All Civilizations are my favorite.

[wowgetoffyourcellphone]

When designing civs (or redesigning them), I think the focus should not just be on balance, but to make each civ "Favorite Worthy." What I mean is, each civ should have aspects that make it unique, fun, and cool enough to make stand out and make it worthy of vying for the community's "favorite" civ. In a "tier list" ideally it should be a struggle to decide which civ should be knocked down to a 'C'. They should all be clustered at B, A, and S. 

Some ideas:

General

• Remove champion "unlock" techs and move them back to Fortress unless otherwise stated.
• Move Heroes to Civic Center unless otherwise stated.
• All Citizen-Soldiers types in every civ have Rank Promotion technologies up to Advanced. 
  • Exceptions
    • 1 type of Citizen-Soldier per civ will have an additional promotion tech up to Elite.
    • 1 type of Citizen-Soldier per civ will have no promotion techs.
• Unless otherwise stated, all civs retain their current bonuses and technologies.

Athenians

• Retool the "Delian League" team bonus.
  • All allies can train the Delian Marine from their Dock.
  • -20% build time for all Ships and Boats.
  • -20% research time for all Dock Technologies.
• "Painted Stoa" structure (build limit: 1), which grants the "Greek Architecture" aura (Buildings +20% health).
  • Remove the "Greek Architecture" bonus from all other Greek civs.
• Heroes trained instantly at the Prytaneion (not Civic Center).
• Gymnaseion
  • Replaces the Barracks
    • Larger footprint and +20% greater health.
    • Slightly more expensive.
  • Trains "Hoplite" Citizen-Infantry and Champion Infantry "City Guard."
• Archery Range available to train Athenian Militia Slinger, Cretan Mercenary Archer, and Thracian Peltast.
• "Scythian Archer" Champion Infantry trained at the Fortress.

Britons

• Chariots
  • Available from Town Phase, after researching unlocking tech.
  • When "killed", the Javelineer rider jumps off and continues to battle (until he too is killed)
  • Slightly underpowered in Town Phase, but has a City Phase upgrade "Reinforced Undercarriage" which makes them extra stronk.
• Add Infantry Swordsman to the citizen soldier roster, available in Town Phase.
• Reimplement the Population Bonus special for their buildings, but at +1 population, instead of the old +2.

Carthaginians

• Embassies "unlock" ethnic mercenaries at the Barracks, Stable, and Range.
• War Elephants have a "Tower" upgrade, which adds a Howdah prop to them.
• Cothon Shipyard shoots arrows.
• A fourth hero can be "Xanthippus of Sparta", who specifically boosts mercenaries.
• A 3rd champion, available at the Fortress: "Veteran African Infantry", a champion swordsman with a mix of Carthaginian and Roman equipment.
• "Sacred Band" champions still trained at the Temple.

Gauls

• Give them a cheap Infantry Archer, "Gallic Hunter," available in Town Phase.
• Add Infantry Swordsman to the citizen soldier roster, available in Village Phase.
• Carnyx Trumpeter should have a "Horn Blow" special ability that temporarily improves attack of nearby Gallic troops. This is automatically done every 2 minutes in battle, but can be manually activated by the player every 1 minute.

Iberians

• Keep the free starting walls, but remove the free gates (just have openings; the player can close them with fresh walls and gates if they wish).
• Allow the Monument to be built anywhere, even in enemy territory.
• "Burning Pitch" technology allows players to toggle javelin-throwing units between regular (anti-infantry) and burning (anti-structure) javelins.
• "Horse Country" tech at the Corral, for another -10% cavalry training time.
• Champion Infantry and Champion Cavalry can swap between Sword and Javelin.

Kushites

• Give them a free Sanga Cattle at the start of the match.
• A new "Extensive Husbandry" tech at the Corral makes training animals faster.
• "Iron Smelting" tech makes Forges and Forge Technologies a lot cheaper and faster.
• "Iron Exports" makes bartering for Metal at the Market more profitable.

