alre
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Posts posted by alre
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if I understand correctly, to test the code one would need a linux server? Is there maybe a dev/qas environment already up to meddle with somehow?
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2 hours ago, krt0143 said:
Sorry, actually no. This is not an economics game, it's a strategy game with a side dish of economics. Sorry but I don't see the connection with the speed clicking competition.
No, not really. Resource availability only slows down the first phases, but inevitably later on you have more capacity to gather, and, after some point you have paid everything you needed to pay for (must-have buildings, techs), so your spending goes down while your income remains the same (unless you stop gathering, but that's not an imposed limitation, it's a choice).
The earning/spending ratio is not linear, and while you starve in the beginning, you have more than you need later on, when your only expense is training fighting units. Obviously if you rush the enemy as soon as you can you won't really notice, but I like to take my time and I do.
That's an unfounded supposition. I got my backside handed to me a grand total of 2-3 times (in the beginning), since that I've beat the computer over a dozen times, and 3-4 times I've abandoned the match because the game became too boring (entrenched situation it would take hours to sort out).
TL;DR: By now I've got used enough to 0 A.D. to beat the computer without a problem.What I'm complaining about is not that the computer is too strong (it isn't. It's better than AoE 2, but still limited), I'm complaining it's not fun to play against it, because of the totally not-human-like speed and relentlessness.
Yes, I know. It's kind of obvious it's streamlined for that, but it's a pity because it could easily also cater for those perverts who don't like PvP games...
What it needs is more, and non-compulsory choices, so you can decide to do it this, or maybe that way, depending on the situation.
That's where the interest is for single-player games. Single player PvP is absolutely pointless, the AI lacking the only thing humans have over it, creativity.I don't agree. Game designer is a job, much like film director, and among them you have the better and the less good ones.
There is no surprise gameplay quality is progressively going down the drain nowadays marketing has the creative say. But I'm going OT.AoE was an improved copy of 1994's "Warcraft: Orcs & Humans". I know, I was there. Warcraft was revolutionary, and AoE (first of the name) was a me-too copy, but with (for the time) jaw-dropping graphics.
Obviously it fathered a franchise, but they were intelligent enough to improve the handling and keep the good parts intact (well, I only bought AoE, AoE 2 and AoE 2's Expansions, so can't talk for the later ones).you are right about many things:
- SP material and overall experience needs work
- the AI needs work
- siege needs work
but you are so deaf and busy listening to yourself that you you keep missing the point: the game needs work but lacks the people who put the work.
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41 minutes ago, chrstgtr said:
I agree 100%. But low wood is probably the #2 reason why some maps/biomes are unpopular (#2 after only the fact that some maps require the use of a navy).
All I mean to say is that a reduction is radius size should be done carefully because its easy to overdo it and the potential for blowback.
agree. I remember there was a point between a24 and a26 that we stopped playing many maps we liked, like unknown, frontier, stronghold, rivolet, rheinland... and the reason is wood generation. I am not sure if something changed in those maps, or if it's mainland that was improved to the point that these other maps looked that worse by comparison.
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2 hours ago, krt0143 said:
Sure, but I don't have any problems with economy whatsoever: By the time I reach the 3rd age I'm literally swimming in resources. By the time I start considering conquest I have several thousands of each resource.
hoarding res is actually considered a sign of bad eco.
2 hours ago, krt0143 said:And here we have the problem!
"Lobby ranking" = conditioned to fit the already existing play style. "More of the same".
If you want to think outside the box you have first to free yourself from that box (i.e. the standardized play style you guys have honed to achieve those rankings)...I can understand the appeal of such line of reasoning for anyone who wishes to change the game without having to actually understand it first.
everything you are saying about RTS has been written in this same forum dozens of time already. so much for thinking outside the box.
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no reason to wait, test it already. you can use a26, or you can use the release candidate. whit who would you test it?
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9 minutes ago, ShadowOfHassen said:
If you have any ideas for other strategies, I'd love to hear them. I don't program much but the hole game design side of developing I think is fascinating.
agree. there is indeed some work being done in that regard, and improving variety of the game is one of the goals. right now - I'm not sure why - not much is moving, but you can partecipate to the testing and general work ig you want. what's your level (lobby ranking)?
I reccomend you to take a look at how this thread and its history:
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45 minutes ago, ShadowOfHassen said:
This is a problem that I've found with 0 A.D. --Real quick preface is that I'm not the best RTS player, but I think I'm pretty good, but there are some bad balances with both 0 A.D.'s AI and the game itself
I have not played it, but I've heard stories about people playing competitive World of Warcraft where they had to send EXACTLY two soldiers to collect gold, Exactly two to build and then train 10 grunts and blitz, because that's what everyone else did.
