D896 disabled training cavalry at civil centres discussion

[Hannibal_Barca]

Oh yeah

Dont forget elephant stables for every civ that got them

And of course barracks can train only infantry

[Lion.Kanzen]

Yes I want see Celtic catapults. thanks to God Zapotecs not need this thinks. 

[Sundiata]

@Lion.KanzenI only wanted to say that Xiognu and Scythians are horsemen from the beginning.

Other civ's need to build infrastructure to maintain a (quality) cavalry force, because they're not nomads.

8 minutes ago, Lion.Kanzen said:

Feneur years ago says they don't planned stables because the lack of artist.

That explains that...

 

@LordGood admit it, you secretly kind of feel like doing it, don't you  

I know it's a lot of work, and I don't expect it to be done, or anything. It's just something that always bothered me about 0AD. Plus I'm a sucker for ancient architecture. I always want to see more buildings and more diversity and realism.

As far as siege, I'm fine with having them in the fortress. Seems logical enough to me. I think archers and melee-infantry can easily train from the same facilities, so no problems there.

Riding an animal weighing up to one ton into battle just requires a little more effort than clicking a button on a readily provided CC.  

[Lion.Kanzen]

Yes, why a civic building have horses ?

is like the temple and elephant. Elephants are no allowed.

[Grugnas]

45 minutes ago, av93 said:

In my taste, ranged units making some damage it's necessary for gameplay purposes (maybe not against walls).. and about cav spearman, too few civs have them (It really doesn't worry me, I love asymmetrical balance) and maybe historically would be the role of cav swordmen? I really don't know (And I think that gameplay comes first)

Indeed ranged units have to do some damage but the point is that in a brawl multiple ranged units can hit the same target while melee units are more likely to focus random targets, and that's already a great advantage for ranged units.

Indeed skirmish cavalry should yes be strong against melee but let them breath a bit (accuracy ).

Most of the civs in the game have spear champion cavalry while 4 only have citizen soldier swordsmen and 1 only has champion sword cavalry.

Checking the current melee cavalry stats, swordsmen have the highest dps vs infantry than spear cavalry. Thus with a simple bonus against cavalry, spear cavalry would be a counter to javelin and sword cavalry, while  sword cavalry would be good especially against ranged units.

[wowgetoffyourcellphone]

5 hours ago, av93 said:

-Towers:
1) fix spread

You mean accuracy or minimum distance? IMHO, the MinDistance of the towers in Public mod is too far. Kind of restrictive. I think it was made that way to prevent the seriously annoying Tower Creep strategy, but you can fix that by making sure the tower's territory effect is smaller than its MinDistance. Also, the sentry tower/defense tower distinction in the game really bothers me, but that's a different discussion.

 

2 hours ago, Grugnas said:

Despite the realism, sentry towers are weak against a bunch of skirmish cavalry which shouldn't destroy any building. Buildings should be basically immune to any kind of pierce damage.

 

I agree with this. Units need roles, and arrow/javelin/sling units' role shouldn't be anti-building. 

 

2 hours ago, Grugnas said:

Having a general reduction of ranged units Max Attack Range and scaling their accuracy would also make them more vulnerable to melee attacks (perhaps ranged units should also deal slightly less damage).

 

+1

 

2 hours ago, Grugnas said:

Spear cavalry should basically have a role as cavalry counter ( hard hit while in movement and higher attack range than a sword cav).

Nah, I think Spear Cavalry historically are the "heavy cavalry" of the age, meaning they are the stock cavalry unit, tougher than others, higher attack, more armor, making them best for charging large numbers of ranged units or attacking enemy infantry from behind or taking punishment from nearby towers. I think conceptually, swords>spears, so the Sword Cav should be the anti-cav cav. Just my opinion.

 

5 hours ago, av93 said:

6) Disable to training in the CC and be only trainable on barracks

Do the same for the ranged infantry too. Only have spear infantry and women at the CC so all civs start the match on equal footing. Things get more diverse after building the barracks. I don't understand the adherence to the idea that the CC must have a bunch of trainable military units there. Build orders can be changed. It's an alpha.

 

1 hour ago, Sundiata said:

People training a mass of cavalry-men in the first 5-10min is ridiculous.

Why has no one brought up the notion of increasing training times? Age of Kings regularly has train times close to 20 seconds for some units. I am well-aware that 0 A.D. is not AOK, something I've been trying to wriggle into the zeitgeist myself, but it's just an example.

I do like the idea of stables though. Helps remove the "7 different units trained at the barracks" syndrome.

 

32 minutes ago, LordGood said:

jeez

well, that's a fair amount of work

I'd think you would be interested in the challenge!

