Introducing the Official community mod for Alpha 26

[BreakfastBurrito_007]

7 hours ago, Feldfeld said:

For me, either no nerf, or the small damage nerf for skirm cav and archer cav only

If I understand correctly archer cav only have a small damage buff over archer infantry, while javelin cavalry get a whole +2 pierce attack. I think skirmisher cavalry should go from 18 --> 16 pierce damage because:

• people effectively use them as buffed skirm infantry, ignoring all the mobility benefits they have
• chicken rush is OP and this is javelin cavalry 95% of the time.
• javelin cav still beat spear cav in many situations  (+ pierce armor is needed for spearcav anyway)
• Players who take civs such as gauls, seleucids, persians, or rome and make strong melee cav and melee cav champions always gradually mix in more and more skirm cav until they are producing almost purely skirm cav, and this is usually more effective overall than the melee/ranged mix or champions mix.
• In most TG's if the game is not decided after fighting in the 12-18 minute range, everyone usually tries to make javelin cavalry because for almost all civs javelin cavalry is the best available unit that is easy to produce in a standard game.

 

 

Edited November 28, 2022 by BreakfastBurrito_007

[BreakfastBurrito_007]

22 minutes ago, LetswaveaBook said:

Well, as a 0.2 meter advantage for a unit with a 6 meter pole arm.

This value of 0.2 meter is not an opinion, it is math.

So 0.2 meters is how far ahead the 42 ms^-2 unit gets from the 35 ms^-2 unit at steady state? 

Yea a 35--> 42 increase is not much, we would probably need to go from 35--> 70+ to see a significant gameplay effect.

[alre]

48 minutes ago, BreakfastBurrito_007 said:

So 0.2 meters is how far ahead the 42 ms^-2 unit gets from the 35 ms^-2 unit at steady state? 

Yea a 35--> 42 increase is not much, we would probably need to go from 35--> 70+ to see a significant gameplay effect.

I'm guessing 99999 m/s2 would still be hardly noticeable. let's hear for the math of @LetswaveaBook. 

[chrstgtr]

2 hours ago, real_tabasco_sauce said:

From what I gather from you all

Honestly, it sounds like no consensus exists and the solution depends on who you walk to

 

if you want a change (I, personally, do) then I would address each type of cav one by one. Talking about “cav” overall seems too divisive 

Edited November 28, 2022 by chrstgtr

[real_tabasco_sauce]

2 minutes ago, chrstgtr said:

Honestly, it sounds like no consensus exists and the solution depends on who you walk to

yes, so better to focus on individual components of the problem. ie Seems like everyone agrees to nerf skirm cav from 18 to 16 no?

[chrstgtr]

3 minutes ago, real_tabasco_sauce said:

yes, so better to focus on individual components of the problem. ie Seems like everyone agrees to nerf skirm cav from 18 to 16 no?

I don’t have any problem with skirm cav other than I don’t think that a small group of skirm should not beat a small group of spear (ie, 5 spear vs. 5 skirm cav with micro shouldn't result in 5 skirm cav surviving) (ie, there should be a speed nerf). 
 

Others have said they don’t see a problem with skirm cav too.  

Edited November 28, 2022 by chrstgtr

[real_tabasco_sauce]

hmm, just curious: why would you prefer a cavalry speed nerf over an infantry speed buff?

[wowgetoffyourcellphone]

4 minutes ago, real_tabasco_sauce said:

hmm, just curious: why would you prefer a cavalry speed nerf over an infantry speed buff?

My guess would be that an infantry speed buff has a lot of knock-on effects on the eco and such (one of the weaknesses of the citizen-soldier concept).

[chrstgtr]

11 hours ago, chrstgtr said:

One of the most frustrating things with cav is when you "trap" them in a ball of infantry, but the cav still escape with minimal losses. This happens because cav have enough health to survive dealt damage and are fast enough to limit the number of landed hits. Slowing cav down means more hits can be landed on cav. Lower cav's health means those hits do more relative dmg.

@real_tabasco_sauce

Making inf faster doesn’t mean they can attack more times. It just means they can close the gap quicker (if the cav decide to stop at all).

@wowgetoffyourcellphoneis also right. A inf speed buff could have a huge impact on eco. 

[wowgetoffyourcellphone]

2 minutes ago, chrstgtr said:

Making inf faster doesn’t mean they can attack more times. It just means they can close the gap quicker (if the cav decide to stop at all).

 

I like the "stickiness" feature in AOE4 (and Rome Total War), where if cav are hit by spearmen they temporarily lose aa small amount of speed. It's more pronounced in Rome Total War, which has more realistic simulation-mechanics, but it's also there in AOE4. 

[real_tabasco_sauce]

@chrstgtrI see what you are saying, and honestly, I agree, but I would like to maintain the mobility of cavalry as its primary advantage over infantry (instead of just being better in every aspect). If our only nerf is speed, and we leave damage at 18 for skirm cav, I think you will see even more players just simply using them as a replacement for skirmishers, which makes for poor gameplay.

To avoid this, they should do the same damage as infantry.

Edited November 28, 2022 by real_tabasco_sauce

[real_tabasco_sauce]

One other option could be to lower the hack armor of ranged cavalry.

[alre]

melee inf should all deal twice the damage it deals now. that would solve the problem.

[real_tabasco_sauce]

5 minutes ago, alre said:

melee inf should all deal twice the damage it deals now. that would solve the problem.

