Grautvornix

Agree except for capturing gates.

If we cannot decide leave the dicsion to the user! I like it.

My non-scientific ahistorical assessment: People on the lower end of society were always somehow farmers and sometimes ordered to do lumbering. I am not sure if in these times specialized professions were so common (like lumberjack, other probably) Don't take my assessment serious, please.

Just saw this beautiful screenshots by @wowgetoffyourcellphone showing a roman city built around a central paved town square/piazza: The game is rightfully famous for many things - but also for allowing to build beautiful scenarios. Just, if you happen to not use the ATLAS map/scenario editor, how can you build your city around a paved area? Many maps already provide such an area from the beginning, but you need a lot of planning ahead in order to allow sufficient space for builduings that can only be build in a later phase (temple, wonder etc.). Would it be possible at all to allow building a kind of paved area during the game? The typical issue would remain that it needs to be an object that can be crossed also by the pathfinding algorithm. As such it needs to be a building that, while visible, is not blocking and acts rather as a decal with a specific aura (e.g. market features, agora/politics, negative aura for files/reduced soil fertility). Upgrades from sand to gravel to cobblestone would increase the strength or range of the aura. If such thing can be implemented, it could open other interesting possibilities as well: building roads (movement speed), bridges (can be crossed by land forces but not by ships, can be destroyed by ships), channels (can be crossed by ships but not by land forces). Also we could designate/build areas of fertility/watered areas if the respective technology was invented. For each there could be technology steps (wooden bridge, up to stone bridge, farm lane to planked path to paved road etc.) Just dreaming a bit ....

Frankly, introducing textiles as an additional resource is good idea but you would need infrastructure to create that: at least specific fields that grow textile plants or corrals producing sheep, spinning mills and weaving mills. Adding new resource types remains a challenge as if would affect many apsects of game play. A while ago I started suggesting to add water as a resource as this could create particluar situations and game challenges in those desert oasis maps. see also and also a bit further down this discussion we go ntinot he subject of water as a resource and how it could look like in gameplay:

Isn't the bell intended to be a general alarm no matter if units can go inside that building or not? It does not say "come home to me" but "go, look for shelter" I fdo agree that we should have a garrison of 1 to a lookout. It used to be the case in earlier versions of the game. The intent was to permanently occupy a gaia lookout and keep it (avoid decay). This has changed a while ago. Now you can claim a lokkout and it will not decay.

Well unless this is linked to the individual experience of each citizen soldier: advances in fighting capability/ranking up would then coupled to an individual gathering capability decrease. Newly trained uniots would have full capability (for a CS) decreasing with each fight. In the end you woudl have an army of fighter pros that are not good for any gathering anymore while the newbies can very well help in the economy but are less powerful in battle. Sound interesting to me.

If it was for SP only, I would recommend this as an optional setting to chose from. For MP games I am not so sure.

Also in the game type setting wihtin the map selection panel (on the right there is Map | Player | Game type) you can chose a grace period ("ceasefire") for how long you will not be attacked. Finally, in addition to setting AI difficulty to Easy, Very Easy or Sandbox as Boudica suggested, you can also reduce Game Speed on the same Game Type panel (or alternatively from within game using the little clock icon on the left of the top right controls group.

@Obelix this is exactly what I was referring to - keep the discussion going - and sorry fo the wrong threat (bit off-topic) just spawned another idea...

@ThalattaThanks for this great idea for the Persians! We had some discussions a while ago about building bridges and could not really agree on how the bridge would be supported. Now if we could define a special ponton ship that can be linked in, say, up to 5 segments, then we might be able to create a bridge. And it can be destroyed like any other ship. Question is only how we could offer this as a possible option for path finding (topic: "objects you can walk on")

This could just go into the game as a kind of "game background" FAQ (with links to the forums specific topic). Not to be mixed with the "gameplay FAQ".

Oops! But - it does indeed say "Temple of Mars" (personally I never paid so much attention to naming when playing SP)

@Emacz that's great and much appreciated, of course! My point was that if @Perzival12 has some good ideas it might be useful to test them individually in a small mod (possibly even limited to only 2 or 3 civs at the beginning) to acquire a feeling for the suggested changes. Alternatively it might be useful to join forces and work on the same mod?

