Blacksmith rework idea

[ValihrAnt]

Currently blacksmith technologies, the vast majority of time, are still only researched a while into Phase 3. They’re just too expensive for what they provide and without any bonuses for phasing up or specific unit upgrades, like in AoE2, phase 2 is generally just a step on the way to p3. Place the 4 buildings, maybe get eco upgrades and go up.

Making blacksmith upgrades more accessible will help encourage aggression in phase 2. In addition, I believe there should be a 3rd level of upgrades for the blacksmith, especially if we stick with just 4 different upgrade types.

Also, I like that upgrade costs for ranged and melee are differed by food, wood costs and I will stick to that. To keep it simpler I’ll also retain both armor upgrades having same total resource cost and both attack upgrades having same total resource cost.

Attack Currently: 600F/W + 400M then 900F/W + 600M

Attack Proposed: 150F/W then 200F/W + 100M then 400F/W + 250M

Armor Currently: 400F/W + 400M then 600F/W + 600M

Armor Proposed: 100F/W then 200F/W + 50M then 500F/W + 300M

I think the last armor upgrade providing +2 armor instead of +1 would be good too (I based the cost on that being the case), as the armor upgrades scale worse and it would also help keep the kill times from becoming too low.

[Nescio]

Yes, I fully agree the technologies are too expensive, which is why I wrote https://code.wildfiregames.com/D3679 about an hour ago .

6 minutes ago, ValihrAnt said:

In addition, I believe there should be a 3rd level of upgrades for the blacksmith,

Fine by me. Village phase requirement?

6 minutes ago, ValihrAnt said:

especially if we stick with just 4 different upgrade types.

That depends on what others want. I myself generally prefer smaller, cheaper technologies, e.g. we could consider splitting ranged attack into one for archers and another for javelineers. Perhaps something for a future patch.

[ValihrAnt]

12 minutes ago, Nescio said:

Village phase requirement?

I was initially thinking about having two technologies in Town phase, but I don't think it'd be bad to experiment with it being in the Village phase. Maybe with a cost reduction to 150W to make it more accessible.

Quote

That depends on what others want. I myself generally prefer smaller, cheaper technologies, e.g. we could consider splitting ranged attack into one for archers and another for javelineers. Perhaps something for a future patch

Splitting attack upgrades by infantry and cavalry could be a way to go about it. I feel like specific unit upgrades shouldn't be in the blacksmith but in the Barrack or such buildings.

[borg-]

I'm fine with 3rd level of upgrade. Would it be interesting to move the forge to the village phase then? This encourages an attack even earlier.

[Nescio]

14 minutes ago, ValihrAnt said:

Splitting attack upgrades by infantry and cavalry could be a way to go about it. I feel like specific unit upgrades shouldn't be in the blacksmith but in the Barrack or such buildings.

If a technology affects only cavalry, then I think it should go to the stable, whereas a technology affecting javelineers belongs in the forge, since we have infantry, camel, cavalry, and chariot javelineers. (Perhaps we should introduce elephant javelineers too, though that requires art.)

19 minutes ago, ValihrAnt said:

I was initially thinking about having two technologies in Town phase, but I don't think it'd be bad to experiment with it being in the Village phase. Maybe with a cost reduction to 150W to make it more accessible.

Well, if the technologies are available in the village phase but the forge stays in the town phase, then usually it's effectively the same. But if players start with a forge in a certain map (e.g. Fortress?) or if one faction can build a forge in the village phase (e.g. Gauls?), then the technologies could be researched earlier.

And yes, the new forge technologies should be cheaper. Perhaps a 1:2:3 ratio?

26 minutes ago, borg- said:

I'm fine with 3rd level of upgrade. Would it be interesting to move the forge to the village phase then? This encourages an attack even earlier.

Perhaps, I'm not sure. We could give it a try, of course. However, there are already many structures in the village phase and few in the town and city phase. Maybe the barracks should be postponed to the town phase then?

[borg-]

In fact my original idea was that only Gauls could have access to the forge in the village phase (I did it in my patch), I think it would be a great differentiation, with a historic backing to be a good rush civilization

[fatherbushido]

15 minutes ago, borg- said:

In fact my original idea was that only Gauls could have access to the forge in the village phase (I did it in my patch), I think it would be a great differentiation, with a historic backing to be a good rush civilization

That was actually like that 7 years ago.

[chrstgtr]

11 hours ago, Nescio said:

Perhaps, I'm not sure. We could give it a try, of course. However, there are already many structures in the village phase and few in the town and city phase. Maybe the barracks should be postponed to the town phase then?

I would strongly recommend keeping barracks in p1. This would make gameplay very static because rushes would become much less viable. This in turn would make p1 a bit boring. It would also make it more difficult it more difficult to come back from rushes because it would be harder to produce soldiers if you are rushed. 

