Default attack vs. buildings; balance between Capture and Attack

[wowgetoffyourcellphone]

https://gitea.wildfiregames.com/0ad/0ad/issues/7599#issuecomment-112460

Design discussion branched from here^

 

Some of my thoughts on the subject:

Things I think will help overall:

• #7608 looks interesting.
• I'm thinking there could be another status bar below the capture bar for "Assimilation." There could be a "warm up" time called Assimilation where it takes a certain number of minutes for the usage of that captured building to become available. You've captured it, it's been denied to the enemy, and you've claimed its territory, but now you gotta wait a little while before you can actually use it. And similar to #7608, you can't delete it either unless you've Assimilated it. All of this wouldn't require any input from the player, so it's decently simple.
• As suggested by @real_tabasco_sauce Adding some toggle or option to choose default behavior for your units: Capture or Attack. If it's an in-game toggle, we could call it a "Policy," or else it can just be an Options menu item. I think in-game toggle is sexier, but Options menu item might be simpler (?). If an in-game toggle, you wouldn't have to swap in and out of the Options menu if you wanted to change the policy mid-game.
• I think (un-garrisoned) buildings should take longer to capture in general, and buildings easier to destroy with melee weapons. Maybe revisit the base capture points of different building types and the health/HP or armor values of various buildings. Just rebalance capturing vs. attacking.
• I don't think a fully-garrisoned building should be impossible to capture. We could revisit the GarrisonRegenRate values to prevent this. Higher base capture points, but lower GarrisonRegenRates seem desirable to me.

My ideal game is still Attack by default, but if some solutions were implemented to make capturing better and attacking more viable, then I could live with Capture by default, especially if there was a toggle.

 

If we make buildings more vulnerable to non-siege units, then we can compensate with a building health tech tree at the Civic Center: Craftsmen (common) -> Architects (common) -> Monumental Architecture (for "urban" civs).

And if we make buildings less vulnerable to capturing (increased base capture points), we can add a couple capture techs to compensate: Military Cult (common; at the Temple) -> Plunderers (for "barbarian" civs; at the Temple), Siege Ladders (common; at the Fortress).

 

[real_tabasco_sauce]

It would be interesting if attacking buildings was a bit more worthwhile/effective. In any case, the default should be set by an option.

7 minutes ago, wowgetoffyourcellphone said:

If we make buildings more vulnerable to non-siege units, then we can compensate with a building health tech tree at the Civic Center: Craftsmen (common) -> Architects (common) -> Monumental Architecture (for "urban" civs).

And if we make buildings less vulnerable to capturing (increased base capture points), we can add a couple capture techs to compensate: Military Cult (common; at the Temple) -> Plunderers (for "barbarian" civs; at the Temple), Siege Ladders (common; at the Fortress).

I would avoid adding too many techs for this kind of thing. In this case, utilizing phase ups would be good (ie for HP).

[wowgetoffyourcellphone]

1 minute ago, real_tabasco_sauce said:

I would avoid adding too many techs for this kind of thing. In this case, utilizing phase ups would be good (ie for HP).

In my opinion, packing effects into the Phase up techs is super uninteresting. It's not like 0 A.D.'s tech tree is massive. 

[real_tabasco_sauce]

1 minute ago, wowgetoffyourcellphone said:

In my opinion, packing effects into the Phase up techs is super uninteresting. It's not like 0 A.D.'s tech tree is massive. 

yeah, but its good to put uninteresting effects into phase ups. For example building arrow damage increases with each age, but if that were instead 2 technologies, there would be a ton of tower techs.

The CC is getting rather full of techs recently.

[real_tabasco_sauce]

I think making it so buildings can only be deleted if they are connected to your town could work, but does anyone think this would be frustrating? I think it might be. Imagine you have captured a house only to realize it has no value, and now you have to wait untill it is the enemy's building to start poking it down.

We can make destroying buildings more relevant without this change. I'd like to cook something up to address this in the community mod.

[chrstgtr]

Everything doesn't need a tech. I personally find the tech tree to be getting too large and filled with a bunch of uninteresting things. This would be another uninteresting tech. 

18 minutes ago, real_tabasco_sauce said:

I think making it so buildings can only be deleted if they are connected to your town could work, but does anyone think this would be frustrating?

This would make it so you can't capture a building in an enemy building and destroy it (i.e., no temporary tower, barrack, or temple). This means there would basically never be a reason to ever capture a building in enemy territory. This seems like an obvious downgrade. 

Also, it this an edge case rule that no one will remember, which makes it frustrating. 

[wowgetoffyourcellphone]

1 hour ago, chrstgtr said:

This would make it so you can't capture a building in an enemy building and destroy it

The entire point is to blunt the capture->delete meta. 

