Deicide4u

...and thank you for everything. The time has come to pursue some other things, which are more important than hanging out here all the time. I have IRL stuff that will need attention, and simply can't afford to procrastinate on them. I'd like to express my gratitude to you for making this game. Also, thanks go to all good people who shared advice and interesting things on this forum. I would like to think that I was a part of it, however small. From now on, I will be just another player in the shadows. Looking forward to the next release. Here's to many more to come! Thank you Wildfire Games.

We will need more details than that in order to help you. What are your specs? Which OS? Do you use OpenGL or Vulkan? Did you change the display settings recently? Etc.

What do you say, more absolute Roman domination. This time on Gold Oasis. Vanilla 27.1 replay. Romans_vs_Sele_H.zip

There is no easy way to utilize it. You'd have to write a lot of dynamic and flexible logic that will account for various scenarios. You first need to periodically send an unit to scout, this is an easy part. Now you need to account for what that scout saw, if anything. If he saw that you have a lot of civilians and few Citizen Soldiers, it may opt for a rush, for example. If he saw a tower and not much else, the AI should opt for a more defensive, booming strategy. Then you need a general build order (what we have now) to account for no adequate scouting info. If you did all this, then you have to write a dynamic strategy shifting based on info from further scouting as the match goes on. People have spent years perfecting AI strategies in some of the more popular RTSs, like Brood War. These AIs can play on levels far above the average player. And this is for a tactical RTS with 2 resources, 3 races and 11-13 units per race. Imagine what kind of code you'd need to account for all civs and units that we have.

"Non-cheating" here implies that the AI doesn't get gather rate bonus. "All seeing" is a cheat, but it is a technical trade off for not having to give the AI complex scouting logic. I don't care if the AI sees everything, but I do care if it gets significant resource advantage.

The AI sends its only hero to die in its first attack. The hero dies, so the AI instantly lose. Make the hero stay in home base, near the Civic Center. I can see that the "retreat" trigger activates when the hero is at low health, but it doesn't work very well on slow infantry and Elephant heroes.

I partially agree, but you don't have to attack the fortified positions to be ahead. In fact, you should ignore the buildings and go after the enemy's gatherers. In multiplayer games, people will resign once they see you are far ahead. This is possible even in P1.

It's a mod with better AI. Check the mods in the Mod dowloader. You might first try winning against a unmodded Medium AI, though. It's the highest non-cheating difficulty that still can pose a good challenge if you procrastinate and let it build up.

Nowadays, I always play against Hard Balanced AI. I've tried playing against the Hardest, but found no major difference in difficulty. There's also Petra Expert AI mod if you need more challenge. The AI gets bonus gathering speed at levels greater than Medium. It also trains larger armies more quickly. However, you will beat it easily if you're a decent player.

We already have a lot of civs which have access to War Elephants. Romans have focus on infantry and siege. They are also currently the only civ with an additional unit roster. I think they are fully covered now, but I would like to see the return of Donkey-pulled Scorpio cart. Romans have an abstract technology called "Roman roads", which provides a small speed boost. I'd say that the idea is fun, but this is not a City building simulation game. This is a fun idea, Praetorians had this feature. Again, would make this into a City building simulation game. The players already need to worry about positioning for their structures, we shouldn't make it worse. For anyone who played Metal Fatigue, you know how annoying this can be. Or fun, depending on if you're the one who built a huge tank and artillery army underground and are now wrecking the enemy's base.

I'd also add in the sound quality. Music is beautiful, but the sound effects need to be more pronounced. Like, if my catapult hits a building with a large flaming rock, that should be felt. Currently, only thing we hear is a faint "thud". It's the same with units, especially ranged units. Right now you can't even be sure if your archer fired a bow or not. Melee fights get that obnoxious "umpf, umpf, huff" sound. If you were only listening, you'd think they're doing something entirely different than fighting. Still, some sounds are on point, like building selection sounds and the sound when your melee units attack buildings.

You mean, re-introduce? They were available briefly in Alpha 16, but every civilization had them for specific unit classes only. It's a good idea.

Version Alpha 27.1 vanilla. Hard AI. Maur_vs_Gauls.zip

I struggled with trying to understand why this game felt weird when compared to other similar titles. For a while now I thought that this weirdness comes from the Citizen Soldier system, but it's not it. The weird part is that your units don't progress. Yes, many of them have ranks and get cooler looks as they go up in rank. But, it's the same unit in the end. A Hastati is always just a Hastati (unless you upgrade him to a Centurion, a rare example of unit progression). In "Age of" games, you get unit line upgrades. Militia upgrades to Man-at-Arms, which upgrades to Long Swordsman, etc. Scout Cavalry upgrades to Light Cavalry, which upgrades to Hussars. You get the picture. There isn't that familiar upgrade icon below the unit. We do have unit classes, and this helps to differentiate civilizations. But, for me at least, the unit upgrade system is what the game (intentionally) lacks.

Yes, they currently function like mobile defense towers, which is not how they were used historically. I think it would be rather boring to make them just be able to let infantry scale walls, like in Age of Empires 2 DE. Especially since walls are heavily underused in this game. If we decide to do it, then we should make them a lot cheaper.

Good way to make your units stay in formation, even if they're attacking. If you haven't seen Roman Legionaries fighting in a Testudo formation, you're missing out. I agree, units shouldn't stay in formation for economic tasks, no matter which option you set. Not even if it's more efficient.

Not really. They are cool and all, but way underused because they're too expensive. Also, Petra doesn't use them at all.

The entire Gallic mercenary roster, but the point still stands. Why would people train other mercenaries if Gallic ones are cheaper? The other embassies need to have techs that make their corresponding units "better" in other ways for this to work.

Players want their towers to actually defend their base, and not act like a liability that will be exploited by the enemy.

Your best units should be out on the field, defending your base. What are they doing sitting in your CC, twiddling their thumbs? The enemy tries to capture your CC? Good, he's not attacking your units! Pelt him with arrows, surround his army, etc.

1) Currently, walls are almost never used, at least not in any "pro" game I've watched. 2) Defenses are pathetically weak now. Towers are stupid easy to capture, and by the time you get Fortresses (which are otherwise useless now), the enemy has access to siege. And siege wrecks buildings in this game. I support almost every change laid out here, except adding instant stone mining to Carthage and changing Longswordsmen.

Well, I'm glad that we can all agree on the Carthage changes, lol.

We did it like this for more than 25 years. In the 90's, control groups were the killer feature. Now, we have things like auto-scouting. Kids don't even want to play the game anymore, just watch pretty pictures.

Bring back 130 HP champion cavalry, lol. Good changes, thanks.

Yes, they do. If the old Age of Empires 1 could do it, I don't see why we couldn't.