LetswaveaBook

For me, they feel very situational. Without garrison, it can be captured easily. You can't have forces nearby to quickly garrison a tower once an enemy arrive. If a large enemy force(50+ units) arrives, then they can take out the tower and its garrison. Every unit that is garrisoned adds one arrows which does 10 pierce attack per 2 seconds, which is not much. You can ignore the towers to some extend and use your army for easier targets. Furthermore, towers distribute their damage over all enemy units instead of focusing some units down. This means that in some situations, the tower can get decent damage output but fail to get a kill. A way to render towers ineffective is by healing your units that have sustained damage. When a lot of your units have sustained damage, it is better to retreat. Also, if your army is big enough the damage of the tower does not compare to the things your army could achieve.

ouch...

There has been a lot of discussion about Carthaginian mercenary cavalry, inspired by @Dizaka and @BreakfastBurrito_007. I would like to point out that it is not unstoppable as I stopped it in this video against a respectable opponent. I have to admit that this was the 3rd game I played with Dakeyras that day. In the first, I played as britons against Carthage and I opened with a stable. Later I added a barracks but before I lacked enough spearmen, all my units were slaughtered. That build did not seem to be a workable strategy. So then we played again and I took Seleucids. I was housed 2 times before reaching 40 population and planned on getting 2 colonies, which did not do wonder either. Only the third game I got a right approach and execution.

Is the question correct? Is A26 planned?

We can give factions each an economic bonus such that it cancels out, or we can give none of them an economic bonus. I don't see why the difficult option would be worth the effort. That feels weird to me. I would prefer to make the trumpeter champion useful. Maybe the trumpeter is all ready useful, but it does not see a lot of play. I like this idea, but I doubt if it works in practise. If they are weak, they can be hunted down by cavalry and most often, players place their buildings such that there is not much to be captured. However adding extra units in the game is not bad as nobody forces players to make them. I think the game should be balanced on maps such as mainland. Other maps might not be balanced. If people like to create other maps, they need to keep balance in mind. So that might sound the same, but it is a different way of thinking about it.

I meant that indeed and it is problematic. Also for Javelin cavalry this is problematic. Not only for CS, but also for champions, which perform surprisingly well against melee cavalry. From 48 meter, the slinger does not do OP damage, but if the enemy gets closer it can have DPS comparable to the skirmisher.

That might help to balance the ranged units against each other, but it does not help so much to balance ranged units against melee units. Secondly, also the skirmisher/slingers could use the attack ground option to target the archers, even though not as effective as archers could.

I was still looking on how to make a diff and I was on the page: https://trac.wildfiregames.com/wiki/BuildInstructionsGettingTheCode I have used some SVN for testing/playing a development version of A25. What would be recommended for a new user on linux mint, would it be Git or SVN?

