Barracks

[Thorfinn the Shallow Minded]

As is, there is little differentiation between the barracks and civic centre's purposes in regards to production, which both feel like military or economic production centres, and the awkward result is that the barracks becomes a means of booming in the early-game and little else.  I'd like to offer thoughts on how this could be changed to better improve immersion.  

First, a unit trained from a barracks should have a higher experience level compared to a civic centre's unit.  Suddenly instead of making more workers to bolster the economy, the player would have make a risky economic investment at best that would probably be better used for a military push.  With this could perhaps come a higher experience level ceiling than is currently in game, in some respects mirroring what I believe Nescio has done for his own mod of the game.

Second, it would be good if military units standing idle within a particular distance of a barracks would be able to drill, providing a trickle of experience for them.  Since experience does hamper economic efficiency, this effect could perhaps be toggled on or off depending on preference.  As of now, when soldiers are in a player's base, the best thing except in some situational circumstances to do is to collect resources; this option would not only provide an additional purpose to the barracks but also would add another viable strategy for using units during lapses in combat.  

Third, if the following things are introduced, I would strongly recommend that experience play a more decisive role in battles and the game as a whole.  Granted, I only looked at a few stats, but of what I saw, the impact of one level to the next seemed nearly marginal.  I could be wrong on this, yet I think that regardless, experience does not reward the player enough for being careful to keep veterans alive.

[Lion.Kanzen]

@borg-

 

what are your appreciation about this? Delenda Est removes this soldiers.

Edited June 4, 2019 by Lion.Kanzen

[borg-]

13 minutes ago, Lion.Kanzen said:

@borg-

 

what are your appreciation about this? Delenda Est removes this soldiers.

I also removed the training of soldiers in the center. This helps a lot in the dynamics of the game.

But I really liked the idea he proposed to be able to create weaker soldiers in the center. Maybe we could have a special unit in cc, cheap, quick, for raid defense or rush, like a militia.

In mod, the promoted units have no economic loss and also the gains are much smaller than the vanilla, are +10% health, +1 armour, +20% attack, both for ranged and melee. There is no gain of speed of movement, precision , among other things.

The champions are calculated based on the citizens, example, citizen infantry spearmen, 70 health, 3/3 armour, 6 hack attack. So the calculation is done like this: 70 health + 10% of town phase bonus + 10% city phase bonus, +10% advance rank, +10% elite rank, = 102.5. So I give + 10% since championship units should be better than a promoted soldier, = 115.0. The same applies to armor, attack, etc.

[Lion.Kanzen]

I share his opinion and I feel same. is very rts.

[borg-]

I do not know if I understood correctly, my English is bad, sorry, but soldiers gaining an amount of XP being in enemy territory is a great idea. This helps games with more attacks and less economic boom. 

@Lion.Kanzen It is possible?

Edited June 4, 2019 by borg-

[Lion.Kanzen]

8 minutes ago, borg- said:

I do not know if I understood correctly, my English is bad, sorry, but maybe soldiers gaining an amount of XP being in enemy territory is a great idea. This helps games with more attacks and less economic boom. 

@Lion.Kanzen It is possible?

performance i think. we discuss this several times.

 

Age of empires have militia, clubman and other weaker units. is possible. and kind historic.

total war have some militia peasant.

[Lion.Kanzen]

it would be works like a very trash... early unit.

 

Quote

Trash units are military units that cost no gold or other rare resources. In all games of the Age of Empires series, there are several units that are considered "trash units". These units can be massed easily and often cost very little resources. For the most part, they are useful for defending a location early in the game or countering certain enemy units but can be taken out easily by counter units that cost gold. The term "trash" refers to the fact that most of these units only require the most common resources which are more easily disposed of than other resources (usually wood and food in all of the games).

When a player is using trash units they are usually trying to overwhelm their opponents with quantity instead of quality, or using them as cannon fodder to occupy the enemy troops to give the player time to create a more powerful army. Trash armies are also essential to long games without trade and on maps where gold is limited in quantity.

but militia isn't trash in AoE2 . but is very weaker. is an early game unit.

Quote

The Militia is an infantry unit in Age of Empires II that can be trained at the Barracks. It is the first trainable military unit and the only one available in the Dark Age. The Militia is ineffective after the Dark Age. 

Spoiler

Clubman is almost same. in AoE 1. except their cost.

Quote

Being the first, it is also the weakest infantry unit and should be upgraded to Axeman as soon as possible in the Tool Age. Clubman can be trained from the Barracks.

in AoE 3 they have defensive unit called Minuteman.

Quote

The Minuteman is a ranged infantry in Age of Empires III that can be spawned through Levy at Town Centers. It is a quick-trained Musketeer that loses hit points over time, meant to be used as an emergency defensive unit.

 

Spoiler

 

 

[coworotel]

On 5/4/2019 at 5:23 AM, Thorfinn the Shallow Minded said:

Second, it would be good if military units standing idle within a particular distance of a barracks would be able to drill, providing a trickle of experience for them.  Since experience does hamper economic efficiency, this effect could perhaps be toggled on or off depending on preference.  As of now, when soldiers are in a player's base, the best thing except in some situational circumstances to do is to collect resources; this option would not only provide an additional purpose to the barracks but also would add another viable strategy for using units during lapses in combat.

Or, soldiers could lose military experience if they gather resources... so the player would have to decide between keeping a good army or use them for economic purposes.

I like your idea of barracks units being trained with more experience than CC units. Would also support the idea of CC only training workers (like in borg's mod) and maybe a very basic military like a clubman.

