for the few cavalry that are unarmed and unarmored and taken out with a few loses, you are supposed to reinforce them by quickly building a tower or two and simply either rush in additional units and/or send your new ones to chop elsewhere. if you do what the computer does and simply rush all vills in only then of course the loss is going to be on your factor. likewise with a few loss in food and time in wood, they lost some more food and gold and perhaps time because it didnt faze you being rushed. trust me, i know the scenario more than a few times. now if it was chariot archer or compies, then its a different story and you may (including with wheel) definitely need to flee your vills and outrun them. likewise if you have no experience taking down the 2-3 few cavalry or so or if there is more, then you need (especially with wheel) to flee your vills.

Yes CA/Compie is far better but takes longer to achieve (techs etc). Cavalry is the fastest bronze rush with the camel.

What I was pointing out was that the first rush doesn't rely on any techs. Less techs, quicker rush. If you hit their woodies with 2 cavalry, and they just spent their wood on a market or tech - the game is pretty much over.

anyways, iron or not wheel makes a huge difference. that means i can easily pull the rush on mace or persia compared to someone with wheel.

Mace and Persia are more than good enough to rush. One has LOS bonus and one has hunting bonus (with the possibility of cheaper archers plus faster firing navy).

no it is NOT. the wheel benefits immediately and in the long run. the only definite unit bonus would be the assyrian and hittite bonus. in general, rushing or not, it all depends on your civs speed and the wheel represents that otherwise you would not have your prerequisite for engines of war even.

For 99% of the time during a rush you don't have a wheel - you then click wheel, wait, train 1-3 CAs and then send them in. If you go compie you don't even need wheel straight away because you have to find impie and compie upgrade costs, then maybe leather (as you left it a little late, meaning opponent has more woodies).

But I was talking about DM specifically here, wheel doesn't mean much in DM - it is all about unit bonuses.

like i had said still lacks more better tactics. you can include the above but lets say for example i add in war elephant to act as better assault/meat shield or you say no gold and its a stalemate? no problem! thats when i jihad!

Well using eles won't work against siege, armored eles and possibly HHA - you lose all that food which could be better used for constantly flooding with scythes. You can have all your initial villies on wood for quite a while before you need to think about farming with scythes. Eles are not a meat shield - they need to push forward (they cost too much to be a meat shield).

war elephants dont have siegecraft and the idea is to send them into the enemy lands to keep them busy since they can withstand alot, not just simply have them 'stand guard' at home. the fact that egypt dont have any siege is also why i wanted armored elephants not simply for siegecraft but also they got better protection especially versus towers. and besides egypt only has such main units being the chariot and elephant, so why not give them at regular all techs associated? all is missing is just the shields.

Yes, I said before this would be interesting but it opens unthinkable doors. The patch is meant to balance and tweak and not to completely change strats. I'm not saying egypt will be poor - they will be good and more playable. But their current strat CAN work - it takes some skill to pull off and adding shield/armored eles will take this away. With AE they will have the ability to rush - going head to head with other ele civs. Backed up by scythes, they will be able to put real pressure on other players.

Imagine a Egypt vs Hitt game - ele war followed by cheap scythes vs hcats. It sounds interesting but then I will have to think about other tech tree changes. Egypt doesn't need it, the change will just make them different to play with.

ok but you still made the patch didnt you? meaning you had to suggest or figured of something.

I had no input whatsover. You can search out wedsaz's threads in the forum and hall of fame and match them to my join date - I had no input. I just implemented the ideas into the patch. You will note I couldn't achieve some suggestions because of the engine. Seriously, Wedsaz takes all the credit - I just made his ideas happen. I had my own similar balancing threads - and 1 such patch exists in the granary.

eles are rush unit regardless. so whats the problem?

Egypt will be able to rush...

and what logic are you applying? so instead of enhancing civs to counter hittite siege you are instead going to be like 'oh hittites the strongest civs. i want to make them weak instead'. as in the case of egypt miss shields to become armored then whats wrong with giving them it? it will also enhance their scythe chariot and give them more protection especially versus towers.

But instead of changing each of the other 15 civs to match hitt level, I could change 1 civ? This was my logic.

If Egypt need a boost (which would be possible since gold is more common now) I could take a look at scythes. I could boost chariot hp to 40% for example.

the concept is that simple, but it is unfortunately not since eles can withstand that much and can usually disrupt things as well. as for a team game, yes you can do without but still you can enhance the play and btw it kind of seems alot of friendly fire on choson-hittite dont you think?

From the 2 IGZ games I watched with Hitt-Cho teams, it was 2 hitt + 1 cho each team. Choson basically towered everywhere and amassed hundreds of legions - but still played defensive. Hittite would then battle each other with HHA and siege. HHA harassed legions, and cats tried to squash them past tower lines. In these 2 games no eles were made. I'm guessing towers and other hitt eles put them off? I don't know what these guys knew what they were doing.

knock-on effects? nonsense. whatever. extra shields dont make for good rush but at least offers better protection agains towers and hha etc.

Yes, and cav = fast, can take out towers etc easier.

a cheaper unit is just plain 'cheap'. hell why not send in some unarmed armorless weak units to go fight instead? piecemeal. for more resources being available for other units/techs is what resource gathering is for, otherwise whats the point of gathering resources?

Scythes are crap - sorry to say this but they are terrible. However, you can just pump them out with ease, meaning they are a real problem when they don't stop wasting your gold supplies!

The cost vs effectiveness balance has the following impact of resources:

Cost more - more resources
Poor effectiveness - more resources

for horse units, perhaps there was really no other much meaningful bonus to give them. at least, yamatos horse cost bonus does not lack 'regular quality'. for example their best cataphract and hha dont lack attack, armor, range or nobility HP. however, since you are going to include cav get shield upgrades, they lack tower shield, so perhaps lets give them that? i say the japanese had some retangular shield they used with those scythes or halberd-like weapons.

I think they were more akin to body armour than shield.

giving more civs that combo is not going throw out their current strats. AE + Hcats is only a DM standard. they can still do the same strats as well as enhance it. and besides, i didnt say lets give everybody eles, armored elephants and Hcats. i only said lets upgrade the elephant to be armored.

Yes but RoR DM standard is AE + HCats. All civs without this combo have a unique strat - giving AE + HCats takes this away.

Hittite has almost all super units? Well, AE + HCats is the DM standard, with HHA a feasible option (to replace or follow AE). I doubt Centies or Scythes makes it into many Hittite strats.

well if it is siege war, i think the purpose is to have hittite be the factor. other than that, i see no reason to have something else. since you say most kills are from 'friendly fire' then that is what the double HP bonus of hittites siege is intended for so they can withstand better. making them less than double results in this meaningless. you obviously not going to simply only have siege only in a regular battle so to be attacked by cavalry.

Well Hittite do go for hcats only - no other units. Making them a bit more vunerable will make you bring a meat shield along.

lowering stone thrower/catapult makes them even more meaningless.

In RM they are not meaningless. 50% more HP is a bonus.

50% too high? i would have to call you out on that. thats BS. i would say too low considering the too small difference it is withstanding attack or even friendly fire. with your 50% too high suggestion, which is going to be a wrong suggestion everybody will tell you. more like 'i think hittite is too strong so lets make them totally weak instead'. it all comes down that this HP thing attempting to weaken that would result in a meaningless bonus.

I speculated that 50% may still make them OP. In any case it seems you prefer to have 1 civ OP - which is common. Many cling onto the 35 cost Shang bonus. I believe in China the main MP scene forces the pre-patch version of the game for the purpose of Shang.

Hcats are deadly. Hittite hcats rule. 50% is a bonus. Members of the jury, I rest my case.

wow the complaint about hittite siege was apparently 'they rulez'. i can see the minrange+ being manageable and could do something but the HP- however will make their purpose less meaningful. i dont how that supposed to balance out. and what you mean they shouldnt rule? so instead you say they should rather suck? apply your weakness elsewhere. i say rush them but that is in either tool or bronze or even initial iron. nothing wrong with them having armored elephants. i did not say take away their tip of the blade. i said you instead want to do that and make them weak instead. they are supposed to be the gun but you need to also be the gun.

Hcat vs Hcat I will go for a 50% hp bonus. How can a 50% bonus suck? Should I make Palmyran work rate 100%? I cannot give Hittite a weakness without taking something away - but this would change the tech tree. Changing warship only affects RM - the main problem is DM. Any noob can select hittite then flood with hcats. It is a tough question for good DM players. Seriously, Hittite HCats are too good - toning them down is logical.

and how you propose them to be strengthened? easily beaten by other virtually every iron unit especially missile fire. so lets make them research shields!

More HP perhaps.

not much of worthy add on to such strat and is seemingly out of proportion out of nowhere. although they can use cataphracts i dont think its a main strat is it?

No cataphracts are not currently a main strat because they cost too much and do little. They now get benefit from shields and have double heavy cav LOS. Hopefully these changes will make Assy and Shang more likely to use cataphract strats.

how is that?

Hittite Hcats 50% hp bonus...

as quoted from the game manual under Researching technology: The Sumerians are credited with inventing both the wheel and writing around 3500 BC. The invention of writing, especially, was a gradual process. Both technologies provided immediate and easily understood benefits that persist today. The wheel made carts possible, greatly improving the efficiency of moving goods. The wheel was also a prerequisite for the chariot and other engines of war.

'mace and persia has no wheel! lets take away their siege!'

i have found mace and persia to be no problem without the wheel but they just truly suck to play. as quoted from the same Voobly, GameRanger, even the old IGZ etc. 'they lack the wheel. ouch!' so lets raise their appeal to be the same as everybody else? unless they rush at tool, they are handicapped at bronze.

Yes they are a RM rush civ, not much use in booming. Just like Palmyran - they can boom but not much use in rushing... Each civ is unique.

Also, I know AoE is based on history but only in terms of basic content. I cannot take suggestions that seriously or no-one but greeks get the academy, with several civs having no iron age. If I can add more realistic aspects that is good, but not to hinder the current gameplay.

Egiptian Priests can easily convert anything they want.

yeah, but what you spend time doing this? if there was a tech like aoc's theocracy, then would i say that would have a chance to be feasible.

Macedonia and Persia wheel. I say yes. Two of them were conquers of the world and they would be more playfull.

damn straight

But Macedonia could have worse LOS bonus or less units.

i dont think so.

My proposition for this civ is lack of Centurions and Eles and Scythes. They will be more range Civ. Another sugestion is no Enginnering and Heavy Catapults and Scythes. Next sugestions is no Balistic and Enignering.

in other words your proposition or suggestion is 'hittite, overpowered. lets make them totally weak and defenseless instead!'

Yes CA/Compie is far better but takes longer to achieve (techs etc). Cavalry is the fastest bronze rush with the camel.

What I was pointing out was that the first rush doesn't rely on any techs. Less techs, quicker rush. If you hit their woodies with 2 cavalry, and they just spent their wood on a market or tech - the game is pretty much over.

well you need to manage dont you? so you need the wheel to flee if necessary and quickly erect some towers.

'...and they just spent their wood on a market or tech - the game is pretty much over.' - thats just a poor understatement. cavalry or camel may be the fastest with no tech, quicker rush but a piecemeal attack would slow and hurt the rusher more than it hurt whom they rushed.

Mace and Persia are more than good enough to rush. One has LOS bonus and one has hunting bonus (with the possibility of cheaper archers plus faster firing navy).

LOS bonus particularly at +2 can only do so much. hunting is also not considerably efficient past tool.

For 99% of the time during a rush you don't have a wheel - you then click wheel, wait, train 1-3 CAs and then send them in. If you go compie you don't even need wheel straight away because you have to find impie and compie upgrade costs, then maybe leather (as you left it a little late, meaning opponent has more woodies).

But I was talking about DM specifically here, wheel doesn't mean much in DM - it is all about unit bonuses.

'For 99% of the time during a rush you don't have a wheel' - thats another n00b understatement. if you go compie, you may also get wheel in the middle to enhance/sustain your rush.

now DM yes its all about unit bonuses initially. however, even you wanted palmyran to have +50% extra boom villagers so to 'farm extra food' so when you get to the after point with mace or persia what do you think about that?

Well using eles won't work against siege, armored eles and possibly HHA - you lose all that food which could be better used for constantly flooding with scythes. You can have all your initial villies on wood for quite a while before you need to think about farming with scythes. Eles are not a meat shield - they need to push forward (they cost too much to be a meat shield).

well you dont exactly use elephants alone to head charge siege or hha. even if you did and the siege with ballistics is taking some elephants out, the elephants are just putting pressure on the enemy much like how the phalanx works. eles are a meat shield or rather tanks when they push forward. and you are supposed to surprise the enemy with something behind like forward builds or even your own siege.

Yes, I said before this would be interesting but it opens unthinkable doors. The patch is meant to balance and tweak and not to completely change strats. I'm not saying egypt will be poor - they will be good and more playable. But their current strat CAN work - it takes some skill to pull off and adding shield/armored eles will take this away. With AE they will have the ability to rush - going head to head with other ele civs. Backed up by scythes, they will be able to put real pressure on other players.

Imagine a Egypt vs Hitt game - ele war followed by cheap scythes vs hcats. It sounds interesting but then I will have to think about other tech tree changes. Egypt doesn't need it, the change will just make them different to play with.

unthinkable doors, my ass. i understand the patch is meant to balance and tweak and not to completely change strats but you are inherently changing this anyway. look how you want to make the palmyran +50% vill work speed? lets add in the wheel, jihad and siegecraft they got too and look how that changes their strat? simply boom, flood and own all just like that? hell they beat assyria and perhaps even hittite doing this but making them 'super villager' isnt really the point is it? unlike the assyrian fast speed is a matter of reliability rather than that.

yes egypts supposively 'current strat' CAN work but is rather n00bish than actually using full skill or any skill for that matter to pull off. adding shield/AE will not take that away. add to that they still have to research it anyways. and of course with AE they can rush and go head to head with other ele civ. isnt that the point if that should happen? so are you saying instead leave them rushing head to head war elephant vs armored elephant? besides there are other better ways to rush as well besides elephants. you suggesting that my strat or idea was to 'Build stables, armored eles upgrade - rush' is only something a n00b would do and would be slow to work and instead may as well get you rushed first like i suggested; especially since you implied to depend on that alone. the idea is so that you have the option to research that and enhance your rush (with a method of protection for your elephants and siegecraft supplement as well as shielded protection for scythes)

the war elephant already exists to be backed by scythe and can already put pressure on others. whats wrong with enhancing that with an upgrade? look at aom's war elephants and note although they are named war elephants but how they are armored with siegecraft and a little extra body armor and shields, hence armored elephant? its upgrade armored elephants, thats it, not make cheap, piecemeal and unreliable or superman.

'Imagine a Egypt vs Hitt game - ele war followed by cheap scythes vs hcats.' - now where did the cheap part come from? 'It sounds interesting but then I will have to think about other tech tree changes.' - that i warrant you will be necessary besides changing bonuses alone. what about the part you attempted to evict hittite elephants? was that really a smart idea that i suppose bonuses will do alone? or even doing either is any good of an idea? 'Egypt doesn't need it, the change will just make them different to play with.' - egypt doesnt need it. but will make them more correct for playability just like aom has and not different to play with if you dont research it let alone have the time to research it.

Egypt will be able to rush...

so you are saying egypt are supposed to cannot rush? i say 'i am pharaoh rameses and i rush my troops myself to surprise the hittites at kadesh!' *after my division was ambushed* 'i am rameses the great and i rush (again) with my own personal guards chariots and route the hittites restoring the situation on the battle of kadesh!' ;p

But instead of changing each of the other 15 civs to match hitt level, I could change 1 civ? This was my logic.

If Egypt need a boost (which would be possible since gold is more common now) I could take a look at scythes. I could boost chariot hp to 40% for example.

you could change the other 15 civs to match hittite level. hell i say that would be better than making hittite 'totally weak' or missing the point of being the hittites. that although a little more work to do, sounds a better logic and shows you put more work (and rather thought) into it rather than hastily put together.

im afraid your example of egypt boost of extra HP to 40% or similar seems not much thought put into it. i wouldnt be surprised they are still incredibly poor if tower rushed.

From the 2 IGZ games I watched with Hitt-Cho teams, it was 2 hitt + 1 cho each team. Choson basically towered everywhere and amassed hundreds of legions - but still played defensive. Hittite would then battle each other with HHA and siege. HHA harassed legions, and cats tried to squash them past tower lines. In these 2 games no eles were made. I'm guessing towers and other hitt eles put them off? I don't know what these guys knew what they were doing.

i get the choson towers but i wonder what purpose the legions would serve other than suffer mass casualties from friendly or enemy damage radius fire or perhaps to deter jihadists? and in those 2 games you say no eles were made but then again you guess other hitt eles were involved? im afraid there were elephants made! ;p

Yes, and cav = fast, can take out towers etc easier.

im not sure how that is supposed to work. unless you are planning to make Hetairoi or something of that nature? and what about scythe chariot? couldnt the same logic do the same if you were to give them shields? though not take them out but help protect them rather than them dying easily like flies?

Scythes are crap - sorry to say this but they are terrible. However, you can just pump them out with ease, meaning they are a real problem when they don't stop wasting your gold supplies!

The cost vs effectiveness balance has the following impact of resources:

Cost more - more resources
Poor effectiveness - more resources

scythes in real life may be terrible but im certain they werent crap especially if they were used against inexperienced or broken troops. unless they are to cause casualty from friendly fire to cats, terrorize priests, or rob the rich of their gold and give it to the poor, they dont otherwise waste your gold supplies. (;

i dont see how your logic works when something costs more, you get more resources and when something is ineffective, you get more resources.

I think they were more akin to body armour than shield.

this is true for the samurai but for the axe-bladed pikeman/halberdier type peasants likely carried a retangular shield though maybe they were cheap.

Yes but RoR DM standard is AE + HCats. All civs without this combo have a unique strat - giving AE + HCats takes this away.

Hittite has almost all super units? Well, AE + HCats is the DM standard, with HHA a feasible option (to replace or follow AE). I doubt Centies or Scythes makes it into many Hittite strats.

and for those who dont have that standard they usually get owned by those who do. giving AE + HCats does not take away their unique strat as for one, they dont have to use it. second, i didnt say give everybody both that. i only ask for a match or better counter attack.

yes hittite has almost all super units. nothing wrong with their DM standard as well as with optional HHA, Centurions or Scythes. I think youre right about not particularly centurion or scythe making into many hittite strats. i dont think they were particularly prominent in rm either. perhaps no one will really mind much if you were to take away the phalanx? now the scythe however, has to stay due to the fact they were mostly a chariot civ.

btw did you know that the hittites were particularly advanced in technology comparing to their counterparts at the time? this also same quoted in the history reign of the hittites. however, despite having almost all super units and purportedly advanced technologies, they do not have most techs than other civs. even egypt has more. the romans amazingly are actually the ones with most techs than any other civ.

Well Hittite do go for hcats only - no other units. Making them a bit more vunerable will make you bring a meat shield along.

they can be just hcats only and yes they are more vunerable that way...or vice versa if the use of 'attack ground' is done right and they dont have something else dragging them down or hindering their progress that is. which brings me back to why you attempted to take away their armored 'meat shield' tank?

In RM they are not meaningless. 50% more HP is a bonus.

in rm i suppose they are not meaningless but nevertheless, it still is seemingly that way. and by you saying 50% more HP is a bonus in comparison to their former double, 50% more HP is not much a meaningful bonus. hell comparing to hittites standards, its a penalty! from their former, 50% is a random bonus or penalty. ;p

I speculated that 50% may still make them OP. In any case it seems you prefer to have 1 civ OP - which is common. Many cling onto the 35 cost Shang bonus. I believe in China the main MP scene forces the pre-patch version of the game for the purpose of Shang.

Hcats are deadly. Hittite hcats rule. 50% is a bonus. Members of the jury, I rest my case.

how do you speculate 50% may still make them OP? did you even compare the numbers and see what a notable difference and perhaps to hittite or OP standards, handicap that is? The Shang deal i dont know about, at a 5 food difference it doesnt really add up much unless you use high resources rather than defaults.

'Hcats are deadly.' - true. 'Hittite hcats rule.' - true. 50% is a bonus - more like its bogus. Members of the jury, I rest my case too.

