Deicide4u

I will bring up another point in this discussion, and that is the absolutely insane way that damage reduction works in this game. Just take a look at this post. An unit with 6 armor will have 47% damage reduction. So nearly 50% of all damage will be absorbed with just 6 armor! I think we all agree that this is most military units after a couple of upgrades. Most champions go above this value into 10 armor (65% DR) or more. It's no wonder that most players try to maximize high burst damage, using hard-hitting ranged units like javelin throwers and slingers. It's ultimately a product of the game's math. Another thing to consider is that many units have both hack and piercing armor at similar levels, so it doesn't matter which type of damage they take, they will have the same DR. Warcraft 3 has a similar system, but it also has proper counter system, so it is less noticeable there. EDIT: Here is the table for Warcraft 3.

The only reason people do this is because you can defend well with CS and use them as the backbone of your economy. CS gather 3 resources better than civilians, so there is little stopping people from just massing them and then gradually switching to champions when they bank on resources, as you've said. Let's see how you'll turtle when forced to expand and make actual military units...or risk the opponent out-booming you with better eco units.

We're not talking about the balance here. We're talking about what happens when one player loses a lot of his units, either defending or attacking. Does he, assuming he has the necessary macro skill, have a chance at coming back into the game? As things stand now, he doesn't. That is snowballing.

The current release (A27) already made some strides towards this, by increasing the melee damage. Units need further diversification with pikemen having more HP but lower damage, spearmen having average HP and average damage, while swordsmen have slightly above average HP and good hack damage. Or we introduce counters to shift the current meta away from mass ranged units with melee meat shields. Needed to be done a long time ago. CS can already build and repair, in addition to fighting. Why do they contribute to the economy more than civilians? Where's the logic here? Some upgrades to specific unit lines can't hurt. For example, in StarCraft, there is a huge difference between an un-upgraded Zergling and a Zergling with both Metabolic Boost and Adrenal Glands upgrades.

You're talking about the coop-mode? Something like Archon mode in StarCraft 2?

Sorry, this really cracked me up. Please continue...

New major update, focusing mostly on cavalry. - Cavalry can no longer hunt. Use infantry javelineers to hunt animals. Infantry meat gather rate increased slightly to compensate. - Cavalry javelin throwers are no longer trainable by any civilization, except by the Iberians. They keep their cavalry javelineer champion, but he is not very effective against units. - Civic centers can no longer train cavalry. Build a Barracks or Stable if you're Persian. - You can no longer build bolt shooters. This was done because their model is ugly and looks ridiculous when moving. I'd done the same with the Catapults, but you need some ranged siege options in order to break fortified positions. - Jubot AI removed, as it's very buggy and has poor performance. - Roman Army Camps can't build Rams anymore. - In addition to cavalry javeleneers, Hellenes can no longer train Slingers. Reason for removing the mounted javelin throwers is because they are not balanced enough. They need to hit hard like infantry javelins, but they are also much faster. Hit and run tactics don't work very well because of the "phantom strike" bug on units that are moving, so they are exploitable. An exception was made for the the chariot archers, because they are at least expensive. Cavalry can no longer hunt for the same reason as above, and because it sometimes takes too long for a single javelin to hit an animal. The opening post is updated to point at the latest version.

This makes sense in a tactical RTS without ships, like Praetorians. If you allow building bridges, what would be the point of building a navy, then?

No, I was thinking of the original release. If they indeed fixed the leveling, then that would make the game a lot better.

For me, it was TES IV: Oblivion. Leveling system is the combination of worst parts of both worlds (Morrowind's and Skyrim's). Map is dotted with places, but they are all the same thing, just a labyrinth of leveled monsters and leveled chests. The game's world was generic, with only the snowy region even remotely interesting. The game looked like a poor imitation of Gothic 2, just with massive and barren world.

It had them. Introduced in Alpha 9, but subsequently removed. Ironically, adding hard counters to 0 A.D. will make it more like Age of Empires...which is something you seem to argue against

Maybe it's better to focus on smaller changes first. Like implementing a "special attack" mechanic by giving some units either passive or active special abilities. These are even described on some documentation pages, but they're still not implemented. Perhaps the most famous is the ability of Hastati to throw pila at nearby enemies, before going into melee.

@Classic-Burger Please don't spam 4 posts in a row, there is an Edit button. Also, back when forums were the golden grail of internet discussions, that was called post-farming. Another thing, you should calmly collect your thoughts before posting anything. For example, you are constantly calling 0 A.D. a clone of Age of Empires. While that may be true in general part, it's a fact that this game has some unique features not present in Age of Empires. Features like Citizen Soldiers and capturing, Even the lack of a feature can be feature. For example, the lack of clear unit upgrade paths. Once again, as an author of this thread, don't spam post. It looks really bad and it makes me scroll more.

