Bell Town Concept

[av93]

Yes, some people have writted about, I tried to make a concept.

1·The citizien soldier in soldier mode, can't harvest resources. They need to go to Dropsite or CC to take the tools.

If you right click the resource, automatically the solider will go to the nearest economic point and will take off the weapons and armours to take the tools, going to worker mode

- So citizien soliders in worker mode are more vulnerable and can't fight in a good way

2·If something attacks you, you have 2 options.

A)You can go to the nearest CC and play the bell All males will go to take weapons (in military points) and females will try to garrison. Or you can only play a call to arm to nearest males.

- Military points could be barracks, CC and even towers

B ) You can select in group or individually, and click into call to arm(male), or "go to safe place" (woman)

3· When everything is over you can play off the bell, or make it individually or by groups.

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Edited November 2, 2012 by av93

[av93]

maybe you need the citizien soliders defending the city, depens on the situation I think, imho.

[Gen.Kenobi]

I have to say that this is one of the sweetest concepts that I have ever seen about a nice way to keep things realistic and maybe even balanced.

This would make the player keep a small force patrolling the perimeter while the main force gathering resources.

[feneur]

Imho we'd have to remove cavalry from the units you can build at the start if we are to force citizen soldiers to have to go somewhere to pick up weapons etc before they can defend themselves. There's no way anyone can have both enough units to defend and gather resources in the same time someone can get enough resources to build a couple of cavalry units to raid with, and I don't think it would be a good thing to either make the infantry units a lot cheaper or the cavalry a lot more expensive (to either make it take less time to get enough units to defend or longer to create a raiding force).

[Pedro Falcão]

I agree to feneur to some extent.

In real life they'd surely have to drop weapons to work, but also they could notice incoming attacks from very far away and the distance to the weapon deposit, compared to the distance to the enemy, is much shorter, so that all the soldiers could reach the weapons in time and even plan some urgent strategy before the enemy arrives at them. Meanwhile, in 0 A.D., when you see the enemy in LoS you have to have all defenses built up and soldiers ready, for each second you waste means more damage to your town, especially if the enemy got some siege equipment.

If we find a way to drown the problems i said above, cavalry will not be a problem at all.

[av93]

We can try some ways to avoid massive raiding.

the main problem is that, in comparison with AOE II, you could only get good cavalry to raid in 3age. The 2age cavalry, the scout, wasn't good to kill villagers,so in 3age you have good defenses and you hadn't a starter economy.

In AOE III, the explorer, had an negative bonus against villagers.

The things depen on what you want for the first phase.

So possible solutions.

1-Generic Scout unit (as suggested by Lion). But... Instead of the first cavalry unit, you could only train scouts? Maybe those units could be upgraded for the original unit (usually cavalry skirmisher) later....In 1 or 2 phase?

If is in first, the research would be very costly option (rush or economy?) and give enough time to the enemy for facing the rush and win. Or the research can go automatically with the phase change. Another option is to make some requeriments to research the tech, like the need of a corral, etc. (like SW:GB)

So the scouts have little attack or negative bonus against unarmed males and females.

2-Cavalry goes to 2 Phase but I don't like it.

3-Limiting the training of the cavalry Not touching the cost, but the time of training or numbers of the cavalry units that you can train at 1 phase. That change with tech or can change automatically with phase change.

So,I think that the rush option have to be in the 1 phase, but we have to be fair and give the possibility to stop that.

By the way I forget to say that if you click the bell, call to arms or whatever, the citizien soldiers and females will go running to get cover or/and to get weapons.

Also we can think that citizien soldiers get support unit status while are working... so an archer wont get bonus against one swordman worker, but yes if is a cavalry swordman...

Edited November 4, 2012 by av93

[alkazar-ipse]

I respect the idea(soldiers deposit weapons, get tools and vice versa), but what exactly is the goal? the purpose?

If it's more realisme then you are compleatly off the road.

This doesnt give more realism: first, I dont think people worked in a none secure zone completly defens less at that time (within their city walls maybe...)... But that is actually not really my point anyway...

My main concern is: you deposit your weapons in the CivCenter, then you go build a resource place, you go to work, you go back to the resource place to get your weapon?, where did they come from?

You see, even in making soldiers get their weapons, you still simplify the system, by having get them ANYWHERE, without keeping trac of how many weapons are where.

So why not just simplify the WHOLE system and assume soldiers carry weapons with them...? It a game, not a reallife simulatior.

If realisme is NOT your main motivation, then please make your statements explicit, and tell why on earth this should be usefull?...

[oddchild]

I think it would be a good option that could be ticked when starting the game. It would make things more fun. Gives more motivation to have to sneak up on the enemy.

