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"... and be visible" I guess you mean, and yes, I just tried and can't reproduce what I thought I saw long ago (since then I've never used horizontal view again). Maybe something got fixed, or I misinterpreted what was happening back then.

It’s impossible for something to be under the fog of war, can you post a screenshot of what you mean (I’m very curious of how this is possible).

I've noticed in the past that the horizontal view reveals things that shouldn't be revealed (under fog of war), have you checked this? And how would all this respond with a lot of units on the map? (Which I guess has been one of the reasons for certain limitations all along).

Many relevant points are raised there: "If your ships cannot reach your opponent, they become obsolete quickly, unless they give you access to resources": which is why a salvage system would work nicely. Unwanted ships were used from building early temples to laying the ground for port extensions, and when Rome controlled the whole Mediterranean the huge Hellenistic ships disappeared (along with the knowledge of how to build them). "The game designer has to answer a painful question: how important should water actually be?": if the game pretends to have any semblance of historicity for its time period, the answer is obvious (for plenty of civs at least). He also describes at the beginning proper naval combat as having a good variety of ships, already proposed, and currently lacking and inaccurate. "Large warships should feel heavy, they take time to turn, and they also occupy a lot of space, and that’s what makes them insanely cool": which is why I find the puzzling proposals to shrink their size a big step towards blandness and mediocrity. "Amphibious landing should create an exciting D-day moment but, you know, players just have to lead every unit manually, then protect that transport and find a safe coast, and then unload manually once again": a real struggle, which is why, among other uses, I proposed Target Area: "Water must connect different parts of the strategy, ships should support land attacks, and of course, you should have some real incentive to actually play for that water control. A player who loses the sea should suffer but should always have ways to respond": indeed, water should offer rewards without being snowbally. While the Greeks and others were not that big in fishing, maritime trade should be way more efficient than it is now (as should be maritime looting). I already criticised the Trader and Merchantmen capacity being the same. If one loses all control of the water (a situation usually hard to reverse), but has plenty of resources, maybe an expensive Mercenary Pirate force could be hired (from the Market or something, no Dock needed), to be able to reclaim part of the sea (this would work nicely with my proposal of Mercenaries having temporary contracts instead of being permanently trained like other units). "Water, of course, needs some real terrain. Things like shallow water reefs, islands, maybe some weather-like storm, visual blockers and several narrow routes that can create positioning decisions": 0 A.D. does have some implicit water depths, but the variety of "terrains" should be increased. Reefs are a good idea (I wonder if they could deal some damage to ships, and slow them down), and hopefully some weather is coming.

Yes, "AI" has been a term since the 1950s at least. The grand vision of an "AGI", an Artificial General Intelligence, basically the SciFi scenario of an all-knowing all-capable entity, already existed back then. Many developments in computing that were thought to help achieve this vision hence ran under an "AI" label historically, not only neural networks, the stuff that LLMs and picture generators of today are based on today and that eat so many resources. Chatbots like ELIZA were not based on neural networks. Just classical IF-THEN-ELSE and some clever play on human psychology. But yes, the neural network approach was also known since at least the 1950s, but it was all theory, it was known the required computing power would be infeasible for a very long time. Today's web and Google didn't exist back then, so it was assumed a more traditional knowledge base expert system would also be a necessary component of an AGI, hence many developments apart from resource-eating neural networks also ran under the "AI" label, but I'm almost certain the term AI in video games didn't even stem from that, i.e. from research lab level algorithmic sophistication, it was rather, as said, just a colloquial way to say "non human opponent".

Just a nit. Not really a coincidence, engaging chatbots already existed in the 70' (tho computers were somewhat harder to come by compared to today obviously) and we also had an AI race in the 80', just at that time it was between US and Japan. LLMs (branding) aren't much different, it's basically better hardware and some continued research in this topic, that is all, the hype is mostly just loooooots of money being spent and somewhat broader availability.

Good point. That's why malfunctions and potential exploits should be addressed. PD: I need someone to give me perspectives I'm missing. Feedback is very welcome. That way I can develop my idea.

Several changes have been implemented regarding the camera and map dimensions. The largest map now has a diameter 2.5 times that of the "giant" size. The camera has also become more flexible, with its minimum and maximum altitude ranges significantly adjusted; this allows for a human-eye-level perspective and a view of the horizon, while also providing enough height to spot anti-aircraft missiles and jet aircraft, exciting features currently in development. Screen Recording 2026-10-19 213153.mp4

Yes, although not very precisely, since it could refer in general to any passenger carried on deck. I proposed an Hoplitagogos (Hoplite Carrier) tech to increase the garrisons of Threes for certain civs like Spartans, Achaemenids (in their language) and coming Thebans, to improve their boarding chances. Maybe instead this could be used to train infantry on ships, but one has to be careful not to end with a boarding force spawn. I think I didn't mention the Hippagogos (Horse Carrier), to have it in mind also.

I forgot the greek name... Epibatai (?) My idea is to launch maritime invasion operations and carry out raids; I was thinking about that yesterday when I was showing you the riverboats. The ship trains troops on board before launching "Blitzkrieg" operations. I like that concept so that ships aren't so boring. I'm going to leave a channel I follow with a couple of thoughts.

