LetswaveaBook

Consider the following situation: a javelin cavalry runs away from a chasing spear cavalry. In A25, the javelin cavalry moves at constant speed, whereas the spear cavalry stops at some points to attack and then chases again with full speed. In A25, the javelin cavalry moves at constant speed, whereas the spear cavalry stops at some points to attack and then chases again but it loses some time by needing to accelerate. So I ran a test in the scenario editor. I had a javelin cavalry and waited until the spear cavalry did the first hit. Then immediately afterwards I ran away for a set amount of distance which I believe to be about 250 meters. In A25, the javelin cavalry receives after the first hit 6 more hits while being chased over this distance. In A26, the javelin cavalry receives after the first hit 4 more hits while being chased over this distance.

My aim would be to let every feature of any faction feel unique. Currently, the Kushites have the unique monumental architecture technology and it is a pity that it doesn't offer a lot of usefulness. Unlike the Persian Architecture unique technology, it only affects civic buildings (CCs, temples and houses). I wanted to create a patch that energizes well with the existing features of the Kushites. The Kushite faction has 5 different champions and I wanted to stress on that. Two of them are build at temples, which are civic buildings. So therefore I saw it fitting to increase the batch training speed for civic buildings. https://code.wildfiregames.com/D4310 Also, to double on the champion aspect: I enabled the axe infantry champion in p2 adding to the Kushite identity of a varied p2 army. https://code.wildfiregames.com/D4704 I hope that these changes can help to making playing as the Kushites a truly unique experience.

I played a multiplayer game with proposal @real_tabasco_sauce. That patch turn the axe cav into a formidable fighter. However in a mixed army, the axe cavalry is also one of the first units to die. So that tends to balance. I think the unit is not majorly imbalanced. The speed is indeed a possible issue though.

Everyone praises A25, but I think A25 has some problems and overlapping is a serious one.

When I searched on the internet for Persian Ice houses, the idea of adding the to the game felt very good. The most logical bonus would be food related and I like the idea of a food trickle as it encourages to build more than a single one. It seems natural to compare the cost of the ice house to a farmer. So for 5 farmers we have a cost of 250 food for training 5 women 100 wood for a field + 75 wood for building the housing for 5 women, 75 seconds construction time. Without farming upgrades, they produce as much as 5 ice houses (as proposed) in the mod. But the cost of the Ice houses is 500 wood and 250 seconds build time. So fields seem preferable to me even if you lack all farming upgrades. Currently the main advantage of the building seems to be that it does not require population space. @borg- I am interested what your ideas are behind these numbers. I think this is a better idea. If the cost and the gain per Ice house are higher, then instead of being spammed, each one brings a more noticeable impact. My suggestion would be 100 wood+100 stone+50 seconds build time. So at the start of the game, you have a unique way of using your stone. If you have some leftover stone at the start, you can fully utilize it for ice houses, but it means you need to go to stone before getting the 3rd barracks. So that would give the interesting question on how many ice houses you build at the start of the game and how you combine it with your build order. Farming gets more efficient as more eco technologies are being researched. The Ice house seems to lag behind more and more for every farming technology that gets researched. I think it would be fitting if the Persian Architecture tech also provided +20% resource tickle for ice houses (as well as a +20% territory boost).

I suggest a variation with a big hill in the middle on which a neutral fortress sits that can be captured. So on such a map, you would like to capture the fortress before the opposing team does. However sending a few troops there right from the start means you will suicide these units.

I have been modding a little today and I managed to create a variation of mainland where players start with walls.

I don't know if it is going to be slower in every situation. If you have extra hunt or berries, then in a 1v1, you recruiting some cavalry for rushing and defending against rushes feels to me as a must. In those cases, the suggested start does not seem disadvantageous to me. In the situation where there is no extra hunt or berries, i agree that the regular start looks better. But the biggest disadvantage seems to be on nomad starts.

Last week I played a game against DocterOrgans and he left the game ealry. Within a minute after I reach p3, he disconnects. At that moment I am ahead as he reaches p3 considerably later. I pause the game and he reconnects. Then we continue the game and after a while he disconnects again when he is at a major disadvantage. He returns shortly after and ask him if I DDOSed him, which I didn't do. He leaves the game again, I wait 10 minutes for him to return. Once I see that he doesn't return, I defeat his units, but that didn't grant points. I have the idea that he noticed he was behind and therefore left the game and tried to blaim it on his connection. I think it should count as a loss for him. It would be undesirable if people can just disconnect once they fall behind and then blame it on connectivity issues. 2022-06-05_0001 DocterOrgans run.zip

Tom0ad is live

If you start with 4 infantry, 2 women en 2 cavalry, then you can recruit 3 batches of 4 women and reach 20 population after 73 seconds. For the regular start, you recruit two batches of 4 women and a batch of 3 and reach 20 population at 68 seconds.

@chrstgtr, I have an inconvenient truth for you: Either there is no such simple test to show the time difference at which the Persian player reaches 20 population, or you are incapable to perform this simple test.

