LetswaveaBook

I think the problem is with the elephants. An Indian elephants can defeat 5 champion swordsmen. This means elephants are incredibly cost effective. I think it would be historically inaccurate to do this.

In the game it is in reverse and it is easier to kill someone with a bow at 60m range.

The actual point I was trying to make is that ranged units do the most damage and that melee units function more or less as target dummies. The problem is not with the pikeman, but with the ranged units. I think that reducing the attack of range units, you would also limit the power of a range+pike combination.

I would like to say something else: -Nerf all ranged units.

In most RTS game, ranged units deal less DPS than melee units. In 0ad this is the reverse and by considerable amount, which is not historically accurate. If we watch in-game fights, we often see that the melee units are not in striking position. All of this means that most damage is done by ranged units, which is problematic for balance. This mod aims to reduce the DPS of ranged units such to encourage more use of melee units. In addition this mod aims reduce the effectiveness of turtling and to enhance the unique roles of each melee unit. Since ValihrAnts Train-Rotation-times mod was well received, I decided to incorporate its main changes. -Train and rotations times are as in ValirhAnts mod. Unit balance: -Citizen slingers and citizen javelineers get -15% attack(Javelin Cavalry still kills a women with 2 javelins and receives less damage). -Citizen archers get 3.0 spread and -5% attack. -Citizen spear cavalry gets +1 pierce attack(previously 10 unupgraded swordsmen infantry would defeat 10 unupgraded spear cavalry). -Citizen spearmen and pikemen get -2 hack armor, to make them more vulnerable to melee units(especially swordsmen infantry). After these changes, swordsmen infantry will be hoped to be the most favoured citizen soldier. This is fair since they cost some metal and are often limited to p2. In order to counter citizen swordsmen infantry I made the following changes. -Athenians get the council chamber in p2 and are able to recruit their city guards there as well in p2 in addition to the gym. -Carthaginians get their champion spearmen in p2. -Champion spear cavalry and champion swordsmen infantry get +1 hack armor. Champion elephants give to much value for their costs in A24. Hence: -Champion elephants see their base price increased by 50 food and 50 metal. So once a player reaches p2, they get some extra options and it encourages the use of champion melee infantry and champion spear cavalry later on. The most useful options I will list below: Athens(Champion spearmen) Britons(none) Carthage(Champion spearmen, mercenaries) Gaul(Champion fanatics, buffed sword cavalry) Iberians(swordsmen infantry from p1) Kushites(swordsmen infantry) Macedon(none) Mauryas(swordsmen infantry, elephant archers) Persians(mounted archers) Ptolemy(mounted archers, mercenary swordsmen) Rome(swordsmen infantry from p1) Seleucids(mounted archers, mercenary swordsmen) Sparta(skiritai). For Macedon and Britons I did not decide what my favourite way would be and hence they are left out. In order to make turtling less effective I decide; -Phasing up gives -1 capture regeneration increase per garrisoned soldier. -Fortresses take +150 seconds to build and its construction can now be more easily stopped. -CCs, military colonies, Stone Towers, Fortresses deal less damage per arrow but the base amount of arrows in increased such that their ungarrisoned damage output is left constant. However garrisoning soldiers adds weak arrows to the structure and garrisoned structures thus have less DPS. Misc: - Elephant archer is nerfed as any citizen archer and now costs 2 pop. - I don´t think cavalry archer should be like a super archer with more DPS, fast speed and 2 times the HP, but I currently leave it as it is. AlternativeBalance.zip

I think it might be cool if we coupled this with making expertise in war a trade of tech,where expertise in war is 300m but gives you original training times. So now you have to chose between either lightning fast reinforcements or advanced rank mercenaries. I think both could have their charm. And once a game you could of course first train the lightning fast and then upgrade those you already have. I think this would be cool. If you have a super rich ally he could help you out at a hefty price, since they aren´t cheap.

I think it was meant that ranged units are more likely to miss at large range.

