Overhaul of the Citizen system

[Deicide4u]

24 minutes ago, BeTe said:

Add some Upgrade/downgrade buttons to CS so they need like 30s to be turned into fighting unit. In theory, you can moveout with CSs and click on "Upgrade to soldier" and when you arrive armors will be ready and opponent will need same time to upgrade so it will also damage his eco. After attack, you click "Downgrade to Worker" and by time you return back to your base, your soldier will become worker. 

This is a great suggestion, and it's not the first time I see it proposed. I wouldn't make it 30 seconds, 10 seconds is already enough. 15 seconds max.

[BeTe]

1 minute ago, Deicide4u said:

This is a great suggestion, and it's not the first time I see it proposed. I wouldn't make it 30 seconds, 10 seconds is already enough. 15 seconds max.

It's kinda weird mechanics, but why not try since we want to be weird (different to classic RTSes/AOE).

Question is just technically how complex is that to implement for programmers.

Ofc, time is to be discussed and tested.

Eventually time can be different in each Phase if needed.

[BeTe]

P.S.

i have one more sub-idea: 

move Eco upgrades from Storehouse/farms to Blacksmith. I didn't think a lot about that, but I guess it'd make some earlier timing pushes more viable.

Tho idk if you will be able to do enough damage to pay off delaying eco upgrades? 

[guerringuerrin]

It's clear there's a lot of room for balance improvement, but please don't remove CS. It's one of the few most distinctive features of the game. Let's not revert everything to the existing standard. Let's not turn 0ad into yet another RTs

[Deicide4u]

4 hours ago, BeTe said:

move Eco upgrades from Storehouse/farms to Blacksmith

Nah, makes no sense.

3 hours ago, guerringuerrin said:

but please don't remove CS

I guess we can boost a female gather rate of minerals by 0.05 points per second. The point is not in the removal of CS concept, the point is to promote diverse and viable strategies.

Edited May 20 by Deicide4u

[BeTe]

20 minutes ago, Deicide4u said:

Nah, makes no sense.

I guess we can boost a female gather rate of minerals by 0.05 points per second. The point is not in the removal of CS concept, the point is to promote diverse and viable strategies.

Why not?

If "semantically", then it makes sense for me - Blacksmith is for iron upgrading and eco tools are made from iron, right?

Alternatively  add another building for eco upgrades so you choose to add Barracks/more CS or Eco upgrades. idk how exactly but something...

Ofc, those are just rough ideas - but as many people said, in good RTS game design you need to allow players to make more decisions, some of them are eco vs army. At least in my understanding. 

[Deicide4u]

Thank you all for your input.

The thread was opened to discuss the current meta and find a way to add more choice in the early-mid game.
I propose just two changes for now, so you can ignore the drastic changes mentioned in the OP post.

1) Add a new male economic unit (Male Citizen). Give him the same gather rates as the current ones for CS.
2) Lower CS gather rates for food and wood by half but keep the stone and metal gather rates for now.

We can discuss further changes once these get tested. AI should also be adjusted to train this new male citizen and avoid using CS for food and wood (use CS only for mining).

[Grautvornix]

Maybe I am wrong, but basically the "two-gendered citizen" mod (in A26) was getting quite close (women and men as standard citizens able to gather resources, but had poor fighting abilities).

The only change instead of just depicting male and female citizen with the same gather rates (high for food, low for everything else), would be to determine a gather rate for male citizen and a different one for female, right?

The only difficulty is now to allow creating intentionally a number of males citizen with a certain gather efficiency and female citizen with a different rate. IIRC the "two-gendered citizen" mod just arbitrarily added two different avatars with the same properties. 

 

 

[Deicide4u]

7 minutes ago, Grautvornix said:

IIRC the "two-gendered citizen" mod just arbitrarily added two different avatars with the same properties. 

It also boosts the gather rates by 20%? I remember seeing higher gather rates for economic citizens on the Structure Tree when I tried to "glue" it on A27.

