[a19 replays] Can we have a forum for recorded games?

[fcxSanya]

In the recorded games I can't go into the color of the players (like in AOE for example).

You can do this by opening developer overlay (Alt+D), enabling "Change perspective" and selecting player in the middle of the top panel.

[elexis]

It didn't show up in the replay list. After unchecking "Filter compatible replays", it shows up in gray, and shows "You don't have the same mods active as the replay does. Required: mod, public Active: mod, public, user".

I don't have any custom mod and I don't know what is a "user" mod.

I can still manually edit the replay to change the mod requirements.

Apparently there is an invisible "user" mod that is implicitly enabled for release versions, but not for working copies.

This means you need to either edit the commands.txt or just uncheck the "incompatible" replay filter. Will be fixed for the next release.

[fcxSanya]

<...> or just uncheck the "incompatible" replay filter

This only allows to display it in the list, but when you are trying to start the replay it displays an error message instead:

so the manual file edit seems to be the only way to use non-release replays on the release version of the game.

[Mustang]

Are there any strong players who are going to upload their games here? I really loved to watch the games uploaded here and would like to see some new

[xfs]

Are there any strong players who are going to upload their games here? I really loved to watch the games uploaded here and would like to see some new

There is indeed something new.

A19's capture mechanism changed the whole meta-game. Right now there is one single predominant strategy, that is build tons of swords champions, storm in the enemy's base and capture the CC, and build more champions. All the 1400+ score players I played with use Britons and use this strategy, and anyone who does not use this strategy is defeated very easily. There is no more siege, and nothing else matters. Personally I find this new meta-game unbalanced and lacking in diversity. (Another strategy demonstrated by ffm and Wonox above is fast rush and economy skirmishing for game under 15 minutes. OK, this is pro level build order and economy managing, I don't enjoy it and don't have time to practice for it).

The basic fact of this mechanism is that, ordinary soldiers have 2 capture power per second, but champions have 5 capture power per second, which can be further boosted by heroes to at most 7. Normal buildings have 500 capture points, CC's have 2000 capture points, fortresses have 4000 capture points. This means with 50 champions CC would take 6 seconds to capture an undefended CC, or 11 seconds to capture an undefended fortress.

What happens after capturing the CC is that the CC now generates the attacker's territory and all buildings in that territory get "captured" by "territory pull" 7 points per second, which means all the infrastructure is very quickly finished.

Swords champions are able to do this because they have the highest stats in the game: (when fully upgraded) 12 hack armor, and 12 pierce armor both negate 72% damage, and quite high DPS (24.1 hack, or 29.1 if boosted by a hero), and they walk almost as fast (13 meter/second) as the fastest infantry, skirmishers (14). Britons, Romans, and Iberians have swords champions, but Britons' hero offers an additional 25% walk speed boost than the standard +5 attack +2 capture. This is why Britons is the most popular civ now. Spear champions are strictly inferior to swords champions because of lower attack and slower walk speed. Champions are expensive, but it is not very hard to build 100 champions in under 25 minutes by just gathering.

There are several implications from these facts:

• The high capture power of champions decides that towers and fortresses are easily captured and useless for defense, with any number of normal soldiers in garrison. (Unless the defender has an equal number of champions to negate the capture power.)
• The high armor stats of champions decide that they can walk in and out of heavily tower defended areas unscathed and finish capturing before dying off. This also means archers and skirmishers civs need a huge number of ranged troops to deter (but still can't kill) swords champions, and this army composition is strategically bad for attacking defense structures.
• The high attack stats of champions decide that even if the defense structures are garrisoned by champions, they can still kill the buildings by brute force relatively fast. This further adds to the uselessness of defense structures.
• Capturing the CC is now a straightforward job to destroy the opponent. And the only real defense is to also use Britons and build an equal or more number of swords champions.
• Siege weapons are as fragile as paper, easy to capture, very slow, and in general much more inefficient in offence compared to above. So they become pretty much irrelevant to the game.
• Using temples to heal champions is now considered an economy strategy, because champion casualties mean massive economy loss.
• Walls and turrets cannot be captured, and they may be used for blocking champions. But they are mostly passive and stone is often hard to come by too.

