Aztec_Brave

Finally a chance for the community to show what we are capable of. Well, either that or WFG have decided they can't really be bothered doing shields.

I while back I voted here, although I'm not entirely sure who for (may have been carthaginians). Right now I really want to play the Iberians. I can pretty much imagine what the other civs will play like, but I just can't get my head arond the Iberians. I mean so for it looks like they'll be some kind of cross between turtlers and rushers. Pharaonic Egyptians > Ptolemaic Egytians. The Ptolemaic dynasty was in power after pretty much everyone who could had wiped the floor with the Egyptians (with the exception of the Romans who would shortly invade and turn the area itno their breadbasket).

The game is being designed to be extremely historically accurate (obviously not past the point where it hurts gameplay), so I expect the campaigns will be strictly historical.

OK, specific questions: - Is the plan still to have millitary units be able to do civillian jobs? - What resources are there and how are they gathered? - Will there be drop off points or will you dispense with them like Ensemble did? - What is the general design philosophy: Do you consider the economic side of the game to be just as important as the millitary side or do you see it as something to do in between battles (Unfortunately far too many designers seem to be going for the latter.

We seem to have pretty good info about the military side of the game, we know what sort of units the game has, which civ. specialises in which units etc, we even have showcases of a couple of super units. Despite this we know virtually nothing about how the economy will be managed, except what we can remember from very old posts from the mods (which is probably all out of date anyway). So I was wondering whether we could be enlightened somewhat.

You have to admit that it works pretty well: it's simple for your avgerage player, it's easy to balance and it still creates enough sense of realism to avoid total absurdity (now, does anyone remember the Empire Earth balance system that only compared units based on their form of attack, whether arrow, pierce or melee, totally ignoring whether they were cavalry or had range or whatever. That was bad. The cool thing is of course, that 0AD doesn't have to care about selling as many copies to average gamers (in fact, you're average gamer will probably be more likely to get the game anyway as he won't have to spend time looking for a serial key and a crack), but can finally try out something totally new without a publisher complaining about it being bad for business. Good luck balancing this though, it looks like it will be one hell of a job.

OK. Some more brainstorming: Iberians: The worlds first guerillas. We are told that they will be a predominantly defenseive civilisation, but also that they will have the fastest (we're told they have excellent cavalry units) and most rapid firing units in the game, with the addded option of flaming projectiles and some kind of "Toledo steel" bonus. This doesn't really sound like your typical defensive turtle civ. I imagine a more sort of "defend by attacking" approach, or as Firepowa put it, a turtle-rush. Their fast units sound ideal for being able to cover large areas by moving units around, so in theory they should be able to have far fewer units in defense compared to other civs, as they can always move them quickly to the trouble spot. Actually, I'm pretty stumpe with this civ: they are said to be prodominantly defensive, but nothing is said of building bonuses and the description of their units sounds pretty offensive. Their economy doesn't sound like anything special, and we still need details of the "Tactica Guerilla" ability. Persians: Cannon fodder infantry, powerfull archers (but probably easy to slaughter if you get close enough) and an extremely diverse and powerfull cavalry. They do actually sound a bit like the Russians in AOE3 (although so do the Celts somewhat). Their attack strategy already seems obvious now: use the cheap infantry as a meatshield for your powerfull archers and mow down the enemy with your powefull cavalry. We are told they were extremely wealthy, with a powerfull trade empire, which will almost certainly translate into some cool economic bonues. They're architecture is said to be grand, which could possibly translate into building bonuses, although I don't see what sort of a bonus a building gets for looking night (it might even mean more expensive buildings. I'm interested to see what sort of a bonus the religious and cultural tolerance that is mentioned will turn into (if it does have some kind of effect on gameplay at all). On the whole I see them as boomers, needing to gain as much from their economic bonuses as possible in order to be able to afford the hordes of meatshield infantry and uber-cavalry. They may also be good turtlers, with (possible) building bonuses and an economy based on trade rather than gathering (a la the Dutch with their banks in AOE3). Romans: We are told explicitly that they are the best rounded civ in the game, but don't really excel in anything, although their inantry, siege weapons, construction and mining are said to be superior. They are also said to be very adaptable. I see them as similar to the Greeks (read: my hypothesized Greeks): strong buildings, powerfull late game upgrades) but with an army less based around slow heavy infatry. The extremely good organisation of the army will quite possibly translate into some sort of price or training speed bonus, which could give them the edge when more powerful units clash (Celt and Persians also probably have some very fast-training units, but these will probably be inferior to the Roman ones). I can see them doing any strat, but excelling in none of them. Their strength will probably lie in not having any specific strats: making them completely unpredictable and even able to radically change strat mid game or even do more at once (doesn't everyone dream of rushing the enemy and then turtling in and booming). Sounds like they'll be very newbie friendly, but more skilled players will go for the other civs which are much powerfull in specific areas.

