Should we go towards less units on screen (but keep similar gameplay)?

[BeTe]

4 minutes ago, Dakara said:

Hello,

I find the current situation pleasant. Having small armies of 30-50 units at the start of the game (less than 10min of play) or large armies of 100 to 160 units after 13-14 minutes of play suits me. Of course it depends on the maps and if we have been quiet for boom.
I like having time to fight, I mean it

In fights I like to have time to replace units, bring in reinforcements, bypass. We are far from total war but I find it nice. 0AD does much better than other rts on the duration of fights (for example AOE2 it's really boring and fast).

To facilitate the management of your army I advise you to use the groups of units (if you do not already do it) ctrl 1 ctrl 2 etc and use shift for add unit to group.

Of course I would like units to be slightly bigger and spaced out when moving.

 

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One could imagine a MOD 0 AD with a really different game from a military point of view. In Warcraft 3. About twenty units, quite large on the screen, a significant amount of life points. and skills for the most part for a lot of micro management in the fights but it will surely be less charming on the attractive antique aspect.

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A 0AD with battalions can be cool too, to see how it is managed.. A city phase and city development then a battle phase in the middle of the map in battalion mode.. a mod already exists?

Thx for feedback. Yes I use Control groups but not for microing armies during fight. It's not useful for me yet as I have issue to distinguish units in that large crowds, especially between trees.  

Actually I didn't suggest to change gameplay (duration of fight for example). If gameplay stay same, wouldn't it be more pleasant if you have less units to micro, easier to replace them, etc. ?

And also

Quote

Of course I would like units to be slightly bigger and spaced out when moving."

With less units, this could be achieved as well, right? Or maybe it'd not be even required to increase UI/unit size - they would be more visible I guess, right?

[Dakara]

3 minutes ago, BeTe said:

Thx for feedback. Yes I use Control groups but not for microing armies during fight. It's not useful for me yet as I have issue to distinguish units in that large crowds, especially between trees.  

Actually I didn't suggest to change gameplay (duration of fight for example). If gameplay stay same, wouldn't it be more pleasant if you have less units to micro, easier to replace them, etc. ?

And also

With less units, this could be achieved as well, right? Or maybe it'd not be even required to increase UI/unit size - they would be more visible I guess, right?

As for me, I have no problem seeing and dissociating the units. Maybe you can put a shortcut on the mouse wheel to zoom in or zoom out.

When you are more comfortable with the units during combat you can then take lots of small groups of ranged units to visit the enemy ranged units (watch out for overkill). If you play archer or crossbowman use alt to move your troops back.

People are attracted to large numbers of units (especially beginners or people try the game); I believe that by playing 200 pop we are already quite limited on the number of units

300pop = big econony, spam more and make champion easy lol 

[BeTe]

- I do use zoom on mouse scroll, but still...

- What you mean "use alt to move troops back" - what is Alt doing?

- People are actually attracted by large number of units? You mean beginners like it? If that's true, then all my posts here are senseless.  

Quote

300pop = big econony, spam more and make champion easy lol

Why I have on mind that spam and blobs are bad RTS games?   

[Dakara]

26 minutes ago, BeTe said:

- I do use zoom on mouse scroll, but still...

- What you mean "use alt to move troops back" - what is Alt doing?

- People are actually attracted by large number of units? You mean beginners like it? If that's true, then all my posts here are senseless.   

Why I have on mind that spam and blobs are bad RTS games?   

I'm not always right of course, but I think beginners are attracted to big armies and fun stuff like elephants.

You are right, because spam = big apm = not fun // /but I don't think there is a need for a big apm in 0AD compared to other rts.

[BeTe]

1 hour ago, Dakara said:

I'm not always right of course, but I think beginners are attracted to big armies and fun stuff like elephants.

You are right, because spam = big apm = not fun // /but I don't think there is a need for a big apm in 0AD compared to other rts.

Wait what.... more spam = more APM. You need more APM in 0AD than SC2 or AOE2? What I am missing here...    

Btw, no need to be right, we are discussing only. I am never right.  

 

[Dakara]

No, I mean that the apm required on 0AD is lower than on other RTS. And I find it better. 

There are still a lot of things done to make unit production easy to launch. It's always a few clicks saved

[Lion.Kanzen]

7 hours ago, BeTe said:

Not sure what you mean by this video and comment?

75 population max each player.

if one of them loses, the rest  of players assumes that number of units.

If 2 players lost they would have the rest 150 population.

With 75 population the battles are longer.

The economy is slower.

[Stan`]

39 minutes ago, Lion.Kanzen said:

75 population max each player.

if one of them loses, the rest  of players assumes that number of units.

We have that feature already. It's an option

[Lion.Kanzen]

9 minutes ago, Stan` said:

We have that feature already. It's an option

if i know i am explaining how it works in that scenario.(Maybe I misunderstood).

[BeTe]

1 hour ago, Lion.Kanzen said:

75 population max each player.

if one of them loses, the rest  of players assumes that number of units.

If 2 players lost they would have the rest 150 population.

With 75 population the battles are longer.

The economy is slower.

Sorry man  but I still don't understand point.  

[BeTe]

I played a lot 0ad recently and now've read all messages from both threads I started. I have feeling that people didn't understand my core idea and that nothing would be changed in how you play 0ad..

My idea was to make it so 1 unit would do equally to what 2 units do now.

