Alpha26 feedback and suggested changes

[hamdich]

                     Alpha26 feedback and  suggested changes

 Included .text file below              

- Hans Chinese:
                * Change buildings visualsa little bit because they look the same  most players get confused specially between houses, storehouses and farmsteads.
                * Change Team bonus  to +15% barter efficiency and  trading.
                * Phase 1 jav/spear cav instead of sword cav . 

                * Phase 2 archer cav + sword cavs unlocking 

                * Sencond hero LUI BANG  's  bonus does not apply to raged cav only to melee ones.

                * Due to food gathering efficeincy feature Hans has almost +10% food income compared to other civilisations. 
                  I noticed it during playing Hans clearly have food advantage over all other civs.
                  Food income gets even better with minister bonus and with Ptolemies team bonus added to that.

                   Ps : ministers bonus, team bonus and gauls special +10% food gathering tech are not included in test and calculation.
                 

                      |civ          |   *            | cost             | food/min   |  +20%           |  +20%       |    +20%                              |  
  30 women  | hans      |10 fields   | 600 wood   |  850          | 1000              |   1200       |     1450                              |
                      | gauls     |6 fields    | 600 wood   |  750           |  900              |   1080       |      1300                             |
  diff              |    *         |   *            |  *                 |  100           |  100               |   120         | 150 = 5 pers ice houses   |
                      |              |                 |                     |                   |                       |                  |   +1500 food in 10mins     |

                      |civ         |   *            | cost             | food/min   |  +20%           |  +20%             |    +20%                        |   
  50 women  | hans     |17 fields   | 1020wood   |   1400       | 1680              |  2020              |    2450                        |
                     | gauls     |10 fields  | 1000wood   |   1250        | 1500             |  1800               |   2150                          |
  diff             |    *         |    *           |  *                  |    150         | 180 or 900   | 220 or 700      | 300 or +3000            |
                     |              |                 |                      |                   | min 4->9      | min 9->12        | in next 10mins            |

               * Total food income difference in first 15 minutes= 150+ 900 +700+ 300*( 2minutes in phase 3) = 2350 food. 
                 Now you might ignore it but that much food advantage means
                    . Better cavalry production --> even easier rush
                    . Less women on food --> more women on wood --> better units production.
                    . Better boom --> faster phase 2  and phase 3.
                    

                   Ps : 1 Hans minister = 0.5 trickle of that ressource with 50 units in range 
                          in other terms 50 food/wood gatherers + minister --> 30 ress/min = 300/ 10 mins.
                         I used 50 workers in test because 50 is the most commun number per ressouces as in 50 farmers, 
                         50 wood-cutters and 2 mines 24 each.
                
- Romans  :     

               * Phase 1 spears infts instead of swords. unlike iberians they dont have walls to save from cav rush .
                  spear cav can kill jav cav but in bigger numbers and with a bit of micro spear cav will lose easy .

- Ptolemies :   
              * Phase 1 jav-infts instead of slings (not mercenaries jav-infts like in a23)  .
                  
              * Phase 2 mercenaries slings and archers unlock from barracks.
               
              * Hero PTOLEMY IV gives +25% Hp to pikemen instead of +40% Hp.
                140 Hp ontop of 12 armor means that unit has 100 hp + 15 armor (16 armor incase of allied spartans bonus). 

- Carthaginians :  
              * because Carthaginians is an archers based civ it must have the +10 range tech for archers
                like the other archer civs ( mauryans ,persians and kushites).

- Britons  :  
              * Add +10% food gathering tech from farmstead (similar to gauls) . 
               
              * Change team bonus to stables and barracks -15% cost and building time.
                  Gauls is better thans Britons in every way ( better team bonus , better heros , fanatics ,stronger cavs and farming tech). 
               

- Seleucides: 
              * Women close to farmstead get +10% food gathering speed.

- Persians  :  
              * KURUSH the cavalry type hero gives +15% damage to all cavalry units range 50 meters, +10% to all infantry units range 30 meters.

              * Change team bonus : Persians specialty => cavalry get +10% Hp or -10% traning time .
               
- Changes apply to all civilisations : 
                   * Acceleration should be nerfed , 
                       . units have become much slower at formation or escaping .
                       . A rush can easily fail         
                       . When big numbers units sometimes freeze for 1 or 2 seconds just because of a change of direction ( left to right ) 
                         due to rotation + acceleration .          
                 
