Suggestions for 0 A.D.

[asterix]

4 minutes ago, Sundiata said:

I think it would be nice for each civ to have a specialized economic building to reflect the most important/iconic produce/export-item for each particular culture, and have this tied to an infinite coin trickle when "garrisoned", much like farming (farming coin). Think of Age of Empires III (e.g. bank, plantation). These economic buildings could be a pre-requisite for trade, or just provide a simple bonus. Coin would be used to pay mercenaries and bribes, research some techs and even build a wonder. The nuance in unit costs would be welcome, offers various strategies to play and win (economic finesse vs military domination), and the importance of the use of coin would depend on the civ (some civs are more mercantile than others). These specialized economic buildings could be things like plantations producing cash crops like cotton, or vineyards producing wine. The number of specialized economic structures you can build should be capped. 

Aside from coin, I love the idea behind the "glory" resource in Delenda Est, and would love to see it in vanilla, and have it tied to the morale of units. For vanilla, it could be called "Honour and Glory", and could be derived from building civ-specific statues and monuments, worshipping priests, battle-kills, size of territory, having lots of coin, and could be negatively affected by deaths (including "self-inflicted" cullings), loss of monuments, loss of territory, being broke, betraying allies... It could be a "percentage" (or a bar), and everything above 50% will increase the attack of all your units incrementally till it reaches (the very hard to reach) 100%. Anything under 50% would reduce attack incrementally till it reaches 0%, at which point your in-combat units are prompted to flee battle, and turn to gaia units, doomed to roam the map as stateless exiles... 

I agee on all points, I would like to see that too and also this if someone can work on it 

 

[macemen]

8 hours ago, Sundiata said:

Aside from coin, I love the idea behind the "glory" resource in Delenda Est, and would love to see it in vanilla, and have it tied to the morale of units. For vanilla, it could be called "Honour and Glory", and could be derived from building civ-specific statues and monuments, worshipping priests, battle-kills, size of territory, having lots of coin, and could be negatively affected by deaths (including "self-inflicted" cullings), loss of monuments, loss of territory, being broke, betraying allies... It could be a "percentage" (or a bar), and everything above 50% will increase the attack of all your units incrementally till it reaches (the very hard to reach) 100%. Anything under 50% would reduce attack incrementally till it reaches 0%, at which point your in-combat units are prompted to flee battle, and turn to gaia units, doomed to roam the map as stateless exiles...

Won't that cause the strong to be even stronger and the weak to be even weaker? Imagine that one of your outer bases was ambushed and the local workforce and garrison slaughtered. Your enemy will now also have the benefit of high morale, while you, in addition to having to quickly restore your army, also have to deal with poor morale due to lost territory, buildings and units.

[Sundiata]

9 hours ago, macemen said:

Won't that cause the strong to be even stronger and the weak to be even weaker? Imagine that one of your outer bases was ambushed and the local workforce and garrison slaughtered. Your enemy will now also have the benefit of high morale, while you, in addition to having to quickly restore your army, also have to deal with poor morale due to lost territory, buildings and units.

In a way, yes... That would be the point... Beautifully historical, how battle-field losses, loss of territory and failure to protect your citizens and maintain your border affects the honor/glory/morale of your civilization and its fighters...

More than that though, it offers different routes to victory. If you've invested heavily in honor and glory by building monuments and tasked priests to worship at them, a few minor losses on your periphery aren't going to be the deciding factor. If your enemy has invested everything in a large/cheap army and attacks you with low honor and glory, he might be surprised by the outcome of battle when he meets your main force of highly motivated fighters. 

It would require some considerable balancing efforts, but along with the introduction of "coin" and an actual, albeit simple economy, the point would be to offer much more divergent types of gameplay, with different civs having different accents. You could go for sheer military force/numbers/militaristic state (currently the only real strategy), or you could go for economic boom (becoming so rich, that you can easily train champions and recruit mercenaries, bribe enemy forces with low morale etc, research lots of techs, slaves), or you could go for honor and glory (building glorious monuments to the gods, blessings of the priests inspiring your troops with an unstoppable religious zeal, un-bribable, workers work hard for the glory of the gods and king). In reality you'd be making use of all three, but it's up to you to decide what you choose to emphasize.   

