Gameplay guideline

[Tiber7]

34 minutes ago, niektb said:

I've been reading through your proposal a bit but I could find anything about the (rather poor) trading system. Any (somewhat) experienced lobby player can tell you that, towards the end of the game, traders form long conga lines between markets and trading completely replaces 'traditional' gathering

Do you by chance have some ideas for a better trading system too?

@wraitii wrote up some ideas in the past, that could maybe serve as inspiration  

 

Maybe traders could have a food or wood cost? Or maybe both? I don't know if this could work or if it would be too punishing.

For example, at each arrival to a market or a dock, there's a cost of 30 food and 30 wood. By doing this, you would force the player to go on gathering because trading would not make the player gain enough food or wood to rely on the trade to have the 2 main resources. And it would by the way eradicate short distances trade lines. This would be a great change.

[wowgetoffyourcellphone]

Maybe make trader cost more for each new trader. I already do this with cult statue. Works fine.

 

But I think by the end of a long game you want trading to replace gathering by a large amount, maybe 50%.

Edited March 9, 2017 by wowgetoffyourcellphone

[niektb]

@Tiber7: I would rather go for a complete redesign, not a punishment for using the existing system

[DarcReaver]

38 minutes ago, niektb said:

I've been reading through your proposal a bit but I could find anything about the (rather poor) trading system. Any (somewhat) experienced lobby player can tell you that, towards the end of the game, traders form long conga lines between markets and trading completely replaces 'traditional' gathering

Do you by chance have some ideas for a better trading system too?

@wraitii wrote up some ideas in the past, that could maybe serve as inspiration  

 

 

I'll have a look, first thing is to ask "what should trade accomplish and why is it necessary in the game". From my observation it was most likely put in "because Age of Empires has trade aswell" without further questioning it. Thus there are problems with it.

another example of gameplay in action.

[wowgetoffyourcellphone]

1 minute ago, DarcReaver said:

I'll have a look, first thing is to ask "what should trade accomplish and why is it necessary in the game". From my observation it was most likely put in "because Age of Empires has trade aswell" without further questioning it. Thus there are problems with it.

 

Well, I like trading because it bring another historical aspect to the game, plus improve teamwork, etc.

[DarcReaver]

Just now, wowgetoffyourcellphone said:

Well, I like trading because it bring another historical aspect to the game, plus improve teamwork, etc.

I'm not against trading, it definately has good aspects. But it has to fit into the game, just like all other aspects of the game. That's what I was referring to.

[Tiber7]

21 minutes ago, niektb said:

@Tiber7: I would rather go for a complete redesign, not a punishment for using the existing system

I didn't have any other idea to eradicate too short trade lines, to limit the number of traders and forbide players to totally rely on trading.

21 minutes ago, wowgetoffyourcellphone said:

Maybe make trader cost more for each new trader. I already do this with cult statue. Works fine.

 

But I think by the end of a long game you want trading to replace gathering by a large amount, maybe 50%.

I do agree with you @wowgetoffyourcellphone but your still allow to trade within your city which should not be possible. You don't trade with caravans in one sole city, caravans are trading between cities and ideally between two allies. Btw the way I'm not saying your solution is bad.

I'm not saying my solution is better too, but I didn't find any other solution to achieve the 3 goals I talked about in the beginning of the message. I still think my solution is a too harsh "punishment" (I would rather call it a limitation). I think it's not the best solution but it's the only one I finded that matches with the 3 goals.

@niektb, if you have a better solution tell it 

Edited March 9, 2017 by Tiber7

[niektb]

+ there are many ways to implement trading, it doesn't have to be the AOE way. 

Asking what trade should accomplish in this particular game (what role does it have) helps deciding on which mechanism could fit

[Grugnas]

Actually trade is an hard feature to place because it goes from being the main income of resources ( personally speaking, it upsets me when players even trade food for more income) expecially in turtle games with only 1 narrow passage and water in middle to  a more than convienient option to expanding for a strategic resources guarantee. Also depends by the random generated map resources and a hard to find solution.

