Training Times (Or Why the Fastest Click Wins)

[Seleucids]

5 hours ago, Dunedan said:

players can use mods

Sadly, it's very difficult for a new player to install mods from zip. I used Discord screen share to help new players install and it takes on average 15 minutes to get autociv installed. Unfortunately I have dealt with several highly ranked players who were unable to extract a zip file, including 2 people who outright claimed that all 0ad mods are malwares.

Mod.io is not intuitive neither (for newbies) and I have submitted numerous mods to mod.io before but none got through. They were very simple balance patches or adding a civ. 

[Stan`]

4 hours ago, Seleucids said:

Sadly, it's very difficult for a new player to install mods from zip. I used Discord screen share to help new players install and it takes on average 15 minutes to get autociv installed. Unfortunately I have dealt with several highly ranked players who were unable to extract a zip file, including 2 people who outright claimed that all 0ad mods are malwares.

Did you ask them to drag and drop on the running game, that's usually the easiest way if they don't rename the zip file to pyromod.

 

[Player of 0AD]

On 02/04/2025 at 2:00 PM, Thorfinn the Shallow Minded said:

To offer a brief clarification, I am not saying that this is a necessarily bad thing.  Many popular game series like Starcraft and Age of Empires reward players with high APMs.  I also would note that of my albeit brief time playing the latest alpha, I have had fun; this is not about whether 0 AD is a good or bad game.  That said, it is a fast game, with a casual player like myself feeling like I am running something more like a factory than a fledgling city.  The reason I think this is important to note since 0 AD's vision contradicts the current game state.  To consider this looking at training times shows at least in part why the game is fast-paced:

Looking at 0 AD, women train in 8 seconds, infantry in 10, and cavalry in 15.

Age of Empires II Villager training time: 25 seconds.

Starcraft Probe training time: 20 seconds.

Starcraft II Probe training time: 12 seconds

Age of Mythology villager training time: 15 seconds.

Age of Empires III settler training time: 25 seconds.

Age of Empires IV villager training time: 25 seconds.

Considering that aside from champions, all units have economic roles, training times should be significantly increased for all citizen soldiers and women.  If we don't even consider batch training, which accelerates training even more, the early game becomes a frantic rush.  Assuming that a player like myself starts by training women, something I think is intuitively sensible since they cost half as much as soldiers and produce the same economic output, the player is pressed to put all of them towards food production to maintain production before needing to rapidly pivot to wood to allow for the building of houses, eventually the barracks for citizen soldiers, and lastly farms for when berries inevitably run out.   The barracks snowballs this even further, and the fact that a technology at a house makes you able to churn out even more women means that population growth feels exponential.  I'm sure that there could be much better ways of playing, but intuitive way feels surprisingly intensive for what should be the most relaxed part of the game.  

I would advise at the very least increasing the training time of women to be 15 seconds.  Infantry could take 20 seconds to train, and cavalry could take 25 seconds.  These numbers, I would note, are a modest increase, and I would still argue that the game would feel fast paced.  If we truly wish to make it game that does not force you to multitask too heavily, bumping everything up another five seconds could further help.  These numbers are hardly perfect I'm sure, that's what playtesting is for, yet I think they would bring the game more in line with the game's vision.  

 

 

You seem to lack expertise of the game. For example, women are more expensive than half of the prize of a soldier: Food is more expensive than wood, and both units cost 1 population space...

[Seleucids]

42 minutes ago, Stan` said:

Did you ask them to drag and drop on the running game, that's usually the easiest way if they don't rename the zip file to pyromod.

 

I didn't know this method existed! I went for the old extract to mod folder way. 

[Deicide4u]

34 minutes ago, Player of 0AD said:

You seem to lack expertise of the game. For example, women are more expensive than half of the prize of a soldier: Food is more expensive than wood, and both units cost 1 population space...

Also, women are useless in a fight while soldiers can at least defend your town. Another aspect to consider.

[Gurken Khan]

35 minutes ago, Player of 0AD said:

Food is more expensive than wood

How?

