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> 2. Upgrade Atlas Make Atlas a true scenario creation environment – with objectives, events, dialogues, reinforcements, ambushes, and dynamic gameplay. The creator should be able to focus on story and gameplay, not constantly think about the code required to make an idea work. THere are a lot of problems with the scenario maker, 1. It feels outdated 2. It is outdated 3. Has some Bugs 4. The js code required is too much complicated

Our first Release 28 community mod is up on the 0ad mod downloader. you can also get it straight from the 0ad community mod gitea page (https://gitea.wildfiregames.com/0ad/0ad-community-mod) With this version, the goal was to tackle some relatively simple balance changes, some of which have been in high demand. Fanatics HP, hack damage, and hack armor reduced. Persian immortal HP reduced (both melee and ranged), ranged version damage and accuracy were reduced. Heroes may no longer be used to "bait" enemy units, as Heroes are removed from the preferred target class for all units. Champion cavalry and ranged champion cavalry HP reduced from 260->220 and from 220->200, but wood and metal prices were reduced. This, combined with speed reduction is intended to bring their population efficiency closer to infantry champions. Cavalry speed was reduced by 15%. Scout ship counter damage vs ships reduced from 3x to 2.5x, range reduced, and price increased from 50f 50w to 50f 100w. Foundation pierce armor increased from 10 to 20. (Foundations take 66% less damage from pierce attacks). Capture balance: Civic center capture points increased from 2500 to 3500. Fortress increased from 4000 to 8000. "Sentries" tower upgrade now also increases tower capture points by 50%. "Professional garrisons" fortress upgrade now also doubles fortress capture points. Scipio's Capture attack aura removed. See https://gitea.wildfiregames.com/0ad/0ad/pulls/8892 for more. Germans buffs: Champion axeman unit metal cost reduced from 100 to 80. Seeress damage aura range increased from 15 to 20. Seeress armor increased from 2->3 hack armor and 4->6 pierce armor they remain unaffected by blacksmith techs. Wagon encampment price reduced from 350w, 150s to 275w, 100s. Feel free to see the full changelog in game thanks to @guerringuerrin. As always, please give us some feedback about how these balance changes go.

I might make another for this tournament @Atrik

That's why what I propose is simply reversing what's already there. You could leave fields and think of it as "transplanting": avoid unnecessary extra rules. Peace time and ownership rules are also incoherent: you can build while attacked, you can Self-Destroy while owning over 50%, and you can gather resources while being attacked. It's again hyper-realism when similar processes are already abstracted, which doesn't make it intuitive. The building should build down (reverse of build up), and the workers animation could be that of gathering wood, stone or metal: looks different and it's appropriate. I think you'll need an icon for Salvage different from Self-Destruct, otherwise you fall into making salvaging too simple and rewarding by merging both concepts, as previously mentioned. The panel needs reworking anyway since important icons like Capture are not being shown, which is an abysmal design mistake. In the meantime, further down I'll mention a possible solution not to have both icons in the panel. I know, the parenthesis was there to have only relevance when combined with the parenthesis in "I agree doing so should be part of the game (with those big engines being extremely slow in return)", since I agree with this only for the big engines. I see, but one has to check for that weird condition, greatly harming players' attention, and adding micro if one wants to move things around just in case. I have an idea to solve both this and deal with the two icons: if you want to select units and buildings, you have to do it quite on purpose, since a drag selection ignores buildings. Considering this, and that for now it's not ideal to take button space with both Salvage and Self-Destruct, I'd do things like this: -if you select either ships and a Dock, or siege engines and an Arsenal, the button that appears is Salvage. When pressing it, the units would move to garrison in the selected building to be salvaged (which should be queued and each could take the same as their production time, to reverse that process, or at most accelerated by a certain factor, but this is just adding rules). -if you select workers and any structure, the button that appears is Salvage. When pressed, what happens is what was previously described regarding animations (which should take the same as building time, to reverse that process, or at most accelerated by a certain factor, but this is just adding rules). -for any other kind of selection, the button that appears is Self-Destruct. This should work as now (no rewards), except that I'd make it take a time depending on HP (1000/s drain, or building/production time accelerated by a certain factor, which in this case is indeed necessary), and I'd queue buildings and units independently to avoid its abuse (from AI mostly, apparently). All this minimalistically does what you basically want to do, removing the visual checking of an arbitrary radius for Salvage to work, by instead selecting who does what where, and if elements are not correctly specified, then the default action is the less rewarding Self-Destruct. Only one button would show up at a time. All as mentioned: draining times should be variable, cancellation by attacks doesn't seem coherent with present rules, and not queuing is not reversing the process, while not queuing in Self-Destruct would not solve the collapse issue mentioned, of course.

