[Proposal]: 3 And A Half Possible Foundations For 0 A.D. Gameplay

[Servo]

My simple opinion I really want soldiers just to fight but if historically and in common sense they can perform any other task then so be it. They can gather or build. The main problem here is that at present these citizen soldiers are treated as trash units and believe me not in a no cavalry game they are the best and easy to acquire to win the game. Wood and food are just too easy to obtain to be able to have unit spam. I like skilled workers (women, lumberjack, miners builders, etc) trained from CC or corresponding structures and give them abilities to at least defend a bit on raids or help the base from destruction. Make all dwelling structures garrisonable.

Raids and small skirmishes are really nice in any RTS games before the big battle occurs but must not really in a very devastating effect like what’s happening in this alpha or previous ones. To me balancing is not a big issue and I may not be a pro player but in team games you can hardly make a balance team with balanced skills. Unit counters is best. To avoid easy unit spam get military units trainable in their corresponding structures but there must be prerequisites to have military units like a technology then structures (market can sell weapons, armory, corral, barracks, stables) then units. At least a 5 to 7 minutes without much killings is fine. Others might get bored with that build and gather thing but since we have initial military units this will make the game different from others. In this instance and at this beginning stages the strategy has to be developed. If there are Civilization and/or unit bonus then that is what a players mind will think. I don’t mind about training in battalions but individual units in a battalion should be promoted to elite. These units can be detachable to form a formidable elite force. I don’t mind many unit variations too. The more the merrier if you consider a single player mode which a lot of players starts or on to.

Hero and auras are fine but with too much effect is not good. Morale is better than magic. How can a hero provide additional attack or armor? I don’t  like priest healing either and wandering in the battlefield. They could give morale with great aura range. 

I may sound like imposing a RoN style game but the game strategy is really good. Siege tactic, general abilities, raiding, scouting, economic, commerce, science and military aspects are imo and personal taste are beyond comparison. Only cons are infinite resources (not too bad), “no walls”,   “no unit promotions”, not realistic maps, no animals but “rares” are nice strategic add on.

 

[MlemandPurrs]

The main problem with soldier workers is they are not reacting correctly when coming under attack during work. In order to circumvent around that issue they could have required to switch into an 'work mode' in order to bolster the workforce. This could be done like Militia ability functions in WarcraftIII

[Thorfinn the Shallow Minded]

2 hours ago, Grugnas said:

I understand your point, but having  no citizen soldier for some civs, means that at, let's say minute 5,  the civ A has 20 soldiers and 40 villagers while the civ B has 40-50 citizen soldiers. This means that civ B will have easy life into attacking the other civ A. If civ B can't perform an attack, it means that the citizen-soldier concept doesn't work because the gap between the 2 styles would be too different (there is a population limit).

History and gameplay have to intersect and find a compromise otherwise it is just a "history-fi" or a simulation game. Also, I guess that most of considerations made about history are way far from the history lessions teached in school. I guess someone could lose interest in a game not balanced if everyone in multiplayer pick the same civ ( 1 of 13 lol ), but none won't sleep at night because citizen-soldier class isn't very accurately diversified to reflect real historic socio-military classes.

Also, for the "packaging" system, this seems to produce the contrary effect you stated. Removing the extra-loot for attackers gained from the carried-resources of the killed unit may go in favour of Defender because too much "packaging" time would be unrealistic and probably too penalizing,  while a short "packaging" would kinda be meaningless, resulting into attacker penalty. Having units to drop resources on near dropsites before wield weapons (thing that i usually do before attack in order to give less loot when my units die) is something that may be automated but actually doable by hand.

Actually it shouldn't.  If a civilisation lacks citizen soldiers, they should have an alternative unit dedicated to military purposes in the early game.  For Carthage for instance, this could be a local mercenary.  The idea would be that they would generally field quality over quantity.  As for the packing idea, maybe it might make some good trade offs, but realise that in the early game or most RTS games, the purpose of raiding is twofold: to disrupt the economy of the enemy and to kill units.  Each second they spend not collecting resources is a gain for the raider, and every defending unit's death is to the attacker's advantage.  Yes, loot is a point of it, but the primary purpose to begin with is simply to force idle time (Economic units not doing their said task.)  The packing could take a fair amount of time.  As reference:

That silliness aside, obviously it shouldn't take too much time, but it would penalise players who do not properly scout and give the attackers a window in which no one is defending.  Obviously, this case is for more complex suits of armour and makes the assumption that that a person would not work in heavy armour while carrying their weapons.  You said that it would be too penalising, but it should penalise players whose soldiers have been caught with their pants down.  

[Grugnas]

Carthage and other civs already have access to mercenaries starting at rank 2 through tech research. Rank 2 units perform better in military and worse in economic aspect. More ranks the unit gains, the more it is good at military and less effective the unit at gathering is. Its actor also gain more armor pieces.

Also, consider raids. A bunch of skirmishers can just hit and run, tricking the opponent and increase his idle time anyway, if his units are stuck into the "packaging" and cannot attack. Did you notice how long it takes to kill 1 unit with 5-6 soldiers? barely 2 secs.

