LetswaveaBook

For 25 spear cavalry you need 1750 food and 850 food more than you need for 5 cataphracts for which you need 500 metal. I agree that metal is more expensive, but not that expensive. I think a cataphract is something like 2.2-3 times as expensive as a spear cavalry, provided that all things are reasonable. I know there are people that like to trade 100 wood/food for 25 metal at the market, but that does not mean 100 wood/food is worth 25 metal.

Does this rout effect also exist if the archers are put on 'stand ground' mode? Or are they just firing all when on stand ground?

What I would like to see for gameplay is that units unlocked in later phases should be more efficient. When you reach p2, you should get feeling "amazing, now I can use naked fanatics/mercenaries/mounted archers/elephant archers and can use these to deal heavy damage to my opponent". When you reach p3 you should be able to make effective use of melee infantry/cavalry which is currently hardly the case. Currently you make citizen soldiers in p1 and you keep centering your army around these in later phases. I would like to see that the game encourages you to actually use the champion melee infantry/cavalry that the game provides you. I hardly have used champion melee infantry/cavalry in A24 and I think that is not just me. Champion melee infantry/cavalry should be awesome. Currently BreakfastBurrito_007 want seleucids have CS spear cavalry, because in his views the champions die to fast. The CS spear cavalry has 160*1.1 HP while champion cataphract with nisean war horses has 360*1.1 HP and +4 armour levels, so that is 3.3 times the durability. I think players get the idea that cataphracts die to fast comes from the fact that ranged units deal excessive amounts of damage and if the cataphracts die, they are hard to replace(because of training time and metal cost). What I would suggest is all infantry/cavalry champions +1 hack&pierce armour, move 25% of their metal cost to food cost and reduce their training times, such that it would be really cool to use these infantry/cavalry champions. That way if the opponent lingers to long in a lower phase, you can punish him with the units that you have all-ready unlocked after phasing up. In the current A24 meta if the opponents civilization does not have siege towers or elephants (as athens, britions, gauls, romans or spartans, Iberians are a special case with Indibil ) and is in p3, a defending p1 player won't really bother about it as long as the p1 player has superior numbers. Like what are those p3 factions gonna send at you? An outnumbered force of citizen soldiers and a some siege that you can demolish...

My mind was fliting with the idea of an greek umbrella faction with hoplites, the same greek architecture and with subfactions for example ionian(&pegamese), athene, achean and spartan (syracuse and pontus could be added to this). That umbrella faction would be just called greeks or something and then the player can chose to build an athenian council chamber, the spartan barracks or the temples associated with the acheans/ionians. By building build one of these structures, you chose which of the subfaction you want.

I think ashoka is great. He allows you to get a few extra temples and allows you to get the healer techs that are normally to expensive to get. Also as a chariot archer he is a nice unit to have.

It would not be the metal problem of a25. It is in my view the metal problem of the map.

On this forum I see frequently people mentioning metal shortages in 4v4s and negative game effects. I don´t understand why people call it a problem, since I see it as a choice. People decide to play a map&game mode which is short of metal. There is no difficulty in creating a mod that adds an extra metal mine near the starting position of your CC. For me it seems that the people who play these4v4 settings, chose the map to be such that there is a metal shortage. So I wonder, if everyone dislikes those metal shortages, why did nobody made a mainland map where there are 2 starting metal mines? Why do people consider metal shortages as a balance issue instead of a map issue? These are the things I don´t understand about 4v4 players. I also added a mod that adds an extra starting metal mine near the CC on mainland. Honestly that is a mod that everyone could construct and I don´t know why I even post it. MoreMetalMainland.zip

