LetswaveaBook
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Posts posted by LetswaveaBook
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6 hours ago, Radiotraining said:
I think it can be quite an interesting idea .. but I also think it's something that can dramatically change the gameplay, so not something that the devs would take lightly. Maybe could be interesting to try such a mechanic on a mod?
I agree that such an idea is better suited for a mod.
The main issue I see with the idea is that some factions have more diversity than others, so that causes some balance issues.
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So here is an example in less than a minute of effective use of the extra range of polearms.
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18 minutes ago, Dizaka said:
It's annoying when enemies know this and pull armies in so that while you're dealing with eco your army tries to capture buildings but dies to army that pulled back in.
When enemies do that, the attacker can easily spot his units capturing the buildings and order them to attack. For Elephant archers and bolt shooters it is very difficult to see what they are targeting.
26 minutes ago, alre said:bu do we want units to not try conquering by default?
conquoring is fine. attacking buildings/fields with pierce attack is not.
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24 minutes ago, Gurken Khan said:
Isn't that the default behavior of all units?
You are right, but it is behaviour that is more undesirable than soldiers who try to capture.
11 minutes ago, Gurken Khan said:Or they're shooting at fields. Wouldn't want them to do either when there's hostiles around.
That is indeed also some defealt behaviour that is undesirable. I think that this also needs to be addressed.
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There is something wrong with elephant archers and bolt shooters.
If there are no enemy units around, they will attack nearby enemy building and do not change focus unless the building is destroyed or the player orders them to do something different. In gameplay that is hugely annoying, since these units do little damage to buildings.
I don't complain about them attacking buildings, what bothers me more is that they don't automatically switch targets when an organic unit appears.
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1 hour ago, Lion.Kanzen said:
The game is limitless in its ''features''.
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In the scenario editor there is still an artillery and bolt tower for Carthage. So if you want to make a scenario, they are available.
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14 minutes ago, alre said:
I don't think extra production at the cc is really a specific bonus though, it's just a bonus that doesn't scale.
It is indeed not the very best example, but it has a few merits. The not scaling is one and the CC allows for a unit that can be trained in larger batches and can't be trained at the barracks: women. So an early p2 player could use that to boost his eco with women, while the standard player is booming with infantry.
16 minutes ago, BreakfastBurrito_007 said:But its a bonus that goes with strategies that can't simply be countered by also going p2, in that sense it is specific. A player who wishes to reap the benefits of an early attack can go p2 early knowing the benefits that it gives to their strategy, but their enemy does not get as much benefit out of faster cc production because they would already have 1-3 barracks.
That is exactly the idea.
Also, there is another benefit of faster working CCs, it makes having extra CCs more important, which is something the game could improve on IMHO. An extra CC in 1v1s is currently very risky as p3 is often the better option.
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On 25/11/2021 at 8:32 PM, alre said:
I think we can say that we want to "buff p2"
I am happy to believe this is the case.
On 25/11/2021 at 8:32 PM, alre said:and that there are 3 ways to go for it:
1_ add some extra perks to p2, like you are proposing here, which lessen the burden of phasing
2_ directly lessen the burden of phasing (resource cost)
3_ add new options to p2, accessible to every and each faction, that give more value to it.
What I think these options do not describe, is what kind of advantages there should be. I tend to think as bonuses a generic(or flat) if they help with any strategy and I think as bonuses as specific(or strategic) if they help with particular strategies. Extra health for all soldiers upon again up is what I would a generic bonus.
The issue with generic advantages is that if you see that the attacker uses p2 for his strategy, then as a counter measure the defender can simply research p2 for himself to gain the same bonuses. I would prefer that the defender instead of mirroring the opponent, he would need to think more about what really fits his strategy. If there is a specific bonus, such a faster production at the CC then if you have 3 barracks you don't actually get a lot by the extra production speed as you have sufficient production speed. If the cavalry would get more HP by the breeding technology, then the defender can't simply counter that by mirroring the opponent.
So I think specific bonuses give more diverse gameplay.
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There was an AoE4 tournament and the finals are on youtube. The game does not seem to be like my taste.
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Hey CJ, you know, This is an OG gangsta gaming community from Grove Streat.
What's up with OG Loc, is he still rappin'?
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On 22/11/2021 at 11:13 PM, alre said:
you are not really proposing something alternative.
There are some alternatives that I was hinting on or at least thinking about, but I did not mention them explicitly.