 

I've noticed that especially multiplayers are wary of anything that might cause a snowball effect, but the same players usually don't want long drawn-out matches either. Very understandable, but also somewhat conflicting. This combination leads to shallow/stale gameplay that focusses on Actions Per Minute and almost neurotic levels of microing. Real strategy is missing, and tactics are reduced to how well you master hotkeys... I would like to see more in-depth strategy and divergent gameplay options, which will lead to much more unpredictable outcomes, which makes the game way more interesting. Delenda Est goes a long way to illustrate how more in-depth mechanics aren't only possible, but really fun, popular/in-demand, desirable...  

Balance will always be an important question to address, but I don't believe it should be used to shun more in depth and varied mechanics. There are so many wonderful and unique civs in this game, but their differences are mostly cosmetic. There is so much potential and so much material to work with to create a far more engaging and in-depth game, that is far less linear, with a game progression that is far more divergent, unpredictable, and therefore interesting.

Edited August 2, 2018 by Sundiata

[Sundiata]

The 4 resources thing is mostly an archaic holdover from a time when computers (and games) were a lot simpler. People today are used to playing a lot more complicated strategy games with crazy amounts of options and possibilities. I understand that 0AD isn't a city-builder, a management game or a battle simulator, and shouldn't try to be so either, BUT, that doesn't mean that we should be hesitant to think outside the box, and borrow those elements from comparable genres that might add significant value to 0AD's gameplay without betraying the original game-design, which is actually far more in-depth than the game currently is and explicitly states that 0AD shouldn't become a clicking competition, but have varied ways to attain victory. 

The thing is, it's not 1999 anymore, and most of us aren't 11-year olds. Most gamers want options, in-depth strategy, tactical options that are more than who clicks faster. With regard to base(town)building games (like 0AD), many people today want a large variety in buildings, organic looks (natural diversity), the ability to build the town to their own specifications including beautifications. Many people just like to build a beautiful city and enjoy the views while toying with the AI, and playing our own little games in the main-game, like setting personal objectives like, "take that hill and build a city on it for no reason whatsoever"...  

0AD is amazing as it is, don't get me wrong! I just look at 0AD and Pyrogenesis as a platform, rather than a finished game and engine. A platform with near endless possibilities. Since the days of Age of Empires, many millions of us around the world have been dreaming and fantasising about our ideal historical RTS game, and 0AD, more than any other project in the world, has the potential to fulfill those dreams. I'd just hate to see it as a 3D, stale rebalance of a 20 year old game, but rather as a trendsetter that rewrote the classic RTS-genre. A game that gives us the sense, the feeling that we're building a capital city, with peripheral towns and villages. The feeling that we're recruiting a real army. The feeling that we're marching out our guys to glorious battle, laying siege to the enemy's walled towns, and burning it all down. There is a lack in immersion right now, and the art department has been and continues to work miracles in the visual department, but the gameplay itself sometimes brakes immersion in unfortunate ways (although I'm confident the way the project has progressed over the years that the "end product" will be amazing no matter what).

[macemen]

For me an RTS is about a very simple economy (a few resource types), quick, fully strategical base building (e.g. build houses in a circle around fields), scouting and fast reactions to the enemy's moves. Strategic depth is in how I build my economy (rush/boom) when and where I expand and what troops to train (if the enemy has paper I try to train scissors, not rocks).

What you describe above would lead to many hour long matches with everybody sitting in their bases and building monuments because nothing would motivate them to go out and attack the enemy with all they have. In my opinion a good RTS should not encourage turtling. It should reward those who take the risk and act and react fast, not the cautious ones who play safe. Otherwise the matches will never end.

Evil nitpick: how is priests blessing monuments raising morale and reducing corruption historically accurate?

Edited August 2, 2018 by macemen

[Sundiata]

36 minutes ago, macemen said:

For me an RTS is about a very simple economy (a few resource types), quick, fully strategical base building (e.g. build houses in a circle around fields), scouting and fast reactions to the enemy's moves. 

