drsingh Posted March 12, 2017 Report Share Posted March 12, 2017 (edited) I spent some time to provide my version of suggestion regarding gameplay improvements. Some of these which I already posted before, have been updated. This is a complete summary about a generic faction, and can be applied to all factions with additions. Aimed at doing the least changes to get maxm benefit in gameplay, while staying true to identity of game. Spoiler Economy changes- (There should be a standard fixed rate of economy progression) Units- Female Citizen, Male Citizen Production building- CC Production rate- Single units in phase 1 Batch of 5 units in phase 2 (after tech) Additional CC unlocked in Phase 2 Resources- Food- All living units, Techs Wood- Ranged military units, Siege units, Buildings, Economic Techs. Stone- Advanced Buildings, Phase progression techs. Metal- All Military units, Blacksmith techs. Resource dropsite buildings can be built outside CC territory. Farms get +50% bonus when built on farmlands. Farmlands should always be outside starting CC territory. Huntable animals should get better ai. To move in herd. Instead of being randomly spread over a large area. Ranged Male citizens and citizen soldiers get 100% accuracy against animals. Gathering from hunt should be twice of base gather rate from farm. Stone and Metal mines should be present in the outer half(not border) of the CC territory. The total sum value of metal and stone present in the Starting CC territory should be reduced a bit, (depending on testing) Cost of Storehouse and Farmstead and build time be decreased. 75w(from 100w). Corral- moved to phase 2. Costs 150 wood. Build limit 2. (Becomes an advanced infinite food source) Acts like an animal farm. Has 5 slots for herd-able animals. Gives trickle of food- 1 per second per animal. Maxm 5 animal- 5 food per second. Can train(cost half of food value) total of 10 animal in a game. Choice to either put them in corral for trickle or harvest fast at 2Xhuntable gather rate for a sudden boost. Trickle gets +50% bonus if corral has atleast 2 farms nearby. Alternatively- Phase 1. Cost same (100w). No Build limit. Corrals have slots for 5 animals. Animals fatten over time to triple the food value. Fat animals come out of Corral. Animals can be trained in corral for the cost = food value. They directly enter the slot in corral if empty space present. CC phase progression- 400 stone to phase 2 800 stone to phase 3 Building new CC cost reduced to 600 stone. Generic Tech tree- Phase 1- Village 1) House –75w (150w for large house factions) 2) Store house- 75w 3) Farmstead- 75w 4) Farm- 100w 5) Dock- 200w 6) Barracks- 150w 150stone 7) Outpost- 75w 8) Palisade wall- 5w Phase 2- Town 1) CC- 600stone 2) Temple- 300stone 3) Market- 250w 4) Corral- 150w (build limit-2) 5) Stable- 100w 200 stone 6) Sentry tower- 100w 100stone 7) Stone wall- 20stone Phase 3- City 1) Fortress- 800 stone (may be placed in neutral territory like CC. And gives similar expansion) 2) Blacksmith- 200w 200stone 3) Defense tower(after upgrade tech in sentry tower)- 100w 100stone 4) Wonder Each faction will atleast have all these structures. Plus their unique structures. 3 types of buildings of previous phase need to be built to unlock phase progression tech. Phase pop limits- Dependent on house build limits. House gives 10 pop each. CC gives 20 pop each. House limit-> phase1- 4, phase 2- 8, phase 3- 20(or more depending on rules). Phase 2 has a tech which increases the pop cap to-15 per house. So phase 1 has 60 pop limit. Phase2- 140(+20per additional cc), Phase 3- Max. Fertility Festival allows female citizen production at double the train time of CC. (so limited by max 4 buildings in phase 1) Mauryan and Persian houses- give 11 pop each. 17 after tech. Those factions which have larger houses- House limit-> Phase1- 2, phase 2- 4, phase 3- 10(or more). 20 pop per house. 30 after tech. Fertility festival enables female citizen production- at faster rate- equal to CC train time. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Changed roles- Phase 1- a temporary stage. Most will advance soon. Except those going for all in rush (which can be effective). Phase 2- Better booming with batch production enabled at CC and further CC buildable. Also access to mounted units from stables. Also enable Traders. (Economy focus) Phase 3- In contrast to previous phase this phase is military focused. Access to Champion units. Powerful blacksmith techs. And Siege weapons. In phase 1 there’ll be option of either- making a double barracks (300w 300stn) and rushing the enemy, or going to phase 2 for faster gatherer production (400stn). Or a balance- defensive single barracks and phase 2(150w 550stn). In phase 2 there is option to either- Getting 2nd CC for 600 stone. To boom harder with double the Citizen-gatherer production and starting trade. Or go to phase 3 with 800 stone to get earlier access to Champions. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Military changes- Soldiers can also gather resources, but at a slower rate. They (including male citizen) gain experience from combat and are upgraded to higher rank. They can also gain ranks by training them in Barracks for resource and time cost. Gaining ranks through Barracks is phase dependent. While gaining through xp is independent. Ranks and stat scaling- Lvl1- Citizen Soldier - x Lvl2- Elite Soldier -1.15x (+1 armor) Lvl3- Champion Soldier – 1.3x (+2 armor) Male Citizen(from CC) – 0.5x (-3 armor) Here Champions have +2 armor and 30% better stats than Citizen Soldiers so they are better. But Citizen soldiers in 1.5 times the number will fight them equally. 2 Unique Champion units available to each faction. (except Mauryan) These have identical stats to lvl3 Champion, but have ability to gain a further lvl (lvl2 10% boost) through xp only. Citizen Soldiers can be trained at lvl 1 only even in phase 3. Fortress and special buildings unlock the unique champions. Can also train them. All infantry available to a faction is trainable in Barracks (build limit 4). All mounted units available to a faction are trainable in Stables (build limit 3). Military units are trained in batches of 5. Tech in phase 3 allows batches of 10. Because of build limits of barracks and it getting idled during rank upgrade. The preferred mode of obtaining higher rank soldiers will be through combat xp. Barracks(or stable for mounted units) will be used to upgrade in special situations- like after reaching pop limit. Or to counter an enemy unique champion when your own unique champion is not suited for it. Experience gain- +25% faster in own territory. Further 50% due to aura of Statue or a hero. +100% against enemy support units (Female, Male citizen, Trader, Priest) Capped at (+100%) if under multiple effects. Hunting animals will not give any xp. (right now it does) Blacksmith upgrades- (all of these increase metal cost of unit) Single tier upgrades for Infantry armor, Cavalry armor. Single tier upgrades for damage depending on weapon- eg Sword upgrade, Spear, Arrow, Javelin etc. Effect can be maxm upto 20%. Some maps can have Neutral Mercenary camps guarded by gaia mercenary. Capturable and provide another military production facility. Important since otherwise military production is limited by 4 barracks. Combat changes- 3 damage types- mele, ranged and siege. Buildings only get affected by siege attack. Every unit has a siege attack. Units have either mele or ranged attack. And 2 types of armor. Until the game develops all mechanics (like formation, charge etc), it would be advisable to include hard counters. To better assess the success of game design. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- UI changes- 1) Economic overview- To help plan your macro. Even more important if some of your fighters double as gatherers. Total number of gatherers can be shown in brackets next to each resource at the top. Hovering on it can give detail distribution. Eg Female-1, Male- 10, Soldier- 6, Cav- 1 etc. 2) "To war" (Alt-Q) flag- near idle citizen button on mini map. Clicking on it and then on map- selects all military units in whole map and ‘attack moves’ to the point you selected. This includes lvl1 and lvl2 soldiers who might be gathering. 3) Auto banners- For better control and micro of important units. Beneath Hero banner and above control group banners is a space for 4 Banners. Which form by themselves. This include the Champion soldiers (one type in 1 banner). If somehow you have more than 4 types of Champion soldiers on map. Then 4 with most numbers get their own banners. 4) Different rank of units show up with separate icon when selected. Eg. You are still able to double click on hoplite to select all (lvl1-3). But they have are shown in 3 groups as 3 icons in ui. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Unit costs and gather rate- Female Citizen-> 50 food. Gathers- food-0.8, wood-0.6, stone-0.4, iron-0.4 (gives a gathering bonus aura 10% to all males) Male Citizen(option of mele or ranged)-> 60 food 10wood. Gathers- food-0.6, wood-0.6, gold-0.6, iron-0.6 (food here is base gather rate of farms. On farmlands 1.5X. Hunting is 2X. Herdable 4X) (Both male citizen and female citizen have same train time= 10sec. Single Citizen soldier from barracks has double that train time=20 sec) Citizen Soldier- food,wood,gold,iron- all 0.4. Carrying capacity reduced by 5. Elite Soldier- food,wood,gold,iron- all 0.2. Builds 50% slower. Carrying capacity reduced by 10. Champion Soldier- Cant gather. Cant build Citizen cavalry(2 pop)- food from hunt- 2.5. from herdable- 5. +20 carrying capacity. Cost of upgrading rank of units will be difference in cost. Eg- Male citizen can be upgraded to spearman for 20 metal. And to archer for 15wood 5 metal. Time- 20 seconds for going up 1 rank. 30 seconds for going up 2 or more ranks(lvl1->3, Male citizen->lvl2, lvl3). Cost of military units- (an example) Lvl1 citizen soldiers- (upgrade cost in bracket – lvl 1-2, lvl2-3) Spearman- 60 food 10wood 20 metal (Lvl2->10metal, Lvl3->+10food 10metal) Archer/javelin- 60 food 25wood 5 metal (5w 5m, 10w 10m) Swordsman- 60 food 30 metal (10m, 10f 10m) Slinger- 60 food 25stone 5 metal (5stone 5m, 10stone 10m) Sword Cavalry (2 pop)- 140 food 50 metal (20m, 20f 20m) Spear Cavalry (2 pop)- 140 food 25wood 25 metal (20m, 20f 20m) Ranged Cavalry (2 pop)- 140 food 40wood 10 metal (10w 10m, 20w 20m) Unique Champion unit cost = lvl 3 soldier So eg Swordsman- 70 food 50 metal Ranged Cavalry (2 pop)- 140 food 70wood 40 metal These costs have been fixed considering- that even arrows and spears need a little metal. And mele units need more metal because of their armor. Higher rank units need more metal because of better armor. Upgrade costs according to the 30% stat increase from lvl1 to 3. And cavalry costs assuming they have double the HP but only slight (?20%) increase in attack damage compared to their non-mounted counterparts. This results in- Food and Metal being required for all military units. Some of them also require wood and less metal. The gathering rate being equal for wood, metal and stone. Makes it easier for player to plan his macro and switch gatherers if needed I think except the rank upgrade mechanic, all of this can be implemented in a mod right now without needing much coding or artwork. I have thought hard about all the specifics. If you have doubts about anything, I can explain my position on it. For completeness sake- Here are the list of problems these are aimed at resolving. Spoiler 1) Buildings don't have specific roles. CC can be used to produce military. Barracks is usually built near forests to build workers. This is important because player never has to chose between focusing on economy or on military(by building barracks). everything(eco nd military) is available in all buildings, no variations to allow different strategies. 