                   * New Techonlogies :
                        Add a tech that gives archer cav  ability to shoot while walking but alos gives slower mobility less DPM for example 2s ,
                         less range 45m and worse accuracy . This will make archer cav less affective against infantry but better against other cav 
                        which they are already too weak against.

                   * Add siege for phase 2 :
                        Smaller seiege with less Hp , less DPM and armor ,reasonably less expensive than the phase 3 ones 
                        having good sieg at phse 2 really helps some civs and make the game better imo . 
                        for example instead of waiting for phase 3 one will be able to get rid of a ennemy tower in own or border territory 
                        or even attack much earlier .

                 * Heros buildings:
                     Civilisations with heros whom historically kings born in ruling family or special leaders who later became kings should be trained

                     from civic-centers 
                      all the rest of civilisations train from unique buildings ( example: palace ) 
                          
                     . From civic centers : kushites , ptolemies , seleucides, persians , macedonians.
                           
                     . From unique buildings : gauls , britons , romans, hans ,mauryans, atheninians ,spartans ,carthaginians ,iberians.
                  
                      Instead of spending long building time and much ressources on expensive fortress which half if times no need for it but just to have

                      a hero whom potentially will die in battle and can only be trained once. Thats why we see Roman or carthage heros for example so rarely

                      despite their greatness 

-Rated 2v2 :

                      Add possible rated 2v2 that will be good plus to next Alpha .  ofc i understand it could be tricky calculations to rate 4 players at once

                  with very different ratings or the case  when a smurf is involved.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Alpha 26 feedback.txt

Edited February 7, 2023 by hamdich
Added Rated 2v2 and other suggestions

[wowgetoffyourcellphone]

1 hour ago, hamdich said:

spear-cav which obviously weak against jav-cav

If this is true, then the solution is to buff spear cav.

[Lion.Kanzen]

@real_tabasco_sauce 

this could give you ideas for your balance changes.

[alre]

36 minutes ago, wowgetoffyourcellphone said:

If this is true, then the solution is to buff spear cav.

just take away acceleration. it was a failure overall and it fu*ed up with game interactions like spear cav countering other cav.

[alre]

2 hours ago, hamdich said:

* Phase 1 jav/spear-cav instead of sword-cav . 

sword cav used to be avaiable in p2 only for all civ for a reason, I was surprised they decided to give it to han at p1. archer cav in p1 makes much more sense to me for them.

[real_tabasco_sauce]

So far I haven't made any nerfs for Han, but I can certainly see the issues you mention @hamdich. In addition, I think crossbows are a little bit overtuned, they probably need at least  slower prepare time.

I agree it is difficult to balance sword cavalry in p1, it may be the best choice to move them out of p1.

As for acceleration and spear cavalry, I see the concern about spear cavalry having a hard time chasing. The first thing to note is that spear cavalry have 2 components that make chasing difficult: 1) stopping to attack and having to accelerate and 2) prepare time. Prepare time is a massive contributor because the spear cavalry must be stationary during prepare time. I actually have what I think is a nice solution to this, if people are interested.

among my list of "unit specific upgrades" (see attached discussion) are 2 upgrades for spear cavalry:

1) Horse Racing: increased movement speed and much higher acceleration (phase 2)

2) Lancing tactics: increased pierce damage and decreased smaller prepare time.

after testing, these changes made spear cavalry much more effective when chasing enemy cavalry, and the distinction is that these upgrades are unique to spear cavalry, so the upgrades act to differentiate spear cav nicely.

I have not yet made a merge request for these upgrades (https://gitlab.com/real_tabasco_sauce/0-a-d-community-mod-unit-specific-upgrades/-/tree/unit_upgrades), but I think they should be added to the community mod after balance changes and team bonus changes.

Edited October 16, 2022 by real_tabasco_sauce

[BreakfastBurrito_007]

4 hours ago, hamdich said:

spear-cav which obviously weak against jav-cav

This is not intended lol. I have kept arguing for a jav cav damage nerf from 18 to 16, but almost everyone seems to be ok with this unit being considerably OP. Jav cav are not only too powerful in this regard, but too powerful in almost every application. Most cavalry compositions eventually lead to pure skirmcav because it is plainly the best unit for general fighting, with 2 more pierce attack, 2.2x the hp, and +2 hack armor over skirmisher infantry, all for the small price of 50 food.

Acceleration was implemented to make cavalry easier to chase, specifically to allow spearmen more chances to get hits off on cavalry. Rather than eliminating acceleration, I think it makes sense to speed up acceleration for: melee inf, melee cav, and of course rams like in the community mod.

