Makes sense to me.

It seems like there is wide agreement in the 2x multiplier and some people want more armor. Maybe the armor issue should be dealt with in another patch.

In D4506#196080, @real_tabasco_sauce wrote:

Hey everyone, this is my first time on here. I would eventually like to help write patches, but it will probably take me a while to get set up and stuff. It seemed there was some agreement on the spear cav buff being: +1 pierce armor, cav counter = 2.0. Apparently there is more time to make balance changes so thoughts on this making it into A26?

In D4604#195928, @marder wrote:

Just something that may be worth discussing: P1 market for the trader civs. That would possibly be something that is noticed more by the player.

Or maybe no P1 market, but just starting with a free one.

All of these bonuses seem fine by me, but none of them seem that different from one another and by making them technically different this revision seems to introduce unnecessary complexity into the game. But, again, I don't really care.

In D4537#195350, @marder wrote:

I think @ValihrAnt's acceptance is implied?
@wowgetoffyourcellphone any comments/opinion?
Any one else opinions?

Fine for me too

In D4554#194236, @ValihrAnt wrote:

I see absolutely no need for this. Getting woodcutting + farming + the usual blacksmith upgrades (Ranged attack + pierce armor) takes 3200 metal. Include will to fight and a hero and that's 5000. If you have access to 10000 more metal that only allows you to get 125 infantry champs or 100 cavalry champs. Champions are already very rarely used.

I suspect my ideal is an even bigger nerf, but this is definitely going to be a huge improvement

In D4516#194108, @ValihrAnt wrote:

@ValihrAnt would you prefer this or what is in svn now?

I prefer this as it leans more into their unique fire damage and actually differentiates them from the Briton chariots.

lowed the pierce to 25 (so -10)

in my test in atlas vs the briton chariot champion and the rome spearcav champion, they are now roughly equal.
Which means that they are overall still better as you can get them cheaper and they are able to damage buildings.

If they still trade evenly with the Briton chariots or their counter unit, I'd prefer to further reduce their pierce attack or attack speed. Imo they should be inferior in direct battles so they can't be mindlessly ran into the enemies base, destroy buildings and then fight off defending units.

Distance should be sufficient. I’m fine with this

In D4506#194035, @marder wrote:

as I said, I don't feel strongly about it, but wouldn't that rather be an argument to increase the counter to 2 ? (also because that would be a nice round number)

In D4234#193806, @Stan wrote:

@chrstgtr Is is it still something you agree with?

In D4249#193743, @marder wrote:

still would like to see this :)

In D4515#193680, @marder wrote:

Alright, so is there a consensus that mercs shouldn't rank?

It would be a bit sad since the art for the units is then unused, but I can remove it.
Should they then maybe start at rank 3? maybe be even more expensive?

Also: I think this should probably be handled in a different diff than, since it touches all mercs and not just the cav.

In D4515#192746, @ValihrAnt wrote:

Proposed by @chrstgtr
same cost as CS cav, but all metal

I'd prefer 90 metal cost as that is 1.5x their infantry counterpart cost just like for citizens. Combine that change with adjusting their requiredxp for promotion to 2.5x or 3x relative to their citizen counterparts. It should help retain the mercenary identity of a quick to get and strong unit, but they'll be slower to reach rank 3 than their citizen counterparts.

In D4512#192644, @marder wrote:

Ah ok, guess I misunderstood the ticket #5680
In that case: sure that would also be a possibility, but arguably a bigger change than just increasing the acceleration?

In D4510#192579, @marder wrote:

In D4510#192574, @chrstgtr wrote:

Anything that is effective against champions is going to be too strong against CS. But I always thought the last nerf was too much. This, though, feels like a little too much of a buff (it's pretty significant at 20%, which actually has compounding effects when killing off armies). I would change to 11 instead of 12.

Edit: we can always adjust upwards if necessary, but this is a pretty large jump that I am worried will make the game quite turtle-ly.

I'm fine with 11 if you prefer to stay on the more cautious side.
Just to give a bit more of my thought process (I hope I calculated them right):

basic archer attack: 6.7 + techs (15% +15% +20%) -> 10.6329 | Repeat time 1000ms
champion archer attack: 13.5 +techs (15% +15% +20%) -> 21.4245 | Repeat time 1000ms
tower ungarrisoned: 12 | Repeat time 2000 -> 6 per 1000ms
tower garrisoned with techs: 12 * 6 * 1.4 -> 100.8 | Repeat time 2000 -> 50.4 per 1000ms -> 50.4/5 -> 10.08 damage per garrisoned solider.

