Changed special_war_horses technology:

• limited to Champion Cavalry Spearman
• increased health bonus to 25%, but added 10% training time (cf. Agoge)
• raised cost to

• rebased

@Nescio shouldn't this affect heroes somehow too? Same question for the worker elephant

Only Mauryas have worker elephants and elephant archers. They're unlikely to be added to other civilizations, therefore I think it's fine.
For elephant heroes what is importance is the hero, not the elephant. I preferred not to touch them here, there are already a few patches discussing hero auras and stats.

Well, I'm not particularly attached to the training time bit, it can be removed, but +30% health and +10% attack damage seems rather excessive.

Actually I prefer the previous version, keeping the modifications unchanged, but reducing the cost, to compensate for the fact it is limited to champions. (How about 600 food, 300 metal, 60 seconds? Food is much less a valuable in late game than metal.)

The upgrade_mace_silvershields.json technology costs 1000 metal and 40 seconds and results in having them +1 armour level and +10% health, which together is equivalent to a 22% health increase. I'd say the Spartan technology is better, even without this patch.

@Stan?

Sparta already has issues with its population limit

D2535

Seleucids have two groups of champs, one group dont have Champion spearman cavalry, so tech would be useless.

Good point! → D2858.

Better set human for everyone?

If that's what you want, fine, but it has to be set in the individual templates, for consistency, so the above still applies.

Another idea: make special_war_horses.json the cavalry equivalent of spartans_agoge.json, giving it similar stats, but affects only "Champion Cavalry Spearman".
Historically Nisean horses were highly prized and sought after, but reserved for the heaviest shock cavalry only (i.e. spearman champions in 0 A.D.).
The upgrade_mace_silvershields.json time increase looks fine. Maybe split this patch in two?

Actually I prefer the previous version. Also, the indentation of the city phase line is wrong.

• forgot adjusting hero attack time

There are still catapults no ?

Yes, but those don't inflect that much crush damage per second:

                    crush / time = per second
champion elephant : 150   / 1.5  = 100
battering ram     : 150   / 1.5  = 100
quinquereme       : 100   / 5    =  20
stone thrower     : 100   / 7    =  14.3
champion maceman  :  10.5 / 0.75 =  14
artillery tower   :  25   / 5    =   5

• keep champion elephant damage unchanged, per @Feldfeld
• significantly raise hero damage to twice the champion's

Speaking of crush damage, given that rams can no longer attack organic units (D2684/rP23753), there is no longer a need for units to have such a high crush armour as they have now (citizen 15, champion 20, hero 25). 5, 10, 15 (b, c, h) seems far more reasonable now, and would make elephants a lot more effective, though it's probably out of scope here, maybe something for a future patch.

I don't understand

The point of this patch is that currently melee heroes have typically double the damage of their champion counterparts. Elephants are the exception: champions inflict about 50% than champions, which seems wrong.

(in particular the values @borg- suggested)

Feel free to suggest different values.

• garrison regeneration rate and territory decay to 10

It should if it is intended as a solution for the scaling problem in D2845 (as the regenRate increase given by phasing affects all buildings). If it does and these technologies are balanced it could introduce more strategy for the capture mechanic

No, this patch changes different stats and is independent from D2845:

• "Capturable/RegenRate" (here) is the permanent (ungarrisoned) recovery rate of a structure.
• "Capturable/GarrisonRegenRate" (there) is the recovery rate per garrisoned unit.

Basically D2845, D2847, and this (D2854) are three independent patches that are only indirectly related. All three could be tried out, reviewed, and committed separately from each other. Each I consider an improment on its own, but they also work nicely together.

• damage to 120, per @borg-
• give elephants same walk speed as elephant archers (instead of 5% slower)

• lower values

Does it affect the regeneration rate of all buildings ?

No, not all structures, only centres, colonies, and crannogs are affected by these technologies:
"affects": ["CivilCentre"],

@wraitii (or another team member), are you willing to review this?

• redone from scratch

For an idea to have more (non-free) tech progression, see D2854.

But is compared to the situation when only attack speed would change.

