real_tabasco_sauce

@wowgetoffyourcellphone @Genava55 Can either of you access this article: https://www-jstor-org.oregonstate.idm.oclc.org/stable/10.2972/hesperia.80.4.0677 I found a few things from here about catapult invention and the use of shot from catapults. if not, ill add some excerpts. basically its far from conclusive in general, since the 1 arm catapults are mostly organic materials.

Are there any more comments on this? Maybe should I make a poll somewhere?

Well the idea is that the onager serves an area of effect role to target bundled up infantry. It will be only moderately effective against buildings, but its simple design compared to the ballista means it can be built in the field by legionaries.

That seems like a massively limiting design constraint. just 100 years (punic wars) is the 'Snapshot' allowed? And well before 0 A.D. ? We already have a lot of content well outside of this. Why can't we have flexibility and the freedom for the civs to change over time? Its not like the cities in 0ad are built instantly. I thought the approach was to look at a 300-500 year span and pick the important/impactful/interesting developments for content. Wouldn't this be a bit outside of the 'snapshot' you suggest? Also, I would find it goofy for two civs to exist for rome, when they can fight each other. As if the two civs are different, when really they are both just 'rome'. The idea of the reforms technology is to unlock the beginning of the transformation of the army. So sort of the end of republican rome.

I did some researching before the marian reforms patch and it seems the reforms are rather contested in terms of their attribution to marius. My understanding is that there were reforms, but they were progressive, turning the army into more of a standardized professional force over time. Maybe it is fine to call it marian reforms since it is what people are familiar with. I think they existed but the regular legionaries were prioritized. If you think it would be good for the reforms to emphasize the veles as an eco unit, I could add a modification for -25% damage for CS units.

It would seem very strange to me to not allow content ~ 0 A.D. into 0ad's time frame. Also, I think it would be sad to disallow principate period content just because it's later on. The principates romans are still just romans.

This is the guy that thought it was the same as a scorpion, at least according to wikipedia. So it seems they were commonplace during battles in the 4th century and may have been invented in 2nd century or possibly much earlier by greeks. Thanks @Genava55 Given that we already have content from the late 1st century, Is the early 2nd century really too late, even if its after a reform tech which would be accessed late in the game? I understand that the early roman empire was fairly peaceful, so maybe that could explain the lack of records of their use. I think it would be fair for the romans to begin the transition into the "imperial" timeframe. especially since this began before 0 a.d., and I wouldn't be against giving the athenians an onager in the future if we consider philon's machine an onager.

@Genava55 Would it be reasonable for the romans to access Onagers after researching a military reform tech? One source says onagers came about much later like 300ad, but that source also says they were the same as a scorpion which is funny. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Onager_(weapon) However some sources say they may have been used as early as 300 bc. So the approach in my patch https://code.wildfiregames.com/D5114 was to lock them behind the marian reforms tech so that they emerge in the late game, just as they likely emerged later in ancient rome. It seems reasonable to me given the lack of specifics when it comes to their invention and use in war.

Alright, this looks awesome! I'll go ahead and add it to the onager patch and credit you. https://code.wildfiregames.com/D5114

I made a 'han diplomacy' tech for the xiongnu that follows this approach. On the standard, I pretty much agree for the most part, but I feel like even if we set one, we would probably start to stray from it since the civs have different unit availability and playstyles. For example it kind of makes sense to give the spartans 3 unique technologies since they have such a simple unit roster.

@70H4NN2S do you have a list of allowed mods? I think it would be good to do for competitive play so the abilities of all the players are fair.

Do you have enough free storage on your storage device? If there isn't enough storage space, it can really slow down the computer in general. If you are above 90% full, it could possibly help to free up space.

I think this looks great!

I agree. Also, it looks a little precarious like that. If you are still working on it, could the crosspiece with the cushion be split from the two side supports, so all three of those parts can fit parallel to each other? Thanks so much for working on this!

