BreakfastBurrito_007

Don't worry, as you gain experience it'll get easier to control your units. Take the case of repairing a dock, you might have an idea of what you want your units to do after repairing the dock, so just use shift to queue their next task. Even if you don't want them to do anything after repairing the dock, you can always use shift to tell them to move to a spot next to the dock so that they can wait for your next order.

@Gurken Khan I think it might be confusing at first, but I think most people would learn after realizing they are unselectable. There are probably some art tricks that may help them "belong" inside the barracks, like maybe giving them a duller version of the player color, or perhaps without player color.

@guerringuerrin I was thinking for the working barracks you could have a couple guys in there training with weapons, and then when idle those same guys would just sit on the floor cross-legged. I'm not sure how hard this would be to make, but it would a nice art/gameplay feature.

the hotkeys are not macros. They do not accomplish multiple tasks with one click or press. Also there is no need to modify the config file or anything fancy to set hotkeys, everything can be done easily through the 0ad menu. Are you suggesting that autociv has hidden features that allow you to create macros? I suspected some people would make this argument. And that is why it makes more sense to have it in the base game rather than autociv. Additionally if you compare random toggle selections without idle preference to clicking the buildings with a mouse, you'll find toggling actually results in more actions because there is no way to know which barracks is next on the toggle list. Adding the idle preference takes away the unpredictability of the toggle selection, but each barracks would still need to be selected and then set to a task.

yep, thats why you would choose the 5-10 you want to use or the ones you keep forgetting. Does it make sense now? Of course no one uses all the available hotkeys.

nah, I meant like in the top right corner or something as you play the game, with a show/no show toggle option.

Autociv is a great mod for 0ad. It helps make hosting easier and faster, adds chat options like /link /mute and stuff, and provides a multitude of hotkeys so that you can pick and choose which ones are most useful for your gameplay. There are a bunch of hotkeys that are expected for a standard rts game, and none of them allow the player to move multiple actions into one button (this would be a macro and therefore cheating). While progui has some quite egregious macros, there was at least the positive vision of reducing the necessary clicks to play 0ad. The vision fell apart when reducing clicks turned into reducing actions, and then decisions; resulting in a more boring, automated gaming experience. Among the most useful hotkeys for autociv are buttons you can assign to toggle through your buildings of that type. For example you can use a button to select each barracks one at a time and then proceed to tell it to get working even if your screen is not over the barracks. Even with these hotkeys, I still find that the fastest way to train with barracks and stables, or get upgrades with storehouses and blacksmiths is to manually click through them. This necessitates a click on the minimap to go to your base and then a double click to select all. I think these hotkeys that toggle through buildings should have a preference for the buildings that are idle, so that you don't have to search through each building to find the one or two that are idle. I think this would enhance gameplay by improving the possible rate of multitasking. Keep in mind that these hotkeys do not reduce the actions and decisions a player must make, it just reduces the use of the mouse for those same actions. Because the player would then be able to train without looking back at the base, I'd consider it a big enough advantage (as well as an expected feature) that it should be available in the base game without getting autociv. This being said, I know devs are busy with other things at the moment including performance, balance, and content. I'd mainly like to see what other people think about the idle preference for this hotkey including @nani who made autociv. Also, do you guys think it would be cool to have a visual queue that shows when a building is working or idle? For example blacksmith smoke could be only present (or maybe thicker/darker) when upgrades are being worked on, or maybe some action could be visible inside the stable or barracks to show training.

I think it would be cool to be able to select a menu of your favorite hotkeys to show somewhere on-sreen while playing. I am trying to use more hotkeys now-a-days, but I frequently forget which buttons I've assigned. Maybe this is a nub issue, but I'm certain some other players would also find this helpful.

Maybe somehow a hotkey got changed that deals with batches? I guess you could try restoring default hotkeys unless you haven't changed any.

maybe change the name to "fabricator" and they will go back to normal fishing

I'm glad you found a solution to your problem. Have fun!

