Introducing the Official community mod for Alpha 26

[Genava55]

 

[real_tabasco_sauce]

1 hour ago, borg- said:

Guerrila: The preponderance of throwing spears, and the near total absence of body armour, indicate that the style of warfare was highly mobile and loosely formed, based around raiding and short. Javelins +10% movement speed.

This could be a team bonus. Maybe just slingers and javelins?

 

1 hour ago, borg- said:

Fortress can be built in neutral territory. There were small villages with centralized fortresses. With the root territory of the fortress, it is possible to build small bases, great for small attacks with chariots and other units.

I like this as a civ specific bonus. One could call it "hill forts."

 

1 hour ago, borg- said:

Some new technology Sevili Dusios / bodypainting tech.

a new briton unique tech would good too. Researched from the cc during phase 2 perhaps? Maybe an increase in damage for certain unit types, maybe increased acceleration and/or move speed at the cost of armor?

[Dakara]

What differentiates civilians are the civ bonuses, team, heroes, unique upgrades and units available.

There are a lot of ideas scattered around the forum.

Athens :

Spoiler

Bonus civilisation : Warship construction time -25% -> construction time of all ships -20% , of course for land map we need found also a bonus useful.

An orther champion unit infanterie ? a pikeman unit choose in gymnasium building.

Carthage

Spoiler

Carthage tech unique 500 gold : mercenary train is instant. 

Fortress: -50% construction time. To complete their reputation as builders

New tech in dock : Repair at sea: out of combat, the boats are repaired by the crew automatically at a rate of 1 hp per second.

 

Finally to give them an identity if you want to play them without mercenaries and insist on the ability to control elephants. A new 1-pop champion elephant unit. A combat-focused unit that is not intended to be a siege unit. Slightly slower than the cavalry. In the elephant building. 

So maurya have archer elephant for fight and carthage melee elephant for fight.

Britons

Spoiler

technique unique :  200 food 200 gold : Druide can be upgrade in mounted druide.

Team bonus :

Delete the bonus cost monk/druid of 20% by a new bonus : All monk/druide train are trained by 2 for the same cost.  It like -50% cost for same training time.  

Séleucides 

Spoiler

New tech unique in fortress : Cavalry archers can attack while moving

Gauls idea :

Spoiler

For the Gauls, the forge could have two different production lines, in order to be able to research two technologies on the same forge. 

Perses :

Spoiler

Woman with bow

Persians Tech unique : Archers are more accurate than other archers and advance in rank faster

All Persian cavalry are available in the CC, except champions + can be trained in phase 1.

Remove conscription and current unique training technology.

-Delete bonus population of 10%, create a category of slave fighter in market. Like dogs or britons is limited amount of unit like 40. Cost only metal and train very fast. A little weak unit (less strong than citizen unit)

We can imagine 4 units of slaves ; 1 unit with mass, 1 unit with little bow (attack fast and middle range like slingers), 1 spearman (with normal stat compare to sperman persians, better for kill ram) 1 scout skirmish cavalery no armor and medium attack .

Bonus tciv : Dispora (for see ally tech) is instant when clicked

Bonus team : road trader more +2 move speed. Perses don't need good bonus team or military.

 

Rome :

 

 

Sparta : 

Spoiler

1) Change totaly the siege. Remplace by mercenary siege. Sparta can't build siege, only recruit mercenary siege in the arsenal.
Instead of recruit unit siege one by one. We can only recruit by group of mercenary siege.
2 chooses in the building.
A) 2 ram 1 bolt 4 light sword men (they repear faster X2), 500 metal and 10 population. 45 seconds.
B)3 Catapulte 6 light sword men (they repear faster X2), 800 metal and 10pop. 60 seconds.
Also we delete all tech in this building.

3) Sparta can have 2 heroes alive at the same time

Somes idea of forum:

4)Change the tech bonus phase. Phase 2: 30% to 25% expand territory and add a gain of 1 metal every 5 seconds for each ally earned.  Phase 3: +50% to 45% expand territory and gain of 2 metal every 5 seconds for each possessed ally. Sparta acts for the protection of its allies against a tax. Of course for the gameplay we are not going to steal metal from the allies.    -> If it seems too complicated a slow flow of metal in phase 2 and a medium flow in phase 3. This should not be op. light economic support to produce a ram, 2 champion or a small technology every 10 minutes of play.

My idea is that by adding buffs to civilization we find some nerf to add as well without falling into a wikipedia of bonuses and maluses.

5)Every barack built give 2 free spermen. 

6)delete their bonus teams , unbalance unit.

7)if will be necessary to think of buffing Sparta by the appearance of a long range unit (mercenary archer) or to keep the weakness of not having a long range unit distance.

