TheCJ

This is a great idea. Take out all the maps you believe don't have the necessary standard for 0ad and put them in a mod. If someone desperatly misses them, they can install the mod. If nobody misses them, the mod just won't get downloaded.

What purpose does this post serve? I mean, I guess its a nice idea, but what am I supposed to do with this? Also, do your distinctions even apply to 4v4 teamgames? Most of the time it's just the best play to go for a defensive eco-bot tactic, because thats just the strongest tactic in 0ad at the moment. So anyone that makes use of the tactic that has the highest probability of success is silver? Also, what do I do, now that I know King Reza The Great declared me as silver? Should I put that as a custom suffix? Well, my comment may come off as more combatative than intended; you are absolutely correct; the ratings are a very bad indicator of actual skill. But if you want a better way to rank players, why not think about how a mod could process the post-game statistics to calculate a better rating (like local rating is doing, but using better logic). If you manage to decipher which of your skill groups a player belongs to just by looking at the stats, it should be possible to create a mod that can do that aswell, which would be a significant improvement to localratings and ratings as a whole!

Well, I love seeing pros play on different maps, but in the end, the people that actually play should decide what map they want to play on Maybe a quick vote for the players in the game lobby before each game?

Well, @Lion.Kanzen (since you wanted to be tagged so badly), I don't quite see why you even want to attack me at all, but I guess that's just part of your nature, no worries. It's also quite clear you aren't interested in anything productive so I'll spare us both the wasted time and not write anything else.

You seem to have a very aggressive personality... Just to clarify, I do not wish that you would be "expelled" or "kicked out" I dont even have a problem with you. Bur maybe think about what you write before you send it a bit more. For example, what was the purpose of your first message in this thread? Who could benefit from what you wrote? You were just toxic and destructive (as opposed to constructive). Also, did you just try to threaten me? Because I pointed out your hypocrisy regarding good manners? That will surely convince everyone of your values...

Ah, if that's your interpretation of wang_weis message, I can understand your reaction a lot more. I don't think he blamed "the game", though? He mainly attacked the playerbase, claiming its full of losers, smurfs and people that dont understand the game. I guess the part where he says the people are only here because they cant afford better games is an attack on the game... But I highly doubt thats why hes leaving or even an actual argument hes making. Lastly, how can you voice your dissatisfaction about being lost just after proudly announcing that you when someone calls you out for your bad manners?

Not a very nice comment @Lion.Kanzen... Sad to see you go, wang_wei. I remember some very fun games with you. But, well, if 0ad does not bring you joy right now, makes sense that you dont want to spend your time here... Maybe check in from time to time, to see if 0ad evolved in a direction you like? Anyways, wish you the best!

Is there? There's like, 1 very... unique... player, 3 players that get toxic towards their teammates and like, 4 players Ive seen that smurf? And dozens, if not hundreds, of decent and friendly 0ad enjoyers the just wanna have a great time. Of course. You arent working for WFG, so you do not have to report anything. You still have a moral obligation, much like you shouldn't ignore verbal abuse in reallife...

I have, but not as a player. I was spectating a game and they were aswell, together with some other players. They were addressed by the name of their main account and held a normal conversation (i.e. they didnt react in a manner that would suggest that they are not that person), which imo would be sufficient evidence that they are indeed using a duplicate account. Well, "changing the smurf accounts name" means atleast annoying the person behind the smurf account. And if we arent just talking about a specific player, it might even be enough to show them that this behaviour is not tolerated and they might stop doing it. Of course, there will be certain people that don't care about this community and either can't realize the wrongness of their behaviour or won't change their ways regardless. But those are rare even among the smurfs. You can talk with most players. (e.g. you mentioned decger smurfs sometimes? I don't think he's a "lost cause" and will just keep making new accounts if we ban his duplicates...)

