AeonAnimus
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Posts posted by AeonAnimus
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19 hours ago, Phalanx said:
I 100% agree, but extra mechanics need to be added to Elephants to prevent Elephant-owning factions from being super op against ones that don't. Specifically terrain limitations.
I feel like balancing could be done by playing with the hp, speed, and damage ratios. Also keeping the big elephants really slow will prevent them from doing too much damage, they'll just throw non-elite units into dis-array and draw fire from archer units. (At least until upgraded with "Elephant Wine")
16 hours ago, wowgetoffyourcellphone said:In DE I've basically made them an uber battlefield unit. They are still decent against buildings because of their high hack damage, but they cause no crush damage anymore, which reduces their prevalence as "siege" units.
Ah this is good to know. I played Epirots recently (So much fun!) and with 10 elephants i totally annihilated a Ptolemaic AI with a base 2x larger than mine. It was a lot of fun, but I felt like I was a little bit over powered, to be fair the AI was set to medium so maybe that's why I won. Maybe a reduction of Elephant Attack Speed would be a way to reduce damage of Elephants? I don't know, I'm still not totally familiar with all of the mechanics of the game.
10 hours ago, Freagarach said:Neat to see that there is a framework for the idea! Maybe trample damage would be a way to reduce Elephant damage to buildings then? AOE damage would be a nice way of increasing power against multiple units, and reducing damage done to single buildings.
On another note, trample damage could be an effect from "Elephant Wine". Slowing down attack speed and lowering individual damage output from elephant attacks could be a way of keeping them from getting too overpowered. Again just some ideas for all you smart devs. It's a fantastic game. -
Hey guys,
I've seen some mention around here about how the Elephant mechanics are not very historical in 0AD, thought I'd make a thread where we can propose a simple way to rework them. As many of you know, Elephants were not used as siege engines in the ancient world, they were used to break the ranks of a phalanx, because soldiers would typically flee when Elephants approached a shield wall. Elephants also had an adverse effect on cavalry in a similar fashion, causing horses to "spook" and veer off the course of their riders. In this way, Elephants were primarily used to disrupt the execution of military strategems and cause havoc in the ranks of the enemy. There were also turrets on the Elephant's back that allowed for rangers to fire down on enemy soldiers. These Elephants were sometimes intoxicated with wine before battle, this supposedly caused them to go into a berzerker rage, and might have made them less sensitive to pain. Below I propose how to apply these effects to elephant units in the game.
1. Elephants cause enemy units within radius to flee (Use code that causes women and slaves to flee)(Exempt elite infantry/heroes from this effect?)(All cavalry should spook IMO)2. Use elephants as mobile turrets with the ability to garrison ranged units on top of the Elephants.
3. Ptolemic African Forest Elephants were notably smaller than Indian Elephant and African Bush Elephants, thus these 3 types of elephants should have different turret capacity, health, speed, and damage based on their size. (Bigger = stronger and slower)
--Ptolemaic Elephants 1 or 2 garrisoned rangers (Perhaps Ethiopian/Kushite Elephants in this category) (fastest, weakest)
--Indian/Mauryan, Persian, Macedonian, Epirot Elephants 4 garrisoned rangers
--Carthaginian, Ethiopian, Kushite Elephants 5 garrisoned rangers (slowest, strongest)
4. There should be an upgrade at the Elephant breeding facility called "Elephant Wine" that costs food and glory and buffs Elephant damage, health, and speed.
5. Hero units like Hannibal that ride on Elephants should reduce one available slot for garrisoned archer units depending on the elephant type.
6. Elephant merchant units could potentially double or triple resources acquired through trade at the markets, and notably have more HP, with the ability to fight enemies. (Trade elephants shouldn't cause enemies to flee.)
7. Reduce Elephant damage to buildings but not units, any elite units or heroes that face these units should take damage. This enforces the historical strategy of how elephants were defeated in battle, primarily by ranged weapons.
8. the 2 larger Elephants should start slower than most units without the wine upgrade, allowing units to flee without being damaged by the elephant itself. (rangers still can do damage)
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In closing, reducing Elephant utility as a siege weapon might create some imbalance issues with certain factions that otherwise don't have good siege weapons. That being said, these units could be used strategically to scatter enemy troops to capture locations. Imbalances might also be addressed by creating simple siege weapons like a battering ram, or ladder (Setting ladders against a fortress causing 2x damage &/or capture rate).
Just reposting a thread I made at the Delenda mod section in case the main devs want to consider these changes for future release. Just a suggestion for making the game a little bit more historically accurate and dynamic. -
[Edited correction in the OP]
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Hey guys,
I've seen some mention around here about how the Elephant mechanics are not very historical in 0AD, thought I'd make a thread where we can propose a simple way to rework them. As many of you know, Elephants were not used as siege engines in the ancient world, they were used to break the ranks of a phalanx, because soldiers would typically flee when Elephants approached a shield wall. Elephants also had an adverse effect on cavalry in a similar fashion, causing horses to "spook" and veer off the course of their riders. In this way, Elephants were primarily used to disrupt the execution of military strategems and cause havoc in the ranks of the enemy. There were also turrets on the Elephant's back that allowed for rangers to fire down on enemy soldiers. These Elephants were sometimes intoxicated with wine before battle, this supposedly caused them to go into a berzerker rage, and might have made them less sensitive to pain. Below I propose how to apply these effects to elephant units in the game.
1. Elephants cause enemy units within radius to flee (Use code that causes women and slaves to flee)(Exempt elite infantry/heroes from this effect?)(All cavalry should spook IMO)2. Use elephants as mobile turrets with the ability to garrison ranged units on top of the Elephants.
