BreakfastBurrito_007

Hello again everyone! I had an idea today to improve the "archery tradition" tech available to some archer civs. I think it should return to being a tradeoff tech like in alpha 23 but with some changes. 0 resource cost and instant research: a decision kinda like the seleucid champion infantry research add a drawback and a bonus with an overall effect depending on the situation in game (not necessarily a buff or nerf tech) The idea is to make archers with archery tradition beat other archers like in a24 by a significant (not OP) margin, but increase the vulnerability of them such that more units or buildings are needed to protect them from melee cavalry or melee inf. potential combinations of improvements and drawbacks: +10 meters range BUT establish minimum range (5 meters) where the archer would go to attack units further away. +10 meters BUT reduce HP (a little) +10 meters +15% damage BUT reduce HP(a little) reduce pierce and hack armor (a little) I think that if archers were nerfed in a25 to a reasonable level, then this upgrade could give some options to civs that would usually get archers, like mauryans. If a maur player is against a cavalry civ, or a civ with no archers, it is smart for that maur player to choose regular archers. But if the maur player is against regular archers, such as carthage, then it is smart for maur player to get archery tradition. But if a25 makes mercenaries balanced and effective (but still more expensive), then the carthage player could pull a surprise by investing time and res into merc shops and merc uprgades and mercs and showing up with mercenary sword cav. Balance considerations: getting this tech would have no repercussions like less training time from cc or resource cost (like a24) hence it should not be allowed until p3. Archer cavalry maybe should not be affected by the change, depending on the combination of buff and nerf chosen by the developers for the upgrade. I posted this here because there are many good ideas for a25 here and because I could find no other channels related to a25 that were open to public contribution.

Hello again everybody, I was trying to get a multiplayer game going with the mod recently and I tried to update from the first version. I tried to get "letsfight_v0.2.2.pyromod" as it seemed to be the most recent version and the one the host was using. When I downloaded the mods and installed them by following the same procedure as the first release, it seemed to replace the first version of the mod but keep the old name of the first release along with (2.2) after the name. After I save configuration and start mods and go to join a game, I find that I need the "letsfight_v0.2.2" rather than the "letsfight (2.2)" I am not very good at computer stuff so perhaps someone could point to what I am doing wrong. Thanks in advance!

Hello @letsplay0ad, These changes seem very well thought out and should make the gameplay a little more dynamic and less stabilized. Ideally, as players test the mod we could decide what parts are really good (candidate changes for a25) or what values could be tweaked. It would be awesome to see a25 take this direction. Nice work!

Hey @hyperion Thank you for the response. I feel the late game stability is much stronger than you stated it to be, at least in the 4v4 setup that is most common. I do not have any replays to post because I don't know how to do that, but I am sure that you have heard of or even played one of these endless 4v4s. In retrospect, the a23 level of instability was a bit high during 15-25 minutes, but not quite the spike that comes with a24 at 18 minutes (due to the speed at which multiple eles and rams can be acquired). Usually there are 2 outcomes to a balanced 4v4, the game ends at 20 minutes and things are labeled "OP" or teams are considered "imbalanced", or players survive the 17-21 minute instability spike and then the game becomes stagnated and endless. I think that while these things are considered and debated for a25, we should talk about how we can change our 4v4 setups so we can still have fun in a24. Larger maps could enable more movement which would make it more unstable, make metal more available late game and let more players access enough gold. This change would also reduce choke-points, reduce effectiveness of defenses ( since you already need to build way more buildings in total than in a23), and make archers' vulnerabilities more pronounced and exploitable. Larger maps also make more lag, so this would not work for every 4v4. Perhaps playing with only 1 fort allowed at any time, (if it is destroyed can rebuild). This would prevent some overwhelming fort spam. In one instance, @Dizaka built forts around the edge of the map faster than @chrstgtr could destroy them with large numbers of siege (he made it about (2/3)*pi around the circle). I am not as sure about this one so someone could convince me that it might be bad. This is one thing that I think makes AoE2 such a good game so long after being initially released. It seems to be slightly unstable throughout most matches, so you could expect game-changing decisions and developments to be made at any time. I think a slight instability rewards action and creative strategies, but does not guarantee more success like in the case of too much instability at 17 to 21 minutes in a24,. I understand that it is incredibly complicated to design a game to have such an ideal and controlled level of stability/ instability, but I think it is an aspect worth improving for a25. disclaimer: I never played AoE2, have only watched some videos of team games and 1v1s.

