Champion cavalry improvements

[Atrik]

34 minutes ago, real_tabasco_sauce said:

I see the point, but i'd argue that the ideal balance here is if spearmen are a resource counter to champ cav. They are champions after all. As a resource counter, they might lose with equal numbers or even outnumbering the champ cav slightly, they win decisively when resources are matched.

As chrstgr said, they get slaughtered even when you have a big number's advantage. In some cases where i had a bunch of spears champs from sparta or athen (note that they require special, costly buildings to make compared to champ cav), they merly counter the champ cav. They deal x2.5 but champ cav have x2 hp (when they have the buff hp), it's just not fair counter. Spears should slaughter cavs, not the other way around. They already have mobility they can use at their advantage.

Edited November 14 by Atrik

[Lion.Kanzen]

All this explains why they destroyed my spearman and swordman + range units armies and then I trained a sword cav battalion and destroyed the opposing army, even with Astharthe cav+ hoplites(Carthaginian champ cav).

[AInur]

A limit on the numbers will be effective. Reading older forum posts, it seems that every version had some OP units that messed up the balancing, but the issue is never the unit itself but rather spam champions in large quantities.

What we really need is not adjustment of stats but anti-spam!

@Atrik @real_tabasco_sauce

Edited November 15 by AInur

[Lion.Kanzen]

3 minutes ago, AInur said:

What we really need is not adjustment of stats but anti-spam!

Spamming happens due to many circumstances, a snowball effect of CS, a product of citizens being soldiers and collecting resources.

Therefore they can also build barracks, therefore they can create more CS to collect more resources.

Another problem in my opinion is the population cost of the units, a horseman = a foot soldier, what changes is the resources, but when you reach the middle is pointless.At that stage, 10-20k of wood and food are already reached. It's easy to spam anything that costs wood and food, as well as getting metal through bartering(In case of not having metal mines).

[AInur]

10 minutes ago, Lion.Kanzen said:

Spamming happens due to many circumstances, a snowball effect of CS, a product of citizens being soldiers and collecting resources.

Therefore they can also build barracks, therefore they can create more CS to collect more resources.

Another problem in my opinion is the population cost of the units, a horseman = a foot soldier, what changes is the resources, but when you reach the middle is pointless.At that stage, 10-20k of wood and food are already reached. It's easy to spam anything that costs wood and food, as well as getting metal through bartering(In case of not having metal mines).

I meant we should stop spamming champions. It's okay to spam citizen infantry.

[BreakfastBurrito_007]

Another thing worth discussing is the effectiveness of palisades and walls vs cavalry. There are some things that can be done to make walling more playable: walls snapping to buildings, destroying trees upon completion, increase overlap tolerance for better sealing. 

In addition to this, wall rebalancing can be done to make palisades and walls more effective against cavalry. This would also give infantry a relative improvement. For example melee cav could be given a 0.3x vs palisades.

[Atrik]

34 minutes ago, AInur said:

A limit on the numbers will be effective. Reading older forum posts, it seems that every version had some OP units that messed up the balancing, but the issue is never the unit itself but rather spam champions in large quantities.

Besides the hurdle of having to find the good limit to population of allowed units, I don't think it is fun to make a limit on any unit. Champs are a great way to 'coil up' and invest some economic advantage. The problem is the lack of counter options and their efficiency against specifically: melee champ cavs spam. As I said above, even champ spears are meh... not that good of a counter. In short, investing in champ cav is too safe, because of the lack of counters and the amazing versatility of cavalry. Hence the suggestions to nerf capture rate, and increase counters.

[chrstgtr]

3 hours ago, real_tabasco_sauce said:

I see the point, but i'd argue that the ideal balance here is if spearmen are a resource counter to champ cav. They are champions after all. As a resource counter, they might lose with equal numbers or even outnumbering the champ cav slightly, they win decisively when resources are matched.

But that isn’t how any else of the cav-inf balance works. Less resources win on CS-CS and champ-champ balance. 
 

Needing a 6:1 (or whatever the exact number is) numerical advantage of what are supposed to be COUNTER units is silly. Add on top of that cav can easily just to run away from a massive army and you effectively have no counter system 

[Lion.Kanzen]

37 minutes ago, AInur said:

I meant we should stop spamming champions. It's okay to spam citizen infantry.

That is why the other alternative is to regulate it with population capacity.

In many games the cav usually costs 2 capacity.

[wowgetoffyourcellphone]

1 hour ago, Lion.Kanzen said:

That is why the other alternative is to regulate it with population capacity.

In many games the cav usually costs 2 capacity.

In Delenda Est, all civilians are 1 pop, infantry 2 pop, and cavalry 3 pop, etc.

[TheCJ]

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.) 

Edited November 15 by TheCJ

[Lion.Kanzen]

35 minutes ago, TheCJ said:

) 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.) 

