Some combat enhancement ideas (& suggestions)

[serveurix]

Battering rams limited to 4 for 0-200 pop? Battering rams limited to 6 for 200 and infinite pop?

No limit. I fully support Sighvatr on this.

How should group bonus work?

I guess there would be no need for group bonus once formations are implemented. But maybe it could be interesting as a per-civ bonus (I'm thinking about the Celts.)

More phases (in the (far) future)?

I think it would require a colossal amount of work (art, historical accuracy, balancing, general game design...), and I don't see any significant benefit for this.

Did the Celts fight in formations? I always visioned them as not having "real" or tight formations except for those "Romanised" troops.

The french wikipedia mentions that in Carthage, the gallic mercenaries fought very individually and were used mainly as shock troops by Hannibal, who was unable to make them fight in order and follow formations. Impressing and weakening the enemy by launching risky attack was the biggest honor for them, so they loyalty didn't decrease despite their heavy losses.

[Unarmed]

Feel free to disagree.

and I don't see any significant benefit for this.

Unit preservation. Not many seem to care about this. I however am a big Company of Heroes player in which this is very important and I dislike the suicide missions that are common in the classic RTS's (make units, attack and let them die, make units again, attack and let them die).

But there are other options to increase unit preservation:

-longer time to gain experience

-economy (I tend to float rescources late game)

-other (limiting units; I'm pretty sure no one likes this. It would be like this by the way: unit x 600 units available)

The french wikipedia mentions that in Carthage, the gallic mercenaries fought very individually and were used mainly as shock troops by Hannibal, who was unable to make them fight in order and follow formations. Impressing and weakening the enemy by launching risky attack was the biggest honor for them, so they loyalty didn't decrease despite their heavy losses.

Interesting thanks for sharing. Maybe this could be implemented someway into the game.

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Ok I have another idea to improve unit preservation and lessen suicide missions:

-units become more costly when you loose them

I'm pretty sure no one likes the idea of a bigger army costing even more (though it makes sense)*. So instead when you have made a certain amount of number of units and the cost increases, loses of a unit increase the cost of this unit. Seems very hard to implement though, and there is a problem:

-someone who loses a lot of units from a attack(s) but manages to survive will be punished. (But I guess this player would have his economy stalled)

*What about upkeep? Seems a bit hard to implement though, and I think no one likes it. Doesn't make sense since your soldiers are always near a town, so there are no supply lines needed.

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Is there anybody at all who is bothered by the unit wasting? Or is economy enough of a disadvantage? (I seem to be floating rescources late game and in theory I could go on and on wasting soldiers)

I mean it doesn't have to be really hardcore that when you lose one unit you are screwed, but I feel like using units should have a bigger impact as of now.

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Ok some other ideas:

Eye candy:

-units deflecting arrows with shields

Movement:

-Heavily armored troops moving slower as lightly armored troops (if this isn't done already)

-Certain terrain slowing down units (high grass, mud)

Edited June 21, 2013 by Unarmed

[serveurix]

Unit preservation. Not many seem to care about this. I however am a big Company of Heroes player in which this is very important and I dislike the suicide missions that are common in the classic RTS's (make units, attack and let them die, make units again, attack and let them die).

Oh, you were speaking about unit levels. I thought you were speaking about the game phases, sorry.

I don't know if it's worth it then. I've played Warzone 2100 a bit and this game is really oriented towards unit preservation (units are extremely expensive, most of them are very slow, they have like 5 or 6 experience levels, there is a stance allowing them to go back to the closest repair point when hurt or severely hurt, experience points are kept through recycling, etc.), but 0 A.D. seems to have been thought very differently.

It appears that 0 A.D.'s gameplay design is almost entirely modeled on Rome's history and warfare. Romans used to fight a campaign til the end (that was particularly true during the punic wars), senators (who were also military leaders) were very ambitious and rarely moved back, even if the situation looked completely @#$%ed up. This behavior brought them glorious victories but also heavy defeats. During the first punic war Rome completely lost his fleet many times, but always found a way to rebuild it, whatever the cost was.

Anyway, for the Roman faction, 0 A.D. gameplay is very relevant (minus the lack of formations, which currently makes the Romans weaker than they should be). I just wish it had the same relevance with other factions (but I have no precise idea on how to change that).

[Unarmed]

Well it shouldn't be very extreme of course. 0 A.D strives for as much accesibility as possible.

I would like it to be more important as of now (maybe I'm underestemating it). Not extreme. If you want to do suicide missions it should work as long as your opponent does not use unit preservation.

And some armies did waste their troops. So I guess it also depends on the civilisation.

[sanderd17]

I think to couple unit preservation to the "morale" (which also needs to be implemented).

When morale is low, the strength of your army will become low (easy to capture units, they fight less ...). The morale would be influenced by a lot of things (like the amount and the strength of surrounding units), but I would also like to get the dead/created ratio in the morale. Of course, balance is fragile.

[Unarmed]

I might be a bit exaggerating, or may seem like, though about unit preservation.

It's not like it's really bad. I play mostly against AI though, but against them I can easily have a group that levels up and seems to survive very long because of that.

Though AI does stupid things like sending too few units and stuff like that.

And I float a lot of rescources late game. But that's because of AI and also because I preserve my troops and do not need to replace them. But with so many rescources it wouldn't hurt to act as if my troops are penal troops.

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Heros.

How does everyone feel about the heros? I think they are nice, good enough, though I haven't really used them that much (in multiplayer I could see it being more important).

I kind of like how Dawn of War 2 and Age of Empires 3 portray the heros. Heroes will not die (no sure how it exactly works with Dawn of War 2 - don't have the game, but I have seen you need to revive them) but will become wounded.

I also personally prefer generic heroes for regular play and real heroes for scenarios but that's just me. (The generic heroes would basicly be the real heroes, same stats, same traits and almost the same look) But I'm not bothered by it or anything. So I don't care that much.

And I can understand people really wanting to play Hannibal or Alexander the Great in a multiplayer match.

[niektb]

I think we could learn a great deal from Pyro Studio's (also known from Commando) in terms of tactical combat. A repack from this game + extra mods can be found here:

http://www.moddb.com...mods-complex-17

I could make one, and the little bees (black dots I assume). Empire Earth (1) had flies too, but I haven't got Empire Earth anymore for reference. But it would need animations right?

Did anyone need Empire Earth?? (I've got EE1+expansion as well as EE2)

Edited July 23, 2013 by niektb