What increases the idle time, i.e. is the spear cavalry raid which has no effect on wood gathering spot protected by spearmen but effective on grainfields not covered by palisades. Indeed predicting enemy move, you can build palisades and let the enemy uselessly train cavalry which reduced trainer economy due their incapability to gather ( hunt is quite low anyway ) and longer train time, unless they hit resources carrying units. By having to package soldiers, first, units would have no time to protect harmless workers or just stuckin the pathfinder if they'd need to go in mass to the nearest structure to pick up weapons and fight (they would make a counterproductive traffic jam i guess).

[Prodigal Son]

(This as a reply to many people and points in one, to avoid like 8 quotes)

While I'm guilty of commenting without having played A22 at all, I think the game as it stands is full of bad decisions in gameplay design. If the goal is enhancing it's current (or recent:p) form I'd stand mostly for reduced diversification, especially in the early game which is most affected by assymetry. 12 civs are a lot, all RTS games I can think of with similar numbers of civs have relatively small tech-tree variations. That said, while citizen soldiers for all (preferably just one class) or for no civs (best choice) would be my preferance, I can see how having them for just some civ(s) might work. Take the example of levy hoplites as the only CC for Athens in a match-up against a civ with no CC. They could be slow moving and relatively weak especially in attack, making them not ideal raiders, while the opposing civ has appropriate units available to fight them from the early game. Or, as many have suggested, have a timed Warcraft 3 style "militia/call to arms" ability, so that they cannot be on the offensive for long. Then a non-early game tech could increase the duration of it, or even make it last until turned off. The packing system would be a lesser solution imo. An instant, non-reversable, paid Villager->Fighter mechanic like in AOM could be better in that direction.

I don't like the idea of ranked up or upgraded CC's gathering slower as it adds a rather pointless micro mechanic in spliting unit groups of mixed ranks to workers-fighters all the time and not offering anything really interesting besides a debatable illusion of realism. Likewise, the looting mechanic might sound cool, but in practice it's another snowball effect, rewarding resources to one player each time the other loses a unit, though it somewhat fits in current design as a flawed choice to boost raiding a little.

Balance of history and gameplay is a tricky thing, for reasons already mentioned and because history many times isn't clear, having missing links, conflicting sources and dishonest motives. I'd say most important is to keep historicity very high in the looks of the game (already true for the most part), while focusing on the gameplay side for the rest (ofc taking inspiration for techtrees, bonuses etc from history).

Counters and them being hard or soft might or might not fit well depending on target gameplay. Current form would benefit from a mix of hard and soft counters. It is close to classic RTS combat and due to having a huge variety of simularly human units, it's hard (and very ahistorical) to go too far with attribute balancing/differentiation and succeed. Also several units have very illogical attributes as of now. Counters can reflect unit roles where mechanics can't and are relatively easy to balance.

Edited February 28, 2018 by Prodigal Son

[wowgetoffyourcellphone]

22 hours ago, Prodigal Son said:

the presence of the (heavily prone to snowballing) capturing mechanic

The entire capturing mechanic in the game is prone to snowballing. A very... slow... tedious.... snowball, which I am attempting to improve by making it more dramatic and decisive. Sometimes, a turn of events should simply be decisive and game ending, like how capturing a CC is a big deal in DE. Capturing in core game is boring, and worse, it's annoying.

 

22 hours ago, Prodigal Son said:

the function of some techs (as well as their huge number)

Added in as much as I can. Paring back in the future as the gameplay gets refined. Maybe next alpha or two.

 

22 hours ago, Prodigal Son said:

the balance between economy/combat micro

The things I would like to do are hampered by the current state of the engine, but the engine is slowly improving and allowing for further refinements to DE.  For instance, if I suddenly had access to a battalion system the gameplay in DE would change dramatically, as would how the blacksmith worked. A big change I made recently [a few months ago] was to drop the citizen-soldier concept and give all civs a standard villager. There are some things wrong with actors and entities which make it difficult or impossible to have multi-gendered units, but if I could find a way to do it I would combine the male and female slaves into one unit and the male and female citizens into one unit.

Edited March 1, 2018 by wowgetoffyourcellphone

[Prodigal Son]

23 hours ago, Prodigal Son said:

But let's not lead the thread there, if you want to keep debating on this we could continue in private or link it to a proper DE thread.

Ok, let's keep hijaking on more thread to DE. Whatever

1 hour ago, wowgetoffyourcellphone said:

The entire capturing mechanic in the game is prone to snowballing. A very... slow... tedious.... snowball, which I am attempting to improve by making it more dramatic and decisive. Sometimes, a turn of events should simply be decisive and game ending, like how capturing a CC is a big deal in DE. Capturing in core game is boring, and worse, it's annoying.

I agree with your description, but your solution is one of a extreme imbalance and randomness. I can see me liking it from a realism perspective but in action, losing so much by one wrong choice or pure bad luck in possitioning, while at the same time the other player gains so much.. no, too bad for multiplayer.

