real_tabasco_sauce

This is a good watch for those familiar with the automation debate. Ok so maybe its a different game from 0ad, but many points on automation are valid across RTS games. Maybe the most important is the division of attention between fighting and economy. The controversy of this farm auto-placement puts into start contrast the motion to automize unit and technology production like in proGUI. In 0ad, we already have some things heavily automated like autoqueue. Admittedly, autoqueue is more justified in 0ad given the citizen soldier mechanics, but I heavily advocate against further automation. Some say 0ad is too hard, but I say let it be hard. Learning how to do hard things and winning for your efforts is rewarding and exciting. To improve the experience of new players, focus should instead be placed on improving the ui, ranked games, and matchmaking/finding. Obviously, we don't have any kind of matchmaking, but it is important that new players get a few games with players of roughly equal skill so they can experience more than just village phase. Excessive automation makes RTS games easier sure, but also shallow, and shallow games are not fun for long. One of the main issues with aoe4 is that where aoe2 is deep, aoe4 is shallow (homing bullets, 1-click strategies). We can make 0ad more deep by increasing the amount of player-controlled features, adding more technologies (unique and/or unit-specific), and diversifying unit stats.

https://trac.wildfiregames.com/wiki/Alpha27 lots of stuff for sparta including unique techs designed to boost the spartiate's stats. Also they promote into a stronger version called "olympic champion" Also, we made agis a much stronger hero like he used to be but also gave him a passive metal discount for units.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kushan_Empire This civ could accompany the two nomad civs as a regional package. Even right in the wikipedia page, there are some really cool ruins for structure inspiration.

There are a lot of changes coming to sparta in a27, maybe you will be interested: https://trac.wildfiregames.com/wiki/Alpha27 There is a section for "Differentiating Sparta," I might have missed a couple things btw, but these are the most impactful.

Well, I didn't mean that. I just wanted to set the record straight when I hear people call economy management "meaningless" and "unnecessary." There is absolutely a reason for it, even if some ppl don't like it. And sure, that is just my opinion, but it is a well informed one, since fully automating eco (including houses and tasking) would basically remove a solid percentage of the game's total content.

It wasn't factored into the original math that training a batch allows the next group of units to be trained sooner than 1x1.

Ok, maybe you two consider these things trivial, but I would expect the majority of multiplayer users would consider them not trivial. Sure the game would be "easier" if many economy tasks are done for you, but I guarantee the game would be less fun. If you take away unit production from the user, like in atrik's mod, what is next? You could also automate deciding where your gatherers go to have perfectly balanced resources, and automatically build houses when needed. At some point, you may as well not simulate economy and just place buildings on resources to get a trickle of food, wood, metal and stone. That way there is no clicks needed for economy and you can focus on strategy. For single player though, it doesn't really matter, you can mod it however you like. And like @0 calories said, multiplayer is fine as long as others are playing on the same level.

@SKAcz The opinion of myself and plenty of other players is that while economy management tasks can be repetitive, they are an important part of the game. Namely that a player must decide where to allocate their attention when they are under pressure or applying pressure. The autoqueue we currently have is simple so that you still have to manage economy. Learning how to multitask well is a (probably the) key skillset in RTS games, and overly automating the economy would ruin that part. Also just be aware that its widely considered cheating to use progui in multiplayer.

@wowgetoffyourcellphone can a structure have both terrain hugging elements (like a wheat field) and a model? If so, the dock could just be a smallish yurt with the skeleton of a boat next to it, a fire, and a rope ladder used to slide boats into the water. The rope ladder could just behave the same way as farms so that it doesn't hover over the shore.

