Stoas and champions

[av93]

In the original design, every civ had acces to only 2 kind of champions, except Carths (2+1 elephant champ). Then came the Seleucids, and to avoid a big roster of then, the paired tech was made. Mauryan also had 4 champs (3+1 elephant), and that was given as an special civ bonus. Ptolemies have all cavalry champs, so they get the pikemen for balance. 

But then some random champs were added for greeks civs and persians, killing some of their special uniqueness and historical realism, because I don't know if that units were used by them. They were scenario units only.... Altough I understand that maybe there was some balance issues for Sparta and Persians.

I try to not make more design topics or discussions, but I just wanted to remember that for the new civ.

And maybe also that Stoa is not a correct place to train them. Is like train mercenaries in the market. I would suggest to swap the building for the mercenary camp.

[Prodigal Son]

Champions in general could use a redesign to be more interesting from a gameplay perspective.

Some of the extra scenario (champion) units, added to the main game or not, were even more common than units from the core rosters, while others, added or not fit with the respective civs only as anachronisms (taking in account the design decision to depict each civ during one period and not the entirety of antiquity). I think Stoa was like the only available greek structure so it ended up hosting units  

[Grugnas]

9 hours ago, av93 said:

In the original design, every civ had acces to only 2 kind of champions, except Carths (2+1 elephant champ). Then came the Seleucids, and to avoid a big roster of then, the paired tech was made. Mauryan also had 4 champs (3+1 elephant), and that was given as an special civ bonus. Ptolemies have all cavalry champs, so they get the pikemen for balance. 

But then some random champs were added for greeks civs and persians, killing some of their special uniqueness and historical realism, because I don't know if that units were used by them. They were scenario units only.... Altough I understand that maybe there was some balance issues for Sparta and Persians.

I try to not make more design topics or discussions, but I just wanted to remember that for the new civ.

And maybe also that Stoa is not a correct place to train them. Is like train mercenaries in the market. I would suggest to swap the building for the mercenary camp.

Well,  persian mercenary champ spearmen probably are with no doubts the least trained units in the game. Obviously training Immortals is way more convenient.

About the new civ, there is something about Kushites triggering me.

[av93]

55 minutes ago, Prodigal Son said:

Champions in general could use a redesign to be more interesting from a gameplay perspective.

Some of the extra scenario (champion) units, added to the main game or not, were even more common than units from the core rosters, while others, added or not fit with the respective civs only as anachronisms (taking in account the design decision to depict each civ during one period and not the entirety of antiquity). I think Stoa was like the only available greek structure so it ended up hosting units  

Yes, although I'm in favour of your ideas, I'm assuming the current gameplay.

 

16 minutes ago, Grugnas said:

Well,  persian mercenary champ spearmen probably are with no doubts the least trained units in the game. Obviously training Immortals is way more convenient.

About the new civ, there is something about Kushites triggering me.

Well, but in this building you can also train champ skirmishers. About Kushites IMHO, the problem is that they a lot of units overlapping the tech-tree, while some other civs could also have more soldiers fitting the same role, they break the others factions design.

 

Well, researching a little seems that maybe the added champs are not so out of place. But at least, please change the stoa for a mercenary camp!

 

 

[Prodigal Son]

Maybe it makes more sense to wait for the new structures to get in game. Then forts will have more room for extra champions, or some could fit in barracks/stables etc or merc camps accordingly to civ and decisions.

[Loki1950]

Why should champions supposedly exemplars of their civs be produced from a mercenary camp who where most often foreigners it's a major continuity break with history depending on the civs internal history on where to train champions would be more productive in other words the history of the individual champion should determine their place of training some of our champions where nobles so the CC would appropriate others where commoners so just barracks would be ok no need to add additional buildings to any particular civ just to produce them though a tech requirement would be appropriate from a game play prospective.

Enjoy the Choice  

[av93]

11 hours ago, Loki1950 said:

Why should champions supposedly exemplars of their civs be produced from a mercenary camp

Well, all the new champs introduced are mercenaries.

Thracian black cape are not greek, maybe you're right about thorakites and the heavy skirmishers.

Regarding persians, both melee and ranged kardakes were mercenaries. And indian elephants are foreigners.

 

Edited March 4, 2018 by av93

[Grugnas]

14 hours ago, av93 said:

Well, researching a little seems that maybe the added champs are not so out of place. But at least, please change the stoa for a mercenary camp!

This is more a question for artists rather than gameplay related.