Hi, someone was asking me this and I can't really remember if there was an existing 0AD map ... is there anything that resembles a setup like SA with the Bab al-Mandab and Hormuz straits. Something you can run w/ naval merchants, etc. with a big more scale. I think they just wanted to use it as a history/logistics classroom tool for a group, nothing extremely detailed, etc. Thanks.

@ThalattaThanks for you comprehensive review! My point is that I try to not substantially modify fundamentals in game mechanics just add a slight touch of more complexity. Salvaging allows getting resources in an emergency via a separate path (not trading, not gathering which might both not be possible in a situation). I'd prefer "salvage rate" so in the end it amounts to "salvage rate × condition = refund". It is a bit complex but I believe we should keep the ability to fine tune. Here we have rules we can turn on and off and also adjust some parameters ("when not sure make it configurable" ) I wanted to have configurable options so there might be a reason why certain types of buildings are excempt (chnged it to exclude fields but not exclude wall segments and towers anymore). So the mechanics is there and it can be configured to exclude what ever building we want - or none. The building shall be recovered only in peace times, i.e. it is not under attack and hasn't recently (15s, configurable). I wanted to make really sure it s not being attacked and not being taken over and is not partially "owned " by someone else, hence the multiplicity of rules. Destruction must be carried out by someone nearby (presence of a unit in 20m, configurable) I also thought about your proposal to let workers destruct (unproduce) a builidng (same animation like construct), but I consider this confusing to see exactly the same animation taking down as building up ("in the heat of the game..."). Absolutely - good point! Will remove that. Walls segments and towers are back in. Same rules as for all builidngs apply. I wanted to avoid adding another icon that might clutter the user interface. Let me experiment if we can "auto-salvage" ships and sieges. (click delete icon (means slavaging) and the ship or siege goes back to the nearest dock or depot where it is dismantled). No, its all of them. At the moment, buildings that don't satisfy the condition (unit nearby) are destroyed exactly like before, but no refund. Destroying with refund takes 10s (draining their health condition until they collapse - and only then there is a refund. The process will be cancelled by any attack). But they are not queued - so if you slect a group of builidngs, hit delete and have a unit nearby each, it takes 10s. I suggest modifying the general delete mechanics to take a few seconds both for structures - and also for units. Let me test if that works.

Maybe @Alexandermb has some time, you might have to contact him via PM though so he gets an email or something.

Thanks! Very good - I'll take that on board. Oops! Good point as well. Needs to be changed. You are right, was just lazy and tried to keep it initially simple for me on a local repository. Will change that.

