Phase II requirements

[fabio]

To get to Phase II one needs to build 5 buildings (all the Phase I buildings), however these building may not be really useful initially, such as resource dropsites and I end up builing them not to far from the Civic Center, just to get to Phase II. What about changing the requirements for Phase II to have at least 50 units and 20 citizen soldiers (or other numbers)?

So that the increased population justify the need for a "Town" Phase.

Edited May 12, 2012 by fabio

[quantumstate]

To get to Phase II one needs to build 5 buildings (all the Phase I buildings), however these building may not be really useful initially, such as resource dropsites and I end up builing them not to far from the Civic Center, just to get to Phase II. What about changing the requirements for Phase II to have at least 50 units and 20 citizen soldiers (or other numbers)?

So that the increased population justify the need for a "Town" Phase.

Houses count as village buildings so that amount of population you suggest would necessarily require the current requirements. I think the idea that you can naturally build the required buildings with houses and dropsites, or that you can build unnecessary buildings to upgrade more rapidly gives an interesting tactical choice.

[fabio]

Houses count as village buildings so that amount of population you suggest would necessarily require the current requirements.

It requires 5 different buildings (all village buildings), so 5 houses are only one.

[quantumstate]

Town Phase "Requires 5 village structures of any type.". 5 houses do count, I wrote the code for this .

[Enrique]

Town Phase "Requires 5 village structures of any type.". 5 houses do count, I wrote the code for this .

Oh, that's some useful info. The tooltip is correct, but I also thought that it had to be different buildings . That will make the start of the game more "open"

[quantumstate]

Maybe we should consider rewording the tooltip to be more explicit about this. I'm not sure how to do that without being very verbose though.

[Pureon]

The tooltip is correct, but I also thought that it had to be different buildings .

I think that's because when we initially created phases they did have to be different buildings, so it's possible that's why you still think different buildings are needed. Correct me if I'm wrong.

[fabio]

Town Phase "Requires 5 village structures of any type.". 5 houses do count, I wrote the code for this .

Ah, sorry then . I like this better, I no longer need to build useless building now.

Rewording the tooltip may help, ideally you could also add to it the current buildings, something like "2/5 buildings still missing".

[wraitii]

Well, removing "village" is a possibility, since you can only build "village structures" anyway. Perhaps "Requires 5 buildings" would probably be the most explicit/short. "Of any type" makes it looks like they must be the same type or something, it's kind of confusing.

I still think 5 is a lot, BTW... I know 0 A.D. ain't much for rushers anyway, but perhaps it could be set to 3 or 4. Or perhaps as a civilization bonus.

Edited May 12, 2012 by wraitii

[quantumstate]

Well, removing "village" is a possibility, since you can only build "village structures" anyway. Perhaps "Requires 5 buildings" would probably be the most explicit/short. "Of any type" makes it looks like they must be the same type or something, it's kind of confusing.

I still think 5 is a lot, BTW... I know 0 A.D. ain't much for rushers anyway, but perhaps it could be set to 3 or 4. Or perhaps as a civilization bonus.

In scenarios there can be existing structures placed on the map which are not Village structures.

5 isn't too many. You can reach that pretty fast with the standard starting resources. I haven't done much testing yet though. One balance issue is that come civs have houses worth more pop that others though.

[wraitii]

Is it really necessary for structures to be village structures then? It seems a bit counterintuitive to me.

[feneur]

In scenarios there can be existing structures placed on the map which are not Village structures.

5 isn't too many. You can reach that pretty fast with the standard starting resources. I haven't done much testing yet though. One balance issue is that come civs have houses worth more pop that others though.

Actually that's a negative thing for them if anything as their houses also take longer time to build (at least afaik, I haven't done any testing, but they're supposed to be sturdier so they should take longer time to build).

[feneur]

Is it really necessary for structures to be village structures then? It seems a bit counterintuitive to me.

Otherwise you could be able to upgrade to the Town phase immediately at the game start. Which might not be a bad idea if it's intended by the map maker, however, as the phases are meant to simulate the growth of a city over time it does sound a bit weird if you're able to upgrade to the Town Phase without even having five Village Phase buildings.

[Enrique]

Otherwise you could be able to upgrade to the Town phase immediately at the game start. Which might not be a bad idea if it's intended by the map maker, however, as the phases are meant to simulate the growth of a city over time it does sound a bit weird if you're able to upgrade to the Town Phase without even having five Village Phase buildings.

I think the problem is that the game's default starting resources at 1000 is too much. Try starting something around 250 all resources and 5 is not a big number.

[Mythos_Ruler]

1000 of each resource is rather much. 300 or 250 of each should be standard or "default", with options for 1000 (high resources) or 10,000 (Death Match).

[wraitii]

Otherwise you could be able to upgrade to the Town phase immediately at the game start. Which might not be a bad idea if it's intended by the map maker, however, as the phases are meant to simulate the growth of a city over time it does sound a bit weird if you're able to upgrade to the Town Phase without even having five Village Phase buildings.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't it even weirder if you can't go to town phase while already having, say, 5 buildings from the town phase?

Agree with the starting resources being lower. 1000 is a lot.

[feneur]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't it even weirder if you can't go to town phase while already having, say, 5 buildings from the town phase?

