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That may be a little too complicated, maybe the raw metal that you have to refine, that might work, you could have your transporters go to a forge, it goes from raw to cooked metal, then it goes to your civic center. But that might make it hard though, even wagon trains or transporters would be hard to manage. It might be better to add in 1 smaller change, then add in 2 changes, instead of doing them at the same time, then you can get used to the one, then lean how to do the other one

Extremely aggressive, attacks in force and frequently, ages up as fast as an experienced player would. I know that I found it much, much more difficult that Easy at the time. I heard that The Conquerors expansion made it even stronger.

What does Premium offer that uBlock does not? Also with Premium you do not need to log in to get its benefits.

Iirc it's the lowest difficulty level where the AI will age up sooner than you, and builds up to ~35 Villagers. I think it's also the lowest difficulty level where it starts an attack on its own. In other words it's on a level where you can't beat it anymore with randomly clicking on the screen, but actually have to play with intent. edit: Oh wait, AoK AI. Don't remember anything from those days.

There's already an issue for that: #7454 (Incorrect Unit Classifications for Idle Worker Hotkey).

How many observations? In earlier versions I knew when I could expect all enemy teams at my doorstep, but I feel that has changed and there's more variety of how it plays out.

This is a freaking awesome video and got me thinking about how pathfinding could simulate crowd and individual behavior.

I have made FFA and more than two teams, and that doesn't exist. They almost don't fight each other, they come everyone against you.

We could base the Wonder off of the 5th stupa from Nalanda: I've already given the Guptas (and Sasanians) a University structure, which is classed like the Library of the Successors. Same function, reducing tech research time with the 'Scholarship' global aura, but could be built in an earlier phase. I can put any special techs in the University. What think? This is a great special tech. I'll include that for sure. The tech icon can be a white horse with an aura about it. A good idea for a Special Building. Perhaps build one and it adds +20% capture resistance to all other structures. Something like that.

Indeed! For DE, non-combat heroes are a thing. Each civ can have 4-5 heroes, so having 4 combat heroes or emperors, plus 1 non-combat or non-emperor/leader hero adds some nice variation and choice. It's good if not all heroes are "kings" or generals. Chanakya for the Mauryas is a great example.

I definitely still need ideas for all categories! 4 heroes and their bonuses Unit references (for textures, props, and training roster) Mercenary Unit ideas (at least 3) Unique technologies Civ Bonuses Team Bonus Catafalque

Kids can be very, very good at playing 0 A.D. and many other games as well. The AI is, in fact, very easy to beat with a bit of practice. And you don’t need to defeat the AI on Very Hard before moving on to multiplayer. In the lobby, you can find all kinds of player profiles and skill levels. it's not all tryharding. The AI needs fundamental improvements instead of compensating for its weaknesses with production and gathering handicaps. Things like better decision-making and creativity. As it stands, the Very Hard AI is much easier to beat than the AI in StarCraft II on Brutal. Also, this game is far less click-intensive than others in its genre. Improving the AI and adding campaigns would be a major contribution to retaining and growing the single-player community. There’s a lot of work to be done, and not enough manpower.

Thank you. Putting this here for future reference: I think mimicking this aesthetic style would still be nice:

I think one of the many Maya glyphs would be nice, but I don't know if there's one simbolising the Maya people. The closest I can do for now is to give one referring to one of their main cities, Tikal (the Maya lived in city states, not a unified empire, so it's like I'm giving you a glyph for Athens representing all Hellenes): https://www.famsi.org/research/pitts/MayaGlyphsBook1.pdf, on page 72, maybe the one on the right is the better one (all 4 glyphs mean Tikal, they had many ways to write the same thing).

@Stan` and I have actually started a repo for Empires Besieged here: https://gitea.wildfiregames.com/0ad/empires_besieged. The last change was 11 months ago, but I'm working on things in DE (Guptas and Sasanians; a big thank you to @Duileoga and @Lopess) which will directly translate to EB at some point in the future. So, whether EB becomes it's own "game" or an "era" or an "expansion" or a "release" is up for debate. I personally advocate for a "0 A.D. Eras" concept, where players can swap between eras (Empires Ascendant, Empires Besieged, Masters of Bronze, Millennium AD) and only play those civs, or choose to play with all civs available at once.