Good. Just give a name to the first percentage, it's salvageability, but maybe you can think of some other name. You could start with a 50% default for everything, to be fine-tuned later on if wanted (and food maybe could be ignored, because it's weird to salvage it). Incredibly complicated! And why? Why shouldn't walls and towers give a refund? Their stone was among the most salvageable resource. You said it yourself how things should be already, at least for buildings: And that's it! You later used the word "elegantly", then do it so: simple, no steps, no caps, no gaps, no radius, no more parameters, emulating existing processes, or their reverse. There you basically proposed to use unit(s) to unbuild structures, to be rewarded what I quoted from you at the beginning. Maybe I'm missing something, but I don't get why you would need ANY extra rule. What I quoted from you produces a simple rule: salvaging is unbuilding. For units, I can't help but keep saying that you don't need any extra rule! You use the same rule as with buildings: just unproduce them. Why complicate the ship rule with a radius, if you could just click a Salvage button on the ship, and then click a Dock, and all should be automatic from there? The ship would travel to the Dock, garrison, and get salvaged. All the radius thing is not simpler, not needed, not realistic, and not intuitive because the unproduce rule imitates that of buildings. Same with siege engines. Besides, you state you can dismantle (some of) them in one's territory, when one is not able to construct them there in the first place, incurring a logic gap. I agree doing so should be part of the game (with those big engines being extremely slow in return), but that's not yet there. When it is, yes, dismantle them wherever they can be constructed, to keep following the simple unbuilding/unproduce rule, but in the meantime it would be incoherent: the disassembly being realistic, while the assembly isn't. No. Scorched earth tactics should not be ultra-fast, that's exactly the point not to get the unsightly simultaneous collapse of everything (by the AI at least). What should be ultra-fast is deleting some building or unit that is bothering the player (I'm exaggerating with "ultra", it could take a very few seconds). The whole point is: you can use Self-Destruct, but you can't abuse it. The key is what I said: "only gets noticeable the more buildings at a time one wants to destroy". Thus, the best way to deal with all these and other issues at the same time seems to be modifying Self-Destruct the way I explained before (queue buildings, queue units in parallel if considered, and sequentially in each of both queues drain their HP at like 1000/s, etc), and all this has nothing to do with Salvage, there's no resource reward, because it's simpler and faster to execute.

Also if you could add tool tips. When on dark theme, it is had to tell which buttons you can click and not click (see photos). Could you have some other colors, pwease. Also, do you use github or gitlab or any of those type things? It might be easier for other people to update or something

I loaded some maps, and it worked. Can you make it so you can load mods for it, like if you are making a map for a mod that adds new structures. Because it was saying a certain civ name was undefined, but it was, just in a mod. Maybe you already added the setting, but I didn't see it

All right here is my proposal: a refund is limited to a percentage of the resources it took to construct something, say, 50%, multiplied with the current health status of the object, i.e. a ship at 60%health gets 30% refund. all refunds are tied to a condition: ships must be within the perimeter (30m) of your own dock. Outside that area there is no refund. siege engines must be on your own territory, no refund outside. buildings are more complicated: some should not give a refund (walls, towers), others only give a refund if not under attack since 15s and fully owned, and if one own unit is present in their vicinity (radius 20m). Deletion wiht refund becomes a salvaging teardown: the building loses health over, 10 seconds, the resources arrive at the end, any enemy damage during that period cancels it. Deletion of buildings without anyone nearby, or not satisfying the other conditions is immediate and without a refund. All of this remains configurable as I am not yet sure about the best settings (distances, level of refund, criteria, teardown period) I'll adapt the mod and test it first before posting. Done testing. Please see below for the mod. WIll also put it onto mod.io and hope it can be signed @Stan`@ltms recover-resources.zip README.md

OK, point taken - how could that be addressed? Should we introduce steps and/or a cap, like 0% finalized- 100% refund, up to 70% finalized - 30% refund, more than 70% finalized - no refund anymore. Deletion after completion - 30% refund. Would that work for you? Currently no salvaging of destroyed buildings exists and they can be immediately deleted anyway at the moment. Requiring units (no siege engines) to actively destroy own buildings woud prevent doing that to a whole group of buildings at once already. Would you really want to use valuable units to destroy that one storehouse that's not needed anymore jsut to get back, say, 30 wood? For me this could be an emergency aspect to get more resources if none is in reach and no bartering is possible anymore, e.g. after a devastating attack of your enemy. Of course, but for gameplay and simplicity I would possibly tend towards the same level of resource refund (we could use the same mechanism). But isn't that a contradiction? If it shall be ultra-fast (scorched earth tactics) it cannot be queued as this would take too long.

Did a total review and refactoring of the user interface and functionality. Hope it is better now. I am placing the python code and new screenshots in the original post on top of this conversation. @Asher I'd love to have your comemnts - please have a look!

Also, if anyone interested know how to animate, we are looking for charge animation (strike while moving) and staggering animation.

No worries.

