BreakfastBurrito_007

I have my worries about this too, I think it is essential to increase the amount of metal available to players on average. I think replacing the little stone mines with metal mines would be fine. Another option would be to increase the capacity of large metal mines from 5000 to 10000. I feel 60 metal is too high for mercenaries especially if they only come out as advanced rather than veteran, but that also trade could be used to abuse the low total cost. I would be in favor of making mercenaries be 40 metal for inf and 50 metal for cav, and then the other resources adding up to 60 for inf or 60+50 food for cav. Mercs would also starting in advanced rank. I think having a still metal intensive, but more distributed cost, makes them both less spammable from starting metal in p1 and more attainable throughout the game. Overall, I think this cost is best to put them in the suitable role. Unfortunately, it seems the momentum is with doubling down on mercs costing only metal. If more people read this and are in agreement, then perhaps we could eventually test this cost setup combined with the p1 upgrade for the barracks in a mod.

I think one of the changes of https://code.wildfiregames.com/D3699 (as I understand) is the new training times for mercs are .5 the training times for their corresponding CS type, which I think comes out close to the value you suggested. Do you think making the tech cost 200 food 100 wood 100 metal is a good way to prevent merc spam with starting res from being a default strategy? The extra feature of the tech you mentioned are potentially nice, but would probably complicate the discussion about this feature a bit too much. If someone makes a mod with these features, then we could try a 4v4 and determine if the p1 mercs need further adjusting. If they do, we could include one of the smaller extra bonuses you mentioned for this. If someone is interested enough to make a mod, it should definitely include https://code.wildfiregames.com/D3699 in it, since this seems likely to be implemented in a25, and is the cost/power balance considered in this topic.

From the (a24) games I have seen/played people usually linger in p1 until they are between 8:30 and 11 minutes. About a minute longer than it was in a23. P2 usually comes when food/wood production is fast enough to shrug off the 500 food 500 wood cost of p2. My thinking is that earlier (3-6 minute) merc rushes could be done using 5-10 mercs (changing back to eco after this rush would be a bit like a dark age rush to eco transition from AoE2). Later rushes (like 6-9 minutes) would be on a range between harassment and full attack and on a range of merc investments (are you full mercs or only 20% mercs?).

Example: Ptol skirmisher mercenaries are a good example. starting metal is a good issue and I am glad you brought it up. 300 metal spam is definitely a problem, considering this would enable 5 mercs to be made as soon as one finishes a barracks. I think it would be reasonable to have a 200 food 100 wood 100 metal (maybe changed to same cost as fertility festival) upgrade at barrack called "diplomacy" that enables mercenaries for the rest of the game, but in p1(as we discussed before) only certain mercs are available (1 or 2) not the whole selection. I think this could make it economically too awkward (need to afford barracks + 'diplomacy'+ miners to get metal+regular food/wood eco) to start a game by making a barracks within 40 seconds and instantly training as many mercs as possible, but that way it could remain an outlandish and usually unsuccessful strategy. A standard merc rush should not be seen before minutes 3-4 which is pretty reasonable from a rush standpoint and a spam standpoint, this is enough time for players to choose their plan and not be overwhelmed by mercs. The benefits of "diplomacy" tech to this mechanic would be that you will have great challenges to do a merc rush with only starting res. Because of the metal and food and wood cost of the tech: A 300 metal spam rush is turned into 30 seconds later and 200 metal spam merc rush due to the metal cost of tech an opportunity cost of food and wood (not enough wood for houses and men after buying barracks and upgrade, not enough food for usual rate of women production). Ideally there would be enough starting metal to help a merc rush, but only significant if there is enough eco to provide the extra metal, which can only come after producing a certain number of CS and women. greater inability to get eco upgrades I think this would prevent spam at the start and also make the merc rush a more nuanced mechanic rather than a gimmick at the beginning of the game like you said. Tell me what you think. @Dizaka what do you think of the upgrade timing/cost/research location

Hmm, I see. Perhaps after p1 the civs with mercs go from being able to train only 1 type or 2 types to being able to train their whole selection of mercs? I think archery tradition should be moved to p3 anyway. Along with the inclusion of p2 champs for another, potentially overlapping batch of civs, this could make p2 more interesting and less formulated as a way to go p3 fastest. @Dizaka@LetswaveaBookDo we agree that capturable buildings for mercs are a little too random to be put in the general game, but could be an add on feature in game setup? Also @LetswaveaBook do you have issues with limited merc options from barracks in p1? or were you just saying they should be more diverse in p2? Remember, most civs with p1 mercs would only have the 1 merc option, maybe 1 or 2 civs have 2 options. It would not be moving all merc options for each civ to p1. Also, p2 champs will probably, hopefully return for some civs in a25 (I have heard positivity feeling about this).

Ok, the way you say it. It certainly does make sense as an optional extra add on for gameplay, like regicide or relics. The main thing I set out to discuss was whether mercs, balanced as they are in a25, could be available in varying amounts of selection in p1 in the barracks for civs that have mercs. And also whether this would help or hurt the general gameplay in p1.