Actually I would also support a damage increase, since currently spearmen are clearly weaker than swordsmen. Current total damage per second values for comparison:

                      b  ,   c  ,   h
cavalry axeman     : 9.2 , 18.4 , 36.8
cavalry spearman   : 5.5 , 11   , 22
cavalry swordsman  : 8.7 , 17.3 , 34.7
infantry axeman    : 8   , 16   , 32
infantry spearman  : 5.5 , 12.2 , 24.4
infantry swordsman : 7.3 , 14.7 , 29.3

It's noteworthy that the hero elephant has significantly less attack damage than its champion counterpart. (70 / 1 = 70 vs 170 / 1.5 = 113)

The idea is nice, the implementation is wrong.
template_unit_cavalry_melee.xml and template_unit_infantry_melee.xml set a first preference to Human, which is inherited by all their children, i.e. this patch removes the second preference (Siege), but keeps the first.
What I would recommend is:

• remove <PreferredClasses> from *_melee.xml;
• set <PreferredClasses> to Human or Organic in *_pikeman.xml and *_spearman.xml;
• set <PreferredClasses> to Unit or Unit+!Ship in *_axeman.xml and *_swordsman.xml;
• remove <PreferredClasses> from *_maceman.xml.

See also D1354.

Was this changed in a24? IIRC rotary mill is City Phase in a23

No, it wasn't, you're right, the rotary mill has a city phase requirement, my mistake.

Maybe update that technology too then (either here or in a separate patch), and also special_war_horses.json.

How about b 2.5, a 3.2, e 4, c 5, h 10 then? I like the b:c:h 1:2:4 ratio (same as melee damage).

A Briton house costs 75 wood + 30 seconds and grants 5 population, so effectively the Briton bonus of +2 population means saving 30 wood + 12 s for each economic or military structure.

• finish tooltip

Also, just to makes sure, does that give back the 5 population increase on docks for gauls ?

Yes.

Could this be done by tech?

Yes.

• move brit population bonuses from templates into a separate file

What about increase cost of brit stable to 300w? since can train dogs now.

No, that's beside the point. If D2801 is committed, Britons can train dogs at any stable, regardless which civ built it. Likewise, mace_fortress (which trains champions and heroes) is not more expensive than athen_fortress (which trains nothing).

What would be the bonus for brit?

Briton blacksmith, dock, farmstead, fortress, storehouse +2 population, barracks +4, market +5.

So brit buildings have more health and time build than gauls?

Yes.

Gauls get the building time discount, Britons keep the population bonus.

The Ancient Celts (Barry Cunliffe) page 165

Thanks! Also page 79:

By the fourth century the Celtiberians were using rotary querns and the potter’s wheel.

However, like the pottery wheel, a quern is a simple hand tool, not the large animal-driven rotary mill 0 A.D. has. Besides, Celtiberians are not exactly the same as Gauls, and it was clearly not a Celtic invention (? → Phoenicians → Carthaginians → Iberians → Celtiberians).

Perfect!!!

• Added pers barracks missing in previous revision update.
• Moved war dog from barracks to stable.
• Moved archery traditition to civic centre, since it affects all archers, not just infantry.

• svn propset

• Rebased and simplified patch by excluding file renames.

Any opinions on this, @Angen, @borg-, @Feldfeld, @ValihrAnt, @wraitii, anyone else?

• tweak Amun temple

• rome_temple_mars

@borg-, could you click “Add Action...” → “Close Revision”?

• Exclude cavalry technologies changes.

My only "fear" is how it affects basic units that go from 2 to 3. However it is something I still like, because it encourages and facilitates rush in early games.

If necessary, <Capturable/GarrisonRegenRate> and <TerritoryDecay/DecayRate> could be adjusted.

I’ll make some test.

Thanks, please do! Preferably both without and in combination with D2845.

If necessary we can also opt for slightly more conservative values like 2/3/4/5/10

If by conservative you mean lower values, I'd favour:

b 2
a 2.4 i.e. +20% = ×6/5
e 3   i.e. +25% = ×5/4
c 4   i.e. +33% = ×4/3
h 8

Units don't get increases in other stats (e.g. armour, attack damage, resource gather rates) automatically from phasing up, separate technologies are for that, so why should phases increase citizen health?