Also I do think more heros should come from unique building rather than the fortress, with only a few civs getting heros from cc. Ptol heros should remain from the fortress since ptols are likely to attack a minute or two before other civs, they should at least need to do that without a hero, or else wait for it.

Edited October 16, 2022 by BreakfastBurrito_007

[hamdich]

2 hours ago, wowgetoffyourcellphone said:

If this is true, then the solution is to buff spear cav.

i have changed that in explanation . obviously you cant buff spearcav because they still do ok to jav-cav and kill sword-cav easy. 
better solution is to give romans spear-infts phase 1 and unlock swords-infts phase2

[hamdich]

8 minutes ago, BreakfastBurrito_007 said:

This is not intended lol. I have kept arguing for a jav cav damage nerf from 18 to 16, but almost everyone seems to be ok with this unit being considerably OP. Jav cav are not only too powerful in this regard, but too powerful in almost every application. Most cavalry compositions eventually lead to pure skirmcav because it is plainly the best unit for general fighting, with 2 more pierce attack, 2.2x the hp, and +2 hack armor over skirmisher infantry, all for the small price of 50 food.

Acceleration was implemented to make cavalry easier to chase, specifically to allow spearmen more chances to get hits off on cavalry. Rather than eliminating acceleration, I think it makes sense to speed up acceleration for: melee inf, melee cav, and of course rams like in the community mod.

Also I do think more heros should come from unique building rather than the fortress, with only a few civs getting heros from cc. Ptol heros should remain from the fortress since ptols are likely to attack a minute or two before other civs, they should at least need to do that without a hero, or else wait for it.

agreed . 
i also changed the cavalry issue in post for better explanation

[wowgetoffyourcellphone]

1 hour ago, hamdich said:

better solution is to give romans spear-infts phase 1 and unlock swords-infts phase2

Spear infantry are a poor counter to jav cav. Better to boost the spear cav in some way, a unit which is intended to counter jav cav.

[hamdich]

7 hours ago, wowgetoffyourcellphone said:

Spear infantry are a poor counter to jav cav. Better to boost the spear cav in some way, a unit which is intended to counter jav cav.

giving spear infantry to romans will give them at least same chances as macedonians another phase1 spear cav civ . the reason is because spear cav not bad in small numbers against jav cav . the diversity is recommanded some civs must have spear cav phase 1 

 

[Dakara]

I like the difference, I like sword phase 1

[borg-]

Again we are spinning in infinite circles. Why can't we find a way to balance phase 1 swords instead of making everything the same again?

What I mean is that we must also keep the focus on diversification, if not, it will always be an alpha for changes and another for reversing the changes.

Edited October 17, 2022 by borg-

[alre]

some changes must be reversed, not every change proves good in the end.

[real_tabasco_sauce]

I am wondering if the correct move is to nerf swordcav's pierce armor a little. They shouldn't be able to tank fire from the CC so easily as spear cavalry, right? I think with this change, p1 swordcav will be pretty well balanced (not significantly better than a skirmcav rush). My only concern would be sword cavalry's effectiveness later in the game. (unit specific upgrades again here could fix the latter issue)

Edited October 17, 2022 by real_tabasco_sauce

[BreakfastBurrito_007]

I would like to mention that swordcavalry do purely hack damage, and javelin cavalry start in p1 with 3 hack armor. I think the best way to counter them in p1 is with a few extra spearmen on the woodline and a few javelin cavalry to do damage and lead the swordcavalry to the spearmen; also it is notable that most civs have this setup. I saw @Boudica do this very effectively early in the alpha, but I have not tried this myself, nor have I come across the swordcav rush.

The best course of action would be to add a pierce armor to spearcav and subtract one from swordcav. Also we can look to Unit Specific Upgrades from @real_tabasco_sauce as a method of diversification of units and finer balancing. 

[Fabius]

I like having Roman swords in P1, its fluffy and also a mild eco bonus since you can tap into your starting metal and save on wood for other things like houses. 

That aside, there are some nice changes in A26, and for the first time since A23 I can actually start a game and feel like I can have some fun and also win. This entirely due to the reworking of fanatics, finally having something viable in P2 that can be used against the boomers is very satisfying and overall Gaul feels a very refined civilization now.

P2 champions for Athens is nice, but the metal requirements hold them back. I have yet to try out Persian immortals but I like the concept.

And Ardennes is still as awesome as I remember in A23  

[Fabius]

Why not simply let roman swordsmen switch and throw javelins or use slings as a secondary weapon? Instead of forever trying to make them late Romans rather than early Romans.