Does each player get one that is close to their base to capture? or can a player find one and then get a sudden luck-based power spike? What are the main benefits to the gameplay of making mercenaries trainable from gaia buildings which can be captured? I don't see any problems with this as a separate game modification like relics, but I don't think I would like it as a standard feature.

@chrstgtr@Palaiologos@Dizaka@faction02 @ValihrAnt @borg- do you think this would be broken/frustrating or fun/varied? Also do you agree that it would help with booming=turtling and civ differentiation?

Yea. I was thinking for example: iber should probably not have this option since they have no mercs at the other phases and already have great defense. And then also britons have dogs and skirm cav combo, which are themselves a unique kind of rush.

@Thorfinn the Shallow Minded It is more a gameplay feature than a historical accuracy feature. The point is to give players more lethal options in p1 that enable them to attack/beat enemy eco in more ways than just going after women. I think the feature would combine nicely with the existing ways to rush, including CS, cavalry, building, outpost. If this is implemented alongside the planned mercenary changes and nerfs to building arrows and palisades, and the reduction in rotation speed for units, then a25 could have a great variation in game progression, with each player potentially taking different feasible strategies with different amounts of defenses, mercenaries/cav for offense, and citizen soldiers/women for eco power.

@Lion.Kanzen This is an option indeed, but it gives me some painful AoE3 flashbacks lol. I did not like so much the heavy interaction with Gaia in that game, for treasures, trade route, hero tricks etc. Would the building be destroyable? could you get territory root from it? Is there one for each player? Are they defended by Gaia soldiers? My main worry with the capturable building method is forcing the player to either go with no mercs, or dedicate for a bit. In my opinion there is also too much chance, depending on if they can find the building quickly or not. Allowing training from barracks means that player can choose eco units (CS) or mercs in varying amounts at varying times from that barracks, perhaps while still training women from cc. I think training from barracks is good because it allows players to know their options at the start of a match and formulate and adjust a plan from then on. Also, players may want to combine different kinds of p1 aggression like building rushes, merc rushes, CS rushes, cav rushes, and not "buy into" one particular kind (even if the cost is idle time from CS to capture building). I think it adds too much randomness to the game, it is a similar reason people don't always want to play with relics.

In addition, you can still get the farming and lumber upgrades without going to mine more metal.

This assumes mercenaries are: train fast, and come out at advanced rank, and come from barracks in p1. The cost depends on whether https://code.wildfiregames.com/D3665 is adopted or not, so far it seems like https://code.wildfiregames.com/D3699 will be, which I think I like as well. I think the second option is best for p1 mercs since it means you must divert some reasonable eco to metal in order to have a mercenary rush, rather than instantly spamming out a powerful army of mercs from starting resources only. This addition helps solve a few problems: Civ differentiation: some civs have 1 merc type available, some have 2, some have none. We would need to make sure those civs with no p1 mercs still have a good rushing option like cavalry or dogs (brit) or have some kind of defense advantage (iber). booming=turtling discussion: CS (citizen soldiers) can be beaten by an attacker who uses mercs or mercs+CS. This means it is necessary to actively protect yourself with some walls, some towers to have a successful boom if you get plan not to make a strong army yourself (no mercs or cavalry). This way, eco does not necessarily mean good defense. I could imagine you are scouting with your starting horse and you see enemy has a barracks, so your enemy is training men, but then you see your enemy has 3-5 people mining metal and you can assume your enemy is going for mercs. This is a big UH OH, so you want to either get your own mercs or wall/tower up ASAP and hope for the best. What are your thoughts about this? I am thinking this would be great but metal availability/usage should be solved first, in the interest of not just this mechanic, but also for siege/ champs in late game.

Big agree. Often in a24, a person far behind in eco is not in big trouble, all they need to do is spam forts and archers and palisades and they will live a long time. I don't think that the infeasibility of rushing is due to CS, a23 and prior alphas had good rushing option in p1, and limited attack options in p2 as opposed to almost no attack options in p2 in a24. I think a fun and great option could be to allow most civs to train one or two types of their merc in p1 (from barracks). This could mean you could choose a range of p1 aggression strategies, depending on how much metal you mine in p1, which is eco that is diverted from long term growth, unlike the citizen soldier only rush. This hinges on mercs being cost/power balanced. Ideally, if you don't plan on making a powerful p1 raiding force with mercs/CS, then you would need to make some defenses to avoid being overwhelmed by the combination of CS and mercs.

yes, this is how it would go. I think it could create some bad gameplay results, but I still think it would be nice to have some relationship between barter rate and trade incomes for resources.