2) There's no control on the unit production rate from buildings. Especially economic unit production. 3) The citizen soldier concept is not implemented properly. Too much chaos when attacking or defending. 4) Similar to above- the gathering is not done as was intended. Only females created in beginning. only Champions in the end. Citizen soldiers jack of all trades, good at nothing. 5) Eco management is very tough. By this I mean to efficiently use it. An good player in other games would be able to keep resource collected in bank close to zero, by spending them as soon as collected, and using gatherers efficiently by switching them over according to his build order. This task is near impossible in 0AD. First because of 2 types of gatherers- food gatherer and rest. And also because theres no fixed or constant rate of economic growth. The gathers can be trained singly, in batches of 5 or 10, 15 etc. Also the fertility festival tech at house is broken. Also a major population of gatherers also fights. And after fights its usually not clear how many gatherers you lost per resource. 6) Battle strategy is non existent. Currently it includes massing any one type of unit and laming it. Either Javelin cav in beginning, or chariots or sword champions later. This is because of lack of effective counters. Hard countering shouldn't be removed unless Soft countering is ensured by combat mechanics. 7) Imbalance between Champion units and Citizen soldiers. It not only decreases the value of citizen soldiers but also creates imbalance between factions. which have led to a trend to give every faction 4 champions. which doesn't solve the issue but increases it. Champions should have been just a unique unit of each faction. 8) Phase progression doesn't mean much currently. So what, you get champions in phase 3. But its perfectly possible that someone in phase 1 has better economy and beats someone who is in phase 2. 9) Hack and Pierce attack. Pierce attack of an archer and of a spearman are not the same. One is shrugged off by heavy armour rider, one is deadly for the horse. And then siege damage is added to emulate crush attacks. Siege damage to buildings should always be a separate entity. eg it becomes difficult to implement upgrades like fire arrows, which mainly increase siege capacity, and a lesser increase in anti unit damage. Also Units like Mauryan- Yodha which have siege damage only. And become weak against all units inspite of having capacity to cause good crush damage. 10) Trader, Corral. This is the summary of my suggestion regarding Traders. Spoiler Change cost- 150f 100w instead of 100f 80m. Pop cost- 2 Trader moves between CC instead of Market. (Dock build limit 1 per CC) To make less efficient- 1 trader(2 pop) going between two CC(placed as close as possible) should generate metal(or wood or stone) 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. The trader still can still collect all 4 resources. But since farms will be much faster for food. So it will actually only be used for other 3. Edited March 14, 2017 by drsingh 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DarcReaver Posted March 12, 2017 Author Report Share Posted March 12, 2017 (edited) 1 hour ago, drsingh said: I spent some time to provide my version of suggestion regarding gameplay improvements. Some of these which I already posted before, have been updated. This is a complete summary about a generic faction, and can be applied to all factions with additions. Aimed at doing the least changes to get maxm benefit in gameplay, while staying true to identity of game. Reveal hidden contents Economy changes- (There should be a standard fixed rate of economy progression) Units- Female Citizen, Male Citizen Production building- CC Production rate- Single units in phase 1 Batch of 5 units in phase 2 (after tech) Additional CC unlocked in Phase 2 Resources- Food- All living units, Techs Wood- Ranged military units, Siege units, Buildings, Economic Techs. Stone- Advanced Buildings, Phase progression techs. Metal- All Military units, Blacksmith techs. Resource dropsite buildings can be built outside CC territory. Farms get +50% bonus when built on farmlands. Farmlands should always be outside starting CC territory. Huntable animals should get better ai. To move in herd. Instead of being randomly spread over a large area. Ranged Male citizens and citizen soldiers get 100% accuracy against animals. Gathering from hunt should be twice of base gather rate from farm. Stone and Metal mines should be present in the outer half(not border) of the CC territory. The total sum value of metal and stone present in the Starting CC territory should be reduced a bit, (depending on testing) Cost of Storehouse and Farmstead and build time be decreased. 75w(from 100w). Corral- moved to phase 2. Costs 150 wood. Build limit 2. (Becomes an advanced infinite food source) Acts like an animal farm. Has 5 slots for herd-able animals. Gives trickle of food- 1 per second per animal. Maxm 5 animal- 5 food per second. Can train(cost half of food value) total of 10 animal in a game. Choice to either put them in corral for trickle or harvest fast at 2Xhuntable gather rate for a sudden boost. Trickle gets +50% bonus if corral has atleast 2 farms nearby. Alternatively- Phase 1. Cost same (100w). No Build limit. Corrals have slots for 5 animals. Animals fatten over time to triple the food value. Fat animals come out of Corral. Animals can be trained in corral for the cost = food value. They directly enter the slot in corral if empty space present. CC phase progression- 400 stone to phase 2 800 stone to phase 3 Building new CC cost reduced to 600 stone. Generic Tech tree- Phase 1- Village 1) House –75w (150w for large house factions) 2) Store house- 75w 3) Farmstead- 75w 4) Farm- 100w 5) Dock- 200w 6) Barracks- 150w 150stone 7) Outpost- 75w 8) Palisade wall- 5w Phase 2- Town 1) CC- 600stone 2) Temple- 300stone 3) Market- 250w 4) Corral- 150w (build limit-2) 5) Stable- 100w 200 stone 6) Sentry tower- 100w 100stone 7) Stone wall- 20stone Phase 3- City 1) Fortress- 800 stone (may be placed in neutral territory like CC. And gives similar expansion) 2) Blacksmith- 200w 200stone 3) Defense tower(after upgrade tech in sentry tower)- 100w 100stone Each faction will atleast have all these structures. Plus their unique structures. 3 types of buildings of previous phase need to be built to unlock phase progression tech. Phase pop limits- Dependent on house build limits. House gives 10 pop each. CC gives 20 pop each. House limit-> phase1- 4, phase 2- 8, phase 3- 20(or more depending on rules). Phase 2 has a tech which increases the pop cap to-15 per house. So phase 1 has 60 pop limit. Phase2- 140(+20per additional cc), Phase 3- Max. Fertility Festival allows female citizen production at double the train time of CC. (so limited by max 4 buildings in phase 1) Mauryan and Persian houses- give 11 pop each. 17 after tech. Those factions which have larger houses- House limit-> Phase1- 2, phase 2- 4, phase 3- 10(or more). 20 pop per house. 30 after tech. Fertility festival enables female citizen production- at faster rate- equal to CC train time. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Changed roles- Phase 1- a temporary stage. Most will advance soon. Except those going for all in rush (which can be effective). Phase 2- Better booming with batch production enabled at CC and further CC buildable. Also access to mounted units from stables. Also enable Traders. (Economy focus) Phase 3- In contrast to previous phase this phase is military focused. Access to Champion units. Powerful blacksmith techs. And Siege weapons. In phase 1 there’ll be option of either- making a double barracks (300w 300stn) and rushing the enemy, or going to phase 2 for faster gatherer production (400stn). Or a balance- defensive single barracks and phase 2(150w 550stn). In phase 2 there is option to either- Getting 2nd CC for 600 stone. To boom harder with double the Citizen-gatherer production and starting trade. Or go to phase 3 with 800 stone to get earlier access to Champions. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Military changes- Soldiers can also gather resources, but at a slower rate. They (including male citizen) gain experience from combat and are upgraded to higher rank. They can also gain ranks by training them in Barracks for resource and time cost. Gaining ranks through Barracks is phase dependent. While gaining through xp is independent. Ranks and stat scaling- Lvl1- Citizen Soldier - x Lvl2- Elite Soldier -1.15x (+1 armor) Lvl3- Champion Soldier – 1.3x (+2 armor) Male Citizen(from CC) – 0.5x (-3 armor) Here Champions have +2 armor and 30% better stats than Citizen Soldiers so they are better. But Citizen soldiers in 1.5 times the number will fight them equally. 2 Unique Champion units available to each faction. (except Mauryan) These have identical stats to lvl3 Champion, but have ability to gain a further lvl (lvl2 10% boost) through xp only. Citizen Soldiers can be trained at lvl 1 only even in phase 3. Fortress and special buildings unlock the unique champions. Can also train them. All infantry available to a faction is trainable in Barracks (build limit 4). All mounted units available to a faction are trainable in Stables (build limit 3). Military units are trained in batches of 5. Tech in phase 3 allows batches of 10. Because of build limits of barracks and it getting idled during rank upgrade. The preferred mode of obtaining higher rank soldiers will be through combat xp. Barracks(or stable for mounted units) will be used to upgrade in special situations- like after reaching pop limit. Or to counter an enemy unique champion when your own unique champion is not suited for it. Experience gain- +25% faster in own territory. Further 50% due to aura of Statue or a hero. +100% against enemy support units (Female, Male citizen, Trader, Priest) Capped at (+100%) if under multiple effects. Hunting animals will not give any xp. (right now it does) Blacksmith upgrades- (all of these increase metal cost of unit) Single tier upgrades for Infantry armor, Cavalry armor. Single tier upgrades for damage depending on weapon- eg Sword upgrade, Spear, Arrow, Javelin etc. Effect can be maxm upto 20%. Some maps can have Neutral Mercenary camps guarded by gaia mercenary. Capturable and provide another military production facility. Important since otherwise military production is limited by 4 barracks. Combat changes- 3 damage types- mele, ranged and siege. Buildings only get affected by siege attack. Every unit has a siege attack. Units have either mele or ranged attack. And 2 types of armor. Until the game develops all mechanics (like formation, charge etc), it would be advisable to include hard counters. To better assess the success of game design. