Suggestions for 0 A.D.

[chrstgtr]

8 hours ago, real_tabasco_sauce said:

Yes, there are already some units like this.

An example is the gaul fanatic unit. It only costs food and wood and is very fast, but they are weak and train from temples. I think it would be nice to start introducing some 'unique' champions.

Agree. There are already units like this. But I'd really like to get away from the "introduce a new unique unit" for each civ as a means of differentiating. Playing the same with every civ until you spam one, unique unit for that civ at min 15 is a pretty boring meta.

Now, if the unique unit creates a unique build order, like free champs, siege, or something then that's a different story. 

I would just like to see civs play more differently than each other. 

Edited July 14, 2023 by chrstgtr

[real_tabasco_sauce]

yeah, I think they should be unique in various ways. Ive just put together some cool ideas for the nomads civs in terra magna but there is still plenty of missing art for those civs.

[chrstgtr]

1 hour ago, real_tabasco_sauce said:

yeah, I think they should be unique in various ways. Ive just put together some cool ideas for the nomads civs in terra magna but there is still plenty of missing art for those civs.

yeah, i'm not worried about nomads--those should be pretty unique by virtue of being nomadic. 

[Ferib]

Hello, I am fan of RTS - especially historical ones, so I thought that it would be good to remake the whole thing and make it like Age of Empires - mainly a gradual development tree, while it is a certain possibility of choosing factions based on historical development (e.g. ancient Egypt to the Ptolemies).
and I can imagine like this, or at least in my mind I have concepts for creating games, or 1 completely game through all periods of the so-called of human history, or history of civilization ;)

[Barcodes]

This thread is as old as me wtf

[Joe-Lay]

On 12/07/2023 at 3:47 PM, real_tabasco_sauce said:

What do ppl think about mercenary champions?

I think it might be neat if you could upgrade the standard mercernary citizen-soldiers into full-blown champions. A special building or an additional barracks functionality could be a technology that upgrades all the garrisonned mercenaries into champions. The only downside I can think of is that it might be overpowered and it wouldn't make sense to upgrade mercenaries but not native citizen soldiers up to champions.

[Emacz]

It really bothers me that if someone attacks a single unit on the woodline (or anywhere) the remaining units continue working as if nothing happend.  One suggestion i heard was control groups, which i use!  So a more specific example would be if Im attacking the opponent and they send a counter attack to my woodline, they can pick the women off 1 by one and the men continue to chop.  I dont know im being attacked, because Im attacking/being attacked at their base.  So the idea would be that when set in agressive stance they will stop what they are doing and fight within X distance of each other.  So if one unit gets attacked woodline other units within X would fight alongside.  Does that make sense? is it possible?

[krt0143]

On 19/08/2023 at 12:45 AM, Emacz said:

It really bothers me that if someone attacks a single unit on the woodline (or anywhere) the remaining units continue working as if nothing happend.  One suggestion i heard was control groups, which i use!  So a more specific example would be if Im attacking the opponent and they send a counter attack to my woodline, they can pick the women off 1 by one and the men continue to chop.  I dont know im being attacked, because Im attacking/being attacked at their base.  So the idea would be that when set in agressive stance they will stop what they are doing and fight within X distance of each other.  So if one unit gets attacked woodline other units within X would fight alongside.  Does that make sense? is it possible?

Definitely, and that's a pet peeve of mine too. When working, you can hack them to pieces, they won't react, so you need to constantly babysit them and tell them there is somebody killing them, do something already!

Given in 0 A.D. workers are soldiers, they should react if somebody gets attacked in they immediate vicinity, fight, and then only go back to whatever they were doing.

[alre]

2 hours ago, krt0143 said:

Definitely, and that's a pet peeve of mine too. When working, you can hack them to pieces, they won't react, so you need to constantly babysit them and tell them there is somebody killing them, do something already!

Given in 0 A.D. workers are soldiers, they should react if somebody gets attacked in they immediate vicinity, fight, and then only go back to whatever they were doing.

that isn't necessarily better than doing nothing. It could lead to mass suicide. Fleeing looks like a much better default to me. In the end the player needs to handle it anyway.

[Gurken Khan]

7 minutes ago, alre said:

Fleeing looks like a much better default to me.

Mmm. That can lead to a unit slowly being killed without dishing out retribution; it's not like they're fleeing into a secure building. I usually have my CS on aggressive, but that also depends on what work they're doing and at what point of the map they are.

But I agree that the player should handle it. Besides the text warning there's also the flashing on the minimap, one should look at that frequently imho.

[alre]

47 minutes ago, Gurken Khan said:

Mmm. That can lead to a unit slowly being killed without dishing out retribution; it's not like they're fleeing into a secure building. I usually have my CS on aggressive, but that also depends on what work they're doing and at what point of the map they are.

But I agree that the player should handle it. Besides the text warning there's also the flashing on the minimap, one should look at that frequently imho.

fleeing to a safe building would be even better, yes. I have suggested creating a command maybe called "find shelter" that makes the selection run to the nearest building that can host them, I hadn't thought about making it automatic with a stance though.

Excluding this option (I'm not creating it) I'd be happy if units were passive by default, and switched automatically to aggressive when first given a command for attacking. Maybe this mod I can create.

[krt0143]

1 hour ago, alre said:

that isn't necessarily better than doing nothing. It could lead to mass suicide. Fleeing looks like a much better default to me.

It depends: If your working units are fighting units, it's just another fight, much like if they were standing around.

If they are not fighting units, they should take shelter, running away is pointless.

[krt0143]

7 minutes ago, alre said:

 if units were passive by default, and switched automatically to aggressive when first given a command for attacking.

What for? When given a command to attack they always attack, no matter what stance they're in. I don't understand.

