Capturing enemy / gaia units and capturing gaia elephants

[Yekaterina]

In the summaries for each game there is always an 'unit captured' list but it is always empty, because the game currently does not allow units to be captured. Clearly the ancient devs wanted to implement such a feature but never managed to do it (or it was removed for some reason).  To make this column not obsolete I have the following proposals:

1. Allow Carthaginians to capture gaia elephants and then upgrade them into war elephants at the cost of some metal and time. I believe they actually did this. 

2. Allow enemy mercenaries and auxiliaries to be captured. Traditionally mercenaries were never loyal and would defect to whoever gives them higher pay, and riot when there is no war.

3. Allow gaia  women and gaia troops to be captured. 

I have already made a mod that does this. But I would also like to consult our balancing advisors. I know weirdJokes is very against this idea, but I would like to hear from others as well. 

@Lion.Kanzen @BreakfastBurrito_007 @maroder @LetswaveaBook@nani @chrstgtr 

Also any suggestions from our historians would be helpful @Thorfinn the Shallow Minded

[chrstgtr]

It was removed in a24. You used to be able to capture bolts/cata. It was a nice feature that I miss. 
 

Many people have discussed the desire to capture ele, and I believe it is widely supported. Not sure why it isn’t allowed. 
 

I hadn’t thought of it before, but making mercs bribable is a cool idea. It would need to be costly to avoid making it OP. 
 

I don’t like Gaia troops ever being on maps—I prefer to play with people 

[Yekaterina]

13 minutes ago, chrstgtr said:

I don’t like Gaia troops ever being on maps—I prefer to play with people 

I agree. In some maps gaia rush you very early on and the mvp became gaia. 

14 minutes ago, chrstgtr said:

I hadn’t thought of it before, but making mercs bribable is a cool idea. It would need to be costly to avoid making it OP. 

We can give mercs a high capture point, so your soldiers need to wave at them for quite long. When a merc is being captured it would think that you are attacking him so he will attack you back. I guess this evens things out. Same applies for elephant. If you try to capture an elephant it will get angry. 

[chrstgtr]

14 minutes ago, Yekaterina said:

We can give mercs a high capture point, so your soldiers need to wave at them for quite long. When a merc is being captured it would think that you are attacking him so he will attack you back. I guess this evens things out. Same applies for elephant. If you try to capture an elephant it will get angry. 

Or just make them bribable much like the way spies work now. It seems more realistic and less Ptolemaic (the astronomer, not the civ). 

—————

 

we could also introduce a new type of offensive priest that converts units. 

[Lopess]

I always missed a more interesting dynamic when capturing an enemy CC, such as unlocking a local troop.

For example, when capturing a cc from a Greek civilization, it is possible to train a number of Greek Hoplilite mercenaries.

I always missed a more interesting dynamic when capturing an enemy CC, such as unlocking a local troop.

For example, when capturing a cc from a Greek civilization, it is possible to train a number of Greek Hoplilite mercenaries.

[Yekaterina]

13 minutes ago, chrstgtr said:

we could also introduce a new type of offensive priest that converts units.

Nice idea! I was thinking about an elephant trainer unit for Carthaginians. 

[Gurken Khan]

14 minutes ago, chrstgtr said:

Or just make them bribable much like the way spies work now.

You want to bribe the eles??? ;P

14 minutes ago, chrstgtr said:

we could also introduce a new type of offensive priest that converts units. 

wolololo ftw!

12 minutes ago, Lopess said:

I always missed a more interesting dynamic when capturing an enemy CC, such as unlocking a local troop.

That would be nice. I think it's even worse now that you often can't even train the troops you can train from the CCs you built yourself.

[Yekaterina]

11 minutes ago, Lopess said:

I always missed a more interesting dynamic when capturing an enemy CC, such as unlocking a local troop.

For example, when capturing a cc from a Greek civilization, it is possible to train a number of Greek Hoplilite mercenaries.

I always missed a more interesting dynamic when capturing an enemy CC, such as unlocking a local troop.

For example, when capturing a cc from a Greek civilization, it is possible to train a number of Greek Hoplilite mercenaries.

