suggestions Thread for posting suggestions for Alpha 27.

[real_tabasco_sauce]

1 hour ago, Lion.Kanzen said:

Why?

very little space on my computer, but maybe I can try.

edit: xcode takes 12 GB  need more than double that for intall apparently

Edited May 23, 2022 by real_tabasco_sauce

[alre]

12 hours ago, real_tabasco_sauce said:

Ok I thought some more about this metric and now I am convinced the best measure for effectiveness could be this:

average (or integral) over gametime (0, end gametime] of value ratio (where value ratio = military score/ resources spent).

^the main advantage is that this would still account for players with high value ratios early in the game (ie early rushes)

It would be similar to how average K/D ratio gives a better idea than end-of-game K/D ratio see red below:

I suggest a more explainatory name for your metric (any two values make a ratio) like "military/economy ratio". conceptually, it's similar to the killed/trained ratio (not shown in the game).

[Fabius]

14 hours ago, BreakfastBurrito_007 said:

merc cav are OP in a25 and I predict they will still be OP in a26, just less so. I don't think the merc-rush strategy should become weak, I just think there should be more options to counter it besides 1: rush before enemy makes mercs 2: make your own cav both of which are situational and are not always useful to protect against merc cav.

I think the solution comes down to walls, we need to improve walls ease of placement so that they are used not to irritatingly slow down the game, but to be placed skillfully in anticipation of harassment. The suggestions here are not to make walls/palisades stronger overall, but to allow them to better fill their purpose.

• increase ease of placement of stone walls/palisades. This could be done by tolerating some overlap of structures or resources. Since stone walls can't be placed out of territory, perhaps they could be built through forests deleting the trees upon wall completion.
• decreasing hp of stone walls by around 500-1000. The changes would probably make stone walls more common, and the hp decrease is to prevent this from slowing down gameplay
• giving melee cavalry .5x counter versus palisades. This gives a defending player more time to bring in infantry, but does not make palisades stronger versus infantry and rams; units that don't have the same raiding capability that palisades are intended to protect against.
• increase turret positions of stone walls to 16. This is a more practical amount that might make a difference in a battle.

tell me what you think please.

 

 

 

 

I like all of them except decreasing wall HP, unless you plan on decreasing the cost and build time as well, in which case I will accept it. In my books stone walls are already weak and useless at keeping anything out. Hopefully with catapults back in action again that will mitigate that point somewhat.

Edited May 23, 2022 by Fabius
sent to many times due to internet failure

[BreakfastBurrito_007]

@Fabiusthe idea is that they are better suited for protecting against the most potent threats that usually can’t be countered by ones own infantry CS: these are merc cav, champ cav, and to a lesser extent regular cavalry. Even with -500 hp, I think it would be easier to defend walls due to the extra garrison space on top. 
 

In a24 we found that slowing down the pace at which an average attack could destroy an enemy (rotation times, archer damage, building damage) resulted in very static gameplay that made it impossible to advance. If the changes above had that effect they would be tossed out for sure.

[real_tabasco_sauce]

7 hours ago, Fabius said:

I like all of them except decreasing wall HP, unless you plan on decreasing the cost and build time as well, in which case I will accept it. In my books stone walls are already weak and useless at keeping anything out. Hopefully with catapults back in action again that will mitigate that point somewhat.

Of the changes @BreakfastBurrito_007 described, wall HP would have the least effect. TBH it could remain as is.

Even if you added 1000 HP walls will still go down in a flash with multiple rams.

 

The big worry is that walls placed in forests could be invulnerable to rams, maybe just making walls easier to place in general could be enough (smaller footprint, etc).

[Fabius]

On 23/05/2022 at 4:55 PM, BreakfastBurrito_007 said:

@Fabiusthe idea is that they are better suited for protecting against the most potent threats that usually can’t be countered by ones own infantry CS: these are merc cav, champ cav, and to a lesser extent regular cavalry. Even with -500 hp, I think it would be easier to defend walls due to the extra garrison space on top. 
 

In a24 we found that slowing down the pace at which an average attack could destroy an enemy (rotation times, archer damage, building damage) resulted in very static gameplay that made it impossible to advance. If the changes above had that effect they would be tossed out for sure.

Well I suppose that is a reasonable use for walls. But I thought walls usually were supposed to keep everything out and not just people on horses.

[Fabius]

On 23/05/2022 at 10:05 PM, real_tabasco_sauce said:

Of the changes @BreakfastBurrito_007 described, wall HP would have the least effect. TBH it could remain as is.

Even if you added 1000 HP walls will still go down in a flash with multiple rams.

 

The big worry is that walls placed in forests could be invulnerable to rams, maybe just making walls easier to place in general could be enough (smaller footprint, etc).

The basic problem with walls is that they cannot be viably defended against things meant to break them. Therefore its a waste of stone. 

Also consider the amount of time needed to mine extra stone and build the walls to begin with, In a game were everything depends on reaching P3 the opportunity cost is to much.