 

Or an "Horse Stables" add-on for the barracks, i.e. "upgrade", akin to Starcraft. Can also be achieved more cheaply, as far as manpower, with a tech.

Edited September 16, 2017 by wowgetoffyourcellphone

[Lion.Kanzen]

Melee cavalry only needs to blows to take those light units.

[Lion.Kanzen]

The unique problem here is Lancer style Cataphract.

what about elephants ranged unit?

[Grugnas]

7 minutes ago, wowgetoffyourcellphone said:

Nah, I think Spear Cavalry historically are the "heavy cavalry" of the age, meaning they are the stock cavalry unit, tougher than others, higher attack, more armor, making them best for charging large numbers of ranged units or attacking enemy infantry from behind or taking punishment from nearby towers. I think conceptually, swords>spears, so the Sword Cav should be the anti-cav cav. Just my opinion

I still can't get it. It is also true that concpetually spear > cavalry   ( see spearman).

If you take medieval tournaments as example, the first weapon used by horsemen was the lance because it had longer range thus easier to hit a rider than a sword which requires a closer distance. Plus the lance could let the opponent fall from the horse.

While sword is easier to handle and slash infantry units, also it doesn't break as easy as a lance or a spear.

[wowgetoffyourcellphone]

1 minute ago, Grugnas said:

I still can't get it. It is also true that concpetually spear > cavalry   ( see spearman).

If you take medieval tournaments as example, the first weapon used by horsemen was the lance because it had longer range thus easier to hit a rider than a sword which requires a closer distance. Plus the lance could let the opponent fall from the horse.

While sword is easier to handle and slash infantry units, also it doesn't break as easy as a lance or a spear.

Just saying if sword infantry > spear infantry, then it may make sense that sword cavalry > spear cavalry.

[av93]

22 minutes ago, wowgetoffyourcellphone said:

You mean accuracy or minimum distance? IMHO, the MinDistance of the towers in Public mod is too far. Kind of restrictive. I think it was made that way to prevent the seriously annoying Tower Creep strategy, but you can fix that by making sure the tower's territory effect is smaller than its MinDistance. Also, the sentry tower/defense tower distinction in the game really bothers me, but that's a different discussion.

 

It feels/seems that arrows are shot randomly to enemy units, instead of focus on one target, or focus in one target and make area damage (aok-style). I don't know if team is aware, @elexis.

Maybe it's only me? Or people are okey with that?

Edited September 16, 2017 by av93

[wowgetoffyourcellphone]

2 minutes ago, av93 said:

It feels/seems that arrows are shot randomly to enemy units, instead of focus on one target, or focus in one target and make area damage (aok-style). I don't know if team is aware, @elexis.

Maybe it's only me? Or people are okey.

If a tower has multiple arrows, then it may make sense that some are fired at random targets, but I think at least one of the arrows should be fired at the player's desired target. Either that, or all the arrows fired at the intended target. Either way, yeah, the current building arrow behavior could use some looking into. Because right now, they feel like a "Tower Defense" game. lol

Edited September 16, 2017 by wowgetoffyourcellphone

[LordGood]

In what world is attacking down from a horse more easily done with a sword than a spear? I imagine the sword would be a backup in pretty much all cases.

If our armor calculations were done like most games a dedicated 'shock' troop would find itself much more useful for breaking through a high armor threshold, but not as its handled now.

[av93]

3 minutes ago, wowgetoffyourcellphone said:

If a tower has multiple arrows, then it may make sense that some are fired at random targets, but I think at least one of the arrows should be fired at the player's desired target. Either that, or all the arrows fired at the intended target. Either way, yeah, the current building arrow behavior could use some looking into.

It makes sense, but in the gameplay pov, makes units last longer (although with a distributed damage). Fixing this would help to prevent cav skirmishers rushes, reducing the damage output (back to topics, guys!), but would lead to some damage waste.

Edited September 16, 2017 by av93

[wowgetoffyourcellphone]

15 minutes ago, av93 said:

It makes sense, but in the gameplay pov, makes units last longer (although with a distributed damage). Fixing this would help to prevent cav skirmishers rushes, reducing the damage output (back to topics, guys!), but would lead to some damage waste.

Right, but that's up to the player if they want to focus-fire all the tower's arrows on a single unit. Same thing happens with archers. You can let your archers choose random targets, or you can choose to focus fire, but some arrows are "wasted." Same should be true with defense towers. At least to me, it would be expected that they'd have similar behavior.

Edited September 16, 2017 by wowgetoffyourcellphone

[Lion.Kanzen]

Cavalry sword  is for take for rear or light units. 