Kushites have an overflow of stuff ( buildings and units ) which are basically redundant. Pick the 2 pyramids and the 2 temples as example, from a historically point of view they are completely different structures ( someone states that makes no sense to upgrade a small pyramid to a bigger one ) but in game they even share the same icon, just making more confusion in the mind of a player.

Would make sense, from a game mechanic pov, being able to upgrade i.e. the temple of Apedemak into the Amun one in order to have different actors depending of its upgrades ( scouting such a building would give some knowledge on the opponent state ),  and access to new technologies and units ( the champions, just 1 of the 2 which are imho a surplus ). In that way we would also be able to represent more iconic buildings even if not perfectly in scale (There are always to be compromises, somehow) and eventually have AI getting into account that buildings can be upgraded.

If those upgrades aren't acceptable, some buildings should just be used in single player campaigns, when implemented, or as scenario buildings like in the new Elephantine map.

[MlemandPurrs]

In my opinion:

Heroes: to be trained at the Civ Center, checking prequisites. Here we can implement creative prequisites like certain heroes requiring one troop type to be amassed. For example Leonidas would require you to have 30 spartans alive on the board before becoming available to train.

Mercs: Some of those troop types have no reason to be Mercs at all, most if not all civs would been capable of mustering an spearman, an bladesman and an basic archer troop type. Why must Athenian limit themselves to Toxotan Mercenary archers for bow usage ? it makes no sense, inspecially if you have played Rome Total War before.

Besides that there is not enough distinction between an merc and an regular troop. You pay their full cost in resources instead hiring them with something like 'gold' or 'wealth'.

Buildable mercenary camps would have been nice, they will be function kind of like the Saloon building in AoE3, with available merc types determined by the map and probably one or two never changing option provided per civ.

The Stoa could provide an function related to mercs, something like reduced costs(?). Sorry i dont really know what an Stoa is IRL.

Champions: To be trained at the fortress buildings. The Spartan, the City Guard of Athens etc. would be trained at the Fort, similar to how civs get their specific unit from castles in AoK.

We could convert gymnasium to be an building that provides mutually exclusive researched global bonuses for units, that can be built by all greek civs.

[Prodigal Son]

@av93 The heavy skirmishers (Thureophoroi) would often be mercenaries, other times levies. Kardakes were of debatable origins and combat role. Theories that I'm aware of describe them as Kurds (or others) in Persian service or as a Persian unit after reforms, as light troops with varied equipment or as hoplite influenced.

@MlemandPurrs Stoa has no relation to mercenaries.

Edited March 4, 2018 by Prodigal Son

[wowgetoffyourcellphone]

Yeah, training troops from a stoa was a very weird decision and seems to have been made with no care to authenticity or gameplay for that matter. 

In DE I made the stoa a special starting structure for Greek civs. This structure is the source of their Greek Architecture bonus and once destroyed cannot be rebuilt. I am thinking of giving it some kind of area effect too, but I would rather keep things focused (objects in the game have specific purposes) since it is a free starting structure. 

[MlemandPurrs]

Im playing your DE mod and wanted to let you know playing Spartans was amazing. I was wondering what it does in the mod, thanks for explaining. It should probably become available to get rebuilt at epoch IV.

 

I think some structures can be recycled to function as upgrade of existing structures. In your mod the Stoa would be an upgrade of civic center.

Instead building an seperate War Hall you would upgrade an Barracks with one.

Athenian would able to upgrade one Civic Center with Council Chamber, replacing the round structure of the civic center's model.

[av93]

3 hours ago, wowgetoffyourcellphone said:

Yeah, training troops from a stoa was a very weird decision and seems to have been made with no care to authenticity or gameplay for that matter.

Wikipedia says (not the best source, I know):

A stoa, in ancient Greek architecture, is a covered walkway or portico, commonly for public use. [...] These buildings were open to the public; merchants could sell their goods, artists could display their artwork, and religious gatherings could take place. Stoas usually surrounded the marketplaces or agora of large cities and were used as a framing device.

 

I really don't want this discussion to go off-topic (sorry for my part). Just want to suggest a model change, from stoa to a mercenary camp.

 

[wowgetoffyourcellphone]

Just now, av93 said:

I really don't want this discussion to go off-topic (sorry for my part). Just want to suggest a model change, from stoa to a mercenary camp.

 

Or implement a mercenary camp system, as in DE. A neutral capturable building on the map where you can train mercs.

[Lion.Kanzen]

The only  missing thing with mercenary camps is  train local biome mercenaries. and non listed mercenaries like Pirates(Cilician) and outlawed units or Zealots.

