Jump to content

All Activity

This stream auto-updates

  1. Today
  2. That's expected, you need to download the prebuilt shaders for vulkan or build them yourself. There should be a script for it https://gitea.wildfiregames.com/0ad/0ad/src/branch/main/source/tools/spirv/get-nightly-shaders.sh
  3. There is a theory that the Trojan Horse was a battering ram, and that the works of Homer reflect his time period at times rather than the period the stories take place, so I suppose an Archaic Greek battering ram is not inconceivable.
  4. Whenever I open the in development game, I get this
  5. The description makes it seems as the Greek gate was not that weak. Pure speculation on my part, but i think the boulder might be loosely based on real breaching tactics (in reality with logs or maybe even axes, but in the poem one hero with a huge rock is enough). The descriptions of the rock being narrower on one side, Hector having to gain momentum to strike, part of the Trojan force climbing the wall while the rest walked through the gate. There is also the theory of the Trojan horse being loosely based on some forgotten bronze age siege engine, but i'm not so sure of it.
  6. What was the purpose of the siege ladder, to help "capture" the fortified area? For now could you extrapolate that into a tech that gives them for capture attack?
  7. Hey there, I´ve been thinking about ways to improve the team vs team gameplay and I came up with something probably very obvious but still not implemented in the game. I was thinking, that being able to place certain buildings in your teammates area or at least being able to connect walls could be extremly usefull. Just think about the map "2 seas" wouldn´t it be extremly cool to be able to build a huge wall along your teams territory without being forced to expand your teritory along the whole lenght of the map? Being ablet to connect your own with your teammates walls would also lead to a much more safe defense as when you try to build your walls as close to eachother as possible. And it wouldn´t only benefit if you want to build crazy line defense. It would probably also lead to a greater variety of nations being played in pvp. The reason for this would be that buffs that a certain nation has, e.g. Cushites, which posses the Great Pyramid or the Small Pyramid, can not only be used for oneself, but also for the whole team, which would give the whole team an immense buff in comparison for to what they may lose by picking a weaker nation. And yes even though there are only 3 nations with buildings such as the Small Pyramid (Cushites, Mauryas and Iberians) it would benefit them and allow more interactions between you and your teammate. (Maybe you can add the Romans if you add the building "Via" which gives units walking on them a buff in their speed) Now lets face the problems: 1. Being able to place anything in your mates territory could also mean that you can place a barrack close to his civic center, switch teams and kill him. The solution would be that you can only place buildings in your teams territory when you play fixed teams. 2. How can I make sure, that my mate dosen´t trolls me by blocking of all my space? Here are two solutions either you can disable the function before starting the match or you can disable it in the match at any give time. 3. Wouldn´t it be broken if my team would be able to place e.g. their barracks in my territory, so they can always produce units when I am under attack. As it saves them a lot of time and is way safer then walking to me with their units? (And also it would be basically be the same as one player but with three heads (I think you get what I mean) And I agree, its a valid concern but I think this could be fixed by not allowing every building to be placed in your teams territory (e.g you can place the Great Pyramid or maybe even a tower, but not a barrack or houses) I hope it wasn´t too much of a burden reading my post and let me here your oppinion
  8. Also, all this could be kind of connected to something I mentioned before in https://wildfiregames.com/forum/topic/124829-a-call-for-umbrella-factions/#comment-758892: The Archaic period mentioned (800-480 B.C.) would be the last two phases here, starting with the rise of the city-states (which are actually small regions, by "Athens" in vanilla one should understand the whole Attica) and continuing with important colonies that continue independently (Syracuse in this example). The Mycenaeans would span from around 1700 to 1150 BC, while the Greek Dark Ages would correspond to the second phase. The diagram tries to represent how people identified themselves, and when dialects were first attested (Mycenaean being first), but not how they are related between them (thus, this is an attempt to a civ/tribe/city-state tree, it's certainly not a linguistic tree). The Greeks would keep identifying themselves with their tribes/dialects, but this didn't mean much regarding alliances (although some cultural similarities could be singled out for gameplay purposes).
