Why units are produced so fast?

[BeTe]

Hey.

I watched some RTS games on Youtube like AOE 2 and 3, WC 2, SC 2... In none of them you can produce 100+ units in 10 minutes, it's rather 3-4x less. I am wondering why 0AD is made like that? 

I play on 15" lap top screen and yesterday during 1v1 game I had clash with part of opponent's army. It was very hard for me to estimate how much he actually has. And I general that big blobs is not looking nice. 

What you guys think  - would it be better to have less units? Was there discussions about this before? Would it make sense to think about making less crowd in game?  Is that complex to make? 

[Stan`]

9 minutes ago, BeTe said:

 

I play on 15" lap top screen and yesterday during 1v1 game I had clash with part of opponent's army. It was very hard for me to estimate how much he actually has. And I general that big blobs is not looking nice. 

Blobs should be better in A26

9 minutes ago, BeTe said:

What you guys think  - would it be better to have less units? Was there discussions about this before? Would it make sense to think about making less crowd in game?  Is that complex to make? 

You can just change the maxpop?

[thephilosopher]

So, I'd be interested in hearing from some longer term players on this issue. I started playing during A23, and didn't really start joining the lobby until A25. My impression is that the "100+ units in 10 minutes" is sort of a newer thing and that the average player used to produce units more slowly than they do now. The best players probably always produced more than 10 units/minute, but the average player seems to have gotten a lot faster/better.

My impression has been that Kate0AD's boom guide was especially influential in speeding up the way average players play.

Edited July 23, 2022 by thephilosopher

[Old Roman]

My personal favorite:  Vali

 

[BeTe]

43 minutes ago, Stan` said:

Blobs should be better in A26

You can just change the maxpop?

Better in term of slower production/less units per time?

I didn't try but not sure less that 100 pop is playable. Or is it?

But regardless I saw most of players play on 250-300 limit so if I configure 100 nobody will join my lobby.  

I am wondering on global level if people agree with me that it would be better to have less units?

[BeTe]

50 minutes ago, Stan` said:

Blobs should be better in A26

You can just change the maxpop?

P.S.

Instead of maxpop. I guess better solution would be to make unit production slower, but make them build structures faster. Not sure tho, just thinking loud.

Edited July 23, 2022 by BeTe

[hyperion]

43 minutes ago, thephilosopher said:

My impression is that the "100+ units in 10 minutes" is sort of a newer thing

There is some variation between release, but generally it's mostly the same,  I remember a 300 pop in 15:xx minutes replay with Britons a long time ago. Can't find the video though.

 

46 minutes ago, thephilosopher said:

but the average player seems to have gotten a lot faster/better.

Auto-queue may be the reason here.

[Stan`]

51 minutes ago, thephilosopher said:

 

My impression has been that Kate0AD's boom guide was especially influential in speeding up the way average players play.

There have been some changes to training time in A24-A25 IIRC @borg-

7 minutes ago, BeTe said:

Better in term of slower production/less units per time?

Les blobs of units.

7 minutes ago, BeTe said:

 

I didn't try but not sure less that 100 pop is playable. Or is it?

It is. It's just different

 

[BeTe]

1 minute ago, Stan` said:

It is. It's just different

It means that people like big blobs? 

Edited July 23, 2022 by BeTe

[Stan`]

1 minute ago, BeTe said:

It means that people like big blobs? 

Not the same issue.

[Gurken Khan]

13 minutes ago, BeTe said:

I am wondering on global level if people agree with me that it would be better to have less units?

I think pop is fine and wouldn't like slower production of units.

[alre]

 

1 hour ago, BeTe said:

What you guys think  - would it be better to have less units? Was there discussions about this before? Would it make sense to think about making less crowd in game?  Is that complex to make? 

There has been discussion, but without reaching an agreement on how to procede. computation burden is an issue. @wraitii is the sole dev who's worked on it.

1 hour ago, Stan` said:

Blobs should be better in A26

blobs will be practically the same in A26, changes are minimal. I believe they move a bit better thanks to newly introduced pushing friction, but they seem to me more or less as dense as before. I couldn't manage to get better results by changing pathfinder.xml alone.

23 minutes ago, BeTe said:

Better in term of slower production/less units per time?

I didn't try but not sure less that 100 pop is playable. Or is it?

But regardless I saw most of players play on 250-300 limit so if I configure 100 nobody will join my lobby.  

I am wondering on global level if people agree with me that it would be better to have less units?

I think the number 300 came out at some point when there was the feeling that more was better, that people wanted big battles, and that 300 was a number the engine could bear with, at least in a 1v1 setting. Personally, I enjoy much more 100/150 max pop settings. From my MP perspective, A25 is only better at lower max pop.

[Stan`]

6 minutes ago, alre said:

blobs will be practically the same in A26, c

Really? @wraitii told me it improved :(

[Gurken Khan]

17 minutes ago, Stan` said:

Really? @wraitii told me it improved

I didn't notice any difference, but I also didn't really look for any...