I think that trading should be the feature to rely on when there are no more spots of the desired resource, and clearly less rewarding than gathering for 2 main reasons:

1) it is very profictable despite the common "no walls" rule of multiplayer games. F.e.  if a player spends 80 metal for a trader, he will regain that amount in less than 2 minutes or just bartering goods.

2) it kills the strategic expansions that should / could have a big impact on the economy of your opponents.

Expecially in 150 pop cap games, expanding requires control of a wide area of territory while trading relies on allies attention.

Market usage has too high impact expecially in 1v1 games because while player gains control of a metal mine for having advantage of that or any other desired resource, on the other hand the opponent can just comfortably barter obtaining metal. He may obtain lower amount, thats true, but it is an instant gain that would require several workers / time for the gatherer player tho.

Trading has a high impact on team games, and barter has higher impact the lower number of players in a game.

[drsingh]

A simple fix could be that. traders move between CC instead of markets. a single player cant trade until he adds another city to his empire. The distance will automatically get controlled because off CC placement restrictions. (docks could have a limit of 1 per CC)

To limit the dependence of economy on trader as compared to citizen gatherers its pop requirement can be increased. to 2.

Since Pop space is the most imp resource in late game. 

Also worth considering the traders are unrealistically fast right now. A 50% speed reduction will make them less efficient and more easily raidable. So only an option after running out of resources- stone and metal.

Also cost should be food+wood. food for the human and cattle. wood for cart. what purpose does metal have here?

 

Trader is supposed to earn profit by shuttling goods from high supply to high demand. And this profit is in the form of in game currency.

If metal is divided into iron and a currency resource(silver or gold or coin). then it should be the resource which gets earned.

The way it works right now. it doesnt make sense how food/wood/stone are gathered by trading.

 

 

Edited March 9, 2017 by drsingh

[DarcReaver]

I think you should take a step back first:

Question 1: why is trade necessary?

Answer: because resources are finite and certain units and techs require those resource(s)

Question 2: What is the core mechanic of trading?

summary:

- trade replaces one resource with another with a trading ration (i.e. 100 food = 20 metal, or 100 stone = 200 wood etc.)
- trade takes population which replaces gatherers to gain said resource
- trading route length / amount of traders = profit from trading
- players need trade to aquire resources that deplete over time


Issues:
- trading is unbalanced (resources are created out of nowhere)
- no trading hardcap (except for population), so the more caravans the more free resources
- trading looks weird (many cramped units in a line, another example of the "manspam train" that I refer to in my civ critic thread)
- trading causes pathing issues / performance issues

Now, the way I see it the intended mechanism is heavily inspired by AoE II. However, even there trading is a pretty stupid mechanic since 1v1 games turn into "trash unit wars" because single players cannot trade. The most broken version is AoM where players trade with their own town centers. For example Egypt civs lategame strategy is to spam caravans and then spam massive amounts of mercenaries to fight enemy units. while its sort of funny to see huge amounts of camels carrying gold around the map it's pretty dull from a gameplay perspective.

 

Anyways. I'll just throw in an entirely different idea, as I think no matter how you implement trading, those caravans will always look odd.

How about this:

 

We have 3 options:

Option 1: Each map contains "trading Centers". Depending on the map I'd suggest between 2 - 8 (0.5-1 per player), those are played at a decent range away from the player starting locations. They can be destroyed but they can be rebuilt for a infinite resource (or rebuild automatically after a certain time). If destroyed they offer the destroying player some silver resources as a bonus.

Trading centers can be captured. after capturing they produce a chosen resource in certain time frames (i.e. income of 50 stone/minute). Or they automatically trade a resource i.e. trade food  and get silver/iron/stone in return..