We've probably both been reading different sources, because from what I've always heard Celts thought that armour was for cowards and prefered to fight without it (often without any clothes too), believing that fate had already decided whether they would die or not, and no amount of armour would protect them. I'm seriously no history buff, but this is how I've always seen them portrayed.

Despite the fact that we have practically no concrete info on what each civ. will be like to play, its never too early to make speculations based on history and what little we have already been told (I'm assuming the "Cultures" info on the main website is still at least mostly up to date). I'm sure the history buffs will be able to tell us exactly how each civ. really fought, but of course theres always the problem of exactly how that translates into gameplay. So a few of my speculations: Carthagianians: We are told they had a good navy, were good traders, that the walls of Carthage were never breached and that they have a wide selection of units. I see a very good booming civ, one that can always come out with the best economy if not rushed and overwhelming the enemy simply by being able to crank out more units and spend more on upgrades. The power of their navy is explicitly mentioned, but on land no predominant unit is mentioned. It is possible that they will have no predominant unit, but because of the wide selection of units (as they historically used many mercenaries) they will have competent units for every situation and will with some skill be able to react to any attack the enemy sends. They may also have some kind of building bonus, seeing as Carthage was never breached. We also know that they will field Elephants as some kind of super-unit, now that is something I wouldn't like to come up against. The Celts: We are told that they will have very poor ranged capabilities, so infantry will be the mainstay of their army. I would imagine that this infantry would be very weak (they wore no armour) but cheap and easier to produce en masse, after all the celts always seemed to outnumber the Romans, and training soldiers who don't even use armour is much less expensive. I would imagine the celts to be a perfect example of a rush civ, with a strong early eco and the ability to quickly train large but weak armies. Once the enemies strart upgrading their units I imagine that the celts will be pretty much overwhelmed. Their lack of good archers might make them particalarly vulnerable against certain civs, especially civs with slow powerfull units which are best attacked from range (Greek hoplites, Carthaginian Elephants etc. Now would you rather go up to one of those with a sword or knock 'em off from a comfortabgle distance. We are also told there building will be made of wood and so be cheaper and quicker to construct, but be much weaker. The Hellenes: Seem to have some similarities with Carthage: a good navy, a strong mercentile base = good eco. However, rather than having a large variety of units, they will mostly be based round the slow and powerfull infantry phalanx. Their architecture is also mentioned, which might translate into more powerfull buildings (possibly not at the expense of price). The enourmous ammount of scientific achievement could mean that the greeks will have much better techs and upgrades then the other civs, giving them an extremelly powerfull late game. I see them as a somewhere between boomers and turtlers. Their (hypothesized by me) stronger buildings and superior upgrades could lead to players holding back till they are fully developed rather than opting for an earlier (and weaker) attack, but will still need to dominate the map to support this development (they did establish colonies in real life after all). OK, I can't be bothered to right any more today. Why doesn't somebody else try their hand at totally random speculation. And it would be great if the producers gave us a few clues. Even tiny ones. Please?!?!?!?

In an ideal world I would like an expansion that pushes the timescal back even further to include even more ancient civs, like the Hittites, Babylonians, Egyptians etc. For some reason they are chronically under-represented in games.

Monut and Blade just takes a different approach. OK, so it might improve community involvement slightly, but playing an unfinished game actually does kind of turn people off. Currently (haven't checked any updates in like a month or so, forgive me if something radically new and innovative was incorporated in the mean time) there isn't really that much to do: you've got a few cities with one or two people to talk to, virtually all the interiors are unfinished, a few places to visit, and arena to fight in, basicly it just isn't nearly enough for a full game yet and that can be annoying. Also, you can only play for a limited time unless you pay, which is totally different to the 0AD approach. Actually, 0AD was mentioned one Heavengames a few days ago (Rise and Fall Heaven I think), so they do support you at least to some extent.

Try www.zompist.com if you already haven't. That is the place for nerds who are into this sort of stuff to hang out (and yes, I do go there). I think somebody with the the time and effort to plan out something like this will fit right in.

