maroder

Exactly, that's why I thought it would be good the have the choice in each phase, so that you can recover if one strategy fails.

I agree with all of this. But the underlying problem of the balancing is the Citizen Soldier concept. As long as the units you use for eco are the same that do rushing/defense, the best strategy is always too boom as fast as possible. This proposal should be regarded in combination with the changes you mentioned and not on its own, so you still should have a different gameplay with each civ and you should be able to take different strategies, but it could imo help to disentangle the booming=turteling connection.

Yes true. It is also critique on a very high level as I said, I like most of the other things as the more diverse maps, mercenary camps, farmlands ect. I think it just comes down to preference regarding the CS concept. And if this concept should stay, it is just hard to balance with different strategies. The difference between DE and EA feels to me like a little bit like the difference between chess and bullet chess. One is more strategic and the other one has this felling of urgency that you need to make decision more quickly.

Since A24 is out there has been much discussion about the balancing, not only between factions but also between different strategies. But as @ValihrAntexplained it here: Because of the Citizen Solider concept the best strategy is (in most cases) just to boom as fast as you can. As most units fulfill economic as well as defensive/aggressive roles at the same time you cannot separate strategies. This is not in line with the vision of 0 A.D: " Single path to victory - It seems to be a trend that games cater to a specific strategy that is frequently used to attain a victory. That could be rushing, turtling, booming, etc. We recognize these are valid ways to win a game, but we will attempt to not favor one over another. Players should be able to successfully use (and adapt/change) any strategy to achieve a victory. " (citing from here: https://trac.wildfiregames.com/wiki/0AD_The_Vision) Another problem is that this "booming is the best" gameplay leads to a huge snowball effect. So If a player is slower at the beginning, it is very likely that he cannot recover and will lose the game. This makes the game less dynamic and interesting. Being able to turn the situation around after some bad losses is much more fun than slowly losing to your opponent just because he has more units, because he was able to click faster in the first five minutes. The question is, how can this be balanced? In Delenda Est this is done by removing the Citizen Solider concept and using a wide technology tree with many pairwise techs, which forces the player to choose a strategy or to find a good balance between them. But this is also my main critique point with DE. While I like mostly all of the stuff in DE: new factions, better graphics, new features ect, the game feels slower to me. With 0 A.D being the only RTS I play it feels very frustrating to me not being able to use units for eco and it just "feels" slower when some units just stand around. The wide technology tree on the other hand is very interesting and let you do complex decisions, but I actually need to pause the game and read what each tech does and then decide what I want to do. This makes the game slower paced and more strategic (which is not necessarily bad, just personal preference), but it takes away from the fast pace and action, which is for me one of the key features of the main game. So how can Empires Ascendant balance this without removing the Citizen Solider concept and while keeping its fast pace? What if the player had with each phase the opportunity to specifically choose one of the three strategies? So a decision to upgrade your CC or research a technology which gives you either an economic, an aggressive or a defensive boost just for this phase. Possible improvements from this mechanic: This would allow that each strategy is a legitimate choice in each phase, so a p1 turtle or a p2 push would be possible with all factions. It creates a a true "balanced" rock-paper-scissor system This would also acknowledge the importance of scouting (in all phases): if you have the information about the strategy of you opponent, you will be able to counter it. It removes the huge snowball effect that is present at the moment and could allow a player to comeback after a bad start It is easy enough to not make the game "slower" but enforces the ability to choose specific strategies. Here is a mod as a proof of concept:empires-extended.zip Note that this is only a very basic implementation of the idea. It only features positive auras which give you faster unit production and better gather rates for the economic strategy, quicker build times and more arrows for defensive buildings for the defensive strategy and more attack, movement speed and loot for the aggressive strategy. But this idea could be coupled with different art for the CCs, different options to produce units or even unlock new buildings ect. Note 2: the mod is a suggestion/concept for the future balance of 0 A.D is therefore for A25 / SVN So what do you all think? Besides the obvious: don't change anything about the gameplay. I have took some inspiration by the following threads and ideas: Scouting should play an important role, gathering information should be rewarded by being able to make better decisions: https://wildfiregames.com/forum/topic/36928-special-unit-scouts/ There should be different strategies a player can use (i.e boom, rush, turtle) which works as the classic counter system with no strategy being preferred: https://wildfiregames.com/forum/topic/39874-rushing-early-game/ & https://wildfiregames.com/forum/topic/39901-what-do-we-do-with-the-defenses-of-phase-1/ https://wildfiregames.com/forum/topic/39669-proposal-for-a-new-behavior-of-civic-center-reaction-to-farmfields/?do=findComment&comment=427486

afaik yes.