Hello everyone, @chrstgtr @Dizaka @bbgotbanned @PistolPete @cobrakai@badosu I have seen much frustration with the new alpha and it is much more worrisome than archers and eles being slightly too powerful or metal being too valuable. The problem is 4v4 gameplay pacing. I have been talking to players I often do 4v4s with recently and have been formulating my response to this for some time. This is what I believe to be causing the endless 4v4s we have seen so much recently. One point of concern is that these stalemates can happen even when teams are moderately imbalanced. I am sure you have all seen stable vs unstable systems. A stable system has forces built in to return it to its original state if it starts to move. An unstable system has forces built in to push the system away from its original state if it starts to move. I give the example of a ball on a hill or in a valley: In an unstable system (top of hill), any motion of the ball will compound and the ball will accelerate. In a stable system (bottom of valley), the ball will roll back to the bottom after being nudged. Go to attached to see diagrams demonstrating stable vs instable systems (page 1). In a 0ad 4v4 application, one team can try very hard to beat the enemy and either their efforts will "snowball" (grant more successes) or it will be costly and not achieve much. In an unstable 0ad 4v4, a team who wins a battle can expect to win in their next few engagements unless they make a mistake or their enemy gets clever, usually this leads to a victory overall. In a stable 0ad 4v4, a team who wins a battle does not see a "snowballing" or "compounding" effect on their next fights, and you can expect the game to return to the original situation. In 0ad, an unstable situation makes things that are slightly overpowered (like slingers in a23 or eles and archers in a24) seem very OP; in addition, it makes the teams seem less balanced than they may have been. Often in a24 4v4s the situation after 20 minutes is stable. This means a team has to work very hard to win even if they have some serious advantages. I have made some graphs depicting the stability level of 4v4s of different alphas (23 and 24) as they progress in time from 0 minutes to 1 hour. I include examples of what players might see at particular times. Go to attached to see a23 diagram (page 2) In a23, for a balanced game, it could be quite intense due to the moderate instability of the gameplay most of the time. Go to attached to see a24 diagram (page 3) in a24, after a brief period (17-21 minutes) of high gameplay instability, a balanced 4v4 can stabilize and become endless. This way, 4v4s either seem super imbalanced if they end around 20 minutes and seem gridlocked if they last any longer. I am not sure what causes this behavior in 4v4s. But I will list some of my suggestions in bullet points. map gets fully built up so there is no unoccupied land ( all 4v4s have been played on same map size as usual a23 4v4s). This seems to make movement and flanking attacks very hard. This matches poorly with tower and fort defensive buff. metal runs out for all players quite quickly, even if it is evenly distributed. This means more lethal options like rams/eles/champions are harder to get. Somehow, it is easier for players to rebuild all the way (idk about this one but I saw it quite a few times) I hope to get at least some people agreeing with my assessment and adding some extra detail as to what is causing this gameplay quality problem. The endless 4v4s truly are frustrating and boring. I think there are many great changes with a24, like stables, blacksmith changes; people like to point out problems, but I think this issue is the only serious gameplay problem with a24. If we can find what is causing this issue we could have a 0ad that is mildly unstable. A mildly unstable 0ad means for the duration of a balanced game, it seems like either team can win at any moment rather than a stalemate, which makes for an intense and fun game. Some players had similar frustration and I am hoping I am being accurate for those who did not put a finger on how to describe it. I think a revert to a23 would be very sad and a last resort situation, considering what a leap some features are, and how much awesome work went into the new alpha. (Also, please excuse my handwriting, I know many other people grew up with other alphabets and have better handwriting than me :I.) 0ad Stability Charts.pdf