Hi everyone, I've been looking into the possibility of creating Proto-Germanic voice lines for the Germans in 0 A.D. First, a note about AI: I used ChatGPT to help me find linguistic sources and prepare the first word suggestions below. This is preliminary research, not a finished translation. I'm not a historical linguist, and the proposed forms have not been independently reviewed by one. Some of them may well be wrong. No audio has been generated yet. My idea is not to reconstruct exactly what the Cimbri spoke around 100 BC. As far as I understand, the surviving evidence simply doesn't allow this. Instead, I would like to find a reasonable linguistic approximation that fits the historical setting of 0 A.D. and sounds good in the game. We only need about 18 short voice lines. Ideally, they should be one or two syllables long, but I don't think this needs to be a strict requirement. Before experimenting with recordings or text-to-speech, I would like to get the words and their pronunciation into a reasonably good state. 1. Which language should we use? Release 28 describes the Germans as a coalition of the Cimbri, Teutones, Ambrones and other Celto-Germanic groups. Official Release 28 announcement The linguistic situation seems rather uncertain. For example, Gilles Quentel discusses early contacts between Continental Celtic and Germanic. There are also different interpretations of the surviving names of the Cimbri and Teutones. Bichlmeier and Blažek discuss several possible etymologies of these tribal names in their 2020 publication. I think reconstructed Proto-Germanic could be a reasonable common language for the faction, as long as we make clear that this is an approximation, not a reconstruction of an attested Cimbrian dialect. There is also the question of the First Germanic Sound Shift and its chronology. For our purposes, I would initially use a consistent reconstructed Proto-Germanic pronunciation rather than trying to reconstruct a hypothetical earlier dialect specifically for 100 BC. Of course, I would be interested in other opinions on this. 2. First suggestions for the voice lines I used the English meanings from the Audio Voice List, with the Latin translations as an example: Audio Voice List – 0 A.D. Wiki The following is a working draft, NOT a finished or academically validated translation. All proposed Proto-Germanic words and forms are reconstructions, not directly attested historical expressions. Some of the specific forms still need linguistic verification. Most candidates were initially found through Wiktionary's Proto-Germanic reconstruction entries, which often refer to etymological dictionaries such as Kroonen or Orel. However, I have not independently checked every individual reconstruction against these books. I also used the freely available Proto-Germanic grammar by Winfred P. Lehmann and the IE-CoR linguistic database. Some forms are more tentative than others. I have marked the particularly uncertain ones instead of pretending that we already have a complete solution. Selection and greetings English Proposed form Notes Hello hailaz! Literally "healthy, whole". A possible greeting, but not an attested Cimbrian one. What is it? hwat? Simply "what?". Shortened for gameplay. My lord? frawjô? "Lord", without "my". The appropriate form of address should be checked. Movement and fighting English Proposed form Notes I will walk gō "I go / walk". I will fight fehtō "I fight". The meaning and exact form should be checked. I will attack! hwētō! "I attack". This candidate needs further linguistic checking. I will march! farō! "I go / travel". Not specifically military marching, but perhaps sufficient for a short acknowledgement. I will retreat! wīkwaną "To yield / retreat". This is still an infinitive. A shorter and grammatically appropriate spoken form is needed. Battle cry open Perhaps a non-verbal shout would work. Alternatively, a short expression based on a reconstructed verb for fighting could be considered. I would not want to invent something and present it as an authentic Germanic battle cry. Working and gathering English Proposed form Notes I will build timrō "I build". I will work land arjaną "To plough". The appropriate short spoken form still needs checking. I will gather samnō "I gather / collect". I will herd drībō "I drive". This could refer to driving livestock, but is not exactly the same as tending a herd. I will fish fiskō "I fish". I will repair bōtī "Improve / make good!" Not specifically repairing a building. The form and its use in this context need checking. I will hunt huntōn- Reconstructed verb stem only. The precise form and vowel length remain open. I will heal hailī "Heal!" An imperative rather than "I will heal". The exact form needs checking. Regarding hunting, the IE-CoR database gives huntōn- as its reference form, but its explanation also mentions hūnton-. The vowel length and the actual spoken form therefore need further checking. Other (I will put myself into) garrison — felhō Intended meaning: "I enter / go inside". This