alre

there must be limits on how micro can be effective, otherwise dancing is acceptable too. My idea is that you should never be required to tell your men exactly who to aim to, there shouldn't be strategies to attract enemy fire to units that are a distraction and that, at the same time, manage to avoid projectiles or the consequences of hits taken in any way. There is request for lowering turn times of jav cavalry. That should not work for dancing though. Assigning damage to whovever is being shot, without any randomness, would resolve this problem once and for all, and it's the same path taken by all AoE-style RTS I know. I think it's mostly a good idea. By the way, he problem with that video is actually that the camels weren't shooting at the cav. You can see that they are chasing women and ignoring the horsemen. If cav attacked the camels, they would have achieved even better results.

maybe not stone, so its price is differentiated in respect to the fortress. 300 is good, was it this the price it used to have in a23?

Make them cost metal and give them rams again. This change was much contested, so let's revert it.

In theory, it should be Castra auxiliorum. However, I don't think it's attested, only references I find online are suspicious latin written blogs and forums.

Why not give the same bonus to infantry? Why only archers and not also slingers/skirms? It's something that many players would like, and comes out sometimes. I don't know why it's not in the main game. Maybe there's fear that if melee was stronger, the game would change too much too fast, unsettling the community. I would test with pleasure a mod that buffs all melee. I mean, player vs player.

If we gave them shorter training time than archers and slingers, that alone would be a very significant change. It would give them a different role economically. Archers currently have the same speed of other light infantry. It's only logic. Have you checked out how was it changed in SVN? Now it only gives the range buff, and maybe it's also more expensive, I don't recall. They need an attack buff, I agree here. But spash damage was changed in line damage, that should be still good. Note that it's quite logic that artillery is not cost-effective against archers, because otherwise they would be op against all infantry, and guarding them with pikes would be enough to make them absolutely imbeatable. Do you mean that at Agincourt bows had little influence, and that 25 000 heavely armored knight and gros valets were defeated by around 2000 english knights and some 6000 peasants? Of course melee troups were employed by all armies, but many of them made much more reliance on ranged troups. Also, you are biased because you are only considering pitch battles, which are by definition decided by melee troups. The rest of the war was an affair for light troups. I agree here. Consider the importance of micro though. That's it. In an RTS, heavy infantry can only be that. (and a guarding force protecting siege). I agree, let's just buff melee attack of cavalry and infantry alike. Spears and pikes already have a bonus against cav. That said, I don't think rising damage dealt by melee inf will change much in higher level games, but it will make even less convenient to confront it with cav, and will encourage nubs to use melee more I think.

Mmmh I don't totally agree. Slingers lose to archers. They are fine if covered by heavy infantry, but in general they are not so useful anymore. If the meta didn't have so many arrows, maybe they'd be good... maybe even too good, like in a23 Yes. Main change is the nerf of fortifications. I think they are going to make it right with a25. Mmmh yes... sometimes. During all history there have been a lot of civilizations that relied almost exclusively on ranged troups, and they had their fair share of success. I don't know why melee troups deal so little damage in this game, it could be much increased, however, my fear is that that wouldn't change the game so much, because you can prevent them to do any damage now, by just avoiding them. Melee trooups are already most useful if used in large bulks, penetrating in dept if not stopped, and possibly escorting rams directly to the opposing cc. I had a game against a player that employed that strategy while I only had archers, plus a very small batch of axe cavalry, and I lost my cc, but I won the game because the other player had lost his/her whole army to my archers, I was lucky that my cav could kill a lot of rams, and I archer-rushed all around his/her city befoure building back (then my teammate arrived and well... I think I would have won anyway). That player also had some javeliner, but I think he couldn't manage them with enough care, because they got killed very fast. I think this is the problem: spearmen are slow, pikemen slower, and skirmishers have a short range, so it's hard to manouvre them effectively. But yeah, if melee was more common, skirmisher would find their spot maybe. Archers, on the other hand, require less attention in general, just as slingers do when archers are not around. This is a considerable advantage, especially for nubs and for players that like to focus on economy. Slowing down archers won't prevent them from pivoting a defensive position, just gives them less effective range around it. This large range archers have to make hit and run strikes is the one unique thing that makes archer so fun to play. I'm against taking it from them. I'd rather lower their damage (against melee, not skirms).

