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Counters?


alre
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0AD gameplay is not that geared around counters, but anyway, this is my input based on tactical use more than on simple performance:

- swordsmen are better than spears against other infantry, but you better have spears or pikes if you fear a cavalry attack. 

- in almost all cases, pikemen are the best melee infantry, because they soak damage better than the others, and in infantry clashes most damage is dealt by ranged troops.

- skirmishers are OP, they are not really countered by other infantry at all, since they are also faster and can get away anyway, if not reach and chase any footed enemy.

- horse archers are little good in general, but are a fine counter to skirmisher heavy armies. 10-20 horse archers can cause many casualties while harassing such targets.

- archers are basically crap. they have very little use, but they can lure shorter range enemies from afar. in some limited situations that can be quite useful.

- jav cav is very strong, it is countered by spear cav, but still very capable of winning agaist it. best counter to them is some number of slingers, protected by other infantry.

- by the same logic, it makes sense to say that spear cav is best countered by spearmen and pikemen.

- I'm not sure of which cav counters horse archers best, it's usually quite easy to retreat them to safety if chased (if you pay attention, horse archers require much attention, it's their main drawback).

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1 hour ago, Radiotraining said:

ehehe that's funny :D yesterday I exactly proposed the same to DerekO and I also tried to put him in touch with @mysticjim so we could start to have a little social media team based on these suggestions! :)

Now I just have to find a little bit of time to fully develop this idea ;)

make the conceptual illustrations the units. use the atlas for reference.

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18 hours ago, alre said:

in almost all cases, pikemen are the best melee infantry, because they soak damage better than the others, and in infantry clashes most damage is dealt by ranged troops.

18 hours ago, alre said:

skirmishers are OP, they are not really countered by other infantry at all, since they are also faster and can get away anyway, if not reach and chase any footed enemy.

18 hours ago, alre said:

archers are basically crap. they have very little use, but they can lure shorter range enemies from afar. in some limited situations that can be quite useful.

These 3 issues at least are all caused by the same issue.

I wonder what could be done to help archers without simply giving them more damage? or giving pikes less armor, or reducing skirmisher damage? What could be added to make range matter again?

It seems I am the only one who has any excitement about attack-ground, at this point I am more interested in why other people think it is not worth implementing. Please share your thoughts.

By the way, I would love to test the current attack-ground that exists unimplemented, but I have no idea how. :I

Edited by BreakfastBurrito_007
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skirms OP and pikes OP are linked. if skirmishers didn't deal that exaggerated amount of damage (compared to melee), pikes resistance wouldn't be so relevant.

archers should be faster, they have no use anymore because people hated them so much in A24 they were nerfed to the ground. it really makes no sense to have them slower than all other ranged units, it means they have no strengths.

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5 hours ago, alre said:

skirms OP and pikes OP are linked. if skirmishers didn't deal that exaggerated amount of damage (compared to melee), pikes resistance wouldn't be so relevant.

archers should be faster, they have no use anymore because people hated them so much in A24 they were nerfed to the ground. it really makes no sense to have them slower than all other ranged units, it means they have no strengths.

archers being faster would not make them the slightest bit better in fights. They would only become a frustrating unit to deal with in p1, whenever a player is full ranged units.

No matter how great the damage dealt by the highest damaging ranged unit, so long as melee are always killed before ranged units, the one with less damage will always be inferior. The game changed in more ways than just nerfing archers. Archers still deal significant damage to skirmishers, but they are almost never able to attack other ranged units due to ranged units' preference for closer units.

If we allow the player to choose what area of the army to attack with ranged units, then the fights will not always be dictated by the loss of melee units. 

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6 hours ago, alre said:

people hated them so much in A24 they were nerfed to the ground.

I think it is not because people hated them, unit pushing was the culprit. If you put your archers in box formation, they would move fairly smoothly, and units without a formation had path-finding issues. Not only is the path finding superior, also the fact that units can stack has been disadvantageous to archers. In A24, when the front row of skirmishers attacked the archers, the ones behind needed to path around their allies to find a spot from which they could shoot. In A24 you would never get all your skirmishers shooting at the enemy in a smooth motion.

8 hours ago, BreakfastBurrito_007 said:

I wonder what could be done to help archers without simply giving them more damage? or giving pikes less armor, or reducing skirmisher damage? What could be added to make range matter again?

It seems I am the only one who has any excitement about attack-ground, at this point I am more interested in why other people think it is not worth implementing. Please share your thoughts.

First of all, no matter how creative the solution is, archers seem to suffer from a material disadvantage in their stats. I think A24 mainly had good archers because turn rates made pathfinding awkward. Sometimes if you have the material disadvantage, there is not much you can do except getting better material. I ran some tests in the scenario editor with 10 basic pikes+10 basic skirms against 10 advanced spears+10 basic skrims, the side with the pikes won. If you do the same test with a weaker ranged unit, the advanced units get the win (which they deserve).

Also the attack-ground(or attack group) would be a nice feature, but it does not solve the pike issue. All pike factions do have access to skirmishers and archers of some kind.

Anyway, this is not about AoE4, whereas the OP wanted to talk about AoE4.

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  • 2 months later...
On 25/11/2021 at 9:21 AM, LetswaveaBook said:

First of all, no matter how creative the solution is, archers seem to suffer from a material disadvantage in their stats.

yes, but its not enourmous. Range is actually pretty powerful when ranged units are able to use their range over other units (ie instead of closest unit).

For example adding 10 merc archers to a skirm/pike army for the purpose of sniping enemy skirmishers one by one.

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7 hours ago, real_tabasco_sauce said:

I agree, I think the current soft counters can be embellished a little, but I don't think we need absolute rock-paper-scissors level counters.

definitely not going to be like in DE. it will be more organic. the roles must work.

There are units and classes that are very overused and other underused.

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  • 4 months later...
On 25/11/2021 at 9:53 PM, BreakfastBurrito_007 said:

These 3 issues at least are all caused by the same issue.

I wonder what could be done to help archers without simply giving them more damage? or giving pikes less armor, or reducing skirmisher damage? What could be added to make range matter again?

It seems I am the only one who has any excitement about attack-ground, at this point I am more interested in why other people think it is not worth implementing. Please share your thoughts.

By the way, I would love to test the current attack-ground that exists unimplemented, but I have no idea how. :I

I think attack ground is a great idea and I am eager to see  it happen. Freagarach is working on it.

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