Unit roles and balance

[Stan`]

The plan is to get that design document up to date. There is some work toward that. I don't know if I can say more about that.

[causative]

5 hours ago, Nescio said:

Hoplites could hold their own in almost any fight and certainly did not die quickly in melee.

This is not to slight or diminish hoplites because when they died in melee, it was other hoplites killing them!  Comparatively, the (large numbers of) enemy skirmishers did not inflict heavy casualties; most casualties occurred during the melee push, once the lines of hoplites met.  In-game for this to happen, the hoplites can't take forever killing each other.  The melee battle should not last so long that the ranged attackers have time to kill the hoplites.

Edited May 9, 2018 by causative

[Nescio]

31 minutes ago, causative said:

This is not to slight or diminish hoplites because when they died in melee, it was other hoplites killing them!  Comparatively, the (large numbers of) enemy skirmishers did not inflict heavy casualties; most casualties occurred during the melee push, once the lines of hoplites met.  In-game for this to happen, the hoplites can't take forever killing each other.  The melee battle should not last so long that the ranged attackers have time to kill the hoplites.

Yes, I'm aware of that, and agree with many of your other points. However, in 0 A.D. hoplites are indistinguishable from other spearmen, and your suggestion to give them a low hack armour would make them vulnerable to (cavalry) swordsmen.

[causative]

11 minutes ago, Nescio said:

Yes, I'm aware of that, and agree with many of your other points. However, in 0 A.D. hoplites are indistinguishable from other spearmen, and your suggestion to give them a low hack armour would make them vulnerable to (cavalry) swordsmen.

They still do triple damage against cavalry.  (Note that the phalanx was vulnerable to flanking by cavalry, though invulnerable to a frontal attack)

[Nescio]

16 minutes ago, causative said:

(Note that the phalanx was vulnerable to flanking by cavalry, though invulnerable to a frontal attack)

Yes, I know

Spoiler

5 hours ago, Nescio said:

Anyway, how important is preserving the status quo, an outdated design document, or modern conventions? And how important is historical accuracy in 0 A.D.?

Take, for instance, the pikeman. In 0 A.D. it is an extremely heavy armoured unit with a 3.0× bonus attack vs cavalry. Because a pike requires two hands to handle, their shields were attached to their left arm or shoulders; those were rimless (thus less effective against hacking attacks), much lighter than the heavy hoplite aspis (thus easier to pierce with a heavy thrusting spear), and not as large as the Roman tower shields (thus protecting a smaller surface against sling stones and bullets). Furthermore, pikemen did not need cuirasses (or other, heavy, metal body armour), because they were out of reach of ordinary melee weapons. Historically pikemen were thus actually lighter armoured than other types of Greek (and Italic) heavy (melee) infantry, in contrast to 0 A.D.'s.

Contrary to popular conventions, pikes were *not* anti-cavalry weapons. It was primarily a defensive weapon, designed to keep enemies at a distance: the sarissa (pike) was twice as long as the dory (spear) and easily outranged all other melee weapons. As long as they stayed in a closely packed formation, pikemen were practically invulnerable to frontal attacks. They could serve to push back an enemy formation (e.g. Roman swordsmen) or pinpoint opponents on a certain location. However, pike formation had to move slowly to stay together; if they moved too quickly, the formation would break, and the pikemen would become vulnerable to attacks; chasing cavalry was not an option. Because of the compactness of their tightly packed formation formation and the unwieldy length of their weapons, pikemen were unable to turn around rapidly. The easiest way to defeat a pike formation was to outflank it and massacre them by an attack from the rear. Cavalry was especially effective at this. Pikemen were therefore accompanied by light infantry and cavalry to protect them against enemy cavalry. So rather than making cavalry vulnerable to pikeman, as in 0 A.D., it should actually be the other way around

However, unlike pikemen, hoplites did not always fight closely packed together; 2 m distance in between was not unusual; “phalanx” is a generic term and means nothing more than just “formation”. Anyway, I suppose I'm going off-topic again

[Servo]

If during the 0ad time frame the prevailing combat were mostly melee then the game military mechanics/gameplay should focus on that. I don’t see much problem on balancing tbh. It’s just the gameplay is very straight forward on spamming units. Spamming is not too bad at all except on the roles of range units and reality of siege units role too.

If the range units have very less accuracy and could inflict spread damage to any units(friendly or enemy) then the battle would be more on melee (infantry/cavalry). The player won’t spam more of the range organic unit except for annoying rushes/raids in which friendly fires on own units are less likely. If a frontal range vs range happen with lesser breakthrough on each side the supporting units like melee cavalry or faster melee infantry could come in and will result to a very interesting battle where players skill will be emphasized. 