 

It also isn't true that there are many buildings in p1 and few in p2 when you consider how basically every building in p1 is required to build pop/do basic eco. 

P1: house, storehouse, farmhouse, field, corral, dock (but it can only function as a storehouse or to make eco fishing ships), barrack, stables, sentry tower, outpost, and palisades. 

P2: CC, blacksmith, temple, market, tower, and walls (some other civs have other buildings like ele stables, lighthouse, pyramids, etc.)

So basically there are only 5 buildings in p1 that do anything beyond eco. And two of those basically don't do anything but let you see more (outlooks)or block movement (palisades). So taking out barracks/stables in p1 would leave civs with just towers and eco buildings. 

 

This change would also lengthen games considerably because pop would be slowed. Given DDoS, unstable internet connections, and players that leave games randomly that could be very problematic. 

[Alar1k]

On 13/03/2021 at 4:30 PM, borg- said:

In fact my original idea was that only Gauls could have access to the forge in the village phase (I did it in my patch), I think it would be a great differentiation, with a historic backing to be a good rush civilization

I would like to add to this that there could be even special village phase tech only for celts - and make their units cheaper by 10 resources and weaker for 2 points of damage - and  those techs would make them, when unlocked, cost the same as every faction but with +4 to damage so they get extra 2 points - I posted similar proposal for celtic/iberian javeliniers to make them initially cheaper and weaker as to differenciate them from helenic peltasts - but then to add special tech to make up for this nerfs
 

 

Edited March 15, 2021 by Alar1k

[wowgetoffyourcellphone]

Rando thought: Make sure if you give the Celts some village phase forge techs, then make them somewhat weak so that they're not too OP early on.

[Alar1k]

14 minutes ago, wowgetoffyourcellphone said:

Rando thought: Make sure if you give the Celts some village phase forge techs, then make them somewhat weak so that they're not too OP early on.

That was exactly what I meant with my (I admit, not the most coherent) post here haha

 

[soloooy0]

in some game I saw that the first technologies are global and later they are divided into specific
example
  armor technology 1 = cavalry + infantry
technology armor 2 cavalry
technology armor 2 infantry
or
armor technology 2 ranged units
armor technology 2 melee units

So the technologies would not be so expensive and each player has to choose at least one tactic mmmm

 

[LetswaveaBook]

I fully agree with ValihrAnt that phase 2 should be more valuable.

However, I do not think that just the blacksmith upgrades are the solution to this. To support this, I would like to say that if you do the first defence and offence blacksmith upgrade, your troops are probably only equivalent to an unupgraded army that is 15% larger in size. To get this advantage, you invest in an age up(500F,500W), building a blacksmith(200w), the upgrades(600F,400M+400W,400M) totalling at (1100F, 1100W,800M). What I am neglecting is that p2 also gives different options, but just for doing blacksmith upgrades p2 is not worth it.

I would like to see a different solutions to the problem like: Moving some champions to p2, moving unique techs to p2, moving unique buildings to p2(Theatron, persian, mauryan, gallic and spartan ´palaces´). What also might be an option is giving each unit a 10%( or respectively 5%) attack boost per age advancement and to compensate put the attack upgrades at 5%(respectively 10%) increase and 1/3rd(respectively 2/3rd) of the cost.

 

Response to soloooy0: I think that could help but I would suggest it would only be part of the solution. So it is an upvote for me, but I think we still need more.

Edited March 25, 2021 by LetswaveaBook

[wowgetoffyourcellphone]

20 minutes ago, LetswaveaBook said:

However, I do not think that just the blacksmith upgrades are the solution to this. To support this, I would like to say that if you do the first defence and offence blacksmith upgrade, your troops are probably only equivalent to an unupgraded army that is 15% larger in size. To get this advantage, you invest in an age up(500F,500W), building a blacksmith(200w), the upgrades(600F,400M+400W,400M) totalling at (1100F, 1100W,800M). What I am neglecting is that p2 also gives different options, but just for doing blacksmith upgrades p2 is not worth it.

1. As you mention, upgrading to Town Phase has other benefits as well. More econ techs, more unit choices, larger territory range, more buildings, etc.

2. But I agree. Going Town just for Forge techs doesn't seem very smart at the moment. So, surely, the Town Phase forge techs costs could just be reduced to make them more viable. 

 

Quote

I would like to see a different solutions to the problem like: Moving some champions to p2, moving unique techs to p2, moving unique buildings to p2(Theatron, persian, mauryan, gallic and spartan ´palaces´). What also might be an option is giving each unit a 10%( or respectively 5%) attack boost per age advancement and to compensate put the attack upgrades at 5%(respectively 10%) increase and 1/3rd(respectively 2/3rd) of the cost.

