real_tabasco_sauce

Ok, it looks like I have to keep the "Default" category name because it is baked into the gui setup defaults for random maps AND skirmish maps. ^makes me want to vomit. So basically I will rename "Favorites" to "Default". Actually, because of this, it is not worth my time. I think we have a good idea of the way forward though. In the mean time, I will do some miscellaneous improvements to several maps, especially looking at wood resources. In that patch I'll delete kerala.

i did all of this for each and every map and accidentally did git reset --hard

thoughts on stronghold? Now that there are placement options that include stronghold placement in many maps, I am beginning to see this map as a worse version of ambush with stronghold placement.

Oh i meant a multiplayer favorites category, so the most balanced, "best for MP" maps. This will include maps that have good potential. Although i see that this category could be confused with user defined favorite maps, which might be a good idea. I think in addition to the categories I listed earlier, I will add "Map Experiences", or maybe call it "Novelty Maps", these include geo-realistic maps and maps like snowflake searocks and lions den, where the gamplay is centered around the map. I support removing Kerala, especially since hyrcanian shores has biomes already.

"Coast Range" players are placed between a long, crescent shaped mountain range and a long, crescent shaped coastline. The mountain range contains lots of metal and stone while the coastline has plenty of fish. The main body of the map has hunt and some scattered stone and metal, but these are small. The mountain range has lots of metal and stone, but lacks wood. The map also supports three placement options, which provide variety and support a wider range of strategies.

Hey com mod players, What do you all think of the "Foothills" map with the new improvements to the woodlines? I have a patch to add it to the regular random maps: https://gitea.wildfiregames.com/0ad/0ad/pulls/7155 If there are suggestions for the map, I'd love to hear then and I can add them to the pull request.

I find that is less effective/prevalent as compared to the base game. Still however, units like the han crossbowman are much better with sniping because you avoid overkill. For instance, if more than 3 Han crossbows hit a ranged unit, each additional hit is a waste. My patch that @Atrik linked is an attempt to fix this aspect of it.

I see the point, but i'd argue that the ideal balance here is if spearmen are a resource counter to champ cav. They are champions after all. As a resource counter, they might lose with equal numbers or even outnumbering the champ cav slightly, they win decisively when resources are matched.

It’s more than just speed. CS spear inf also get destroyed when fighting head on. Maybe it would make sense to give CS spears a slight additional bonus against champ cav to prevent the use of champ cav as a meat shield against CS units a couple com mod versions back, the spearman counter was decreased from 3x to 2.5x.

Aye, I was making an aside on mobility in general.

We should have a discussion on this in the com mod topic. I had complaints that spearmen were too good especially vs melee cav, but now that its back to 2.5x I think its maybe not enough. On champ cav, the main thing is the mobility. Being able to be super selective on your fights and rarely getting trapped is such a huge factor. It means its very easy to avoid losing the cav. Mobility in general is super strong. It might be interesting to consider a cav capture debuff vs buildings, or rather a relative infantry advantage versus buildings, which is the case in aoe2. I think it makes sense for the counter to mobility to be defenses like forts. <- this is also why non-random building ai is important.

well, we have 80-something random maps, so with better organization, the clutter won't be such a big issue. I'd rather do that first than have to delete any maps. This way we don't any players in this situation: Currently, we have these options as "filters" how about this set of categories: Favorites (replaces default with a larger selection of the "Best for MP" maps.) Water Maps (naval maps + water/land hybrid maps) Dynamic Maps (Player vs enemy maps (Trigger maps) + evolution maps like Extinct Volcano) All Maps Demo Maps (maybe we should eventually just group all the demo/testing maps regardless of whether they are random or skirmish or scenario) Some other ideas could be "open maps", "closed maps", and "Madness Maps" with only the really crazy ones.

I think they are just in skirmish maps and scenarios. They are designed to test gameplay and performance, so I think its important that they are in the game and not atlas.

Yes, we have this, but I think we can do a better job of organizing.

I'll start with river archipelago. Ship pathing up and down the rivers is pretty terrible, the rivers make the flanks of the map much less accessible which would be ok if only they provided an advantage.

Hello random map players, There are new some random maps in the works, but we want to avoid cluttering the random maps menu with too many maps. So the idea is we should add good maps but also remove some of the very worst maps. I think we should have pretty substantial agreement to fully remove a random map. Lastly, I'd like to float the idea of adding a new random map category where players can find some of the more crazy random maps that are overlooked but loved by few. I think an example of this would be snowflake sea rocks. Perhaps the name could be "Random Map Experiences", or something like that. So, please comment a random map or two, maybe with a screenshot and a couple arguments why you don't like it.

It can't move while the animation is ending anyways, right? Does it need to know its destination frames in advance to move on time? I bet what you are referring to as "the animation finishes" is actually the unit going on to finish a new attack. Currently, animations will be cut short if need be.

