[Changes unit cost]

For balance I think it it would be better to add small pockets of metal and stone mines across all maps because there is often a few large chunks of metal/stone and often times around the edges around the map that stay unmined untill the game ends because they are too far from the battlefield and "choke-points"


slingers should still cost stone to stay realistic - only thing that would make a bit more sense is to make melee infantry cost 60 food and 40 metal, and ranged (javelins and archers) cost 40 food and 60 wood - the hp difference where spears/pikes have double than ranged, and also more wood is used for arrows and javelins than on one pike/spear so it seems more sensible

[Why are Kushite and Carthage mercenary camps still limited?]

2 hours ago, fatherbushido said:

Yes, see:

 

Omg yes - this would be phenomenal, and also would differentiate Carthage from Kushite mercenary camps even more

And then those buildings could really be embassies as opposed to mercenary camps - to explain as the situation was in a23, and is in a24 there is only difference in semantics of the name - this would give the whole new meaning to the concept of "embassy" in Carthaginian civilisation, and the limit would not affect it because barracks are unlimited anyway

I think this would be the best solution to this problem - Carthaginian barracks cost 200 wood and 100 stone witch is too expensive for only archer and spearman, but it would in this case make the cost of the structure more reasonable 

I think it is not fair to have a building that lets you train only 2 basic units and no champs  to cost the same as for example Kushite barracks that give an option for sword/spear/pike/archer/archer champions or better yet - Macedonian or Ptolemie which also lets players train mercenaries that also costs the same price - if this on the video is implemented everything would make more sense in regards to the price of buildings

[Why are Kushite and Carthage mercenary camps still limited?]

1 hour ago, Dakara said:

Why not for romans camp only auxiliary units ? like mercenary but units with a precise identity and role

Hmm this seems interesting, and I would like to second that - there might be something like Illyrian archer and/or slinger mercenary, because Romans did conquer Illyrians around that time (circa 169 BC) - in some historical sources there is mention of poisoned arrows used by Illyirians in Dalmatia so that might be implemented as there is burning javelins for Iberian champions - in this case Illyiran archer can even be made mercenary champion troop - hybrid between those two categories to make Romans unique in that aspect - and maybe also add Illyrian corsairs with sica swords to be recruited from the dock?

[Why are Kushite and Carthage mercenary camps still limited?]

1 hour ago, Nescio said:

Hello and welcome to the forums, @Alar1k, and thank you for drawing attention to this!

As for the question raised in the thread title, the long and short of it is that nobody has bothered removing it. As for why the embassy limit is there in the first place, I don't know, though I guess it might have been to make them more “unique”. As for whether it should stay, that's open for discussion.

Entity limits certainly do make sense for aura entities (heroes, wonders, theatres, monuments, etc.). However, I don't think they're really necessary for structures that merely produce units; barracks and stables don't have entity limits either, nor do the athen gymnasium, spart syssition, or cart super dock. I'm fine with removing the entity limit of embassies and mercenary camps; or perhaps replace it with a minimum distance, like the rome army camp has (and also centres, fortresses, towers).

Furthermore, I think the fortress and tower entity limits could be removed too; their minimum distances and costs effectively limit their numbers already.

The purpose of population is to limit the number of entities that move around. The more entities there are in a game, the more things have to be drawn, meaning more to render; and the more things that move, the more things that change, hence more draw calls and hence more lag.

Cossacks had an engine that could comfortably handle tens of thousands of units and didn't need nor have a population limitation.

In A24 mercenaries have 30% less training time than their citizen counterparts. Basically it's 7 mercenaries or 5 citizens or 3 champions.

That said, mercenaries could certainly be further differentiated.

 

[EDIT] I'm also in favour of replacing the cart embassies with mercenary camps (cf. kush) and of introducing mercenary camps for the Greeks.

In the long run having certain maps using certain mercenary camps would be great. (Didn't @wowgetoffyourcellphone start experimenting with that already?)

Thank you for the detailed and thorough answer! :))

As for the mercenary camps, I am in favour that carthagininas have an embassy to make them unique in that sense, but as for the current situation I think it would be nice, as @borg- suggested, to "merge" the three embassies into one - but here there could be something like the seleucids have: for example embassy starts with Celtic mercenary swordsman and melee Gaelic mercenary cav, (lets say sword cav in this example) - and there could be three different techs to unlock Iberian mecenaries (slingers and skirmishers), Italian (spear cav and skirmi) and add Macedonian option (slinger and pikes)  - and depending on the situation player would pick the tech instead of building three different buildings with such limitations - and perhaps in this case remove the building limit for that large embassy

Edit: Just to be clear, only one choice per game would be possible, so as not to make carthaginians op

I hope I explained what I'm thinking clearly haha

[Rush by dogs and win !]