Real gameplay is not like open field simulations. In 0AD positioning is very important, and archers with their range can attack and retreat before having losses, which means they can decide either when or where to fight. The only way to break this is with cavalry (but of course you have archer cavalry). I think this is a fairly realistic thing, it's what ranged units used to do in history: they would provoke the enemy into fight. Another realistic thing is that archers beat javeliners, as the latter are not armored enough to stand the archers volley for the approaching time (historically, they had similar armor, similar shields and side weapons). I proposed, when a24 came out, that javeliners were differentiated lowering their price, another thing (realistic for other reasons) is that archers and slingers have longer training. Also, if bush-hiding is implemented, I can see some potential in javeliners there... PS: lowering the importance of positioning is something undergoing, so we can expect range advantage to lose some importance in a25.

what switching some toggle, like pressing f6 or something, a pink square, or anything visible for that matter, appears under all animals and fruit trees/bushes? edit: just seen stan' work, very good! they are not only visible, but also very nice

"when a man with a javelin meets a man with a bow, the men with the javelin will be a dead man"

Equalize range of archers and slingers and give one of the two to almost every civ if not all of them. It is true that bows were overall a superior weapon to slings, that is proven by history in many ways. However, I think it mostly boils down to the fact that bows are more versatile than slings: they are better for hunting, and much much better for shooting behind cover, which is a key advantage in sieges. By the way, in the ancient world noone bothered equipping their armies with slings or bows, that kind of weapons were personal, and cared by their owners from the moment they were taught to use it by their fathers. At that time, it appears from the sources that slingers were generally valued no less than archers, and they were considered interchangeable.

@Yekaterina Oh well I'm much behind with the number of mods I'd like to try. If I remember well I still haven't tried any of yours.

There are many mods proposed in this forum, that need serious testing. If we had some general testing schedule arranged in some way, it would be easier for us to join the efforts. I don't have so much free time, and just popping in the lobby when I can, to see if there's someone to try mods with, doesn't work. Or at least it didn't when I tried.

What do we want the role of palisades to be? Because if they can be destroyed easily by both siege and melee, and they don't really affect ranged troups (because they don't), then what's their use? They are just a nuisance, only effective to disturb the pathfinder and attract the fire of idle enemy units.

@Yekaterina does that only remove the spread or does it also assures that every shot hits? I personally think that the best part of random spread is its rendering, wich looks better than 100% precise projectiles. But that's not the only thing, I also think that it's a good thing that ranged units deal more damage from closer, so if we remove spread, I'd also make damage dealt dependent on distance. All in all I'm in favour of such a rework, I think it would make the game simpler and more consistent. Archers can shoot much further than that. We know it well enough because archers were used in good numbers in more recent times (english longbows). We have some conflicting sources on which weapon had longer range, it's generally speculated that slings were somehow superior in that regard, but most probably they achieved fairly similar results.

The main problem with palisades, is that at now their role overlaps that of walls almost exactly. I know it sounds bad, but a good solution would be to remove them completely, until we find a way to introduce more anti-personnel defensive options. This at once would make it disappear those weird palisade mazes that can be seen sometimes in multiplayer games, substituded by saner stone walls.

Could foundations be made invisible to other players? I always liked that approach better.

I like the idea of making towers stop shooting while upgrading. Maybe if you hit them while upgrading, they could also stop or lose progress in the upgrade. I think building time of sentry tower is balanced enough though.

About palisades, I'm not against making them weaker, but I must say they have little use in p1. They are mostly used against rams/elephants actually.

easy enough if you are next to your opponent. You may know he/she has a tower, in that case and if you feel you are ahead, you may try to steal it. It's a very rewarding tactic.

There is currently no issue with this in the meta. Better not to change anything. Anyway, sentry towers are already a target and a weak spot in p2, because they are quite easily conquered. Players usually rush to upgrade them as soon as they get to p2.

If houses were completely useless defensively, it would be a total bore to build them though. Walls have that same problem: they need focus and time to build, but they are quite sparing in fun.

Also, I think the game punishes enough those players that lose houses and, more often than not, whole cities, so I don't think there is any need of additional mechanics to punish them further in the case they are left with more population than they could train.

I like the idea of making houses give more loot, including maybe food and metal, in account of family possessions. It would help turning raiding in a more enjoyable and profitable activity. However, I mostly like how houses are used currently, and it's not really unproper, from an historical point of view, to use houses to wall your settlement, so I would keep their defensive stats in line with the ones of other civilian buildings.

I was thinking: If one really wanted more realism, a solution could be to build three functionally differenct CCs, instead of just upgrading the first and only one. For example: Village phase CC - rural center, works as a dropsite, has limited garrison power Town phase CC - acropolis/hilltop fort, doesn't work as dropsite, but has high defensive capacities City phase CC - agorà/central square, mostly economic building, doesn't defend Note that the historical position of such locations would not be the same, and that they could coexist. Anyway, such a different approach to phasing makes more sense if looked as a more nuanced progression (instead of neat numbered phases), where completing some building gives you access to other buildings which give you access to further buildings and techs, until you have unlocked all the progression tree.