I'm sure you could do the same for words purely of Latin or Germanic origin in. A lot of those words look like later borrowings for scholastic terms (most probably made by scholars who were fluent in Greek and simply needed a term for something or because they thought it was more pure than the vulgar european tongues). Many of them are not exactly common terms (tell me how often you use "Synchronous Scholastis" or "Synergistic Ergo" in regular speech) and few show evidence of being natural domesticated words in any modern language (if they were we might expect French/English/Whatever sound changes applied to them, rather than seeing something so similar to the greek form). Actually, if you attempt to reconstruct a proto-language for all romance languages using the comparative method (this was used for example to reconstruct the hypothetical ancestor of all Indo-Europeans langs, Proto-Indo-European) you get vulgar latin. There may have been much borrowing from Greek in Both these languages as well as in Latin, but the common base of all Romance Languages is Latin. (The same way that English has borrowed huge ammouns of vocabulary from Latin as well as Greek to a lesser degree, but still has a Germanic base). By the way, I'm not trying to bash your theory on the Hellenic ethnicity of the Romans, I just disagree with some of the linguistics.

OK, a MMOFPS or MMOPRG with FPS elements. It's still multiplayer only, making it hard as hell to do, and drastically decreasing the audience of the game.

If I understand correctly you're basicly talking about a bronze-age MMORPG. These are possibly the hardest games to pull off, not only as far as making it goes but also designing it so it doesn't fall apart with so many people online (anyone who's played Runescape will know what I mean).

Actually, Japanese is an isolate with no proven relashionship to any language we know of, any apparent connection to Korean or Chinese is due to the prolonged contact of these cultures. I'm pretty sure Korean is an isolate too, but don't quote me on that.

I'd really love to see Czech Republic winning the tournament.. Kudos to that! Well, you live and learn. (You could also final live and learn how to spell it properly Actually, a full B team would never have stood a chance of winning. They had a full defence and if the hadn't brought Poborsky and Baros (too lazy to add diacritics) on then the outcome would have been very different.

One of the Dutch players (One of the De Boers?) went down in the penalty area, and the referee (Pierluigi Collina) awarded a penalty despite the fact that the Czech player had barely touched him. This resulted in a 1-0 victory for Holland (this happened in like the last minute), leading to the evetual exit of the Czechs from the tournament. Yay!!! England one!

Actually, I think it was probably the best match I have ever seen, regardless of the result.

Well, at least you don't think it's still Czechoslovakia. As for who I'm backing: The English and the Czechs. Looking quite good on both sides, the English have recovered from France's blows, and the Czechs have 3 points (albeit they nearly lost them to a team that they could have hammered 7-0), and a good chance against the Dutch.

For a few days I stayed home doing absolutely nothing. The I went of to our weekend house with my parents (if anybody is thinking that we're rich snobs, mpst people in the Czech Republic (at least the city people) have one and their usually pretty basic). There I did some stuff that needed to be done, rode my bike, drank beer etc. Then my parents left and my friends came to stay for the night ans we partied till 6am. Then we slept for 2-4 hours, cleared the place up and went home. Now I'm home and doing nothing again.

No they aren't. Humans evolved from the exact same ancestrors using the same proccess. We use animals, but the whole point of animal existance is not to serve humans. Oh, how stupid of me. I totally forget that chickens evolved cooped up in pens and that their natural food is chcieken-feed stuffed with growth hormones. Alligators kill other animals for their survival, not for profit. Alligators don't factory-breed their prey. The prey has a chance of getting away, it's an almost fair fight.

You people are sick. Hunting: Well I don't find it particularly nice to take a gun and shoot something alive. Fast food: You think KFC chickens are happy free range chicks that are quietly killed in their sleep, rather than cruelly bread factory chickens slaughtered en masse simply so that you can tuck into your hot strips Slaughter houses: If slaughtering anything isn't cruel than I reccomend somebody tries it on you. And if you think protecting animals is crazy than you are an ******* (fill in whatever you think is an appropriate enough insult) Have you ever seen the way these animals live? Imagine beeing cooped up in a tiny space with nowhere to move, hundreds of similarly cooped up people surrounding you everywhere, your fed totally unnatural food, your mate is chosen for you... I could go on. That is in my opinion torture. Firstly, could you show me the evidence for this. Secondly, what the hell makes you think that humans are so superior?

We do? People here in the Czech Republic only get something like 2 days, unless they happen to go to a cool school like me where you get 2 weeks.

I can write looking at the monitor, but frequently look at the keyboard when I'm not sure about the position of my fingers. I can't write totally blind though.