8)The heroe AGIS 3 don't have bonus. IT SAD. Give him a bonus but what the bonus?

Some idea of bonus for AGIS 3. Select one.

A)When AGIS 3 is in garnison, all champions are train instant in this building. 

B)AGIS 3 is cavalery now and he give bonus speed aura in medium range at cavalery ally by 3 points.

C)Agis 3 stop the production of ennemy building in a medium area around him. 

D)Agis 3 can put a flag on map ( max 1 flag in map.) he build it instant, this flag give 5 hp to all unit of the player in medium area.

E)Agis 3 stop all the healing in the area around him.  Agis 3 is melee so it not op op, ennemy should put off combat Agis 3 if he want use healer. interesting combat mechanic, you have to adjust the range of the penalty aura.

 

[chrstgtr]

3 hours ago, real_tabasco_sauce said:

Hi @Darkcity thanks for the feedback! I was thinking 50% would be good since it would have a significant effect on gameplay, but 20% or 25% is a safer option. My thoughts are this: if we test the bonus at 50%, we can always bring it down to 30% or 25% as needed. But if we test the bonus at 25% it might not be very interesting for gameplay and then I bet people won't try it out.

Also:

for some reason, with 50% reduction in train time, infantry train in 7->5 seconds, and cavalry from 11->7 seconds. It's not 50% interestingly so its not as strong as expected XD. I'm wondering if there is some other factor at work. It is a significant difference, however.

Maybe just apply to inf. Merc cav is still quite strong

I also would never want cav to train as fast as men, especially if the cav is barely more expensive and starts at level 2

The proposal in its current form would make cav have a much higher attack, much higher health, and get to the fight much quicker than CS inf. Their cost would also be basically the same since in terms of res cost and time to collect needed res (because food gather so much slower than metal). Add on top that all those advantages plus train time, res cost, and res gather time would also exist with respect to merc cav vs CS cav

Edited October 18, 2022 by chrstgtr

[real_tabasco_sauce]

Ah good point, yeah it makes sense to limit this to infantry. Done.

1 hour ago, real_tabasco_sauce said:

3 hours ago, borg- said:

Guerrila: The preponderance of throwing spears, and the near total absence of body armour, indicate that the style of warfare was highly mobile and loosely formed, based around raiding and short. Javelins +10% movement speed.

This could be a team bonus. Maybe just slingers and javelins?

thoughts on this for britons?

Edited October 18, 2022 by real_tabasco_sauce

[chrstgtr]

19 minutes ago, real_tabasco_sauce said:

Ah good point, yeah it makes sense to limit this to infantry. Done.

thoughts on this for britons?

I personally think they should be a raiding/looting civ (for similar reasons that borg stated). 
 

I would apply a speed bonus and a loot bonus. 
 

I also understand they were kind of disparate tribes that would occasionally band together. It would be cool if you apply an attack bonus when close to allies, but I don’t think that’s possible without significant computational drag

[real_tabasco_sauce]

My only concern is stacking the speedy skirms/slingers team bonus for brits with other speed buffs like Viriato from ibers. That would make their skirms 15 m/s which is comparable to cavalry.

[BreakfastBurrito_007]

Loot would be a decent bonus by itself if it was addition based rather than multiplying to already quite low loot values. Maybe +10 food for each woman kill and + 5 food, 5 wood for men kills. There is also no problematic interactions with other bonuses or civ specifics as far as I am aware.

 

[chrstgtr]

42 minutes ago, real_tabasco_sauce said:

My only concern is stacking the speedy skirms/slingers team bonus for brits with other speed buffs like Viriato from ibers. That would make their skirms 15 m/s which is comparable to cavalry.

Very good point. I withdraw 

[real_tabasco_sauce]

Ok, I went ahead and made a merge request for the 4 new team bonuses.

[Philip the Swaggerless]

On 17/10/2022 at 8:14 PM, chrstgtr said:

Ah, I was think civ bonus—not team bonus. My mistake. 
 

For trade, I think making traders=0 pop would be a good first step. Right now trade isn’t viable because it slows growth at the cost of men. It’s a good long term play but picking that strat usually means you never get to late game. We could set a trader limit to prevent it from getting OP.

I think Land Traders are also expensive.  I think if there is a trader limit it could justify reducing production cost as well.

100 Food 80 Metal.  50 Food 30 Metal?  Or just 50 Food?

I think this would promote the use of traders and allow civs with trade bonuses and team trade bonuses to be worthwhile.

 

[chrstgtr]

3 hours ago, Philip the Swaggerless said:

I think Land Traders are also expensive.  I think if there is a trader limit it could justify reducing production cost as well.