Hcat vs Hcat I will go for a 50% hp bonus. How can a 50% bonus suck? Should I make Palmyran work rate 100%? I cannot give Hittite a weakness without taking something away - but this would change the tech tree. Changing warship only affects RM - the main problem is DM. Any noob can select hittite then flood with hcats. It is a tough question for good DM players. Seriously, Hittite HCats are too good - toning them down is logical.

since the difference is not 1 extra stone i would not go for a 50% hp bonus. the 50% bonus sucks because when you do the math in the amount of HP and comparison to the amount of an attack and particularly the numbers of attacks it sustains it makes the difference meaningless. i forsee this why ES made them double HP. for example, lets say we made them like palmyran villagers instead of giving them their original double HP, lets give the cats 1 armor instead, then what? especially when siege vs siege, like i said, the difference is not 1 stone; let alone, that set in stone. you cannot compare the palmyran work rate here, palmyran work rate being at 50% will simply in the long run be alot and ALOT more resources coming in or things built. we are talking about several differences versus a LOT of differences so no you are not to give them 100% work rate and i would say 50% work rate is also too high. i got an idea for a test on this, how about make several enemy triremes like 7-10 attack 1 palmyran trireme at shore and have a few lets say 3-5 'your palmyran villagers at 50% work rate' repair it while it alone takes out the enemy triremes?

anyways back to the hittite case. about dm. 'Any noob can select hittite then flood with hcats' - and can also fail miserably including because he is a n00b. 'It is a tough question for good DM players.' - really? what tough question is that to either choose a good civ or use a civ that can counter the other? and even if random, use its best units to counter including the hittite siege? 'Seriously, Hittite HCats are too good - toning them down is logical.' - i dont see lowering the HP the best or only way to tone them down. i thought about the big picture why ES might have done that and i forsaw like what i had said above about the numbers of attacks differences. perhaps you ought to simply raise everybodys cats min range just a bit more? that actually sounds like it could work since cats are supposed to attack buildings at long range anyways as a siege weapon and not be some unit killer up close. this realistically makes them more vunerable but makes their double HP the intended meaningfulness especially at cat wars.

More HP perhaps.

and how much more HP are you to give them to make it realistic and yet still compensate the damage taken? shields sounds like the best answer already. egypt has the best chariots and they should be fully equipped too.

No cataphracts are not currently a main strat because they cost too much and do little. They now get benefit from shields and have double heavy cav LOS. Hopefully these changes will make Assy and Shang more likely to use cataphract strats.

i think what your idea here especially from the sentence you first said is feeble at best and not particularly realistic or useful. i could say the cataphract alone needs some real bonus like the LOS and speed as Hero Caesar or Scipio! also whats this now you are creating new strats and you are still reluctant to accept the egyptian or sumerian armored elephant?

Hittite Hcats 50% hp bonus...

i dont need to explain more why this is isnt such a good idea. since ES turned around and adjusted some civs like shang (and that was a comparably small difference of 5 food) and didnt adjust this, i say it was intended with foresight and with good reason like i had thought and stated with a bigger picture.

Yes they are a RM rush civ, not much use in booming. Just like Palmyran - they can boom but not much use in rushing... Each civ is unique.

Also, I know AoE is based on history but only in terms of basic content. I cannot take suggestions that seriously or no-one but greeks get the academy, with several civs having no iron age. If I can add more realistic aspects that is good, but not to hinder the current gameplay.

each civ is unique but its better to have no civ have any weaknesses dont you think? but rather internal weaknesses such as exploits. for example why in original aoe, persia was the only civ with a weakness, namely '-30% farm'? and lack proper market technologies? (when i first saw that, my impression was 'no wonder the greeks easily whooped their ass' and i was thinking about how greek archers suck at the time) in ror, that weakness was eliminated altogether but nevertheless that wheel thing in some great eyes is a weakness and makes the two civs the weakest link (along with palmyran costing more food for vils despite its extra bonuses) even the igz, gamespot, other notable gaming places giving online reviews etc. while commenting 'hittite rulez' commented 'mace/persia lacks the wheel. ouch!' and that was their first and foremost comment! you see what their appeal or fun in playability is? as for strictly historical terms, its better to give and enhance rather than take and hinder. having no wheel but still having siege with wheels is also not realistic either.

[This message has been edited by volume (edited 11-23-2009 @ 10:38 AM).]

yeah, but what you spend time doing this? if there was a tech like aoc's theocracy, then would i say that would have a chance to be feasible.

I am a bit lost here but I assume this refers to Egypt DM:

In DM you only need 5-10 temples. You have towers (ballista) and then your scythe. Scythe slows them down and priests convert. It does work if done right. You don't need 30+ temples - priests need too much micro to use, better off having 20 in your base neutralising a ele rush.

Basically, slowing eles down with scythes allows towers and priests to work through the units. You could end up with 20 armored eles of your own.

If the enemy keeps sending armored eles you now have a nice meat shield (armored eles) to slow them down even more.

If the enemy goes siege (such as with Hittite) you can heal your armored eles and get scythes out ASAP. Get them into the forwards and try and take as many siege and workshops out as possible (friendly fire helps).

in other words your proposition or suggestion is 'hittite, overpowered. lets make them totally weak and defenseless instead!'

The suggestion was made to remove their OP tendancy. It is a valid suggestion - although I would only go as far as saying to remove eles if any tech tree changes are needed.

well you need to manage dont you? so you need the wheel to flee if necessary and quickly erect some towers.

No, to stop a rush you need to wall. Cavalry have no problems with towers, they can kill quite a few villies with a few arrows firing upon them. Going for the wheel is useless against a cav rush - you need the wall.

'...and they just spent their wood on a market or tech - the game is pretty much over.' - thats just a poor understatement. cavalry or camel may be the fastest with no tech, quicker rush but a piecemeal attack would slow and hurt the rusher more than it hurt whom they rushed.

If the rush fails - but a cav vs villagers with wheel and a fixed tower is in the cavalry favour. If the villagers are running around or tryng to lure the cav to the tower, another cav will be along shortly, then the toolworking tech etc. If you wall and someone goes for a cav rush they are very likely going to fall behind because of their weak eco (assuming the defensive player has attempted some sort of mini-boom).

LOS bonus particularly at +2 can only do so much. hunting is also not considerably efficient past tool.

LOS is a good bonus for a tool or cav rush. You find your opponent faster and get your forwards as close the enemy woodies as possible.

The hunting bonus is difficult and may need looking at, but in dry maps (e.g. hillz) hunting can go into the bronze with partial farming.

'For 99% of the time during a rush you don't have a wheel' - thats another n00b understatement. if you go compie, you may also get wheel in the middle to enhance/sustain your rush.

If you go compie you want them in your enemies woodies/town before they wall. Every tech you research gives the enemy a chance to wall, rush you and/or produce some cavalry to take them out.

99% of the time during a rush there is no wheel, assuming that it is a bronze rush.

now DM yes its all about unit bonuses initially. however, even you wanted palmyran to have +50% extra boom villagers so to 'farm extra food' so when you get to the after point with mace or persia what do you think about that?

Persia get faster eles which means they can hurt the other player more - the handicap should balance both ecos out. Cheaper archery range should help too with resource management.

Macedonian get more market techs than persia, plus have good centies to follow a ele rush. They also get good cataphracts (minus nobility) with new shield bonuses. A cataphract + centie combo would stand up to towers and archers very well.

well you dont exactly use elephants alone to head charge siege or hha. even if you did and the siege with ballistics is taking some elephants out, the elephants are just putting pressure on the enemy much like how the phalanx works. eles are a meat shield or rather tanks when they push forward. and you are supposed to surprise the enemy with something behind like forward builds or even your own siege.

Well, an ele rush will see zero siege in a iron start DM. Ele rush needs stables, iron shield and armored ele upgrade. Hcats need siege workshops, siegecraft, catapult and heavy catapult upgrades. Eles train faster. Heles have more of a chance but consider the first stages (pre-upgrade) we have war elephants vs ballista, no problem really. As soon as armored eles kick in they should be all over the forwards.

In competitive games, if someone has armored eles the other will not go for siege. It takes too long.

Also, yes you do push forward with eles, especially when you get up to 100 in the first 5 minutes of a DM game. That is 60,000!

You see, if Egypt get armored eles this is what they will be capable of.

unthinkable doors, my ass. i understand the patch is meant to balance and tweak and not to completely change strats but you are inherently changing this anyway. look how you want to make the palmyran +50% vill work speed? lets add in the wheel, jihad and siegecraft they got too and look how that changes their strat? simply boom, flood and own all just like that? hell they beat assyria and perhaps even hittite doing this but making them 'super villager' isnt really the point is it? unlike the assyrian fast speed is a matter of reliability rather than that.

Palmyran are already capable of this. Palmyran players wall and try to get mass camels in RM, and in DM they have armored eles, heavy cats and scythe - although missing techs here and there. I have boosted their bonus to help them boom. They already get 50% in some resources, approx 30% in others. I have just made it 50% in all (and fixed farming).

The changes made in the patch are to enhance strats. The cataphract changes are to make the unit viable. All units who have them can already use them, but they lack something for the cost.

The archer effectivenes has been reduced to favour hand-to-hand units. Archers still kill, are still good behind walls etc, but they don't own hoplites, cavalry etc like they used to.

Siege has a bigger weakness (minimum range).

Certian civs, such as Assy and Shang are not strong in DM because they lack something. I have given them something.

Any small change will have a knock-on effect, and I am trying to manage these. However, changing tech trees IS significant. It removes/gives completely new strats. For example, what if egyptian DM players like the work they have put into their strat, and have a winning formula? Suddenly they get AE and their efforts are lost. AE + HCats is the standard for DM because it is easy to pull off. Special strats where you are trying to micro towers, CA, Scythes, villagers, priests etc takes real skill in 2.0 speed.

Going back to Palmy - they can Boom but they have a weakness - if you rush them and they don't wall they are dead. If you rush them and they do wall they don't have such a strong boom. This is already a property of Palmy, I am just giving Palmy a little help to make the boom good. It means you can't leave them in their wall - you either need to start booming yourself or think about siege FAST. This is something any RTS should contain - a strategy.

yes egypts supposively 'current strat' CAN work but is rather n00bish than actually using full skill or any skill for that matter to pull off. adding shield/AE will not take that away. add to that they still have to research it anyways. and of course with AE they can rush and go head to head with other ele civ. isnt that the point if that should happen? so are you saying instead leave them rushing head to head war elephant vs armored elephant? besides there are other better ways to rush as well besides elephants. you suggesting that my strat or idea was to 'Build stables, armored eles upgrade - rush' is only something a n00b would do and would be slow to work and instead may as well get you rushed first like i suggested; especially since you implied to depend on that alone. the idea is so that you have the option to research that and enhance your rush (with a method of protection for your elephants and siegecraft supplement as well as shielded protection for scythes)

No, you need to play 200 pop DM games - any civ with eles uses them to rush. Team games can vary a little, such as Hitt using HHA + Hcats. You cannot say AE are anything but a rush unit - have you seen 50-100 AE running at you within 5 minutes?

'Imagine a Egypt vs Hitt game - ele war followed by cheap scythes vs hcats.' - now where did the cheap part come from?

Scythes are cheap - wood and food.

'It sounds interesting but then I will have to think about other tech tree changes.' - that i warrant you will be necessary besides changing bonuses alone. what about the part you attempted to evict hittite elephants? was that really a smart idea that i suppose bonuses will do alone? or even doing either is any good of an idea?

Considering tech tree changes was a open discussion. If tech tree changes were to be made then there is a case for removing something from hitt.

'Egypt doesn't need it, the change will just make them different to play with.' - egypt doesnt need it. but will make them more correct for playability just like aom has and not different to play with if you dont research it let alone have the time to research it.

If they don't need it then they don't need it...

so you are saying egypt are supposed to cannot rush? i say 'i am pharaoh rameses and i rush my troops myself to surprise the hittites at kadesh!' *after my division was ambushed* 'i am rameses the great and i rush (again) with my own personal guards chariots and route the hittites restoring the situation on the battle of kadesh!' ;p

Anyone can rush - but in the circumstances of facing up to 100 AE - rushing would be useless. Better to dig in any take some dumbos down.

you could change the other 15 civs to match hittite level. hell i say that would be better than making hittite 'totally weak' or missing the point of being the hittites. that although a little more work to do, sounds a better logic and shows you put more work (and rather thought) into it rather than hastily put together.

Well it is like re-inventing the wheel. The game is there, has strengths and weaknesses. The patch fixes the weaknesses. If a weakness is clearly one unit is OP - it needs watering down.

If I have to change 15 civs to match 1 - I will need to cross-check everything, and it will take another 10 years for people to decide the weaknesses of the patch...

If I have a dirty face I will wash it - not force all of you to smear mud across your own faces

im afraid your example of egypt boost of extra HP to 40% or similar seems not much thought put into it. i wouldnt be surprised they are still incredibly poor if tower rushed.

i get the choson towers but i wonder what purpose the legions would serve other than suffer mass casualties from friendly or enemy damage radius fire or perhaps to deter jihadists? and in those 2 games you say no eles were made but then again you guess other hitt eles were involved? im afraid there were elephants made! ;p

No eles, it was a map crawling with HHA and Hcats. Choson played defensive and tried to wait it out until enough hcats were taken out. When hittite has no hcats they are effectively left with scythes (IF they remembered to save 900 gold for the upgrade). The final stages was a mop up campaign with legions spreading across the map like ants, with scythes going for the flanks.

If a choson player was hit badly (like in one game) then during the latter stages when hitt was low on gold, the better choson player clearly helped.

im not sure how that is supposed to work. unless you are planning to make Hetairoi or something of that nature? and what about scythe chariot? couldnt the same logic do the same if you were to give them shields? though not take them out but help protect them rather than them dying easily like flies?

Yes, heavy cav, cataphracts and scythes will now have the ability to hit towers and put up with arrow fire. Cataphracts can be used to chase down HHA too.

and for those who dont have that standard they usually get owned by those who do. giving AE + HCats does not take away their unique strat as for one, they dont have to use it. second, i didnt say give everybody both that. i only ask for a match or better counter attack.

Well I would rather make unique strats than standard AE + HCats even more common.

yes hittite has almost all super units. nothing wrong with their DM standard as well as with optional HHA, Centurions or Scythes. I think youre right about not particularly centurion or scythe making into many hittite strats. i dont think they were particularly prominent in rm either. perhaps no one will really mind much if you were to take away the phalanx? now the scythe however, has to stay due to the fact they were mostly a chariot civ.

Taking centies away will not make them weaker if they don't use them.

btw did you know that the hittites were particularly advanced in technology comparing to their counterparts at the time? this also same quoted in the history reign of the hittites. however, despite having almost all super units and purportedly advanced technologies, they do not have most techs than other civs. even egypt has more. the romans amazingly are actually the ones with most techs than any other civ.

To make them more realistic I would say give them quick iron but poor techs/super units. I would make them more like Egypt (chariot bonuses) and maybe some infantry bonuses. No eles, no siege

they can be just hcats only and yes they are more vunerable that way...or vice versa if the use of 'attack ground' is done right and they dont have something else dragging them down or hindering their progress that is. which brings me back to why you attempted to take away their armored 'meat shield' tank?

Tech tree changes were discusses a long time ago and to my knowledge I have stated I didn't want to make ANY tech tree changes.

how do you speculate 50% may still make them OP? did you even compare the numbers and see what a notable difference and perhaps to hittite or OP standards, handicap that is? The Shang deal i dont know about, at a 5 food difference it doesnt really add up much unless you use high resources rather than defaults.

Hittite - it doesn't matter about numbers, it needs testing in a DM game. Siege war - hitt will win (similar player skills). Facing other units, who knows? It may still be overpowered.

'Hcats are deadly.' - true. 'Hittite hcats rule.' - true. 50% is a bonus - more like its bogus. Members of the jury, I rest my case too.

A bonus is a bonus. I will give you $2 million, oh wait I will give you $1 million - are you p####d that you only got $1 million?

i forsee this why ES made them double HP.

ES tested everything in 50 pop. The game is 200 pop. DM games were designed to go on for a little while (constant streams of war elephants etc). At 200 you can only get a few waves out before you need your eco to bail you out.

ALOT

ALOT

ALOT

I cannot argue with figures because they mean little in terms of actually playing. The theory has been done - I will put this into the patch and then test.

'Any noob can select hittite then flood with hcats' - and can also fail miserably including because he is a n00b. 'It is a tough question for good DM players.' - really? what tough question is that to either choose a good civ or use a civ that can counter the other? and even if random, use its best units to counter including the hittite siege? 'Seriously, Hittite HCats are too good - toning them down is logical.' - i dont see lowering the HP the best or only way to tone them down. i thought about the big picture why ES might have done that and i forsaw like what i had said above about the numbers of attacks differences.

Again ES built the game on 50 pop, the game is now 200 pop.

Also, AE + Hcat DM strat is noobish, as it Choson legion wars. As much as they are fun, there are plenty of players who will take your dumbos and cats apart with nothing more than scythes, towers and priests.

perhaps you ought to simply raise everybodys cats min range just a bit more? that actually sounds like it could work since cats are supposed to attack buildings at long range anyways as a siege weapon and not be some unit killer up close. this realistically makes them more vunerable but makes their double HP the intended meaningfulness especially at cat wars.

Well the difference (+1) now is noticable - and some civs (e.g. Minoan) really depend on Hcats. Making the min range something like 4 or 5 tiles will affect all and not just hitt. Hitt hcats are a problem unit. I must condemn it to death

Let us see what 50% does. Dont worry about maths - let us see hitt still own with hcats BUT will need some protection. Let us make hitt keep super units but need most of them (previously AE or HHA then HCats, now add Scythes too).

and how much more HP are you to give them to make it realistic and yet still compensate the damage taken? shields sounds like the best answer already. egypt has the best chariots and they should be fully equipped too.

Well I would like to see if a prolonged siege (because of extra gold) makes a difference on egypt. I will try using some Ele archers and see if the strat is still valid. If then I see that scythes are not doing it - I can change this.

and how much more HP are you to give them to make it realistic and yet still compensate the damage taken? shields sounds like the best answer already. egypt has the best chariots and they should be fully equipped too.

New Strat? All civs that get cataphract still get them, no change there. I was thinking about giving cataphracts more pierce but this messes with the shield changes. More LOS makes them more capable of chasing down other units (HHA!). Macedonian cataphracts will have slightly more LOS (bonus + super ability).

dont need to explain more why this is isnt such a good idea. since ES turned around and adjusted some civs like shang (and that was a comparably small difference of 5 food) and didnt adjust this, i say it was intended with foresight and with good reason like i had thought and stated with a bigger picture.

The Shang change was revolutionary - it stopped "no-shang" games, stopped top tournaments being Shang only... the 5 change AND -40 starting food stopped shang doing a pit start, stopped shang from beating any rush, stopped shang from beating any "turtle" (walling).

each civ is unique but its better to have no civ has weakness dont you think?

No - all civs having strengths and weaknesses gives them character. It gives them strats. It gives other civs strats.

but rather internal weaknesses such as exploits. for example why in original aoe, persia was the only civ with a weakness, namely '-30% farm'? and lack proper market technologies? (when i first saw that, my impression was 'no wonder the greeks easily whooped their ass' and i was thinking about how greek archers suck) in ror, that weakness was eliminated altogether but nevertheless that wheel thing in some great eyes is a weakness and makes the two civs the weakest link (along with palmyran costing more food for vils despite its extra bonuses) even the igz, gamespot, other notable gaming places giving online reviews etc. while commenting 'hittite rulez' commented 'mace/persia lacks the wheel. ouch!' and that was their first and foremost comment!

Reviews are written by people who play the trial... People who have been playing the game for 12 years will say otherwise.

you see what their appeal or fun in playability is? as for strictly historical terms, its better to give and enhance rather than take and hinder. having no wheel but still having siege with wheels is also not realistic either.

I understand what you are saying but the game is a game and not a model of real life. It is a RTS game that used history as its content. Real life is boring anyway

I have planned a realism patch and have been working on it for some time.

Volume

In AOK Priest have much worse range. Egiptian have 16 range. In the main base you can convert easily everything. Eles are very slow. I would spend more gold to get priests and convert Carthaghinian Eles. 8-10 priests in 75 population is enough. Last time my friend was mad becuase them.
Hittite discovered Iron, but they did not live very long. They collapsed in 1160 BC and had never revive their empire. In game they have too many super units and very good army bonuses. Tell me what is their weakness. HHa,CA and HCats demolish everything. I played them many times and it's very easy win them in Iron with all civs.
I was thinking about that they could have no Hcats and HHa. They still have old bonuses.

Palmyryan- 65 food, no armor and 25% work rate.

So far I think the discussions have been helpful in trying to further strengthen the balancing of each civ. Therefore I would like to try the following:

v0.6
This version will concentrate on the units, and will include such fixes as enabling units in the editor, placeable gaia units near edge of map, text updates etc.

I will also make the following changes to heroes:

All ranged heroes will automatically have alchemy and ballistics

All heroes will have increased attributes (as techs no longer affect them)

Villager heroes will no longer change to villagers when tasked

Further Balance Changes
Archers fire 100% accurate: More units get shields now
Egypt Bonus: Gets coinage-like bonus to replace current gold bonus
Hittite Bonus: Warships +2 range (not +4), includes catapult ships (via scenario builder/WarPatch), Catapults get 50% hp bonus (not 100%)
Trees: Forests have 50 wood (+10)
Stone: Mines have 350 stone (+100 on original, +50 on last update)
Shang DM: new bonus for ballistae - missiles travel faster (help balance unit against crappy range and accuracy)
Persian RM: archery range cost bonus (seeing as archer units have no range!)
Babylonian Priests: change rejuvenation bonus to conversion+healing (helps a potential bug, and makes priests more efficient)
Phoenician woodcutters: slight increase in work rate
Sumerian DM: academy units cheaper (lack shield and metallurgy)

[This message has been edited by Rasteve (edited 11-23-2009 @ 03:40 PM).]