Food is the easiest res to, um, farm; once you set up fields it doesn't run out.

[TheCJ]

23 minutes ago, Gurken Khan said:

How?

Base gather rate for fields is 0.5, Base gather rate for wood is 0.8/0.75

So one woman on a field gives 0.5 food/second, while one woman on wood gives 0.75 wood/second.

Also, gathering from fields becomes less effective the more women you put on one field.

[Deicide4u]

@TheCJ while that may be true, food is much easier to gather. I can have 30-35 women on 6-7 fields around my starting CC and farmstead and have near infinite food as long as I keep them safe. However, I'm forced to expand once my initial supply of wood runs dry. My wood gatherers are also more vulnerable to enemy raids. I also need to keep building storehouses next to the forest as my workers chop it down, to reduce the drop-off time. Which ironically costs me more wood.

[TheCJ]

2 hours ago, Deicide4u said:

My wood gatherers are also more vulnerable to enemy raids

On the contrary, your woodlines are safe, since they are full of soldiers (as soldiers gather wood faster), while your farms are vulnerable, since there are only women there (and cc fire is weak).

And having to add new storehouses for woodlines really doesnt affect the long term gain much, because you only have to build like, one storehouse every 2000 wood gathered (10 Trees).

 

I'd advise you to try going for only cavalry once, then you would see how slow food is gathered compared to wood (you need like, 3 times as many women on food than on wood) 

[Gurken Khan]

18 minutes ago, TheCJ said:

your farms are vulnerable

They're usually easier to safely evacuate though.

 

19 minutes ago, TheCJ said:

(you need like, 3 times as many women on food than on wood)

While it is true that I (generally) have more women on food than people on wood, it's not by that margin and due to a. a lot of food going in tec upgrades and b. champ cav costing 1.5-2 x the food (that's what I'm mostly producing late game).

[Deicide4u]

On 06/04/2025 at 12:00 PM, TheCJ said:

Base gather rate for fields is 0.5, Base gather rate for wood is 0.8/0.75

So one woman on a field gives 0.5 food/second, while one woman on wood gives 0.75 wood/second.

On 06/04/2025 at 3:19 PM, TheCJ said:

your woodlines are safe, since they are full of soldiers (as soldiers gather wood faster)

Base gather rate for wood is 0.75 for soldiers and 0.70 for women. The difference is almost negligible. Especially in the early game, I want to save as much wood as I can, so using women to gather wood is more than viable.

[TheCJ]

13 minutes ago, Deicide4u said:

Especially in the early game, I want to save as much wood as I can, so using women to gather wood is more than viable

Well, the big question is when "early game" ends. Most of the time I already have a barracks when the enemy rush reaches me.

Also the difference is ~7%, so like, more than 3 han ministers. 

[Deicide4u]

IMHO, the early game ends once you reach the Town phase and build a Market.

[ShadowOfHassen]

On 6/4/2025 at 3:31 AM, chrstgtr said:

Great. I always find these stats interesting.

It would be amazing if we can consistently retain these users. 

If you like stats we also have the flatpak ones 

 

https://flathub.org/apps/com.play0ad.zeroad

(Scroll down they're there. The graph is too big to screenshot on this system.)

 

Also in regard to the pacing thing-- I always do end up dying pretty fast in 0 A.D medium. because I can't move fast enough, and easy and very easy are too easy. I would appreciate it if the game could be tweaked have a little slower of an entry curve for newer players.

[real_tabasco_sauce]

7 hours ago, TheCJ said:

Also the difference is ~7%, so like, more than 3 han ministers. 

I think that says more about han ministers than it says about women vs CS wood gather rates.

[Grautvornix]

5 hours ago, ShadowOfHassen said:

Also in regard to the pacing thing-- I always do end up dying pretty fast in 0 A.D medium. because I can't move fast enough, and easy and very easy are too easy. I would appreciate it if the game could be tweaked have a little slower of an entry curve for newer players.

One possible way out is to reduce the game speed to 0.75 or lower - this leaves more time to organise your own strategy.

