Later today, Wildfire Games will be performing an upgrade to it's forum software. The upgrade will start around 7pm GMT. During this time, the forum will be unavailable. The wiki, Trac, and all of our other applications will still be running normally. We expect for the upgrade to take only a few hours. If you spot any issues after the upgrade, feel free to stop on by and file a ticket.
Wildfire Games, an international group of volunteer game developers, proudly announces the release of "0 A.D. Alpha 9 Ides of March", the ninth alpha version of 0 A.D., a free, open-source game of ancient warfare. This alpha debuts the Roman faction, new combat and trade systems and more.
Easy Download and Install Download and installation instructions are available for Windows, Linux and Mac OS X. 0 A.D. is free of charge and always will be. You can redistribute it and modify it as long as you abide by the GPL. You can even use parts of the art and sound for your own projects as long as you abide by CC-BY-SA. No "freemium" model, no in-game advertising, no catch.
Top new features in this release:
The Roman Republic faction, playable on custom scenarios and random map scripts--in single player and multiplayer, complete with a new art set, including new buildings, units, and ships.
A new combat system that adds bonuses and weaknesses to each unit, like rock-paper-scissors (e.g. spearmen defeat melee cavalry, but are countered by skirmishers and cavalry archers).
A brand new trading system, over land with traders trained from markets, and over sea with merchant ships built at the dock. Establish a trade route between two markets or docks, and your traders will gain resources for every trip made. You can choose which resource will be gained by a trader.
Over a dozen new random map scripts by Spahbod, wraitii, and mmayfield45.
New animations: Rowing oars for ships, rams, some catapults, traders, some animals.
AI improvements: 0 A.D.'s default AI, qBot, has had a performance increase and had a serious bug fixed with the attack code.
All works CC BY SA Wildfire Games.
Music and Sound: Four new tracks and one re-made track, all composed and directed by Omri Lahav, featuring Marta Mc'cave on the flute and Shir-Ran Yinon on the viola. Two of the tracks celebrate the Roman faction with a very Italian mandolin.
An Old Warhorse Goes to Pasture - An Iberian early peace track
Juno Protect You - A Roman early peace track
Elysian Fields - A Roman peace track
Highland Mist - A Celtic early peace track
The Road Ahead - A remade, neutral (not faction-specific) peace track
Bug fixes and minor features:
Outposts available for all factions. These are cheap and can be built quickly anywhere on the map except on enemy territory, but are weak and easily destroyed.
Minimap colors have been adjusted to see player units more clearly
Hunters now automatically continue hunting after they finish gathering from one animal
Military-only bandboxing (Thanks, gerbilOFdoom)
Improved Atlas selection behavior
Garrisoning now has a range check (no more teleporting)
Allies are now placed near each other in random maps
Fixed OS X fullscreen mode (Thanks, Echelon9)
Improved FreeBSD support
Improved COLLADA importer
Replaced most old 3D models with COLLADA versions
Experimental Android/GLES/GLSL support. To be sure, 0 A.D. is not designed to run on smartphones.
Please contribute! (REPORTERS/BLOGGERS, PLEASE MENTION THIS! We need your help to finish the game. Thanks.) We are seeking contributors in programming, art, sound, web design, taking YouTube videos and more. These roles on the 0 A.D. development team are great if you want to brush up on your skills and update your portfolio, if you're seeking a project for school with real-life applications, or if you care about the cause of free culture and software and are willing to work pro bono with a group of dedicated volunteers from all over the world.
Who were the Romans? The Romans controlled the largest empire of the ancient world. Rising from a group of villages to controlling an empire stretching from southern Scotland to the Sahara Desert, Rome remained one of the strongest nations on earth for almost 800 years, controlling over 60 million inhabitants, one quarter of the Earth's population at that time.
Rome's regime changed over time from a republican system to an autocratic empire. While the politicians seemed to be in control, the real power lay with the army. Indeed, war was the heart and soul of the Roman political system, affecting everything that the government did. In fact, Romans reveled in combat and war so much so that one of their favorite forms of entertainment was gladiatorial combat. This resulted in a population that was eager to fight and support their military efforts.