"AI that makes you laugh", "AI that has personality", haha, these are all quite moonshot things. Not even many commercial AAA games are that sophisticated. Are people so used to what "AI" can supposedly do nowadays that demands are so high? It's just a terminology coincidence of course, these are not LLMs, computer opponents have been called "AI" throughout practically all of gaming history, "artificial" just meaning "non-human" here, to differentiate from player vs player modes like in Street Fighter or the like. LLM functionality in a game like this would not be practical, they're expensive and someone has to pay for the tokens. On the local machine it would use a lot of performance and even if workable, it will be very hard to design it for the performance levels of different machines users have. But I have seen a thread with a mod experimenting with this. (And of course it will be two layers, grunt work still done by Petra, LLM deciding on the grand strategy "in the background"). Sure, the "AI" in the game could be improved, but it still lacks very basic things that are more important, like spatial awareness, looking at the map and figuring out what the choke points are. But these are not trivial problems to solve. Maybe LLMs can help with some "vibe-coding" to improve the current state but that's it.

Hospitals and oil wells: hospitals will take over the healing function previously served by temples, while oil will be introduced as a new resource. Oil deposits will be distributed across the map, and a "shale oil extraction" technology could be implemented, allowing for oil to be extracted anywhere, albeit at a higher cost.

Which is a huge misconception this game also incurs, as explained in Thoughts on the Athenians :P. That they were good at sea doesn't mean regarding their "marines", but their fast ramming ships used to disable enemy ones, which, ironically, needed to have the least amount possible of deck soldiers to be swift. Thus, not only there's nothing characteristic about them, but they didn't rely on them and used as few as possible (so having them as a "champion" Athenian unit is as misleading as it could be, and why I proposed the Tachunautousa Triērēs instead). The real secret of Athenian success at sea was not just how ships were lightly built, but their expert oarsmen, drawn mostly from the low thḗtēs class, who would train all their lives expecting to be good enough to be selected by some trierarch to man the oars of a navy vital for Athens, which brought them prestige, thus more leverage and participation, in their nascent democratic system.

I have included some of the structures from this into the game.

I agree with that. It should be something that exists to provide greater immersion. +++ On the other hand, I've considered training marines on ships, similar to how the Athenian marines already operate, but aside from some bonuses, I don't know how to make it work. http://amodelcastillo.blogspot.com/2018/03/la-armada-imperial-de-roma-rangos-y.html?m=1 Milites Classiarii for example. We also have the Nautae They are ordinary sailors; they too participated in the combat.

I don’t have a standalone mod specifically for bots, though I did previously upload some tweaked bots to the forum, they’re quite outdated now, though still playable with a few minor fixes. They do have quite a few flaws, however. That said, in the mod I’m currently working on, I’m incorporating the successful features from those earlier bots into an entirely new one. It will include various behavioral modes, pre-loaded tactics along with a few "dirty tricks" if I come up with any, and a degree of randomness in its actions to ensure it doesn’t feel too predictable or formulaic. That’s right, I started a thread about AI quite a while ago, where I’ve been uploading those bots.

It definitely needs to adapt to the role model of the ship.

It also has an AoM influence. The game was still in its conceptual stage in 2002 when Age of Mythology was released.

Precisely because of the golf carts and other vehicles being used in the current war. That's why I said it.

But the game's symmetry also depends on how players can play the civilisations. Directly modifying the civilisations to push them towards more distinct playstyles than they currently have would, in my opinion, be the first step. Today, by sticking to roughly the same playstyle and the same build orders or unit orders, all civilisations remain generally playable. If we play the Carthaginians with a more Gallic playstyle, the civilisation remains fairly competitive. The only real differences between the game's civilisations at the moment are different but rather abstract bonuses (especially for new players), different textures, and a few unique buildings and units that don't fundamentally change the playstyles... In my opinion, we should (still) preserve 0 A.D.'s origins (AoE2) and draw inspiration from it. In AoE2 (or even AoE4), civilisations have things in common but still retain different playstyles! I haven't tried DE, so I can't say whether this mod adds differences between civilisations and meets my "criteria". What could make a difference, and what I also feel is missing, is the diversity and depth of Petra's playstyles, and I completely agree with you on that! But yes, changing playstyles depending on the civilisation would make balancing more complex, and I don't think the developers would put in the time needed to do that at the moment. Is there a mod that has experimented with changing AI playstyles? Anyway, we're starting to drift away from the original topic of the discussion

I also find the game too symmetrical. What I believe needs to be changed and what I have experimented with changing is the behavior of the bots: small civilizations or vassal states should not act like great powers, and nomadic civilizations should not behave the same way as sedentary ones. The issue, however, is that such changes would make balancing the game difficult, and many players likely wouldn't appreciate it.

What do you mean? This is a mod for modern warfare; the bot will be adjusted accordingly. I’ve included drones in the mod and have already showcased one; there will be many more types, and they will be a key focus of the mod, alongside complex air defense systems. Yeah, I have thought about this.

Building a Market unlocks training Slave class units at the Farmstead and Storehouse. 20 max, but +10 per Market (this is the limit I'd like to make global). The Slaves are capturable and die easily, but are 2x better gatherers than Citizens. Slaves are a gatherer unit only, while Citizens maintain the ability to build. There are 2 technologies specific to Slaves: Slave Trade (-50% train time) and Slave Markets (remove training limit, but Slaves are double cost). Citizens also have the "Slave Ownership" aura which boosts nearby Slave effectiveness. This basically replaced the old "Allure" aura of the old Female Citizen units.

"Say hello to my little friend".

What makes a game boring is the lack of variety and the repetition. That it would be more unpredictable, that it would be able to keep you from getting bored and immerse you with its dialogues. A human is capable of using a bunch of camels just because they look cool. Like Hannibal saying satirically: "I use elephants because they are big and look cool in my army, you know there are no elephants in Italy, now they will have them".