Alar1k

I agree with this and would also add one thing that got forgotten from a24(25)? when there were stated "bonuses" for captured animals garrisoned in corral which never got implemented - if you could capture wild gaia it would be neat to be able to put them to use with a small buff like 1%move speed per horse for example (wild lions/tigers could give +0.2 attack damage and cows/pigs could buff hp points by small margin) - although it seems like it would be rough to implement and tricky to balance

I'd like to add some ideas on this topic: 1. I love the idea about the free scout ship - would be nice if it could be implemented to get it when you build your first shipyard and would also add a symbolic price (like 50/100 wood) when you need to build another if first one gets destroyed or you need a second scout ship (if there would be possible to make more then one) 2. I really believe that upgrading naval combat will make this game stand out from other similar games in the genre and would make meta of the game more interesting -balance wise the paper/rock/scissors model would work wonders and I think it was already mentioned in previous comments - I agree with that concept 100% 3. About civilization diversification - maybe give carthaginians options to have all of the ship types just like macedonians have all of the siege options and persians have every cavalry option - and other civs can be differentiated for example celtic civs get ramming ships and helenic get boarding and ramming ships romans/han/ptole/kushites get artilery and boarding ships (celtic civs already don't have much naval options so I was going with the current ideas of them having not as strong ships compared to other civilizations) - and on the side note consider something like fire ships (like iberians have now) to be added to celtic civs to give them a chance and balance things out a bit 3. 1. If there could be a possibility to get han civ option/tech research to chain ships into one large construct like in that "Red cliff" movie o m g that would be amazing because technically battle of red cliffs is historically was 208-209 AD - Han and Carthaginian civilizations would really shine with future naval overhaul in my honest opinion 4. Upgrades for ships ideas: basically everything delenda est mod has is pure goldmine for the research tech ideas since it has excellent diversification between all civ groups 5. This one is a wishful thinking but maybe consider dividing romans into two separate factions like delenda est did and focus republican period on naval combat so there can be a genuine Punic wars scenario/campaign in the future

After taking a long break from RTS games I returned to a game from my childhood - American Conquest - and it reminded me of this specific topic because I think that the way battalions work there would make this game possible to implement them at the full capacity Battalions in that game are made from singular units and can be created with proper special units and disbanded at will or after the battalion looses too many troops - in that game battalions help buffing units and lower the fear of encountering cav/overwhelming enemy force in the fights (fear can actually cause units to flee for their lives and be uncontrollable for a short time) - so battalions serve a double purpose: 1. They boost morale for the troops they are made from so they fight in sync and don't flee from the fight 2. They help ease the micro intensity (and also make the game look smoother/easier to manage when fighting on more than one front) Also - adding battalions might also make sense if you view the development of your civilization over time and would add a leverage to a town/city phase rush if it's implemented as a later phase thing - in the first phase when you don't have much you still build one by one but later on when you get bigger you get options to organize your troops (adding battalions as a tech in a building to research at a city phase for example) As stated earlier BFME2 has awesome battalion system but on the other hand I see more potential for American-Conquest-style of battalions in Delenda Est (possibly even in base 0ad game) since making fixed battalions would negate a lot of potential singular units provide (not just gathering aspect that was changed in Delenda Est but scouting and building multiple buildings at once as well - sending 20 troop battalion to scout could be a huge blunder if the area is dangerous/occupied already)

Well my personal problem was more in regards to being ether called a noob or a smurf and therefore "bad for balance" when I wanted to play TG's - not as in hard accusation but more like "let's just take somebody we can balance the game better" since nobody (myself included) likes TG that's way off in balance. And I do really like proposition @Darkcity made since it seems it would solve most of the problems that were raised here. All in all old accounts/players should have a differentiation from new players, and also - maybe show how many TG games won/lost player has separately. Idk when I have time to play I prefer to play TG, maybe it's just me but I don't really enjoy 1v1 games all that much so my rank is not going anywhere for long periods of time. And I think that alone makes it difficult to balance when only info you have about the account is ranked games win/lose. I do hope I get to play some TG when I get back, but gotta fix my internet first...

