General gameplay discussion

[DarcReaver]

Hello there,

to make a quick introduction to you:

I'm Darc Reaver, leading gameplay developer on Company of Heroes: Eastern Front, and part of the development team "Archaic Entertainment". I've played RTS throughout the last 15 years, and played a fair share of, I'd say... 20000 games or more. I've played many different titles, starting with games like Settlers, Age of Empires, Warcraft 3, Company of Heroes, Battle for Middle Earth franchise and of course Command and Conquer.

I've yet to know about 0 AD, and recently got my hands on it. I've played some games already (roughly 20-something or so), and overall I find the game very appealing.

However, as a new player, I've noticed some things that sort of need quite some getting used to, and I've been asking myself if those things are intended.

There's a tl;dr section at the bottom of this post, as it's pretty long.

Point 1: Ressource progression

As far as I've noticed so far, playing mainly greek and mace factions, the progression of ressources is a bit iffy. Lumber seems to be the main resource throughout age 1 and 2, as every unit needs huge amounts of lumber, aswell as all buildings apart from Temples and Forts needing lumber, too. On top of that most technologies also require huge amounts of lumber.

In 0 AD you pretty much only need lumber and food for everything throughout age 1 and 2. And then suddenly you need 1000 metal and 1000 stone to progress to Age 3. Which feels a bit weird, as you need to stockpile resources that you don't need anyways in age 2. It would be better to make the progression to t3 more of a tradeoff between getting more military and teching up to more powerful units. Also, Age 2 might use different amounts of resources to progress. Like 600 Food 300 Stone.

This isn't necessarily bad, however, in my opinion, the resource distribution among technologies, buildings and units should vary more.

Let me give you a quick example:

- in CoH, you use manpower to train units, fuel to tech up and train vehicles, and ammunition for abilities and weapon upgrades.

- in Age you use Gold and Food for most units, or Gold and lumber, or Lumber and food to train military units.

In 0 AD I don't see this resource distribution being used that much. Instead, most units require the same amount of resources.

Pretty much you need to apply a certain "task" to each resource, like I stated above. From what I've seen the basic layout looks like this:

- food is needed for some eco, upgrades and soldiers

- wood is needed for pretty much everything

- metal is needed for some techs and advanced units, but only in small amounts.

- stone is needed for fortresses, towers and aging up

As someone can see, the resource usage is spread out a lot, and I think it might be worth it to readjust the system.

To give an example

- Food is most important early on, required for almost anything. Training villies, military units (melee), teching up

- lumber is needed for constructing basic structures, and requirement for ranged units like archers, siege weapons, upgrades that have to do with arrows/missiles

- metal is needed for military upgrades, all kinds of swordmen units, teching advanced techs that improve your citizen economy etc.

- stone is needed for defensive structures and teching advanced buildings/progressing in Age, (partly combined with lumber)

I know that this principle doesn't look that much different, but minor adjustments like these will affect the resourcing massively. Also, it streamlines the learning curve.

Players think then "Ok, I need metal for melee military, food for building units. Lumber and stone are needed for everything that has to do with my city"

Imo, metal should be given a bigger role in military unit production. The reason is easy: it gives more room for city progression, teching and also more variety in your starting game. Metal could be harder to mine, and take more time. This way, it also becomes more important to stockpile metals early on for age 2 and age 3 military units and upgrades.

If you make normal Age 1 infantry cost food + metal instead of food + lumber, it's overall more interesting in early build orders. If you're committing to a rush, you could be scouted, as you only need metal if you want to make military early on. This creates more importance for scouting your enemy. I know that some age 1 units require food and metal already (like hastati), but they still also need wood.

As the game progresses (I'm referring to age 2 mostly), metal should become more and more important. Techs should require more and more metal, and stronger military units should require a combo of lumber + metal, or food + metal. This makes fighting for metal depots on the map more important. Not every unit should require metal, but quite a few. Same with techs. Right now you need almost no metal apart from teching to age 3.

Example: basic hoplites cost 50g 20m instead of 50g50l. Peltasts cost 20f 60w (so you need to harvest more different resources, but you save food for aging up). Cavalry could cost 60f 40m instead of food and lumber.

quick edit: Another option could be that barracks are required to build advanced military (cavalry and peltasts) in your town center. There could be an upgrade to make units trained from the town center to match barracks build speed available once you've built it.

Point 2: fighting system

Right now, the game fighting is quite nice, although Archers seem to the weapon of choice to build, as they have huge range, and deal a lot of damage. Cavalry seems to be lacking, so the counters are weak. Imo, this isn't too much of an issue, tho.

