Fabius

Fair point, but it would be nice if we could utilize them earlier in the game or easier. Either seems reasonable. Either second age camp or allow the camp to be built on own territory as well as neutral/enemy.

The cost of the camp isn't the issue, the problem is third age and has to be built somewhere outside your own territory. All that effort for rank 2 infantry that only ever gets measured in how well it can take hits. I agree on the champion side of things. The hero roster and consular guard have always been a strong point. It is just very funny that Republican Rome is playing like Late Rome rather than early Rome Like Delende Est, true, and then I wish to see some of its features in the main game lol. Best Roman experience ever though

In hindsight after some play testing I did realize I had overlooked this, I reached just over 700 damage on those catapults using full tech and Scipio, great for anti ram turtling at any rate That being said Rome still feels sparse in options compared to say Athens which now has a second age champion, or Gauls which have had fanatics for a while and the best current cavalry in the game. It was discussed elsewhere about putting the army camp in second phase and it would be nice to have something to use in second age.

Having done an initial read through and evaluation of the civ changes, Four things have stood out to me. Firstly the Athenian second phase champion marine, I like it, a lot, enough to actually play Athens more. Secondly the Persian champion cavalry archer, a nice addition, however identical to to the champion chariot in stats and also unlocked along with the champion cavalry. Persian chariots are now a redundant unit and will never see play again unless for pure aesthetic reasons. And thirdly, and more personally, the Roman civ overview is a pathetic far cry from A23, three alphas and Rome has received nothing new in that time period, just a significant loss of unique features and a few returned features. Far as I am concerned Rome has been the harshest treated civ out of everything. At least give the Roman players something please. Also fourthly, Han is good, I like the clear effort to give it lots of interesting features, It does make me depressed that other civs are not as differentiated though.

Persia isn't my field of expertise, but I like this differentiation plan, I shall look forward to the Roman discussion

Meanwhile siege tower go brrrrrrrr

Awesome

wait RC is shorthand for release candidate right??

And I am inclined to agree that you need a central node of authority, not absolute, but someone needs to set the direction. You cannot all just follow your own path. Something that has stuck with me was that April fools joke, I believed it, because to me everyone seemed disunited in the discussions and many wanting to seemingly create their own version of how 0 AD should be, I could be wrong, I am just someone looking through the window into the workshop so to speak, but this is what the goings on inside seem to me.

It seems a poor metric to sit around and wait for enough players to comment on something before doing anything with it. Especially if that something is exceedingly niche and likely few know or care about it to begin with. I do not care much about Hyrcanians, but I do want to see new features, and I do know Hyrcanians are sad currently. I will likely never use them, but somebody else might.

I like the idea, go for it

A curious question, any further progress on implementation for core 0 AD?

I am probably the minority in this, but while those were definitely a pain, a decent roman player like myself could play turtle and grind done those blocks with attrition and siege. And it was greatly satisfying True Roman experience was A23, fight Gauls all day every day, and the holy Roman bolter, I still miss the unit sprite for it, was it necessary to change it Also immortal heroes for maximum one man army shenanigans and roll play. Honestly in a way A23 felt more forgiving than the later alphas.

There is precious little to conquer anyway, it is rather fun building elaborate fortifications and watching others break them, but that is irrelevant in A25. Its all boom and go, I like to enjoy my games like I would a good meal, not a ten minute stop at the fast food place and then off I go to do something else. There is more to playing than just winning. It would be nice to have a satisfying experience too. Which we did have in A23 and progressively seems to have evaporated with each alpha. I personally feel quite jaded with the whole thing, if I had the opportunity I would have stayed with A23, at least there was more to personally enjoy.

For instance give troops that go on walls a fire attack. Treat it as a passive buff that only applies to troops on walls. Give it a multiplier against rams if you like.

I feel that things should be added to counter rams rather than just reverting a change, it can be argued that all civs would know how to make a ram at the minimum, hang picking up a log and using it on a door counts as a ram, so, I think the path should be towards things that can damage rams.

Alrighty, back to walls. After some contemplation the idea of doubling or tripling the garrison capacity is a good one, it will incentivise walling strategic areas I believe as the extra range and armour will give an edge to the defenders that is badly needed. As pointed out the reason it is not used is spacing units out like that makes it completely unviable for general combat. From my perspective if this was implemented I would definitely consider walling strategic places like fortresses and civic centers and stacking troops on the walls. The main drawback is how many troops can be put in a small space, so doubling may not be enough to give an edge at all. Then you have the issue of how to put that many troops on a single wall section.

Definitely agree, my point is that we lack viable means to defend those walls currently from rams, in A23 we used catapults by in large as it was most effective. A24 removed that so we were forced to use swords, the issue is that is not cost effective in either population or resources or anything really. Two catapults could do the job of ten or twenty swordsmen for a fraction of the cost, and still kill hordes to boot. A26 is giving some accuracy and even more damage so it is likely wall defense will be a lot more viable again. I definitely like the idea of a fortified wall technology

The basic problem with walls is that they cannot be viably defended against things meant to break them. Therefore its a waste of stone. Also consider the amount of time needed to mine extra stone and build the walls to begin with, In a game were everything depends on reaching P3 the opportunity cost is to much.

Well I suppose that is a reasonable use for walls. But I thought walls usually were supposed to keep everything out and not just people on horses.

I like all of them except decreasing wall HP, unless you plan on decreasing the cost and build time as well, in which case I will accept it. In my books stone walls are already weak and useless at keeping anything out. Hopefully with catapults back in action again that will mitigate that point somewhat.

Yes I agree, it would make sense that you would get the civ specific elephant. As far as models go would one create a unique roman elephant model or use existing ones? I would really like to see a unique roman one, the current in game Roman aesthetic is very eye catching.

In summary then of Roman feature discussions Move castrum to P2. Allow for training of elephants from captured elephant stables. What about the distinction between Indian and African elephants, would that be included? Add a nice elephant character with a triarii on top with a pike

I see, very well I concede your point.

No it won't, it has nothing to do with siege camps. And attacking will always be to destroy civic centers or cripple eco. Wasting troops to hold an elephant stable is pointless and dangerous. Especially as you cannot garrison it with anything other than elephants. Potentiality is a bad way to design a feature. Either its there to use or it isn't. I am not going to factor something into my strategies that either wont be there to begin with(a civ without elephants) or probably wont be relevant if I happen to get it. Its a highly situational feature at best, a dangerous distraction at worst. Just look at the Carthaginian merc buildings, how many people go out of their way to capture them for the chance at training mercs, or even know that it exists as a feature.