[Mythos_Ruler]

How many times are people going to suggest this (almost) exact same feature? We have 1 or 2 team members that indulge the idea, but then the rest of the team shoots it down (for good reason, this would add unnecessary micro and feature creep). Sorry, just saying.

I'm sensitive to the criticism that units shouldn't just switch back and forth from gathering to full-military gear. It's not very realistic, I agree. But forcing them to go drop off their resources, then re-arm, or whatever, is too much. Instead, I'd prefer something like they act like "villagers" when gathering... they run away when attacked... and don't fight back until tasked to do so by the player. Then they drop the resource (it is lost) and fight back.

At any rate, I'd actually prefer that the current behavior remain what it is until we ship 0 A.D. Part 1. Then revisit the game's mechanics for 0 A.D. Part 2 (battalions, new combat paradigm, "call to arms", revamping the citizen-soldier concept as suggested here, etc.). As it is now, I think the way it works just plain works, and is a unique feature, and we should let the concept stand on its own for Part 1, then revisit it later when everything is up for revision. The way it works now just fits well with the overall scheme of the game, so I wouldn't want to change it unless we re-imagine the entire game.

Just my opinion.

[av93]

I respect the idea(soldiers deposit weapons, get tools and vice versa), but what exactly is the goal? the purpose?

If it's more realisme then you are compleatly off the road.

This doesnt give more realism: first, I dont think people worked in a none secure zone completly defens less at that time (within their city walls maybe...)... But that is actually not really my point anyway...

My main concern is: you deposit your weapons in the CivCenter, then you go build a resource place, you go to work, you go back to the resource place to get your weapon?, where did they come from?

You see, even in making soldiers get their weapons, you still simplify the system, by having get them ANYWHERE, without keeping trac of how many weapons are where.

So why not just simplify the WHOLE system and assume soldiers carry weapons with them...? It a game, not a reallife simulatior.

If realisme is NOT your main motivation, then please make your statements explicit, and tell why on earth this should be usefull?...

My point was trying to make a balance between gameplay, realism and don't get too much micro.

-Gameplay: Raiding its more dangerous, more importance about buildings positions,etc

-Realism: You have to go somewhere to take or drop your weapons/tools. Don't care how many numbers of spears, armours, its only to feel some more realistic, you said it, its not a real life simulation. The thing that I really wanted to avoid was turning magically a worker into soldier and viceversa

-Micro: To change soldier into worker you only have to click into the resource, the soldier go automatically to the dropsite and change into worker. If attacked, a button in the interface "call to arms", its enough, and to take back the work, the same thing.

How many times are people going to suggest this (almost) exact same feature? We have 1 or 2 team members that indulge the idea, but then the rest of the team shoots it down (for good reason, this would add unnecessary micro and feature creep). Sorry, just saying.

I'm sensitive to the criticism that units shouldn't just switch back and forth from gathering to full-military gear. It's not very realistic, I agree. But forcing them to go drop off their resources, then re-arm, or whatever, is too much. Instead, I'd prefer something like they act like "villagers" when gathering... they run away when attacked... and don't fight back until tasked to do so by the player. Then they drop the resource (it is lost) and fight back.

At any rate, I'd actually prefer that the current behavior remain what it is until we ship 0 A.D. Part 1. Then revisit the game's mechanics for 0 A.D. Part 2 (battalions, new combat paradigm, "call to arms", revamping the citizen-soldier concept as suggested here, etc.). As it is now, I think the way it works just plain works, and is a unique feature, and we should let the concept stand on its own for Part 1, then revisit it later when everything is up for revision. The way it works now just fits well with the overall scheme of the game, so I wouldn't want to change it unless we re-imagine the entire game.

Just my opinion.

Yeah, usually I read everything, i was trying only to make a clear concept. I remember people asking always about wall-system

by the way, there are many things to focus at first (optimization!!!!), and if people think that there's no need of system, don't think about it... Just you're making a great game!

Edited November 4, 2012 by av93

[alkazar-ipse]

I find it much more important for realisme that siege units would stop being pieces of wood spooking around, its so scary, I always feel like a ghost is in my screen.

Just my opinion...

[av93]

The two features aren't incompatible, and I think that's planned to make siege crew, they only need somebody to make it.

Edited November 5, 2012 by av93

[Escrime]

Really, what is the point of this suggestion?

If it's to make raiding a more viable stratergy, then there are less micromanagement intensive options to acchieve similar effects (citizen soldiers carrying resources get a attack, hp or defense penatly? citizen soldiers take 5 seconds or so to switch from a non-combat to a combat state?).

If it's realism, then sorry to disapoint you, but there's only so much realism you can cram into the AoE type RTS framework. And even then, if angling for realism for every male citizen of miltary age you'll have their families, non-citizen freemen and slaves to furfil the economic functions while the citizen-soldier races back home or to the barrack to grab his weapons...

