The capturing of buildings is annoying me

[SandJ]

I have been playing 0AD as single player for a few years.  The change such that troops now try to capture buildings by default rather than destroy them, is annoying me.  It was interesting at first, but it needs some tweaks.

When the attacking force contains some military that cannot capture, such as elephants, you end up with some troops trying to capture a building while others are destroying it.  Either you end up with the capture failing because it gets destroyed, or capturing a badly damaged building.

The opposite of the Patrol order would be useful sometimes, especially for elephants and generals that have strong building-related effects and can take a lot of damage.  That is "Go and capture / destroy the buildings but ignore the people".

Sometimes I do not want the enemy buildings.  I would rather the site was destroyed quickly.  So I would like to be able to set a group of military units to "Never capture".

Troops capture whatever is nearest.  Is is annoying watching troops standing around trying to capture and hold a bunch of houses while a nearby tower is whittling them down.  Just as there is a Violent stance for concentrating on attackers, being able to choose between "Capture nearest" and "Capture nearby strategic sites (towers, barracks, city centres) first" would be good.

 

At the moment I am finding I have to micromanage the behaviour of my armies when they go to attack enemy towns, from building to building, which I did not have to do before capturing was implemented.

 

(PS Excellent game though.  I waste so much time playing it!)

[Lion.Kanzen]

Capturing as default action is annoying.

[sphyrth]

Infantry have better chances of capturing than damaging, so they capture by default.

Elephants are the opposite - It's neither historical nor realistic but only intuitive for gameplay.

Many have this evaluation: I love capturing, but it's frustrating

I granted the suggestion "Destroy by Default", "Capture by Ctrl+Right Click" for the sake of the new players. But now I'm leaning on "Make that an option in the Gameplay Settings along with the Batch Training Size" route.

[GunChleoc]

6 hours ago, sphyrth said:

Infantry have better chances of capturing than damaging, so they capture by default.

Elephants are the opposite - It's neither historical nor realistic but only intuitive for gameplay.

It does create a problem with mixed groups though - the player has to unmark certain unit types (and remember to do so) for every attack.

[sphyrth]

Really? I find it intuitive, though. Damaging a building while having units capture it is fine with me. Some people don't like the extra micro while I do. But hey. Not a big deal for me if it's changed. It doesn't affect my gameplay.

I can adjust myself if everybody destroys by default. No problem.

[feneur]

Another thing to remember is that damaging a building should make it easier for you to capture a building, especially if you damage it enough for the garrisoned troops to be ungarrisoned. So it's not just a simple decision: "do I want to capture or destroy this building", but rather "do I want to destroy the building, or do I want to capture it quicker but have a weaker building, or slower and have a stronger building once it's mine".

As to how much should be automated (e.g. should units choose more important buildings first automatically, should units attack buildings rather than units, etc) I think that's something that should be carefully considered. Not enough and the game will be too tedious, too much and you could just as well just press start and have the game play out on its own. (Of the two examples I'd say the player should be forced to choose what buildings to prioritize manually as that is a choice that actually matters and can differ from situation to situation, but maybe being able to set units prioritize buildings over units is a good thing.)

[Lion.Kanzen]

Now I remember when ai are capturing my houses they destroy later, that is unrealistic, they should destroyed after a time.

is more easy capture a house then destroy it by attack.

[wowgetoffyourcellphone]

7 hours ago, feneur said:

Another thing to remember is that damaging a building should make it easier for you to capture a building, especially if you damage it enough for the garrisoned troops to be ungarrisoned. So it's not just a simple decision: "do I want to capture or destroy this building", but rather "do I want to destroy the building, or do I want to capture it quicker but have a weaker building, or slower and have a stronger building once it's mine".

 

With everything else in the game, I think it should be a simple decision. 

Edited March 4, 2017 by wowgetoffyourcellphone

[DarcReaver]

On 4.3.2017 at 7:26 PM, wowgetoffyourcellphone said:

With everything else in the game, I think it should be a simple decision. 

Actually I just capture buildings to then destroy them with the "del" key afterwards. What benefit do I have from capturing enemy houses if they turn neutral after a couple of seconds anyways? Just make sure they cannot be reused anymore.

I sort of begin to like the capturing mechanic in general, it's just that there is not much to capture at all. No objects on the map, no enemy outposts etc. All I can do is capture buildings in the main base (unless the attacked garrisons them which makes capturing impossible).

Edited March 18, 2017 by DarcReaver

[wowgetoffyourcellphone]

Make capture more special. Capture the civic center and gain all of the surrounding houses too. Decisive. Important. Have merc camps around the map to capture for special merc units. Points of contention.

[WhiteTreePaladin]

15 hours ago, wowgetoffyourcellphone said:

Make capture more special. Capture the civic center and gain all of the surrounding houses too. Decisive. Important. Have merc camps around the map to capture for special merc units. Points of contention.

I like this. One issue I have with capturing civil centers currently is that the houses, markets, etc. are all destroyed before they have time to convert. Stronger buildings like towers and fortresses last long enough for me to claim them. I think we should fix it so that those other structures have time to convert. (Or we could just automatically convert buildings under the influence of the civil center.)

I personally think building conversion is a feature as important as the citizen solider concept. I do think it would be nice to have a mode (gui button or hotkey) that can be set to quickly change the default action between capturing and attacking.

[WhiteTreePaladin]

On 3/18/2017 at 7:15 AM, DarcReaver said:

Actually I just capture buildings to then destroy them with the "del" key afterwards. What benefit do I have from capturing enemy houses if they turn neutral after a couple of seconds anyways? Just make sure they cannot be reused anymore.

I sort of begin to like the capturing mechanic in general, it's just that there is not much to capture at all. No objects on the map, no enemy outposts etc. All I can do is capture buildings in the main base (unless the attacked garrisons them which makes capturing impossible).

Structures get easier to capture as their HP falls. Every building (even fortresses) are easy if you weaken them to the point where the garrisoned units are automatically kicked out.

 

[Edit] By the way, is there an easier way to multi-quote and preserve the timestamp / username on the quote?

Edited March 19, 2017 by WhiteTreePaladin

[drsingh]

Defensive structures like Tower and fortress shouldnt be capturable.

They always had secret entrances, so that enemy cant enter them. The enemy had only option to siege down these fortifiactions. the other civil buildings can ofcourse be capturable.

 

But there should be a timer set after capturing, which needs to be completed before deleting is allowed. This to make sure capturing doesnt become an easy hack to replace sieging. And a group of cav without siege potential cant just go about deleting enemy houses in the first 5-7 mins of games.

 

With this there would be proper sieging of fortress, towers and walls. After which CC will be targeted for capturing, and after being captured should give you the complete city in the territory. The timer will be a safeguard against capturing of random buildings like houses, and allow for garrison feature be removed from them.

Garrisonable buildings need to be restricted to make support units more vulnerable.

[Lion.Kanzen]

must be for historical accuracy.

My favorite example. Masada Stronghold. Romans capture the site, but not the men.

 

Quote

But there should be a timer set after capturing, which needs to be completed before deleting is allowed. This to make sure capturing doesnt become an easy hack to replace sieging. And a group of cav without siege potential cant just go about deleting enemy houses in the first 5-7 mins of games.

Must be a kind of mechanic similar to RoN , something called assimilation.the capture or hit point will be full and take sometime to this happen around 5 min or more. You can't destroy before that.

 

or may be if is not connected by territory. You can't  delete it.

Edited March 21, 2017 by Lion.Kanzen