Alpha 17 Balancing Branch

[Thorfinn the Shallow Minded]

Perhaps they could be made less expensive.

[WhiteTreePaladin]

Seems taking out formations leaves the armies in clumps when you task a lot of units to a single location? I miss the ordered lines on arrival.

[zzippy]

I hope they are stronger if they take longer to build or I'll probably never get to see them used anywhere.

I am glad they do not have their ridiculous short buildtime anymore. And imho they are still op, especially the wall towers ...

[iNcog]

Walls are rarely used in a lot of RTS games. I hope they are stronger if they take longer to build or I'll probably never get to see them used anywhere.

You should have played Aoe 3 TAD Nr40.

Walls, EVERYWHERE

[Yves]

I think there's something wrong with the Iberian rams (or all rams?). They can kill a skirmisher in two hits (and probably other units too).

They should not even be allowed to attack anything other than buildings. Most of the other changes I've seen seem to be an improvement to me.

[zzippy]

..the reason for this was that rams could be blocked easily if no ability to attack humans.

[wowgetoffyourcellphone]

Your changes remove:

formations, which are a must, if only because battle is like a bunch of ants in this game and now even worse

technology choices (chose one or the other), which were cool amd unique and added a layer of strategy that is now gone

historicity, which is important in a game about history

wondering what the overall vision for the game is. What is it supposed to be besides balanced?

Edited September 11, 2014 by wowgetoffyourcellphone

[zzippy]

Your changes remove:

formations, which are a must, if only because battle is like a bunch of ants in this game and now even worse

technology choices (chose one or the other), which were cool amd unique and added a layer of strategy that is now gone

historicity, which is important in a game about history

wondering what the overall vision for the game is. What is it ..

Formations are taken out temporarily afaik. Though it would be nice to have those from a15 back, until new are done.

Are paired techs historically correct?

Can a historically correct game even be balanced?

Thus, a historically correct game would be a horrible strategy game.

Vision? Whatever. I am glad that it is a playable game again... heck, its an alpha, so everything may change.

Edited September 11, 2014 by zzippy

[serveurix]

Your changes remove:

formations, which are a must, if only because battle is like a bunch of ants in this game and now even worse

Formations are almost broken for now. There is no formation bonus, auto-regrouping apply to every unit (female citizen, siege engines, ships...) in every case (even for economical tasks), and the buggy and slow pathfinder makes them more of a pain to use than an advantage.

I'm pretty sure formations will be reactivated when the pathfinder issues will be solved, don't worry.

I just miss the "scatter" formation for now, it was practical to scan the map at the end of a match.

technology choices (chose one or the other), which were cool amd unique and added a layer of strategy that is now gone

The concept was good but the implementation was weird. Basically a tech is already something that gives you an advantage at the cost of a small disadvantage (you have to pay for it). So you have to make a choice between developing the tech now, or later because your resources would be more useful in something else right now. Then there are techs that add a technological disadvantage to the technological advantage. So you have to make a choice between developing them and not developing them. Fine. But later came the pairs of technologies where a technology which has both an advantage and a disadvantage competes with an other tech that has both an advantage and a disadvantage. This is fine when one tech is the opposite of the other, like for the walls (resistance vs build time) because you just have to make one choice, and you're going to develop one of the two techs anyway. But when the other tech of the pair has advantages and disadvantages that have nothing to do with the advantages and the disadvantages of the other tech of the pair, that's very confusing. It looks like a choice within a choice within a choice. You have to make a choice between developing the first tech, right now or later, the second tech, right now or later, and none of them, and you don't really know where you're heading to. There are some tech that are mandatory to develop some others later and this is even more confusing, giving a false impression of choice when in fact you barely have it. And I don't speak about pairs with techs that are so useless for some civs that there is only one reasonable choice on the two.

If at least all the pairs were like the wall tech pair, the paired tech system would be more interesting and less confusing. But techs that have nothing to do with each other shouldn't be in pairs. So I agree with the new changes on the tech tree.

historicity, which is important in a game about history

The game is not in its definitive state, there will still be a lot of big changes in the gameplay that will require us to tune balance changes again and again. And of course, that impacts the historic realism of the game each time. But I'm confident in the developers finding the good values between cool, well balanced gameplay and historicity on the long term. Edited September 11, 2014 by serveurix

[wowgetoffyourcellphone]

Formations are taken out temporarily afaik. Though it would be nice to have those from a15 back, until new are done.

