thephilosopher

It seems to me that the natural way of incorporating the bribing of units would be to carve out mercenaries as being the main (or only) unit susceptible to bribery. The game already tries to incorporate an element of this by requiring that mercenaries cost metal to train. And that's based on solid historical evidence. Making them susceptible to bribery would also be based on historical evidence, and it would also complicate strategies that over-rely on the use of mercenaries (which would definitely improve A25, imo).

So, I'd be interested in hearing from some longer term players on this issue. I started playing during A23, and didn't really start joining the lobby until A25. My impression is that the "100+ units in 10 minutes" is sort of a newer thing and that the average player used to produce units more slowly than they do now. The best players probably always produced more than 10 units/minute, but the average player seems to have gotten a lot faster/better. My impression has been that Kate0AD's boom guide was especially influential in speeding up the way average players play.

I agree. If anything, it adds some new strategic depth and options to the game without going down some roads lots of people don't want to go down (e.g., adding lots of additional unique features to specific civs).

Does this work with Iberian opponents and fire cav? Could create some nice 'LOL' moments when you capture Iberian buildings and then use fire cav against them.

I'm also opposed to the Russophobia and Sinophobia I see in the U.S. (my country).

Trezzahn, there's a long tradition of work on this problem in Islamic scholarship and literature, and nothing about what Mohammed did was unusual in his historical time and place. None of that is to excuse child marriage, which almost every human society now condemns. But it's to point out that there's nothing particularly "Islamic" about it, and it doesn't excuse Frinsong's Islamophobia.

My favorite variation on 'ad hominem' is 'ad mominem.'

I like the p1 colony bonus (in one's own territory!), as someone who often plays Seleucids. The slight nerfing of Pikemen for A26 definitely takes away some of the better strategies for playing Seleucids and makes merc units and colonies more important. Leaning in to that with an earlier colony would help mitigate the challenges.

More broadly, it might be worth analyzing hero usage and consider cutting from 3 to 2. imo, most civs have at least one hero who rarely/never gets used. My play has been largely limited to two civs, admittedly, but with both of them (Spartans and Seleucids) I only ever use two heroes. Other players seem to do about the same.

Having just played a quick game, my first impression was that I miss the BoonGUI mod and I hope it's coming out for A26!

Lots of people have proposed adding later periods of Rome to the game. Just wait until your next hero is Imperator Caesar Divi Filius Augustus Pontifex Maximus Consul XIII Tribunicia Potestas XXXVII Imperator XXI Pater Patriae.

This is a good idea. Isn't the gear map very highly symmetrical in this way (except, of course, it has water)?

Probably the best answer is that there are lots of reasons why people have multiple accounts, some of them completely innocent. People forget passwords, get locked out of accounts for whatever reason, etc. imo, the biggest problems with the game is that there aren't enough players in the lobby most of the day. I wouldn't want to do anything to run off players.

Yes, both. If you submit your replay and it's verified, you should receive the W and the points shortly afterward. Typically it takes awhile for people to get to your game after you submit the replay (like anywhere from 2-3 weeks to 2-3 months), so it's possible they just haven't gotten to it yet?

Let's see if I can break my "winless on YouTube" streak. Spoiler alert: no.

Sevda's issue is the same issue I had at first. I solved it by clicking "Rebuild List," and then all the scores populated.

This is pretty cool. FYI: After installing and starting it up, I had to click "Rebuild List" before I was able to get actual ratings. Once I clicked that, it worked fine. If we're posting our own ratings for comparison, my rating here with this mod was 3.43. My lobby rating is 1286.

I definitely like the fact that users can participate by modding the game. I don't even do mods myself - I'm not really inclined to do it - but I appreciate that others can and do. I also like some of the mods - boonGUI 2.4 is excellent, for example. I like that strategy plays a leading role in the game. The graphics are really solid, but they're not too distracting and don't get in the way of the strategic aspects of the game. I really appreciate the commitment to history and a reasonable amount of historical accuracy. Using the actual names for the various buildings is a nice touch. The commitment to historical accuracy could never be 100%. Otherwise we'd just have a game where the Romans are suuuuuuper OP. But the commitment is there, as far as it can go.

I definitely have the same problem, but, yeah, using control groups is a reliable way to solve it. If I have a complaint, it's that there's not a comparable solution for telling what units my opponent has on the field.

That seems fair enough. You might be right about that. My thought on it was that the 375/100 player was probably doing the most strategic damage, while the 400/350 player was more of a team meat shield. But there could be situations where the 400 kills player was the better player.

I wonder if it might be possible to have a military score that incorporated kill:death ratio into the score. Say you get an increasing # of bonus points for having an increasingly positive ratio. In 1v1 games, it wouldn't make a difference. But for team games, esp. 4v4, it would do a lot more to show that a player who kills 400 units and loses 350 did a lot worse than a player who kills 375 units and loses 100. Whereas now the worse player gets the higher military score.

I'll go with the baseball interpretation of what happens after Alpha 26: 0ad gets moved up to Double A.

More campaigns and AI development - basically, more ways to play the game by yourself even after you're a good player.

I'm glad you did bring it up! It's nice to know the options available. The archer can be useful. The other MC unit I like is the merc melee infantry unit. It's a good unit to use against rams. The merc cav that comes out of the MC is, imo, pretty much useless, though. The champion cav out of the stable is way better.

As someone who plays Seleucids pretty regularly these day, I actually never even knew about this. Unless I find myself playing a 1v1 on an inappropriately large map, the thought of building a new CC is one that never even occurs to me. The military colony is a superior building for expansions.