real_tabasco_sauce

not all 23 technologies are active at the same time. Each civ gets 4 to 8 of them. Sure, some particular upgrades may be imbalanced for particular situations. I get that. But why would you rather miss out on all of this content on the grounds that some things may be imbalanced? Remember this is an experimental mod. These techs are extremely easy to adjust, so in other words the "specific things" you find concerning could be fixed effortlessly if they pose a problem. I also don't understand what is complicated too: its literally just a tech tree for each unit type. Of course it's going to seem complicated at first, as is everything the first time you see it. I disagree here, all the patch does is add content. Balance is a secondary objective. I have simply designed them to avoid being OP as best I can. currently, military upgrades are basically an arms race, with very little strategy involved. Unique upgrades like 'archery tradition' and 'hoplite tradition' are the exception, and the improvement to gameplay these techs bring inspired me to make a larger group of techs. The strategic aspect these upgrades add to the mod outweighs the risks (some things could be OP).

Just curious: what are some reasons to vote against number 3, unit specific upgrades? I would have expected more popularity due to the amount of content included.

I see, yeah 5 hack is too much, I think this might be an older version of the branch because I also seem to have left off the champion macemen here too (yoddahs). In any case, it is unintended. The idea is that they should at least be usable in normal combat. I would say 4 sounds more appropriate. In this case, the CS macemen do 3.5 hack and the champs 7 hack. edit: I split the middle, also this way they do half as much hack as crush.

I see. Well, we can revert jav cav health if it seems they are too weak. It is a small change overall, with the biggest change for champs anyway. Shouldn't be a big concern, as they look poorly supported anyway.

@chrstgtr you seem to go back and forth on your opinions here. How about we stick with the merge request as is, and revert certain things later? If things turn out well, fine. If not, we can revert certain items.

in that case, I think we just chose whichever gets more votes than the other. I would also say both might be overkill.

it's not all 23 in one civ. each civ only gets somewhere from 4 to 8 of them. so for macedonians, they get upgrades for pikes, skirms, and 1 for crossbowmen.

I guess this was mentioned when we first voted, but I'll say it again: We should keep in mind that we are voting to add experimental features to a mod, not patches to the main game. In other words, I don't see an issue with erring on the side of adding content.

is 0ad not 3D? Honestly, I think 0ad has a massive edge graphically even over AOE4 with its massive budget. AOE 4 looks goofy and cartoonish, and apparently it only runs fast on the lowest settings so it looks even worse in that configuration. I think one way to make 0ad more "modernized" would be to improve accessibility. It seems to me that players these days often just want to jump right into a playlist with matchmaking as soon as they are set up with an account and knowledge from the tutorial/tech tree. In other words, it might be a bit of a turn-off to join the lobby and have to pick a 1v1 or host their own game. Within the lobby, I can envision a "Ranked" quickplay button which will queue you up for a 1v1 with an opponent determined by matchmaking. I'd say this would improve accessibility and the competitive interest of the game. These ranked games would have a standardized set of random maps (maybe feldmap incorporated into main game), a particular map size, population cap, and starting res.

ok @Stan` all of mine are ready for voting, idk about @Philip the Swaggerless's MR, but it looks good to me.

yes, rome gets both unit upgrades for swordsmen, the second of which increases their durability some.

really? https://www.google.com/search?q=marian+centurion&tbm=isch&ved=2ahUKEwi5tL-n9-X7AhUyNH0KHQqaAogQ2-cCegQIABAA&oq=marian+centurion&gs_lcp=CgNpbWcQAzoECCMQJzoECAAQQzoFCAAQgAQ6BggAEAcQHjoICAAQCBAHEB5QjwlYixBgqhJoAHAAeACAAWiIAZEEkgEDNy4xmAEAoAEBqgELZ3dzLXdpei1pbWfAAQE&sclient=img&ei=g7OPY_nmOLLo9AOKtIrACA&bih=658&biw=1417#imgrc=Uu-MiRVtrDZmPM I thought the Marian centurions were perfect for the timeframe. These ones resemble them the best I thought.

yeah they are probably already in there. "infantry_swordsman_c4"

sorry its a bad screenshot, but these fellas right here:

@wowgetoffyourcellphone could you perhaps update "heavy_shot.png" to "lead_shot.png"? I like the improved contrast and metallic look of this one: Also, "cavalry_heavy_draw.png" is yet to be added i think: Lastly, "sword_handguard.png":

well centurions in part accomplish this only for rome, since you would want to retreat elite soldiers to heal some and to complete their 12 second upgrade to centurions. Once you have a centurion, the whole army (30m aura) is oriented towards ranking and promotion.

I went ahead and allowed spearmen to also access centurion rank. Also, since these units may be trained at rank 2 (via army camp now in phase 2 as well), it should be easier to get them. Also, since centurions make it easier to rank up, they can snowball a little. Also, I adjusted it so the damage aura only affects melee units, while the promotion effect applies to all soldiers.

well I was thinking to just give spearmen a path to centurion as well. I would avoid adding more units.

For cavalry, I am thinking the hp decrease alone should suffice. Might not be necessary to nerf speed.

@Stan` maybe the best approach is to add the changelog I posted earlier to the original topic. I will make a new one for the next version.

@chrstgtr @Fabius My thoughts on the centurions are that the rank three swordsman is more easily obtained by training using the army camp (rank 2 already). Also, once you have one centurion, the other units nearby will also rank up more rapidly (due to promotion bonus) making it easier to get another centurion. The limit of 8 should avoid computational worries, also the auras are non-stacking. I think it would be better to only affect melee damage, as the roman skirms could get way too strong if there is also a hero. I will also bring their damage back down to 11. The idea is that these units are "officers" for their army (hence the auras), so it makes sense they should be limited to 8. Since they are quite strong, I would like them to be a little difficult to get, but if they are too obscure in practice, maybe I can expand the upgrade to veteran swordsman too. Maybe spearmen too?

Not really a meta shift in TGs, but its overall more helpful. I do see them used more often.

@Stan` I'd like to make a few changes to the more recent merge requests (change the names of icons in unit_upgrades) (adjust the centurions a bit as per above comments). I think I should also improve the descriptions on my merge requests to better explain them to voters. After that, we could update the polls here with the new merge requests and begin voting. I think while players are using the next version of the community mod over the month, devs could start updating SVN with some of the community mod changes and whatever bug fixes are necessary. Around feature freeze time, balancers should have a good idea of how to balance the mod content.

Centurions added as a merge request: https://gitlab.com/0ad/0ad-community-mod-a26/-/merge_requests/27/diffs rank 3 (elite) swordsmen may be upgraded to centurions via a salary of 100food and 50 metal each. There is a concurrent limit of 8. They take 12 seconds to upgrade and upon upgrading they take the form of a sword champion with an aura of 30 meters. The aura is a 10% damage buff as well as a -25% promotion experience effect on CS. They will be the strongest sword champion in the game with 14 hack compared to 11. They are also very cool!

No comments on this? DE does something similarly for the Macedonian barracks. @wowgetoffyourcellphone I am trying to setup a functional centurion unit for the romans in the community mod. The idea: elite swordsmen may be upgraded into centurions by a 100 food 50 metal upgrade. I am thinking a concurrent limit of 8 centurions should be added too. They have their own stats and aura, and I am using the existing actors (which are very cool btw). This works so far, but I have no way of adding a cost to the upgrade. I based this system off of @borg-'s immortals implementation. Any tips would be awesome! Disregard, I figured it out after writing this!