 

[av93]

29 minutes ago, wowgetoffyourcellphone said:

Right, but that's up to the player if they want to focus-fire all the tower's arrows on a single unit. Same thing happens with archers. You can let your archers choose random targets, or you can choose to focus fire, but some arrows are "wasted." Same should be true with defense towers. At least to me, it would be expected that they'd have similar behavior.

Sure, but the problem in early game is that 2-3 units can make the difference.

[wowgetoffyourcellphone]

10 minutes ago, av93 said:

Sure, but the problem in early game is that 2-3 units can make the difference.

If you mean 2-3 attackers, then if you can focus fire your towers on these 2-3 units, then you can successfully defend.

[Lion.Kanzen]

But the towers can't  focus..or may be(?)

[Nescio]

Historically:

• Cavalry archers and javelinists were used for harrassing the enemy with their projectiles in hit-and-run attacks (skirmishing)
  (Alexander's cavalry javelinists and archers repeatedly massacred the Indian chariots and cavalry swordsmen; not the other way around)
  (As a counter to cavalry archers the Iranian peoples (Scythians etc) developed cataphracts; however, infantry archers proved time and again to be the most effective counter vs horse archers.)
• Cavalry javelin-, spear-, and swordsmen were (light cavalry) used for scouting, raiding, foraging, as messengers, for chasing away enemy skirmishers on flat terrain, and for hunting down and killing fleeing opponents
• Lancers and cataphracts were shock troops (heavy cavalry): they acted as the hammer which crushed the enemy on the anvil (the heavy infantry phalanx); however, no suicidal frontal charges, of course
• There is evidence that mounted infantry (soldiers who rode on horseback to the battle but dismounted before actually starting to fight) predates and coexisted for centuries with true cavalry in Greece (mounted hoplites) and Italy (Roman cavalry swordsmen often fought on foot, possibly always)
• In the Greek, Hellenistic, and Roman worlds, horses were kept at manors and villas outside the cities, because horses were difficult and expensive to keep and required pastures. In Imperial Rome (AD, beyond the scope of this game) some cavalry was part of the Praetorians, but they were quartered in barracks and forts just beyond the city limits.
• Horses were really expensive; in the Roman Republic horsemen had to provide their own mount but citizens were refunded by the state if their horse was killed in action. In Classical Greece, where amateur hoplites were the most prestigious, the rich fought on foot and paid poorer classes to ride on the horses owned by them (the elite) and serve as cavalry.
• Armies with more than 10% cavalry were really exceptional
• The bulk of the massive Persian armies consisted of mere infantry as well

For tribal peoples (e.g. Celts, Illyrians, Thracians, Scythians, Lybians/Numidians, etc) who didn't live in cities nor were organized in states, the situation was different; warbands could consist entirely of cavalry, and horse ownership was more prevalent.

 

 

However, 0 A.D. is *not* about achieving historic realism

Edited September 16, 2017 by Nescio
ce

[wowgetoffyourcellphone]

1 hour ago, Nescio said:

However, 0 A.D. is *not* about achieving historic realism

However, 0 A.D. is about achieving historical authenticity. A Spartan player massing shock cavalry and overrunning the enemy should raise eyebrows. Not impossible, but difficult to pull of.

 

I agree that slavish adherence to historical accuracy is detrimental to gameplay. But realism can give guidance to gameplay. Else, why is the game based on history anyway? Might as well make a fantasy game if historicity is ignored.

Edited September 16, 2017 by wowgetoffyourcellphone

[Nescio]

Well, I don't disagree with you. Personally I think removing cavalry from civil centres is a good idea (as is increasing their population requirement to two slots). However, I don't really care whether or not this is changed in the main distribution, because it's very easy to modify the game to suit my own tastes (and significantly less time consuming than participating in these balance discussions. Oops!)

[av93]

The key concept it's Historically based (imho).

And well, although modding it's easy, having a powerful balanced main distribution it's a key of success, I think.

 

I just threw a lot of suggestions, and some of you, more. We can agree that having a strategy superior, making the other sub-optimal (not a real option), is not fun. One unit shouldn't decide the game.

[Lion.Kanzen]

Yes but we haven't dismount units, specially CS. May be heroes can be nice.

[Hannibal_Barca]

Try out Vox Populi mod for balance and suggest (link in signature)

You might not agree with a corral tech but I think thats the most logical option available to us now

Sword cavalry counters spear cavalry which counters skirm cavalry slightly, in turn skirmisher cavalry do well vs. sword cavalry.

Played a few games with others using this mod and indeed we were back to proper infantry + a few cavalry battles, not massed cavalry (although some tried)