real_tabasco_sauce

Maybe not in casual play in single player. But in AOE3 for example if I am raiding the enemy and they instantly spawn 5 cannons at the cc, I consider that cheesy. I once watched a little bit of competitive aoe3 and its very lame, with commentators talking half the time about what cards each player can draw. In a way, the card deck takes a solid percent of the game's strategy away from actual gameplay (training units, raiding, eco, researching). The same goes for monument powers in AOE4. The 'strategy' in that game is largely the following: Do i pick monument A or monument B? Overall it is very inorganic, inauthentic feeling. I think it is wise to steer clear of these 'card deck' approaches, and instead add/modify technologies, units, civs, and civ bonuses for additional features.

yes, AOE4 has a lot of gameplay involving 1-time use powers or monument powers. Ie. britons have a monument that instantly heals all nearby buildings at the click of a button. AOE3 did this too, where you could regularly count on getting to use shipments of resources or units. These kinds of gameplay mechanics generally feel really gimmicky and cheap.

To be fair, I think it would be fine to add some war drums sound effects without an actual musical unit. In a large army, you don't have to actually have this unit, but the sound can still add to the ambiance. how/when to trigger the sound though might be tricky. I will say that the one musical unit we do have should get a little sound XD.

I think it's supposed to be a "tusk" attack, not trample. But the distinction doesn't matter much. It is a mix of hack and crush damage. The fire is not part of the game.

I think it’s possible if you enable cheats. But why would you want to skip all the development and economy?

AOE4 alarm bells sounding. Civs should have bonuses in the form of traits, not superpowers.

The bottom line is that people will get behind features that are impactful, fit with the scope of the game, and are fun to use. The proposal fits none of these: It makes a fairly small practical difference, not noticeable unless you are looking for it. I would expect little change to gameplay. it is outside the level of detail 0ad seeks to simulate (For example , wouldn't it seem silly to individually train horses and then put units on each one for cavalry) Lastly, I don't see this being fun at all. There is no strategy one can enact, and no real benefit to either the garrisoning player or the destroying player. I'd say it could only result in annoyance that one's units died to a building collapse. Thats not even considering the development effort, which might not be that bad: Giving buildings death damage as seen in iberian fire ships, and ensuring it only effects own units. But, compare this to a recently added feature that satisfies all three: Elephants gain a splash attack. Makes a large difference, changing the role of elephants from a siege unit to more of a versatile fighting unit. it fits the scope of 0ad perfectly, and in particular furthers the historical aspect of the game. I bet they will be very fun to use with this splash attack, since it gives eles the power the infantry fighting power they deserve. I hope you can see that in this case, the juice is not worth the squeeze.

So is vulkan the default for a27? Or is this just to ensure vulkan isn't enabled without the shaders mod?

This is funny. The idea would create more problems than gameplay features. Most people would be against it even by principle (buildings are supposed to protect those inside). Probably would be a little difficult to implement. It doesn't really fit with the level of detail of other gameplay mechanics. (the idea has too much detail, then to add an upgrade to affect something so peculiar doesnt make sense). All in all, the juice is not worth the squeeze. (and the juice tastes bad)

Side note, why do people think turtling is good? If someone has a bunch of towers and forts, just go around it, attack elsewhere, or force them to move to your army. At the worst, it's just a very annoying strategy.

Well the whole point of getting towers is that you gain a measure of defense without any population cost. I think it is important that towers, CCs and forts have default arrows so that they are important for map control. I made a patch and a community mod branch to make buildings not target randomly. What this would do is make buildings better against smaller raiding groups, and actually kill units among a large army instead of damaging them all slightly. Balance would follow of course, for example, IDK why a CC has almost as much firepower as a fort. I think forts should have more default arrows than CCs. As for ships,@wowgetoffyourcellphone is/will be working on a ship rework to make them proper units instead of using buildingAI, which I think will be a huge improvement for ships (among other things like scaling them down some). For towers, another option for decreased effectiveness with pierce armor would be to decrease their damage a little and make them ignore armor. haha never mind thats a terrible idea. I'd say just keep the damage models the same tbh, or replace the increased arrow count upgrade for increased damage upgrade (available in city?)

i'm fine with it XD. My second choice would have been agni, and looking back, I agree that Vulcan is too bland.

It seems like this would be more of an annoyance than a feature. There are better ways to prevent turtling, like changing ram hack armor, and the random targeting of building arrows. if more opportunities and strategies are of interest, then it is better to add new features (like a bunch of new upgrades) rather than complicate a perfectly sound existing feature.

Civs and some additional units.

Yeah, adding this tiny drop of realism only to then have to account for several downstream effects doesn’t make sense. it’s better to work on other areas for “realism” like art and animations.

Yeah thats a good idea. Something globally defensive for buildings. I think it would be cool to make the recruitment speed a lot faster, like 50% faster but only for champions and mercenaries. Excluding economic units justifies the much faster train time, and also distinguishes it from other train time hero, which is 20% faster with indibil.

Awesome work! I really like the look of these buildings now. potential hero bonuses: 1. Teres I: I don't have a great idea for this guy. 2. Sitalces: This guy seemed to have led some successful invasions, including one into macedon, with a large army from various different regions. How about: +10 pop space, infantry -25% food cost, and cavalry +15% move speed, +10% damage within 45m. 3. Kotys: Seemed to be a great negotiator, always had allies for war. This could be another ally bonus hero, with perhaps speed being prioritized.

I think it will be more hard to create intresting, balanced games as player levels would be much more different if 16 players would need to be chosen Oh, i see, in my experience there are not many players online at 8am CEST There are plenty of high level players at this time (americas), but this is getting very late at night. You would see most of them an hour or 2 before 8am CEST.

Hmm it might be nice, but I think only for unit behavior. It would be bad if I actually click all my archers to shoot 1 unit and some of my archers to shoot a different unit. Even so, I think the unit ai should be simple and predictable, so that player inputs are more responsible for optimizing fights. IMO dancing is really not a problem at the moment.

Is it anything like this? https://trac.wildfiregames.com/ticket/6649 Aha, i guess so lol

If you want to alleviate "turtleing", which does exist and can be a little annoying although not hugely problematic, directly address the problem: slightly increase ram hack armor. change building arrows behavior and/or damage. just addressing the symptoms as you have suggested would result in inconsistencies and further problems.

eles are now an area of effect unit (in part) Catapults used to do plenty of splash damage, but this became a little too op in cases, so it was removed. I would support a very tiny splash radius so that catas can kill units that are very close/overlapping. (especially since they are nerfed now with a range of 85 meters.) bolt shooters are cool, with linear splash and everything, but they are difficult to balance, with a very strong snowball with increasing numbers. I feel dread just recalling the brief "bolt meta". if they are to be buffed, it should be only by decreasing the damage dropoff for linear splash, so that their effectiveness is improved only conditionally. The condition being how bunched up the enemy is.

I think there are not enough champions to do this. I think we could do this with Sparta as you proposed a while ago, and if it turns out well, it could either remain civ specific or become more of a mainstream mechanic.

use version two. Its not easy to get proper play testing together, so thats why it will hopefully be a community mod change.

I did this, but with 0.75, which handily maintains the current total damage by combined armies. https://gitlab.com/real_tabasco_sauce/0-a-d-community-mod-unit-specific-upgrades/-/compare/main...melee_buff?from_project_id=36954588&straight=false