I think pikemen are not problematic, the powerful ranged units that support them are. In the scenario editor I saw that if a force of 10 swordsman attack 5 pikemen and 5 skirmishers, the skirmisher survive all and 1 or 2 pikemen survive. If we take a weaker ranged units such as the archer, the swordsman defeat the pike+range combo by a small margin. The fact that 1 on 1 the spearman can't defeat the javelineer convincingly is something to keep in mind concerning this topic. I do not agree with the fact that these changes are too small. I will list some thoughts on uniqueness. Group 1: Uniqueness from the start. Ptolemies: There is no reason to call them ordinary. Mauryas: Starting with an worker elephant does significantly impact how you can play the game. Also they have unique options with swordsmen and elephants. Iberians: Starts with walls, giving them a totally unique feeling on top of all other uniqueness they gain. Britons: The are the less unique than the 3 factions above here. They start with a dog, which can be used to bring the deer towards your CC in the start of the game. These deer allow you to get more cavalry, which can rush excellently with the help of the dog. The war dog can be a very convenient unit for rushing. Having with slingers allows you to put that 300 starting stone directly to work, which means you can produce ranged infantry very conveniently at the start. Also the hero Caratacus makes the Briton units the fastest in the game. Group 2: Uniqueness in p2. It is not difficult to reach p2 and reaching p2 becomes all ready feasible at 40 population. Carthaginians: Strategies where you advance to p2 with 40 or 50 population and go for merc cavalry are very much feasible. Also they get the colonization technology, which is worth after you have build an (extra) CC. Once you reach p3, you get access to powerful heroes and you can instantly train champion infantry from the temple (does not require a technology like most champions do) Seleucids: They get their military colonies for 160w, 160s,160m. what you get for this investment is a great deal, 2 population space (equivalent to 2 houses=300wood+100sec build time), a resource drop of point (valued at 100 wood and 40 seconds build time, I will ignore for this comparison that you can also drop food on it), a defensive structure(a tower cost 100w, 100s and 150 sec build time) and you can use it to produce mercenaries(mercenary camps of kush/carthage cost each 200 resources and 150 sec build time). So the value totals at 500 wood, 100s, 200 extra resources for the value of merc camp and 540 seconds of build time. I am ignoring in this value, that it is a resource drop of point for food, can train women, allows for territory expansion and can heal garrisoned units. All in all the value of this building is much larger than its costs. Furthermore the faction boost instant hero and infantry champion production at p3, as you do not need to build an extra building or wait for a technology for the champions. On top of that, it also has good unit variety. Kushites: Once you reach p2, you can build mercenary camps which makes it feel unique. The Noba clubman is one of the few tools that can efficiently deal with fortification in p2. Also it gets a pyramid for faster gather rate. Once you reach p3, you can instantly produce champions from the temple. It heroes are fine and they have a big temple for rank 3 heroes. They also can mass elephants easier. Overall, this faction is still feels under-powered because the archers are under-powered. The kushites have 14 different types of soldiers (elephant included) and 2 siege weapons. So the Kushite problem is not a problem with its design, but with balance between ranged units. It could be more unique if it would be allowed to train pikemen in p1 or its pyramids would get available earlier: see https://code.wildfiregames.com/D4280 Group 3: Factions lacking things that make them feel unique. I don't mean to say that these are bad or don't have unique properties. However the unique things that they have mostly don't make much of an impact until p3. Gauls, Romans, Macedonians, Athenians, Spartans, Persians. Now that I have concluded that 6 out of 13 factions lack the unique feeling, what can and needs to be done about it? First of all, there aren't completely bland. Secondly it might be nice to have a group of more standardized factions and those who are more unique. Just a few suggestion: Make Naked fanatics more usable, make the temple of Vesta more special (like larger aura), No idea for Macedon, Give Athenians a Theatre bonus and allow the council hall to train champ hoplites in p2, Persians could use their levy upgrades and spear cavalry in p1. Having 7 factions out of 13 being unique is not bad. I am not opposed to p1 champions. I feel that it would be well balanced as people would prefer in p1 to make units that can gather resources over melee infantry units. Even if it allowed for gimmick strategies, Sparta was know for a militaristic culture and aggressive wars to enslave fellow Greek populations. Furthermore, I have decided to end every post with this quote Cato Maior: Ceterum censeo Carthaginem esse delendam, LetswaveaBook: Furthermore I think ranged damage must be reduced.

In my view, increasing damage of spear cavalry does not make cavalry better overall. It just makes spear cavalry better. Things are all ready screwed up. If you try to have 20% of your army to be CS spear cavalry, you would lose in an otherwise even matchup. Also, I tried 10 spear+javelin cav vs. 10 sword+javelin cav and the side with the sword cavalry won the fights with a small margin. So that's how decent of a counter it actually it.

I have voiced my issues with crush damage here and there on the forum and I agree with the room for improvement. What I would like crush damage to be, is damage that is not as deadly as pierce and hack against weakly armored units. However I would like to see that heavily armored units don't see their crush damage improved as much as their other armors, so crush would be something to overcome armored units. That is also somewhat historically correct. So an citizen ranged unit could have 6 crush armor and a champion infantry could have 10, which is a difference of 4, while for hack/pierce the difference would be 7.