@Dunedan doing gods work Glad you're having more fun atm @leopard! You should still keep the historical mod in mind, we played some 3v3s yesterday They solution to toxic players is as simple as it is impossible; Everyone needs to act decent. If someone is toxic, get evidence and report him. If you think someone is smurfing, inform your fellow players. If someone admits to making duplicate accounts, or admits hes playing on a second account right now, get evidence and report him. If you're hosting a game and an unknown account without rating joins, ask them how well they play (There are some reasons why someone might have more experience than an absent rating would suggest). If you find out they lied after the first game (because of their performance), don't play with them again. Well, I think most of what I said is pretty obvious, but I almost never have problems with smurfs or toxic players (maybe 1 out of 30 games or smt like that).

Heavy Spear Cav regularly decides games. An army with 10-20 champs and 100 citizen soldiers wins against an army of 150 citizen soldiers. I have played quite a few games where someone trained a lot more than 40 champions (often 100, but up to 300). But you are correct that you can almost never make an army consisting *only* of champions... Which is good, imho. No army ever had only veteran soldiers

I do not believe this was Norse' intention. Rather, I think he was just trying to be cautious because he can't really know whether you will start creating a lot of duplicate accounts again or not. If, as you stated, you do not intend to make any more accounts, Norse' post will be useless (as it is a "guide" to identify you), but also harmless. I think your hatred towards Norse is clouding your judgement. I don't feel incited to harass you by anything he said. Regarding the false accusations, can you say with certainty that one of the three points in Norse' first post is wrong? Which one? Norse wasnt even the one to bring up any youtube-video. You both know that you left off on a pretty bad note, making each others lifes worse. As I am too young a member of this community, I am not going to make any judgement about the things that happened in the past, as I just dont have the necessary information. But you should be able to understand that Norse will be very cautious if you "rejoin" the community, as you have undoubtedly created a lot of work for him in the past (whether it were exclusively justified actions or not). Lastly, keep in mind that Norse couldn't have known if you intended to "keep on going from where you left off" and make his life hard, or if you intended to leave the past behind and be involved in 0ad in a productive manner, before he started this thread. He most likely just wanted to inform players about a well known former member of the community that rejoined under a different name, which is not bad in and of itself.

His voice sounds male and he didnt really react when we referred to him as "he". Im not sure, but I dont think Astra and Yeka are the same person (Lets not be hasty with assumptions). When he expressed his opinion, he sounded like he truly wanted to improve the community, rather than destroy it (I could just be gullible, but I'd like to see the good in people). I do not agree with some of his methods, but I dont think @Norse_Harolds evaluation of his situation is entirely objective. As far as I understand, you have quite the history? He expressed very high animosity towards you, even going so far as to say he'll only play as long as you arent around. He proclaimed that he felt treated unfairly, being harrassed greatly for minor misdemeanors. He also said @Norse_Harold tried to pressure him into working for 0ad, I cite "he tried to enslave me to do dev work for 0ad." (I don't believe this is true, btw. But I deem it very possible that he misunderstood Norse' intentions) He actually shared a link to various cheats, the reason being, according to him, to "provoke Geriatrix" as "The moderators have failed again" (in his opinion, more must be done against Geriatrix bad behaviour) and "it's time to take things into your own hands and defend yourselves" (against Geri). Why am I posting this? I do not know. Probably because I talked a bit with yeka and had a good time, but I also believe that Norse is doing good work and his contribution to 0ad is extremely important, and I would like to see both of you getting along. Also, yeka could do a lot of good things for 0ad, if he set his mind to it... Maybe thats just wishful thinking. Edit: I realized this might be off topic? Im not sure if thats a big problem, should I delete this?

