LienRag

Shouldn't one Civ get the ability to recruit enemy units once they conquer their town center ? Wasn't it more or less what Alexander did during his conquest ?

Thing is, if you just need to build more wells, then it's just another resource to manage, there's no real tactical implications, so it's basically boring. And if water is a more clearcut constraint (like it was historically) then game balance is quite hard to achieve...

That's indeed a good idea. The rest of your proposal isn't enough, though. One thing that could also change the gameplay in an interesting manner is technology : let's say that once you control the province with the Temple of Artemis, then you begin all your tactical battles with "Fertility Festival" already researched - that's something that would provide for quite different strategies. Even if you only got it already researched in nearby provinces and get it for half-price elsewhere, by the way. Maybe you could also start the game with one Relic if you hold the province that holds it - beginning with Brutus or with Bindusra do indeed play differently.

Yeah, that's the way you do it, and I like the resource name. Thing is, 0ad is already repetitive enough as it is, if there's to be a Strategic campaign it would need each tactical battle to be interesting and somehow different. So more work and imagination is required for building a good "initial conditions depending on strategic map" part. In maps with scarce wood (and minimum starting resources), one free Storehouse is interesting and changes gameplay, but otherwise it's "meh". Apart from a free harbor, or maybe some fortifications (if there's going to be early battles), or maybe a few cavalry for early enemy disruption, there's not much that I can think of that would really make things different enough...

Thanks, I understand. I played Shogun : Total War for a while and yes I loved the concept. I believe that it's a bit complicated to do it right in a RTS where you can build armies in the skirmish map rather than on the strategic maps. I didn't really like Age of Kings campaigns, for example, they're more "farming" that actually strategic or tactical. Maybe with time limits (not hard ones, but for example the sooner you finish, the more troops you can take with you to the next map), or if you know in advance how scarce resources will be on the future Skirmish maps, or even better if keeping untouched resources on a Skirmish map will provide for strategic resources afterward ?

Could you explain what you mean by a Strategic Campaign ?

The idea is clearly fitting, but I haven't seen any proposed implementation that seems to do the job... I may try Al-Mansour's mod as I don't understand his explanations so far, but I'm not really convinced from what I've read.

So, like in Age of Empire ? Where it actually served no gameplay purpose ? One way that could be interesting strategically is if farms could not be regrown on the same location after they wither (the soil being exhausted). But that's not easy to balance on so many different maps...

How so ? If units don't see their back, it means that the player has to make them constantly turn around so they don't miss anything. A real recipe for micromanagement disaster in my book...

Can you do that without inciting very tedious micromanagement ?

Do you mean micromanagement hell like in Age of Empires ? Or do I misunderstand your explanations ?

I don't know the numbers, but they clearly die much, much quicker than they should. So quickly that it's usually useless to garrison them there if you don't intend to sacrifice them, as getting them out of harm's way when wounded is a hassle. I also never understood the armor formula, so I can't say what would be the right values, but basically they should be heavily protected against anything thrown at them from below.

???

Note that if you want to use greek Archons in the game, and can do it in a way that is historically credible and, in terms of gameplay, sufficiently different from the Han Ministers, feel free to propose your original ideas...

Romans building capabilities would be nice to have, but that's a huge change to the game (and probably to the game engine). Having maps as a map feature is easier to do. Everybody was able to use roman roads afaik (if you can overcome roman fortifications along the road). Making movement faster in own territory and slower in enemy territory is currently not possible with the game engine (from what I've read elsewhere) but should be a very interesting feature...