LetswaveaBook

I think bolt shooters might benefit from targetting like towers do, such that after each shot they look for a new target. Also, it prevents 10 bolt shooters shooting at the same target.

In this situation, archers are able to exploit the weakness of these units: namely their low durability. So in those tests your army consisted for 50% out of units with an exploitable vulnerability. I tested 20 archers+20spears vs. 28 spears and 6 skirms and the side with the few skirms won (which again gets beaten by 15 spears+15 skirms). So they are not all powerful. If both sides use swordsmen, then the side with the 6 javs gets a bigger advantage. Finally, damage is distributed over units, so that means that if the archers deplete the HP of the opposing army by 95%, there is a good chance that over 50% of the units survive (with low HP). Also if you run away mid fight, then you will not lose many troops and the damage that is dealt is distributed nicely and can be healed. In the end, it would make 0ad a more complex game than just fight and run away once your melee is dead. By the way, chrstgtr wanted to discuss 4 options and we currently are discussing only one. Maybe ask stan to split the topic if it gets out of hand.

To be honest, if you use 100 skirmishers against a group of archers, then you are asking for a lot of overkill. A more practical situation would be 50 against 50. Secondly, from what I saw the skirmishers had path finding problems. I guess if the skirmishers used a wide formation, they would perform better. My idea was to give players control over the type of targeting they like to use for every situation. For the mod, I only gave it to archers (because it is easy and) since they often have the other ranged units in range. If you give it to a skirmisher, the archers would be out of range and won't be hit. Being able to hit opponents in the back is mainly useful if you have long range. I think the randomness was indeed the missing aspect. This is caused by their 2.5 spread stat. This stat can in game be improved if you research the archer training technology or if you have higher rank ranged units (promotion multiplies spread by 0.8). Champion archers have with 1.0 spread near perfect aim, so that might also be fun testing. A special case is the Maurya poison archer, which will distribute its poison. For the current mod, champion archers do have unchanged targetting. So you will need to edit the mod for testing champion archers with tower targeting.

I made a mod, where I gave archers buildingAI or tower targetting. In these settings, I set up 15 archers+pikes vs 15 skrimishers+pikes. The side with the archers won(13 archers survived, but there appears significant randomness and sometimes the side with the javelins wins). I also set up 5 archers+pikes vs 5 skrimishers+pikes and this time the side with the skirmishers won narrowly (4 pikemen won with a total HP of 103, but that is only because the archers did not run away after the javelins died). So (1) will shift the balance and it does enough to counter pikemen. Archers+pikes won't be OP, it is just that pikes lose some of their usefulness if they no longer absorb all damage. TemplateModwitharchbuildingAI.zip

I saw that towers have a line of: <GarrisonArrowClasses>Infantry</GarrisonArrowClasses> Initially I was thinking about something like a <GarrisonRegenClasses> The topic deserves some continuation and if the ideal solution can not be obtained, then the solution of @wowgetoffyourcellphone is good enough. (another solution would be to give cattle an aura that sets the GarrisonRegenRate to 0, as the GarrisonRegenRate of the corral also improves upon phasing up)

From what I have seen, this is indeed observable. From my experience it is that if javelins are shot at a dense group, it does not mean something is hit (which might seem counterintuitive). Could this be the solution for the previous situation? If ranged units had a really tiny splash damage(that is so small it only hits the intended target), then they might have more realistic accuracy. Though I think this might become computationally heavy. I also disagree about the cons of (1) and I think it might be a good solution if it was toggable (player can chose between "current" targeting or tower targeting). Tower targeting means pikemen get hit as often as the ranged units, so the ranged units die earlier. Some things are complex math. If a garrisoned fortress distributes 23 arrows over a group of units, they die all simultaneously with current tower targeting. If 23 towers shoot 1 arrow and distribute the next volleys, then that is not the same. Also tower targeting only targets the units in range as far as I am aware. Again, a merit of (1). @wowgetoffyourcellphone and @real_tabasco_sauce said something needs to be tested. I guess (1) is very testable.

When there are to many boomer around, you can in a TG go for a fast siege tower build. Ptolemies are the fastest for that and I managed to produce a siege tower before some of my opponents reached p2. The lobby would be a better place if more earlier siege tower strategies were there. early siege tower.zip

Gelukkig nieuwjaar iedereen, ook voor @Grapjas!

That is exactly what I thought attack group meant. @BreakfastBurrito_007, I am not saying the current situation is optimal, but if your units would be able to focus their attacks on vulnerable targets, the pikemen could become entirely useless. I am not against changes, but there is always the risk that you might only solve one problem with another. The base problem for me seems more like the big difference in attack values of ranged compared to melee.

I think attack-group would be better. Though adding functionalities like attack ground doesn't hurt the game, but I won't expect it to be the holy grail for solving balance issues..

I played a 1v1 game against vinme and I would like to share it with those who might not play 1v1s frequently. It was a very fun game to play, but I can't guarantee it also leads to a good commentary. Mercenary cavalry gets a lot of hate on the balance side of things, but it also has a chance to make games more interesting. I hope that when you see this game you would wish A26 not to be just a boom game. #horsesneedlove Btw, after viewing the video of @mysticjim, I was in the mood for making a tumbnail for youtube. 2021-12-27_0002.zip

I would like the hoplite to be an unit associated with the Greeks. It would feel weird to me if a Persian player would mainly use hoplites as melee units.

