real_tabasco_sauce

Yeah I can never get anyone to join RC games XD.

Also, just because you are content with something doesn’t mean it can’t be better

I don’t think your predictions are all that reliable. We can’t really know how balance will turn out, but I can assure you it will be less of a significant change than other changes you don’t seem worried about. My prediction is that a27 might be a clean slate balance-wise. My point was that if you asked an RTS player unfamiliar with 0ad if they would rather control their towers or let it be random they would be much more likely to support player controlled buildings. also, there isn’t a chorus of people demanding anything to be honest. I’m sure players would like a new civ, but you don’t see them begging for one. letting the buildings be random just seems like we are missing out on content. its not really preference though, the change makes building arrows interesting, fun, and even exciting.

Well at first it was to fix a couple bugs that made it into a26. Then there were some balance changes like for hyrcannian cav. Then gameplay ideas came through like the Pericles and Themistocles, also team bonuses. the issue though is that all the changes basically made it the de facto 0ad experience for a lot of players, dividing the community. personally I think it should be more like a community test environment. Where balance changes, new units, and even some new mechanics can be tested.

Well it is strong to get a kill out of 3 weak cav, so I agree with @chrstgtr there. But we have a bit of a concern where a number of cav can dive civic centers and remain in range for a long time. Then you also have cases where heroes can negate building arrows. I certainly don’t doubt that this will cause balance issues but these can always be addressed. For example in the case @chrstgtr pointed out, it might be good to bring in the CC range a little. my point here is that we are already in uncharted waters for a27 balance. I am sure svn is already very imbalanced so we will need to do serious and organized balance testing on the RC anyway, so why not go ahead and commit once it works how we want it to? in principle it is undoubtedly better than random arrows (more interesting, more exciting, more fun, more player controlled content, basically more STUFF to do). If you want examples of far more imbalanced stuff: women don’t defend from capture attack when garrisoned, romans start with ff, and the cataphract mixin made cataphracts even more tanky. We will have much bigger balance problems on our hands. That being said, the patch could be made into a mod for a26. If @wraitii or @Stan` could show me how the CM GitHub works, I could make an experimental 5th release with this and the unit rebalance to address sniping and meat shield meta.

It wouldn't be too hard to do, but I am not sure what would be most popular/logical. @borg- @ValihrAnt @chrstgtr any comments on what behavior is preferable? Before, I had them fully separated, but that might be clunky. Now setting rally point and the target happen simultaneously when clicking an enemy unit, but I can imagine a couple uses for a separate rally point (ie degarrison onto rams). Yeah I think it makes sense. I'll use the autorally hotkey.

so default to placing rally and targeting unit, and hotkey to just set the rally point?

Absolutely not. Although I imagine gui mods that don't provide additional information would be permitted. like the disappearing leaves @Atrik mentions.

I wouldn't call ProGui a GUI mod. BoonGui is tho. Not sure what the second point is. Perhaps these translate to: 1. Prevent unequal access to gameplay altering mods. (one player has an unfair advantage)(or you can call it cheating because that is what an unfair advantage is). 2. By better/resilient mechanics and better features, do you just mean your mod should be in the game? Anyway, I think @BreakfastBurrito_007 is right, just some transparency on the mods used is needed. Then modding public in multiplayer should be considered a breach of the terms of use.

non-random.mp4 Here is a little sample video from the last working version. Rally point selection and unit targeting are the same for simplicity's sake.

I think the one @vladislavbelov posted is pretty good, but its missing plenty of changes. I think it might be worthwhile putting together a more player-attractive patch notes document. Some type of summary paragraph, then start with gameplay, then balance, then art/audio, then major engine improvements and of course a section for the new graphics backend. Important changes like that can get a paragraph explaining and summarizing the change, and simple stuff like (Elite athenian spearmen may promote directly to champions) can be a bullet point under an "Athenians" subheading. Adding some gameplay screenshots to the document could also help make it more eye catching. I think this way, the trailer could be shorter and more focused on exciting players than on communicating changes.

We have a whole lot of changes coming in this alpha, so wonder if it would be worthwhile to compile a sort of "patch notes" style document that lists summarizes the important changes.

How should I get ahold of @Itms or @vladislavbelov, maybe on IRC? Maybe I should just add Itms directly to the mod?

That seems like a pretty good solution.

Its really not an issue, I think @0 calories is sarcastic here.

anyone know who the mod.io administrator is these days?

The way it addresses sniping has a lot to do with what you said here. That archers have low dps doesn’t really matter all that much. Sniping is also very strong with skirmishers. the important part is that currently ranged units are a higher value target than melee units, making the ability to target more distant ranged units overly important. if an archer is equally valued shooting a melee unit as shooting a ranged unit, then new players that don’t know how to snipe won’t be punished overly by a technique they haven’t learned. in that case sniping would be a highly conditional approach with mixed results. It would only be useful for highly knowledgeable players that know when it will improve the battle outcomes. for example, if a player tries to snipe under the rebalance, the opportunity cost is that the enemy melee units will more quickly win their fight, forcing the retreat or loss of the players ranged units.

I have raised concerns with your existing mod and also with your stance idea, do not dismiss this as bs. There are 2 issues with what you suggest in my opinion 1. It is a 'smart' behavior from units. The default UnitAI without human input shouldn't be capable of doing things of high value that traditionally take human actions. In other words, they should be somewhat 'dumb'. The example here being that a group of cavalry trying to raid would find their weakest unit killed sooner which would typically be a skill (find and kill weakest enemy unit first to improve odds to win the fight). 2. It will not address or help the 'sniping meta'. If all one's units are tasked to shoot the weakest unit, what happens when an army is full hp? Shoot the closest unit? in that case, the closest unit is therefore weaker. Basically, in this system targeting is dependent on the unit previously targeted, which won't do much for sniping which generally entails focusing the enemy ranged units above all else. The sniping and meat shield situations go hand in hand. It is a "meat" "shield" because it literally is: melee units are all super tanky and do very little damage, ranged units are very fragile and do tons of damage. While your proposition might partially help, the real solution would be a rebalance.

yeah all the maps except 1 I think use biomes. I last tested them all with all the biomes a couple of months ago. I suppose I check again.

https://mod.io/g/0ad/m/badosu-balanced-maps/

yeah my 50% against (ignoring any art development effort) is that with the CS model, armies are very large, so having to get specifically transport ships for this would make army transport even harder than it already is.

Im kind of 50/50 on a dedicated transport ship.

https://code.wildfiregames.com/D4964 This works for ships and buildings at the moment (latest revision). Just use the existing 'autorallypoint' hotkey to specify the degarrison point. You won't need to use this hotkey if the building doesn't have arrows.

Well before you get a ton of work underway, check out the suebians in delenda est. If the goths should be a separate civ entirely, then you should be familiar with the suebian/cimbri buildings so the goth ones stand out.

Kind of semi-nomadic I guess. Economic flexibility with carts, but not as mobile as the xiongnu or scythians, which also need some art if you are interested: