the big charm is being able to tailor the upgrades for the army I am sending to my enemies, without spending a large excess of metal (that is needed to get all upgrades like people do in a24) and other resources that delay my attack and cause me to lack rams/champs/heros/mercs. I think adding unit specific upgrades available after the unit is fully upgraded could be an awesome addition to further distinguish the roles of different units and make the battle strategy more important as people get these upgrades, earlier I called them "unit-perks". Choosing a particular group of upgrades for my army means that I can have a military advantage I can choose as a player, which is an awesome dimension of strategy.

I would never count on having enough metal for champs, usually I make room to train champs if they become possible in a game, since it only requires a 600 food upgrade. Sometimes there is not enough to even get all the basic military upgrades and eco upgrades a hero and 1 ram. Not only is it hard with only 5000 max metal, it is also hard being limited to 24 miners, meaning you have to simply wait to get all of these things that another player could do simultaneously.