Introducing the Official community mod for Alpha 26

[Seleucids]

13 minutes ago, real_tabasco_sauce said:

The destruction damage will help with this, since your own units inside the walls will die from the destroyed wall.

That's probably even worse...

Can we prevent non-friendly units from passing through unless authorised?

 

[chrstgtr]

3 hours ago, real_tabasco_sauce said:

• Hero acceleration is greatly reduced down to 5 m/s^2.
• To compensate for being very easy to shoot, they gain an additional 1000 hp.

 

If hero changes are made to discourage luring then these don’t make sense. First one makes luring worse. Second one make luring easier. Second one will also have knock on effects of making it harder to ever kill heroes. I would just do the first and adjust to appropriate level.

On this, I also like your idea from the other night where hero would be a non preferred unit and attacking units would refocus on preferred classes when in range.
 

3 hours ago, real_tabasco_sauce said:

• In p1, they gain 5 hack damage for each unit they kill.
• in p2, they gain 10 m/s movement speed.
• in p3, their last modification is that they trade the sword for a club and do 50 crush damage. This last part is a bit of a stretch historically but I think it will make for an excellent contribution to the way the Han play.

This changes the idea of ministers from being an eco unit that has some fighting ability to just being another fighting unit. That’s fine but it’s a pretty big shift in the unit’s intended purpose (I would personally go the other way and make them more like movable Kush pyramids but whatever).

with that said, some thoughts on the changes…
 

P1: This change makes no sense to me. It just makes the minister suicide rush stronger (it’s already strong). This doesn’t change how you’ll play with ministers or how many ministers you’ll make sine can’t be trained in p1. If you want to give ministers this buff just give it in p2.

P2: so a total speed of 19 m/s? That seems really fast/OP. It would be quicker than every(?) other unit. At this point, you’re basically just making the minister a faster and stronger version of fanatics that’ll be able to take down buildings easily in p3. 
 

P3: fine but see above re speed. I generally like the idea of having quick moving units that can quickly kill buildings but others may disagree. I also think this idea would be better served by just creating a different unit that does these things instead of changes the Han unit from an anti unit raider to becoming an anti building raider (ie, why shouldn’t there be an anti unit raider in p3?). 
 

4 hours ago, real_tabasco_sauce said:

Walls

I can see pluses and minuses with these. They just need to be tested. 

[Arup]

5 hours ago, real_tabasco_sauce said:

Players have been complaining a lot about hero baiting, so I have some ideas implemented to fix that.

• Hero acceleration is greatly reduced down to 5 m/s^2.
• To compensate for being very easy to shoot, they gain an additional 1000 hp.

please tell me this is a joke XD

[Arup]

5 hours ago, real_tabasco_sauce said:

Since the Han have been lacking, I made some changes to the ministers to make them more interesting for dynamic gameplay.

• In p1, they gain 5 hack damage for each unit they kill.
• in p2, they gain 10 m/s movement speed.
• in p3, their last modification is that they trade the sword for a club and do 50 crush damage. This last part is a bit of a stretch historically but I think it will make for an excellent contribution to the way the Han play.

this sounds fun hahaha maybr this can be part of a little aprilfools silly mod ?

[real_tabasco_sauce]

Ok, we have a community mod release for a27 out now.

Here are the main changes:

• Units no longer get "stuck" attacking low preference units, like buildings. When attacking buildings without player intention, they will check for higher preference units each time they attack. If you told them to attack a building, this does not occur.
• Walls and palisades can be placed on top of trees, deleting them upon completion. Also, walls and palisades are cheaper, faster building, and weaker. This is to selectively improve their utility early on, while decreasing their effectiveness when spammed all over the map.
  • Stone walls can be destroyed in reasonable time by infantry.
• Buildings are more difficult to capture while empty.
  • Base building capture point regen: 0.5 -> 5.
  • CC capture point regen: 5 -> 20
  • Fort capture point regen: 10 -> 30
  • What this means is you will need a larger capturing advantage over the defender in order to start bringing down capture points.
• Buildings (except for CCs and Fortresses) are easier to destroy without siege.
  • Hack and Pierce armor are both decreased, so ranged units will now be able to damage buildings, just not as well as melee units.
  • For some buildings, crush armor is decreased from 3 to 2, allowing siege to break through weaker buildings more quickly.
• Edit: I forgot to mention that cavalry receive a 30% damage debuff vs buildings, which mirrors their existing 30% capture attack debuff.

