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[gameplay] - Increase cost and build time of cav until researching a new tech
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Authored by mimo on Jan 17 2018, 10:37 PM.

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Summary

There are several discussions about unbalanced cav rushes and how to counter it, see #4941

A recurrent proposition is to remove cav from cc, which i don't like as i think allowing hunting at startup is important.
Then we can think of a new cav unit for the cc, which would be good at hunting and weak at fighting, but it would be useful only during a very short period and i think we have already quite of lot of units.

So my proposition is to increase the cost and build time of cavs at startup (by an autoresearched tech) and adds a new tech (available in corral and stables) to remove that starting penalty. That's done in that patch. The penalty chosen is a trade-off between being still acceptable for a few hunters, but too expensive for a cav rush.

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mimo created this revision.Jan 17 2018, 10:37 PM
elexis added a subscriber: elexis.Jan 17 2018, 11:02 PM

I agree that removing cavalry in early games seems like a loss.

I didn't play many games recently, but to me it appeared as if the unit is also trained in later game unproportionally much.

Increasing the cost maybe ok, but what was wrong with a slight accuracy reduction? It doesn't necessarily impede hunting.

binaries/data/mods/public/simulation/data/technologies/cavalry_breeding.json
4

Will delay the cav-rush by some minutes. Might be sufficient if and only if the accuracy is considered ideal.

binaries/data/mods/public/simulation/data/technologies/cavalry_penalty.json
11

Seems like a workaround in comparison to editing the templates.

binaries/data/mods/public/simulation/templates/template_structure_military_barracks_stables.xml
23

So only persians get training_conscription?

temple added a subscriber: temple.Jan 17 2018, 11:05 PM

There are several discussions about unbalanced cav rushes and how to counter it, see #4941

A recurrent proposition is to remove cav from cc, which i don't like as i think allowing hunting at startup is important.
Then we can think of a new cav unit for the cc, which would be good at hunting and weak at fighting, but it would be useful only during a very short period and i think we have already quite of lot of units.

So my proposition is to increase the cost and build time of cavs at startup (by an autoresearched tech) and adds a new tech (available in corral and stables) to remove that starting penalty. That's done in that patch. The penalty chosen is a trade-off between being still acceptable for a few hunters, but too expensive for a cav rush.

If we want cavalry to be weak at fighting, why don't we change their attack/armor/health stats rather than their cost/build time?
I originally thought to just exaggerate the phase bonus, but it's probably better as an explicit tech players must research.

mimo added a comment.Jan 17 2018, 11:20 PM
In D1231#49967, @temple wrote:

There are several discussions about unbalanced cav rushes and how to counter it, see #4941

If we want cavalry to be weak at fighting, why don't we change their attack/armor/health stats rather than their cost/build time?
I originally thought to just exaggerate the phase bonus, but it's probably better as an explicit tech players must research.

But do we really want them weaker? what i've understood from comments in the forum, people complained more about the cav rush, not that there are too strong in middle or end game. But in fact, i don't really care, any solution which does not remove the cavs from cc would be fine for me.

binaries/data/mods/public/simulation/data/technologies/cavalry_penalty.json
11

yep, that was the goal as i think we'll have to change again everything when we'll implement new stables, so better wait to be sure what direction we'll take before editing templates.

binaries/data/mods/public/simulation/templates/template_structure_military_barracks_stables.xml
23

no (look at the pers_stables.xml which has it removed).
training_conscription affects barracks and should not be there nor in any stables.

One the one hand,
it boils down to the roles that we want to give the different unit types.
The strong point of cavalry ought to be being faster than infantry, not necessarily harder to kill, nor more accurate.
Requiring more costs than infantry (as is the case currently) makese sense since one has to sustain two beings.

On the other hand no time for a balancing restart.
We have to determine if skirmisher cavalry is a serious problem in lategame too - I mean in cases where they are not only massed in lategame due to the snowball effect.
If it's only the snow-ball effect, maybe the cost increase will be sufficient.

Adding a new tech adds to strategical diversity, I like that part about it.

Asked a good long time lobby player:

(23:47:56) elexis: luzbel: you seemed like a wise skirmisher-cavalry critic
(23:48:17) elexis: I need to know if the problem of skirmisher cavalry is only the early rushing and it's snow-ball effect, or if the unit is OP in lategame as well
(23:48:37) elexis: because it is proposed to just increase the cost in age 1 and add a tech to reduce the cost in age 2
(23:52:25) luzbel: indeed the cavalry is clearly op although i havent played any 1v1
(23:53:58) elexis: is it OP in age 3 too?
(23:54:08) luzbel: one time we played no cav until age 3
(23:54:15) luzbel: and once we were all there
(23:54:18) luzbel: everyone started spaming
(23:54:26) elexis: that might just be being used to it
(23:54:32) luzbel: so as you can see
(23:55:02) luzbel: that game became a horse spaming madness
(23:55:20) elexis: but if you end up with cavalry-only in age 3, is it because of the snowballing effect or does it also occur if there were some minutes where not only cavalry units dominated the map?
(23:55:53) elexis: there are two ideas we need to sort out. one is delaying the cavalry production start, the other one is reducing cavalry stats
(23:56:44) elexis: or both
(23:57:13) luzbel: well
(23:57:38) luzbel: the cavalry limit on age1 seems good
(23:57:53) luzbel: but i think it wont end the problem
(23:57:54) elexis: delaying it would be equivalent
(23:58:01) elexis: yes, probably we need both
(23:58:06) elexis: accuracy reduction and delay
(23:58:14) elexis: and then it's underpowered :P
(23:58:53) luzbel: as i said before , that game we started with infantry only and although many of us didnt want to make cav once a player started to win due to cavalry spam , we all had to make them as well
(23:59:09) elexis: I see
(23:59:18) luzbel: so it also needs nerf
(23:59:44) elexis: yes, so it's not only a snowball effect but the unit has too good stats per cost
(23:59:58) luzbel: yea
(00:01:29) luzbel: so nowadays any cavgame we play even on 4v4   you are lucky if the games goes for more than 10 mins
(00:03:07) luzbel: or 8 mins more exactly
Freagarach retitled this revision from Increase cost and build time of cav until researching a new tech to [gameplay] - Increase cost and build time of cav until researching a new tech.Apr 9 2020, 5:25 PM
Freagarach added a reviewer: Restricted Owners Package.
Stan abandoned this revision.Apr 9 2020, 6:27 PM
Stan added subscribers: ValihrAnt, Stan.

According to @ValihrAnt "This patch is pre a23 and pretty much pointless now. Cavalry are in a much better position and don't need any nerfs. "