Champion cavalry improvements

[TheCJ]

54 minutes ago, Noob Dude said:

So why not making it one button choice

How would you do that? Just like you can't make recruiting a one-button choice, since you might want certain barracks at certain positions producing certain units and other barracks producing other units, I want some of my ranged units to attack certain enemy units and some of them to attack other units (or even buildings when they're currently under construction, to delay the building being done).
I just don't see how a single button even could do that.

[real_tabasco_sauce]

A change for this alpha is that champs coming from temples and unique buildings train 25% faster.  I could bump that up a bit, maybe 30 or 35%.

The issue I have with training from forts is that you had a situation where forts were just an expensive barracks that you needed a lot of space to put down. In other words, they weren't used defensively. Making them come from forts doesn't change the fact that the unit itself is strong, and it would make melee infantry champs extremely unhelpful.

I think specific units could be moved to forts on an individual level, but I disagree with the formulaic approach of moving all the barracks/stable champs to the fort.

IMO, this tech has to go: 

[chrstgtr]

19 minutes ago, real_tabasco_sauce said:

IMO, this tech has to go: 

I don't like the tech either. But I don't think it is a big deal as the % increase is just too small. It really only matters in cav vs cav fights. 

The problem is that champ cav can beat their supposed counters (spears) in straight up fights. Until that changes, champ cav will always be the best unit and optimal strategy will require players to spam as many champ cav as possible. 

[BreakfastBurrito_007]

7 hours ago, Noob Dude said:

Targeting units is pure clicking. Placing troops, retreating, surrounding, using buidlings or terrain as obstacles, this is micro. Well, as you know I'm not the worse in sniping so in general having this solved would reduce my advantage over the other players

Ah yes this I agree with. Sniping is quite undesirable, I'm not in defense of it I'm just against the game working entirely through buttons using optimized automatic behavior. In my personal opinion automated things are ok so long as they are outperformed by manual human control, and unit behavior falls into this category.

[real_tabasco_sauce]

2 hours ago, chrstgtr said:

I don't like the tech either. But I don't think it is a big deal as the % increase is just too small. It really only matters in cav vs cav fights. 

The problem is that champ cav can beat their supposed counters (spears) in straight up fights. Until that changes, champ cav will always be the best unit and optimal strategy will require players to spam as many champ cav as possible. 

10% is a lot actually. Caracutos (brit speed hero) is 15%. Also, speamen do not need to beat champcav in a 1:1. They currently win decisively in a 2:1 engagement (which is less spearmen than a resource-balanced fight). The issue is that a champcav player will almost never need to take a 2:1 engagement against spearmen.

first you kill some vulnerable economy to buy some time and later strike with closer to a 1:1 ratio. The massive mobility gap allows that (as high as 230% between spearmen and mace champcav+hero), not so much the strength of the unit. Also, such high mobility means champ cav can always be dealing damage, while infantry must spend a lot of time simply walking.

persian and seleucid champ cavs are now "cataphract" units, which are a bit more expensive, and even stronger, but slower. Has anyone else noticed their popularity slip a bit compared to gaul, mace, or roman champ cav?

So I think a few options are good here: close the mobility gap a bit by removing the extremely cheap, global cav speed tech, improve the utility of palisades, walls, and buildings to constrain mobility, and if need be, bump the cav counter up a little.

[Seleucids]

3 hours ago, real_tabasco_sauce said:

Making them come from forts doesn't change the fact that the unit itself is strong

It has been tested and proven that having <5 very strong units is never a problem and is a fun addition to the boring cs spam. but the number is always the problem. The hero is incredibly strong as an unit but nobody complains, because it is alone. The same applied for fire Cav in A25 and spear champ now. 5 ultra op spear cav can't completely break the game but 40 just slightly above-average merc sword cav broke A25

Edited April 17, 2025 by Seleucids

[Atrik]

4 hours ago, real_tabasco_sauce said:

IMO, this tech has to go: 

It's the only tech that really feels like usable to 'counter' an enemy p1 start such as camels, but cav spam in general. It allow having the upper hand in p1 cav fights. I wish there were a couple more techs like this actually.

Edited April 17, 2025 by Atrik

[Atrik]

6 hours ago, Noob Dude said:

So why not making it one button choice.

@Noob Dude check this if haven't already. I tested with a few players, and it feels rly like great feature that makes micro interesting.

 

[real_tabasco_sauce]

4 minutes ago, Atrik said:

It's the only tech that really feels like usable to 'counter' an enemy p1 start such as camels, but cav spam in general. It allow having the upper hand in p1 cav fights. I wish there were a couple more techs like this actually.

