walk speed increased by 1 for citizen soldiers and 1.5 for champion pikemen
Details
Details
the porpouse of this patch is to increase pikemen walk and run (for consistency) speed for 2 reasons:
- they gather wood slower than women whenever the dropsite is 6-7 meters away from the gather spot. Women let the player grow own economy much faster than training pikemen especially in desert maps where baobabs are distant between each other.
- they slow down military operations way too much. Their arrival time is almost double than othey melee units, thus hardly delpoyed in order to absorb damage as they are supposed to do or simply reach a damaged building / siege and prevent its destruction.
Pikemen Champions: while the difference between a citizen soldier infantry unit and the champion version of such a unit is of 3 movement points, this difference for pikemen is of 1 only. if pikemen are the slowest infantry units, in proportion champion pikemen are even slower because of this difference thus rarely used.
Diff Detail
Diff Detail
- Repository
- rP 0 A.D. Public Repository
- Lint
Automatic diff as part of commit; lint not applicable. - Unit
Automatic diff as part of commit; unit tests not applicable.
Event Timeline
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Build is green
Updating workspaces. Build (release)... Build (debug)... Running release tests... Running cxxtest tests (306 tests)..................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................OK! Running debug tests... Running cxxtest tests (306 tests)..................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................OK! Checking XML files...
http://jw:8080/job/phabricator/1548/ for more details.
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Ack for +1 of the citizen soldier, but is the champion one needed too? We have no Alpha 21 history of it
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(I am for defering that as many speed questions as I already said many times...)
(And a baobab map is not a decisive argument)
(And one can say why not change that number, but then every contributor could change numbers)
(If one say it's for balance purpose for a said civ? ptol sele? Then those civs have other way to do. And even if they hadn't, it could be a challenge to take them)
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balancing patches are, indeed, a way to keep the game interesting to play despite the future implementations and features. Simply tweaked numbers can change the way to think of a player by finding the best combination between doing economy related action or military action. Pikemen champions actually are supposed to be military oriented only units thus being able to defend buildings from sieges and from troops (same for attack) and have a better overall performance than citizen soldiers in military tasks. F.e. at current walk speed, a simple unit can body block a pikemen, in that way the pikemen won't never reach the target siege (is it ally or enemy) or place in time. With time, i mean to perform what are they designed to do. indeed if a player choose to train pikemen champ it is, the most of time, because he has ranged units(mechanical or organic) to defend which are the main source of damage output. In any case, any other unit will reach the destination much earlier than pikemen, slowing down by a lot the expedition and even let own territory with no defense (if they slowly reached the destination, they will even slowly return back to the source). Perhaps having pikemen champions proportionally slower than other units and their champions counterpart, let pikemen weak point even weaker.
If needed, i can provide a replay in which pikemen movement speed can compromise teamwork actions ( they couldn't reach a point fast enough to defend ally ranged units, the ally retreated and pikemen died to enemy champions because too slow to retreat).
Seleucids have have pikemen champions but they are really rarely trained. probably it is because their reputation precede them. :)
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Many people complain about pikemen nearly every day in the lobby.
Hence I tested them few weeks ago and I was surprised how useful they can actually be in a battle if backed up by other units.
They tank all the damage, even if they barely damage enemies.
However I do agree that the citizen soldier walk really slowly, are hence often destined to die before arriving anywhere.
+1 walk speed seems ok to me, it's the smallest noticeable buff.
Since I tried to optimize my lazines, I've authorized Grugnas to take care of this balancing.
A general overhaul of vision range and walk speed is welcome, but the idea of this diff is to address only this one unit which stands out.
Didn't test the champions yet, so I don't know if they need speed too.
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I also agree with citizens pikemans need a higher speed, I had already done it in my patch I had elaborated on speed of movement for infantry.
I have only doubts about the champions. I have a philosophy that the champion units must have the same velocity of citizens. I think 7/7 for both seems well appropriate.
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I share also that thought (even if not sure).
It shows that there is no need to urge. And all that needs to be consider in a consistent way and discussed with the other team members (artist, dev, leaders, ...).
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rP15713 (Alpha 17 balance branch) from 6.5 to 8
rP16285 (Alpha 18 balance branch) from 8 to 4
rP16341 corrected that before the alpha 18 release to 6
I'm ok with increasing the citizen pikemen walk speed to 7 since it is a harsh economy disadvantage for ptolemians and since it is really easy to just retreat when encountering enemy pikemen currently.
Notice they can still be outrun:
template_unit_infantry.xml: <WalkSpeed>9</WalkSpeed> template_unit_infantry_melee_spearman.xml: <WalkSpeed>8.5</WalkSpeed> template_unit_infantry_ranged_archer.xml: <WalkSpeed>8.0</WalkSpeed> template_unit_infantry_ranged_javelinist.xml: <WalkSpeed>13.5</WalkSpeed> template_unit_infantry_melee_swordsman.xml: <WalkSpeed>9.5</WalkSpeed> template_unit_infantry_ranged_slinger.xml: <WalkSpeed>11.0</WalkSpeed>
I was wondering whether we need to nerf their armor, since 10 is really a lot for a unit that doesn't cost metal. But then again they are slow and by themselves can't destroy buildings.
Still expecting weird balancing and the unit having design weaknesses.
Not convinced of having to increase the champion walk speed yet.