So I caught up with this topic and found myself wondering where would people classify players that have on-again/off-again relationship with 0ad multiplayer? For example I started to play in a23 and I did my fair share of TG-s back then (I am, for all that don't see it as obvious, Alarik in lobby and don't use other names) But here's my problem with "smurf" tag - see I take looong breaks from multiplayer and usually only have decent time to play consistently/good around winter when I have more free time. So thing is - I know a lot more about the rules/mechanics then the new player but when I do try to get back I am listed as "new/unknown/noob" and I cannot seem to explain to people that I am just rusty since I don't play regularly throughout the year and not be called a smurf if I do well since "the game was not balanced from the start"... (and yes getting back in 0ad isn't so easy when you forget basic commands and need to find your old mementos about strategies that worked for you before but might not work in current alpha... but that's another story...) So I'm wondering - is there a way to flag your account name so people could see the year your account name logged in 0ad? Maybe that would help in some cases when smurfs play on their old accounts so people would know "aha so this account is not brand new, he might know a thing or two" and it would also flag brand new accounts as brand new so people don't mix up returning players with new ones?

This looks really nice! And yeah, I agree with what you said, I personally have little to no skills in map design so I usually get lost whenever I try to implement my ideas hahah

Just an idea inspired by the hill removal - what if the new map named "plainland" would have little ponds of water instead of cliffs - mainly so that one could use fishing advantage and also make Athene civ more balanced since they could finally get their full potential since they have mercs and champions locked to only maps with bodies of water present Athenes really could use the ability to unlock their full roaster of troops on the most popular of maps for TG-s since as of now they just feel like subpar civ if you get them on random compared to games with water anywhere on the map Fishing is super good as well and would make booming more interesting as well and would make "mainland" meta more diversified and interesting to play/watch

Well that is also the case in other games where you only see you've crushed the building after you go scout it - but yes indeed - catapults need a better vision range - maybe add a tech that allows like +25% catapult vision range for 300-500 food "eagle eye" or "sharp shooters" (this latter one I would argue should be 500 food and add +15% accuracy as well so the catapults (and bold shooters) can be useful - I really miss bolt shooters from a23 where you could capture them but they couldn't be destroyed by archers...) Bolt shooters should have larger shooting max limit then archers so you can counter ranged like you used to back in the day - these last two alphas made bolt shooters obsolete because you can literally just send archers a bit closer and they melt ranged siege so the catapults (and bolt shooters) - because the cost is too big for them to be melted in 1 arrow volley - ever since the nerf of catapults/bolt shooters every single civ became too reliant on rams - romans lost the most in this trade since they relied on bolt shooters to deal with ranged troops back in the day (they don't even have basic sword cav, just champions) Giving every civ a ram + nerfing catapults/bolt shooters to death killed the siege diversification in my humble opinion

I've been pondering this idea ever since I've started playing delenda est mod last week (which I fell in love with btw - brilliant mod but I digress) Proposition - make phasing up more distinctive - how? - well, idea follows the theory that modernizing societies with industrialization brings specialization in the division of labour - and what do I mean by that - well after you develop in phase two (town phase) you get a new unit specialized in better resource production - so you may start preparing for the next phase And now things get interesting - you could just rush phase three - but - at phase three your citizen-soldiers would now loose the ability to collect resources and become like mercenaries (your city phase grants you "standing army" - soldiers from now on can only fight and build and they should get a bit of a buff like +5-10% hp) - fast phasing up can potentially then leave you with crippled economy if you didn't prepare/made enough of specialized eco-units so then now you would think twice about should you phase rush and win fast or wait out and take time to make sure you are secure for the longer fight In my honest opinion - diversification of labour would make the town phase more important and not just an ugly child in the middle between the early and the late game - delenda est on the one hand provides you with the better gathering units but on the other hand I feel the early game is a bit too slow because you cannot use your starting troops for the resources early on - and I remember in a23 that each phase did grant a bit of a buff for all troops - so why not make phase 2 more distinguished I think as well that this could even make TG-s more interesting - having one player focusing on early phase 3 while others supporting him if his rush backfires and he needs to reset economy for example - it would add a subtle layer on the game and rushing last phase would actually need to be better thought through like for example: "Will I be able to support my standing army or is my eco too reliant on my citizen-soldiers" or "Will my faster phasing up help me rush my enemy early or will it help my enemy because I was too eager to phase up"

