More Unique Civs: What can we do?

[Perzival12]

So, after playing for a few months now (almost a year), and through my work on Hyrule Conquest and experience playing games such as Halo Wars and Warcraft, I've been thinking: the civilizations in 0 A.D. aren't really that unique. Most civilizations are statistically and gameplay wise almost the exact same, with differences between them being almost purely aesthetic, both in names and actual art. While I know we can't get the races as varied as in a fantasy RTS (with flying races, aliens, monsters, magic, etc.) I feel like the varying ways each race operated in history is not used almost at all. So, using my knowledge of history I've composed a small list of things that could be changed to the few races I actively know about:

Athenians: Strong navy & walls, more techs

Britains: Faster units and stronger/more dogs

Gauls: Fiercer units (more damage and RoF)

Germans: Mobile dropsites and houses

Romans: Defensive units (more resistance) and formation focused

Spartans: Offensive units (more damage & health)

This list is incomplete, I ask everyone who reads this to post some thoughts about the other civs and I'll edit this list to fit those ideas.

[Grautvornix]

You are certainly right - there could be more civ character diversity. However, balancing appears to be a MAJOR task and I remember loooong and excited discussions and changes back and forth to arrive at the current more or less stable state.

Possibly, with your modding experience, do you think you could generate a few  of your proposed test changes and let players look at the resulting balances?

[Perzival12]

3 minutes ago, Grautvornix said:

Possibly, with your modding experience, do you think you could generate a few  of your proposed test changes and let players look at the resulting balances?

For sure, I’ll make a short mod and post it here showing off some of my balancing ideas as soon as I have time.

[Deicide4u]

1 hour ago, Perzival12 said:

the civilizations in 0 A.D. aren't really that unique

They are much more unique now than they used to be, the exception being maybe in A23 and before.

Some civilization have more unit variety, others have stronger upgrades for fewer units. Analogies being Kushites for the variety and Spartans for stronger, but fewer unit types.  Balance is a hard thing to master, so this game tries to offload uniqueness onto civ-specific upgrades and bonuses.

If you think civilizations are mostly the same in 0 A.D., then you must believe that civilizations in AoE2 are almost identical.

[Perzival12]

2 minutes ago, Deicide4u said:

If you think civilizations are mostly the same in 0 A.D., then you must believe that civilizations in AoE2 are almost identical.

I’ve never played AoE, so I wouldn’t know…

[BreakfastBurrito_007]

A curiosity of this discussion is that all of the above traits for each civ are already addressed by bonuses/techs/heros ect in game. Surely there are others where mechanics can be adjusted or added.

I think its important to distinguish between real gameplay uniqueness and perceived uniqueness. Example of real uniqueness: skirm cavalry for carthage has extra move speed, while skirm cavalry for iberians has reduced cost. The base unit is the same but the bonuses applied to it are not equal or similar.

0ad does a good job of not chasing cosmetic uniqueness. I look at aoe4 as an example for cosmetic uniqueness. At a surface level all the civs have dramatically different units, building types, bonuses, and even unique economic units. This creates a problem where there are almost no basic units in play, and no basic civ setup. As a result everything for every civ is unique, and so the uniqueness loses its value as the respective bonuses and unit strengths must be co-equal. When civilization balance is taken into account in aoe4 every civ must have a "unique" way of doing the same thing, for example every civ in aoe4 has some way of generating indefinite gold through various "unique"  implementations. There is more diversity of strategy per civ for 53 civs in aoe2 than there is for 10 or so civs in aoe4. In 0ad and aoe2, the civs are asymmetrically balanced such that a civ's strongsuit can not be exactly matched by another civ and in order to accomplish this there must be a baseline roster and build order that civilizations share.

[Emacz]

5 hours ago, Perzival12 said:

So, after playing for a few months now (almost a year), and through my work on Hyrule Conquest and experience playing games such as Halo Wars and Warcraft, I've been thinking: the civilizations in 0 A.D. aren't really that unique. Most civilizations are statistically and gameplay wise almost the exact same, with differences between them being almost purely aesthetic, both in names and actual art. While I know we can't get the races as varied as in a fantasy RTS (with flying races, aliens, monsters, magic, etc.) I feel like the varying ways each race operated in history is not used almost at all. So, using my knowledge of history I've composed a small list of things that could be changed to the few races I actively know about:

Athenians: Strong navy & walls, more techs

Britains: Faster units and stronger/more dogs

Gauls: Fiercer units (more damage and RoF)

Germans: Mobile dropsites and houses

Romans: Defensive units (more resistance) and formation focused

Spartans: Offensive units (more damage & health)

This list is incomplete, I ask everyone who reads this to post some thoughts about the other civs and I'll edit this list to fit those ideas.

We have added more diversity and complexity in our version of an "Expansion" Classical Warfare AEA!  That's one of the reasons the project was started.

@Grautvornix I wasnt able to edit and add in your quote as well  But there is already a mod (plenty actually) out there that add variety and complexity.

Edited 19 hours ago by Emacz

[Grautvornix]

@Emacz that's great and much appreciated, of course!

