Fixing Chinese Han

[Lion.Kanzen]

Based on Yekaterina input.

 

 

 

 

Differences from other civs:

 

1. Rice paddies - same price as field, but smaller in size and only 3 women per paddy. However, gathering rate is 0.6 instead of 0.5. Suppose you want to go heavy on cav, other civs might need 12 fields and 60 women on them. For Han, you will only need 50 women + 17 paddies. So paddies are more expensive to set up but great for late game. In early game around 6 paddies are enough, so the wood demand in early game is slightly higher. 

 

2. Ministers - they can speed up gathering -> compensates for greater resource demand. 

 

3. A lot of techs available - good for late game. 

 

4. +10% pop bonus -> amazing late game. 

 

 

 

6. Ranged barracks + melee barracks

 

 

 

 

 

 

Suggested changes by Yekaterina.

 

1. Use actor model for rice paddies, but use the same stats as farms. Or, adjust the price accordingly: 70 wood per paddy (since they are smaller anyways). 

 

2. Crossbow infantry have same attack stats as slingers but at greater accuracy; let their cost stay at 50 food, 30 wood and 20 metal. 

 

3. Champion crossbow cavalry do 28 pierce per 1.25 second. 

 

4. Either give all civs ranged barracks + melee barracks or cancel the idea for Han. Right now this nerfs their economy too much, as well as early defense. 

 

 ----

speak now or quiet until next alpha.(a27)[It is an Spanish expression that is said before agreeing to marry ]

 

 

 

Edited February 21, 2022 by Lion.Kanzen

[BreakfastBurrito_007]

@Lion.Kanzen when and where can you make ministers? I was thinking they could take up 2 pop so that they are not as good as fully upgraded eco in long term. I have not been able to test svn so I have not seen much of their mechanics. Ministers boosting eco in a range is a fantastic idea, but I think it should not be such a simple use case as for the eco upgrades available to all civs.

My worry is that ministers wind up being functionally equivalent to more eco upgrades.

Edited February 20, 2022 by BreakfastBurrito_007

[Lion.Kanzen]

32 minutes ago, BreakfastBurrito_007 said:

@Lion.Kanzen when and where can you make ministers? I was thinking they could take up 2 pop so that they are not as good as fully upgraded eco in long term. I have not been able to test svn so I have not seen much of their mechanics. Ministers boosting eco in a range is a fantastic idea, but I think it should not be such a simple use case as for the eco upgrades available to all civs.

My worry is that ministers wind up being functionally equivalent to more eco upgrades.

I haven't been able to test everything.

I have two 2 losses with the Han.

I need to lower the difficulty.

 

I was defeated by the ai 2v2 Ptol+Han vs Cart+Kush

[wowgetoffyourcellphone]

1 hour ago, Lion.Kanzen said:

1. Use actor model for rice paddies, but use the same stats as farms. Or, adjust the price accordingly: 70 wood per paddy (since they are smaller anyways). 

 

I can see reducing their cost to maybe 75 or 80 wood because of their size and fewer gatherers. But keep in mind that their farmstead techs civ-specific and are more effective, at +25% farming rate each instead of the +20% that the standard techs have. 

[BreakfastBurrito_007]

35 minutes ago, wowgetoffyourcellphone said:

I can see reducing their cost to maybe 75 or 80 wood because of their size and fewer gatherers. But keep in mind that their farmstead techs civ-specific and are more effective, at +25% farming rate each instead of the +20% that the standard techs have. 

It seems so far that Han have bonuses in almost every regard in eco. I think maybe it is best to remove all farming bonuses they have, and instead keep 5 women per paddy, but let it be 1/2 the area of grain field at same cost. This way it is just a bonus, but albeit a nice and unique one.

2 hours ago, Lion.Kanzen said:

compensates for greater resource demand

What creates this greater demand? do their units cost differently?

[wackyserious]

Place the minister in chariots, add additional pop requirement, maybe like it costs 3?

[Lion.Kanzen]

6 minutes ago, BreakfastBurrito_007 said:

It seems so far that Han have bonuses in almost every regard in eco. I think maybe it is best to remove all farming bonuses they have, and instead keep 5 women per paddy, but let it be 1/2 the area of grain field at same cost. This way it is just a bonus, but albeit a nice and unique one.

