Victory Conditions Not Good

[Sanguivorant]

To win a game of 0 A.D, you have to completely eradicate your opponent off the map. That is, take out all their buildings and all their troops, even if there was no way for your opponent to win with the troops they have.

For most matches, there are two parts. The first part is the actual game, and the second part is playing Hide and Seek. I don't want to play Hide and Seek, that is not why I play 0 A.D.

If my opponent loses all their city centres and buildings that can produce units, then how in the world can they expect to make a comeback? I just don't see it happening.

Even in multi-player matches, a lot of people just do not know when to give up.

In one game, I was playing a 2v2, and their ally quit, so what they did is hide all of their units all around the map. The game was lagging hard by then and we spent an hour taking down his walls and spotting his hidden villagers, so I just quit from frustration. He actually won from hiding, not playing the game.

In another 2v2 I played on a map with lakes and we destroyed our opponents and they just camped in the middle of the lake in those triremes, with absolutely no way of making a comeback. We had to make a few warships to deal with them just so we can be declared victorious, even though we were technically victorious by the time we wiped out their territories off the map.

Though this is partially due to bad RTSmanship (The player is supposed to quit when they know they cannot come back), the victory conditions are still stupid. Hence, I propose that a player should be given the victory when they have destroyed all of their opponent's unit-producing buildings. That excludes any defensive buildings like towers or walls, or any upgrade buildings like a blacksmith.

Edited April 27, 2014 by Sanguivorant

[Lion.Kanzen]

Ask to Michael , he kill and destroy all my buildings and at last soldiers was fell.

I forgot actually we have wonders as victory condition.

[LordGood]

I have to say, I like the 'last stand' mechanic in place now, and I think it could be worked on. As it stands, units cant make a comeback because they cant gather resources without drop sites. That alone makes the hide and seek a bit pointless.

I think temp neutral territory gather sites like outposts would be interesting to add

[WhiteTreePaladin]

I think a lot of this hide and seek will go away once conversion is added. Your opponent's remaining structures and units will change to your ownership once the victory criteria is meet.

[sanderd17]

There's also a plan to reveal the position of one unit at a price, so if only a few units are hidden, you can use this option a few times.

[Sanguivorant]

Your opponent's remaining structures and units will change to your ownership once the victory criteria is meet.

What is this victory criteria?

[WhiteTreePaladin]

What is this victory criteria?

It's not been fully defined yet, but for a conquest based victory, it might be something like destroying all the major structures and all military units (including civilian soldiers).

Minor structures would be things like houses, dropsites, etc. Non-military units would be regular civilians (but not civil-soldiers), priests, traders, fishing ships, etc.

[Sanguivorant]

One other thing I have to point out that is done by players.

Most players choose to exit the game instead of resign. The result is that they are still technically in the game so they are not defeated. Also, it forces players to go hunt down all of their units if the players want to win. This should be fixed as well.

[Lion.Kanzen]

One other thing I have to point out that is done by players.

Most players choose to exit the game instead of resign. The result is that they are still technically in the game so they are not defeated. Also, it forces players to go hunt down all of their units if the players want to win. This should be fixed as well.

Is already fixed for Alpha 16.

[hhyloc]

I think the AOM's approach would be sensible. The basic idea is if you don't have any Civ center in X minutes, you lose. We may have to adapt and change it in 0 A.D. a bit to account for things like wonders and military producing buidings. Also, there is a tech that allow player to recruit women from house as well (don't remember if it apply to every civs) so the chance that player rebuid a Civ center is pretty sizeable.

So, this is my draft:

Lose condition

- The player resign

- The player lost all civ center and cannot build one within 1 minute

+ If the player has a completed Wonder, delay the lost until said Wonder is destroyed/captured

+ [something about remaining citizen soldiers and women here]

[Lion.Kanzen]

I think the AOM's approach would be sensible. The basic idea is if you don't have any Civ center in X minutes, you lose. We may have to adapt and change it in 0 A.D. a bit to account for things like wonders and military producing buidings. Also, there is a tech that allow player to recruit women from house as well (don't remember if it apply to every civs) so the chance that player rebuid a Civ center is pretty sizeable.

So, this is my draft:

Lose condition

- The player resign

- The player lost all civ center and cannot build one within 1 minute

+ If the player has a completed Wonder, delay the lost until said Wonder is destroyed/captured

+ [something about remaining citizen soldiers and women here]

5 give time to run a way and find new land.

[Mythos_Ruler]

I think we can go with something like:

No unit-producing buildings or soldiers for 2 minutes = defeat. Remaining females and traders go Gaia and are converted to whoever finds them.

We can also implement an "espionage" tech that reveals the vision of enemy units and buildings. This can cost 100 Metal for each enemy unit and building, meaning the tech is way too expensive to use right at the beginning or middle of a match, but is cheap enough to use in the end-game when the enemy has a very low number of units.

[hhyloc]

No unit-producing buildings or soldiers for 2 minutes = defeat. Remaining females and traders go Gaia and are converted to whoever finds them.

Sounds good.

We can also implement an "espionage" tech that reveals the vision of enemy units and buildings. This can cost 100 Metal for each enemy unit and building, meaning the tech is way too expensive to use right at the beginning or middle of a match, but is cheap enough to use in the end-game when the enemy has a very low number of units.

Agree, a similar tech also exist in AoM and I always think the tech was there for this exact reason: To finish off the remaining enemy.

