Idea: Attack structures in a more "realistic" way.

[Lopess]

  An idea I've always had and that I believe many have in common is that units with swords and spears attacking stone or solid wood structures is something very strange, but I believe the time and opportunity has come to change that, I believe attacking with torches /fire are less aggressive on closer inspection. I also know that other techniques like digging holes under structures also existed.

[Lopess]

@AIEND I know you are also interested in this idea, do you have references for it?

[ProtoMan]

Yeah, a metal sword shouldn't even be able to topple a huge concrete structure with his sword unless he's Thor with Mjolnir.

This would be solved if they introduce multiple attacks from units and Unit and Structure Resistances similar to MUA.

[Player of 0AD]

Attacking buildings with swords and arrows is a good old AoE-Tradition. Keep it simple

Edited October 19, 2022 by Player of 0AD

[hyperion]

45 minutes ago, Player of 0AD said:

Attacking buildings with swords and arrows is a good old AoE-Tradition. Keep it simple

Unfortunately in 0ad it's capture-delete

[AIEND]

The introduction of the concept of arson can make the means of siege more flexible and diverse, and solve the positioning problems of some of the units at the moment.
For example, most players use the siege tower as a field battle as if it were a BMP loaded with assault riflemen, which is not unrelated to the weak damage of bows against buildings, but if we make the siege tower fire incendiary arrows and specify that it can only attack buildings, we can turn the tower into an effective siege weapon.
And naval warships could also fire incendiary arrows at other ships and buildings and normal arrows at soldiers, which would reduce our reliance on catapult warships (which many civilizations don't have) and also allow naval battles to remain intense enough while not allowing the navy to do too much damage to land-based soldiers by distinguishing between the normal/incendiary arrows used by warships.
The torch can smooth out the damage gap between different kinds of infantry and cavalry (both melee and ranged) against buildings, and also narrow the gap between soldiers and siege mechanics, thus speaking, we no longer need extremely powerful siege hammers.
It also means that buildings can be further refined, for example we can differentiate between stone and wooden buildings in terms of resistance to fire, instead of only in terms of HP.
I tested the arson mechanic a few months ago in an older version of the "Mirror" mod, and it made for a pretty good game experience, I thought.

[AIEND]

35 minutes ago, hyperion said:

不幸的是，在0ad中，它是捕获-删除

Capture-delete is just a helpless compensation for the soldier not having an effective means of siege, which is why I think arson should be added, even if someone feels that the torch is not good enough, then I think it is better to let all soldiers take pickaxes, sledgehammers, logging axes and other tools to demolish buildings than now.

Edited October 19, 2022 by AIEND

[alre]

while you add this mechanic to 0 ad, please take away conquer.

[Lopess]

6 hours ago, alre said:

while you add this mechanic to 0 ad, please take away conquer.

I believe the conquest doesn't need to be taken away, but with more efficient means of siege it can be reduced in power.

[Lopess]

6 hours ago, AIEND said:

Capture-delete is just a helpless compensation for the soldier not having an effective means of siege, which is why I think arson should be added, even if someone feels that the torch is not good enough, then I think it is better to let all soldiers take pickaxes, sledgehammers, logging axes and other tools to demolish buildings than now.

This makes perfect sense to me, a unit pulls out a pickaxe to mine but uses a sword against a stone wall.

[alre]

I believe the biggest obstacle to addiction of arson to 0 AD is fire effects.

7 minutes ago, Lopess said:

I believe the conquest doesn't need to be taken away, but with more efficient means of siege it can be reduced in power.

it should be reduced in power already, a lot.

[Stan`]

9 minutes ago, alre said:

I believe the biggest obstacle to addiction of arson to 0 AD is fire effects.

Well you can have torches with particles already. We can also add prop points to make fire pop up when building is damaged. This is already possible just not the art.

For multiple attacks switching we need bb's patch but I suppose that if one can switch to melee you can also switch to a specific attack only for buildings (I guess)

IIRC there is no fire damage right now because at the time people felt it wasn't much more realistic.

 

[BreakfastBurrito_007]

I would be ok with arson if it did not affect gameplay and was just an animation for units to make it look more realistic. 

-melee units (aside from clubmen and axemen) would just lay burning sticks against the building. While holding weapon in other hand and shield on back.

-ranged units (aside from slingers) would just do normal attack but with some small amount of glow or embers on their projectiles.
 

The main obstacle isn’t really fire effects but all the multiplayer players who would dislike it and prefer development be focused on gameplay improvement, lag reduction and those sorts of things.

Edited October 19, 2022 by BreakfastBurrito_007

[Lopess]

I think we can test this initially with a separate mod, with more than one way of implementation.

[ChronA]

Every aspect of combat in 0 AD (and most other games like it) is tremendously abstracted. If you hypothetically wanted to simulate the process of attacking buildings in more detail I'd vote to go all out: with actual fire propagation spreading to other nearby buildings, attackers adding more torches to make it burn faster but not actually doing damage, and defenders "repairing" the building by throwing water on.