That's part of what killed the classic RTS genre in the first place. Overly simplistic, repetitive, boring after x-amount of games. Building houses in a circle around fields is not strategical base building, it's taking advantage of flawed mechanics. Why in the world would a circle of houses protect anything? Walls are for protection, but they don't really offer any good protection as it is. Pro-players don't use them, and neither does the AI... That's a bug/missing or incomplete feature. Not a quality. Building houses in circle around fields (often around the CC) is also super ugly, totally unrealistic (nobody farms in the city center) and just plain silly/immersion braking... It's a good example of what's wrong with 0AD as it is.

 

46 minutes ago, macemen said:

Strategic depth is in how I build my economy (rush/boom) when and where I expand and what troops to train (if the enemy has paper I try to train scissors, not rocks).

Chopping wood, "mining" and farming/hunting/fishing isn't an economy, it's just resource-gathering. There's no logistics, no production chain, no consumption... Its deadening simplicity is braking immersion. Sending traders back and forth with no products whatsoever isn't trade either, it's just taking a magical walk that produces stone/metal/food/wood out of thin air. Likewise, rock-paper-scissors is useful in unit balancing, but way too simple as the main parameters of a successful military strategy. I know there's more to it than that, but then we're back at neurotic microing of braindead units which only a handful of people really enjoy, and teching up as fast as possible... Many of the maps themselves also lack a certain strategical depth (partly a casualty of balance concerns), making the choice of when and where to expand less relevant than it could be (although newer maps are becoming more interesting, it's still something that could improve). 

 

1 hour ago, macemen said:

What you describe above would lead to many hour long matches with everybody sitting in their bases and building monuments because nothing would motivate them to go out and attack the enemy with all they have.

Definitely not case unless the players themselves want it to last for hours... These suggestions don't mean that balancing is thrown out the window. There would be trade-offs for everything. You could go for a well rounded approach, developing a bit of everything, but not specializing in anything, or choose to focus on a militaristic, mercantile, or fanatic religiosity or nationalist approach, which all come with their respective advantages and disadvantages. These things should remain relatively abstract choices, with a lot of potential overlap. Having more in-depth strategic choices can either prolong the game if both players are equally brilliant, or cut it short when someone makes a less than optimal decision. The point is the outcomes are far more variable and unpredictable which makes thing interesting and spicy.  

 

1 hour ago, macemen said:

In my opinion a good RTS should not encourage turtling. It should reward those who take the risk and act and react fast, not the cautious ones who play safe. Otherwise the matches will never end.

I'm unreceptive to the idea that turtling shouldn't be encouraged for defensive players, as I also think that developing formidable siege capacities should be encouraged for aggressive players. Both turtling and raiding should be viable strategies with intrinsic advantages and disadvantages. Being cautious is good common sense, and should absolutely not be penalised in favor of aggressive or impulsive/reckless players going all out the moment they reach their pop-cap. It should be balanced between the two. I can't really stand the idea that certain types of players are "discriminated" against by default. That's really wrong. It's similar to numerical superiority being frowned upon, although it's a totally legitimate strategy. Some players should be able to focus on recruiting all elite units and create a small but highly professional army while other players should be able to focus on recruiting a large mass of peasant levies that can overwhelm the enemy through sheer numbers. Both strategies should be totally viable. 

 

1 hour ago, macemen said:

Evil nitpick: how is priests blessing monuments raising morale and reducing corruption historically accurate?

? The priests don't bless the monuments, they bless the troops. They just bless them at the monuments/temples/statues, through prayer and sacrifices. Religion was kind of a big thing in the ancient world. It had a major effect on the way people thought and behaved. Troops with a strong religious fervor can outmatched better trained and better equipped troops by sheer willpower, dedication, persistence, lacking a fear of death/sense of martyrdom. When warriors feel that their fight is ordained by the gods, and victory is their divine destiny, they will outmatch otherwise equal soldiers fighting for a salary. Be it the will of the gods, or simply a religious placebo, the effects are very, very real.       