This way, trading centers would be a combat place, as players need to gain control of them for lategame units. Players who have control over trading have the control over lategame tech units and thus they have an advantage.

If other players cannot take hold of trading centers, they can instead to a sneak attack on those Traders to interrupt the enemy resource income, thus create an option for a comeback.

Option 2: markets still are buildable by players, but to profit from trading they have to establish "Trading Routes". A trading route must be between 2 different civic centers (so players can trade among themselves aswell). Each city can support 1 market (or 2).

Market has a resource : coins. it automatically increases by a set ratio to 100 over time (rate and maximum can be increased with market techs). Each resource is worth a different amount of coins. 100 food cost 5 coins, 100 metal cost 50 coins (just to give an example).

If a caravan comes by and trades a good the coins reduce. If the coins of the market become 0 the trading stops until it has refilled enough to buy a resource from it.

This way, caravans are limited by the amount of coins generated by the market, thus there no longer is a manspam train to get the highest profit from the market trading. Plus, there are options to customize the own trading even if there's a 1v1 situation (in which trading is impossible atm).

Issue that I see with this is that it's pretty complicated to code compared to the other options while not offering a unique different approach to trading, but I think it would work aswell.

Option 3: Markets are simply constructed buildings with a limit and work like the favor generation from AoM: after buildign them, assign citizens and the markets start producing Iron/silver at a slower rate than mining them. Straightforward and no manspamtrain aswell.

from my personal view I find option 1 most appealing since it's dynamic and promotes fighting positions on the map, just like mining spots do.

 

 

Edited March 9, 2017 by DarcReaver

[Hannibal_Barca]

Another few options to choose from:

1) Add a minimum distance between markets (80-160m) and set a limit of traders/market(5). This will make sure that max 2 or so markets will be made per base and if that player wants to trade using more than 10 traders, he/she must expand(thus partially solving problem reported by @Grugnas). Also reduce trade income with ports by 50% to prevent abuse of those.

 

2) Add a total limit of X traders/player with upgrades to expand this limit.

 

3) Limit of 1 market/civic center and limit of about 10 traders.

 

Trade Income should also be reduced by maybe 30-50%(since there are quite a few factions with trade team bonuses).

I feel the 1st choice would be the best, since a set limit for a certain unit isn't that inviting.

[av93]

Limiting trader units reduces most issues.

Edited March 9, 2017 by av93

[wowgetoffyourcellphone]

I like simple solutions sometimes. 1 market per cc, 5 trader per market. Slow traders down by 50% and adjust the gain a bit higher. I think traders should be less numerous but higher gain that make them high value targets. Exact values subject to change. Trading with self is okay imho since cities in an empire traded between themselves. But the profit for self trade can be lowered. Give a max distance between markets and CCs (markets cant too far from a cc) so the markets are tethered to the center of each city. 

 

Edited March 10, 2017 by wowgetoffyourcellphone

[Radagast.]

Many nice ideas. Definitely tying 1 market to a civic center and to limit the traders / CC or / market could do the trick.

Trading system ideas merge|summary:
===

In the ideal case, DarcReaver's Option 2 patched with Justus', av92, Hannibal_Barca's tether idea could be merged with Option 1. As a consequency we get rid of the hard-coded, maybe random map problematic, new structures "trade centers" (following realism):

1) Slow down caravans (long way, slow speed but continuous). Increases time for interception. (XML edit)

2) Trade routes just depend on the geography of the map. (neither new code nor new art)

3) The trade routes are what is fought for, like the "checkpoint" system in the real world. Also nice for guerilla tactics. In the real world you just open another checkpoint and do not by all means try to capture one of the existing. Surprise is your friend. (neither new code nor new art)

4) The coins at markets for now should be replaced with tying 1 or 2 markets [1a] to the civic center and limiting to 5 traders / market as well as max distance of market to the CC [1b]. (XML edit)

5) (optional) Resources should not come out of nowhere ideally. Somehow wounded|dead units' items must be recycled. [2]


