Champion cavalry improvements

[chrstgtr]

54 minutes ago, Atrik said:

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.

This is why I think any change should be only done to the inf spear modifier. Against cav

I think this is just a such obvious solution.  Almost everyone agrees that champ cav are too strong against cs spear inf. Any other change would mess with other balance. It’s targeted and gets what everyone thinks should change. 

Edited April 18, 2025 by chrstgtr

[Fabius]

23 hours ago, real_tabasco_sauce said:

@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.

I like this idea, unique civ things are good for differentiation and interest

[Atrik]

4 hours ago, real_tabasco_sauce said:

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.

I would like to take an example of very nice improvements that emerged in a27: defenses buildings. Now they better balanced in each phase, and in p3, are generally much stronger. Especially forts. However they've been added some weaknesses like easier to capture, and min range for forts, so overall they feel like successfully balanced and fun to me.

[Deicide4u]

1 hour ago, Atrik said:

However they've been added some weaknesses like easier to capture, and min range for forts,

Which makes Murder holes actually useful. Yet, I wonder how many people research it? 

[Gurken Khan]

@Deicide4u I always get them, but don't know if SP counts.

[Atrik]

1 hour ago, Gurken Khan said:

@Deicide4u I always get them, but don't know if SP counts.

What tech do you do last would maybe be more interesting to know. Since as I imagine, SP players mostly play just to build the most developed city possible with no constraint on trying to optimize anything.

[Gurken Khan]

2 hours ago, Atrik said:

What tech do you do last would maybe be more interesting to know.

I usually build twin towers and man them, then get the extra arrow pretty early. Murder holes is next, then the extra reach when I can spare the metal. All depending who I am and what my situation is; sometimes, when there's no traffic at my borders (or I'm iber), I never build or upgrade stone towers myself and just do it later when I captured something. I hardly ever get the other two tecs, if I do it's extra arrow per garrison before (if ever) the extra health.

[LienRag]

On 17/04/2025 at 7:48 PM, TheCJ said:

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).

Nah.

Walls should take some time to build.

Palissades are historically exactly what is used to slow down enemy attacks, especially cavalry.

Maybe get a tech "staked palissades" (or caltrops, maybe) that forbid cavalry to attack palissades (ideally, force them to dismount to attack palissades, but we don't have a dismounting mechanism - so maybe give the staked palissage a small aura that slow down cavalry).

What we want is spear infantry on choke points created by palissades to be able to destroy champion cavalry, while cavalry still being dominant on the open field against unarmored foes, and champion cavalry able to take on armored foes on open field in a somewhat equal foot.

Edited April 19, 2025 by LienRag
typo

[LienRag]

On 17/04/2025 at 10:15 PM, Dakara said:

random troll idea : make unable cav to capture

Could be nice indeed.

A bit too strong change of balance though, not sure if a middleground can be found.

Unable to take garrisonned buildings, maybe (so still able to mount a devastating raid if the enemy makes a mistake).

[LienRag]

On 18/04/2025 at 11:03 AM, Seleucids said:

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. 

Formations are a nice idea.

[LienRag]

On 17/04/2025 at 8:26 PM, chrstgtr said:

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.

We're back to another main problem : ranged units should only be able to kill unarmored units, and only harass armored units. As they did historically.

[LienRag]

On 16/04/2025 at 6:22 PM, BreakfastBurrito_007 said:

How much faster compared to infantry do cavalry need to be to have a significant mobility advantage? Do they still have a mobility advantage if they are say 1.5x faster instead of 2x? would that result in less cavalry balance problems?

What ?

Cavalry should be quicker than infantry, making them less distinct from infantry isn't the way to go.

 

[TheCJ]

3 hours ago, LienRag said:

Palissades are historically exactly what is used to slow down enemy attacks, especially cavalry.

Palisades are not cheap enough either. They also take too long to build. Closing up your base (or vulnerable parts) just because you think cav might be coming gives you too big of an economic disadvantage. And reacting with palisades after the first raid hitted just means the first raid did even more damage.

Also they are paper to anything melee.

