Villagers

[plumo]

Some questions:

1. Will villagers require a drop-off for the resources ( a Lumber camp for example)?

2. Will their be a difference between female and male Villagers? For example males build faster?

3. Will villagers gain XP in gathering 1 resource? Check Highland warriors.

[Apomonomenos]

1) I hope not

2) probably, no.

3) I'm pretty sure

( I'm acting like a magical number 8 ball)

@ #1 it's obvious, because no one wants to waist time/resources building drop-off camps for gathering a resource, all thought it would make the game more realistic ( )

@ #2 because imagine a player who kills a villager because of its gender, plus I'm pretty sure that the gender of the villager is as random as a heads or tails coin.

@ #3 because imagine a player having 10 grand of resources, but only about 400 points, so when a guy comes to raid the other guy quickly trains an army and makes a fool of the invader, lowering his rating.

[Mythos_Ruler]

1. We have a building called a "Resource Centre" or "Mill" that acts as a drop-off point for Wood, Stone, and Metal. The "Farmstead" acts as a drop-off for Food.

2. Yes, but there are no male villagers. All males are fighters as well as villagers - "Citizen Soldiers".

3. XP comes from fighting and staying alive, not from gathering resources.

[Silver]

1. We have a building called a "Resource Centre" or "Mill" that acts as a drop-off point for Wood, Stone, and Metal. The "Farmstead" acts as a drop-off for Food.

Will Farming be slower then hunting/gathering as it usually is?

2. Yes, but there are no male villagers. All males are fighters as well as villagers - "Citizen Soldiers".

Awesome idea. Would there be any possible way to upgrade them to say a hoplite unit from Citizen Soldiers for a small expense? I'm a little confused on that wording.

3. XP comes from fighting and staying alive, not from gathering resources.

How much will XP affect performance? Is it a fairly big deal, or is it negligable if you have a larger army/better upgrades?

Sorry for ambushing you with questions, just some very interesting ideas and thoughts being brought up.

[MrEmjeR]

in aok female villagers are handling slower but thats only the animation, the gathering is the same speed as the male

for example females chop less fast then males, cuz the has more effort to rise their axe

[Justinian]

How much will XP affect performance? Is it a fairly big deal, or is it negligable if you have a larger army/better upgrades?

Experience will determine what LEVEL troops you have.

Recruit -> Experienced -> Veteran... or something similar.

[Mythos_Ruler]

Yeah, basically.

Basic -> Advanced -> Elite is the terminology we use in-game.

Each time the unit levels up (which is automatic), that unit gains +1 in its primary attack (hack, pierce, crush, etc.) and +1 in its primary armour type. Super Units, like Spartiates and Anusiya, don't need to "level up" because they are already Elite soldiers. And as soldiers get better at fighting, they get worse at econ. XP is accrued through kills and amount of time the unit lives. So, you are encouraged not to waste your men in futile actions. You are rewarded for giving your men experience and victory.

[Belisarivs]

Awesome idea. Would there be any possible way to upgrade them to say a hoplite unit from Citizen Soldiers for a small expense? I'm a little confused on that wording.

Hoplite is Citisen Soldier.

It isn't unit named "Citisen soldier" which can be upgraded to something.

Simply all soldiers are Citisens and therefore can gather resources. However Elite ones aren't that good at it (if they can do it at all).

However this is inovatice idea, I don't like it too much as I don't find it historically accurate. By far not all male citisens were soldiers IMHO.

[plumo]

Some remarks/questions,

1. There is only 1 drop-off building for metal/stone/wood. The result seems like we'll have to build the map full of these storage camps, requiring too much micromanagement in order to get your gatherers near the resources?

2. I hope farms have an unlimited amount of food?

3. Will the civilizations have a different focus on gathering? F.e. The Romans were farmers, the Hellenes can gather food from flocks of sheep and goats, Celts were hunters/farmers, ....

4. (If there is cattle in the game) will we be able to raid it with cavalry?