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- UI changes- 1) Economic overview- To help plan your macro. Even more important if some of your fighters double as gatherers. Total number of gatherers can be shown in brackets next to each resource at the top. Hovering on it can give detail distribution. Eg Female-1, Male- 10, Soldier- 6, Cav- 1 etc. 2) "To war" (Alt-Q) flag- near idle citizen button on mini map. Clicking on it and then on map- selects all military units in whole map and ‘attack moves’ to the point you selected. This includes lvl1 and lvl2 soldiers who might be gathering. 3) Auto banners- For better control and micro of important units. Beneath Hero banner and above control group banners is a space for 4 Banners. Which form by themselves. This include the Champion soldiers (one type in 1 banner). If somehow you have more than 4 types of Champion soldiers on map. Then 4 with most numbers get their own banners. 4) Different rank of units show up with separate icon when selected. Eg. You are still able to double click on hoplite to select all (lvl1-3). But they have are shown in 3 groups as 3 icons in ui. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Unit costs and gather rate- Female Citizen-> 50 food. Gathers- food-0.8, wood-0.6, stone-0.3, iron-0.3 (gives a gathering bonus aura 10% to all males) Male Citizen(option of mele or ranged)-> 60 food 10wood. Gathers- food-0.6, wood-0.6, gold-0.6, iron-0.6 (food here is base gather rate of farms. On farmlands 1.5X. Hunting is 2X. Herdable 4X) (Both male citizen and female citizen have same train time. Single Citizen soldier from barracks has double that train time) Citizen Soldier- food,wood,gold,iron- all 0.4. Carrying capacity reduced by 5. Elite Soldier- food,wood,gold,iron- all 0.2. Builds 50% slower. Carrying capacity reduced by 10. Champion Soldier- Cant gather. Cant build Citizen cavalry(2 pop)- food from hunt- 2.5. from herdable- 5. +20 carrying capacity. Cost of upgrading rank of units will be difference in cost. Eg- Male citizen can be upgraded to spearman for 20 metal. And to archer for 15wood 5 metal. Cost of military units- (an example) Lvl1 citizen soldiers- (upgrade cost in bracket – lvl 1-2, lvl2-3) Spearman- 60 food 10wood 20 metal (Lvl2->10metal, Lvl3->+10food 10metal) Archer/javelin- 60 food 25wood 5 metal (5w 5m, 10w 10m) Swordsman- 60 food 30 metal (10m, 10f 10m) Slinger- 60 food 25stone 5 metal (5stone 5m, 10stone 10m) Sword Cavalry (2 pop)- 140 food 50 metal (20m, 20f 20m) Spear Cavalry (2 pop)- 140 food 25wood 25 metal (20m, 20f 20m) Ranged Cavalry (2 pop)- 140 food 40wood 10 metal (10w 10m, 20w 20m) Unique Champion unit cost = lvl 3 soldier So eg Swordsman- 70 food 50 metal Ranged Cavalry (2 pop)- 140 food 70wood 40 metal These costs have been fixed considering- that even arrows and spears need a little metal. And mele units need more metal because of their armor. Higher rank units need more metal because of better armor. Upgrade costs according to the 30% stat increase from lvl1 to 3. And cavalry costs assuming they have double the HP but only slight (?20%) increase in attack damage compared to their non-mounted counterparts. This results in- Food and Metal being required for all military units. Some of them also require wood and less metal. The gathering rate being equal for wood, metal and stone. Makes it easier for player to plan his macro and switch gatherers if needed I think except the rank upgrade mechanic, all of this can be implemented in a mod right now without needing much coding or artwork. I have thought hard about all the specifics. If you have doubts about anything, I can explain my position on it. For completeness sake- Here are the list of problems these are aimed at resolving. Reveal hidden contents 1) Buildings don't have specific roles. CC can be used to produce military. Barracks is usually built near forests to build workers. This is important because player never has to chose between focusing on economy or on military(by building barracks). everything(eco nd military) is available in all buildings, no variations to allow different strategies. 2) There's no control on the unit production rate from buildings. Especially economic unit production. 3) The citizen soldier concept is not implemented properly. Too much chaos when attacking or defending. 4) Similar to above- the gathering is not done as was intended. Only females created in beginning. only Champions in the end. Citizen soldiers jack of all trades, good at nothing. 5) Eco management is very tough. By this I mean to efficiently use it. An good player in other games would be able to keep resource collected in bank close to zero, by spending them as soon as collected, and using gatherers efficiently by switching them over according to his build order. This task is near impossible in 0AD. First because of 2 types of gatherers- food gatherer and rest. And also because theres no fixed or constant rate of economic growth. The gathers can be trained singly, in batches of 5 or 10, 15 etc. Also the fertility festival tech at house is broken. Also a major population of gatherers also fights. And after fights its usually not clear how many gatherers you lost per resource. 6) Battle strategy is non existent. Currently it includes massing any one type of unit and laming it. Either Javelin cav in beginning, or chariots or sword champions later. This is because of lack of effective counters. Hard countering shouldn't be removed unless Soft countering is ensured by combat mechanics. 7) Imbalance between Champion units and Citizen soldiers. It not only decreases the value of citizen soldiers but also creates imbalance between factions. which have led to a trend to give every faction 4 champions. which doesn't solve the issue but increases it. Champions should have been just a unique unit of each faction. 8) Phase progression doesn't mean much currently. So what, you get champions in phase 3. But its perfectly possible that someone in phase 1 has better economy and beats someone who is in phase 2. 9) Hack and Pierce attack. Pierce attack of an archer and of a spearman are not the same. One is shrugged off by heavy armour rider, one is deadly for the horse. And then siege damage is added to emulate crush attacks. Siege damage to buildings should always be a separate entity. eg it becomes difficult to implement upgrades like fire arrows, which mainly increase siege capacity, and a lesser increase in anti unit damage. Also Units like Mauryan- Yodha which have siege damage only. And become weak against all units inspite of having capacity to cause good crush damage. 10) Trader, Corral. This is the summary of my suggestion reagarding Traders. Reveal hidden contents Change cost- 150f 100w instead of 100f 80m. Pop cost- 2 Trader moves between CC instead of Market. (Dock build limit 1 per CC) To make less efficient- 1 trader(2 pop) going between two CC(placed as close as possible) should generate metal(or wood or stone) 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. The trader still can still collect all 4 resources. But since farms will be much faster for food. So it will actually only be used for other 3. The proposed concept raises a couple of questions. To avoid a large post monster I'll post the questions below: Question 1: Why should batch production be delayed by a required tech into a later phase? I don't see how it's such a strong asset that it's not possible to make it a default feature for the game. It's much more effective to train multiple units with a single click and thus allows concentration on other parts of the game. Individual micro = tedious, unnecessary micro. I mean - what's the point? In AoE you can use villagers to lure boars to your CC, that's pretty much the only point where I say that a single unit has rewarding micro. Everything else is not. Single knight vs. single Xbow? Or single Pikeman against a single archer? looks pretty ridiculous and isn't worth microing. That's something I learnt from playing AoE II in multiplayer. I don't see any point where single unit micro is rewarding in 0ad. If you know situations - please, I'm eagerly awaiting examples. Edit: Another reason why single units are not desirable in 0 ad: units die quickly and are cheap to replace, thus the individual micro has a low reward potential. compare this to a game like warcraft III : each unit is costly and has high hitpoints and low damage, that way the fights are long and there are many options to withdraw a unit to avoid damage and turn it back into the fight. It's a core mechanic and works well. Because the individual micro is very rewarding, and killing an enemy unit requires planning and skill. In 0ad it's the other way around, and thus it's counter intuitive. Question/statement 2: Why is founding additional bases delayed into a later phase of the game? because of the territory system and having store houses etc. are buildable in neutral territory in your concept I sort of question this move. It would certainly be better to allow city creation from the start while nerfing the stats of civic centers or to provide an early alternative to create economic outposts that can supply themselves with workers. (Note: A solution could be to allow gatherer production in store houses/farmsteads) Opinion 3: the idea to force fields outside the main land is a good one and should be followed in general, so I support it. Question 4: if farms already serve as an unlimited source of food, why is it necessary to create another option to gather unlimited food in phase II? Wouldn't it be better/easier to just delay farms into the second town phase and adjust the performance accordingly? One thing I like is the option of unloading cattle for a quick food surplus, though. Question 5: Why is the blacksmith delayed so much into the 3rd phase? The Blacksmith contains integral upgrades for the army and thus shouldn't be a lategame building. Blacksmith technologies are meant to make the player's army to scale against other units. By delaying the blacksmith further you're reducing the reason to produce early military units, which leads to the question why advanced military in general is allowed in the first phase. Edit: actually, this further emphasize to simply use military to gather resources - if a player can't make his army more efficient at raiding there's even less point in attacking because every minute of progress looses him resources (see below) and at the same time reduces the chance of having a successful attack (more time left - more buildings, more military buildings, more defenses). Question 6: how do reduced gathering capabilities fix the citizen Soldier concept? It still remains the same issue as it was. Every unit needs to keep gathering resources to gain economic advantage, and as soon as the army is rallied and attacks, the player starts loosing resources from not collecting. Since you provided some values in your concept I'll give you some math: Army size: 30 citizen soldiers. 