Agree with the starting resources being lower. 1000 is a lot.

Hmm, if you have 5 Town Phase buildings it's weird the map designer didn't let you start at the Town Phase =) In either case you will be able to upgrade to the City Phase more or less as soon as you reach the Town Phase in that case, so giving a player a full set of Town Phase buildings and limit them to the Village Phase, or even the Town Phase, does seem a bit weird imho

[wraitii]

Hence why I think, at least for the first age, it should probably be "5 buildings of the village phase or higher", aka "5 buildings".

[Veridagorin]

are phases kinda like Ages in age of empires? and are there more then just village and town phase?

[feneur]

are phases kinda like Ages in age of empires? and are there more then just village and town phase?

Village Phase (starting phase) --upgrade to--> Town Phase --upgrade to--> City Phase (final phase). They're very much like ages in Age of Empires, the main difference is that they're conceptually different: AoEs ages symbolized big shifts in history (shown by upgrading the look of all/most buildings), our phases symbolizes the growth of a settlement over time.

Hence why I think, at least for the first age, it should probably be "5 buildings of the village phase or higher", aka "5 buildings".

Well, my main point is that it would mean that you could upgrade to the Town Phase without having the basic "infrastructure" (houses to support population increase, mills/farmsteads for increased gathering rates) that having five Village Phase structures means.

[FeXoR]

In scenarios there can be existing structures placed on the map which are not Village structures.

5 isn't too many. You can reach that pretty fast with the standard starting resources. I haven't done much testing yet though. One balance issue is that come civs have houses worth more pop that others though.

Having two types of houses that AFAIK are: Cost 150 Wood/+10 pop cap and Cost 100 Woods/+5 pop cap is imbalanced on its own because the first grants +1 pop cap for 15 Woods the second needs 20 for the same amount.

Needing 5 buildings make them a bit more balanced because the hose type with the lower pop cap/wood ratio (bad/less efficient) is cheaper per house and so the needed structures can be reached faster (with less wood) with such civilizations.

Hmm, if you have 5 Town Phase buildings it's weird the map designer didn't let you start at the Town Phase =) In either case you will be able to upgrade to the City Phase more or less as soon as you reach the Town Phase in that case, so giving a player a full set of Town Phase buildings and limit them to the Village Phase, or even the Town Phase, does seem a bit weird imho

Iberians start with walls and towers by default (which are city phase buildings) but they don't start in city phase (which I think is good. The walls seam already hard to balance for me).

For me most things are not considered "logical" in RTS games so having the goal of being "historically accurate" for me applies mainly to the text and the story told in a game. I could wright a list of 100 items right know that are unrealistic but it's not the question for me. It's a game and it should be fun and on the one hand complex enough to stay interesting for a long time on the other hand not too complex that you can't catch up with what you want to do in theory while the game runs in realtime. So both, realism and historical correctness, don't count for me when it comes to gameplay issues. Those should be clearly separated! Art, text, story and others would be good if historically accurate and realistic (as long noone feels offended by this, well, or at least not too many). But gameplay should be purely practical, easy and intuitively to use and balanced (and we're far away from being balanced but this will be a main goal in the beta phase AFAIK).

So for me the phases of a game should have a gameplay impact to have a reason to exist. RTS games are often divided is such phases like building up resource infrastructure, building up decent defenses against a possible counter attack, and than the (main) expand and attack phase. In the German RTS wikipedia side it's described about as I see it.

Edited May 12, 2012 by FeXoR

[Mythos_Ruler]

Having two types of houses that AFAIK are: Cost 150 Wood/+10 pop cap and Cost 100 Woods/+5 pop cap is imbalanced on its own because the first grants +1 pop cap for 15 Woods the second needs 20 for the same amount.

There are other considerations besides a simple cost:population ratio, like construction speed, armour, health, building footprint, villager time (time spent building that seemingly overpowered 150W house could have been spent fighting or gathering resources), etc. But yeah, I think it all balances out.

Iberians start with walls and towers by default (which are city phase buildings) but they don't start in city age.

Walls are not considered.

[FeXoR]

There are other considerations besides a simple cost:population ratio, like construction speed, armour, health, building footprint, villager time (time spent building that seemingly overpowered 150W house could have been spent fighting or gathering resources), etc. But yeah, I think it all balances out.

True, with the build time taken into consideration houses may be balanced ok.

But in general the game is not balanced at all (but I think you agree though perhaps not in the parts I have in mind but that's a thing for the beta phase IMO)

BTW: I updated my latest post while you wrote yours. A bad habit of mine x) 

Edited May 12, 2012 by FeXoR

[wraitii]

Yeah, the game is hardly balanced but afaik it was not a concern (or at least, a very minor concern) for the Alphas. Then again, 0 A.D. will have to come out of Alpha someday, and it looks like it could be soon enough (well, relatively).

BTW, Mythos, I see you decreased starting resources to 300 each, that's probably something you want to put in the "release info" on the homepage.

[General Octavian]

I think the phases are too short. You don't need to play long to advance to the next phase. I suggest from phases 1 - 2 you need a certain pop also. Then an increased pop for phases 2 - 3 and a certain amount of techs researched