3. Polemic African Forest Elephants were notably smaller than Indian Elephant and African Bush Elephants, thus these 3 types of elephants should have different turret capacity, health, speed, and damage based on their size. (Bigger = stronger and slower)
--Ptolemaic Elephants 1 or 2 garrisoned rangers (Perhaps Ethiopian/Kushite Elephants in this category) (fastest, weakest)
--Indian/Mauryan, Persian, Macedonian, Epirot Elephants 4 garrisoned rangers
--Carthaginian, Ethiopian, Kushite Elephants 5 garrisoned rangers (slowest, strongest)
4. There should be an upgrade at the Elephant breeding facility called "Elephant Wine" that costs food and glory and buffs Elephant damage, health, and speed. (Trade elephants shouldn't cause enemies to flee.)
5. Hero units like Hannibal that ride on Elephants should reduce one available slot for garrisoned archer units depending on the elephant type.
6. Elephant merchant units could potentially double or triple resources acquired through trade at the markets, and notably have more HP, with the ability to fight enemies.
7. Reduce Elephant damage to buildings but not units, any elite units or heroes that face these units should take damage. This enforces the historical strategy of how elephants were defeated in battle, primarily by ranged weapons.
8. the 2 larger Elephants should start slower than most units without the wine upgrade, allowing units to flee without being damaged by the elephant itself. (rangers still can do damage)
***
In closing, reducing Elephant utility as a siege weapon might create some imbalance issues with certain factions that otherwise don't have good siege weapons. That being said, these units could be used strategically to scatter enemy troops to capture locations. Imbalances might also be addressed by creating simple siege weapons like a battering ram, or ladder (Setting ladders against a fortress causing 2x damage &/or capture rate). I feel like this game has a lot of potential to improve it's mechanics, and it seems like Delenda is the most active with making these kinds of modifications so I'm leaving this comment here. Just something to think about, would love to hear some input about these ideas.
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This is a cool project, I do have 1 proposition for the Kushites, you could possibly use: Abraha, a famed Himyarite/Axumite Military General of ~550AD who conquered parts of Yemen, ruled over much of Arabia, and supposedly led a failed invasion of Mecca. He attempted to establish a Christian center of pilgrimage in Yemen to compete with Mecca, and his reason for waging war on Mecca was to defeat his primary competitor. Although he is a bit later than a lot of heroes in the game, he would be a noteworthy addition to the Kushites (who are the predecessors of the Axumites). Notably, Abraha supposedly rode on a white Elephant named Mahmud during his military campaigns. You can read more about him on his wikipedia page, below I put a suggestion for abilities:
1. Religious Zealot - Abraha has a healing Aura (use standard temple healing ratios)
2.Duelist - 50% effectiveness against enemy heroes (This may be unbalanced but I saw it on Alexander IIRC, perhaps needs to be lower due to healing aura.)
3. Synod of Sa'na (Al-Qalis Church) - Build a single Temple complex that also functions as a marketplace (xx% trade boost?) (This is supposedly the location of some partial ruins of the Church, you could design a grander structure after the Yemeni style of buildings seen in the background, perhaps with a market place in the center. https://ibb.co/3WvTxwx)
4. Mount - Mahmud the White Elephant (^.^)
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Hey guys, I'm kind of a noob here but been playing LOTR's BTME II for a while and feel like this game is only just shy of being as intuitive and fun as that game. 1 of the obvious points I've noticed after playing for a couple weeks is that I feel like the Heroes are a little bit 1 dimensional. So I made 3 really simple proposals (from the POV of a programmer) that might make these heroes feel more valuable in the game.
1. No Revive hacks, this isn't World of Warcraft. Get rid of the ability to buy the Hero again after they have been killed. This makes killing enemy heroes worth while, and will make players more careful with how they use their heroes. If you manage to lose all 3 heroes, you have no more heroes left to use, this will force more strategic game play and decision making.
2. Give the Heroes 3 Levels of advancement just like regular units. As a default I would consider all of the Heroes current stats as Maximum level 3 stats. Thus Level 1 & 2 would make the Hero slightly weaker with lesser Damage, HP, Armor, etc... (Unlocking passives could also be unlocked by advancing levels, but this might make things too complex for the programmers). By simply introducing levels for heroes using the same structural system that is used for regular units, we could make these heroes a little bit more vulnerable in early game, and thus make players be more strategic in how they deploy these Heroes before reaching max level.
3. Make Heroes more accessible in early game by allowing them to be purchased at the town Phase from a civic center. This will also streamline moving between classes, because currently all of the Heroes are housed in different structures depending on what faction you are playing as. Simplifying this one aspect could make the learning curve a little bit easier for new players, and make playing other factions less intimidating, because players will always know where to get the powerful Hero units, (From the Civic Center after Town Phase).
I think this would work fine with the current instance of the game as there is no reference to the Heroes in the Tutorial, so nothing would have to be changed there. Just making these minor "Copy-Paste" type modifications could go along way towards making the game-play a little bit more dynamic, and engaging as far as it concerns the Heroes.
All of that said, would be interested in hearing any other thoughts or ideas from players on the forums here about simple ways to improve the heroes, or any critiques of my particular proposal. Honestly, the Historical Heroes could really add a cool dimension to the game if they were given just a little bit more attention. I think it might be worth while to invest a little bit more time into improving their stature within the context of the game. Thanks for taking the time to read this if you did!
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This is a good idea, there should be a custom upgrade at phase II for double thickness walls, and an upgrade at phase III for triple thickness walls. my 2 cents.
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Elephant Rework? (Delenda Repost)
in Gameplay Discussion
Posted
Ahhh, that makes sense. Here I was thinking I was amazing at this game lmao.