Macedonians

• Barracks
  • New "Royal Barracks" upgrade for individual Barracks in the City Phase.
    • +50% Health to the upgraded Barracks.
    • Can train Elite Phalangites and Champion Hypaspists.
• Stables
  • New "Royal Stables" upgrade for individual Stables in City Phase.
    • +50% Health to the upgraded Stable.
    • Can train Elite Thessalian Cavalry and Champion Companion Cavalry.
• A 4th hero "General Craterus" boosts Phalangites specifically.
• "Naval Arms Race" technology unlocks the "Hexeres" heavy warship for the Macedonians.

Mauryas

• Remove Population Cap civ bonus, but...
• Citizen-Infantry.
  • Bonus: 0.5 population cost
  • Bonus: -50% train time
  • Bonus: -25% resource cost
  • Penalty: -50% gathering rate
  • Penalty: -50% health
  • Penalty: -25% attack 
• Worker Elephant can construct buildings again.
• Maiden Guards can swap from bow to sword.
• Mauryas receive a free Palace at the beginning of the match.
• The hero Chanakya can be trained in tandem with the other heroes (he doesn't count toward the "hero" training limit)
• 4th Maurya hero "Bindusara." 

Persians

• Keep Population Cap civ bonus.
• Organic units start out with -15% health and -10% train time.
• Receive a free "Yakchal" Ice House at the start of the match for a +5% health bonus to units.
  • Build up to 4 more Ice Houses for additional +5% health boosts for each one built.
  • They get more expensive for each one built.

Ptolemies

• "Syncretism" special technology in Town Phase.
  • Allows Priests the ability to build the "Isis Statue" and "Serapis Statue."
  • Isis Statue
    • Short-range Aura: Nearby Gatherers +20% gather rates
  • Serapis Statue
    • Long-range Aura: Nearby Units +10% health
• "Lighthouse of Alexandria" is a 2nd Wonder
  • Player can still only choose to build 1 Wonder, but the Lighthouse can be built on the shore and gives a large vision range.
  • "Temple of Edfu" would be the option to build on a non-water map.

Romans

• An extra big House available in City Phase called the Insula ("Tenement Building")
  • Population Bonus: 20 (plus house pop techs)
• Triarius trained at Elite rank (no promotion techs necessary).
• 2nd Team Bonus
  • "Socii Allies"
    • Allied Soldiers +10% attack within range of a Roman Civic Center or Army Camp.

Seleucids

• Very much the same as they are now, except...
  • Given back their Library.

Spartans

• Team bonus now applies to all Melee Infantry (not just Spear Infantry).
• "Sysition" replaces the Barracks.
  • "Hoplite" Citizen-Soldier, Champion Infantry "Spartiates," and Spartan Heroes all trained here.
• The "Helot Practice Range"
  • Archery Range class building
  • Trains Helot Skirmisher and Helot Slinger
  • "Helot Emancipation" technology unlocks the ability for Helot units to upgrade individually to Light Hoplites.
• New "Helot" support units
  • Cannot construct buildings, but...
  • +25% resource gathering ability over Female Citizens.
  • Can be captured by other players

Edited September 13, 2021 by wowgetoffyourcellphone

[MoLAoS]

I don't know about specifics of each bonus but I agree with the idea in general. You can't keep every Civ balanced but giving them truly distinct flavor is totally doable and trying to keep the unbalanced civs at like 2-3.

[BreakfastBurrito_007]

I like the visions for the civs, to give them all some unique mechanics. I am particularly interested in this in the shorter term however:
 

3 hours ago, wowgetoffyourcellphone said:

All Citizen-Soldiers types in every civ have Rank Promotion technologies up to Advanced. 

• Exceptions
  • 1 type of Citizen-Soldier per civ will have an additional promotion tech up to Elite.
  • 1 type of Citizen-Soldier per civ will have no promotion techs.

 

I like this idea, and I feel these upgrades should be more expensive than regular blacksmith upgrades especially the one for elite rank (assuming its the same as "veteran" rank). Perhaps the "elite" upgrade would be more expensive, and add a 10 metal cost to the unit. 

[Thorfinn the Shallow Minded]

There are a few minor quibbles here and there, but as a whole it seems good.  Is there any reason that the Seleucids remain unchanged aside from the library?