So a fully garrisoned and upgraded tower would make five times the damage of a fully upgraded archer, which makes sense as you have to garrison five people in there.
Champion archer would still have a better damage per unit ratio.

That's why I thought 12 would still be ok in comparison. Another option could be to let towers also benefit from the archery techs?

But as I said, if you prefer 11 I can adjust the patch.

Anything that is effective against champions is going to be too strong against CS. But I always thought the last nerf was too much. This, though, feels like a little too much of a buff (it's pretty significant at 20%, which actually has compounding effects when killing off armies). I would change to 11 instead of 12.

In D4474#192264, @marder wrote:

In D4474#192262, @chrstgtr wrote:

This could severely limits a player’s ability to research the berry tech for the initial berries (unless you have extra berries). That would take away from the boom/rush decision at the start of games. I would prefer a different approach or to create a separate berry building

One could also move the berry tech to the CC or to the houses. Since it's not strictly a "farming" technology that would be fine by me.
Or maybe even make houses dropsites for berries

In D4474#192255, @marder wrote:

update to gather the opinions on a different approach than last time.

Fields can be build anywhere (including neutral territory), but farmsteads must be at least 90 meter away from the CC.
To compensate for that, the farmsteads provide a 25% (value open for balancing) farming rate increase around them and they are also buildable in neutral territory.
So strong city/ weak countryside if you will.

Why 90 meter you may ask? Could be a bit less and is open for discussion, but see here:

note that this still allows you to place defensive structures:

Also see note how this makes it easy to get berries outside of your territory for the price of being unprotected:

In D4474#190892, @bb wrote:

Random comment: one can also think of making this "phase dependent". Since in reality in small town the fields are close to the cc, while in bigger cities they lie far from it. Doing so also makes up some nice strategies: Do I build farms first close to the cc and later move them? Or have a late phase up? Or start building them far away and quickly phase up? etc.

In D4474#190871, @wowgetoffyourcellphone wrote:

The "reduction of choice" argument carries no weight with me, as the very act of designing a game reduces choice. This is not a sandbox game. Even a sandbox game like Minecraft has "artificial" restrictions. And even if a change reduces choice, other changes can and do add choice elsewhere.

Things that restrict the player:

Phases specifically, but Technology requirements in general
Territories/borders
Unit rosters (where my LASER Troopers at?)
Game Speed (I would prefer to play at 2.333x speed, but the game doesn't allow me to do this)
Gathering Rates (why do we have to gather resources?)
Costs (I think things should be free)
Train/Build/Research time (why can't I choose to research instantly???)
Civs - Their very existence as a concept and the fact that there aren't 1000 to choose from

Why are you forcing these things down my throat?^ Why are you forcing me to play the game you want it to be played?

The answer is game design.

In D4474#190858, @marder wrote:

In D4474#190857, @chrstgtr wrote:

This can't be predicted. For one, maps are randomly generated and where you can place the farms may not be an option because they are too crowded. You can't say you don't know how it will turn out and then immediately say "but how it will turn out will be better" because you literally just admitted that you do not know what it will be.

I did some test before uploading the patch and 65 or 60 m are not that far as it may seem. Yous still can place fields on all nomad or island maps or even on a 4 player tiny empire map. That much space is/ should always be around the CC.
And I stand to what I said, I still think it will in most cases lead to a more strategic decision about where to place your farms. Also note that I did not say better, I said I don't believe it will turn out worse then it is at the moment.

I think there's a lot of faulty reasoning here, so I will take each in turn.

Not a fan of anything that eliminates player choice. Also worth noting that while some people dislike it, others do like it

Is ele/walrus included in fauna? If so this would impact luring. I think that’s a nice little wrinkle to normal gameplay (but not perfect). I wouldn’t be devastated if it disappeared, though

In D4380#187543, @chrstgtr wrote:

In D4380#187533, @wowgetoffyourcellphone wrote:

In DE, the animal limit is 30. Would that be more appropriate here as well? This is supposed to only supplement food, not be a primary source.

In D4380#187529, @chrstgtr wrote:

This won’t replace farming. If you try to do this early, you’ll be very slow. Even late, players have a limit on the number of animals that can have.