Hello everyone, I have an idea to consider for the balanced maps mod if it is being updated for a24. I thought, from a few different 4v4s, and discussing with different players, that metal seems to be way too scarce as a resource. Right now many things cost metal, some p3 buildings, eco upgrades, military upgrades, siege or eles, swords for anti-ram, and don't forget hero. It is not that these are too expensive, it is that one metal mine (5000 metal) is not enough. The way it stands, a player who only has 1 metal mine is at an outrageous disadvantage to someone with 2 or 3. Often a player without extra metal has to barter for 2000 metal to catch up with a player who has more than 24 people on metal. Total resource costs for mercs and champions have been reduced but metal cost remains high. In a 4v4, metal on the entire map quickly runs out so that no one can make these units (also some civs depend on mercs for anti-ram). One solution could be to have metal mines be upgraded from 5000 to between 8000 and 10000 metal. Certainly it would make sense to playtest this before making it final, as it would be undesirable to have no economic reason to expand. Another way to fix this could be to replace the small stone mines in mainland valued at 1000 with metal mines worth the same.

Well, basically the problem went away as suddenly as it came up. I sure hope it does not return. Thanks for helping me out nonetheless!

Ok, my brother and I tried a number of things. 1. LAN games: He hosted a LAN game, and I joined, there was lag and even some times where the connection warning said I was losing connection. When I hosted one for him to join, He lagged in the exact same way. 2. MP games: in normal multiplayer no connection warnings appear for him on hosts where I left because of lag. From a Larger survey of hosts, it seems the only host I can reliably connect to is the one from USA. Also, it seems that my brother has the same problem just not as severe. Here are some screenshots from an MP game that had only 2 players and me as spectator to test. I have Activity Monitor running as well.

Ok so I was in a game where I was lagging badly enough for the host to kick, then my brother rejoined the same game and he had no connection issues (same computer and net).

Hi wraitii, It's awesome to hear about the disconnect issue being fixed. As for the lag I cause on certain 0ad hosts, I have logged onto my brother's computer (same model and OS version) and tried the same hosts at the same time and confirmed that he does not experience any lag. I live in Oregon, USA, which is on the West coast. When he comes back I am thinking of copying the settings for 0ad he has arranged on his computer; I don't know if there are some settings that impact connection. Last night I tried finding the ping of the connection to 0ad and it seemed to be averaging around 300 ms. That was on a host who lives in the USA as well. I saw that I was lagging only a little, so it seems my connection is worse across the board, unlike what I observed earlier (about lag only on certain hosts). I will provide an update about the settings experiment sometime soon. The help is much appreciated!

Hello all, I have been having some strange new lag problems that I have never seen before. I used to play 0ad on a 2011 Mac desktop, but I have recently changed to a 2016 macbook pro. On the 2011 mac I had never experienced myself lagging out a server except when my internet was underperforming. On the new computer, I have found that on certain hosts, I consistently lag bad enough that hosts kick me upon entry (even before game launch), while on other hosts my connection has absolutely no lag whatsoever. I tried different hosts soon after one another (to minimize changes in conditions), and considering different days; the lag is always there for the same handful of hosting players and never there for another handful of hosting players. Are there ways I can view my connection statistics to the host or does anyone have any advice on this problem? To me it remains enigmatic. I posted here because I could not find a similar discussion elsewhere and because people in the lobby seem indifferent about the issue. I hope someone can at least shed some light on this issue or what problems I might be facing.

Well I was thinking about getting the testing version for mac and I realized my computer isn't able to update to run the version since its from 2011. Will the new alpha also only be supported on newer versions of Mac OS? If so, it looks like breaky will be squinting at a 13 inch macbook pro rather than the giant 27 inch from 2011 lol.

Hmm these factions in these other mods sound really cool. Is there any talk of adapting them or some of them into a future alpha like there is with the Borg mod?

