Should we speed up the early game?

[neener]

That would be a good start. I'm still a bit bored simply building warriors to be honest while watching my cashflow drop like a stone.

True. I haven't play-tested quite as much as I should because I keep getting bored of the early game. More units would definitely be a good start.

 

[Duke van Frost]

anybody tested with the new patch already?

The market should be available a little bit earlier with it.

And I also think that we need atleast one more early building and another early wonder would also be good IMO - as woodelf said it´s quite boring that the player is simply pumping out units.

 

[woodelf]

My bad, I haven't played the patch yet Duke.

 

[seZereth]

played it yesterday, with raging barbarians its quiete ok, but what about making the early techs cheaper, until the step where you can build axemen and spearman, and from that on make the techs more expansive, by that we can speed up the early game until a point where you can fight real battles and build interesting cities, cause you have a variety of units and improvements, but wont get into next age that soon. thats the best option in my eyes! and well, we do need either more barbs or more aggressive AIs...

 

[Ploeperpengel]

To go back to the original question.

I played a couple of early trial games and have this to say:

1) I recon we should get rid of level 1 technologies apart from fishing (stone working, hunting, ect...) as they make the game very slow

2) Shouldn't you get as many warriors as settlers?

3) warriors shouldn't get a bonus when defending cities. I lost 4 of my warriors attacking a single warrior in a hill city.

1)no, it's my intention to have an ancient era worth playing(that means a long era), but we certainly need to spice that one up further
2)I fixed that for the next upload
3)that's still vanilla. problem is if we take out that bonus civs will easily get destroyed by barbs. But I'm all ears for alternatives.(loosing that many warriors seems just bad luck though)

 

[Ploeperpengel]

how about an early ancient attack unit? Something that would kill warriors easily but struggle against archers. I'm thinking strenght 4, move 1, no bonuses.

Same thing. Civs shouldn't be extinguished that easy imo. I must say it's already hard enough to defend your cities in early game. Play raging barbs a couple of times and tell me afterwards if you still think cities fall to slowly.

 

[El Loco Mono]

Considering we're in the beta stage, maybe the early game is more bland than slow. Once we get unique attributes to each civ, giving unique early challanges, we can make it more of a game at the start. At the moment there is not much to differ civ's apart from stats and traits.

how about an early ancient attack unit? Something that would kill warriors easily but struggle against archers. I'm thinking strenght 4, move 1, no bonuses.

If your after Warrior killers, it might be better to go for an early axeman-like unit, same strength as a warrior but a +str vs melee. Still keeps archers as decent defensive until swordsman.

 

[Ploeperpengel]

I see your point about cities being hard to capture, buts its really annoying having 3 cities all building warriors who have nothing better to do that sit on their ass all day. At least remove the preresquite for workers then or add some very early building (move granary to agriculture?)

I usually only need 7 turns or less for stoneworks(workers) I really see no need accelerating this. But we definitly need some earl buildings as well. 1 for chronicles at least.

 

[El Loco Mono]

I agree with Olleus, every civ needs Stoneworks, so it really only delays workers by up to 7 turns. Plus workers usually take longer than 7 turns to build so this doesn't give the first civ to get this tech, much of a bonus. Also with there being only a few bottom level tech's, it is researched quite soon by any civ. So the effect is minimal.

If you want a flavour limit on workers, place a limit on workers: population size of city, and institute captured slaves from barbarian attacks - so you have to actively go out and get slaves (apart from maybe certain civs with certain traits allow the worker:city size limit to be less - but not slave capture)

Or maybe a life span for workers, so after x turns (or x amount of actions performed) they *die* and disband, forcing more to be built (certain civs could have longer life spans)

 

[Ploeperpengel]

I agree with Olleus, every civ needs Stoneworks, so it really only delays workers by up to 7 turns. Plus workers usually take longer than 7 turns to build so this doesn't give the first civ to get this tech, much of a bonus. Also with there being only a few bottom level tech's, it is researched quite soon by any civ. So the effect is minimal.

If you want a flavour limit on workers, place a limit on workers: population size of city, and institute captured slaves from barbarian attacks - so you have to actively go out and get slaves (apart from maybe certain civs with certain traits allow the worker:city size limit to be less - but not slave capture)

Or maybe a life span for workers, so after x turns (or x amount of actions performed) they *die* and disband, forcing more to be built (certain civs could have longer life spans)

Great ideas!
The slavery civic should enable a chance capturing slaves regardless of the unit attacked(except animals). I like the idea of Lifespans for slaves(maybe die after 10 buildactions).
I will consider removing the prerqs for workers.

@Olleus
yes the financial problem is known I wait for Duke about building design. Also we should consider this for the civics and maybe we can reduce costs of troops in the handicaps as well.

 

[Psychic_Llamas]

Here are a couple of ideas for very erly buildings:

idea for building for chronicals: the 'Communual hall', or 'City Square', where bards and gypsies and story tellers from all around gather to entertain the populace once a week. could give a small boost to culture and religeon spread, but become obsoleae with literature.

another idea could be a 'Trading Post' which could give +x gold for every couple of populations or something.(need better numbers) this could become obsoleate with currency or some earlyer economic tech. but dont give it a % increase in gold, because most cities have no gold income in the first place, and 15% of 0 gold is still 0. we need to make a building which give a solid number, even if it is only 1 gold. i think this building could solve a few economic disasters.