Godpowers like in AoM (non-magical)

[StreptoFire]

One of the best features that stood out in AoM when compared to the AoE series are the godpowers that the players can use during the match. I like them because they add more strategic depth to the game: Players would have to know when to use their powers correctly and plan their strategies accordingly. Besides that, Godpowers are really fun to use.

Another benefit would be bigger differentiation between civilizations. Maybe some civilizations could have no godpowers, but a strong economy and powerful military, while others could have lots of godpowers, but mediocre economy and military.

However, I don't think summoning Hydras and Dragons or calling upon a meteor rain would quite fit this game (good idea for a mod, though). This game is supposed to be realistic and not include magical stuff.

Instead of mystical wizard powers, I suggest more realistic godpowers such as:

- Ferocious Roar: Your army inflicts a loud war cry, scaring and causing some enemies to flee from the battle. Low-rank and/or injured soldiers are more likely to flee.

- Ceasefire: For X seconds, nobody can attack anything (except wild animals) on the map.

- Hail of Arrows: Your most skillfull archers shoot arrows far into the sky, causing a rain of arrows on the selected circle.

- Sabotage: Your soldiers sabotage a single enemy building for a period of time. While it is sabotaged, it generates units more slowly.

- Gold Rush: For a short amount of time, all your metal miners work much faster.

- Immigration: Five female citizens, five soldiers and three sheep arrive at your town.

- Tax collection: Gain 1 metal for each building and citizen under your command.

- Theft: Steal resources from a selected enemy.

(if you have more ideas, please post them below =D)

Instead of allowing godpowers to be executed from the beginning, maybe they could be unlocked with the research of certain technologies. Stronger godpowers would only be available at later stages of the game and would be more expensive to use.

Perhaps some of the stronger godpowers (like Ferocious Roar or Ceasefire) should be only usable a single time per game, while weaker godpowers (such as Sabotage) could be used more than a single time, but with a timed cooldown. The cooldown should be increased at each use of the ability in order to prevent abuse.

Also, I don't want this game to become a godpower fest like some AoM matches were, so each civilization should be limited to a few godpowers. Some of them might have zero and some of them might have 3, but most would have 1 or 2 godpowers at a later stage of the game.

So, what do you think of the idea? Vote in the poll and post your opinions, and thanks for reading

[Lion.Kanzen]

Some time ago I'm thinking to considerate this, like call to reinforcement and mix god's power with deck card from AOE 3.

Work like god's power, with limit, 4 slots each for one per phase, but the power are political decisions or help from homeland.

[Pedro Falcão]

I feel like being able to cast these powers from anywhere kinda turns it just into an annoying thing. In Age of Mythology it made sense, since they were god powers (and most of them had only one use), but in 0 A.D. it would amount just to wreaking havoc in the base of the winning player without letting him any chance of defense, which is not fun. On the other hand, I could totally see some specific units having abilities like this, and IIRC some abilities are already planned for the game (like 'Charge' for cavalry), and I don't know if it's planned, but several people suggested warcries that boost morale.

[wowgetoffyourcellphone]

I feel like being able to cast these powers from anywhere kinda turns it just into an annoying thing. In Age of Mythology it made sense, since they were god powers (and most of them had only one use), but in 0 A.D. it would amount just to wreaking havoc in the base of the winning player without letting him any chance of defense, which is not fun. On the other hand, I could totally see some specific units having abilities like this, and IIRC some abilities are already planned for the game (like 'Charge' for cavalry), and I don't know if it's planned, but several people suggested warcries that boost morale.

I don't think OP mean to rain meteors down on enemy base. Morelike the "war cries" you suggest.

I think such powers would be cool and add some strategy. I also think it would make neat metagame to choose decks of power ahead of time like Lion suggest. Say, 5 weak powers available for Village Phase, 5 better powers avaIL for Town, 5 for City, 5 for Empire Phase. Select in a menu before the match which powers you want. 1 power per phase (so, 4 in my example). Have 3 out of 5 powers for each phase be generic for all culture, and then 2 powers per phase be culture-unique.

Or....

Make the powers available be a choice when phase up. 2 powers to choose from kind of like choose minor god in AOM. Also, add unique techs to these choice too (but this is different discussion).

And by "powers" they can be call "Policies" or "Commandments" or something like this.

This of course add feature creep, but theere is discussion on how to make the gameplay more fun, more strategic, more dramatic. I think the game need more Drama. It lacks this. It is only a grind right now.

Edited December 20, 2015 by wowgetoffyourcellphone

[Lion.Kanzen]

Ok we can define what type.

-Reinforcements ( is planned in the trac)

- unique building ( you can build a structure that you can only find in editor, like Persians have sp2)

- Diplomacy effect ( you can force all player to a diplomacy stance for a while)

- Reform you can reform your army ( like the ragnarok in AOM )

-Political effect/strategy ( this would be like to bribe, make a sedition effect , to migration, to call settler reinforcement, call to resources) last set very similar to AOE 3

- access to special units( spy, saboteur and Assasin).

-

[StreptoFire]

I feel like being able to cast these powers from anywhere kinda turns it just into an annoying thing. In Age of Mythology it made sense, since they were god powers (and most of them had only one use), but in 0 A.D. it would amount just to wreaking havoc in the base of the winning player without letting him any chance of defense, which is not fun. On the other hand, I could totally see some specific units having abilities like this, and IIRC some abilities are already planned for the game (like 'Charge' for cavalry), and I don't know if it's planned, but several people suggested warcries that boost morale.