What I think is a bigger problem is that pretty much all units can harvest resources. While it's cool to have citizen soldiers who can do both (very unique idea), this has 2 consequences:

First, the person who's playing aggressively early on risks A LOT. If you're rushing your enemy, you're giving away 2 resources. One resource is resource collection time. Your units are running to the enemy and not harvesting resources. Your opponent gets an economic lead this way, because his units are collecting resources. And even if you reach your enemy, it's hard to fight him, as he'll also have citizen soldiers to defend his city.

So, you as a rusher, are sacrificing economy and your enemy has more resources and has most likely as many soldiers as you have. Overall, rushing seems to be very inefficient this way. A solution to this would be that wounded units collect slower compared to full health units. Penalty of maybe 50% less efficent once they have lost hitpoints. But, to counter this, units would be able to regenerate health slowly. If you garrison them in the Town Center they heal faster - pretty much you reduce the dependancy on healing upgrades, and also, this rewards unit preservation. You could even go ahead and give certain civs bonuses to healing to mark them as defensive-boom oriented civs.

Also, I think that Archers shouldn't be able to harvest resources (or only at a VERY slow rate compared to other units). Archers seem to be very strong in this game, and there should be a drawback to this (apart from costs). If someone spams archers, he's "punished" by having a weaker economy compared to someone who's playing with other infantry units. Also, military units trained in the Town Center should take significantly longer to train compared to barracks so getting military buildings earlier is more important. Also, this helps with being able to rush. This also makes sense in the counter system:

Archers > Infantry > Cavalry > Archers - both archers and their counter cannot harvest resources. If cavalry counters archers, and archers can harvest while cavalry cannot, this makes archers way more population efficient as they're both economy unit, harassing unit and main military unit.

The 2nd consequence of this is that you get huge ressource spikes - every soldier multiplies as military unit and as a villager. So, lategame you'll have huge amounts of workers, who can also defend themselves easily, making eco raids with units like cavalry hard, especailly since quite a few citizen workers are spearmen. Like said before, not necessarily a bad thing, but this makes Archers even stronger. Because they are the only units that can outrange your military workers and harass economies without taking damage in return. Add fortresses and towers and you get a pretty static fighting front - build a Fortress, rush archers forward, kill some eco, then build another fort and so on. Since siege is required to tear down buildings, this makes advances hard.

Point 3: Buildings

Easier access to siege, or making regular infantry better at fighting buildings (maybe through upgrades) would seem to be the way to go from my point of view. Even if there is infantry that tears down buildings quite well, it's still hard to advance without siege. Maybe, some infantry units could also have access to upgrades that help with building damage. Dwarves in BFME got an upgrade named "siege hammers" which made them deal lots of damage to buildings, but removing their ability to fight regular units. Maybe something related to flares or fire could do the trick for units in 0 AD.

Also, building costs and times should be adjusted. Constructing buildings faster, and being able to tear them down faster leads to a more fluid gameplay, with more back and forth. Making buildings cost more stone compared to lumber makes economic choices and upgrades more important.

tl;dr:

Harassment should be made more viable, and resource distribution should be balanced out to give a more streamlined game. I suggest taking the time to read through the full post though.

So far, thanks for reading, and I'm hoping for some answers.

Greetings

DarcReaver

Edited May 25, 2015 by DarcReaver

[sanderd17]

Hi, thanks for your comments. But remember, since we're still in alpha state, and not all planned features are implemented, it's hard to balance.

Like about a month ago, a building capture system was implemented, which should give the harasser a big advantage, as he doesn't only take down a building of the opponent, but he also owns it and can use it to fire arrows or produce units near the enemy. So even with slower and more expensive buildings, this could lead to more back and forth (since the new owner can also lose his building again).

However, that also means that, at this stage, any combat with buildings is severely unbalanced.

Wrt the cavalry, we also plan to have a "charge" attack, that should primarily (or only) be used by cavalry, and where cavalry could exploit its speed advantage. But nobody started working on this yet. However, the strength of cavalry and archers has gone up and down over the last alphas. A16 fixed a chase issue, which meant that cavalry could finally attack moving units (before, they would stop to attack, and by the time they could attack, the target would have moved out of range). But the fix meant that cavalry suddenly was a lot stronger, and that unit speed actually mattered.

A few versions before that, the minimum damage done was always 1. Which meant that fast-fire units (like archers) could deal a lot of damage against buildings (even if the buildings had 99% pierce armour). Allowing decimal damage helped a lot with the issue of using archers to attack buildings.

Resources and the cost of technologies has also changed a lot in the previous versions. In previous versions, about all games were early rushes, and they were often done in 15 minutes. So the cost of the technologies has been upped to allow longer games, and units can't do a lot against a garrisoned CC now to limit early rushes to do merely economic damage (like destroying other buildings or killing loose units).

