LetswaveaBook

The Mauryas have a hero that costs no population space and is twice as strong as a champion elephant, for the rest he seems irelephant.

This is not true. if a champ cav archer fights 4 archers it takes less damage than the chariot in the same situation. The chariot is a bigger unit and is easier to hit.

I think that cavalry crossbowmen were an oddity in the Han army and better be removed. Maybe ask our historians about that.

I think most factions need a considerable buff to be on par with Ptolemies, so I think that balance wouldn't be a problem. The Ptolemies get a food tickle from the start and the Persians only after they spent time and resources for building the ice house. Also, I think it would be nice for a change if the best faction for a change wouldn't be the one with the best eco.

I tend to think that this is because rams can still be very annoying to deal with. For my taste rams should be a little slower. Infantry swordsmen can deal with them if the rams are stationary. But when the rams retreat, they of can get to a safe position before taking to much damage.

I think any reasonable buff is better than the current situation. However, Persia has two types of melee CS cavalry and we could try to do something to make axe cav a little special other than giving it comparable DPS to a sword cavalry.

Lorenz11 can be proud of himself.

I increased the number of ponds and pond size. @Alar1k The question is not if you can do it, the question is whether you will spend time on making these maps.

I would allow it only in owned territory in p1 because I wouldn't want people to place it right next to the opposing base and be super annoying with that. @Stan` Maybe it is better to split this. I hope that would invite other people to discuss any proposals for Seleucids.

Not only it provides all the advantages that you mentioned, but it also provides 20 population space and building it in p1 means that you can start mercenary production directly after reaching p2. I think it would be a bonus that provides a strong start, though not as strong as the Ptolemaic start. When other factions build a barracks, the Seleucids would be able to build the colony instead. It would be a differentiation that changes the start for the Seleucids considerably. I would think it is a good thing if factions feel unique from the very first minutes of the game.

What might be a nice idea is to allow Seleucids to build a single colony in p1 in their own territory. Mercenaries would still be limited to p2. That would be something that makes the Seleucids different from any other faction.

@berhudar, people were supposed to schedule their own games. However that never happened and I could no longer bother to babysit and left the tournament alone.

I think that for act of differentiating factions, Sparta has the art disadvantage. Sparta has the least amount of different units neither does it have many special buildings. While I think we should make the most of the art currently available to us, we need to accept more art is particularly useful for making Sparta feel more unique.

It is nice to see a patch that creates an unique identity for Persians. However what about Persian Architecture? Is it supposed to be as useless as in A25?

Not every strategy needs to look stellar, so I consider that as a positive. There is some virtue in trying to solve all design problems in one single go. I would welcome a general discussion about which advantages become available in which phase. As long as that discussion is not conclusive, we are limited to considering things case to case.

It seems like the patch for axe champions in p2 is accepted: https://code.wildfiregames.com/D4704 @borg-, what do you think about https://code.wildfiregames.com/D4310 ? Any suggestions for alternatives?

The biggest problem of balancing is that everyone says that the team needs to change this and that. It is like waiting for the bus to arrive while not realizing that you are the bus driver of your own life. Very little people actually realize that everyone has the power to do so. I think that attitude needs to change and this proposal can help with that.

This is exactly one situations I tested. Okay, the javelin cavalry need to turn and accelerate. So it is more difficult to avoid the first hit. The spear cavalry get 1 hit and then stop. But this is only the first hit. After that, the javelin cavalry have moved and it is the turn for the spear cavalry to accelerate. So it works in both ways. My assumption is that in A26 it will get you even less kills.

Unfortunately, I can't provide feedback on that. In the game I played, there were always opposing units in the way.

I thought in this example the difference in units lost is a factor 2. I don't want to be sarcastic, but do these situations really exist or is it wishful thinking?

Tom0ad is live now

I continued some testing and I tried to move 12 javelin cavalry past 24 spear cavalry and ran over the length of 12 long spartan wall pieces. I lost 3 javelin cavalry and 3 more were heavily damaged, while the remaining 6 units had very little damage. I tried the same scenario in A25 and I would be left with only 4 javelin cavalry. So I tend to think spear cavalry aren't very good at chasing down the slower javelin cavalry in A26.

I think you are right in the fact that a single test does not provide a clear imange on what to expect. So I ran some tests again. If 1 sword cavalry chases 1 javelin cavalry over the length of 12 long spartan wall pices, then we have the result I meantioned earlier The javelin cavalry is left with 63 HP. If 24 sword cavalry chase 12 javelin cavalry, then along the same distance only, I lost only 1 javelin cavalry and the remaining group had about 900 HP left. So acceleration has the potential to really troll engagements.

In a similar test: In A25, the javelin cavalry receives after the first hit 12 more hits while being chased over a set distance. In A26, the javelin cavalry receives after the first hit 7 more hits while being chased over a set distance. I seems that it is a fair estimate to say that melee cavalry can't chase down javelin cavalry as good as they could in A25 and during the escaping phase, the javelin cavalry receives about 1/3rd less hits in A26.