Yeah, maybe some of these powers should suit better as unit abilities. Perhaps some archer units could be able to cast a rain of arrows after researching a certain technology? I don't know.

And regarding the "anywhere on the map" part, yes it would be very annoying. I suggest a moderate range for these abilities, so you can't leave your archers on your base and command them to shoot the enemy base at the other side of the map.

I don't think OP mean to rain meteors down on enemy base. Morelike the "war cries" you suggest.

I think such powers would be cool and add some strategy. I also think it would make neat metagame to choose decks of power ahead of time like Lion suggest. Say, 5 weak powers available for Village Phase, 5 better powers avaIL for Town, 5 for City, 5 for Empire Phase. Select in a menu before the match which powers you want. 1 power per phase (so, 4 in my example). Have 3 out of 5 powers for each phase be generic for all culture, and then 2 powers per phase be culture-unique.

Or....

Make the powers available be a choice when phase up. 2 powers to choose from kind of like choose minor god in AOM. Also, add unique techs to these choice too (but this is different discussion).

And by "powers" they can be call "Policies" or "Commandments" or something like this.

This of course add feature creep, but theere is discussion on how to make the gameplay more fun, more strategic, more dramatic. I think the game need more Drama. It lacks this. It is only a grind right now.

Regarding the name, I think "Ability" or "Commandment" would probably suffice.

I think the best options are either the AoM way (choose powers when aging up) or researching a technology in order to unlock the ability. IMO choosing 5 abilities/commandments for each phase (AOE3 style) would make the game really crowded with them. It would be necessary to make abilities really weak or else this game would become very chaotic with tons of abilites being used all the time by multiple players.

Ok we can define what type.

-Reinforcements ( is planned in the trac)

- unique building ( you can build a structure that you can only find in editor, like Persians have sp2)

- Diplomacy effect ( you can force all player to a diplomacy stance for a while)

- Reform you can reform your army ( like the ragnarok in AOM )

-Political effect/strategy ( this would be like to bribe, make a sedition effect , to migration, to call settler reinforcement, call to resources) last set very similar to AOE 3

- access to special units( spy, saboteur and Assasin).

-

That's kinda what I'm talking about. Really powerful ones like your AoM Ragnarok example should only be able to be used once per match, due to being really powerful. Weaker ones like calling resources (like AoE3) could be used multiple times per match, but with a cooldown of course.

[Lion.Kanzen]

The thing is replace gods power name with other name less... Divine. Are only 4 slots into top of GUI that can be serve a good propose

Simulating efforts from the capital of great empires or by the court of a king himself. There's not any supernatural.

[poVoq]

So a bit like the commander abilities one can choose in Company of Heroes? Could be linked to important historical figures instead of "divine powers"?

[Lion.Kanzen]

So a bit like the commander abilities one can choose in Company of Heroes? Could be linked to important historical figures instead of "divine powers"?

no idea , you have screenshots to see it?

[poVoq]

No real point for a screenshot, but it works like this:

After choosing a faction you can also choose a commander doctrine, these then open a tree of special commander skills (while playing to earn special points that allow to to select additional skills to become available, i.e. each time choose one out of three skills). Typical stuff would be to call in a special air-strike, or reinforcements from off screen, or call to arms motivation boost of your troops etc.Then the skill has a cooldown and can only be used again after some minutes.

[av93]

IMHO, I think that this kind of gameplay could fit into the campaign, not in singleplay.

[Lion.Kanzen]

With skills remember me to general skill into EE 2 and RoN

http://riseofnations.wikia.com/wiki/General

Edited December 21, 2015 by Lion.Kanzen

[Lion.Kanzen]

Reinforcements are planned, that will be one of four 1/4 may be the 2nd or 3rd.

The general abilities look like interesting but as standard, we can call this god powers , civilization abilities.or civilization power.

For campaign is different works more like total war or RoN campaing.

[oshron]

i think a facsimile of AOM's God Powers would be a good feature, just not as part of normal gameplay. instead, they'd be a way for natural disasters to be enacted in skirmish modes and campaign levels and the like. i think one with the most potential would be a flood which raises the water level and kills any units that can't get to higher ground fast enough, with a permanent and temporary version

for ACTUAL God Powers, i'd much prefer a mythology-based total-conversion mod with a big variety of civs and units

though one AOM-like feature that i think would work well in 0ad is special attacks or other abilities, relegated only to heroes and maybe to champion units. maybe a hero unit that was particularly vicious in actual history could have a Drain power which steals health from enemies he fights against, though the standard would definitely be Battlecry to give a temporary stat boost to nearby allied units, much like Arkantos

Edited December 21, 2015 by oshron

[wowgetoffyourcellphone]

Regarding the name, I think "Ability" or "Commandment" would probably suffice.

I think the best options are either the AoM way (choose powers when aging up) or researching a technology in order to unlock the ability. IMO choosing 5 abilities/commandments for each phase (AOE3 style) would make the game really crowded with them.

No no. I mean there are 5 powers per phase available to choose from before the match (in the meta game), you choose only 1 per phase to have avail in the actual match (so total of 3 or 4 depend on number of phase).

If the game to have commandments or powers, I would not want them to be hero-based. The game is strategy at this level, not MOBA or RPG. If you want RPG element, then it need to be a separate thing like a Hero Mode (Rise & Fall did this well enough, almost like proof of concept). AOM's special hero attacks are fine to have (because they were mostly automatic and were tactical, not strategic), but that is a deifferent discussion I think.

Game is 3 levels:

• Meta
• Strategic
• Tactical

Edited December 25, 2015 by wowgetoffyourcellphone