Rome produced not only effective generals but formidable engineers. Today we owe many technological advances to the Romans, who were the supreme builders of the ancient world. Roads, massive buildings, and large mining and water movement projects were common. These inventions and more served to spread the Roman legacy that endures to this day, from language to medicine, from literature to government, and from legal codes to art, architecture and beyond.
The timeframe of 0 A.D., 500 B.C. - 1 B.C., coincides with Rome's rise to power from a small city-state to one of the greatest empires on earth. In following centuries, however, this massive empire soon became too large to control, and foreign peoples began swarming into the Empire. For centuries, Rome fought an ever-increasing flood of migrant "barbarians", until the western half of the empire fell in 476 A.D. The eastern half, however, lived on and evolved into a very different empire, called Byzantium. The Byzantines' religion was Christian, their language was Greek and their capital was in Constantinople, which is modern-day Istanbul. Rome's eastern successor, Byzantium, continued to be a powerhouse well into the middle ages.
In 0 A.D. the Romans will have many bonuses that match their historic strengths. These include:
Powerful infantry,
Incredible siege equipment,
Superior defensive construction and mining,
And an excellent navy.
While the Romans may not specialize extremely well in specific areas, they are one of the most well-rounded civilizations in 0 A.D.
Why "Ides of March"? We name our releases according to development status ("Alpha" or "Beta"), successive release number (1, 2, 3, ...) and a word relating to the ancient world, in alphabetical order ("Argonaut" for A, "Bellerophon" for B, ...). In honor of the release of the Roman faction, we decided to dub Alpha 9 "Ides of March".
The ides was a day in the Roman calendar that marked the approximate middle of the month, deriving from the Latin word "Idus" which means "half division". The ides was the 13th day of most months, but the 15th day of March, May, July, and October. The Ides of March was a festive day dedicated to the god Mars, and a military parade was usually held. In modern times, the term Ides of March is best known as the date on which Julius Caesar was killed in 44 B.C. (Sources: English Wikipedia articles Roman calendar and Ides of March)
For the next alpha, we welcome fan suggestions for words relating to the ancient world beginning with the letter J. Keep it original and within the 0 A.D. time-frame (appx. 500 BC - 1 BC)!
Long Time, No Siege Wildfire Games will keep releasing new versions of 0 A.D. from time to time. Watch our news feed to get updates, or follow us by e-mail, RSS, Facebook or Twitter. And you're always welcome to join the 0 A.D. community on our forums.
Contact info for press, bloggers, etc.: aviv@wildfireROMULUSgames.com without the name of Rome's legendary founder written in all caps.
Member and OS Contributor of the Month November 2011
It's time for the third part in the series where we take a closer look at some of the people working on creating 0 A.D. This time the honor goes to two people who have distinguished themselves by doing great work, in part in November, but as with the first month it's just as much their overall contribution that we want to highlight. The Member of the Month is Omri Lahav (OmriLahav at the forums), who has been and continues to be, composing the stellar music that will make the game so much more enjoyable. OS Contributor of the Month is Rico Tzschichholz (ricotz in the IRC channels), who is maintaining the 0 A.D. PPAs for Ubuntu, both the release and the development one. It's thanks to his work that Ubuntu users are able to enjoy not only an easy way to install the release version of the game, but also have an easy way to follow the development via the development versions he makes available regularly.
Omri
Tell us the basics about yourself
Well, I'm 26, I live in Israel and work as a composer. Mostly for theater, but recently I've been getting into film and video game music, which has always been my true passion. I play in several bands and generally spend most of my day making music, one way or another!
What do you find motivating about contributing to 0 A.D.?
Quite a few things, but above all I have to say, the players' responses and comments on the score. It's extremely satisfying to know that the players (and team members!) are enjoying the music, and as a gamer myself, it's a unique experience to play a game with my own music. Other then being plain fun - it allows me to put down the mantle of "composer" and evaluate my own work as a listener.