A side meta-game derived from the main meta-game is now to deny the opponent access to metal, first scout the map, locate metal deposits, and expand there and defend it. Stone is pretty much irrelevant because fortresses and towers are irrelevant for defense.

I am a long time Romans player since a15. Romans have specialty including siege towers, which costs only wood instead of stone, and can be built in neutral and enemy territory, and Scorpio, bolt shooters, which attack invisibly, have splash damage, and used to have the highest DPS (90) in the game. Unfortunately both were seriously nerfed. Siege towers are much slower to build and much more expensive, Scorpio's have much slower rate of fire (DPS now: 49). I personally prefer Romans' melee infantry core, and kept fighting with Britons' slinger rush before.

This replay demonstrated my base defense against champion spam. It's a 3-way FFA with julijan (Athenians), imrobbyg (Britons), and me (Romans). Ignore other twos players who were irrelevant. This one is fairly long, one hour, so you may want to use fast forward setting, and Alt-D change perspective.

Outcome (everything below is spoiler):

imrobbyg won (near draw). xfs was defeated (near draw).

I built 300-400 siege towers, which posed a clear deterrence and attrition to champion spam and forced them to retreat many times. Romans siege towers cost 100 wood and 130 seconds to build, have 2000 HP, 17 hack armor, 37 pierce armor, range 96, shoot 1 arrow (DPS 10) empty or 4 arrows (DPS 40) fully garrisoned. Also, it has much less surface for melee champions to attack. A thought experiment: 30 siege towers fully garrisoned kill 30 swords champions in 18 seconds.

Important times and events from my perspective:

• 17 minute, imrobbyg economy skirmishing against julijan.
• 20 minute, imrobbyg started champion production.
• 25 minute and so on, imrobbyg destroyed julijan with champion spam.
• ~40 minute, I built 100 swords champions (I could earlier, but was building towers), and through some strategic maneuver luring away his champions, I attacked his main base.
• I captured his CC, but forgot his wonder also generated territory. His infrastructure was not converted, and my 100 champions failed the mission and died. I had no more access to metal.
• I destroyed two of his outer bases.
• imrobbyg initiated siege ram and champion combined attack. I lost some towers but as soon as I had melee infantry on-site I was able to defend. The siege rams are very quick to kill off, and the champions garrisoned inside cannot afford to go out to defend the rams and endure massive arrow fire. I was focused on something else and didn't bother.
• I built 100 more spearmen (twice), and through some maneuver, destroyed one more outer base, and captured one fortress at his main base. I should not have garrisoned the spearmen in that fortress because it was very fast to get captured back by champions while the fortress defense of 20 arrows per second did minimal damage to the champions.
• I destroyed his wonder with a sneak team covered by maneuver elsewhere to attract attention.

At this point, I resigned. I could still defend indefinitely. I could build 300 more siege towers, and I had the reserve to deter him from throwing everything and emptying base defense. But generally siege towers alone lacked the strategic initiative compared to concentrated champion spam, and siege towers are too slow to build offensively. So this was a losing battle.

TL;DR:

• Use Britons, build 50 swords champions in 20 minutes, 100 champions in under 25 minutes, become unstoppable.
• Scout the map, capture metal deposits, deny metal access to the opponent.
• If your opponent use champion spam, seal your main CC with walls, move farms elsewhere, and do not build defense towers and fortresses anywhere except your main base, and metal deposit.
• Don't even build defense towers in your main base, which get captured fast. Build wall turrets only, which is strictly better than defense towers for defense purposes (no distance restrictions, cannot be captured vs 500 capture points, 4x/5x HP, 96 range vs 88, half the arrows though you're not gonna have the garrison in time).
• Do not build any siege weapons except siege rams garrisoned with 5 champions.
• Do not garrison any building after capture if you opponent have champions. Just destroy it (except CC, wait for the territory pull).

britons-vs-romans-ffa.zip

Edited December 9, 2015 by xfs

[Alekusu]

xfs, back on a17 I had a very strong build with gauls relying on harassing with sword cav. It didn't work anymore on a18 because I couldn't destroy anything anymore (even a house). But now that we can capture I'm starting to think that this build could work. Have someone tried it?

