Cavalry stables should be removed

[huseyin]

Even though I made 100 spearmen infantry during one game, my opponent killed them all with only 20-30 cavalry. This style of play is nothing but spam. I think the cavalry stables should be removed

As on the A23, the cavalry must come out of the barracks.

[PyrrhicVictoryGuy]

Cry me an ocean

[Yekaterina]

4 hours ago, huseyin said:

Even though I made 100 spearmen infantry during one game, my opponent killed them all with only 20-30 cavalry. This style of play is nothing but spam. I think the cavalry stables should be removed

As on the A23, the cavalry must come out of the barracks.

Allowing cavalry to come out of infantry barracks only helps the cav spammer and makes you die more quickly, because the spammer only needs to get 8 barracks and suddenly he can spam either inf or cav en mass. But if cavalry stables exist then they have to build inf barracks and cav stables, which cost more time and resources.

About cav being OP, that is true. If you only have spearman then I can kill all of your 100 spearman without loss using only 10 ranged cavalry unit. One can simply retreat and free-draw an arc around your spearmen then fire, repeating this process whenever your spearmen gets close.

Edited March 29, 2022 by Yekaterina

[huseyin]

37 minutes ago, Sevda said:

Allowing cavalry to come out of infantry barracks only helps the cav spammer and makes you die more quickly, because the spammer only needs to get 8 barracks and suddenly he can spam either inf or cav en mass. But if cavalry stables exist then they have to build inf barracks and cav stables, which cost more time and resources.

About cav being OP, that is true. If you only have spearman then I can kill all of your 100 spearman without loss using only 10 ranged cavalry unit. One can simply retreat and free-draw an arc around your spearmen then fire, repeating this process whenever your spearmen gets close.

It's nice that the game is rich in every aspect, but chasing cavalry all day spoils the fun of the game and is a waste of time for me. Immediate inference in a game with cavalry, waste of time.

The mercenaries not working and the game turning to cavalry only wars is killing my motivation to continue playing this game. I miss the old 0AD.

Edited March 29, 2022 by huseyin

[thephilosopher]

Cav aren't as OP as you're suggesting here. It sounds like the problem is that you need to work more ranged units into your army and not just spam out spearmen. tbh, I usually have zero or few cav in my army. I do perfectly fine fighting opponents who use cav, as long as I have a balance of units and get some military upgrades.

Edited March 29, 2022 by thephilosopher

[PyrrhicVictoryGuy]

11 minutes ago, huseyin said:

It's nice that the game is rich in every aspect, but chasing cavalry all day spoils the fun of the game and is a waste of time for me. Immediate inference in a game with cavalry, waste of time.

The mercenaries not working and the game turning to cavalry only wars is killing my motivation to continue playing this game. I miss the old 0AD.

Then don't chase him, get your own cav

[Yekaterina]

Melee cavalry will perish instantly to your spearman but will massacre ranged infantry. Ranged cavalry will dance-troll your melee infantry but will perish to ranged infantry if outnumbered. Slingers and archers counter skirmish cavalry, so consider mixing a few ranged units into your infantry army, and put melee units ahead of your ranged units to scare of the cavalry. My recommendation is to try a 1:1 melee to ranged ratio first, then adapt this ratio to whatever suits the best.

Edited March 29, 2022 by Yekaterina

[real_tabasco_sauce]

1 hour ago, huseyin said:

chasing cavalry all day spoils the fun of the game and is a waste of time for me. Immediate inference in a game with cavalry, waste of time.

Using a good mix of ranged and melee is key to any battle not just cav. Also, when you have a lot of spears, you want to force the enemy to attack them. For example, add siege and push their buildings and they will likely have to come try and kill your spears up close.

[BreakfastBurrito_007]

If you opponent is not iberians, I suggest making a few of your own cav and raiding farmers instead of engaging enemy cavalry (you will be outnumbered). Killing farmers does 2 things: reduces food income, and increases food expense because they need to train new women for farms. Any food that your enemy does not have is food they can't spend on cavalry.

If your opponent is distracted, then even just 12-20 cav are enough to wipe out food economy. A hero can be used the same way because they usually kill women in 1 hit. After this you force your enemy to make infantry by attacking him with your own infantry, and if he has only stables and just 1-2 barracks he will lose for sure.