I think all but the royal yurt and maybe the scythian version of the ovoo would need models. I think the royal yurt could just be a more decorated version of the current yurt (house), maybe using more luxurious prop points as well. The ovoo would be more complicated. Overall, the structure would be similar to the xiongnu one but made of stacked wood. Also, I don't know if the flags were used by the scythians like the xiongnu have on their ovoo. And then in general, we have a problem where the yurt fabric for scythians and xiongnu looks very similar across the board like @Lion.Kanzen said. Maybe a move to use more hides or skins for one civ, maybe xiongnu, could help.

these look really cool. If you need other ideas, we will also need a Scythian dock, a Scythian version of an ovoo, nomads stable, and a 'royal yurt' (other discussion):

@ShadowOfHassen I guess its a multiplayer inside joke, but ill explain. Basically this player has been regularly playing for multiple years and only plays Mauryas. he's known for funny all-in rushes and playing maury but this was the first game ever playing another civ.

A truly historic moment.

it could be good, although I don't like the idea of better players on a team convincing a weaker player to throw in the towel so they get more pop space. But this is why options exist, so not a huge concern.

@Grautvornix I think the idea is more for novelty, for example, identifying a hero swordcav that took down 20 skirmishers. It could be enabled only for spectators to avoid clutter.

https://code.wildfiregames.com/D5179 @wowgetoffyourcellphone put it together. We didn't make the rams start slower, but the fully garrisoned ram is still a little slower than melee infantry.

I just did some combat demo huge testing on svn vs a26. Not using vulcan here because of screen tearing issues I reported earlier. a26 - 4 avg fps, lots of stutters. svn - 25 avg fps, no stutters. That's really great stuff to see, so well done @wraitii @vladislavbelov @phosit and more! I noticed that the bodies really make a difference as well, which is why @nani has an option to turn off the bodies in autociv. I wonder if it would be impactful at all to make the sinking animation for the bodies much more coarse, aka updating the dead soldier less frequently. Its not like the animation needs to be ultra smooth, since ppl don't pay much attention to it.

Hm potential wonder?

I think this idea could be fun and cool, but IMO it would have to be a unique chariot unit, like the scythed chariots for pers and/or seles. it would make a lot of sense for pers since they already have a champ cav archer anyway. Then other chariots like the maury ones or briton ones should just inherit the chariot mixin as they currently do in svn.

I said random arrows were balanced, and I agree with that. But it was silly, boring, and resulted in a lot of unfavorable gameplay. Surely you realize we are not giving non-random arrows a fair shake here since they are not yet balanced ideally. Diving under buildings without consequence, buildings acting like a timer for the soldiers to leave, Healer auras invalidate arrows, lack of control over arrows. So the reason that non-random arrows is bad is personal preference?

The fact that athens relies on what was the best hero in the game to be competitive is a problem. Anyway: https://code.wildfiregames.com/rP27779

Its been discussed, also there was a patch for this at some point. Also, there are changes to chariot stats in a27: https://code.wildfiregames.com/D5119 Basically more hp, a little faster but slower to accelerate, more expensive.

That poll offered no way forward. Its a bit more complicated than a yes or no situation. Another poll showed players have mixed feelings about it, but it showed 3 clear issues. The most agreed upon solution was to let building arrows be random unless targeted by the player. I tried this, but it was kind of a disaster to implement, so I went with the next most popular progressive solution which was to adjust building arrow counts. Also, I have still not heard 1 reason from anyone why the building arrow behavior is bad that could not be explained by arrow counts. So why is the behavior itself problematic @Player of 0AD? The fact of the matter is that building arrows were balanced under a random behavior and changing the behavior has clearly thrown off this balance. If we can restore balance, then we will be left with a new mechanic.

@Player of 0AD, you can't represent the rank-up change by a single statistic. Please bring in more context. like this: If you insist on this "percent power", you should consider calculating it for the ranged units and including it in the question as a reference. rank 3 melee units could achieve stats almost as good as champions, and this was an issue with snowballing. Also, the mod has been out for about 2 days. Save polling for later when more players have the chance to understand the changes and their effects on gameplay.

I agree, I think I overshot for towers and forts. Maybe even for CCs too. Forts really have no reason not to be formidable when fully garrisoned, so I would probably increase their firing period from 4 to 3s. I think with a couple adjustments and some techs for fort and tower arrow damage (or maybe phase dependent damage) it might work out pretty well. I didn't change the sentry tower build time, and I'm still evaluating the cost increase.