Alpha 17 Balancing Branch

[Radagast.]

Deriving an additional output and/or train time modifier from the health ratio (current health vs. max health) might be useful and motivate the player to repair his stuff.

[av93]

-One small thought to slow a little bit cav rushes: make the corral a prerequisite for cav units. (One civ could have a bonus that allows to make cav without it). This would give more value to this building (I know that the main function isn't implemented yet)

- I like the changes, but i'm worried about the way. The team was aware and agreed on this?

-About the units attacking fields with javs (or swords): AOE 3 style wasn't the most realistic, but is better to have people tearing down buildings by swords. Torches and flamming arrows, you know. Still unrealistic when a stone wall is destroyed by pikeman throwing torches, but in general, I think is better.

-Lordgood drawings have been kicked? I liked his work

- It would be nice an dev report, not only for throwing this, but for show what have been done and what are the plans.

Cheers.

[auron2401]

The accuracy changes are NOT, Good.

Trying to hunt with Ranged cav now is a joke. (it was great before)

When i want my starting jav cav to hunt down my local deer, It's NOT Good design for him to spend 10 minutes attempting to hit an IDLE DEER.

If you want to fix the jav-cav rushing. Do it ANOTHER way.

Hate me, but being rushed is a player error, not a game error. (as much as i agree with the sentiment)

Heres a good way to counter it.

Give Melee cavalry an anti ranged-cav bonus. Make them run faster than they do currently.

Or.. Replace ALL CAVALRY UNITS IN THE VILLAGE STAGE WITH MELEE CAV.

Or more drastic yet, don't allow cavalry to be trained at the civ centre / village stage at all.

The Units were FINE.

Edited August 17, 2014 by auron2401

[Tango_]

"Give Melee cavalry an anti ranged-cav bonus. Make them run faster than they do currently."

i'm sorry auron, but melee cav are yet a really good counter against skirm cav. Maybe you just dontmanipulate them as they should be.

Honestly, if you handle your melee cav well, the opponent skirm cav just look underpowered.

i'm up to show you this in a game, and why not record it to "spead" this manipulation, and end with all these useless "melee cav are useless against skirm cav bla bla bla..."

[Stan`]

All those balancing changes were removed in the latest SVN.

[Itms]

All those balancing changes were removed in the latest SVN.

They were moved temporarily to a git branch to avoid merge conflicts, but they will not be removed forever. So it's ok to keep discussing about these balancing changes

[Radagast.]

thx, didn't know how the spread changes turn out. I wondered what less than 1 changes mean.

Having no cavalry units in village phase looks okay to me. Perhaps make them all depend on a cavalry tech, which itself is auto-researched when town-phase is reached. (or make all cavalry depend on the town phase if that's prefered).

You will find a solution.

[Skhorn]

Related to battering rams.

If you can garrison people inside the battering ram, why the battering ram does not gain mov speed? atk speed or a slightly damage. I see this as common sense, if you put 5 dudes inside it, they will help to carry the ram, and move it. Or i'm wrong?

Edited August 18, 2014 by Skhorn

[Tango_]

"thx, didn't know how the spread changes turn out. I wondered what less than 1 changes mean.

Having no cavalry units in village phase looks okay to me. Perhaps make them all depend on a cavalry tech, which itself is auto-researched when town-phase is reached. (or make all cavalry depend on the town phase if that's prefered).

You will find a solution."

If there arent any cavalry at the first age, and if cavalry id only available at age2, it finally aims to kill the rush on 0ad.

Rushing without cavalry is not a rush, or at least a really bad rush, infantry just walks too slowly...

By the way, a RTS game where you cant rush, is in my opinion a bad RTS game. The fact you cant prevent or disturb the evolution of your opponent economy is huge mistake, cause rush is , to be short, the most important strategy in RTS game.

[zzippy]

+1

Just ensure that all civs have ranged infantry units available in phase1 to be able to counter a cav rush without being forced to train cav skirm?

[Stan`]

Depends on the game i used to play with a 45 min peacetime which meant great battles at the end.

Edited August 18, 2014 by stanislas69

[serveurix]

By the way, a RTS game where you cant rush, is in my opinion a bad RTS game. The fact you cant prevent or disturb the evolution of your opponent economy is huge mistake, cause rush is , to be short, the most important strategy in RTS game.

You can always harass its traders and destroy its fields. There is a new farmland paradigm planned, which should make the farmland economy much harder to defend (fields taking a lot more space, and farming bonus/malus depending on the terrain) in the future.

[Tango_]

"You can always harass its traders and destroy its fields. There is a new farmland paradigm planned, which should make the farmland economy much harder to defend (fields taking a lot more space, and farming bonus/malus depending on the terrain) in the future. "

i'm talking about the first age... by the way, you also say that traders and markets are available at this age... ? Or at age2 ? dont understand. And, to be honest, for me, rush = attack the opponent under the 5 first minutes, or, 7 or 8. Attacking traders or farms , or wood cutters after this timing, is not rushing at all, it's harassing. Important nuance to see, cause i'm talking about the rush, not about harassment.