[coworotel]

3 hours ago, Sundiata said:

0AD shouldn't become a clicking competition

I have been thinking about this lately, because it is also something that bothers me, but my question is: is there a way for an RTS not to have this "problem"? I think the only way that efficient and fast clicking/acting won't decide games is if you remove time completely, but then it becomes a turn-based strategy game (like Civilization) not a real-time strategy game. The options and economy can be simpler or more complex, but in the end it is the player who can efficiently execute an algorithm who wins. Real strategy requires time to sit down, contemplate a situation and think. What RTS games really test is your reaction time, attention and speed of thinking - not only clicking, if you think fast you click fast. So maybe we shouldn't expect an amazing strategic depth from typical RTS games. I don't know...

[coworotel]

That said, I'm surprised nobody so far made a fork/mod of 0AD focused on city building. An open-source ancient historical sim city. There are a lot of people in the community that enjoy more this aspect than the military part.

[Guest]

23 minutes ago, coworotel said:

So maybe we shouldn't expect an amazing strategic depth from typical RTS games. I don't know...

IMO, not really. In any RTS game, there are both aspects. Tactics and strategies.

Tactics can be defined as things players do to take advantage of current events. For example, troop microing, wrecking the market prices when someone uses a nuclear missile ( Rise of Nation thing).

On the contrary, strategies are things done which may not necessarily have a benefit immediately. For example, expansion towards resources or defensive high ground or diplomacy in FFA games.

Whats really needed is to make both these aspects important and relevant for gameplay.

[gaius]

i also thought about all this, and made a mod out of my thinking. To make 0 A.D.more of a city-building game, i gave most civs roads, and markets and temples have also more econmic purpose.

And to make battles more interesting I decided to implement formation fighting.  One of many advantages is, that that way units can be controlled better and battles can become more tactical, f.e.. cause flanking or backstabing give a bonus.

To reduce clickling i made the game a little less paced, some buildings have infinite battailon productions, more hotkeys options, like for build buildings.

And i decided to make a batter counter system, mainly though changing armour of different units.

I also made some maps where gathering by units is totally disabled, only by building buildings resources can gathered. r only female can gather. That way all the micro can go in to military. It plays that way more like Zero-K ,AoE or The Battle for MiddleEarth.

But when the gameplay is the main concern, the realism and historic precision suffers a bit, for that isn't a problem, for others it is. 

https://0ad.mod.io/balancing-mod

[Sundiata]

@coworotel, fair remarks. Expecting an amazing strategic depth from a classical RTS like 0AD may or may not be a bit much, but we can expect it not to devolve into a clicking competition. It should at least have good strategic depth with a sensible pacing, I mean, it is called a Real Time Strategy game after all, not Tekken.  

There are many ways of managing, balancing and facilitating a greater sense of strategy through costs, train- and build-times, new and/or revamped mechanisms and far more expanded, unique and comprehensive tech trees (so expansive and incrementally expensive that you couldn't realistically research everything, forcing you to make choices). 

 

1 minute ago, coworotel said:

That said, I'm surprised nobody so far made a fork/mod of 0AD focused on city building. An open-source ancient historical sim city. There are a lot of people in the community that enjoy more this aspect than the military part.

And most historical city builders lack a good military aspect. 0AD offers both elements of historical city builders as well as historical battle simulators like Total War. 0AD can't and shouldn't become either of those, but since they're already overlapping in certain areas, I argue to "do a better job" at integrating a very simple arcade type mechanic of city builders and apply it to the base-building aspects of 0AD, and integrating a very simple arcade type mechanic of battle simulators for military aspect of 0AD. We can go more in-depth without becoming too complicated either. Basically fusing the best of both worlds in an RTS format.   

[Sundiata]

It's not so much about who thinks faster, as in any game, the quick thinker has a big advantage which is totally normal. The question is more about what is being thought about. How many, and what kind of options do you have at your disposal and which ones do you choose for the specific situation at hand?    

[astheroth]

To be honest I like the gameplay. But I think that instead to add more options ( which could put closely the game to the historic reality) the team should to focus on the improvement of the pryogenesis engine to make it powerful.

