Citizens could be unemployed soon

[Juan Sebastián Gómez]

Hi guys. I'm a big fan of AOE and AOM and I've been playing 0AD for a couple of months. It's a very good game.

However, I don't like the idea of having citizens and citizen soldiers. When I started to play 0AD with some friends, we all used citizens to recollect resources, and soldiers to attack. This way we had to be smart and careful when creating them because we knew economy depended on citizens and militar power on soldiers. We also had to look for a way to protect citizens and farm fields, maybe by building some walls and towers near them or just by puting some soldiers to watch the path. Fears was a constant. The last thing you wanted to see was some enemy soldiers raiding your citizens.

But one day, it ocurred to me to only use citizens soldiers and forget about citizens. It made me stronger than my opponents. I could attack them faster, and better yet, I didn't have to take care of my citizens because citizen soldiers could take care of themselves. So every time my enemy tried to raid my farm fields or wood, stone and metal gathering groups, he realized that those woorkers were actually professional soldiers. After a short while, my friends were obliged to use the same strategy since it was more effective. They all started to put aside tradicional citizens and to only use citizen soldiers. It's true that citizens are a little bit better than citizen soldiers at gathering resourses, but we have realized that it is much more practical and safe to only create citizens soldiers during the game.

My friends and I really miss the traditional system of having citizens and soldiers. We believe this is one of the pillar of Real Time Strategy Games. What do you think?

Hola muchachos. Soy un gran admirador de Age of Empires y Age of Mythology. He estado jugando 0AD los últimos meses y creo que es un muy buen juego.

Sin embargo, no me gusta la idea de tener "Ciudadanos" y "Ciudadanos guerreros". Sucede que cuando comenzamos a jugar 0AD, tanto mis amigos como yo usábamos "Ciudadanos" para recolectar recursos y "Ciudadanos guerreros" para atacar. Este método nos obligaba a ser inteligentes y equilibrados al momento de crearlos, pues sabíamos que la economía dependía de los unos y el poder militar de los otros. Ademas, teníamos que buscar la manera de proteger los "Ciudadanos" y los campos que cultivaban. Para eso construíamos torres, murallas o cubríamos el paso con "Ciudadanos soldados". El miedo era constante. Lo ultimo que querías era que un grupo de soldados entrara a la ciudad y empezara a atacar a tus "ciudadanos".

Un día, se me ocurrió una excelente idea: Usar solo "Ciudadanos guerreros" y olvidarme de los "Ciudadanos" convencionales. Esto me dio una gran superioridad sobre mis rivales. Podía atacar mas rápido y ya no tenía que preocuparme por cuidar a mis "Ciudadanos", pues los "Ciudadanos guerreros" se defendían solos. Siempre que mi enemigo intentaba atacar mis cultivos o campamentos de recolección de madera, metal y piedra, se encontraba con que mis trabajadores era guerreros profesionales. Pronto, todos mis amigos se vieron forzados a usar la misma estrategia, pues esta resultaba mas eficaz. Todos fueron dejando de lado a los tradicionales "Ciudadanos" y empezaron a jugar solo con "Ciudadanos guerreros". Es cierto que los "Ciudadanos" recolectan recursos un poco más rápido que los guerreros, pero nosotros hemos comprobado que es mucho mas práctico y seguro usar solo guerreros.

Mis amigos y yo extrañamos el antiguo método en el que había que tener ciudadanos y soldados, pues creemos que es uno de los pilares de los juegos de estrategia. ¿Qué piensan ustedes?

[Unarmed]

I really like the system actually. Maybe it can be futher improved, but I have no idea how.

Maybe when you are used so much to AOE and AOM it takes time to get used to?

The only thing I don't like is seeing a army carrying wood when it attacks me. I'm not bothered by citizen soldiers visually changing in citizen and soldiers.

[Sighvatr]

It still does have the traditional system in-game. Elite troops can not collect resources, but they kill off civilian soldiers pretty quickly. Also it is irritating in AoE games to have to kill off civilians in order to produce more soldiers, so why not have civilian-soldiers?

