What are your thoughts on Cavalry Gather Rates?

[Yekaterina]

I think the starting chickens for the  cavalry to gather are great. Please don't change anything and the horse being able to carry twice as much shuttle as a citizen is reasonable.

Perhaps you can make the chicken models a bit larger so they are easier to see? I find myself missing chickens and sometimes misclicking empty ground...

Would be a cool feature if we let the rider get off the horse and become a separate infantry unit. 

[Thorfinn the Shallow Minded]

1 hour ago, Yekaterina said:

Perhaps you can make the chicken models a bit larger so they are easier to see? I find myself missing chickens and sometimes misclicking empty ground...

This regardless of any other points is something that should be seriously considered.  I could see another alternative be to have chickens be replaced with something like sheep provided that the food count be the same.

[wowgetoffyourcellphone]

29 minutes ago, Thorfinn the Shallow Minded said:

This regardless of any other points is something that should be seriously considered.  I could see another alternative be to have chickens be replaced with something like sheep provided that the food count be the same.

I kind of agree. A couple goats and sheep could easily replace chickens and be better for gameplay. 

 

I was thinking chickens could be cosmetic anyway, or perhaps a "Chicken Coop" tech at the Corral could spawn a number of free chickens.

[Yekaterina]

1 hour ago, wowgetoffyourcellphone said:

 

I was thinking chickens could be cosmetic anyway, or perhaps a "Chicken Coop" tech at the Corral could spawn a number of free chickens.

Please elaborate on this tech. I don't quite understand what you mean by spawn free chickens. Are they automatically regenerated or just 1 group spawning and that's it?

I have never used the corral before.

[wowgetoffyourcellphone]

8 minutes ago, Yekaterina said:

Please elaborate on this tech. I don't quite understand what you mean by spawn free chickens. Are they automatically regenerated or just 1 group spawning and that's it?

Oh, basically if you research the tech the Corral would spawn (at no additional cost) X number of chickens per minute up to a maximum amount, and these could be slaughtered for food by the player. Such a gameplay feature could even be used for the Persians, for example, to spawn a number of free Immortals champions per minute from the Apadana to keep the number of Immortals alive at a certain number. 

[Yekaterina]

8 hours ago, wowgetoffyourcellphone said:

spawn a number of free Immortals champions per minute from the Apadana to keep the number of Immortals alive at a certain number. 

Thanks I get the idea now but free immortals would be way too OP!

[wowgetoffyourcellphone]

5 hours ago, Yekaterina said:

Thanks I get the idea now but free immortals would be way too OP!

With their current stats, yeah.

[hyperion]

On 17/04/2021 at 2:25 PM, LetswaveaBook said:

I share the idea that the role of cavalry seems a little odd and I like the idea of discussing it. However I feel like there is no easy solution and maybe the system we have is not ideal but just the best we can get (for now).

That being said, I am just waiting patiently until someone gets the 200 IQ move that no one else(including me ofc) had thought off. In the mean time, the current system seems okay

It's obvious the initial idea was using the staring cav for scouting. And I agree with your assessment of the current role being a little odd. So you can be almost certain that  under the current philosophy some changes will be done. So instead if hoping for a 200 IQ solution better to enumerate the possibilities and and gun for the one you prefer or it be late

At least none of the close to a dozen ways to tackle this that come to mind have major UI issues or some performance impact unlike the cc and fields discussion, so I'm less concerned.

 

As this thread is about gathering rates I stick to this alone. Gathering rate is something poorly understood if reading this thread. So I present another example.

Distance D at which female farming becomes superior for gathering rate 1, 5, infinity for meat (upper bounds, as you have to kill first which I conveniently ignore, think rabbits and camel archers):

DC1 = 150 | DC5=270 | DCinfinity = 300

DI1 = 50 | DI5 = 90  | DIinfinity = 100

Ergo hunting with cav is still acceptable just outside town borders, while inf is better off farming independent of gather rate in that case. Also luring is an essential skill.

[Thorfinn the Shallow Minded]

2 hours ago, hyperion said:

Ergo hunting with cav is still acceptable just outside town borders, while inf is better off farming independent of gather rate in that case. Also luring is an essential skill.

You've argued generally that distance is the bigger variable at play in this conversation.  I guess that begs the question; what do you think of the current distances with where animals spawn?  I would consider that to be valid to this conversation since the gather rate can consider when the amount of time it takes a unit to gather the resource and drop it off.

[Yekaterina]

53 minutes ago, Thorfinn the Shallow Minded said:

what do you think of the current distances with where animals spawn? 

Currently the chickens spawn immediately next to the CC which is fine. The other patches of animals matter less, but the important thing is the distance between closest patch of animals and the cc must be approximately the same for all players in order for the game to be balanced, otherwise one player would be hindered from performing a cavalry rush. 

[hyperion]

19 hours ago, Thorfinn the Shallow Minded said:

You've argued generally that distance is the bigger variable at play in this conversation.  I guess that begs the question; what do you think of the current distances with where animals spawn?  I would consider that to be valid to this conversation since the gather rate can consider when the amount of time it takes a unit to gather the resource and drop it off.

Yes, what matters is efficiency (think of it as resource per second added to the resource pool you have available for spending). With increasing distance gathering rate loses importance as most of the time isn't spent gathering. In a simple model efficiency is a function of distance with parameters gathering rate, walk speed, carry capacity. Gathering rate defines max efficiency while speed and capacity how fast efficiency reduces with distance. So gathering rate mostly affects chickens and corrals and much less general hunting.

As for where they currently spawn, well, it's map depended and as such there is hardly just one answer. Generally an additional patch of hunt around the territory borders allows you to create some early cav without being punished eco wise. Changing hunt may need adjustments to cav military potential.