Whatever, rush should be in 0ad, even if almost all actual players hate it. I think the game havent to deal with this... But the players have to learn to counter somebody rushing them...

Edited August 20, 2014 by feneur

[zzippy]

You can always harass its traders and destroy its fields. There is a new farmland paradigm planned .....

Yes. Thats the problem right now in a16. And the idea is to fix this a little for a17 to reduce scirm cav attacks in the beginning of the game, less "horsegame" ..

Afair:

in scythe balance branch (btw, the topic of this thread ...) this is achieved by cc arrow rate, stronger fields. Played lots of times, and I like it, knowing that eg Tango_ (by far a more experienced player) was not a friend of the arrow rate.

Michael nerfed skirm cav, pierce damage 25% reduced to 15 ..

[Lion.Kanzen]

training maps with tutorial Ai and barbarians at the Gates mode can be good idea for practice, the problem is create defenses in little time and expand the economy like rush player some maps is hard crate army and gatherers in same time.

[serveurix]

Important nuance to see, cause i'm talking about the rush, not about harassment.

The only argument for rush in your previous comment was :

The fact you cant prevent or disturb the evolution of your opponent economy is huge mistake

And this argument is valid for both rush and harassment. If you want to advocate rush and nothing else, use an argument specific to it.

[Tango_]

serveurix -> there's a huge difference between rushing under the 5 first minutes, and harass after 10minutes...

rushing aims to kill asap, to prevent long and boring games. harass aims to little by little, take the economical advantage on your opponent, to this difference in the battles, in your favor of course. considerable difference, that you dont seem to see. I'm up to show you what rush aims in a game.

i'm not advocating rush, just saying my opinion. try some RTS games as aoe3, you'll see that in 7 mins (except if noob games) the opponent will be there, and not with 1 cav. For me , RTS games = rush , so a no-rush at all game is useless to play, in my opinion. For me, no rush game is finally , first simcity "bla bla, oh, how beautiful my city is!!!!! love that !" , then becomes only battle game, as total war.

Games like 0ad, aoe... allow to make city, and in same time doing battles.

If you dont want any rush, then ask developpers to create a no rush kind of game, or fix the rules before starting playing.

Finally, if you want to prevent rush at all, let me tell you this:

-age1 is useless: indeed, you cant fight in age1 without cavalry, as you cant make another cc, and build military production building closer to the opponent.

-some tech will be useless, as the berries one, only usefull at the first age, cause it brings you a bushes (only) gathering bonus -> at age 2, you got farm tech.

-you kill all the strategy of the game. yes, all the strategy. see: actually, if you're rushed, it means your opponent has eco disadvantage, so he'll try to damage your eco, to reduce it, and finally take the eco advantage. against this, or you'll try to rush him , like he's rushing you, or you'll try to hold on this rush, keep defensive, and use another side of the game, to finally win. Indeed, personnaly, if i'm rushed and dont want/cant answer at 1age, i'll try to go age2 asap to make some defense towers on my spot, to be safe, then i'll be aggressive.

- lets imagine no rush at all in 0ad: what people will do? go age 2 asap, maybe to have cavalry, right? but, there arent many differences between age1 and age2 (only some buildings and some tech), and age1 units are yet the counter of cavalries...

A good player at first age1 can hold on against another who's age2, cause a age1 player has nothing "special" to fear against a age2 player (except something as tower rush, but , still based on the buildings, not on the units). So, in my opinion, and if i would play a no-rush-at-all-0ad, my goal would not be to go age2 asap, but to go age3 asap (Age 3 is really interesting (compare to age2) : heros, champions units, fortresses (buildings, but which buildings!)...).

so to go age3 asap, i would prefer stay age1 longer, click age2 when i have many military units to hold an eventual tower rush, or whatever age2 strategy my opponent can make. Like this, arrived at age2, i build my phaze buildings, and click age3 asap. In the hypothesis when my opponent had tower rush me, as i'm age3, i'll send some units near his first base, to build my 2nd cc, while i hold on the battlefield near my base, by making a fortress... now i'm in a better position than my opponent.

to be short, if you do 0ad no rush at all, age1 is just useless. everybody will go age3 asap, to have champions and fortresses (especially because a player who's at age2 cant hold on if his opponent is age3) ... new strategies are created to answer to some others -> if almost everybody do the same... Where is the strategy ? How some new strategies can appear?

Edited August 19, 2014 by Tango_

[Radagast.]

By the way, a RTS game where you cant rush, is in my opinion a bad RTS game. The fact you cant prevent or disturb the evolution of your opponent economy is huge mistake, cause rush is , to be short, the most important strategy in RTS game.

