Introducing the Official community mod for 0 A.D. Empires Ascendant

[Outis]

I will take a bold step and ask why not modify armor values?

I find it strange that both melee and ranged infantry have equal hack and pierce armor values. This is not the same for melee cavalry and gives some distinction to sword and spear cavalry. Why not experiment a bit for infantry?

Armor rates can be modified in such a way as to break the melee meatshield and ranged dps paradigm and provide some differentiation to unit roles at the same time.

For example, sword infantry may be weaker towards ranged units than spear infantry, i.e. lower pierce armor than hack. Spear infantry may be weaker towards sword infantry i.e. lower hack armor than pierce.

There are historical exceptions. Roman sword infantry is not vulnerable to ranged units and Greek hoplites are not vulnerable to melee. These may be addressed by bonuses added with formation and/or unique technologies proposed earlier. In other words even more variety.

Another example, i expect javelin infantry to have some pierce armor than other ranged infantry, they carry shields after all and have a free hand to use them since javelins are used with one hand. Slings and bows require 2 hands. Javelinmen need the extra pierce armor as they need to close in further than slingers and archers, and are easy targets for other ranged units.

I know all of this is very difficult to balance, especially since hack damage is not the same as melee attack and pierce damage is not the same as ranged attack, but the game has so much potential and the community mod is an excellent opportunity to experiment. Most important is, it gives the chance to try many changes incrementally. This way, the extensive changes can be balanced over multiple iterations of the community mod within one alpha release or even multiple alphas.

 

Edited December 22, 2022 by Outis

[ChronA]

7 hours ago, chrstgtr said:

Something like a 10% decrease to survivability and a 10% increase in attack?

From experience: a 1 to1 HP to DPS tradeoff is not going to work out how you want. The most important decider for how much damage a melee unit can do vs a range unit is not actually its DPS, but how much time it spends in attack range, which is determined by speed and effective HP. Consider that -10% HP on a unit that spends 80% of a battle walking to the enemy and 20% attacking is not a 10% reduction to damage dealt. It's -50%, as the unit is now only gets to spend 10% of its nominal lifetime on target.

If you really want to test this, first you should try just doubling Melee infantry DPS. See how much that changes up the dynamics. If it is too much, then you can scale it back or look at some compensatory nerfs, but I think you will be shocked just how little difference it makes. 

Edit: and if the goal is to have gameplay that actually reflects ancient warfare--with 70+% of the fighting strength composed of heavy (melee) infantry--I think you will need to go much, much further with the melee inf buffs. I'd imagine somewhere in the neighborhood 2X DPS and 4X HP would do it.

Edited December 22, 2022 by ChronA

[real_tabasco_sauce]

8 hours ago, chrstgtr said:

What values are you thinking? I would want to keep the decreases in line with the increases so we can test if change actually adjusts the meta in a desirable way. Something like a 10% decrease to survivability and a 10% increase in attack? Maybe a 20%-20%?

I was actually thinking something more asymmetric would be ideal. On the order of 10 % less survivable and 25% to 30% increase in attack. The attack is really more important.

You are right that the crush units become less effective in comparison, but if you remember, I already have a crush rebalance branch that would be ideal for this.

8 hours ago, chrstgtr said:

This will impact melee units' strength relative to defensive buildings because they will not be able to stand under buildings as long. I don't feel great about this, but I'm on board for testing it. You can't really adjust for this because any adjustment will also impact range units' survivability under defensive buildings. 

yeah this is a concern for sure. To be honest, I would rather building arrows be targeted rather than random, but this is a different topic.

You are right, we would have to increase melee cavalry damage to follow suit. In this case, I am fine with higher melee cav damage. Spear cavalry need it anyway, and I agree some armor/hp changes might be necessary as well. However, remember that these cav will be in close quarters with much more damaging melee infantry, especially spearmen and pikemen that have a cav counter.

[BreakfastBurrito_007]

9 hours ago, chrstgtr said:

Something like a 10% decrease to survivability and a 10% increase in attack? Maybe a 20%-20%

I was thinking more like 15% 30% the same way you ordered it. I would not mind a net buff for melee units to be honest.

 

[alre]

I strongly agree on increasing damage for melee infantry, and even more strongly I oppose to decreasing melee infantry pierce armor (nor hack armor, but I don't feel as strongly for that).

18 hours ago, chrstgtr said:

melee is already very strong against range when they actually engage. 

this is false. a spearman deals 3 times less damage than a javlineer, which is completely nuts if you think about it: how is a spear driven towards you three times less dangerous than a javelin? Anyways, if you factor armor as well, and you put a spearman right next to a javelineer, the spearman will only barely win thanks to the oddity of melee units having more health points. if you have a spearmen charge at a javelineer, the range advantage will hand over victory to the javelineer. this is not considering the speed advantage he also gets.