On 22/11/2021 at 7:21 PM, LetswaveaBook said:As in another topic, I would like to encourage early aggression and strategies that do not mainly focus on getting max pop with max upgrades asap.
Those strategies would be something like a mercenary rush(which does only rely on the OPness of mercs). Or strategies like what aslan did in some team games(which I posted in LetswaveaBook TG replay dump on the forum), namely getting p2 around 70 pop and then going for cavalry archers with 4 stables. Also Vali has played against me as gauls twice and did some strategies where he used an early p2 for extending his rush with fanatics or sword cavalry (which both worked due to my mistakes). Personally I tried some strategies with Mauryas where you go p2 with around 60-70 population and then go for elephant archers, which turns out not to be a very good strategy. These strategies focus on something else that building 3 barracks and spamming units.
If we have the regular boom, with 3 barracks then getting better batch training at the CC is not that impressive. If instead you had no or only a single barracks then the faster batch training compares entirely different. For the 3 barracks player the change would mean something like +4.5% production capacity for CS infantry and for the play with no barracks it would mean +17% for CS infantry. It is not over the top, but it is something that helps.
On 22/11/2021 at 7:40 PM, alre said:first, I think it's bad for transparency to add side effects to phasing, as they are not obvious to players, this was already acknowledged in the past.
That is a valid concern, but it can be shown in the structure tree. If you want to play competitively, I think it is fair if players are expected to get some knowledge. For casual players I guess the change makes little difference.
I will also clarify an underlying argument, maybe it is fair to discuss this underlying argument. I think (nearly) every faction should get something in p2 that helps with being aggressive before reaching 100 pop.
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6 hours ago, alre said:
people hated them so much in A24 they were nerfed to the ground.
I think it is not because people hated them, unit pushing was the culprit. If you put your archers in box formation, they would move fairly smoothly, and units without a formation had path-finding issues. Not only is the path finding superior, also the fact that units can stack has been disadvantageous to archers. In A24, when the front row of skirmishers attacked the archers, the ones behind needed to path around their allies to find a spot from which they could shoot. In A24 you would never get all your skirmishers shooting at the enemy in a smooth motion.
8 hours ago, BreakfastBurrito_007 said:I wonder what could be done to help archers without simply giving them more damage? or giving pikes less armor, or reducing skirmisher damage? What could be added to make range matter again?
It seems I am the only one who has any excitement about attack-ground, at this point I am more interested in why other people think it is not worth implementing. Please share your thoughts.
First of all, no matter how creative the solution is, archers seem to suffer from a material disadvantage in their stats. I think A24 mainly had good archers because turn rates made pathfinding awkward. Sometimes if you have the material disadvantage, there is not much you can do except getting better material. I ran some tests in the scenario editor with 10 basic pikes+10 basic skirms against 10 advanced spears+10 basic skrims, the side with the pikes won. If you do the same test with a weaker ranged unit, the advanced units get the win (which they deserve).
Also the attack-ground(or attack group) would be a nice feature, but it does not solve the pike issue. All pike factions do have access to skirmishers and archers of some kind.
Anyway, this is not about AoE4, whereas the OP wanted to talk about AoE4.
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On 22/11/2021 at 9:13 AM, Dizaka said:
You can monitor enemy berry expansions for by just looking at territory expansion by berry patches. If expansion exists there likely is a grainery and to rush.
@wowgetoffyourcellphone should have said something, and since he didn't say it, I will say it.
In delenda est, you can place farmsteads and storehouses in neutral territory and they don't give extra territory, so you wont have that problem. I think being able to place farmsteads outside your territory might make the game more interesting. However that feature does no solve a the other issues mentioned in this tread.
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3 hours ago, alre said:
- by the same logic, it makes sense to say that spear cav is best countered by spearmen and pikemen.
Spear cav also underperforms against swordsmen, infantry javelins and slingers.
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Also if you attack a deer it runs away. If you attack it once and then press halt, your unit will not kill the deer and allow the deer to run towards the CC or farmstead.
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13 minutes ago, alre said:
finally, p3 is already very convinient for the blacksmith upgrades alone, let alone heroes and all the rest, I think p3 should be nerfed, not buffed.
I think it is not p3 which is very convenient, but I think booming is the very convenient thing. It is not like you often see people advancing with only 1 barracks.
25 minutes ago, BreakfastBurrito_007 said:Do you think more powerful, but non-economic bonuses would help too?
I think they could, which is why I started the conversation about the blacksmith.