Are paired techs historically correct?

Can a historically correct game even be balanced?

Thus, a historically correct game would be a horrible strategy game.

Vision? Whatever. I am glad that it is a playable game again... heck, its an alpha, so everything may change.

Again? A14 was playable, so then all one had to do to make it playable was to revert A15 changes. I don't say that this is all the game needed, but there are many directions to take to make the game playable. The durection you took makes the game feel like Alpha 3. I did not say make the game historically correct. You make a strawman. You also make a classic false dichotomy, which is what is called a fallacy. You also do not address my points, another fallacy. The paired techs were intriguing* and gave another layer of strategy to the game. They are gone. I like the idea of super techs, this is a good thing that you have done here. But why not make the 3rd level techs expensive and super, while keeping the 1st and 2nd level techs more reasonably priced? The costs of the techs make me think that you do not want the players to research anything in the first age. And when you scoff at my comments about vision it tells me you are not a real designer. Vision for a game is the difference between Flappy Birds and Age of Empires.

*Intriguing in the way that you cannot have your cake and eat it too. Such things with choice add an edginess to the game that is now lost, because now you can research all techs. You make the techs very expensive in order to force some kind of choice, but any decent player can research them all anyway. With the pairs and reasonable prices, any player can research the techs, yes, but a good player will choose correctly based on his needs and strategy.

You tell people to install your new changes and give opinions. Do not be angry when people do as you ask.

The concept was good but the implementation was weird. Basically a tech is already something that gives you an advantage at the cost of a small disadvantage (you have to pay for it). So you have to make a choice between developing the tech right now, or later because your resources would be more useful in something else right now. Then there are techs that add a technological disadvantage to the technological advantage. So you have to make a choice between developing them and not developing them. Fine. But later came the pairs of technologies where a technology which has both an advantage and a disadvantage competes with an other tech that has both an advantage and a disadvantage. This is fine when one tech is the opposite of the other, like for the walls (resistance vs build time) because you just have to make one choice, and you're going to develop one of the two techs anyway. But when the other tech of the pairs has advantages and inconvenients that have nothing to do with the advantages and the inconvenients of the other tech of the pair, that's very confusing. It looks like a choice within a choice within a choice. You have to make a choice between developing the first tech, right now or later, the second tech, right now or later, and none of them, and you don't really know where you're heading to. There are some tech that are mandatory to develop some others later and this is even more confusing, giving a false impression of choice when in fact you barely have it. And I don't speak about pairs with techs that are so useless for some civs that there is only one reasonable choice on the two.

If at least all the pairs were like the wall tech pair, the paired tech system would be more interesting and less confusing. But techs that have nothing to do with each other shouldn't be in pairs. So I agree with the new changes on the tech tree.

This is a good comment. I will say that the pairs were not ideal. I agree there! But then as you also say, things evolve and tweaks made to make things better. So, it puzzles me why the intriguing concept was dropped completely when it could have been tweaked and made better. the core of the feature was solid and added a layer to the game, just the details needed ironing. Why not do this for most techs with better design of the tree, and then have the super techs as a 4th tier? Or put it on its head, have the super techs at the beginning, which sets the direction of your economy and military, and have the pairs for tiers 2-4 to tweak your economy and military from there. But the new tree now is very very very boring, uninspiring, and the costs are crazy to where I wonder if the designers want us players to research anything in the first 1/3 of the game.

Edited September 11, 2014 by wowgetoffyourcellphone

[Stan`]

I agree that formations are broken but at least activating a default one would be nice. Aren't syntagma and testudo kept though ?

historicity, which is important in a game about history

Can you be more specific I don't understand.

[zzippy]

@wowgetoffyourcellphone

Only cuz you seem to misunderstand something totally: I made nothing in this balance branch besides playing and trying to run a discussion.

May I ask you ("long time lurker") a question, since your "vision of the game" seems to be pretty similar with someone else' :

You are not the former project leader (that one who was responsible for that a16 disaster)?

[iNcog]

technology choices (chose one or the other), which were cool amd unique and added a layer of strategy that is now gone

Going to drop in and say this is completely false. It's worth dropping in just to drop this post and disprove this notion. I will whack away at anyone who says this time and time again. Allow me to explain myself.