That is easy to implement, it is just some xml trickery. Currently in the Athenian CC xml template:

  <ProductionQueue>
    <Entities datatype="tokens">
      units/{civ}/infantry_spearman_b
      units/{civ}/infantry_slinger_b
      units/{civ}/cavalry_javelineer_b
    </Entities>
  </ProductionQueue>

{civ} will be filled out as the current owner's civ. This means if you don't have infantry spearman in your civ then you won't get any infantry spearman out of the captured Athenian cc. For example, if a Macedonian player captured an Athenian CC then they will get only a Mercenary Slinger and a Mercenary Cavalry javelineer out of the CC. 

To fix this, we replace {civ} with athen:

  <ProductionQueue>
    <Entities datatype="tokens">
      units/athen/infantry_spearman_b
      units/athen/infantry_slinger_b
      units/athen/cavalry_javelineer_b
    </Entities>
  </ProductionQueue>

 

In this case no matter who captured this CC they will always get Athenian units out of it. This might not be ideal though.

[wowgetoffyourcellphone]

1 hour ago, chrstgtr said:

I don’t like Gaia troops ever being on maps—I prefer to play with people 

Boy, you must really hate wolves and lions!

[PyrrhicVictoryGuy]

1 hour ago, Yekaterina said:

 

1. Allow Carthaginians to capture gaia elephants and then upgrade them into war elephants at the cost of some metal and time. I believe they actually did this. 

2. Allow enemy mercenaries and auxiliaries to be captured. Traditionally mercenaries were never loyal and would defect to whoever gives them higher pay, and riot when there is no war.

 

 

Bad ideas. Makes mercs even more of a liability and gives elephant civs free elephants.

27 minutes ago, Lopess said:

I always missed a more interesting dynamic when capturing an enemy CC, such as unlocking a local troop.

For example, when capturing a cc from a Greek civilization, it is possible to train a number of Greek Hoplilite mercenaries.

I always missed a more interesting dynamic when capturing an enemy CC, such as unlocking a local troop.

For example, when capturing a cc from a Greek civilization, it is possible to train a number of Greek Hoplilite mercenaries.

Irrelevant as mercs are useless and you almost never capture an enemy CC.

 

33 minutes ago, chrstgtr said:

we could also introduce a new type of offensive priest that converts units. 

Depends on the civ.

[maroder]

I like the idea to convert mercenaries for money. see here for a concept mod: 

I also like capturing of eles. imo they could have a much more interesting dynamic.

27 minutes ago, PyrrhicVictoryGuy said:

Bad ideas. Makes mercs even more of a liability and gives elephant civs free elephants.

Disagree. You can change the usefulness of mercs to accommodate such a mechanic (and not to forget that there already have been huge changes to the mercs for a25).

For the eles: yeah that is a concern, but there are surely ways to make it not too op.

 

 

[PyrrhicVictoryGuy]

7 minutes ago, maroder said:

I like the idea to convert mercenaries for money. see here for a concept mod: 

I also like capturing of eles. imo they could have a much more interesting dynamic.

Disagree. You can change the usefulness of mercs to accommodate such a mechanic (and not to forget that there already have been huge changes to the mercs for a25).

For the eles: yeah that is a concern, but there are surely ways to make it not too op.

 

 

Reports from testers indicate mercs are not useful enough in A25. Nor will they ever be if citizen soldiers train time drecreases further as mercs can only be cost-effective when both sides have rougly the same ammount of troops and there are few on each side. As for the elephants, their stats could be worse than the normal champion elelphant sure.

[Yekaterina]

1 hour ago, PyrrhicVictoryGuy said:

Makes mercs even more of a liability and gives elephant civs free elephants.

Well, we could let all civs capture elephants (that is easier for me to program  ). But to convert a gaia ele to a proper war elephant we can make it very costly in time, so that you cannot mass to many elephants all at once. 

1 hour ago, maroder said:

Disagree. You can change the usefulness of mercs to accommodate such a mechanic (and not to forget that there already have been huge changes to the mercs for a25).

True. I guess I will leave mercs alone for now. But their huge metal cost discourages me from using them. 

[Lopess]

2 hours ago, PyrrhicVictoryGuy said:

Irrelevant as mercs are useless and you almost never capture an enemy CC.