[Frederick_1]

Getting a high population fast is rather a issue of resource gathering, batch production and getting multiple training facilities. The gathering speed of A.I-bots is changed when you change the heavyness of an opponent. When I am right an medium opponent gaters as fast as a human player. more easy ones gather slower and more hard opponents gather faster than entities of human player. 

But with good economy management it is usually possible to outperform an A.I bot in population. Otherwise it would be very hard gaming against an opponent with more entities gathering resources faster than you.

If you set them to agressive instead of balanced according to my experience they attack erlieer in the game but with less entities. A defensive opponent Attacks only with a big buntch.

My experience so far.

[Player of 0AD]

I like it to reach 100 population in under 7 minutes. Changing the game would mean less fun.

[rossenburg]

1 minute ago, Player of 0AD said:

I like it to reach 100 population in under 7 minutes. Changing the game would mean less fun.

true, i think its much fun this way. A team game can cost 30mins minimum 15-20min. changing this = even longer game time == boring

[hyperion]

3 minutes ago, rossenburg said:

true, i think its much fun this way. A team game can cost 30mins minimum 15-20min. changing this = even longer game time == boring

Well, when it takes like 20-30 minutes of silly arguments to form teams, decide on settings and what not you are happy if the game only takes 15-20 minutes?

[rossenburg]

6 minutes ago, hyperion said:

Well, when it takes like 20-30 minutes of silly arguments to form teams, decide on settings and what not you are happy if the game only takes 15-20 minutes?

depends, wont be fun spending 1hr in a single game. Your brain might get tired

[Feldfeld]

36 minutes ago, Frederick_1 said:

Getting a high population fast is rather a issue of resource gathering, batch production and getting multiple training facilities. The gathering speed of A.I-bots is changed when you change the heavyness of an opponent. When I am right an medium opponent gaters as fast as a human player. more easy ones gather slower and more hard opponents gather faster than entities of human player. 

But with good economy management it is usually possible to outperform an A.I bot in population. Otherwise it would be very hard gaming against an opponent with more entities gathering resources faster than you.

If you set them to agressive instead of balanced according to my experience they attack erlieer in the game but with less entities. A defensive opponent Attacks only with a big buntch.

My experience so far.

If the AI was better at population it wouldn't need this much bonuses!

[BeTe]

43 minutes ago, rossenburg said:

true, i think its much fun this way. A team game can cost 30mins minimum 15-20min. changing this = even longer game time == boring

This is good point. I guess it's not enough just to slow down production, it might require buffing units. And I guess resource collecting and cost of units are factors that needs to be considered as well.

[BeTe]

49 minutes ago, Player of 0AD said:

I like it to reach 100 population in under 7 minutes. Changing the game would mean less fun.

And when and how you do fights? Make big blob with siege units and just rush thru middle?

[hyperion]

1 hour ago, rossenburg said:

depends, wont be fun spending 1hr in a single game. Your brain might get tired

True, but you don't have to perform top all the time anyway. One could even agree on a "half-time" break, might be an interesting twist to be able to have a team talk then.

The issue with short games is you can only boom and rush once, some harassing maybe, but you simply don't have enough time for strategy, heck just moving your units to your opponent might take a few minutes. Some things which are supposed to have only long term effect like building a good base, trading routes, or corralling loose meaning. While the current meta might be fun in some way it is also somewhat one-dimensional.

[LetswaveaBook]

5 hours ago, BeTe said:

I watched some RTS games on Youtube like AOE 2 and 3, WC 2, SC 2... In none of them you can produce 100+ units in 10 minutes, it's rather 3-4x less. I am wondering why 0AD is made like that? 

I don't think it is a conscious decision, but rather it seems a result of the game lacking content in phase 2.

For the current meta: In the first 6 minutes you can rush someone. After that most players after some extra infantry which should help for defending. At this point executing any attack is more detrimental for your own development than for your opponents development. There are some factions (with mercenary cavalry) that do not follow this logic.

From say minute 6 to 12, the game is misbalanced in the sense that spamming more infantry is better than going to phase 2 early.

Once you reach phase 3 as the first player, you can get your siege, upgrades and hero's before your opponent does. If you attack your opponent in the time zone that he does not have the advantages of phase 3 while you have, there is a reason to expect victory and decide to attack.

From minute 6 to 12, there is some dead content during which it is better to stay at home rather than attacking (&strategic decisions). For me the reasoning (indirectly) seems that by developing and training units so quickly, the dead content passes by faster.

 

 

[BeTe]

@LetswaveaBook heheh I am just watching your game https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-FuI_J00ZY4 . There was loooong time of chilling. Then you both got so many units so that game started to lag. x) 

Also when I watch first engagement around fortress - there is no chance I can't see how big armies are. I have no idea who has more to fight. I guess microing units is impossible in such a big blob as well. Idk if people like that... 

Edited July 23, 2022 by BeTe