10 minutes ago, Grautvornix said:

The only difficulty is now to allow creating intentionally a number of males citizen with a certain gather efficiency and female citizen with a different rate.

An icon next to the Female Citizen? But, that will just confuse people. We can just reuse the mod and lower the CS gather rates for food and wood. Maybe even for all resources if the testing phase allows it.

[BeTe]

3 hours ago, Deicide4u said:

It also boosts the gather rates by 20%? I remember seeing higher gather rates for economic citizens on the Structure Tree when I tried to "glue" it on A27.

An icon next to the Female Citizen? But, that will just confuse people. We can just reuse the mod and lower the CS gather rates for food and wood. Maybe even for all resources if the testing phase allows it.

A bit "brainstorming predictions" (I've just made up that term haha)... 

I guess it would impact mostly Phase 1 as Food&Wood are the resources you need then. This sounds right to me as otherwise, we may slow down going to Phase 3. 

But now that I think, maybe that'd not be too bad actually b/c usually in my games I am able to do (almost) all upgrades (eco and army) simultaneously. So maybe if we slow down metal/stone gather rates for CS , it would slow down all these? But how games would look then would it prolong fights even more?

Anyways, I threw these thoughs in hope it could help. Sorry if that would lead to overthinking. 

 

P.S.

would you test it in Comm-mod or brand new mod?

[Deicide4u]

16 minutes ago, BeTe said:

would you test it in Comm-mod or brand new mod?

Community Mod, if the change is approved by the main balancing/gameplay team.

Otherwise, other mod or as an addition to "Two-gendered Citizen" mod.

17 minutes ago, BeTe said:

But how games would look then would it prolong fights even more?

It would encourage earlier raids, as CS are now bad at collecting wood so you are forced to make pure eco citizens (who are weaker) if you want to boom. You'd still have to mix eco and military units if you want to play it safe, it's just that now you are hurting yourself economically while doing so (as you should).

 

[BeTe]

11 hours ago, Deicide4u said:

Community Mod, if the change is approved by the main balancing/gameplay team.

Otherwise, other mod or as an addition to "Two-gendered Citizen" mod.

It would encourage earlier raids, as CS are now bad at collecting wood so you are forced to make pure eco citizens (who are weaker) if you want to boom. You'd still have to mix eco and military units if you want to play it safe, it's just that now you are hurting yourself economically while doing so (as you should).

 

ok earlier raids, but those will not finish game most likely. 

With less resources, Tier 3 structures, Fortress, unlock champions technologies, Siege units and at the end producing metal-heavy champions will be slower. Maybe women gather rate increase for wood/metal/stone will be required?

But yeah, the best to find out is by testing.  

edit: yeah maybe less spam is even better. Now game is too spammy anyways.

Edited May 30 by BeTe

[Grautvornix]

Just tested historical mod playing Spartans and they have a similar system with their Women, Helotes and CS:

Women and champions can be trained in the CC while Helotes are trained only in a separate building.

Champions cannot do anything except fighting (but they do it very well obviously ), Helotes can both gather and fight.

Oh, and CS are trained in separate camps.

Seems logical and diverse enough, at least for Sparta.

[Emacz]

3 hours ago, Grautvornix said:

Just tested historical mod playing Spartans and they have a similar system with their Women, Helotes and CS:

Women and champions can be trained in the CC while Helotes are trained only in a separate building.

Champions cannot do anything except fighting (but they do it very well obviously ), Helotes can both gather and fight.

Oh, and CS are trained in separate camps.

Seems logical and diverse enough, at least for Sparta.

yes there are basically 4 types of "male" units that can eco/fight.

You have your regular CS, same gather rates as vanilla (except a few new civ bonuses)

Then you have your Levied citizens (Perioikoi for sparta fall into this category even though they were citizens, they have a different label but same stats)

5% faster gather rates -10% dmg and -1.5 of hack/pierce resistance.

Then you have your serfs (mostly just stone throwers)

They gather 10% faster but do -15% less dmg and -5 range and 10% less accurate.