 

I don't really care how common it is currently to capture a cc (nothing in this life is written in stone), but add a more interesting dynamic to it (which ends up not running away from the reality that when you captured a people you tried to make the most of it of vantage and labor), a current fact is that capturing a CC is an investment of troops and time, making it easier to simply destroy everything. My biggest fear is how this might affect the multiplayer community which ends up being the last word in changes of this type in 0ad.

[PyrrhicVictoryGuy]

Well I think it wouldn't change the multiplayer scene that much.

[Lion.Kanzen]

2 hours ago, Lopess said:

I always missed a more interesting dynamic when capturing an enemy CC, such as unlocking a local troop

that created a hybrid civilization for them,then they removed it.

[Lion.Kanzen]

 

___________

New dynamics are required for mercenaries.

 

One of those is training in captured buildings, another would be hybridization.

An evolution of a unit if you mix 2 cultures like a Persian pikemen under Alexander.

There are many factions that mixed their troops, several Hellenistic took Roman-style warriors and in other cases Eastern cavalry.

[Lion.Kanzen]

In some cases, from being mercenaries they became auxiliaries, you have to define that in terms of the game.

"auxiliary recruits were mostly volunteers, not conscripts."

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Auxilia

[Lopess]

16 minutes ago, Lion.Kanzen said:

In some cases, from being mercenaries they became auxiliaries, you have to define that in terms of the game.

"auxiliary recruits were mostly volunteers, not conscripts."

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Auxilia

 

 It would really be something like this, the name mercenary was what I found the closest in current reality (0ad). The fact is that after a conquest most of the time the conquered tries to bring to himself most of the good conquered warriors the rule was that, the extermination that was the exception. We currently exterminate even the innocent and defenseless enemy wheat fields even after destroying their cc.

[Yekaterina]

3 hours ago, Lion.Kanzen said:

One of those is training in captured buildings, another would be hybridization.

An evolution of a unit if you mix 2 cultures like a Persian pikemen under Alexander.

There are many factions that mixed their troops, several Hellenistic took Roman-style warriors and in other cases Eastern cavalry.

if I understood that correctly, you want to train other people's mercenaries from the structures that you conquered? The programming is trivial but this might upset the balancing advisors. 

Logically it makes sense as mercs just go to whoever pays them the most. 

[Lion.Kanzen]

19 minutes ago, Yekaterina said:

if I understood that correctly, you want to train other people's mercenaries from the structures that you conquered? The programming is trivial but this might upset the balancing advisors. 

Logically it makes sense as mercs just go to whoever pays them the most. 

if it depends on the culture, also cultures with mercenaries and cultures that train auxiliaries.

 

I say we divide mercenaries into mercenaries (current) and volunteers from non-integrated cultures that cost less.

 

It would be 2 proposals.

[soloooy0]

this theme gives more options to certain factions, especially Carthage.
what if when Carthage: captures an Iberian, Roman or Celtic barracks/stable, it can make mercenary troops from those buildings, instead of regular troops or both? 
with elephants unless it is a hero or special troop, capable of capturing GAIA elephants, in team games, it can be very OP...
 

[Yekaterina]

3 minutes ago, soloooy0 said:

with elephants unless it is a hero or special troop, capable of capturing GAIA elephants, in team games, it can be very OP...

I am thinking about a special unit with the single purpose of capturing elephants. This unit is able to dodge angry elephants and capture it from a distance, meanwhile it cannot engage in any other combat. 

[Yekaterina]

4 minutes ago, soloooy0 said:

this theme gives more options to certain factions, especially Carthage.
what if when Carthage: captures an Iberian, Roman or Celtic barracks/stable, it can make mercenary troops from those buildings, instead of regular troops or both? 

Yeah I intended to make Carthage OP  

Well, we can allow them to train mercs from embassies and citizen soldiers from captured enemy barracks. In the Carthaginian templates all of the mercenary units have different names compared to regular citizen infantry so it shouldn't be too much of a problem. 

[Ceres]

If I may chime in: When talking about capturing other civs' units, how do you feel about giving control over an allied civ's units? With 'diaspora', the player can use his allies' discharge points. Transferred to units, player A sends some units to B but is very occupied in some other corner of the map and could give B control of A's (selected) units. Is that too complicated to accomplish or would it be bad for the balance, or are there other concerns you have? Sorry, if this is too OT here.