[wowgetoffyourcellphone]

24 minutes ago, ChronA said:

Every aspect of combat in 0 AD (and most other games like it) is tremendously abstracted. If you hypothetically wanted to simulate the process of attacking buildings in more detail I'd vote to go all out: with actual fire propagation spreading to other nearby buildings, attackers adding more torches to make it burn faster but not actually doing damage, and defenders "repairing" the building by throwing water on.

Indeed, the AOE3 version of just switching to torch-bombs isn't necessarily that much more realistic than hacking it with a sword.

[real_tabasco_sauce]

41 minutes ago, wowgetoffyourcellphone said:

Indeed, the AOE3 version of just switching to torch-bombs isn't necessarily that much more realistic than hacking it with a sword.

Yes, and it also makes for horrendous gameplay

[Lopess]

58 minutes ago, ChronA said:

Every aspect of combat in 0 AD (and most other games like it) is tremendously abstracted. If you hypothetically wanted to simulate the process of attacking buildings in more detail I'd vote to go all out: with actual fire propagation spreading to other nearby buildings, attackers adding more torches to make it burn faster but not actually doing damage, and defenders "repairing" the building by throwing water on.

That games are abstractions from reality this is a non-discussion, just in my view. What I come here is to expose an idea of a smarter and more interesting way to attack the structure. Between stabbing rock walls with a sword or with a piece of wood there is little difference, in fact it would be more interesting with wood instead of destroying your precious weapon of war.

[AIEND]

13 hours ago, Lopess said:

这对我来说很有意义，一个单位拔出镐来开采，但用剑抵住石墙。

In reality, there are combat engineers who use these tools to demolish various fortifications and obstacles, but I don't know why there are few games to reflect.

I think it's possible to distinguish between different types of soldiers' siege methods, such as having melee infantry use sledgehammers, pickaxes and axes, archers firing flaming arrows, and slingers, javelinmen, and cavalry throwing torches.

Edited October 20, 2022 by AIEND

[AIEND]

10 小时前，洛佩斯说：

这对我来说很有意义，一个单位拔出镐来开采，但用剑抵住石墙。

A further idea would be to add two new tags to buildings - wooden and stone buildings - and then add a new sapper unit (trained from the barracks) to P2, allowing the sapper to switch between pickaxe/sledgehammer or axe when demolishing these two types of buildings, which might not be as fast as normal infantry arson when demolishing wooden buildings, but would be more effective against stone walls that barely burn.

[alre]

12 hours ago, Stan` said:

Well you can have torches with particles already. We can also add prop points to make fire pop up when building is damaged. This is already possible just not the art.

like it is with fire cav? I suppose that could do, but it's not very good looking.

[hyperion]

8 hours ago, Stan` said:

IIRC there is no fire damage right now because at the time people felt it wasn't much more realistic.

Fire is mostly used to kill people inside buildings or to force people out, sure it does some damage to structures as well.

For me this is about immersion, on a scale 1 to 10 capture-delete is 1, sword and arrows 7 and fire depending on mechanics and more importantly how great the art is between 3 to 10. So yes, I fear fire to be possibly worse than sword and arrows, but hopeful for @Lopess for proving me wrong.

[Lopess]

1 hour ago, hyperion said:

Fire is mostly used to kill people inside buildings or to force people out, sure it does some damage to structures as well.

For me this is about immersion, on a scale 1 to 10 capture-delete is 1, sword and arrows 7 and fire depending on mechanics and more importantly how great the art is between 3 to 10. So yes, I fear fire to be possibly worse than sword and arrows, but hopeful for @Lopess for proving me wrong.

I don't know if it was the translation but it was impossible to understand your point. But I think it's something like it's more interesting to be shooting normal arrows or slamming swords against walls than set fire or use more suitable equipment 

[hyperion]

On 20/10/2022 at 3:50 PM, Lopess said:

I don't know if it was the translation but it was impossible to understand your point. But I think it's something like it's more interesting to be shooting normal arrows or slamming swords against walls than set fire or use more suitable equipment 

Guess, the point about the role of fire was clear. If it's about realistic, fire or a building with "burning" status should damage garrisoned units instead of the building.

 

About the visuals, let's use examples to try convey my point. It's very hard to make pleasing art for burning buildings and setting them on fire in the first place. One example I saw is a floating badge above the building with a flame on it. While not ugly it can't be called satisfying either. The other is a group of people surrounding a building throwing torches. This looked like an angry mob throwing torches to burn a witch at the stakes. This I consider a total failure.

So whether fire is an option for me only depends on the quality of the art.

[Lion.Kanzen]

31 minutes ago, hyperion said:

Guess, the point about the role of fire was clear. If it's about realistic, fire or a building with "burning" status should damage garrisoned units instead of the building.

 

It depends on the building, there are buildings like the sentry tower that would burn along with the garrisoned units.