Okay, I see that even villages could have had cavalry - not a trained one - but at least all the farmers' horses conglomerated to a battle line which might break easily.

For me village phase means village phase and this means, that a cavalry corps might not be present. If we allow for cavalry then we could set a cavalry cap like 5 horses (all the other horses of a village will be unsuitable for battle anyway).

[Tango_]

Okay, I see that even villages could have had cavalry - not a trained one - but at least all the farmers' horses conglomerated to a battle line which might break easily.

For me village phase means village phase and this means, that a cavalry corps might not be present. If we allow for cavalry then we could set a cavalry cap like 5 horses (all the other horses of a village will be unsuitable for battle anyway).

Only 5 cavalries to fight can be sum up to no cavalry at all... against 10 infantry units (counter unit, depending on the type of cav), and these 5 cav are useless... and 10 infantry units are really fast and easy to train...

[Stan`]

Is there a way we can review all ideas ? I feel some will be left out if we are not organized. e.g :

If you can garrison people inside the battering ram, why the battering ram does not gain mov speed? atk speed or a slightly damage. I see this as common sense, if you put 5 dudes inside it, they will help to carry the ram, and move it. Or i'm wrong?

[iNcog]

I can see why some people wouldn't like these changes, and I'm not going to say they're good. What I am going to say however, is that on paper they look all right. However skirm-cav vs deer needs to be fixed.

I think people need to play a lot of games on the current build and see how things go from there. the meta-game has, for sure, been thrown upside down. so it's pretty normal for old strats to not work anymore.

[zzippy]

Strange that I never see one of you guys in the balance branch lobby. Are you talking about scythe balance branch at all? Otherwise, do you mind to stop derailing this thread and post your gameplay ideas in the thread they belong to?

[Stan`]

zzippy I don't play so you can have a nearly full rise of the east mod, a millenium ad mod, and an aristeia mod. I'll leave now

[auron2401]

zzips i don't idle in the lobby.

I idle in IRC. So if you want to catch me to have a game with me, hop in there first. If i'm awake (and avaliable at my compooter) I'll be there.

I would advise everyone else to do the same.

zzippy I don't play so you can have a nearly full rise of the east mod, a millenium ad mod, and an aristeia mod. I'll leave now

Aparently you don't sleep either, stan.

Anyway

Tango, stop being Irate, please. If you want to poke me, do it with style.

About the whole melee cav thing: I haven't really tried them out. I do know I've watched my Numidian Cav (I have a boner for Qarthage, Don't question me, just nod and agree) Destroy occasionally two-times-bigger forces of roman melee cav in the early game.

Humans, mind you. Ai never masses melee cav in the beginning ever.

I only really suggested a melee cav boost is so that skirmcav gets the anal-end-of-the-stick without being nerfed to nothingness

See This for my opinion on Unnecessary nerfs.

Edited August 20, 2014 by auron2401

[zzippy]

As an attempt to rerail the thread a little, and also cuz suggested by Stanislas69, here again the changelog of the balancing branch, so its easier to discuss certain points and have an overview (I added a little, sure I forgot something, may scythe check this ?):

Changelog - Differences from SVN--------------------------------Units- Cavalry have been made weaker to pierce damage, but more resilient against hack.- Rams can now attack all units. In compensation, all organic units get a default of 3 Crush armor.- Ballistas and Onager have a much longer range and vision.- Ballistas deal much more damage.- Healers now cost only food since metal is quite rare.- Elephants now are significantly stronger but more expensive.- The basic formations have been disabled for the time being (with a surprising performance benefit).- Female Citizens train much faster.- Elite Iberian Skirmishers have been nerfed.- All units attack faster.- Slingers deal both crush and pierce damage.- All hard bonuses have been taken out.- Swordsmen cost less metal, but cost a little wood.- Seleucides have ranged infantry in phase1- Walkspeed for all units increased- Gathering capacities decreased because of new techs, starts now with 10 - Mauryan spearman now cost 50food/50wood instead of 50food/40woodStructures- All structures are now weaker against crush and hack damage.- Civic Centers have a better garrison multiplier in an attempt to combat 2v1 rushes.   (arrow rate increased from 3arrows/s to 5 arrows/s, also arrow range +50%)- Walls and Wall Towers take significantly longer to build. (Walls 10-30 seconds, walltowers 120s)- Significantly nerfed the Roman Entrenched Army Camp.- Farms have increased HP and more armor against hack and pierce attacks.Technologies- Some technologies have been made expensive (wip)- Some pair technologies have been unpaired.- Added a powerful tech to the wonder. (increases pop max +50, costs 1000 wood/stone/metal)- Phasing now increases health to all citizen soldiers.

Edited August 20, 2014 by zzippy