So, as you see, balancing often goes in a wave of OP and UP tactics, normally towards an equilibrium, until a new feature disrupts that equilibrium again. We do, however, try to keep the game playable and fun (the changing tactics on their own are actually also fun, like you get a new game every update). So comments on balancing are welcome, but it would be even better if you'd make comments (or send us patches) for the current SVN state. See http://trac.wildfiregames.com/wiki/TortoiseSVN_Guide on how to install the developer version of 0 A.D. (don't expect it to always work though).

[DarcReaver]

Hi, thanks for your comments. But remember, since we're still in alpha state, and not all planned features are implemented, it's hard to balance.

Like about a month ago, a building capture system was implemented, which should give the harasser a big advantage, as he doesn't only take down a building of the opponent, but he also owns it and can use it to fire arrows or produce units near the enemy. So even with slower and more expensive buildings, this could lead to more back and forth (since the new owner can also lose his building again).

However, that also means that, at this stage, any combat with buildings is severely unbalanced.

Wrt the cavalry, we also plan to have a "charge" attack, that should primarily (or only) be used by cavalry, and where cavalry could exploit its speed advantage. But nobody started working on this yet. However, the strength of cavalry and archers has gone up and down over the last alphas. A16 fixed a chase issue, which meant that cavalry could finally attack moving units (before, they would stop to attack, and by the time they could attack, the target would have moved out of range). But the fix meant that cavalry suddenly was a lot stronger, and that unit speed actually mattered.

A few versions before that, the minimum damage done was always 1. Which meant that fast-fire units (like archers) could deal a lot of damage against buildings (even if the buildings had 99% pierce armour). Allowing decimal damage helped a lot with the issue of using archers to attack buildings.

Resources and the cost of technologies has also changed a lot in the previous versions. In previous versions, about all games were early rushes, and they were often done in 15 minutes. So the cost of the technologies has been upped to allow longer games, and units can't do a lot against a garrisoned CC now to limit early rushes to do merely economic damage (like destroying other buildings or killing loose units).

*EDITED*

Yes, I agree that "balancing" an alpha is useless if the design and core game mechanics are is not set up yet.

For an alpha it doesn't matter much if Archers deal 5 or 10 damage, or have 50 hitpoints or 25 or costs 25 food or 50. Those are stats tweaks that follow up once the game core has been finished (which isn't the case as you stated above). And I agree that stuff like this is a waste of time, as you're likely to change it version for version. The point that I wanted to make is that there are functions in this current game which are not necessarily good for the gameplay - if archers tear down everything, work as efficient citizens to get resources while out of combat, and their intended counters cannot counter them and has no option for harvesting resources there should be done something about it. Of course you can go ahead and nerf archers, but from what I've seen you'll always have a critical mass of archers which won't be defeatable at a certain point. And this is not related to costs or unit stats, but because of how the game design is right now. I just take the Archer topic, as this is pretty obvious to notice - there might be other more subtle issues somewhere.

What I was talking about is the general idea on how the game is setup - if the setup is done everything else is cake and only code work.

Personally, I'd focus on reworking the resource system in the first place before doing anything else for once.

By rework I mean that you need to decide which resources are needed for what, and how fast players can/should aquire them.

Once that is "set in stone" you can rework the unit/building costs towards the resource distribution that you're planning. Once that is done you can adjust costs - providing you've included the buildings the way you want them to be. Then you need to decide which unit is available at which time (apparently you did a very nice job so far, it feels pretty well rounded apart from missing siege options).

So, as you see, balancing often goes in a wave of OP and UP tactics, normally towards an equilibrium, until a new feature disrupts that equilibrium again. We do, however, try to keep the game playable and fun (the changing tactics on their own are actually also fun, like you get a new game every update). So comments on balancing are welcome, but it would be even better if you'd make comments (or send us patches) for the current SVN state. See http://trac.wildfire...rtoiseSVN_Guide on how to install the developer version of 0 A.D. (don't expect it to always work though).

We on Eastern front mod also work with SVN, I'll check the version out. I'm not good at coding tho. If the unit tables and stuff are xml libraries or something similar I might be able to contribute if you guys are interested. I have quite some patience with reworking large amounts of numbers. I've done that for Eastern Front with thousands of files.

Edited May 25, 2015 by DarcReaver

[niektb]

[...]

We on Eastern front mod also work with SVN, I'll check the version out. I'm not good at coding tho. If the unit tables and stuff are xml libraries or something similar I might be able to contribute if you guys are interested. I have quite some patience with reworking large amounts of numbers. I've done that for Eastern Front with thousands of files.

Templates are indeed in XML. Technologies are in .json

[sanderd17]

Indeed, unit and building templates are here: http://trac.wildfiregames.com/browser/ps/trunk/binaries/data/mods/public/simulation/templates/

Note that we use inheritance. So the specific Athen archer inherits from regular archers, which inherits from ranged infantry, which inherits from ...