[ShadowOfHassen]

2 hours ago, Grautvornix said:

One possible way out is to reduce the game speed to 0.75 or lower - this leaves more time to organise your own strategy.

I think I played that once, and it did get pretty slow. So slow, I got bored and sped it back up. I will give it another try though and let you know.

 

[chrstgtr]

8 hours ago, ShadowOfHassen said:

Also in regard to the pacing thing-- I always do end up dying pretty fast in 0 A.D medium. because I can't move fast enough, and easy and very easy are too easy.

Sounds like your gripe isn’t with the game pacing but with difficulty. 

[Seleucids]

9 hours ago, ShadowOfHassen said:

Also in regard to the pacing thing-- I always do end up dying pretty fast in 0 A.D medium. because I can't move fast enough, and easy and very easy are too easy. I would appreciate it if the game could be tweaked have a little slower of an entry curve for newer players.

Medium is much more challenging because the bot is allowed to reach P3 and research every tech eventually. At this level, both of you have the same conditions so it's a fair match between you and the AI algorithm. Lower level bots are forbidden from reaching phase 3 or research important techs so they are totally useless, hence too easy. Higher level bots have additional bonuses in their favour but there is no fundamental change to their behaviour, so they aren't significantly harder than the medium bot.

With that being said, this is more of a skill issue and AI difficulty issue than train time issue. The train time should match up with the feasible resource income rate of the player. The current values are fine. Lower ones would allow the player to convert their float into reinforcements quicker, which is important in late game. Sometimes I can float thousands of food and wood just by collecting loot from dead enemies. Therefore a conscription_II and conscription_III would be nice to have.  

[ShadowOfHassen]

3 hours ago, chrstgtr said:

Sounds like your gripe isn’t with the game pacing but with difficulty. 

Well I don't play multiplayer so they're kind of the same thing...

[Gurken Khan]

12 hours ago, ShadowOfHassen said:

I always do end up dying pretty fast in 0 A.D medium.

Yet another approach might be to set the bot's behavior to defensive (via the cog in match setup); expect heavy losses when you do engage, but at least they're not messing up your settlement and eco.

[chrstgtr]

1 hour ago, ShadowOfHassen said:

Well I don't play multiplayer so they're kind of the same thing...

Not really. They're interrelated but not the same. A slow paced game can still be a difficult game. And a fast paced game can still be an easy game. 

[Deicide4u]

9 hours ago, Seleucids said:

Medium is much more challenging because the bot is allowed to reach P3 and research every tech eventually. At this level, both of you have the same conditions so it's a fair match between you and the AI algorithm. Lower level bots are forbidden from reaching phase 3 or research important techs so they are totally useless, hence too easy. Higher level bots have additional bonuses in their favour but there is no fundamental change to their behaviour, so they aren't significantly harder than the medium bot.

This is a great bit of info that should definitely be mentioned in the FAQ or some Wiki page. That was my reasoning also, having already experienced how vastly different Age of Empires 2 Easy/Standard and Moderate AIs are.

I've tried playing Easy on Defensive expecting some huge losses, but it was still too easy. Guess I should try out Medium now that I'm more accustomed with the game.

EDIT: Realized that I'm talking random nonsense, Easy does eventually go P3 because I saw it build Fortresses. You can't build a Fortress in P2. Although it doesn't build a lot of champions, if any. Maybe you never did allow it to build up? @Seleucids

Edited Wednesday at 10:11 by Deicide4u
A small correction.

[Seleucids]

3 hours ago, Deicide4u said:

EDIT: Realized that I'm talking random nonsense, Easy does eventually go P3 because I saw it build Fortresses. You can't build a Fortress in P2. Although it doesn't build a lot of champions, if any. Maybe you never did allow it to build up?

I looked at the code and there were some requirements for the Easy bot that it has to fulfill before reaching P3. But on Mainland Standard Settings 200 pop it doesn't really get there within reasonable time (I waited for 20 minutes) if at all. IIRC there are also hard limits on the troops it can field.

But the incompetence of the AI is not related to train time but rather stupid strategy