Lastly you have Helots (Slaves, really only sparta at moment and rome has a p3 swordslave)
they are 15% faster gather, but -20% less dmg, -5 range, 20% less accurate, less health.... 
Just opens up more ideas/strategies etc.

[Deicide4u]

The main point is this:

You shouldn't be allowed to both boom and grow in military strength at the same time.

[Emacz]

5 minutes ago, Deicide4u said:

The main point is this:

You shouldn't be allowed to both boom and grow in military strength at the same time.

why not? is that how civilizations evolved?

[Deicide4u]

Sorry, maybe I wasn't clear.

You shouldn't be allowed to both boom and grow in military strength at the same time by training one type of unit. You either train an economic unit, or you train a military unit.

[Emacz]

31 minutes ago, Deicide4u said:

Sorry, maybe I wasn't clear.

You shouldn't be allowed to both boom and grow in military strength at the same time by training one type of unit. You either train an economic unit, or you train a military unit.

I want you to picture yourself 2000 years ago, you are chopping wood in the forest, and an enmey soldiers comes up to you.  What do you do?

A keep chopping wood

B run and cry for help

C piss your pants

D fight back

E ALL of the above

[Seleucids]

31 minutes ago, Deicide4u said:

Sorry, maybe I wasn't clear.

You shouldn't be allowed to both boom and grow in military strength at the same time by training one type of unit. You either train an economic unit, or you train a military unit.

No. This is exactly what makes 0ad different and we would like to keep it that way. Many of your ideas are trivial to achieve with mods which you can make yourself in 10 minutes. 

[Deicide4u]

A wise man once said:

Quote

You will kiss the feet of the 30 people who regularly play on the lobby and you will like it. It's their game. You should know that by now.

He was right.

17 minutes ago, Seleucids said:

Many of your ideas are trivial to achieve with mods which you can make yourself in 10 minutes. 

Fine. I might try this one day.

[TheCJ]

54 minutes ago, Deicide4u said:

You shouldn't be allowed to both boom and grow in military strength at the same time by training one type of unit. You either train an economic unit, or you train a military unit.

Why?

If this is not just an opinion you wanted to share with us, but an argument, you have to convince others that this is true.

 

I mean, the current system makes sense logically; every man that can work as a lumberjack or miner can also be called to fight in war. Those conscripts would not be the best fighters, but they would be plentiful. Professional fighters on the other hand cost lots of money, but are a lot stronger. Those would be mercenaries and nobility/bodyguards/temple guards. Ingame, the second category is represented by champs.

 

Ok, that was my cent about the logic part... but how about gameplay? In his original post, @Deicide4u mentioned that the cs concept was

On 28/03/2025 at 6:18 PM, Deicide4u said:

a major turn off for many people who came from Age of Empires and similar games

which I interpreted as the first argument, even though it is (merely?) an argument of personal opinion. I am not sure how many people that come from AoE have this opinion (I myself dont), but if you like the way AoE did it, why not stay in AoE? (And I dont mean to tell you to leave, we all love to have more people here, but sometimes certain games just arent made for certain people).

It was continued on with

On 28/03/2025 at 6:18 PM, Deicide4u said:

separates the responsibilities between your fighting units and economic units

which is presented as a desirable goal without argumentation, while simultaneously already being the case; champs and mercs are fighting units, cs are just poor citizens you told to get a sword and fight in your war.

As a third point, we have the feeling that 0ad starts too quick;

On 28/03/2025 at 6:18 PM, Deicide4u said:

Why keep this feature and needlessly complicate the player's decision making in the early game? The player should gain options as he/she advances through the phases, builds up their town, researches upgrades. Not immediately at the start.

and this point, I actually agree with, but its just a design choice/preference issue. Many players love the fact that a 1v1 round of 0ad only takes between 5 and 20 minutes. (while a 1v1 in AoE can easily take up to an hour)

 

 