Edited September 13, 2021 by Thorfinn the Shallow Minded

[alre]

seleucids are not wow's favourite

serious edit: maurya are quite a bit too skewed, and in general differentiation is nice if geared towards preferences and play stiles, what are those here for each civ? I suspect this rework is simply going to turn into some civ being OP and the others being sub-par because some particular combination of boni turns out to be simply too effective in building up a good army quickly, which is how the game works now.

nice ideas though, I like the persian ice houses. very pretty. 

Edited September 13, 2021 by alre

[Phalanx]

1 hour ago, alre said:

I suspect this rework is simply going to turn into some civ being OP and the others being sub-par because some particular combination of boni turns out to be simply too effective in building up a good army quickly, which is how the game works now.

 

Imo, if the game is already setup with op civs, then we've got nothing to lose from this XD

 

I think this is a great idea. Making factions more diverse and interesting and unique is something I'd been pushing for many alphas back, but now that the game is in a more solid state, I agree that this is now the time we start to look at actually making the civs unique!

1 hour ago, alre said:

seleucids are not wow's favourite

They might not be his, but they are mine! I think that the Daphne Parade tech should work as a mass unit upgrade, or make Seleucid upgraded units be slightly more powerful (slightly bigger state changes for upgrades) but more expensive than other factions.  Really cement them as a professional, but expensive army.

[wowgetoffyourcellphone]

Well, as far as Seleucids go, I just ran out of ideas for them. They are definitely one of my 13 favorite civs though.

Entertaining ideas for them. 

[BreakfastBurrito_007]

On 12/09/2021 at 4:46 PM, wowgetoffyourcellphone said:

• Remove champion "unlock" techs and move them back to Fortress unless otherwise stated.
• Move Heroes to Civic Center unless otherwise stated.
• All Citizen-Soldiers types in every civ have Rank Promotion technologies up to Advanced. 
  • Exceptions
    • 1 type of Citizen-Soldier per civ will have an additional promotion tech up to Elite.
    • 1 type of Citizen-Soldier per civ will have no promotion techs.
• Unless otherwise stated, all civs retain their current bonuses and technologies.

I think this (rank upgrades) is a great dimension to add to the game. It can go some lengths to distinguish booming versus military empowerment. 

I think there should be a longer term economic cost to these upgrades, and it I wonder if you would support the possibility that getting all of these upgrades for all units is actually a strategic failure. rank 2/3 units get worse at gathering, and an enemies rank 2/3 unit composition is beating your rank 2/3 composition, but your units in your base gathering res are also rank 2, so you are losing overall.

I have been wondering what these Advanced, and Elite upgrades should cost:

• Advanced: 300 food 300 wood 200 metal 1:45 research time, adds 5 metal cost (and +25 food for cav) to unit and 10% training time
• Elite: 500 food 500 wood 500 metal 2:00 research time, adds another 10 metal cost (and +40 food for cav) to unit and further 20% training time

This adds the economic question for the player: do I want to get blacksmith upgrades, postpone the choices for advanced/elite upgrades, and maintain my eco, or do I want to get this upgrade that empowers my units, but add an economic liability to them. Getting these upgrades is basically a "bet" on that unit, and since the upgrade has a long time to research, the timing could be complicated, so you could not always get it as an emergency reaction.

Should any civs get a p1 advanced rank upgrade, or would this be to easy to do a rush with, despite the large cost and economic situation?

My thinking is that champions could stay being trained at barracks, but upgrade to enable it could add some extra food and some metal and stone cost, by default train at fort with no unlock. I certainly agree that in a25 it is too easy to mass champions at a sudden time, but I think there should be a way to go: non-rank-upgraded CS, +champions strategy.

@Dizaka @chrstgtr @ValihrAnt @Palaiologos @LetswaveaBook what do you think about @wowgetoffyourcellphone's concept, and my ideas on those upgrades?

 

Edited September 28, 2021 by BreakfastBurrito_007

[wowgetoffyourcellphone]

I personally don't like long research times, but longer than the standard 40 seconds would be good. In DE, upgrading ranks adds extra cost to most of the units, so I for sure agree with that element. Perhaps additional train time would be enough. We could "self balance" Blacksmith techs by making them a little cheaper but add extra cost to the soldiers they affect. 

I think the Elite upgrades would be reserved for those units that civ is known for. Hoplites for Greek civs, Archers or Cavalry for Persians, Swordsmen for Romans, etc.

