[DISCUSSION] Moving most Champions back to the FORTRESS

[wowgetoffyourcellphone]

The proposition is that:

• The Fortress is now pretty boring. The game should not have boring things. Having Champions trainable in the Fortress was more interesting.
• Champions at the Fortress separates them more from regular troops, thematically.
• Champions in the barracks and stable ruin some of the benefits of the Gymnasium and Syssition and Academy.

 

Some possible cons I see: 

• Moving Champions back to the Fortress might make them less used.
• Moving Champions back to the Fortress could unbalance the Fortress?
• There is the notion that the Fortress should simply act as a strong defensive/offensive position, like a large overpowered defense tower instead of a uber barracks.

[maroder]

3 minutes ago, wowgetoffyourcellphone said:

Moving Champions back to the Fortress might make them less used.

I don't think that is necessarily bad.

4 minutes ago, wowgetoffyourcellphone said:

Moving Champions back to the Fortress could unbalance the Fortress?

It will definitely be more used as it is at the moment. Not sure if it will unbalance it, but one could increase its build time.

6 minutes ago, wowgetoffyourcellphone said:

There is the notion that the Fortress should simply act as a strong defensive/offensive position, like a large overpowered defense tower instead of a uber barracks.

I disagree with that notion. It should have some other function than just being a large tower.

[Lion.Kanzen]

11 minutes ago, maroder said:

It will definitely be more used as it is at the moment. Not sure if it will unbalance it, but one could increase its build time

Yes 

 

20 minutes ago, wowgetoffyourcellphone said:

The Fortress is now pretty boring. The game should not have boring things. Having Champions trainable in the Fortress was more interesting.

Should be able to train defensive units.

And technologies for the defense of borders.

[Emperior]

@wowgetoffyourcellphone Sorry for going a bit out of topic a bit as well but my answer to your question would be: yes they should be produced in special building or castle. Hero should not be trained in cc for most civ's.

 

been here for the past few alphas except the a24 due knowing the balance been just bad, even tho I have warned about archers way before. Production of hero's and champions as well rams was very good as castle was important. Now u get p3, get workshop, take whole army and gg. Basically who first get p3 usually will win his side and the game simply over, unless it is the fight of rushers.

Spamming mines all over map made trade useless.

Removing the attack vs units for cata and rams has made them more useless than anything else. Cata in a26 seems lik we wont have too go out of the territory on small map to kill enemy cc ! Great . xD Romans had that specific bonus to have camps where they could build rams in camp. Maybe do requirement for workshop to be build after castle up?

Han civ currently amazingly op eco wise as well as defense and fight too.

edit. btw the speed of ranking units in a26 (svn currently) without changing will make champs less usable anyway.

Many other, just too many issues seen in a26.

 

 

Edited March 10, 2022 by Emperior

[BreakfastBurrito_007]

My preference would be to add champions to fortress. But to leave champions in barracks but have the upgrade only apply to one barracks/ stable at a time. Add 150 stone 200 wood to that upgrade. Same way towers are upgraded to stone tower. Animation not needed unless someone is up to the task.

I think this would increase the time to mass champions to an unbeatable level. Champions are intended to supplement army or do specialty missions, so we would see more reasonable usage with these changes.

Edit: well champ spam is not so bad apart from a couple broken cavalry types. So perhaps such a change is not necessary for barracks. 

Edited March 10, 2022 by BreakfastBurrito_007

[Lion.Kanzen]

20 minutes ago, Emperior said:

been here for the past few alphas except the a24 due knowing the balance been just bad, even tho I have warned about archers way before. Production of hero's and champions as well rams was very good as castle was important. Now u get p3, get workshop, take whole army and gg. Basically who first get p3 usually will win his side and the game simply over, unless it is the fight of rushers.

I agree with  this.

There is no longer a proper turtling.

[Emperior]

2 minutes ago, Lion.Kanzen said:

I agree with  this.

There is no longer a proper turtling.

a23 boom finish at 9/10 min, a25 boom finish at min 12-15 (15 especially if someone wants to spam cav champ or any other op unit.) So, no turtling? Maybe by 2 players out of 8. In the best case 4 due rushes too

[Dakara]

2 hours ago, wowgetoffyourcellphone said:

The proposition is that:

• The Fortress is now pretty boring. The game should not have boring things. Having Champions trainable in the Fortress was more interesting.
• Champions at the Fortress separates them more from regular troops, thematically.
• Champions in the barracks and stable ruin some of the benefits of the Gymnasium and Syssition and Academy.

 

Some possible cons I see: 

• Moving Champions back to the Fortress might make them less used.
• Moving Champions back to the Fortress could unbalance the Fortress?
• There is the notion that the Fortress should simply act as a strong defensive/offensive position, like a large overpowered defense tower instead of a uber barracks.