[MrEmjeR]

please read this whole text

1 I think there are enough resources near the drop-off building! not like aom where u have a stack of stone and gold ore that only have 6000 gold resourses and thats it. and then you have to cross the whole map for find an other mine. and i think wood give also much more resoureses i don't know if they grow up after the are cut, like in Knight and Merchants.

2 i don't hope. i like it if they have to sow the lands again afther a harvest (like in K&M) cuz thats more realistic.

i think this is a real system:

some villies sow on a large field and after a minute of five they can harvest the it. and in that five minutes they have to wait they can do other things(the men can fight and the women can cut wood or something). and of course they can carry much more food and the fields can give a lot of it

3 yeah thats a good idea. it would be awesome

4 i find the aom system very good that cattle is of a player but other players can stole it, cuz why should you hill the cattle if you can use it by your own. and it must be possible that wild animals like wolfs and lions can kill ur cattle. I suggest this system:

if u have cattle u need to make a range of fences to defend it from wild animals. other players can damage the fences and if they are close the cattle becames his. but only if ur people are ca 100m or more away. if u see the other people steel ur cattle u can directly get it back cuz the enemey is to close so u have to kill them. than u can take ur cattle back and repair the fences.

but u can only give "orders" to ur cattle if there is a people of u in the 100m area around.

that 100m can also be 50m or an other distance

[plumo]

What I meant by unlimited food: >You don't have to queue your farms ( like in AOE 2: the conquerors). Farms have unlimited food, like in Age of Mythology. Otherwise it takes too much time to rebuild the farm over and over again...

Some other questions:

1. Will Romans be able to build roads? To speed up travelling ?

2. Will we be able to upgrade buildings? F.e. Upgrading a storage pit, so an archers guards he rooftop? Or like in starcraft 2 and Battle for middle earth 2? that you can add defensive stuff to yor headquarters/ town centre?

F.e. A balista on the roof, catapult, ...

[Silver]

Hoplite is Citisen Soldier.

It isn't unit named "Citisen soldier" which can be upgraded to something.

So basically a male villager can become any kind of fighter? Or just a hoplite and you have to train other type of fighters?

Or are there no male villagers in the game? Only military units that can gather as villagers?

Edited June 13, 2008 by Silver

[MrEmjeR]

oh you mean that a new farm automaticly became build and cost no extra wood?

thats also what i said before

@ plumo - tip for aoe2: if u didnt know but you can make a serval farms in your mill so the villies make automaticly a new one til the fram"stock" is out

[plumo]

Yes I know

I meant that you only have to pay once for a farm.

[Mythos_Ruler]

A lot of these questions could be abated by reading the FAQ and various screenshots on the site.

But in a nutshell... All standard soldiers have econ abilities. Cavalry are good at hunting and stealing enemy herds. Infantry are good at other things, like chopping wood and mining stone. The resource buildings (Mill, Farmstead) don't require units to shuffle back and forth. Each one has a rather large aura radius in which your units may gather resources. There is little micro involved.

Actual Wheat Fields we haven't implemented full yet (they are workable, but not in the way the game needs them to be), but the game design calls for them to cost wood up-front. Then when they are exhausted of food resource automatically "reseed" for a small cost.

[plumo]

So what you are saying is that all units have econ abilities. Are there units without? Like the Spartan Hoplites, they never had to farm or chop wood. They were fulltime fighters.

[Justinian]

I think some of the troops will not be nearly as good as others at econ.

Off-Topic but still:

Will Carthaginian Troops be able to build ships (after you research "Flatpack Navy")?

It would be close-ish to reality and really give their navy a strong bite.

[Mythos_Ruler]

So what you are saying is that all units have econ abilities. Are there units without? Like the Spartan Hoplites, they never had to farm or chop wood. They were fulltime fighters.

Yeah, "super units" like Spartiates, Anusiya, Sacred band, etc., are only fighters.

[Silver]

Fun, it will make the game really defensive and make matches more interesting.