You could do this just fine with the hp tech in p1, which would have more of an impact anyway.

I support more targeted techs, unit specific techs, or class specific techs. In fact, I designed a suite of them a while ago for all of the unit categories (longer pikes, buttspike, heavy shot, javelin slings for example), but it wasn't popular. 

the speed tech pretty much just serves to widen the mobility gap between infantry and cav, especially champ cav, save for the occasional cav vs cav p1 situation.

1 hour ago, Seleucids said:

<5 very strong units is never a problem

well that kind of sucks, then you just hardly ever see them. Also, what does that mean for champ melee infantry? They would be even less used.

[real_tabasco_sauce]

1 hour ago, Seleucids said:

40 just slightly above-average merc sword cav broke A25

Thats because they costed 80 metal, which is almost half the cost of the weaker CS swordcav unit.

[TheCJ]

1 hour ago, real_tabasco_sauce said:

improve the utility of palisades, walls, and buildings to constrain mobility

now this, this is beautiful. Make stone walls cheaper, faster to build, a little smaller and with less hp and the "cav problem" is gone.

Because the cav cant realistically engage the actual enemy army (which consists of up to 100 spearman) without heavy losses and with more useful walls, they cant really disrupt your economy (if you prepare sufficiently).

[real_tabasco_sauce]

@Seleucids with that said on fortresses, I would like to come up with some more truly unique champion units, not just your "standard" champs, and some of these could make forts their home.

[chrstgtr]

1 hour ago, real_tabasco_sauce said:

10% is a lot actually.

Eh. 10% isn’t that much in the cav vs one discussion—cav is already much faster than inf. Getting the Brit speed hero doesn’t suddenly let make inf much better than cav with the tech, for example. Functionally, the tech means you can raid other side of map for an extra second or two before returning to your side to fight inf. That extra second or two doesn’t change that much. 

You also see people forget speed tech and still become dominant because they massed champ cav. That shows there is more going on than the speed tech. 

the cav vs spear example you give isn’t representative of real fights. In real fights, you have a bunch of range killing that spear too. It’s also pretty common that you see a player get a “good exchange on res” with spear vs cav but can’t keep up fight because their pop dropped so much and the backing enemy range units are able to overrun the remaining base  

honestly, haven’t seen any difference with the popularity of sele or Persia champ cav. Sele and Persia have both always been relatively unpopular (esp compared to the civs you mention) bc Persia/sele are slow civs. Persia is just played a little more now because people figured out that immortals are good.

 

[Atrik]

46 minutes ago, real_tabasco_sauce said:

You could do this just fine with the hp tech in p1, which would have more of an impact anyway.

It's not the same. If your border ally is harassed by camels, you can counter it by your own cav (you need less then camels) and having the speed tech makes a big difference. It's unlike another buff of hp/damage.

[Deicide4u]

I think the real question isn't "Why are massed Champion cavalry so broken?"

The real question is:
"Why did I let my opponent mass expensive Champion cavalry in total peace and quiet of his turtled-up base?"

Edited April 17, 2025 by Deicide4u
Grammar

[Atrik]

16 minutes ago, Deicide4u said:

I think the real question isn't "Why are massed Champion cavalry so broken?"

The real question is:
"Why did I let my opponent mass expensive Champion cavalry in total peace and quiet of his turtled-up base?"

Yes, almost. But the games in which champion cavalry feels the most unfair is when you were active and team-working from early on in the game, that you took out 2 players, but one single enemy was left unchecked, made champ cavs, and now vaporize all your teams armies, even if they are regrouped.
Champions cavalry are:

• Cheap (VERY resource efficient)
• Strong (EXTREMELY population efficient)
• Fast (mobility is good both in fights AND on map control)
• Counter everything (hack dps for melees)
• Don't have serious counter (Spears champs have x2.5 dps, BUT less base dps, x0.6 hp x0.5 movement speed, most civ require special building.)

The accumulation of perks, and lack of any counters is what makes them feel so unbalanced. That being said, I don't think we should over-nerf them. Just give them 1 real weakness as should strong units have, and/or make them a little less cheap.

[real_tabasco_sauce]

1 hour ago, chrstgtr said:

Eh. 10% isn’t that much in the cav vs one discussion—cav is already much faster than inf. Getting the Brit speed hero doesn’t suddenly let make inf much better than cav with the tech, for example.

