BreakfastBurrito_007

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.

The shortest story is that Mace is bad in a24 and you will be at a disadvantage no matter what you do.

Indeed, also they are the same range as archers I think, so archers can focus them down quickly. The best strategy is probably to have at least 2 siege towers and force an enemy to fight under them, you can use rams and pikes to threaten core buildings and force an enemy to come die to your towers.

I have played it once or twice, and so far it seems the best thing to do, especially if there are archers is to do pikes+skirms +rams+siege towers. Some people are trolls and go for up to 10 siege towers and this is frustrating, but usually 2 siege towers can be incredibly useful to go with your army if you know how to position them. Macedonians also have a hero who buffs rams and (I think) siege towers. I think it is best to have mostly pikes, but have skirms available to kill elephants, because these will threaten your siege. The truth is that macedonians have always been good at siege, and now that roman range siege is very bad, I would argue that mace have the best siege. Don't get mercs, they are not good, especially merc archers, as a maur enemy will have way more and they will only cost 50 food 50 wood. I have not tried champions, I have seen some people get crossbowmen, but I heard mixed feelings about them. I suspect they are worse than champ archers.

@LetswaveaBook@wowgetoffyourcellphone I had thought of this debate before and I feel a middle ground is nice. This is why I think the armor upgrades should be more general because it gives you some general confidence in your units not dying quickly to towers, also it is a good option for people who want uprgades, but are unsure what their composition will be. For attack, I feel there should be more strategy than just getting as many upgrades as possible before the first fight. I think it should be prohibitively expensive to get all the blacksmith upgrades at once (I do this in 4v4s it usually takes me 2-3 minutes and is very boring), it should be more practical to get the ones that give you the most benefit first, and then if someone comes up with a counter to your composition you should think about getting upgrades on other units. If some of your units are more benefitted than others by the choices of upgrades you made, then it makes sense to not leave them behind to collect resources when you go to fight. I think we can make the upgrades cheaper if there are more of them, this way, if you have a good strategy you can reach a powerful, upgraded unit composition sooner than someone who blindly wants to get all upgrades for all units. Also, if the upgrades are fairly cheap, then it should not be terribly hard to upgrade those units/unit categories that you want to include in your army. Beyond the somewhat boring +percentage attack damage method of blacksmith attack upgrades, what do you guys think about the "unit perks" I talked about? I feel these have the potential to make units perform a little more distinctly. @LetswaveaBook I do agree with @wowgetoffyourcellphone on the p2 blanket damage increase upgrade, it would be a must-get upgrade that would simplify the game too much. I think it should take some thought to get the right blacksmith upgrades.

Mercenaries are unusable at the moment, and I foresee them also being bad in a25. From what I have seen of the merc changes, they will still cost 60 metal and not be rank 3, which is not worth it unless a player has 4-5 metal mines available. Since seles effectively only have skirmisher cavalry and archer cavalry. It makes it extremely awkward to play their cavalry, and if archers along with archer cavalry are nerfed in a25 seles will no longer be a cav civ.

@LetswaveaBook you mentioned seleucid companion cavalry, are seles getting a melee cav in a25?