About the visibility problem: @Langbartcreated this mod:

1 - 6 yes 7 & 11 nah 8 & 12 & 13 could be interesting

wait. why? did i miss something?

animals.mp4 Like this? animal-stealing.zip

Sentry towers and palisades should be valid option to turtle in P1 but should be very weak as soon as the enemy has phased up. Maybe a P2 tech like "fire arrows" would be nice, which is especially an anti palisade / sentry tower tech.

We could have it surely. The only question is how many units should/would be able to do that. Should it work via an extra "capturing" bar, similar to capturing buildings, should it be dependent on the time the unit is inside the aura or should it work just like the capturing mechanic? The other thing is that this code is"quick and dirty", which is ok because only one unit uses it. To make a more elaborate mechanic you have to spend a lot more time.

yeah exactly it is a trade off between op and huge resource drain. So you need to maneuver him carefully or you will have no metal left. But as I said, this is more of a fun idea, probably to op.

Other option: increase loot in general, so you can have a little bit of a "war based" economy. And talking about new merc mechanics, not as a suggestion but just for fun:

Talking about mercenaries: This mod gives the ptol hero Ptolemy I the ability to actively convert mercenaries from the enemy for 250 metal each. So why is this mod called Midas you may ask? Because you have no choice. When you have metal left and an enemy merc is in his aura, the unit will convert until you have no metal left. mercenary-patreon.zip merc.mp4

Yeah, but that's only one half of the coin. The other thing is agreement over the changes. And while I would love for example to have the two gendered citizens mod folded into the game, as well as farmlands, even if I make the patches, they probably won't be accepted because of lack of consensus. And while I like the mercenary ideas all the people who tried to balance the mercenaries for a24 may (probably) not agree with them.

I agree with most of @wowgetoffyourcellphone ideas, especially: instant training, advanced or elite rank and mostly metal cost.

interesting, so one small actors with many props costs more performance than one big actor without props (Given they have the same number of vertices) ?

To me this looks not like poor discoverability. It uses the same aura concept and visualization as heroes, healers, temples and the old rotary mill, therefore it is not "invisible" as the diminishing returns. So I can't really follow your argumentation. I would be happy if you try the mods and tell me in more detail how the the communication to the player could be improved. And yes, I agree it should be obvious to the player without checking the code. I also agree that is is bad to restrict player choice (I don't like the minimal distance between towers for example), but I came to the conclusion that some restriction actually help the gameplay and the realism. Otherwise we would have the discussion: Why can I not just use my houses as dropsites? why can I not build champions in P1? why can I not build 20 wonders? These restrictions help with the narrative and the realism. Also, please note that farmlands are not the only options discussed. Disabling the CCs dropsite abilities and reducing its arrow count was my original proposal, which would not be such an "artificial" (meaning visible) restriction as a minimal distance, but it seems like people would like the CC as it is now.

Is that not only a matter of taking one of the shrub actors and increase the obstruction size or am I missing something?

I mean hard counters are ok when they prevent that you would otherwise have to crank up the regular damage values, but yes it should probably not be 25x

My two cents: Forest groves all the way. Combined with health variants there are just so much more possibilities and the need the build a new storehouse every minute to avoid transportation time is gone.

@LetswaveaBook your idea sounds like a similar mechanic as the farmlands to me. The difference would be that you would probably don't want to use a minimal distance? I mean yeah sure, as long as it works I am not opposed to it. The only problem is that people don't seem to like "convoluted" bonuses. @hyperion You can build your city as you like, but there is only one way that is hugely benefits you in the game. And to my frustration it is the way that makes the city look like one big farming area. Speaking of UI and communication. How does the visuals of the CC relate to its functions? There is no indication that is has huge defensive capabilities or that it would be a good storehouse. A solution like the proposed farmlands on the other hand, clearly communicate: "this land is good for farming", so I a not sure to what proposal you are referring to in your comment.

first feedback: I now you gave them extreme stats to showcase a point, put it would be better to start from realistic values. So their speed of should be similar to other cavalry, probably even slower due to their heavy armor. Yours are way to fast The same goes for the attack repetition rate and basically all other values as well. At the moment they are just superhumans. Try to stick to the values that are used in the other champion cav templates.

Related: @Arch Bot Would you be up for an AI tournament, or are there any news?

Not sure how much this would change. As the CC is still the most defended area, I believe people will just build like this: Only depended if 8 fields are aromatically spawned (left) or if you get a reduced price for placing a field close to the farmstead (right).