I know cav is a bit op this alpha, and acceleration hopefully can be leveraged to make them less survivable. I also think melee cav should have a debuff versus palisades, but this is separate discussion.

[Yekaterina]

I am for removing stables and putting cav back into barracks. Problems with stables:

1. Wastes space and nerfs cav strategies. If the enemy sees that you have stables then they know for sure you are doing cav, ruining the element of surprise. Also it makes switching between inf and cav and back too difficult. 

2. Stables themselves are a liability. They not only cost more resources and time to build but also are easy to capture. Furthermore you don't always have enough space to build them especially when the host picks a pizza map

[Dakara]

13 minutes ago, Yekaterina said:

I am for removing stables and putting cav back into barracks. Problems with stables:

1. Wastes space and nerfs cav strategies. If the enemy sees that you have stables then they know for sure you are doing cav, ruining the element of surprise. Also it makes switching between inf and cav and back too difficult. 

2. Stables themselves are a liability. They not only cost more resources and time to build but also are easy to capture. Furthermore you don't always have enough space to build them especially when the host picks a pizza map

Absoluty @#$% building ! don't be age of empire like please

Only stable for persias like old alpha 

[real_tabasco_sauce]

43 minutes ago, Yekaterina said:

They not only cost more resources and time to build

no, cheaper than barrack.

I think seeing the building does ruin surprise, but adds value to scouting the enemy. There's also nothing to stop you from training some cav from the CC. Def keep the stables, and give Persians skirm and spear cav in p1.

Edited March 29, 2022 by real_tabasco_sauce

[smiley]

I am pretty sure I have seen some of these arguments being used for adding stables.

1 hour ago, Yekaterina said:

Wastes space and nerfs cav strategies

This not only contradicts the thesis of the thread but implies that building footprints and the fact that being scouted are actually side effects. What about house footprints? I am sure at times, that's an inconvenience too. The point isn't to create an autochess.

Scouting introduces a new dynamic which is desired because the objective isn't linear gameplay. And I disagree that your opponent finding out that you are massing cav is actually a failure in game design. An equally valid stance is believing that not being able to scout stables gives an unfair advantage to the attacker and overpowers early cav strats. Ask any AoE2 player and they would probably agree with the latter.

tl:dr; are these actually problems with stables?

Edited March 29, 2022 by smiley

[0 calories]

just give cav same amount of HP as infra units and you got issue resolved. 

Cavalery should be fast for providing quick support and retreat. Anyway should not be the only army... Lowering HP will do the work.

[Grapjas]

15 hours ago, Yekaterina said:

Furthermore you don't always have enough space to build them especially when the host picks a pizza map

Just because you have an option to play with cavalry doesn't mean that it should always be viable. RTS is simply about adapting to the game you are in at that moment with the tools you've been given. Which is why pizza maps (or other weird settings) can be fun, because it shows when someone relies on a strict strategy across the game.

[Yekaterina]

Huseyin is complaining about cavalry being too OP and the stables are helping his opponents to spam out cavalry too quickly, therefore in order to resolve this problem from the root we must first NERF cavalry units in general, then consider changes to stables.

The acceleration mechanics of A26 will be a blow to the strength of cavalry, so I believe this part of the problem will be fixed. Furthermore, we can decrease the attack value of javlin cavalry to 16, equal to their infantry counterparts. If Huseyin is discontent with spamming stables, then perhaps we can raise the stone cost to 100, identical to a that of a barrack. I cannot understand why the stables should be any cheaper than barracks or vice versa.

[Freagarach]

On 29/03/2022 at 3:04 PM, huseyin said:

I miss the old 0AD.

https://releases.wildfiregames.com/

[Gurken Khan]

One thing I don't really understand: if you see that ppl with cav win while those without lose, why do you resist to build cav yourself?

Admittedly, I'm a bit of a 'speed freak', so I had to get myself to build more pedestrians & take them along...