  9. That's what I was planning on doing, I am just not very familiar with JS, and was hoping someone could help with that
  10. Also, do you think boats are a little too weak? In my mod, I had increased resistance and health on arrow ships and siege ships, and lowered damage on the ram ship. What do you think?
  11. Yes, I had been thinking about doing other boat changes, and it looks like you already did them
  12. But that's caps with teeth, just caps I think would be safe to place in the Archaic period, maybe even from before, down to the Iliad, which has no mention of such things (EDIT: obviously just a log would appear somewhere around here first, so it would be fine to start in 776 BC with a log and soon after either capping it, for more attack, or having a shed for it, for more resistance). Regarding the boulders mentioned in the Iliad, I can only guess, but apparently (can't remember myself since I've read it 25 years ago) they were used by the Trojans against the Greek fortifications (if such a thing even existed), and not the other way around. This could be both because the Greek fortifications (and gate) would have been much weaker, and because the terrain played against them (the plain coming mostly downwards from Troy to the shore, and the Greeks having not much of a choice than to build on low ground). And although there are no reliable sources regarding superhumans lifting impossibly heavy boulders, there are cases of boulders being rolled down for defensive purposes, from Xenophon's Anabasis ("when the rearguard, so advancing, had reached a ravine which they must cross in order to strike up the steep, at that instant the barbarians began rolling down great boulders, each a wagon load, some larger, some smaller; against the rocks they crashed and splintered flying like slingstones in every direction") to New Zealand, according to https://teara.govt.nz/en/rock-limestone-and-clay/print ("the defenders would hurl stones and roll boulders onto the enemy").
  13. I've seen some sources describe it as 450 BC, which would be some 30 years after the end of archaic period. So might be close enough to assume something similar already existed in late archaic period. But probably better to just have the log ram and other early methods.
  14. https://www.oriental-studies.org.ua/en/smirnou-syncretism-in-the-religious-life-of-ancient-palmyra-in-the-3rd-century-сe/ I'm going to leave this here and let you know that I'm working together with other developers in Palmira. I am working on the symbology of Palmyra and it is complicated to choose symbols for a very syncretic city. It's impressive, but there aren't many images or details online about this faction. Apart from sculptures and other objects, there aren't many clear images from the 3rd century. There is very little art from that period; the original gods of Palmyra are almost entirely unrepresented. It's interesting that they had an anonymous god just like the Athenians. They had Bel and Baalshamin, two gods from different triads. Baalshamin is similar to Canaanite Baalshamin but more advanced and does not share a monotheism like Yahweh, it is a syncretism between Baal and the god El. He has armor, which indicates that he is a warrior god.(similar to Semitic gods in armor fighting in the skies). I am developing a new eagle, I don't know if as an emblem or as another symbol. Baalshamin is probably a kind of Semitic Zeus; he appears alongside eagles as a symbol. Being an economically Semitic civilization, the gateway to the Silk Road, it is a city of trade and many foreigners with their gods. This city and its civilization should be in the game. It's unique, a cultural mix of things. Visually, they can be unique. This god is represented in what some call the anti-classical style. All that we see represented in late art, the lack of realism and naturalness in favor of facial expressions. https://pressbooks.bccampus.ca/cavestocathedrals/chapter/late-empire/ This will also be useful later on.
  15. Yes, that's also in Campbell's book: "the vertical blade, flanked on either side by five triangular teeth, was perhaps designed to cut into mud-brick". But none of this confirms it belonged to a log being carried by troops, as mentioned, it's dated from the late 5th c. BC, a time where there were already ramming "engines". But we would need to additionally know: were they targeting stone walls? Mud-brick walls? Wooden palisades? A gate? For the last two probably it would work, for the first two, I would need to see more concrete evidence. Looking at the representation, it would seem that they are running towards the gate:
  16. There is a theory the Olympia one was specifically designed for breaking mud bricks. The Trajan column actually shows Dacians attacking a Roman fort by holding a metal capped wooden beam (too late for this discussion, but at least it's some evidence that this sort of weapon existed in antiquity).