0 A.D. seems like this. OK, there are some ways in the game where you shouldn't be able to everything. (If I just pick flowers in minecraft I'm going to get myself killed really quickly) but 0 A.D. should not have a specific "way" to win. OK, you do need to shoot for wood and meat in the first level, but I should be able to do it in different ways. I should be rewarded by putting a few soldiers on metal and stone at the beginning. I shouldn't have to pour everything I've got into soldiers, because if I don't, I get mobbed by 50 spearmen 10 minutes unto the game. Building walls would counteract the spearmen, but I'd need the resources and builders for that, and that requires more soldiers and I can't get all of that done.
How can this be addressed? Firstly, by rewarding players for branching out. My suggestion was to change the resources required by the resource gathering upgrades, so that the player, if he put people on metal, would be rewarded by making his wood soldiers get upgraded, yes you could ignore that, but now its a choice. Just getting wood and metal might allow me to get lower costs, but If I can wide balance it, my late game time will be easier.
Then in regard to rams. @Vantha's been doing more research, but in ancient times a siege ram would be murdered by a handful of men without protection. It should destroy buildings, but it should only be protected from arrows. Everything else should cut right through it.
if you reward players that do something different from current meta, you are just changing a build order with another. creating a variety of strategies takes a bit more than that.
1 hour ago, krt0143 said:What's "eco tech"?
all the techs that improve gathering of any resource.
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I'm convinced that a better system would not prevent discussions at all.
Also I think that a TG rating system would be relatively easy to implement and potentially very useful. Actually, 1v1 rating can be improved as well at little cost.
What I don't know is who and how is managing the rating bot. what would it take to have a pr accepted?
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13 minutes ago, krt0143 said:
Dumb but lightning fast!
And given this game is a race, my (hopefully) superior intelligence doesn't really come to play. The AI speed overwhelms me long before I manage to bring my elaborate plans (
) to fruition...
(I'd really like the AI to be slower. Not dumber, not poorer, not whatever, just slower.)
the AI difficulty parameter does exactly that.
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I agree the game would look more realistic if fortresses were not miniature versions of weirdly square strongholds that throw showers of arrows at a large range, but were instead larger concentric defenses, including patrols, palisades and killzones, then finally a fortified position on a pre-existing hill, where the garrison retreats when the threat is nearest.
But that would be hella complicate to realize and a miniature version of a conventionally shaped stronghold does the job of representing map control and also looks cuter in the process.
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6 minutes ago, krt0143 said:
Not sure what you mean by this, but without AI the wildlife would be totally listless. On the contrary, I want it to be aggressive, but only against the human player.
That been said, this could indeed be a solution, creating a fictitious player allied with the real opponent.
It will just sound quite silly when the computer announces you're been attacked by some famous historical leader each time some wolf attacks you...
you should try a solution before dismissing it.
17 hours ago, real_tabasco_sauce said:I imagine the enemy AI would also have to be allied to this 'player 3'
yes, sure.
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there is certainly an improvement imo. just dropping some observations:
- moving the islands towards the edge of the map is a good idea as it saves space. was the new algorithm tested for all possible combinations of n. of players and maps sizes?
- I'm not sure I like that the islands are on opposite sides of the continent in 1v1 or low player count, but actually I don't much play those settings.
- maybe biomes should make more sense for the map geography? I think it's a bit weird to have savanna biome on a map with that kind of shape
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you can give wildlife to an extra player not assigned to any AI (sandbox).
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you can decide the order of mods directly in mod selection menu in the game. there are arrows on the right bottom that let you move a mod up and down the order.
but files from the later mods will replace completely those of the mods before anyway, if they overlap, you understood that part correctly.
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2 minutes ago, Atrik said:
If you don't like the reaction of peoples to the mod's name, because it's associated with a bunch of assumptions, you can rename it easily to something else in proGUI/mod.json.
true. a bit cynical actually, but true.
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37 minutes ago, ShadowOfHassen said:
Also, having grown up using the customary system and I can tell you there is one definition of mile (5280 feet) and one definition for foot 12 inches.
lol this is so biased it's funny.
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- the game engine doesn't support more than 8 players
- the game engine doesn't support spherical maps
- the game doesn't support server side mods
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2 hours ago, krt0143 said: I've discovered even worse: You can cram 40 rams in a single ship. That's about the double of what you'd need to totally annihilate an adversary, and there is nothing at all he can do to avoid that ship of doom, short of totally walling off all beaches... Towers don't affect neither ships nor rams, so you would simply sail to the beach nearest to his town center, unload, destroy his town center, and then mop up the few buildings that don't switch to Gaia, and any attempt at a new town center. Then send in the army to eliminate the survivors.