I created a mod a while ago to test some ideas about game balancing and I would like to put some results here. The original description is I also played game with Yekaterina and Valihrant to test if it is viable while not OP. The game I would like to mention against Yekaterina went according to plan. I was playing Seleucids against Ptolemies and at minute 10:30 I had allready a military colony at her door and 25 advanced mercenary archers were getting their first kills. On the flip side, she collected 16815 resources while I had 14000 at that point. The game ended in p2 with a successful mercenary rush. The game I would like to mention against Valihrant went different, where I played as Carthage and he as Sparta. I made some mistakes in execution. If you rush, you are putting yourself behind in workers for the opportunity to do damage. the rush did not do significant damage. With superior number Valihrant was able to beat me in p3. Valihrant showed two concerns about the mod. The first one is that the rusher falls behind to much in population, which the recording disproved. The rusher falls behind, but not overly. The second concern was that quick mercenaries might be used not to rush but at a later stage as a quick reïnforcement for panic defence and thus increasing the capability to turtle. This second concern was not being tested. The replay leads me to think that if the strategy for a p2 rush is well executed, it can be a proper strategy, while Valirhant showed that the defender is able to resist. Again thanks to Yekaterina and Valihrant for trying to test this mod. I also linked the game with Valirhant and if there is any desire for it, I can do a commentary on the game on my youtube channel to show how viable the strategy is under the conditions of the mod. 2021-06-08_0002.zip

I have done some wikipedia reading and the perioikoi were a free class, associated more with trade than with war. Sparta does have the perioikoi trader. If I am correct, the class of neodamodes is represents warfare activities better than perioikoi. My naïve suggestion would thus be to rename perioikoi hoplites to neodamodes hoplites. Is there any reason to use the term perioikoi hoplites?

I think there is no need to require that. If people want to build 3 blacksmiths that is fine by me. By the way: If you are talking about top players, Staratt and boredrusher are on the forum too and they are probably better than me.

A few weeks ago when discussing auras, Stan´ meantioned https://github.com/0ad/0ad/blob/e68daa4f75488bdbdd9b0f58979430ce5e9898fc/source/simulation2/components/CCmpRangeManager.cpp I noticed that file contained a lot of divisions, mainly of the form Z / LOS_TILE_SIZE Now my suggestion is to introduce a dummy variable INV_LOS_TILE_SIZE=1/ LOS_TILE_SIZE. That way, we can do a multiplication instead of a division and the lines would read Z*INV_LOS_TILE_SIZE, which is cheaper if you need to do a lot of divisions. Wraitii suggested that I would make a differential to test if it makes the game faster. I made an account on phabricator to try to make a differential, but I did not know how to make a differential. Can anyone explain which steps would be needed to be done to publish such a simple differential? I do unsterstand some C# code, but I don´t know what steps are next. Do I have to download/upload something or can it be done in the browser?

They can be useful, but in my opinion they are too expensive for the core of your army.

I have played them more than twice. I would suggest the following strategy for 1v1s. What seems to be a decent opening is to create 2-3 extra starting cavalry and run around the opposing territory to see what he is doing and get some kills and idle times. It is important to keep them alive. These cavalry are not very strong, as 6 skirmishers could beat 4 spear cav. You can use the intel to play more defensive than your opponent with some good tower placement. Playing defensive is a good advice since your opponent probably has a better boom, but if you manage the cavalry well, you know what is coming and can be prepared. In p3, I think you hardly need more than 1 siege tower. That siege tower fires only 10 arrows at most and hence you don´t need to garrison more than 10 men. The siege tower is mainly to get free damage on opposing ranged troops and force the opponent to react. What the real killer should be are bolt shooters. An army with a few deployed bolt shooters is a very dangerous army, especially with Demetrios. For pike/skirm ratio, I think 50/50 is the best ratio and that would be the ideal ratio in a model where one unit is a glass cannon and the other a target dummy. You need a reserve of some melee units other than pikes to defend against rams or use your own. I would say that crossbowmen and mercenary archers can be used, if you have surplus metal, but you should make only a few of them and keep them alive as good as possible.

I dislike this idea. It means that it is more difficult to switch to another type of unit, since you lack the upgrades for it. Part of the strategy aspect is to react to what your opponent does, while giving unit specific upgrades means that you are locked in on a particular type of unit. I would advocate that there is 1 single attack upgrade in p2, which gives an attack bonus to all types of soldiers instead of just one type. Currently players probably get ranged attack first because ranged units deal more damage than melee. When players get the ranged attack upgrade, that difference is amplified and there is even less reason to make melee units, since you do not even have the upgrade for melee. This contributes to melee units having a role of target dummies. If the melee units and ranged units benefit from the same p2 attack upgrade, they are more able to deal actual damage.