Well most of that changes seem to be most needed and appropritate specially the 150% not 200% hp catapults for the hittites.

I'm worrying about Eles Archers. They cost a lot food and gold. It can be next Cataphact?. Many units have shielding(4). Each Eles archers will take only 2 damage to Cents, Scythes....
I know their is old accuracy and new Craftmanship bonus, but....

I am a bit lost here but I assume this refers to Egypt DM:

In DM you only need 5-10 temples. You have towers (ballista) and then your scythe. Scythe slows them down and priests convert. It does work if done right. You don't need 30+ temples - priests need too much micro to use, better off having 20 in your base neutralising a ele rush.

Basically, slowing eles down with scythes allows towers and priests to work through the units. You could end up with 20 armored eles of your own.

If the enemy keeps sending armored eles you now have a nice meat shield (armored eles) to slow them down even more.

If the enemy goes siege (such as with Hittite) you can heal your armored eles and get scythes out ASAP. Get them into the forwards and try and take as many siege and workshops out as possible (friendly fire helps).

this was in reference to what aran had said (and perhaps have deleted) if YOU havent read. no wonder you were lost. but you did ASSUME and made an ASS out of U and not ME ;p what i am saying is despite even if you can convert armored elephants, that still requires tedious micromanaging compared to if you had that tech in aoc known as theocracy where you can select multiple priests to convert and only one has to rest afterwards. there is nothing discussed here about egypt DM.

The suggestion was made to remove their OP tendancy. It is a valid suggestion - although I would only go as far as saying to remove eles if any tech tree changes are needed.

yeah that suggestion is basically 'we will make hittite not OP by making them not OP'. why not just totally remove cats altogether? it lacks sense for that matter and is NOT a valid suggestion and no you are not to remove any eles neither!

No, to stop a rush you need to wall. Cavalry have no problems with towers, they can kill quite a few villies with a few arrows firing upon them. Going for the wheel is useless against a cav rush - you need the wall.

yes you may use the wall but when you are trying to rush the rusher (you attempt rush but get rushed first), you may engage a melee even with villagers to distract their rush. a few towers can easily be instantly erected by several villagers while the cavalry can only concentrate on one villager at a time which can also distract them by running the individual ones attacked around especially with wheel. i did not say oh towers are just simply put up to guard the place while the cavalry can simply rush through to slay villagers. considering cavalry have no shields a few towers firing on the cavalry and some or if slightly most villagers engage in melee with cavalry should be sufficient to take them down with fewer losses and dont forget to do more and rush in some units in as well (such as your own cavalry for example). the wheel is so you can rush in your vills and/or rush out your vills - depending on your strategy, you do not necessary need to wall.

If the rush fails - but a cav vs villagers with wheel and a fixed tower is in the cavalry favour. If the villagers are running around or tryng to lure the cav to the tower, another cav will be along shortly, then the toolworking tech etc. If you wall and someone goes for a cav rush they are very likely going to fall behind because of their weak eco (assuming the defensive player has attempted some sort of mini-boom).

you obviously have little to no experience doing this correctly and are underestimating how it is. so what? are you saying if the enemy sends in cavalry and starts slaying villagers, you are going to resign? or what happens if they send in scouts and start prodding villagers? an early bronze unarmed and unarmored cavalry is nothing more than a more decent scout. if you wall, then thats your strategy but you do not need to depend on that alone.

LOS is a good bonus for a tool or cav rush. You find your opponent faster and get your forwards as close the enemy woodies as possible.

The hunting bonus is difficult and may need looking at, but in dry maps (e.g. hillz) hunting can go into the bronze with partial farming.

like i said slightly extra LOS can only get you so far but thats it. it is not particularly relevant or as useful anymore when everybody has gotten beefed up and ready.

the hunting bonus sucks and is more micromanagement unless you are hunting several elephants to race through the ages. dry maps hunting makes no difference unless its hunting elephants like i said.

If you go compie you want them in your enemies woodies/town before they wall. Every tech you research gives the enemy a chance to wall, rush you and/or produce some cavalry to take them out.

99% of the time during a rush there is no wheel, assuming that it is a bronze rush.

not necessary every tech you research gives the enemy a chance to counter you. didnt i say rush and while rushing, research techs? you dont research everything until you are fully beefed up and then consider rushing.

your 99% of the time during a rush there is no wheel is obviously false even given they are bronze rushes. didnt i say you can research the wheel WHILE you rush NOT BEFORE you rush? unless of course you are using chariot archers.

Persia get faster eles which means they can hurt the other player more - the handicap should balance both ecos out. Cheaper archery range should help too with resource management.

Macedonian get more market techs than persia, plus have good centies to follow a ele rush. They also get good cataphracts (minus nobility) with new shield bonuses. A cataphract + centie combo would stand up to towers and archers very well.

faster eles does not mean they can hurt the other player more, provided they can even get the eles out in the first place! - the handicap DOES NOT balance both ecos out. cheaper archers would do little as well unless youre hoping to do elephant archers. and come to think of it, now that thing you made up does not even make sense. so now elephant archers are cheaper than the cavalry variant elephant which is the main base elephant unit? and i should also add in cheaper elephants is already phoenicia's benefit!

mace may get more market techs than persia, but the lack of the wheel alone is a 'drag' on their 'war machine'. they may have the best centurions and full armored elephants as well as ignoble but otherwise full up cataphracts but who is supposed to help sustain all that?

Well, an ele rush will see zero siege in a iron start DM. Ele rush needs stables, iron shield and armored ele upgrade. Hcats need siege workshops, siegecraft, catapult and heavy catapult upgrades. Eles train faster. Heles have more of a chance but consider the first stages (pre-upgrade) we have war elephants vs ballista, no problem really. As soon as armored eles kick in they should be all over the forwards.

In competitive games, if someone has armored eles the other will not go for siege. It takes too long.

Also, yes you do push forward with eles, especially when you get up to 100 in the first 5 minutes of a DM game. That is 60,000!

You see, if Egypt get armored eles this is what they will be capable of.

an ele rush will see zero siege in iron start DM is not necessarily the case. although a seemingly 100+ eles may intimidate and seemingly push forward like phalanx, however do not forget siege with large damage, damage radius and especially ballistics can still crush the forward marchers.

in competitive games, if someone has armored eles the other will not go for siege because it takes too long? really? more like the other way around as a eles vs eles war would drag on forever.

now where did you get 60,000 and where did that sensibly come from?

you made no sense whatsoever and did not explain why egypt getting armored eles on what capable good or bad they are. in fact, what bad is that if any anyways?

Palmyran are already capable of this. Palmyran players wall and try to get mass camels in RM, and in DM they have armored eles, heavy cats and scythe - although missing techs here and there. I have boosted their bonus to help them boom. They already get 50% in some resources, approx 30% in others. I have just made it 50% in all (and fixed farming).

The changes made in the patch are to enhance strats. The cataphract changes are to make the unit viable. All units who have them can already use them, but they lack something for the cost.

The archer effectivenes has been reduced to favour hand-to-hand units. Archers still kill, are still good behind walls etc, but they don't own hoplites, cavalry etc like they used to.

Siege has a bigger weakness (minimum range).

Certian civs, such as Assy and Shang are not strong in DM because they lack something. I have given them something.

Any small change will have a knock-on effect, and I am trying to manage these. However, changing tech trees IS significant. It removes/gives completely new strats. For example, what if egyptian DM players like the work they have put into their strat, and have a winning formula? Suddenly they get AE and their efforts are lost. AE + HCats is the standard for DM because it is easy to pull off. Special strats where you are trying to micro towers, CA, Scythes, villagers, priests etc takes real skill in 2.0 speed.

Going back to Palmy - they can Boom but they have a weakness - if you rush them and they don't wall they are dead. If you rush them and they do wall they don't have such a strong boom. This is already a property of Palmy, I am just giving Palmy a little help to make the boom good. It means you can't leave them in their wall - you either need to start booming yourself or think about siege FAST. This is something any RTS should contain - a strategy.

maybe palmyran are already capable of this but NOT necessary NOR at this higher of extent which can just simply make them just about 'super villagers' but no point in game whatsoever.

im not sure where cataphracts was brought up here. they are just too damn expensive and time consuming to upgrade and train.

as for the archer effectiveness been reduced to favour hand-to-hand units and that they don't own hoplites, cavalry etc like they used to does not make sense. it may as well be like aok where archers were seemingly weak and useless and that is why i compared from aoe to age3. i understand hoplites now got some good shield to protect themselves but archers are supposed to still defeat them. as for the cavalry they should be easily shot down by a mass in real life more or less the same by them. which is why heavy cavalry with shield has better protection. these i understand but you dont need to reduce archer effectiveness to 'favour hand-hand units' you can better leave that alone and dependant on the shields since thats what they are for.

you say Certian civs, such as Assy and Shang are not strong in DM because they lack something and so you have given them something. really? and what makes them not strong in DM? what expectantly they supposed to have that they lack?

you also say 'However, changing tech trees IS significant.' and how much significant if it was a minor change (such as upgrade something existing)? whereas you create bonuses that potentially compromises current strats? you say 'It removes/gives completely new strats.' i say it does not remove nor particularly give ANY new strats. you say if there is already established winning formulas and Suddenly they are getting AE and 'their efforts are lost.' and what efforts are lost? is their really such a strict in text strat? and above all they gained something NOT lost something! AE + HCats is the standard for DM because you have dual purposes for an offense and defense as well as intimidation pressures NOT because it is easy to pull off. i guarantee it is especially not always easy to pull it off. it is not something to be taken lightly as AE will overwhelm you and HCats will crush burning your town to the ground. you say 'Special strats where you are trying to micro towers, CA, Scythes, villagers, priests etc takes real skill in 2.0 speed' might be considered real skill but is more of a 'you the micromanager' rather than much skill involved. what if you were to use something else on top of that? such as dumbos or getting them to armored elephants?

as for 'Going back to Palmy' - this a civ where at +50% build/work rate is potentially or perhaps is 'super villager' which would make the game pointless or is rather weak considering it cant counter rush. for the purposes of counter rush, walls dont count. we can still 'knock on their door' tear down the wall quickly and ransack their town. you say that 'This is something any RTS should contain - a strategy.' I say you dont necessary have to have strategy, you can last minute improvise or manage instead and what you suggested doesnt exactly have any or so best strategy.

No, you need to play 200 pop DM games - any civ with eles uses them to rush. Team games can vary a little, such as Hitt using HHA + Hcats. You cannot say AE are anything but a rush unit - have you seen 50-100 AE running at you within 5 minutes?

ok so i do play 200 pop DM games and can use any eles to rush. whats your point? and hold on. YOU were the one who implied AE are supposed to be a rush unit including particularly if egypt had them. i have seen 50-100 AE running at me within 5 minutes and i either had the same, better, or simply sent in heavy cats to slowly mow them down.

Scythes are cheap because they cost food and wood.

so what? and dont forget what if the wood became the factor more expensive?

Considering tech tree changes was a open discussion. If tech tree changes were to be made then there is a case for removing something from hitt.

so i dont get why is it that everything has to evolve on removing something from hitt? not that we cant do it, but theres got to be more, such as adding something somewhere else.

If they don't need it then they don't need it...

they dont need it doesnt mean they cant have it and besides it does make sense that they do and should have it.

Anyone can rush - but in the circumstances of facing up to 100 AE - rushing would be useless. Better to dig in any take some dumbos down.

if you say anyone can rush then why are you afraid of egypt rushing or allowing them to rush? sure it would be better to dig in and take some down but does that mean you cant rush still? what if the enemy town was unguarded enough or a portion thereof that you can send in some cavalry or jihadists in to disrupt them?

Well it is like re-inventing the wheel. The game is there, has strengths and weaknesses. The patch fixes the weaknesses. If a weakness is clearly one unit is OP - it needs watering down.

If I have to change 15 civs to match 1 - I will need to cross-check everything, and it will take another 10 years for people to decide the weaknesses of the patch...

If I have a dirty face I will wash it - not force all of you to smear mud across your own faces

im afraid your example of egypt boost of extra HP to 40% or similar seems not much thought put into it. i wouldnt be surprised they are still incredibly poor if tower rushed.

no its not like re-inventing the wheel. its like adding scythe to the wheel ;p and you may have to improve the wheel anyways. otherwise so you propose to do things meagerly? the game HAD strengths and weaknesses and ror eliminated listed weaknesses. the patch doesnt fix the weaknesses since you didnt really do anything much about it. in fact, you propose to make even more weaknesses! especially with this supposively 'one unit is OP.' no one unit is individually OP. by your 'watering down' of this particular unit, you propose to eliminate its point of the bonus or its purpose altogether.

well if you were to change 15 civs to match 1, all you need is little consideration or a little thought for that matter. you dont need any 10 years to do it.

then you need to wash your dirty face before you end up splattering and getting it on everybody else and make our faces look dirty with disgust. ;p

also you said what i said rather than having an answer to it

No eles...

you said there were elephants!

Yes, heavy cav, cataphracts and scythes will now have the ability to hit towers and put up with arrow fire. Cataphracts can be used to chase down HHA too.

yes that except for the best scythe chariot, the egyptians! since you wont give them all shields to fully equip them.

Well I would rather make unique strats than standard AE + HCats even more common.

what part of everyone doesnt get any or both do you not understand? i didnt ask everyone to have AE + HCats.

Taking centies away will not make them weaker if they don't use them.

really? and why wouldnt they use them? much like your hittite-choson combo scenario. what if hittite used their last bit of gold to train centurions to beat the legions? and dont forget they can punch out towers too! and since people really dont mind the centurions much, thats MORE of a VALID suggestion then proposing to eliminate siege altogether.

To make them more realistic I would say give them quick iron but poor techs/super units. I would make them more like Egypt (chariot bonuses) and maybe some infantry bonuses. No eles, no siege

realistically they had excellent techs like i had said but in the game at post iron their 'number' of techs is not the highest while the romans are which of course they are. both hittite and egypt had 'super units' especially when they clashed together. their prominent force was chariot and infantry but does that mean they have no eles or siege? i dont think so. suggesting they should have poor techs, no super units and no eles, no siege is seriously a stupid and thoughtless suggestion that you will need to have your head examined. ;p

Tech tree changes were discusses a long time ago and to my knowledge I have stated I didn't want to make ANY tech tree changes.

looking back you stated you were HESITANT to make tech tree changes. and you also stated but you were considerate. by you saying what you said now, you are not considerate but rather thoughtless.

Hittite - it doesn't matter about numbers, it needs testing in a DM game. Siege war - hitt will win (similar player skills). Facing other units, who knows? It may still be overpowered.

numbers is the purpose here with hittite including in a DM game siege war. hitt will win with similar player skills but the purpose of double HP for hittite cats as i have forsought why ES had done is so that they can sustain more damage but double HP is the lowest number possible here to make that significant. for example, 1 cat vs 1 hitt cat (60 attack per stone versus 75 HP and double HP=150) results in takes 2 stones to kill regular and 3 stones to kill hittite, if you make that 50% at 112 or 113 or lets be generous 115 or 120 then its 2 stones to kill regular and 2 stones to kill hitt. 1 Hcat vs 1 hitt Hcat (60 attack per stone versus 150 HP and double HP=300) takes 3 stones to kill regular and 5 stones to kill hitt. make that 50% then its 3 stones to kill regular and 4 stones to kill hittite and dont forget in DM siege wars there is always an extra stone and stray stone flying so you making hittite Hcat 50% defeats its standard and purpose!

A bonus is a bonus. I will give you $2 million, oh wait I will give you $1 million - are you p####d that you only got $1 million?

the case we were talking about cant even be compared to this. reducing from a bonus out of a set standard and saying 'a bonus is a bonus' is equivalent to being inept and doing a half-ass job.

ES tested everything in 50 pop. The game is 200 pop. DM games were designed to go on for a little while (constant streams of war elephants etc). At 200 you can only get a few waves out before you need your eco to bail you out.

so now your excuse is the population difference thing? even if it was 50 vs 50 with the extra boom on the side, do you think it is even likely to pit them all together all attacking each other all at the same time? let alone get all 200 together? battles are usually focused on one scene of the map at a time rather than spread across the whole map. for random maps there are also obstacles such as forests and cliffs detering this as well. we were also not talking about how the eco is to bail out 200 pop.

I cannot argue with figures because they mean little in terms of actually playing. The theory has been done - I will put this into the patch and then test.

the several differences is in regards to hittite hcats which can sustain more than an extra blow or stray blows which is a fixed set comparing to alot of differences if palmyran was at +50% build/work rate, which can grow into many things. you cannot compare the two. +50% HP cannot compare to +50% build/work rate and definitely +100% HP cannot compare to +100% build/work rate. if you are looking for something comparable then only the +2 tower range can be comparable to the +2 compie range. these figures do mean alot in terms of actually playing. and what theory are you talking about? are you going to test my palmyran build/work rate repair thing i suggested?

Again ES built the game on 50 pop, the game is now 200 pop.

Also, AE + Hcat DM strat is noobish, as it Choson legion wars. As much as they are fun, there are plenty of players who will take your dumbos and cats apart with nothing more than scythes, towers and priests.

your reasoning just because ES built the game on 50 pop and you have on 200 is not an applicable reason again. you will not get 50 all in the scene all attacking another 50, let alone 200.

also AE + Hcat DM strat is not n00bish. it is a DM standard. they either got max HP or max damage and both do damage area. otherwise, what else are you going to do to raise the battle stakes to the max? as for choson legion wars, they are fun but its all about how many legions you train, get to the scene and get the most legions of the other killed quickly in the least amount of time thereby reducing the others numbers. AE + Hcat can simply both crush scythes, towers and priests while usually AE for scythes and towers and Hcat for towers and priests.

Well the difference (+1) now is noticable - and some civs (e.g. Minoan) really depend on Hcats. Making the min range something like 4 or 5 tiles will affect all and not just hitt. Hitt hcats are a problem unit. I must condemn it to death

Let us see what 50% does. Dont worry about maths - let us see hitt still own with hcats BUT will need some protection. Let us make hitt keep super units but need most of them (previously AE or HHA then HCats, now add Scythes too).

+1 is noticable and can accomdate centurions new extra range but if you were to make them like you said like 4 or 5 tiles will affect all siege altogether then hitt will not be much of powerful anymore since they are all about the siege. realistically, siege are meant to attack at a longer range versus buildings and sometimes troops. you cannot expect them to fire that close otherwise it cannot fire because it lacks strength/tension or the projectile will simply not fly and just drop to the ground where it is. im not sure how you say some civs really depend on Hcats so you couldnt increase min range for siege weapons altogether. it is better to make the unit itself with that attributes rather than make 1 civ weaker or apply any weaknesses (and i believe no civ should have weaknesses or be discriminated towards by applying them weaknesses especially since ror eliminated all LISTED weaknesses namely the bonuses). by you naming hittite hcats the problem and trying to degrade their standard by half-assing their standard double HP is just simply discriminating and applying a weakness to hittite by a nonstandard. i bet everyone would condemn you to death for that ;p

making them 50% simply eliminates the purpose of them able to withstand the extra blow or a stray one. the math is they are supposed to be tough so they arent as easily killed and because of their base HP are relatively low (75/150), less than doubling it will make the bonus insignificant for its purpose. hitt still own with hcats because they are tougher and more steadily durable AND THAT IS THEIR protection. the reason why they are considered OP is the human player factor because they are used offensively any ways in any purpose rather than simply their intended main purpose. they become the general purpose trooper rather than used their RT specific purpose of sieging fortifications at long range or breaking a formation of troops at long range. yes Let us make hitt keep super units and need most of them.

Well I would like to see if a prolonged siege (because of extra gold) makes a difference on egypt. I will try using some Ele archers and see if the strat is still valid. If then I see that scythes are not doing it - I can change this.

so you will consider all shield upgrades for egypt's scythes sake?

New Strat? All civs that get cataphract still get them, no change there. I was thinking about giving cataphracts more pierce but this messes with the shield changes. More LOS makes them more capable of chasing down other units (HHA!). Macedonian cataphracts will have slightly more LOS (bonus + super ability).

what are you talking about? this is your response to my reasoning of fully equipping egyptian scythe chariots? new strat? what new strat will help them from being easily cut like butter by archers or especially towers? and now you are talking about cataphracts? so what, dont tell me you are going to give egypt cataphracts? or in this case, give them a whole new line of cavalry for that matter? i would say maybe light cavalry but wtf? the cataphract is fine as is, well for the most part. the shield upgradable thing is already good. i dont know about the slightly more LOS unless you were to give them the max LOS of a full LOS range post-iron scout? or perhaps need to make them faster like Hero Caesar or Scipio especially to counter your now slightly faster HHA! or i think its necessary for both!

