why celts (gauls + brits) are over-played : list

[JC (naval supremacist)]

 

Pop growth :

- 5 pop house  / 75 wood  (less stairs effect in pop growing)

-  20% building time

- pop room gain by building some other structures than houses

- no metal based human units (metal takes longer to gather than wood)

- no stone buildings (except towers and castle)  (stone takes longer to gather than wood)  --> easy to spam barracks  (with their + pop room)

- rotative farm too boost food production (and thus, possible to lower the number of food workers )

 

When you know that pop growth is an exponential phenomena, those cumulated advantages gives to celts an insane advantage. 

 

and for units :

- Cav Hero for best dancing (Vecingetorix is the best hero  of the game)

- Sword cav for best siege destroying and quick raids

-  Slingers,  best basic unit since  .. very very long time.    With basic micro and some healers, slingers can get all <<<  and quickly the player dont need even need siege as those massed slingers can destroy absolutely everything or can easily retreat in formation with few dumping.

- Brits have a dog which can reduce ennemy pop in early game and already give a substainable advantage.

 

I hope that in next version of 0ad i will see team games with 1 or 2 gauls/brits  .. and not 6-7 as we often do now.

 

 

[nani]

Wiser words have never been spoken.

[Genava55]

Thx for pointing out the issues. 

Edited April 12, 2019 by Genava55

[av93]

Structure cost should be unified between civs

[itrelles]

slingers are the best, so sexi, so strong

[Philip the Swaggerless]

I agree that they are overplayed and I think the main bonus is the non-house building pop bonus.  However, a skilled player using the Ptolemies can hold their own against them in 1v1.  Also, they lack ranged siege units which can be tough in some late-game situations.  Nevertheless, I suggest some or all of these nerfs:

• Reduce non-house building population bonus to +1 instead of +2
• Remove barracks +5 pop bonus, or conversely give all civs +5 pop bonus for each barracks built.

I've also wondered if slingers ought to be nerfed by not allowing them to benefit from ranged unit upgrades at the blacksmith.  Or if that's too harsh just make the last upgrade not apply to them.

 

[wowgetoffyourcellphone]

Well, slingers still do crush damage inexplicably.

[Stan`]

Well they send catapult projectiles with their slings don't they ?

[Nescio]

Not necessarily. Sling projectiles span the whole range from rocks of over 500 g via smooth pebbles to lead bullets of less than 5 g; catapult projectiles could be a factor 1000 heavier. The smaller a sling projectile is, the higher its accuracy, range, speed, and penetrative power; besides, they were easier to store, transport, and carry in combat, obviously. On the other hand, at close range a heavy rock could deliver a crushing blow (although you could also hurl rocks without a sling, of course).

[JamesWright]

On 4/12/2019 at 10:55 AM, av93 said:

Structure cost should be unified between civs

That would be very bad, some civs need to be different to have certain advantages and disadvantages leaving diverse building costs makes some civs have advantage like especially the ptolemies who have no house cost because they need fast pop growth to make metal production cause you need metal unless you want an army of women and sprearmen/pikeman.

Edited April 18, 2019 by JamesWright

[av93]

2 hours ago, JamesWright said:

That would be very bad, some civs need to be different to have certain advantages and disadvantages leaving diverse building costs makes some civs have advantage like especially the ptolemies who have no house cost because they need fast pop growth to make metal production cause you need metal unless you want an army of women and sprearmen/pikeman.

Okey, I checked the buildings costs and seems that they were almost unified. If I remember well, towers, fortress and barracks had different cost of stone and wood between civs (@wowgetoffyourcellphone, I'm right?). I think that now only barracks (except Iberian towers, that are special) have random values in their prices:

- "Standard" price: 150 wood 150 stone, athens, carthaginians, spartans, kushites, macedonians, seleucids
- "Wood" price: 300 wood, gauls, britons, mauryans, persians
- "More stone" price: 100 wood 200 stone: romans, ptolemies, iberians

Then we have the small/large houses: iberians, celts, britons, mauryans and ptolomies have small and cheaper houses of 5 pop, while others have large ones with 10.

Disadvantages and advantages should follow a civilization design, and right now it's pretty random. Ptolomies have free buildings because a straight copy of AoM, not because some heavy design. Of course I agree on asymmetric balance (I have written in the forums for years!), but with some idea behind.

 

Edited April 18, 2019 by av93

[JC (naval supremacist)]

I think that the problem isn't that slingers have crushing power ; the problem is that this isn't taken into account in the balance.  For the moment, slingers stats are somehow in between the archer and the javelinist  (on speed, fire rate, attack and range) .  But the fact they can destroy isolated buildings (towers mostly) gives them a strategic power which isn't considered in stats :  Whereas the other units cannot stay under the enemy towers too long, the slingers can just destroy them (or almost ,then capture). 

