Feature Request: Throttle Attacks Per Second to Prevent Auto-Snipe Cheating + Add data to post-game stats.

[RangerK]

The Attached Screen shot is analysis from a recent TG.

You can see a HUGE disparity in the frequency and intensity of concentrated attack commands.  This can be evidence of Sniping, as I see @SaidRdz do manually in many of his Youtube videos.  Or it can evidence of using some game mod to automatically snipe for you.

Tatyana17's 13 attack commands per second isn't necessarily evidence of cheating, as game seconds are longer than real seconds, also, maybe all the commands were given during a pause in the game, though I don't remember having one.  Regardless, it's a little sus.  

Playing with even the possibility of cheaters is very demoralizing.

I suggest TWO features:

1)  Throttle the # of allowed attacks per second which the game will accept.  Either 3 or 4 seems good.  And if there are additional attack commands, they are either ignored or processed in the following second.

2)  Show statistics exactly like those in the image as part of the post-game data.
 

[guerringuerrin]

Hey @RangerK!. You might be interested in taking a look at this PR. Basically, it would allow targeting groups of units using the selection box, which could make sniping as a gameplay mechanic obsolete.

Edited Friday at 15:53 by guerringuerrin

[RangerK]

Quote

The feature is meant in part to be a pathing tool when fighting, where units attack a specified group of target over the default 'closest enemy'.

...

-UnitAI handles array of targets, the first element is the entity that will be targeted until it's dead of invalidated, then it will go the the next one, that conveniently could be the next closest entity without doing more calculations. Also, it respond to any attack if the source is closer then it's current target (and if not engaged in combat yet).

Thanks, @guerringuerrin

I may be missing something, but the description there isn't very clear.  It doesn't really say the over-all goal of the PR, so I'm a little disoriented.  It also doesn't describe how targets are selected within the group.  I think it would have to be an extremely clever system to completely eliminate the advantage of auto-sniping.

 

[real_tabasco_sauce]

35 minutes ago, guerringuerrin said:

Basically, it would allow targeting groups of units using the selection box, which could make sniping as a gameplay mechanic obsolete.

That would not make the mechanic obsolete, it would just be an easier way to snipe. Attacking ranged units beyond melee and then running away when ur melee is all gone will remain. Significant balance changes would be needed to actually make it obsolete.

[guerringuerrin]

40 minutes ago, RangerK said:

Thanks, @guerringuerrin

I may be missing something, but the description there isn't very clear.  It doesn't really say the over-all goal of the PR, so I'm a little disoriented.  It also doesn't describe how targets are selected within the group.  I think it would have to be an extremely clever system to completely eliminate the advantage of auto-sniping.

Yeah, might be too technic. Maybe this commentary in that PR describes better why I think could help on this: 
 

41 minutes ago, real_tabasco_sauce said:

That would not make the mechanic obsolete, it would just be an easier way to snipe. Attacking ranged units beyond melee and then running away when ur melee is all gone will remain. Significant balance changes would be needed to actually make it obsolete.

Oh I understand and I think you are right about "Attacking ranged units beyond melee and then running away when ur melee is all gone will remain."
The way I see it, targeting ranged units to eliminate them first (given their higher damage) is somewhat part of combat micro skills, just like sniping a Hero, rams, or other high-value units. And this probably wouldn’t be as necessary with a different balance for combat units (e.g. melee units stronger against projectiles).

That’s why, from my perspective, when we talk about the sniping problem in 0 A.D., we’re referring to the repetitive action of targeting units with a group or using Alt+click to pick them off first. Which creates that “whoever clicks more wins” dynamic. But I can be wrong.

[Atrik]

29 minutes ago, real_tabasco_sauce said:

Significant balance changes would be needed to actually make it obsolete.

I hope the feature would make targeting accessible/interesting enough that it would be a desirable part of the gameplay.

32 minutes ago, RangerK said:

It also doesn't describe how targets are selected within the group.

 That's a bit unfair given the explanations and illustrations provided.

 

---
 

39 minutes ago, RangerK said:

I think it would have to be an extremely clever system to completely eliminate the advantage of auto-sniping.

I think you are imagining that there is a "auto-sniping" thing out there that sort out battles without any user input.
Let's assume that it is the case.
If a player that would use such "auto-sniping", some of the decisions and improvisations he would be normally be able to do would be removed. Likely resulting in fool-plays, or predictability that other users could take advantage of.

On the other hand, trying to make available some features that efficiently translate user inputs into actions, that stay general enough not remove possible plays, would make them very competitive against it.

The above isn't the goal of the PR, much more like a QOL feature, that would make micro in battle more interesting. Making targeted volleys of projectiles would be much more rewarding if you can define a area where they are thrown, then if you they just all go on the first closest enemy for example.

[Seleucids]

Autosnipe existed but nobody uses it anymore and it probably doesn't work in R28

 

@ffm2 had some click counter script in python which you might be interested in

[guerringuerrin]

15 minutes ago, Seleucids said:

Autosnipe existed but nobody uses it anymore and it probably doesn't work in R28

Are you sure it's not only a gamer mouse with multi-click macro buttons?
Do you have some code or proof about it?

[AlexHerbert]

That's an interesting analysis, it makes me think of priorities.
That feature in the game is like having a high-end bike but only ever using one gear, while obsessing over automate a fan at higher revolutions to so it blows more air towards your face. 
Just saying.

Edited Friday at 21:20 by AlexHerbert
Language... reasons.

