Can 0-AD hear my prayers ?!

[zzippy]

Corrals are not efficient as they need Manual handling, while Farms are Automatic...

Farms are not automatic at all. If you get attacked you have to do lots of micro to save your women, and please, do not tell me to use that ridiculous townbell (women in cc do not count to arrow output)

Imo corrals actually work pretty well if you're willing to manage them, but as a macro player I avoid them to focus on other things. But when I experimented using them, I ended up with an insane food production using only a few horsemen in the late game and a mass of extra sheep filling my base.This

This. 10 corrals eg, batch training 10 sheep each, not much micro at all. Done in 2 seconds.

.

Also zzippy is quite a good player ..

Wouldn't call me a good player. wesono is a good player; I am able to give him a real hard fight, but at the end I lose

IF you think Corrals are worth in the current state... I have no more words for you.

Feels like talking to people who just talks from the "theory" and has never seen the "practise" of such statements.

Jeez... Whatever.

Oh dear. I am really curious if your arrogance is based on skill. Maybe you are such a good player, but maybe you just need a doctor ..

What about having a game to find out, vs a good player, like WW_Butcher, wesono, or even a decent player, like me (you should kick me from the map)?

Deal?

[Qwerty]

@iNcog: Sorry I put words in your mouth.

@ProdigalSon: My first post sums up my position for a Farm that keeps the macro, but farmers auto-seed (rebuild for free) after taking X low amount of food (300).

The goal is to have a less cheesy food method... and my 2nd proposal was making Corrals more "macro", less "micro" (auto-sheep training in time gaps, up to max 4 per Corral)

Doesn't sound legit to compete with farming in Macro vs Macro main food resource?

@zzippy: I know the 10 corrals in 1 Control Group, would take 2 seconds... but each how many seconds? (1 time you screw the routine and you got to reorganize it)

Besides, is it worth having tons of food this way (manually training sheeps) when you actually have with current farm system the same amazing amount?

This method described by zzippy, reminds me of Tzar: Burden of the Crown tendency to make few farms on beginning and then switch to 100% cattle farms, cows spam (for milk and meat).

If you have played Tzar, you know what I'm talking about.

@Everyone: Sorry about my aggresivity. I'm very angry sometimes.

[wolflance]

Actually auto-sheep training does make (some kind of) sense. I am thinking something like the StarCraft Zerg Hatchery that pops up to three larvae, only replace larva with sheep.

[Thorfinn the Shallow Minded]

Actually the current corral system is not the finalised plan. Rather, animals that are capable of being herded can be garrisoned in corrals for a useful purpose such as providing a steady flow of food or in the case of horses they would make for a small discount. Farming should be the primary source of food historically speaking.

[gracian]

I support

Qwerty s idea on farm replenishing as ORIGINAL and AUTOMATIC

[niektb]

I support Qwerty s idea on farm replenishing as ORIGINAL and AUTOMATIC

What's so different about that idea and the current state?

[gracian]

What's so different about that idea and the current state

there is nothing so different

It is just a really really slight difference: a little bit more realistic, and not copy-paste variant from other RTS

I think set of this mini changes can make difference between <another-in-row good but seen RTS> and Great one.

Another one i mentioned several times: U just cant have farms around Town centre, because you did a copy-paste thing from previous RTSgames. It is not natural. No village in history had farms around its centre, not to mention towns and Cities and Capitals. Drop sites should be drop sites and town centre mustn't be one.

And i see <another-in-row good but seen RTS> trap as most dangerous for this excellent project.

[iNcog]

If it doesn't change the game fundamentally, then all it really does is give coders extra work doesn't it?

Indeed, 0 AD has a lot of concepts in it that differentiate it from other, solid RTS games. That doesn't mean that 0 AD should do everything differently for the sake of being different. If you want to introduce a new game mechanic then it should be relevant to the way the game plays: how the units interact, how the economy works, what strategies you might use, how everything comes together.

Changing farms slightly just for the sake being new and unique doesn't mean much when it doesn't change the way the economy works. I'd rather see a larger focus on caravans, corrals (which is being worked on), perhaps even a fertile terrain mechanic so that map control matters even more. Perhaps you could introduce of draft animals, mobile drop-sites for every civilization (no reason for Mauryans to be the only ones to have the fun), etc.

Realism is always interesting but I don't believe that realism should be more important than an actual fun game. Realism should definitely influence how mechanics work in the game

[gracian]

----I'd rather see a larger focus on caravans, corrals (which is being worked on), perhaps even a fertile terrain mechanic so that map control matters even more----

I totally agree about caravans,

regarding corrals best of luck to thee who work with them, they gonna need it to find a proper place in game logic for them, they were useless like males nipple in Aoe III .

These fertile terrain is excellent thing, i mentioned it earlier.

------If it doesn't change the game fundamentally, then all it really does is give coders extra work doesn't it?------

regarding these farm ideas, there re small ideas, and good ones, i suppose. U can take them or not. Neither makes them good or bad.

We do not come with small ideas only, we come with different ideas on different topic. I did not understand that small ideas are forbidden.

I am just big supporter of realism. Never played Warcraft, starcraft and other Smurfs for that reason.

When buildings out of players territory start to lose their health for no reason my heart cries

Edited November 23, 2014 by gracian

[Qwerty]

I'm glad gracian understood my point. Others too got the "general idea" behind proposal.

And I also get iNcog's view (better put effort on coding more complex interesting aspects, rather than slight changes).