Are there any artists that know how to make a cargo for the packed onager? It might work to start with https://trac.wildfiregames.com/browser/ps/trunk/binaries/data/mods/public/art/actors/props/units/hele_rock_packed.xml and replace the two ballista arms with some thick beams or the onager arm and basket. Then it could be called rome_rock_onager_packed.xml

Yeah that’s the one I used too. It’s honestly pretty close.

@wowgetoffyourcellphone we need an actor for the packed onager. Are you aware of anything that might work, or would this have to be new?

https://code.wildfiregames.com/D5109 with this patch, they are upgradeable from all melee infantry: rank 3 swordsmen and spearmen as well as the champion swordsmen. Since the reforms tech unlocks them from the fort, they appear in the tech tree now. The current system is that eles' splash is a circle around the attacked unit.

Its about half as effective as a ballista vs buildings. So, still useful for pressure but not powerful enough to take down forts unless you have like 8. Yes so I'm thinking to train them from the arsenal without upgrade, and then only allowing legionaries to build them in the field. The thinking is that women and CS probably wouldn't be trained in this way but legionaries would. Since they already have the restriction to only build military buildings, I think it makes sense. @wowgetoffyourcellphone I am not sure how to build a unit, but I think the restriction would be as simple as adding units/{civ}/siege_onager to builder in infantry_legionary.xml no?" I am sure you have worked with building siege before, could you point me to an example? Perhaps a building with the onager actor that instantly upgrades (or maybe promotes) to the unit? This would look clunky in the tech tree tho. (although since only legionaries build it it might not show up).

Yeah, I guess that's right. Well, what I have is added a pack/unpack functionality just like other ranged siege. It has area attack, shorter range, short prepare time, 5 sec repeat time. My main issue with building siege in the field is that it gives you such a massive amount of flexibility compared to other civs. That being said, the unit isn't particularly good vs buildings. So I think it would be good to allow legionaries to build them. Another option would be to instead unlock them upon reforms tech and also allow training them at army camps. This way they can be built near but not in the middle of the fight. @borg- @chrstgtr Which sounds better? Always available from workshop Available from workshop, available in army camp after reforms tech. Available to be built by legionaries after reforms tech. I think all three might be cool. In that case, would you all be fine with me adding this into the existing patch? or should this be separate?

I know I understood the first time, I just do not want to break @Pureon's model @borg- and I are thinking about how to add best to add the onager to rome. I would really prefer the onager to have wheels and no need to pack up. For this, the unit would just have to have a long prepare time. However, it seems adding wheels is not as simple as I would have thought. (I hoped to be able to add wheel props). Any ideas? I guess it could just be packed/unpacked like other siege, but it would be more interesting to be mobile.

I am not sure how range ties are handled or how frequent they are, but in theory when selecting the closest unit, one could round ranges to integers or to two significant figures and then choose between the ties randomly.

So basically allow the user to customize the 'order selection 1 by 1' hotkey (2 by 2, 3 by 3 etc). Perhaps the scroll wheel would be good for this as it is in batch training, although i'm not sure how the change would be communicated to the player.

Throwing aside the effort to develop this, the potential performance costs, the UI clutter, and the difficulty for new players to learn something like this, I think this would be actually harder than using the mouse and hot keys to select and attack. (Aka micro). There is simply no way it turns new players away. New players don’t experience micro unless they go against a player far better than themselves. new players get turned away by difficulties in finding matches, performance issues, and boredom. the learning curve for micro is actually part of a “skill gap” and it is essential for games to be fun and learnable. people who have played for years should be able to beat new players because they are better. There is nothing wrong with this. now overkill can be addressed partially by modifying unitAI. I think there was a motion for ranged units to target the next closest unit of the closest is already being attacked by x units. Personally I am 50/50 on this idea, but in the grand scheme of things, it should be the player’s responsibility to manage overkill.

Right, but the 'curve' or the 'playing field' for most players shouldn't be all about micro, sniping, hero baiting, quick walling, and other techniques. This should only be how the top 10% can get to the top 1%. For the majority of players, especially new players, the learning curve should be all about economy, technologies, and army composition. Once sniping becomes a more nuanced approach, like how I expect things will turn out after my melee rebalance patch, it will seem silly to implement an auto-sniping feature with so little interest in sniping.