We were discussing on a similar matter on another thread called ´Balancing Citizen Soliders (long shot)´ I made this comment a then thought a little deeper. Currently the focus is to much on making citizen infantry. They cost proportionally most wood. The other options cost proportionally more food. So if we want to encourage the other options, I would suggest reduce wood gathering by a little (-10% or so) and increase food gathering(faster farming/cheaper farms/ cavalry carry capacity). Any thoughts on this?

I don´t think it needs to be severely. In age of empires the devs gave the Franks civs a bonus that helped their eco by a little and gave them +20% HP to a unit they used only to rush in early game. Such a small change turned a bottom tier civ in the top tier civ. Balance is a super frail thing and even the smallest of changes can make a huge impact on which strategy is preferred.

As I see things, we allready have the tools for creating booming/rushing/turtling gameplay Booming: the unit that does this are women. Turtling: This can be done by building towers and citizen soldiers. Rushing: This could be done by cavalry or p2 champions. The thing is that though we have the tools for it, it does not work out like this. That does not mean the citizen soldier concept is flawed, but rather that our citizen soldier concept is ill-balanced.

The problem in RTS is that a better economy is always useful. So you can use the better economy for all of these strategies. That does not make it impossible to get good game design, but it needs to be considered. I wouldn´t like it if the choice you made in p2 would put you at an irrecoverable disadvantage. It could work this way to prevent so: In p2 you get the choice between 3 techs, one for rushing(more loot, more cav speed, better capturing rate), one for turtling(cheaper/free tower upgrades) and one for booming(eco upgrades cost 50% less metal). Once you reach p3 you get all of them. I don´t think the tech tree is wide compared to age of empires 2. I think the main difference between the games is on one hand the civilizations are more a like (most get all generic available units in castle age), while each civilization diversifies in imperial age(mostly from lacking techs)

I don't think using anything as a baseball bat to smash arrows out of the air will work. The tale of pike formations using their long pikes to stop arrows is fairly common, I doubt how much it worked in practice. My guess would be that it won't give complete protection and won't be as protective as equipping each soldier with a big shield. For light armored units, big shields were fairly common and they provided good protection against arrows. The so called shield wall formation was also fairly common throughout history and lasted until late medieval periods. So I think it is justified to repeat my questions without going astray: 1-Why do pikemen have high armor (pikemen did not carry a shield as big as swordsmen did)? 2-Why do swordsmen beat spearmen in melee and why is pikemen in melee defeated by both swordsmen and spearmen?

If there is someone who is rated above 1400, I would be open to try a mod with that person and test balance. So if you see me around in the lobby, you can ping me. It is not that I have a problem with people rated below 1400, but I feel that the result would depend on the difference in player skill instead of the mod features.

I do like that we are considering unit roles. What my questions are about the game: 1-Why do pikemen have high armor (pikemen did not carry a shield as big as swordsmen did)? 2-Why do swordsmen beat spearmen in melee and why is pikemen in melee defeated by both swordsmen and spearmen? To be historically accurate, if you have a spear you can carry a big shield and you deserve the defensive bonus, while the pikemen should win in melee against spearmen. So it seems to be in reverse.

I think it is not a problem if someone can micro to get good results. I think it would be an issue if there is no way to counteract. If you would have shot against the opposing infantry archers you would have been fine. So in my view, the system is not flawed but you misplayed.

That would not make the graphics better. People are already complaining that arrows are so hard to see. I do think competitive balance is very important, but it should not hinder casual players who prefer single player mode. So it means you solve a problem for competitive players while make it for casual players less attractive since they can no longer see arrows properly.

In my view, in an ideal balance games shouldn't be determined mainly by ranged citizen infantry. Hence I think it is only fair to give them equal value as gatherers. If games are determined mainly by the type of ranged citizen infantry you get, then I view the balance not to be ideal.

By reducing ranged damage overall. Currently all ranged units have to much DPS for my taste. The current meta revolves to much about ranged units, so people compare how archers and Javelineers fight against each other, whereas hystorically the fair thing to do is to compare how Archers and Javelineers can support melee infantry. In current meta it is the other way around, how can melee units support/soak damage best? Being pikemen.

