real_tabasco_sauce

I’m not sure if trying to unify team game and single player ratings would work well. I think we need 3 items, not in any particular order, to bring legitimacy back to the ratings. Constrain settings for rated games so that serious maps and map sizes are used (looking at you polar sea). I’d love to add a “balanced” random map category for this. Implement a basic matchmaking option without replacing lobby rated 1v1s. This would lead to more match variety if there’s enough players, and everyone’s ratings would be more interdependent. make 1v1s more enjoyable. Right now I’d say that team games are simply more fun than 1v1s, and a lot of great players just don’t care that much about playing 1v1s.

Meh I think it can be done pretty nicely with good impacts on how the game is played. So it’s certainly worth trying out. When I get an SSD and time, I’ll set up something in a com mod version. I'm sure it will have balancing consequences.

That was a dodged bullet for sure.

Meant to say repeat time, not fire rate, fixed it.

Well near term a solution could be to reduce repeat time and damage or instead decrease accuracy and increase damage. long term, I have a PR to decrease overkill in the innate unit behavior but it’s got some issues related to OOS right now. theres also the box targeting thing but I’m not sure how I feel about introducing a new mechanic just to combat overkill.

Crossbows have higher dps than slingers. The problem with xbows is overkill.

Yes @BeTe what you see there is the same as what is currently released (version 27.1)

I’m not saying they should be the same speed as everything else, just that they don’t need to be so much faster. A gap of 50% faster would be perfectly fine, currently mace champ cave are 240% the speed of spears. we need to do some more broad speed balancing tbh.

Forts should be effective for defense, not an expensive barracks. If they are “useless” right now, work should be done to make their use for defense more effective. Forts should be for defense primarily, with some able to train heroes, unique units (champs), and unique, special technologies. I remember alphas where people would make more than 6 forts just to spam champs, and it became frustrating trying to find space to place them because of the build distance requirement. also let me stress this really important point: there are no complaints about infantry champions, save for immortals being a bit OP in the ranged form. all the complaints are about champcav, so how about we calm down a bit and focus of the specific units that are problematic instead of “moving fast and breaking things” so to speak. why are champcav OP? - high damage, high hp? Sure, but it is not much more than infantry champions, and they cost a lot more. But really the comparison with champion infantry is flawed, champcav will almost never need to fight champion spearmen. - mobility? I think this is the underlying cause as much as others want to deny it. We are talking about units that are double the speed of their supposed counter, units that may not be surrounded, trapped, or outplayed except by a larger or faster cav army. Because you can choose your fights endlessly, champcav players can bank up resources while raiding and retrain fast enough to justify taking bad fights. Additionally, since they move faster, they take less damage from buildings. if you are really adamant to try this, why not set up a PR in the com mod to organize some play testing. I think I’ve seen enough of the current com mod changes to get an idea of what might work in the future regarding capture balance, so we can move forward with a new version if you like.

So they should have wooden bosses. K, I’ll add them in the future.

Are you talking about the shield boss?

I like that design @Genava55 but I’d prefer to stick to the original gold form. If we use the face on the ritual pot, it would also make sense to use that dark gold hue.

I suppose I could add some more variety by incorporating some Brit or Gaul textures, but in general the basic units are supposed to look basic. All the other civs have pretty simple looking basic units, with advanced and elite units looking more cool and well equipped. i can’t work on much of anything for the time being, so if you want to design some new textures and some new meshes for the shields, go for it. However, what we really need in order to move forward with the civ are ships and the emblem.

We will be able to do a new release soonish but I would love to see more testing and feedback on the current changes.

Ok @Genava55 do you have a possible idea for a raiding type unit? The gameplay design is somewhat focused on infantry mobility, so a faster, lightly armored, infantry unit is needed to replace the wolf warrior. i suppose we could go fairly generic and call it Crimbri raider or something.

fish and scout ships can be rowed only. Merchant and maybe arrow ships get a sail.

Honestly the current scout ship is not too dissimilar to the nydam boat, except for the sail. Maybe we could turn it into the merchant ship by removing the shields and adding a side rudder and more cargo?

Ok, I got in touch with Dr. Bengtsson, who authored some of the works we discussed here and she gave some helpful feedback. The Hjortspring boat was paddled, not rowed, but rowed vessels likely existed as well. I think its ok to keep the oars since we would have floating paddles otherwise. radially split logs became used in the same time frame as the hjortspring boat is dated, and were used to build the nydam boats. so I think we could make use of a nydam style boat for some visual variety. Sails were used, likely square shaped and made out of varying materials. if sails are used on a boat, either a side rudder or double-steering oars should be used as well. Single masts are supported by rock art and stone ship monuments, but bipod masts are also possible. Perhaps if we do more of a nydam style boat (merchant ship and maybe arrow ship), it could use a single square sail with a side rudder I personally think something like the Himmestadlund-1a could be a beautiful inspiration. Rock art and monuments suggest platforms at the stern like what @Lopess has on the hjortspring model. outriggers are not used outside of the pacific, so no boat should have an outrigger.

you can garrison troops into the building they train in with ctrl + click.

lovely graphs @ffm2 I find the tech and unit to be most useful if I've lost a lot of spears and want to protect skirms (with brasidas) even when i am depleted of wood.

mounted on the sides.

On a side note I think the cimbrian wars would make for an excellent campaign.

In the cinematic mock up you could use the hero icon if there is one, that way it matches what players see when they select the hero in game.

really nice @Lopess! i love them! is there any chance you could add some of the distinguishing features for the larger vessel? curved upper beam at the bow (like @Genava55's reference image above) Straight, shorter lower beam at the bow. like this pic: One prop point on each side of the hull near the bow (for shields, which i have ready) side note @Genava55 very recent publication on trade and simulated sailing trips. https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0320791&utm_source=pr&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=plos006 https://phys.org/news/2025-04-reveals-bronze-age-scandinavians-sea.html i'm not sure how they came up with that 2 part mast design.

@Genava55 could you connect the dots for us?