What creates this greater demand? do their units cost differently?

@Yekaterina

[wowgetoffyourcellphone]

7 minutes ago, BreakfastBurrito_007 said:

It seems so far that Han have bonuses in almost every regard in eco. I think maybe it is best to remove all farming bonuses they have, and instead keep 5 women per paddy, but let it be 1/2 the area of grain field at same cost. This way it is just a bonus, but albeit a nice and unique one.

[Lion.Kanzen]

I recorded a gameplay.

It is not so difficult.  Vs medium AI.

(We need hard medium AI)

[real_tabasco_sauce]

2 hours ago, Lion.Kanzen said:

speak now or quiet until next alpha

Will basic balance changes be possible after the first release candidate?

[Lion.Kanzen]

1 minute ago, real_tabasco_sauce said:

Will basic balance changes be possible after the first release candidate?

it is necessary that the lobby elite play at least once with this faction and the rest of you are organizing tournaments and testing each other.

I am not a lobby player like Yekaterina.

[wowgetoffyourcellphone]

If you guys come up with new values (costs, stats, etc.) without removing anything already committed, then it's more likely to make it in. Y'all wanted more uniqueness to the civs. Here you go. Don't rip it down to a generic mediocre civ when you have the chance to play something unique. Use it as an example of how civs can be unique, but balanced. Also as an example of uniqueness for the other civs to eventually blaze their own unique trail too. 

[Lion.Kanzen]

that's the problem we must make asymmetric factions. Look at the latest AoE, it's basically asymmetric even, even in the description they said at launch and when selecting civs, that each faction has its own difficulty level. 

[Lion.Kanzen]

 

[Yekaterina]

@BreakfastBurrito_007

Each Han paddy costs 100 wood, but only 3 women can farm on it.

The farming rate of paddies is 0.6 compared to 0.5 of wheat fields. 

In early game, you need 5 fields for most civilisations, that means 25 women gathering, so 12.5 food income per second. 

Now with Han, you only need 21 women farming for food. But these 21 women will require 7 paddies. So the total amount of wood you spent to set up your food eco is 700 wood compared to 500 wood of other civs.

I like the idea of same cost, same stats but different model size and appearance.

The Han storehouse and civilian house look too similar as well.

[Yekaterina]

I definitely like the idea of small fields so you can cram more around a cc or farmstead - better at anti-rush

 

This reminds me of another weakness of Han: no way to counter jav cav rush or camel rush! 

Archers can only be produced from the CC in P1 and their cav is archer cav. You will die to javelin cav instantly and you can't outspam a ptol player in camels or inf archers

[Lion.Kanzen]

5 minutes ago, Yekaterina said:

I definitely like the idea of small fields so you can cram more around a cc or farmstead - better at anti-rush

 

I like that. I literally intend to design Xianbei and Xiongnu as civilized Han's Antithesis.

7 minutes ago, Yekaterina said:

 

This reminds me of another weakness of Han: no way to counter jav cav rush or camel rush! 

 

Mercenaries? maybe Xiongnu and youenzhi can be have Antivalry cavalry.

[wackyserious]

44 minutes ago, Yekaterina said:

I definitely like the idea of small fields so you can cram more around a cc or farmstead - better at anti-rush

 

This reminds me of another weakness of Han: no way to counter jav cav rush or camel rush! 

Archers can only be produced from the CC in P1 and their cav is archer cav. You will die to javelin cav instantly and you can't outspam a ptol player in camels or inf archers

Vegetable gardens 1-2 workers and it has a requirement of 1 house each in order to expand? Like this can be generic to all civs?

[BreakfastBurrito_007]

37 minutes ago, Lion.Kanzen said:

Look at the latest AoE, it's basically asymmetric even, even in the description they said at launch and when selecting civs, that each faction has its own difficulty level. 