[alkazar-ipse]

nice to see sb shares my opinion

[alkazar-ipse]

of course, we all agree (i guess and hope at least), that there should be a townbell to make wemen in a certain range to get in a secure place.

[alkazar-ipse]

I dont really understand "

the problem

"

Instead of selecting 20 wemen, send them to civ center, select another 5 into a tower, you can just click on a bell in civ center OR tower, and it will compute shortes way, number of people already there etc.

Soldiers carry weapons, at least for 0AD PART 1, if you want it or not (As I understood from mythos_ruler's statements), So where is the problem? they don'^t need to hide.

They keep working, and don't dare any enemy attack them , cuz they fight back. I'm trying to make it sound funny here, but what I mean is: if you want to garnison SOLDIERS, then you do it manually. Otherwise already implemented stances hold.

[FeXoR]

There's still the problem that it is better to garrison units adding arrows to buildings with an attack and maneuver females around such offensively enhances structures where the enemy is then killed with minimal cost of the lost units for you - as long as you can't garrison all units you have and that's pretty unlikely. Of cause females can be garrisoned in buildings without an attack (like barracks or temples) without loosing offensive capability of buildings.

Edited November 5, 2012 by FeXoR

[alkazar-ipse]

Against a rush you dont have too many towers to manually manage them, and on a hard push siege units will make your towers go nuts,

so thinking about attacking the right spot with the right units at the right moment (ie cav on siege when infantery runs after some ranged units) is much more important then putting some guys in some towers... (just my opinion)

I agree though that some civ have completly overpowered towers, and I guess its ment to balance out something else, even though I have no clue.

I dont mind if townbell affects soldiers in some way or an other, as long as its reasonable...

[FeXoR]

The right time is when you have enough resources to go to town age because you can't produce fast enough in your Civil Centre to get rid of all your food and wood, the right units are mass skirmishers chopping wood before attacking and the 10-20 females (for a faster start later working on farms) aren't to speak of (in sense of resources) when it comes to a possible counter attack. No enemy will be able to have siege engines at the time you overwhelm him with 100-150 skirmishers.

Until now there's no way to beat this IMO but it cannot be done with all civs since not all civs have citizen soldiers only costing food and wood with gather capacity.

That does not mean I'm against user friendly input. I just can't see a "best" way how it should work. And before that is clear I don't think it's worth to implement (until someone just does it, that's fine too).

Edited November 5, 2012 by FeXoR

[alkazar-ipse]

At the moment 10 catapults , if a LITTLE bit protected against melee units by skirmishers on the back, kill your "

overwhelm

ing" skirmishers

[alkazar-ipse]

True, but that is an AI issue. I played against human opponents much weaker then me, but they still sometimes have siege even earlier then me.

[Thorfinn the Shallow Minded]

I still do support the idea of the citizen soldiers having to drop off their resources before they would be able to counter-attack. When the call to arms button is hit though, the soldiers could actually run back to the site. Perhaps units could have a defensive stance where the shield and weapon are strapped to their backs. That stance would reduce their gathering rate, but would allow them to instantly respond to a threat. Someone should seriously consider running a poll over this feature. It is too controversial to merely say "yes" or "no" to.

Edited March 23, 2013 by Thorfinn the Shallow Minded

[alkazar-ipse]

any human player uses Siege before 3 phase, in that moment your city its very strong about defensive buildings.

?! before third phase? with what building if I may ask?...

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I still do support the idea of the citizen soldiers having to drop off their resources before they would be able to counter-attack. When the call to ars button is hit though, the soldiers could actually run back to the site. Perhaps units could have a defensive stance where the shield and weapon are strapped to their backs. That stance would reduce their gathering rate, but would allow them to instantly respond to a threat. Someone should seriously consider running a poll over this feature. It is too controversial to merely say "yes" or "no" to.

So basicly, you have settlers, good workers, defensless on one side,

and soldiers, armed from feet to teeth, very lazy at work on the other.

You can switch between these two by clicking on "call to arm" button (with consequences: go to nearest drop place and change phisical aspect)

BUT that is a much deeper change, then just realism or whatever, but rather a radical modification in the concept of what a worker/soldier is.

Untill now: wemen are faster at gathering food (from farms or bushes) and men FIGHT AND gather other stuff faster.

This new concept makes us have 3 unit types: 2 worker types, of which one can ALSO be soldier type, switch back and forth as player pleases...

Edited November 6, 2012 by alkazar-ipse

[Pedro Falcão]

Would you guys be pleased to see their weapons on their backs? I just don't like this idea of going for a drosite to get weapons, it'd be a massacre.

[alkazar-ipse]

I don't like the idea neigther