[BreakfastBurrito_007]

18 minutes ago, wowgetoffyourcellphone said:

We could "self balance" Blacksmith techs by making them a little cheaper but add extra cost to the soldiers they affect. 

I feel that adding upgrade based unit cost to the blacksmith would lead to the blacksmith losing some of its distinction from the other type of upgrades (the rank ones). There are a multitude of upgrades in the blacksmith, and those upgrades affect multiple units, so the units could get a bit economically unpredictable.

If the blacksmith upgrades add cost to the unit, then I predict one of two things will happen:

• people will swallow the cost and just get all the upgrades anyway.
• people will be confused as to which upgrades to get to avoid cost increases on particular units.

I think the blacksmith should remain an economically safe upgrade tool, if you know what I mean, with the hard choices lying with the (rank techs).

The main reason I put those long research times was to prevent those techs from saving people who are in the process of losing. I think it should be a tool of strategy and not a crutch.

 

Edited September 28, 2021 by BreakfastBurrito_007

[Phalanx]

Heres an idea that could possibly be more engaging for the player: Make a new building that is a small training area with dummies and stuff like that.  So currently units can be garrisoned in a barracks to gain levels, but that is not very engaging, the player doesn't SEE this happening. So a training area building with say, 10 training posts. Citizen soldiers can be tasked on these buildings and will gain xp while visibly attacking the dummies and training.  So then training and level techs can have a place in this new training area that increase training speed or maybe even increase max level. For example, say that you can't train a unit to elite level at the training arena without a city phase level tech, or what have you.  

Basically its a more engaging way to show unit training as opposed to just hiding them in the barracks, and provides a building specifically for training techs and more accentuates the fact that training is an option for players.  Because the fact that you can garrison units in the barracks to train is not really readily understandable to a new player.

[vv221]

3 hours ago, Phalanx said:

Because the fact that you can garrison units in the barracks to train is not really readily understandable to a new player.

I actually had no idea this was a thing

To be fair I’m back to 0 A.D. after quite a while not following any news about it, so I might have missed this addition.

[Radiotraining]

1 hour ago, vv221 said:

I actually had no idea this was a thing

To be fair I’m back to 0 A.D. after quite a while not following any news about it, so I might have missed this addition.

maybe a shorthand solution for this case could be a tech "training" to be unlocked in the barracks, so it requires a deliberate choice from the user, making it obvious at that point.

As a feedback to the previous comment, to be honest I personally can't imagine much to build a structure only dedicated for training. I mean, maybe could be useful to differentiate from the barracks and perhaps add some new tech and features, but it sounds quite a bit of extra work in terms of design and animation for each faction and it would still have some "passive" role, since you just station soldiers in it and wait. Is great visually tho! that's for sure

Edited October 6, 2021 by Radiotraining

[Gurken Khan]

31 minutes ago, Radiotraining said:

maybe a shorthand solution for this case could be a tech "training" to be unlocked in the barracks, so it requires a deliberate choice from the user, making it obvious at that point.

If a player can't be bothered to look at the tooltips in a strategy game, how much handholding do you want to do?

[alre]

such building could simply take the place of barracks, that are quite anachronistic, since people in antiquity would generally train for war in the open, often not away from home. just saying.

[Radiotraining]

29 minutes ago, Gurken Khan said:

If a player can't be bothered to look at the tooltips in a strategy game, how much handholding do you want to do?

ehehehe you're also right .. it was only a simple suggestion off the top of my head

 

Maybe I would add that "unlocking" it could add that little engagement with the action, otherwise purely passive and automatic. It would become then a choice. But yeah, is totally not necessary if too redundant

Edited October 6, 2021 by Radiotraining

[BreakfastBurrito_007]

6 hours ago, Phalanx said:

Heres an idea that could possibly be more engaging for the player: Make a new building that is a small training area with dummies and stuff like that.  So currently units can be garrisoned in a barracks to gain levels, but that is not very engaging, the player doesn't SEE this happening. So a training area building with say, 10 training posts. Citizen soldiers can be tasked on these buildings and will gain xp while visibly attacking the dummies and training.  So then training and level techs can have a place in this new training area that increase training speed or maybe even increase max level. For example, say that you can't train a unit to elite level at the training arena without a city phase level tech, or what have you.  