That means that shared stats aren't in the specific templates, but in one of the parents (you can see the parent in the first line of the XML).

EDIT there are also some patches underway to improve the inheritance. Like allowing to add or multiply a previous number instead of just overwriting it.

Technologies (that modify the initial stats) are here: http://trac.wildfiregames.com/browser/ps/trunk/binaries/data/mods/public/simulation/data/technologies

Though before beginning to actually modify hundreds of templates, it would probably be better to come to the chat (https://kiwiirc.com/client/irc.quakenet.org/0ad-dev), and specifically talk to scythetwirler (who does our balancing currently, but is busy with exams now).

[Chakakhan]

I have been away from the game for some time and coming back, I think you were spot on with your evaluation and your recommendations were appropriate as well. Thanks for taking the time to detail them out so completely!

The balancing will come, and comments like yours help to put a fine point on what needs to be balanced first.

Cheers!

[RoekeloosNL]

Point 3: Buildings

Easier access to siege, or making regular infantry better at fighting buildings (maybe through upgrades) would seem to be the way to go from my point of view. Even if there is infantry that tears down buildings quite well, it's still hard to advance without siege. Maybe, some infantry units could also have access to upgrades that help with building damage. Dwarves in BFME got an upgrade named "siege hammers" which made them deal lots of damage to buildings, but removing their ability to fight regular units. Maybe something related to flares or fire could do the trick for units in 0 AD.

Also, building costs and times should be adjusted. Constructing buildings faster, and being able to tear them down faster leads to a more fluid gameplay, with more back and forth. Making buildings cost more stone compared to lumber makes economic choices and upgrades more important.

I dont agree, At first 0.A.D is trying to be as historical an realistic as possible and when the time come's to balance all game mechanics then i believe the player is only able to bring down buildings with siege engines "and not with sticks and stones" and thats how it sould be not units hakking on buildings to bring it down.

Archers sould have a tech unlock to fire-arrows for buildings. (But takes some time to bring down a building)

A type of infantry unit sould have a tech option for torches. (Same as above)

Siege-engines with some upgrades for different damage types or something. (Mutch more easy to take down buildings but not to easy"

Artillery well takes speaks for it self!.

And for building costs, I also dont agree this is not COH where everthing is build fast. Yes there still is need to find the right spot for the best effect and nice'r gameplay but thats with Alpha. But use of different resources "but only with what are the materials that the building is made from" some if its made from only wood is sould cost only that, or if its made from mostly stone with some wood then it sould speak for it self. So i partly agree but you also need to keep in mind that most map,s are loaded with trees not with other material so to keep it interesting you need to find the right balance and not just make everything faster or slower i say some yes some no so not everything is the same..

[DarcReaver]

I dont agree, At first 0.A.D is trying to be as historical an realistic as possible and when the time come's to balance all game mechanics then i believe the player is only able to bring down buildings with siege engines "and not with sticks and stones" and thats how it sould be not units hakking on buildings to bring it down.

I don't see how using siege against regular buildings is "realistic". In Ancient times and Medieval times enemy buildings were sieged for months to get a surrender. Assaults were done, but not that often. However, they got more "popular" after the invention of gunpowder/Siege cannons. So, according to your logic no unit should be able to bring down any buildings at all. Rams were used against palisades and Gates from Forts etc. Those huge catapults were never used against regular settlements, not to destroy single houses. It would be a logistical waste, as it slows down the army speed - you need ammo, carry the weapon itself, need to construct it at the settlement etc. This itself is already inconsistent in your post. Apart from that, there is no problem with having certain buildings being strong against regular units, but it's simply not a good idea to make all units not being able to damage buildings at all. This game is an RTS, there needs to be an option to reduce your opponents influence. To me it doesn't matter that much if that is done with the capturing feature or by making units stronger against buildings by default, but there has to be one. Having only siege for that leads to static gameplay. Which is bad. This is not Settlers IV or something, where you build your city for 3 hours and then send out some hundred soldiers to kill your enemy..

Archers sould have a tech unlock to fire-arrows for buildings. (But takes some time to bring down a building)

Yea, but then only wooden buildings should be able to be damaged by them, because else it's "unrealistic"

A type of infantry unit sould have a tech option for torches. (Same as above)

That's what I've said pretty much. The siege hammers were just an example to state taht there need to be strategic options for destroying buildings.

Siege-engines with some upgrades for different damage types or something. (Mutch more easy to take down buildings but not to easy"

Artillery well takes speaks for it self!.