27 minutes ago, BreakfastBurrito_007 said:We need to introduce bonuses to p2 and p3 that don't require a strong economy to exploit, and I think adding these bonuses is a good way to start.
Batch training mainly benefits those who train large batches, which means you need to be able to afford the batch. However the CC is lucky to be able to train women, which can be afforded in larger batches. However if you just have a few in the batch, then some extra batch speed does not hurt either.
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I wanted to upload some more replays.
In the first one I saw Aslan was Seleucids and estimated that he would go for an early p2 and turn to cavalry archers. He went to p2 with mostly women, no barracks at 72 population and 4 stables to create cavalry archers. That plan was ruined because I had two stables and paid him a visit before he was able to get going. So that highlights the weakness of that particular strategy of Aslan.
Thereafter we played a game on Hyrcanian Shores and that had some cavalry commitment of me and Aslan as well. We were on the same team, but we ran into Alre's spear mercenary cavalry which proved to be efficient. I struggled in that game as I was badly hit by alre for an unlucky moment, shortly after recovering I run out of wood in my territory and migrated some units to the shores to build a dock for some wood collection. In the end I had 170 women as Persians.
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Currently it seems to me that advancing to phase 2&3 is more the result of a strong economy than a strategy choice . It would seem desirable to me if advancing to phase 2&3 was more of a strategy choice than the result of a strong economy. Currently going to the next phase to early can be very dangerous if you lack the economy to support it and spam units. As in another topic, I would like to encourage early aggression and strategies that do not mainly focus on getting max pop with max upgrades asap.
The idea for this topic is to give a few extra benefits to reaching the next phase:
Benefit 1: CCs and defensive structures get +2 pierce attack upon reaching the next phase.
The current pierce attack for the CCs seems fine to me in p1, but later on it feels less usable once the enemy gets more troops and more armor upgrades. This would keep the p1 balance as it currently is. This also synergyzes well with a few things, namely the extra capture point regen upon reaching the next phases and the fact that anyone that reaches the next phase has dropped in population compared to those staying in the previous phases. So with a little extra attack for defenses it is easier to defend once the next phase is researched. One of A25 complaints is that defenses are to weak. Defenses have been not only weakened since A24, but armor upgrades against them has become more accessible and a 3rd level has been added. For a fully garrisoned sentry tower, +2 pierce attack is almost equivalent to getting the sentries upgrade.
Benefit 2: CCs get -0.1 batch training time upon reaching the next phase.
The idea for this is that phasing up does not necessary should put you massively behind on production capacity behind anyone who stays in earlier phases and builds extra barracks. If you are in p1, and produce batches of 10 women, that takes 56.8 seconds. With this chance that would be 45.1 seconds upon reaching p2. That is not extremely significant, but it helps the player that has advanced in phase to catch up in population. Also it is something that helps to put emphasis on building new CCs rather than barracks spamm. In phase 3, a CC would produce 10 units in 39 seconds, while a barracks produces for comparison 5 units in 36 seconds.
I hope these changes would encourage more active strategies and personally I don't really see a downside to them. It might be argued that it would give extra advantage to player that reach p3 first, but on the other hand I would argue that if you fall behind these changes give you the option to "afford" p3 earlier.
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This topic died out a little and I initially hoped to discuss some strategies where players go for an early p2(before 70 population) with or without mercenaries which are separate cases.
I would also like to add a 4th option.
On 26/10/2021 at 9:12 AM, LetswaveaBook said:Option 1: The phase 2 blacksmith armor upgrades no longer affect cavalry. Instead cavalry now gains +20% health (or +25%) with the cavalry health upgrade.
The goal of this change is to support phase 2 cavalry with stable strategies. Currently strategies with a stable are hardly viable in p2, except for the factions who get a mercenary cavalry(which should of course be re-balanced, but that is a separate topic). If you have build a stable and have a lot of cavalry, you can directly upgrade them in p2 without the need for a blacksmith, which is very convenient for a strategy that relies on tempo.
Option 2: The phase 2 blacksmith upgrades give +20% attack/ or +2 armor(but might see some increase in cost). Both phase 3 technologies give +15% attack/ or +1 armor.