The point here was more about being able to quit an assigned job automatically when/if a friend nearby starts taking damage.

[alre]

41 minutes ago, krt0143 said:

It depends: If your working units are fighting units, it's just another fight, much like if they were standing around.

I'm not considering units standing around simply because units shouldn't generally stand around, but in fact, whenever I've left some unit standing as a sentinel, I put him on passive.

[alre]

38 minutes ago, krt0143 said:

What for? When given a command to attack they always attack, no matter what stance they're in. I don't understand.

they don't if they are on passive stance.

38 minutes ago, krt0143 said:

The point here was more about being able to quit an assigned job automatically when/if a friend nearby starts taking damage.

I think that would be bad and potentially exploitable by your enemy, think about how archer cav would be a lot more effective at disrupting eco. It's almost always better to delay the fight as much as possible.

[krt0143]

13 hours ago, alre said:

they don't if they are on passive stance.

I see.

 

13 hours ago, alre said:

think about how archer cav would be a lot more effective at disrupting eco.

More effective? Are you sure? (Genuine question, not rhetorical)
As it is now they will just kill your units one by one, which also disrupts your economy, through lost work + those units' cost in resources and training time.

(I admit I'm new to 0 A.D., but I'm a veteran in AoE, where this strategy is terribly efficient against the AI)

[krt0143]

New suggestion, and IMHO a quite important one:

Please show the group number on grouped units! (as a tiny floating number?)
In the map view, and/or (at very least) on the portrait when selected.

Quick example: I have 3 cavalry scouts I've hotkeyed as Ctrl-8, 9 and 0. When I see one on the map, I'd like to know on a glance which one it is, and not have to push 8, 9 and 0 to see which key (if any) selects it... I've been using groups a lot, for years, and without displaying the individual memberships on the screen they lose half of their interest (you can't use them to easily keep apart different task groups of identical units).

[krt0143]

A couple minimap suggestions. The 0 A.D. minimap can easily be improved:

1. Please highlight the selected unit(s) on the minimap (in white) so you can see where they are.

2. Minimap visibility is not optimal, especially given the player is in dark blue and thus tend to blend into the background. Would it be possible to mute (de-saturate?) the minimap background, so that important features (units, buildings) stick out more?

3. Or even create a set of display filters for the minimap, like "Show only units/buildings on a gray background", "show only friends/enemies", "show only resources".

 

[alre]

24 minutes ago, krt0143 said:

A couple minimap suggestions. The 0 A.D. minimap can easily be improved:

1. Please highlight the selected unit(s) on the minimap (in white) so you can see where they are.

2. Minimap visibility is not optimal, especially given the player is in dark blue and thus tend to blend into the background. Would it be possible to mute (de-saturate?) the minimap background, so that important features (units, buildings) stick out more?

3. Or even create a set of display filters for the minimap, like "Show only units/buildings on a gray background", "show only friends/enemies", "show only resources".

try BoonGui mod, it enlarges the minimap and changes players colors.

47 minutes ago, krt0143 said:

(I admit I'm new to 0 A.D., but I'm a veteran in AoE, where this strategy is terribly efficient against the AI)

these games are very different in the way eco is managed by units that are also fighters.

[Gurken Khan]

28 minutes ago, krt0143 said:

the player is in dark blue

You can change the players' colors in the match setup.

[krt0143]

Just now, Gurken Khan said:

You can change the players' colors in the match setup.

Yes, I know, but that doesn't really solve the problem, it just moves it.

Slightly muting the minimap background would solve it once for all, and it's quite easy to do too.

 

[krt0143]

Oops, missed your post.

 

22 minutes ago, alre said:

try BoonGui mod, it enlarges the minimap and changes players colors.

these games are very different in the way eco is managed by units that are also fighters.

Sure, but why not make it a standard game feature? I mean, everything can be added externally, but the game should be self-sufficient.

As for the economy, except the excellent idea to drop the specialized male peasants, there is IMHO not much difference. It still boils down to controlling/harvesting specific resources and preventing the adversary from doing so. 

[alre]

20 minutes ago, krt0143 said:

Sure, but why not make it a standard game feature? I mean, everything can be added externally, but the game should be self-sufficient.

this is a question of organization of the game development and it's not a simple subject, ideally you a right, but suffice it to say that the main releases of the games are actually on a halt right now.

22 minutes ago, krt0143 said:

As for the economy, except the excellent idea to drop the specialized male peasants, there is IMHO not much difference. It still boils down to controlling/harvesting specific resources and preventing the adversary from doing so. 

well, in AoE there is no harm to use your soldiers in any other way than let them kill themselves, in 0AD you want them to do eco rather than chase enemies they can't catch. By simply having them distracted, you are lagging behind in economy.

[krt0143]

26 minutes ago, alre said:

suffice it to say that the main releases of the games are actually on a halt right now.

All right, that's a piece of information I didn't have.
I saw RC27 was released and thought the development process is ongoing (albeit very slow, as usually for that kind of project).

A pity, this game is great. Needs just some polishing, there are just some rough edges remaining. You people are most likely used to them by now (and know how to bypass them), but they are obvious to a newcomer like me.

[Emacz]

On 07/09/2023 at 11:22 AM, alre said:

that isn't necessarily better than doing nothing. It could lead to mass suicide. Fleeing looks like a much better default to me. In the end the player needs to handle it anyway.

if it's their whole army you should probably be aware and then you retreat until you gather more.  So maybe its part of the aggressive stance and YOU can CHOOSE which to use  something though where if they send a small raiding party and you are attacking their base and dont realize the alerts "you are being attacked" are from your base, the men in X area can work together to fight/chase up to x distance.