When did you join the team?
Not so long ago actually - I think it was around March 2011.
What made you interested in joining the team?
Obviously the game itself, it looks and feels much better then many other independent games I've seen, and I am an RTS fan, so I was instantly sold when I saw it! Also, in the brief discussions before I came on board, I came to see that the team is made up of great, like-minded people, so much so that I found myself reading and posting on the forums for hours on end.
What has contributing to 0 A.D. meant for you? Musically, it has driven me to explore certain types of music I've never experienced before. Indeed, there have been challenges (and I suspect there are more of those yet), but overall it's been a complete delight. The team was very good at creating a supportive and open-minded working environment, in which it was possible for me to experiment and receive valuable, constructive criticism. It's been a great learning experience for me as a composer, plus the "fun factor" of working on a game... what more could I ask for?
What do you find best about being a part of the team?
Well, just that - being a part of the team. Being a composer is one of the most isolated jobs on the planet, it's a very nice change to have teammates who are involved and interested, and offer usable feedback.
On a side note (if I may), I'd like to thank the musicians who participated in the recordings, they truly bring the music to life, and elevate it to heights that would otherwise be unimaginable. Marta Mc'Cave, Yotam Ronen, Bar Guzi and Dror Parker.
Rico
What do you find motivating about contributing to 0 A.D.?
As I am very familiar with generating packages for Debian/Ubuntu maintaining the PPA for several Ubuntu versions gave me the chance to give people an easy way to test and play with 0 A.D. which is the spirit of open source. So while adding the PPA to their system and install it is quite easy!
What has contributing to 0 A.D. meant for you?
This is quite fun to see such a project evolving over several year. It is nice to see new ideas and additions to the game. I am also quite aware of the technologies behind the scene it is really interesting. So it is nice helping you guys distributing this great software!
Wildfire Games, an international group of volunteer game developers, proudly announces the release of "0 A.D. Alpha 8 Haxāmaniš" (Alternate spelling: "Hakhamanish"), the eighth alpha version of 0 A.D., a free, open-source game of ancient warfare. This alpha debuts the mighty Persian Empire, includes support for both saving games and reconnecting to multiplayer games, a bartering system, improved AI and more.
Easy Download and Install Download and installation instructions are available for Windows, Linux and Mac OS X. 0 A.D. is free of charge and always will be. You can redistribute it and modify it as long as you abide by the GPL. You can even use parts of the art and sound for your own projects as long as you abide by CC-BY-SA. No "freemium" model, no in-game advertising, no catch.
Top new features in this release:
Bartering system: Buy and sell resources in exchange for other resources. Resources are traded at exchange rates that vary with each deal. For example, to purchase 100 Food, the player may have to spend 100 points of another resource type (Wood, Stone, or Ore). By the next deal, however, Food will become 1% more expensive. Over time, the exchange rate automatically gradually resets to the default rate.
Saved game support: Single-player games can be saved and reloaded.
Multiplayer reconnection support: If you are disconnected when playing (by an unreliable internet connection, or perhaps by the game crashing), you no longer have to abandon the match - you can simply connect to the server again, and it will launch you back into the match in a few seconds.
45° Field of View (FOV): The FOV was changed from 20 degrees to 45 degrees. This means the view of the camera was changed from a nearly isometric angle to provide a deeper, more immersive look, which is standard in other 3D video games. You can see the difference easily by toggling back and forth between these two screenshots: 20°, 45°.
AI improvements: The default AI engine is now qBot, kindly contributed by WFG programmer Jonathan Waller, also known as quantumstate. qBot is still having trouble learning how to fend off attacks, but it runs a tight ship economically, and it can be very sneaky militarily. In fact, qBot has been observed rushing a human opponent just a few minutes into the game.
An all-new and unique Persian civilization, including:
A brand-new building set. Monumental and eclectic, it reflects the cosmopolitan nature of the Achaemenid Empire.
