Multiplayer Balancing - Slinger Deathball & Suggestions

[ArcaneExodus]

I used to play some starcraft II and they have something called "deathball" well that's exactly what multiplayer is boiling down to; There are two factions that start with slingers off the town center Britons and Athens, by making a giant ball of slingers you can kill pretty much any other army.

I want to suggest a weapon triangle to make archers good against slingers, slingers good against skirmishers and skirmishers good against slingers.

Also you could add in axemen; Than form a second weapon triangle with axes, swords, and spears. Celtic tribes sure seem like they could use some axemen... But since spearmen were originally supposed to be anti cavalry; It might be a backwards weapon triangle, compared to the usual axes<spears<swords it might be swords<spears<axes.

Faction wise I wanted to suggest Marcus Aurelius replace Marcus Claudius Marcellus as the main Roman hero; If you remember the movie gladiator; Marcus Aurelius was the good emperor. Also that an Israel faction include Moses, Solomon, and David; Make David boost the attack power of slingers. That way you can make the most anti-roman Jewish deathball ever.

Map editor wise we need infinite mines... That allow you to garrison 24-48 troops underground in a cave or something, and really big trees that allow 24-48 units to farm them with either 10,000 or infinite resources. Maybe add a rope around the middle, give it a Shinto (Japanese) sort of look with a really wide trunk.

Finally combination buildings; Such as a ranch could allow garrison cavalry farmers. Automatically harvesting from up to 20 corrals with up to 24 cavalry. By allowing the option to garrison farming points you can severely reduce the lag on multiplayer maps and create another style where players fight over key points, rather than sort of moving across the map; Please keep the moving across the map as the standard style, but allow for some warcraft 3 styled lag reduction map editor options. Other combination buildings might include great markets allowing for a caravan equal to 20 traders. Maybe even a huge castle by combining your fortress, civil center, and 2 barracks.

Thanks for reading, I hope any of these ideas might make it into the game.

[sphyrth]

Slingers will be nerfed in the next Alpha. Not sure about the Counter system.

Axemen is interesting, I just don't know if they're historically used for combat back then. I dunno.

There was a gameplay consideration similar to those "infinite mines" you're talking about. It's being discussed already.

Getting the map involved? I think much of your comments now are what darcreaver and wowgetoffyourcellphone's gameplay ideas are trying to implement.

[Thorfinn the Shallow Minded]

Axes would be a peculiar choice for the era for troops en masse.  There are cases for particular cultures; the Persians did employ axe-men, but before considering how counters could function, it remains important to have a proper historical basis for how they would function.  It then becomes a matter complementing history with gameplay to best marry the two.  

Marcus Aurelius was a capable emperor, but the Roman Republic depicted in the game had no emperors, making Aurelius anachronistic.  Similarly, with Israel, depicting the kingdom during the time of David is also inappropriate since the timeframe of the game is from 500 B.C. to 1 B.C.  The Hasmoneans would be a plausible choice for that, but currently the team has no plans to include any more civilisations into the game given the number of assets necessary for that.  If anything was to be added at all, the simplest would be to add in more Hellenic ones such as Syracuse, Thebes, Epirus, or even Pergamum (Epirus isn't strictly totally Greek, but the unit roster would be pretty awesome.).  Most people find there to be too many Greek nations depicted already despite the possibilities of creating distinctions for them so I doubt that they could be put into the official game.  There is the possibility of mods though....

[intipablo]

If the Scythians are added then the main infantry unit would be an axeman imo.

(Just my little thought I'd put in here)

Edited June 22, 2017 by intipablo

[Lion.Kanzen]

Quote

Faction wise I wanted to suggest Marcus Aurelius replace Marcus Claudius Marcellus as the main Roman hero; If you remember the movie gladiator; Marcus Aurelius was the good emperor. Also that an Israel faction include Moses, Solomon, and David; Make David boost the attack power of slingers. That way you can make the most anti-roman Jewish deathball ever.

NOPE, because our Roman faction is Republican Romans. Not the umpire.

even was good emperor but in  Roman History we have better.

 

israel is out of the timeframe of the game, but there are Aristeia mod that cover that timeframe.