 

 

[macemen]

16 hours ago, Sundiata said:

That's part of what killed the classic RTS genre in the first place. Overly simplistic, repetitive, boring after x-amount of games. Building houses in a circle around fields is not strategical base building, it's taking advantage of flawed mechanics. Why in the world would a circle of houses protect anything? Walls are for protection, but they don't really offer any good protection as it is. Pro-players don't use them, and neither does the AI... That's a bug/missing or incomplete feature. Not a quality. Building houses in circle around fields (often around the CC) is also super ugly, totally unrealistic (nobody farms in the city center) and just plain silly/immersion braking... It's a good example of what's wrong with 0AD as it is.

I think the classic RTS genre is everything but dead, it's just fine. I don't think they are overly simplistic, repetitive or boring. It's only so if you ever play against the AI. Apparently a lot of people agree, otherwise we wouldn't see new expansions made to the most classic of the classic RTSs, AoE2.
You are right in that a circle of houses (or any other buildings) protecting something is ridiculous. If you think about it so is the fact that the CC fires missiles and there are tons of other things that don't make any sense in real life. But these things are needed to keep the game playable. You can be only so much realistic without making a game complex to the point of being completely unenjoyable and unplayable.

16 hours ago, Sundiata said:

Chopping wood, "mining" and farming/hunting/fishing isn't an economy, it's just resource-gathering. There's no logistics, no production chain, no consumption... Its deadening simplicity is braking immersion. Sending traders back and forth with no products whatsoever isn't trade either, it's just taking a magical walk that produces stone/metal/food/wood out of thin air. Likewise, rock-paper-scissors is useful in unit balancing, but way too simple as the main parameters of a successful military strategy. I know there's more to it than that, but then we're back at neurotic microing of braindead units which only a handful of people really enjoy, and teching up as fast as possible... Many of the maps themselves also lack a certain strategical depth (partly a casualty of balance concerns), making the choice of when and where to expand less relevant than it could be (although newer maps are becoming more interesting, it's still something that could improve). 

Again you are right but there is a trade-off between realisticity and simplicity that has to be made to keep the game playable. Have you played Stronghold Crusader? That has a much more realistic economy... that you end up managing in 90% of the gameplay, instead of laying awesome sieges to castles (which you might think the game is all about). It's even worse in Stronghold2 in which you spend all your time making sure the rats are not eating your people's food, that you have enough candle wax to light your temple and other equally ridiculous micromanagement that I won't list here. Who wants that in an RTS? Rhetorical question, I'm sure there are people who want just that.

16 hours ago, Sundiata said:

Definitely not case unless the players themselves want it to last for hours... These suggestions don't mean that balancing is thrown out the window. There would be trade-offs for everything. You could go for a well rounded approach, developing a bit of everything, but not specializing in anything, or choose to focus on a militaristic, mercantile, or fanatic religiosity or nationalist approach, which all come with their respective advantages and disadvantages. These things should remain relatively abstract choices, with a lot of potential overlap. Having more in-depth strategic choices can either prolong the game if both players are equally brilliant, or cut it short when someone makes a less than optimal decision. The point is the outcomes are far more variable and unpredictable which makes thing interesting and spicy.  

I'm all for spicing thing up.

16 hours ago, Sundiata said:

I'm unreceptive to the idea that turtling shouldn't be encouraged for defensive players, as I also think that developing formidable siege capacities should be encouraged for aggressive players. Both turtling and raiding should be viable strategies with intrinsic advantages and disadvantages. Being cautious is good common sense, and should absolutely not be penalised in favor of aggressive or impulsive/reckless players going all out the moment they reach their pop-cap. It should be balanced between the two. I can't really stand the idea that certain types of players are "discriminated" against by default. That's really wrong. It's similar to numerical superiority being frowned upon, although it's a totally legitimate strategy. Some players should be able to focus on recruiting all elite units and create a small but highly professional army while other players should be able to focus on recruiting a large mass of peasant levies that can overwhelm the enemy through sheer numbers. Both strategies should be totally viable. 

I'm not advertising discrimination against certain types of players or strategies. Quite the opposite, I think that games where there is a single strategy to win are boring. The point I was trying to make is that making a passive playing style overly rewarding *could* easily lead the opposite of spicy. Imagine that scouting the map and expanding could easily be avoided by just choosing certain techs and building certain buildings, without having to sacrifice anything. Wouldn't that lead to boring games? Maybe I just don't have enough imagination but I can't see how that would work well. It is not historically correct either. I can't think of a single case where isolation lead to greatness.