15 collect wood, 15 collect metal. Gathering rate : 0.4 res/second Gathering rate for wood: 15x0.4 = 6 wood/second (or 60 wood per minute) which is equal to 10 women (rate 0.6) collecting wood = 500 food (!!) worth of economy units. Gathering rate for metal: 15x0.4 = 6 metal/second (or 60 metal per minute) which is equal to 20 women (rate 0.3) collecting metal = 1000 food(!!) worth of economy units. In total you have 1500 food worth of units collecting resources. Now you put those units to attack the enemy. And as soon as you start marching towards him you loose 1500 (!!!!) food worth of economic units. While the enemy (providing his army is just as big as yours and gathers with them) still has 1500 food or 30 additional gatherers working for him. Even if he has to relocate a couple of gatherers away from your army it's still likely that he has 700 or more food economy than you have. The longer your army is in his base the larger the enemies' advantage becomes from gathering as long as he can keep your army at bay. Since he has barracks nearby and can produce counter units from his economy your initial attack advantage becomes less and less. Or even worse - his own citizen soldiers fight back, and since he can field counter units he can fight your army more efficiently. Thus, attacking with citizen soldiers is ineffective. I hope this actually finally clears up why citizen soldiers are a bad concept. statement 7: I agree with the population concept. It is logical that larger cities have larger populations. I disagree with the fertility ritual though. This upgrade is nonsense from a gameplay perspective. While it's logical that you can produce women from houses it's simply bad. Edit: the reason why it's bad is simple: the intended structure of the game is to secure map areas and profit from the resources in the territory. There is no point in booming more and more economic units in your base area without expansion. It would be much better to allow the founding and creation of cities earlier to allow economic expansions instead. Because that way, players can expand the amount of gatherers where they are needed instead of having to let them travel around the map unprotected (once again - manspam train). In short: More bases = less risky to gather outside (gatherers can be protected and replaced without travel time) = more reason for early expanson = more life/action on the map = less locust harvesting =more opportunities to raid enemy economies = more action for military = no need to have them gather resources Statement 8: Comment on the stat suggestion for citizen soldiers/champions but they seem to be reasonable. Statement 9: I find it rather interesting that you analyze problems within the design in the last paragraph, but your presented solutions will not have the desired effect as they do not change conceptual problems. Fixing stats will certainly improve the overall playability, but if the design is bad, the stats will only make it mediocre instead of bad. The changes simply don't dig deep enough to fix the causes, they only fix symptoms. My 2 cents (as usual. I sometimes ask myself whether I have too much time on my hands to actually write these amounts of texts again and again)... Edited March 12, 2017 by DarcReaver 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
drsingh Posted March 13, 2017 Report Share Posted March 13, 2017 (edited) Q1- Thats batch production delayed only of CC. not barracks. Also no unnecessary micro is involved, because you can still queue units. In 0AD batch production doesnt have same train time as single unit. I mean 1 citizen trains in x seconds, suppose. The Batch of 5 in 0 Ad doesnt trains in x seconds. But it is 5x -25%. So batch training is a way to train units faster 25%. The training times in the game are very short already. and economy goes out of hand very fast. This is a way to limit the growth of economy. Currently the units can be trained in any batch size. each having a different train time per single citizen. Also since batch of 5 training gets unlocked in 2nd phase. So it becomes a motive to phase up. (see the options i described under- changed roles) Also in 2nd phase since the demand on economy increases the training rate of gatherers gets a boost with 5 batch tech. Q2- No allowing random storehouses to produce gatherers will only add to the chaos. You start getting more resources than you know what to do with. And the importance of skillfully raiding villagers is reduced. There already was this problem because of Fertility festival tech, which has been addressed by house limit and increased train time. The idea is we have a village/town. which has most of its buildings. But some gatherers like farmers, woodcutters etc traditionally used to go outside the town for their job. It also helps our gameplay because of wider distribution of units. Creating more CC is still important. For your economy as a source of more economic unit, to allow trade. And for the defensive bonuses to gatherers, due to close proximity of garrison and military structures. Also the 25% bonus exp, in your territory. Q4- I have given 2 alternative fixes for Corral. Because apparently it still has not achieved the function developers have in mind. My first option- It gives free trickle of food. If you already gathered some herds on the map then it is very cheap to set up. It doesnt need gatherers working on it like farm does. This hyper boost of food is not needed in Phase 1 because of limited ways to spend it. In my proposal phase 1 is meant to be a short lived stage, with access to limited structures (Corral and stable go together in phase 2 because of round up feature- which will be implemented in future). Q5- Blacksmith. This is related with the Phase roles. Phase 2 gives you everything to boom as hard as possible. Phase 3 has focus on better military- with champions, siege weapons, Blacksmith techs and tech which unlocks batch of 10 for military buildings. Also as the settlement progresses. The citizens become more specialized. According to this concept a fully fortified city is going to have an advanced blacksmith. Another reason is that having 2 tier techs doesnt make sense for 0AD. In other games where there was age progression the tiered blacksmith upgrades made sense, because of different innovations in different time periods. But here the time period is same. And no logic to explain 2 tier techs in blacksmith. You just build a blacksmith in your city and start getting better equipment for you army. Note- this also increases the cost of each unit. It needs to be in phase 3 because if you even have military upgrades in phase 2 then there is not much reason left for phase progression. See the 3 build orders I gave- between Eco and Military changes. Q6- You shouldn't equate Citizen soldiers to Female collectors for metal/stone/wood. Male citizens gather these better(even wood because of 10%aura). Also take in consideration the cost of the said unit.- 10 females gather wood = 15 citizen soldier (lvl 1 swordsman eg) 10 x 50 = 500 food.; 15 X 60 food 30 metal = 900 food 450 metal. Here 400 food and 450 metal excess requirement means - Barracks wont be used primarily for eco unit production. This means if you are training Military units. then its better to attack with them. Since enemy could be getting much better eco by investing in eco units. So Soldiers will be used to gather in limited numbers only while defending accompanying gatherers. And when you want to turtle in anticipation of rush. You'll train a few soldiers to be able to defend, and put them to gathering while waiting. In all other situations- since soldiers are very inefficient gatherers. If trained they must be used to fight. Or the player gets behind in eco by a huge margin. Also lvling up with XP can give you elite units even in phase 1. And since eco unit production has been controlled now. Every gatherer is important. And raids on eco units will reward more with double the xp. So an attacking player will be in position to damage enemy eco and get ahead. I think you are assuming that both players will have same number of soldiers. An attacking player will need to go double barracks and attack with a force much larger than defending force so as to cause damage. While those trying to defend - will try to scout better. to identify the number of military units enemy has. The defender will then try to keep his own army slightly smaller, so that he is able to defend succesfully and gains eco advantage at the same time. If a skilled player scouts. And sees that his enemy has as big military as his. He can either go for little less military and more gatheres to get an eco advantage. Or he can set up extra military buildings and attack with a much larger force. I sincerely believe that Citizen soldiers work fine with these specs. I dont have any better way to explain myself. If you still disagree. then perhaps trying this method first is better than letting go of a core feature of 0AD. Q7- Fertility festival doesnt restrict economic expansion in any way. It is not a mandatory tech since it's expensive currently. Also imo it only serves as way to come back for a failed all in rush by a Phase 1 player against another player who defended and advanced to phase 2. The changes regarding economic expansion are already there- Cheaper and faster building storehouse and farmstead without territory restriction. Farmland bonus. Cheaper progression to Phase 2. Cheaper CC. Statement 9- Please clarify which solution will not have desired effects.. Edited March 13, 2017 by drsingh Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
