[Your 0 A.D. Screenshots]

[Give elephants area damage.]

Combined with unit pushing this sound very good to me. You can send your elephant in the enemy lines, literally push away the soldiers and deal damage to them while you do that. This might be a good reason the let enemy units be pushable @wraitii

[on "push" mechanic]

10 minutes ago, azayrahmad said:

but I remember from @Angen's old Survival mod that it was quite simple

Totally forgot about that one. And there are so many nice ideas implemented:

Attack and Armour: Dealing of damage is directional | Shield size defines how much damage unit blocks from front

Mercenaries: need to pay them else they turn to gaia

Rams: need to be garrisoned to be able to attack | can be captured

 

But anyway, my concern with directional armor (that is equal for all units) and unit speed is that slower units will be much more affected by this change. Retreating with cav would mean you can get out fine, but retreating with ptol pikemen would kill them. This can make sense, but it can also get op very quick or would require other balancing changes.

[on "push" mechanic]

3 hours ago, ChronA said:

I had a version of directional armor modded in for testing in A23

Sounds very interesting. A few questions: Do you apply directional armor from all attacks? Is it the same for all units or can you specify it in the templates? What exactly means directional; front, side, back or the exact angle?

If it is the same for all units it can have very different results, depending on the unit speed.

[Unused Building Balancing Ideas]

Just to bring the old thread up again, because it is related:

 

[on "push" mechanic]

Generally judging by the screenshots provided by @Langbart here: https://code.wildfiregames.com/D1490

It looks to me like a improvement to me. But I do see the dense masses that can be formed without the formation.

The solution to formations being useless would be the planned formation bonuses: https://trac.wildfiregames.com/ticket/3523

 

[move fields away from the CC]

At the moment most people choose the idea of DE style farmlands. One option to test these changes in a cautious way (idea by @faction02) would be to implement it on a map level first. We could include a version of the mainland map in a25 which has these farmlands, so that the idea can be extensively tested.

This way, we could discuss the implementation (percentage of farmland, strength of positive effect, location ect.) without changing the complete meta.

Also we don't have to touch the AI. Just adding a label which say this map is not suitable for it, would be enough.

[move fields away from the CC]

43 minutes ago, Nescio said:

Nevertheless, I'm unconvinced limiting player freedom (or breaking the AI) is the way to go

Yes fair point, but there are also options which would not restrict player freedom. We don't need to use a hard restrictions, we could also use incentives as farmlands or auras that encourage building placement around the CC. The hard restrictions were only mentioned as an option regarding the comments that these soft solutions are to "convoluted". And of course, breaking the AI is not the goal. Depending on the solution we may not even have to change that much. Also, I guess there will probably be other changes that need to be included in the AI, as the turrets for example. So I think this shouldn't be the main reason not to consider changes, as the new alpha is just out and there is still plenty of time to the next release.

[move fields away from the CC]

8 minutes ago, Nescio said:

That's actually a depiction of Rome in the 16th C AD, when the city was still much smaller than in Augustan times and people were farming inside the old Roman city walls.

My bad, my collection of antique maps is not that good. But would you agree that generally the farming was not done in the middle of the city? As you said, maybe inside the (in this case old) city walls, but not in the very heart of the city.

[move fields away from the CC]

On 19/04/2021 at 7:11 PM, Nescio said:

While I'm not necessarily opposed to realism, I remain unconvinced the proposed solutions are improvements. The easiest option is not always the best one.

I don't particularly like it fields are placed around civic centres, however, I already can (and do) build farmsteads at the edge of my starting territory and place fields there. I fail to see what's gained by forcing fields to be moved away.

Yes you can indeed do that, but the/a favored layout is at the moment this: https://wildfiregames.com/forum/topic/15271-0-ad-on-youtube/page/84/?tab=comments#comment-422786

 

So what I hope would be gained by any of the proposed changes would be a city layout that looks more like this:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Wolf-Dietrich-Klebeband_Städtebilder_G_123_III.jpg

On 19/04/2021 at 8:57 PM, Thorfinn the Shallow Minded said:

So with all of this, I would say that a middle ground is possible.  People like turtling; it's a staple of the RTS genre, and if people want to farm in the safety of their protective shell, perhaps they should not be overly penalised for doing so.  That said, I would still say there should be ways to encourage people to use other areas due to increased output at the risk of being raided in those areas.  In addition, there could be a few benefits to realistic urban planning around the Civic Centre.  This all could help encourage better map control and more thought with building placement; all to say, I think that there is a compromise to this whole matter that is not too extreme.  

Yes that is exactly what I am trying to communicate the whole time. I get that my original proposal (split cc functionality) was to far out there, that's why I included other options in the discussion. And I also like turteling, in my opinion it just looks better when it is done using actual defensive structures
 and is less reliant on a building that looks not at all like a defensive structure.

