[Altered Melee] Ancient Empires

[Fingolfin]

I don't think it seems reasonable that an arrow would have any armor reducing effects.. i thought geting any spear in your shield would be disrupting, but perhaps the slickness of the pila was a necessity for this function. In any case, i think the benefits of any ranged unit should be high mobility and range. The peltasts were very valuable as support, so i don't think them being a debuffing unit would make them either more or less used than they should be. If you compensate by lowering their damage, i think it would give them a solid role. An alternative feature would be for their attacks to ignore armor, but this might be harder to implement.

By the way, Alexanders "low-cost" victories could rather be attributed to the fact that he only used his pikemen to lock the enemy in position, the decisive blow was always dealt by cavalry. The times when they were attacked by missile troops, the dense pikes were actually great at deflecting them, as you said.

 

[Pson]

Javelins were indeed heavier than arrows, but I was thinking that a hand-ballista arrow would be somewhat in between and I also need a better role for Gastraphetes. Pila had a lighter, thinner point, but the part that connected it to the thick wooden body was made of soft metal, and that part bended on impact making hard to remove them from shields. Normal javelins had a heavier, thicker edge and a lighter wooden body, as they were more for killing and less for disabling shields.

What I was saying is that adding a unique debuff to a relatively early game unit would make them more or less a must in all army compositions. So I'm not sure that's good. While Gastraphetes are late game, more expensive and slower so they wouldn't mix well with mobile armies. I remembered the slingers cause in some cases they used metal bullets effective at causing major injury bellow armor without totally piercing it.

Oh btw.. I have a different armor system, using the hardened skin ability, with 1 armor reducing 1 damage. So something like an armor debuff wouldn't be as easy as an ability, but I think that ignore armor can also be triggered easier this way.

Agreed that cavalry was the decisive blow in most cases, but:
a) Often the phalanx just steamrolled through the opposing troops or easily forced them back. It wasn't just a tough barrier, it had quite good offensive power, the Romans even mentioned sarissas could pierce their shields and armor, imagine Persian shields and armor.
b) It often had to be under heavy fire for quite a while, cause Persian cavalry was strong and numerous and the Macedonians couldn't always force a quick rout.
c) The pikes would deflect some missiles, but not to the point of having an aspis or scutum shield instead of a small one. That's the case for the back rankers, the front rankers had even less protection from that aspect and here is were armor played a huge part in keeping the vast majority of them alive and fighting. Anti-missile would be the no1 reason for them to have armor anyway, the pikes are supposed to keep melee enemies away in most cases.

EDIT:
Is it possible to add only the line-effect to ballistas so they can only hit the unit behind their target, without hiting those on the sides or having attack ground?
EDIT2: Is there a better way to get this trigger working?

• Ballista vs Elephant
  • Events
    • Unit - A unit Is attacked
  • Conditions
    • (Unit-type of (Attacking unit)) Equal to Ballista
    • (Unit-type of (Triggering unit)) Equal to War Elephant
  • Actions
    • Set Player = (Owner of (Attacking unit))
    • Set TempUnit = (Triggering unit)
    • Set TempUnit2 = (Attacking unit)
    • Unit - Cause TempUnit2 to damage TempUnit, dealing (3.00 x ((Random real number between 5.00 and 13.00) + (2.00 x (Real((Current research level of Ballistics for Player)))))) damage of attack type Normal and damage type Normal
    • Set TempUnit = No unit
    • Set TempUnit = TempUnit2

 

[Fingolfin]

Whatever you deem best i guess.

Regarding the ballista; giving them siege damage but super bonuses vs infantry and elephants seems like an overly complicated approach to me, and it would confuse players. A ballista projectile, heavy as it might be, still does limited damage to structures and i think it would be unrealistic and unhistorical to use them in this role. Just stick with the normal damage and a 2X or 1.5X bonus vs elephants.

By the way, is there any chance you could share the latest version with me? I would love to playtest it.

 

[Pson]

I think you might be right on this, but still I'd need the help in edit1/edit2 to fix ballistas since I've got no clue on the first and I'm out of classifications on demolish for the second one.

