Introducing the Official community mod for Alpha 26

[wowgetoffyourcellphone]

23 minutes ago, real_tabasco_sauce said:

I think this would partially invalidate the value of infantry mercenaries.

I can't put my finger on it, but EA's version of mercenaries feels feature-incomplete to me. 

[real_tabasco_sauce]

2 hours ago, Gurken Khan said:

Since the Han have Archery Training at the stables I assume horse archers also profit from it. Maybe add "and Cavalry Archers" to the descritption to clarify?

All other civs have it in the forge. I am unsure why its in the barracks/stable.

[Gurken Khan]

4 minutes ago, real_tabasco_sauce said:

All other civs have it in the forge. I am unsure why its in the barracks/stable.

I think it should be in the forge.

[chrstgtr]

54 minutes ago, real_tabasco_sauce said:

I think this would partially invalidate the value of infantry mercenaries.

I would rather melee inf be more impactful in the first place (not just meatshield, but actually dealing damage). I have an idea for this and I will make a MR for it in the a27 community mod.

I took the post to mean that you could do some sort of upgrades once at level 2. Kind of like centurions are at level 3. Not sure what upgrade there should be, though 

Agree with the second part. 

54 minutes ago, real_tabasco_sauce said:

I think this would partially invalidate the value of infantry mercenaries.

I would rather melee inf be more impactful in the first place (not just meatshield, but actually dealing damage). I have an idea for this and I will make a MR for it in the a27 community mod.

I took the post to mean that you could do some sort of upgrades once at level 2. Kind of like centurions are at level 3. Not sure what upgrade there should be, though 

Agree with the second part. 

Edit: I also question whether experiment where mercs producing at rank 2 has failed. It's caused huge balance issues and isn't particularly interesting (see @wowgetoffyourcellphone above). I wonder if we should try a different route. Maybe making merc produce super quickly.

I've also thought that since mercs fight for the highest bidder that maybe they should be convertible (i.e., you can bribe a portion of the opposing army to change sides and fight for you. I'm not sure if the game even supports that, though. Convertible units would prevent pure spam strategies if mercs get trained super quickly.

Edited January 10, 2023 by chrstgtr

[wowgetoffyourcellphone]

22 minutes ago, real_tabasco_sauce said:

All other civs have it in the forge. I am unsure why its in the barracks/stable.

 

17 minutes ago, Gurken Khan said:

I think it should be in the forge.

I think I put it there because, frankly, it doesn't make sense in the Forge. It's not a weapon or armor upgrade, it's a training thing. Also, put it there as a differentiator, but it's a small change so I'm not wed to it. But for real, maybe investigate moving Archery Training to the Barracks for every archer civ. 

[alre]

2 hours ago, real_tabasco_sauce said:

Well consider this: since ranged units account for between 70 to 95 percent of the damage from a given army, and they target the closest unit by default, then without any sniping, melee units will always die first even if they have 100 pierce armor.

If melee units dealt more damage, their survival would now depend on both the enemy melee units as well as ranged units.

Should a player invest in some stronger melee units and get melee upgrades, their more rapid success against the weaker enemy melee units will force the exposed ranged units to retreat.

So basically the rationale is this: give melee units a much improved share of impact in terms of determining the outcome of a fight, and balance them accordingly by reducing the armor a little.

there is demand to buff melee inf, so just buff melee inf. at this point you are just trying to keep melee inf bad.

[real_tabasco_sauce]

5 minutes ago, alre said:

there is demand to buff melee inf, so just buff melee inf. at this point you are just trying to keep melee inf bad.

How could you say that? That makes no sense. Stop with the negativity at least until you see the gitlab branch.

[borg-]

Sure, so maybe a new movement speed tech? Can help melee infantry engane on cavalry/range inf

[wowgetoffyourcellphone]

https://trac.wildfiregames.com/changeset/27410

[hyperion]

19 minutes ago, wowgetoffyourcellphone said:

https://trac.wildfiregames.com/changeset/27410

Sorry to say, but this should have been split into five patches. A patch that reads as squash unrelated changes is plain awful.

[hyperion]

45 minutes ago, alre said:

there is demand to buff melee inf, so just buff melee inf. at this point you are just trying to keep melee inf bad.

The most sane proposal in this thread wrt. this issue made by @Feldfeld to half all ranged damage seems to get categorically ignored.

[wowgetoffyourcellphone]

1 minute ago, hyperion said:

Sorry to say, but this should have been split into five patches. A patch that reads as squash unrelated changes is plain awful.

I agree for the most part, but the changes aren't massive and can be tweaked or changed if necessary quite easily. 

[wowgetoffyourcellphone]

Just now, hyperion said:

The most sane proposal in this thread wrt. this issue made by @Feldfeld to half all ranged damage seems to get categorically ignored.