[Emacz]

Couldn't units be balanced in a way where sniping is less important? Then you wouldn't have to really worry about any of this

[Atrik]

2 hours ago, Emacz said:

Couldn't units be balanced in a way where sniping is less important? Then you wouldn't have to really worry about any of this

Battle management/micro isn't your enemy. Spamming meaningless clicks might be.
I know a lot of players that love micro with freehand formation for example, which is a excellent feature. I'd love to have more features like this, I hope the selection box targeting will be in this category.

[Arup]

15 hours ago, Emacz said:

Couldn't units be balanced in a way where sniping is less important? Then you wouldn't have to really worry about any of this

if only we had a mod that did it already....

[Emacz]

That I keep asking you to test out with me, yet you never do 

[ffm2]

When I checked for the unusual high sniping activity I came to the conclusion that its a auto-clicker. There are a lot of games where this is prohibited and reason for bans. It's definitely the case that some players are using such mice and see no harm in it and it's the case that some players would like that such mice/features were not used.

I don't like the current balance where one is incentivized to target the ranged units at the back (because they have less armor and deal much damage).

Besides that, even if the balance were changed to my liking and melee were a high priority target, I think the feature of the target area could still be beneficial in situations. To take out healers, elephants, heroes or so.

I think "sniping upgrade" could be a interesting upgrade. That doesn't upgrade any stat. but how well the army acts together in later games.

Upgrade 1: Target the unit which requires the least amount of attacks within your range

Upgrade 2: Be aware of where the other soldiers shoot and don't shoot more arrows on a unit than necessary.

I know some game that had these as upgrades. Should be priced high though, as they are quite valuable.

[Grautvornix]

That would indeed be a marvellous upgrade path!

[DesertRose]

2 hours ago, ffm2 said:

Upgrade 1: Target the unit which requires the least amount of attacks within your range

Upgrade 2: Be aware of where the other soldiers shoot and don't shoot more arrows on a unit than necessary.

I know some game that had these as upgrades. Should be priced high though, as they are quite valuable.

That sounds like horrible game design. An in-game upgrade that plays the game for you.

 

[Seleucids]

On 20/03/2026 at 7:07 PM, guerringuerrin said:

you sure it's not only a gamer mouse with multi-click macro buttons?
Do you have some code or proof about it?

This selection box targeting was nicknamed autosnipe 

 

 

[AlexHerbert]

On 20/3/2026 at 6:30 PM, Atrik said:

Battle management/micro isn't your enemy. Spamming meaningless clicks might be.
I know a lot of players that love micro with freehand formation for example, which is a excellent feature. I'd love to have more features like this, I hope the selection box targeting will be in this category.

I agree that automate repetitive tasks is an optimisation in production chains.... for industries, however I don't think this apply to a game, if the game is over automated will lose fun and will reduce player interaction with it. Snipe already exist in the game, is more important the game is fun than take care of mice.

In the game this is a kind of "gadget" that could be very good technically, it shows very good skills in programming, however it don't actually improve UX. Instead of that, making the game performance better will.

In the bicycle example I mentioned, improving "how you 'pedal' is more important than upgrading a fan to cool your face, while you keep doing a effort in a not-correct way."

Think about it.

Edited 1 hour ago by AlexHerbert
Language reasons

[DesertRose]

Some ideas / thoughts:

• Ranged soldiers don't always attack the closest enemy unit, but instead semi-randomly any enemy unit in range, where the chance depends on the distance
  E.g. if two enemy units are almost equally far away the chance the the slightly closer enemy unit is attacked is 51%, the other one is attacked with a 49% chance. If one enemy units is far closer the chances would be more like 80% 20%.
  Overall that means that ranged soldiers spread their attacks more instead of many attacking the same units, preventing massive overkill and greatly reducing the effectiveness of ranged units
  During small scale skirmishes, e.g. in the early game, you can manually focus fire to intentionally kill a specific enemy unit
  
  Maybe the probability which enemy unit is attack depends on where you attack moved. Instead of prioritizing the closest unit to itself it prioritizes the closest unit to the target location. So you could manually move your archers into range of the opponent's Javileers and then attack move next to them so your archers attack them instead of your opponent's melee units  

 

• Melee soldiers behave similar. They don't always charge towards the closest enemy soldier but spread out based on probability

 

• Random attack delays. SC2 does this. Each unit has a small random attack delay so that two units rarely attack at the same time. That's e.g. why Siege Tanks virtually never shot at an already dead unit. This would also cause units to slightly spread out their attacks as they attack at slightly different times

 

 

 

[guerringuerrin]

38 minutes ago, DesertRose said:

Some ideas / thoughts:

• Ranged soldiers don't always attack the closest enemy unit, but instead semi-randomly any enemy unit in range, where the chance depends on the distance
  E.g. if two enemy units are almost equally far away the chance the the slightly closer enemy unit is attacked is 51%, the other one is attacked with a 49% chance. If one enemy units is far closer the chances would be more like 80% 20%.
  Overall that means that ranged soldiers spread their attacks more instead of many attacking the same units, preventing massive overkill and greatly reducing the effectiveness of ranged units
  During small scale skirmishes, e.g. in the early game, you can manually focus fire to intentionally kill a specific enemy unit
  
  Maybe the probability which enemy unit is attack depends on where you attack moved. Instead of prioritizing the closest unit to itself it prioritizes the closest unit to the target location. So you could manually move your archers into range of the opponent's Javileers and then attack move next to them so your archers attack them instead of your opponent's melee units  

There was some very interesting work done by @real_tabasco_sauce in this area here. I believe there were some cross-platform compatibility issues (IIRC related to mathematical calculations being handled differently on Linux, Windows, and macOS), which, in my view, would be worth revisiting.