That is a good question and something I did not think about. Sometimes asking good question can be as valuable as trying to provide an answer. I have no answer on the question, but it is good to consider all the options. Another question would be: If you were able to train champions in p2, would you actually train them in p2? I would not advocate enabling Kush or Macedon to train rank 2 javelin cavalry for 80 metal in p1.

Going off topic, I would like to comment that in Italy there were some units that had the sword as their main weapon. So a swordsmen would not be totally unhistorical, but it would be uncommon. The Rhomphaia also seems to be a little to long for being a side-arm. I understand that the idea is that the spear cavalry is the counter unit, but the gap is bigger than it needs to be. I would advocate giving the spear cavalry an attack of 3.5 hack and 2.5 pierce per 1 second and giving sword cavalry 6.0 hack attack per 0.75 seconds. On top of that I think it would be acceptable if both units had the 4 hack and 3 pierce armor (Also I think most ranged units need a 10% decrease in attack as a DPS of 12.8 seems disproportional). That would still allow the spear cavalry to function as a counter, while the sword cavalry would be superior in most cases.

I just continued the habit of posting very mediocre youtube content about 0AD. I hope this strategy gives some food for thoughts on team game strategy.

I think this makes sense.

infantry Swordsmen have 10% metal cost and have 33% more attack than infantry spearmen and similar armor. Sword cavalry has only 6.7% metal cost and do 55% more damage and have better armor. I guess 10 metal can't justify the difference and on top of that, CS spear cavalry are fairly useless. Any faction that gets spear cavalry in p2 might as well not get them in 99% of the games.

We have been talking about melee cavalry, but there is something that strikes me as odd and I have mentioned it earlier. If we want to get a proper feeling of balance, it would help if spear cavalry was decent, such that we have something to compare sword cavalry too. On top of that, better spear cavalry gives a decent counter to sword cavalry. On top of better attack, sword cavalry has better armor but cost 10 metal. So why do have spear cavalry a DPS of 5.6 (9.8 against cavalry) and sword cavalry a DPS of 8.66?

A rank 1 spearman has 48 HP remaining and promotes after fighting a rank 1 swordsman. In many RTS games issues like this arise. What players could do is to mix ranged units with their spearman, so that the ranged units can do damage from afar and the cavalry can't engage. Also mounted counter (spearman cavalry) could theoretically do something. I want to clarify on this. I ran tests with ranged skirmishers. If we tightly pack the units together, then 40 advanced skirmishers are equivalent in strength to 48 rank 1 skirmishers. I also mad a little mod that removes the accuracy boost and then the 48 rank 1 units defeat the 40 rank 2 units and have 14 units remaining (Though some have low HP). This shows that for skirmishers, there is really some benefit for lower accuracy in massed fights. I haven't tested for other ranged units, so I can't comment on that. In these test I would estimate that the reduced spread is equivalent to roughly +15% attack. As @Dizaka just said, I agree that they must excel on the strategy and that it should remain viable. Though Carthage has its weaknesses and strengths, I think both need to be less extreme. I hope we can get a situation where both units are viable. However as @vinme said, it is not always just a sword cav merc problem, it is a problem that needs to be addressed on the entire roster.

With low vision it is also almost impossible to react timely against cavalry rushes if there are no men around.

Oh, this is a serious misconception. When a male villager and a female fight in AoE2, the male has the advantage.

A city that is well defended is defended by men, not by walls. So it does not need walls.

I do not really like AoE4s farms. for me they look like they are made out of paper or something.

Moving some champions to p2 would be a fairly easy thing to do, so now the question is which champions should be moved to P2. I could give suggestions myself, but I would first give other community member the chance to put a suggestion. I hope that this approach makes it more interactive.

I would like to give him the benefit of the doubt and assume it was a connectivity problem. However rating disputes will be needed to be judged by somebody else.

I tried the res gestae mod and showed some of it on my youtube channel. So if you do not check the mod out yourself, you can get an impression here: https://wildfiregames.com/forum/topic/56618-res-gestae-mod/