 

[wowgetoffyourcellphone]

1 hour ago, astheroth said:

the team should to focus on the improvement of the pryogenesis engine to make it powerful.

More powerful in what way? Be specific.

 

1 hour ago, macemen said:

Apparently a lot of people agree, otherwise we wouldn't see new expansions made to the most classic of the classic RTSs, AoE2.

That was a publisher banking on nostalgia, really.

 

Quote

I'm not advertising discrimination against certain types of players or strategies. Quite the opposite, I think that games where there is a single strategy to win are boring. The point I was trying to make is that making a passive playing style overly rewarding *could* easily lead the opposite of spicy. Imagine that scouting the map and expanding could easily be avoided by just choosing certain techs and building certain buildings, without having to sacrifice anything. Wouldn't that lead to boring games? Maybe I just don't have enough imagination but I can't see how that would work well. It is not historically correct either. I can't think of a single case where isolation lead to greatness.

Sure, but first we must make defensive strategies rewarding at all before one can look for ways to balance them. Right now, in the core game, turtling strategies or defensive strategies in general are seriously hampered.

Edited August 3, 2018 by wowgetoffyourcellphone

[coworotel]

1 hour ago, macemen said:

Have you played Stronghold Crusader? That has a much more realistic economy... that you end up managing in 90% of the gameplay, instead of laying awesome sieges to castles (which you might think the game is all about). It's even worse in Stronghold2 in which you spend all your time making sure the rats are not eating your people's food, that you have enough candle wax to light your temple and other equally ridiculous micromanagement that I won't list here. Who wants that in an RTS? Rhetorical question, I'm sure there are people who want just that.

I'm interested XD

1 hour ago, macemen said:

You are right in that a circle of houses (or any other buildings) protecting something is ridiculous.

I think this is a problem because it kills the purpose of walls, but it is very easy to fix: just set a minimum space between buildings (more or less like is already done for towers but for all buildings).

 

8 minutes ago, wowgetoffyourcellphone said:

More powerful in what way? Be specific.

I guess he meant that instead of, e.g. implementing 50 different resources in the game, make it possible for a mod to do so if they wish.

[Guest]

Am I the only one who thinks houses are OP? They are almost impossible to destroy early game, and a pain even in late game unless you have siege.

This is also amplified by the fact that garrison loyalty of 5 women makes it impossible to be converted by 10 horsemen(atleast I think).

Are houses really that strongly built and defended?

Edited August 3, 2018 by Guest

[Sundiata]

3 hours ago, macemen said:

I think the classic RTS genre is everything but dead, it's just fine.

It's really not doing fine. FPS and RPG have become totally dominant in the market, with RTS being relegated to a niche market of nostalgiacs. Sure, there's millions of us, but there's more than a billion gamers in the world... RTS is definitely making a comeback of sorts, partially thanks to the AoE announcements and a slew of new RTS games that came out recently, but good (historical) RTS games are still just a drop in the ocean. 

Totally suggestive google search results:

Spoiler

 

3 hours ago, wowgetoffyourcellphone said:

4 hours ago, macemen said:

Apparently a lot of people agree, otherwise we wouldn't see new expansions made to the most classic of the classic RTSs, AoE2.

That was a publisher banking on nostalgia, really.

He said it...

 

4 hours ago, macemen said:

I don't think they are overly simplistic, repetitive or boring. It's only so if you ever play against the AI