The more tech upgrades a player has access to, the more options he has. The more options he has, the deeper the strategic depth of an RTS. Think about it, if you have to choose between two technologies, say +2 hack attack or +2 pierce armor, doesn't that limit what you can do with your units? It does, it does limit what your units can become.

I'm going to make things really, really simple in this example but hopefully this proves my point. Imagine that I can choose to give both +2 hack attack and +2 pierce armor to my melee cavalry units. This means that I can choose to spend my resources in a way that gives me some very nice cavalry. I can base a strategy around getting a certain amount of cavalry units out on the field at 10 minutes for example. I make my strategy so that I have both the maximum amount of Cavalry units AND both the cavalry upgrades at a certain time. This gives me, for example, a certain strategy. Now, if I'm forced to choose between attack or armor and I can't get both, this strategy suddenly becomes much less powerful. So, limiting techs such as these only limits strategic depth, it doesn't contribute to it.

Another reason that makes it bad to pair up technologies is that it limits ways for players to get ahead. For example, imagine that player A gets a good engagement. He wins a fight. This means that, temporarily, he has the advantage. He has the initiative. If player A is a good player, he'll be looking for ways to take advantage of the initiative he obtained to "get more ahead". Technologies is an excellent way to do that: if I win a fight, my opponent can't attack me during a certain amount of time. So I'm going to use the time I gained (by winning the fight) to invest my resources into expensive technologies for example.

Another reason that makes me against the pairing of techs is that it limits what you can do, as a player. Players are going to eventually figure out which tech is better (for example, I think it's been proven that the wood gathering upgrade is better than the wheelbarrow upgrade, if you manage your drop-sites correctly). After they figure out which is better, they're going to go for the better tech every game. This means that instead of having two paired techs, you just have one tech that is good and the other is non-existent. It also limits strategic options, as I said in the earlier part of my post. If you're going to prevent a player from getting every single economic tech instead of allowing him to research them all, then you're making it very difficult for a player to a play a defensive, economy-oriented style. Stylistic play is much more difficult if you limit strategic options.

I could ramble on, but I won't since I think my point has come across. There are some instances where I think pairing technology could be interesting. e.g. You could pair the two following techs:

ranged infantry move 5% faster but lose 5% health -OR- melee cavalry have more 5% HP but have 5% more training time

In the case of this pair of tech, you're trading unit attributes. This doesn't limit strategic depth, given that you're making an actual trade (as opposed to a tech, techs are ALWAYS good to have). If I go with the infantry route, then my infantry are going to be slightly faster but, my cavalry units will also train faster. So going with the infantry route means that I might be able to pull off a stronger rush in the early game and during the rest of the game my ranged infantry will be more mobile. However, they're also going to be weaker. Researching one of these techs isn't going to be something that will be ALWAYS good. It's a trade-off. That's why you can pair these, unlike economic techs for example, or any "straight-up bonus" techs.

Edited September 11, 2014 by iNcog

[serveurix]

@iNcog : I agree with everything you say about pairs, *especially* the fact that some techs eventually gets ignored, but I'm doubtful about the last example you give of a pairing that would be, in your opinion, relevant.

You seem to know in advance how the player will make use of the strength and weaknesses of both his infantry and cavalry, and how he's going to combine those two types of units on the battlefield altogether.

I would be more in favor of simple choices, like :

ranged infantry move 5% faster but lose 5% health -OR- ranged infantry move 5% slower but gain 5% health

that basically make you choose one strength or the other.

Edited September 11, 2014 by serveurix

[iNcog]

Oh yeah for sure, the nuances of which stats to trade are definitely good topics, open to discussion. I just named a few random examples. no biggie!

[niektb]

@wowgetoffyourcellphone

Only cuz you seem to misunderstand something totally: I made nothing in this balance branch besides playing and trying to run a discussion.

May I ask you ("long time lurker") a question, since your "vision of the game" seems to be pretty similar with someone else' :

You are not the former project leader (that one who was responsible for that a16 disaster)?

I don't think it is a good idea to get personal but rather try to formulate an answer (although I think Scythetwirler is the most valid person to do so). I think his questions are valid:

Is it done with a general underlying principle or was it more a matter of 'carelessly' balancing (if you get what I mean)? Also, was the focus solely on playability or was history taken into account too?

I think it would be good to preserve one standard formation (e.g. box) for movement purposes.