  17. I like the idea of turret points on boats. I think it would go well with #8957. In my opinion we also need some logic to allow shrinking turetable unit model's => When a unit is turreted on a boat, it become 20% smaller. Just for visual consistency with boats being a bit smaller then they should. Also as you pointed out, units should die when the boat sinks.
  18. Maybe after being placed beside a wall, units could go slowly up, in the same way they go up when they are posted on top of walls. Would look a bit goofy right now, but still. Yes, the Assyrians would do that to ram a thinner part of the walls. In this case, Old Smyrna 1948-1951 by J. M. Cook states that "so gigantic a mound, raised from the low ground to overtop the city fortifications, can only be explained as a siegework; and on chronological grounds therefore it can with certainty be attributed to Alyattes", which would seem to imply that they built it all the way up for troops to climb, but then it says "at a low level in the mound (about 8 metres above sea-level) a large mass of solid mud brick was encountered in our excavation; this may possibly have fallen from a breach effected in the superstructure of the city", and later on "the mud brick superstructure of the fortification there fell forward at the time of the capture or very soon after", which seems to imply ramming at a higher level. Maybe "overtop" was not literal, and the second interpretation (the Assyrian way) is indeed the faster way to do things. All this is a bit of a problem since I don't think troops carrying a log (even capped with metal) would have had enough strength to break a wall, even at a higher level. Interestingly enough, this was also the case for the Thucydides quote already mentioned, before stating the "snapped off the nose of the battering ram" bit, he says that "while raising the mound the Peloponnesians also brought up engines against the city, one of which was brought up upon the mound against the great building and shook down a good piece of it", thus, these were already engines, used in the Assyrian way. All this means that I don't see these siege ramps/mounds viable before having proper battering rams, which coincides with both appearing in Greece in the 5th c. BC, as mentioned before. I think the earliest attestations for these in Greece come from the 5th c. BC. In conclusion, and besides the guys with a log (after all, D. B. Campbell in Greek and Roman Siege Machinery 399 BC-AD 363 states that "it is very likely that Western warriors would soon have discovered the value of a stout tree trunk in bursting open a gate"), what seems reasonable in chronological order is: spies, climbing mud-brick walls at certain points, at some point capping the log with metal, after that (EDIT: or before, who knows exactly, both could be independent in the game) and seemingly before the 5th c. BC building a non-movable shed for it, and having ladders for the newer unclimbable stone walls.
  19. I don't have time these days to investigate it, but the first thing I would do is follow @Stan` advice and study how it's implemented in the garrison
  20. The ramps and ladders are interesting but would be somewhat difficult to animate, hence the idea of making it a passive bonus or tech (i think siege ladders are already a technology, or at least they are in the DE mod). One interesting tidbit about earthen ramps is that the famous Assyrian towered rams were apparently mainly used on top of such ramps to damage the enemy battlements. Does this mean the Lydian ramp was meant for rams? perhaps but there is no definitive proof (Rams built in the "Hurrian manner" are already mentioned in Ḫattušili I's siege of Urshu so they might not be entirely new to Anatolia) This is a quite interesting siege method for civilizations without heavier siege equipment; again a bit dificult to implement (and i'm not sure how much it was used in archaic period itself). Although perhaps it would be possible to implement a simpler ''underminer'' unit that attacks enemy walls with the villager's pickaxe.