The Shang change was revolutionary - it stopped "no-shang" games, stopped top tournaments being Shang only... the 5 change AND -40 starting food stopped shang doing a pit start, stopped shang from beating any rush, stopped shang from beating any "turtle" (walling).

really? so they can stop assyria from speedy villagers and chariot archers rush? i played against many shang and that for me has never been a problem. and obviously in DM thats a non-issue, although i had seen these 'Shang-hai' games on IGZ, i think someone is simply trippin.

No - all civs having strengths and weaknesses gives them character. It gives them strats. It gives other civs strats.

well since ror eliminated listed weaknesses from aoe which only had one civ listed with a weakness (persian farming), i say there is no reason for weaknesses. that doesnt give them character, that doesnt give them strats and that doesnt give other civs strats. that gives them a liability and in worse cases cannot be depended upon (especially in team games). other civs simply have exploits on the other civs liability and can simply do their own thing to regularly defeat the other civ (often very obvious so its not much considered of a strat).

Reviews are written by people who play the trial... People who have been playing the game for 12 years will say otherwise.

reviews are NOT necessary given by people who play the trial. i have been playing the game ever since age was born and so have others i have known or have met and not known and have played against especially on IGZ and its always even if i dont know them, lets say we play an 'only persian war' or 'only mace war' quite some often times a side comment 'i hate persia...' 'i hate mace...' 'damn slow villagers' or similar comments of the same obvious reasons could be heard by everyone. and we were damn good players and i figure they are too including with mace/persia.

I understand what you are saying but the game is a game and not a model of real life. It is a RTS game that used history as its content. Real life is boring anyway

I have planned a realism patch and have been working on it for some time.

you know what? how bout this would also deter the 'hittite siege OP' and siege as a unit killer altogether? how about you nicely give mace and persia the wheel and make it a prerequisite for all siege! regardless of you saying real life is boring anyway, then how about make that make sense! no wheel, no siege. unless you plan to drag the siege out there with no wheels or use a 'wheel-less' siege which aoe/ror dont have any. (;

Aran: I was thinking about that they could have no Hcats and HHa. They still have old bonuses.

i think you are missing the point there aran, if we to make hittite no hcat or hha. hell, why not just totally eliminate the hittite civ?



anyways on a final note: here is another 'valid' suggestion such as since you made the pop 200, how about increase the population each house/town center can support? like maybe 5 or 10? this is so especially on maps with limited space due to terrain, forests, gold, stone, berries, animals, etcetera dont require many houses all over the place blocking traffic. (;

[This message has been edited by volume (edited 11-25-2009 @ 08:15 AM).]

I'm worrying about Eles Archers. They cost a lot food and gold. It can be next Cataphact?. Many units have shielding(4). Each Eles archers will take only 2 damage to Cents, Scythes....

True, ele archers attack will be reduced BUT they still have a use. In DM you can use these to act as walking towers (actually, they get town center hp!). Defensive civs/strats can litter their town with them, using priests to heal.

In the case of scythes/centies/cataphracts etc - they will provide support fire when you send your own hand-to-hand units in.

In RM you only need to hit the Iron to get them. For civs like Phoenician they really help in archer wars.

I know their is old accuracy and new Craftmanship bonus, but....

It is a valid point and I will see how this develops.

this was in reference to what aran had said (and perhaps have deleted) if YOU havent read. no wonder you were lost. but you did ASSUME and made an ASS out of U and not ME ;p

I prefer the term DONKEY

what i am saying is despite even if you can convert armored elephants, that still requires tedious micromanaging compared to if you had that tech in aoc known as theocracy where you can select multiple priests to convert and only one has to rest afterwards. there is nothing discussed here about egypt DM.

Yes they require tedious micro - but if you use cheap scythes to slow down the armored eles you can use some priests to convert a batch - which will then give you a batch of armored eles to slow down the enemy. Remember that you have towers and possibly CA/ele archers firing into the armored eles too. With a few armored eles switching sides, the enemy will have a real problem with their rush. Skilled players are often judged on their micro.

Adding theocracy to AoE would be a DM-relative tech.

yes you may use the wall but when you are trying to rush the rusher (you attempt rush but get rushed first), you may engage a melee even with villagers to distract their rush. a few towers can easily be instantly erected by several villagers while the cavalry can only concentrate on one villager at a time which can also distract them by running the individual ones attacked around especially with wheel. i did not say oh towers are just simply put up to guard the place while the cavalry can simply rush through to slay villagers. considering cavalry have no shields a few towers firing on the cavalry and some or if slightly most villagers engage in melee with cavalry should be sufficient to take them down with fewer losses and dont forget to do more and rush in some units in as well (such as your own cavalry for example). the wheel is so you can rush in your vills and/or rush out your vills - depending on your strategy, you do not necessary need to wall.

Some points:

If you get out rushed when trying to rush - you lose. Your eco, already being poor, is lost

Towers take time, only Roman can put up 2 towers, you also need 50 food - all these things slow you down if you were attempting your own rush

If you put cavalry into someones town before they hit you, and they have wheel - all their villagers will do is run around and not collect resources - the rusher will have an untouched eco capable of growing and supporting a scout and some more cavalry

towers deter archers in RM, cavalry can just run straight past and cause havoc (finding other villies, destroying houses etc

Skilled players use wall brilliantly, they make sure under no circumstances you can get into them early, on maps like conti they will "dock" the shallows - at the same time they are trying to "rush" you

Seriously, 1 cavalry followed shortly by a few more, a scout etc - and all they have is a wheel and 2 towers? Send me their GameRanger/Voobly username

Wall = no rush

you obviously have little to no experience doing this correctly and are underestimating how it is. so what? are you saying if the enemy sends in cavalry and starts slaying villagers, you are going to resign? or what happens if they send in scouts and start prodding villagers? an early bronze unarmed and unarmored cavalry is nothing more than a more decent scout. if you wall, then thats your strategy but you do not need to depend on that alone.

If a cavalry is in my unwalled town within 10-15 mins and all I have is a wheel and 2 towers yes.

If I take him out I then need to say "I need to wall" - and hope I have the stone and time before another cav comes running in.

If a scout hits me I take him out ASAP and then start expecting some axemen to walk in...

If I wall it is the common strategy - every player needs to protect his eco.

like i said slightly extra LOS can only get you so far but thats it. it is not particularly relevant or as useful anymore when everybody has gotten beefed up and ready.

I don't think you understand how to use it. Your scouting is far better, you find the enemy earlier, 2nd forage bushes earlier etc. It all makes a rush more likely and possibly earlier.

the hunting bonus sucks and is more micromanagement unless you are hunting several elephants to race through the ages. dry maps hunting makes no difference unless its hunting elephants like i said.

Again I don't think you know how to use it properly. It makes a difference on hillz. Look up MaxCrazy on youtube to see how to hunt gazelle.

Also - micro skills split the good from the great.

not necessary every tech you research gives the enemy a chance to counter you. didnt i say rush and while rushing, research techs? you dont research everything until you are fully beefed up and then consider rushing.

...and then consider rushing? No no no - rushing is not an afterthought - if you have favourable starting conditions and your speed/success continues (age jumping/scouting) then rushing is what you do before thinking about upgrades and beefing up. A rush hurts because it creates a substantial problem in the enemy's eco before they are ready for it. If the other player has a strat and is capable of recovering (such as they have partially walled before getting hit, or have a forward on your doorstep too) then the game isn't over. But if they try and research most bronze market techs, some pit techs etc then try and rush - this isn't a rush - this is what is done on "no rush" games

your 99% of the time during a rush there is no wheel is obviously false even given they are bronze rushes. didnt i say you can research the wheel WHILE you rush NOT BEFORE you rush? unless of course you are using chariot archers.

Well let's say I bronze rush in 14 mins, and I have the wheel at 13:30 - this will mean the wheel exists for 3.6% of the time. In fact, everything you have done (resource management, buildings etc) previously have not been effected by the wheel.

The wheel has little short term benefits - they are all middle and long term benefits.

You only short term I can think of is when some enemy units find a satellite pit (outside of walled town) and the wheel just kicks in to save them.

I would also say not having the wheel saves you food and wood which can be used towards more cavalry and more stables (for a rush).

faster eles does not mean they can hurt the other player more, provided they can even get the eles out in the first place!

With similar skills and same speed eles the battle is going to happen in the middle (ele battle). If one ele is faster than the other it is going to happen closer to the slower ele player. It does hurt if the persian player manages to get their eles into the forward stables. Losing a few stables will make the next wave(s) weaker (in terms of numbers). It hurts the other player because now his backup (possibly siege) will have to battle fast eles. However, at present persia has little else to offer in DM - which is why I say cheaper archers. They can then throw in HHA and/or "fast" ele archers to pin the enemy back. Cataphracts are also more viable. Persia is still "gold hungry" - but also remember that there is more gold

the handicap DOES NOT balance both ecos out. cheaper archers would do little as well unless youre hoping to do elephant archers. and come to think of it, now that thing you made up does not even make sense. so now elephant archers are cheaper than the cavalry variant elephant which is the main base elephant unit? and i should also add in cheaper elephants is already phoenicia's benefit!

Yamato and Assyrian have the same villager speed bonus, and I don't think this will look poorly. Palmyran have improved stone miners (babylon), gold miners (egypt), woodcutters (phoenician) and hunters (persia). If the fast ele rush works and now they are facing siege (such as vs hitt), cheaper ele archers will help (they can take a few hits), hha will help (they can take a few hits) - or alternatively, playing defensive (failed ele rush) the cheap archers will make a nice defensive line against all non-siege units. Plus ele archers have crappy range (only get woodworking) so it is not like they are the best ele archers!

mace may get more market techs than persia, but the lack of the wheel alone is a 'drag' on their 'war machine'. they may have the best centurions and full armored elephants as well as ignoble but otherwise full up cataphracts but who is supposed to help sustain all that?

More villagers perhaps?

an ele rush will see zero siege in iron start DM is not necessarily the case. although a seemingly 100+ eles may intimidate and seemingly push forward like phalanx, however do not forget siege with large damage, damage radius and especially ballistics can still crush the forward marchers.

But the rush will happen before siege is out. The large radius will not mean much if the hcat upgrade is not done before getting overrun by dumbos.

in competitive games, if someone has armored eles the other will not go for siege because it takes too long? really? more like the other way around as a eles vs eles war would drag on forever.

No, you don't have the food to make it drag on that long. The time allows for workshops and cat upgrades.

now where did you get 60,000 and where did that sensibly come from?

Sorry, 60,000 hp

you made no sense whatsoever and did not explain why egypt getting armored eles on what capable good or bad they are. in fact, what bad is that if any anyways?

Well, sorry to sound like I am repeating myself but Egypt play a certain way. Giving them an easier choice will remove their complex strat.

maybe palmyran are already capable of this but NOT necessary NOR at this higher of extent which can just simply make them just about 'super villagers' but no point in game whatsoever.

Well we will see. The manual is wrong, as the bonus is not 20% more. In most cases it is 50%, I have just made all cases 50%. The biggest change is buildings and farming, but then again these are not defining moments of a game. RM - farming is a slow process, the 50% will only make it a little better. DM - buildings will allow for tower rushing.

im not sure where cataphracts was brought up here. they are just too damn expensive and time consuming to upgrade and train.

Yes but they get shield - and someone like Shang has no real alternatives. Assy will get a bonus and Yamato has cheaper horse. These are 3 possible civs which will use cataphracts to mow down archers and not be scared of fighting in amongst guard towers. They also get LOS bonus - which will help them a lot against damn HHA.

as for the archer effectiveness been reduced to favour hand-to-hand units and that they don't own hoplites, cavalry etc like they used to does not make sense. it may as well be like aok where archers were seemingly weak and useless and that is why i compared from aoe to age3. i understand hoplites now got some good shield to protect themselves but archers are supposed to still defeat them. as for the cavalry they should be easily shot down by a mass in real life more or less the same by them. which is why heavy cavalry with shield has better protection. these i understand but you dont need to reduce archer effectiveness to 'favour hand-hand units' you can better leave that alone and dependant on the shields since thats what they are for.

I am a bit confused to what you are saying exactly. I will return 100% accuracy as shield already makes archers weaker.

The point was to stop OP archers. On 200 pop games, archers get to critical mass and turn the game into an archer war (melee units cannot get close enough). The accuracy change was meant to stop this. However, I have given several civs slinger bonuses and made the shield better - meaning that hand-to-hand combat isn't as poor.

you say Certian civs, such as Assy and Shang are not strong in DM because they lack something and so you have given them something. really? and what makes them not strong in DM? what expectantly they supposed to have that they lack?

Are you suggesting assy and shang are strong?

Both get better cataphracts.

you also say 'However, changing tech trees IS significant.' and how much significant if it was a minor change (such as upgrade something existing)? whereas you create bonuses that potentially compromises current strats?

All bonuses are given to help their weakness. Greek and Roman struggle in bronze because of archers - they get slinger bonus, Assy struggle in DM because they lack a cutting edge/impact unit - cataphracts are better...

you say 'It removes/gives completely new strats.' i say it does not remove nor particularly give ANY new strats.

Giving Egypt AE gives new strat. Please don't make me explain this again.

you say if there is already established winning formulas and Suddenly they are getting AE and 'their efforts are lost.' and what efforts are lost? is their really such a strict in text strat?

You lose current strats which require a lot of skill (micro mainly) to pull off. AE and Hcats is too easy. Managing scythes, archers, priests, towers etc takes a lot of micro.

and above all they gained something NOT lost something!

They will lose their current strat...

AE + HCats is the standard for DM because you have dual purposes for an offense and defense as well as intimidation pressures NOT because it is easy to pull off.

Build stables, make eles, attack.
Build siege workshop, make hcats, attack.

i guarantee it is especially not always easy to pull it off. it is not something to be taken lightly as AE will overwhelm you and HCats will crush burning your town to the ground.

It is easier to pull off than some of the other strats which require a lot of micro and not "hey, which building should I destroy from 16 tiles away?".

you say 'Special strats where you are trying to micro towers, CA, Scythes, villagers, priests etc takes real skill in 2.0 speed' might be considered real skill but is more of a 'you the micromanager' rather than much skill involved.

That is the skill

what if you were to use something else on top of that? such as dumbos or getting them to armored elephants?

Then you go to ele rushing...

as for 'Going back to Palmy' - this a civ where at +50% build/work rate is potentially or perhaps is 'super villager' which would make the game pointless or is rather weak considering it cant counter rush. for the purposes of counter rush, walls dont count. we can still 'knock on their door' tear down the wall quickly and ransack their town.

A rush hits a wall, it is a long time before they have something to take the wall down. The defensive player can use towers/bowmen to hit hand-to-hand units etc. They can get a better eco and be ready for someone who then uses his little eco to get a stone thrower ready. I can assure you that although 1 piece of wall may come down, the defensive player will be more than capable of double walling whilst going for iron or amassing a deadly force of compies and/or cav!

you say that 'This is something any RTS should contain - a strategy.' I say you dont necessary have to have strategy, you can last minute improvise or manage instead and what you suggested doesnt exactly have any or so best strategy.

Last minute improvise is restricted to what resources you got - strategy gives you the resources you need, the buildings where you need them, the defensives which protect you and the attack which lets you win...

ok so i do play 200 pop DM games and can use any eles to rush. whats your point? and hold on. YOU were the one who implied AE are supposed to be a rush unit including particularly if egypt had them. i have seen 50-100 AE running at me within 5 minutes and i either had the same, better, or simply sent in heavy cats to slowly mow them down.

You had hcats before they could get their eles to you? I am talking more about the competitive games where that ele rush will be all over the workshops with only a handful of cats (minus engineering and the hcat upgrade) to fight back.

so what? and dont forget what if the wood became the factor more expensive?

Er, you asked why I called them cheap. Also remember in DM what you start with. Scythes are cheap unless you forget to put 40+ villies on wood (this is where you need a strat and not to improvise )

so i dont get why is it that everything has to evolve on removing something from hitt? not that we cant do it, but theres got to be more, such as adding something somewhere else.

I also don't get why you admit hitt hcats are OP but they must remain at the same level? They still get the bonus but it will not be as strong (but still strong). If ES released the game with 50% bonus initially I am sure many will still go for hitt because DM games are essentially ele rush followed by hcats - they have both, hcats get bonus. People would still moan "hitt are OP" because they get all units, techs.

they dont need it doesnt mean they cant have it and besides it does make sense that they do and should have it.

But it doesn't make sense. Ever hear of the saying "if it isn't broke don't fix it?".

if you say anyone can rush then why are you afraid of egypt rushing or allowing them to rush? sure it would be better to dig in and take some down but does that mean you cant rush still? what if the enemy town was unguarded enough or a portion thereof that you can send in some cavalry or jihadists in to disrupt them?

They can rush with war eles (or any unit for that matter) but I am talking about more competitive games - AE will completely change the civ. Any civ with AE and Hcats are the more favourable civs on non-restricted DM games.

no its not like re-inventing the wheel. its like adding scythe to the wheel ;p and you may have to improve the wheel anyways. otherwise so you propose to do things meagerly? the game HAD strengths and weaknesses and ror eliminated listed weaknesses. the patch doesnt fix the weaknesses since you didnt really do anything much about it. in fact, you propose to make even more weaknesses! especially with this supposively 'one unit is OP.' no one unit is individually OP. by your 'watering down' of this particular unit, you propose to eliminate its point of the bonus or its purpose altogether.

Improve the wheel? Why?

RoR eliminated weaknesses? No, they introduced new ones. You brought up Egypt lack AE - this is a weakness considering there was no AE in RoR. Cav is useless on RM (camel), bowmen are non-existant (slinger) and the hills, medit and conti maps bring out different weaknesses and strengths in each civ.

I would say most players who played the game from the trial throughout the the release of RoR would say the same.

well if you were to change 15 civs to match 1, all you need is little consideration or a little thought for that matter. you dont need any 10 years to do it.

Really? So making the right change has little thought? Considering how complex it is (different game styles, modes, teams etc) the fewer the changes the better. There can be no argument.

really? and why wouldnt they use them? much like your hittite-choson combo scenario. what if hittite used their last bit of gold to train centurions to beat the legions? and dont forget they can punch out towers too! and since people really dont mind the centurions much, thats MORE of a VALID suggestion then proposing to eliminate siege altogether.

They don't use them because ele rush or hha take priority before centies. Centies need 2 upgrades + 1 tech, like hcats = and hcats will crush them.

realistically they had excellent techs like i had said but in the game at post iron their 'number' of techs is not the highest while the romans are which of course they are. both hittite and egypt had 'super units' especially when they clashed together. their prominent force was chariot and infantry but does that mean they have no eles or siege? i dont think so. suggesting they should have poor techs, no super units and no eles, no siege is seriously a stupid and thoughtless suggestion that you will need to have your head examined. ;p

No hitt were known for an early iron, but ended up getting wiped out by "the sea people". I would say they were similar in power to egypt, and again a civ not known for their military conquests but what they did in their own kingdom.

I was saying if you want realism then hitt would have no eles and no siege, being similiar to egypt (good chariots) and having early but weak iron. History will make you crazy

looking back you stated you were HESITANT to make tech tree changes. and you also stated but you were considerate. by you saying what you said now, you are not considerate but rather thoughtless.

How much wood would a woodchuck chuck if a woodchuck could chuck wood?

I would rather say I am hesitant, all things considered

numbers is the purpose here with hittite including in a DM game siege war. hitt will win with similar player skills but the purpose of double HP for hittite cats as i have forsought why ES had done is so that they can sustain more damage but double HP is the lowest number possible here to make that significant. for example, 1 cat vs 1 hitt cat (60 attack per stone versus 75 HP and double HP=150) results in takes 2 stones to kill regular and 3 stones to kill hittite, if you make that 50% at 112 or 113 or lets be generous 115 or 120 then its 2 stones to kill regular and 2 stones to kill hitt. 1 Hcat vs 1 hitt Hcat (60 attack per stone versus 150 HP and double HP=300) takes 3 stones to kill regular and 5 stones to kill hitt. make that 50% then its 3 stones to kill regular and 4 stones to kill hittite and dont forget in DM siege wars there is always an extra stone and stray stone flying so you making hittite Hcat 50% defeats its standard and purpose!

It really doesn't matter about number, because there are so many different variables to consider.

ES forsought 50 pop - it is now 200 pop.

Maybe I shouldn't say "hitt used to have 100%, now it is 50%" - because you are confusing this as half-assed.

Old hitt = 300hp, new = 225, which is infact 25% down (i.e. they are three-quarter-assed)

At the same time standard hcats are 150 hp. 225 beats 150 - so siege war unaffected. 225 a bit easier for scythes and other melee to kill with added min range change.

so now your excuse is the population difference thing? even if it was 50 vs 50 with the extra boom on the side, do you think it is even likely to pit them all together all attacking each other all at the same time? let alone get all 200 together? battles are usually focused on one scene of the map at a time rather than spread across the whole map. for random maps there are also obstacles such as forests and cliffs detering this as well. we were also not talking about how the eco is to bail out 200 pop.