1 hour ago, wowgetoffyourcellphone said:

Added in as much as I can. Paring back in the future as the gameplay gets refined. Maybe next alpha or two.

"As much as I can" doesn't sound good for balance (that was part of my point). Edit: just got what pary back means. The other part was on the function of some techs to which I've got no detailed example, it's just out of hazy memory from back then. Anyway you've got to balance about 15 civs with about 15 units each and too many, mostly unique techs (add to that many squad upgrades if squads become a thing)... good luck with that.

1 hour ago, wowgetoffyourcellphone said:

The things I would like to do are hampered by the current state of the engine, but the engine is slowly improving and allowing for further refinements to DE.  For instance, if I suddenly had access to a battalion system the gameplay in DE would change dramatically, as would how the blacksmith worked. A big change I made recently [a few months ago] was to drop the citizen-soldier concept and give all civs a standard villager. There are some things wrong with actors and entities which make it difficult or impossible to have multi-gendered units, but if I could find a way to do it I would combine the male and female slaves into one unit and the male and female citizens into one unit.

I'd like the engine to support extra things like squads and advanced combat even if not used in the main game (though they shouldn't be a priority in that case). Indeed the gameplay would change dramaticly, but you would find out that even with less military entities, combat micro would become a lot more demanding. Unless battalions are mostly cosmetic, without advanced combat. Your blacksmith is another thing I mostly like in theory but can see to contribute a lot in balancing difficulties. More or less agreed on the worker thing.

Edited March 1, 2018 by Prodigal Son

[Stan`]

1 hour ago, wowgetoffyourcellphone said:

The entire capturing mechanic in the game is prone to snowballing. A very... slow... tedious.... snowball, which I am attempting to improve by making it more dramatic and decisive. Sometimes, a turn of events should simply be decisive and game ending, like how capturing a CC is a big deal in DE. Capturing in core game is boring, and worse, it's annoying.

 

Added in as much as I can. Paring back in the future as the gameplay gets refined. Maybe next alpha or two.

 

The things I would like to do are hampered by the current state of the engine, but the engine is slowly improving and allowing for further refinements to DE.  For instance, if I suddenly had access to a battalion system the gameplay in DE would change dramatically, as would how the blacksmith worked. A big change I made recently [a few months ago] was to drop the citizen-soldier concept and give all civs a standard villager. There are some things wrong with actors and entities which make it difficult or impossible to have multi-gendered units, but if I could find a way to do it I would combine the male and female slaves into one unit and the male and female citizens into one unit.

For the male and female see the way I did it for the carthaginian citizen I fixed in one of my pull requests

[Thorfinn the Shallow Minded]

So I just wanted to give some clarifying comments on how the proposed 'packing' system should work for citizen soldiers.  First, if a player does not scout properly and is rushed having no information about it, should they be punished?  Yes.  However, the extent of the punishment depends on their reactions.  Perhaps some units could be damaged, but the assumption behind that system was that a battalion system would be used.  If this was implemented, there would not be too much unnecessary micro the player would have to do.  The battalion could be damaged, yet since this is the early game and units would not be able to easily one shot other units, the cost would not be extreme.  Also since villages are incapable of fielding significant numbers of horsemen, a cavalry rush should not be a concern during this phase.  Compared to the timed system or just a quick conversion, I would contend that this would be a fair balance between realism and gameplay; it would also encourage players to actively scout and create interesting strategic situations.  A mechanic I would compare it to is the packing and unpacking of siege weapons.  There are frustrations when a trebuchet is not well defended, but in the end, it is considered a reasonable mechanic.  

One point that seems to be misunderstood is the idea of mercenaries.  I am well aware of how mercenaries are currently put in the game, and I would contend that it is not a proper system.  Mercenaries were hired to fight, and maybe build rudimentary defences.  Carthage, as I see it, would be able to train local mercenaries that would have no economic capabilities at the onset of the game.   The general point I am making is that yes, citizen soldiers in their current form should not be used, but it would be possible (albeit harder) to balance if they existed in a different form even if other civilisations do not have them.  

[Grugnas]

I kinda share the opnion that mercenary system could be improved. Having them just as rank 2 units is somehow limiting, but fits good enough for the current gameflow.

 

On 2/28/2018 at 2:07 PM, Nescio said:

Gameplay-wise we could easily differentiate by role:

• can gather, can not build (females, available at houses)
• can gather and build (citizen soldiers, available from village phase)
• can not gather, can build (mercenaries, available from town phase)
• can neither gather nor build (champions, available from city phase)

Something like this would be nice. Perhaps improved but nice. I.e.  Females are just actors that represent the Citizen class, and they should be able to build basic buildings ( civic and economic structures ).

Warcraft 3 economy was hard to harrass. Peons used to deliver all goods to the town hall, usually placed near gold mines usually placed in a U shaped zone delimited by woods that units cannot trespass, thus they were kinda protected by raids already.

