real_tabasco_sauce

@LetswaveaBook said a new one would be made with those changes, but I haven't seen it yet. Honestly, I would be happy with the minimum, which is just the multiplier increase almost everyone seems to agree on that. I think spear cav should be a little more armored than swordcav, but this could be decided later.

yes, I just hope to avoid adding things that might end up like the bribing mechanic.

No you are right. From a logical standpoint, it is fine. However in terms of gameplay it stands out in a rather awkward way. This is what I meant originally. On another note, what if my 100 ptol pikemen with the pike hero's HP bonus all turn into rams? At the same time these 100 pikes are better off as pikes than as 25 rams. Then how do you balance it? only 2 units required? In that case 50 rams would be wild XD. Im honestly not so sure about it in general to be honest.

Tower buffs should be very carefully tested so that it is not too OP to tower rush. Currently towers are fine IMO. ' We do not want overall strong defenses. What this looks like in multiplayer is A24, where the entire map gets built up if the game is not ended by rushes. It is extremely terrible gameplay. Think about it: If defenses increase the likelihood of your victory too much in a given battle, then 0ad becomes a battle of defenses where both sides just stare at each other in a game of chicken. Currently, fighting under an enemy tower, fort, or temple makes things a little harder but the battle is certainly winnable provided you have better micro, better unit composition/upgrades, or more units.

I'm not so sure. It's a nice idea, but I think it is best to stick to training siege units for the time being. If it is a plan to have siege units be buildable or otherwise field-constructed like in AoE4, then this would make sense. Wouldn't it be weird to have rams, siege towers and catapults trained in the siege workshop, and at the same time permit this formation based siege mechanism?

Currently, the nerfs in a26 are: 90 metal cost and slower rank up time. I think these nerfs may be enough since it will take more time for merc cav to reach the dreaded rank 3. One big difference between inf mercs and cav mercs is that inf mercs are more effected by the inability to gather resources. I think this could justify the 95 metal cost, but we should test rc1 first before we make this change. You have to consider other changes such as a possible spear cav buff ( @LetswaveaBook plzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz make a new patch with +1 hack and 2x multiplier).

Yeah no need for arson, but I think it would be good to increase wall HP (say + 20 percent or so) so that gates are more valuable targets and so that stone walls have a little more value in the late game.

how about either they train from the buildings I mentioned above for 2 non-mace civs. This should neatly solve these issues. Maybe also give them a different price, but this may not be necessary.

I don't think all civs should get this p2 ram. How about only add the p2 ram to few (like 1-3) civs? I think it would be weird if every civ got the p2 ram, making rams both ubiquitous (all civs have them) and redundant (all civs have 2 different rams). I think it would be really cool for this unit to serve as a mercenary for some civ. This would probably mean inverting the cost: wood -> metal and metal -> wood. Also this would require only 1 or 2 designs. Here is an idea: Maybe mace alone should be allowed to build the siege workshop in p2 and train the p2 ram, while a couple other civs can train the p2 ram in other buildings (could be military colony for seles, or maybe roman army camp for romans "auxillary seige unit", not for ptol because ptol already OPOPOPOP).

another way to do it is to queue garrison orders: so garrison one barracks the queue to garrison the next barracks and so on... the ones that are garrioned into the first barracks are removed from the selection so the remainder go to the next barracks.

I thought at one point you could click alarm bell for women and alarm bell again for men to find all available garrison points? To be honest, I cannot envision a need for this in gameplay, but I guess it can't hurt. Currently in the game to do this after selecting a group of units is hold control alt and garrison each barracks. I guess it would be nice for training melee units and avoiding getting your barracks captured.

well, while I agree that the economic value of these units makes them a little harder to balance, there would certainly be other things people complain about if there were no CS units. In my opinion, CS balance is quite good this alpha, aside from pikes. The nerf pikes received seems appropriate to me. Honestly, at least in recent history, most complaints are over champions (esp. fire cav) and merc cav. yes, and I think the attack ground aspect of this adds an amount of skill to the fights you described. In 0ad, the "death balls" you described are enabled by the meatshield meta. Currently, using fast units with high dps (swordcav) are really effective if you can avoid spears. This can be almost as devastating as siege in AOE2. For infantry battles, you can even use archers or slingers to manually target ranged units past the meat shield, although this is difficult. I think we could add attack ground to essentially represent a volley, which would more effectively deal damage to ranged units and avoid overkill. This would in theory result in more movement or perhaps formation usage. Not a lot of people agree with my idea here, but I think the answer to the meat shield meta should be something skill based.

yes, it is understandable that they receive these stats. Unfortunately, the meatshield meta makes it rare for melee units to rank up unless they are garrisonned in barracks or start in rank 2 (mercs). Its kind of tricky, so maybe its better to leave it alone untill we have somewhat dismantled the meatsheild meta.

Sort of a balancing topic: Remove armor increases for ranking up melee units. It seems OP that melee units (take for example carth merc cav) gain 1 pierce and hack armor with each rank. It is a little much for melee units to receive HP, damage AND armor with each rank. Just damage and HP would be better right?

yes that makes sense. Thats why I said it was "realistic" feedback. I do think a future civ could have less civic buildings restricted to their territory as a civ bonus. That would be cool. Actually, I would not be surprised if I saw something like that. AOE4 is pretty bad by the looks of things. They basically removed skill from the game, only keeping strategy. Between the two, I would consider 0AD the better game which features are this bad?

It's definitely bottom 2-3. At least in TGs. Maybe it is better in 1v1s? Once iphricates is sniped what to do next?

no I mean for spec only. Like to show other specs. It would not be visible to players ofc. Sorry I wasn't clear!

this is incorrect. There are very often rushes in dark age (p1).

Some realistic feedback on these: 1. I agree with the CC change. Cost should also be reduced. @ValihrAnt has a mod to demonstrate these changes among other things. 2. For metal and stone, this could be done. But I don't think it will change anything. The costs of things one needs to buy is what should require multiple resources to be extracted. 3. While I don't think this should be for all civs, perhaps some future civ (perhaps nomadic) could receive this as a unique civ bonus: houses, storehouses, farmsteads, perhaps some other buildings too receive a very small territory while not being a territory root. Is this even possible? 4. There will be very little support for this. One important reason is that we cannot have too many auras at the same time for performance reasons. 5. Why give this to towers? I could imagine this or something similar being a unique tech or some special building. 6. This would frankly be terrible. It can already be frustrating finding space to put buildings down. Forcing unnecessary building restrictions is not the move. Base layout is already something that requires thought.

I've never heard anyone complain about unit diversity and their resource gathering status in 0ad.

Its better than the Athens team bonus in 0ad

this is not a problem. In fact, it is part of what makes the game fun.

How about: Allow specs to flare, and allow settings toggle for spec flare visibility?

full merc gold rush XD