So now your excuse is that completely valid points regarding balance should be set aside because you are unfamiliar with 200 pop? No - battles happen across the map in more than one place. Both sides test the defenses across walls etc, looking for whatever opening they can get to wiping out the other's eco (and forwards). Walling, scouting and eco are fundamental to a strong player, as is micro skills. Granted most people have different weaknesses but can be successful with a good, tailor-made strat. I would say that the competitive players on voobly, and chinese/vietnam active AoE multiplayer clients will have very good skills in all these areas. I would also say that competitive or not - there is a noticable difference in how 50 and 200 pop games play. Archers and siege suddenly become much stronger and hand-to-hand is more vunerable - can you see this too?

the several differences is in regards to hittite hcats which can sustain more than an extra blow or stray blows which is a fixed set comparing to alot of differences if palmyran was at +50% build/work rate, which can grow into many things. you cannot compare the two. +50% HP cannot compare to +50% build/work rate and definitely +100% HP cannot compare to +100% build/work rate. if you are looking for something comparable then only the +2 tower range can be comparable to the +2 compie range. these figures do mean alot in terms of actually playing. and what theory are you talking about? are you going to test my palmyran build/work rate repair thing i suggested?

As already stated - the theory is to water down the bonus because the unit (hcat) is OP. There are too many variables to conclude via numbers - this change needs testing first.

Also, on Palmy - I need to test the current 50% before making any changes, so no(t yet?).

your reasoning just because ES built the game on 50 pop and you have on 200 is not an applicable reason again. you will not get 50 all in the scene all attacking another 50, let alone 200.

200 pop...you should try it and see the diff.

Firstly, eco is stronger. You can have 80-100 villies in DM (rather than 5-10), in RM you can really boom! You can also spread out across the map after the initial exchanges (bronze rush etc).

Secondly, archers are stronger. Critical mass is a bitch! Consider 50-100 CA on RM - you can only match this with CA or compies. Cavalry, chariot etc don't come close.

Thirdly, siege is OP. Hcats are the only thing that can generate a plain grass map WITHOUT using the scenario builder . 50-100 helepolis are near impossible to beat WITHOUT hcats.

Fourthly, I am confident in saying anyone who has played 200 pop vs 50 pop will tell you the same.

also AE + Hcat DM strat is not n00bish. it is a DM standard.

Standard is n00bish - any and evey n00b knows how to do it. It is the safest way to play because it is simple. Try getting these guys to play random civs..."can we restart I got Babylon"...

they either got max HP or max damage and both do damage area. otherwise, what else are you going to do to raise the battle stakes to the max?

Not give everyone AE and Hcats

n00bs love max damage, hp and area damage. It is just the n00b way.

as for choson legion wars, they are fun but its all about how many legions you train, get to the scene and get the most legions of the other killed quickly in the least amount of time thereby reducing the others numbers.

Again, simple. Any n00b can play. Very common setting.

AE + Hcat can simply both crush scythes, towers and priests while usually AE for scythes and towers and Hcat for towers and priests.

I wouldn't say they are combo, but a "one after the other". AE early, hcats late.

+1 is noticable and can accomdate centurions new extra range but if you were to make them like you said like 4 or 5 tiles will affect all siege altogether then hitt will not be much of powerful anymore since they are all about the siege.

Centies +1 means that they stop 1 tile away before attacking (previously they went right up to the target). I need to test this out, it may be possible to attack ground at min distance and hit centies with blast radius/. I think Suppy asked me to look at this - I can't remember if I did or not now... (or was this when it was +2?)

and i believe no civ should have weaknesses or be discriminated towards by applying them weaknesses especially since ror eliminated all LISTED weaknesses namely the bonuses

Every civ should have a weakness. Some are gold-hungry (no chariot), some have crappy techs or ages. It gives the civ character, and a means to defeat them.

by you naming hittite hcats the problem and trying to degrade their standard by half-assing their standard double HP is just simply discriminating and applying a weakness to hittite by a nonstandard. i bet everyone would condemn you to death for that ;p

Well I will mod myself a bigdaddy car and destroy these pretenders

Again - the hitt have a OP unit, it should be watered down slightly.

making them 50% simply eliminates the purpose of them able to withstand the extra blow or a stray one. the math is they are supposed to be tough so they arent as easily killed and because of their base HP are relatively low (75/150), less than doubling it will make the bonus insignificant for its purpose. hitt still own with hcats because they are tougher and more steadily durable AND THAT IS THEIR protection. the reason why they are considered OP is the human player factor because they are used offensively any ways in any purpose rather than simply their intended main purpose. they become the general purpose trooper rather than used their RT specific purpose of sieging fortifications at long range or breaking a formation of troops at long range. yes Let us make hitt keep super units and need most of them.

I cannot force siege to only be used against buildings without completely changing the game. Also, hcats - DM games are over in 10-20 mins (game time, played at 2.0 speed = 5-10 real mins). They are fast and fun - I am just forcing a little weakness on the champion of DM - hitt.

so you will consider all shield upgrades for egypt's scythes sake?

Yes I can change this if the Egypt strat is nuked with the new gold changes. I have been thinking about possible changes and the best one is to change 33% hp for a chariots get +x pierce bonus. Not sure on the value. I don't want it to impact RM too much, so the pierce bonus should still have the same effectiveness when playing a "archer war" in RM with 33%hp bonus.

This will help scythes in DM, seeing as they don't get the shield. I want to hold out on tech tree changes.

what are you talking about? this is your response to my reasoning of fully equipping egyptian scythe chariots? new strat? what new strat will help them from being easily cut like butter by archers or especially towers? and now you are talking about cataphracts? so what, dont tell me you are going to give egypt cataphracts? or in this case, give them a whole new line of cavalry for that matter? i would say maybe light cavalry but wtf? the cataphract is fine as is, well for the most part. the shield upgradable thing is already good. i dont know about the slightly more LOS unless you were to give them the max LOS of a full LOS range post-iron scout? or perhaps need to make them faster like Hero Caesar or Scipio especially to counter your now slightly faster HHA! or i think its necessary for both!

You mentioned cataphracts, and how what I do creates new strat - so confusion perhaps?

No egypt will not have cavalry. Cataphracts will have LOS bonus double that of hcav. HHA will have speed, with only palmy camels capable of catching them. BUT remember that cataphracts bonus + only being fractionaly slower means that everytime a HHA stops to fire a cheeky shot, the cataphract gets closer!

Scythes are meant to fall like toy soldiers. They are cheap so you can just keep pumping them out throughout the game.

really? so they can stop assyria from speedy villagers and chariot archers rush? i played against many shang and that for me has never been a problem. and obviously in DM thats a non-issue, although i had seen these 'Shang-hai' games on IGZ, i think someone is simply trippin.

!!! You have never heard of the Shang problem? Shang rule on 35 cost, 200 start food. Assy and Yammy are close behind on the original pre-patched AoE.

well since ror eliminated listed weaknesses from aoe which only had one civ listed with a weakness (persian farming), i say there is no reason for weaknesses. that doesnt give them character, that doesnt give them strats and that doesnt give other civs strats. that gives them a liability and in worse cases cannot be depended upon (especially in team games). other civs simply have exploits on the other civs liability and can simply do their own thing to regularly defeat the other civ (often very obvious so its not much considered of a strat).

? Weakness doesn't mean handicap. It means a certain missing unit or tech from the tech tree. Persia had a handicap for some reason (maybe ES thought hunting was really really good?).

I am not handicapping any civ. I am happy to allow for weaknesses, however.

reviews are NOT necessary given by people who play the trial. i have been playing the game ever since age was born and so have others i have known or have met and not known and have played against especially on IGZ and its always even if i dont know them, lets say we play an 'only persian war' or 'only mace war' quite some often times a side comment 'i hate persia...' 'i hate mace...' 'damn slow villagers' or similar comments of the same obvious reasons could be heard by everyone. and we were damn good players and i figure they are too including with mace/persia.

Well, I can say Persian and Mace do not suck. I like both, and I would only hate being Persia if playing against Assy. Against Yamato I don't mind (camel vs cav).

Persia and Mace do miss wheel - but it is very n00bish to say they suck because there villagers can run around a farm as fast.

you know what? how bout this would also deter the 'hittite siege OP' and siege as a unit killer altogether? how about you nicely give mace and persia the wheel and make it a prerequisite for all siege! regardless of you saying real life is boring anyway, then how about make that make sense! no wheel, no siege. unless you plan to drag the siege out there with no wheels or use a 'wheel-less' siege which aoe/ror dont have any. (;

*sigh* AoE isn't real. Let us pretend that Roggan and his friends are fictional and get on with the game

i think you are missing the point there aran, if we to make hittite no hcat or hha. hell, why not just totally eliminate the hittite civ?

That is a really good idea. I can replace them with Israelites

anyways on a final note: here is another 'valid' suggestion such as since you made the pop 200, how about increase the population each house/town center can support? like maybe 5 or 10? this is so especially on maps with limited space due to terrain, forests, gold, stone, berries, animals, etcetera dont require many houses all over the place blocking traffic. (;

On DM just build houses along the edges. In RM it is hard to get 200 pop, and if you do you should be able to find the room. Try watching some 200 pop games on GameRanger and Voobly - spacing for houses isn't a problem (unless you are playing tiny map!).

I have good idea about Eles archers. Eles archers are taller than Horses. They could have 8 range (11). It's bigger realism in the game.

Yes Eles Archers are very good towers.

Yes they require tedious micro - but if you use cheap scythes to slow down the armored eles you can use some priests to convert a batch - which will then give you a batch of armored eles to slow down the enemy. Remember that you have towers and possibly CA/ele archers firing into the armored eles too. With a few armored eles switching sides, the enemy will have a real problem with their rush. Skilled players are often judged on their micro.

Adding theocracy to AoE would be a DM-relative tech.

maybe you can use other units to distract the elephants, but do you think they will come alone with elephants? i would at least have the heavy cats right behind mow every disruption that tries to distract my elephants first including the priests. the egyptian player then would be losing their other units distracting the elephants and the priests and everything else. skilled players are not judged on their micro. they are more judged on their macro or overall how they play the game and bring their civ to success.

you may add theocracy or something of the sort if possible or see fit.

Some points:

If you get out rushed when trying to rush - you lose. Your eco, already being poor, is lost

Towers take time, only Roman can put up 2 towers, you also need 50 food - all these things slow you down if you were attempting your own rush

If you put cavalry into someones town before they hit you, and they have wheel - all their villagers will do is run around and not collect resources - the rusher will have an untouched eco capable of growing and supporting a scout and some more cavalry

towers deter archers in RM, cavalry can just run straight past and cause havoc (finding other villies, destroying houses etc

Skilled players use wall brilliantly, they make sure under no circumstances you can get into them early, on maps like conti they will "dock" the shallows - at the same time they are trying to "rush" you

Seriously, 1 cavalry followed shortly by a few more, a scout etc - and all they have is a wheel and 2 towers?

Wall = no rush

if you get outrushed when you rush you may lose if you dont manage. that does not mean you cant counterattack or counter-rush.

Towers take time, but quickly with many villagers, i have done and have seen others do 3 sentries or sometimes more. the tower upgrades are very cheap and quick, the first one with only 50 food is instantly researched and i can take care of that already once i reach tool without a second thought.

If you put cavalry into someones town before they hit you, and they have wheel - some of their villagers may run around and lure away the cavalry, some may race to gather resources elsewhere away from the melee, or if you found the large part of their woodies, and your cavalry are unarmed and unarmored - they may simply counter with a few towers quickly erected at scene and then bone and try outmuscling your cavalry along with rushing some more of their units including their own cavalry to get you. the rusher may have an untouched eco but may also not for long if they counter rush. trust me, dont underestimate such a scenario, i have seen and beaten such rushes with a counter-attack and counter-rush and have seen them and been beaten when they pulled the same on me when i cavalry rushed them and it wasnt piecemeal. i think its a matter of as the offense is bring the fight to the enemy but the defense is also i can beat the aggressor at my lawn. the rusher unless they can build forwards towards you has to bring additional troops from home to reinforce or replace the fight while you can simply train your troops and fight right on the spot quickly

i did not say use towers to guard, i said erect them on the spot with your many woodies before/when the cavalry has come and then engage in a massive melee. using towers just to guard so cavalry can simply run through of course wont work nor is the right idea

skilled players do use walls brilliantly, yes. but they do not necessary have to. they can simply "rush" and build forwards towards you. and they dont exactly have to be spending their time during the rush building walls to protect their forwards

i did not say all they have is a wheel and 2 towers. if they only had that then its game.

Wall = no rush. that is until they forward build outside your walls surrounding you and then siege. (;

If a cavalry is in my unwalled town within 10-15 mins and all I have is a wheel and 2 towers yes.

If I take him out I then need to say "I need to wall" - and hope I have the stone and time before another cav comes running in.

If a scout hits me I take him out ASAP and then start expecting some axemen to walk in...

If I wall it is the common strategy - every player needs to protect his eco.

well then there you go again and ASSUMED you ONLY had a wheel and 2 towers.

if you take him out then you dont need to say "I need to wall" - and hope you have the stone and time before another cav comes running in. you need to do it and build the wall but you might need to consider forward build and counter-rushing into the enemys town too.

but you get my point you dont just give up right? beat the cavalry just like scouts and try rushing in your own troops.

if you wall it is the common strategy - yes but you may move your economy forwards as well and you certainly not expectant to protect everything when you rush do you?

I don't think you understand how to use it. Your scouting is far better, you find the enemy earlier, 2nd forage bushes earlier etc. It all makes a rush more likely and possibly earlier.

yes, but afterwards other than that they dont make much difference like extra HP or armor etcetera do they? they dont exactly get an edge in the middle of a battle.

Again I don't think you know how to use it properly. It makes a difference on hillz. Look up MaxCrazy on youtube to see how to hunt gazelle.

Also - micro skills split the good from the great.

yes i do know how to use it properly and it doesnt make much difference because all it is is simply each persian villager can carry +3 extra food, thats it. unlike it is not an extra speed on their gathering rate. once in bronze, iron or even tool, it becomes even more insignificant due to farms. btw i saw this maxcrazy on youtube and i saw how he hunts gazelle on hillz. i do practically the same. and guess what? he researchs wheel the first thing right away when he hits bronze! and his villagers are spread out and many enough to pull off the counter-rush thing should he be rushed. i also saw him forward build his economy/forces. although he did need not neglect wall (using his forward buildings )

also - macro skills NOT micro skills split the good from the great. including like what your maxcrazy did. in case you dont know the definition, it means especially in games the overall manner in which a player manages his units and the development of his bases. (;

...and then consider rushing? No no no - rushing is not an afterthought - if you have favourable starting conditions and your speed/success continues (age jumping/scouting) then rushing is what you do before thinking about upgrades and beefing up. A rush hurts because it creates a substantial problem in the enemy's eco before they are ready for it. If the other player has a strat and is capable of recovering (such as they have partially walled before getting hit, or have a forward on your doorstep too) then the game isn't over. But if they try and research most bronze market techs, some pit techs etc then try and rush - this isn't a rush - this is what is done on "no rush" games

like i had said, you upgrade and forward build WHILE you are rushing NOT before you rush.

Well let's say I bronze rush in 14 mins, and I have the wheel at 13:30 - this will mean the wheel exists for 3.6% of the time. In fact, everything you have done (resource management, buildings etc) previously have not been effected by the wheel.

The wheel has little short term benefits - they are all middle and long term benefits.

You only short term I can think of is when some enemy units find a satellite pit (outside of walled town) and the wheel just kicks in to save them.

I would also say not having the wheel saves you food and wood which can be used towards more cavalry and more stables (for a rush).

to expand/sustain your economy and faster afterwards, a wheel makes the difference. try playing persia versus someone who does the wheel first like what your maxcrazy guy did or better yet versus assyria who gets wheel first thing and race them to iron. you will see how thats particularly harder to do and for playability sucks in appeal besides it being inconvenient and unreliable. granted, you did without the wheel before bronze, but after that, then theres higher standards and all about speeding up including the race towards iron.

the wheel is an immediate benefit! and who cares about short term? its all about the long term.

and if thats your short term. id say you are too slow on thought. (;

With similar skills and same speed eles the battle is going to happen in the middle (ele battle). If one ele is faster than the other it is going to happen closer to the slower ele player. It does hurt if the persian player manages to get their eles into the forward stables. Losing a few stables will make the next wave(s) weaker (in terms of numbers). It hurts the other player because now his backup (possibly siege) will have to battle fast eles. However, at present persia has little else to offer in DM - which is why I say cheaper archers. They can then throw in HHA and/or "fast" ele archers to pin the enemy back. Cataphracts are also more viable. Persia is still "gold hungry" - but also remember that there is more gold

i think you are talking about DM in this case. for RM however, that is provided the persian villagers are fast enough gathering resources to iron to even survive long enough to get their elephants out. and even in DM because the 'wheeled' villagers are faster, they can simply forward build more quickly their stables before persia builds theres. i would figure the faster civ getting the elephant out first and even use it to destroy the slower persian villagers still building their stables. also i think your persian cheaper archers thing is meager considering since you like talking about DM so much, i dont think cheaper would matter much wouldnt it? i think persia is too gold hungry and dependant on it. give them the wheel so to at least feed them with food! more gold dont mean jack if you are not fast enough to take them (;

Yamato and Assyrian have the same villager speed bonus, and I don't think this will look poorly. Palmyran have improved stone miners (babylon), gold miners (egypt), woodcutters (phoenician) and hunters (persia). If the fast ele rush works and now they are facing siege (such as vs hitt), cheaper ele archers will help (they can take a few hits), hha will help (they can take a few hits) - or alternatively, playing defensive (failed ele rush) the cheap archers will make a nice defensive line against all non-siege units. Plus ele archers have crappy range (only get woodworking) so it is not like they are the best ele archers!

and so whats wrong with yamato and assyria having same vill speed bonus? at least thats original and of course that is until assyria gets jihad! also have you begun testing with palmyran yet? they aint OP? because you got them at +50% build/work rate faster than babylon stone miners +30%, faster than egypt gold miners +20%, faster than phoenicia woodcutters +30% and faster than persian hunters +30% all together combined! persia already got faster elephant archers. making them cheaper in dm wont be much difference wouldnt it? also you need to consider the fact that elephant archer supposed to be slightly more expensive than dumbos/AE NOT the other way around.

More villagers perhaps?

thats still weak. theyre villagers need to move faster to gather in resources faster! they need the wheel!

But the rush will happen before siege is out. The large radius will not mean much if the hcat upgrade is not done before getting overrun by dumbos.

unless that player is a n00b, would they delay long enough to let that happen? you may make do with cat and ballistics if necessary.

No, you don't have the food to make it drag on that long. The time allows for workshops and cat upgrades.

you can always farm so you will always have food. also you did not explain why they will not go for siege because it takes too long just because the other guy has AE. if they use siege, siege will crush and will end the game quicker than to slug it out with elephants only.

Sorry, 60,000 hp

now where did you get the idea you had 60k hp all of a sudden?

Well, sorry to sound like I am repeating myself but Egypt play a certain way. Giving them an easier choice will remove their complex strat.

they may play a certain way yes. but their strat is not complex nor is giving them AE giving them an easier choice. they still have to take the time and many resources to upgrade up to it. so what else are they supposed to do with that extra gold?

Well we will see. The manual is wrong, as the bonus is not 20% more. In most cases it is 50%, I have just made all cases 50%. The biggest change is buildings and farming, but then again these are not defining moments of a game. RM - farming is a slow process, the 50% will only make it a little better. DM - buildings will allow for tower rushing.

arent we creating a new strat for them now since they can build/repair at +50% faster rather than originally at +0%? and mind it was YOU who didnt want to 'create new strats..BS..etc' and now you want them can tower rush in DM?

Yes but they get shield - and someone like Shang has no real alternatives. Assy will get a bonus and Yamato has cheaper horse. These are 3 possible civs which will use cataphracts to mow down archers and not be scared of fighting in amongst guard towers. They also get LOS bonus - which will help them a lot against damn HHA.

shang can simply use hha and cats. isnt that YOUR favorite combo to suggest? assy needs better than that if they were to receive a bonus, since they are archer oriented, what was wrong with getting them hha you suggested? yamato has cheaper horse but lack 1 tower shield just to be full upped. and shouldnt cataphracts be as fast as hha? is their 'double LOS of heavy cavalry' as big as the LOS of a full ranged hha?

I am a bit confused to what you are saying exactly. I will return 100% accuracy as shield already makes archers weaker.

The point was to stop OP archers. On 200 pop games, archers get to critical mass and turn the game into an archer war (melee units cannot get close enough). The accuracy change was meant to stop this. However, I have given several civs slinger bonuses and made the shield better - meaning that hand-to-hand combat isn't as poor.

if you say archers are OP couldnt you simply bring in the heavy cat? i dont think archers are particularly OP unless you were careless.

Are you suggesting assy and shang are strong?

Both get better cataphracts.

and are you suggesting assy and shang are weak?

they already have good cataphracts.