Exactly. It's a supplement. Going heavy on animals early takes a lot of investment in food that won't be returned for quite some time.

In D4380#187532, @chrstgtr wrote:

In D4380#187530, @wowgetoffyourcellphone wrote:

In DE, the animal limit is 30. Would that be more appropriate here as well? This is supposed to only supplement food, not be a primary source.

I wouldn’t mess with the number of animals allowed. It will have rippling effects into actual corralling/slaughtering, which should remain a viable standalone food source, as well as other other areas like lowering startup costs for this feature. If anything, I would adjust the trickle rate to equal an appropriate amount of farming units that it can “replace,” but I don’t think anyone has shown that the current values are inappropriate (but again, I like the idea of making sheep higher ROI with a lower trickle rate).

Higher ROI for sheep--you mean greater max food, but lower trickle, compared to a goat or pig? :) I don't mind differentiating the animals more, but I think we could possibly keep that for another diff? I also have fattening in DE, which adds a whole other dimension we can discuss in that "other" diff.

ROI I mean the return on investment. So how quick the trickle is compared to the cost investment. Higher total return would be a lower trickle compared to cost, but more ability to replace units. But I agree, this is a different differential as it would require a change to the cost of the cow itself.

@LetswaveaBook total return is also important to the extent you want to require “normal” food production. Limiting the number of animals is important for that. Also, lag becomes a big concern with unlimited animals.

The ROI and limits of this have to be rooted against the Wonder as this will effectively “replace” units, so balance needs to be kept there. obviously, pop benefit of the wonder is also subject to revision, but that is beyond the scope here.

In D4342#187615, @wowgetoffyourcellphone wrote:

In D4342#187609, @ValihrAnt wrote:

I'd like, if possible, to only have fields that are placed right next to a farmstead to be autobuilt. Adds an extra macro element in deciding whether the saved build time is worth the farmers being more exposed to danger.

I like this a lot, but not sure if the game supports something like this yet. In DE, I'd give the autobuilding to those Fields laid on farmland terrain.

In D4342#187609, @ValihrAnt wrote:

I'd like, if possible, to only have fields that are placed right next to a farmstead to be autobuilt. Adds an extra macro element in deciding whether the saved build time is worth the farmers being more exposed to danger.

In D4342#187593, @Freagarach wrote:

But then we should disallow other units to build the farms, right?

In D4380#187533, @wowgetoffyourcellphone wrote:

In DE, the animal limit is 30. Would that be more appropriate here as well? This is supposed to only supplement food, not be a primary source.

In D4380#187529, @chrstgtr wrote:

This won’t replace farming. If you try to do this early, you’ll be very slow. Even late, players have a limit on the number of animals that can have.

Exactly. It's a supplement. Going heavy on animals early takes a lot of investment in food that won't be returned for quite some time.

In D4380#187532, @chrstgtr wrote:

In D4380#187530, @wowgetoffyourcellphone wrote:

In DE, the animal limit is 30. Would that be more appropriate here as well? This is supposed to only supplement food, not be a primary source.

I wouldn’t mess with the number of animals allowed. It will have rippling effects into actual corralling/slaughtering, which should remain a viable standalone food source, as well as other other areas like lowering startup costs for this feature. If anything, I would adjust the trickle rate to equal an appropriate amount of farming units that it can “replace,” but I don’t think anyone has shown that the current values are inappropriate (but again, I like the idea of making sheep higher ROI with a lower trickle rate).

Higher ROI for sheep--you mean greater max food, but lower trickle, compared to a goat or pig? :) I don't mind differentiating the animals more, but I think we could possibly keep that for another diff? I also have fattening in DE, which adds a whole other dimension we can discuss in that "other" diff.

In D4380#187530, @wowgetoffyourcellphone wrote:

In DE, the animal limit is 30. Would that be more appropriate here as well? This is supposed to only supplement food, not be a primary source.

In D4380#187503, @LetswaveaBook wrote:

In D4380#186959, @chrstgtr wrote:

In D4380#186957, @Freagarach wrote:

In D4380#186956, @chrstgtr wrote:

This will change the game a lot...It nearly eliminates the need to farm with up to 50 food per second. This is equal to about 29 women farmers with all techs.

xD That is why I am not a balancer. ^^'

It's a nice idea, it's ROI is just too high. You're able to gain about 1.5 wonder's worth of pop benefit (29) for like a little less than the cost of a wonder + tech (8500 for wonder + tech vs. 8000 for 50 cattle and 5 corrals).

