Suggestion: Players should NOT start with 5,000 Stone and 5,000 Metal right next to their CC

[Philip the Swaggerless]

Players should not start with 5,000 Stone and 5,000 Metal right next to their Civic Center.  I understand that not all maps have that setup, but since mainland is the primary map that people play this should be implemented for mainland maps.  And most maps :p.  Here is why I think the change should happen:

• For a fair amount of games, 5,000 may be all the metal and stone a player needs for the entire game.  That is too simple.
• Civilizations that use slingers or mercenaries (I'm looking at you, Ptolemies and Carthaginians) have the bonus of having their resource gatherers be protected by the Civic Center.  This gives 2 advantages:
  • Miners are protected from early raids
  • Farmers are more easily protected from early raids since you can just garrison the miners in the Civic Center and then ungarrison them toward the enemy.

Instead, there should be 1 small stone mine and 1 small metal mine having no more than 500 of each resource, similar to how there are a few straggler trees near the CC at the beginning of a game.  Then on the outside of their starting territory should be larger mines, similar to how there are large forests for wood.

The challenge of this layout would be increased difficulty of protecting farmers from raids for all civs throughout phase 2.  It would favor players raiding food economy.  But there are defensive structures and building-layout strategies that can be used to mitigate the danger.  (Maybe cost and/or build time of palisade walls could be adjusted to support this change?)  This would also make scouting important so know if your opponent is leaving their farmers vulnerable in order to boom or build military faster.

Thank you for reading!

 

Edited October 23, 2021 by Philip the Swaggerless

[real_tabasco_sauce]

@Philip the Swaggerless

I agree, I think it's a little too simple to just use the 5000 metal and stone for all your needs in a game, with them also under the CC. I like your idea, as long as every player still gets access to the same metal and stone mine quantities.

 

*edit: I'm not sure though, as it would be very easy to deny stone and metal with a tower for example if your mines were in an unlucky spot. This would put the player out of the game.

Edited October 23, 2021 by real_tabasco_sauce

[Player of 0AD]

Play nomad mode

Usually I need much more than 5k of each mineral.

[wowgetoffyourcellphone]

39 minutes ago, Philip the Swaggerless said:

Players should not start with 5,000 Stone and 5,000 Metal right next to their Civic Center.  I understand that not all maps have that setup, but since mainland is the primary map that people play this should be implemented for mainland maps. 

[Lion.Kanzen]

It's boring not exploring. It's boring not having a gold rush mind.

 

[LetswaveaBook]

First of all, I would like people to approach things as age of empires 2 did. If you want to play a different map, you can bring your own and play on it.

I think the distribution has some charm. It allows for some specialized builds, such as the Carthaginian one. Also, there is not enough wood near the CC, so the players need to move out anyway.

[Jofursloft]

2 hours ago, Philip the Swaggerless said:

Instead, there should be 1 small stone mine and 1 small metal mine having no more than 500 of each resource, similar to how there are a few straggler trees near the CC at the beginning of a game.  Then on the outside of their starting territory should be larger mines, similar to how there are large forests for wood.

1)  With 500 of each metal and stone you will be able only to get the P2 eco upgrades and build some barracks, nothing else. 

2) If you need to go outside your territory to get other mines, how can you do it if you don't have the resources to build a civic centre?

3) If there are little mines scattered in your territory (that can be easily reached during P2 for example) these little mines have a capacity of max 10/12 men. THis is the heaven of any rush player, and the nightmare of any counter rush player (cavs are just so fast that can kill these small group easily before reinforcement can arrive).

I prefer the idea of having the 5000 metal and stone mines in your territory (reachable also in P1) but not next to the cc. The main problem is that in this case you have no way to protect the fields from a possible min 8-10 cavarly rush. It's already hard to defend a cav rush in the fields with 5000 res mines, imagine to do it when your mines around the cc are exhausted even in the early game. You cannot keep 20 men idle just to defend the fields. 

 

[Philip the Swaggerless]

 

56 minutes ago, Jofursloft said:

 

2) If you need to go outside your territory to get other mines, how can you do it if you don't have the resources to build a civic centre?