 

You might be right. But I am not sure--traders can be very powerful if you can survive the first enemy push. I would personally suggest doing one of the other first and then seeing how balance is. 

[real_tabasco_sauce]

I figured I would put an update to the "unit_upgrades" branch here:

https://gitlab.com/real_tabasco_sauce/0-a-d-community-mod-unit-specific-upgrades/-/tree/unit_upgrades/community-mod/simulation/data/technologies

I have 2 icons to make out of 23.

I also changed the names of some to be a little more historically plausible, also interesting.

Also, now each level 2 upgrade required getting level 1 first. This makes gameplay and Ui better:

btw, unit specific upgrades are almost complete with icons:

Edited October 23, 2022 by real_tabasco_sauce

[Philip the Swaggerless]

Immortals now have 2 weapon modes.  I would like to be able to choose which version is the default version.  Would that be fair?  Any disagreement?

[Lion.Kanzen]

3 minutes ago, Philip the Swaggerless said:

Immortals now have 2 weapon modes.  I would like to be able to choose which version is the default version.  Would that be fair?  Any disagreement?

no, that's fine by dafault infantry.

[chrstgtr]

2 hours ago, Philip the Swaggerless said:

Immortals now have 2 weapon modes.  I would like to be able to choose which version is the default version.  Would that be fair?  Any disagreement?

I think you need to clarify what you mean. Do you mean you get to choose what they are trained as? Or do you mean something where they auto switch back after a fight/when walking 

[Philip the Swaggerless]

31 minutes ago, chrstgtr said:

I think you need to clarify what you mean. Do you mean you get to choose what they are trained as? Or do you mean something where they auto switch back after a fight/when walking 

I mean choose what they are trained as.  So you can choose whether they come out as archer-mode or spear-mode when they emerge from the Apadana or Cyrus' shadow.  And then when you select the immortal unit you can switch weapon as you can currently.

They are best used as archers now since their health and defense is so low, but if your base is being raided by cavalry you may want them to emerge as spearmen.

[chrstgtr]

3 minutes ago, Philip the Swaggerless said:

I mean choose what they are trained as.  So you can choose whether they come out as archer-mode or spear-mode when they emerge from the Apadana or Cyrus' shadow.  And then when you select the immortal unit you can switch weapon as you can currently.

They are best used as archers now since their health and defense is so low, but if your base is being raided by cavalry you may want them to emerge as spearmen.

That's what I thought (and I think your suggestion is a good one), but I just wanted to clarify. 

(Also their spear function is good because it provides a counter to archer's natural counter--cav)

[real_tabasco_sauce]

By the way, is 8 seconds too long?

[chrstgtr]

24 minutes ago, real_tabasco_sauce said:

By the way, is 8 seconds too long?

For the weapon switching mechanism? I don't know. I don't think the game has been played long enough for a real opinion to form on this. With that said, I suspect yes. Although, like Philip said, use of spears is really a niche function with limited use right now. 

Edited October 23, 2022 by chrstgtr

[real_tabasco_sauce]

yes, I have yet to see this function being used effectively. In theory, a large number of these could be used with CS, but you rarely get that far as pers, and when you do usually cav are better.

By the way @wraitii, were you going to hold the vote on this thread? Im not sure how the tournament is progressing, but we are nearing November, so perhaps it would be best to start collecting votes on the merge requests soon.

For those of you who want to vote, these are the current merge requests:

https://gitlab.com/0ad/0ad-community-mod-a26/-/merge_requests

to see the details for each file, you can just click on a merge request, and select 'changes'

[wraitii]

Created with the relevant requests right now.

We are also interested by people coming forward to get the rights to merge requests on your own, as a reminder.

[alre]

I'm in for doing some testing. I especially like the territory mod inclusion.

by the way, I must warn those here who don't frequent the lobby, that the comnunity mod has actually split the community. as a rule of thumb, those above 1400 use the mod, those below don't.

[wowgetoffyourcellphone]

7 hours ago, real_tabasco_sauce said:

By the way, is 8 seconds too long?

100% too long. 3-5 seconds is where it should be.

[Feldfeld]

6 hours ago, wraitii said:

Created with the relevant requests right now.

We are also interested by people coming forward to get the rights to merge requests on your own, as a reminder.

I could do it, if community is not too rough if changes they don't like get merged

My plan would be to leave 5 days - 1 week of discussion for merge requests then merge if opinion is not very negative.

(for the community: please remember it's easy to undo a change!)

Btw I think balance could get in much better shape if one competent person was in charge and made most of the changes. Because, only a small amount of proposals can get in if all of them need a real consensus making everyone happy, and the gameplay has very little changes. I think I have good grasp on balance and could fill the role.