I disagree with the wonder values, I think the cost of a wonder is 3500 + 1000 seconds "build time" and the tech is 6000. The wonder gives +20% population which is for 200 popluation more than the pop benefit of the garrisoned corrals. The more builders you add, the less efficient the process is, so those 1000 seconds "build time" also needs to be translated into cost. To get the +40 pop, you also need 4 big houses costing 600 wood and 200 seconds build time. That puts the total at 10100 resources and 1200 seconds "build time". A plus for the wonder is that it can heal units fast and comes with a resource tickle. The wonder and the technologies cost metal and stone, wheres the corrals and cattle only cost wood and food. Food is in TGs mostly dumped for a cheap price at the market.

Furthermore it is fairly easy to build a little square of stone walls in your base and place your corrals safely there, which means that unlike farmers it can't be raided easily. You can't build half a wonder, whereas building only 20 units of cattle is possible. If you need quick food, then you would be able to ungarrison the cattle and quickly let your cavalry turn them into food, which is an option wonders don't provide.

How about booming with cows, in p1 5 women need about 160 seconds for the following tasks: collect wood for a small house and field, build the house and the field and gather 250 food. So after about 150 seconds the farmers in p1 break even. If we want the regular farming boom to win out, I think for a corral garrisoned cattle it should take 2 to 4 times as long to pay it investment back.

I think if we compare the cost of wonders vs. garrisoned corrals, 50 cows should probably be equivalent to around 15 farmers(with p3 techs, equivalent to 26 unupgraded farmers). So 1 cow is 0.3 p3 farmers, or around 0.27 food per second, giving a return on investment time of about 550=3.5*160 (ignoring the cost of building a corral).

Another option for balance would be diversifying cattle stats a little. Maybe cows aren't supposed to give the best ROI, but maybe we can let sheep offer better ROI. In that case sheep would have the better ROI, but cows offer the higher limit of total production.

Lastly, it is not entirely clear to me what the suggested numbers are. In the current patch, all types of cattle gives 1 food per second when garrisoned, doesn't it?

@Micfild , currently cattle is limited to 50. So it is not entirely pop free.

In D4380#187495, @Micfild wrote:

Hi everyone! First of all i would like to express my appreciation for this diff and what it proposes. I always thought the corral was a fun mechanic of 0AD, but unfortunaly it was too difficult to manage (IMO) for it to be used more often. I do belive the proposed changes will increase the usage rate of the corral and bring more variety to gameplay.

That being said, i do believe there is one thing that needs to be addressed before this change goes live. I also have some suggestions for the direction that this feature can go, but i'll post those on the forum, given that they are quite extensive and i don't know if this is the correct place to discuss them.

So, my main concern about this change is in regards to population. Currently, be it farms or the corral, you need some population investiment in collectors for the food to be collected. With this new change, since animals don't occupy pop space, corrals, can outright replace farms in the late game and open up pop space for more military units. Since a military/economic balance is one of the pillars of RTSs, i don't believe it is healthy for the game to allow for an, essentialy, "pop free" source of food income.

So, to mitigate this problem i can think of 3 possible solutions:

1 - give domestic animals pop value. (this stretches a bit the meaning of "pop", but it is one possible solution. It's also very flexible and controllable by the player)

2 - give corrals pop value (this is a possible solution, but one that i particularly don't like, since it's less flexible and it goes against the current design of "buildings don't cost pop")

3 - garrison humans instead of animals in the corral (it's the most coherent change, in regards to the current game design, but it is also the more bland one, since the corral basically becomes a more protected farm)

I personally lean towards the first one, but all three are valid.

I've also read above some discussions about limiting the number of animals each player has (in a way similiar to wardogs or by only allowing animals to be captured in the wild, not produced). This is also a solution to the problem, since we can use it to limit the total amount of food a player can gain from corrals, forcing them to have some farming to compensate.

In D4384#187083, @wowgetoffyourcellphone wrote:

Is it supposed to be a % improvement for each captured horse? Or is this a one time benefit? The former sounds like more fun, but like it could lead to balance issues at the extremes.

