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I think it is an abuse, but I do it anyway. Problem is that conquering is too strong (and buildings are too strong themselves). I'd like conquering replaced with another mechanic like "pillaging", to disable a building and get loot, but without gaining control of it.

Catapults weren't shielded against archers anymore than they were shielded against other assaulters, also, you can have people shielding the catapults in the game too. In A24 catapults have 95% pierce resistance, it's a lot and I think it's more than enough. Also, we are going to have archers nerfed, and fortifications too, so please don't raise back catapults pierce resistance. Personally, I like soft counters better than hard ones, but I'm not totally against them; what I'm against is counterintuitive and anti-historical mechanics: why would sword cavalry be better than spear cav against archers? I'm open to any argument of course. Also, sword cav is already more useful as a ram counter (unfortunately so, I believe).

@borg- and what about skirmisher infantry?

I like your reasoning, that's a solid AoE rock-paper-scissors. I was suggesting some other mechanics that you can find, for instance, in Total War games. Having played that, I can assure you that you can have a game that's both realistic and a lot of fun (although with some spectacularization, in that case). Realisticity is not really opposed to gameplay. In general, the ranged>melee>cavalry>ranged cycle can stay valid, but skirmishers would be an intermediate step between melee units and archers/slingers. They would be quite weak against archers and specially strong against melee units, and also more resistant than archers against cavalry. If we want to go even more realistic, there are further considerations that we can do, that involve the usage of shields and their size. Skirmishers were underpowered in a23 when they were faster (although they were appreciated for economy) and I don't think we can put them on the same level of other ranged units anyway. I think the best solution is to give them a different caracterization altogether, like booming or forest ambushing, so that they won't be like an handicap anymore. Furthermore, (I'm speaking to devs now) be careful not to nerf archers too much, or slingers will be op all over again.

You are right, skirmishers are kind of garbage in this alpha, but of course you are gonna lose them all if you send them to fight archers! Archers are like the scissors of skirmishers paper, while it's melee units that skirmishers are best against. This is intuitive enough, I believe. Skirmishers should be buffed a bit, but they should not be balanced with archers. Better still, skirmishers could be cheaper, as I proposed, and this would have major economic consequences of course, that would help differentiating the civs. Making skirmishers faster would have economical consequences as well, but less evident and more sneaky, that's why they got slowed. About archers kyting other units, hitting and retreating, I think that's an advantage that long range units will always have. It's an actual, documented tactic of course, and I think it's something RTS games should have. The problem is that the meta is now too oriented towards attrition warfare, that favorites archers.

Many contents of this mod overlap Nescio's one, and I think this is a very good sign: it's fine patching. I also like the proposals about macedonian arsenal. What I don't like is your take on ranged units. Admittedly, it's a delicate matter, because every new alpha, it comes out that ranged units are unbalanced. The problem, in my opinion, is that some day it was decided that all ranged units are one of these three kinds (archers, slingers, skirmishers) and that they must have different ranges to differentiate them, however, the slingers having shorter range that archers is not supported by historical evidence, and skirmishers being faster and able to effectively chase archers definitely doesn't go in the sense of historical plausibility. It is totally in the sense of rock-paper-scissors mechanic to have skirmishers weak against archers, and we should not allow skirmishers to be effectively used in the same way as archers or slingers, instead we should try to find a different tactical fold where skirmishers are better versed. My proposal is simply to make skirmishers cheaper. They could even be the cheapest soldier unit for all civilizations, the male counterpart of woman villagers: no armor and only equipped with self crafted shield and weapons. Another idea is the one of having soldiers hidden in the bushes, and skirmishers could have some advantage in that kind of usage. Another change still could be to give skirmishers a limited number of javelins, after which they would fight hand to hand. Ideally, I imagine them best used in support of heavier infantry, that should not cost the same as them, but more. Skirmisher spam should hardly be a good idea, that would be anti-historical. Also, all ranged citizien soldiers should have equal speed. Maybe champion archers or such could be made slower, as they are more heavily armoured.

but the lighthouse is super useful!

and this is not even counting maurya and persian population cap bonus.

Well that's not a problem if you only make rams and siege towers directly buildable. I think some siege engines were carried around with armies, only the rest was designed and built when necessary. Also catapults required specialised operators, and specialised knowledge for assembling, it would make sense to make such a distinction. Also, this would avoid the necessity of a an arsenal for those civilizations that apparently never had arsenals dedicated to siege weaponry.

ok, sorry. However, I don't think we have evidence of such military engineers in any civilization predating romans anyway. Soldiers did build houses and rams alike.