I could accept if the regular spear cavalry would be just a raiding unit, but the description of the Seleucid one calls them companions, the Macedonian is referred to as a lancer and the kushite one is called heavy cavalry. Anyway, I think spear cavalry is underpowered compared to sword cavalry and spear cavalry could use +1 pierce attack. Sword cavalry +1 pierce armor, 8.35 hack damage per second. Good vs. siege. Spear cavalry +1 hack armor, 4 hack and 3 pierce damage per second. Good vs. cavalry

Age of Empires was a lot of fun when using fantaztec monks effectively. That was totally ridiculous and it felt even better if the opponent uttered any dislike for mass monks.

@Thorfinn the Shallow MindedCan you explain why swordsmen are an all-rounder? It seems like spearmen are in the same way an all-rounder with a bonus against cavalry.

I agree on many points with you. What I think should be the case is that some spear cavalry should be able to beat some infantry while other can not. So the best equipped for the job are the ones with spears and they are more likely to win, while the swordsmen are worse equipped for the job and are less likely to win the fight. I think if spear cavalry are supposed to win sometimes against infantry, in game logic it should be against sword infantry. Disciplined swordsmen might be able to hold, but a citizen soldier would be less likely and be more prone to routing.

I have stated before that I don´t like the speed diversion. All ranged units have the same speed and that is fine to me. I don´t understand why people only whine about skirmishers and slingers not being able to outspeed and kill archers. There are tons of other units to consider as a counter to archers. There is no reason why someone carrying several javelins and a shield should be faster than an opponent with a bow and a quiver full of arrows. What the real issue for me is that if in reality you have a bow and there is a guy with a big shield storming at you from 70 meter distance, how likely do you think that such a situation is good for the archer? The archer first needs to ready an arrow, get a quick aim and then might in reality get a shot from 50 meter and another one from 10 meter. I guess it is not easy to hit the guys body storming at you. If you do shoot from 10 meter, you are probably unable to draw a sword in time and you are dead. If you only shoot 1 arrow, you are unlikely to win the battle either. So that is how I envision ranged combat. If we look at historical battles, people seem not to used the bow a lot on the battle field and most troops were melee. If ranged units were historically really effective, then ranged combat would be used more often. I do think that ranged infantry should be used as an annoyance to force the enemy to retreat or as an invitation to be draw the opponent to a trap. Also I think cavalry should counter swordsmen infantry. If you have a sword and a cavalrymen storms at you, what are you gonna do? If the swordsmen infantry outnumber the cavalry by a factor 2, they might be able to resist the charge but in equal numbers they should get smashed. Currently in the game a spearman cavalry is equally matched to a swordsman infantry. So I advocate +1 piece attack for the spear cavalry to perform the role is should perform. I think it seems to be realistic that swords are easier to carry on foot than spears and hence the swordsmen infantry seem to deserve to be faster.

I should have mentioned the OS. I am using Linux mint, which is similar to Ubuntu. To be honest, the only way I normally install software is with the software manager, though I can put things in the terminal. I don´t know the commands for using package managers and such. Also the OS has a package installer that I can use if I have a package file on my PC, but I am not a command line wizard.

I failed to instal the SVN

I hope that this will not be in A25. it is historically inaccurate and there is another issue. Siege towers should be weak against infantry swordsmen, but the swordsmen get killed from range so the counter system does not work out. If elephants are supposed to be killed by spear units, then just as the infantry swordsmen, they get killed from range. The pikemen might be useful though most civs do not have pikes. What I think to be the best solution is to increase elephant cost and reduce its crush damage. It should not be an organic ram. But again, this thread is about true siege weapons, not about elephants.

1v5, if the swordsmen need to spend a little time surrounding the elephant(like 1 or 2 seconds before they are all attacking). if they start with the elephant surrounded, I think 1 swordsmen survives with a few HP. If you have champion pikemen, it 1v7 and the elephant wins. I just ran a test. 1 asian elephant vs 5 swordsmen and the elephant survives with 5HP

I think this might be the biggest issue for 0AD ballance. Ranged units are OP compared to most other CS. Sword cavalry seems to be the exception. Since CS ranged units are so good, the completely shape the balance. The only melee units that get commonly made are the ones that have a purpose against ranged units( That´s why I made a mod with weaker CS ranged units). However, as christ said, it is of completely topic. @Lion.Kanzen, do you have the power to split the conversation to another thread if applicable?

@Lion.Kanzen, your request has been heard, buy I would first like to know which maps are consider bad and need to be filtered out.