[1a]
If 2 markets shall be allowed per city, then a large min distance constraint is required but lower than 2 * market<->CC max distance. De facto this will lead to 1 market most often unless the city is really huge.
When combined with reducing the territory gain of expansive buildings to just a few meters and allowing them to be built outside of this city border too, then a new strategical decision arises:
EITHER construct the city e.g. stretched and linear and then have two city quarters exchange some goods.
OR construct it more spherically and live with 1 market only, then likely closer to the CC.
Note the linear <-> spherical decision is subtle as buildings can only expand the city borders (territory) very very little.

[1b]
Maybe we could get rid of the CC<->market max distance by making the market one of the very few buildings required to be built inside city borders?


[2]
When a soldier dies or a wagon breaks apart, the metal of its wheel circumverence (could be a speed increasing tech) will not simply disappear magically. This is not a fantasy game. (As a workaround for now maybe add these resources to Gaia resource spots that are not harvested by any player? May be unfair though.)

Edited March 10, 2017 by Radagast.

[drsingh]

What is the role of trading in this game?

To provide an infinite source of resources, when finite sources run out. Its similar to farming. So the resources are not coming out of nowhere.

Infinite sources need to be expensive to set up, and give slower gather rate than finite resources, in the beginning. Can be tech'ed up to be little faster later.

 

What i feel are the issues in the current trading system--

They have too fast(efficient) gather rates- for an infinite source. thus they get priority over finite resources, making the finite resources redundant.

They are very defensible. can be put at the back of your base and enemy many times wouldnt be able to raid them before killing you CC. (this is true only for land routes)

Traders dont make sense- they cost metal. and can gather food.

 

I dont think the number of traders is the issue here. since nobody complains about number of women on farms. or citizen soldiers on wood. they become a problem when they are good enough to replace everything else.

 

@DarcReaver 

option 1- this sounds similar to Trading posts of AoE3. while it works well for that game and makes sense in it. It doesnt fit in the settlement concept of 0AD. Why would traders be shuttling resources between 2 random buildings which are outside all nearby settlements? Also this mechanic puts a lot of emphasis on map control. So much so that Turtling is non existent in AoE3.

option 2- 'market producing coin at a limited rate. which gets converted to resources by traders.'

this also adds unnecessary complexity. it adds a pseudo resource. but only thing it achieves is a build limit on traders, which would be unclear to many players and add to the confusion.

option 3- its simple. but doesnt address the real issues with current trading system. and will make raiding them even more difficult.

 

@Hannibal_Barca @av93

Restriction to number of buildings is fine. Since it only controls the production rate of units.

But restrictions or limits to number of units is a strict no in rts games. It many times makes the limited unit useless (but wont for traders)

Traders do play an important role in the end game. Limiting number of them would make the game and battle suddenly slow down to standstill when fininte resources run out. If you make the limit larger or make them more efficient then it didnt solve the problem in first place.

 

My solution-

Change cost- 150f 100w instead of 100f 80m. Slightly costly(10-20w) for factions with trade bonus.

Reduced speed(how much can be tested- for starting 8 instead of 9.5). Pop cost- 2.

Efficiency of any economic unit is defined mainly by the pop cost. Since it is only resource required for it.

This should be enough to lower the per pop gathering efficiency of traders as compared to a citizen mining. But this shouldn't be too low to hamper the game experience after mines run out.

There shouldn't be any overlap with farms(another infinite resource). So Traders should earn only metal(or gold). Wood is usually abundant. And Stone is not that essential. If required players can barter in market- metal for wood/stone.

Making them more raid-able- Speed change does help a bit. Also the land trading should place between 2 CC only. This brings the trading line from the back of the bases to the centre of cities, more accesible. Also reinforce the concept of CC as the economic centre and core of the city. So trading between cities is between respective CC.