While a packaging system would be a mess  ( just try to control a bunch of cavalry, hit workers intent to gather wood, then run away and repeat the steps. Then tell me if the packaging system would work ), a  "call to arms" like system would suit better than packaging. Still nothing would prevent cavalry from just capture the structure and body block workers in order to prevent them from equip weapons. While escaping would be easier against Javelin cavalry, that couldn't be said against Spear cavalry.  Those kind of tests can't be made yet, as Running is just used for fleeing, tho (i am not a good coder ). If units could actually run when the bell rings ( to garrison or just equip weapons ), maybe the system could also make sense. it is an interesting mechanic.

[Servo]

If coding is not a problem I think packing is fine. When CS gathers they should have more speed than the real combatants speed. 

In this case scouting which most RTS games are very useful should take some more consideration. Outposts are already a good feature though a bit OP on the early stages of the game especially since frontlines are too close in most team games and it can be built on neutral territory. if some gameplay evolve on this mercenaries that just fight could be interesting. 

[Prodigal Son]

My main issue with worker-to-soldier "packing" would be that it makes no more sense than the current system. It would still be weapons and armor appearing out of nowhere even if not instantly. It would also need new animations or look weird. Going to the Civ Center to pick up weapons or hide makes more sense. I don't see an issue if some workers potentially get killed before they can defend/hide because the raiders had better micro or were massed at one place. If you don't have much more workers than the raider has soldiers you're doing something wrong anyway, and the better scouting and town layout you have, the less workers you will lose. Also I really hope that cavalry won't be available until phase 2 (besides maybe a single starting unit) or at least not trainable at the Civ Center.

WC3 has this seemingly protected base but it also has stealth and flying units, as well as loads of abilities that can hit over or destroy obstacles and rather fragile structures. I wouldn't say it's a game really favoring defense.

On mercenaries I'm in favor of a simple but relatively realistic concept. They cost only metal (and are slightly expensive) while they train very fast, like a last resort rapid defense, or luxury unit when you have a strong economy. If they can build or gather depends on how the rest of the economy works. Then accordingly to civ and the rest of the gameplay they could be available earlier and/or in more variety.

 

Edited March 1, 2018 by Prodigal Son

[Servo]

I hope the devs can put a settings to make the game pace slower. This can be done by setting technologies more expensive and slow. There is already a very low resource setting which I mostly play on SP. Then let the players try it. 

RoN used to have so many pro players but for some reason or maybe when the nomad, very expensive and slow tech were set most if not all players are playing it until now. The only drawback is that with this settings the pop of most Civ is capped which imo won’t happen on 0AD for as long as you can build a house. They would scramble to outbuild each other the wonder. 

The effect of this setting is that scouting becomes heavy due to ruin taking and finding the rares. Raiding and small skirmishes occur once the barracks are up. Then the main battle starts heavily on age 2 when cavalry and sieges are coming. 

With this settings too the average number of soldiers is quite low. Around 5-7 mixed cavalry, 10 to 15 mixed infantry and 2- 4 catapults and the general. Losing quite a number of soldiers in the main battle is really painful so military tactics should be done in a very careful way. It’s not jus spamming units but choosing the best unit under the current situation. Counters are quite important too. No giving resources so trade routes and rares are to be protected as traders are biggest source of precious gold. You can always feel the effect of Civ bonuses. 

I can say their players are real pro not just fast clicker but really understand and think the gameplay. 

I know that 0ad is almost like AoE and I played aoe2 for more than a year straight on SP and never really got impressed than RoN and 0AD. 

[Prodigal Son]

8 hours ago, Servo said:

I hope the devs can put a settings to make the game pace slower. This can be done by setting technologies more expensive and slow. There is already a very low resource setting which I mostly play on SP. Then let the players try it. 

RoN used to have so many pro players but for some reason or maybe when the nomad, very expensive and slow tech were set most if not all players are playing it until now. The only drawback is that with this settings the pop of most Civ is capped which imo won’t happen on 0AD for as long as you can build a house. They would scramble to outbuild each other the wonder. 

The effect of this setting is that scouting becomes heavy due to ruin taking and finding the rares. Raiding and small skirmishes occur once the barracks are up. Then the main battle starts heavily on age 2 when cavalry and sieges are coming. 

With this settings too the average number of soldiers is quite low. Around 5-7 mixed cavalry, 10 to 15 mixed infantry and 2- 4 catapults and the general. Losing quite a number of soldiers in the main battle is really painful so military tactics should be done in a very careful way. It’s not jus spamming units but choosing the best unit under the current situation. Counters are quite important too. No giving resources so trade routes and rares are to be protected as traders are biggest source of precious gold. You can always feel the effect of Civ bonuses. 

I can say their players are real pro not just fast clicker but really understand and think the gameplay. 

I know that 0ad is almost like AoE and I played aoe2 for more than a year straight on SP and never really got impressed than RoN and 0AD. 

Indeed the game pace could/should be slower. I'll blame mostly the crazy movement speeds though and not the resource settings (which are something to consider, as of which should be the standard setting, but a minor and easy fix). Something like almost half movement speeds (as well as vision/unit range) would be great, talking about a classic RTS setting like current 0 A.D. and not within an advanced combat system.