@Stan`@borg- It would be nice to add some features to Persians for the first release candidate. So I would like to get some indication on when and what is happening. I think @real_tabasco_sauce has put forward a bold approach on differentiating the axe cavalry. My suggestion would be that @borg- creates a patch that does not conflict with @real_tabasco_sauce axe cavalry. I think it is fair to accept the proposal of @real_tabasco_sauce as an essential part of a community project is respecting the proposals of other people. I would like to ask borg- what his plans are for his patch on RC1. Finally: Stan` can you give a deadline for patches to be shaped and accepted for the first release candidate?

I agree with this. They are useful, but not ideal for being the main force of ranged output. The main issue is that 3 out of 4 archer factions don't get a CS slinger or skirmisher and thus are nearly forced to use archers as the main force of ranged output..

There is still chaos. The only thing is that you have beocme accustomed to this type of chaos.

Currently the archer is the ranged unit with the least damage and it moves 1.5 m/s slower than the javelineer. This means that the archer can't fight a charging mob of javelineers and their slow speed means they receive a lot of damage on the retreat or get completely annihilated. Currently the speed for the Ranged units are 11.4, 10.8 and 9.9 m/s. I would consider it an improvement if the weaker unit has a better chance to escape. So I would suggest 11.1 m/s speed for the skirmisher and 10.5 m/s speed for the archer.

Before you claim that such a thing is easy to do, I recommend making a mod a trying it out.

I would consider this attitude on the impolite side of things. If you can't be bothered to give your opinion on a proposal, you might be in the balancing team, but not in an advisor role. At least you can say that you disagree with the fact and for an advisor it wouldn't be bad to express what you think of a certain feature that is currently in the game, which is in this case axe cavalry. I hope you have an opinion worth sharing on axe cav yourself. Rather than the negatives, we should look for the positives. If there are negatives, we should look for ways to address for the negatives or argue that how the positives can outweigh the negatives. Also in all the posts on the tread, I see some positive things mentioned about the patch. So I don't agree with your view about the skepticism the patch received.

I wouldn't be a fan of moving all good stuff from p2 to p1. I would like it if p2 offered useful and unique advantages instead of being the roadblock on your way to p3 that it currently seems to be.

I see that you removed some of your ideas that you posted. I would have preferred that you didn't delete them those ideas from your post. Not neccesary because they are good, but rather to encourage people to think about all possibilities and inspire creativity. The more ideas we toss in the tread, the more combinations of applicable patches we could make. So I would like to toss in some ideas: 1) The Persians have a truly unique technology and it is named after them. Sadly, this technology does little to define their identity. My suggestion would be to give the Persian architecture tech the additional bonus of providing buildings with +20% territory control. Achaemenid Persia was a big state, so allowing them to gain more territory seems fair. 2) The Achaemenid empire had lots of inhabitants. An population bonus wouldn't be bad, even though they allready have one. An interesting bonus could be that Persians start with +10 population space, which allows some interesting openings for rushes. Since it is a one time bonus, its late game effects would tend to slowly fade away. This would make Persia a good faction for an early rush, but it wouldn't change it (infantry) weaknesses in the late game (for 1v1s). I think this could add to the identity of the faction. Assuming that advancements in phases means advancement through the ages, this bonus suits Achaemenid history: powerful in classical times but overpowered in the Hellenistic age. Also I posted some ideas on Persians a while ago that I wanted to repeat in case anyone is interested: I also discussed created a differential a while back which can be found in this post:

I think this represents the core problem of the balancing team.

I would suppose that it would be fairly balanced. Against (ranged) units it deals about 55% more damage than sword cavalry, but it has -2 pierce armor. So that would mean it would deal about 1,55*-0.9^2=1.26 times as much damage before dying (or losing a set amount of HP) against range units while it costs +25 metal. Using that same method, we would expect mercenary swordsmen to deal 1.2*1.25/0.9=1.67 times as much damage before dying (compared to a CS sword cav). The proposed axe cav moves faster than the sword cavalry and is better at eliminating buildings, but it has the disadvantage that it can't serve that well as a meat shield and it can't promote. Furthermore, since it is a rank 3 cavalry unit, your opponents units will promote fairly quickly when they are fighting against it. So I would suppose it is balanced better than A25 sword merc cav.

My idea would be to reduce the experience to promote to rank 2 to 50. That means that if you put the unit in a barracks/stable for 50 seconds, you have a unit that is better than the sword cavalry in combat and has the crush damage to take out buildings. That would also give people a chance to think about the experience gain that barracks and stable provide. So it introduces a new way of thinking. Also I think they could benefit from having +1 hack armor

Congratulations on making your first differential. I think it is reasonable to change Hyrcanian cavalry. However I see a disadvantage of the proposed patch. The unit in game currently uses 3 different art models for rank 1, rank 2 and rank 3. In your patch only 1 art model will be used in game. So regardless of whether it is a balance improvement, for me it seems a downgrade from an artistic point of view.