Nowadays in a no cav game the rams are quite devastating. Whoever get their rams first(mostly fast players) have good chance to win. I think it’s role should have more limitations or not becoming very unrealistic OP.

my opinion here is mostly  based on a no cav game though.

 

Edited May 9, 2018 by Servo

[wowgetoffyourcellphone]

7 hours ago, Nescio said:

Having formations behave differently from individual units (perhaps as is done in Cossacks) would be a great improvement, yes, but even without we could have a look at actual history for inspiration of unit roles.

Sure, but as you said, pikemen were used to pin down the enemy's infantry formation for the cavalry to strike a hammer blow to the enemy's flank or rear. The only way to simulate this with the game's current mechanics is to give pikemen high armor and low attack, so that the enemy soldiers are "wasting time" trying to kill the high armor pikeman long enough for some other unit to come kill the enemy soldier or the pikeman wins by pure attrition.

[wowgetoffyourcellphone]

4 hours ago, causative said:

most casualties occurred during the melee push, once the lines of hoplites met

Most casualties actually occurred when one side routed.

 

Also, there are some interesting times when hoplites were decimated by ranged units: Iphicrates routing an entire Spartan mora outside Corinth. The Athenians decimating and capturing an entire Spartan hoplite phalanx on Sphacteria. The Athenians getting routed by a Persian counterattack after burning Sardis. Though, I admit these were exceptions and not the norm.

Edited May 9, 2018 by wowgetoffyourcellphone

[wowgetoffyourcellphone]

"Massed Pikes": Pikemen are individually weak (very low attack), but have an aura that boosts other pikemen within a short range with greater attack (stackable) and a little extra armor.

"Shield Wall": Hoplites are individually much like regular spearmen, but have an aura that boosts nearby hoplites with a strong armor boost.

So, in this way an individual pikeman or hoplite is pretty mediocre to weak, but en mass are very strong.

Edited May 9, 2018 by wowgetoffyourcellphone

[Lion.Kanzen]

1 hour ago, wowgetoffyourcellphone said:

"Massed Pikes": Pikemen are individually weak (very low attack), but have an aura that boosts other pikemen within a short range with greater attack (stackable) and a little extra armor.

"Shield Wall": Hoplites are individually much like regular spearmen, but have an aura that boosts nearby hoplites with a strong armor boost.

So, in this way an individual pikeman or hoplite is pretty mediocre to weak, but en mass are very strong.

More sensible to arrows is correct?

[aeonios]

1 hour ago, wowgetoffyourcellphone said:

"Massed Pikes": Pikemen are individually weak (very low attack), but have an aura that boosts other pikemen within a short range with greater attack (stackable) and a little extra armor.

That actually sounds cool but I don't know that the engine supports stackable auras. Really they should stack defense though, not attack.

[Nescio]

42 minutes ago, aeonios said:

That actually sounds cool but I don't know that the engine supports stackable auras. Really they should stack defense though, not attack.

Yes, stackable auras are possible and are already used, e.g.: https://trac.wildfiregames.com/browser/ps/trunk/binaries/data/mods/public/simulation/data/auras/structures/wonder_pop_1.json

I'm not sure how much lag will be caused by giving every melee soldier an aura.

[Lion.Kanzen]

in most RTS the spam is fought with area damage units.

 

Even Clash royale have this mechanic.

Sometimes they are tank-type units.

StarCraft 2.

 

part of stopping spams are units that do a lot of area damage.

 

 

 

[Lion.Kanzen]

 

Related post.

[Adeimantos]

On 15/09/2022 at 5:08 AM, Lion.Kanzen said:

 

Related post.

My ideas:

Archers should be good against unarmored units and slingers against armored ones; do this by reducing crush armor on armored units especially, add more crush damage on slingers, (so may need to increase crush armor on buildings and hard counters for siege). Archers should have a little more attack.

Javelineers should counter archers and jav cavalry. I'd add armor, especially pierce, and reduce attack rate.

Elephants and chariots should cause AoE damage.

I think melee units are mostly good now, but I'd like to add an axeman unit with higher damage and lower armor; mainly good against siege.

Edited October 17, 2022 by Adeimantos

[Adeimantos]

15 hours ago, Adeimantos said:

My ideas:

Archers should be good against unarmored units and slingers against armored ones; do this by reducing crush armor on armored units especially, add more crush damage on slingers, (so may need to increase crush armor on buildings and hard counters for siege). Archers should have a little more attack.

Javelineers should counter archers and jav cavalry. I'd add armor, especially pierce, and reduce attack rate.

Elephants and chariots should cause AoE damage.

I think melee units are mostly good now, but I'd like to add an axeman unit with higher damage and lower armor; mainly good against siege.