The reason for this change is that phase 3 gives a lot of goodies and thus booming to p3 becomes very important. In phase 3 you get siege, heroes and extra military upgrades. In A25 being 1 minute late to phase 3 can really decide games, especially if your opponent capitalizes on the fact that he has his upgrades 1 minute earlier. If only one player has the +2 pierce armor technology, that player has free roam until the opponent researches his own technologies. With siege you can really do a lot of damage in 1 minute. By making the phase 2 upgrades the most important, a player in phase 2 has improved chances to defend compared to A25. Also by having strong p2 technologies, you give players opportunities to punish opponents that linger to long in p1.
Option 3=2+1: The phase 2 blacksmith upgrades give +20% attack/ or +2 armor(but might see some increase in cost). Phase 2 armor upgrades affect infantry only, to compensate cavalry get. Both phase 3 technologies give +15% attack/ or +1 armor.
Option 4: The phase 2 blacksmith attack upgrades give +20% attack. The phase 3 attack technologies give +15% attack. The phase 2 blacksmith armor upgrades no longer affect cavalry. Instead cavalry now gains +20% health (or +25%) with the cavalry health upgrade.
I think these options could encourage strategies that involve getting p2 early(before 70 pop), even without having the currently OP merc sword cav. Does anyone have input on early(before 70 pop) p2 strategies and what they think about these strategies? I think these are modest changes that do not upset late-game balance but encourage mid-game action. Input from @ValihrAnt would be very welcome.
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17 hours ago, Philip the Swaggerless said:
2. So the cataphract, which is supposed to be an anti-cavalry unit, does worse against the chariot than than the consular bodyguard? This is not good my friends. Sword cav may need to have 1 less pierce armor or something.
Oh, this is hardly any news.
All melee units deal double damage compared to CS, the odd exception being the spear infantry who also has 10% faster attack rate. Melee champion infantry see their HP doubled and +3 armor compared to CS(for 275% total durability). Champion spear cavalry see their HP increased by 15/8-th and get +4 armor (for 286% total durability). While sword cavalry have a preferable armor typing to begin with, they see their HP increased by 15/8-th and and +4 hack armor and +5 pierce armor. I don't see why the oddity of +5 pierce armor is needed to begin with.
Finally, spear cavalry has been disappointing for me. I would say they score a 4/10 against infantry and a 6/10 against cavarly. Spear cav narrowly get the job done against other cavalry but spear cav seriously disappoint against infantry if you factor in costs (and lack of gathering for CS).
However I have seen post of @BreakfastBurrito_007 that lead me to think that some player consider (champion) spear cavalry very useful and OP. So I would be careful with buffing them.
Spear cavalry has a DPS of 5.6 (9.8 against cavalry), sword cavalry has a DPS of 8.66 and javelin cavalry has a DPS of 14.4, which seems to indicate to me that the 1.75x advantage the spear cavalry has against other cavalry gets wasted by its low base damage.
Anyway, comparing the units that are not directly related to this topic can preferably be discussed somewhere else.
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1 hour ago, UltraMan said:
I also tested spartan jav cav vs mauryan sword cav and spartan jav cav always win with 1 hp remaining.
The units should be equal, so the result should be decided by randomness and should be equally likely to go either way. I ran some test and I believe this is the case. If you place on units, let them fight and then press "reset" to rerun it, the same situation will be simulated exactly the same. Moving around the units a little means that a new situation is simulated. So if you try different positions you would get different results. The units should be equal.
The Mauryas do not have stronger jav cav, but due to their ability to use to worker elephant for efficient hunting, they can afford more than any. So Mauryas can do an unique strategy with a common unit.
2 hours ago, UltraMan said:Imo worker elephant should be removed or its equivalent should be given to all civs and Maurays need to get access to better infantry like javs and better hero. or their archers should be buffed or sword cav should be buffed and make it champion and remove useless chariot
The idea is not to streamline all faction, but rather to give them unique and interesting options. That has the result that not all options are balanced perfectly. Anyway, you are free to have your own opinion on whether streamlining or diversity is the better option.
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9 minutes ago, artoo said:
I think it is a lot easier to balance everything against true scale first
We should indeed really find the real life pierce damage value of an Javelin! Our current value seems not good for gameplay IMHO.
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On smurfing, ddos and malpractice in the multiplayer lobby
in Introductions & Off-Topic Discussion
Posted
@Reyhan You could look at some things differently. If you are attacked and are 3v1, you are not being bullied by your enemies. The bullies are your allies, they should made it a 3v3.
I think TG meta is entirely wrong. You should always rush and any team mate should contribute to that. Booming is a strategic mistake, because if you boom you cant prevent your ally from being attacked. At least that is my view.