Simplifying building/unit system

[av93]

Last night I was thinking about how a Age I mod could be done. Btw I realized that maybe 0 a.d uses too much templates: Instead of ptol_house and athen_house, couldn't the actor be defined in the template file depending on the civ, and then with a dropdown list near and like the player selection one, for choosing the civ variant for the actor. The same for common units.

This way there would be less templates and the list should be cleaner.

Maybe I didn't express well, but the objective would be doing something like relative parents with actors in one file, instead of making a lot of them. What do you think?

 

[Stan`]

Well that's not a bad idea, but I don't see how you'll be able to make civ dependant templates for instance, if you want gaul house to have less population than greek houses.

[av93]

Civ bonus or special template, but we would have try to avoid them. In this case, there could be 2 templates: low_houses and big_houses. This way you cover all factions.

[niektb]

I don't really understand what the problem with the current system is. All generic properties go in the parent template and child (often civ-specific) templates can override those properties. Perfectly understandable and perfectly moddable. (and that last point is very important when considering groundbreaking template changes)

[Andrettin]

2 hours ago, niektb said:

I don't really understand what the problem with the current system is. All generic properties go in the parent template and child (often civ-specific) templates can override those properties. Perfectly understandable and perfectly moddable. (and that last point is very important when considering groundbreaking template changes)

Indeed, I think the same. The templates are great to avoid work duplication.

[av93]

3 hours ago, niektb said:

I don't really understand what the problem with the current system is. All generic properties go in the parent template and child (often civ-specific) templates can override those properties. Perfectly understandable and perfectly moddable. (and that last point is very important when considering groundbreaking template changes)

Yes, but I was trying to say if there could be a system to define the actor, by the civ that want to build it, in the entity. Then the numbers of entities could be reduced, if a lot of entities just change the name and the actor. 
 

[Stan`]

That will get somewhat complex. We already have the {civ} element in templates for inheritance,  but what you want to do is add it to the filenames as well. I guess that's doable. 

Problem : Even if all the houses share the same caracteristics, it's not said they will have the same footprint.

[sanderd17]

Reducing the number of templates won't be the case I guess. How can you build {civ}_house.xml when there's no such file?

It could reduce the content of the templates though, but for that, the actor files need to be structured better (get rid of the hellenes and the celts, rename the full names to the short versions, ...)

[av93]

Maybe I mixed different concepts (entities and templates), but I think you already get it. Just wanted to know if it was possibly to simplify.