wowgetoffyourcellphone Posted March 13, 2017 Report Share Posted March 13, 2017 14 hours ago, DarcReaver said: What I'm referring to is that if you loose a couple of gatherers from a raid it's hard to replace them from the Civic Center. As it should be, right? I mean, what is the use of raiding the enemy's isolated gathering spots if they can just immediately retrain any of the gatherers I kill from the nearby storehouse? Look, resource gathering away from your centers of power should be possible in the game, in this we agree. But we disagree in that you seem to think that it should be without risk or easy to do. IMHO, we should make it a high risk/high reward situation to have a resourcing operation outside the player's territory. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DarcReaver Posted March 13, 2017 Author Report Share Posted March 13, 2017 (edited) 1 hour ago, drsingh said: Q1- Thats batch production delayed only of CC. not barracks. Also no unnecessary micro is involved, because you can still queue units. In 0AD batch production doesnt have same train time as single unit. I mean 1 citizen trains in x seconds, suppose. The Batch of 5 in 0 Ad doesnt trains in x seconds. But it is 5x -25%. So batch training is a way to train units faster 25%. The training times in the game are very short already. and economy goes out of hand very fast. This is a way to limit the growth of economy. Currently the units can be trained in any batch size. each having a different train time per single citizen. Also since batch of 5 training gets unlocked in 2nd phase. So it becomes a motive to phase up. (see the options i described under- changed roles) Also in 2nd phase since the demand on economy increases the training rate of gatherers gets a boost with 5 batch tech. Q2- No allowing random storehouses to produce gatherers will only add to the chaos. You start getting more resources than you know what to do with. And the importance of skillfully raiding villagers is reduced. There already was this problem because of Fertility festival tech, which has been addressed by house limit and increased train time. The idea is we have a village/town. which has most of its buildings. But some gatherers like farmers, woodcutters etc traditionally used to go outside the town for their job. It also helps our gameplay because of wider distribution of units. Creating more CC is still important. For your economy as a source of more economic unit, to allow trade. And for the defensive bonuses to gatherers, due to close proximity of garrison and military structures. Also the 25% bonus exp, in your territory. Q4- I have given 2 alternative fixes for Corral. Because apparently it still has not achieved the function developers have in mind. My first option- It gives free trickle of food. If you already gathered some herds on the map then it is very cheap to set up. It doesnt need gatherers working on it like farm does. This hyper boost of food is not needed in Phase 1 because of limited ways to spend it. In my proposal phase 1 is meant to be a short lived stage, with access to limited structures (Corral and stable go together in phase 2 because of round up feature- which will be implemented in future). Q5- Blacksmith. This is related with the Phase roles. Phase 2 gives you everything to boom as hard as possible. Phase 3 has focus on better military- with champions, siege weapons, Blacksmith techs and tech which unlocks batch of 10 for military buildings. Also as the settlement progresses. The citizens become more specialized. According to this concept a fully fortified city is going to have an advanced barracks. Another reason is that having 2 tier techs doesnt make sense for 0AD. In other games where there was age progression the tiered blacksmith upgrades made sense, because of different innovations in different time periods. But here the time period is same. And no logic to explain 2 tier techs in blacksmith. You just build a blacksmith in your city and start getting better equipment for you army. Note- this also increases the cost of each unit. It needs to be in phase 3 because if you even have military upgrades in phase 3 then there is not much reason left for phase progression. See the 3 build orders I gave- between Eco and Military changes. Q6- You shouldn't equate Citizen soldiers to Female collectors for metal/stone/wood. Male citizens gather these better(even wood because of 10%aura). Also take in consideration the cost of the said unit.- 10 females gather wood = 15 citizen soldier (lvl 1 swordsman eg) 10 x 50 = 500 food.; 15 X 60 food 30 metal = 900 food 450 metal. Here 400 food and 450 metal excess requirement means - Barracks wont be used primarily for eco unit production. This means if you are training Military units. then its better to attack with them. Since enemy could be getting much better eco by investing in eco units. So Soldiers will be used to gather in limited numbers only while defending accompanying gatherers. And when you want to turtle in anticipation of rush. You'll train a few soldiers to be able to defend, and put them to gathering while waiting. In all other situations- since soldiers are very inefficient gatherers. If trained they must be used to fight. Or the player gets behind in eco by a huge margin. Also lvling up with XP can give you elite units even in phase 1. And since eco unit production has been controlled now. Every gatherer is important. And raids on eco units will reward more with double the xp. So an attacking player will be in position to damage enemy eco and get ahead. I think you are assuming that both players will have same number of soldiers. An attacking player will need to go double barracks and attack with a force much larger than defending force so as to cause damage. While those trying to defend - will try to scout better. to identify the number of military units enemy has. The defender will then try to keep his own army slightly smaller, so that he is able to defend succesfully and gains eco advantage at the same time. If a skilled player scouts. And sees that his enemy has as big military as his. He can either go for little less military and more gatheres to get an eco advantage. Or he can set up extra military buildings and attack with a much larger force. I sincerely believe that Citizen soldiers work fine with these specs. I dont have any better way to explain myself. If you still disagree. then perhaps trying this method first is better than letting go of a core feature of 0AD. Q7- Fertility festival doesnt restrict economic expansion in any way. It is not a mandatory tech since it's expensive currently. Also imo it only serves as way to come back for a failed all in rush by a Phase 1 player against another player who defended and advanced to phase 2. The changes regarding economic expansion are already there- Cheaper and faster building storehouse and farmstead without territory restriction. Farmland bonus. Cheaper progression to Phase 2. Cheaper CC. Statement 9- Please clarify which solution will not have desired effects.. I'm getting tired of this. Q1: batch training - yes there's a efficiency bonus implemented. So what? Remove it and be done with it. Q2: no, it just allows capturing dynamics instead of raiding and destruction. Players can capture gathering sites and quickly profit from them when they can train gatherers there. I would still prefer a t1 "village center" type building though. "Q6- You shouldn't equate Citizen soldiers to Female collectors for metal/stone/wood. Male citizens gather these better(even wood because of 10%aura). Also take in consideration the cost of the said unit.- 10 females gather wood = 15 citizen soldier (lvl 1 swordsman eg) 10 x 50 = 500 food.; 15 X 60 food 30 metal = 900 food 450 metal. Here 400 food and 450 metal excess requirement means - Barracks wont be used primarily for eco unit production. This means if you are training Military units. then its better to attack with them. Since enemy could be getting much better eco by investing in eco units." You're wrong. to put it short. First, even if soldiers gather worse than eco units. You have to consider the cost difference, which is 10 food. 10 food with 0.4 rate is gathered in 25 seconds, or if a women gathers it in 12.5 seconds. The metal required is 75 or 90 seconds. So the soldier is payed off after around ~ 80 - 100 seconds. After that the soldier provides profit. A woman needs 62.5 seconds to pay off, which is roughly 60%-75% of the time. But she has 0 combat value and is worse at gathering metal. Anyways, Barracks are a second production building, so you can have double or triple eco production instead of only the civic center. More workers earlier = more resources.= more workers = more economy = more military. And still, what happens if you're going double barracks like you proposed? What kind of random assumption is that? How can the player supply 2 barracks producing units earlygame without all his citizens and women gathering resources all the time to get enough resources? And how long should military be produced so a rush becomes deadly enough to deal enough damage to warrant the loss in resource gathering? 2 Barracks = more soldiers. As soon as those soldiers move away from the base the further barracks production relies on women alone which gather metal worse and then the additional production stops because you dont have enough resources to provide both barracks. If women alone can outproduce 10 or 20 soldiers earlygame I question why soldiers should gather at all then?! According to your logic you lose even more economy because you have less eco units and more military, while your opponent can still gather with his soldiers and women alike. More economy and 1 barracks can produce soldiers faster than 2 barracks that can't be supplied with resources steadily. So, depending on the amount of gatherers double barracks might be even worse for rushing than a single barracks. To get your unit costs you'd need 240 food and 120 metal per minute to continually produce soldiers (2 soldiers with 30 seconds train time each is my assumption. If train times are shorter you need even more women). With gathering rates from women you need 240/0.8= 5 women for food and 6-7 women on metal to get a steady soldier production early, and this is without having further expansion of the economy. My statement still stands that it's more profitable to simply use the 2 barracks as production facilities and use soldiers for gathering instead of attacking. Edit: just one more math before my head explodes. I'll take the calculation assumption: 1 soldier 60f 30m 15s buildtime, 2 barracks. Total food required to permanent production (not including houses necessary for pop) = 480f, 240m. Gathering rates for women 0.8/0.3 = 480/0.8*60 = 10 women food, 240/0.3*60 = 13,3333 on metal. Now I simply start using soldiers to gather metal from dual barracks. Suddenly I have 23 women for food and can use the surplus food to further boom my economy. More barracks, more