Observations/suggestions

[drphill]

First, this is no way a criticism... I am loving the game.  Some things I would like:

• Groups of units (ctrl-1 etc) are great.  Would be good if they could have a base (city, temple,fort,barracks) to which the could easily be recalled.  Especially useful for cavalry when trying to coordinate several groups of raiders.  'Go Home' command.
• Would be good if the GoHome command was triggered by the alarm.  I could make sure that the right units wound up in the right places
• Why do I need to set (unpacked) bolt shooters (roman) to 'stand ground' in order to get them to shoot at every enemy in sight? On 'aggressive' or 'defensive' they seem to spend time doing nothing.
• Would be good to give bolt-shooters an order of precedence for attack - get the other bolt shooters first, then worry about troops.
•  Why does the hero cavarly unit not benefit from cavalry speed improvements - Marcus always lags at the back.  Would be good if the cavalry troop centered itself on Marcus.  Which introduces an interesting idea of a 'representative' of the group.  the representative could be given the task without having to select all......
• I love the summary screen.  Can we have breakdowns of citizen types (women separate) 'occupations' - farming, hunting, mining, building, idle
• 'Idle units report to nearest city/barracks' command would be easier than hunting for them one by one - maybe a button on the summary screen?

Just some of the things that occurred to me......

[Lion.Kanzen]

Quote

• Groups of units (ctrl-1 etc) are great.  Would be good if they could have a base (city, temple,fort,barracks) to which the could easily be recalled.  Especially useful for cavalry when trying to coordinate several groups of raiders.  'Go Home' command.
• Would be good if the GoHome command was triggered by the alarm.  I could make sure that the right units wound up in the right places
• Why do I need to set (unpacked) bolt shooters (roman) to 'stand ground' in order to get them to shoot at every enemy in sight? On 'aggressive' or 'defensive' they seem to spend time doing nothing.
• Would be good to give bolt-shooters an order of precedence for attack - get the other bolt shooters first, then worry about troops.
•  Why does the hero cavarly unit not benefit from cavalry speed improvements - Marcus always lags at the back.  Would be good if the cavalry troop centered itself on Marcus.  Which introduces an interesting idea of a 'representative' of the group.  the representative could be given the task without having to select all......
• I love the summary screen.  Can we have breakdowns of citizen types (women separate) 'occupations' - farming, hunting, mining, building, idle
• 'Idle units report to nearest city/barracks' command would be easier than hunting for them one by one - maybe a button on the summary screen?

1-To much lag, and I can imagine how many bugs can create this, escort command or defensive.

2-need more info. I'm not very friendly with automaticism.

3-thats good points, needs work like cannons in AoE3.

4-I'm not sure about this...can you explain more.

5-Im  indifferent with this... may be @s0600204 can help.

6-You can use alt command to get all idle (comma for villagers "," and" \" for military.) this way you haven all idle units in seconds, nor automaticism.

 

[drphill]

3 minutes ago, Lion.Kanzen said:

1-To much lag, and I can imagine how many bugs can create this, escort command or defensive.

2-need more info. I'm not very friendly with automaticism.

3-thats good points, needs work like cannons in AoE3.

4-I'm not sure about this...can you explain more.

5-Im  indifferent with this... may be @s0600204 can help.

6-You can use alt command to get all idle (comma for villagers "," and" \" for military.) this way you haven all idle units in seconds, nor automaticism.

 

1 - OK will look at those options..... I thought that if the (1) badge/button on the screen had a real object in the game representing the group, then maybe some commands could be issued to the group via that badge/button.  GoHome would be very useful. 

2 - Probably a bit elaborate, I agree.  I must learn more about the code this winter and perhaps I will find out for myself.

4 - Bolt shooters are a good defense against siege weapons, so they would be best attacking enemy seige weapons in range rather than random/nearest enemy units. Some players might want to choose different preferences.  I am thinking here of bolt shooters that are firing on their own initiative - say when their assigned target has been destroyed/gone out of range.  Another optimisation would be to choose the most damaged unit of the target class.