 

 

Oh, sorry if I wasn't clear.  What I meant to say is that in addition to the small mines near the CC, there would be a large mine within p1 range like you mentioned below.

[BreakfastBurrito_007]

@Philip the Swaggerless It is already very easy to disrupt food economy. It is common in TGs to see the barter rates show food as the most sought resource for bartering (rather than metal in a24). 

I agree with your idea about having bigger mines further away from cc, but I think that rather than buffing palisades, it would be better to give cavalry (the primary disruptor of food eco) a .3x counter versus palisades. This is good because it does not make palisades hard to take down given the army size advantage that comes with a large attack (larger than defending force).

Another solution could be making CS men almost as good as women in farming (not sure of their current rate) so that it is not too inefficient to farm with CS men.

[faction02]

Rushing metal mines sounds indeed like a natural counter to mercenary rushes. There are however many potential side effects with this kind of change. What if in a teamgame, your mines spawn on the side where is your enemy (assuming you have no extra)? It would get quite easy to tower them and you would be at a strong disadvantage. I also wonder about how strong would be agressive cc/mc with theatron to completely deny mines, compatibility with iber walls, mountains(?) ... 

But I would agree that trying to get a working version of mainland with this feature in addition of keeping the current one could be a great addition to the game.

[wowgetoffyourcellphone]

There are well-designed skirmish maps that don't plunk giant metal and stone mines at your CC's doorstep. You guys should try them sometime.

[Lion.Kanzen]

it becomes very predictable that everything is in the same place.

[Philip the Swaggerless]

20 hours ago, BreakfastBurrito_007 said:

@Philip the Swaggerless

I agree with your idea about having bigger mines further away from cc, but I think that rather than buffing palisades, it would be better to give cavalry (the primary disruptor of food eco) a .3x counter versus palisades. This is good because it does not make palisades hard to take down given the army size advantage that comes with a large attack (larger than defending force)

The sword cavalry sure do make light work of palisades.

As for the remark about CS farmers... why was it decided to remove the women's gathering boost aura?  I stopped playing the game for awhile before that happened. 

[Lion.Kanzen]

@wowgetoffyourcellphone Delenda Est it has better mines and quarries. both in visual size and in number of resources.

Are they (team) going to add something like that in vanilla?

[Philip the Swaggerless]

22 hours ago, LetswaveaBook said:

First of all, I would like people to approach things as age of empires 2 did. If you want to play a different map, you can bring your own and play on it.

 

13 hours ago, wowgetoffyourcellphone said:

There are well-designed skirmish maps that don't plunk giant metal and stone mines at your CC's doorstep. You guys should try them sometime.

Point taken  @LetswaveaBook.  I think. If other maps designs are funner than people will choose to play them so no need to change the existing maps?

The challenge is everyone knows and is used to mainland so it's hard to fill up game on other maps.  The tournaments in the past helped get people to play other maps for awhile.

[alre]

problem is there are no skirmish maps good for bigger team games.

[LetswaveaBook]

34 minutes ago, Philip the Swaggerless said:

The challenge is everyone knows and is used to mainland so it's hard to fill up game on other maps.  The tournaments in the past helped get people to play other maps for awhile.

FeldFeld has been able to create balanced mainland and that one seems to be used. Also, if there are complaints then those people might enjoy a change. The only problem with the mod system is that it can be a little cumbersome to install mods (It can take up to several minutes!). If map mods are published on mod.io that could make it less cumbersome.

[ChronA]

edit: oops wrong thread... but I concur with the OP. Having huge freebie mineral deposits right next to the starting CC is odd, in that it effectively negates any strategic choice to take minerals elsewhere on the map until the main deposits are exhausted. 

Edited October 24, 2021 by ChronA

[andy5995]

On 23/10/2021 at 1:01 PM, Philip the Swaggerless said:

Instead, there should be 1 small stone mine and 1 small metal mine having no more than 500 of each resource, similar to how there are a few straggler trees near the CC at the beginning of a game.  Then on the outside of their starting territory should be larger mines, similar to how there are large forests for wood.