I would love to have such a feature in the game for multiple things, such as wheat fields. But for now, what I mean is that we can have different variations of the structure so that it will look different sometimes when you build one (like how there are helmet variations).

Yes, that's totally understandable. Regarding the "multiple actor variations", does that mean one chooses, or could it be that the mound evolves from pebbles to grass with time? That would be nice if possible.

Nice catch. Any suggestions for a more accurate "symbol" representing them?

I like having multiple actor variations for the Royal Kurgan. Good idea. Ideally, I would agree with you. But I think with some civilizations, cultures, factions, that it's more difficult to pick a specific structure (see: Cimbri). So, picking a type of structure is okay, in my mind, especially if it's one of that culture's iconic structures. Kurgans definitely fit that bill! I like @Grautvornix's suggestion of having multiple actor variations.

And that's perfectly fine, Normal should indeed mean an experienced RTS player crushing the game after a couple of weeks. Easy should be for RTS casuals, Very Easy for RTS beginners, and Extremely Easy could be basically what Sandbox is (removing the name Sandbox just to be more consistent with nomenclature). One would then have Hard, Very Hard and Extremely Hard, ideally quite separated between them, for something actually challenging (Petra stupidity allowing). On these levels, unit upgrades should indeed happen, but it seems for some reason it's somehow hard to code. In any case, I have not seen a 1v7 on Very Hard yet, after all overwhelming numbers can sometimes make for plain stupidity.

Well, a big part of "war" and "strategies" is logistics, and defending supply lines gives a depth beyond smashing against towers and fortresses. Funnily enough yesterday I was thinking about dropsites having a resource count and maximum capacity. You would indeed need to think how to automatise stuff to reduce micro as much as possible. For more economic buildings, just go more realistic: a mine could be built on some mineral resources (like in Rise of Nations), what you extract is ores, then a smelter or foundry would give you the metals, which can be sent to the blacksmith, or others. Maybe that's too much, but games like Caesar III work like that. For example, the idea was that wood can be stored in some warehouse, from there it can be sent to construction, or exported, or if you build a woodshop it can make furniture, which can be exported for more money, or sent to the market, which your population acquires, again maybe a bit too much, but that's the idea. Check that game maybe.

@Thalatta, while I somewhat agree with you, the truth is that the AI has some serious flaws, and games against it start to feel samey after a while. Case in point is the 1v3 game that @ittihat_ve_terakki has shared. The AI is just plain stupid, doesn't upgrade its units and wastes them frequently on useless attacks. Only after reaching the City phase, the attacks start to become huge. Any experienced RTS player that sticks with the game for a couple of weeks will be able to crush Medium Petra.

Exactly. I've actually thought about all this the other way around: I wanted to introduce "upgradeable" Achievements (which I enjoyed in games from Kingdom Rush to Sins of a Solar Empire), and at the same time I came across difficulty levels and PvP focus comments, so it all fell into place. I think from combining all these problems and views, a nice solution that makes everyone (or most) happy can be achieved.

Thanks for the comprehensive answer! @Thalatta Indeed, there are many different playing styles - from competitive MP to relaxed SP (my favourire as an elderly guy). My intention was to start a discussion on naming the various playing levels and referring to them in a way that does not discourage people from trying out the game. Probably too much concerns as everyone should be able to find out that there is an easier setting if a game is too difficult as a beginner when set to "medium", same as there are means to make it more difficult (increased diffulty setting, more adversaries, higher speed, less resources etc.). Just, when initially "opening the box" default setting should be such that people can apprecviate the beauty of the game and its historicaly-appealing gameplay while challenges increase slowly.