Would you join for a game on b.net? Since you're heavy on the balance staff we could even try various unit types vs others, it's easier than alone.

 

[Fingolfin]

Sure! That would be fun.

 

[Pson]

I'm online, pm me when you're joining

 

[shaMewalkeR]

So I tried your map a couple of times. I was pleasantly surprised at how the map looks. It has an amazing feel to it, and everything looks awesome.

-Towers cost 2 food. I don't know if this is intended, but it definately caught my eye
-After choosing a faction, your original workers(The 5 you start with), doesnt get the buff. The 5 I started with didn't get the bonus movespeed and bonus gold capacity.
-Chicken - Builds from farms - It says "Build Limit: 5". I can only build 3 however.
-Chicken - Counts as workers, so when they are just standing around, they count as idle workers, which is quite annoying.
-Elephants just started running around under my control, for no apparent reason. 350 HP, 0 armor and 0 damage. And they heal incredibly fast. It has the build tab, but cannot build anything.
-I know that there is a 200 food cap in AoE, but the 200 food cap seems really limiting. I was at 130 food, from my workers alone. To be able to keep my army going and to buy new forces all the time, I needed that many.
-The farms needs a tech in order to build sheeps. That tech is not available from any building or unit I could find.

+Terrain and models look absolutely amazing! It truly has the AoEII feel to it.
+Nice touch that the AI scouts like they did in AoEII
+In general, the map looks awesome and has a great feel to it.

Really awesome job on this one so far, I am truly impressed. Didn't notice any gamebreaking flaws or bugs.
Was incredibly entertained.
Really good luck with this

 

[Fingolfin]

*The cap is actually at 300, if i am correct.. you get more cap as you progress through the ages. Also, villas give lots of food, and you can get more of them each age.

*I think the use of food for defensive buildings is a really clever design choice. It prevents players from spamming buildings such as towers and fortresses.

*All animals have "wander" ability which makes them a bit unwieldy. It is completely intentional though and they can be garrisoned in farms for safekeeping.


Anyhow, Pson, that trigger you posted is very flawed. First of all, "unit is attacked" only registers when a unit starts its attack animation, not when it actually deals damage. This can be exploited if you order the unit to stop right after it starts its attack anim (but before the missile fires, so the attack will not start its cooldown). What you need instead is a Damage Detection System.

To make a leakless damage detection system, you need some Jass. The concept is that for each unit that enters the map, you create a new trigger, and add the "[specific unit] takes damage" to it. When the unit dies, you start a timer which eventually destroys the trigger (since you cannot remove events). It is risky to destroy the timer immediately, since if the event fires afterwards for that specific unit, the game will crash.

If you want to make it in GUI though, you need to disregard the event leak. Just make a trigger, and everytime a unit enters the map, add [triggering unit takes damage] as an event to that trigger. Don't use conditions, but rather place everything in if-checks inside the actions. The leaks from this approach are usually neglible, unless you have an awful lot of units dying in a single game. By an awful lot i mean at least ten thousand. My damage detection in WiF leaks events, and i have never noticed any performance issues.

 

[shaMewalkeR]

*The cap is actually at 300, if i am correct.. you get more cap as you progress through the ages. Also, villas give lots of food, and you can get more of them each age.

Mine capped at 200 at max age, even though I upgraded 2 farms after and build several town halls. So either I got an earlier version or something, but none the less it capped at 200

 

[Pson]

So I tried your map a couple of times. I was pleasantly surprised at how the map looks. It has an amazing feel to it, and everything looks awesome.

-Towers cost 2 food. I don't know if this is intended, but it definately caught my eye
-After choosing a faction, your original workers(The 5 you start with), doesnt get the buff. The 5 I started with didn't get the bonus movespeed and bonus gold capacity.
-Chicken - Builds from farms - It says "Build Limit: 5". I can only build 3 however.
-Chicken - Counts as workers, so when they are just standing around, they count as idle workers, which is quite annoying.
-Elephants just started running around under my control, for no apparent reason. 350 HP, 0 armor and 0 damage. And they heal incredibly fast. It has the build tab, but cannot build anything.
-I know that there is a 200 food cap in AoE, but the 200 food cap seems really limiting. I was at 130 food, from my workers alone. To be able to keep my army going and to buy new forces all the time, I needed that many.
-The farms needs a tech in order to build sheeps. That tech is not available from any building or unit I could find.

