Overpowered Ranged Weapons Vs. Supply

[kephra]

Moin,

currently 0ad ranged weapons are far more effective than they had been in ancient combat for two reasons:

- Melee troops can not catch them, because they dont charge. Instead they walk at same speed as ranged troops retreat, stop short, and hack air.

- Ranged weapons have infinite ammunition. It would be better, if javelins were limited to 3 and arrows to 30 shots.

I think the first problem, is already on the wishlist of many players. But the second would require a new unit type for supply wagon. So ranged troops that run out of ammunition will retreat to their civil center, the next tower, barrack, fortress or supply wagon to rearm.

ciao,Kephra

Edited June 24, 2011 by kephra

[Mythos_Ruler]

Once we have running and charging, melee units will catch up to them easily. Plus the way 'hits' register for melee units could use some tweaking so they don't keep stuttering and chopping at the air when the skirmisher is running away from them 2 millimeters out of melee range.

[Alpha of the Eagles]

Idea: make it like in Age of Kings: archers aren't 100% accurate, but can be improved with research? Also, I bet it will be implemented some kind of making things harder to hit as they move, which can also be improved by research.

[Mythos_Ruler]

Archers in our game are about 40% accurate (Philip can correct me). Also, with some research, we've found that accuracy does not fall much in real life due to movement (the archer simply "leads the target"), but rather falls off due to range (which can be compounded by movement at the extreme of the weapon's range).

[chaosislife]

This idea both horrifies me and excites me, horrifies because the micromanagement necessary to keep my ranged units fighting and excites because of how much easier it will be to slaughter AI units since it adds another level of complication that likely won't be handled well by the AI. There'll be masses of ranged units just standing around for me to kill.

[Mythos_Ruler]

There'll be masses of ranged units just standing around for me to kill.

Reminds me of when the Macedonians surrendered to the Romans, the Macedonian pikemen went to attention with their pikes up in the air, which was the traditional method of surrender for Hellenistic armies. Well, the Romans did not understand this convention and continued to slaughter them. :/

[Ykkrosh]

Archers in our game are about 40% accurate (Philip can correct me)

They're precisely 50% accurate. The implemented accuracy system is rubbish and should be rewritten, it was just the simplest thing to implement for a first pass

[satchitb]

Ugh. Not limited ammo, PLEASE. That would be horrible, because when you have giant armies, you don't know which troops need re-arming, and you may end up sending mostly useless troops into pitched battle.

[chaosislife]

Telling the devs it would be horrible just makes them more likely to torture us with it. That said, it could be set up that javelin units have to dart forward and collect their javelins back every 3 shots. Since that would be a problem in battle javelin units could also have two attack types, the first being throwing the javelins and the second being stabbing with one of them as a spear. Then they could fire off three rounds of javelins and then switch to melee fighting till the enemies in range are either dead or retreated and then collect the javelins they tossed back. A similar thing could be done with archers after they've loosed their first 20 or so arrows except that the archers should probably have knives or something. Another idea is to have ranged units dart back to the barracks or something once they've run out of ammo in order to restock but that would mean leading the enemy straight back to your base which could be a tactical loss if they didn't already know where the base was. (assuming you're not playing against the AI which is, as we all know, sodding omniscient)

Edited June 26, 2011 by chaosislife

[Mythos_Ruler]

Nope. No limited ammo. Makes sense in a Rome:Total War game, but not in a traditional RTS such as ours where you have hundreds of entities running around. In Rome:Total War you had a maximum of 20 entities to worry about in a battle (all soldiers are grouped into battalions).

[chaosislife]

It's a good thing no one has brought up the idea of swords and spears getting duller and causing the unit to lose Atk unless they're sharpened somehow.

[feneur]

It's a good thing no one has brought up the idea of swords and spears getting duller and causing the unit to lose Atk unless they're sharpened somehow.

Yeah, there's a limit for when realistic gets boring

[Mythos_Ruler]

It's a good thing no one has brought up the idea of swords and spears getting duller and causing the unit to lose Atk unless they're sharpened somehow.

Indeed. One should assume the units do this on their own during down time.

[kephra]

Moin chaosislife,

Another idea is to have ranged units dart back to the barracks or something once they've run out of ammo in order to restock but that would mean leading the enemy straight back to your base which could be a tactical loss if they didn't already know where the base was. (assuming you're not playing against the AI which is, as we all know, sodding omniscient)

My idea would that one can select for troops what to do when to run out of ammo - Either stand and fight with melee weapons or run back to a supply tack wagon, or in absense of a supply wagon to next castle, tower or civil center.

caio,Kephra

[General Octavian]

I think javelinists should have to run forward to throw their spears in the first place. Thats the only way to realistically represent them anyways unless they are using javelins for melee

[Sebovzeoueb]

I seem to remember the Settlers VI had some sort of crazy system for resupplying soldiers (I only played it once), and it made combat pretty much impossible. I think ammo carts and stuff just add too much micro management, so I oppose this notion. Isn't it the case that a "unit" in the game actually represents a group of soldiers, rather than just one? In which case we can assume that a unit comprises some archers and the necessary ammo cart. Not sure about javelinists, but to me there are more important things yet to be implemented in the game (like techs, and proper walls to name but two), and I would rather have these than an ammo/ picking up javelins system that adds extra faffing to the gameplay (and no doubt to the game development).