Hello,

I appreciate your ideas for boosting the fortress but I think we can do more than just move production back from champions to castles.

Yes in the most of game fortress are not building cuz not needed. I really think is useful to had 

Yes im most of game fortress is boring. I really think this building have to be useful and defensive building.

Better make changes on fortress for less annoying instead just producing building.

At the moment, i like the tech in barack and stables for make champ (compare to old alpha where some civ can champ on barack and orther civ need fortress, it was no fair) so i don"t want champ in fortress. People like spam champ in barack/stable; let them do it.

How improve utility ?

1-We can up garnison by 20 so it is total of 40 spots garnison

2-Capacity of 3 siege engines on the top of fortress. Siege engine put on fortress can't move but player can select the target. He is not a random attack. Ennemy team can attack only the siege if he want, it separate of the buidling. Siege are just deploy on fortress. So range = normal range of siege + bonus of where the castle is built).

For example archer on wall stone can be killed without attack the wall.

 

Also don't forget fortress have role in the area of player (fortress keep zone right if centre civid is destroyed?)

 

3 -Then we can imagine an orther idea with a tech. An free income of unit military, for exemple every 60 seconde you gain 6 units (u choose with a button beetwen distance, sword or piques)

 

[Fabius]

2 hours ago, Lion.Kanzen said:

I agree with  this.

There is no longer a proper turtling.

I was strongly oriented toward defense in A23 and have seen the decline in its viability since. you need catapults to properly turtle, which we don't have in a functional form.

[chrstgtr]

Again, here we are debating whether we should basically just revert the game to a23. 

I want it basically exactly as it was before: forts let you immediately train champs, barracks let you train champs with a tech, and a few civs have "champ spam" strats available because they have special buildings that train champs (with the tech the barrack requires and the champ buildings are easier to make than forts). 

The problem with the current status is that training champs from barracks totally clogs your unit production pipes because champs train slower than regular units. So if you want to go for champs that often means that you have to risk quickly dropping your population and then hopping the enemy doesn't just spam steamroll you while you slowly rebuild your pop with champs. 

Relatedly, there were a ton of p2 champs and buildings that were eliminated form a23-->a24. None of this should've occurred without an adequate replacement. The game was better when it had more options and civs were more unique. 

 

[chrstgtr]

 

3 hours ago, Emperior said:

been here for the past few alphas except the a24 due knowing the balance been just bad, even tho I have warned about archers way before. Production of hero's and champions as well rams was very good as castle was important. Now u get p3, get workshop, take whole army and gg. Basically who first get p3 usually will win his side and the game simply over, unless it is the fight of rushers.

 

3 hours ago, Lion.Kanzen said:

I agree with  this.

There is no longer a proper turtling.

 

I've been saying this since the first days of a24: the globalization of the siege factory was a bad change. It made mace less unique (no more siege rush strategy, which was offset by Mace's inability to kill enemy rams). It also made the game extremely on dimensional where it its mostly quick p3 at 80% pop cap-->skip fort-->siege spam-->hooe you win the first push because the person who starts destroying buildings first wins. 

44 minutes ago, Fabius said:

I was strongly oriented toward defense in A23 and have seen the decline in its viability since. you need catapults to properly turtle, which we don't have in a functional form.

It's more than that: it's extremely hard to beat a quick siege spam strategy because siege can be built quicker than multiple forts. This is a direct result of siege workshops existing for every civ. 

Edited March 10, 2022 by chrstgtr

[real_tabasco_sauce]

emphasizing defense is fine and all but why on earth do people want turtling to be a viable strategy? I think currently, a successful defense is maybe just a little too hard to pull off, but that it is still very rewarding to quickly counterattack. A24 was a defensive alpha and I think most people agree it was sub-optimal.

As for the fort training champs situation, i like @chrstgtr's solution with forts and barracks training champs, but with the tech needed for barracks.

[wowgetoffyourcellphone]

2 hours ago, real_tabasco_sauce said:

As for the fort training champs situation, i like @chrstgtr's solution with forts and barracks training champs, but with the tech needed for barracks.

Redundancy Theory strikes again!

But really, we aren't so far apart. A few comments:

Alpha 24 was ostensibly designed to be a "reset" alpha, as the balance was seen as too unwieldly. It was never meant to be "the" game's design. At least, that's how I saw the changes. 

"Going back" to Alpha23. I don't think that's the goal here. Were some things better in Alpha 23? Absolutely. But we are trying to move forward, not simply trying to recapture the feel of a past alpha. 

[wowgetoffyourcellphone]

2 hours ago, real_tabasco_sauce said:

emphasizing defense is fine and all but why on earth do people want turtling to be a viable strategy? I think currently, a successful defense is maybe just a little too hard to pull off, but that it is still very rewarding to quickly counterattack. A24 was a defensive alpha and I think most people agree it was sub-optimal.

A24 was suboptimal for many reasons. 