The problem is you don't want to devalue City Phase either. 

[LetswaveaBook]

2 hours ago, wowgetoffyourcellphone said:

The problem is you don't want to devalue City Phase either. 

As long as fortresses, siege and champion elephants are still limited to city phase, there will be plenty reason to go to the city phase. Also city phase gives extra eco upgrades. And once you get to the city phase, pop efficiency start to matter and that makes eco upgrades more viable.

 

2 hours ago, wowgetoffyourcellphone said:

1. As you mention, upgrading to Town Phase has other benefits as well. More econ techs, more unit choices, larger territory range, more buildings, etc.

If we add the eco techs (plow and stronger axe) to the cost, I would get at a total cost of (1100F, 1800W,1200M). In return the player gets an army that matches the strenght of an unupgraded army with +15% more numbers. Also you workers then collect about 15% more. We now have an investment of 4100 res(=36units) for an advantage that 15% more units can give at the same time. Math tells us that we hence do have a break even point of pop 240 before it gets worth it. If we have about 25. Hence we really need to get p2 for the other benefits.

About unit choice, I would like to say that archer civs tend to produce archers in any age. So many civs get those extra options, but player seem to ignore them and I think they have a fair point.

The territory is nice as are the stronger towers, temples and CC/militairy colonies. I would be wondering how to quantify those two advantages. I just think p2 and its upgrades do not offer enough to be worth it before pop 120

[wraitii]

I've updated https://code.wildfiregames.com/D3679 following discussions there.

[BreakfastBurrito_007]

For a24, if I have an extra metal (if I don't I give up), I tend to get those p2 available upgrades from blacksmith on the way to p3 so that my allies don't ask for metal XD. I think if aggressive fighting is seen in p2 and earlier in p3, people will want to get those upgrades earlier.

Some people have praised and some criticized the more broad categories of units the a24 blacksmith upgrades effect. Perhaps armor should remain how it is, but I am worried about how unimportant the hack armor upgrade is. Attack upgrades could be more specific, with attack increases for long melee (spear/lances/pike), short melee(swords/maces/axes), and bows, skirmishers, and slingers. Maybe also there could be weapon specific upgrades. Generalized armor makes it less frustrating to have some of your units that might not have those upgrades get vaporized by towers/forts which are a passive mechanic, whereas for attack you can strategize more and have the specialized (up-damaged) units be the focus of your micro and healer efforts which is an active/skill based mechanic.

I think a good end result of blacksmith changes should be that all upgrades are potentially useful and it becomes necessary to remember which upgrades you have, and that the default strategy is not to simply get all of them (it should be too costly/ not worth it to get all upgrade types)

Summary of attack upgrades from blacksmith:

P2+20% attack a big increase from p1 might make planned p2 attacks more fruitful, If we combine this with cost reduction for more specific attack upgrades, it will be risky to not get any of these upgrades during p2, especially if there are p2 champs around.

• skirmishers
• bows
• slingers
• short melee
• long melee

P3 +30% attack

• skirmishers
• bows
• slingers
• short melee
• long melee

P3-unit perks: designed to give a more specialized bonus to heighten the separate roles those units play (I am less sure about the melee ones- suggest pls)

I know some of these could be more OP than others, maybe price could vary or effect values could change or maybe these could be available to different civs.

• slingers + some crush dmg (appropriate amount) 
• archers + some accuracy
• skirmishers + some speed
• pike/lance + 1 range (longer pike) maybe also something else
• swords +1 speed
• mace +1 pierce armor + 1 m/s speed
• spear +1 to cavalry bonus multiplier (maybe also applies to spearcav?)
• axe (maybe repeat rate? idk)

Please tell me what you think. I think these changes, especially the attack distinctions unit-perks could be a nice diversity bonus and strategy bonus to the game

 

[wowgetoffyourcellphone]

1 hour ago, BreakfastBurrito_007 said:

so that my allies don't ask for metal

[Lion.Kanzen]

the truth is that the game lacks technologies and especially for the blacksmith/armory.

Considering the regions, the type of weapons, the diversity of materials and shapes, ranging from leather to iron, and even wood.

not all shields look alike Those that are of the scutum family cannot be compared to a caetra.

Nor are leather and padded armor like lorica segmentata o to scale armor.

 

The Gladius, the falcata type (kopis) do not look like the 2-handed Dacians falxs.

 

We literally have soldiers going bare-chested against units wearing maniqueras.

A Maurya spearman cannot compete with a Spartan Hoplite.