There are some myths that tell about ranged troops prevailing over melee troops in battlefields, but as far as I know, most of them are untrue. For example the mongols, they decided battles in melee, not in range contrary to what people think. It is true that ranged troops were an important tool, but the deciding factor was melee troops beating opposition that was lured out of position. Also in the battle of Agincourt, the French knights were bested in melee. Maybe we should invoke our historians to judge on the matter, but I think your statement is wrong. I disagree with this reasoning. When you see that javelinists deal lots of damage at short range it seems logical that its role is killing melee infantry (but requires a meatshield). In sandbox mode, it already performs that role very well. On the other hand, such a description seems like they should be vulnerable without meatshield, which is also currently the case. I think the problem is that archers/slingers are too good at performing the role of skirmishers and therefore you don´t need skirmishers. For me the problem is that archers do a job that they shouldn´t be doing and that is the core point on which I disagree with the statement. The role of the archer should be doing damage from a large distance. If archers and slingers are nerved, then skirmishers will probably become very useful. I think the javelineers problem is on the fact that slingers and archers are too strong. I think the environment is flawed and the skirmisher itself is not flawed as much.

I did some sandbox testing to to simulate an open field battle and then a combination of skrimishers and pikemen look really good. I challenge you to give this a try and to find a combination that performs better under these conditions. Pikemen are very good for soaking damage whereas skirmishers deal a lot of damage from behind. Skirmishers have a DPS of 12.8, which is a lot considering that infantry swordsmen have most DPS of all melee units with a value of 6.67. In most medieval/ancient RTS games, you see that ranged units have less DPS than melee units. This is true, but the other side of the story is that the battles were decided in melee and that ranged units weren´t decisive. In 0 ad they are very important since they have a very high DPS and I think that is the core of the problem. I think ranged units should be weaker and mainly a means to provoke fights or force them to retreat. The preferred role Javelins is doing damage(DPS=12.8) while supporting a melee fight. I think we should encourage melee units more and then the preferred role of javelins will see more use, since there are more melee fights. If all citizen ranged units lost say 20% of their DPS, the skirmisher still has a good 10.2 points of DPS left and will remain to see use for this supporting role, while archers remain with only a DPS of 5.4 (and on top of that they miss shots, they miss 30% of their shots on 60m range). That way you only would use archers to provoke fights, but for the actual fights archers would not be so great. One side note is that 20% would be on the more extreme side, but you can see that I think reducing ranged DPS for all citizen soldiers is my suggestion.

One thing I would like to add is that you need less space to fire a bow. In order to fire a bow, you only need to stand sideways and stretch one arm out. You don´t need more space than that. Now imagine what would happen if you were in a dense formation and you would try to use a sling. Your neighbours won´t like you. Not every warrior was part of a dense formation, but those dense infantry formations where what ultimately won the day. @Dakara @Yekaterina@ChronA @a 0ad player , can you explain why javelineers need to be buffed if 40 skirmishers beat 30 spear cavalry in loose formation on an open field battle?

Indeed, you are pushing it a bit. Randomness can give both above and below average results. You view randomness as a disadvantage whereas it can also give results better than expected. If you have 70% chance of hitting an enemy (which I estimated to be about the same chance that a camel will hit something from 60 when firing at a group) and your group fires 60 shots. We can calculate probabilities with the binomial distribution. Then you will hit 42 shots on average. There is only 3.6% chance that you hit 35 shots or less. You have 76% chance to land at least 40 shots. The chance to hit with 47 shots or more is about 10%. So the randomness is fairly mild. Good execution plays a way more important role than randomness.

Would it be easy to make it 1 crush damage and give a 600 multiplier to palisades?

While individual arrows have random hit chances, it does not impact a game with many arrows. The law of large numbers says that if many arrows/slingshots are shot, the amount of hits is extremely likely to be close to the average.