Beyond my suggestion for Map food resources (+replenish rate over time), farms vs corrals macro gathering competence...

There are LOTS of more important issues to re-view in 0AD. Many balance aspects are uneven between civilizations making some more preferrible than others, tech-tree is still under testing!, etc.

Yes I'm thankful with the existence of the project and people/council behind it.

I'm Not thankful with the direction the core designers took (traditional over-seen mechanics rather than breaking the mold).

And who is in charge of the basic concepts of the game? It's not clear really (e.g. tech-tree not defined).

Is there a story to follow of this project? Somewhere I read the original leaders of project abandoned it after discussions.

I'm always interested in past internal conflicts.

Edited November 24, 2014 by Qwerty

[iNcog]

I doubt they were conflicts as much as they were people not having large amount of time to dedicate to 0 AD. Going from nothing to a game is not an easy process when you consider the engine itself was built from scratch.

I am not against slight changes at all but if you're going to make any change at all it has to be meaningful. A lot of the core concepts of RTS games are present in this game because they are a sure value. Just like any of the Age of Empires game (minus Aoeo) was an excellent game, it makes sense to base basic design choices on AoE. Breaking the mold is nice but it has to make sense. Look at how Blizzard broke the mold with things like swarm hosts. See how that turned out.

[Sanguivorant]

On the corral topic:

Both corrals and farms cost 100 wood to build.

a female villager in the beginning gathers around 0.5 food/second from gathering from a farm, so a fully saturated farm can bring up 2.5 food/second.

Female villagers cost 50 food each, so to fully saturate a farm, you need to invest 250 food.

In order to improve the speed of food collection, you need to research plow, which costs the granary, which is 100 wood, plus the upgrade, which is 200 wood and 100 metal. I believe this tech improves farming rate by making a fully saturated farm bring 5 food/second.

A corral costs 100 wood to build. A sheep costs 50 food, and takes 35 seconds to make, however there is an upgrade for 50 food that decreases that train time to 27 seconds.

Citizen cavalry can gather food from sheep. Citizen cavalry can gather around 7.5 food/second. A sheep has 100 food. So, it takes roughly 15 seconds for a citizen cavalry to complete one sheep, so in order to have the citizen cavalry constantly working, you need a second corral, which costs another 100 wood. As expected, you pay 50 food per sheep, so you do need a good food supply in order to maintain sheep production.

If we tally it up, two corrals being working by one citizen cavalry gathers around 100 food every 30 seconds.

Getting this up and running costed in total:

200 wood

40 wood (For citizen cavalry)

100 food (Citizen cavalry)

50 food (upgrade)

A constant 100 food per 27 seconds.

1 population point.

One farm in the village phase that is being worked by five female villagers earns 75 food every 30 seconds. With the upgrade, the farm can earn 150 food every 30 seconds. However, getting the farm to be more efficient than the corral costed:

300 wood

100 metal

250 food (For villagers)

5 population points.

In the long run, two farms upgraded once can earn 300 food per 30 seconds. This is enough to sustain production from 6 corrals that can be worked by 3 citizen cavalry. This set up can provide 600 food every 30 seconds, for a total cost of:

1250 wood

800 food

100 metal

13 population

+extra wood cost to support the population.

In theory, this set up appears to be superior. I might test it out and see how it goes.

Edited December 16, 2014 by Sanguivorant

[bouke]

You made one miscalculation: the horse should walk a bit between the sheep and the food dropplace. The females on the farm don't need to walk at all (as you place your farms correctly). This will give a slight disadvantage for the horse.

You also should say that a sheep costs 50 food so the horse will make 100 food per 27 seconds (100 gathered per 15 sec so approximately 200 in 27 sec, 100 is for you and the other 100 is returned to the coral to make new sheeps), so the horse will costs for 100 per 27 sec:

200 wood

40 wood (For citizen cavalry)

100 food (Citizen cavalry)

50 food (upgrade)

1 population point.

You even could do it with just one coral if you train your sheeps in groups of 5 or 10 (should test it for being exactly).

[niektb]

Also a standard citizen cav gathers 5 food/s not 7.5 so it could take a cav 27 sec to gather 100 food from a sheep (20 gather time + 7 walk time) so there is one corral needed to maintain one citizen cavalry.

You shouldn't forget, bouke, that you can place your corral and farmstead strategically to minimize walk time, such as:

Edited December 16, 2014 by niektb

[Sanguivorant]

Apologies for the miscalculations. I don't actually know the exact gather rates of all the units. I just made rough tests.

Anyhow, I did try this today, and I realized that 3 citizen cavalry cannot deal with 6 corrals at the same time. I had to make an extra two more to clear the excess sheep that I was training. But I can confirm that one upgraded farm can handle production from 6 corrals. It was slow at first, but after the first twelve sheep, I began to accumulate food at a very rapid pace.

I haven't experimented with batch training the sheep yet.

I remember back in Alpha 15, I was playing as the Persians and I set up my economy similar to this way, with one farm supporting around 2/3 corrals, and three citizen cavalry gathering food from them. I managed to have an excess of food throughout most of the game. I did lose against my superior opponent (Tango) though, but not because of a lack of resources, more a lack of good strategy and micro.

The other benefit to this set up is that cavalry are harder to kill than female villagers, and they can easily run away from harm. Any excess sheep you train can also flee a dangerous location. Corrals allow your economy to be a bit more portable, and makes it harder to destroy.

Edited December 16, 2014 by Sanguivorant