You already have that option, and it's on by default when you install the game.

I'm not the one who proposed adding battalions*, but the benefits from my point of view are: - streamlining formations, allowing us to tie formations to battalions, - implementation of battalion-specific bonuses for units that can form a battalion, - de-coupling gatherers from front-line units. In the long run, this will enable us to do all kinds of "battalion-specific" combat roles, allowing players to choose between stronger army or stronger economy. The units that are gathering resources obviously won't belong to any battalion, and they will, for example, need to drop-off resources in order to form battalions. Furthermore, individual units will be weaker than units in a battalion, - more opportunities for strategic positioning, decisions on when to attack and with what, etc. - implementation of a "shared experience pool" between units in a battalion. All units in a battalion will share the combat experience, and when an unit from a battalion dies, its experience is shared between the surviving soldiers. Cons would be the massive changes to the game's meta, and the cost of implementing all this.

What? One battalion of champions would destroy several battalions of CS. Which is why battalions would need to be a togglable feature, similar to grouping in AoE1. Just in a proper formation. You'd select a group of units that is eligible to form a battalion and you'd click on a "Form Battalion" button (or use a hotkey). Now, any time you select one of the units in a battalion, you will select an entire battalion. Similarly, with a battalion selected, you would click on a "Disband Battalion" button to un-group the units. It's simple in theory, but the implementation will be more complex (as will be adding any bonuses to units in a battalion).

The battalions need a lot of disposable units to work. We currently have meta where all you do is mass cheap, disposable CS units. Ergo, if this meta doesn't change, we can implement unique battalions to make this meta more interesting.

This would be very cool to have for the (eventual) campaign. A separate screen where you get to customize your elite troops from a battalion and choose several for a mission. Obviously, the inspiration would be how Warhammer 40k: Dawn of War did these (called squads in that game). We have a primitive version of that with the "Battalion formations" checkbox. The issue with that option (and why it's always ticked off in my game) is that you can't easily micro-manage the troops in a formation. You have some that are heavily wounded and you want to send them into a Temple? Well, you first need to disband the formation, otherwise all of your units are selected by default. In principle, I agree. If we double-down on spam economics where all you have to do is make more units that are at the same time your workers, then there is an advantage to forcing them into battalions. However, if we want to scale back on the spamming, the battalions are useless. So, in essence, it depends on what the main vision for the game is. What meta are we striving to? Also, because we have CS ranks, we'd need to figure out how experience gain affects the battalions. Is it individual, or will units in a battalion share experience and rank up at the same time?

On the contrary, I would say that 0 A.D. has too many features. Building capture being the prime suspect. While some features, like trade and healing, are under-utilized. This stems from the core gameplay loop being a unit spamfest in the first 8-10 minutes of each match. And it's almost always the same two types of units. Not sure about the difficulty, the current AI is very weak once you get the mechanics right.

"An Offering of Flesh" or something like that. Raw, savage, but still subtler than outright spelling it out.

Aztecs? You capture enemy soldiers or civilians and offer them to whatever pagan God you worship.. Come on...we literally have the tech called "Slaves".

Do you see the cursor changing once you get to the edge of the screen? Check if you have monitor scale changed to 125% or more. It needs to be on 100% to avoid this bug.

Just a quick feedback post on this release, since I see there is a heated discussion around the quality of some art. I do still lurk here, at times. Correct, I've noticed the departure from A23's quality portraits in later releases. Especially (some) hero portraits. I don't mind people doing this, as long as the coloring is "right". But, that is a quite difficult thing to do, which is seen in most of the German unit portraits. That said, @Carltonus, you shouldn't expect a lot out of the project that is done by a handful of volunteers in their spare time. I'm sure all of them love this game, and would be happy to work on improving things over time. Someone mentioned Han as another example of an "unfinished" civilization. I don't know, I think the Han need only a better Ram and Siege Tower models. Everything else looks fine to me. On the topic of "yet another civilization". My idea that the game doesn't need to encompass each and every civilization from the target time period. Having only major civilizations at their best (like Romans, Persians, Greeks, Carthaginians, etc.) would have been a better end option. Late Roman republic had Legionaries. Gendered Citizens should have been introduced a looooong time ago. Having specifically female workers in a ancient war game is beyond strange, to say the least. And with this, I leave you. Looking forward to the release 28! EDIT: Oh, there's no more alphas...better fix that real quick.

...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.