[xfs]

xfs, back on a17 I had a very strong build with gauls relying on harassing with sword cav. It didn't work anymore on a18 because I couldn't destroy anything anymore (even a house). But now that we can capture I'm starting to think that this build could work. Have someone tried it?

Swords cav has 2 capture points so that's not a great advantage in capturing. Besides, the point of swords champions is their massive armor to allow them to ignore everything else until finishing the capture.

[Alekusu]

Yes but the point of sword cav is that you have 50 of them before 15min.

The idea is not to destroy the enemy with this strategy but to capture houses, depots and barracks to suffocate the enemy.

I'll try anyway

[wraitii]

Most of the team (at least those who played a bit) agree that the current "champs only" win strategy is boring as hell. We're looking at ways to change it.

[fatherbushido]

It's off topic

@wraitti & xfs

I agree with you.

But i think it is better than in a18. In a19, if players want to fight at phase 1 or 2, they can.

Now we have : capture (it can be effective in early game), low HP woman, veteran rank basic units...

Anyway, it's very hard to balance something with missing feature.

@alekusu

i thought the same thing about swordcav. But i didn't really succeed.

[Alekusu]

@fatherbushido

Thank you for the feedback man.

I really need to play more this alpha. My feeling (by playing and listening to you guys) is that everybody is making 200 pop then start making 100 champions from 20 min. So what if you push at 19 min with 300 pop and armory upgrade. Looks like there might be a timing here.

Anyway new alpha is exciting, we should look for counter of this meta before rebalancing everything again.

Sorry for a long offtopic

[xfs]

Not really off topic though, because "I think you can start from uploading them into this topic. If there will be a significant amount of posts, they can be split/moved into a subforum."

[fatherbushido]

@xfs : sorry ( I thought I was off topic). My bad.

@alekusu : let's try this, but it's really hard to deal with a good builder with the 3/4 towers at the right place. Perhaps the corral speed upgrade can do it.

But we can try with spears cav too (level 1) ? They have better pierce armor.

[ffm]

This replay is about Survival of the Fittest. It is possible to survive forever, if you are able to survive about three waves and make use of http://trac.wildfiregames.com/ticket/3696.

The replay is 1 hour 15 minutes and not very interesting, once you got the idea.

At no point I am in danger. I think the CC didn't get a single hit.

With Ptolemies it is even easier, as you can build corals without resources. Ptolemies are in general OP in Survival of the Fittest.

In the end it lags, because there are too many sheep. Maybe we make a limit for sheep's. I tried to delete some sheep, but it's not possible (just like it should be, because it is a task for your workers to do), but your enemy is giving a helping hand.

http://trac.wildfiregames.com/ticket/3102 would deal with the situation in this map.

I don't have a player 2 so I get more treasures than usual, but its possible with 2 players too.

I am able to build on the valley, but didn't.

Change ["mod","public"] to ["mod","public","user"] in the first line if you can't replay this.

survival.zip

Edited December 22, 2015 by ffm

[Alekusu]

100 Champs 19min.zip

A test against AI, getting 100 champs under 20min with gauls

EDIT

vs bb.zip

and two games vs bb

EDIT 2

Macro Gestion.zip

And a final one for tonight showing some macro management with gauls (no attack until 20min)

Good night

Edited December 22, 2015 by Alekusu

[xfs]

Using archer cavalries against RCF Diamond (top 5 player, Gauls). Diamond has better economy than most of the Britons champ spam users and were able to defeat them.

First game, a Romans player and Seleucids (me) with no economy against Diamond and a Britons player with massive economy advantage.

We won. K/D > 2. My cavalries killed ~300 champions.

Their trader income > 100000.

Lesson: champ swordsmen covered by archer cavs are more unstoppable than champ swordsmen alone.

Two more games, a Britons player (using champ spam) and Ptolemies (me) against Diamond and a noob.

We won.

Diamond's economy was hampered by archer cav harassment, and then the champ spam race was lost.

Discussion:

Basically, archer cavs are a quite good DPS (9.8) if protected by high armor infantry, which takes the aggro. Among non-champions, pikemen have the highest armor. Egyptian pikemen under hero aura have almost the same HP and the same armor as champ swordsmen, and no other non-champions are even near.

