Alpha 21: Rome Castrum Vallum Balance Patch

[Eraser]

The .diff to see changes made on the building are attached below.

Created from discussion:

 

CastrumVallumPatch.diff

[Eraser]

Feel free to comment thinks you would like to add/remove from the patch.

Screenshots of gameplay:

Since they don't provide champions, they must be built in age 2, age 3 is too late for expansion-type buildings.

Socii and Citizenship are the main Rome auras, making Rome's strong point the use of large numbers of citizen soldiers in your territory. Having their own territory influence, you provide your own territory inside your ally's, giving buffs with Socii bonus to protect him. Since it hasn't decay this way, you can even build some other things in your territory to improve defence. This is specially useful against allies happening to be very close to the enemy.

Also, it can infiltrate enemy and neutral territories, but the space you take, due to territory decay, is considered neutral, so unlike ally and own territory, you can't build normal buildings here, apart from those who can build in neutral ground. This is useful to make breachs into enemy territory and creating a CC in the very inside of his domains in order to win with large numbers of citizens and siege firepower instead of the champion-for-everything metagame.

Edited September 23, 2016 by Eraser
Screenshots

[elexis]

Review:

* The building already has 93% pierce armor, adding 25 more levels seems a bit excessive and also wrong, since stone building ought to have significantly more armor.

* Building in allied territory perhaps

* Territory influence  - perhaps. I likely shouldn't become a root. Since r18049 noone can build stuff in unconnected territory, so it were impossible to build towers there unless there was some civic center behind it somewhere. 50m radius seems a bit much too.

* The building once had 40 arrows, but it was nerfed.

Surprisingly the garrisoned regenration rate seems to be just about right for this building. Only a few units are needed to garrison it, so that it doesn't convert to gaia / enemy. This wasn't the case in previous versions. So I'm convinced this is a useful building as is.

If the general garrisoned regeneration rate is reduced, the rate of this building might have to be adapted.

[Eraser]

About the territory - it's not root in my patch. You can only build around the Castrum Vallum only if it's placed on allied and own territory. You can't build normal buildings in the the territory of Castrums in neutral and enemy territories, can only build CC to get root-ed territory inside enemy's (but now you need another building), and Observer Posts to increase Castrum's line of sight. Stealing territory would be a very unique way to win, like Theatron but in another concept.

To me, an special structure without territory influence on a territory-based faction feels as anti synergic as filling Sparta's tree with cavalry tech.

Thx for the comments

[Eraser]

Updated patch (thx to elexis review):

-Buff heal has been removed.

-Population bonus has been removed. It doesn't fit since it's a military building.

-Set territory influence as root. Need it to fight against Culturestorm Theatron combo.

-Reversed build age to age 3.

 

 

 

CastrumVallumPatch2.diff

Edited September 30, 2016 by Eraser
Forgot one aspect of the patch

[Lion.Kanzen]

Quote

Population bonus has been removed. It doesn't fit since it's a military building

A Military building in mostly of cases have civilian around even living in, and some cases becomes a city, like London for example.

[Eraser]

27 minutes ago, Lion.Kanzen said:

A Military building in mostly of cases have civilian around even living in, and some cases becomes a city, like London for example.

Well, now you can build houses and even an entire city around it, if that's the concept you're missing.

I removed it mainly because I thought to boost the territory (make it root) and boost the arrow count. Those are very powerful, so needed to cut some things in order to put them.

As I told before, territory influence is the strong point of Rome, boosting all nearby allies in attack and yours with armor. This patch is pretended to allow you to put your territory wherever you want, so you can use Rome's auras to boost tons of citizen soldiers and win with them, giving Rome a very original way of winning without champs.

[Eraser]

I've implemented it on the new mod I'm creating for improving 0AD metagame. I'll post the mod files soon, there's a patch uploaded if you know how to apply SVN patches, so you can test it right away. Plz comment and vote, thx you very much!

 

 

Edited November 6, 2016 by Eraser

[Servo]

@Eraser I like to test your mod but idk how to install it. I'm worried my installed A21 and saved games might be affected too. I like to try Romans but there's one little thing they don't have..."palisades wall and gates. I don't play multi and Romans fit my game better than my Athenian favorite faction. 

I was about to play  Romans against 2-3 hardest AI but realized that for this simple palisades walls are missing I did not push through. 

[Lion.Kanzen]

 the Ai can't build walls, of any kind yet. Are not programmed to do it.

@Servo

Edited April 19, 2017 by Lion.Kanzen

[Servo]

Oh you mean any AI can't build palisades wall/gates? Oh it's sad...

But I saw one of your pictures having palisades!

i misunderstood you. Well AIs don't build walls and palisades but human players can which is important. I will just used this for herding wild animals like wolf, boars, etc depends on the map. 

Edited April 19, 2017 by Servo