soldiers gathering metal I only need 10 soldiers to produce metal equal to 13-14 women. Then boom more and more. And what happens if I attack with my soldiers? suddenly I loose 30 or 40% of my total economy. You know what happens in AoE if you loose 40 % of your villagers? Most likely you loose. Heck, even loosing only 20% is a huge issue. Anyways, keeping on calculating resource efficiency is giving me headache right now. So I'll stop at this point. Why does military have to collect resources at all? What is the gameplay benefit apart from blurring the roles of economic and military units? How is it a better concept than the one Age of Empires uses? Or any other game that has economic worker units? And why is it a "core feature" of 0AD? I tell you something, Citizen soldiers are made from the concept that the random female / male villagers from AoE are split up into female trainable units and male trainable units. There is no deeper concept behind the citizens apart from trying to ripoff a game mechanic from AoE and provide an own "flavor" to it. It's only justification for being in the game is the duration that it has been in the game. Since there is no gameplay concept it was never questioned. If it had been questioned properly the "feature" would've been removed or reworked massively a long time ago. I've stated numerous times already why it's a bad concept, from a gameplay perspective, from a logical perspective and from a unit control perspective aswell. Q7: manspam train. Why have units travel half the map if they could simply be produced where they're actually required? would make way more sense. Replacing losses is easier, there's a natural population on the map coming from various sources instead of the main city. Where do farmers or woodchoppers live? Do they travel from a capital city to their work place in ancient times which most likely took days to get to? No, they usually resided in their farms outside, or in their loghouses or mines or wherever they worked. It would be more useful to limit gathering sources to less workers to soft cap economy unit spam instead of limiting the training places for gatherers. Especially with the chaos created by military armies gathering resources aswell. Once more: More bases = less risky to gather outside (gatherers can be protected and replaced without travel time) = more reason for early expanson = more life/action on the map = less locust harvesting =more opportunities to raid enemy economies = more action for military = no need to have them gather resources Statement 9: Pretty much every solution because you're fixing stats, that's why. Fixing stats on bad design = bad game with better stats. And as a last point I'm still awaiting examples where single unit micro is rewarding in 0ad. Edited March 13, 2017 by DarcReaver Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DarcReaver Posted March 13, 2017 Author Report Share Posted March 13, 2017 (edited) 25 minutes ago, wowgetoffyourcellphone said: As it should be, right? I mean, what is the use of raiding the enemy's isolated gathering spots if they can just immediately retrain any of the gatherers I kill from the nearby storehouse? Look, resource gathering away from your centers of power should be possible in the game, in this we agree. But we disagree in that you seem to think that it should be without risk or easy to do. IMHO, we should make it a high risk/high reward situation to have a resourcing operation outside the player's territory. Actually we're just stating 2 different sides of the very same medal. Both versions work, that's out of the question. While your proposal is to have larger gatherer forces concentrated on a few gathering sites (more similar to AoE) I'm proposing to spread out the gathering to multiple sources at the same time by limiting the amount of gatherers per drop site more drastically. This makes makes controlling larger portions of the map important. More mapcontrol = more gathering spots = more resources. Summary: - Your concept makes raiding a one sided option. You kill enemy gatherers and the resource spot is dead, and the enemy has to relocate other workers or retrain his units and lets them travel to the spot again. Or alternatively puts up a different gathering spot. Loosing a gathering spot is a larger deal because it's harder to replace lots of workers + loose the training/travel time to a new resource spot. - my concept allows the enemy to capture the gathering site and quickly train gatherers himself to profit from his raid. So, gathering sites are still risky as they can be turned against their former owner - that's why I actually would prefer "village outposts". Take control of the village and let its population work for the oppressor. Loosing a gathering spot is a disadvantage of course, but it's likely that there are other spots can cover up the loss of a drop site. But the enemy can capture the drop site to increase his own economy and this creates a disadvantage for the player who owned the site before. The difference is the game dynamic/gameflow. That's all. Edited March 13, 2017 by DarcReaver Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
wowgetoffyourcellphone Posted March 13, 2017 Report Share Posted March 13, 2017 37 minutes ago, DarcReaver said: And as a last point I'm still awaiting examples where single unit micro is rewarding in 0ad. I agree. RTS games have moved on from the AOE combat style. I don't want to see "massive" armies of 100 micro-intensive soldiers. I want to see 1000 guys duking it out in battalions -- you call them squads, same diff -- that you manage. Maybe 20 or so battalions of 24 dudes a piece, where the "micro" is used for setting posture, flanking, formation, charging, etc. You know, exciting stuff that actually simulates combat of this era. The thing that makes this era so appealing to player. Any game can have point and click fest micro, but there are better way of giving the player the experience of ancient combat. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
wowgetoffyourcellphone Posted March 13, 2017 Report Share Posted March 13, 2017 (edited) 37 minutes ago, DarcReaver said: While your proposal is to have larger gatherer forces concentrated on a few gathering sites (more similar to AoE) I'm proposing to spread out the gathering to multiple sources at the same time by limiting the amount of gatherers per drop site more drastically. This makes makes controlling larger portions of the map important. More mapcontrol = more gathering spots = more resources. I think both can work. It's just in my mind's eye I see these cool looking large open-pit marble mines and a couple dozen enemy slaves working on it and how cool that would look and be to wrestle away from my enemy. A big asset added to my empire. A real prize. Not such a big prize to kill 4 gatherers and steal a rock. Edited March 13, 2017 by wowgetoffyourcellphone Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DarcReaver Posted March 13, 2017 Author Report Share Posted March 13, 2017 5 hours ago, DarcReaver said: Actually we're just stating 2 different sides of the very same medal. Both versions work, that's out of the question. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
drsingh Posted March 13, 2017 Report Share Posted March 13, 2017 (edited) @DarcReaver I am also trying to be patient here. Like I mentioned in a previous post. There are different styles of rts. eg AoE2, Warcraft3, BFME2. Each appeals to different section of gamers. You seem to be very fond of Warcraft 3. It is not a good game to draw inspiration from. Yes single units matter more in it because of limited pop space, more hp and less attack. But at the same time the game was limited in strategic options and replayability. Same army composition for a faction every battle. Not much to differentiate by skill in eco management. Being more dependent on micro of hero abilities. As for AoE2. It is an old game. But still had more strategic depth and variety than Warcraft3. And there were many ways by which skilled players got an advantage. If you follow the game at competitive levels you'll see how even one unit matters. This is not true for 0Ad currently. Since the combat system is not balanced. And eco management is a nightmare. Also about formations. I liked the implementation in BFME2. The control over battle was easier, and more logical. But it had removed eco management to compensate. Because training a formation of gatherers doesn't make sense. It had essentially had only one resource. I cant see this happening with 0AD. Since it requires more eco management. While player managed 'flexible' battalions, as was planned for it. Seems perfectly fine here. In early battles in which handful of units are there and in raids, single unit system can be used as is. And later on in game when sizeable military has been built- players can activate formations for special bonuses and to make managing easier. We are on a different page here. While you want to simplify economy and battle. I think that for competitive aspect such simplification is not good. It prevents skill of player to give him advantage. The learning curve of game is very short and shallow. Aoe2 still has a huge dedicated player base, even after so many years. You cant see the same with warcraft and bfme. Because while they were eye candy and simple for new players, there was something missing to keep hardcore gamers interested. So I feel micro should be easier, not eliminated. It seems your main issue with 0AD is because it is based on AoE2 style of rts. And now you want ppl to abandon 0Ad project and start a new game WarcraftAD??? the above covers answer to Q1,2 and 7. Statement 9- There are changes in design included. Removing military from CC. Giving phase progression a meaning. Eco management changes, combat changes. Lot of other changes which would make easier to manage army and gatherers as compared to now. And Citizen soldiers were divided into - Male citizens (from CC) and Soldiers (from barracks). the stat changes were mainly as an example to balance citizen soldiers and champions. Q6- Last attempt to make you see the light. 7 hours ago, DarcReaver said: You have to consider the cost difference, which is 10 food. 10 food with 0.4 rate is gathered in 25 seconds, or if a women gathers it in 12.5 seconds. The metal required is 75 or 90 seconds. So the soldier is payed off after around ~ 80 - 100 seconds. After that the soldier provides profit. A woman needs 62.5 seconds to pay off, which is roughly 60%-75% of the time. But she has 0 combat value and is worse at gathering metal. You probably dont have experience with balancing a game, or even optimising build orders for competitive play. Calculating eco efficiency is a major part of it. And you are doing it wrong again. Female citizen gathers food at 0.8. And Citizen Soldier at 0.4 First of all this means if both are used for gathering- female citizen pays for itself much faster. 