That balance was introduced before A15 when there was a counter system.

[wowgetoffyourcellphone]

1 hour ago, TheCJ said:

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)

 

I want this, honestly. Call it the "Academy" class building. It trains Champions, while Fortresses train heroes (and a new Spy unit). 

[wowgetoffyourcellphone]

1 hour ago, TheCJ said:

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.) 

The current build distance for defense towers was to prevent spam back when towers were OP. So, a minimum distance was implemented, but since then the relative strength of towers has decrease making the minimum distance a little suspect. @real_tabasco_sauce I think this should be looked into. 

[Lion.Kanzen]

12 minutes ago, wowgetoffyourcellphone said:

The current build distance for defense towers was to prevent spam back when towers were OP. So, a minimum distance was implemented, but since then the relative strength of towers has decrease making the minimum distance a little suspect. @real_tabasco_sauce I think this should be looked into. 

The capture system had not been implemented.

[AInur]

Seems like we have consensus: put champions into special buildings, remove them from barracks

[Emacz]

Ive addressed some of these things in my mod, if anyone is interested.  Ive actually decreased everyones capture rate, infantry and cav, champ and regular.  Also Champ cavs cost slighly more and take a little more train time so its a little harder to spam them   All sorts of other changes too.  Similar to com mod, and would like to get more imput for more players!

[Lion.Kanzen]

Multiple ideas can be used at once to stop spam. It also needs to be nerfed a bit.

The cost is not going to take away the unfair power over their own counter unit; the spear infantry (Hoplites, pikemen, spearmen).

 

[Atrik]

15 minutes ago, Lion.Kanzen said:

The cost is not going to take away the unfair power over their own counter unit; the spear infantry (Hoplites, pikemen, spearmen).

I also think that champ cav shouldn't be nerfed too much, just having more viable counters is needed.

[Lion.Kanzen]

18 minutes ago, Atrik said:

I also think that champ cav shouldn't be nerfed too much, just having more viable counters is needed.

Yes, but it should be less effective against its counter.

If not, the strategy to win will be to use champion melee cavalry.

[PyrrhicVictoryGuy]

On 14/11/2024 at 8:55 PM, Atrik said:

Yes exactly, when 100+ cs spears get slaughtered by cavs it's just non-sens. You would think you are playing counter and therefor, even if you can't kill the cavs (because of their mobility), they also can't just run into your spears and kill all, but that's what they do actually.

Yes this is why people spam skirmishers, because they, unlike spear cav, kill champion cav

[PyrrhicVictoryGuy]

On 14/11/2024 at 9:03 PM, real_tabasco_sauce said:

I see the point, but i'd argue that the ideal balance here is if spearmen are a resource counter to champ cav. They are champions after all. As a resource counter, they might lose with equal numbers or even outnumbering the champ cav slightly, they win decisively when resources are matched.

That's is also a lot of people forget about when they pit 2 units against each other. Not only one must account for total resources spent, but also "wasted time". This last one is very important because CS can gather resources and are relatively fast to train whilst cav is limited to hunt and champ cav can't even work or add to your resources. Therefore the only way champ cav pays for itself is by killing units.

[AInur]

2 minutes ago, PyrrhicVictoryGuy said:

On 14/11/2024 at 8:55 PM, Atrik said:

 

Yes this is why people spam skirmishers, because they, unlike spear cav, kill champion cav

Not really. Any group of class b or class a infantry will get massacred by a significant number of champion cavalry

[AInur]

1 minute ago, PyrrhicVictoryGuy said:

Therefore the only way champ cav pays for itself is by killing units.

Yes, actually I think champion cavalry is weak. But the point of this thread is solving the problem of champion cavalry becoming the one and only solution in all TGs; all other gameplay becomes irrelevant when someone makes 30 champions.

The current motion of TGs is a race to spam the most champions. The first to reach 35 champions wins for his whole team. All other units are irrelevant; all you need in your army is the champions.

That is the problem right now. The champions themselves are not strong but they monopolise the battlefield. Mauryas , Spartans and Athenians are unplayable in late game due to the lack of this unit

We are also seeing middle players letting their borders die just to buy them time for massing up this unit, then one player with 60 champs dominates the map with brainless brute force. This is not a health way of playing

[AInur]

As I said, most 0ad problems are caused by handicapping civilisations. If every civ has champion melee cavalry then the problem is solved.

There are people who want to play Mauryas Athens and Sparta. These civs shouldn't be removed from the game. Your quest for diversity reduced diversity. Sometimes making the base structure tree the same helps a lot

In the past you had complaints about slingers, archers, pikeman, skirmisher cavalry, almost every unit. If you had given every civilisation an archer, a skirmisher/ slinger, the problems wouldn't have existed! Everyone can make that op unit and it wouldn't have been a thing!