New units, from chariots and hoplites to rams and biremes, from Xerxes to Cyrus to skirmishers and archers.
All works CC BY SA Wildfire Games.
Music and Sound: Several new tracks, all composed and directed by Omri Lahav. They feature live percussion, as well as a flute segment by a professional musician (Thanks, Marta Mc'cave!).
Sands of Time: A mesmerizing and very orchestral Persian peace track.
Eastern Dreams: Persia's early peace track. A dreamy yet minimal, traditional-sounding arrangement, without orchestral strings.
The Road Ahead: A long, neutral (not faction-specific) peace track, it has several changing moods and orchestrations to keep it interesting, while still staying in the realm of "background music".
New map: Zagros Mountains.
All works CC BY SA Wildfire Games.
Bug fixes and minor features:
Improved selection boxes: Selecting units is now more functional and intuitive.
Slowly but surely, we are making 0 A.D. more compatible with the Mac, with the Atlas Scenario Editor now running on OS X.
For developers, a new performance profiler has been implemented, which allows anyone to see which parts of the game take up the most of the CPU's and GPU's time. The reports can be seen in a web browser. This helps developers figure out how to reduce lag.
Some progress has been made on improving performance, especially in the fields of pathfinding and AI.
A marker line now helpfully connects the building and its rally point once you select the building, to make far rally points easier to discern. Also, a button in the building GUI changes the view to focus on the Rally Point, which can be useful if you've set a rally point far away and don't want to have to scroll to it.
Rally points can now can be set on resources, so that citizens will automatically gather that type of resource when they are created.
Random map fixes: Fixed crash while generating maps and out-of-sync error in multiplayer games.
Please contribute! (REPORTERS/BLOGGERS, PLEASE MENTION THIS! We need your help to finish the game. Thanks.) We are seeking contributors in programming, art, sound, web design, taking YouTube videos and more. These roles on the 0 A.D. development team are great if you want to brush up on your skills and update your portfolio, if you're seeking a project for school with real-life applications, or if you care about the cause of free culture and software and are willing to work pro bono with a group of dedicated volunteers from all over the world.
Many of the features mentioned above were made possible through our previous fundraising effort from 2010-11. The sum we raised last time was directed to pay for a month of full-time development of the 0 A.D. codebase by esteemed contributor Philip Taylor, also known as Ykkrosh.
As you can see, that month has paid off tremendously for the project. We'd like to allow Philip to work full-time for yet another month, so we can keep delivering awesome new features and making progress towards a finished open source game of ancient warfare.
Who were the Persians? The Persians originated from the Pars province in the southern part of modern-day Iran. They speak Persian, which belongs to the Indo-European language family, a large family of languages including Greek, Latin, and Sanskrit. The Persian Empire, when ruled by the Achaemenid dynasty (ca. 550 BC–336 BC), was one of the greatest empires of antiquity, stretching at its zenith from the Indus Valley in the east, to Thrace and Macedon on the northeastern border of Greece.
Since most existing accounts of this vast empire are in works of Greek philosophers and historians, and since much of the original Persian documents are lost, it is difficult to portray the Ancient Persians in their own terms and ideas.
Nevertheless, the Persians can be credited as the pioneers of empire-building of the Ancient World. Later empires, such as the Hellenistic and Roman empires, adopted many administrative innovations that the Persians had come up with. While taking over various peoples with different customs, laws, religions, languages, etc., the Persians imposed a centralized, bureaucratic administration under the emperor, with large, professional military and civil services. These included a postal system, advanced road systems, standard coinage, weights and measures and the usage of an official language, Aramaic, throughout the empire.
The ancient Persian army was largely comprised of national contingents from the various subject nations under the rule of the Great Kings. These contingents were organized along military/administrative lines and used a decimal system of organization by multiples of ten. Well-known national 'regiments' were: Medo-Persian, non-Medo-Persian Iranian, Lydian, Carian, Assyrian, Babylonian, Egyptian, Indian, Ethiopian, and Libyan.