Also, i was wondering if slingers are not benefiting from the best balance between range and fire-power  :  whereas long range (archers) can induces (favorites) the phenomena that the fire-power is wasted on only few closest enemy units (arrows in an already dead unit)  ;    the short range  of skirmishers make them bumping in each other and even more when encountering obstacles    . In other words, slingers are, maybe,  for now,  on an optimum and not simply a linear average between archers and skirmishers.

 

For next version, rather than making slingers stats simply between archers and skirmishers, on the 3 stats,  I advice to  :

- Move speed :  swap skirmishers and slingers  (which make sense as the slingers are very light armour)

- Fire-power : swap archers and slingers (which make sense, an arrow is blatantly more deadly than a stone). (But maybe also consider the strategic advantage of crushing power.)

- Range : keep it like it is

 

[av93]

8 hours ago, JC (naval supremacist) said:

 

- Fire-power : swap archers and slingers (which make sense, an arrow is blatantly more deadly than a stone). (But maybe also consider the strategic advantage of crushing power.)

 

 

Historically wise, IRC correctly a stone is deadlier than an arrow, because momentum. The stone can crush bones under armor.

But every class should be usueful.

[Loki1950]

Slingers even had the range advantage Roman slingers carried there own moulds for casting lead shot(Scientific American article from the 70's).

Enjoy the Choice   

[Genava55]

13 hours ago, Loki1950 said:

Scientific American article from the 70's

Thx ;-)

http://www.imperium-romana.org/uploads/5/9/3/3/5933147/scientificamerican1073-34.pdf

 

[Loki1950]

There was also an other article in the same publication and time period on torsion engines(catapult/balista) and thx for tracking down that pdf been a while since I read the original

Enjoy the Choice  

[JC (naval supremacist)]

On 4/22/2019 at 8:31 PM, av93 said:

 

Historically wise, IRC correctly a stone is deadlier than an arrow, because momentum. The stone can crush bones under armor.

But every class should be usueful.

For some reasons, i would feel safer with someone throwing me random stones than aiming me with a bow .. don't you ?  A crushed bone is not lethal, an arrow in the belly button or in the eye is. Also, arrows can go through armour and shields, stones don't. A stone will kill only if landing on an unprotected head.

 Slingers were the lowest units, no armour, mostly peasants. They were just like auxiliaries.  Does it sounds logical that a cheap unit could make more damages than a more valuable one ?

[Genava55]

5 hours ago, JC (naval supremacist) said:

Slingers were the lowest units, no armour, mostly peasants.

There are slingers and slingers. Rhodians, Balearics, Acarnanians were prized mercenaries.

6 hours ago, JC (naval supremacist) said:

A crushed bone is not lethal, an arrow in the belly button or in the eye is.

Lead bullets are deadly, this is why the Roman army used it until the end.

[Stan`]

I also read that slingers were used to slow units down. It's hard to walk when being stoned

[LordGood]

6 hours ago, JC (naval supremacist) said:

Also, arrows can go through armour and shields, stones don't. A stone will kill only if landing on an unprotected head.

wat

 

6 hours ago, JC (naval supremacist) said:

For some reasons, i would feel safer with someone throwing me random stones than aiming me with a bow .. don't you ? 

someone's never been sling'd at. horrifying experience either way

[Genava55]

21 minutes ago, stanislas69 said:

I also read that slingers were used to slow units down. It's hard to walk when being stoned

That's true. And Vegetius wrote in his treatise that slingers are more annoying for infantry than the archers. Generally, missile troops have a supportive and defensive role, slowing down the enemy, preventing a flank attack, preventing cavalry charge, disrupting battle formations etc. etc.

[JamesWright]

8 hours ago, Genava55 said:

disrupting battle formations

What formations? They dissolve in seconds after seeing enemy units(when not following an order). And that just sucks it happens to me alot. 

Edited April 25, 2019 by JamesWright

[JamesWright]

And the Athenians have slingers too as do Ptolemies and the Carthaginians, and the Iberians so do you turn them down to or just the celtics?

 

[JamesWright]

On 4/12/2019 at 5:39 AM, JC (naval supremacist) said:

easy to spam barracks  (with their + pop room)

And this is big problem with Anglo-Saxons on Millennium AD mod(when playing against ai) the ai just spam produces stables  and no houses cause stables make more pop than house, 8(stable)>5(house) which with brits the barracks are not like that.

[Lion.Kanzen]

more weaker slingers, less hp. only work to support infantry melee   and  defensive position  vs archers and Infantry like swordsman. more technologies to improve them only for slinger factions.

Edited April 25, 2019 by Lion.Kanzen