The problem is that Very Easy and Easy should indeed be for kids, elders, and anyone who is in it for history, graphics, whatever, but just doesn't want to get rushed in 10 or 15 mins. Sandbox is not the solution because apparently not much happens, and some time ago someone said “the jump between Sandbox and Very Easy is too big”. So, it does seem that an extra easy level is needed, combined with that Normal shouldn’t be "for players having reached some intermediate playing level", or "about the level a somewhat competent player can beat consistently after 1-3 tries". Competent for 0 A.D. then? And measured by whom? Normal is not this in RTS, there's always certain implied equivalence between games, and this is a known issue, it has been brought up, I remember someone saying that it's the early attacks that get the newbies. And, again, the game states "the default AI level is quite challenging for new players", something I've never seen in any game before, a completely artificial situation, one shifts labels and no such thing happens, no clarification needed, there shouldn't be one in the first place. I don't understand the need to tell people that never had any problem in Normal/Medium in other RTS to stay in Easy or Very Easy until they git gud, and leave without a reasonable challenge those who might be below that level. Normal is so not normal that training times are around 3 times faster when compared to basic units and techs from StarCraft 2 in Brutal, which is ludicrous. I don't think most people wanting to explore the game in general would find that enjoyable. I think I’ve said it already: default options should be friendly for beginners, the vast majority of which will be more (or only) interested in SP. This paragraph might seem a bit offtopic, but I’ll connect everything with the difficulty levels. As known, this game caters too much to PvP: clickiness, rushes and tryharding have priority over strategy, tactics, and city-building. When someone complains, they have been told they want “a certain game experience that this project doesn't cater to”. There are many problems with that if the idea is to grow the game. Over 90% of gamers care only about SP (AoE numbers, similar for most). On the AoE forum, someone asks “why do developers struggle to design good RTS?”, and someone gives 7 points: half baked single player campaign, missing skirmish mode, missing editor tools, cliche soundtrack, making only multiplayer focused game, blatantly copying other games in genre and cheating AI. For 0 A.D., I think the MP issue is among the most blatant ones (not to mention the lack of a proper campaign, but I think other things should be fixed before that). It cannot be that if some tech is not optimal for MP then there are proposals to remove it. As someone said, they are there for SP, and that’s not a minor thing, at all. Just ignore the icon. Or better, propose how to make it interesting also for MP. Of course, there’ll be people saying “these changes are not part of the proposal and style that 0 A.D. seeks”, which doesn’t tend to be true if one actually reads the 0 A.D. Vision Document. Coming back to difficulty levels, maybe the AI is hard to code, but, as mentioned, people don’t like cheating AI (or advantages). I wonder if those gathering rate and trade gain modifications can be removed (except maybe on the hardest levels, if needed for a challenge), and the AI to be about when to attack, army sizes, defenses, and how efficiently other things are handled (techs, eco, etc). If Easy is the usual Medium, then that should be Normal, Very Easy should be Easy, and the apparent gap with Sandbox could be filled with a new Very Easy, and maybe another Extremely Easy, since the now nameless hardest level could acquire an Extremely Hard label. Maybe research, training and building rates should be independent speed options, and could be labelled as Normal 4x or 3x present times, some name for a possible 2x, and a Competitive 1x present times, to be used in PvP as it stands now. Regarding the speed of the game in general, I think barely slower would be more attractive to most, for example a Normal game speed of 0.8x the present one, making a Competitive 1.25x the present 1x, and 2.5x would be the present 2x Insane. To simplify things, “Presets” could be used, the "Normal" one selecting all Normal options, and the same with “Competitive”. All this not only makes the game more palatable for new players that will try things with default Normal settings, but also doesn’t change absolutely anything as things stand now if the Competitive Preset is selected. Besides, I think there's a way to incentivise people to play with Competitive Presets, with the hope that then they’ll have a go at MP (having more players in general should increase the ones going for MP anyway), and that is with Achievements. They are fun and addictive to get, and are good content for SP, giving objectives to be achieved in many possible ways. Maybe accounts or profiles would need to be introduced, so under a given one all played games would count for the Achievements. Each Achievement would be some nice icon, which would get decorated with background wings and lightning bolts (I have an idea to model them on some Roman scutum emblems) if obtained for harder difficulties and speed combinations, respectively, possibly handled with different Presets.