I would like to do a melee damage increase (also some armor adjustment) later on for meatshield meta purposes, but this isn't an appropriate change for the problem at hand.

what could be done is increase the pierce damage of spearmen such that they damage ranged cav more (with 3 hack 1 pierce armor).

spearmen also seem to be generally worse than swords, so I think this would be welcome.

Edited November 28, 2022 by real_tabasco_sauce

[chrstgtr]

13 minutes ago, wowgetoffyourcellphone said:

I like the "stickiness" feature in AOE4 (and Rome Total War), where if cav are hit by spearmen they temporarily lose aa small amount of speed. It's more pronounced in Rome Total War, which has more realistic simulation-mechanics, but it's also there in AOE4. 

Sounds like it has potential. Do we have the coding capabilities to do this, though?

12 minutes ago, real_tabasco_sauce said:

@chrstgtrI see what you are saying, and honestly, I agree, but I would like to maintain the mobility of cavalry as its primary advantage over infantry (instead of just being better in every aspect). If our only nerf is speed, and we leave damage at 18 for skirm cav, I think you will see even more players just simply using them as a replacement for skirmishers, which makes for poor gameplay.

To avoid this, they should do the same damage as infantry.

I think this is a design question. I don't have a problem with cav dealing with dmg. 

If what you want is inf to be faster relative to cav then a cav speed nerf does the same thing without the other knock on effects for inf. 

13 minutes ago, real_tabasco_sauce said:

One other option could be to lower the hack armor of ranged cavalry.

9 minutes ago, alre said:

melee inf should all deal twice the damage it deals now. that would solve the problem.

Both of these would have huge other effects. Namely, a melee buff would impact inf balance and a cav armour nerf would impact cav battles. 

[wowgetoffyourcellphone]

3 minutes ago, chrstgtr said:

(re: "Stickiness") Sounds like it has potential. Do we have the coding capabilities to do this, though?

I believe it can be possible with the status effect feature (same feature as poison). @Freagarach @Stan`

Edited November 28, 2022 by wowgetoffyourcellphone

[alre]

3 minutes ago, chrstgtr said:

Both of these would have huge other effects. Namely, a melee buff would impact inf balance and a cav armour nerf would impact cav battles. 

that's the idea.

[real_tabasco_sauce]

2 minutes ago, chrstgtr said:

If what you want is inf to be faster relative to cav then a cav speed nerf does the same thing without the other knock on effects for inf. 

right but it doesnt fix them being tankier, having more armor, and dealing more damage. I'd still say the HP branch is necessary, as well as a jav cav damage nerf:

https://gitlab.com/real_tabasco_sauce/0-a-d-community-mod-unit-specific-upgrades/-/compare/main...cavalry_health?from_project_id=36954588&straight=false

[real_tabasco_sauce]

2 minutes ago, wowgetoffyourcellphone said:

6 minutes ago, chrstgtr said:

(re: "Stickiness") Sounds like it has potential. Do we have the coding capabilities to do this, though?

I believe it can be possible with the status effect feature (same feature as poison). @Freagarach @Stan`

personally, I am not a fan. This was in AOE3 and I hated it. it doesn't seem as bad in AOE4, but still I would rather my units' motion be predictable and not dependent on gameplay factors.

[wowgetoffyourcellphone]

1 minute ago, real_tabasco_sauce said:

personally, I am not a fan. This was in AOE3 and I hated it. it doesn't seem as bad in AOE4, but still I would rather my units' motion be predictable and not dependent on gameplay factors.

Gameplay factors are not predictable?

[chrstgtr]

2 minutes ago, real_tabasco_sauce said:

right but it doesnt fix them being tankier, having more armor, and dealing more damage

I don't know if I have a problem with any of that outside of when cav fight spear head on and the cav wins. That's why I said a health nerf for champ melee cav, which decimate CS spear head on. 

6 minutes ago, alre said:

that's the idea.

Wrong discussion. 

[real_tabasco_sauce]

3 minutes ago, wowgetoffyourcellphone said:

Gameplay factors are not predictable?

you should always be confident that your units can move as expected, this is why a lot of AOE2 players dislike AOE3 and 4. In AOE3 if a unit gets hit, the whole formation (which the user is forced to use) goes into slow motion.

I think we can solve this without having to add a new mechanic.

[chrstgtr]

4 minutes ago, real_tabasco_sauce said:

you should always be confident that your units can move as expected, this is why a lot of AOE2 players dislike AOE3 and 4. In AOE3 if a unit gets hit, the whole formation (which the user is forced to use) goes into slow motion.

 

Totally off topic, but I really dislike how you can't individual control units (or unit types) in formations in a26. 

[real_tabasco_sauce]

5 minutes ago, chrstgtr said:

I don't know if I have a problem with any of that outside of when cav fight spear head on and the cav wins. That's why I said a health nerf for champ melee cav, which decimate CS spear head on. 

I think they should be differentiated units, rather than just superior versions of infantry. What do you think of the health nerf I provided? Would you agree ranged cav are also too tanky? 

I would say the health branch + nerfed jav cav damage + slight speed decrease is ideal.

3 minutes ago, chrstgtr said:

Totally off topic, but I really dislike how you can't individual control units (or unit types) in formations in a26. 

you can change that in options->session->battalions

[BreakfastBurrito_007]

1 hour ago, alre said:

I'm guessing 99999 m/s2 would still be hardly noticeable. let's hear for the math of @LetswaveaBook. 

That would resemble a25 acceleration because the time it would take to reach walk speed would be negligible, so yes it would be noticeable.