  21. Indeed, surely this started early. For the ram I mentioned, Thucydides states that the defenders "snapped off the nose of the battering ram", implying it was capped, probably with metal like the Olympia ram, which is from around the same period. There are plenty of engagements for which there are no records, but in any case, attacks were usually concentrated on the gates. I don't see that as desirable, but other possibilities could be: -Spy units hard to see to the enemy, which I proposed recently, could open gates. This is not some far fetched Trojan Horse thing: "political factions aiming at the overthrow of a government could render invaluable assistance in several ways. One method was the opening of the gates of a city under siege. Another was to make it possible for enemy forces to enter the besieged city under the cover of darkness. An excellent example of this is provided by the siege of Plataiai. According to Thoukydides (2.2.1-3), a force of three hundred Boiotians entered the city at night with the aid of Nauklides and his friends who opened the gates for them", from Espionage and Treason in Classical Greece, by A. Gerolymatos. -Later on, siege ladders could be considered, since apparently they "are mentioned in a fragment attributed to Archilochus" ca. 650 BC. -Even later, around 585 BC "the Lydians, presumably under Alyattes II, took Old Smyrna by building an earthen siege ramp" (which included wood). Maybe the Greeks learned from that, but their use by them is not attested until over a century later. -On top of all that, initially walls would have been made mostly of mud-brick, which "resting on a low rubble socle, was not very high or very strong", from Ancient Greek Fortifications, 500-300 BC, by N. Fields. This would have made "climbing the stone and mubrick walls" feasible at some points (as mentioned in the Iliad), where their slope wasn't as steep. For game purposes these points could be where the walls take a turn, and some units could be able to walk over them (at a great speed and resistance cost). In any case, at some point "all-stone fortifications became more common", allowing for taller and steeper walls. Still, there's an interesting difference between both kinds of materials, although maybe hard to implement in the game: "against the blows of engines brick brings greater security than fortifications built of stone. For stones break and are dislodged from their fittings; brick however, does not suffer so much from engines, but it crumbles under the action of water just as wax is melted by the sun" (the last method being how Sparta took Mantineia).
  22. Yesterday
  23. Just downloaded it and tested it. I saw a mod that was yellow, some green, and some white. Also, the check for updates button worked. It seems to be working for me. Maybe being able to update mods from the main mod menu would be nice (though, it takes 5-7.324 seconds to get to the download page that it probably doesn't matter, and if you need to agree to the terms and conditions) Can that be a Pull Request?
  24. Ok thanks @guerringuerrin! Would anybody want to help me with adding the eject units on boat death? Also, the PR is #9211
  25. Also read the commit guidelines and you can always check the Wiki. And this is a very user-friendly guide to the basics of Git. The hard data is here: https://git-scm.com/learn
  26. In this case no, it is purely an archeological category. The Frisian pottery is unique to the region and cannot be grouped within the Rhine-Weser or the Elbe traditions. Frisian pottery has its own features and it is spanning a period from the 7th century BC to the 4th century AD. It is highly probable that the original Frisian people has been replaced culturally during the 3rd and 4th century AD. Probably by migrants from the Lower Elbe and Jutland. It is entirely possible that the earliest Frisians spoke an orphan language since it is naive to believe that we are aware of all the linguistic branches of the Indo-European family. It is very likely that some branches disappeared without leaving any traces or legacy. However, it is important to realize that the Nordwestblock theory has its critics. Many of the arguments in this theory are based on an overinterpretation of onomastics. Several experts have already pointed out that many examples presented as impossible to explain using Celtic or Germanic languages are highly debatable. Furthermore, other experts have pointed out that certain features presented as representing a unique substrate in this region are in fact found in other distant regions. Furthermore, it is quite inconceivable to imagine a language that would serve as an intermediary between the Celtic and Germanic languages. The two language families likely diverged several thousand years ago, well before the Iron Age. The most likely scenario is simply an exchange of words, borrowings from one language to another. But that does not fundamentally alter the structure of the language. If it is a linguistic isolate, there is a good chance that it is a language derived from the Italo-Celtic languages. It is also simply possible they spoke a orphan Germanic dialect. We don't know much about them before the 3rd century AD so the question is open.
  1. Load more activity
×
×
  • Create New...