And for building costs, I also dont agree this is not COH where everthing is build fast. Yes there still is need to find the right spot for the best effect and nice'r gameplay but thats with Alpha. But use of different resources "but only with what are the materials that the building is made from" some if its made from only wood is sould cost only that, or if its made from mostly stone with some wood then it sould speak for it self. So i partly agree but you also need to keep in mind that most map,s are loaded with trees not with other material so to keep it interesting you need to find the right balance and not just make everything faster or slower i say some yes some no so not everything is the same..

You didn't get the core from my post. I said there needs to be a concept for which each resource is used. If you don't create such a concept you'll have a bad economy system. For CoH and the other games I've named have an exactly planned economy system, which works out well. Also "most maps" are not covered in trees. There are maps with lots of trees and maps without. Try savannah or Alps or Anatolia or some others and you'll see. Those maps are impossible to play at all, because you're too dependant on wood. This is not about balance, this is about the basic design of economy, buildings and combat system. This has nothing to do with "balance" at all. Balance is a result after the design is set and the core game mechanics are working. Balancing is adjusting details that were overlooked in the design process by stats, costs and buildtimes. And always done considering the overall design intention. If there is no design you cannot balance. It's pretty straightforward actually.

My answers directly in blue as idk how to split quotes in this forum software. I actually don't get why people talk about balance in this game all the time. There can't be a real balance until the core game is finished and set in stone. That's what I've been trying to say with the last posts I've written in here. And unless that is done you cannot finish it as there will be always stuff to change which leads to another overhaul. Idk, but I think people have often the wrong impression what "balance" really is or how it is achieved, and what the requirements for balance are.

Also, I really hate how people always come up with realism. Seriously. If someone wants realism go play a war sim game like Rome or some other Total War game, which gets pretty close to realism. RTS is not about realism. It's about interesting gameplay. Choosing a strategy building counter units and countering your opponents strategy and units. Having many strategic options for comebacks and surprising your opponent. About a working counter system. Also, how is having a game with 200-300 intended pop cap realistic in terms of warfare? Ancient larger cities usually had thousands of citizens alone, on top of armies consisting of thousands of men stationed everywhere.

Edit: Don't get me wrong, it's good to have realism to a certain amount - it adds up logical points to the game. E.g. Spears being good against cavalry units, or Skirmishers having high damage on their javelins against enemy infantry and stuff like that. Additional features like flanking attacks and so on also create more depth and tactical options ingame. Optical, historical accuracy for buildings and units is also important for the game's atmosphere. And I certainly appreciate stuff like that.

What I don't appreciate is what I call "overburdening features" or "unnecessary realism". Game features should be interesting, intuitive, rewarding and overall, most importantly, FUN. If they aren't, they're not worth integrating into the game.

And whoever executes his strategies, tactics faster/better and/or surprises his opponent wins. That's RTS. Everything else is not RTS. It's called Real-Time-Strategy for a reason. Time is one of the most important resources in this game type.

Edited May 28, 2015 by DarcReaver

[Wijitmaker]

Templates are indeed in XML. Technologies are in .json

Sorry, off topic - that is interesting news to me. I bet it has probably has been that way for years Just out of curiosity does anyone remember why the departure was made from XML? I'm assuming there was a logical reason why...

[RoekeloosNL]

I don't see how using siege against regular buildings is "realistic". In Ancient times and Medieval times enemy buildings were sieged for months to get a surrender. Assaults were done, but not that often. However, they got more "popular" after the invention of gunpowder/Siege cannons. So, according to your logic no unit should be able to bring down any buildings at all. Rams were used against palisades and Gates from Forts etc. Those huge catapults were never used against regular settlements, not to destroy single houses. It would be a logistical waste, as it slows down the army speed - you need ammo, carry the weapon itself, need to construct it at the settlement etc. This itself is already inconsistent in your post. Apart from that, there is no problem with having certain buildings being strong against regular units, but it's simply not a good idea to make all units not being able to damage buildings at all. This game is an RTS, there needs to be an option to reduce your opponents influence. To me it doesn't matter that much if that is done with the capturing feature or by making units stronger against buildings by default, but there has to be one. Having only siege for that leads to static gameplay. Which is bad. This is not Settlers IV or something, where you build your city for 3 hours and then send out some hundred soldiers to kill your enemy..

Well you know what i mean, to bring down a walled city you need a ram, artillery or you can scale them with siege towers when you want to destroy houses ect you can use archers or units with the ability to use torches. And YES its a RTS And you still can do things like reduce there influence. I did not say ALL units. And it also wont lead to static gameplay since you can RUSH or harash your opponent and fight for resources and when tech is there you can attack a walled city just like its played now. yeah and this is also not COH.