4 hours ago, ChronA said:

From experience: a 1 to1 HP to DPS tradeoff is not going to work out how you want. The most important decider for how much damage a melee unit can do vs a range unit is not actually its DPS, but how much time it spends in attack range, which is determined by speed and effective HP. Consider that -10% HP on a unit that spends 80% of a battle walking to the enemy and 20% attacking is not a 10% reduction to damage dealt. It's -50%, as the unit is now only gets to spend 10% of its nominal lifetime on target.

If you really want to test this, first you should try just doubling Melee infantry DPS. See how much that changes up the dynamics. If it is too much, then you can scale it back or look at some compensatory nerfs, but I think you will be shocked just how little difference it makes. 

completely agree.

by the way, I don't see why melee units shoudn't be tanky. that's realistic.

[Stan`]

1 hour ago, alre said:

by the way, I don't see why melee units shoudn't be tanky. that's realistic.

Is it though It's not the late medieval times, they were used as meat shields.

[chrstgtr]

4 hours ago, real_tabasco_sauce said:

You are right that the crush units become less effective in comparison, but if you remember, I already have a crush rebalance branch that would be ideal for this.

But why? You can do crush that adjusts still. Doing it by armor here makes a problem where one doesn't exist.

4 hours ago, real_tabasco_sauce said:

However, remember that these cav will be in close quarters with much more damaging melee infantry, especially spearmen and pikemen that have a cav counter.

Yeah, I'm more concerned about range units taking them out first, though. 

4 hours ago, real_tabasco_sauce said:

I was actually thinking something more asymmetric would be ideal. On the order of 10 % less survivable and 25% to 30% increase in attack. The attack is really more important.

I thought you said you wanted to keep melee/range balance? How does this keep it? 

[BreakfastBurrito_007]

1 hour ago, chrstgtr said:

I thought you said you wanted to keep melee/range balance? How does this keep it? 

Survivability also affects the damage output because they need to take damage while walking to a target. You need at least some disparity in % attack buff and %survivability nerf in order to even out the overall capability of the unit.

[chrstgtr]

5 hours ago, BreakfastBurrito_007 said:

Survivability also affects the damage output because they need to take damage while walking to a target. You need at least some disparity in % attack buff and %survivability nerf in order to even out the overall capability of the unit.

I can see how that might be the case. But I can also see how the opposite would be true too. Have you run any tests? 

Edited December 23, 2022 by chrstgtr

[alre]

13 hours ago, Stan` said:

Is it though It's not the late medieval times, they were used as meat shields.

when and where exactly they were used as meat shields?

Edited December 23, 2022 by alre

[Stan`]

1 minute ago, alre said:

when and where exactly they were used as meat shields?

In most battles people who could not afford armor would not have been particularly "tanky"

[Adeimantos]

Increasing melee attack and reducing armor would make infantry more like Age of Empires. It would also make them better against siege (good), and more vulnerable to range cav (and jav cav are OP already). Reducing javelin dps should happen first. I'd like melee infantry to include in some tanky units and some with higher attack lower armor.

[real_tabasco_sauce]

I am making a list of simple community mod shortcomings that would need to be addressed if/when it is implemented in a27.

• Roman Civilization Overview (perhaps specific technologies) should mention ability of rank 3 melee infantry to become centurions, should also be listed on Spearmen and Swordsmen tooltip for romans.
• Carthage team bonus should say "infantry mercenaries..." instead of "Mercenaries -50% train time"

if you have anything else to add, mention it.

[chrstgtr]

6 hours ago, real_tabasco_sauce said:

I am making a list of simple community mod shortcomings that would need to be addressed if/when it is implemented in a27.

• Roman Civilization Overview (perhaps specific technologies) should mention ability of rank 3 melee infantry to become centurions, should also be listed on Spearmen and Swordsmen tooltip for romans.
• Carthage team bonus should say "infantry mercenaries..." instead of "Mercenaries -50% train time"

if you have anything else to add, mention it.

Do we have any place to actually discuss whether the items from the community mod should be implemented into a27?

I think everything should get in. I would be in favor of slight tweaks to the CC radius expansion to make it smaller and making centurions more available somehow (still haven't seen one used). 

[Fabius]

10 hours ago, real_tabasco_sauce said:

I am making a list of simple community mod shortcomings that would need to be addressed if/when it is implemented in a27.

• Roman Civilization Overview (perhaps specific technologies) should mention ability of rank 3 melee infantry to become centurions, should also be listed on Spearmen and Swordsmen tooltip for romans.
• Carthage team bonus should say "infantry mercenaries..." instead of "Mercenaries -50% train time"

if you have anything else to add, mention it.