So I was testing this army composition against champ spam. The critical weakness is pikemen walk half the speed than champs, making it useless for macro and sometimes totally ignored. Also, champ swordsmen run too fast, so purely archer cavs can't win a micro battle against champs.

Javelin cavs are not a good DPS even though they have the highest raw number (22.4, higher than champ swordsmen). Their short range makes them die fast and run around a lot before actually starting to attack.

archer-cavs-against-rcf-diamond.zip

[Alekusu]

Hey guys,

here are two replays against two very strong players, xfs and bbleft:

First game against xfs, I rushed and win against his booming build order
Second game, a champ race, bbleft expanded but I had more champs than him. he tried to go for a fortress to get his OP hero (^^) but was stopped in time !

GG to them

vs xfs.zip

vs bbleft.zip

[xfs]

here are two replays against two very strong players, xfs and bbleft:

The reason I lost is when Alekusu rushed at 5 minutes with 11 soldiers, I have not made any soldiers. So there was a big tactical disparity.

The reason I have not made any soldiers at 5 minutes is that Hellenic civs have slower economy. Their houses are slower to build than Celtic civs (60 seconds vs 24 seconds). This makes the economy of Hellenic civs inherently slower, with lots of time wasted on production waiting on houses, or houses waiting on wood. In an attempt to match the economy of Gauls, I had to save wood for houses only in the first 5 minutes, and made women only.

[Alekusu]

xfs I can do the exact same build to get 11 soldiers in 5min with any civ:

have a look at this replay, I play with seleucids

Rush Seleu.zip

[xfs]

Okay, and?

I was not saying it is hard to have 11 soldiers at 5min. It was an attempt to match Celtic civs' economy at 10min. If you make soldiers early on for defense, the economy obviously suffers, and is more worse off in the long run than Celtic civs.

What happens if I make defensive soldiers but you continue booming with women? There will be a bigger economy disparity at 10min.

To solve this, obviously one must scout. And one must keep scouting to find out possible discrepancy in military strength and sign of rush. In the meantime the economy must go on without wasting a single second, and bifurcate the build order depending on what the opponent does.

Multitasking all these is not easy. Scouting in 0AD takes sharp eyes, as the units are really tiny and obscured. And counting them at a glance is even harder. And now your build order is not fixed, instead it depends on the opponent and unluckily for Hellenic civs, you may not have enough wood to at times to make the decision. A simple answer may be just git gud, but I might as well not have time to play.

[Alekusu]

Hum I simply do not agree with that,

" It was an attempt to match Celtic civs' economy at 10min. If you make soldiers early on for defense, the economy obviously suffers, and is more worse off in the long run than Celtic civs."

I have same tactics doable with all civs, rushing turtling booming, this has imho nothing to do with gauls and house building time (for example I can get 130pop with gauls or with any civs in 10min)

for me you didn't lose that game because gauls>hellen but because rush>booming, nothing do to with gauls eco here I believe.

Also, you played athenians, you can do a batch of 5 slingers from beginning without losing any eco.

i agree though that scouting is important in a19. In high level games on sc2 for example, nobody will win without scouting and this is a good thing, it should be the same in 0AD.

imo that game shows that 0ad is taking a good direction where rushing wins against booming and scouting is necessary.

Alex

Edited December 28, 2015 by Alekusu

[xfs]

Please provide a replay that shows 130 Romans pop at 10min (while doing this early soldier making).

Edited December 28, 2015 by xfs

[Alekusu]

You lost me here ^^

I can make a build order to get 11 soldiers in 5 min and rush with gauls or romans or any civ

I can make a build order (different one) to get 130 pop in 10min with gauls or romans or any civ

I cannot make a build order to rush in 5min and follow with 130 pop in 10 min with gauls or romans or any civ.

This is why I'm saying that the result of our game has nothing to do with civ but the key was scouting and tactics (rushing > booming).

you said:

"What happens if I make defensive soldiers but you continue booming with women?"

The fact that now we need to ask ourselves these kind of question means, imho, that the game is getting really good in terms of strategy and tactics.

[Alekusu]

Hey guys,

A replay vs AI showing how to boom with romans, 150 pop at 10min!

Romans 150 pop 10min.zip

[xfs]

The secret sause sauce is to build units in 10-batch or 15-batch.

Edited January 10, 2016 by xfs