My point was that if @Perzival12 has some good ideas it might be useful to test them individually in a small mod (possibly even limited to only 2 or 3 civs at the beginning) to acquire a feeling for the suggested changes.

Alternatively it might be useful to join forces and work on the same mod?

[Perzival12]

4 hours ago, Grautvornix said:

@Emacz that's great and much appreciated, of course!

My point was that if @Perzival12 has some good ideas it might be useful to test them individually in a small mod (possibly even limited to only 2 or 3 civs at the beginning) to acquire a feeling for the suggested changes.

Alternatively it might be useful to join forces and work on the same mod?

I’ll probably test my ideas out in a small mod before merging them with something else.

16 hours ago, BreakfastBurrito_007 said:

A curiosity of this discussion is that all of the above traits for each civ are already addressed by bonuses/techs/heros ect in game. Surely there are others where mechanics can be adjusted or added.

I feel that they should be further exaggerated, not to the point of cartoonishness, but so that the differences are noticeable to someone who has maybe not played every race extensively. For example, using the cavalry example you mentioned above, the Carthaginian cavalry is only barely faster, and so it has to be directly compared against a standard cavalry unit to notice the difference.

 

16 hours ago, BreakfastBurrito_007 said:

0ad does a good job of not chasing cosmetic uniqueness. I look at aoe4 as an example for cosmetic uniqueness. At a surface level all the civs have dramatically different units, building types, bonuses, and even unique economic units. This creates a problem where there are almost no basic units in play, and no basic civ setup. As a result everything for every civ is unique, and so the uniqueness loses its value as the respective bonuses and unit strengths must be co-equal. When civilization balance is taken into account in aoe4 every civ must have a "unique" way of doing the same thing, for example every civ in aoe4 has some way of generating indefinite gold through various "unique"  implementations. There is more diversity of strategy per civ for 53 civs in aoe2 than there is for 10 or so civs in aoe4. In 0ad and aoe2, the civs are asymmetrically balanced such that a civ's strongsuit can not be exactly matched by another civ and in order to accomplish this there must be a baseline roster and build order that civilizations share.

Cosmetic uniqueness is important in many ways, it makes each civ feel like a unique race, it allows players of varying play styles to pick the race that most fits them, and it allows players of lesser skill to beat more advanced players simply through choosing the right race for the right situation (though again, over exaggeration must be avoided here).

As part of this uniqueness, the ‘baseline roster’ should be changed for each race, so that the game is interesting long before champions are unlocked in city phase (champions are atm the one real unique units in the game). Again, not over exaggerated, but for example the changes I have above should be generally applied to the majority of units for each civ.

You all can expect my mod sometime soon, most likely after I get the next release of Hyrule Conquest: Revival out.

[Deicide4u]

22 minutes ago, Perzival12 said:

Cosmetic uniqueness is important in many ways

0 A.D. does cosmetic uniqueness well, by making every building and unit of each civilization look different.

25 minutes ago, Perzival12 said:

As part of this uniqueness, the ‘baseline roster’ should be changed for each race, so that the game is interesting long before champions are unlocked in city phase (champions are atm the one real unique units in the game)

Champion units are nothing special, they are only stronger versions of basic unit templates. Also, each champion template is the same across civilizations, with some small differences unique to some civs.

Again, the game treats uniqueness through special civilization-specific bonuses and upgrades. Every unit template is the same and has identical base stats. If an Elite spearman of your civ looks like he's stronger than an Elite spearman of another civ, he just looks stronger. They are the same unit template, so they have the same stats.

[Obelix]

Acknowledging that following call is not relevant to 1v1 and no-team matches:

Don't forget the impact of Alliances with strong Team Bonuses.

[Perzival12]

42 minutes ago, Deicide4u said:

Champion units are nothing special, they are only stronger versions of basic unit templates. Also, each champion template is the same across civilizations, with some small differences unique to some civs.

I meant unique champions, like the Mauryan Elephants, the Persian Inmortals, and the Mauryan Amazon women (I forget their real name). These units are a lot more unique in play style than the basic units, and I feel like because the stats are so generic across the civs, the game really just becomes who can boom faster, whereas fantasy RTSs often end up becoming more strategy focused with varying tactics against various civs.

[DesertRose]

To be honest before trying to make Civs unique the focus should be on making units more "unique".

If an army of Spearmen, Archers and Cavalry Swordsmen, an army of Pikemen, Slingers and Cavalry Javeleers and an army of Swordsmen, Javeleers and Cavalry Archers would be gameplay-wise noticeable different from each other making Civs feel more unique would be a lot easier.

Temple also needs a rework. Remove all techs aside from maybe Living Conditions, and create a bunch more interesting ones, like bigger healing radius for Temples, increased RoF around Temples, several techs giving giving Healers different kind of auras and so on. Then each Civ gets only a few of them.

Healers themselves could also be made more unique. Like a Surgeons heals idle units / units in combat with 5 / 1 effectiveness, Doctors 4 / 2, Priests and Druids 3 / 3.