Basically its a more engaging way to show unit training as opposed to just hiding them in the barracks, and provides a building specifically for training techs and more accentuates the fact that training is an option for players.  Because the fact that you can garrison units in the barracks to train is not really readily understandable to a new player.

People have been trying to bridge the gap between champions and CS for a long time. I think this is necessary because not all civs will have a champion counter to an enemy champion unit. If a player is able to "invest" in their CS, then there is more room for military unit improvement beyond the robotic purchase of all the blacksmith upgrades. 

I liked @wowgetoffyourcellphone's idea because of the way you could choose a unit to upgrade and because of its ability to help differentiate civs. Also, if you wanted to go back to training rank 1 units for eco, you could not.

I must say that I like this idea more, because it is a more direct player choice that "adds" training onto units after they come out of production building. There is much less abusability with this mechanism than with purchasing a rank 2 or rank 3 upgrade that then affects the unit cost. A player could get all the units and then purchase the upgrades, so they would then have a powerful army without having to pay very much of the rank 2-altered unit cost.

I have a few issues with barracks/stable unit training. It is a slow mechanic that has no extra cost and makes players lazy with how they upgrade their units. It is rarely used, and it is also hard to tell how much xp/rank the units inside have gained.

Some ideas of mine about the training building:

• 3 facilities: cavalry training, ranged infantry training, melee infantry training. 300 stone 300 wood cost and footprint size of military colony.
• All civs should have access to these but they should have different amounts of available rank limits for different units. 
• garrison limit of 20, garrisoned units train
• rank 3 limit should be allowed in phase 3 unless it could become unique ability of some civ(s)
• rate food cost per unit they gotta eat more while training) flat metal cost for operating whole facility (paying the instructors).
• rank 1-->2 food rate per unit:0.25 food/s. rank 2-->3: 0.5 food/s. instructor cost for rank 1-->2 and 2-->3 5 metal per second (cavalry have double the food rate cost)
• rank 0 to rank 1 in 45s, rank 2 to 3 in 1.5 minute (half-upgraded units stop early, but do not effect cost rates)
• garrison units (all of 1 type) click train button, they go to next rank (some kind of applause sound when they are done training)
• healers and elephants would garrison in their own training buildings (maybe change garrison limit for ele stable) and require 10 metal cost per second per facility as well as 2 food per second per unit cost.
• ideas for civ bonuses: reduced time to train, buildable in phase 1, some civ has 1.5x garrison space per training building

 

I feel this would be a great macro element to add to the game and give players a lot of opportunities to use this for a variety of strategies. It would also help bridge the power divide between champions and CS. 

@RadiotrainingTo be fair, I don't see the need to have special building animations per unit. The artwork could just mean taking a stable or barracks, enlarging it, and adding some key distinguishing features.

Edited October 6, 2021 by BreakfastBurrito_007

[BreakfastBurrito_007]

44 minutes ago, alre said:

such building could simply take the place of barracks, that are quite anachronistic, since people in antiquity would generally train for war in the open, often not away from home. just saying.

These would probably be people who are interested in war, like champions, heros, gladiators, not ordinary citizens who see no reason to be a warrior. For example, I am not preparing for world war 3 right now. Ordinary people would be forced into service and told how to use a weapon, perhaps receive some group training. 

Barracks/ stable is just a convenient way to show military unit creation. Because of this, I think it is quite reasonable historically to have a training area, even if these would be makeshift in real life and not dedicated facilities.

 

 

Edited October 6, 2021 by BreakfastBurrito_007

[BreakfastBurrito_007]

18 minutes ago, BreakfastBurrito_007 said:

People have been trying to bridge the gap between champions and CS for a long time. I think this is necessary because not all civs will have a champion counter to an enemy champion unit. If a player is able to "invest" in their CS, then there is more room for military unit improvement beyond the robotic purchase of all the blacksmith upgrades. 

I liked @wowgetoffyourcellphone's idea because of the way you could choose a unit to upgrade and because of its ability to help differentiate civs. Also, if you wanted to go back to training rank 1 units for eco, you could not.