In D4381#187040, @wowgetoffyourcellphone wrote:

Hmm, no other civs get pyramids. Kushites have economic penalties in some way and need to have the eco-pyramids?

In D4380#187037, @wowgetoffyourcellphone wrote:

In D4380#187035, @chrstgtr wrote:

Anyways, this proposal (at least for now) seems to have widespread support.

So, let's perhaps double the trickle <Interval> to address your initial balance concerns and then encourage others to test it out?

In D4381#187036, @wowgetoffyourcellphone wrote:

Hmm, I think an alternate way of looking at this is the opposite: That this could potentially open up additional build orders for the Kushite player if certain standard phase-specific buildings weren't necessary for phasing up. So, forge, market, and 3 defense towers aren't necessary anymore for phasing. Maybe the player wants to skip the forge and market and do something else? Hard to predict what new strategies players would come up with.

In D4380#187034, @marder wrote:

In D4381#187028, @wowgetoffyourcellphone wrote:

In D4381#187027, @marder wrote:

And yes they are useful, but atm I see nothing that would incentive them being built anywhere other than in the center of your territory.

Maybe not, but you'd want to leave room for (ugh) farms around the CC.

I think I could remove the neutral territory thing and just give them a big territory radius, so the player can use them on the periphery to push territory outward. Maybe even retool the Necropolis aura for something else (maybe the more Pyramids you build, the stronger they become) and remove the CC territory bonus it gives. The Pyramids would be thee way the Kushite player expands the home territory.

In D4381#187024, @wowgetoffyourcellphone wrote:

Consider too though, the phase research with this patch is instantaneous (and free) once the 2 pyramids are built, so there is not the extended downtime in the CC researching the phase tech as for other civs. While the pyramids are being built, the CC can be pumping out units for gathering, defense, or constructing the forge and market you mentioned. There is a balance to be sussed out in cost though, so the cost and build time of the pyramids are def open for adjustments.

In D4380#187030, @wowgetoffyourcellphone wrote:

Ideally, in my head, this feature would be more integral if there was animal capturing, as done in AOE, instead of training them from the Corral directly (or allow training them from the corral too, on a limited basis). If you go scout and capture sheep and cattle, you can bring them back home and then make the choice to slaughter them for a burst of food or to garrison them into the Corral for a trickle of food, like a Relic from AOE2. Makes scouting more interesting and provides a choice of what to do with them once you bring them home. Training a limited number of sheep and cattle could be unlocked after researching Husbandry, but the main source of animals, at least initially, would come from scouting. Ultimately, that's how I see this going in my head, but we don't have AOE-style animal conversion/capturing (yet?).

In D4380#187026, @marder wrote:

In D4380#186964, @chrstgtr wrote:

Also, it could lead to ever more micro-intensive corralling where livestock is only taken out of stables when it is needed. I like the idea of rewarding, such hard play, although it sounds like a pain.

I really think it would be bad to reward such super intensive micro. As you said, that just sounds like pain.

Am I reading this right? To got to city phase players will now HAVE TO build 2 pyramids? As in the old requirements (build 3 p2 buildings, spend metal/stone, and research p3) will no longer be an available method to go p3? If so, that's not necessarily bad, but I would almost never build large pyramids in p2 (or p3 for that matter) because they are such a defensive structure and how you need some p2 buildings (notably the blacksmith and maybe market) if you want to be successful in p3. It could lead to some interesting strats, but I suspect that it will make the cost of going p3 actually be higher than just the cost of the 2 large pyramids since players usually make the necessary p2 buildings as part of their required structures.

In D4380#186963, @wowgetoffyourcellphone wrote:

In D4380#186960, @chrstgtr wrote:

In D4380#186958, @wowgetoffyourcellphone wrote:

In D4380#186956, @chrstgtr wrote:

In D4380#186947, @Freagarach wrote:

I like this a lot, and I don't see it changing the game hugely, so I'll wait a few days and then commit unless objected.

This will change the game a lot...It nearly eliminates the need to farm with up to 50 food per second. This is equal to about 29 women farmers with all techs.

Test plan 1-7 work well?

It's facially imbalanced. Look at the math.

Test Plan item 9 is for determining the balance. The original patch was for introducing the feature.

In D4380#186962, @wowgetoffyourcellphone wrote:

1 food/8 seconds for Sheep, Goats, and Pigs and 1 food/4 seconds for Cattle, plus Garrison Max=5, could be closer.