Edited April 28, 2014 by hhyloc

[WhiteTreePaladin]

In BFME2, defeat occurred when all buildings and builders were destroyed. That was a little annoying when you clearly had enough forces to clear out the map. I think the two minute or so time delay would help with that.

We would still need to allow games with the hide and seek issue for fixed force scenarios though.

[Mythos_Ruler]

We would still need to allow games with the hide and seek issue for fixed force scenarios though.

Can just disable the Espionage tech for certain scenarios with a trigger or something.

[Radagast.]

- The player lost all civ center and cannot build one within 1 minute

+ If the player has a completed Wonder, delay the lost until said Wonder is destroyed/captured

+ [something about remaining citizen soldiers and women here]

I don't like the 1 or 5 minute limit. My most epic 0AD battle was a last stand against an awesome amount of enemy forces. I had only 50 women left. And a market place as well as a tavern for recruiting mercenaries.

It was pure epicness, build a wall to stop the enemy. Have the women repair the decaying buildings and try to rebuild houses to be able to recruit men which can construct buildings that give territory (which women not really can in 0AD.)

No unit-producing buildings or soldiers for 2 minutes = defeat. Remaining females and traders go Gaia and are converted to whoever finds them.

The last part is unique. (in early Settlers all units were doomed and had to die ... pretty unrealistic)

That was a little annoying when you clearly had enough forces to clear out the map.

I remember 800 000 Chinese soldiers being defeated by an army of 200 000. If one believes victory is certain, doom will follow.

We would still need to allow games with the hide and seek issue for fixed force scenarios though

To have different modi would indeed be fine.

played on a map with lakes and we destroyed our opponents and they just camped in the middle of the lake in those triremes, with absolutely no way of making a comeback.

Sounds like realism to me. It's just the real thing. In this case we could offer you the choice to sign off with a remi. (or you wipe out the enemy)

0AD is not about ranking and multiplayer points in the first place I always thought it was about realism & epicness [pitching high cultures against each other in their peak].

[hhyloc]

Well, realism is one thing but when it becoming tedious (like searching every single enemy unit on the map) it stops being fun and just frustrating. Maybe 0 A.D. is not about multiplayer point but people still play it for the multiplayer value and they have every rights to do so.

If you have enough troop left you still have a chance for a comeback though that require your opponent to be slow to react, which is unlikely consider that he defeated you in the first place. You can order the women to repair things and try to build some troop to resist the much larger enemy but unless you managed to build a substantial force to actively resist him, you're just prolonging the inevitable. THAT can be but to others it's just frustrating to see the opponent stall the match like that.

I remember 800 000 Chinese soldiers being defeated by an army of 200 000. If one believes victory is certain, doom will follow.

0 A.D can't simulate strategy and tactics to the degree that it's 100% identical to real life. Let's abstract that down 800 Enemy soldiers and 200 own soldiers, it's not really a defeat if you still have a barrack and civ center somewhere. Now we assume that your base was destroyed, now from here many things can happen but it mostly generalize to:

- You resist him for sometime but with superior force and functioning base, he eventually wipe you out. That doesn't taking better strategy in his part into account yet.

- You somehow managed to sneak around and destroy his only base (he's unlikely to have 1 base) but then your force will certainly take casualties, which further seal the deal as his force return.

What I'm trying to say is in a simulated environment it's very hard to enact a "comeback" or "victory against all odds" scenario, where a smaller and base-less force take down a larger force with superior tactics and manoeuvre; but that's is contradicting because he is the one that defeated you and took out your base in the first place, so it's only natural to believe that he was simply better in that match.

[WhiteTreePaladin]

Can just disable the Espionage tech for certain scenarios with a trigger or something.

I guess I was unclear. I actually meant that fixed force scenarios should not consider a player defeated or even start a timer just because the player doesn't have any structures.

[Radagast.]

Okay, you are right. It's fair enough to have more victory conditions.

Yet if a last-stand mode could be retained, I would welcome it. Thanks for clarifying, hhyloc. (and I didn't want to say people should not play multiplayer, just that the I wish to beat as many as quick as possible to have better ranking is not the first priority. But the discussed additional victory conditions are nice to have indeed.)

[hhyloc]

I think a compromise would be best, if your force (all units with the ability to attack) get smaller than X number (or X "power"*) and you have no unit-producing building left, the game will count that as "hopeless" and begin the countdown. That way you can have no base at all but with large enough force you still have a slim chance.

*power: rather vague, something like the total attack capability of all your units.

[niektb]

The way Praetorians handled it way pretty good. When the game decided that a player was very weak, the forces of that player were revealed to the others, so that there wasn't any kind of hide-and-seek.

[Radagast.]

That's pretty unfair if I'm honest. Why not create an optional game mode with a victory condition like

• "Capture all standards.",
• "Destroy all of this kind of buildings." <-- most dynamic, should be combinable via chaining e.g.

  buildingTypesToBeDestroyedForVictory="CivicCenter Fortress"

• "Capture all heroes."
• "Conquer this part of the map." (Polygon coordinates?)
• "Build 1000 ships and wipe off all enemy forces from your island."
• "Produce 3 heroes." ...
• "Don't lose this tower for x hours."
• "Protect the queen until she reached the safe harbour."
• ...

[Stan`]

I like the last one, it's like an interactive campaign. With a better AI since it's a human

We will have a regicide mode too.

[Sanguivorant]

Just make sure the King isn't fat and speedy like in AoEII =P

[Lion.Kanzen]

Just make sure the King isn't fat and speedy like in AoEII =P

hahahaha,