There has been talk about giving the Persians mercenary hoplites and many Greek mercenary hoplites did serve the Achaemenid Persians. adding the unit would be easy, but what would be the best place to train them? One of the things I did not want is Persians to spam mercenary hoplites. I have thought of a solution: The Provincial center. The provincial center is just a copy of the civic center, which remains the same with the addition that the provincial center can also recruit mercenary hoplites. In essence, every "civic center" that you build is a provincial center, but you start with a civic center. So your starting CC is just normal, but any "CC" that you construct is a provincial center that can train mercenary hoplites. I think many factions could enjoy a similar approach, where for example Roman provincial centers could recruit auxiliary cavalry or Athenian provincial centers could recruit Cretan archers. So what are you thoughts about giving any secondary "CC"s the ability to train some extra unit types? ProvincialCentre.zip

Right now, people generally won't purposely capture corrals. However when the opponent relies on garrisoned corrals for their economy, the corresponding counterplay could be to capture the corrals. So that option needs to be there.

That seems to be the better option to me. If someone would find the time for creating the patch, it would be great. Since I am not the person to add that to the game, I am neither the person to judge how it should be done and other solutions are also welcome.

All the power. They fought against Seleucus the first and they are an important reason elephants entered the battlefield of the era. Honestly, the story of Seleucus the first is the best story of any greek general of the time and possible all time. Mauryas definitely deserve to be in for that alone. Maybe we then need a fation that actually did matter? Or settle on that we can't agree on this one.

As far as I could see, it takes 1.25 second per shot. I watched it perform in the scenario editor against a Briton chariot and the units were in sinc. I watched also the situation with a chariot archer and the chariot archer fired faster than the fire cav.

Then I think it is acceptable to go for code that isn't clean code. But maybe there will be someone that bothers enough to create the tools to do it with some clean code. Btw: The reason that people need to be able to marry cattle is such that you can train minotaurs and such.

I made a mod, where I added this to the corral template <GarrisonHolder> <Max>8</Max> <EjectHealth>0.5</EjectHealth> <EjectClassesOnDestroy datatype="tokens">Animal</EjectClassesOnDestroy> <List datatype="tokens">Animal</List> <BuffHeal>1</BuffHeal> <LoadingRange>4</LoadingRange> </GarrisonHolder> So I launced the mod, build some corrals and recruited goats for my army. Out of dedication, I deleted my CC and looked if garrisoned corrals lost loyalty, which they didn't do. I am not a dev, but isn't that bad code? In A27, people can marry cattle and take them into their houses (or I am aiming for that). Then the cattle can still guard the house. I think the better solution would be to specify which objects grant GarrisonRegenRate when garrisoned.

We don't have an infantry javelineer champion, so having one would be welcome. Do you have a 3D model for the champion infantry javelineer? I think this is part of the problem when the Iberian player also has indibil. Maybe a "correct nerf" for fire cav would be changing indibils aura such that it no longer affects champions. However there are probably many ways we could balance the fire champion and making them an infantry unit is a creative one. However rather than removing features, I would prefer to balance the features that we currently have, so keeping the fire cavalry would be fine, if it was well balanced. The unit most similar to the fire cavalry is the Briton chariot and I honestly do not know if that unit is well balanced. Adding features is cool anyway, so it would be a possibility to add infantry fire javelineer champions to Iberians.

I found a line of code in template_structure.xml in the template folder: <GarrisonRegenRate>5.0</GarrisonRegenRate> In the phase_town_generic.json file (and of course city phase tech and the special ones for athens) in the technology folder there are lines "modifications": [ { "value": "Capturable/GarrisonRegenRate", "add": 7, "affects": "Structure" } I am not sure what this lines do exactly, but I think it means any garrisoned object (e.g. unit or cattle) makes it tougher to capture structures. Capturing an structure in phase 3 that has 8 units inside is very difficult, so it would have balance implications.

Now I am wondering. If I make a mod and use the autociv trick for making mod users compatible with non mod users. Then I could host a game and my mod could allow such a random civ grouping, while not all participants in the game room have that mod. Would that give the intended result of drawing a random civ out of a group?

I totally messed up, I meant to say now instead of not. Also, the wrong date was selected so it would premiere tomorrow instead of today. I decided just to make it public. I didn't really get the big benefit of using the premiere function on youtube for me. I could understand why it might generate some extra hype and attention for bigger channels, but for me there is no reason to let people wait.

I don't know where to find it in the code, but do garrisoned animals make the corral harder to capture?

It is true that some people use this as an argument, but personally I would like to use another. I really like the theme of the factions that we currently have. We have a game whose earliest factions represent the era of the summit of the Achaemenid empire, then there are the Macedonians who bring it to its knees and their successor states and finally the era is ended by the rise of the Roman repulbic (Britons seem to be an odd outlier here). It seems a valid question to me why Han Chinese or Zapotecs need to fit into that game. Maybe I am ignorant on this: Epirotes and Thebans fit in the same time-frame and geographic location, but their feats only seem minor compared to those of other factions. However nobody can deny that @wowgetoffyourcellphone put great effort in delenda est. So do I think the game gets better when these factions are added? It does not add to the story that the other factions share. Do I think 0ad gets worse when these factions are added? Extra factions provide more options so it does not make it worse, but if you add 20 unrelated factions 0ad starts to lose its theme. Finally, it seems bold to claim that Person X should work on this or that. The volunteers are free to work on whatever they like. We should regard those people as skilled volunteers, not as developers that are obliged to deliver a product.