In D4380#186958, @wowgetoffyourcellphone wrote:

In D4380#186956, @chrstgtr wrote:

In D4380#186947, @Freagarach wrote:

I like this a lot, and I don't see it changing the game hugely, so I'll wait a few days and then commit unless objected.

This will change the game a lot...It nearly eliminates the need to farm with up to 50 food per second. This is equal to about 29 women farmers with all techs.

Test plan 1-7 work well?

In D4380#186957, @Freagarach wrote:

In D4380#186956, @chrstgtr wrote:

This will change the game a lot...It nearly eliminates the need to farm with up to 50 food per second. This is equal to about 29 women farmers with all techs.

xD That is why I am not a balancer. ^^'

In D4380#186947, @Freagarach wrote:

I like this a lot, and I don't see it changing the game hugely, so I'll wait a few days and then commit unless objected.

I don't have a strong opinion, but there is reason to treat ele and siege differently. A mass of bolt shooters can quickly kill armies and one of the only ways to kill such a mass is to use ele/rams to kill bolts. If bolts can just quickly garrison then valuable siege can hide for long enough until all ele/rams are killed. In effect, this would make siege factories very cheap ways to hide a lot of siege from attacks (as opposed to forts, which are relatively expensive ways to do the same thing). Additionally, unlike siege, ele cannot garrison into forts. So in effect this gives siege two quick hiding spots while ele only have one.

I’ve voiced my disagreements on Ptol being “OP,” but these nerfs seem reasonable enough

Also, that is very difficult to see on your settings. On lower settings (which are the norm on multiplayer games), it will probably be impossible to see

That's the point of it being camouflaged :D the idea is that it is hidden when it is build inside a forest, but semi obvious to spot when build out in the open. I can upload another video/image to maybe show better how good/ bad it is to spot. But the art is more of a placeholder. One could e.g. also add some small palisades to make it more obvious when out in the open.

Does it do anything besides allow the ambushed to hide units?

Thumbs up from me.

This seems pretty different from a proximity damage (aka trampling). It’s basically just palasaides that deal dmg. I’m not crazy about turtling in general but I guess it’s fine if the stats (cost, build time, and dmg) are right. Otherwise this could really slow things down and limit Cavs’ ability to move around.

In D4273#182490, @wowgetoffyourcellphone wrote:

Perhaps look at the availability of technologies as a bonus. So, for instance, for Britons they could get all of the wood upgrades sooner (bonus name: "Managed Forestry" or something). For Ptolemies, all of the food upgrades sooner (bonus name: "Nile Delta"). Things like this.

This makes sense to me and I think expands on one of the “unique” civ aspects in the game.

In D4273#182025, @borg- wrote:

In D4273#181983, @ValihrAnt wrote:

Britons/gauls must be a rush civ, so there may be a bonus for that, like, brit can build fortress and barracks on neutral territory for example.

For a rush civ, an early economy bonus is the most important thing. I don't see any value that being able to build a barrack in neutral gives early on. It's why the Mauryas and Ptolemies like to play extended early aggression much more than other civs.

Economy bonus not only affects the early game but the late game, which is not the intention in a good rush civilization and weak late game.
I really don't find it fun for all civilizations to have basically the same economic bonuses. Macedonia may have bonus expansion/capture rate, roman siege units, brit/gaul in rush, athenas could create a new slave for each house built.

Are more creative bonuses that help to highlight the characteristics of each civilization.

Is there a reason why we are applying this to Gauls instead of Brits? I only ask because Gauls already has some nice bonuses while Brits doesn’t.

I think this will actually be a pretty strong boost. It will let players not build as many storehouses and maintain efficiency. This will save several hundred wood in the eco ramp up stage, and then save an additional several hundred to a thousand or so in the late game. Since this will also apply to all units, this will save several seconds of shuffling time off res collection early, and then much more late game.

In D4233#179928, @ValihrAnt wrote:

I would make the fields free. That by itself wasn’t super OP when ptol had it (it was the free storehouses and farmhouses that were the main eco benefit).

Maybe it's something from before my time but in a23 the Ptol farms were completely normal cost.