All bonuses are given to help their weakness. Greek and Roman struggle in bronze because of archers - they get slinger bonus, Assy struggle in DM because they lack a cutting edge/impact unit - cataphracts are better...

well civ bonuses arent supposed to be just for their weaknesses. it is supposed to give them character. i understand greek and roman need defense to archers in bronze, i suggested at least a bit better range though. how do assy struggle in DM? they got cataphracts, fast firing horse archers, heavy cats and helepolis and trireme, ballista towers, full priests, as well as the best of the best fastest jihadists. you should of seen them in aoe beta, they will take a bone up to your head and *smack* your dead. ;p

Giving Egypt AE gives new strat. Please don't make me explain this again.

no it does NOT. is your mentality really about DM only? or 'oh egypt dont rush'? or armored eles is all about rush? or 'im afraid to give all civ AE and Hcats'? OR now its 'oh about the cataphracts'?

You lose current strats which require a lot of skill (micro mainly) to pull off. AE and Hcats is too easy. Managing scythes, archers, priests, towers etc takes a lot of micro.

strats do not require micro. they require macro. even AE and Hcats need to be macro'd otherwise you would lose many to carelessness. Managing a whole lot of units and buildings can be done with macro. You can also include dragging them all along and moving them all at the same time!

They will lose their current strat...

if they did not lose anything they had formerly, then they did not lose their current strat.

Build stables, make eles, attack.
Build siege workshop, make hcats, attack.

and you and any n00bs could still make a mistake or be careless and fail to do any of those or their prerequisites.

It is easier to pull off than some of the other strats which require a lot of micro and not "hey, which building should I destroy from 16 tiles away?".

again, you can easily be careless and think that way but fail to do so. whereas other strats, you tend to have more attention to detail because you need everything.

That is the skill

that is NOT the skill! read the definition of macromanagement i had above and that definition is the dictionary denotation for in games especially RTS.

Then you go to ele rushing...

really? is really 'we got eles, rush' the real strat?

A rush hits a wall, it is a long time before they have something to take the wall down. The defensive player can use towers/bowmen to hit hand-to-hand units etc. They can get a better eco and be ready for someone who then uses his little eco to get a stone thrower ready. I can assure you that although 1 piece of wall may come down, the defensive player will be more than capable of double walling whilst going for iron or amassing a deadly force of compies and/or cav!

and you couldnt do the same and tower reach inside? or build a forward force outside surrounding the walled place, amass a force and then siege? for double wall or so yes you can still do this instead of tearing down 1 piece of wall. OR how about what if you had pulled Siege of Alesia?

Last minute improvise is restricted to what resources you got - strategy gives you the resources you need, the buildings where you need them, the defensives which protect you and the attack which lets you win...

last minute improvise is an immediate strategy if necessary and is not restricted etcetera. basically to pull it off you have to be often aggressive and resourceful NOT simply just to what resources you got. you can still get more and/or do more.

You had hcats before they could get their eles to you? I am talking more about the competitive games where that ele rush will be all over the workshops with only a handful of cats (minus engineering and the hcat upgrade) to fight back.

i was also talking about competitive games unless you were talking about non-post-iron dm, then i can group the cats quickly with ballistics and that will still do to mow down the forward marching dumbos. i would of did the same with eles and send them first as well as the cats.

Er, you asked why I called them cheap. Also remember in DM what you start with. Scythes are cheap unless you forget to put 40+ villies on wood (this is where you need a strat and not to improvise )

ok you called them cheap as though they were poor in quality or use. also putting 40+ vills on wood is not a strat. any idiot could of done that. ;p

I also don't get why you admit hitt hcats are OP but they must remain at the same level? They still get the bonus but it will not be as strong (but still strong). If ES released the game with 50% bonus initially I am sure many will still go for hitt because DM games are essentially ele rush followed by hcats - they have both, hcats get bonus. People would still moan "hitt are OP" because they get all units, techs.

now where did i admit hitt hcats are OP? i remember along the line i only said 'purportedly' or 'supposively' they are such. i said it because the reason is the human factor. and yes they should remain at the same level because that level is originally designed there for a purpose. reducing it removes the significance and therefore defeats the purpose. if ES had released the game with 50% bonus then no one would be bitching about it. but instead they forsaw what they forsaw and made it double because at 50% wasnt significant enough and was rather undoubtly meager. also the purpose is not simply people would still moan 'hitt are OP'. it is instead so they can withstand significant extra damage (including an extra stone and stray stone flying) otherwise its just like comparing for example giving them only 1 extra HP or armor.

at least if you really want to make them 50% give it to all their siege including ballista and helepolis placed in scenario builder. but i tell you, they are better off at "Stone Thrower, Catapult, and Heavy Catapult hit points doubled."

But it doesn't make sense. Ever hear of the saying "if it isn't broke don't fix it?".

tell me how AE or 'elephants with light armor and siegecraft' dont go with egypt? ror broke it so it needs to be fixed ;p

They can rush with war eles (or any unit for that matter) but I am talking about more competitive games - AE will completely change the civ. Any civ with AE and Hcats are the more favourable civs on non-restricted DM games.

i am also talking about more competitive games - AE will not completely change the civ but enhance it. Any civ with 'AE and Hcats' are the more favourable civs on non-restricted DM games, but do they have both? did i say give them heavy cats? (even though i think they should) did i say give everyone BOTH AE and Hcats? Keyword: AND

Improve the wheel? Why?

RoR eliminated weaknesses? No, they introduced new ones. You brought up Egypt lack AE - this is a weakness considering there was no AE in RoR. Cav is useless on RM (camel), bowmen are non-existant (slinger) and the hills, medit and conti maps bring out different weaknesses and strengths in each civ.

I would say most players who played the game from the trial throughout the the release of RoR would say the same.

to make it more effective/significant/useful otherwise the wheel is broken or will break.

RoR eliminated LISTED weaknesses. Keyword: LISTED. there is no longer negative civ bonuses or penalties. for civs that lack techs is not considered a weakness because it is simply not something going against them like in aoe -30% farming penalty for persia. RoR eliminated such 'penalties'.

Really? So making the right change has little thought? Considering how complex it is (different game styles, modes, teams etc) the fewer the changes the better. There can be no argument.

all you have to consider is 2 things per civ, RM and DM. you dont need to worry about how they team up and pit against each other. remember this is not like aom where they began their rock, paper, scissors thing. this is about putting their 'ultimate units' to battle it out. that takes only some thought and consideration. fewer changes shows less work put into and rather thoughtless and a job not well done so why not make more changes?

They don't use them because ele rush or hha take priority before centies. Centies need 2 upgrades + 1 tech, like hcats = and hcats will crush them.

so if you say they dont use centurions whats wrong with getting rid of them? at least no one will really care or notice so much for that. (although then none of the babylonian class civs: babylon, hittite, persia will have centurions)

No hitt were known for an early iron, but ended up getting wiped out by "the sea people". I would say they were similar in power to egypt, and again a civ not known for their military conquests but what they did in their own kingdom.

I was saying if you want realism then hitt would have no eles and no siege, being similiar to egypt (good chariots) and having early but weak iron. History will make you crazy

well everybody was wiped out by 'the sea people' and that was not the only factor. it was called the catastrophe of 1200 BC NOT the destruction of 1200 BC! scientific evidence pointed to natural disasters at the time like for example the supervolcano on crete exploded as well as its resulting tsunami also killed the minoans, the mycenaean greeks, the canaanites, etcetera every known civ in the known world. they were indeed a civ similar in power to egypt. but what you mean they were not known for their military conquests? they conquered the Hattians, Canaanites, Syrians, Hurrians, most of regional Mesopotamia and had sacked Babylon and destroyed the Mitanni. They also challenged the Egyptians at Kadesh. wtf you mean they werent known for their conquests? what they did in their own kingdom was after conquests they had to quell rebellions sometimes brutally sieging them. i know my ancient history, how about you? how can you say they werent conquerors when in fact they actually were? no eles or no siege for that matter would not be realism and how is iron supposed to be weak? they were similar to egypt as a superpower of the time but that was it. their PROMINENT forces were chariots and infantry but they definitely had what they had considering they did conquer deep into regional Mesopotamia.

How much wood would a woodchuck chuck if a woodchuck could chuck wood?

I would rather say I am hesitant, all things considered

As much wood as a woodchuck would if a woodchuck could chuck wood.

How do you like that? Glad to see you are considerably hesitant and not adamant.

It really doesn't matter about number, because there are so many different variables to consider.

ES forsought 50 pop - it is now 200 pop.

Maybe I shouldn't say "hitt used to have 100%, now it is 50%" - because you are confusing this as half-assed.

Old hitt = 300hp, new = 225, which is infact 25% down (i.e. they are three-quarter-assed)

At the same time standard hcats are 150 hp. 225 beats 150 - so siege war unaffected. 225 a bit easier for scythes and other melee to kill with added min range change.

the number does matter and is one thing to consider and many to consider if brought to variables. you will need alot of testing to see why.

the pop difference does not matter here.

you are attempting to half-ass their bonus and the meaningfulness of their bonus.

reducing hitt bonus anywheres down is considered half-assing it.

225 beats 150 if it was one vs one. if its mass vs mass, you will always have an extra rock and a stray one to dodge making the hittite equivalant to the regular which is not the purpose. the hp bonus is designed to withstand the scythe and other melee attacking it so it can suffer less in friendly fire and hold out on their own enough to rush in something else. letting melee units kill it easier is not the point of the bonus. adding extra min range however is a natural factor that can be considered.

So now your excuse is that completely valid points regarding balance should be set aside because you are unfamiliar with 200 pop? No - battles happen across the map in more than one place. Both sides test the defenses across walls etc, looking for whatever opening they can get to wiping out the other's eco (and forwards). Walling, scouting and eco are fundamental to a strong player, as is micro skills. Granted most people have different weaknesses but can be successful with a good, tailor-made strat. I would say that the competitive players on voobly, and chinese/vietnam active AoE multiplayer clients will have very good skills in all these areas. I would also say that competitive or not - there is a noticable difference in how 50 and 200 pop games play. Archers and siege suddenly become much stronger and hand-to-hand is more vunerable - can you see this too?

no i am not unfamiliar with 200 pop. the pop difference explaination for this is not a complete valid point nor has anything to do with any balance. i am talking about putting all 50 or all 200 units together attacking each other in one scene including with obstacles mainly forests and cliffs blocking the way as a factor. i understand battles happen in more than one place across the map. to tell you what a scene or whatever the proper term is, see picture below.



notice the red circling across the 'scene' and the box on the minimap? try putting 200 vs 200 units inside this alone and have them all attacking. that is what i was talking about.

also again you cant say your pop is 200 from what ES had was 50 to explain how they forsought to give hittite cats double HP. that pop difference dont mean jack if you cant get in a competitive game all whatever pop units in one scene attacking all at the same time.

As already stated - the theory is to water down the bonus because the unit (hcat) is OP. There are too many variables to conclude via numbers - this change needs testing first.

Also, on Palmy - I need to test the current 50% before making any changes, so no(t yet?).

yeah but that theory is a fraud. wait and see how the numbers and variables test out. you will see why ES made the cat bonus doubled in the first place (and its NOT because they forsought 50 pop).

200 pop...you should try it and see the diff.

Firstly, eco is stronger. You can have 80-100 villies in DM (rather than 5-10), in RM you can really boom! You can also spread out across the map after the initial exchanges (bronze rush etc).

Secondly, archers are stronger. Critical mass is a bitch! Consider 50-100 CA on RM - you can only match this with CA or compies. Cavalry, chariot etc don't come close.

Thirdly, siege is OP. Hcats are the only thing that can generate a plain grass map WITHOUT using the scenario builder . 50-100 helepolis are near impossible to beat WITHOUT hcats.

Fourthly, I am confident in saying anyone who has played 200 pop vs 50 pop will tell you the same.

again im not going to explain that what ES forsought the hitt cat bonus being doubled has any relation to your population theory. it shouldnt be a case unless you can fit all 200 vs 200 in one 'scene' like i described above and NOT simply only across the map.

and btw do not forget there are fortifications with double HP to coincide with this as well.

Standard is n00bish - any and evey n00b knows how to do it. It is the safest way to play because it is simple. Try getting these guys to play random civs..."can we restart I got Babylon"...

a standard is not n00bish. it is a set high example. any and every n00b may know how to do it but fail to do it correctly and falter easily. the safest way to play is one of the two but not both. now if it was only eles war or only siege war then thats n00bish. and a random civ doesnt matter. you can play a random civ and achieve with what they got as well. the response would be "no we will not restart whats wrong with babylon anyways? they got horse archer, heavy cats and super ballista towers."

Not give everyone AE and Hcats

n00bs love max damage, hp and area damage. It is just the n00b way.

now we are talking about the DM standard or that thereof regularly considered. why are you talking about everyone getting AE and Hcats?

are you kidding me? they do not because they suck at achieving it alone. DM experts regularly love to slug it out with max damage and everything. isnt that what DM is all about?

Again, simple. Any n00b can play. Very common setting.

if this is simply 'Any n00b can play' then why were you the one who suggested it? i say any n00b can play because it is all one unit.

I wouldn't say they are combo, but a "one after the other". AE early, hcats late.

so you send them in individually alone? yours is bound to suck. i would send them in all together AE in front, hcats right behind them.

Every civ should have a weakness. Some are gold-hungry (no chariot), some have crappy techs or ages. It gives the civ character, and a means to defeat them.

every civ shouldnt have a weakness. they should have exploits only. being gold-hungry, crappy techs or ages is not considered a weakness. weaknesses doesnt give civs character, it actually degrades their character and penalizes them. ror thankfully eliminated such weaknesses.

you also cant consider it a means to defeat them otherwise thats like saying 'i totally owned this civ by having my starting at post-iron and making them start in the stone age.'

Well I will mod myself a bigdaddy car and destroy these pretenders

Again - the hitt have a OP unit, it should be watered down slightly.

really? i wouldnt be surprised these angry peasants with pitchforks snuck up on you before you did that and 'boned' you to death ;p

there is a right way to water them down rather then defeating what they are for such as increasing their min range more rather than defraud everyone by reducing them from double HP.

I am just forcing a little weakness on the champion of DM - hitt.

thats not a little weakness you are forcing. thats a fraud!

Yes I can change this if the Egypt strat is nuked with the new gold changes. I have been thinking about possible changes and the best one is to change 33% hp for a chariots get +x pierce bonus. Not sure on the value. I don't want it to impact RM too much, so the pierce bonus should still have the same effectiveness when playing a "archer war" in RM with 33%hp bonus.

This will help scythes in DM, seeing as they don't get the shield. I want to hold out on tech tree changes.

ok you are not to eliminate their HP bonus and swap it for false shields. that is not the right idea. you will eventually have to go for tech tree changes.

You mentioned cataphracts, and how what I do creates new strat - so confusion perhaps?

No egypt will not have cavalry. Cataphracts will have LOS bonus double that of hcav. HHA will have speed, with only palmy camels capable of catching them. BUT remember that cataphracts bonus + only being fractionaly slower means that everytime a HHA stops to fire a cheeky shot, the cataphract gets closer!

Scythes are meant to fall like toy soldiers. They are cheap so you can just keep pumping them out throughout the game.

no i did not mention cataphracts. i was talking about equipping egyptian scythe chariots with 'bronze shield, iron shield and tower shield' i said nothing anywheres about cataphracts until you said it out of nowhere having to do with nothing. your response was also 'new strat' which also was out of nowhere and has nothing to do with fully equipping egyptian scythe chariots. i think you sir are distracted and no doubtly confused yourself since you are talking nonsense to what we were actually talking about.

back to topic: scythes are not meant to fall like toy soldiers. they are meant as a means of fast trample damage especially vs priests. but the scythes cant get to the priests if they are easily shot down by towers or archers despite racing through them. egyptian scythes are supposed to be the best but will need the shields for protection.

!!! You have never heard of the Shang problem? Shang rule on 35 cost, 200 start food. Assy and Yammy are close behind on the original pre-patched AoE.

yes i heard of the shang problem. i called it 'shang-hai' and i can still easily beat them especially with assy.

? Weakness doesn't mean handicap. It means a certain missing unit or tech from the tech tree. Persia had a handicap for some reason (maybe ES thought hunting was really really good?).

I am not handicapping any civ. I am happy to allow for weaknesses, however.

i didnt say weakness means handicap. a weakness listed is considered a penalty. a missing unit or tech is considered a handicap. persia had a weakness for an obvious reason likely ES based it off of historical because unfortunately the land in persia was very poor for farming. a hunting bonus was used to supplement this but eventually when ror came out, ES decided persia should not be the only one penalized just like what the readme manual says "Persian civilization no longer has a farming penalty."

Well, I can say Persian and Mace do not suck. I like both, and I would only hate being Persia if playing against Assy. Against Yamato I don't mind (camel vs cav).

Persia and Mace do miss wheel - but it is very n00bish to say they suck because there villagers can run around a farm as fast.

yes but did anyone say they suck? i already said i hear them sometimes moaning about it, especially when the time is mid-bronze to iron. i usually agree afterwards if i were playing the same with them.

persia and mace do miss wheel and theyre villagers are helpless compared to others with wheel or rushers as a result. they dont suck at least not their military but they lack in appeal and playability (and dependability and reliability for that matter).

*sigh* AoE isn't real. Let us pretend that Roggan and his friends are fictional and get on with the game

aoe may not be real. but why wont you give them the wheel?

That is a really good idea. I can replace them with Israelites

you do that and everyone will say your patch is CRAP

On DM just build houses along the edges. In RM it is hard to get 200 pop, and if you do you should be able to find the room. Try watching some 200 pop games on GameRanger and Voobly - spacing for houses isn't a problem (unless you are playing tiny map!).

well of course you can build houses enough up to 200. i figure that should change since its 'ES made 50', 'YOU made 200'.

I have good idea about Eles archers. Eles archers are taller than Horses. They could have 8 range (11). It's bigger realism in the game.

Yes Eles Archers are very good towers.

towers, eles archers and priests already have an extended extra range like the game info says. that is why if you use an archer with 9 range to attack an 8 range tower, the tower can still reach you. same way for eles archers and priests.

[This message has been edited by volume (edited 11-27-2009 @ 05:21 AM).]

Alright these posts are getting ridiculously long so if anyone reading them notices them starting to break the CoC e-mail me.

Egypt DM
From what I have seen (played and watched) Egypt will use a strat whereby they fortify their town with CA (and/or EA), towers and priests - with scythes acting as a meat shield. The town is such a deadtrap that even 50-100 armored eles will struggle to make it.

I would also add that the towers will have stables both in front and behind - and every so many seconds more scythes are popping out.

The Egypt strat is to try and create a stalemate - working their way through gold. Egypt has 2 problems, Helepolis and Towers. Firstly, helepolis can be defeated by using ele archers backed by priests (ele archers draw hele fire before priests start chanting!) - scythes can also provide some form of ambush. Secondly, towers can be defeated by hordes of scythes (heavy loses) but stone throwers with engineering are quite effect when mixed in (scythes are likely to counter ground units anyway, so let them fight these amongst towers and have stone throwers knocking them down).

Egypt has to play on the back foot, it needs to draw other units into its deathtrap, it needs to waste both gold and stone - making the other player weak.

A good Egypt player will be able to cope with a ele + hcat combo. Scythes need to harass the enemy, slow down AE, priests convert as many as possible AND use martyrdom for hcats.

I believe you have underestimated Egypt by sticking with Hittite too long.

Egypt doesn't need AE, if they had AE they would have a different strat. Giving extra gold will increase the number of priests and ele archers.

Micro
Micro is a skill - it directly affects times, which is relevant to RM and DM. Better micro keeps everything moving - no idle villagers, no idle buildings. The game is only judged on macro if both players have the same micro capabilities

RasPatch strats will still require good micro skills, such as with centies (to make more use of their range) and another other change

Theocracy
See AoKH (not possible here)

No theocracy

Rush
The point of a rush is to attack fast. You have a crappy eco (maybe 16 villies) and attack with approx 4 units. The goal is to bring the enemy down to your level (in terms of eco strength) as you then recover and outgrow them. However, a rush can get lucky and actually give an early win ("GG").

Both players go for a rush - the first to rush is absolute favourite to win - he has smashed the others weak 16 villie eco

Towers take time which if you were rushing would lead to you abandoning the strat. 3 towers? I agree if getting hit by CA or compies - cavalry I would say this is not enough.

Towers also need stone - if you have 16+ eco going for a rush, you have 0 on stone. Unless Roman you can only put 1 up.

The point of a rush is to distract. If villies are running away they are not collecting resources. A good cavalry rush will be something like 3 cavs + 1 scout. They will find you

If 2-3 cav run into your woodies - erecting a few towers will be suicide (i.e. either fight or run!)

If someone rushes FIRST the game is dictated by this, the other player must forget some form of counter-rush and deal with the problem at home. If the other player sees that your eco has been hit very easily (i.e. massacre 2 builders trying to put up sacred towers, 5-10 woodies trying to bone your 3 cav etc) - it is viable to slow your eco growth and train some more cav. This is game over.

