Restrict the Mauryan worker elephant to within its own territory?

[Yekaterina]

The Mauryans are currently too OP, mostly because of their worker elephant. There are many situations where a Mauryan player can steal resources from the opponent easily and deny resources. Also, in savanna maps and Persian Highlands or Belgian Uplands the worker elephant is also an unfair advantage. Therefore, to nerf this we can limit the worker elephant to only travel in your own or allied territory. This way other civs stand a chance on maps which have sparsely or unevenly distributed resources.

 

[Stan`]

I don't think it's possible. Also wouldn't work in nomad mode...

@Freagarach

[alre]

We could make that it only works as a dropsite if it's in your territory. And we could have a tech to make it work in ally territory as well.

In any case, I think we should make it easier and cheaper, for any civ, to claim new territories, without the need of building fully fledged civic centres. This would level the ground in any case.

[Player of 0AD]

Or at least let them start without the bonus elephant.

[Nescio]

4 minutes ago, Player of 0AD said:

Or at least let them start without the bonus elephant.

Or remove the ability to train the worker elephant at the civic centre? Britons start with a war dof and Kushites start with a healer while those can't be trained at the civic centre.

[seeh]

11 hours ago, Yekaterina said:

Mauryan player can steal resources from the opponent easily

yes that is unique and thats is was is very special about mauri. however, not all play mauri. i often play mauri but i don't win with mauri if i don't have a good balance. I find mauri more difficult to play than e.g. ptol. but if I had a good balance with mauri and the right number of workers. then it was nice. I think special civ is beautiful. who are different. the ptol houses in a23 cost nothing, that rather bothered me a bit. but yes you get used to everything. hunt deep in the field with worker ele. it's always a bit exciting, but it can be very successful.

I've already played mauri in a23. without ram. i really liked the animation like the ele build. of course in reality that's bad. (But fighting is also bad in terms of relativity. But measuring yourself and doing something challenging, interesting, etc. that is just real.)

Edited April 17, 2021 by seeh

[Grapjas]

The ele is quite easily killed and really slow though, so it cant really escape. I think nescio's suggestion is the best one, it would make the player think twice before putting that one worker ele at risk out in the wild.

[Nescio]

15 minutes ago, Grapjas said:

The ele is quite easily killed and really slow though, so it cant really escape. I think nescio's suggestion is the best one, it would make the player think twice before putting that one worker ele at risk out in the wild.

https://code.wildfiregames.com/D3867

[LetswaveaBook]

18 hours ago, Yekaterina said:

The Mauryans are currently too OP, mostly because of their worker elephant.

I agree with this statement. The Maurya tech tree is wide (good archer,good swordsman and good elephant) and their eco is unparalleled. The starting elephant is really good and lets you run away with an eco advantage. However limiting the worker elephant to its own territory takes away its uniqueness and that hurts the diversity.

 

7 hours ago, Grapjas said:

The ele is quite easily killed and really slow though, so it cant really escape

The maurya have an early eco advantage. That means that they can fuel an early army and if there is such an army, killing it will not be so easy.

Once again, my side is the one of wierd jokes. I also think that Maurya should not start with a worker elephant and that their cost should be increased (It´s an elephant, isn´t it?). You are in this case still able to do the same strategies, except that you need to pay an (increased) price to get the elephant.

[Grapjas]

Could also give the elephant a stockpile limit before it needs to return to base itself to drop it off. like 200 or something idk.

32 minutes ago, LetswaveaBook said:

The maurya have an early eco advantage

I'd say that really depends on the map. Anyway, if you snipe that elephant you would've taken away their advantage until p2 (if we simulate the idea with nescios patch in mind). 

[LetswaveaBook]

20 minutes ago, Grapjas said:

I'd say that really depends on the map. Anyway, if you snipe that elephant you would've taken away their advantage until p2

That comment honestly makes no sense.

Having a worker elephant is always an advantage, it saves you from building a drop-site and you can nicely put it right next to the berries for an early eco boost. Secondly, in a practical game, it is not so easy to snipe the elephant. Even if you snipe the elephant, the Maurya player has still been able to use it for a good amount of time.

[Grapjas]

5 minutes ago, LetswaveaBook said:

it saves you from building a drop-site and you can nicely put it right next to the berries for an early eco boost

You need both storehouse and farmstead sooner or later anyway for eco upgrades especially if you want to gather berries optimally. I'd say offbase res gathering (which is why i said depends on the map) is its strongpoint and helping to build aswell. Obviously the elephant is meant to be an advantage otherwise why do they have it? Deleting them means another unique civ unit is gone. 

8 minutes ago, LetswaveaBook said:

in a practical game, it is not so easy to snipe the elephant

Never said it was easy. Honestly i think you exaggerate the boom difference quite a bit imho, especially if we are talking about balanced maps. 