Indeed. Ranged damage should be a nice bonus or harrasser, not the primary damager of an army. Even range-heavy civs like Persians and Han would have had to engage with their melee troops to decide the matter, let alone the Romans and Greeks and Celts who all used ranged troops in a secondary or even tertiary role.

[chrstgtr]

28 minutes ago, borg- said:

Sure, so maybe a new movement speed tech? Can help melee infantry engane on cavalry/range inf

I’ve been saying this for awhile. It’s logically consistent with what we have (farther range units move slowest) and should also help balance by slowing melee to engage

[real_tabasco_sauce]

8 minutes ago, hyperion said:

Sorry to say, but this should have been split into five patches. A patch that reads as squash unrelated changes is plain awful.

Well, yeah I agree on principle, but they are technically related as they are all in the community mod and were highly supported.

IMO better to increase melee damage than decrease ranged damage. But I guess they have similar outcomes. 

[real_tabasco_sauce]

3 hours ago, chrstgtr said:

Maybe making merc produce super quickly.

I would be happy with this to be honest. Then the carthage team bonus could be changed.

Maybe this would be something to experiment with in the community mod as well.

Edited January 10, 2023 by real_tabasco_sauce

[chrstgtr]

8 minutes ago, real_tabasco_sauce said:

Well, yeah I agree on principle, but they are technically related as they are all in the community mod and were highly supported.

IMO better to increase melee damage than decrease ranged damage. But I guess they have similar outcomes. 

Agree. If you decrease range it will have a whole series of cascading impacts, such as turtling becoming much stronger. 

[real_tabasco_sauce]

yeah overall slower gameplay too

[chrstgtr]

8 minutes ago, real_tabasco_sauce said:

I would be happy with this to be honest. Then the carthage team bonus could be changed.

Maybe this would be something to experiment with in the community mod as well.

Yeah, I’m just worried about it becoming a spam meta where mercs dominate. But, yeah, definitely something to try in the community, if there is interest

[BreakfastBurrito_007]

1 hour ago, alre said:

there is demand to buff melee inf, so just buff melee inf

The game is not this simple. It matters how you buff the melee infantry of course.

[wowgetoffyourcellphone]

23 minutes ago, chrstgtr said:

Agree. If you decrease range it will have a whole series of cascading impacts, such as turtling becoming much stronger. 

Increasing melee attack damage also nerfs turtling.  The counter to turtling should be rush or siege weapons, right, not archer range?  

[chrstgtr]

13 minutes ago, wowgetoffyourcellphone said:

Increasing melee attack damage also nerfs turtling.  The counter to turtling should be rush or siege weapons, right, not archer range?  

I mean arrows from buildings will become relatively more impactful because armies would kill roughly half as fast 

There will be other impacts too, but making armies half as effective at killing units will have huge ripple effects. 

[chrstgtr]

2 hours ago, alre said:

there is demand to buff melee inf, so just buff melee inf. at this point you are just trying to keep melee inf bad.

Your statement is uninformed and not helpful. @real_tabasco_sauce’s entire idea is to buff melee units. @borg- and I have proposed an alternative idea that could be used in conjunction with @real_tabasco_sauce’s idea or by itself. All share the common idea of buffing melee units. Your statement is the equivalent if the 300 pound sports fan yelling at a player to run faster—it isn’t helpful, it’s not telling anyone anything they don’t already know, and it’s negative towards the people who are actually trying to do something. Randomly dropping in to say “no” isn’t constructive discussion

Edited January 10, 2023 by chrstgtr

[alre]

19 hours ago, chrstgtr said:

Your statement is uninformed and not helpful.

what should I be informed about? btw, I don't see no branch.

By the way, I'd rather say that I generally adverse the idea that shorter range must be faster, and I loathe the idea of this principle being applied to all infantry, including melee. it can only make the game more bland and unrelatable, with basically all units filling the same purpose.

[chrstgtr]

16 minutes ago, alre said:

what should I be informed about? btw, I don't see no branch

 

Read back, @real_tabasco_sauce and I discuss it extensively a few pages back. You also flatly rejected something that is explicitly meant to improve and which, as you said, doesn’t have a branch yet. 
 

16 minutes ago, alre said:

By the way, I'd rather say that I generally adverse the idea that shorter range must be faster, and I loathe the idea of this principle being applied to all infantry, including melee. it can only make the game more bland and unrelatable, with basically all units filling the same purpose.

This is axiomatic.

Again, you just say “no” without saying why. It’s like if I reply saying: “I love the principle and it should be applied to all infantry, including melee. It will only make the game more exciting and relatable, with all units filling the right purpose.” See, it’s just conclusions with no reasons given. It’s not a constructive discussion—it’s a monologue that just says “no, no, no.” If you want to be helpful say what you want AND “why, why, why.”