Train Times

[Thorfinn the Shallow Minded]

At the moment, 0 A.D. has extremely fast training times.  As far as I saw, women take 8 seconds to train.  This is extremely fast, faster than the train times of most economic units in Starcraft II, which averages at 11.66 seconds.  Given the fact that Starcraft is a fast-paced game, this number makes the general vision that 0 A.D. seems to strive for of being in many respects an homage to games like Age of Kings with modernised gameplay problematic.  Age of Kings had a much slower training time for villagers, which was roughly 25 seconds for training time.  Granted, Age of Kings is generally considered slow-paced by most standards, and Age of Mythology had the number practically halved for most civilisations, having villager equivalent train times be around 14 seconds.  Nonetheless, it seems appropriate to at the minimum increase the training times of women to at least 12 seconds.  I would personally say that 15 seems like a rounder number to choose.  

Since Citizen foot-soldiers serve a similar role yet also have combat capabilities, their train time, currently set at 10 seconds for foot soldiers, should be increased.  This number lies well ahead of the Starcraft II numbers of typical base infantry (Zealots, Marines, and Zerglings), which take an average of roughly 20 (27, 18, and 17 are their train times respectively.) seconds to train.  I would personally advise trying to stick to the same number to at least match Starcraft's fast pace.  

Horsemen in 0 A.D. have the number bumped up to 15 seconds.  Since they still have an economic role, I would also say that the number should be at least 25, maybe 30 in the case of cavalry archers to make it difficult to mass them.  

Infantry Champions lie around the a 20 second train time.  This is pretty good, but I would say that, in order to match the numbers shown here, their time could probably be brought up to 25 seconds for good measure.  I have not checked the times for cavalry champions or siege weapons, but I would advise taking a similar strategy for ascertaining what their training times should be.  

In general, I think that changes like this will significantly help in making the game, which feels like it should be more slow-paced, at least match other titles, especially since structures such as barracks and houses can be economic unit producing factories, leading to a ridiculous snowball effect.  I would personally say that houses should not be able to train women, but that should probably be a separate topic on its own.  Anyways, I'd like to hear other people's opinions on the matter since I would say this is a generally unexplored aspect of 0 A.D.

[Loki1950]

Your comment on the horsemen training times do indeed make more sense given the fact that raising/training horses as cavalry mounts takes at least several years of investment a horse raising tech may also be in order depending on civ specialities.

Enjoy the Choice

[wowgetoffyourcellphone]

In Delenda Est, the train times are as follows. While longer than EA's train times, DE's don't exactly mirror your suggested values:

Citizens/Villagers/Slaves: 15 seconds

Infantry: 15 seconds

Cavalry: 18 seconds

Champion Infantry: 18 seconds

Champion Cavalry: 20 seconds

Mercenaries: 5 seconds (but are only trainable in limited numbers)

War Elephants: 25 seconds

And so on.

 

Values like these definitely give the beginning of a match a more deliberative pacing. While in the late game they don't hamper frontline reinforcement much, since by then the player is likely to have multiple training centers.

[Thorfinn the Shallow Minded]

I guess one thing that hasn't been explored in this topic is potentially differentiating the train times of ranged units to melee.  In Age of Kings, archers took 35 seconds to train to the militia's 25.  While the exact numbers don't need to be the same.  In the case of Delenda Est, maybe ranged infantry could have training times of 18 seconds.  If we are referring to the training times I have proposed, ranged infantry citizen soldiers could have a training time of 25 seconds to the melee citizen soldier's 20.  Obviously this would be helpful in making it harder to mass ranged infantry, but does it seem appropriate?