On 19/04/2021 at 7:25 PM, chrstgtr said:

this isn't like it is some feature that just hasn't been implemented yet--it has always been around but hasn't been changed

I don't understand. There are literally open tickets regarding this topic, waiting for a design decision. That is why I opened this discussion and it seems like there are people who would appreciate a more realistic approach (see the poll). I don't try to convince everybody to pick a specific solution, this is a open discussion how we could incorporate this while maintaining a fun gameplay. I fail to see why we should not try to find a solution that looks more realistic and still has a nice gamplay. To not even consider new features only because they may influence the current meta, seems like an very unhealthy attitude for a project that is in development. Then we can just stop development now and call it a day.

[move fields away from the CC]

12 minutes ago, LetswaveaBook said:

I would like to debunk an argument which I heard here and bothers me greatly. It is the argument of

 

¨The game is still in alpha.¨

 

To me this argument has some toxic value implying that we can make absurd changes and not bother on whether it benefits the game. As the game is in development, changes will naturally occur. However argument shown before does not give a license to (extraordinary) changes.

I would advocate: Extraordinary conclusions require extraordinary evidence, or applied to here extraordinary changes require extraordinarily strong arguments

I apologize if my comment on the other thread stating this sounded toxic, but you cannot disregard that this is the reality at the moment. I also don't want to make absurd changes for no reason, I stated why I would like to see these changes and I tried to argument why they seem appropriate to me for a game which main feature is that it is open-source and closely based on history compared to other RTS.

An alpha version does mean that there probably will be changes, which will change the current meta. Which is hopefully for the better and if not, then the next version should try and fix that.

[move fields away from the CC]

1 hour ago, chrstgtr said:

In short, it forces a radical change to gameplay to fix what is essentially an aesthetic problem.

A problem that bothers people since years: https://trac.wildfiregames.com/ticket/4342 and https://wildfiregames.com/forum/topic/20406-changes-in-farms/

 

1 hour ago, chrstgtr said:

If players really want their cities to look "real" then they can still build their fields on the outskirts.

Yes and they will loose badly because the current meta punishes this layout.

1 hour ago, chrstgtr said:

My point is that no one actually knows how this will change things. But we do know that it can change gameplay a lot. It will be harder to protect fields. It will slow down gameplay a lot because you will now need to build a farmstand on the outskirts. Sentry towers and palisades won't be great at protecting fields at the start because those take res and time (which you will already be short on) and have their own deficiencies (i.e. a sentry tower can be quickly captured if men aren't closeby to engage in the fight; palisades can't stop archers' arrows)

True. It will change things, but without trying how they will play out we can not decide if these changes are good or not. As I said, there are also other options how this could be balanced and I really do think that with the right option we don't have to sacrifice gameplay. I am not opposed to trying out incremental changes as Vali's idea.

[move fields away from the CC]

4 hours ago, chrstgtr said:

It makes gameplay sense because it will be very hard to defend fields that are away far from the cc in the early game (and possibly late game)e. This change will entirely change the meta. Frankly, it doesn't take a long read of the forums to realize that big changes like this aren't always appreciated or that big changes like this don't actually improve the gameplay. 

First of all: Thank you for taking part in the discussion. I see people voting for the option to keep things as they are now, but no one who has a strong disagreement to this proposal has cared enough to say what exactly it is that bothers them about this.

Regarding your concerns: Yes, when looking at any of the options on their own, they would lead to fields that are very hard to defend, but that is not how this needs to end up in the next alpha. At the moment most players maybe build one or two sentry towers in phase one and palisades are mostly used to obstruct siege in phase three. One option to balance the proposed changes would be follow up patches that make these structures actually useful for defense in phase one (which is their original purpose afaik). So make sentry towers cheaper and palisades strong against a p1 rush, but weak as soon as the other player is phased up. My attempt at balancing is here (not as a proposal, only as food for thoughts): https://wildfiregames.com/forum/topic/38007-increased-realism-mod-and-random-unrealistic-changes

My point is that there are lot of options to include this change without having to cripple the gameplay. If it would help this discussion I can also propose a list of other possible things that can be used to balance this, but that seems like it can lead off-topic very quick.

On a side note: I actually thought that the fact that these changes reward aggressive play and rushing (maybe even with infantry) would be a positive thing?

[Scary war elephants]

Thanks for the suggestions it should be doable, I will think about it for the next version. At the moment I am torn between the timer solution and the current solution of binding it the the rank of the unit. You idea would definitely required some more work.

[Differentiating civilizations by economic structures]

3 hours ago, LetswaveaBook said:

The point is that if there are constantly rigorous changes, we might never reach a sweet spot.

I find it interesting that on the one hand it is always very much stressed that the game is still an alpha, which means that there will be sudden changes and cool new features will be added, but many player share this mentality that changes should be cosmetic at best. 