There are bonuses to producing females over males. They gather more food quickly than males do, and they only cost food. In a multiplayer game, it is necessary to keep producing gatherers, so females help in the beginning if you run out of wood, stone, or metal to create civilian-soldiers.

[Lion.Kanzen]

Delete it please.

Edited July 7, 2013 by Lion.Kanzen

[Unarmed]

The topic I'm concerning a specialization of villagers, to do more warfare tactics , like spy, diplomatic, hunter, assasin. I mean a upgrade when you don't need your regular units. We are evading micromanagement , but this gives other kind strategy.

The Hunter creates traps. Gives bonus from wild animals, use animal to attack enemy. Can use decoys to attract enemy.

Spy female or male , enter into enemy territory, gather intelligence, may be shows tech tree, and what units are trained, bribes units, and can open gate, if there are not units in LOS .

Assasin kills with poisons, good to regicide. Detect spy and kill them.

engineer, create special units against siege, fireraiser, build onager, can construct ladder, rep aren't bonus but decreases the stone faster. Construct machines in order to destroy ships.

Hunters were not special in Ancient times, citizen hunted and soldiers hunted but not "full-time". Only true hunter-gatherers had hunters.

I like the idea of spies. But I would merge assassins and spies personally. Look how Seven Kingdoms 1 & 2 did spies, it was awesome (but not sure if it is do-able for 0 A.D.)

I think, I'm not sure, Seven Kingdoms 2 which I'm playing now, even had false flag operations, so when your spies get caught it looks like someone else had the spy.

Siege engineers were very important in Ancient and Medieval times. I'm not sold yet on the idea though.

[NoMolester]

Instead of siege engines you could create only engineers with the capability of "evolving" (building) siege machines, like the trebuchets in aok, but instead of just becoming a trebuchet, they can choose to become a ram or a siege tower or a ballista depending on the situation, that'll give the gameplay more flexibility. And when they are finish, de-build the siege machine and become engineers again.

They can be like two guys on a cart carrying a bunch of wood , perhaps a bull pulling the cart.

Edited July 6, 2013 by NoMolester

[Lion.Kanzen]

delete it.

Edited July 7, 2013 by Lion.Kanzen

[Unarmed]

But the people who designed the siege engines (and build the prototype), and build them (using the design) were not the same. I would think am sure siege engineers were way too valuable to deploy in combat! I made a project for school about siege engines (I suck at building them), and siege engineers were very valuable in the Middle Ages. The siege engine designs were top secret!

EDIT: Removed, see suggestions thread.

Edited July 6, 2013 by Unarmed

[Juan Sebastián Gómez]

Well, apparently it's almost impossible to talk about the main topic. Thanks Unarmed and Lion.Kanzen for your comments.

You are everywhere in the forum. Do you guys get paid for writthing anything? Really.

[sanderd17]

The change is quite small, in the game data, look for simulation/templates and a infantry xml file, open the file in a text editor, and delete the ResourceGatherer part. maybe you need to change some other files the same way. But as it's one of the main features of the game, it most likely won't change. But you see it's very easy to create a mod that does this.

[Unarmed]

Well, apparently it's almost impossible to talk about the main topic. Thanks Unarmed and Lion.Kanzen for your comments.

You are everywhere in the forum. Do you guys get paid for writthing anything? Really.

I'm sorry for going off-topic, I will remove my off-topic stuff.

It's however little effort to ask so politely. You don't have to say it like that...

[Lion.Kanzen]

If you don't like a main features of the game you can change it, its simple. Go to mod forum. Thank I can do better in the future, and i want you forgive me, please.

And check this.

this. http://play0ad.com/5-working-with-units/

Pd: have nice day .

Edited July 7, 2013 by Lion.Kanzen

[Enrique]

Hola Juan!

Respecto al tema principal... yo pensaba como tú. De hecho, cuando jugaba multiplayer, sólo creaba citizen-soldiers para la economía ya que pensé exactamente con el mismo razonamiento de tu primer post.