Post here about any new civ ideas or critique of other's ideas. I have been thinking about what makes a good civilization in 0AD. Ptolemies are a great example of a creative faction, they have some wildly different gameplay options than with other factions in 0AD. I thought another cool civ could be a central asian origin nomadic group. The huns are a good example although they invade Europe later than the 500 BC to beginning of the common era. I am not sure if anyone else has thought of such a civ, but I could not find anything similar on the forums. I think there are a lot of interesting gameplay features that could be put in for the Huns (or whatever group). Mobile buildings. Buildings could have a food or wood (or both) cost to pack them up into carts like the catapults. Larger buildings cost more and take more time to pack up and unpack. Buildings should not be able to train or research when packed. Houses and corrals could have a food cost added like 25 food 50 wood or 50 food 25 wood. Larger buildings should probably just cost wood and mineables like other factions. Fort might be hard to balance... maybe adjusted to a strong military camp type thing 3000 hp? Also the buildings could maybe be built to start or maybe you have to train them from cc. Territory rules apply for unpacking-placement just as for other civs. Units. Huns could be another faction to use the stables to train horses. The huns should have access to a horse archer unit that has similar cost and power as skiritai commandos as well as champion melee and ranged cav and other, cheaper citizen cav. Only siege would be ram unless someone finds another good siege unit for them to operate. Economy. The Huns should be a civ that encourages or forces corrals to be used (I'm not sure which) since they were pastoral. They could have a better corral system plus some interesting not op upgrades. Hopefully the huns would wind up being the least wood intensive faction but not so much that they would be the only option on maps with less wood. They would also require more food thanks to cavalry and food in building costs. I am sure there are other people with creative ideas out there, this one was bugging me so I wanted to see if anyone else thought this was a good idea. Also there could be some very interesting artwork for this civ.

For the 60 slings to 1 enemy issue there could be a volley mode set as a working formation. The sum of all the damage from all the archers or slingers shooting at once could be cut by a ratio and then randomly distributed to a formation that is attacked. It might be possible to create an algorithm that estimates the population density of the formation being attacked by archers and then uses that to assign a ratio for how many arrows hit. Parts of the attacked formation that lie outside the range of the center of the archer group that is attacking should not be factored into the area of the formation or the number in the formation. That way the damage done from the formation of archers is naturally varied between the formation under fire and the range of the archers is not violated. Also a really cool trajectory animation for arrows could be made. ;D. This might also be a good way to give archers something that slingers and skirmishers don't. I have no experience developing anything, but this does seem rather difficult to do. Yikes. I was frankly just wondering if you guys thought this would be cool or even a good gameplay addition.

There is the opportunity cost of workers' labor... could be mining shooting whatever. However I think adding a repair cost might also be good.

Hmm, I am a noob and all but I thought about melee infantry only being able to walk up to enemies to kill them, even at similar speed to ranged infantry. From my experience some melee units seem to have difficulty chasing down lone rams, which seems weird. I think infantry should be able to break into a run when attacking units within a certain distance. This would mean you would need to protect your ranged infantry from melee units and rams could be more easily stopped. I think the run speed for infantry should be their current run speed unless it needs balancing. I think this could help make archers more effective since their range would allow them to stay behind melee infantry and still shoot units. If this is dumb please don't lambast me, but do let me know what you think. I posted this on some other balance related forum but I then realized it was very old.

Hmm, I am a noob and all but I thought about melee infantry only being able to walk up to enemies to kill them, even at similar speed to ranged infantry. From my experience some melee units seem to have difficulty chasing down lone rams, which seems weird. I think infantry should be able to break into a run when attacking units within a certain distance. This would mean you would need to protect your ranged infantry from melee units and rams could be more easily stopped. I think the run speed for infantry should be made up their current run speed unless it needs balancing.

Ah, very impressive! I was able to stop the fgod mod and then I could disable TLS which I found in the settings in the regular version of OAD. Thank you so much for your help!

Here are the versions of the macs: bad mac: Mac OS X Yosemite 10.10.5 good mac: Mac OS X Sierra 10.12.6 And also I don't know what TLS is or where to find it in the settings. Here is a screenshot of the error

I am not good with computers. I directly downloaded a23 (new) from the website and found that when it completed it changed the date modified to december 12 which does not make sense. Also when I finished the process, I opened the game and started to go to the multiplayer lobby which made the game show *connecting* for a while, then OAD quit unexpectedly. I had previously tried the indirect download which turned out to be "seeding" indefinitely in UTorrent. I am not sure what the issue is since it worked on another mac just fine.