Delaying the access- Traders as an infinite resource supply, should be a luxury. So you get them either when you have allies(same benefit to both teams) or in 1v1 when you have Expanded you empire with a 2nd city.

Sea trade is already very raid-able. but for 1v1 access can be delayed by restricting 1 dock per CC. This limit is also important to make the faster batch training techs of dock useful.

 

How this can affect the meta-

Players starting the game with finite resource. Faster gathering. finite resources require map control. the player who lost map control switched on to infinite resources. Takes investment to set up. And have slower rates as compared to finite. So suddenly  at a disadvantage. But holds position somehow, until the finite resources of other player also run out. Then he has an advantage because he as already set up his economy and also got some upgrades for them to be faster. Now he has a window to strike back and take control while the other player is transitioning. 

this would give players various strategic options. either to invest heavy in long game resources which give returns much later. or invest in current resources and kill the enemy before they run out.

 

Also Raiding needs a boost- eg 2X the experience gained from attacking enemy support units (male and female citizens, traders, priest)

 

There should be a mechanic which favours map control. Similar to what was mentioned in option 1 by DarcReaver. But it should'nt give an op advantage. Which makes all games a rush to establish make control. or instant lose if you lost map. this is what happens with AoE3. More balanced ways are finite gold mines, and Neutral Mercenary camps.

 

Also I feel like Corrals need a rework too.. will need its own post later.

Edited March 10, 2017 by drsingh

[wowgetoffyourcellphone]

40 minutes ago, drsingh said:

Also I feel like Corrals need a rework too.. will need its own post later.

The current functionality of corrals is not up to their spec. So don't judge corrals based on their current status. I agree, it's own thread.

[Hannibal_Barca]

Replying to @drsingh:

Quote

Change cost- 150f 100w instead of 100f 80m. Slightly costly(10-20w) for factions with trade bonus.

Food and wood are the most common resources and fastest to gather, currently players have to choose whether they want to phase up and get a champion army, or build up trade for later profit.

Also what does the cost penalty mean? Factions with trading bonuses? Currently a few civilizations team bonuses are trading bonuses. So this would not be very practical, since only the allies are affected, not the player itself, making it extremely complicated.

 

Quote

Pop cost- 2.

might be ok
 

Quote

Reduced speed(how much can be tested- for starting 8 instead of 9.5). Making them more raid-able

 

They are already quite raidable, speed isn't such an important factor here.

Quote

Also the land trading should place between 2 CC only.

 

This would remove one of the main features of the market building-not really that good IMO.

 

Trading with a limit of traders per market with minimum distance basically is the solution. Trade is easily raidable unless the enemy "turtles". But if there is a maximum of traders per market and a minimum distance between markets, players will find it harder to spam trade. If they control enough of  the map to have several markets and traders, it means that the enemy is letting them do this by being overly passive.

[DarcReaver]

The issue with hard caps in general is that it's basically stating "we know it's broken, but we avoid fixing the mechanic by limiting players instead."

It's a much better idea to limit trading mechanics by adjusting the trade concept itself rather than applying hard caps. like said before a mechanic that trading as a "resource" can be depleted if overused it better. Also it's logical. A small market can only support a couple of traders at once and then it's full. If you want to trade more you have to improve market size.

I'd go with the "markets produce resources over time and deplete with each caravan" concept, since it's more logical and applies a similar effect as hard caps without limiting the player.

But overall applying a map control concept for markets make the whole trading mechanic more unique and dynamic instead of being a simple copy paste from Age of Empires (especially considering that trading in AoE II is something I'd consider such a great mechanic that it absolutely should be copied in the first place).

Edited March 10, 2017 by DarcReaver

[drsingh]

@Hannibal_Barca

Quote

So this would not be very practical, since only the allies are affected, not the player itself, making it extremely complicated.

I'm sorry. I thought that the team bonus affect the faction itself too. Anyways we can let minor inter faction cost balancing slide till beta.