2 hours ago, LienRag said:

ranged units should only be able to kill unarmored units, and only harass armored units. As they did historically

Is that not what they are currently doing? If I need 100 citizen archers to actually one-shot a champion cavalry unit, Id say each one is doing more of a "harassment" than a "killing". Also, almost all units have armor?

2 hours ago, LienRag said:

Cavalry should be quicker than infantry, making them less distinct from infantry isn't the way to go.

If cavalry was 1.5x as quick than infantry, it would still be quicker? 

Just for reference; the fastest base cav unit in AoE2 (the hussar) is 1.5x as fast as their counter (the halberdier). If it works for them, it might just work for us.

Edited April 19, 2025 by TheCJ
typo

[Dakara]

Hello, 

Please don't insert more counter and don't up the counter statistic of spear infantery.

Increasing the ability to build walls, etc., is not desirable. It's fine as it is, and it's not a way to balance things. Bunkering shouldn't become a game meta. The pace of the games is important.

Spear infantry costs nothing compared to a cav champ spear. They are expensive and it normal they destroy a simple citizen troop. 

Their speed is normal and realistic. Champion Cavalry should be one of the best units in the game. It's normal, historical, and fun, but we need to give non-spammers of the unit a chance to compete. In full combat without escape they are not unkillable with armies including a few infantry champions.

Here are the proposed changes to reduce the unit's strength.

• Nerf piercing armor -1 armor
• Delete tech 10% HP and tech persians/selucid 20% hp champ
• Reduce movement speed from 18 to 16.2. As heavy units, they shouldn't be faster than light cavalry
• Make units stack less during movement and combat. They should lose time repositioning when attacking to reflect more realistic spacing.
• Rethinking the capture :  Increase the bonus point capture phase 3 for garnison unit. It too much frustrating currently. You loose easy easy building even with full garnison against not a big army. 
• Range of champ cav persians et selucid is op too, 7 meters! Back to 4. They only cost 10 metal more and they have MORE RANGE and ARMOR, Isn't this a source of imbalance?

I think it enough like that.

-----

Spoiler

gentler solutions as mentioned can be tried. 

If not enough just change the metal cost. But actually the purpose is not to ruin this unit 

Why increase metal cost? it makes you a little more dependent on a citizen-troop economy and it busy a quantity of population. After test up metal mine to 6K. 

----

Spoiler

If not enough, delete all theses idea and go for 2 population unit. I don't like a lot but elefant archer maurya have 200 hp for 2 population. Of course it long range so hard to compare.

----

Spoiler

What do balance experts think about the cost (in time and resources) of buildings that are solely dedicated to training champion units?

Personally, I like the concept — for example with the Han — but it's clear that it puts them at a disadvantage compared to other civilizations.

Other civs can always fall back on training regular units if they run out of resources. The Han can’t. Once they commit to champions, they're locked in.

 

[TheCJ]

3 hours ago, Dakara said:

Increasing the ability to build walls, etc., is not desirable. It's fine as it is, and it's not a way to balance things. Bunkering shouldn't become a game meta. The pace of the games is important.

Is it fine as it is? Walls are currently so irrelevant, most people wouldn't even notice if we removed them.

Of course, nobody likes it if "Bunkering"/Turtling becomes "meta", but making walls atleast useable in some situations would not have that effect.

 

Otherwise you make good points!

[Seleucids]

1 hour ago, TheCJ said:

Walls are currently so irrelevant, most people wouldn't even notice if we removed them.

Of course, nobody likes it if "Bunkering"/Turtling becomes "meta", but making walls atleast useable in some situations would not have that effect.

A24 PTSD 

[real_tabasco_sauce]

1 hour ago, TheCJ said:

Is it fine as it is? Walls are currently so irrelevant, most people wouldn't even notice if we removed them.

Of course, nobody likes it if "Bunkering"/Turtling becomes "meta", but making walls atleast useable in some situations would not have that effect.

 

Otherwise you make good points!

Check out the community mod. Walls are cheaper/faster to build but weaker. Weaker as in you can destroy stone walls with infantry, but it just takes a while.

by making walls and palisades cheaper but weaker, they are more useful early on and less useful in the late game.

[real_tabasco_sauce]

44 minutes ago, Seleucids said:

A24 PTSD 

walls weren't even really necessary in a24. Just forts and archers.