I discovered it and tried it out on the "Mediterranean Coves" map. I sent a single ship, unloaded 15 rams, took care of the town center and towers, then sent in just 20 spearmen (with 4 druids) to mop up all those enemies desperately trying to destroy my
tanksrams.And I didn't even try to load any infantry into the rams. IIRC each ram can contain 10 units, so (population limits allowing) you could send 40 rams with 400 units of infantry in a single ship! There is really nothing the adversary could do against such an onslaught.
Seriously, I think ships should be limited to carrying 2 rams at most. First and foremost rams are big and cumbersome, you can't stock them below deck. Also 40 rams would be heavier than the ship itself... Besides, unlike infantry which simply jumps off the ship using its own two legs, unloading such a heavy contraption would take hours for each of them.
realistically speaking, a ship could carry maybe one ram, but that wouldn't be mobile and should be used from the ship itself, as in some historical accounts. Rams were built on location, not transported over sea.
I hope there will be important changes with how siege works in 0ad, there has been a lot of talk about this over the years. Things will also changes with the melee rebalance soon to be tested at wide.
But until next and future patching initiatives, rams are currently pretty balanced in a competitive setting.
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just use autociv's active pause.
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1 hour ago, Gurken Khan said:
We recently talked about chicken rush:
this is really funny and relevant.
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Han units speak greek, that's really comical.
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20 minutes ago, krt0143 said:
Sure, but why not make it a standard game feature? I mean, everything can be added externally, but the game should be self-sufficient.
this is a question of organization of the game development and it's not a simple subject, ideally you a right, but suffice it to say that the main releases of the games are actually on a halt right now.
22 minutes ago, krt0143 said:As for the economy, except the excellent idea to drop the specialized male peasants, there is IMHO not much difference. It still boils down to controlling/harvesting specific resources and preventing the adversary from doing so.
well, in AoE there is no harm to use your soldiers in any other way than let them kill themselves, in 0AD you want them to do eco rather than chase enemies they can't catch. By simply having them distracted, you are lagging behind in economy.
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24 minutes ago, krt0143 said:
A couple minimap suggestions. The 0 A.D. minimap can easily be improved:
1. Please highlight the selected unit(s) on the minimap (in white) so you can see where they are.
2. Minimap visibility is not optimal, especially given the player is in dark blue and thus tend to blend into the background. Would it be possible to mute (de-saturate?) the minimap background, so that important features (units, buildings) stick out more?
3. Or even create a set of display filters for the minimap, like "Show only units/buildings on a gray background", "show only friends/enemies", "show only resources".
try BoonGui mod, it enlarges the minimap and changes players colors.
47 minutes ago, krt0143 said:(I admit I'm new to 0 A.D., but I'm a veteran in AoE, where this strategy is terribly efficient against the AI)
these games are very different in the way eco is managed by units that are also fighters.
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16 minutes ago, chrstgtr said:
There have been so many posts in this thread (and that thread) saying that it is cheating. Just because it is public knowledge doesn't mean that it isn't cheating. There is no agreement on any of these items. If there was agreement it would be part of the vanilla game (and thereby not a "cheat"). The only reason why these cheats exist is because someone made the mod and no one can do anything to stop you from using it. Being transparent about cheating doesn't make you any less of a cheat.
A cheat is anything that gives an advantage this is not universally agreed to. This mod gives an advantage to the user and is not publicly agreed to.
This is a game with no referees to enforce the rules. The game relies on cooperation around the basic rules of the game. If we were to play a soccer match and I picked up the ball with my hands and ran it into the goal it would be cheating. It wouldn't matter that everyone could see me do it (public/transparent). And, it wouldn't matter if there was or wasn't referees to enforce the rules against against.
No matter how public. No matter how transparent. A cheat is a cheat. And, players continued use of a mod in games where others call it a cheat loses any good will and benefit of the doubt those players ever had.
I play for fun, I like competing once in a while and I can play fair: I played without the mod for the tournament event if it wasn't required (contrary to what I had thought). What I'm saying is: think what you want to think, but I've been using progui since soon after it was out, and I'm not a cheater.
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Age of Empires IV
in Introductions & Off-Topic Discussion
Posted
AoM campaign was gorgeus. AoE3 campaign looks a lot like AoM, AoE4 campaign looks very silly.