[Emperior]

@real_tabasco_sauce 90% of players doing 8-9 farms for infantry while playing other civs not 10 or 50 as xpert claims.  If you make 9 u will be fine with food even more than fine, ofcourse if you are not suicider. Which he often does. Anyway, nerfing whatever you thing to nerf about hans, there is nothing except nerfing overall cavs in the game.

For hans to actually spam units, you require around 13 farms not 9. You also need big bag of stones for barracks, and plenty bags of metal for at leat making 1 or 2 buildings for champs.

Anyone who claims crossbows or archers are op, are the players who has met a player "sniper", who simply snipe his ranged units while he focusing on meatshield. Xpert doesnt do sniping, maybe time for him to study and learn to snipe? Who knows what the future brings.

Xpert  (Hamdich) making more farms as he is abusing cav as often jav seems stronger too.

I need to ask @Philip the Swaggerless to stop sniping xpert when he plays or me, nerfing anything else of han you will break them and no-one will use them.

Last unit which is amazingly op are fanatics, due speed and capturing possibilites. Stop claiming that they cost a lot of eco, eles cost more and people do spam them. Athenians are broken too.

 

Sword cav vs spear are doing great, any merc rank 2 cav seems amazingly op.

 

I will give you solution to the balance as I already give one to @borg- when he did balancing of the game. Unfortunately, it will not sound nice. 

give back balance from a24/a25 where cavs were op, thats how u will make xpert more happy than he is now, also as borg never added u can add extra flying eles or ponies so other can have something else than just spamming cavs.

 

I just logon to say this before you "fix" anything. @real_tabasco_sauce before releasing with xpert ideas for fixing balance please let me know, so I can start playing gauls again.

 

Please do not send message on forums, unless you must. I do not wish to be part of the forum anymore, so I login very rarely on forums. Thanks.

Edited October 21, 2022 by Emperior

[real_tabasco_sauce]

lol what am I supposed to do. Obviously balance changes are agreed upon by many people. I think within the unit specific upgrades proposal, there is an appropriate solution to a couple of @Emperior's issues, namely cav OP and merc cav op. 

Han balance changes will happen later anyway.

[hamdich]

-first of all @Emperior , your reply is obviously akward to me , do you hate me ?, better fix that son .  in which case if you need  help just ask  before its too late . <3 <3 

-philiptheswagerless sniping me ? what are you even talking about ?! did you come to reply my post by showing how much you actually like me or to write something that make sense ? if you have grudge to me then we can settle things with 1v1 ofc .

you like Doctororgans big mouth and get slapped quiclky type of players .

-wow, with actual idea  like these of yours no wonder you level skills are low .  90% of player doing 8-9  farms what a joke.  100%  (minus you ofc cuz you don't belong to pros) do 10 farms at least to proper boom not to mention cav training , while Hans civ able to do cav with only 14 farms due to the food advantage that i explained above if you actually can read

-i don't do sniping yeah clearly you know me and my playstyle, i pretty much the one who taught you sniping kid.

- "sword-cav against spear-cav are doing great" ! wow !   you very op , you even lack ad basics.

-last thing, all the players whom read my feedback agreed with me , i didn't do this feedback + suggested change ideas alone . i don't get it why you the only one who opposed it ( clearly you pro thats why) .

Edited October 22, 2022 by hamdich

[hamdich]

@real_tabasco_sauce

all the players get it that the balance is really hard to do ,  specifically the good players knew that new civ is allways hard to put good balance which  happened throu 0ad previous versions . 

in my opinion the pro players not that disaapointed of hans balance because its acceptable but in the same time better be changed , like for example the case with ptols in a23 and the big change they got in a24

Edited October 22, 2022 by hamdich

[real_tabasco_sauce]

2 hours ago, hamdich said:

hans balance because its acceptable but in the same time better be changed

yes, I would agree with this. There will be some fine-tuning needed in the future for Han. I already have a couple ideas, but I think we should all wait for a consensus to be made on what exactly needs changing.

[wowgetoffyourcellphone]

I'd like to see an alpha where melee infantry are op for once. 

[Lion.Kanzen]

1 hour ago, wowgetoffyourcellphone said:

I'd like to see an alpha where melee infantry are op for once. 

I have been studying the stats a bit and I have seen that there is not much difference with the defense and the units.

I mean not a huge gap, if we improve the stats of the melee infantry it would make a difference.