Hmm about the dog rush issue, I think that we should also take into an account (when testing 20 something vs 20 dogs) - how much time (and resources in total) does it take to make 20 x units vs making 20 dogs
 

And also, on the nerfing of the dogs - it seems it might be better to make a dog cost 20 more food then take 20 hp away, cause dogs are pretty squishy and have such a poor range of sight that I think if they lose more health they will be underpowered and nobody will try (and maybe make a decent) dog rush in p1 and I think that that would make the game less fun and britons less defined as a civilisation (Celts should be a bit stronger in p1 cause if they don't get a good rush they are pretty much done for vs late game archer civs, especially vs Mauryans) 

And also in general, rushing is already harder to pull vs archer civilisations

[Why are Kushite and Carthage mercenary camps still limited?]

3 hours ago, borg- said:

Perhaps an adjustment in the cost of metal or some other attribute may be enough instead of being able to collect resources?

Hmm this seems interesting, maybe make mercenaries cost 20 more food (and/or 10 extra metal) but half the build time - so it would be fast but expensive way to boost an army near the end of p2? And then, naturally leave them without the ability to collect resources.


Also I like how Kushite camps work, they seem like a nice gameplay strategy in a24, Carthagininans are the main issue I would say

Making them start of with level 2 is not the best option because there is already a good tech that covers that issue

And also I like the Idea to combine 3 embassies into one large that would cost 200 wood, 200 stone and 200 metal or something like that (because each embassy as it is costs around 200 of wood (Celtic) or stone (Iberian) or metal (Italic), and it can then stay limited to 3  (also one unified large embassy for carthage would then make more balance with slinger/javelins  to counter the lack of archery tradition as an archer civilisation)

[Why are Kushite and Carthage mercenary camps still limited?]

Well maybe keep the embacies limited, but that one could make 2 or 3 of every embassy per game so that players can at least make units a bit more efficiently in contrast to other civilisations? To make 3 Iberian, 3 Italian and 3 Celtic embassies for example, that would really help out, and it wouldn't be like you could make 10 so it would still make sense to have them separated from barracks because I think that is a great diversifying mechanic for carthage, but maybe a little bit too nerfed a the moment

I understand the historical perspective about resource gathering, but I was thinking - if they were part of the army they sure did help out a little, like chop down some wood for camps before the battles idk - myb limit resource gathering for wood only, and make it like 0.30? I mean, mercenaries are not as strong as champions are, and both do not contribute economically, but take pop space equally.

[Why are Kushite and Carthage mercenary camps still limited?]

Hello! I started playing 0ad in the early 2020 and play it mostly multiplayer when I have time to play. My main issue with the buildings from a23 and still in a24 is that mercenary camps for this 2 civs (carthage and Kushite) are still quite limited and I wonder why is that so?

For example - macedonians can train mercenaries from barracks that are not limited per game, and there is no limit for military colonies (sele and ptole) - so why do this, mercenary heavy civs, have this limit?  Macedonians can then train merc archers in smaller patches from multiple barracks, when Carthage and Kushites can make only 3 embassies per game.

All in all, what I want to point out is that it is quite hard to diversify carthagininan army than any other mercenary oriented civ, and I think that it shouldn't be like that - on the main game description page there is even a statement and I quote: "Because Carthage always relied on mercenaries to make up the bulk of their forces." (I added the itallic for bulk to emphasise) (https://play0ad.com/game-info/factions/) - Kushites do get some more options in their barracks but still there is a bit of a limit on them too.

This is also making an issue to an economic perspective since, as it was pointed it this post that new a24 mercenaries cannot gather resources  at all:

There I replied my view of fixing mercenary resource gathering issue also.

I think that mercenaries should gather resources, not necessary as good as regular units, but still, even if they could, the Carthagininas cannot make them as fast as other civs can in theory and in practise.

[Why are mercenaries so expencive and dont collect resouces in the Alpha 24???]

My suggestion to this problem would be to make mercenaries gather resources but at much lower rate, kinda like spartan skiritai comandos did in a23

Mainly because it would differentiate them from champions, but also because it would help those mercenary-heavy civs like ptole, carth, sele and to an extent mace to still diversify their army and be safe from crashing eco

That way realism would be achieved from the perspective that even though mercenaries were mainly recruited for fighting they surely could've helped set up camps and help out with gathering materials for encampments before fights

And on the gameplay perspective we wouldn't have mercenaries as idle units not helping the economy and taking pop space while being less useful overall then before. And there wouldn't be an incentive to make special "merc-only" type of population number and/or limiting their total production number - both of witch would make a game even less noob-friendly I believe, and a bit less fun for merc heavy populations