[chrstgtr]

2 hours ago, real_tabasco_sauce said:

walls weren't even really necessary in a24. Just forts and archers.

I think he meant the turtling meta isn’t desirable. 

Also, walls aren’t useless. They do a good job of slowing an invading army and are regularly built for that purpose. Making them more easily destroyed helps eliminate that “build to only frustrate” meta that walls are in. 

Edited April 20, 2025 by chrstgtr

[TheCJ]

4 minutes ago, chrstgtr said:

are regularly built for that purpose

Hm, are they? Not in the games I play in, but I'll take your word for it. Then the wall situation maybe isnt as bad as it looked to me, sorry.

[chrstgtr]

36 minutes ago, TheCJ said:

Hm, are they? Not in the games I play in, but I'll take your word for it. Then the wall situation maybe isnt as bad as it looked to me, sorry.

Yeah, they’re used. But the way that with eyes used kind of elicits an eye roll, so the situation might actually be worse than you realize. 

99% of time they’re used to just frustrate the attacking player. Walls confuse pathing and give an extra object for siege to attack before moving onto a more useful building. So they have an entirely passive existence

Wall typically don’t serve any active purpose of making defenses stronger, which is what you probably want them to do. 

the proposal might make them less likely to be used in the annoying passive way since they’ll be easier to destroy (but they’ll also be easier to spam, so maybe not). To be determined if the proposal does anything to make them better for building active defenses 

Edited April 20, 2025 by chrstgtr

[Deicide4u]

37 minutes ago, chrstgtr said:

give an extra object for siege to attack before moving onto a more useful building. So they have an entirely passive existence

That's the purpose of walls. Also, you wall off the most vulnerable positions to force the attacker into a more favorable position for your army. 

I rarely build walls in any RTS, but I would be very frustrated if my opponent walled off his base. That means I have no viable entry until siege weapons become available.

Walls are not built frequently in 0 A. D., and that means they need some changes to make them more affordable. The recent changes to building armor by @real_tabasco_sauce in the Community mod will also make them more desirable. 

[Dakara]

Believe me, we shouldn't make walls easy. Palisades are quite cheap. Walls are generally built fairly quickly and provide quite good protection.There have already been some interesting changes. Like doubling the garrison capacity on walls.

Change bunker system it is not the solution 

 

Spoiler

This is a bit off topic, but I find siege weapons a bit too durable compared to their resource and population costs. They have a huge amount of health for very good resistance.

Bolt : 200 HP

Cata HP : 375 HP 25 Sec

Ram : 400 HP 30 sec

Tower siege : 500 hp 40 Sec

In 0AD, ranged units have less health. But not siege units. That's strange. Nerf them to :

Bolt HP : 200 HP  - No change

Cata HP : 200 HP 30 Sec

Tower siege : 300 HP 40 Sec Remove crush damage

Ram : 300 HP 25 Sec

In a fight between two equal armies, if you decide to attack the sieges with a few units, you have little chance of winning your fight. And even if you are lucky enough to destroy the siege unit, you will have spent more resources than your opponent on the lost units. And I'm even talking about units that are supposed to be good against sieges (slashing damage)..

By the way, the Macedonian bonus is completely broken. Most of the time it's useless, but when you spam sieges it's really OP. It's a source of imbalance. Stack training timle and ressource is abuse.

 

[BreakfastBurrito_007]

In my opinion the biggest hindrance for walls being effective for their intended use (apart from annoying wall spam that turtle players do) is ease of placement and sealing. Snapping to/from buildings and obstructions such as cliffs would be awesome but I recognize its a complicated thing to accomplish. There have been games where I was able to get a lot of value out of palisade walls, trapping cav in my base or stopping raids, but usually the amount of attention and planning required is as prohibitively expensive as their cost and build time. Real tabasco's comm mod changes for palisades and walls should be a good step in the right direction, and hopefully we get enough comm mod games to make sure of that.

[Seleucids]

 

If you don't think this is broken...

 

For most civs, there is 0 counter to this madness. At the very least, remove these extra bonuses for Seleucids etc to make other civs playable

Edited May 9, 2025 by Seleucids