I haven't tried RON multiplayer, but the single player, though interesting in many fields hasn't impressed me as a whole. If the game goes more towards the advanced combat/grand strategy genre it might have things to take from RON. Rare/strategic resources similar to RON would be a nice addition (ruins no, "treasures" in 0 A.D. are also a bad idea for multiplayer). How resource gathering works would fit rather well with a semi-advanced combat system. The way techs are acquired is also rather interesting (Civilisation does them in a similar but even better concept).

AOE 2 might be aged visually (but not so much considering it's 20yo), have some annoyingly oldschool mechanics (no so much if you like a variety of micro tasks) and is not very historical, but for the most part is awesome. I'd rank it as the best RTS game along with the first Starcraft. AOM without the Titans expansion being close to them.

Edited March 2, 2018 by Prodigal Son

[Nescio]

20 hours ago, Grugnas said:

Females are just actors that represent the Citizen class, and they should be able to build basic buildings ( civic and economic structures ).

Although it is possible to define which structures a unit can initiate, you can not prevent them from building other structures as well. Either a unit can build, or it can't. E.g. the support elephant can not initiate anything but can build everything. You can easily observe this behaviour in the AI.

[Thorfinn the Shallow Minded]

Just to respond to some of the criticisms of the system I proposed, I would say that it is as sensible as other alternatives.  If it were to be realistic, citizens swapping to the soldier role should go back to their home and rally at a given location.  To compare to other options, the idea of using the gatherer>ulfsark mechanic is no better.  Weapons and armour appear out of nowhere for that.   Also, there is no way of switching back.  For that matter, villagers magically summon axes, mining picks, etc.  In the case of the timed ability from Warcraft 3, weapons and armour again appear out of nowhere.  In the system I proposed, it is not that different.  The big change is mainly in that it takes time to switch between roles.  If this idea still sounds frustratingly exploitable, I think that it is within reason to have some malus applied to citizen soldiers when they are outside of friendly territory (Technology could possibly change that in the mid-game.).  To summarise, 'packing' seems to me to be a sensible marriage between realism and gameplay and should be considered since in many cases for civilisations of 0 A.D., they had no standing army, and it took time to mobilise their forces.  There might be some ways it could be improved, yet it is a legitimate option in my opinion.

[Servo]

And in case raiders are becoming too OP just add attrition damage to any units outside of their territory since no one operates 100% efficient. IMO attrition needs good consideration for realistic game. The temple research to get units back to 100% HP doesn’t make sense either. I rather have food consumption in the game to regenerate HP when not moving.  Spiritually maybe but divine intervention or moral boost should just effect slightly for the unit to be battle hardened. Now I could agree more to the battalion gamely when these HP deterioration occurs. Units could get killed in the battalion easily and the strength numbers diminished but they will still be in a realistic combat scenario with out much emphasis on HP. 

Edited March 2, 2018 by Servo

[Prodigal Son]

1 hour ago, Thorfinn the Shallow Minded said:

Just to respond to some of the criticisms of the system I proposed, I would say that it is as sensible as other alternatives.  If it were to be realistic, citizens swapping to the soldier role should go back to their home and rally at a given location.  To compare to other options, the idea of using the gatherer>ulfsark mechanic is no better.  Weapons and armour appear out of nowhere for that.   Also, there is no way of switching back.  For that matter, villagers magically summon axes, mining picks, etc.  In the case of the timed ability from Warcraft 3, weapons and armour again appear out of nowhere.  In the system I proposed, it is not that different.  The big change is mainly in that it takes time to switch between roles.  If this idea still sounds frustratingly exploitable, I think that it is within reason to have some malus applied to citizen soldiers when they are outside of friendly territory (Technology could possibly change that in the mid-game.).  To summarise, 'packing' seems to me to be a sensible marriage between realism and gameplay and should be considered since in many cases for civilisations of 0 A.D., they had no standing army, and it took time to mobilise their forces.  There might be some ways it could be improved, yet it is a legitimate option in my opinion.

I ment the gatherer>ulfsark mechanic not as ideal or more realistic, but as preferable to the packing one. Need soldiers fast? Lose resources and workers and you get them. If well balanced, it's a kinda interesting trade-off. Still I prefer the WC3 one.

In the case of the timed WC3 ability, workers run to the civic center to pick up weapons, they don't get them out of their pockets.

I don't consider your proposal terrible, but for me it has the downsides I've already described.

[WhiteTreePaladin]

I think the original  idea of citizen soldiers was to provide for defense only. If you got attacked, you could arm all of you citizen work force and try to survive. If a citizen proved an able fighter, you would conscript that person and they would take on the new employment. Generally, soldiers and laborers were separate historically. Soldiers could be put to work constructing things, but I cannot imagine a country that would send talented soldiers to farms between battles. Military training was important. In 0AD, citizen solders were meant to transition over to military duties if they proved exceptional. This is represented by the increase in power and corresponding decrease in gathering efficiency.