As for the tech pairing:

I think it can(!) add a new depth in the game since you can't blindly research everything (which often happens to be the case with a good Eco). Instead you need to think forward and anticipate on the other players. (What kind of units do they use most and what tech I could best research to counter that?) The only issue is what technologies you pair. You indeed can't blindly pair various technologies that have nothing in common and are not of equal value (result-wise).

[serveurix]

Why not do this for most techs with better design of the tree, and then have the super techs as a 4th tier? Or put it on its head, have the super techs at the beginning, which sets the direction of your economy and military, and have the pairs for tiers 2-4 to tweak your economy and military from there. But the new tree now is very very very boring, uninspiring, and the costs are crazy to where I wonder if the designers want us players to research anything in the first 1/3 of the game.

I don't know what Mythos tried to do exactly with the techs. At a moment I thought he didn't want to add a new technology unless he was perfectly sure to have a good historical reference and a unique icon. But whatever the reason was, the tech tree took a lot of time to evolve. Mythos certainly has a very fine idea of where the game is heading to and needs some time, but I perfectly understand the reaction of the community. They want to enjoy the game, and an unfinished tech tree is sometimes worse than no tech tree at all.

Their new balance proposal is quite extreme on some points, but it's a good move. Of course the tech tree needs to be polished and diversified. Like you, I would enjoy some more diverse military techs, tiers and branches (by branches I mean technologies unlocked by other technologies, which doesn't happen currently except for techs of a different phase and of the same type). But I'm sure the tech tree will still be enriched by new techs as the development advances (and we need some new icons, too).

[WhiteTreePaladin]

I don't really miss formations for the most part, but I did enjoy the "caravan" when units traveled a long distance across the map. Also, the "battle line" they formed when they arrived was very useful. I remember Philip putting a bit of work into that to make it work. (I think AoE 3 was our inspiration.) As it is now, they just form a large clump on arrival while many units futility trying to get to the center of the mass.

Edited September 12, 2014 by WhiteTreePaladin

[Thorfinn the Shallow Minded]

Well, regardless of what the branch does, the game will change enough in the alpha that getting upset about one change is not terribly realistic considering that the way the game is will certainly be different over the next few alphas. The branch simply balances the game in its current state. A real problem is that the game does not have a finalized technology system that has balance between independent technologies and ones that involve choice; furthermore it obviously needs a good historical basis. Once that has been accomplished, balancing the game should be far easier.

[scythetwirler]

My stance on formations:

Formations are a cool concept, but as of right now, I do not feel they are ready. Sure, they look cool and organized, but there are some (frustrating?) bugs with it. Notably, when a unit in a formation dies while regrouping, the whole formation will try to reformate into a different shape due to having one fewer member in their formation. More often that not in large battles, another unit will die before they reach their formation shape and they will attempt to reorganize again. This cycle repeats until the formation is wiped out without a chance to attack.

In addition, having no formations seems to make the game less laggy (this may or may not be true, but it feels that way )

[Stan`]

But have you tried moving a lot of units ? This is a complete mess. The game is still in alpha so what ´s yhe issue of having buggy formations ?

[scythetwirler]

Having no formations is at least a predictable messiness - units go where you think they'd go. Formations that regroup randomly and split of ranged and melee units are much less predictable.

Ideally, I'd like an option for the moment to disband formations the same way you could toggle a formation but leave an option for both at the player's choosing.

[serveurix]

In addition, having no formations seems to make the game less laggy (this may or may not be true, but it feels that way )

It's a lot less laggy for most cases, but it's still as laggy as before (or perhaps a bit more) when you try to move a large group of units (over ~90 on my case). There it generates a big spike of lag as the units start moving, and the perf progressively goes back to normal as units move to the target.

I think it is because units are in a unorganised, very tight pack at the beginning, and when you ask them to go somewhere they independently try to find they way out of the crowd, so they constantly try to turn around each other. This is also the reason they don't arrive to the target as a dense pack : they first try to avoid the units in front of them, then move in a direction free of obstacles, then go to the target.

[tau]

While the 'no-formation group' bug* still exists, this is trading one prob for another

*some units in a selected group can ignore a move order

[auron2401]

...at least 90% of your troops will and CAN go.

Before it was more of a problem of having enough space because formations could and did spend 20 minutes at a time just trying to get around an isolated house. now you can send most of your units forth and look for stragglers to micro to the objective manually.