Should I put any of these ideas into the community mod?

[Lion.Kanzen]

2 hours ago, Adeimantos said:

Should I put any of these ideas into the community mod?

Maybe someone can make a patch for the mod.

@real_tabasco_sauce

[real_tabasco_sauce]

In general, I think we should avoid a strict counter system like in AOE. Instead, 0ad has generally allowed the natural stats of different units to result in some units countering others depending on the context. ie archers beat skirmishers when range is important. I guess an exception to this is the cavalry damage multiplier.

i've been thinking about a crush armor rework for a while now. Overall, it should be a reduction with some units having more or less than others, but then one would have to adjust slingers for example as necessary. I think something like this would be done after the current balancing efforts (like how I postponed the unit specific upgrades).

As for area of effect damage, I would say it doesn't belong on chariots since they are currently ranged units only. I think there was some work done on giving eles an area of effect attack, but I am not sure how easy this would be to add to the mod.

@Adeimantos in terms of unit differentiation (unit roles) what do you think of my unit specific upgrades idea?

these upgrades are already in my fork of the community mod: https://gitlab.com/real_tabasco_sauce/0-a-d-community-mod-unit-specific-upgrades/-/tree/unit_upgrades

the discussion on these upgrades is below.

 

[Stan`]

I believe removing multiple damage types at the same time eg having hack and pierce on the same unit might make balancing easier without the need for counters.

[Adeimantos]

2 hours ago, real_tabasco_sauce said:

In general, I think we should avoid a strict counter system like in AOE. Instead, 0ad has generally allowed the natural stats of different units to result in some units countering others depending on the context. ie archers beat skirmishers when range is important. I guess an exception to this is the cavalry damage multiplier.

i've been thinking about a crush armor rework for a while now. Overall, it should be a reduction with some units having more or less than others, but then one would have to adjust slingers for example as necessary. I think something like this would be done after the current balancing efforts (like how I postponed the unit specific upgrades).

As for area of effect damage, I would say it doesn't belong on chariots since they are currently ranged units only. I think there was some work done on giving eles an area of effect attack, but I am not sure how easy this would be to add to the mod.

@Adeimantos in terms of unit differentiation (unit roles) what do you think of my unit specific upgrades idea?

these upgrades are already in my fork of the community mod: https://gitlab.com/real_tabasco_sauce/0-a-d-community-mod-unit-specific-upgrades/-/tree/unit_upgrades

the discussion on these upgrades is below.

 

I think of crush as damage that can best be avoided by dodging. So generally lightly armed, agile units would have the most crush resistance. Shields give pierce armor, and body armor and melee weapons both give hack armor.

I prefer using regular unit stats rather than artificial counters to make some units good against others, but we need a full system of unit counters unless we add some other major effects to the game, like different terrains giving different advantages for instance; it's important that we be different from other games by having features they don't, not by lacking features they have.

 

I'm neutral on the unit specific upgrades, I'd have to try them some to decide if they function as just general buffs or if they change the way units can be used. I think I like the fire arrows idea; they should slow the attack rate so for a lot of units they wouldn't help much, but should make archers effective against siege and wooden buildings. That would change archers role pretty significantly though, we'd have to test and see how it works out.

Edited October 18, 2022 by Adeimantos

[AIEND]

2022 年 10 月 19 日凌晨 1 点 54 分，斯坦` 说：

我相信同时移除多种伤害类型，例如在同一个单位上进行黑客和穿刺可能会使平衡更容易，而无需计数器。

I agree, because a unit has two types of damage, which makes the current damage calculation method too complicated and difficult to balance.

[Adeimantos]

On 18/10/2022 at 1:54 PM, Stan` said:

I believe removing multiple damage types at the same time eg having hack and pierce on the same unit might make balancing easier without the need for counters.

I like having multiple damage types, without it i think we would need more damage types or more hard counters.

[AIEND]

8 分钟前，Adeimantos 说：

我喜欢有多种伤害类型，没有它我认为我们需要更多的伤害类型或更多的硬反击。

Whether or not to add new damage types doesn't hinder balancing, which was discussed a few months ago.

 

[Lion.Kanzen]

On 18/10/2022 at 11:39 AM, real_tabasco_sauce said:

In general, I think we should avoid a strict counter system like in AOE. Instead, 0ad has generally allowed the natural stats of different units to result in some units countering others depending on the context. ie archers beat skirmishers when range is important. I guess an exception to this is the cavalry damage multiplier.

I think 0ad needs information on how to act against certain units.

Which strategy to use against chariots?

For example.

[Lion.Kanzen]

Another important point is to define the anti units.

Anti cavalry cavalry

Anti infantry infantry