Movement Speed

[Android_]

hey guys, great to see how the game is getting along, it's getting really close to the point where it's actually fun playing it!! i'm sure in a few months time it will be a force to be reckoned with

there's one thing that's really bugging me though, and it does not seem to be of a technical nature... the units' movement speed. compared to the 'age of empires' series they are really slow (and aoe games probably weren't the fastest games on the market i guess). i mean, villagers may be fine, but it's so tedious to move your soldiers around... i'm not talking about lag here. it's so much more fun to send the greek trader unit around, the one that you can build from the market obviously it will be slowed down some time in development i guess but that's maybe what fast cavalry units should be able to achieve, and foot soldiers should be beefed up accordingly.

you should discuss that asap in my opinion... just make all soldiers 20% faster or so and the game would feel way less tedious and much more fun cheers, android

[Android_]

demetrius (hero) seems to be worst. it took me about FIVE minutes to walk him from one end from akropolis II to the other. where's the fun? not even the slowest siege weapons should do that. as i said though; demetrius may be extreme but the problem is there with almost all other units too.

[Pureon]

Unit walking speeds will be considerably faster in Alpha 7, they have been increased 50% - 9855

[Thorfinn the Shallow Minded]

What about running? I was looking forward to seeing something of the likes of that in Alpha 9 or so. Are there plans for it being workable earlier?

[Mythos_Ruler]

Everybody needs to remember that we haven't implemented running yet, so the current walking speeds make sense for a game that will have running and charging.. We could make walking super fast for now until running is enabled, then nerf walking back to normal when we implement the running and charging feature. Not sure when I'll get around to that though.

Unit walking speeds will be considerably faster in Alpha 7, they have been increased 50% - 9855

Small correction, I added a nominal 0.5 to all of the walking speeds, not 50%. I can see how my commit message could be misinterpreted though.

[Pureon]

Ahh, good catch. The units do move visually faster now, resources are gathered quicker, and after a very short time period you have yourself an army to fight with. IMO the 0.5 increase was enough to satisfy those wanting increased speed, or at least until running is introduced. I'd say we're about at AOE speed now (Alpha 7).

[Android_]

Small correction, I added a nominal 0.5 to all of the walking speeds, not 50%. I can see how my commit message could be misinterpreted though.

that is not enough... i fiddled around a bit with the unit templates and i think a 20-30% increase would be much more satisfying (and more like aoe if that shall be the standard). also some units are just no fun to move at all, like demetrius or the helepolis. you should balance those out a bit i guess.

The units do move visually faster now, resources are gathered quicker, and after a very short time period you have yourself an army to fight with.

it's not about resource gathering and building times of units... these are already much faster than in aoe imo, you can amass units pretty quickly. however, what units then actually do is really slow. same with constructing and destroying buildings: i just did another small test; an army of 20 hoplites and 17 toxotes takes about 40 seconds to take down a celtic house with 800 hp... wtf? imagine your opponent normally has about 20+ buildings. and siege weapons are a joke too.

now i do realise that these are only balancing matters, but i think with little effort you could make your alphas much more enjoyable and attract more attention to the game this way

Edited August 6, 2011 by Android GRRR

[Pureon]

Yeah I agree that units must be able to destroy buildings much faster than they currently do, buildings are probably OP right now, however this will all be fixed when we begin working on the combat system.

Ideally the helepolis will be built closer to the intended target. What could happen is an undeployed helepolis cart is produced at the fort - this can then be deployed closer to the target. Anyway, we have plans for all of this, just need time to actually make it work.

[Sebovzeoueb]

Yeah I agree that units must be able to destroy buildings much faster than they currently do

I'm not sure of this myself, I think it is quite good the way you can't just take buildings down with swords, arrows, spears etc. You actually need some siege engines to effectively take down buildings.

Ideally the helepolis will be built closer to the intended target.

I do agree with this. I would really like to see siege engineers building stuff near the site of battle.

[Android_]

please check out the following speeds and you will see that the game runs much more fluid and is more fun to play - hippeus at 12 speed, hoplites, greek archers and javelin throwers at 7, 8 and 8.5 respectively.

i'd post the modified files but the forums won't let me it seems?

[Mythos_Ruler]

I'm not sure of this myself, I think it is quite good the way you can't just take buildings down with swords, arrows, spears etc. You actually need some siege engines to effectively take down buildings.

Indeed. The idea is that meat units (infantry specifically) would capture buildings, while you use siege engines to destroy buildings. Right now we don't have capturing (infantry vs. buildings) or attack bonuses (siege vs. buildings), so we allow meat units to attack buildings.

[Android_]

Indeed. The idea is that meat units (infantry specifically) would capture buildings, while you use siege engines to destroy buildings. Right now we don't have capturing (infantry vs. buildings) or attack bonuses (siege vs. buildings), so we allow meat units to attack buildings.

sounds good. you should quickly work on the siege attack bonuses vs. buildings so that the alphas are more fun to play.

well, back to my main point... i checked Changeset 9855 and i really think you should not have units at 6 speed or below... bar villagers and some very few exceptions maybe. it's just no fun (and in no way comparable to aok/aom etc)... please do consider increasing the movement speed.

Edited August 7, 2011 by Android GRRR

[Mythos_Ruler]

sounds good. you should quickly work on the siege attack bonuses vs. buildings so that the alphas are more fun to play.

well, back to my main point... i checked Changeset 9855 and i really think you should not have units at 6 speed or below... bar villagers and some very few exceptions maybe. it's just no fun (and in no way comparable to aok/aom etc)... please do consider increasing the movement speed.

http://trac.wildfiregames.com/changeset/9974

[Chakakhan]

Indeed. The idea is that meat units (infantry specifically) would capture buildings, while you use siege engines to destroy buildings. Right now we don't have capturing (infantry vs. buildings) or attack bonuses (siege vs. buildings), so we allow meat units to attack buildings.

I think this is more than fine as long as the building attacks are adjusted accordingly. This is going to be an area where we differ considerably from a lot of other RTS games.

[Android_]

http://trac.wildfire.../changeset/9974

thank you, this is very good news! you'll certainly have some balancing to do but this is absolutely going in the right direction

now give us something to destroy buildings until building infiltration is implemented! The more fun the alphas are, the better publicity you will get.