I must say that I like this idea more, because it is a more direct player choice that "adds" training onto units after they come out of production building. There is much less abusability with this mechanism than with purchasing a rank 2 or rank 3 upgrade that then affects the unit cost. A player could get all the units and then purchase the upgrades, so they would then have a powerful army without having to pay very much of the rank 2-altered unit cost.

I have a few issues with barracks/stable unit training. It is a slow mechanic that has no extra cost and makes players lazy with how they upgrade their units. It is rarely used, and it is also hard to tell how much xp/rank the units inside have gained.

Some ideas of mine about the training building:

• 3 facilities: cavalry training, ranged infantry training, melee infantry training. 300 stone 300 wood cost and footprint size of military colony.
• All civs should have access to these but they should have different amounts of available rank limits for different units. 
• garrison limit of 20, garrisoned units train
• rank 3 limit should be allowed in phase 3 unless it could become unique ability of some civ(s)
• rate food cost per unit they gotta eat more while training) flat metal cost for operating whole facility (paying the instructors).
• rank 1-->2 food rate per unit:0.25 food/s. rank 2-->3: 0.5 food/s. instructor cost for rank 1-->2 and 2-->3 5 metal per second (cavalry have double the food rate cost)
• rank 0 to rank 1 in 45s, rank 2 to 3 in 1.5 minute (half-upgraded units stop early, but do not effect cost rates)
• garrison units (all of 1 type) click train button, they go to next rank (some kind of applause sound when they are done training)
• healers and elephants would garrison in their own training buildings (maybe change garrison limit for ele stable) and require 10 metal cost per second per facility as well as 2 food per second per unit cost.
• ideas for civ bonuses: reduced time to train, buildable in phase 1, some civ has 1.5x garrison space per training building

 

I feel this would be a great macro element to add to the game and give players a lot of opportunities to use this for a variety of strategies. It would also help bridge the power divide between champions and CS. 

@RadiotrainingTo be fair, I don't see the need to have special building animations per unit. The artwork could just mean taking a stable or barracks, enlarging it, and adding some key distinguishing features.

@Dizaka @chrstgtr@ValihrAnt@Yekaterina@borg- @Palaiologos What do you think? could this be a good feature that you would imagine using?

[LetswaveaBook]

1 hour ago, BreakfastBurrito_007 said:

I have a few issues with barracks/stable unit training. It is a slow mechanic that has no extra cost and makes players lazy with how they upgrade their units. It is rarely used, and it is also hard to tell how much xp/rank the units inside have gained.

The problem with it being hard to tell how much rank units have gained would be easy to solve. If you select the barracks, you see the different unit types. By making it such that a rank 3 unit would be regarded as a different unit, this problem would be (partially) solved.

It is indeed a slow mechanic. A nice experiment is the reduced xp for hoplites currently granted by the hoplite tradition tech. That means hoplites promote twice as fast. So by garrisoning your hoplites for 100 seconds, you get it from 0 xp to rank3. However I think it is most often better to have your hoplites work for 100 seconds. However for hoplites, it is not the worst thing you could do and players could experiment with this.

Also when I rushed a bit and at the moment I considered that my cavalry would no longer be able to cause casualties, I tried during some game to garrison them. The cavalry gain about 25% in value after 150 seconds of garrisoning, which seems as efficient as hunting in the middle of the map. Though garrisoning for xp seems reasonable, in many cases in hindsight it would have been better to have them patrol (or hunt) in the neutral territory to spot any attacks or expansions.

[BreakfastBurrito_007]

5 hours ago, LetswaveaBook said:

Also when I rushed a bit and at the moment I considered that my cavalry would no longer be able to cause casualties, I tried during some game to garrison them. The cavalry gain about 25% in value after 150 seconds of garrisoning, which seems as efficient as hunting in the middle of the map. Though garrisoning for xp seems reasonable, in many cases in hindsight it would have been better to have them patrol (or hunt) in the neutral territory to spot any attacks or expansions.

I have thought about it some more and I realize that instead of making a whole new building just for training, it would be easier to add functionality to the barracks/stable to facilitate this change.

Do you think that there should be a training cost rate?

My thinking is you could garrison and make some kind of purchase that speeds up the training without making an upgrade to a particular unit.