The ancient Persian empire collapsed and disintegrated around 330 BC with the Hellenistic conquest, led by Alexander the Great. In later centuries, peoples in its former territories were either ruled by Alexander's successors, the Ptolemaic Kingdom and Seleucid Empire, or gained independence and were self-ruled. The culture of the central Iranian plateau, however, continued to thrive and eventually reclaimed power by the 2nd century BC. The Persian empire would also set the tone for the politics, heritage and history of modern Persia (now called Iran).
In 0 A.D. the Persians will have many bonuses that match their historic strengths. These include:
Why "Haxāmaniš"? We name our releases according to development status ("Alpha" or "Beta"), successive release number (1, 2, 3, ...) and a word relating to the ancient world, in alphabetical order ("Argonaut" for A, "Bellerophon" for B, ...). In honor of the release of the Persian faction, we decided to dub Alpha 8 "Haxāmaniš".
Haxāmaniš (Alternate spelling: "Hakhamanish") is the original Old Persian name for the legendary founder of the Achaemenid dynasty, who the Greeks and Romans called "Achaemenes". His dynasty included renowned rulers such as Cyrus II, Darius I and Xerxes I. Haxāmaniš himself, however, was a minor ruler of the Anshan (Ansham or Anšān) in southwestern Iran in the seventh century B.C. Nobody is quite sure if Haxāmaniš in fact existed, little is known about him and the little known is peppered with myth. (Ancient Greek texts say that he was "raised by an eagle".) Nevertheless, he remains a figure often mentioned in Persian history.
Nobody knows for sure how Haxāmaniš was pronounced in Old Persian, but it is probably something like hah-xāh-mah-neesh, where all the a's are as in "father", and the a with the macron (ā) is longer. X is the voiceless velar fricative, as in ugh, loch, or Chanukah. The stress is uncertain; If it were as in Sanskrit, it would have been on the last syllable (hah-xāh-mah-NEESH). (Thanks, Thamar E. Gindin, Ph.D., expert on Iran!)
For the next alpha, we welcome fan suggestions for words relating to the ancient world beginning with the letter I. Keep it original and within the 0 A.D. time-frame (appx. 500 BC - 1 BC)!
Long Time, No Siege Wildfire Games will keep releasing new versions of 0 A.D. from time to time. Watch our news feed to get updates, or follow us by e-mail, RSS, Facebook or Twitter. And you're always welcome to join the 0 A.D. community on our forums.
Contact info for press, bloggers, etc.: aviv@wildfirePERSEPOLISgames.com without the name of the ancient Persian city written in all caps.
During the last month we've had the joy of welcoming four new team members here at Wildfire Games. First we had the chance to reward three of our most diligent Open Source contributors: Jonathan, Jeroen, and Yves, who all have worked hard programming for 0 A.D. and we thought it was time to recognize that.
Jeroen (vts on the forums) has worked on fixing things, perhaps most notably making selecting units a lot easier (a more technical explanation: he's worked on making the bounding boxes correspond better to the actual models). He's also worked on adding rally point marker lines. In other words: the rally point you place to tell newly created (and ungarrisoned) units to go to a certain spot on the map can be a bit hard to find at times, but with this feature you get a line on the ground showing you the way to it. And also roughly the way the units will walk to get to it. It's probably easier to see how useful it can be from a screenshot though, so below you have one:
Rally point marker line, the line going from the building to the rally point.
Yves (Yves on the forums) has mostly been working on upgrading to premake4 and other compile related fixes (a less technical explanation: he's made it easier for people to build the game - the process of turning the code into an actual game that can then be played).
Jonathan (quantumstate on the forums) has been (and still is) the leading force behind qbot, one of the AIs for 0 A.D.
A video showing a match against one of the latest versions of qbot.
Second, we've gotten a new artist on board: Enrique (Enrique on the forums), who has already created some marvelous Roman buildings which will help enhance the game world.
New Roman temple (to the right, to the left is the Hellenic temple for reference).