I have a question, was it intentional that melee cavalry get buffed by centurions? Cause that does juice Consular up even more lol

[chrstgtr]

38 minutes ago, Fabius said:

I have a question, was it intentional that melee cavalry get buffed by centurions? Cause that does juice Consular up even more lol

I don’t know the answer, but something like centurions will amplify any underlying imbalances. As a way forward, we shouldn’t carve those imbalances out. Instead we should just fix whatever issues exist underneath. Otherwise, it gets really complicated and logically inconsistent. With that said, I welcome changes to champ Roman cav, which, in my opinion, is the best unit in the game 

Edited December 27, 2022 by chrstgtr

[real_tabasco_sauce]

This is true @Fabius, however the two units are rarely achievable together. Even when you can get both units in a fight, the different mobility of the consular bodyguards and the centurions makes them fairly incompatible.

The centurions have a small aura radius, so you would have to keep the consular bodyguards nearby. Also, all the roman heroes are mounted and you would surely rather have them with your consulars than with your smaller CS army (assuming you have some CS at home on resources), so in that case it would be harder to acquire a centurion.

So, thankfully, the design doesn't particularly lend itself to use with consulars.

One thing that could be very strong currently, and I have not seen anyone try this, would be to combine CS swordsmen with champion swordsmen to try and get centurions. The melee champions then would be absolutely a force to be reckoned with, probably the strongest in the game.

@chrstgtr feel free to try it

[BreakfastBurrito_007]

@chrstgtr in regards to the difficulty getting rank 3 units for centurions. A few ways to do it come to mind: winning a sniping battle since your melee will survive longer, garrisoning in barracks (you only need 8), or training rank 2 from army camp. I agree there is a range between there being some planning and skill involved to get centurions and them being too hard to bother getting. I am not sure where the current system falls on that range to be honest.

real tabasco actually managed to get them a few time and he seemed to find some success. I have not been playing as much since my main computer can't work with the new TLS encryption problem, but I would certainly also give them a shot as well.

Han are a great civ when their crossbows can snipe, because if they take out your ranged units they can win a fight. I think a great use case for these centurions would be to focus on CS swordsmen in army mass and upgrade choices, and as they try to snipe your ranged units your swords would live long enough to reach rank 3, upgrade to centurions and then sway the fight from there. Rome also has a +1 armor hero that can help melee infantry live long enough to reach rank 3.

@real_tabasco_sauce I would recommend adding an xp trickle to units garrisoned in the roman army camp, equal to barracks rate.

[chrstgtr]

35 minutes ago, BreakfastBurrito_007 said:

@chrstgtr in regards to the difficulty getting rank 3 units for centurions. A few ways to do it come to mind: winning a sniping battle since your melee will survive longer, garrisoning in barracks (you only need 8), or training rank 2 from army camp. I agree there is a range between there being some planning and skill involved to get centurions and them being too hard to bother getting. I am not sure where the current system falls on that range to be honest.

real tabasco actually managed to get them a few time and he seemed to find some success. I have not been playing as much since my main computer can't work with the new TLS encryption problem, but I would certainly also give them a shot as well.

Han are a great civ when their crossbows can snipe, because if they take out your ranged units they can win a fight. I think a great use case for these centurions would be to focus on CS swordsmen in army mass and upgrade choices, and as they try to snipe your ranged units your swords would live long enough to reach rank 3, upgrade to centurions and then sway the fight from there. Rome also has a +1 armor hero that can help melee infantry live long enough to reach rank 3.

@real_tabasco_sauce I would recommend adding an xp trickle to units garrisoned in the roman army camp, equal to barracks rate.

I just haven't seen them, which makes me concerned that they are virtually unattainable. But you're right that barrack garrisoning may be a way to do it. 

I wouldn't mind an xp trickle, which would help make centurions more attainable. To be honest, I miss how camps used to also heal garrisoned units, but I already think that camps are very strong as p2 buildings. 

[binobo]

Can we make it so champ crossbowmen have 50 pierce damage? I think there should be a chance that champ crossbowmen instantly kill an unarmored ranged unit. As of right now, champion crossbowmen are too weak relative to other champs. 

[Gurken Khan]

Just wanted to throw in here that my spearmen are the first to die. Or the only, actually. So if their survivability is further reduced, I probably won't even take them along (again).

[Stan`]

@vv221 has started looking into porting patch today. You can talk to him on IRC.

[vv221]

3 hours ago, Stan` said:

@vv221 has started looking into porting patch today. You can talk to him on IRC.

The process is much easier than what I expected, so I plan to import all patches from the community mod in the coming days.

[Stan`]

To all that contributed, please state how you'd like to be credited in the balancing credits. Options are full name, nickname, or both.

[wowgetoffyourcellphone]

Macedonians

"Naval Arms Race"

• Unlock the Hexeres heavy warship for Macedon

Edited January 6, 2023 by wowgetoffyourcellphone