+Terrain and models look absolutely amazing! It truly has the AoEII feel to it.
+Nice touch that the AI scouts like they did in AoEII
+In general, the map looks awesome and has a great feel to it.

Really awesome job on this one so far, I am truly impressed. Didn't notice any gamebreaking flaws or bugs.
Was incredibly entertained.
Really good luck with this

*The cap is actually at 300, if i am correct.. you get more cap as you progress through the ages. Also, villas give lots of food, and you can get more of them each age.

*I think the use of food for defensive buildings is a really clever design choice. It prevents players from spamming buildings such as towers and fortresses.

*All animals have "wander" ability which makes them a bit unwieldy. It is completely intentional though and they can be garrisoned in farms for safekeeping.

Thanks for the kind words. Most of the credit for the feeling goes to the community (and especially fingolfin and grunt) as i didn't actually create anything besides the music. Oh and ofc to the 0 Ad team, I've "stolen" their tech icons.

-Tower pop cost is indeed intentional to limit them. If you want more forts and towers you'll have less of a mobile force. Exact values might change a bit though.
-I'll have to check that issue. You mean you picked the Athenians and the 5 starting workers kept gathering 5 instead of 6 gold? (their other bonus is worker hp, not speed). EDIT: They return 6 gold as intended. Maybe you saw some delivering the gold they had already gathered from before you chose a faction.
-You can only build 3 cause you have 2 already
-Some people consider this as annoying, but as fin said you can garrison them into farms to prevent the idle icon showing up. I could remove it, but then it will be hard to keep track of them. Not sure yet.
-Those elephants are capturable, but if you don't have a War Elephant training civ, their only use is denying them from your opponents who might have. Might add an ability to sell them or gift them to allies. The wander ability serves for aesthetics and for randomizing capturable animal locations a bit, reducing copy-paste gameplay.
-Food limit is 300, not 200. Are you sure you didn't just cap your farm/villa count? Even then you can build more town centers, or capture fishing regions for extra food.
-That's intentional. Spot and capture a sheep in the wilds and you can herd them for extra pop and a tech benefit, fail to and you're stack with only chicken. Nothing game breaking as you can still reach the food cap and the tech is a little extra health for villagers and militia, just a reward for scouting. Very useful if you plan a militia rush though (those are stronger and last longer than in wc3 melee).

Anyhow, Pson, that trigger you posted is very flawed. First of all, "unit is attacked" only registers when a unit starts its attack animation, not when it actually deals damage. This can be exploited if you order the unit to stop right after it starts its attack anim (but before the missile fires, so the attack will not start its cooldown). What you need instead is a Damage Detection System.

To make a leakless damage detection system, you need some Jass. The concept is that for each unit that enters the map, you create a new trigger, and add the "[specific unit] takes damage" to it. When the unit dies, you start a timer which eventually destroys the trigger (since you cannot remove events). It is risky to destroy the timer immediately, since if the event fires afterwards for that specific unit, the game will crash.

If you want to make it in GUI though, you need to disregard the event leak. Just make a trigger, and everytime a unit enters the map, add [triggering unit takes damage] as an event to that trigger. Don't use conditions, but rather place everything in if-checks inside the actions. The leaks from this approach are usually neglible, unless you have an awful lot of units dying in a single game. By an awful lot i mean at least ten thousand. My damage detection in WiF leaks events, and i have never noticed any performance issues.