Perhaps the simplest and least gimmicky way to do it would be garrisoning the units and clicking a "train" button in the barracks that just adds x amount of xp to the units over time, with some kind of sound signal when it is done. The things to address would be how much it should cost (Probably double the food cost and add some metal cost for cavalry or elephants or priests) and how much faster training should be than when it is done without the "train" button. 

Another way to do it could be to have the button display what rank the units will be when done and calculate the price needed to bring all of those units to that rank. 

I think for the final time to train, it should not be fast enough that defending players can simply react by doing this and be saved by it. Perhaps 30 seconds for rank 1 to rank 2 and 45 seconds for rank 2 to rank 3 would be good.

I hope this sounds more reasonable for gameplay.

Edited October 7, 2021 by BreakfastBurrito_007

[Freagarach]

10 hours ago, BreakfastBurrito_007 said:

I must say that I like this idea more, because it is a more direct player choice that "adds" training onto units after they come out of production building. There is much less abusability with this mechanism than with purchasing a rank 2 or rank 3 upgrade that then affects the unit cost. A player could get all the units and then purchase the upgrades, so they would then have a powerful army without having to pay very much of the rank 2-altered unit cost.

One could just have the upgrade let the barracks (etc.) train/recruit rank 2 soldiers, so not affecting the already trained entities.

[Stan`]

1 hour ago, Freagarach said:

One could just have the upgrade let the barracks (etc.) train/recruit rank 2 soldiers, so not affecting the already trained entities.

If we had Hyrule's technology hide patch we could just hide units until level 2 is researched

[alre]

13 hours ago, BreakfastBurrito_007 said:

These would probably be people who are interested in war, like champions, heros, gladiators, not ordinary citizens who see no reason to be a warrior. For example, I am not preparing for world war 3 right now. Ordinary people would be forced into service and told how to use a weapon, perhaps receive some group training. 

Barracks/ stable is just a convenient way to show military unit creation. Because of this, I think it is quite reasonable historically to have a training area, even if these would be makeshift in real life and not dedicated facilities.

You are not an ordinary person by any ancient world standard. People were not just "forced into service", war was very common and people were already aware in time of peace if they were required to fight or not in the next war, and would train in their own community. Also fighters were ofter voluntaries, who had provided by themselves for the weapons and the training, and were compensated with a wager and/or social mobility. There was no "draft" in ancient world.

11 hours ago, LetswaveaBook said:

The problem with it being hard to tell how much rank units have gained would be easy to solve. If you select the barracks, you see the different unit types. By making it such that a rank 3 unit would be regarded as a different unit, this problem would be (partially) solved.

It is indeed a slow mechanic. A nice experiment is the reduced xp for hoplites currently granted by the hoplite tradition tech. That means hoplites promote twice as fast. So by garrisoning your hoplites for 100 seconds, you get it from 0 xp to rank3. However I think it is most often better to have your hoplites work for 100 seconds. However for hoplites, it is not the worst thing you could do and players could experiment with this.

Also when I rushed a bit and at the moment I considered that my cavalry would no longer be able to cause casualties, I tried during some game to garrison them. The cavalry gain about 25% in value after 150 seconds of garrisoning, which seems as efficient as hunting in the middle of the map. Though garrisoning for xp seems reasonable, in many cases in hindsight it would have been better to have them patrol (or hunt) in the neutral territory to spot any attacks or expansions.

I too sometimes send cav into stables to train, but it never seems like they quite level up. I always need them too soon to enjoy the results.

[Gurken Khan]

4 hours ago, Freagarach said:

One could just have the upgrade let the barracks (etc.) train/recruit rank 2 soldiers, so not affecting the already trained entities.

Yes, a higher rank tech might be nice; I think the embassies used to have that. Maybe the garrison XP could still remain additionally. I'm skeptical about other suggestions how to handle training.

 

58 minutes ago, alre said:

I too sometimes send cav into stables to train, but it never seems like they quite level up. I always need them too soon to enjoy the results.

Playing against AIs, it actually works for me (to a degree). I usually have a phase from mid-p2 where I can afford additional stables and cav to mid-p3, when I start my grant world peace & unity tour.