I believe all of these have been suggested before, but here are some ideas:

Garrisoning citizen soldiers in barracks could auto-level them after a certain time. They would gain rank, but you would not be able to use them to gather or build during that time. This represents military training.

Low level citizen soldiers could be made much weaker. (This would lower their offense potential, but still allow them to be used for defense.) Veteran citizens would have much worse gathering rates than they do now. I would preserve veteran construction rates because that makes sense for military units.

[Nescio]

1 hour ago, WhiteTreePaladin said:

Generally, soldiers and laborers were separate historically. Soldiers could be put to work constructing things, but I cannot imagine a country that would send talented soldiers to farms between battles. Military training was important.

Actually it's the other way around. The war season was typically in the summer (when there was less work in agriculture); afterwards, armies were disbanded, and the warriors would return to their farms. These warriors were typically citizens who were rich enough to afford their own weapons. Only in times of real emergency the rich provided funds to arm the lower classes of society (the poor, serfs, slaves, etc.). Military power meant political power, at least in city-states and tribal societies.

Warriors were usually untrained amateurs. Even Spartans were only professional in comparison: state-serfs worked the land, enabling the Spartan citizens (the elite) to form a leisure class. Their “rigorous training” consisted of dancing, some athletics, chasing hares into traps, and subsequently clubbing those to death.

Mercenaries came typically from areas with a lack of good farmland and thus a population surplus; younger sons would typically leave home to have a chance to make a living as fighters elsewhere (they were the actual “professionals”). However, the priorities of a mercenary were obviously different from those of a citizen: the latter fought to defend their land and family, the former to be able to buy enough food to eat and to avoid getting killed in combat.

Macedon and the late Roman Republic had standing armies; they were the only ones who actually had real soldiers (i.e. men who received a salary in return for military service). Their military training consisted mostly of one thing: marching. The ability to move around armies quicker than their opponents expected enabled the expansive conquests of Macedon and Rome. After some years of active duty, veterans were given emough farmland to support a family and settled down in military colonies.

Summary: citizen-warriors were actually the de facto standard in Antiquity.

[WhiteTreePaladin]

On 3/2/2018 at 11:47 AM, Nescio said:

Summary: citizen-warriors were actually the de facto standard in Antiquity.

I guess I'm thinking more middle age feudal timeframes then.

Hmm, then a lot of our champion units don't make sense for some civs. Perhaps we should remove most champions and make that an elective (manual) upgrade for an elite citizen soldier. Loosing champions in battle would be a much bigger deal as they couldn't quickly be replaced making a full champion army rather valuable. (You could speed up the process with barracks garrisoning training.) I think champion is a poor name for them currently. It's better than the old "super" units, but still not good. They are supposed to represent professionals - royals guards and seasoned warriors (but not mercenaries). I don't think the current way we obtain them makes sense, at least not for all of them. I miss the unit class upgrades in AoK (again medieval timeframe). I guess I find the promotion system incomplete. It's not a large enough boost to make ranks worthwhile (especially when champions exist). I wish unit ranking were more useful.

Maybe it would be better to remove it entirely as I don't feel it really adds much currently. Perhaps there's a way to make it more relevant and central to gameplay? As you mentioned, the citizens would return for future battles. Surely those with experience would have a dramatic advantage. Perhaps there's some other way to handle it. Just thinking.

Edited March 3, 2018 by WhiteTreePaladin

[Prodigal Son]

10 hours ago, Nescio said:

Actually it's the other way around. The war season was typically in the summer (when there was less work in agriculture); afterwards, armies were disbanded, and the warriors would return to their farms. These warriors were typically citizens who were rich enough to afford their own weapons. Only in times of real emergency the rich provided funds to arm the lower classes of society (the poor, serfs, slaves, etc.). Military power meant political power, at least in city-states and tribal societies.

Warriors were usually untrained amateurs. Even Spartans were only professional in comparison: state-serfs worked the land, enabling the Spartan citizens (the elite) to form a leisure class. Their “rigorous training” consisted of dancing, some athletics, chasing hares into traps, and subsequently clubbing those to death.

Mercenaries came typically from areas with a lack of good farmland and thus a population surplus; younger sons would typically leave home to have a chance to make a living as fighters elsewhere (they were the actual “professionals”). However, the priorities of a mercenary were obviously different from those of a citizen: the latter fought to defend their land and family, the former to be able to buy enough food to eat and to avoid getting killed in combat.

Macedon and the late Roman Republic had standing armies; they were the only ones who actually had real soldiers (i.e. men who received a salary in return for military service). Their military training consisted mostly of one thing: marching. The ability to move around armies quicker than their opponents expected enabled the expansive conquests of Macedon and Rome. After some years of active duty, veterans were given emough farmland to support a family and settled down in military colonies.

Summary: citizen-warriors were actually the de facto standard in Antiquity.