1.8 m/s difference for spear cav is just about as big as the speed difference between spearmen and skirmishers. It doesn't make for much of an apparent difference because cav are generally on another planet in terms of mobility.

in another rts game, speed is very carefully balanced, with small differences in movement speed making substantial differences in perceived mobility:

I'm not saying we should copy this, its for juxtaposition against our situation. If spearmen and champcav in 0ad had the same disparity as pikemen and knights above, champcav would only go 12.8 m/s. I just don't think its good for the only counter to champcav to be 0.5 to 0.4 times as fast, but absolutely massacre them if they end up fighting.

We can experiment in the near term with palisades, walls, and buildings soon (as well as building walls over forests).

[Dakara]

random troll idea : make unable cav to capture , delete tech +10% hp cav and slighty decrease the resource efficient (at least same as champ infantery)

[Atrik]

4 hours ago, real_tabasco_sauce said:

I just don't think its good for the only counter to champcav to be 0.5 to 0.4 times as fast, but absolutely massacre them if they end up fighting

Would solve the main problem that champ cavs currently can slam into infantry formations, meat-shield, and even melt them by their own, which is prob what most people think is broken right now. Slowing heavy cav movement speed will mean they no longer counter ranged light cavs? Or at least ranged light cavs can escape them pretty easy? Could make sens for realism but this might have a lot of consequences balance wise.

Edited April 18, 2025 by Atrik

[Seleucids]

15 hours ago, real_tabasco_sauce said:

well that kind of sucks, then you just hardly ever see them. Also, what does that mean for champ melee infantry? They would be even less used.

which is good. 

You can still train champions from fortress non-stop and it would actually make the fort an useful production building instead of a pure Sentry Tower ProMax++.  We have separated out the siege workshop and the elephant stables so we will still see more champs than A23, but no champ spam. Champions will be truely noble units that are cherished and valued instead of being used as meatshields. They will also be possible to counter for the given structure tree. 

[Seleucids]

13 hours ago, Atrik said:

Just give them 1 real weakness

This is another idea for those who do want to keep spamming champions. For example we can let melee inf have a 5x counter against melee champ cav.  Or we can introduce a new formation which gives some additional resistance against champ cav attacks. The Roman anti-cav formation is a good place to start. 

[Deicide4u]

24 minutes ago, Seleucids said:

For example we can let melee inf have a 5x counter against melee champ cav.  Or we can introduce a new formation which gives some additional resistance against champ cav attacks.

It's better to avoid the "this specific unit is good only against that other specific unit" hard counter situations. Spearmen and pikemen should be strong against cavalry in general, not just against melee champion cavalry.

It's a historical fact that the best defense against horsemen was a long spear. It's also a fact that cavalry obliterated archers on open fields. Most other (semi)historical RTS games reflect these facts by giving attack bonuses or armor weaknesses.

If cavalry are really a problem, a simple solution would be to improve the already existing counters.

[real_tabasco_sauce]

5 hours ago, Seleucids said:

This is another idea for those who do want to keep spamming champions. For example we can let melee inf have a 5x counter against melee champ cav.  Or we can introduce a new formation which gives some additional resistance against champ cav attacks. The Roman anti-cav formation is a good place to start. 

That would push us even further into playing "keep away" from the spearmen, which is pretty easy, but when you are forced to take a fight against spears, they will just get absolutely melted. A 5x counter might actually win with a numerical disadvantage for spearmen since they would rank up incredibly fast.

edit: spears can win 25 vs 20 champ spearcav w/full techs.

14 hours ago, Atrik said:

Slowing heavy cav movement speed will mean they no longer counter ranged light cavs? Or at least ranged light cavs can escape them pretty easy? Could make sens for realism but this might have a lot of consequences balance wise.

No, I'm thinking bigger picture speed balancing, but it will be near the bottom of my list.

[Seleucids]

3 minutes ago, real_tabasco_sauce said:

they will just get absolutely melted. A 5x counter might actually win with a numerical disadvantage for spearmen since they would rank up incredibly fast.

This is exactly what we want - a counter unit. Even at 5x bonus, the spearman would still take some heavy damage because of the insane damage values from the champ cav. it would make the champion cav sufficiently weak in a fight against other unit types, so the op problem is solved. If all you can do is have a lot of champions running around but not take fights, then players will be discouraged from champ spam. 

 

but this is still not as good as just moving them to a fort or a special building only. 

[Atrik]

27 minutes ago, Seleucids said:

Even at 5x bonus

x3 was known to work in some a26 com mod version. Champ cavs where countered more like one would expect by spears. If this is too much early on against cs melee cavs, we could instead add a tech with this +50% (+x0.5) dps against cav bonus? Melee cavs are quite strong early game anyways so could be either way.