There have been huge problems with this with respect to gameplay. I agree that civs should be asymetric, but I don't think that the rules should be re-written for each civ. Keep in mind that Aoe4 might have interesting/unique civs, but the core battle mechanics are horrifically simple. AoE2 in my opinion has better civ differentiation/uniqueness and bonuses due to them being key distinctions from other factions rather than something entirely out of the framework of other civs (like in Aoe4)

I think civ differentiation is certainly an area for improvement for 0ad, but it does not help to add all the uniqueness to one civ. It would be sad to see something unique, like ministers, or cs crossbowmen, get overly nerfed because the civ needed a food eco boost (.6 versus .5 gather rate) which is boring.

@Yekaterina

Do they get that pike unit in p1? If so, I think it's not the end of the world to have only archers in p1 as their ranged units.

Many things seem op for the civ, the mangonels, the champions, the bigger eco, bigger pop, and unique upgrades. It is ok if much of the OP stuff stays, but we have add some things to other civs too (perhaps add some unique techs, civ bonuses, team bonuses).

again pls consider @LetswaveaBook's proposed features mod.

 

[Lion.Kanzen]

1 minute ago, BreakfastBurrito_007 said:

again pls consider @LetswaveaBook's proposed features mod.

It's hard for me to remember that nickname. the only thing I remember is the book part.

[Lion.Kanzen]

3 minutes ago, BreakfastBurrito_007 said:

There have been huge problems with this with respect to gameplay. I agree that civs should be asymetric, but I don't think that the rules should be re-written for each civ. Keep in mind that Aoe4 might have interesting/unique civs, but the core battle mechanics are horrifically simple. AoE2 in my opinion has better civ differentiation/uniqueness and bonuses due to them being key distinctions from other factions rather than something entirely out of the framework of other civs (like in Aoe4)

Here we are literally on the other side of the world.

One thing is our factions in Europe, Africa and the Middle East.

These are almost isolated.

[wowgetoffyourcellphone]

I think there can be ways to keep all of the basics, but then add differentiation on top of it.

So, for instance, there would be all of the same basic Forge techs for every civ, but each civ gets 1 additional unique Forge tech. The Han's could be "Differential Quenching" (not implemented). The Macedonians/Ptolemies/Seleucids could get the "Sarissa." Iberians get "Toledo Steel." Mauryas get "Iron Elephant Armor" (this one visually upgrades their war elephants to the armored variety). Persians get "Recurved Bows."

Each Fortress functions pretty much the same, but each civ can have up to 2 unique military techs, usually researched at the Fortress. (I would count the Han "poison" techs as 1 since what they do is simply split the "Will to Fight" tech in half). For Spartans, they research them at the Syssition. 

1 "minor" special building and 1 "major" special building for each civ.

• Persians: Ice House (minor), Tachara (major)
• Han: Laozigate (minor), Academy (major)
• Athenians: blah blah, and on down the line

Each civ can have up to 2 unique eco techs.

• Each civ must take away 1 standard eco tech if they have 2 unique eco techs.

Each civ can have 1 unique "upgrade" feature.

• Spartans: upgrade individual Spartiates to Olympic Champions, which are stronger and faster than regular Spartiates
• Macedonians: upgrade individual Barracks to "Royal Barracks" which trains soldiers at the elite rank
• Persians: upgrade the Tachara to trickle a desired resource, unlocked with the "Satrapy Tribute" tech
• Han: upgrade 1 defense tower to the "Great Tower"
• Romans: upgrade 1 ballista into a "Great Ballista"

 

So, make the civs unique, within a standardized framework.

 

Edited February 21, 2022 by wowgetoffyourcellphone

[Lion.Kanzen]

@maroder your opinion is important

[wowgetoffyourcellphone]

I can see moving the Practice Range to Village phase just in case the player wants to go heavy ranged infantry early (we like more choice)?

In most replays I've seen though, it seems like players don't build a barracks or stable until Phase 2, but allowing them to build the range in village might allow for some unorthodox strategy we can't think of yet.

[Lion.Kanzen]

9 minutes ago, wowgetoffyourcellphone said:

I can see moving the Practice Range to Village phase just in case the player wants to go heavy ranged infantry early (we like more choice)?

In most replays I've seen though, it seems like players don't build a barracks or stable until Phase 2, but allowing them to build the range in village might allow for some unorthodox strategy we can't think of yet.

sounds interesting.