Almost sounds like every civ is different and has different strengths and weaknesses If no civ had any weaknesses, how boring would that be... No but for real, in Age of Empires 2 Turks dont have pikemen (the only cheap cav counter), Spanish dont have Crossbowman (essentially making their Archers useles), Teutons dont have any fast raiding cavalry. Still, AoE2 is one of the most popular rts games. The mere fact that not every civ can do everything is not a flaw. Han are still one of the strongest civs in vanilla 0ad, if their crossbowmen were mobile, they would be op (also, atleast one of the three farm upgrades work ). Civs like Ptol or Sparta, that have low mobility, make up for it with very strong citizen soldiers. Archers quickly become equal or even stronger than the other ranged units if used correctly... I personally only have a problem with Brits, as they just feel a bit like the weaker little brother of the Gauls; you can basically do the same things as Gauls, just worse. Ah, and maybe Carth, although they are great on certain maps, just not mainland...

... not microsoft, please... what is even that? Also, you forgot a very relevant way of increasing "N"; creating content (e.g. yt-videos, reddit posts, twitter, instagram and what not). Your first time downloading a game? 0ad is very small compared to most other games. I mean, 30+GB is very normal, there are also 200+GB games... Can't really speak on tutorial or single player, since I never played those and went directly to multiplayer. Anyway, thank you for the input!

It seems to me that we agree no unit should be fast *and* tanky at the same time, which seems like a reasonable proposition, as highly armoured cavalry wont be able to reach the speed of their lightly armoured counterparts. Thus, either reduce the speed of units like the cataphract, and emphasize their role as "tanks", being able to deal lots of damage and take lots before dying; or reduce their armour values, and emphasize their role as a flanking/raiding support unit, that can quickly deal with archers and farmers, but die when caught by enemy spearmen. One could even imagine diversifying champ spear cav by making the champ spear cav of one civilization into more of a tank and the champ spear cav of another civilization into more of a raiding unit. Or letting the player choose by introducing a tech-pair, where one tech decreases speed but increases armour and the other tech increases speed but decreases armour.

I'm sorry, but what are you even talking about. This does not solve most of the issues, especially not the relevant ones. If everyone had the "op unit", it would still be a race to mass this unit as fast as possible. Pockets would still let their flanks die, so they can get more champs quicker. The gameplay would still be stale and unsatisfying. The only part of the problem this would solve, is that as long as there is an op unit, civs that can't recruit that unit are too weak/throw picks. But the issue in the first place is, that there is an op unit at all. Also, your proposal would basically kill all civ individuality, except for the heroes. Which I'm guessing you want to equalize next? Bcs its unfair that some civs dont have a +25% hero? Yea no, I actually like different civilisations. But I must give you one true core in your proposal; every civ should have *some* answer to every unit (But as far as I see it, thats already the case)

Survival of the Fittest is an extremely fun multiplayer map in my opinion. (I've actually created a map that's a lot like this one for AoE2 ) I just adore the concept of having to survive ever stronger waves of AI/gaia units with very limited resources, as it is more predictable and completely fair, since everyone gets the same waves. I'm not too sure about the whole treasure-gathering concept, as the position they spawn in tends to be somewhat unfair (can't train any defensive soldiers with 400 stone), but thats not too big of a problem.

I actually do this every fight, no matter if the enemy has a hero or not, as its technically just better than the single unit target method of sniping. If you select the correct amount of ranged units to one-shot the enemy ranged units without too much overshooting, this is the quickest way to reduce the enemies damage output, thus granting you an advantage. Single unit attack sniping on the other hand will result in many units of the enemy army being low, but not dead, as the single unit died before it could kill the ranged enemy, which results in a lot of "wasted" damage, if the enemy heals up after winning the fight.

Not "to do anything" but "to attack directly". Many players (like me) mainly use attack-move or select entire groups to queue-snipe, which doesnt increase the counter of "sent a single unit to directly attack an enemy".

My two cents to this would be: Melee champion cavalry is over-performing, therefore it should either A) be weaker (deal less damage, have less hp, get countered more by spearman) B ) be more expensive (my favorite idea personally; put all champions of all civilisations in an extra building like the spartans/athenians/han already have, which discourages spam. One could also imagine just increasing the training time by 1.5x or the cost to 300f 100w 150m) C) be countered together with all cavalry, by making defensive structures actually relevant (why cant I build 5 Towers next to each other? Seems like a silly restraint considering how expensive and underwhelming each tower is.)

