binobo

Can we make it so champ crossbowmen have 50 pierce damage? I think there should be a chance that champ crossbowmen instantly kill an unarmored ranged unit. As of right now, champion crossbowmen are too weak relative to other champs.

Partially yes but I love to play Romans and the consulars are bad for the gameplay. It’s almost as bad as the a24 fire Cav. I just love playing the civ because it’s slightly better than average but it’s not considered a meta Civ like the Iberians, Ptols, Gauls or britons. On the note of making champs more viable, especially infantry, there are many options. The previously mentioned training buffs to all champion infantry across the board would make them more viable. Possibly a 16-18 second champ. Another approach is making blacksmith upgrades more expensive and/or smaller increases in damage and protection like 10% as opposed to the 15-15-20% . This would encourage players to possibly get champs in P3

As of now, I think there are specific troops that are too strong. That is the sword mercenary cavalry and the roman consular bodyguards. The problem is that they are too tank like. They need either/or a health reduction or changes to armor. Personally I think an overall cav health reduction would be great but since that is rather controversial, I think both units should receive a -1 hack resistance reduction and a -2 pierce resistance reduction from their current states. I think it's great that they can shred through ranged infantry/cav but they should be more vulnerable when intentionally targeted. champ crossbowman comically struggle to kill a bodyguard. Especially for Rome, the romans were not known for their cavalry as their primary fighting force. I think a fun technology would be to reduce the swordsman training time to 7 seconds but increase cavalry training time by 25%. Or it could just be a technology that trains all infantry to 8 seconds. Just an idea but it would lead to more infantry focused attacks. Also, I think that the roman army camp should have reduced build time to 200 seconds. If combined with further nerfs to hack damage (10 instead of 15), arrows to 10 (instead of 15), and possibly reduced health to 1500 (instead of 1750, however I think further reducing health should result in faster build time so maybe 1500 for 180 seconds?). It's also possible to make it a technology instead of an inherent ability to reduce costs and/or build time of a roman army camp. I think this would make the camp viable and keep balance. I don't see a change in gameplay happening if the camps aren't easily put up especially in contested environments. It would motivate using infantry so they could build. Although camps can produce promoted infantry they are woefully inadequate to replenish any army. Camps were used to sustain/prepare for an offensive and protect from cavalry raids and ambush attacks. Therefore my idea behind the camp changes should highlight offensive abilities and have limited defensive ones. A camp should not be a powerful defensive position but rather a place that troops can quickly garrison and await reinforcements.

I like the idea of centurions. It could be similar to an area affect troop like the minister or trumpeteer. Or it could be similar to the Iphicrates in Athens and have a slight movement boost (5-10%)for soldiers in a formation with a centurion. I think it's cool to have formations but there's no point to do the testudo other than keeping troops together. It would make sense if testudo troops had +1 pierce resistance while moving. On the debate of Cavalry, I think all cavalry, especially sword cavalry should have a health decrease and/or a reduction in armor. I'm guilty of it but the Roman sword cav (and other sword cav like the carth mercs) are too tank like.

There could be upgrades to the camp to make the troops veteran. Personally, I like that the troops trained are higher level. For the sake of creativity, the camp could slowly heal troops inside at the cost of an upgrade. To circumvent the "abuse" of mobile arsenals, the production of rams could be slower in the camps. Also, nobody uses the siege wall. currently, garrisoning of walls is one tactic I see no one use. Are there any thoughts to this? Also, on a side note, didn't the romans have slingers too? I think it would upset some balancing if they were a stock troop but if there was an upgrade in the barracks to allow the production of slingers, the romans would have more versatility. One of the worst things about playing Romans is playing in low wood environments. They don't have mercenaries or slingers so it makes Romans extremely disadvantaged in these biomes.

I think the roman army camp would be better at phase 2. however, rams should not be buildable at this phase. No other Civ can make siege in P2. I think most people don't use the camp because the build time takes too long. Reducing the build time to 200 seconds (20% reduction) would make it more viable. To make it more affordable, I think it it should be 400 wood (100 wood reduction) with 100 stone and 100 metal but the overall stats should be changed. I would suggest slight health reduction to 1750 health to balance the faster build time. I think the arrows should still stay the same. Thoughts?

I accidentally quit a game w/o resign against todolomeo. Couldn't figure out how to post the replay but I'm sure my word is enough. @user1