I don't think that there is one particular thing that is contributing to the endless 4v4s/ turtling. The stone/metal imbalance is frustrating and it causes metal intensive things such as rams/eles/champs (things that can win a game) to be used with the utmost caution while stone intensive things can be easily replaced (forts/towers/ccs/temples) and can make games last longer. People have said a good way to balance stone/ metal would be to make the "small" sources that can appear on each map all metal rather than all stone, this might just be on mainland. In 4v4s in 24 we have tried larger maps to free up space but it did not help that much, although it made cavalry slightly easier to use. I think a map size slider would be nice (with upper and lower limits) to take over the map sizes: "normal" vs "medium" vs "large". Current map sizes could then be labeled points along that slider.

Also having separate embassies means each one is easier to target for coercion and attack, like the suspected microwaves on U.S. embassies. + specific to 0ad it is nicer to pay for individual embassies since usually it is because you are after a specific two mercs from those. There is redundancy between some of the available mercs and people would not want to pay more for something they don't intend on training.

Wait we can make jesus!!! OP hero. Maybe he should have a feature where he dies and then your temples change into churches wow. Maybe he can train apostles (up to 12). Maybe jesus could make a trickle of food as a hero bonus. From the miracle of spontaneously multiplying the food for all those people that one time.

Age games tend to have a really good balance system, but 0ad has another layer of complexity because we have citizen soldiers. I think most people will agree that a23 was more fun than a24, but many good features and changes came in a24 (blacksmith upgrade categories, stables, melee vs ranged balance, viable champs) that are being overshadowed by some of the bad things (ranged vs ranged balance, palisade spam, not enough metal, really bad mercs, turtleing). I am optimistic about a25.

Mauryans, Persians (champion chariot archers). Lag is a problem, but it's not so bad on certain biomes of mainland and with pop cap of 200. I think the main thing that makes micro frustrating/ not worth trying a lot of the time is the longer unit rotation times. From what I understand the unit rotations for CS are going to be reduced, and the number of necessary buildings will also be reduced, (faster unit production). My hope is also that forts, towers, and ccs will see range and damage and health (forts and towers) rebalances after their buff in a24. These things will make the congestion considerably less in the games, and make non brute-force strategies more viable. As for successor civs, I think Seles are my favorite in this alpha, try combining a couple garrisoned siege towers and eles against some archers, along with a big army with plenty of pikes and spears. If you send this army with the ele hero, be careful to go for a good target where the archers will be forced to die to your siege towers.

@PyrrhicVictoryGuyIt seems you know firsthand the struggles of playing a non-archer civ versus archer civ. I know 1v1s can be frustrating or stressful, and this is why I stick to Team games.

@Yekaterina 13-14 minute was the big fight time for almost all the games I played and watched. (for a 4v4 on mainland). This is one of the first things I noticed about a24.

I would argue that unit speed is actually not that important in woodcutting. If you add up the effects of unit rotation, pathfinding, and storehouse proximity, these things matter much much more than skirmishers being .5 to 1 m/s faster. If the storehouse is close as it should be, unit rotation takes up a greater portion of the time to move between the tree and storehouse too.

Yea. As I was thinking about it I was wondering whether it would be more a fun mechanic or just an economic frustration. Also, I am thinking that someone could re-inforce their income by bartering for metal to make traders, thereby increasing their revenue. If players have 50-60 CS on wood, then they could float wood, and continually barter wood to keep metal super expensive, and then earn a ludicrous amount of metal from only 10-15 traders which they could use to buy a lot of mercenaries. @chrstgtr thanks for the feedback.

A couple other considerations: Maybe the relationship should be a more simple LINEAR relationship: if wood is maxed out in the barter-market, wood trades for 5x as much value as the default amount and the other resources are all 1/5 of their original rates. This sounds extreme, but its intended purpose is to make people weigh the benefits/problems of: floating resources, bartering excessively, and what units they should make from their trade revenue. It will also make it harder to manage a full-trade economy. This will also introduce a risk/saftey spectrum to trading, do you want to spread out your trade income across 2-3 resources or go all-in for a particular resource because it is valuable at the moment. Another cool feature that would limit/complicate this mechanic could be if traders can only react to a change in the trade resource choices once they reach the next market, because they can't just drop their current stock. If a player changed their resources based upon a sudden change in barter values, then it is possible it could change by the time the trader is able to pick up the next round of stock at destination/origin market. If a trader is in transit, then the values of what they carry still apply, so the traders could lose some value of what they carry even if the value was high when they picked up their stock at the last market. The goal of these changes would be to revolutionize the way trading is done in 0ad, going from a boring extreme-late-game mechanic to a a variable economic strategy with risk and reward beyond the cost of traders unit training costs. I could even see trade being chosen at earlier times in some games if players anticipate extreme barter rates that can happen as people gear up for the big P3 fights. @Dizaka@Player of 0AD@Palaiogos @chrstgtr@ValihrAnt What do you think of the idea? To me it seems possible and potentially a really fun gameplay mechanic. Also this is a good way to make trading less of a guaranteed way of getting metal since otherwise it would be too easy to spam mercenaries from trade (in a24 mercenaries are the cheapest unit to get from trade).