It is my understanding that something along the lines of the last paragraph was intended to come with attacking buildings by default, so we can see what gameplay effects this has. From my own testing, destroying a building is roughly as good as capturing with the same number of units, but buildings don't regen health like they do capture points, so attacking buildings would be better than capturing if there are defending units.

[real_tabasco_sauce]

Ok, its not on the mod downloader yet, but you can download here if you want it now.

 

Ok its on the downloader now.

[Deicide4u]

12 minutes ago, real_tabasco_sauce said:

• Buildings are more difficult to capture while empty.
  • Base building capture point regen: 0.5 -> 5.
  • CC capture point regen: 5 -> 20
  • Fort capture point regen: 10 -> 30
  • What this means is you will need a larger capturing advantage over the defender in order to start bringing down capture points.
• Buildings (except for CCs and Fortresses) are easier to destroy without siege.
  • Hack and Pierce armor are both decreased, so ranged units will now be able to damage buildings, just not as well as melee units.
  • For some buildings, crush armor is decreased from 3 to 2, allowing siege to break through weaker buildings more quickly.

Thanks, all great and needed changes. Needing siege for every single building, including towers, is just a waste of time. Attack priority change is more of a bug fix, than a change, IMO.

2 minutes ago, real_tabasco_sauce said:

Ok, its not on the mod downloader yet, but you can download here if you want it now.

Just wanted to ask about it, then I saw this. Thanks.

I'll try it, already have community maps mod for a while.

[real_tabasco_sauce]

4 hours ago, Deicide4u said:

Attack priority change is more of a bug fix, than a change, IMO.

Well hopefully it will be eventually. I did some 1v1s today with it and it turned out that a bug exists.

5 hours ago, real_tabasco_sauce said:

Here are the main changes:

• Units no longer get "stuck" attacking low preference units, like buildings. When attacking buildings without player intention, they will check for higher preference units each time they attack. If you told them to attack a building, this does not occur.

This change is reverted with version 0.27.1 because there was a bug. I'll need to troubleshoot it. 

[real_tabasco_sauce]

there might be some issues with the mod downloader at the moment. In the meantime, you can download it from gitea, mod.io, or right here:

community-mod.zip

[Deicide4u]

After a few rounds of testing, I've noticed that I'm staying in P2 for much longer now. There is no longer a rush to go for p3 just to get siege weapons.

CS armies are now more viable as you don't need a strong capture attack anymore to do major damage to the opponent. A buff to base building capture point regeneration further underscores this shift. Armies that have troops that do crush damage (like Persians with their Cavalry Axemen) can sometime even skip going into P3 altogether.

[Fabius]

I have rarely felt that the overbearing need to rush third phase was because I needed siege to break an opponents buildings, it was because I needed to get champions out quicker than my opponent. Siege is just a nice afterthought, and with the threat level of any building that shoots arrows now practically zero, siege is reserved to sniping rams and border annoyance. 

[Deicide4u]

10 minutes ago, Fabius said:

with the threat level of any building that shoots arrows now practically zero

Except the Forts and CCs, as their armor was not touched.

I agree about the champions, it's just that they are expensive and take a lot of time to mass. Now that my enemy can't just mass towers and be safe, I can rely more on CS armies to do the job.

[Fabius]

1 hour ago, Deicide4u said:

Except the Forts and CCs, as their armor was not touched.

that is nice for staying power, but armies of ranged citizens can camp under fully garrisoned forts, which highlights that they are now quite useless at area denial, therefore not worth the investment unless you need a tech which is basically just an added cost to whatever tech you wanted to begin with, or a hero. You are better off putting the stone into walls and catapults which will impede an opponent

[Deicide4u]

14 minutes ago, Fabius said:

(forts) not worth the investment

Murder Holes are a must if you intend to build any. Without that tech, they are just a nice decoration.

14 minutes ago, Fabius said:

You are better off putting the stone into walls and catapults which will impede an opponent

Ah, I haven't thought much about using walls. Mainly because I prefer Forts with Murder holes. A reflex passed over from AoE2.

Edited May 5 by Deicide4u

[Fabius]

I recently came across this video on Lanciarii, link below for interested parties, and I was curious as to whether this fell within the scope of the current 0 AD time frame.