Resulta que después de jugar unas cuantas partidas y que me funcionase el sistema de sólo crear citizen-soldiers, los desarrolladores tuvimos una charla sobre la aparente inutilidad de los ciudadanos que sólo recolectan/construyen (ciudadanas en este caso ) Así que se les dio un bonus de recolección (sobre todo alimento) para equilibrar y que fueran algo más útiles. Yo seguí con mi estrategia de hacer sólo soldados después de este cambio, y cuando jugué contra alpha123 y quantumstate (los mejores jugadores de 0AD contra los que he jugado) me reventaron usando principalmente mujeres para la recolección. Evidentemente, vi que después del cambio la manera de jugar había cambiado completamente. Ganas más recursos al empezar la partida creando ciudadanas, pero te arriesgas a que te puedan rushear al principio del juego y no poder defenderte adecuadamente. El truco está en encontrar el equilibrio entre ambos y empezar en el early-game con más ciudadanas que soldados para ayudar a tu economía a crecer antes.

A mí personalmente me parece novedosa la idea de tener citizen-soldiers que puedan recolectar/construir y pelear. También ten en cuenta que contra más luchan los citizen-soldiers y suben de rango, pelean mejor, pero recolectan peor los recursos. Esto no significa que no estemos abiertos a sugerencias para hacer más interesante el sistema

Para finalizar te recomiendo experimentar usando muchas ciudadanas en el early-game si sabes que tus enemigos se van a centrar en citizen-soldiers y compruebes la ventaja inicial que tendrás en la economía respecto a tus adversarios. Dicho esto también te invito a pasarte por el canal de IRC #0ad para quedar algún día para echar una partida, hace mucho que no juego y probablemente estaré algo oxidado pero prometo que plantaré algo de resistencia

Saludos

Hello Juan!

Regarding your first post... I used to play just like you. In fact, when I played multiplayer I only trained citizen-soldiers to work in the economy because I used the same logic as you do in your first post.

After playing several matches with this system (and working out for me) the devs had a chat about the barely-usefulness of normal citizens so it was decided to give them a boost recollecting (food mostly) and improve their meaning in the game. I continued with my strategy of training citizen-soldiers-only after this change, and when I played alpha123 and quantumstate (the best 0AD players I know) they destroyed me using almost females-only for economic tasks. That was a clear demonstration for me that normal citizens became much more important in the game after the change. You build your economy much faster with females-only in the early game, but you leave yourself open for early rush without soldiers to defend yourself. The trick is to find the equilibrium and play the early-game with mostly females to build up quickly.

Personally, I like the idea of citizen-soldiers that can build/recolect as well as normal citizens. Also keep in mind that the more the citizen-soldiers fight and rank up, the worse they make economy tasks. This doesn't mean we're not open to suggestions to make the system more interesting.

To conclude, I suggest to experiment to use a lot of females in the early-game if you know that your opponents are going to focus in citizen-soldiers and check the initial economy advantage that you'll get. I also invite you to joint on #0ad IRC channel to play someday a match, it has been a lot of time since I played a match, but I promise I'll resist to lose quickly

[Juan Sebastián Gómez]

Thank you so much Enrique for your answer and for sharing your experience with me. Judging by what you say, playing only with citizen soldiers isn't a infallible strategy after all. But that's good. Players should feel the need to use conventional citizens as well as citizen soldiers. By the way, Have you guys thought of the possibility of reducing citizen creation time. This, together with the gathering bonus, would give citizens a good advantage over citizen soldiers. It's just an idea anyway. Thanks Enrique for your invitation to join the 0AD IRC channel. I'll keep it in mind.

Muchas gracias Enrique por tu respuesta y por compartir conmigo tu experiencia. Por lo que me comentas esta estrategia de solo crear "Ciudadanos-Guerreros" no es infalible después de todo. Y eso me parece bien. La idea es que aunque existan estos "Ciudadanos-Guerreos" los jugadores vean la necesidad de seguir usando los ciudadanos convencionales. A propósito ¿Han pensado en disminuir un poquito el tiempo de creación de los "Ciudadanos"? Esto junto con el bono de recolección les daría un poco de preferencia sobre los "Ciudadanos-Guerreros". En fin, es solo una idea. Gracias también por la invitación al canal. Voy a tenerla en cuenta.

Edited July 8, 2013 by Juan Sebastián Gómez