I am no historian, sorry about that. Anyway, I subscribe fully the idea of soldiers building rams and siege towers, and I would rather not introduce engineers, that look like unnecessary micro to me. If a soldier can build a house, he can also build a ram. I think a lot of ancient soldiers (like nowadays soldiers) were able to handle many different weapons, maybe both on horseback and on foot, and used what they had to, depending on what was required of them, and what was their favourite tool. Ideally, a lot of soldiers in any civ quiver should be able to choose from various different equipments, and change it on many occasions, mount a horse or go on foot, ecc. In practice, RTS generally make it a whole lot simpler, for gameplay reasons. A rhodian slinger-hoplite would have to choose between shooting and charging, while simple division between slingers and hoplites avoids the problem. In general, though, I'd love to see swordmen, like roman legionaries, throw javelins before charging. I don't think that would affect gameplay too much.

This idea feels a little bit complicate, but there is something I like about it: Now conquering a cc is really not more difficult than just destroying it, because if you damage it enough, with a bit of micro you can save it and conquer it easily, with a massive advantage, compared to just destroying it. I don't think this is a good thing for the game, so I like the idea of enforcing a period of assimilation before the cc is useful to the conquerer.

In some AoE, when a player starts building a wonder, everyone gets to know it, and where is being built. This makes wonders feel a lot more special, and adds a unique variation in gameplay. I always wondered why is 0 ad different in this.

A second proposal: - units can build rams and siege towers on any (even enemy?) terrain, like buildings. - to be able to build a ram/s.t. you may be requested to have completed some research only avaiable in third age (at the workshop? a the fort?) - units that build a ram/s.t. are instantly picked up when the ram is completed - when there is noone in the ram, it stops moving (it loses loyalty? it auto-destroys?) Now garrisoned rams are an incredible weapon, but are micro-intensive, this way they would be more realistic and overall less micro-requiring. This also resolves the contraddiction of having siege workshops in all civilizations, just for rams.

I like it. It would be even better, to me, if people could build ships on the shore like buildings, instead of having a dock building that creates them all at once.

Well I'm now on two different projects: I made a modded version of the Nile map, that changes the disposition of the players, and I think I will eventually pull-request it as an option that players can choose after picking the map. That was mostly to get familiar with random map scripting, the map I really want to create is one with mountains that don't play out as simple placeholders for obstructed land, but feel more natural and playable. A different terrain to battle on. To generate mountains, the idea I had is simple: given a portion of any shape of a raster map, sample a number for each pixel (the sampling distribution can and will affect the result), then make each pixel have elevation equal to the lowest neighbour plus the random value for that pixel. I made a proof of concept in R and these are the results (with different distribution for noise): I wonder if this simple idea alone can produce good loking mountains, but I need to tweak the distribution first. And to do that, I need to know how the heightmap affects rendering and how it affects passability. I didn't find anything about this. Also, a painter that makes any impassable terrain evident by applying a rocky texture on it, would be terribly useful, I didn't find that either.

Hello, I am trying to mod random maps, and I was wondering how things are going with new mountain painters? I have an idea for generating playable (partially passable) mountains, it's simple and works fine, but maybe you already have more advanced solutions. I for sure would need some directions. @FeXoR@smiley

and can you change that height locally?

I can't see how would that serve simplicity, to be honest. It's a fairly arbitrary choice for a subset of all units. Another possibility, that I'm advocating, would be all melee units, and to me that seems simpler.

Do I really have to repeat this? I opened this thread to make this exact point, it's nothing about resources and balance, it's about game experience and realism. Camels have weaknesses, I agree, I never said they are unbalanced, I just said they are part of a notorious combo... everybody knows that. Anyway, noone deploys swordmen to counter pikes. Apart from anti-siege missions, melee units are generally regarded just as target dummys, and that's where pikemen excel.

Yet, it doesn't make any real sense. After so much talk, I hope it's clear: it's a distortion of the game to have swordsmen dealing much more damage to rams and siege machines in general, than spearmen or pikemen. About the difference between spearmen and pikemen: since in the game only ranged units are really effective in inflicting damage, I'm convinced that civilizations that use pikemen have a notable advantage against those who can only use spearmen instead, because they both deal terribly low damage, but pikemen are more resistant and so they make better fodder units, wich is their only good use. Ptolemais notorious pike-camel combo is the perfect example of this.

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THE PROBLEM HAS BEEN SOLVED the following files were uploaded during irc troubleshooting.

still nothing changes