2nd apart from the citizen soldier being more expensive. 60f 30m vs 50f. the difference in gathering rate means- female citizen gathers 0.4 food more with every second. And the difference in eco keeps piling up with time. The soldier will never provide profit at anytime. If resources are used to produce military, then it would be essential to make them attack to be useful. The soldier being able to fight doesnt matter, until a fight starts. The player going eco heavy can use his accumulated eco advantage to later train more soldiers than the enemy, and those soldiers which were gathering all this time wont seem that much useful anymore. 7 hours ago, DarcReaver said: Anyways, Barracks are a second production building, so you can have double or triple eco production instead of only the civic center. More workers earlier = more resources.= more workers = more economy = more military. Again you are assuming that there's not much in terms for eco growth options. A player which trains less military than his opponent(who is using them for gathering) will have more resources left which he can use for- Getting more eco upgrades, earlier Phase progression to 2(faster eco unit training), can boom with Fertility festival, invest in corral and traders. While CC will be continuously used to train units. Same is not true for barracks. A player who uses barracks as an eco production building. will fall behind another one who trained only a few soldiers and invested more in economy. And even further behind someone who didnt build barracks and rushed to phase 2. There is no 1 single ultimate build order, but everything is relative to what your opponent is doing. but in the end it remains true- since Male citizens(which gather wood/stone/metal the fastest) are trainable. the units from barracks wont be used as eco units. Also since you can upgrade your male citizens to soldiers at short notice. That double barracks was an example of phase 1 option- While one player can rush with double barracks. another player will use same amount of resources to go to phase 2. 7 hours ago, DarcReaver said: I'll take the calculation assumption: 1 soldier 60f 30m 15s buildtime, 2 barracks. Total food required to permanent production (not including houses necessary for pop) = 480f, 240m. Gathering rates for women 0.8/0.3 = 480/0.8*60 = 10 women food, 240/0.3*60 = 13,3333 on metal. I don't understand why you are gathering metal with women. Females gather food- 0.8 . 1.5x on farmland. so 1.2 effectively Male citizen gather metal- 0.66(with aura bonus) Female -6.66 on food ; Male - 6 on metal. Train time for both- 8sec. Requires 96 seconds to train these. Double barracks cost- 300w 300 stone. Phase 2 + single barracks cost- 150w 550 stone. You can see here the double barracks guy is already ahead in eco before even training single soldier. Then once he attacks- all soldiers of both sides are engaged in combat. Defending player might get idled if he garrisons his gatherers. This was an example scenario. It shows that neither defending or attacking will be op. Only timing of attack matters. Skilled players will use Barracks to train units only shortly before they plan to attack. Some soldiers might be kept for defence. Attacking gets an indirect boost because of- More spread out gatherers outside territory. Limited eco unit production means every unit counts. 2X xp gain bonus- which is a huge thing in this design. 7 hours ago, DarcReaver said: I've stated numerous times already why it's a bad concept, from a gameplay perspective, A bad implementation of the concept. Because currently units trained from CC and Barracks are same. And fighters are essential to train for gathering purposes. The problem with citizen soldiers currently is because while they are expensive than eco unit(female) but also gather faster than them-wood, metal, stone(so eventually can balance out their increased cost). In my proposal their gathering rate is markedly reduced. And another eco unit - Male citizen is introduced which is both cheaper than soldier and gathers faster than them. So soldiers can never hope to match up in eco. This feature suddenly changes all dynamics. I hope I'm clear to you now. Even if not. The changes you propose are drastic(rework all mechanics) and will take longer to implement. It would be easier to try the minimal change approach first. There can be endless discussions about this. In the end we have to agree to disagree. Its better proof after seeing it in action. Edited March 13, 2017 by drsingh 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sphyrth Posted March 13, 2017 Report Share Posted March 13, 2017 Before I get confused with all the forks in the discussion, let me just say that I hope you guys don't "over-modernize" this game. Judging from the comments on the recent youtube videos, there are still classic RTS fans out there who just "discovered" 0 A.D. I really hope you find that sweet-spot of preserving the "classic" feel of the game while bringing good innovations. 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
wowgetoffyourcellphone Posted March 13, 2017 Report Share Posted March 13, 2017 1 hour ago, drsingh said: Also about formations. I liked the implementation in BFME2. The control over battle was easier, and more logical. But it had removed eco management to compensate. Because training a formation of gatherers doesn't make sense. It had essentially had only one resource. This is not what happened with the design of BfME2. At the time I watch many developer videos about the game. You said so yourself, the battalions in BfME2 made battle management easier, so what are they compensating for when they made econ sooo easy? They were compensating for console limitations. That's right. The PC version of the game was just a console port, with a hero builder tacked into it. Now, build that game for PC first and the game design is blown wide open for more complexity, like true directional combat bonuses and a deeper econ and base building aspect. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
niektb Posted March 13, 2017 Report Share Posted March 13, 2017 Gee, guys... No need to heat up@DarcReaver @drsingh Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
wowgetoffyourcellphone Posted March 13, 2017 Report Share Posted March 13, 2017 (edited) I am starting to think there needs to be a compromise position regarding citizen-soldiers. I think we can have gatherers and soldiers, where gatherers, i.e citizens or slaves or villagers, are single units and soldiers are battalion units. We can make soldiers also able to build, albeit slower than your villagers, retaining part of their citizen-soldier abilities. What do you think of this? In a lot of ways this is more "classic" than currently, even with the battalions. Edited March 13, 2017 by wowgetoffyourcellphone 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
drsingh Posted March 13, 2017 Report Share Posted March 13, 2017 (edited) @wowgetoffyourcellphone Economy has to be simple because. If you train armies in battalion units. Then your economic unit production would look weird as being produced singly. And battalion of gatherers wont make sense effective distribution is difficult. BFME2 doesnt have this problems since it produces farms as eco units. I'm only opposing units training in locked battalions. Unit can still train as individuals(single or batch). And selected to be in formation by player. The way formations work(they dont lol) now, only difference is they get locked as single unit after clicking on formation icon. It wouldnt need much micro on players part. He will simply double click on a unit and press the formation hotkey. this is similar to hoe Ctrl(+1,2 etc) group assigning works right now. And this way you get option to add hero units even to battalion of soldiers. I would love to see the formations and various tactics be implemented in the game. @niektb I'm sorry if appears like that. I dont mean to offend anyone. @DarcReaver Edited March 13, 2017 by drsingh Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
wowgetoffyourcellphone Posted March 13, 2017 Report Share Posted March 13, 2017 Just now, drsingh said: Economy has to be simple because. If you train armies in battalion units. Then your economic unit production would look weird as being produced singly 1. And battalion of gatherers wont make sense effective distribution is difficult 2. BFME2 doesnt have this problems since it produces farms as eco units. 1. How does this have to be true? Also, I propose that battalions do not have to gather. They can still be builders, but wouldn't gather. New single villager units -- your male and female citizens units -- would be the gatherers. 2. I agree it would be difficult with the current layout of the game. The single trees, small farms, etc. I would change a lot about the game and battalion gatherers would fit nicely, but it seems folks don't want to go that radical,. as to have gigantic farms and forest objects. So, instead, I propose that gatherers be single units, your villagers or slaves or citizens, support units being single units, traders, healers, and citizens, while soldiers are battalions with building capability. Throwing curveballs here as they say. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
