real_tabasco_sauce

https://code.wildfiregames.com/D4744 @wowgetoffyourcellphone what do you think? I would say even 5 meters would make a significant difference. @chrstgtr @borg- @BreakfastBurrito_007too cavalry should definitely not see farther than infantry.

It would be nice if each phase got its own row. (1st row is village, second is town, third is city) ^a problem would be how to fit a bunch of village icons in one row.

An internet classic. Thanks for bringing this back to my attention. Here is a suggestion: Reduce vision range of all soldiers by 15 meters. I think it is currently too easy to see enemies far in advance. This will bring more surprise to the game. Here is a balance suggestion that should be done sooner rather than later: make vision range of cavalry the same as the vision of infantry. Why: Cavalry can already avoid fights very easily and already perform well as a scout because of mobility.

right, and yes I was exxagerating with that statement. my point is that the game time is kind of irrelevant. A fun game can be 3 mins long or 40. What matters is that the entire game time is fun (fighting, raiding, scouting). AOE2 does this largely in part by opportunity costs.

If AOE2 was played at 2x speed, I would expect the gameplay to be similar, just harder to manage 0ad's fast pace is a benefit IMO, as oftentimes players do not have hours to spend on a single game. The root of the issue raised by @BeTe is that the game's meta is a little too dependent on economic boom time (mentioned by @borg- too: eco boom in p1, get 3 town buildings in p2, then right to p3 and fight). In Age of Empires 2, there are many opportunity costs associated with decisions, with the most obvious being villagers versus military production (also aging up versus producing villagers). In 0ad, batch training and citizen soldiers greatly reduce the opportunity costs for certain decisions, such as advancing to the next age, or delaying/rushing upgrades. I would say balancers are working on a solution already: to provide interesting gameplay options in the middle and early game, especially centered around differentiating civs. Going forward, if we think about opportunity costs in the context of gameplay changes, we may begin to see fighting from start to finish even in more casual games.

i think this would be a little excessive. Requiring accounts to have a unique email address is good for a few reasons I think. This way only one account can be operated at one time, no juggling accounts. I think you should still be able to change your name freely, perhaps even in-lobby, but gameplay statistics should remain the same across accounts (games played, rating, win rate, etc).

yea, this is fine tbh.

Yeah, I think this is the best approach. The cavalry crossbowman seems problematic in too many areas. Should the cavalry crossbow hero also be made a foot soldier?

They were already quite different IMO.

time of war civ bonus: -10% batch train time for each age.

I meant medieval time period.

in AOE yes, but if there are champ archers, why not allow champion crossbows? I remember @AIEND mentioned there were weaker crossbows for lesser trained soldiers, and much more powerful crossbows for elite units.

I agree that they are problematic from a historical standpoint. My thoughts are if these champion cavalry crossbowmen are also problematic for gameplay in terms of balance, then they could be replaced with the infantry champion crossbowman. This would be an easier balancing option. @wowgetoffyourcellphone does art for this unit exist already?

yes, I think so. range: 60 -> 50 prepare time 200 -> 600 spread 0.8 -> 3 speed 120 -> 80 ^This is a massive nerf when there really was no nerf necessary. I think the champion crossbow parent template should be reverted to a25 values, and the Han xbows adjusted accordingly if needed. The cavalry champion crossbow template could remain as is, since shooting the xbow from horseback would be inaccurate (and for balance reasons).

This was a difficult discussion. @AIEND was against crossbow cavalry, since it was not a typical unit. This is historical grounds to remove the CS crossbow cav, which I thought was problematic for a few reasons anyway. However, considering that crossbow cavalry was possible, and maybe very rarely achieved (only by very skilled warriors), I think the crossbow cav champion can remain. Also, the hero is crossbow cav, so it makes sense to allow the crossbow cav champs.

Could be the changes for the han crossbowmen @wowgetoffyourcellphone any clue? I couldn't find any patch or ticket involving this change, so I assume it must have been.

Well to be honest, I like the full buff more too (the poll seems to agree), but @borg- really doesn't like it. It's not really clear why. People who tested it with me seemed to like them.

@LetswaveaBook this is why my original patch specifically differentiated pers axe cav into a raiding unit. One person didn’t like that idea and now i think it would be OP for the civ, considering recent changes. I still think the game should allow a much faster, weaker raiding unit, perhaps it should go to a future civ. the “lite” buff still differentiates axe cav further from sword cav, without them being plainly bad units: 1.5x attack repeat time, keeps crush damage per second, keeps low armor. Crush damage per second should remain as is because these units could already knock down CCs fairly easily.

@maroder's roster patch needs an additional reviewer. Maybe @chrstgtr @borg- @LetswaveaBook interested.

this is the new civilization bonus. I think the tooltips should say 0 sec.

It looks like the mace crossbow's range was reduced to 50. Was this intentional? I don't think it is a good balance decision, they were fine at 60.

No worries! I think we got most of the major balance changes in.

Maybe the ram builders would automatically garrison upon completion of the ram. Just an idea for later perhaps.

Ah, I see that now. I could be wrong, but I think all that is wrong with it is that the patch is made in the wrong directory.

Is there time to commit https://code.wildfiregames.com/D4722 before RC2? Fanas have needed some love for a couple of alphas now. Maybe we need additional balance feedback/approval? I think @chrstgtr was in favor too.