Search the Community

There has been some discussion about implementing attack ground, and I think we should go ahead and decide if this should be implemented for A26. I have no idea about the implementation process. Currently there seems to remain a need to design a graphic to display for the attack-ground radius, I imagine the mouse scroll wheel and using the existing radius for towers and forts might work fairly well. the graphic would probably only be needed when executing the attack ground command, for example when holding 'A' for a group of ranged units. Perhaps there could also be a hud element for attack ground alongside patrol, garrison, and delete. I think more players are beginning to realize what benefits this could bring to the game. Reasons for Attack-Ground: allow players with ranged units to attack significantly beyond an amount of melee units. "silent nerf" for pikes (as opposed to reducing armor, which would basically make them bad again) "silent buff": for units with higher range (ie archers, which are considered weak, primarily because their range benefits are hampered by their limitation to shooting closer units) Reducing Overkill: Allows players with ranged units to better allocate their damage high pierce units will have even less overkill Overkill seems to be calculation-heavy, might even reduce lag if many players use this. In general: adds more creativity, balance, and skill to fights involving ranged units. Attack ground: id like to test this in more realistic situations to see if it has the benefits I outlined above. Here is a video posted by @Freagarach a few months ago. I could test this with a group if it became a mod. Could I get an idea of how favorable people see this for A26?

Hi, after playing 0ad for quite a while now I've noticed that a few units could do with some adjustments. 1)Spear Cavalry(citizens) These units are basically only good for molesting women and harassing small numbers of ranged units. They utterly fail in defending themselves vs their fellow skirmisher or sword counterparts, due to their extremely slow attack. While riding and fighting with a lance may be cumbersome, it still doesn't justify their snail-like attack. Light cavalry (their armour is minimal) are known for being fast(which they are) and for a reasonably fast attack due to the lack of cumbersome equipment like heavy weapons/armour. Currently these are the cavalry statisitics: Spear Cavalry Skirmisher Cavalry Sword Cavalry Attack: 6H(hack) 13P(pierce) /3.5s (seconds) 20P /1.25s 6.5H / 0.75s Armour: 4H 3P 15C(crush) 3H 1P 15C 4H 2P 15C Walk Speed: 22 17.5 20 Seeing that, spear cavalry has the best speed and armour but worst attack by far. Spear Cavalry shouldn't really be much faster than Sword Cavalry, since it is arguably harder to ride while carrying a lance than a sword. What i would suggest for this unit: 3seconds attack speed but 21 walk speed (currently they are already very efficient vs women due to speed, no need to make it much worse) 2)War dogs While we all agree that war dogs and kennels are a fine decoration in the Structure Tree, nobody ever really uses them. They are weak with a tiny vision range, they can't attack buildings (but somehow can attack siege, although it is hard to imagine a dog destroying a catapult) and they got a low attack bad armour combo. Also, kennels cost 200metal 50stone and 50 wood. Why do they cost so much metal?? War dogs were used by the Egyptians, Greeks, Persians, Sarmatians, Baganda, Alans, Slavs, Britons, and the Romans. Historically, they were formidable foes, useful for breaking enemy ranks to be followed up by an attack composing of other units. In my opinion, these hardly-ever used beasts could use a buff in armour and/or in attack. Also, kennel costs should maybe be 200 stone 50 metal and 50 wood instead. (Replay in which @Grugnas used war dogs in quantity but lost them almost instantly and causing few casualties is attached at the end of the post.) 3)Pikemen Pikemen, the weakest, slowest and most armoured units in the game. Amazingly, even the lumbering Siege Tower (would-be slowest unit) is faster than our slow friends here. Their champion version reaches a phenomenal speed of 7 (0.5 faster than Seige Tower and same speed as catapults or bolt-shooters). They have a hack attack of 1 and a pierce attack of 3 for every 2 seconds. Although their high armour makes them valuable "tank" units, they are too slow to be used in a battle in which maneuverability is needed. Due to their exceedingly low attack, even their 3x bonus vs. cavalry doesn't help them at all, cavalry (other than spear ones) can kill them easily. The difference between champion and citizen speed is just 1, while in other cases it is usually 3. What I would suggest is to make them as fast as catapults (7) and their champion kin to have a decent 9-10 speed, also to give them a 5x bonus vs cavalry (who they should rightfully skewer on those long pikes of theirs). Currently their slowness is extremely unrealistic I think. And finally... 4)Archer Elephants These units bear a great similarity to horse archers and have matching statistics in all but 1 point - speed. Horse archers have a speed of 17.5 while these are stuck at 8.5 (less than half) All through Alphas 18-21 these units have for sure never been used to much effect. They are slow(as mentioned above), bulky and low in armour (like horse archers). While I agree that their speed is realistic, I think this unit could use extra armour/attack/HP (note that their hp is 120) to compensate for it and to make some people decide to use them. 7_players_ffa.zip

To the point. Pikes get in the game a good bonus VS cavalry, which is nice an accurate, but it bugs me the fact that VS swordmen they are totally useless. If you have, lets say, 50 pikemen and 30 romans appear on that spot you are totally @#$%ed when, actually, romans found it really difficult to beat those factions that used pikes (Macedon) So... why not implement a pike phalanx feature? Like... if a pikeman has another pikeman right by his side they get a defense protection vs melee attacks. That way they could last long against enemy swordmen and hold them back, until their lines are finally broken. 1 pikeman alone can't do a thing against a roman infantryman, but a good formation of pikes should destroy any enemy while they remain in their phalanx formation. Hoplite phalanx and shield wall: If the feature mentioned before gets implemented it would be nice to also implement some variations. The hoplites are another unit that I find too weak vs enemy swordman. I know swordmen are suposed to beat hoplites, but they should resist a bit longer. If they are next to each other they could get a little melee defense bonus (much lighter bonus than the one for pikes, because pikes are far superior) but also some extra bonus on defense against enemy arrows. On the other hand some swordman units like the ones from the romans or the silver shields could have the shield wall feature, which is basicly the same as the hoplite phalanx, just that with even less melee defense bonus). This way pikes could last longuer against any enemy infantry and, in big groups, beat enemy swordmen, though they would still be weak against arrows and other missiles. And in the mean time, both hoplites and trained swordmen could resist arrows better if they maintain a good formation and would also make all great battles last a big longer. This 3 minifeatures would also help hellenic and roman infantry look more capable against barbarian ones, and at the same time making gauls, indians and iberians more usefull in skirmishes rather than in face to face large combats.