Problem is, on a new random map I'm working on, I've been trying to use code like:

 

		"Mines": {
			"types": [
				{ "template": oMetalSmall },
				{ "template": oStoneSmall },
				{ "template": oStoneLarge,
					"distance": defaultPlayerBaseRadius() * 1.5 },
				{ "template": oMetalLarge,
					"distance": defaultPlayerBaseRadius() * 1.5 }
			],
		}

But it just ignores the distance values and places the darn mines the same distance as the two smaller ones!

 

I sure as frack don't see why that code doesn't work. I found this code on another an existing map

 

224-	"Chicken": {
225-		"template": oGazelle,
226-		"distance": 18,
227-		"minGroupDistance": 2,
228-		"maxGroupDistance": 4,
229-		"minGroupCount": 2,
230-		"maxGroupCount": 3
231-	},

A distance value following a template...

@Feldfeld @naniAny idea why the mines aren't getting placed where I want them to be?

Edited October 30, 2021 by andy5995

[wowgetoffyourcellphone]

On 24/10/2021 at 1:52 AM, wowgetoffyourcellphone said:

There are well-designed skirmish maps that don't plunk giant metal and stone mines at your CC's doorstep. You guys should try them sometime.

 

On 24/10/2021 at 3:09 PM, Philip the Swaggerless said:

 

Point taken  @LetswaveaBook.  I think. If other maps designs are funner than people will choose to play them so no need to change the existing maps?

The challenge is everyone knows and is used to mainland so it's hard to fill up game on other maps.  The tournaments in the past helped get people to play other maps for awhile.

What I meant was, one can "test out" differing mine placement schemes by trying the skirmish maps more.  Seems like folks are wedded to their current build orders with the mines plunked down next to the CC, when if you try the skirmish maps you will see that slightly tweaked build orders do not ruin the game.

[wowgetoffyourcellphone]

On 24/10/2021 at 3:31 PM, alre said:

problem is there are no skirmish maps good for bigger team games.

I am currently making a 4-player Gallic Highlands and eventually a 6-player Gallic Highlands skirmish maps. They'll be ready for A26.

[andy5995]

5 minutes ago, wowgetoffyourcellphone said:

I am currently making a 4-player Gallic Highlands and eventually a 6-player Gallic Highlands skirmish maps. They'll be ready for A26.

And me and @Jammyjamjammanare working on this randomly generated map (which imports the heightmap from the Corinthian Isthmus 2v2 skirmish map on the fly)

Edited October 30, 2021 by andy5995

[wowgetoffyourcellphone]

On 24/10/2021 at 3:31 PM, alre said:

problem is there are no skirmish maps good for bigger team games.

 

4-player version done!

 

For 6 and 8 player versions I'll add more "highlands."

[nani]

14 hours ago, andy5995 said:

Problem is, on a new random map I'm working on, I've been trying to use code like:

 

		"Mines": {
			"types": [
				{ "template": oMetalSmall },
				{ "template": oStoneSmall },
				{ "template": oStoneLarge,
					"distance": defaultPlayerBaseRadius() * 1.5 },
				{ "template": oMetalLarge,
					"distance": defaultPlayerBaseRadius() * 1.5 }
			],
		}

But it just ignores the distance values and places the darn mines the same distance as the two smaller ones!

 

I sure as frack don't see why that code doesn't work. I found this code on another an existing map

 

224-	"Chicken": {
225-		"template": oGazelle,
226-		"distance": 18,
227-		"minGroupDistance": 2,
228-		"maxGroupDistance": 4,
229-		"minGroupCount": 2,
230-		"maxGroupCount": 3
231-	},

A distance value following a template...

@Feldfeld @naniAny idea why the mines aren't getting placed where I want them to be?

That code doesn't tell me anything, you have to track down what line of code actually places the mines then modify that distance for them, there is nothing more to it.

[nani]

39 minutes ago, nani said:

That code doesn't tell me anything, you have to track down what line of code actually places the mines then modify that distance for them, there is nothing more to it.

@andy5995 If you look at binaries/data/mods/public/maps/random/rmgen-common/player.js:317  you will see the reason.  "distance" property must be put on the "Mines" object not of each "template" type object