StopKillingMe

Select: Multiplayer -> Game Lobby - and sign up - you can get a game there pretty easily.

That is kind of the purpose of me getting involved at this level of detail - all I can do is hope that you will understand this. I don't think anyone is questioning what you are doing, the concern is more about how you are doing it. Good/Bad/or Indifferent - what you are changing needs to be logged. Really the only reason why, is that in the unlikely event that your changes have unintended consequences, we need to know how it happened and what needs to be done to backtrack. It's really that simple. My personal opinion? You should be tracking this stuff yourself, the fact that I have to do it for you is incredibly disappointing to me. But I am invested enough in this game for it to be worthwhile.

Understood. I'll keep digging through it an enumerating what is different from vanilla, if we need to move what I am doing from a thread or to phabricator or whatever of course I will comply. My feedback and questions in my docs are just my opinions, they don't necessarily mean much more than that. The only thing I am vehement about in my opinions is that things that are unique to a civ should not be mooted by so called balance changes, and I also see zero purpose in removing the ability to train men and cav from the CC - I won't ever agree that something like that has anything to do with game balance. Other than those two things, I'm not here to argue with actual game balance changes, whatever makes sense, makes sense.

I will be as thorough as possible, making sure I get everything listed out. And please feel free to move this thread if it is posted in the wrong place.

"0 A.D. is released as open source: you can freely use, copy, modify and distribute the game's source code and data files, as long as you include attribution to Wildfire Games and let anyone freely modify and distribute any of your own modifications to the game's files." I am not doing anything that the 0ad license does not allow me to do. You do not have a right to complain about this.

This will be a project to carefully document with as much detail as possible what is being changed in the Borg gameplay Mod offered for download on mod.io New Balance. New Technology Trees. New Bonus. New Auras. New Units. New Buildings and much more. All of these changes need to be enumerated and tracked, as this mod or parts of it may end up being rolled into a future release of 0ad Alpha (vanilla). This is being done so that current vanilla 0ad players can make informed decisions about how to adapt current strategy to these significant changes should any or all of these changes make it into the next or some subsequent Alpha release. The approach will be, first, to communicate the changes from the actual experience of playing the Mod against the AI, to second, loading the mod into the Eclipse IDE and finding the actual changes that are being made and clearly enumerating what they are. For the purposes of clarity, I will as much as possible list what the current stat of a unit or tech is in the current release, and then what the new values are in the mod. This will give the players complete transparency on the changes. Phase One: Apparent Changes from actual GamePlay Test One - Britons against the AI on Oasis 1. CC has been changed - cannot train citizen soldiers, only women. (need to verify if this is the same for all civs now) Concerns: Training male unit types in the CC was not the same for each civ - so this is a very significant change that is effecting each civ in a non-uniform way. Must now build three different buildings to get the same type of units out that were available in the CC before this change. Barracks produce Melee units, Archery Range produces ranged units, Stable produces Cav units. Please note that all three of these unit types were previously able to be produced by the CC. 2. Two new techs in CC - "Siege Rations" and "Peasant Laborers" ( will need to find and enumerate in IDE) & (need to verify if this is the same for all civs in game) - "Siege Rations" described in game as "+5 Health for all organic units" cost is 500 food time is 20 seconds - "Peasant Laborers" described in game as -10% build time for all structures cost is 100 food time is 20 seconds Concerns: Do all civs build structures at the same speed? If not, if the civs that build structures at a faster speed research "Peasant Laborers" early in the build order, they will now have a massive advantage over those that don't and have slower build times. (need more data) 3, Wardog Kennel now build-able in Age 1 Concerns: This gives what is already considered an OP civ in vanilla the ability to harass early resource gathering of opponents. 5 war dogs plus the starting dog for Brits is a significant capability. The cost for these dogs is only food, women have a bonus for gathering food. Not really sure why this is being moved from Age 2 to Age 1. Test Two - Persians against the AI on Oasis 1. Persian stables now the same as stables for all other civs- there was a differentiation in a24, where as - all other civs built barracks only, but Persians could build both barracks and stables. Concerns: Unique attribute of the Persian civ has been affected, perhaps unintentionally. (need more data) Test Three - Seleucids vs AI on Oasis 1. Elephant Stables can now be built to produce elephants. There is no limit on the amount of these stables that can be built. Elephant Stables significantly cheaper and faster to produce than Fort. Concerns: The ability to make Elephant Stables is a unique Mauryan tech in a24, giving this to other civs negates that unique tech. The "Elephant Stables" are significantly cheaper to make than the Fort (in a24, Seleucids must build a fort to train Elephants), and forts are limited to 10. This means Seleucids can now produce more elephants much faster (this needs much more investigation, will be testing the addition of Elephant Stables extensively in the coming days) - (need to carefully investigate all elephant producing civs in both a24 and borgmod) (to be updated as I make progress)

Not sure I can agree with the statement that "women shouldn't be available to a faction unless there is good precedent for them having a larger role". What would be the point of removing the ability to train women from some factions? Didn't all of these societies indeed have women in them?

My feedback on your mod is pretty simple: Giving all civs common startup techs from the CC, and removing the ability to train citizen soldiers from the CC. IMO, this is a considerable mistake. The male units that train from the CC are not the same for every civ, some can train skirmishers, some archers, some swordsman, some slingers, etc. You've removed a feature that makes 0ad unique. It now takes an incredible amount of time, and wood - to get up a barracks, an archery range, and a stable - in order to make the units that in vanilla you can make from the CC if you want. Even worse, if your starting horseman dies, you can't create another one until you get up a stable. IMO, the startup of phase of 0ad does not need to be changed. Taking away the ability of the players to make citizen soldiers and Cav that can hunt from the CC is not something that in my opinion needs to be done.

Well just to be clear on what my issue is - I don't think the things that make 0ad unique should be removed. I believe it is possible to address MP gameplay balance issues without doing things like removing the ability to train citizen soldiers from the CC.

TY for this, I will read through it.

Very easily. I have consumed the documentation that is published on this website - it is extremely easy to identity a suggested change that doesn't align itself with what is documented. If you look at what is published, every unit in this game has historical reasoning and research behind the way it is implemented. Inventing a new system to supersede that work and research, whether it becomes part of the game or not, is an abandonment of the very core of this game.

My point remains that all this talk of drastically changing things is counter productive. There is a road-map for getting to the release of the game and quite obviously that road-map should be followed. More power to the modders for having fun and treating 0ad like it's a personal sandbox that allows them to change everything, but that process is/and should be - separate from getting the current vanilla 0ad code base into Beta and then release. And the fact that in some instances I am being personally attacked for this stance and having to put people on ignore, in my mind only serves to illustrate that the desire to rip apart 0ad in favor of a Mod is a real one, and one that should be opposed. From a project management perspective, it's just a bad idea to start doing things that are clearly out of scope and are potentially destructive to the success of the project.

Of course they didn't, but they also didn't get everything completely wrong as some are suggesting. How the CC works and how resources are collected does not need to be changed.

It's incredibly irresponsible.