A cav rush (if pulled off correctly) is a deadly rush. Tool rushes can be fought back with villies or out run axemen. CA/Compie rushes are slow and cannot beat towers.

skilled players DO build walls. They know all the tricks They protect their eco and if they are skilled but abandon walls this doesn't say much for whoever is on the end of their attack.

During a rush the aggressor will build walls and grow their eco. The 3/4 units in the enemy town will be weakening the other eco (which would probably be around 20-24 villies and almost/just about in bronze).

If you rush and hit a wall the rush fails. They have 20-24 eco you have 16! Bring in the siege? I would say BOOM FAST! Just keep your units around the edges putting on pressure/stopping villies peeling off to build satelitte TC/pits (outside wall).

If someone rushes you, and you then attack them...is this a rush? No the first attack is a rush (rush = first).

Going back to cav - the goal is villies. Ignore towers, buildings etc - just get as many kills as possible. 10 kills would be perfect

Small eco for a quick rush cannot afford many techs. Woodworking is essential, but adding other techs will slow you down.

The rush is not dependant on the wheel. Persia and Mace have the rush in their bag of tricks

Macedon RM
See rush above, but consider a quicker rush and cavalry get better LOS.

Also, cheap ST and hoplites are a good combo if backed by compies.

Again Mace doesn't need wheel

MaxCrazy
Wheel - are you suggesting he used wheel to cav rush? Or are you making a different point? Wheel doesn't affect your ability to rush.

Micro - hunting perhaps? also if your micro is poor how can you macro? You have a massive handicap with all those idle villies, getting housed etc.

Now you have watched try and copy.

Wheel

Not needed to rush

Not essential to early bronze battles

Persia and Mace can hit you before wheel comes into affect - meaning your 12 remaining villies will need that wheel after all

The appeal of Persia and Mace in RM games is to rush. Mace are capable of getting through a wall (cheap ST) and Persia are capable of beating cav civs (with camel).

Persia DM

Persia get the best eles - no question about it.

With cheaper archers they need less gold and food - which helps their eco...

Once eles have sucked up all of Persia's resources, cheap units are very much welcome. What about a priest and ele archer combo? They are capable of fighting heles AND hcats.

Cheap archers will affect RM and DM

Persia have a strong early DM strat but seriously lack the latter stages - cheaper archers will give them more bit, as well as helping in RM (archers already lack a lot of techs).

Palmyran
I haven't had time to test them in MP. The download is in the link (opening thread) so feel free to try.

Tower rushing is not new - anyone can do it! I just made palmy better at it. New strat? Where?

Playtesting is welcome!

DM

Hcats come after eles because of techs + speed.

Ele is the rush, hcats come in after

If someone ele rushes and only sees workshops they probably won't believe their luck

Anyone building siege only from the beginning of DM will get wiped out by a ele rush.

Cataphract

Shang in DM? Probably the worst civ what ever combination you use. But fully upgraded cataphracts will be like tanks (super pierce etc). I am also looking at making ballista missiles FASTER.

Assy are also poor in DM. I know you like jihad but trust me, that trick only works so many times. They cannot compete against most civs. A cataphract bonus will help.

Cataphracts with double LOS does not match HHA LOS

Cataphracts can catch HHA if HHA stop and fire so many times. The map is only so big, so good micro (look up definition ) is needed to kill a pack of cataphracts.

Cataphracts are the only area where a new strat can be devised - because they are not currently used!

History

Hittite "sacked" weak cities, cities/city-states already under CONSTANT WAR.

Hittite were a bronze age era civ with iron (technically iron age for them, but their neighbours without iron).

Sea Peoples wiped out Hitt, Egypt were not.

A lot of people associate the Bronze Age Collapse with the Sea Peoples BUT a huge majority of human decline was down to drought.

When I went to DisneyLand, Dumbo told me he had never heard of the Hittites. He no longer plays AoE.

Hittite have not been portrayed accurately. No major power had problems with Hittite - most of the Egypt-Hitt conflict was solved by inter-marriages etc and not war. Sea Peoples killed AE and HCats by using the half-ased strat.

Hittite DM

Hittite are OP

HCat is OP

Lowering the bonus will improve strat for Hitt...WTF you say? Well it will no longer be a straight AE + HCat in 1v1. You need scythes in front of hcat. Scythes get shield so Priest + Ele Archer combo won't work. Other combos will be required. Player skills will improve on both parts. Strat will improve - HCats will be very hard to reach

Hitt HCat are OP - 100% bonus replaced by 50%.

Volume

I come from a place called England, which created something called the English language You are throwing up a lot of "definitions" which are largely wrong and out of context (weakness, macro...). I cannot reply to these without sounding like I am flaming.

I have stated on more than enough times the reasons for certain changes, which I am happy to discuss. I have made valid points (something is too good, it needs to be weakened etc) but your contant replies are "it sucks" "it's thoughtless" etc - all showing your prejudice to the only 2 civs I guess you play with, Assy and Hitt. The game is a 16 civ game, the patch will try and improve the strats. You are reacting as if I said Jesus isn't the son of God in front of the Pope

Numbers, numbers, numbers...mean nothing. It is a game. You win by playing. Your skill makes use of certain unit attributes. Adding 50%, taking 20% there only goes so far. Please don't sit at home with a calculator trying to prove how many stones a heavy cat can throw, it is embarrasing. Load the patch up and see the difference. That is the only way.

I have played the game for a long time, but unfortunately only MP in the last few years (I have played reg on LAN but not against good players). All the changes are geared towards my perspective - with additional input. But I have spent hours on IGZ (pre-voobly) watching games, playing games and discussing with other players. I am no expert as anyone who has played me will say. I don't pretend to be an expert. I am but a humble noob. BUT I want to make a patch to fix the game. There are problems, there are too many civs which have an over-bearing strat, there are too many civs which cannot beat another...

All things considered I want TDA to refresh the ladder so I can beat you with Palmy vs Assy, Egypt vs Hitt, Persia vs ANYTHING and Mace vs ANYTHING...ANYTHING vs ANYTHING

You need to try 200 pop games vs humans. 50 pop on computer is poor. ES made the game 50 pop but if you played online you would know that they made RoR 200 pop for MP

[This message has been edited by Rasteve (edited 11-27-2009 @ 01:32 PM).]

Volume certainly adds volume to the discussion. Thant's not bad because that's what keeps this place running (it is a forum after all) I just wish i had more time to read this stuff.

But yeah we must always remember (hell even i for get it at times) that AoE is fictional and as RCM pointed out elsewhere gameplay is prioritary over historic accuracy.

Is funny you know....i can't remember the fans of AoEII:TC discussing about the mayans and the Aztecs and their lack of wheel, even tho they have siege units and trade carts.

I don't mind discussing any change (pros and cons) but for the last 3-4 posts have been repeating the same thing, which has declined to a non-progressive level.

Is funny you know....i can't remember the fans of AoEII:TC discussing about the mayans and the Aztecs and their lack of wheel, even tho they have siege units and trade carts.

You are about to open a can of worms

I dunno cuz i haven't read them...sorry. About the can of worms: bring it here, I have a bunch of hungry birds that can get rid of them (Yeah, AoK it is a really a great game but also the worst ES game, IMHO ).

Rasteve has the last word with his patches, if you don't like them, don't play them.

I just keep answering the same questions!! I really don't mind discussing what needs changing but volume doesn't understand certain aspects of the game, and the more he asks me to repeat myself the clearer it gets.

Maybe a couple of regulars could answer a few questions so I don't sound like I am on my own here:

1. Are Hittite OP in DM?
2. Is the Hitt HCat OP in DM?
3. How do you beat a rush?
4. How can Egypt win in DM?
5. How can Persia win in RM/DM?
6. How can Mace win in RM/DM?
7. Is the wheel essential to a rush?
8. What is the common DM strat?
9. What population limit do you play online?
10. Who won the lyrical contest?

9. What population limit do you play online?
10. Who won the lyrical contest?

200 and I believe I did by not taking part.

1. Yes Hittite are generally overpowed.
2. Only if you give them time to build.
3. Rush first and harder or camp with towers, heles and a huge amount of 'wall'. Most players will have you kicked after a game like that though.
4. Yes if the game lasts long enough. Egypt's chances of success increase longer the game lasts.
5.Noobs play a part in this. Map settings another.
6.Same deal
7. Most death match games start in iron age where wheel is already researched. Rushing is easier for Yamtato or assyria because villagers already kinda start with wheel.
8. Armoured eles most common, followed by cat wars, followed by cho wars, followed by sythe wars.
9. Gumble ALWAYS hosts on 50 pop. AoE wasn't really designed for a 200 pop game especially with starting slow villies and no farm re-seeding. Farm rebuilding is just a pain. And your oppenent always attacks when your reseeding farms -OR- your catpults decid to fire on all your units. Most Game Ranger hosts host 200 pop on fastest speed setting which is heart attack territory.
10.
Rasteve:
"""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""Wo""""""'''''

"""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""W"""""""""""
"""
"""

"""""""!''"""""""""
"'"'''G'''"""'''uM''''''"""

"""""""""""""""""""
"""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""'B'"
l''"""

''""E


"""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""."""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""
"'''""''Yo'"'""""'"""'
""u'"""'''"""R
'''"""""L"""''''"''y"""''R''''
i'''"''"""""""""""""""""""""""
"""""""""""""""""""""""""""
""""""'CS'''""'"'
'""""'""'P''"w""''''
N'""'''''"'"'''"''




e''''"""D'''''''
'''"""'''"''''

""'''ME''''"'"''''




.






'""''"""'''"'''"'"I'""'"""'''''"""'"""'""""''
H''''A'







"""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""'''"'"V'''


"'"''""'"'"""""'''"""""'''''"'
""""""""""""''''''"""'''''''''"'e'''""''"''"'''
No
''
""
''
""
''
'"
C''''''""""'o''"""""''"""''''

M'"''''''''""e""''""'"''""'""'"''"'''"""'"'''"
b





""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""a""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""

c


""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""k.

Now that is quotery

[This message has been edited by Gumble (edited 11-27-2009 @ 10:09 PM).]

@Gumble:
3 - Sorry, I was refering to RM games.
7 - Sorry, again I was refering to RM games.
9 - You should try 200 pop limit games, for a start DM are completely different, and in RM the "boom" is a far more playable strat.
10 -

Palmyran:
I am setting up some tests now to see the difference in their strat.

Firstly, I am trying to find a reliable civ-specific strat. I have found several but certain steps are wrong (I have tried multiple times on the original game and certain times cannot be achieved as quoted). I understand that Palmyran are one of the most map-dependant civs available but there are some flaws in the logic.

For example, a particular "medit boom" strat quotes 17 villies + 35-45 FB + 6 TB (for 3v3 games, TB allows for either feeding or iron jumping). However, the times given are approx 8 minutes clicking tool and approx 10-11 clicking bronze. The strat includes 3 docks within the first 3 minutes of the game, being constantly fed. Around 7 villies feed 2 docks constantly IF the dropsite is within a few tiles as most. You cannot get the 7th villager (also note you have one building throughout, and 1 collecting food for a short time) until 3 minutes quoted (4 minutes realistically).

However, even with plenty of stragglers I struggle to offer constant production to 1 dock let alone 3. I have tried 2 docks but I cannot bronze jump (wait between tool and bronze) and can only hit the bronze on 13 minutes. I have a eco of 13 real and 21 FB. There is no way I could get 17 villies in that time AND age up because I could not feed my docks constantly. The first steps were okay (a little out on the times but not too much) but after the second dock went up my builder was idle for long periods (I didn't have the wood to build FB, house and dock) - so I used him to scout.

I am going to try a variation whereby a storage pit is placed much earlier, possibly going for 1 dock until midway through the game. I don't see how 2 docks can maintain FB production, let alone 3, without a pit.

Earlier thoughts suggest that the "75" food should be changed to 70. Reason being that in order to train 3 villies you need to collect 25 food. This requires 1 villies to make 3 trips when attempting a dock-start style boom. Making it 70 makes the trip = 1, which I think would help out on water maps a lot.

I am also thinking about adding 1 armour (note that the armour = melee AND pierce but not vs lions). The civ are sitting ducks to a tool rush, and 1 armour gets slaughtered by axemen too easily. So what they can defeat slingers, any villager can bone these 25hp guys to death. Bowmen are not really a problem too.

I will also try a standard dry map strat (6 berries etc) and compare times with the patch (on top of comparing a reliable strat on the original vs patch). I am hoping for a marginal improvement here.


@Volume:

Just tried cavalry rush (no upgrades) -
1 cavalry vs 6 villies = 2 villies lost, sometimes 3 with cavalry lost
2 cavalry vs 6 villies = all villies lost NO CAVALRY LOST

It depends on the eco you hit - some people double-pit and have one group one side and another somewhere else, and some people will stick with approx 6 woodies and get most on food. This is why I tested with 6 villies. Also note that cavalry have the advantage, as you need to hit the home key to fight back, and villies sometimes queue up instead of attacking from the start. Seriously, a cav rush is deadly if pulled off (again, it depends on your skill and starting position). You are in deep trouble if you just hit the bronze up or used your last bit of wood (even more so if your pit is being used by woodies AND hunters ).

Luckily a rush is hard to pull off (you need the conditions), something more appropriate to smaller maps and considered a cheap move (not that common in non-competitive games, probably not really common in competitive games too - unless on something like Hillz?). The worst thing about a rush is running into a walled town or villagers escaping.

Initial Palmy Test Results
Medit (large) 1v1 (played 3 on original and 3 on patch - all different maps, all times average + rounded to nearest half minute)
5 on berry, pit, 3 docks, 18 villies, 20-30 FB

Original 3min: 9 villies, 1 in training, granary, 2 houses, 90 wood, 27 food
Original Tool: 12:30, 18 villies/23 FB
Original Bronze: 15:00, 18 villies/29 FB
- little pause at the beginning because of only 5 on berry
- wood seemed okay
- got to bronze with 1k food, almost 1/2k wood and 5 scout ships, 1 barracks, 1 market (with woodworking) and 1 stable
- marginal scouting on coast and on forest but other than that housing etc was very near TC
- very open to tool and bronze rush (bronze rush would be more of a problem because I would be unable to spot forwards etc - no real scouting for wall placement
- started bronze with plenty of food and scout ships to protect fish
- no gold/stone mined

Patch 3min: 10 villies, 1 in training, granary, 2 houses, storage pit foundations, 9 wood, 40 food
Patch Tool: 11:00, 18 villies/15 FB
Patch Bronze: 13:30, 18 villies/22 FB
- no real notice in any pause with berry, 5 almost gave constant production
- seemed to be waiting on wood a little (early) but later had some occasions where all 3 docks were queuing
- got to bronze with over 1k food, around 300 wood and 7 scout ships, 1 barracks, 1 market (with woodworking researched before bronze clicked!) and 1 stable but constructed 1 more pit than original game
- again open to a rush, little scouting taken but the age jumping was faster, had a little bit more food to spare as FB were out earlier
- didn't produce as many docks as in previous (as the age upgrade game earlier - saved wood for market, stable and extra pit)
- no gold or stone mined

Land Rush
With the changes it seems feasible to allow for more scouting, looking to wall. The land eco is very prone (18 villies) and getting hit early by a bronze rush will hurt. Scouting also allows spreading out (houses etc) and the possibility of having multiple groups of woodies.

Water Rush
Scout ships were trained during bronze transition but if any scout ships came in earlier this would affect player. By building several scout ships the sea should be protected for a reasonable time - enough to give Palmy more villies (even gov center>TC land boom) to make up for FB loss. Scout ships can also be used to harass other civs (who may be attempting to outboom palmy, knowing they cannot reasonably attack early).

Work Rate Changes
Foraging seemed slightly better (probably a 5-10 sec wait with 5 foragers rather than 10-20 previously).

Builders didn't really have any affect. Still needed 2 for docks etc. Still possible to get housed if start by "HCC" then build "BE" (with a couple of seconds between each command).

Didn't notice any difference on wood until a little later - but this could have been due to foragers finishing earlier?

3 minute test
I did a series of "3 minute" checks and it seems that the foraging change gives you 1 extra villie (early).

Egypt
First of all, I don't care about Egypt DM. I was originally and only talking about Egypt in general. NEVER MIND THE DM. I said nothing about DM here.

Comments on what Rasteve had to say about Egypt:

Expect heavy casualties should you have to fight helepolii, your best bet is to distract them with elephant archers (heavy losses expected) and towers while you outrange them with priests. Do not expect Scythes to provide some sort of ambush. They will be easily massacred including the fact they lack shields. Secondly, towers CANNOT be defeated by hordes of scythes, including because of the lack of shield reason. Stone throwers with engineering are the only hope except Choson towers which there will be NO hope. There is no efficient breakthrough, that is, unless 'stingy' Rasteve will let them upgrade Armored Elephants and give Egypt full shields (and stop thinking of only DM or thinking that this would 'change their strat' already!)

Without a sufficient solution such as upgrade Armored Elephant and full shields to aid scythes, there is no decisive victory but only a stalemate (and is that really the point of the game with no victory?)

Having Egypt 'cope' with an ele + hcat combo, is not a sufficient solution. Using scythes to harass the enemy and attempt to slow down AE will end up with their asses kicked. Priests to use martyrdom for hcats will end up with one or few hcat converted and the rest slaughtered (and likewise with the few converted hcat).

I never underestimated Egypt nor did I stuck by with Hittite too long. There you go again with ASSUME. Egypt had decisively defeated Hittites at the Battle of Kadesh so I never underestimated. Anyways, Egypt needs a breakthrough and not just simply a stalemate.

Egypt does need AE, after all! If they had AE they would NOT have a different strat. In fact, it would improve their strat! Now...WTF you say? Well it would no longer be just all that effort of Scythes, Elephant Archers, Priests and towers ending up in a stalemate. You need AE in front of EA. Scythes will finally get their full shield so Helepolis + towers combo won't work. Other combos will be required - extra gold will be more utilized. Player skills will improve on both parts. Strat will improve - Priests will be very hard to reach AND a breakthrough and a real victory for no longer stalemate Egypt!

Micro
Micro is NOT a skill - it NOT ALONE directly affects times, etc. Better micro MAY keep everything moving - no idle villagers, no idle buildings. However, it doesn't keep the civilization moving at least not the military which is what is used to crush your opponents. The game is only judged on macro grant the more competitive games - an outsider in the game watching doesn't necessary watch from your game point of view. They see the overall manner in which a player manages his units and the development of his bases (they don't see how each player quickly hits hotkeys or moves with the mouse.) Forward to victory! (;

Macromanagement - the overall manner in which a player manages his units and the development of his bases - making them complete and operational in RTS.

Rush
This to begin with was an opened whole new can of worms as a result of discussion from wheel.

Anyways, comments on what Rasteve had to say:

Both players go for a rush - the first to rush is absolute favourite to win - he has smashed the others weak 16 villie eco - that is until, the second rusher pulled the same thing disregarding much about their economy while being rushed - he has now smashed the first rusher's weak 16 villie eco!

Towers take time which if you were rushing would lead to you abandoning the strat. - Abandoning your strat? Why? It may delay your strat, not necessary abandon it. 3 towers? I agree if getting hit by CA or compies - cavalry I would say this is not enough. - I think you are still thinking of you use 3 towers to guard rather than help attack and fend off, add to that, you do not use it alone.

Towers also need stone - if you have 16+ eco going for a rush, you have 0 on stone. Unless Roman you can only put 1 up. - Aren't we neglecting something here? I can have 2 vills on stone and have enough for a few towers expecting to use it to fend off rush OR forward build rush.

The point of a rush is to distract. If villies are running away they are not collecting resources. A good cavalry rush will be something like 3 cavs + 1 scout. They will find you - Likewise, I can also go into their town and distract them. (;

If 2-3 cav run into your woodies - erecting a few towers will be suicide (i.e. either fight or run!) - Erecting a few towers is to help your fight i.e. 3 sentries = 12 attack which is enough to help break the odds. You quickly build 3 towers or more before they get to you or right when they get to you (and do not forget you are neglecting the cavalry you just trained for your own rush.) (;

If someone rushes FIRST the game is dictated by this, the other player must forget some form of counter-rush and deal with the problem at home. If the other player sees that your eco has been hit very easily (i.e. massacre 2 builders trying to put up sacred towers, 5-10 woodies trying to bone your 3 cav etc) - it is viable to slow your eco growth and train some more cav. This is game over. - That or you can ignore your economy and go back to your forward builds and rush them since they have the same weak economy (their 3 cavalry are trying to find my vills who happen to just erect 3 towers right on their woodies or my vills distract the cavalry including some being slain boning them while my 4 cavalry are slaying their woodies. I would say its a pretty classic gameplay including back in IGZ.) (;

A cav rush (if pulled off correctly) is a deadly rush. Tool rushes can be fought back with villies or out run axemen. CA/Compie rushes are slow and cannot beat towers. - True. You will have to outrun them in this case. CA and compies can also run/march past towers much the same like your cavalry could however, they cannot really be boned the same way as can be done with cavalry. CA are just as fast. Compies however, you would have to beat them to bronze pretty early.

skilled players DO build walls. They know all the tricks They protect their eco and if they are skilled but abandon walls this doesn't say much for whoever is on the end of their attack. - Walls are never neglected, but you can forward build to serve as your 'wall' instead, especially during a rush. Skilled players protect their eco but that doesn't mean they can't rush and use their forward build to serve as their walls, again. I don't know about what's this on abandon walls.