[vinme]

stone walls arent that expensive, depends on what you are walling off. buildtime is so tiny, its neglegent, you may even build them easily in time if you see enemy coming, the question is really what you want to wall off, of course walling off completely farms and cc will be costly, but not a 1 by 1 walloff of cc itself, or a castle, or even a front wall to block off castle/towers from ease of access. Honestly since the scenarios of legitimate use are quite rare, people dont even use them when tehy are useful, myself included. 

Id like if they were moderately tankier, and moderately harder to build(buildtime)

[real_tabasco_sauce]

4 hours ago, Fabius said:

The basic problem with walls is that they cannot be viably defended against things meant to break them. Therefore its a waste of stone. 

If an army is attacking with rams, you will need an army to defend the wall. Walls should never be a standalone defense.

I think @BreakfastBurrito_007's ideas are good, except we keep HP the same or greater.

4 hours ago, vinme said:

Id like if they were moderately tankier, and moderately harder to build(buildtime)

would these attributes were from a "fortified wall" upgrade available p3?

[Fabius]

3 hours ago, real_tabasco_sauce said:

If an army is attacking with rams, you will need an army to defend the wall. Walls should never be a standalone defense.

I think @BreakfastBurrito_007's ideas are good, except we keep HP the same or greater.

would these attributes were from a "fortified wall" upgrade available p3?

Definitely agree, my point is that we lack viable means to defend those walls currently from rams, in A23 we used catapults by in large as it was most effective. A24 removed that so we were forced to use swords, the issue is that is not cost effective in either population or resources or anything really. Two catapults could do the job of ten or twenty swordsmen for a fraction of the cost, and still kill hordes to boot. A26 is giving some accuracy and even more damage so it is likely wall defense will be a lot more viable again.

I definitely like the idea of a fortified wall technology

[vinme]

22 hours ago, real_tabasco_sauce said:

If an army is attacking with rams, you will need an army to defend the wall. Walls should never be a standalone defense.

I think @BreakfastBurrito_007's ideas are good, except we keep HP the same or greater.

would these attributes were from a "fortified wall" upgrade available p3?

even more drastic, thats slight longer build and slight tankiness. 

im talking +3-5 crush at least and maybe 2x buildtime. altho this would deincentivize larger coverage of area walling.

18 hours ago, Fabius said:

Definitely agree, my point is that we lack viable means to defend those walls currently from rams, in A23 we used catapults by in large as it was most effective. A24 removed that so we were forced to use swords, the issue is that is not cost effective in either population or resources or anything really. Two catapults could do the job of ten or twenty swordsmen for a fraction of the cost, and still kill hordes to boot. A26 is giving some accuracy and even more damage so it is likely wall defense will be a lot more viable again.

I definitely like the idea of a fortified wall technology

swords work great vs rams, many other units work ok too, rams are too weak rn if anything, compared to ele especially, but in general also.

[chrstgtr]

The problem with walls is that their only current purpose is to delay defeat. They don’t change the outcome of fights. They just make the defeat slower. In other words, they’re just meant to frustrate—that doesn’t seem like good game design to me.
 

Walls act this way for two main reasons.

1-Rams can’t be defended from behind walls. To do so you either (A) need ranged counter siege (better cata like @Fabius has said), which isn’t a unit available to all civs; or (B) make ram attacks less viable. (A) already has a ticket made, but that only addresses the few civs that have cata. (B) wasn’t as big of a problem until all civs got rams in a24 (ele can be killed from behind walls whereas rams cannot be). I think the decision to make rams available to all civs should be reconsidered.  

2-Walls don’t do anything. They’re just a barrier. There should be more garrison capacity so they function more like towers. Note, shooting turrets were taken out from a24–>a25, I think that change should be reconsidered and/or other garrison features should be considered to replace it  

Until (1) and/or (2) are addressed walls will be nothing more than annoying blockades that temporarily separate warring range armies. 

[LetswaveaBook]

On 22/05/2022 at 11:30 PM, BreakfastBurrito_007 said:

The suggestions here are not to make walls/palisades stronger overall, but to allow them to better fill their purpose.

• increase ease of placement of stone walls/palisades. This could be done by tolerating some overlap of structures or resources. Since stone walls can't be placed out of territory, perhaps they could be built through forests deleting the trees upon wall completion.
• decreasing hp of stone walls by around 500-1000. The changes would probably make stone walls more common, and the hp decrease is to prevent this from slowing down gameplay
• giving melee cavalry .5x counter versus palisades. This gives a defending player more time to bring in infantry, but does not make palisades stronger versus infantry and rams; units that don't have the same raiding capability that palisades are intended to protect against.
• increase turret positions of stone walls to 16. This is a more practical amount that might make a difference in a battle.

tell me what you think please.

 

18 hours ago, vinme said:

Id like if they were moderately tankier, and moderately harder to build(buildtime)

Some want walls to be easier to build, while others like strong but expensive walls. We don´t need to compromise as we can have both.