Going to war during summertime and the (upper classes of the) farmer population as soldiers would be culture/region-dependant things, that said, mostly true. I think though summer was the prefered wartime due to favorable weather conditions (especially important to supply lines and ancient galley navies which had troubles in rough seas). However, the citizen levy wasn't that big as a percentage. To my knowledge, Athens with an estimated peak population between 300000-500000 people never fielded more than 15000 own troops, and that not speaking of single battles, but war-wide. Perhaps a few thousand more if you add fleet rowers, but still... A majority of the population would keep doing their jobs, unless under threat of immidiate annihilation, usually when trapped in siege defense, so in most cases every worker as a citizen soldier doesn't make sense. Maybe a bit more sensible for tribes and small states that were under grave threat more frequently.

I'd say Spartans were a bit more hardened than that, even if their myth is indeed over the top, especially at periods when the agoge was esteemed. Wrestling, phalanx drills (and encouragement of helot bullying/murders by spartan youth) come to mind, as well as a very basic diet. Likewise, phalanx drills and generally military service/training in peacetime (including catapult shots for every athenian recruit at least during a period) happened for other states.

Not every mercenary would just seek to eat and survive, many would become rather rich, well armored and powerhungry/politically successful. Others seem to have seeked adventures in general, but I agree that in most cases poverty was the main driving factor. More or less like today, but propaganda plays a bigger part now.

Besides Macedon and Rome (btw Alexander's pikemen were able to perform some impressive maneuvers in full kit), most kingdoms would have a kind of professional/standing army. Think seleucid silvershields, persian "immortals" and royal guards in general. Even tribal chief retainers. Elite hoplite units like athenian logades and theban sacred band were probably something similar, even if not in the thousands.

Anyway I'm partly getting careed away, but I largely disagree with your assumption if it is to suggest that citizen soldiers should be the standard in game terms, for historical reasons. Yes they were the majority of combat troops for most states/wars/periods of antiquity, but there were still a rather small percentage of the male population in most cases. Historicaly speaking, most workers in game should just be workers.

In short, this:

"They were probably added for historical accuracy and to differentiate early 0 A.D. from AOK. But even taking historical accuracy into account, not every male citizen, non-citizen (person with reduced rights, such as immigrants) or slave was a soldier in war times. In fact a minority in most cases. The classic RTS way of recruitment can be argued to be equally or more historical, representing the ones who went for training or picking up arms in the barracks as soldiers, while the rest as workers."

 

3 hours ago, WhiteTreePaladin said:

I guess I'm thinking more middle age feudal timeframes then.

Hmm, then a lot of our champion units don't make sense for some civs. Perhaps we should remove most champions and make that an elective (manual) upgrade for an elite citizen soldier. Loosing champions in battle would be a much bigger deal as they couldn't quickly be replaced making a full champion army rather valuable. (You could speed up the process with barracks garrisoning training.) I think champion is a poor name for them currently. It's better than the old "super" units, but still not good. They are supposed to represent professionals - royals guards and seasoned warriors (but not mercenaries). I don't think the currently way we obtain them makes sense, at least not for all of them. I miss the unit class upgrades in AoK (again medieval timeframe). I guess I find the promotion system incomplete. It's not a large enough boost to make ranks worthwhile (especially when champions exist). I wish unit ranking were more useful.

Maybe it would be better to remove it entirely as I don't feel it really adds much currently. Perhaps there's a way to make it more relevant and central to gameplay? As you mentioned, the citizens would return for future battles. Surely those with experience would have a dramatic advantage. Perhaps there's some other way to handle it. Just thinking.

Champions could be reshaped to be unique units with unique functions accordingly to civ, instead of just late game super-buffed-troops universally. Unit class upgrades would be superior to rank-up through combat from a gameplay perspective cause they don't snowball with each kill and provide strategic options (I have some resources to spend, do I need stronger spearmen or swordsmen? Or should I just train more?).

Edited March 3, 2018 by Prodigal Son

[Nescio]

To clarify, there is a difference between “citizens” and “population”. The latter consists of everyone who happens to live in an area, the former only of those who have citizenship, and thus, in theory, rights and political influence. And yes, in times of war, the majority of the population would stay at home and continue doing their jobs.

Also, there is a difference between farmers and peasants. The former works his own land and has enough to support an extended family. The latter is poor, has low social status, and has too little or no land of his own, and is therefore forced to work for others.

Then there is a difference between warriors (anyone who fights in a war; not necessarily paid), mercenaries (served for the duration of a campaign, in return for payment; typically foreigners), and soldiers (who were in long term service and received a salary; and often land or a pension upon retirement).

10 hours ago, Prodigal Son said:

Going to war during summertime and the (upper classes of the) farmer population as soldiers would be culture/region-dependant things, that said, mostly true. I think though summer was the prefered wartime due to favorable weather conditions (especially important to supply lines and ancient galley navies which had troubles in rough seas). However, the citizen levy wasn't that big as a percentage. To my knowledge, Athens with an estimated peak population between 300000-500000 people never fielded more than 15000 own troops, and that not speaking of single battles, but war-wide. Perhaps a few thousand more if you add fleet rowers, but still... A majority of the population would keep doing their jobs, unless under threat of immidiate annihilation, usually when trapped in siege defense, so in most cases every worker as a citizen soldier doesn't make sense. Maybe a bit more sensible for tribes and small states that were under grave threat more frequently.