drsingh Posted March 13, 2017 Report Share Posted March 13, 2017 1- related to realism. Since 1 citizen is trained in 10 seconds. But suddenly 25 soldiers come out in 30 seconds or so. maybe we can change the train times so nvm. Also this feature means that you have lesser variety of units on map in early part of game. Also hero units cant be added to battalions for their planned bonuses. There's no real reason why - we cant have single unit gatherers and battalion training military. except that current citizen soldier system would need changing Only thing is why cant we have goodness of both with Flexible Battalion system, if simple controls are also implemented. Like was laid out in plans originally. What does locked battalion training have above it? 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DarcReaver Posted March 13, 2017 Author Report Share Posted March 13, 2017 (edited) @drsingh I don't have the patience to write another essay. I'll just leave a handful of comments there: 1) Warcraft III has a Bnet playerbase of ~6.000-10.000 players per day in europe alone (Northrend server). Voobly AoE II has ~1.000 - 1.500, worldwide. AoE II HD has a community consisting of 8.000 players on average atm (increased from 5.000 with Rise of the Rajas Add-on). In the past Warcraft had several hundred thousands of players. Saying that AoE II has a bigger community than warcraft is simply wrong. 2) Warcraft has a lot of gameplay depth because of its hero concept, with items, hero combinations and their unique abilities. Although I agree it's adifferent game, I never said that 0 AD should be like Warcraft. All I said is that 0 ad combat with single unit micro is not as rewarding as in Warcraft III because of how the unit production and unit ingame value is different. 3) Again to your "balancing math". Dude. Soldiers either attack, or they idle. In 0 AD they either attack, idle or gather resources. Now you have 3 options in 0 ad: - Attack : pretty stupid idea with a single soldier in 0ad because individual units are weak - idle : idling never is a good idea, even for military - gather resources : oh look, it's better than idling and less risky than attacking. I'll go with that one! Yes, there is a payoff, that's how economy works. Initial cost as negative value + generated income over time = timeline when something generates profits. So, Women : Investment 50 food, gather income 0.8 50f/0.8F/s) = 62.5s to gather 50 food. Soldier : 0.4 gather rate food = 150s if he gathers food himself + 75 seconds for metal. = 225s (~ 3mins) total. In THEORY. Now 3rd option: woman gathers resources for the soldier: 60f/0.8 = 75s + 100s metal = 175s - already a full minute difference. In direct comparison becuase soldiers can gather aswell, you have to see the cost difference, which only is 10f and 30 metal. 10 food = 25 seconds of gathering, 30 metal = 75. Only 100 seconds for a soldier to payoff itself. However, each woman mining metal is not collecting food (which she does much better). So leave mining to soldiers. 75s for metal. + 75s for food from women = 150 villager seconds. Each soldier makes your economy better, even though he should fight. It's stupid. 4) one more thought on "Citizen Soldiers": I'm going the other way around this time. If you insist that it's such a great feature that offers so much to the game, please go ahead and write up reasons why it's such a great concept that completely defines the game. I'm sort of eagerly awaiting the argumentation. 5) Battalions once more: @wowgetoffyourcellphone @drsinghBFME series HAD single units. It had gatherers (orcs from lumbermills). Those were single units. Builder units were single units. Heroes were single units, Berserkers, Mumakil, Trolls, catapults, rams, siege towers etc. were all single units. I don't see a general problem with having single units within a battalion system per se, as long as it makes sense. Single gatherers make more sense than having a single slinger. Just like Wow said it's possible to combine both aspects. I'd use pairs of gathers instead of single ones, but oh well, it doesn't matter that much actually. It's more important that the fighting units are hard locked formations instead. About stuff like creation time: seriously, who cares? It's just a number that can be changed within a couple of clicks. Put in 120 seconds if it pleases you. Or 60. Or 80. It's completely up to how fast the pacing is intended to be and can be adjusted without any problems. Hard locked formations simply allow a dynamic combat. Single soldiers are a micro clickfest. Imagine a drawn out battle between players. In 0ad you have a manspam train with reinforcement soldiers traveling to the battlefield one by one. How is it possible to utilize a formation properly if you have to constantly select your original formation (grouped with number key) and then keep adding soldiers to it, which then can't get into formation anyways? With a battalion your reinforcements arrive in an ordered manner and thus allow formation bonuses much better than single units. Edited March 13, 2017 by DarcReaver 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
wowgetoffyourcellphone Posted March 13, 2017 Report Share Posted March 13, 2017 (edited) 12 minutes ago, drsingh said: Only thing is why cant we have goodness of both with Flexible Battalion system, if simple controls are also implemented. Like was laid out in plans originally. What does locked battalion training have above it? It's the simple controls part I am skeptical of, really, and the added micromanagement. Because now you're spending time gathering up like-units and forming them into battalions. Even if you use some clever hotkey configs to make this seamless, probably using the big space bar that is currently useless, you still have to take the extra time to gather the right units together and make a battalion. I wouldn't mind seeing both concepts in action so the team can decide what approach is better. One thing I also remember is with the soft battalions concept you have some players just mosh pit fighting, others using battalions, and still others having mixed singles and battalions all mixed together, and now the combat isn't so "nice and neat" anymore like how we want it. The one major benefit of a hard battalion system, I think, is that the combat is guaranteed to look and act how we want it to. I am not closed off to a soft battalion system with single units needed to be formed up. But the only reason to do that is to make sure to keep the complete citizen-soldier concept intact. So then there's added complexity to the formation/battalion/combat system in order to keep the citizen-soldier concept whole. But once you start breaking down the citizen-soldier concept and removing bits of it or reducing its effects, you have to ask why not just cut it neatly in half and do what I propose: gatherers* are singles, fighters are battalions with building capability. * I can still see some kind of call-to-arms militia feature with the gatherers so they take up swords and pitchforks when attacked, definitely. Edited March 13, 2017 by wowgetoffyourcellphone 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
drsingh Posted March 13, 2017 Report Share Posted March 13, 2017 (edited) @DarcReaver i'll try to be concise 2) I guess its a matter of personal preference. 3) My last post was my last try. We still dont agree. I've already explained about this. There is no point debating further. Anyways since I'm not in position to showcase my design in a mod. So my views dont matter. 4) Already said before in this thread. No point repeating. 5) Hard battalions can work fine. But since I don't hate micro in games. I don't feel that strong need of them. Still any change would be good right now. The game right now is a mess. I look forward to what updates come up in future alpha. Though any base level reworking is sure to turn off one or the other part of gaming community. Edited March 13, 2017 by drsingh 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DarcReaver Posted March 13, 2017 Author Report Share Posted March 13, 2017 (edited) 48 minutes ago, drsingh said: @DarcReaver i'll try to be concise 2) I guess its a matter of personal preference. 3) My last post was my last try. We still dont agree. I've already explained about this. There is no point debating further. Anyways since I'm not in position to showcase my design in a mod. So my views dont matter. 4) Already said before in this thread. No point repeating. 5) Hard battalions can work fine. But since I don't hate micro in games. I don't feel that strong need of them. Still any change would be good right now. The game right now is a mess. I look forward to what updates come up in future alpha. Though any base level reworking is sure to turn off one or the other part of gaming community. Yes better that is. Just one last sentence: There are many great game concepts that can define a game and make it outstanding - there are games that combine RTS with Trading Card Aspects, RTS with roleplaying aspects like Spellforce, Warcraft, there are games that combine Tactics with RTS (like Warhammer/CoH franchise), there are classical RTS style games that allow unit massive onslaughts of hundreds of units (CnC, AoE) and games about single units (Dota and League are considered RTS aswell, for example). There are battle simulators like Total War, there are round based games that work like chess, there is stuff like Minecraft or games in space where the game levels are 3d, not 2d. Games in which you construct cities, jails, tycoons, pizza empires, Dictatorships in the Carribean. And many more. All are unique and special and have an own flavor. And which game definining core feature is included in 0 AD to make it stand out? Soldiers can gather resources. I mean - C'mon, really? Edited March 13, 2017 by DarcReaver 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Wesley Posted March 15, 2017 Report Share Posted March 15, 2017 If you stick with metal as is but add a foundry tech tree line to the blacksmith then we could go Flint>Gold>bronze>iron>silver Only Iron and Silver are required resources but the flint, gold and bronze are there to define inferior technology levels and tell the history. Some races start with iron unlooked but researching the other three below it adds a small boost to trading and mining and a small attack penalty if the opponent has one unlocked above you. Since technology is not shown in building changes, this adds a true tech tree element and is historically accurate. Empires grew when they were the only ones in the region with the advanced metal technology. Empires fell when everyone else caught up and all had the same metal. Gold is early because wherever we look it's found early. Easy to purify and work useless for weapons and tools. A bling wealth boost. Or Mine/ ore on claimed territory yields only iron while mines on neutral territory yield both Iron and silver with an upgrade to mining giving you some silver from claimed mines and another giving you permanent mine deposits that can only be placed on existing ore deposits with an option of iron or silver. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DarcReaver Posted March 15, 2017 Author Report Share Posted March 15, 2017 Mhhh.. I thought 0 AD features Civs during their respective "Iron Age" period or slightly later? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hannibal_Barca Posted March 15, 2017 Report Share Posted March 15, 2017 1 hour ago, DarcReaver said: Mhhh.. I thought 0 AD features Civs during their respective "Iron Age" period or slightly later? Quote “0 A.D.” is a time period that never actually existed: In the usual calendar, one goes from 1 B.C. to 1 A.D. and skips zero. This reflects the historical fiction in the game: Who would have won if all the factions were pitted against each other when each of them was at its prime? 0 A.D. features each civilization at it's prime. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DarcReaver Posted March 15, 2017 Author Report Share Posted March 15, 2017 13 minutes ago, Hannibal_Barca said: 0 A.D. features each civilization at it's prime. Which is? *drumroll* Iron Age mostly I suppose? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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