[BreakfastBurrito_007]

@Lion.Kanzen Yes these are indeed great inaccuracies, and I think it is reasonable to have asymmetry in the capabilities of different factions. I think after there has been considerable effort in standardization of civs and units and mercs and champions, which has produced some nice effects like champion viability, strategy diversity, and melee versus range balance, it has led to little civ differentiation. I think A26 should have a lot of effort put into civ differentiation.  

I think this is a problem that can be reduced with the addition blacksmith upgrades like the "unit perks" I mentioned above, or civ specific upgrades like archery tradition, or "hoplite tradition" or "sword tradition" that people have suggested.

Another civ differentiation method to consider is to give different units from the same template different stats, that can help account for the differences between civilisation units. For example the difference between iber swords and roman swords (I remember them being different, I thought iber swords are slower and less armored). In a24 all of the CS or merc spearcav in the game are the same (provided no upgrades are chosen). I think the best way to do this is to change units from the same templates, one template at a time and test them against other units from the same template and other units. A way example you could give each variation of unit within the template some little extra of some stat: like speed, damage, or health.

[Lion.Kanzen]

5 minutes ago, BreakfastBurrito_007 said:

Yes these are indeed great inaccuracies, and I think it is reasonable to have asymmetry in the capabilities of different factions

for the second phase the idea would be to break the balance of power.

 

You stop to think what line of development to follow to destroy your enemy.

8 minutes ago, BreakfastBurrito_007 said:

think this is a problem that can be reduced with the addition blacksmith upgrades like the "unit perks" I mentioned above, or civ specific upgrades like archery tradition, or "hoplite tradition" or "sword tradition" that people have suggested.

It actually works well to avoid overwhelming Mauryan might.

 

9 minutes ago, BreakfastBurrito_007 said:

Another civ differentiation method to consider is to give different units from the same template different stats

By geographical area due to the style of troops.

[LetswaveaBook]

22 hours ago, BreakfastBurrito_007 said:

Attack upgrades could be more specific, with attack increases for long melee (spear/lances/pike), short melee(swords/maces/axes), and bows, skirmishers, and slingers.

I dislike this idea. It means that it is more difficult to switch to another type of unit, since you lack the upgrades for it. Part of the strategy aspect is to react to what your opponent does, while giving unit specific upgrades means that you are locked in on a particular type of unit.

I would advocate that there is 1 single attack upgrade in p2, which gives an attack bonus to all types of soldiers instead of just one type.

Currently players probably get ranged attack first because ranged units deal more damage than melee. When players get the ranged attack upgrade, that difference is amplified and there is even less reason to make melee units, since you do not even have the upgrade for melee. This contributes to melee units having a role of target dummies. If the melee units and ranged units benefit from the same p2 attack upgrade, they are more able to deal actual damage.

[wowgetoffyourcellphone]

10 minutes ago, LetswaveaBook said:

I would advocate that there is 1 single attack upgrade in p2, which gives an attack bonus to all types of soldiers instead of just one type.

Interesting idea on making the blacksmith boring.  With your approach the only "choice" is whether to use resources on this one tech or not. More targeted techs introduce interesting choices. Will it lock you into a "path"? Maybe? I don't see why that is a given. It's not like you can't research the other techs when you have the res. And if that is prohibitively expensive, then let's make it not.

[BreakfastBurrito_007]

@LetswaveaBook@wowgetoffyourcellphone

I had thought of this debate before and I feel a middle ground is nice. This is why I think the armor upgrades should be more general because it gives you some general confidence in your units not dying quickly to towers, also it is a good option for people who want uprgades, but are unsure what their composition will be. For attack, I feel there should be more strategy than just getting as many upgrades as possible before the first fight. I think it should be prohibitively expensive to get all the blacksmith upgrades at once (I do this in 4v4s it usually takes me 2-3 minutes and is very boring), it should be more practical to get the ones that give you the most benefit first, and then if someone comes up with a counter to your composition you should think about getting upgrades on other units. If some of your units are more benefitted than others by the choices of upgrades you made, then it makes sense to not leave them behind to collect resources when you go to fight.

I think we can make the upgrades cheaper if there are more of them, this way, if you have a good strategy you can reach a powerful, upgraded unit composition sooner than someone who blindly wants to get all upgrades for all units. Also, if the upgrades are fairly cheap, then it should not be terribly hard to upgrade those units/unit categories that you want to include in your army.

Beyond the somewhat boring +percentage attack damage method of blacksmith attack upgrades, what do you guys think about the "unit perks" I talked about? I feel these have the potential to make units perform a little more distinctly.

@LetswaveaBook I do agree with @wowgetoffyourcellphone on the p2 blanket damage increase upgrade, it would be a must-get upgrade that would simplify the game too much. I think it should take some thought to get the right blacksmith upgrades.

Edited June 5, 2021 by BreakfastBurrito_007

[Stan`]

I miss paired techs...