Lastly, I want to ask a question; Why is it a problem if "booming equals turtling"? This is only really an issue if you accept the notion that there needs to be 3 types of strategies (booming, rushing and turtling), which have to be differentiateable and counter each other. But why would 0ad have to follow this notion? What exactly is the problem with the gameplay right now? (in your eyes)

I already commented a bit on the way I see it, but I will reiterate; 

On 14/05/2025 at 1:38 PM, TheCJ said:

0ad an aggressive play will result in your army being outnumbered by someone that went for eco, since you have to walk to his base and his reinforcements spawn right there.

which is true, but doesnt mean you lose the fight, if you catch your opponent by surprise or use stronger units (mercs, naked fanatics, cavalry), or just have better upgrades since you went p2 sooner.

On 14/05/2025 at 1:38 PM, TheCJ said:

Its just that in 0ad the economic benefit outshines any strategic advantage from any of the other occupations, thus reducing the valid uses of a soldier

here I unfortunately chose the word "soldier" to refer to a citizen (cause they are citizens foremost and soldiers secundarily). But I still dont see this as a problem; as @Deicide4u pointed out, you dont want to give the player a unit thats too versatile right from the start.

[TheCJ]

9 minutes ago, Deicide4u said:

A wise man once said:

Quote

You will kiss the feet of the 30 people who regularly play on the lobby and you will like it. It's their game. You should know that by now.

And what do you want from those "30 people", other than that they should kiss the feet of you and the other 10 people that complain about the core gameplay? 

Hehe. But no, please keep giving feedback on everything you see that could be improved (but stay civil in the discussion. This game has as much of a mp fanbase as a sp one).

[Seleucids]

The content of Public must be balanced, fair and stable for multiplayer games, both 1v1 and team games situations. The MP lobby is the biggest stakeholder of balancing, as they are the most sensible to and dependent on fair balancing. Any small perturbation can ruin an alpha's gameplay. 

On the other hand, single players can just rig the game settings to whatever they like . If they want some change, just make a mod. 

It's impossible to distribute a mod to everyone in the lobby. Even community mod and historical mod are still not popularised despite the advertising efforts. It's safe to say that most players will be stuck to whatever the alpha has by default.

[Deicide4u]

20 minutes ago, TheCJ said:

every man that can work as a lumberjack or miner can also be called to fight in war. Those conscripts would not be the best fighters, but they would be plentiful. Professional fighters on the other hand cost lots of money, but are a lot stronger. Those would be mercenaries and nobility/bodyguards/temple guards. Ingame, the second category is represented by champs.

While logically sound, this is not really reflected in the gameplay and the current meta. Most of the time, you're just spamming mass CS until you or your enemy wins. Also, let's not forget about the CS cavalry.

23 minutes ago, TheCJ said:

but if you like the way AoE did it, why not stay in AoE?

AoE is not open-source. It is also rather bland with every civilization feeling the same. I'm talking mostly about AoE2 here. AoE3 and 4 are not my cup of tea.

25 minutes ago, TheCJ said:

champs and mercs are fighting units, cs are just poor citizens you told to get a sword and fight in your war.

They are not treated as such. Often, they are your only army, even in the late game.

27 minutes ago, TheCJ said:

Why is it a problem if "booming equals turtling"? This is only really an issue if you accept the notion that there needs to be 3 types of strategies (booming, rushing and turtling), which have to be differentiateable and counter each other. But why would 0ad have to follow this notion? What exactly is the problem with the gameplay right now? (in your eyes)

I'm forced to train soldiers, even though I don't need to. Soldiers cost both wood and food, but I need wood for stuff at the start. When the AI suicides his army, he suicides his eco, as well. Etc.

27 minutes ago, TheCJ said:

please keep giving feedback on everything you see that could be improved (but stay civil in the discussion

Will do.

[Genava55]

22 minutes ago, Deicide4u said:

AoE is not open-source. It is also rather bland with every civilization feeling the same. I'm talking mostly about AoE2 here. AoE3 and 4 are not my cup of tea.

Age of Empires has always had many excellent mods. The only constraint is that the definitive edition now receives numerous updates, which discourages modders.