Yea, but then only wooden buildings should be able to be damaged by them, because else it's "unrealistic"

Most building have wood so burn you take it to far

You didn't get the core from my post. I said there needs to be a concept for which each resource is used. If you don't create such a concept you'll have a bad economy system. For CoH and the other games I've named have an exactly planned economy system, which works out well. Also "most maps" are not covered in trees. There are maps with lots of trees and maps without. Try savannah or Alps or Anatolia or some others and you'll see. Those maps are impossible to play at all, because you're too dependant on wood. This is not about balance, this is about the basic design of economy, buildings and combat system. This has nothing to do with "balance" at all. Balance is a result after the design is set and the core game mechanics are working. Balancing is adjusting details that were overlooked in the design process by stats, costs and buildtimes. And always done considering the overall design intention. If there is no design you cannot balance. It's pretty straightforward actually.

I understand maybe i used the wrong wordt but i do understand

Also, I really hate how people always come up with realism. Seriously. If someone wants realism go play a war sim game like Rome or some other Total War game, which gets pretty close to realism. RTS is not about realism. It's about interesting gameplay. Choosing a strategy building counter units and countering your opponents strategy and units. Having many strategic options for comebacks and surprising your opponent. About a working counter system. Also, how is having a game with 200-300 intended pop cap realistic in terms of warfare? Ancient larger cities usually had thousands of citizens alone, on top of armies consisting of thousands of men stationed everywhere.

Sry but TW is also not realistic yes it has big citys big armys. But i mean by realistic different use of formations different fight styles per civ and tactics ect. And thats your meaning that RTS is not about realism even a as possible realistic RTS game can have interesting gameplay, So because the game is limited to a pop count you cant have realistic game mechanics.

Edit: Don't get me wrong, it's good to have realism to a certain amount - it adds up logical points to the game. E.g. Spears being good against cavalry units, or Skirmishers having high damage on their javelins against enemy infantry and stuff like that. Additional features like flanking attacks and so on also create more depth and tactical options ingame. Optical, historical accuracy for buildings and units is also important for the game's atmosphere. And I certainly appreciate stuff like that.

What I don't appreciate is what I call "overburdening features" or "unnecessary realism". Game features should be interesting, intuitive, rewarding and overall, most importantly, FUN. If they aren't, they're not worth integrating into the game.

Yes realism to a certain amount like realistic fight mechanics. Well what you think is "unnecessary realism" others don't. And the devs are aiming for realism and historical

accuracy and for people that like to rush rush and have 10 min games there sould probably some more host options so you can play how they want.

Edited May 28, 2015 by RoekeloosNL

[niektb]

There should be a balance between realism and 'arcade' (as in: hyper fun, but no sense of realism) gameplay.

But that's where the difficulty is: everyone (more or less) has a different opinion about what the balance between realism and 'arcade' should be. 0 A.D. (at least that's what I understood from my time around here) tends to try to follow history where possible (especially when it comes to unit rosters and civ bonuses) but ofc realism has to be sacrificed every now for the sake of fun.

I think that there should be some sort of design commitee (The previous one is no longer active) (preferably consisting of some longer active, well-known guys that are quite good players (that excludes me)) that takes a thorough look into the balance of these two aspects (amongst other stuff ofc) and really set those in stone, accessible and readable for everyone. <= that's what I lack a bit ATM.

(these are just my two cents )

[DarcReaver]

There should be a balance between realism and 'arcade' (as in: hyper fun, but no sense of realism) gameplay.

But that's where the difficulty is: everyone (more or less) has a different opinion about what the balance between realism and 'arcade' should be. 0 A.D. (at least that's what I understood from my time around here) tends to try to follow history where possible (especially when it comes to unit rosters and civ bonuses) but ofc realism has to be sacrificed every now for the sake of fun.

I think that there should be some sort of design commitee (The previous one is no longer active) (preferably consisting of some longer active, well-known guys that are quite good players (that excludes me)) that takes a thorough look into the balance of these two aspects (amongst other stuff ofc) and really set those in stone, accessible and readable for everyone. <= that's what I lack a bit ATM.

(these are just my two cents )

The funny thing is that the game seems to be meant to be played very fast in the current build (so very arcade style compared to "slow" Age of Empires 2 for example)- you can start off with all types of main units - skirms, pikes/swords and some sort of cavalry. Your units are trained very fast, and resource collection is also pretty fast.Even tho you can train all those units from the start and have this super collection rate on your villagers, this doesn't have much effect on rushing at all. The combination of not being able to expand, having cheap, disposable workers everywhere, having citizens for countering rushes, buildings being so tough simply kills the dynamics.

The game plays out incredibly slow because booming is so strong and you can't rush properly because there is no real way to pressure your opponent. If some villies die - who cares? food is unlimited after minute 3 with farms, and a villager is trained in less than 10 secs. Also you have men for defending.