[wowgetoffyourcellphone]

29 minutes ago, Lion.Kanzen said:

The only  missing thing with mercenary camps is  train local biome mercenaries. and non listed mercenaries like Pirates(Cilician) and outlawed units or Zealots.

Already possible. Maybe @elexis can share how, but there's a way to make the merc's build list reflect the owner's civ, not the unit's civ. This was implemented maybe month or 3 ago, but I've never experimented with it.

[Stan`]

Not sure but I think that works if you replace {civ} by a hardcoded one.

[wowgetoffyourcellphone]

20 minutes ago, stanislas69 said:

Not sure but I think that works if you replace {civ} by a hardcoded one.

Nah, if you use athen_ etc., then it will only build the Athenian buildings, not the owner's civ [if they don't happen to be Athenian]. I thought for sure a way was implemented whereas a generic mercenary unit could be trained by any civ and that merc would build that civ's buildings and not its own.

[wowgetoffyourcellphone]

1 hour ago, stanislas69 said:

Not sure but I think that works if you replace {civ} by a hardcoded one.

 

1 hour ago, wowgetoffyourcellphone said:

Nah, if you use athen_ etc., then it will only build the Athenian buildings, not the owner's civ [if they don't happen to be Athenian]. I thought for sure a way was implemented whereas a generic mercenary unit could be trained by any civ and that merc would build that civ's buildings and not its own.

 

Found it:

https://code.wildfiregames.com/D1065

 

And I just tested it. Looks like the way is already paved for "ethnic" mercenaries along the lines of AOE3, if that's so desired.

 

EDIT: Nope, the merc camp won't train a merc unit whose civ is not the player's civ. poop. Looks like that's a different issue. The units work right [a Kushite merc unit will build all of the Athenian buildings if an Athenian player owns the Kushite unit], but the structure aspect doesn't work yet.

Edited March 5, 2018 by wowgetoffyourcellphone

[av93]

I really don't want to argue about a mercenary system, although I could agree, because design discussions seems to lead to nowhere. The way I see this is like a name fix.

 

It's always better to do it instead of saying others to do it, right? Sorry for the ping @elexis, @stanislas69 but if you agree on this change, here you have the modified templates from A22.

Mercenary Camp patch.7z

[Stan`]

5 minutes ago, av93 said:

Sorry for the ping @elexis, @stanislas69 but if you agree on this change, here you have the modified templates from A22.

Sorry for being annoying but patches → code.wildfiregames.com

Easier to review

[av93]

3 minutes ago, stanislas69 said:

Sorry for being annoying but patches → code.wildfiregames.com

Easier to review

Totally right, I forget to say that I struggled to try it but didn't achieved to get it work

[Stan`]

@av93 Anything we can do to help ?

[Hannibal_Barca]

On 3/4/2018 at 12:43 PM, Grugnas said:

This is more a question for artists rather than gameplay related.

Kushites have an overflow of stuff ( buildings and units ) which are basically redundant. Pick the 2 pyramids and the 2 temples as example, from a historically point of view they are completely different structures ( someone states that makes no sense to upgrade a small pyramid to a bigger one ) but in game they even share the same icon, just making more confusion in the mind of a player.

Would make sense, from a game mechanic pov, being able to upgrade i.e. the temple of Apedemak into the Amun one in order to have different actors depending of its upgrades ( scouting such a building would give some knowledge on the opponent state ),  and access to new technologies and units ( the champions, just 1 of the 2 which are imho a surplus ). In that way we would also be able to represent more iconic buildings even if not perfectly in scale (There are always to be compromises, somehow) and eventually have AI getting into account that buildings can be upgraded.

If those upgrades aren't acceptable, some buildings should just be used in single player campaigns, when implemented, or as scenario buildings like in the new Elephantine map.

Not the same icon, maybe only your mind gets confused.

You still don't get the historical point of view, @Sundiata the creator of Kushite civilization would never agree and we owe him this much.

It would be nice to have more axemen in the game.

[mimo]

11 hours ago, wowgetoffyourcellphone said:

 

 

Found it:

https://code.wildfiregames.com/D1065

 

And I just tested it. Looks like the way is already paved for "ethnic" mercenaries along the lines of AOE3, if that's so desired.

 

EDIT: Nope, the merc camp won't train a merc unit whose civ is not the player's civ. poop. Looks like that's a different issue. The units work right [a Kushite merc unit will build all of the Athenian buildings if an Athenian player owns the Kushite unit], but the structure aspect doesn't work yet.

It looks like you want the {native}_  replacement D1084.