The last option seems interesting, or I could fall back to normal attack types instead of demolish.. they actually give more options, or use a combination for even more...I'll think about it,

 

[Pson]

I'll be trying a new combat system mixing demolish and attack/defense types. Keep in mind that the main balancing will come through other attributes (stats, collision, ranged, speed, train times, cost, pop etc) so this won't seem balanced on it's own:

The Attack Types Are:

Spear: Deals 200% damage to cavalry and 50% to Structures.
Melee: Deals 75% damage to Structures.
Ranged: Deals 25% damage to Structures.
Impale: Deals 200% damage to Infantry and Elephants and 50% damage to Cavalry.
Fire: Deals 200% damage to Mechanical.
Siege: Deals 200% damage to Mechanical and Structures and 50% damage to Cavalry.
Elephant: Deals 200% damage to Mechanical and Structures.


The Defense Types Are:

Light: Takes full damage from all attacks and 150% from Cavalry Skirmishers through Demolish.
Infantry: Takes 200% damage from Impale and 125% from Skirmishers through Demolish.
Cavalry: Takes 200% damage from Spears and 50% from Impale and Siege.
Elephant: Takes 200% damage from Impale.
Mechanical: Takes 200% damage from Siege, Elephants and Fire.
Structure: Takes 200% from Siege and Elephants and reduced damage from melee (75%), spears (50%), and ranged (25%).

This Way The Units Are Shaping As:

Spearman: Tanky early game unit with Spear Attack and Infantry Defense. Good at soaking damage and vs Cavalry Units, Weak vs Skirmishers, Swordsmen, Ballista, Gastraphetes.
Swordsman: Offensive early/mid game unit with Melee Attack and Infantry Defense. Good vs Spearmen and unprotected missile troops, Weak vs Skirmishers, Ballista, Gastraphetes.
Pikeman: Slow mid/late game unit with Spear Attack and Infantry Defense. Good in masses vs melee and especially Cavalry Units, Weak vs Skirmishers, Ballista, Onagers, Gastraphetes.

Archer: Long ranged early game unit with Ranged (upgraded to fire) Attack and Light Defense. Good in masses and vs mechanical when upgraded, Weak vs Cavalry and Onagers.
Skirmisher: Short ranged early/mid game unit with Ranged Attack and Light Defense. Good vs Infantry units, Weak vs Cavalry.
Gastraphetes: Long ranged late game unit with Impale Attack and Infantry Defense. Good vs Infantry and Elephants, Weak vs Skirmishers, Ballista, Cavalry, Gastraphetes.
(Slinger: Long ranged early/mid game unit with Ranged Attack and Light Defense. Good vs armored units, Weak vs Cavalry (and siege?).) - to be added and worked more uppon.

Cavalry Skirmisher: Short ranged,very fast mid game unit with Ranged Attack and Cavalry Defense. Good vs all light units, Weak vs Heavy Cavalry, Spearmen and Pikemen (in melee).
Heavy Cavalry: Tough and fast mid/late game unit with Melee Attack and Cavalry Defense. Good vs siege, cost-effective vs most units, weak vs spearmen and pikemen.
War Elephant: Very tough late game unit with Elephant Attack and Elephant Defense. Good vs structures, mechanical and massed units weak vs ballista and gastraphetes.

Ram: Tough mid/late game unit with Siege Attack and Structure Defense. Good vs Structures, weak vs Elephants and Onagers. Can't attack units.
Ballista: Long ranged mid/late game unit with Impale Attack and Mechanical Defense. Good vs infantry, elephants and gastraphetes, weak vs onagers, Heavy Cavalry and Elephants (in melee).
Onager: Long ranged late game unit with Siege Attack and Mechanical Defense. Good vs Structures, Siege and massed units (especially Pikemen and Archers) weak vs Siege, Heavy Cavalry, Elephants and (upgraded) Archers.

 

[Vinz]

Structure looks really cool.

Siege: Deals 200% damage to Mechanical and Structures and 50% damage to Cavalry.
Siege: Deals 200% damage to Mechanical and Structures.

Two of them? And I think the first should be 75%, cavalries are still vulnerable to rocks, arrows and whatnot.

 

[Pson]

Structure looks really cool.



Two of them? And I think the first should be 75%, cavalries are still vulnerable to rocks, arrows and whatnot.