During a rush the aggressor will build walls and grow their eco. The 3/4 units in the enemy town will be weakening the other eco (which would probably be around 20-24 villies and almost/just about in bronze). - Unless they didn't neglect their stone like you had earlier, I would say that would slow their rush or change their strat and unless we are talking about tool rushing, they have to be faster to pull otherwise.

If you rush and hit a wall the rush fails. They have 20-24 eco you have 16! Bring in the siege? I would say BOOM FAST! Just keep your units around the edges putting on pressure/stopping villies peeling off to build satelitte TC/pits (outside wall). - Like I said, you forward build and surround the place and then eventually you engulf. (;

If someone rushes you, and you then attack them...is this a rush? No the first attack is a rush (rush = first). - Whatever, their cavalry could be slaying and being boned by my vills while my cavalry are in their town slaying theirs.

Going back to cav - the goal is villies. Ignore towers, buildings etc - just get as many kills as possible. 10 kills would be perfect - There we go with the tower is used to guard thing again. You use towers and other units as well as your vills altogether to fend off the cavalry.

Small eco for a quick rush cannot afford many techs. Woodworking is essential, but adding other techs will slow you down. - Tell me in your viewpoint how woodworking you consider essential? I would say the wheel is so my vills could move faster and gather faster.

The rush is not dependant on the wheel, however, except for CA rush or if you want to speed up collecting resources to help sustain your rush. Persia and Mace have the rush in their bag of tricks, sure, by tool or have to do without wheel - now if I were to rush them better including with the wheel then what?

Macedon RM
Not sure where this came from neither. We were only talking about giving them wheel.

Mace doesn't need wheel, but would be grand and better help/sustain their rush and/or defend against being rushed if they had it.

MaxCrazy
Wheel - he upgraded wheel first thing first once bronzed to help sustain his rush - faster villagers = faster resources and also faster forward build. Wheel doesn't affect your ability to rush, but may speed up your rush such as gather resources faster = faster reinforcements. ;p

Micro - no it was macro, he simply timed everything he needed to 'micro' so that he can conviently do it as he is just coming across them including the hunting, for example, kill all gazelle with all vills, quickly erect pit, gather meat. His would-of-been idle villies were simply put on wood so they can't really be idle. His second-to-last villager before getting housed simply builds the house as he is coming to 'work' to prevent being housed. Other than that, his all villies were put on movement all together rather than micro'd individually except sometimes when desired.

Micro is only for enhancement. Otherwise, you can still have it set at your convenience.

I saw and I have done. Simply set it at your convenience and its easily done. (;

Wheel

Not needed to rush - but speeds up the sustaining/reinforcing of your rush and helps you against it.

Not essential to early bronze battles - same as above.

Persia and Mace can hit you before wheel comes into affect - that is IF they tool rush or bronzed first

The appeal of Persia and Mace in RM games is to rush. That is including afterwards if they can have better timeliness - wheel

Persia DM
Not sure where this came from.

Comments on what Rasteve had to say:

Persia get the best eles - no question about it. - True

With cheaper archers they need less gold and food - which helps their eco... - that is except the part as a result EA are cheaper than dumbos/AE? Should be the other way around.

Once eles have sucked up all of Persia's resources, cheap units are very much welcome. What about a priest and ele archer combo? They are capable of fighting heles AND hcats. - Not too sure about that. *imagines dying ele archers and priests*

Cheap archers will affect RM and DM - need to consider the EA part mentioned above.

So for Persia later DM, let's send cheap composite bowmen!

Palmyran
Tower rushing is not new - anyone can do it! I just made palmy better at it. New strat? Where? - Yes, but the fact is now palmy can simply tower rush faster and perhaps even depend on that alone to overwhelm other civs. The new strat would be simply tower rush alone since they can build it faster and at +50%.

Have you playtested this yourself?

DM
I bet this is Rasteve's favorite topic since he first brought this up and tends to always assume on this part.

Let's see what he has to say:

Hcats come after eles because of techs + speed. - True

Ele is the rush, hcats come in after - Both should be the rush.

If someone ele rushes and only sees workshops they probably won't believe their luck - Wow! Somebody sure is a n00b! So apparently the guy doesn't build towers or something that now we run into workshops already? Or wait, what about those elephants and cats guarding it?

I don't know where you brought up someone only builds siege in the beginning.

Cataphract
I'm not even going to comment on this one. This was brought out of nowhere relating to nothing.

Cataphracts are ridiculously expensive and time consuming to upgrade up to. Perhaps more so and slower than HHA. Get your money back folks! ;p

History
Let's see what Rasteve had to say here:

Hittite "sacked" weak cities, cities/city-states already under CONSTANT WAR. - Really? So are you saying to be conquerors, you have to sack Rome or something stronger?

Hittite were a bronze age era civ with iron (technically iron age for them, but their neighbours without iron). - True

Sea Peoples wiped out Hitt, Egypt were not. - True

A lot of people associate the Bronze Age Collapse with the Sea Peoples BUT a huge majority of human decline was down to drought. - True. The Sea Peoples simply killed what's left.

When I went to DisneyLand, Dumbo told me he had never heard of the Hittites. He no longer plays AoE. - What does that have to do with anything?

Most of the Egypt-Hitt conflict was solved by inter-marriages etc and not war - These inter-marriages never happened because the bride or groom died or were killed before it was even proposed, instead war, destruction and sometimes treaties absolved. Sea Peoples killed AE and HCats by their Philistine navy of fast firing bombarding juggernaughts.

Hittite DM

Hittite are OP - That's a 'vague' statement.

HCat is OP - being an ultimate unit isn't that what they are supposed to be? Individually concerned, they are NOT OP.

Lowering the bonus will improve strat for Hitt...Why do you need to improve their strat anyways? What's wrong with a good AE + HCat? Scythes are just an extra luxury unit. Strat will improve - HCats will be very hard to reach - are you sure about that? How is that really?

You better THINK TWICE before you replace that 100% bonus with 50%.

Rasteve

I come from a place called America, which expanded the same English language ;p I did not throw up a lot of "definitions" nor were they largely wrong and out of context. In case I'm not clear. I'll define the following.

Weakness - Anything that goes against a civilization i.e. negative bonus (Old AoE Persian -30% farming)

Macro or Macromanagement - The overall manner in which a player manages his units and the development of his bases - making them complete and operational. - and this was the dictionary denotation defined in UK!

I have made valid points (something needs something, something should not change etc) and my replies were NOT "it sucks" "it's thoughtless" etc - I only told you how it is likely perceived and/or I have experienced on seeing/hearing over the ages (pun intended) since Age was born. You saying that I am showing prejudice to only 2 civs is false and I guess you ASSUMED AGAIN. Otherwise why would I vouch for other civs like Egypt, Mace and Persia? If I were prejudice to only 2 civs, then I would have Assy and Hittite combined and make villagers +100% faster. I understand it's a game with 16 civ. I don't know if the patch will improve the strats, in fact, I would add it detracts the strats including the part where you give bonuses to compensate missing techs etc.

Numbers do mean something, they tell you how much and why it is and hell it can even be for your micro even i.e. how much food left is in this gazelle I am gathering so I can then build a house etc. I KNOW it is a game. I KNOW You win by playing. I KNOW your skill makes use of certain unit attributes. Adding 50%, taking 20% there only goes so far but remember we must not neglect that it can make the difference. Why would I sit at home with a calculator trying to prove how many stones a heavy cat can throw? I test your patch but can only tell you what I see, and that you really can't see unless if I were to put up a video.

I take that you say you are a humble n00b? Fine. Then, that makes me a humble n00b, I would reckon that makes everyone that. You want to make a patch to fix the game? That's dandy. You say there are problems etc. Please specify what and vs what. BUT do not forget this is not a balancing game as only AOM was the first to do so with rock, paper, scissors. Do not forget this is just a game of putting your ULTIMATE best units to fight to the death and win. I hope we have an understanding.

I just keep answering the same questions!! I really don't mind discussing what needs changing but volume doesn't understand certain aspects of the game, and the more he asks me to repeat myself the clearer it gets.

Maybe a couple of regulars could answer a few questions so I don't sound like I am on my own here:

1. Are Hittite OP in DM?
2. Is the Hitt HCat OP in DM?
3. How do you beat a rush?
4. How can Egypt win in DM?
5. How can Persia win in RM/DM?
6. How can Mace win in RM/DM?
7. Is the wheel essential to a rush?
8. What is the common DM strat?
9. What population limit do you play online?
10. Who won the lyrical contest?

Volume understands plenty and it doesn't get clearer if nothing is specified. In fact, I think you are getting more and more confused yourself as you repeat your same statements.

1. Maybe if you specify why and don't just say because of their HCat and they got every unit preferably used etc. Say against what and pit them against what are they OP.
2. Maybe since it's a matter of the human factor. But HCat as the ULTIMATE cat is supposed to be OP anyways especially since used in NON-RT fashion.
3. You wall or you rush them first.
4. You stalemate them since essentially you got no real ways of victory.
5. Rush in either tool or immediate bronze with cav/camel. For DM, use AE + EA, cats and towers; cavalry and hha for luxury units.
6. Same as above except only cav at bronze. For DM, use AE + Centurions. Stone throwers and ballistae to the rear. Cavalry as a necessity.
7. Yes, because it increases your villagers speed thereby gathering you resources faster to help sustain/reinforce your rush OR if necessary help escape from being rushed.
8. Depends on what you consider that is.
9. 50/255
10. The Dark Archer (since he claimed it first) (;

@Volume:

Just tried cavalry rush (no upgrades) -
1 cavalry vs 6 villies = 2 villies lost, sometimes 3 with cavalry lost
2 cavalry vs 6 villies = all villies lost NO CAVALRY LOST

It depends on the eco you hit - some people double-pit and have one group one side and another somewhere else, and some people will stick with approx 6 woodies and get most on food. This is why I tested with 6 villies. Also note that cavalry have the advantage, as you need to hit the home key to fight back, and villies sometimes queue up instead of attacking from the start. Seriously, a cav rush is deadly if pulled off (again, it depends on your skill and starting position). You are in deep trouble if you just hit the bronze up or used your last bit of wood (even more so if your pit is being used by woodies AND hunters ).

well they need to do better than that than to only have 6 villies. also if you just hit bronze up then you must be too slow then ;p

Egypt

You don't care about DM but state they must be given a super unit AND another super unit to have all shields...

I have seen helepolis being tackled with ele archers + priest combo, and I am sure scythes coming in during the attack (flank) will also add to the hele misery. You only need to convert a few, eles kill a few and scythes chew a few to remove the group completely

200 pop limit, scythes can be constantly produced 40+ at a time, towers only last so long, stone only lasts so long Stone throwers + engineering are better IF you can protect them.

Choson Towers are a nightmare for ANY civ.

If an egyptian player forces a "stalemate" it means no more attacks because the other has run out of gold. If they get scythes they may have "forgotten" the 900 gold upgrade to churn out more gold units (not uncommon). At a stalemate situation 9/10 the now goldless player will say "GG" and quit. This is my experience.

If one civ can force a stalemate as such, then this is a unique feature (and kinda realistic too, don't you think?).

Again, DM strat = bombard armored eles with towers, archery range units, priest conversions, stables blocking paths and scythes causing a nuisance...I have seen many dead dumbos this way.

Egypt did not win the battle of Kadesh. They could not siege so withdrew, this is a famous example of a stalemate. Both sides claimed victory, and really Hittite did better in terms of the outcome.

Micro

Micro = control of individual units MILITARY AND ECONOMY

Without micro, say goodbye to the rush

Without micro, say goodbye to a fast boom

Without micro, archers cannot defeat a larger army

AoE = micro-intensive, you need skills to do things before other players, faster than other players and better than other players. The interface is even designed to control small groups of units at the most.

Hotkeys...micro

Macromanagement
"the overall manner in which a player manages his units and the development of his bases - making them complete and operational in RTS"

Overall manner of micro i.e. macro = sum effect of micro

Total War etc are macro-intensive, where you control huge armies, deploying tactics etc.

Rush

Very rarely 2 players go for rush (need favourable conditions, map size etc) - also booming is far more fun to play

First rush will remove eco from slower player...meaning follow rush will be smaller and later (you cannot build 3 towers, attack cavalry etc AND rush at the same time now can you?)

You don't mine stone during a rush until the very end (when you have the resources to build forwards and train your rushing units) - any delay makes the rush less of a rush...and less effective

How long will you need 2 villies on stone to build 3 towers? Nearly 6 minutes before the attack (can you afford putting 2 on stone 5-6 minutes into the game?) - (0.45 work rate is 333 1/3 seconds per tower).

As soon as someone starts rushing they are making their next move - booming and walling. You rush will be weaker, later etc - good chance of hitting a wall. At the same time you have no eco

A villager lost or villager running is good for a rusher. They are to harass and slow the other eco.

Again you forget what a rush is all about. If 2 players are rushing and 1 gets hit, player getting hit doesn't have the luxery of thinking "build 3 towers" - you don't have the eco. If you had 2 on stone a few minutes into the game why are you rushing? Shouldn't you be walling? A rush hits a wall and has only one real option - boom hard. They have to make use of the remaining map before the other player does. 16 villager eco sucks against something around 24 villies (and is growing!). Plus they are walled, so if they can peel 2 builders off they can forward your base.

A rusher hits a wall, has 16 villies, knows inside is a player growing in eco strength - why use your slow eco to build a stone thrower and try and bash your way through? By the time you make it the other player is going to have cavalry (fully upgraded) and in a large group hacking the stone thrower to pieces .

Towers do not stop ANY rush - it offers minimal protection against archers at most. Don't tell me your 2 stone miners managed 3 towers and the guard tower upgrade before 12 minutes (16 villies).

Woodworking is important! It is the only tech you need pre-bronze for most strats (if you boom you could go for gold mining too). Woodworking allows you to hit bronze with more wood, better chance of more buildings, forwards, fishing boats, scout ships etc as well as better ranged units. With your 2 miners on stone I can see why it is not at the top of your list

The wheel is research DURING the rush to boost the eco which wants to go from 16 villies to 30+ ASAP...the wheel is for the next step - has nothing to do with the rush unless the CA is the rushing unit. If compie is your rush how slow is your rush going to be with 2 archer upgrades (impie/compie) plus units and the wheel?

Persia

Persia eles use up all food in DM. Eles and archers all cost food and gold. Cheaper archers means you can get something out during a major ele battle.

However, since AoH has a particular unit Persia needs a bonus for - cheaper barracks is a more viable option. They get legions (which can be fully upgraded and are cheaper) - legions train 6 seconds faster now - meaning a DM tactic whereby eles and legions are used perhaps. 20% discount seems a fair start, and gives Peria a little hand in tool rushing...

Persia has no bronze or iron market. Having double rush capabilities (axemen cost 40 food, slingers 32/8 for land and faster firing scouts at sea) should give them a chance to "hurt" the other player enough to semi-compete with eco. Hunting offers 70% more work rate and +3 carriage, but this is very micro intensive to get the full benefit.

Ele archers + priests can beat helepolis (ele archers draw in fire then priests start chanting - causes panic with heles as they now want to get within priest range but often too late!).

Ele archers + priests are a last resort for hcats because you will lose gold (martyrdom trick) - works better with egypt. Still elephants are faster

Palmyran
See previous post for initial palmy testing.

DM

I hate DM and I hate siege

Again, the reason why eles are sent in first is because you can chuck out around 80 fully upgraded armored eles before catapults are even ready (let alone heavy cats).

One unit rushes are larger and easier to manage than smaller combos (ele+hcat etc).

2.0 speed, 200 pop limit, hillz - standard DM settings. 80-100 AE against what, 30 AE+30cats (pre-hcats)+ballista towers (assuming micro allowed you to get this much up ) PLUS the next wave being the hcat??? GL

Siege

300 hp vs 150 hp COMPARED WITH 225 hp vs 150 hp = hitt win both (obviously proposed new hitt hcats have less hp remaining)

300 hp vs scythes (iron start) - 19 to 24 hits required to take one out (range due to metallurgy)

225 hp vs scythes (iron start) - 15 to 18 hits required to take one out (again, metallurgy)

150 hp vs scythes (iron start) - 10 to 12 hits req (depends on metallurgy)

Change reduces scythes required attacks to approx 4-6 hits (to destroy hcats)

Generally across other units it is around 5 hits difference (300 hp or 225 hp).

Again, maths cannot conclude anything because of other variables - ignore above

America

You better call this language American it gets very confusing otherwise

I wouldn't say "expanded" but mispelled many words (color, civilization etc...)

Weakness
"Weakness - Anything that goes against a civilization i.e. negative bonus (Old AoE Persian -30% farming)"

What about lack of wheel, no ballistics etc - these are not weaknesses? A weakness is essentially something you cannot do/do not have etc - something which can be exploited (Palmy cannot rush, Persia "cannot" boom etc). A weakness is your "flaw" - in terms of things you cannot do or things others can do against you etc. Weakness is a characteristic as opposed to strength. A strength is something you have or can do which is (generally) better than the "standard".

All civs have strengths and weaknesses because they have different tech trees AND bonuses which make up their characteristics...

Numbers
Again, numbers mean little. You have to play the game to identify which current numbers could/potentially need changing then make a "trial and improvement" move where you make the change and test it out.

In terms of testing: play the patch and state what you did and what happened (giving a comparison of what you would expect considering the original game).

All the changes have been discussed and reasoned previously. You need to state which ones you don't understand in the opening thread.

General problems:

200 pop limit is the standard, but the game hasn't been balanced like so (archers and siege being 2, resources being a 3rd).

RM strats need a little fine tuning, using 1v1 to drive most changes (it is not viable that all civs can compete in 1v1, but they should have some strat to cope).

Cataphract and barracks units are rare.

Balancing

AoM = balanced via rock paper scissors, this is a specific gaming model which I will not be using

AoK = far easier to use unit combos (formations etc)

AoE = need to tone down OP, boost UP therefore getting a bit closer to AoK level (note it could never be the same because of the interface, and unwilling to make drastic changes to archers and siege)

Ultimate and best units??? No, RM is about resource management (micro-skills) so that you can grow and fight appropriately. DM is about "ultimate and best units" - although not exclusively.

1. Are Hittite OP in DM?
"Maybe if you specify why and don't just say because of their HCat and they got every unit preferably used etc. Say against what and pit them against what are they OP."

Specify why?: They get everything and OP hcats (and again, I repeat myself)
Against what?: Everything

2. Is the Hitt HCat OP in DM?
"Maybe since it's a matter of the human factor. But HCat as the ULTIMATE cat is supposed to be OP anyways especially since used in NON-RT fashion."

But they are OP too excessively, plus get best backup units (techs and super units). They are capable against all civs.

How do you beat a rush?
"You wall or you rush them first."

And which one is far far more likely AND do-able?

4. How can Egypt win in DM?
"You stalemate them since essentially you got no real ways of victory."

So Egypt cannot win by starving them of gold, then using stone throwers with engineering to mop up towers etc and having ele archers/scythes and priests cornering the other player?

5. How can Persia win in RM/DM?
"Rush in either tool or immediate bronze with cav/camel. For DM, use AE + EA, cats and towers; cavalry and hha for luxury units."

So they can win?

6. How can Mace win in RM/DM?
"Same as above except only cav at bronze. For DM, use AE + Centurions. Stone throwers and ballistae to the rear. Cavalry as a necessity."

So they can win?

7. Is the wheel essential to a rush?
"Yes, because it increases your villagers speed thereby gathering you resources faster to help sustain/reinforce your rush OR if necessary help escape from being rushed."

It is only essential to make the next move - eco boom/grow and walling.

8. What is the common DM strat?
"Depends on what you consider that is."

...so eles and hcats are not common?

9. What population limit do you play online?
"50/255"

So you don't play GameRanger or IGZ/Voobly?

10. Who won the lyrical contest?
"The Dark Archer (since he claimed it first) (;"

well they need to do better than that than to only have 6 villies. also if you just hit bronze up then you must be too slow then ;p

6 villies on wood is not uncommon if rushing (remember you need over 2000 food and around 1000 wood to double jump). If you need more wood you probably have a second group chopping else where (such as near berries or gazelle/ele..).

Darky was never in the Lyrical contest...

Gumble isnt sure Rasteve picked up on what was said before either....

Also 200 DMs are played constantly and effectively on Game Ranger. but Gumble's comments were meant that its not easy. Basically playing 200 pop has a huge difference in game play to 50 pop. At this Gumble is hard rock at 50 but uber nooby at 200.