I'm sorry, I can't quite follow. Where exactly am I supposed to upload the replays? Or should I just send them to @Dizaka ? Lastly I'm unsure what kinds of replays are of value... I doubt a25 or a24 replays are of any interest, as they don't reflect the state of the game right now? And replays with very untested/unfinished modifications probably don't add anything either?

I believe this has some interesting implications for tactical decisions aswell. Not only does this concept add more realism, discouraging farm placement next to the civic centre makes them more vulnerable to rushes, thus making early and midgame attacks more viable (Which I think would be a very good change). I would love to fight for fertile soil with other early empires! (It also makes corrals more useful in comparison, maybe even making them a real alternative?)

I agree with @BeTe that the tactical decisions you have in p2 are somewhat limited and could be expanded. I believe it might be worth considering to add more "half-champion" units like the naked fanatics, that serve the purpose of a trained soldier rather then a citizen soldier, but don't have the equipment requirements (and according metal cost) of an actual champion. Because at the moment, champions represent the pinnacle of soldiery a certain civilization was able to muster, while citizen soldiers are, the way they function in the game, just normal workers you gave a spear or a sword. I believe a unit type between those two makes a lot of sense and could positively impact the tactical elements of the game aswell, as it gives players an option to actually fight a booming player (without running your own gatherers/citizen soldiers across the map and thereby sacrificing your eco) and not just raid them. It would also somewhat negate the booming = turteling problem, as you would have access to stronger units in p2, that can pose a threat to a player that just booms, but can't gather resources themselves. It would also have the side effect that battles might happen sooner with smaller armies, which some people might enjoy An alternative would be to add normal workers, that can fight notably worse than citizen soldiers, which is basically the same concept of adding a third (or fourth if you count mercenaries) type of unit, but might be easier to implement. If one were to add workers, they could be produced as fast as citizen soldiers are at the moment, while citizen soldiers get increased build time. That way you wouldn't need to decrease the build time of champions to make them more useful and you would slow down the game overall... (I would welcome a change like that, but I understand that others like how fast 0ad plays)

Compared to you guys, Im just a humble newbie, but I'd like to add my thoughts as a fairly new player of 0ad. For someone like me, it is impossible to tell (during the game) whether someone is using ProGUI. That implies, that the advantage you get by using the mod is small in comparison to the advantages you get through random map generation, timing, fluctuation in player performance etc. According to @Mentula in this Thread, ProGUI averages out to a 24s advantage in booming. That's fairly irrelevant (and likely the standard deviation is larger ). I feel in no way discouraged from playing 0ad just because there are people using a mod that gives them a slight advantage (although I obviously can't speak for all new players and understand if someone feels differently). Honestly, I didn't even know @Atrik uses ProGUI before reading forum posts, but it doesn't matter, since I know how good he plays, and balance accordingly. It's actually a lot of fun to play with him, because there is always something happening and the games aren't just booming. That being said, hosts have every right to refuse to play with any player, for whatever reason. No host has to play with anyone if they don't want to. It'd be different if there were game-sided servers, but as long as I'm hosting, I decide who gets to connect to my pc and who doesn't. Maybe it would be helpful to add a way for the host to see if players use ProGUI? Then people that really dislike playing with others that use ProGUI, can just tell them and put them spec. And people like me, that don't see the game as competitive can just ignore that information? Anyway, no matter if you believe ProGUI is a cheat or not (it is ), you should never insult someone for using it (I'm not saying anyone here did insult someone, by the way :3). That obviously also applies to other people, you should never insult someone for how bad they play in your opinion. After all, we surely won't get any more players for this amazing game by fostering toxic behaviour towards newer players or players that want to try some of the great mods that exist for 0ad.