This is one the things that lies at the crux of the matter. There are more than a million total downloads of 0AD and recent alpha releases are hitting hundred thousand+ downloads if I'm not mistaken... At any given time there are not more 200 people in the multiplayer lobby (if that), and I'd be surprised if more than a few thousand people play 0AD online. That means that the vast majority of players are playing Single Player against the AI... This is an important fact to keep in mind when thinking about 0AD's player base. Online players are simply way more vocal, by definition, because they're online more often, they're more active in development, on the forum and other platforms pertaining to 0AD. There is a large, silent majority, that enjoys a totally different way of playing and experiencing the game than the hectic, fast-paced (sometimes stressful) MP-games. A lot of people play games to relax (one of the reasons why the passive AI was so important) and enjoy the details. The MP dudes don't even use the zoom function... Camera is always the same angle... Laugh at the sight of players building an esthetic and organic looking town... Play at low graphic settings because frames per second are more important... Don't see anything wrong with "house-walls" or building more barracks than they have houses. Of course I'm generalizing here, and I enjoy a good MP-game myself, but MP and SP are two different worlds, and MP-concerns have gone at the expensive of the SP-experience. Many people want more variety than can be had from obsessive compulsive 30 minute clicking competitions. Normally, MP-player is a derivative from SP, but with 0AD, it's become the other way around, and that's problematic for a number of reasons, especially with regards to fleshing out the gameplay. There's also a lack of interconnectedness between the different game-mechanics, but again, Delenda Est is going a long way at creating a more harmonious and integrated whole (but that's a different discussion). 

 

4 hours ago, macemen said:

You are right in that a circle of houses (or any other buildings) protecting something is ridiculous. If you think about it so is the fact that the CC fires missiles and there are tons of other things that don't make any sense in real life. But these things are needed to keep the game playable. You can be only so much realistic without making a game complex to the point of being completely unenjoyable and unplayable.

Of course, there are many conventions in classic RTS that are simply "necessary", but many are also just that. 20 year old conventions contrived in an era of simpler computers and simpler games (and gamers). Times have changed, and adding depth to a game doesn't need to make things convoluted unless it's done without finesse, nuance, common sense and rigorous testing.

Spoiler

 

I get the distinct impression that a lot of people imagine adding/removing/redesigning features in 0AD would go something like:

I think we shouldn't be scared to try new things. We should be brave, and as long as we are diligent and meticulous, we won't end up a self destructing washing machine...

 

4 hours ago, macemen said:

Again you are right but there is a trade-off between realisticity and simplicity that has to be made to keep the game playable. Have you played Stronghold Crusader? That has a much more realistic economy... that you end up managing in 90% of the gameplay, instead of laying awesome sieges to castles (which you might think the game is all about). It's even worse in Stronghold2 in which you spend all your time making sure the rats are not eating your people's food, that you have enough candle wax to light your temple and other equally ridiculous micromanagement that I won't list here. Who wants that in an RTS? Rhetorical question, I'm sure there are people who want just that.

Some people like that, but I agree it would be totally ridiculous to have to focus on something like your stores of candle wax in 0AD. That's not what I want either (nobody expects that level economy microing in 0AD). But there should be something of an economy... Even Age of Empires III (2005) had neutral traders spawning at the edge of the map, passing your outposts and exiting at the other end of the map, so you at least have the feeling that resources aren't appearing out of thin air, and the feeling that you're exchanging something with an outside actor that's not your own. Having something of a civilian economy (be it a simple one) would really add immersion, and make you feel you really have something worth defending. 

 

4 hours ago, macemen said:

I'm not advertising discrimination against certain types of players or strategies. Quite the opposite, I think that games where there is a single strategy to win are boring. The point I was trying to make is that making a passive playing style overly rewarding *could* easily lead the opposite of spicy. Imagine that scouting the map and expanding could easily be avoided by just choosing certain techs and building certain buildings, without having to sacrifice anything. Wouldn't that lead to boring games?

"passive playing style" will get you wiped of the map pretty quickly, as it should be. I'm not talking about passive, I'm talking about defensive/non-agressive/calculated/diplomatic. There's many ways of winning wars. Brute force hardly ever cuts it. There's always trade-off for the choices you make, or as you say, sacrifices. Your remark has more to do with balance, which depend on parameters that can be changed, than the potential quality of new or re-designed features.  

 

5 hours ago, macemen said:

Maybe I just don't have enough imagination but I can't see how that would work well. 

I admit that some imagination is necessary to understand the points I'm making. They are a bit abstract. But it's often the things you don't consciously notice that make a game very enjoyable to your subconscious. A natural, intuitive, immersive and harmonious gameplay are fundamental to a rich gaming-experience. 0AD has come a long way, but isn't quite there yet. 