@Philip the Swaggerless sure its simple, but its limited. <<<<<%>>>>>>>>>>>>!<<<<<<<<<<<<<%>>>>>>>>>>>>!<<<<<<<<<<< ..........O------------------|-----------------O-------------------|----------------|O In the above (for pikemen) if you don't check immediately after the attack (|), the unit must wait a whole second before it realizes it needs to move to attack the unit again. This would be really bad. Have you played it yet? The pikemen really don't look bad at all, its spearcav and swordcav chasing that look a bit weird. There can certainly be improvements to try and fit the animation better, but timing it perfectly would be tough as all units have differing animations, repeat times, and prepare times. You would end up doing some crazy mathematical gymnastics to try and get it to work! Up to a point, it would be easier to tweak animations and audio (except I haven't done that yet XD).

this one is hard to explain. I think it could be ok for a unique unit. One time I gave units buildingAI, to see how strong spreading out damage perfectly would be, and being able to deal damage without stopping was far more impactful. Allowing units to attack while moving would basically make mobility in general even stronger than it already is. i'm down to try it, but I don't think it should be a priority.

yes, it is now. 1 sec of overshoot vs 2. But I wouldn't want a pike to stop, thinking it can attack, and then not be able to because its target ran away during the prepare time. There are certainly arguments to change prepare time for some units, but then you start to run into issues with animations.

You might be observing overshoot in the prepare time. Pikes take i think a second to prepare. I intentionally avoided checks during the prepare time because if the unit entered the attack range, it should be attacked. If you add checks to the prepare time, you could have attacks get canceled before they happen, which is not possible in the current setup. Also, are you testing the new version or the one in the com mod? The first version had a means for units to overshoot if they kill the unit they originally targeted. This was fixed in the later versions.

The range check is done in vanilla immediately after an attack, so right before the repeat time takes place. The consequence is that the unit can go anywhere during that repeat time and the attack still goes through. ..... = prepare time ---- = repeat time | = attack O = check if the target is in range vanilla: ..........|O-----------------------------------|O-----------------------------------|O With patch (ie pikeman): ..........|O-------O-----------------O---------|O--------O---------------O----------|O

It might be a nice capability to have, but I don't think its necessary in general. Units stopping to attack is important for gameplay. When is the last time animation ppl have helped out? I think the right thing is to do a little work in the animations and sound department: with more brief animations and sounds, things would look and feel smoother. Its similar to https://gitea.wildfiregames.com/0ad/0ad/issues/7113. Since swordcav already have their animation cut short when chasing sometimes, it seems this problem is only made more frequent by this patch, not caused by the patch.

well, too late on the first part XD. I can't say definitely what the effect on performance is. https://gitea.wildfiregames.com/0ad/0ad/pulls/7178 In here you can see the profile of the more recent version and it appears to be a net improvement for some reason. This performance test is based on the "combat demo huge" which is 630 units vs 630 units all fighting at the same time. If the affect isn't detrimental to a27, i would hope its not terrible in a26, but we will find out. It is indeed making a major difference for bolts and catas, and my suspicion is it will make bolts much weaker and less frustrating to play against. However, you are wrong in thinking other units are unchanged. Certainly it is more noticeable for low fire rate units, but pikemen, crossbows, and in particular ram ships will be noticeably less able to attack beyond their intended range. I will be curious to learn if retreating in general will become less punishing because of this change. This patch increases these situations a bit, with animations and sound being cut short when chasing. I will need to find a solution for this in the long run. yes and yes. Good questions. Actually part of question 2 is no: prepare time is only involved for the first attack. If the last repeat time is unfinished when a new order comes along and the remaining repeat time is longer than the prepare time, the remaining repeat time is used. I did 2 as a test, but the current version adds as many checks as the number of seconds in the repeat time rounded up. So 1 for swords, 2 for slings, 3 for crossbows, 6 for bolt shooters. In this case, you would often have a unit trying to shoot something, only for it to realize right before attacking that it needs to instead move closer to the target. If you just get rid of the first one, the unit won't know that they need to chase the target until it is time to attack again. Well, the animations don't cause the prepare and repeat time, the animations are adjusted to keep in sync with what the unit is doing. What happens here is that the animation and sound is longer than the prepare time, and since a unit might decide to move before the animation plays in full, the animation is cut short.

There is someone working on something better: https://gitea.wildfiregames.com/0ad/0ad/pulls/7047 As a mod, fine. However, in general i don't like the unit sharing idea because: 1) Each civ has a limited unit availability on purpose as part of civ design, so that they have strengths and weaknesses. 2) Transferring units to a new player has risks of combining disastrously with other bonuses: Ie fanatics + any speed hero, ptol bolt shooters + mace siege hero.