My thoughts on this discussion - Iberian walls should stay so that early on Iberians have a chance against early raids - and furthermore, I don't see much of an issue with walls after you start your war path at P3 and already have rams (since EVERY darn civ has rams since a24 smh - but that is of the other issue...) Another thing - I understand your problem with gaia after resignation - it should be made at least that units die after the ally resigns, and that buildings get destroyed - why destroyed? - well if the gaia buildings after resignation stay then the team that is left 3v4 is having even less of a chance then it had before the first teammate resigned At least that destruction wouldn't tip the winning slider even further because more often then not the winning team will just capture all the remaining barracks and in an instant replenish their troops (even tho more often then not the enemy civ is of a different civ from the conqueror) walls are really just awful after phase 2 (imho) when you want to support your teammate and he doesn't pay attention to them (but still you gotta learn to play with them if you get iber so it might be a good training for the inexperienced players) - and after resignation dear lord do walls annoy the hell out of me... so therefore why not make walls be torn down after resignation - it would help winning side and it would help loosing side as well - a win-win situation Edit: Why not make fire cav limited - for instance "you can only make 20-30 fire cav per game" - make them take extra time to build as well or just don't let that iber champ affect champion troop timers at all

Well since all civilizations have some form of melee cavalry why not just buff melee cav against ranged units in general - like give them +1 pierce damage armour (maybe they don't even need an attack buff if they can survive just a bit longer against ranged units, and +1 pierce would help spear cav against ranged cav as well) and give spear cav at least 2x against other cav on top of +1 pierce armour since they really really need to be able to deal with other cav more efficiently and that damage buff wouldn't still make them op against spear/pike infantry Edit: I wouldn't really nerf ranged troops too much - I'm more fan of mixing troops then relying only on one type - be it melee or ranged. (and ratio 30-70 in favour of range really makes sense since ranged units don't need a pathfinder around other adjacent units in the middle of the fight - if you have too many melee half of your units are useless until some die and they take their place - just like too many units on a build order

I mean if we are talking about "time realism" - come on... building a house in 30 seconds ingame time sure isn't realistic - if you can build a house, a civic center and a fortress under five minutes a tree could grow in say 4-8 minutes after being planted Idea - make a tech "forestation" (unlocks the ability for citizens to plant a tree that will "upgrade" itself after 8 minutes - It should cost 50 wood for a 100 wood tree - kinda like corral animals cost food to get you food and if you are really that desperate or the map is so horrific you have that option - and also "Irrigation system" (planted trees get watered to grow) - halves the time of growth to 4 min but costs like 1000 metal to research On desert maps - you couldn't grow trees without irrigation researched and in winter biome - well you cannot grow them at all since it is winter But idk - don't have too strong opinion on this topic - I would rather have another civilization and a buff for spear cav x3 against other cav then ability to grow trees if I would need to choose one

I like the sound of that - and in case you cannot limit the resource maximum point - i propose that everything gets progressively more glory expensive - like let's say first phase is starter phase and things shouldn't really be costing a whole lot of glory, phase 2 - you can make temples and glory statues - make things cost a few hundred glory or so - city phase - each upgrade costs in thousands of glory from 1000-5000 glory for most important research and phase four upgrades are extra expensive and - wounder eats away some glory every few seconds for the upkeep and if you loose all glory you loose wonder to gaia? - That would make players think: "Can I afford the upgrade if I get rushed and my priests die? Will I loose pop bonus if I cannot produce enough glory in time?" - would make phase four more challenging And yeah - can't wait to see the "sacrifice" implemented - another idea: maybe even get a tech "obsidian ritual daggers" in city phase right beside "state religion" tech at temple - "sacrifice costs 50 more coins (or metal) but gives double glory"

This - Ptolemies were so much more fun to play and had such a different feel in a23 - really made you think differently when you played them - yes you got free houses but what can you do with the resources if you cannot spend them if you get housed because an early rush managed to kill one of your builders and set you back a couple of minutes And imagine if your house was captured - even worse setback when they were "free" since they costed just time to make - in my honest opinion the wood cost now is ridiculous since you can just spam the houses and still have enough time to get early pikes to mine stone for slingers and metal for mercenaries and housing problem is never an issue if you just pay like 1% of the attention to make a house from time to time Scenario 1: - one house getting captured in a23? Ahh shoot man now I might be in a problem if I don't react quickly Scenario 2: - one house getting captured in a25? No problem I just made 2 more while you were capturing that one - too cheap to bother saving it anyways since if one pike dies house is not worth saving litteraly

Idea for fourth Scythian hero: name: Palacus/Palakus, son of Skilurus - he could be an economic/booming option First buff could be something to boost his own troops "Supply the lines" - all Scythian citizens get +15% move speed and +15% gather rate while Palakus lives - movement speed applies to movable drop-site as well Second buff - "For war and glory": -20% research time for all tech while he lives Third buff - "Master the horse lords" - reduces the cost of cavalry by 10(or 15) % Fourth trait - Palakus rides his war horse (insert name) when upgraded