 

5 hours ago, macemen said:

It is not historically correct either. I can't think of a single case where isolation lead to greatness.

Sure, isolation is generally speaking bad, but I'm talking about effective defences and smart diplomatic maneuvering, not cutting yourself of from resources or trade.  

 

1 hour ago, (-_-) said:

Am I the only one who thinks houses are OP? They are almost impossible to destroy early game, and a pain even in late game unless you have siege.

This is also amplified by the fact that garrison loyalty of 5 women makes it impossible to be converted by 10 horsemen(atleast I think).

Are houses really that strongly built and defended?

I agree, common houses were generally not that strong. They also have doors and windows that can be easily broken through. And lots of wood/thatch/fabrics that easily burn.

[Guest]

3 minutes ago, Sundiata said:

Even Age of Empires III (2005) had neutral traders spawning at the edge of the map, passing your outposts and exiting at the other end of the map

*getting inspired for a new map*

6 minutes ago, Sundiata said:

Having something of a civilian economy 

A lot of discussion around goes around the fact that there is no distinction between eco and millitary in 0AD. Not too hard to see why. There is no strategy in population growth for the most part. In AoE you have to ask questions like “am I a making a mistake making more villagers when the enemy is clearly going on the offensive soon?”. Thats not the case for 0AD. We just need to keep on that citizen soldier spam going. Doesnt matter what the opponent does, its the all purpose winning strat.

Ofcourse not to say that strategy is completely irrelevant in this area, (see a borg vs feldfeld replay). Its just not as relevant as other games.

[coworotel]

48 minutes ago, Sundiata said:

This is one the things that lies at the crux of the matter. There are more than a million total downloads of 0AD and recent alpha releases are hitting hundred thousand+ downloads if I'm not mistaken...

Can you share where you got this information?

[elexis]

http://releases.wildfiregames.com/stats.php is incomplete IIRC, doesn't contain sourceforge, torrents and some downloads werent captured at all IIRC, also linux distributions

[coworotel]

6 minutes ago, elexis said:

http://releases.wildfiregames.com/stats.php is incomplete IIRC, doesn't contain sourceforge, torrents and some downloads werent captured at all IIRC, also linux distributions

So ~66K for A23 if I read correctly.

[Sundiata]

7 minutes ago, elexis said:

http://releases.wildfiregames.com/stats.php is incomplete IIRC, doesn't contain sourceforge, torrents and some downloads werent captured at all IIRC, also linux distributions

So there's no (near) absolute figures? What do you think was the minimum amount of times alpha 22 and alpha 23 have been downloaded so far?

SourceForge lists about 28,274 downloads since July 2017, 

and Wikipedia also says:

Quote

Between 2010 and May 2017 the game was downloaded alone from Sourceforge.net over 1.3 million times.^[30]

 

49 minutes ago, (-_-) said:

A lot of discussion around goes around the fact that there is no distinction between eco and millitary in 0AD. Not too hard to see why. There is no strategy in population growth for the most part. In AoE you have to ask questions like “am I a making a mistake making more villagers when the enemy is clearly going on the offensive soon?”. Thats not the case for 0AD. We just need to keep on that citizen soldier spam going. Doesnt matter what the opponent does, its the all purpose winning strat.

Yeah, a lot of people want common villagers to be a thing. That doesn't mean we need to throw out citizen-soldiers (at all), it just adds a layer of nuance to your population, because, as you say, there is currently "no strategy in population growth for the most part". We need a civilian aspect to compliment the military one. More than just farming women. It will make the military aspects all the more rewarding. 

[Guest]

(I'm just going to throw out my idea of giving male citizens a "to-arms" button which consumes N resources)

[elexis]

2 hours ago, Sundiata said:

So there's no (near) absolute figures? What do you think was the minimum amount of times alpha 22 and alpha 23 have been downloaded so far?

I don't have more data than is in those two links either. The number of lobby accounts can be considered.

Order of magnitude being 100k per year and 1mio total seems to be covered by these conservative numbers . (So might be 2x as much now but most likely not 10x as much)