However we can do both and allready have both. Celts build them 20% faster and have 20% less HP, Mauryas have the wooden walls faction bonus. While Carthaginians have the triple walls civ bonus. If opinions differ on how walls should function, we could differentiate factions by walls.

 

Similar as we have big house and small house factions, for the next alpha I would suggest that some factions get cheaper but weaker walls(-50% HP, cost and build time) and other have stronger walls (+50% HP).

[BreakfastBurrito_007]

@LetswaveaBook, @vinme @chrstgtr,do you guys have any thoughts on doubling the wall turret-garrison space from 8 to 16? I think it might be more useful in general than 8.

@chrstgtr I observed that walls and palisades make up a mostly futile defense against merc swordcav, and I don’t want merc cav in the future to be a non-viable strategy. I tried thinking of ways to change walls/palisades from being annoying delayers like you said into active defense measures that would help players defend against merc cav which would still be powerful but there would be more options to withstand them.

 

 

[LetswaveaBook]

7 minutes ago, BreakfastBurrito_007 said:

@LetswaveaBook, @vinme @chrstgtr,do you guys have any thoughts on doubling the wall turret-garrison space from 8 to 16? I think it might be more useful in general than 8.

currently you can easily stack 30 infantry in a very tight space, so only having 8 on a wall segment would be very limiting.

[alre]

I doubt more people on walls would be very useful anyway, they are tricky to use and the resistance bonus does not make up for the loss in mobility.

to counter cav it makes a lot more sense to me to give palisades a resistance bonus against them, palisadas would be dedicated counters for cav, easily overcame by infantry.

[chrstgtr]

53 minutes ago, BreakfastBurrito_007 said:

@LetswaveaBook, @vinme @chrstgtr,do you guys have any thoughts on doubling the wall turret-garrison space from 8 to 16? I think it might be more useful in general than 8.

@chrstgtr I observed that walls and palisades make up a mostly futile defense against merc swordcav, and I don’t want merc cav in the future to be a non-viable strategy. I tried thinking of ways to change walls/palisades from being annoying delayers like you said into active defense measures that would help players defend against merc cav which would still be powerful but there would be more options to withstand them.

 

 

I do not think walls should be considered in the context of merc cav. The problem with merc cav is that they are too strong. Making them less strong where walls are doesn't fix the problem of them being too strong where walls are not. 

 

I'm not sure how the garrisoning of men in walls helps. They are still vulnerable to attacks. The extra range can only be so helpful

Edited May 28, 2022 by chrstgtr

[chrstgtr]

5 minutes ago, alre said:

to counter cav it makes a lot more sense to me to give palisades a resistance bonus against them, palisadas would be dedicated counters for cav, easily overcame by infantry.

Or just balance the cav...If cav are too strong in the open fields that is still a problem. The discussed solution does nothing to solve that

[alre]

19 minutes ago, chrstgtr said:

If cav are too strong in the open fields that is still a problem

why is that? 

[chrstgtr]

7 minutes ago, alre said:

why is that? 

Because merc cav are imbalanced. It is well known. Discussing walls distracts from the actual problem--that merc cav are just broken

 

Edit: if you are asking why they are broken--it is because they're so cheap and easy to spam. There is a ticket for that that was committed. We'll see if it goes far enough. 

Edited May 28, 2022 by chrstgtr

[LetswaveaBook]

44 minutes ago, chrstgtr said:

The discussed solution does nothing to solve that

Whether something is a solution, depends on the problem.

If the problem is that walls are never used, then the solution is to think about changing the role of walls.

If the problem is that merc cav are OP, then walls won´t fully solve that.

[alre]

43 minutes ago, chrstgtr said:

Because merc cav are imbalanced. It is well known. Discussing walls distracts from the actual problem--that merc cav are just broken

fine. I was thinking about cav in general.

[Yekaterina]

The han crossbow units need their stats to be re-adjusted. Currently they are too weak, firing a 20 damage shot every 3 seconds at 45 metres. 

Comparing them to slingers who also have a 45 metres range, they should deal approximately 10 pierce damage per second in order to be on par with the slingers, however, their current dps is 6.66 which is too weak. I would suggest either decreasing their firing rate to 1 shot every 2 seconds (at 20 pierce) or 1 shot per second but 10 pierce damage per shot. 

 

If you are determined to create a trash unit, then you must decrease their price and training time accordingly, for example let their cost be 35 food, 35 wood and let the training time be 6 seconds compared to the 10 seconds for infantry. 

[dmzerocold]

I hope to see these points in next release , specially point 1

 

[Fabius]

Alrighty, back to walls. After some contemplation the idea of doubling or tripling the garrison capacity is a good one, it will incentivise walling strategic areas I believe as the extra range and armour will give an edge to the defenders that is badly needed. As pointed out the reason it is not used is spacing units out like that makes it completely unviable for general combat. From my perspective if this was implemented I would definitely consider walling strategic places like fortresses and civic centers and stacking troops on the walls. The main drawback is how many troops can be put in a small space, so doubling may not be enough to give an edge at all. Then you have the issue of how to put that many troops on a single wall section.