 

1 hour ago, chrstgtr said:

This means there would basically never be a reason to ever capture a building in enemy territory.

Gaining the benefit of that building isn't a reason to capture it? The only reason in your mind to capture a building is to delete it? Do you not see the problem here?  

 

1 hour ago, chrstgtr said:

Everything doesn't need a tech. I personally find the tech tree to be getting too large and filled with a bunch of uninteresting things. This would be another uninteresting tech. 

There are several techs in the base game that I find uninteresting or of only minor use, but I think building strength and capture strength are useful/interesting, especially if the capture->delete meta is changed. 

[chrstgtr]

You’re missing the entire point. 

41 minutes ago, wowgetoffyourcellphone said:

The entire point is to blunt the capture->delete meta. 

The point is to end the delete=capture first then delete meta. What I am describing is something totally different. It is where you purposely capture to gain a benefit. 

35 minutes ago, wowgetoffyourcellphone said:

Gaining the benefit of that building isn't a reason to capture it? The only reason in your mind to capture a building is to delete it? Do you not see the problem here?  

You’re still missing the point. If I am going to fight in an enemy base then it makes sense to capture a temple to heal my units and fight around that temple. Or to capture a tower. Or to capture a barrack to spam nearby troops. 

37 minutes ago, wowgetoffyourcellphone said:

There are several techs in the base game that I find uninteresting or of only minor use

Those should be deleted. 

38 minutes ago, wowgetoffyourcellphone said:

I think building strength and capture strength are useful/interesting, especially if the capture->delete meta is changed. 

Strong disagree. It will either be a tech that you always want, which means it is uninteresting. Or a tech you never want, which also means it is uninteresting. 

It will also be regressive with better players who are able to consistently push not needing the tech. While worse players who are regularly pushed on will need the tech. So the good players have cheap gameplay while the bad players have more expensive gameplay (on top of already being bad). 

[Classic-Burger]

12 hours ago, chrstgtr said:

tree to be getting too large

Is very short and simplistic.

[Classic-Burger]

13 hours ago, wowgetoffyourcellphone said:

My ideal game is still Attack by default, but if some solutions were implemented to make capturing better and attacking more viable, then I could live with Capture by default, especially if there was a toggle.

The ideal would be to nerf the defense of civilian buildings.

And also the towers and give them 2 technologies to reinforce them, if you are interested in defense, spend them and invest.

If we compare this to Age of Empires or any other similar game, the technologies fall short, there are very few.

Buildings should be weak in the early stages.

In Starcraft the Zerg hatchery/hive levels up, It becomes stronger with each evolution.

13 hours ago, real_tabasco_sauce said:

It would be interesting if attacking buildings was a bit more worthwhile/effective. In any case, the default should be set by an option.

I would avoid adding too many techs for this kind of thing. In this case, utilizing phase ups would be good (ie for HP).

For defenses it would be good.

[Classic-Burger]

13 hours ago, wowgetoffyourcellphone said:

warm up" time called Assimilation

For this to work, there must be something that ensures assimilation, and that is that the territory is at peace and has a strong central authority. That is, a CC or a building that provides security that could be a fortress.Also a temple or even another building that represents a culture could be an intellectual power like a library.

When there is a conquest it will depend on the culture and the force of arms, we know that many groups opposed the imperialism of other states.

The wars of the Judeans with the Seleukids for example or that of the Iranian peoples with the Seleukids.

It's an example, don't take it seriously, but keep it in mind.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transculturation

 

Edited February 18 by Classic-Burger

[zozio32]

I like the concept of assimilation.   It should not be too penalising however, and one should not loose "ownership" of it during that period.  I am thinking capturing a tower in enemy territory. To make it a worthwhile effort, the assimilation period should be short, and maybe we should still have the ability to garrison troups in it to protect them, even if the tower does not fire any arrows during the assimilation time. At the same time, it is in ennemt territory, but I don't think it's ownership should change "organically" during the assimilation time.  Of course, if the previous owner send a team to recapture it during this time, that should be possible.

For the rest of the rebalancing, the capturing process should indeed be more onerous than the destruction, as the idea of capturing to destroy is a bit pointless. At least that should be the case with units with average to high "hack" attack.

Regarding expanding the tech trees, I think that's a good thing. More things to choose, how to spend the resource, etc. And I like the Delenda Est proposition where oen can choose between tech options, giving the option to evolve differently.

[Classic-Burger]

On 18/02/2025 at 10:44 AM, zozio32 said:

ownership

Should lose the attack of a tower or fortress.

Assimilation is basically losing control of a building in a war.

Since the attacker is the new  owner one to control, he should not have full control, and since the previous owner is the loser, he should not be able to use it anymore Unless you lose control again and the assimilation process stops and control comes back as if nothing happened.