Edited June 4, 2019 by coworotel

[Guest]

9 hours ago, borg- said:

I do not know if I understood correctly, my English is bad, sorry, but soldiers gaining an amount of XP being in enemy territory is a great idea. This helps games with more attacks and less economic boom. 

@Lion.Kanzen It is possible?

Can you describe the feature specifications?

If we can make this generic enough, some of the history tooltips would no longer describe missing bonuses.

[Lion.Kanzen]

seeing pikemen wearing armor or legionnaires wearing armor, collecting wood and working as a civilian. kills a little experience.

 

I prefer an hybrid in early phase.

or something simple.

Edited June 4, 2019 by Lion.Kanzen

[borg-]

I thought of a unit that can only fight and not collect resources. Something like the minuteman of age of empires 3. They train almost instantly, they are cheap, and they help defend and attack at some point. I thought of units with a short sword or axe, with no shields, for quick locomotion. I do not know if we would have a historical concept behind it.

Edited June 4, 2019 by borg-

[Lion.Kanzen]

10 minutes ago, borg- said:

I thought of a unit that can only fight and not collect resources. Something like the minuteman of age of empires 3. They train almost instantly, they are cheap, and they help defend and attack at some point. I thought of units with a short sword or axe, with no shields, for quick locomotion. I do not know if we would have a historical concept behind it.

@Nescio @Sundiata @Genava55 @wowgetoffyourcellphone

[Genava55]

57 minutes ago, borg- said:

I thought of a unit that can only fight and not collect resources. Something like the minuteman of age of empires 3. They train almost instantly, they are cheap, and they help defend and attack at some point. I thought of units with a short sword or axe, with no shields, for quick locomotion. I do not know if we would have a historical concept behind it.

Basically among barbarians civ, the warriors and men-at-arms are spread in the landscape, in all the villages, hamlets and fortified sites. This is their way to defend themselves to any unexpected attacks (especially robbers and raiders). There are some accounts in the Gallic Wars of storage of weapons inside oppida but it is difficult to assess if this is for a kind of militia.

In Imperial Rome, there are the urban cohorts for most of the protection. A kind of civil guards and militia existed through the praefectus vigilum and the Cohortium Vigilum Stationes, but mostly as firefighters and policemen.

Edit: for the Roman Army before the Carthaginian Wars, there were the Rorarii and the Accensi as irregulars.

Edited June 4, 2019 by Genava55

[borg-]

I would love to have these units in the game, but it needs a lot of work from the artirts, are at least 13 new units.

[Stan`]

10 minutes ago, borg- said:

I would love to have these units in the game, but it needs a lot of work from the artirts, are at least 13 new units.

I guess you could pretty much do it with the current assets  

[wowgetoffyourcellphone]

11 minutes ago, borg- said:

I would love to have these units in the game, but it needs a lot of work from the artirts, are at least 13 new units.

Not necessarily. A basic tunic is a basic tunic. You don't need some elaborate texture for a militia dude with a club or pointy stick.

[borg-]

Is it possible, for example, to put a sword in the hand of an Athenian spearmen? Or put the Athenian tunics on an iberian swordsman?

[Lion.Kanzen]

2 minutes ago, borg- said:

Is it possible, for example, to put a sword in the hand of an Athenian spearmen? Or put the Athenian tunics on an iberian swordsman?

put villager civilian clothes. that is enough. wow have that in his mod.

[Genava55]

Could the addition of slaves be useful to better distinguish between the economy and the military?  

[Lion.Kanzen]

3 hours ago, Genava55 said:

Could the addition of slaves be useful to better distinguish between the economy and the military?  

Delenda Est have slaves. they change since first time.

[borg-]

I did some testing and I created some units. The biggest problem is that it seems that only Rome and Egypt had this type of police. I need to research more to find references from other civilizations. If I do not find , so I will only do for rome, as something a differentiation for civilization.

[Lion.Kanzen]

53 minutes ago, borg- said:

I did some testing and I created some units. The biggest problem is that it seems that only Rome and Egypt had this type of police. I need to research more to find references from other civilizations. If I do not find , so I will only do for rome, as something a differentiation for civilization.

It dont be need be polices, only need be units protecting their homeland,(natives)

[wowgetoffyourcellphone]

8 hours ago, borg- said:

Is it possible, for example, to put a sword in the hand of an Athenian spearmen? Or put the Athenian tunics on an iberian swordsman?

It is quite simple to edit or make new actor files. They are only small XML files and are shockingly easy to read.   So, reusing existing assets like props and textures is a snap.

Edited June 5, 2019 by wowgetoffyourcellphone

[wowgetoffyourcellphone]

4 hours ago, borg- said:

I did some testing and I created some units. The biggest problem is that it seems that only Rome and Egypt had this type of police. I need to research more to find references from other civilizations. If I do not find , so I will only do for rome, as something a differentiation for civilization.

Rome's and Egypt's can be slightly stronger (maybe a 10% buff) since they were a trained force, but other factions can easily have a "Peasant Militia" or something similar which is quasi-historical. 

[wackyserious]

10 hours ago, borg- said:

I would love to have these units in the game, but it needs a lot of work from the artirts, are at least 13 new units.

@Stan` I was thinking for a while now of suggesting that we create an atlas unit which we could use for scenarios (Helot revolts and the Roman Servile Wars) where we script some Scenario type maps with large group of armed mobs or angry mobs that would storm the player base.

I was thinking of arming them with nothing else but livelihood tools such as farm and mining tools (and maybe some hunting tools? like a simple spear?)

This way having them as economic units could still be immersive since they could roam around without holding swords helmets or other warrior panoply.