I have two ideas for a Lanciari unit type, both assume a link with Marian Reforms. Eg unlocked by it and having the legionary keyword.

The first would be either to revive the old champion skirmisher that used to be present in A23 but was cut entirely from A24 onwards, and have them as an upgrade to legionary skirmishers or a separate entity you train from relevant buildings.

A second idea and more unique would be to utilise The Persian immortal template and make a champion unit that switches between javelin and sword. The idea of giving the ranged version a small multiplier against cavalry also came to mind.

 

[Genava55]

5 minutes ago, Fabius said:

I recently came across this video on Lanciarii, link below for interested parties, and I was curious as to whether this fell within the scope of the current 0 AD time frame.

Probably not, currently because 0 A.D. - Empires Ascendant is focusing on 500 BC - 1 BC.

6 minutes ago, Fabius said:

I have two ideas for a Lanciari unit type, both assume a link with Marian Reforms. Eg unlocked by it and having the legionary keyword.

Have you watched the video? Nothing suggest a link to Marius. The first account of the Lanciarii is from the 1st century AD.

By the way, the Marian reforms are the result of a misconception. Qualified scholars generally don't support the existence of a huge reform enacted by Marius.

Quote

The Reforms That Weren’t

We can then return to our list at the beginning:

• Cohorts: Experimented with before Marius, especially in Spain. Marius uses cohorts, but there’s no evidence he systematized or standardized this or was particularly new or unusual in doing so. Probably the actual breakpoint here is the Social War.
• Poor Volunteers Instead of Conscripted Assidui: Marius does not represent a break in the normal function of the Roman dilectus but a continuation of the Roman tradition of taking volunteers or dipping into the capite censi in a crisis. The traditional Roman conscription system functions for decades after Marius and a full professional army doesn’t emerge until Augustus.
• Discharge bonuses or land as a regular feature of Roman service: Once again, this isn’t Marius but Imperator Caesar Augustus who does this. Rewarding soldiers with loot and using conquered lands to form colonies wasn’t new and Marius doesn’t standardize it, Augustus does.
• No More equites and velites: No reason in the source to suppose Marius does this and plenty of reasons to suppose he doesn’t. Both velites and equites seem to continue at least a little bit into the first century. Fully replacing these roles with auxilia is once again a job for our man, Imperator Caesar Augustus, divi filius, pater patriae, reformer of armies, gestae of res, and all the rest.
• State-Supplied Equipment: No evidence in the sources. This shift is happening but is not associated with Marius. In any event, the conformity of imperial pay records with Polybius’ system of deductions for the second century BC suggests no major, clean break in the system.
• A New Sort of Pilum: No evidence, probably didn’t exist, made up by Plutarch or his sources. Roman pilum design is shifting, but not in the ways Plutarch suggests. If a Marian pilum did exist, the idea didn’t stick.
• Aquila Standards: Eagle standards pre-date Marius and non-eagle standards post-date him, but this may be one thing he actually does do, amplifying the importance of the eagle as the primary standard of the legion.
• The sarcina and furca and making Roman soldiers carry things: By no means new to Marius. This is a topos of Roman commanders before and after Marius. There is no reason to suppose he was unusual in this regard.

https://acoup.blog/2023/06/30/collections-the-marian-reforms-werent-a-thing/

Quote

Moving to the body of the text, Chapter 1 responds to Sallust’s statement (Iug. 86.2) that, in 107, Marius recruited volunteers from the capite censi; this has been central to most scholarly accounts of the first-century army. Cadiou is not the first to downplay the significance of these reforms, as he concedes, pointing especially to Rich.[2] In the first chapter, Cadiou reinforces these existing arguments against the Marian reform, presenting it rather in the context of Marius’s immediate need for haste. But if the “Marian reform” is no longer seen by specialists as the revolutionary act which ushered in the proletarian army, this does not seem to have diminished the scholarly consensus that a revolution took place. But that is precisely what Cadiou is arguing against.

https://bmcr.brynmawr.edu/2021/2021.06.02/

Quote

"He admitted for the first time to his army capite censi, men who failed to meet the normal property qualification for ser­vice. The numbers were small but, in later periods of crisis, Marius's imitators recruited from this area on a grand scale. [...] His enrolment in the army of capite censi was imitated by later com­manders in the civil wars, which destroyed the Republic" - Yann Le Bohec, The Encyclopedia of the Roman Army, p.636