Another thing is to determine what happens if the tower is badly damaged.

If the tower has less than 10% health it should be demolished. It could not be assimilated and even the number of arrows and capacity should be penalized in that case.

Edited February 21 by Classic-Burger

[zozio32]

I agree with the later.   if the building is too damaged, it should be destroyed instead of assimilated. For your first sentence, I am not sur of what you mean. i was basically saying that ownership point should not change during the assimilation period.

[myliverhatesme]

I haven't seen this mentioned but to encourage people to attack to destroy a building instead of weaken/capture/delete make deleting a building take time proportional to build time.

Seems more realistic. Why should you just instantly be able to demolish a building just because you control it?

One could argue that like building, you use workers to destroy a building and the more workers the faster it's destroyed but that sounds tedious. Instead just make it take time to demolish a building.

So if someone is trying to get an enemy building out of the way, attacking it is more beneficial since it's destroyed quicker. But if they want to use it then obviously capturing is beneficial.

[Classic-Burger]

On 21/02/2025 at 5:43 AM, zozio32 said:

was basically saying that ownership point should not change during the assimilation period.

As I understand it from other games, you capture first and then as you assimilate you have all the gameplay actions from the building.

But you can use it to a certain extent. It's  like a capture but unfinished, imperfect.

[zozio32]

On 23/02/2025 at 7:37 AM, Classic-Burger said:

As I understand it from other games, you capture first and then as you assimilate you have all the gameplay actions from the building.

But you can use it to a certain extent. It's  like a capture but unfinished, imperfect.

yes, agree with that.  What I was mentionning, is that the "ownership level" of the building should not change during the assimilation process, independantly of where the building is, unless another faction send troops to capture it.  Then, from the moment the assimilation period is completed, the ownership level should decrease if it is not link to territory root unless garisoned.

Edited February 25 by zozio32

[Dakara]

I think we need to reduce the capture speed, especially if a unit is garrisoned. And of course leave rapid deletion possible as is currently the case. (reward and ease of gameplay)

[Classic-Burger]

On 25/02/2025 at 7:54 AM, zozio32 said:

building should not change during the assimilation process,

If that is a good question, we need to think carefully about how it is implemented.

It's not going to be perfect at first, I guess implementing and finding exploits.

What occurs to me is that a good assimilation needs to have peace after the conquest or obtaining.

Assimilation should not happen if the territory is not connected.

Therefore assimilation occurs over time, time is valuable.

But it can be stopped if someone tries to recapture or capture it, the question will be if a third party who is not the original owner or the conqueror tries to capture it, what would happen?

The situation is as follows, A has a tower, B captures it and begins to assimilate it after disconnecting it from player A's territory. But C arrives and tries to capture and is not an ally of A, it belongs to C team a third party.

This may have happened during the wars of the Diadochi.

The wars of Antigonus, Seleukus and the Ptolemy.

You have to think it over carefully.

[Grautvornix]

From the game strategy point of view capturing and manning a tower or barracks or temple currently establishes a nice foothold in enemy territory and provides backup before entering into serious battle. I would rather not change the current behavior too much.

[Classic-Burger]

On 02/03/2025 at 7:09 AM, Grautvornix said:

temple

This is a good idea.It is very demoralizing to lose a temple.

[Grautvornix]

It also keeps you units healing and protected.

[Obskiuras]

I think we should strengthen walls and palisades, in the game it´s very easy to shoot then down and that doesn´t feel realistic. Also, when soldiers (archer, sliger, javelin) are garrisoned on walls they sould have more range attack, and of course, the tower of the walls must be able to fire. 

what do you think @chrstgtr?

Edited Thursday at 16:25 by Obskiuras

[wowgetoffyourcellphone]

On 06/03/2025 at 11:20 AM, Obskiuras said:

I think we should strengthen walls and palisades, in the game it´s very easy to shoot then down and that doesn´t feel realistic. Also, when soldiers (archer, sliger, javelin) are garrisoned on walls they sould have more range attack, and of course, the tower of the walls must be able to fire. 

what do you think @chrstgtr?

I'd really like it if individual (non-shooting) wall joints (we call them towers currently) could be individually upgradeable to shooting towers. 

[chrstgtr]

14 minutes ago, wowgetoffyourcellphone said:

I'd really like it if individual (non-shooting) wall joints (we call them towers currently) could be individually upgradeable to shooting towers. 

Or just make them automatically shoot like they used to. No need to clutter the screen with random upgrade buttons. 

I know of no one that wanted this in the first place. I think the diff that did this made reference to some random forum post by someone that no one knew. It was one of the a24ish changes that made absolutely no sense