[PyrrhicVictoryGuy]

1 hour ago, Sevda said:

Huseyin is complaining about cavalry being too OP and the stables are helping his opponents to spam out cavalry too quickly, therefore in order to resolve this problem from the root we must first NERF cavalry units in general, then consider changes to stables.

The acceleration mechanics of A26 will be a blow to the strength of cavalry, so I believe this part of the problem will be fixed. Furthermore, we can decrease the attack value of javlin cavalry to 16, equal to their infantry counterparts. If Huseyin is discontent with spamming stables, then perhaps we can raise the stone cost to 100, identical to a that of a barrack. I cannot understand why the stables should be any cheaper than barracks or vice versa.

You heathen!!

[Yekaterina]

4 hours ago, Gurken Khan said:

One thing I don't really understand: if you see that ppl with cav win while those without lose, why do you resist to build cav yourself?

There are 2 possible reasons to explain his reluctance to use cavalry:

1. Cost. Cavalry require a dramatic amount of food, which would be difficult to produce in early game if there is insufficient hunt. Even in late game, cavalry is a significant investment. In addition, their train time is slower than infantry on women, which means a much slower economic growth and difference in numbers could result in an infantry vicotry over the stronger but fewer cavalry units. The weaker economy places the player in a risky situation. 

2. Strategic choice. Cavalry isn't always the best strategy in all situations, especially if you are the border player or if there is a lack of open space. Infantry army can be built faster and can be fielded into combat earlier with greater numbers than a mass cavalry army. 

Sometimes I try to transition from infantry to cavalry in late game, but that doesn't always happen. At other times players simply agree to 'ban' certain types of cavalry from the game because they are too OP and are dishonourable to use. 

 

4 hours ago, PyrrhicVictoryGuy said:

You heathen!!

Please elaborate

[chrstgtr]

On 29/03/2022 at 2:57 PM, real_tabasco_sauce said:

no, cheaper than barrack.

Requiring stables is more expensive than having a barrack that can produce inf+cav.

Stables make rushing less viable for p1 because it means a failed rush strategy can't be easily converted to boom strat. I don't think this is good thing. After p1, I don't think stables changes the game a ton. But I also don't see any real benefits of having stables and I haven't seen anyone put forth an argument on why they should exist where the reason why didn't already exist (i.e., scouting is always beneficial--I always want to know if my enemy made early military buildings). I'm personally not a fan because of this p1 issue and how it took away civ differentiation, but I am not losing a ton of sleep over it. 

Lastly, it isn't helpful to tell people to buzz off when they describe how they want the game to become. Sometimes people want the game to revert to have features it used to have. If you don't like that then you never should've downloaded a25 and should go back to a24 (see how unhelpful that line of reasoning is?). 

Edited March 30, 2022 by chrstgtr

[Gurken Khan]

4 hours ago, Sevda said:

There are 2 possible reasons to explain his reluctance to use cavalry:

1. Cost.

2. Strategic choice.

1. If you have the choice and it's the difference between winning and loosing, I guess it's worth it. And if you're already losing the eco battle I guess it's tough luck.

2. If that's the case you're team mate should cover the cav aspect.

 

4 hours ago, chrstgtr said:

see how unhelpful that line of reasoning is?

Yeah, I think ppl should be free to voice their wishes. Especially since MP with older versions has its downsides.

[chrstgtr]

3 minutes ago, Gurken Khan said:

Yeah, I think ppl should be free to voice their wishes. Especially since MP with older versions has its downsides.

Yeah, because it's actually called SP

[Yekaterina]

5 minutes ago, Gurken Khan said:

you have the choice and it's the difference between winning and loosing, I guess it's worth it. And if you're already losing the eco battle I guess it's tough luck

In most cases, the side with more numbers will win. Therefore infantry would seem to be the safer option here. Cavalry production from multiple stables also require you to float some food beforehand, which is bad efficiency. The cavalry units also arrive later. Most players would have 2 or 3 barracks set up early anyways, but not the same for stables. So comparing fast and cheap infantry mass to a few costly cavalry, I would pick infantry if I had to fight at 14:00. However, by 18:00, I would be inclined to choose cavalry to ensure my superiority in late game.

[PyrrhicVictoryGuy]

The only cavalry that needs a slight nerf is jav cav