From a macro level, Rushing, Booming, and Turtling should all be viable strategies. The important thing is to make them balanced. I would honestly like to see Walls become a viable and balanced structure in Alpha 27, but that's a different topic.

[Fabius]

16 hours ago, chrstgtr said:

It's more than that: it's extremely hard to beat a quick siege spam strategy because siege can be built quicker than multiple forts. This is a direct result of siege workshops existing for every civ. 

The counter point to ram spam would be catapult spam if they have better accuracy, because then you can wall up and smash any rams that get near the walls, something not currently viable under present circumstances. But since main topic is fortresses and not the entirety of the game, I would suggest maybe technologies that put emphasis fortresses as strong points, maybe technologies granting them higher health, I like the idea of bigger garrison space, maybe some kind of upgrade that puts a catapult on top, stronger resistance to capture. One does not actually have to go the damage route, just make the building harder to knock down quickly 

[Fabius]

A further idea I just had is to utilize the tower upgrades as concepts for upgrades to the fortress, being a more valuable building theoretically there would be more incentive to actually spend the resources on it. Those tower upgrades get zero priority otherwise as I no longer build towers because to me they are now useless resource wasters.

[Player of 0AD]

I'm against removing champs from barracks and stables, as these buildings make champs viable. I'm rather for allowing Athenians and Spartans to train champs in barracks, too.

Fortresses aren't too weak, right now they can be very annoying. And they are needed for the will to fight tech, and some even for heroes. So I don't see why they should be buffed further.

[real_tabasco_sauce]

9 hours ago, wowgetoffyourcellphone said:

I would honestly like to see Walls become a viable and balanced structure in Alpha 27, but that's a different topic.

it would be awesome if there was some means of limiting ranged attacks through stone walls tbh. although that would be really complicated and controversial.

[AIEND]

1 hour ago, Fabius said:

我刚刚想到的另一个想法是利用塔升级作为堡垒升级的概念，作为一座更有价值的建筑，理论上会有更多的动力将资源实际花费在上面。否则这些塔升级的优先级为零，因为我不再建造塔，因为对我来说它们现在是无用的资源浪费。

There should indeed be a general technology that strengthens the tower while strengthening the fortress in P3.

[real_tabasco_sauce]

26 minutes ago, Player of 0AD said:

I'm against removing champs from barracks and stables, as these buildings make champs viable. I'm rather for allowing Athenians and Spartans to train champs in barracks, too.

Fortresses aren't too weak, right now they can be very annoying. And they are needed for the will to fight tech, and some even for heroes. So I don't see why they should be buffed further.

For all civs:

1. barracks and stables train champs: perhaps increase cost of champ unlock? or make it cheaper and required for each barracks as @BreakfastBurrito_007 said.

2. For civs without dedicated champ buildings, champs train from the fort with no need to unlock.

Allowing to train from the fort is great because sometimes u just need 3 -5 sword champs to stop a ram spam attack. I don't think forts are OP, just annoying. Its almost always best to attack something else if you can.

[Player of 0AD]

2 minutes ago, real_tabasco_sauce said:

For all civs:

1. barracks and stables train champs: perhaps increase cost of champ unlock?

Why not decrease?

2 minutes ago, real_tabasco_sauce said:

2. For civs without dedicated champ buildings, champs train from the fort with no need to unlock.

Allowing to train from the fort is great because sometimes u just need 3 -5 sword champs to stop a ram spam attack. I don't think forts are OP, just annoying. Its almost always best to attack something else if you can.

I think that means that forts should not be buffed. At the other hand if you really want that a fort can train champs again it's probably not the worst thing.

[real_tabasco_sauce]

1 minute ago, Player of 0AD said:

I think that means that forts should not be buffed. At the other hand if you really want that a fort can train champs again it's probably not the worst thing.

yes keep fort stats the same for sure

[real_tabasco_sauce]

2 minutes ago, Player of 0AD said:

Why not decrease?

to delay the ability to spam champs to a little later in the game. This way early p3 attacks have a little more time to stop someone booming longer for champs.

Maybe instead of cost, increase the time to unlock idk. The price really isn't as important as the time IMO.

Just now, real_tabasco_sauce said:

to delay the ability to spam champs to a little later in the game.

Also makes champs that train from the fort a little more relevant, if you just need a few.

[chrstgtr]

48 minutes ago, Player of 0AD said:

Fortresses aren't too weak, right now they can be very annoying. And they are needed for the will to fight tech, and some even for heroes. So I don't see why they should be buffed further.

A building that is only useful for one tech--that is rarely researched--for most civs isn't a useful building. See also Wonders. 

[wowgetoffyourcellphone]

1 hour ago, chrstgtr said:

A building that is only useful for one tech--that is rarely researched--for most civs isn't a useful building. See also Wonders. 

Yeah, Wonders really bother me too, but again a different topic.