is one of the least secure suggestions and needs both lexical and grammatical checking. It is not an attested term for entering a garrison. A few remarks about the list The grammatical forms are not consistent yet. Some are first-person forms, others imperatives, infinitives or reconstructed stems. Personally, I don't think every response necessarily needs to be in the same grammatical form. The important thing is that it works as a short and natural-sounding acknowledgement in the game. However, we should make sure that the individual forms are actually plausible and not simply invented by an AI. Also, several suggestions deliberately use a broader meaning than the English original. For example, "I travel" instead of "I march" or "I drive" instead of "I herd". These would be gameplay decisions, not exact translations. I would be happy to replace any of these suggestions if there are better alternatives. 3. Sources Here are the main sources I found. Historical background Gilles Quentel (2012): Early Linguistic Contacts between Continental Celtic and Germanic: Lexical Aspects. Publication on ResearchGate Harald Bichlmeier and Václav Blažek (2020): "Cimbri" et "Teutoni". Journal article – Acta Linguistica Lithuanica Václav Blažek: On chronology of the First Germanic Sound Shift (Lex Rask – Grimm). Publication via DOI These publications discuss historical names, etymologies and linguistic developments. They do not provide translations of the 18 voice lines. Grammar and pronunciation Winfred P. Lehmann: A Grammar of Proto-Germanic. University of Texas at Austin. Complete online grammar The chapters on phonology and inflection are particularly relevant. R. D. Fulk (2018): A Comparative Grammar of the Early Germanic Languages. Publisher's page – Open Access e-book The complete e-book is freely available. I have not worked through the whole book, though. Vocabulary IE-CoR – Indo-European Cognate Relationships Linguistic database One useful example is the entry for "hunt": IE-CoR: hunt. It references Kroonen's Etymological Dictionary of Proto-Germanic and also illustrates why some details need further checking. I also used Wiktionary's Proto-Germanic reconstruction entries as starting points for individual words: Proto-Germanic reconstructed terms Some examples: fehtaną – to fight timrōną – to build fiskōną – to fish hwētaną – to attack These entries are helpful for finding possible forms and references, but they are not a substitute for checking the original academic literature. 4. What is still missing? Before recording anything, I think we would need: Someone with knowledge of historical Germanic linguistics to review the suggested words and their grammatical forms. A consistent pronunciation guide, preferably using IPA. Better solutions for the uncertain expressions, especially retreat, repair, healing and garrison. A decision on the battle cry. A way to produce natural-sounding recordings that can be freely distributed with 0 A.D. I know there has already been some discussion about AI-generated content in the project. I'm not attached to using AI for the final audio. Human recordings would be fine as well. For now, AI has mainly helped me find sources and put together this preliminary list. I would be interested to know whether AI-assisted linguistic research is acceptable for this kind of contribution, and what the requirements for the final recordings would be. 5. Questions Does this general approach make sense for the Germans in 0 A.D.? Would reconstructed Proto-Germanic be a suitable choice, or should we consider another linguistic approach? And is anyone here familiar with historical Germanic linguistics who could help check the proposed words and pronunciation? I would be happy to continue working on this if there is interest. Thanks!

Oh sorry, I was pretty sure I disabled all mods, but one was still there. I disabled it and didn't get the error. Sorry

Exciting news! I've finely brought this project to a testable and reviewable state. A big change since my last posts is that I've managed to make the performance impact minimal. The inertia system pay for itself and is kinda having 0 cost including the collision detection logic and other logic related to it. Having a lot of units that have the "charge" effect fighting is also demonstrated to be reasonable on performance with only a few percent increase in simulation cost for a given battle. This project have a lot of implications, and anyone willing to be testing the PR and giving feedback would help tremendously to make it move forward. If you are able to, please do. PR link

Sounds like the gui/session/session.xml file is out-of-date. Are sure you have nothing modified and no mods loaded?

Good to know! And a big thanks to @Vantha

@Vantha

Just opened 0ad, and got this. I got it even without mods. 0ad would start -> I would go to matches -> new game -> then start, and it would start, and then it would quit

True. But not everyone can contribute the same way. Making tools more accessible could bring in more creators.