Thanks, corrected the second that was supposed to be Elephants. It could be 75%, balancing will tell. This is mostly to show the direction, not the exact numbers.

 

[Fingolfin]

This sounds fantastic! I think it will be much easier to understand the units strengths and weaknesses now. Like you said, they will ofcourse also have differences in mobility, health, attack speed etc.

My only remark is that you might want to change the name "infantry" into something like "medium" or "armored", since technically archers are also infantry. Also, i noticed you wrote elephants have "elephant attack".. surely you mean siege? Or do they also have a unique attack type?

To deal with your map size, i recommend you run all your models through MDX Squisher. It will not visibly reduce their filesize, but once they are saved into the maps MPQ the compression will be more effective. As a result they can take as little as 60% of their original space.

 

[Pson]

Infantry can be easily and more appropriately renamed Heavy Infantry.

Elephants have a unique attack, since siege does reduced damage to cavalry and I don't want them to do the same, as they were in fact good against them in reality. Another solution would be bonusing cavalry vs siege units with demolish (maybe heavy cavalry only since Cav Skirms already have a bonus) instead of debonusing siege units vs cavalry, and that way elephants can keep the siege attack type. Could be more realistic as well, since idle cavalry aren't bad targets for siege, but reaching fast to melee they would easily clear the crews.. not sure what's best for gameplay though and I'd still like light cav effective vs siege as well. Another solution to include this as well is giving ranged siege light armor (crews) and not mech, and giving upgraded archers a demolish vs siege units. This way Cav Skirms will also be good vs Onagers and Ballistas.

I think that's something for the future, so I can keep track of what's compressed or not. As of now I'm still changing models, icons and skins frequently.

Btw what's new in the new tree versions?

 

[Fingolfin]

I think what you suggested about cav having a bonus sounds best. But either case will work.

What do you mean new tree versions? The fact that they're called NewPalm, NewOak, etc? That is just to separate them from the other tree models i have, lol. Just like the spruce set i made is called FinePine. Yeah, i know, that makes no sense.

EDIT: if you wonder why they are back on the front page, it is just because they got approved today! Not because i updated them (which i didn't).

 

[Vinz]

I am getting more hyped for this everyday. <3

Can't wait for PC to get fixed.

 

[Pson]

I think what you suggested about cav having a bonus sounds best. But either case will work.

What do you mean new tree versions? The fact that they're called NewPalm, NewOak, etc? That is just to separate them from the other tree models i have, lol. Just like the spruce set i made is called FinePine. Yeah, i know, that makes no sense.

EDIT: if you wonder why they are back on the front page, it is just because they got approved today! Not because i updated them (which i didn't).

Fixed the issue this way:
Siege Attack will deal full damage to Cavalry, and Elephants get is as well.
Ballistas and Onagers get light defense (representing uncovered crews) so now Cavalry Skirmisher is bonused vs them as well.
Heavy Cavalry gets bonused vs all siege weapons, including Rams.

Yes, I was talking about them trees being back to the front page.

I am getting more hyped for this everyday. <3

Can't wait for PC to get fixed.

When you get it fixed you can have them map even if not finished

 

[Pson]

Finished the Slinger unit, made/edited by z00rtaz. Since my armor system uses hardened skin, and one point of armor blocks exactly one point of damage, there's no point to add "ignores 1 armor" mostly for cosmetic reasons, I can just add 1 more damage to slingers. The only issue would be a slightly different role vs units who have zero starting armor and no upgrades, but that's not really worth it since slingers aren't tier1 and will almost exclusively face units with some armor.

They'll have the fastest attack speed among ranged units, the lowest attack, and slightly more range than archers. They benefit from very few upgrades compared to other units, but they receive extra dps from attack upgrades to balance that. They'll be a pure damage dealing unit, quite effective vs ranged and slow units due to the biggest non-siege weapon range.

Carthaginians get the Balearic Slingers upgrade for extra damage, while Greek factions get the Rhodian Slingers one for extra range, outranging even upgraded Archers. The Antigonid Macedonian subfaction gets a unique upgrade, Kestros Slingers, which increases their hit points and lowers their attack speed while increasing their attack damage. Thoughts?