To avoid debate on this, which erroneously presupposes a zero-sum game, I think it would just make more sense to have some sort of game filter option that applies to all maps and allows for (1) random balancing, (2) team res balancing, and (3) player res balancing. In other words, I don't see why we can't just add option instead of replacing old options that people are already happy with.

In D4232#179922, @Feldfeld wrote:

Keep in mind that I give a big importance in 1v1 games, which also applies to the argument you responded to.

We just aren’t going to agree here. In my opinion this just forces a particular type of game that is available (but not forced) when res are balanced by team instead of by player

In D4233#179897, @borg- wrote:

In D4233#179884, @chrstgtr wrote:

I would make the fields free. That by itself wasn’t super OP when ptol had it (it was the free storehouses and farmhouses that were the main eco benefit). Otherwise this is really just a benefit of being able to save a couple hundred wood and being able to build your first farm a couple seconds earlier.

Otherwise, I like the idea.

It wasn't so op because the build time balanced out the zero cost, and yet Ptolemy was the best civilization in the game. Kushites already has a good economic bonus with the pyramids and militarily it is perhaps the most complete civilization. My fear is not to make civilization a new ptolemy of a23.
As I said on the forum, the main source of kushite economy was husbandry, and we don't have any bonus like this, so I would give a bonus to the corrals/animals, or I would increase the hunting power of the kushite horses.

I like.

I would make the fields free. That by itself wasn’t super OP when ptol had it (it was the free storehouses and farmhouses that were the main eco benefit). Otherwise this is really just a benefit of being able to save a couple hundred wood and being able to build your first farm a couple seconds earlier.

I get what you’re saying. I just disagree. If you have more berries, then a rush of any type is more likely. If you have more hunt then a rush of any type is more likely. If I know how much food someone has then I know about how quick they can be, so I know when a pure boom p3 attack will come. This makes information much more uniform, which decreases the incentive to scout and makes the game much more predictable. I think those are both clearly bad changes that take excitement out of the game.

In D4232#179849, @Feldfeld wrote:

In D4232#179836, @Freagarach wrote:

It would make it easier for potential reviewers to take a look at your patch if you would provide context. :)
(And set the repository to 0 A.D. when uploading.)

If it is what you mean, the context is that the multiplayer community is interested in the balance of the game, and map balancing is an important part of it. Since mainland is the most standard map played online, it is the first map getting changed in this patch.
The biggest cause of imbalance in multiplayer games is the availability of additionnal food near the player base. Because this food is faster to gather than say fields, and because it can facilitate strategies such as cavalry rushing, you can see there is an interest of having each player get a similar amount of food around his base.

I was asked by @Palaiologos about this and realized that we forgot to implement this popular patch. I still support it.

Too late for a25, but it probably makes sense to expand this to merc buildings, such as embassies, too.

In D4154#177502, @wraitii wrote:

In D4154#177501, @chrstgtr wrote:

Edit: what would the balancing fix be? Make melee units faster? That seems like it might have unintended consequences against inf.

Well, that and/or making archers slower.
The ultimate fix would be to allow units to attack while moving, obviously, but that's still some ways off.

For balancing reasons, I prefer the left version, which I understand is the current SVN setup. Right looks like it will be a big nerf to melee cav in cav fights and allow units like archer cav to too easily escape.

In D4148#177108, @wraitii wrote:

In D4148#177096, @chrstgtr wrote:

Personally, I like the randomness. [...] Based on the couple of gens you posted, I don't know if diverse strategies will necessarily be eliminated but it's something to consider when we start talking about being "fairer" and spacing things farther apart.

I agree, and I don't think this changes the randomness factor too much. In fact, it's why I added 'wildcard' mines that can be placed much nearer to other mines, to occasionally create some really good dropsites zones.

Also, it's hard to tell from this small number of gens, but it looks like there will now be at least 4 metal mines per every player. If so, that seems high to me.

Yeah, on looking back, I agree I overdid it :p.
The current mapgen is one large mine per player (starting mine) + A number between 4 & 16 depending on mapsize. A 'normal' map would get 8. The problem is that this scales poorly: in 1v1 on Small, you can expect 40K total metal. In 4v4 on Medium, you can expect 90K, so you go from 20K per player to a little over 11K.