[wowgetoffyourcellphone]

11 hours ago, Nescio said:

Or remove the ability to train the worker elephant at the civic centre? Britons start with a war dof and Kushites start with a healer while those can't be trained at the civic centre.

Perhaps train them at the Storehouse, so the player is forced to build a Storehouse first.

EDIT:

Also,

1. Maybe reduce Worker Elephant health, so they can be sniped earlier

2. Maybe increase train time, so that they take longer to replace

3. Maybe take away 1 or more of the carry capacity techs. 

4. Or maybe increase pop cost of Worker Elephants.

Edited April 17, 2021 by wowgetoffyourcellphone

[Grapjas]

22 minutes ago, wowgetoffyourcellphone said:

Perhaps train them at the Storehouse, so the player is forced to build a Storehouse first

Could also just make them cost 100 wood along with their current food cost + "2. Maybe increase train time, so that they take longer to replace" .

But in this^ case i'd say the first one still needs to be free.

Edited April 17, 2021 by Grapjas

[Player of 0AD]

They should start without the bonus elephant and they should not train them in CCs

[nani]

Instead of trying to cripple the maury ele we could also add equally unique units for each civs so they have more variation. I'm sure the 0ad historians would have some interesting ideas, then the balance team could integrate them to the unit composition of each civ.

[hyperion]

I'd rather see Mauryans get a 50% health penalty for all units so they are bottom feeders if that means they keep the worker elephant, better even get the one from a23. Removing uniqueness with a24 didn't work out to better balance the civs. The difference is just which civ is in which bracket. And honestly the civs are plenty close enough in strength for my taste.

Also there are no statistics, if people are serious about balancing the first step should be to collect data properly. Loosing a game where my opponent used a worker elephant to collect resources near my territory is not what should motivate any changes at all.

[wowgetoffyourcellphone]

20 minutes ago, nani said:

Instead of trying to cripple the maury ele we could also add equally unique units for each civs so they have more variation. I'm sure the 0ad historians would have some interesting ideas, then the balance team could integrate them to the unit composition of each civ.

Indeed. My preference would be to boost the other civs, not nerf Mauryas. That said, it's possible to nerf the Worker Elephant slightly without overdoing it. I think requiring a Storehouse first or other such thing wouldn't automatically "cripple" the ele. Simply removing the free one at start might be enough.

[Yekaterina]

When there is enough resources (good woodline, even metal distribution) everything works well and the worker elephant is no problem. However, the elephant becomes OP in savanna biome, Persian Highlands and Anatonlian Plateau, because other civs need to spend their already little wood on more storehouses whereas Mauryans can just move their elephant. Ptolemies have an advantage as well because of cheap storehouses. To compensate we can:

1. Give other civs some sort of collection bonus in these maps

2. Ban these maps

3. Balanced resource distribution on Mainland. Today when I played with weirdJokes I had 4 extra berry patches but only 2 small woodlines. He had no extra berries but plenty of wood and 2 extra stone mines. 

4. Nerf the Mauryan elephant: health=5 (same as a chicken), each player can only have 1 elephant that is trained from a storehouse. Elephants cost wood. 

[wowgetoffyourcellphone]

Remove the Wheelbarrow and Handcart upgrades for Mauryas? 

[Dizaka]

Let's neuter Maury (worker elephant) like Romans were neutered (catapults/encampments).

Better yet.  Delete all civs and copy/paste Britons and rename all units with unique names.  This way no civ has a unique advntage over another - in the name of balance.

If anything, @wowgetoffyourcellphone has a more reasonable suggestion.

Edited April 18, 2021 by Dizaka

[Alar1k]

I wouldn't say that worker elephant is the problem because if we remember a23 - nobody was saying "mauri too op bla bla" even tho back then those worker ele could also build as well as be a dropsite at the same time - the balance issue is not the worker elephant but other things like making archers destroy siege engines, giving rams and siege production buildings to all civs for the sake of balance

If Kushite can start with a priest and britons with a dog - why don't add something to others civs to start as well (carthage can make trade ships on p1 for example, and nobody minds that...) - athen/sparta/mace can start with extra sheep for example (like corral sheep controlable animal for scout and food)

[Nescio]

For the record, the worker elephant was actually considered not that great in A23 and made cheaper and trained more quickly in A24, but also easier to kill to compensate; see https://code.wildfiregames.com/D2852

[hyperion]

If you don't want luck to play a minor role don't use random civ or random map. Also winning or loosing is a minor matter as long as the game is fun to play.

[seeh]

26 minutes ago, hyperion said:

If you don't want luck to play a minor role don't use random civ or random map. Also winning or loosing is a minor matter as long as the game is fun to play.

or/and set same civ for all