 

Quote

Quote

Also the land trading should place between 2 CC only.

 

This would remove one of the main features of the market building-not really that good IMO

The market still is a building used to train and upgrade Traders. Like most other buildings.

+ Its main function is actually to allow buying and selling resources. And this remains the same.

 

Letting trade happen between CC is a simple and logical option.

Adding a minimum distance between markets. Is addition of another unnecessary complex mechanic. And it would be difficult to explain to a player why he is not allowed to build markets closer. And it is difficult to monitor and control resource gathering rate of traders with this system. because you wont have a maximum distance limit.

CC are already at a fixed distance from each other. have their own minimum distance restrictions which makes sense to player. And traders moving between them would signify trade between your cities. While traders moving between markets would just show as trading between 2 of your buildings in the vast territory. What I mean is- It will be possible that Traders move perpendicular to the line joining your two Cities(CC), if you place both markets in such a way along the border of the territory.

I feel the appeal to let market be that building. Is because of habit. Since this was the way in many games before. But it can be improved upon in 0AD because we have Settlement concept with multiple settlements in an empire.

 

Quote

But if there is a maximum of traders per market and a minimum distance between markets, players will find it harder to spam trade.

Trader limit can solve the end game problem. But wont be a correct design.

Because it doesnt change the fact that traders are much (faster) effective resource gatherers. With build limits people will just rush to maximise the traders when they are able to train them. And after maxing the limit (each and every game) they will shift attention to other forms of gathering.

This might balance the end game scene. But would be a missed opportunity to add strategic depth.

 

The different resource gathering options should be balanced at their core level.

Like how Farms and Hunting are. Farms require investment(100w). (And should be slower to gather). Hunting is a finite resource and is gathered faster(with cav only). (But the corral makes them infinite and makes other food sources redundant).

Mines are a finite resource. While Traders are infinite resource. So Traders should require more investment.(Cost, another CC). And also at the same time should yield less resources per pop space.

Also as an infinite resource Traders should not gather food. Then it competes directly with farms. And replaces them.

Right now players can just build a lot of traders and forget about their macro. they can anytime change their scales of which resource is being traded, and are saved the trouble to have proper planning of citizen distribution and re-distribution to various resources.

 

If we get this much right. then there wont be any need of build limit of Traders. players will soon learn, and meta will evolve. Because it would become less efficient to rely on traders till you have mines easily accessible. And traders would be able to gather only metal. So farms will always be important to gather food. And getting only metal(/gold) from traders would mean that you use market building to barter resources if you need stone or wood(market - more important).

 

To make less efficient-

1 trader(2 pop) going between two CC(placed as close as possible) should generate metal(/gold if metal is split) per second. Half(or maybe 60%) of what 2 male citizens can gather from a mine per second.

Then if the CC are placed farther away. then the increase in amount should be in proportion to the increased time required to travel, so that the gathering rate per second remains constant.

Speed upgrades to trade cart will increase the gather rate, but still should be taken care that it is 80% or less as compared to gathering directly from mine.

 

About cost-

Quote

Food and wood are the most common resources and fastest to gather, currently players have to choose whether they want to phase up and get a champion army, or build up trade for later profit.

Food and wood are still needed to train. So the choice would be- should i gather more food and wood for traders. or use workers to gather metal for age up. this requires more preparation and forethought than deciding what to build with metal present in bank.

Also Food and wood. because they are likely to be available to player when mines run out. If metal is included in cost of Traders. then player is forced to train them before mines run out, because aftewards he wont have resources to train it.

 

You can see here- which approach gives more strategic options and decisions to player, and in which approach player mindlessley follows same routine everytime.

 

@DarcReaver

Quote

I'd go with the "markets produce resources over time and deplete with each caravan" concept, since it's more logical and applies a similar effect as hard caps without limiting the player.