Like this:

• Unit would be double cost
• double time to build
• double damage
• double resistance
• double gather rate
• double capture rate
• Buildings will have less garison capacity
• Fields&Resources will be reduced to 2x less worker capacity.
• etc.

So if I understand well, game will be exactly same but less crowded. 

Game will be less laggy, especially in Team games that most of people like to play.

There will be less problem with pathfinding maybe?

etc.

Isn't this great idea?  

[Lion.Kanzen]

2 hours ago, BeTe said:

I played a lot 0ad recently and now've read all messages from both threads I started. I have feeling that people didn't understand my core idea and that nothing would be changed in how you play 0ad..

My idea was to make it so 1 unit would do equally to what 2 units do now.

Like this:

• Unit would be double cost
• double time to build
• double damage
• double resistance
• double gather rate
• double capture rate
• Buildings will have less garison capacity
• Fields&Resources will be reduced to 2x less worker capacity.
• etc.

So if I understand well, game will be exactly same but less crowded. 

Game will be less laggy, especially in Team games that most of people like to play.

There will be less problem with pathfinding maybe?

etc.

Isn't this great idea?  

Try 75-100 of maximum population.

[BeTe]

1 minute ago, Lion.Kanzen said:

Try 75-100 of maximum population.

You don't understand again.   It does change how game plays. My suggestion keep game same but only produce less units on screen. 

[wowgetoffyourcellphone]

9 minutes ago, BeTe said:

You don't understand again.   It does change how game plays. My suggestion keep game same but only produce less units on screen. 

I can see that as an option. For instance, Total War games allow the player to change the size of the battalions (usually for performance reasons as well). Just need a name for it. 

Edited March 10, 2023 by wowgetoffyourcellphone

[Lion.Kanzen]

2 hours ago, BeTe said:

You don't understand again.   It does change how game plays. My suggestion keep game same but only produce less units on screen. 

between those numbers, for exampleYou could mathematically extract all the values of the units.

 

Attack

Gathering rate

All numbers (stats) divided by 4 (1/4)

This is how "Age of Empires I" worked.

The difference between AOE I and games like 0 A.D is that 0 A.D is normally 300 units per player compared to 75 in AoE I.

 

 

 

[BeTe]

I've made some quick Mod. I am looking forward to see your feedback, suggestions, ideas, etc.!

Thanks!

 

[wowgetoffyourcellphone]

*Fewer Units

[BeTe]

If someone wants to try.

Changes:

[x]Units double cost 
[x]double time to build
[x]double attack
[x]double health
[x]double gather rate
[x]double capture rate (ie. capturables regeneration x0.5)
[ ]Buildings will have less garison capacity
[ ]Fields&Resources will be reduced to 2x less worker capacity.
etc.
[x]House 2x less pop bonus

0ad_fewer_units-0.0.2.zip

[BeTe]

0ad_fewer_units-0.0.3.zip

[wowgetoffyourcellphone]

Maybe an easier way of doing this would be to simply double the population cost of all units?

[phosit]

10 hours ago, wowgetoffyourcellphone said:

Maybe an easier way of doing this would be to simply double the population cost of all units?

That would have more or less the same effect as halfing the popcap.
(The other way around: When doubleing the cost player will just increase the popcap. So there is litle difference in unit count)

I think it would be better if there is no hard popcap but a penalty for players having many units.

[BeTe]

2 hours ago, phosit said:

That would have more or less the same effect as halfing the popcap.
(The other way around: When doubleing the cost player will just increase the popcap. So there is litle difference in unit count)

I think it would be better if there is no hard popcap but a penalty for players having many units.

That could be idea, but not sure what actually to implement. Food (or all resources) decay? More pop, slower production is?  

idk, I prefer idea of just slowing down production time of units. Then to avoid slowing down eco and making dead early game lasts even longer, we need to either 1) increase gathering speed 2) reducing costs of buildings. 

I tried that and problem i figured out so far is that A) towers are nerfed (b/c units that you garrison in them are more "expensive") and farming is buffed (b/c with more efficient gathering, you can basically put equivalent of 10 villagers to 1 farm).

[real_tabasco_sauce]

On 18/10/2022 at 2:45 AM, Dakara said:

People are attracted to large numbers of units (especially beginners or people try the game); I believe that by playing 200 pop we are already quite limited on the number of units

I think the tendency of these large battles to happen is really a big selling point for 0ad. In other games, a "large" army might be 40 - 50 units. I think we just have to find a way to make these battles performant, balanced, and strategically diverse.

[BeTe]

1 hour ago, real_tabasco_sauce said:

I think the tendency of these large battles to happen is really a big selling point for 0ad. In other games, a "large" army might be 40 - 50 units. I think we just have to find a way to make these battles performant, balanced, and strategically diverse.

Yeah, that's also good point. Someone mentioned before that he likes big fights... 

I just don't know how many current and/or potential (future) players prefer that over more focus on micro smaller groups and more smooth game. I guess that's question. I guess more people like traditional RTS with smaller fights, which is kinda proven. Well, we can agree (someone said that too) 0ad should not be copy of another game, but maybe there's another way to diversify. 

[wowgetoffyourcellphone]

I think smaller battles makes sense for a game like AOM:Retold, because you got monsters and heroes and god powers and all kinds of things like that happening that you need to reserve APM for. 0 A.D. has virtually none of that.