"The 2nd century BCE also saw the transition from the maniple to the cohort as the basic tacti­cal unit. This change has often been attributed by modern scholars (Dobson 2008: 58) to Caius Marius, who is said to have introduced cohorts in order to counter the tactics of the Germans who were invading northern Italy toward the end of the 2nd century BCE. However, the sources, which do not explicitly refer to the change, sug­gest a change in the form of a long transitional process in which the Romans may have copied this formation from their allies (Livy 10.33.1 ; 23.17.11). The earliest reliable references to the Roman cohort date back to the Second Punic War (e.g., Livy 25.39.1 ; Polyb. 1 1.23.1-2), while mani­ples are last mentioned in field operation in the war against Jugurtha in 109 BCE (Sall. lug. 49.6). The fact that the sources frequently mention cohorts in war contexts in Spain also suggests that the change originated there and may have been due to a combination of factors peculiar to Spain." - Yann Le Bohec, The Encyclopedia of the Roman Army, p.525.

Modern historians have often assumed that Gaius Marius introduced wide ranging and long - lasting reforms that greatly transformed the Roman army and had a profound impact on Roman politics as well. The so - called Marian reforms supposedly involved both tactical innovations and significant reorganization of military recruitment and financing. These included: the elimination of the Roman cavalry (to be replaced entirely by foreign auxiliary cavalry), the disbandment of light - armed troops and the standardization of the weapons and kit of heavy infantry, the reorganization of legions into cohorts (replacing the earlier, manipular structure), and perhaps most significantly, the recruitment of landless soldiers who previously would not have met minimum property qualifications. These new recruits would be mostly volunteers and receive grants of land upon release. Lastly, it is often assumed that these reforms were permanent. Thus, according to the communis opinio, Marius permanently transformed the Roman military into a professional army that was mostly composed of landless citizens equipped uniformly. Yet, despite the widespread acceptance of this view, there is actually very little evidence for the “Marian Reforms.” - François Gauthier, The Changing Composition of the Roman Army in the Late Republic and the So-Called Marian-Reforms.

"The old view that Marius gave Rome a professional army can no longer be maintained (Brunt 1971, 406–11; Rich 1983). His enrolment of men without the property qualification in 107 was in all probability an isolated episode: the hostility which it aroused makes it unlikely that his successors followed suit. The traditional procedures of the levy, including the property qualification, probably ceased to operate in the chaotic conditions of the eighties." - John Rich & Graham Shipley, War and Society in the Roman World, p.4.

 

[Fabius]

24 minutes ago, Genava55 said:

Have you watched the video? Nothing suggest a link to Marius. The first account of the Lanciarii is from the 1st century AD.

By the way, the Marian reforms are the result of a misconception. Qualified scholars generally don't support the existence of a huge reform enacted by Marius.

I did watch it and thought it cool hence why I brought it up. There was a mention of something akin to them in Caesar's time, and the so called Marian reforms that we currently have would be inclusive of that era, which is a stretch given the lack of info. Hence why I asked first if it was within the scope of 0 AD. Which as you have mentioned is not.

I am aware that Marian reforms was a misconception, I was just working within the context of what is currently present in the Roman civ. Out of interest why do we have a tech labelled as such if it isn't really a major change as it suggests?

Also thanks for sharing the historical information, I have been recently realising my Roman knowledge is much less than I thought it was  

[Deicide4u]

2 minutes ago, Fabius said:

Out of interest why do we have a tech labelled as such if it isn't really a major change as it suggests?

To make the cool Romans even cooler, of course.

I love suddenly having 150 elite units on the map.

[Fabius]

So based on what I just read in that very Inciteful article we should really be calling them the Augustan Reforms  

[Fabius]

What is the precedent for incorporating the Onager in Marian reforms? They seem to have already been in use prior to Marius. With that in mind why not just have them already available like all the other siege?

[Deicide4u]

17 minutes ago, Fabius said:

What is the precedent for incorporating the Onager in Marian reforms?

The game balance. The Romans already have a Siege Catapult, giving them the Onager for free as well would be too imbalanced.

[Fabius]

1 minute ago, Deicide4u said:

The game balance. The Romans already have a Siege Catapult, giving them the Onager for free as well would be too imbalanced.

I see, fair point