[move fields away from the CC]

4 hours ago, Nescio said:

I wonder whether it's worth it. Also keep in mind the multifunctional civic centre isn't entirely realistic either.

Which is exactly why my original proposal was to split the civiv center functionality (see top post). Defensive buildings do the defense, the farmstead is for storing food and the storehouse is for storage other resources. But it seems this is not the preferred option, which is why I included other options in the discussion.

To the problems with petra: this is a second problem that needs to be fixed.

If its worth it depends if you like a more realistic city layout. There are some people who would like that (again, see top post) but also people who are ok with the current unrealistic layout. I am just wondering why so many areas of the game are closely based on history, but the standard build order involves that the heart of the cities are turned into one giant farming area.

And again: the goal is not to make the game hyper-realistic. With the right solution we don't have to sacrifice a fun gameplay. The goal is to find a solution that is fun, but looks better/ and is more realistic than the status quo.

[move fields away from the CC]

27 minutes ago, Thorfinn the Shallow Minded said:

I agree with the debuffs part.  Fields built near the Civic Centre having an arbitrary malus to collection makes little sense.

Reminder that it doesn't have to be convoluted. Good old minimal distance (as in DE where that works well) or disable the cc as food dropsite are pretty straightforward. If something is arbitrary is debatable, but at least if they achieve the goal: "more realistic city layout without 8 fields around the cc" then they are not more arbitrary as any other limit that is used for gameplay reasons.

[move fields away from the CC]

Indeed. But it could be combined with one of the other ideas, which is why I included it in the poll.

[Scary war elephants]

Version 3 with tweaked values out.

[Getting started.]

Try changing (first copying) the template under 0 A.D. alpha\binaries\data\mods\public\public\simulation\templates\template_structure_defensive_tower_stone.xml

<BuildTime>150</BuildTime> to <BuildTime>200</BuildTime>

[Auto-Queue for 0 A.D]

8 minutes ago, Grapjas said:

Multiplayer is about skills and organizing/micro is a part of that when it comes to RTS

Keep in mind that not everybody plays multiplayer

Personally I would also be happy if the skills to be good at micro would be replaced by the skill to deploy different macro strategies and to plan ahead. Which is of course only possible if there are enough interesting macro strategies to choose from.

[move fields away from the CC]

Since most people seem to prefer one or both of the DE solutions:

On 09/04/2021 at 6:50 PM, wowgetoffyourcellphone said:

There's a "Civic Spaces" radius around CCs that doesn't allow Farm Fields to be built within it. There's also "Farmland" terrain where you get a 2x grain gathering bonus if you build Fields there. 

I could, if it is ok with @wowgetoffyourcellphone , try to make a patch that brings those things from DE to the base game. But as I have no experience with map creation, the patch would only include the farmland actors and auras, but no maps that use them, which would make the patch kind of hard to test. So this should be probably done by someone else.

Meanwhile, here would be the patches for the minimum distance, a positive aura, and one gatherer per field, if you want to have a look at it:

minimum-distance.patch

positive-aura.patch

one-gatherer-per-field.patch

I used

git format-patch

to create these, so I hope they work.

[Is there a way to use particles or props to visualize burning status effect?]

nice. good to hear

[Is there a way to use particles or props to visualize burning status effect?]

On 10/04/2021 at 6:50 PM, Stan` said:

As far as I know it's not possible to add an actor on the fly so you won't be able to make particles pop

Is something like this planned (long-term wise) ? It seems like a lot of work to edit all actor files and include a burning variant, especially if the all use the same fire/smoke effects. Also if a mod wanted to introduce a new status effect or you want to change the particles, you would have to repeat the process of editing all files.

[Scary war elephants]

2 hours ago, alre said:

Sorry for the all-critics-no-help approach. I hope you find my notes interesting.

No problem, as I said I just found the idea of the mechanic interesting and wanted to try out how it would fit in the game. Maybe @azayrahmad will come up with a better use for the mechanic  

Regarding your thoughts on panic in battle:

2 hours ago, alre said:

at that point that animal/man wouldn't attack anyone, at least not intentionally, it would just try to get the hell out of there

I would say this is highly depending on the nature of the animal. Horses would certainly not attack. Elephants on the other hand might want to flee also, but if they see no way out (middle of the battle) the will try and defend themselves. 

2 hours ago, alre said:

lone diserters and routed armies aren't easily convinced to go back to fight.

For humans I would say it is dependent on what is on the line. If you are fighting to defend your city you may consider coming back, even if you were scared the first time. And for the combination of human and horse: the horseman can get the horse back under control relative quickly (if he doesn't fall of). Which may not prevent the horse from getting scared again.

But yes, I will try out the current version of the mod and maybe introduce more of a group behavior for the cavalry.