My rational is that I have walls and towers to keep the infantry and cavalry busy, the threat from them is 'slow'.  Seige engines can demolish my walls and towers rapidly - the threat from them is 'fast' and needs to be countered as quickly as possible.  It is a pain having to go round the bolt shooters and keep telling them 'get the siege engines, ignore the infantry'.

6 - excellent, thanks those will help a lot.  Now I need to remember those commands while playing.

 

Oh, a small bug: If on the game setup screen you choose 'slow', then when the game starts on slow speed, the speed control still says 'normal'.  Not a big deal but it may make an easy fix for a novice.

Another small bug: I can build on a slope and the building has space underneath it.  Perhaps a deeper solid plinth would counter that.

I love the group/garrisoned health bar - very helpful when waiting for troops to heal.

 

[Lion.Kanzen]

@elexis the guy can lear code, any suggestion for our code?

[drphill]

Another thing that caught me out - may be 'as designed' though: Select a group and RIGHT click to move them to a point. Select a group and select garrison - LEFT click is required to select building to garrison in.  RIGHT click does nothing..... could both left and right click select building for garrison?  I have got used to this now, but it was very frustrating until I figured out what was happening.

[drphill]

And the newest AI is very impressive - Does it increase the attack size as the game goes on?  I have a modified standard map that allows for very defensive play and the AI make very good use of the terrain.

In fact the AI is a bit strong for me on standard setting <embarrassed>.  I need my 'defensive map' to survive at the moment.

p

[Servo]

Use Control-left to garrison. Ctl is the attack move as in A hotkey on other RTS. 

AI is more intelligent than in the previous Alpha(21). They don't chase enemies (say raider) when they lost LOS. 

The strength of attacking forces increases as the game progresses. They attack whenever they advance in phase and the ultimate attacking forces they will muster consist of champions, siege and hero. I think it's the same as in previous alpha which they field either 5 rams/elephants or 2-3 catapult and 3-5 bolt shooters. Accompanied by around 30 mixed champions and around 50 mixed citizen soldiers and cavalries. That's what my experience on very hard Petra. But depends on your pop limit. My estimate for those numbers is a pop limit of 200. On a 150 limit it's around 60% strength. 

Try multiplayer games once you can beat the hardest on 200 but practice your gameplay on using skirmisher cavalry coz they are the better unit/s to use in A22. 

[temple]

2 hours ago, drphill said:

• Why do I need to set (unpacked) bolt shooters (roman) to 'stand ground' in order to get them to shoot at every enemy in sight? On 'aggressive' or 'defensive' they seem to spend time doing nothing.

This is an annoying bug (#4725).

2 hours ago, drphill said:

•  Why does the hero cavarly unit not benefit from cavalry speed improvements - Marcus always lags at the back.

He does benefit from speed improvements (at the corral), but for some reason hero cavalry are slow (16.5) compared to other cavalry (17.5, 20, 22, and higher for champions and veterans).

[drphill]

22 hours ago, Servo said:

Use Control-left to garrison. Ctl is the attack move as in A hotkey on other RTS. 

Thanks - that helps.  I need to read the instructions carefully.

 

22 hours ago, Servo said:

Try multiplayer games once you can beat the hardest on 200 but practice your gameplay on using skirmisher cavalry coz they are the better unit/s to use in A22. 

Not sure if I will ever be good enough for that - and my temperament wont suit as I hate losing units.

 

22 hours ago, temple said:

This is an annoying bug (#4725).

Excellent - I am on the right track then.

 

22 hours ago, temple said:

On 8/30/2017 at 7:10 PM, drphill said:

•  Why does the hero cavarly unit not benefit from cavalry speed improvements - Marcus always lags at the back.

He does benefit from speed improvements (at the corral), but for some reason hero cavalry are slow (16.5) compared to other cavalry (17.5, 20, 22, and higher for champions and veterans).

Maybe heroes are all old and slow..... not like the films atall. Well, maybe like the third sequel.