These new settings will still give you 40K on a 1v1 Small, but instead of there being an additional 6 5K mines, there are 3 5K mines and about 6-7 mines of 2/3K metal. This lowers the chances of having not access to any metal beyond your starting base, though it might still not be a complete panacea.
On 4v4 Medium however, this bumps the metal to 140K, which is slightly less than you'd get on 1v1 but a lot more than on SVN. The mines are mostly 5K mines, so that you won't find metal everywhere either and there might be some good dropsite spots.

I've also made a quick change that Metal mines get generated before Stone mines. This should make the distribution slightly fairer, and should it be impossible to place some mines, the metal mines are likely to be placed and you might be missing stone, which seems less damaging on gameplay.

Personally, I like the randomness. It creates more diverse strategies (i.e., I see I have a lot of metal on this map, so I will go champs/mercs or I see there are three mines located in one spot, so I am going to invest in an early CC to get the good spot). The problem is that too often some players are blessed with massive amounts of extra resources while other other players have no extra mines. This creates the situation where map position becomes outcome determinative. Based on the couple of gens you posted, I don't know if diverse strategies will necessarily be eliminated but it's something to consider when we start talking about being "fairer" and spacing things farther apart.

In D4080#175533, @wraitii wrote:

How about:

• Add 100S/100M to the cost
• Make it possible to build siege rams there.

In D4080#175120, @ValihrAnt wrote:

Should also try to avoid a situation where the military colony is just a superior siege workshop. In general, I don't mind either solution.

In D4080#175082, @ValihrAnt wrote:

I'd rather just have the siege come back and not change anything else

I personally never liked that Rome had its siege taken away from the camps--it was a really unique civ differentiator and I never found Roman camps OP. Nowadays almost no one builds Roman camps, which indicates that the current setup is under-powered. As I said in the forum, since Roman camps can't produce siege in a24 they're only useful if they can shoot arrows at enemy units. That means that camps are only useful if they are placed in an area that will be the center of fighting. Except it is difficult to place buildings somewhere there is constant fighting since your builders will get killed in the fight and the defending player can more quickly spam to a location in their own territory. And, next alpha camps won't be nearly as good as that because D3668 reduces the damage of arrows from Roman camps by more than half.

In D3704#174887, @wraitii wrote:

In D3704#174883, @chrstgtr wrote:

Wait, why was there the increase in wood for the farm techs?

I made it consistent with other techs: it goes 100/200/300|200/400/600 for everything but food. I can change it back.

Wait, why was there the increase in wood for the farm techs? Also, I just realized we will also need to change the p1 resources too--these only change the p2 and p3 values.

In D3704#174729, @wraitii wrote:

In D3704#174724, @chrstgtr wrote:

Should we switch the metal component to stone for the stone mining techs? And/or, switch the metal component for food for the farming techs? This would make more sense from a give up some now to get some later perspective.

How about:

• food/wood techs cost metal + wood (better equipment but it's "light" equipment)
• stone/metal techs cost stone + food (more slaves, deeper mine shafts (= stone))

This would make stone more worthwhile & reduce the load on metal.

Looping back around to this. Are we letting this ticket go unimplemented?

In D3686#174663, @Stan wrote:

It has to be a village phase because of nomad ?

Taking res away from the isthmus will take away a lot of the incentive to build in the center. The center will essentially become nothing but a bottleneck fight zone. This has its pros and cons and I don't have a strong opinion either way. I just want to flag it because it will change the map meta a bit.

In D4051#174209, @wraitii wrote:

This might make elephants a little underpowered, maybe? Wouldn't archers in particular become quite OP against elephants?

This should only really impact rushes. Making skirms (i.e., jav cav) quicker will encourage rushes, which are still a bit difficult with the rotation times being slower than a23 (although faster/easier than now). It will also make players less likely to lose units to enemy archers when passing from afar. 

In D4051#174090, @borg- wrote:

I think it's unrealistic, but following the idea of the patch, isn't it more interesting to just lower the elephant's pierce shield?

I prefer to make ele vulnerable to pierce instead of melee. That way melee counters rams and range counters ele. This would require players to have diverse units in order to properly fend off varied attacks (i.e., having ele and rams be vulnerable to different types of attacks discourages single unit spam or else the archer spammer could see one ram kill an entire base because the archer spammer didn't build any melee). It would also help solve the meat shield problem with ele because it is very difficult to micro range units off of attacking ele (but perhaps this could be solved by making not automatically target ele when ele are the closest and instead treat ele like cata and bolts).

I think this is a good change.