Though your proposal is novel and doesnt have hard caps on trader limit. But it is essentially same as Hard caps. Players will soon learn with experience that because of the coin regeneration rate at market, 'X' number of Traders is what can be used maxm per market (hard cap).

And then they will try to train X number of traders- first thing after reaching phase 2. always.

 

Players should have an option to either invest in a short lived faster gathering resource or a long term slow gathering resource. Depending on the matchups, maps etc.

this provides variety and strategy to gameplay.

[DarcReaver]

While I agree that a "coin regeneration rate" works similar to a hard cap, it opens up the option to build markets closer to each other while not increasing the total trade amount possible. Question is whether distance between trade posts should take effect or not. As far as I see it, the trade distance manspam train looks odd, even with hardcaps applied. That's why I suggested it.

About the discussiion about finite <> infinite resource tradeoffs I agree aswell that your proposal creates more variety in terms of eco management, thus creating a need to have both regular gathering and using trade as an additional bonus. However, I'm critical to the implementation of the mechanic in general as it's highly conventional and taken from AoE II.

[bb_]

One could say that trade is broken: if one has got a trade route of 62 gain (with all ups, not civ bonusses), this trade is better than celtic farming (with all ups + rotary mill). I agree capping isn't a good solution (for the same reason as above). (For beating corrals with trade one needs 200+ gain...) Also letting traders trade between cc's isn't a solution since that is nothing else than capping.

A (better) solution would be to take in the gain calculation the amount of traders using the same markets, so more traders using the same market would result in lesser gain per trader. I guess this isn't a 100% clean solution since many markets could be build together (and I am against a mindistance). Maybe every market should take all traders from markets in a certain range into account when calculation it's gain. The amount of traders from a market could be calculaed as the amount of traders that have visited the market the last minute or so. (This would nerf short trade routes a bit hard maybe, so one should have a weight factor on the traders what is the gain/distance.)

[Hannibal_Barca]

15 minutes ago, drsingh said:

The market still is a building used to train and upgrade Traders. Like most other buildings.

+ Its main function is actually to allow buying and selling resources. And this remains the same.

Currently traders trained from markets can be set on custom trade router (to avoid enemies), but once trained it is impossible to set a custom route. Training traders from the market then setting them between CCs will make trade routes take fastest way, hence maybe into enemy territory. This is illlogical as you should be able to tell the traders to "go this way or you will be killed".

[drsingh]

@DarcReaver

we also have hero mechanic similar to warcraft. CC and area concept similar to RON. Expanding boundary concept taken from Settler. Most of the game including market and trader mechanic is heavily inspired from AoE2.

 

But 0AD is still unique, because it takes the best of everything and mixes it into a RTS which we always wanted. And because of that the implementation i described above (imo) is an upgrade over what was in AoE2.

 

I think the distance shouldnt factor in the resource gather rate. Otherwise it becomes impossible to monitor and balance between different kinds of maps. But the min'm distance between CC helps in standardising it.

12 minutes ago, Hannibal_Barca said:

Currently traders trained from markets can be set on custom trade router (to avoid enemies), but once trained it is impossible to set a custom route. Training traders from the market then setting them between CCs will make trade routes take fastest way, hence maybe into enemy territory. This is illlogical as you should be able to tell the traders to "go this way or you will be killed".

I dont see why we cant have the trained traders selected and do some shift clicks to create a curved longer trade route avoiding the enemy. I mean it shouldnt be difficult to implement. Anyways this will decrease the amount gained from traders because of longer routes, so wouldnt be used unless really necessary.

[Hannibal_Barca]

"Work on 0 A.D. began in 2001, first as a mod concept for Age of Empires II: The Age of Kings. In 2003 development moved to a standalone game with its own engine, Pyrogenesis. In 2009-2010, the game was released as free, open-source software and and much of the codebase was rewritten. Learn more about the story of 0 A.D. »"

Read our game description and of course you won't be surprised if we are similar.