 

[lokharke]

Finished the Slinger unit, made/edited by z00rtaz. Since my armor system uses hardened skin, and one point of armor blocks exactly one point of damage, there's no point to add "ignores 1 armor" mostly for cosmetic reasons, I can just add 1 more damage to slingers. The only issue would be a slightly different role vs units who have zero starting armor and no upgrades, but that's not really worth it since slingers aren't tier1 and will almost exclusively face units with some armor.

They'll have the fastest attack speed among ranged units, the lowest attack, and slightly more range than archers. They benefit from very few upgrades compared to other units, but they receive extra dps from attack upgrades to balance that. They'll be a pure damage dealing unit, quite effective vs ranged and slow units due to the biggest non-siege weapon range.

Carthaginians get the Balearic Slingers upgrade for extra damage, while Greek factions get the Rhodian Slingers one for extra range, outranging even upgraded Archers. The Antigonid Macedonian subfaction gets a unique upgrade, Kestros Slingers, which increases their hit points and lowers their attack speed while increasing their attack damage. Thoughts?

I never knew so many types of slingers, only single slinger in AOM RoR.

Extra damage slingers are always good and will have uses later on.
Slingers having more range than archers? I hope there isn't an Elite long bowman.
Increase hitpoints and lower attack speed is nice. As long as slingers don't get armor, HP is alright.

 

[Ragnoras]

hey your map always crash on late game, you should fix it!

 

[Pson]

Those are regional slingers, not that famous unless you're into ancient history:

Balearic slingers were from the Balearic Islands, and practiced slingery from childhood. They often used heavy missiles, that's why I'm giving them extra attack. They often fought for the Carthaginians as subjects or mercenaries.

Rhodian Slingers, from the island of Rhodes were the most famous ones in the Greek world, and they could outrange even persian archers, who had more range than most other archers due to their composite bows, that's why I'm bonusing their range. They often fought as mercenaries for many powers.

Kestros Slingers were developed by late Macedon, among other reforms, in an effort to fight back roman expansion, that eventually failed. They used heavy darts instead of normal sling missiles and were possibly armored. That's why the slower but heavier attack and extra hit points.

They get armor from armor upgrades, but have much fewer upgrades in general. I've tested them a bit and they don't feel unbalanced, they might need minor changes though.

hey your map always crash on late game, you should fix it!

It is/was memory leaks. On my computer it crashed like 10-20% of games, perhaps I have more ram...
I've fixed a lot of the triggers with help from Pinzu and Fingolfin and the latest versions haven't crashed yet. You'll have to wait a bit though, cause I've messed with the AI to update it.

 

[Ragnoras]

HEy can i help you with some models and icons? i'm good at iconing and quite a little at models

 

[Pson]

I certainly have things that need change or could look better, so I'll come back to you, thanks for the offer

Currently I'm bugged with issues in the AI editor. I'm trying to make an all in one AI, to save space and have better editing flexibility.

To train different units for different factions, I'm using conditions based on upgrades. For example, Macedonians use archers as their starting unit, while other factions use spearmen. So archers queued get a condition ("Civ - Macedonians" upgrade level equal to 1), while other factions' spearmen get ("Civ - not Macedonians/Romans") and Romans get ("Civ - Romans" + "food lower than 120" + "Marian reforms tech not researched"), so that they won't bug trying to train spearmen after they are replaced by legionaries in their tech tree.

The problem is, while archer conditions work, and Macedonians get the desired number of archers, the other factions conditions somehow get messed up, resulting in all of them (besides spartans who have a limit of 10 spearmen) training the entire number of spearmen in the queue even those they were conditioned to not to train.

I can't seem to find a logical solution, tried many things and I'd like to keep all factions under one AI file. Does anyone have a good clue on how the AI editor works in the aspect?