On top of that, there is no early map competition or even option for economic spreading with forward bases etc, which also slows down the overall resource progress (mining stone/metal/food in the center of the map). That's most likely why most people get farming economy so fast - I think that shouldn't be available from the start. Unlimited food should be for later ages. The feature of herding animals by yourself is actually a much more unique concept. I love the idea that you can either raise your own goats or go out hunting somewhere in another part of the map - with a higher reward. A very nice tradeoff mechanic. Right now you build some fields after harvesting berries and your food eco is done. Yuck, boooooring.

I'd really like to try out the new capture system. But I even with it I think there has to be quite some brainpower invested into the early game to improve the game flow.

Edit: don't get me wrong on this matter tho. I mostly refer to rushing because it simply seems to be completely ineffective in this game. I don't have problems with slower paced games - I don't necessarily need PvP action from minute 1. But I still think that someone who dedicates his early economy for warfare should be rewarded if he does it well. Right now it seems like booming is simply superior.

Edited May 28, 2015 by DarcReaver

[sanderd17]

Keeping the farm fields for town phase, and requiring natural resources or herding for village phase might indeed make the food more interesting.

I also though about the possibility to completely abandon constructable fields, but making sure the map has enough fields, and players need to concur those fields. Then maps can provide easy food, by placing a field next to it, or they can make it hard to get food.

[auron2401]

Like on desert maps.
That might be a LITTLE BIT too complex.

What happens when all the food is destroyed? Do you just.. die?

Edited May 28, 2015 by auron2401

[sanderd17]

Entities can be made undestroyable without a problem.

Next to that, there's still the herding food source, and traders provide an infinite source of everything.

[DarcReaver]

Keeping the farm fields for town phase, and requiring natural resources or herding for village phase might indeed make the food more interesting.

I also though about the possibility to completely abandon constructable fields, but making sure the map has enough fields, and players need to concur those fields. Then maps can provide easy food, by placing a field next to it, or they can make it hard to get food.

Fields as map control element? Sounds overall interesting, but then you need to make sure that it's possible to create defensive options for your farms. But overall this seems to be a nice idea and gives your militia men a point. Either use women who are defenseless for harvesting fast, or use citizens to have a defense and harvest slower. However, you'd need the option to create defensive positions earlier in neutral territories - like palisades and wooden towers and maybe houses to protect your farmers to a certain degree. This is mostly about being able to keep your economy alive against raids. If the enemy tries to capture your base with a superior force he can do that ofc.

Like on desert maps.

That might be a LITTLE BIT too complex.

What happens when all the food is destroyed? Do you just.. die?

I'd say desert maps could be treated just alike. Afterall there is no gameplay influence by weather and terrain on your units. Why should farming & building be affected then?

[wowgetoffyourcellphone]

Capture animals and herding need boost so that early food eco is more interesting before switch to farm.

[Prodigal Son]

Farms built only in farmland might be hard to balance, especially placing them in random maps and even more so, how would they work in maps with small islands? Have weird looking islets full of farmland, or have almost no farming for those maps? Overall almost any (relatively) flat ground should be farmable imo, and for balance reasons at the same rate. In my impression RTS games who have huge placement limitations to very basic resources didn't work that well.

Some old discussions could be revisited though. Maybe the Civ Centre could have a small-ish radius around it where structures can't be constructed (or just farms) but units can pass through. This would make the econ more vulnerable to raiding, while being realistic, as you wouldn't farm in a City Centre. I'd prefer farming being available from the village phase, for realism and for preventing early defeat in cases where the opponent has map control and you can't venture far from your starting region for hunting.

At the same time, starting mines and to a lesser degree forest masses would be nice to be a little more distanced from the CC as well, for similar reasons. Also limited starting exploration of the map to the Civ Centre's vision instead of the whole territory would make scouting more important, especially coupled with the ideas above, since you would have to locate your starting resources.

I more or less agree with the OP in the resource and ranged unit dominance parts.

Edited May 29, 2015 by Prodigal Son

[DarcReaver]

Farms built only in farmland might be hard to balance, especially placing them in random maps and even more so, how would they work in maps with small islands? Have weird looking islets full of farmland, or have almost no farming for those maps? Overall almost any (relatively) flat ground should be farmable imo, and for balance reasons at the same rate. In my impression RTS games who have huge placement limitations to very basic resources didn't work that well.

While you do have a point - water maps usually contain fish as food source. By reducing farm land on the isles you pretty much force fighting for the sea to maintaining food flow. Edited May 29, 2015 by DarcReaver

[niektb]

The funny thing is that the game seems to be meant to be played very fast in the current build (so very arcade style compared to "slow" Age of Empires 2 for example)- you can start off with all types of main units - skirms, pikes/swords and some sort of cavalry. Your units are trained very fast, and resource collection is also pretty fast.Even tho you can train all those units from the start and have this super collection rate on your villagers, this doesn't have much effect on rushing at all. The combination of not being able to expand, having cheap, disposable workers everywhere, having citizens for countering rushes, buildings being so tough simply kills the dynamics.