But isn't that the point of gameplay balancing ?

If A focuses on building houses and a large army, and B rushes to city phase to train champions, then when they fight, B has a small number of picked troops and A a large group of inferior units; the outcome depends on the exact numbers and the location; this seems perfectly fine to me.

I think tying the RegenRate to phasing up was just a convenient way to make it scale with the general progression of the game.

When it was introduced (rP17077), the total stayed the same and the increases were rather minor (4 + 1.5 + 2 = 7.5), which explains why it was no big deal then, but subsequently (rP18157) it was trebled (5 + 7 + 9 = 21), without any tweaks to soldier capture strengths.
As a consequence, each garrisoned unit counters:

• 2.5 citizens (or 1 champion) in village phase;
• 6 citizens (or 2.4 champions) in town phase;
• 10.5 citizens (or 5.2 champions) in city phase.

If phases would increase unit capture strength, then increasing structure proportionally is fair. But that is not the case, hence why these increases (of ×2.4 and ×1.75) severely favour players in the city phase at the expense of those in town and especially village phase.

How about lowering both <Capturable/GarrisonRegenRate> and <TerritoryDecay/DecayRate> to 10?

Or 12, if D2847 is committed first? Each garrisoned unit countering two champions is fair, I think.

Yes, but that in itself isn't a problem due how games are played.

Different players have different play styles. Not everyone is interested in competitive multiplayer. Many people are perfectly happy with single-player vs the Petra AI.
The point is that these phase stat increases strongly favour a particular play style, punishing players wanting to explore different strategies.

The primary benefit of phasing up is unlocking economic techs in current meta (it is also often motivated by territory increase in 1v1s).

If this is already more than enough reason to phase up, then why should phases change anything else at all?

For me it makes sense that regeneration rate scales through the game. As a game advances the attacker will be able to output more capture power while the defender will not be able to garrison much more units. The current values seem good now.

The problem with this is that it effectively means a severe penalty for everyone who's not advanced to the city phase. Suppose player A rushes to city phase and player B stays in village phase. Then if A attacks B, each garrisoned unit equals one champion; if B attacks A, each garrisoned unit equals ten citizen soldiers.

tweaked monumental architecture (@wraitii):

• cost changed to 600 stone
• available at town phase
• researchable at civic centre (cf. persian architecture)
• +20% capture points instead of −50% territory decay

Great, many thanks, this was quite necessary!
Perhaps you could also fix the line endings in all of the libraries/source/fcollada/** files?

Redid this patch from scratch, per @Angen:

• Use {native} tag in training lists of embassies, so if another civ captures them, they can train these units there.
• Use {civ} tag for mercenary build lists, to prevent them from building structures that the civ of their current owner doesn't have.

• The health reduction is necessary to prevent elite soldiers getting more health than their champion counterparts.
• The missing melee attack crush damage line was an oversight, fixing it here is certainly an improvement. Crush damage is used by axemen, clubmen, macemen, future additions, and mods. Other technologies that change attack damage also affect all damage types.
• As I wrote earlier, I'm indifferent to the gather speed changes; the proposed values are acceptable to me, but I had no problems with the current values either.

(The summary has to be updated to reflect the current changes.)

So footprint is used for selection in case of:

binaries/data/mods/public/simulation/templates/structures/brit_wonder.xml,
binaries/data/mods/public/simulation/templates/template_gaia_flora.xml,
binaries/data/mods/public/simulation/templates/template_structure_resource_field.xml

For the record, Uffington Horse and field because they're flat, flora because for small circular footprints, the <Outline> approximation looks poorer compared to the <Texture> (D1765#74375).

I think that whatever value we choose would not be good. If we choose a low value, then that would be good for the first age and bad for the third age, if we choose a high value, it would be bad in the first age and good in the third. It seems to me that the best way is still to maintain a growing value like the current one.

How about increasing capture attack strength? D2847.

It just seems to me that it is more "fair" to maintain a value, even if low.

Why?

I agree with you that high values of health (or other attributes) gain really generate a giant snowball in late game.

Due to how multiplication works, even small increases can contribute to the snowball effect, and not just in the late game.