 

[Ragnoras]

Hey, i found out why the game crashed!... the Roman AI!!!!!! really, not jokikn' i choose all 4 Romans.... guess what happened: i tried it a couple times... and after every one has advenced to town phase, my game crashed! nad hey:

I can do somthin' diverse for your map: includes terraininng, creeps and other stuff like that.. Can i? to make it more intresting.......

 

[Pson]

I doubt is was the Roman AI. I've finished countless games with Roman AIs involved and after I've cleaned several trigger leaks (which should be the case) the game hasn't crashed at all. And since in your example it crashed after EVERY AI advance to town phase, it's not that. If it was a bug with the AI reaching town phase it would happen when the first one did. Unless I got something wrong in what you say.

I was thinking to give you something in model edits or icons since you can do that too, I can terrain myself (and will improve the terrain a lot) and I certainly want to choose/place the creeps myself. Would you prefer model edits, new icons, or recoloring some icons for extra versions?

 

[Templassassin]

sorry if this already posted... but :
do you have a god worshiping in your map? (e.g Apollo, Venus, Zeus, Ra, Osiris)
do you have a hero with a historical name? (e.g Hannibal, Caesar, Darius)
do you have a technology invention by scholars?
do you have a neutral hero with historical name?

 

[Pson]

Yes there is god worship, you can choose from 3 gods per faction and at some point I'll add a mythology mode with probably 3 myth units per faction trained at the temple.

I won't have heroes, at least for now, but a hero mode with historical characters or an addition of mythological heroes to the myth mode might happen if I get the extra models needed.

There's the academy, a structure dedicated to special research and many techs overall. No scholars (in the sense of rise of nations for example - that would be pointless micro and too much extra triggering for minor gameplay changes), but Athenians get a philosopher unit each time they age up or research an academy tech. Philosophers heal units and have endurance aura, so they can both buff army groups or workers (increasing movement and attack speed - which also increases lumbering rate).

No - at least so far - same reason as before.

 

[Vinz]

I love the idea of heroes. <3

However the models are really a problem. I'm wondering how you even get models for all these units.

 

[Pson]

Some existing models partially fit, and some people, especially grunt who has done a lot of work, edited a lot of models for me. Models by wandering soul and eubz helped a lot as a base.

Still most of them could use some edits to look more historical, but they do their job. Heroes might be too much though, extra models for single units that aren't needed for the gameplay. Too much space and effort. We'll see about it.

 

[Ragnoras]

ican recolour, what's ta job?

 

[Pson]

Some icons I've got from 0 AD have only one version while I'm using them for multiple level techs. So changing a gray-ish/metal arrow for example to copper and gold as well will serve for all levels. Or adding numbers I to III to all icons, but that might mean work for icons that have levels already.

Another thing I've thought about, if you can make icons of 0 AD style and quality, you can make some for me/the hive and also offer them to the 0 AD community, since they could always use more help.

 

[Templassassin]

no egyptians??? no indians??? egypt and india are an easy nation to make instead of scythians and mind that distance of persia, greece, and the others is FAR from the celts civilization...

 

[Vinz]

Probably is a good idea, but as said, models are needed.

 

[Templassassin]

the only thing that can i give :

Here

 

[Vinz]

Those look hilarious! Though the last one looks creepy at close.

 

[Pson]

no egyptians??? no indians??? egypt and india are an easy nation to make instead of scythians and mind that distance of persia, greece, and the others is FAR from the celts civilization...

Probably is a good idea, but as said, models are needed.

Models and space is needed. If enough resources came up I would add them though, maybe on expense of some other civ that lacks models. Egypt is out of my timeframe anyway.. could do an exception if great models came up.. but there's already Ptolemaic Egypt as a Macedonian subfaction.

Celts were spread from Iberia to Asia Minor (Turkey), even Ptolemaic Egypt and Seleucid Asia as military settlers/mercenaries and they had a great deal of interaction with Greeks, Romans and Carthaginians that are in the map.

Scythians had much interaction with said civs and Persians, and they would be very interesting for gameplay with portable, cheap, weak tent buildings and a cavalry (especially horse archer) heavy faction.