[...]

Exactly, the fast gameplay pace (your build order is poor if you ever stop producing units) introduced since Alpha 17 is the key element I dislike in the current 0 A.D. (though the battle pace is much better in A18 compared to A17). (other more minor stuff are the huge LOS (which makes scouting close to useless) and firing range and walkspeed)

I think that Delenda Est (gameplay mod) (haven't played Ancient Empires extensively) does the economic pace a lot better.

Delenda Est also has a range around the Civ Center that debonuses the farming speed to (softly) 'force' you to put your farms further away. Combine that with the ability to build farms, houses, storehouses and farmsteads outside of your own territory and certain terrain (only in Skirmish maps yet) that gives you a farming bonus (which does DE both but the farmterrains/farmlands are a bit hacky implemented) and the base building part becomes much more interesting.

Also (as a sidenote) in DE only female citizens and 1 basic citizen-soldier type is trainable from the Civ Center.

With regards to farmlands in Random Map, I think that's doable (irregardless of the work that it takes to edit all those existing random maps) since the Random Map Script knows the layout of the map and should technically be able to put farmlands on a correct spot.

P.S. in case you didn't know: the topic about Delenda Est can be found here: http://wildfiregames.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=19379

Edited May 29, 2015 by niektb

[av93]

I agree on most things that DarcReaver said. I agree also on that there's a need of a designed vision of a major picture to make 0 ad in some direction (There's already some but I think it should be hard worked on). The problem is that there's a need of all features before all that stuf, altough the status it's near finished.

I agree than now in this alpha, rushing it's very difficult (old cav skirmishers rushes are gone), and every strategy should be viable and more different.

Regarding food strategy, I think that farms could be builded on the first phsae, but very less productive until a lot of techs. A new idea that I have thought, instead of making herdables costing some food, I would made them autoproduce by the corrals. Garrisoned herdables would make to train them faster (having to choose between fast food or long terms production) It's not very micro, on my opinion. Also limit the number of corrals that a player can build

Edited May 29, 2015 by av93

[RoekeloosNL]

Farms built only in farmland might be hard to balance, especially placing them in random maps and even more so, how would they work in maps with small islands? Have weird looking islets full of farmland, or have almost no farming for those maps? Overall almost any (relatively) flat ground should be farmable imo, and for balance reasons at the same rate. In my impression RTS games who have huge placement limitations to very basic resources didn't work that well.

Some old discussions could be revisited though. Maybe the Civ Centre could have a small-ish radius around it where structures can't be constructed (or just farms) but units can pass through. This would make the econ more vulnerable to raiding, while being realistic, as you wouldn't farm in a City Centre. I'd prefer farming being available from the village phase, for realism and for preventing early defeat in cases where the opponent has map control and you can't venture far from your starting region for hunting.

At the same time, starting mines and to a lesser degree forest masses would be nice to be a little more distanced from the CC as well, for similar reasons. Also limited starting exploration of the map to the Civ Centre's vision instead of the whole territory would make scouting more important, especially coupled with the ideas above, since you would have to locate your starting resources.

I more or less agree with the OP in the resource and ranged unit dominance parts.

Then i think the best way to do is to have farmable land only on the bigger size islands and like Darcreaver said the main food source would then be fishing. And to enable it you can have a mechanic that you need to build a farm near the farmfields "fixed position" to clame it.

I Also agree that there sould be a none build radius around the CC or something. And same for mines and it would also be nice to have buildable mines of some sort.

[niektb]

[...]

Regarding food strategy, I think that farms could be builded on the first phsae, but very less productive until a lot of techs. A new idea that I have thought, instead of making herdables costing some food, I would made them autoproduce by the corrals. Garrisoned herdables would make to train them faster (having to choose between fast food or long terms production) It's not very micro, on my opinion.

It has also been suggested to let herdables autogenerate food when they're garrisoned at corrals. What do you think of that?

[DarcReaver]

It has also been suggested to let herdables autogenerate food when they're garrisoned at corrals. What do you think of that?

That's another option for making a more automatic approach to economy. Both versions are equal in terms of innovation/unique style. The question is if you want to shift more action onto fighting or more onto economic management.

Also, one problem may be with auto spawning herdables might be that you'll end up with huge amounts of auto generated goats etc. that are not killed and reduce game performance or create abusive options (spam them to block enemy soldiers and stuff). If you'd do something like that there needs to be a limit of how many herdables spawn.

[av93]

Oh, just limit 10 max goats for builded corral (Think about 3 corrals max) for example.

Edited May 29, 2015 by av93