At its peak, Athens' population (city (Athens) and countryside (Attica) formed one entity) consisted of about 10% citizens (women, children, slaves, immigrants, etc. had no citizenship; citizenship was limited to only the adult male population who could prove both of their grandfathers were citizens). Of those c. 40,000 citizens the majority belonged to the lowest income class, and those were not expected to fight. Which leaves us with a grand total of ... about 15,000 citizen-warriors, war-wide. Also, democratic Athens introduced daily salary for attending political meetings, but also for serving in the navy. At its peak Athens had a fleet of about 100-200 triremes, each of which required a crew of about 150-200 men; therefore the navy provided work for about 15-40,000 poor citizens, part of which were hired amongst Athens' island vassals.

As for Sparta, every Spartan citizen hoplite (the “hippeis”) was accompanied by typically seven helots (non-free state serfs, armed with only javelins. Furthermore, in the Spartan army the Spartan hoplites were usually outnumbered by the periokoi hoplites (free non-citizen Lakedaemonians). E.g. at the famous Battle of Thermopylae in 480 B.C. there were, yes, only 300 Spartans facing the Persians. However, the Greek army there consisted of actually about 6,000 hoplites, of which probably 1,200 came from Sparta (not every Lacedaemonian was a Spartan citizen).

10 hours ago, Prodigal Son said:

Not every mercenary would just seek to eat and survive, many would become rather rich, well armored and powerhungry/politically successful. Others seem to have seeked adventures in general, but I agree that in most cases poverty was the main driving factor. More or less like today, but propaganda plays a bigger part now.

Yes, there are many examples of men who started out as mercenaries and managed to become extremely rich. Some mercenary captains even managed to seize control of a state by which they are employed. However, these are just exceptions which prove the rule. Most mercenaries started poor and died poor.

10 hours ago, Prodigal Son said:

Besides Macedon and Rome (btw Alexander's pikemen were able to perform some impressive maneuvers in full kit), most kingdoms would have a kind of professional/standing army. Think seleucid silvershields, persian "immortals" and royal guards in general. Even tribal chief retainers. Elite hoplite units like athenian logades and theban sacred band were probably something similar, even if not in the thousands.

Yes, guard units certainly existed, and yes, they were standing army corpora; basically these units correspond to 0 A.D.'s champions. What you have to keep in mind is that although these formed the core of the army, the elite, they were not numerous. The Immortals numbered 10,000 ethnic Persians in a total multi-ethnic “Persian” army of millions, according to Herodotes; of course, those numbers are probably exaggarated, but even so, the Immortals were just a tiny minority. Likewise the Antigonid, Seleucid, and Ptolemaic silvershields and companions numbered in the thousands, thus also being a minority of their total fighting force. The Theban sacred band numbered 300; Carthage' sacred band was somewhat larger, but Carthage itself had a much larger population. Etc. So yes, standing forces existed. However, these always formed an elite minority of a the actual army on the battlefield. The vast majority of fighters consisted of (citizen) levies, vassals, and mercenaries.

To summarize, I'm not claiming every soldier in Antiquity was always a citizen-warrior. However, 0 A.D. having citizen-soldiers for all factions is historically correct.

[Prodigal Son]

@Nescio I mostly agree with the above and especially on the historical examples my disagreements would only be small bits.

Thing is, do we want to represent just citizens, mercenaries and elites by making all the male population in game belong to these categories, while in fact those combined were fewer than, currently non-existant "simple" male workers? What I'm saying is that the current system in game is not great, not because CC didn't exist, but because it's not the best way to represent them from a historical or gameplay perspective. If you read the rest of this thread (if you haven't) it's full of discussion around that, and mostly on the more important, imo, gameplay part.

[WhiteTreePaladin]

15 hours ago, Prodigal Son said:

Champions could be reshaped to be unique units with unique functions accordingly to civ, instead of just late game super-buffed-troops universally. Unit class upgrades would be superior to rank-up through combat from a gameplay perspective cause they don't snowball with each kill and provide strategic options (I have some resources to spend, do I need stronger spearmen or swordsmen? Or should I just train more?).

That sounds more like AoK. Not that that's a bad thing. AoK has a lot of good things. Many seem against small battalions, so AoK continues to remain the most closely related game.  I don't find unit promotion useful at all from a gameplay perspective the way it is currently implemented. I do hope it could be kept, but it will need some adjustments. As it is, promotion doesn't really hurt anything, but it's almost completely useless. Ranking up by a technology (like AoK) affects gameplay more directly by giving the player more control of when and what to upgrade, and is also easier to balance. (Viable promotion would be difficult to balance. It currently doesn't affect the balance, but that's because it doesn't really affect the gameplay either.) It would be possible to have class upgrades and use promotion for other effects rather than remove entirely. Promotion could also be a way to access classes early for a limited group of your units before you research a class upgrade tech. Once you researched it, all the other units you have at that rank would "catch up"  to the new class/rank.