I still lack models (at least now that fin has raised the quality standards) even for those civs though.

the only thing that can i give :

Here

Those look hilarious! Though the last one looks creepy at close.

I have to agree with cakes, they could fit in a humorous-fantasy egyptian setting but not in an aiming to be historical RTS.

 

[Templassassin]

umm.. where's Iberia? and are you sure there is a celts civ in Turkey?

 

[Pson]

umm.. where's Iberia? and are you sure there is a celts civ in Turkey?

Modern day Spain and Portugal is Iberia. Yes the Galatians (Gauls were Celts if that confuses you).

 

[Templassassin]

Modern day Spain and Portugal is Iberia. Yes the Galatians (Gauls were Celts if that confuses you).

O i see... I dont know that the Galatians is the gauls/celts
but still -> INDIA? they have war elephants for the point of interests

 

[Pson]

I'd like them as well. but they'd need too many unique models I don't have.

 

[Templassassin]

Pson how about a whole world ancient empires? that will be a great project! i'll support you so much if you make that

 

[Pson]

That would need much more time and resources than we have... and wouldn't fit in a map unless we narrow down the detail terribly much.

 

[Templassassin]

That would need much more time and resources than we have... and wouldn't fit in a map unless we narrow down the detail terribly much.

lol i agree... it just a joke (serious?)

 

[Pson]

Currently I'm bugged with issues in the AI editor. I'm trying to make an all in one AI, to save space and have better editing flexibility.

To train different units for different factions, I'm using conditions based on upgrades. For example, Macedonians use archers as their starting unit, while other factions use spearmen. So archers queued get a condition ("Civ - Macedonians" upgrade level equal to 1), while other factions' spearmen get ("Civ - not Macedonians/Romans") and Romans get ("Civ - Romans" + "food lower than 120" + "Marian reforms tech not researched"), so that they won't bug trying to train spearmen after they are replaced by legionaries in their tech tree.

The problem is, while archer conditions work, and Macedonians get the desired number of archers, the other factions conditions somehow get messed up, resulting in all of them (besides spartans who have a limit of 10 spearmen) training the entire number of spearmen in the queue even those they were conditioned to not to train.

I can't seem to find a logical solution, tried many things and I'd like to keep all factions under one AI file. Does anyone have a good clue on how the AI editor works in the aspect?

Still stuck with this issue if anybody is able to help I'd be grateful.

 

[Ragnoras]

HEy, i'm working for a skin for the woad warrior for the celts: bsed of Grunt!

 

[Templassassin]

I'd like them as well. but they'd need too many unique models I don't have.

just add a mercenary for the macedonians

 

[Fingolfin]

A few thoughts on the new updates:

*If you are adding slingers, and their range is higher than that of archers... i really think you should reduce the archers range to accomodate for this, otherwise slingers will essentially become artillery.

*What will be the role of slingers? Is there enough justification for 4 different ranged unit types in the map?

*You should upload more screenshots, here and on ModDB!


@Templassassin, about egyptians, the last autonomus egyptian rulership ended in 525 BC with the invasion of king Cambysses of Persia. Since then, Egypt would be ruled by Macedonians (under Alexander, and later Ptolemy), Romans, Sassanids, and a number of other foreign groups. If you were to make a map about the pharaonic period, it would have to be set a thousand years before the timeframe of this map, and it would instead have to involve countries such as the Assyrian Empire, the Hittite Empire, Mycenaean Greece, etc.

 

[Heinvers]

If you were to make a map about the pharaonic period, it would have to be set a thousand years before the timeframe of this map, and it would instead have to involve countries such as the Assyrian Empire, the Hittite Empire, Mycenaean Greece, etc.

That would be an interesting map to say the least

@Fingolfin, let's just say that even in 1000 (approximately) BC, Ancient Egypt's well fare declined.

 

[Ragnoras]

Ladies and Gentlemen
may i present you! my first skin ever!

The Celtic Woad Warrior that i promised!: Promised fulffied! for the woad
warrior

Please give comments and tell me how to improve it!

Pson: you may tell me if you want to download: no download link yet!