You are certainly right - there could be more civ character diversity. However, balancing appears to be a MAJOR task and I remember loooong and excited discussions and changes back and forth to arrive at the current more or less stable state. Possibly, with your modding experience, do you think you could generate a few of your proposed test changes and let players look at the resulting balances?

Agree - but with the additional question (option to keep existing configs etc.) this would be just perfect.

Thanks, I knew it! And sorry for the change in topic..... There was a lot of discussion in the past if walls protect at all except against direct access, i.e. they block movement but nothing else.As a consequence, you should ideally build your walls around your buidings/troops at a distance that exceeds enemy firing range (might cost a lot of stone). Would it be possible to provide walls with an aura that reduces firing range by some margin? (from any side, except if positioned on that wall)

@OutisWalking on top of walls along their extent while being a bit protected could indeed be an interesting side-effect. Which brings me to a (most likely stupid) question: A soldier positioned on a wall has some protection against enemy fire. I the same soldier is behin that wall, does he have the same level of pretection, more protection, or less protection? From my simple mind I would guess being behind a wall shoudl provide more protection. Most likely implemented as expected. Can anyone confirm, please?

There were a nuber of discussion is the subject e.g. the one below, but it seems to be quite complex to implement. My sugestion is to create bridges as a structure like a wall (with very low height) and the properties of a field (you walk on it and can cross it). Bridges need these properties: they need to be buidable - animations will be needed (builders cannot step left and right to the bridge unlike building a wall). Question: where should we allow building bridges: on map-defined points only (as in settlers IV) or everywhere? (I'd rather opt for predefined points as a start - simply to avoid that one clutters the entire naval map with criss-cross bridges that block ships. they need to block pathfinding for ships while they exist, and not anymore if completely destroyed they need to enable pathfinding for land objects while they exist - and not anymore if they are damaged to more than a percentage to be defined (or completely destroyed?) they need to be destroyable (ships only or also land-based siege engines? If ships only, which ones?) they need to be repairable by land forces - animations will be needed I anyone could come up with a test implementation as a mod on one test map, this would be phantastic! Unfortunatly, I am more or less illiterate in programming...

I do like it, but how would the animation look like? Your ship would be placing itself alongside the enemy ship that does not / cannot flee (anymore) - why? wow? Woudl there be some time indicator, like when capturing a building? Does the ship being attacked fight back? If so how? Arrows? I am afraid we might need to make some action visible. All this would be more convincing if we had the soldiers (proportional to the actual number of pax) visible on board which is even more complex to achieve. Or should we define three boarding levels (10%, 50% 100%) and three animations with 3, 5, or 10 soldiers visibly acting? Then we could gave the a similar aniumation as when conquering a building. I am afraid there is no really simple solution. So basically we need to discuss in greater detail what it would take to implement even partially. My preferred solution would be to start with a single feature (like indicating payload level - how many soldiers are on board). This might alreadya be useful, independent of implementing more of the following. Then we would need a manoever (or player action) that immobilizes the enemy ship, and then a takeover indicator including counter attack (!) an then finally change of ownership/command or deflection of the attack. What could that be? Sinking your ship? Self-sinking the enemy ship (like the pirates in Asterix comics ), the enemy conquering your ship?

Maybe, but did the britons (or iberians?) have leopards fur? ( I adore these pictures, just could not resist splitting hairs a bit...sorry!)

I love your emblems/shields - but this one has some sort of ivy plants growing on it? Looks very nice, but there is one thing puzzling me: This is typically indicating the civ is long gone and the jungle ist starting reclaiming its grounds. At the time we are putting the game Maya were still thriving I thought?

That would indeed be a marvellous upgrade path!

For Map Filter you can also select "All Maps" in case you don't remember to which group the map you are looking for belongs (Default, Naval Maps, Demo Maps, Best for MP, Trigger Maps)

Is there really a good enough reason to enter into personal accusation of being a liar/poorly informed etc.? Can we please try and keep this discussion on a more sober basis please. Lets not overheat the discussion - there is more important things in life that deserve that level of excitement.