One of the main features of 0ad that serves to make civs often play very similarly is that many units are totally equal for some civs. Another issue is how simple many unit roles are (think meatshield/sniper meta). Unit specific upgrades is an attempt to differentiate unit roles and create some situational upgrade clicking as opposed to "must get" like the current military upgrades are. Unit specific upgrades could also help create more specific roles for units, depending on the situation. Considering civ balance and civ playstyles, some civs might not get all the unit specific upgrades for each of their units. This would make them maybe not "unique techs", but certainly "non-universal" techs. Consider that in Aoe2 there are many similar units (people who like games to be "cool" don't like this, hence aoe4). Japanese get every tech that is available for cav archers, meanwhile a couple other civs have access to less techs but have specific bonuses regarding cav archers. This creates differentiation in when and how cav archers are best used for that civilization. I'm not saying that we should be Aoe2, but I am saying that this is a very effective way to make "the same" units play very differently. To give an example from earlier, someone mentioned "longer pikes" (one of the unit specific upgrades). It seems like it won't have much gameplay effect, but the crucial aspect is that is has greater effect in certain situations (ie chokepoints, getting hits on cav). This is really fun compared to the plain old +armor, +damage techs.

Bro I'm so confused

My apologies for misunderstanding the situation. Yes the AI is flawed in a number of ways, and is something that needs work. I think if you increase the AI difficulty or set it to defensive it might deal with your rams better, but I haven't tested it. Well in this case the discussion is not really about rams being too durable as indicated by the title of the thread, but about AI behavior.

The most experienced players of 0ad understand balance better than anyone else, because they have gone to great lengths to learn it in order to beat other players. Usually if there is a genuine balance issue it remains most noticed/complained about by more experience players. Not a soul among the top half of 0ad players complain about rams being too durable, and since its the same game that you play all we need to do is to help you learn how to counter them. Some great options: swordsmen (garrisoned in the building rams will target) swordcav ( can be garrisoned further away) catapults some melee heros spearmen (if you have enough) women ( they deal hack damage) your own rams Hope this helps

yes I can, its actually really obvious when players are using progui's autoboom feature. Choosing batch sizes, autoqueue, what unit to make are all critical repeated decisions, they are not just mouse clicks. It has been harder to investigate how autosnipe is used and by who, but there are some very obvious signs that something is happening with it in-game.

The solution is obvious, you just don't like it because you use this mod. Yes this is also a macro. Albeit less egregious than yours because its simply multiplying clicks instead of managing decisions. 0ad is a free game and I don't think people are really buying mice specifically to cheat in it. My mouse costs 5 dollars from a local grocery store. Where you see a flawed game design I see a skill issue. A skill issue that you would rather eliminate than learn.

The old migration seemed to have too much focus on naval battles. I think having the island in between teams will allow for more focus on the island. Moving the islands against the edge of the map seems to have increased the width of water passages for better naval gameplay while also increasing the available land for starting islands. I also like adding the woodlines instead of the massive wood treasure, since it results in a more normal game progression.

Kushites and Persians and romans are the only ones off the top of my head that have non-greek voicelines.

spearmen can also do ok if you have a good number of them in the right place at the right time.

That falls under the "balance accordingly" category XD

To be honest, I don’t see how a strict set of standards for civ differentiation helps us. I think we need allow civ design to be creative, and then balance accordingly. If we design civs to have 1 unique tech equal in power to another civ’s, then it limits the creativity that can be applied to those techs.

to be honest I think merc cav are still in a decent spot, its just now you aren't guaranteed to win the game, so the risk is way higher.

my bad yea I was assuming community mod. @Emacz see the funny thing is that plenty of players would have kush in their top 5, and I tend to have the most success with seleucids. If there is one civ that I would say isn't great for most players right now its Carthaginians, however borg has played them really well recently anyway.

Honestly the civ balance has been better than ever. Its not easy to come up with a top 5 since you always need to leave out strong civs.