real_tabasco_sauce

Ok, idea I just came up with for brit civ bonus: The Briton team bonus is quite sub-optimal: it rarely comes into play and it doesn't make much of a difference. At the same time, the gauls bonus is quite generic, affecting all military techs, which leads to no change in how the game is played. Since the brits and gauls are sister civs, I think it would be neat to give them sister team bonuses, and there are multiple ways to go about this. 1. Brits: 30% cheaper ranged damage and pierce armor techs, gauls 30% melee damage and hack armor techs. The way they are split is up to debate, but I think this would be a great idea for a brit team bonus.

Ok, any balance concerns I can address in a new version? Are swordcav too weak compared to spear cav? Perhaps a new briton team bonus?

https://gitea.wildfiregames.com/0ad/0ad-community-mod-a26/pulls some more com mod changes: reintroduced non-random building ai (see the discussion for that) Ptol civ bonuses: bolt shooters now get 10% net damage buff instead of 0, all 3 farming techs available in village phase roman reforms allows conscript spearmen from cc kushite pyramid 150s,75m 120sec -> 100s, 100m, 100sec (should help with build order flexibility, doesn't "punish" the player by only allowing one barracks with 300 starting stone)

No, but relatively few newbs are playing the community mod. Also for the newbs that do, its not absolutely required since you could do just fine with regular right click and autorally (ctrl). If/when this goes to 0ad, it will be bound to something and I'll make it clear in the loading screen tooltip.

Ok, so because the hotkeys were interfering (both set to ctrl), I heeded @Vantha's advice and just made a new hotkey called "Focus Fire". This is what you use to make the red crosshair appear and only control the building's arrows. It is unbound by default, and for now I let users know this in the loading screen tip.

Ok, well maybe I can make a new hotkey but i don't think I can make it bound by default in a mod. So I prefer leaving it as is for the mod, but I'd support making a new hotkey so people don't have to use their force-attack key if they don't want to.

Sort of @Vantha . The thing is both functions are making use of existing hotkeys. I think the text should say force-attack and “auto rally” so users know what hotkey they might want to change. In that case I could actually add this tooltip to the mod too. i think force-attack is pretty intuitive and that auto rally could be renamed at some point if we want it to be more intuitive.

Well, what I intend to go there is the force-attack hotkey, but it is currently ctrl by default.

Ok, i've made those changes to the text I described above, but I think we can worry about this if/when this goes to merge request for 0ad. At that time, we will also need to decide a new hotkey for force-attack (I vote "f" since capture is "c"). In the meantime, I'll try and add it back to the community mod. If people want to test it with me, I can make some changes before it goes to the com mod. I've added a testing version to the home page, and I'll add it below. If you have it downloaded and see me in the game lobby, i'd be happy to test it some. (its the same as the one on page 7). community-testing.zip

What will the tooltip say? Probably something like: "Building arrows can be controlled independently of the rally point. Right-clicking on an enemy sets both the rally point and building arrows to that enemy (Right). Use [ctrl] to only set the rally point on an enemy (middle), and use [force-attack] to only target the building arrows on an enemy (left)."

Yes, it looks much better. I'm so used to low settings I forget how real the game can look! I guess the cursors look a little fuzzy, but I meant to make them large.

Should it be the default settings?

@Vantha I came up with a tooltip image for these: The tooltip images are all 512 by 512 so I made this also that size. However, the other tooltip images don't look very square: https://gitea.wildfiregames.com/Vantha/0ad/src/commit/e9257edcdb5a3b02815b69ff90acd28b13c6107d/binaries/data/mods/public/art/textures/ui/loading/tips/army_camp.png

Nice work! The colors of the roofs are often very similar to the colors of walls and other parts of the structures. I think that makes it difficult to quickly identify the building, which is especially important for multiplayer. I think it would be good to make the tile-based roofs either a darker brown or a darker grey.

Ok so I made the changes described above and added a phase dependent building damage buff of 20% Here is the current version if anyone wants to test: community-testing.zip Just unzip it to your mods folder, the directory name will be correct.

Ok are there any suggestions for version 12? I heard from someone that the conscript spearman should be available for romans from the CC upon researching the reforms. I think its a good idea.

Ok, well if I leave crenellations alone, I think I would have to let damage be phase dependent, which maybe isn't so bad since capture point regen is also phase dependent. If I revert crenellations as is, I would have to come up with another tech to serve as the first arrow damage increase which would make the tech situation more complicated.

imo crenellations is pretty quirky: depending on rounding, you get different numbers of additional arrows. With a fully garrisoned tower, you get 2 additonal arrows. I don't like that it leaves ungarrisoned towers unaffected, and that there are no general upgrades affecting non-tower arrows. In general, defensive buildings being next to useless (for defense) if not garrisoned is sub-optimal.

Also, I should nerf siege towers a little.

I suppose this could be done, but the tower techs are largely unhelpful/uninteresting save for crenellations. Crenelations currently only buffs garrisoned structures, while the tech is redesigned to be a more general-purpose damage buff. my approach was to try and re-purpose existing techs to be more applicable to arrows in general.

Ok the non-random arrows and ui improvements are working toward a building arrow overhaul. I've heard from a lot of players that because building arrows don't get much stronger as the game goes on, arrows are too strong in p1 and too weak in p2. So I came up with some changes to improve building arrows in general. Building prepare time 1200 -> 400. buildings get value sooner when a unit steps into range. The practical range of enemy structures is made more apparent when circling a structure. Tower and CC arrow damage: 10/11 pierce -> 8 Fort arrow damage remains at 10. Generally speaking: building repeat time increased (more so for CC, less for towers,fort), building default arrows increased (more so for fortress, less so for towers,CC) Fortresses gain a minimum range I added a new technology and restructured the existing tower technologies into something that will work for towers, forts, and CCs. Sentries: unchanged Crenellations: Towers +40% garrisoned arrows -> all building arrows +20% damage. available from the fortress too. Arrow Shooters: unchanged Sturdy foundations: made much cheaper Murder holes -> moved to the fortress, affects fortresses as well as towers. "Professional Garrisons" (coins above) supersedes crenellations in the fort, and is another 20% arrow damage for all buildings as well as +4 default arrows for the fortress only.

For the community mod, I can't change defaults, so I think players will just need to bind force-attack to something else if they want to control in all three means i discussed above. ^the behavior for both autogarrison and force attack being bound to the same hotkey (ctrl by default) just results in force-attack coming out on top. for a27, i think it would make sense to make force-attack 'f', since force capture is 'c'. Then follow unit could just be unbound by default.