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Wildfire Games, an international group of volunteer game developers, proudly announces the release of “0 A.D. Alpha 17 Quercus”, the seventeenth alpha version of 0 A.D., a free, open-source game of ancient warfare. This alpha features a major gameplay rebalance, units on walls, trigger support, improved mod support and more! Easy Download and Install Download and installation instructions are available for Windows, Linux and Mac OS X. 0 A.D. is free of charge and always will be. Although you might find some people selling copies of 0 A.D., either over the internet or on physical media, you will always have the option to download 0 A.D.completely gratis, directly from the developers. Moreover, you can redistribute the game and modify it freely as long as you abide by the GPL. You can even use parts of the art and sound for your own projects as long as you abide by CC BY-SA. No “freemium” model, no in-game advertising, no catch. Top New Gameplay Features in This Release Major Core Combat Rebalance: Now, if you send only one unit type to battle, it fares poorly against regiments of the same size that mix more than one type, e.g. melee and ranged units. Technologies as a whole have been made more expensive and unrelated technologies have been “unpaired”. Some stats have been adjusted to make training some units viable. Buildings are now a bit easier to destroy. Temporarily, we have removed formations, and we plan to re-implement them again in a more balanced way.Naval Map Support: The computer opponent now uses transport ships to colonize other islands and attack enemy bases, but naval combat (i.e. ships against ships) is not yet implemented.Improved Fog of War: The Fog of War is the part of the terrain that has been scouted already but is not in vision range of your units or allied units. Buildings and changes to resources such as trees or metal mines are now also hidden in the Fog of War, and not just units. Hence, players now need to scout more often to find unclaimed resources on the map, hidden enemy outposts and more.Units On Walls: Units can be garrisoned in wall segments, and appear on the walls at predefined prop points. (Importantly, while the units can attack and be attacked individually, they cannot walk around on the wall.)Multiplayer Lobby Profiles: Users can now view profiles of other players from within the lobby. Profiles contain user statistics such as rating, games won and lost, highest rating, and ranking that can be accessed on-demand.New Maps: Siwa Oasis (skirmish map) and Schwarzwald (random map). Scenario and Mod Design Triggers: A “trigger” makes an action occur in the game if a specified event takes place. For example: If you build an outpost within a certain area (event), your enemy’s walls are destroyed (action); Alternatively, if a timer runs out (event), an army spawns on the border of the map and marches towards your city (action); Or, if a certain building is destroyed (event), the player who owns it loses the game (action). The new trigger system is perhaps the most important feature that was missing to make narrative campaigns and scenarios possible. Triggers also make it easier to design custom victory conditions, or even multiplayer maps with unique gameplay aspects. Events and actions are easily extensible with some Javascript knowledge and offer a huge set of new possibilities for creative map designers.Two new maps make use of the trigger system in Alpha 17: Survival of the Fittest: Each player has one female citizen in the middle of the map where treasures spawn from time to time. The main bases are on isolated spots with no resources and some buildings are restricted. Enemy attack forces spawn regularly and attack your main base. The goal is to survive as long as possible by collecting treasures, recruiting troops and defending your base. (Map type: Random; Map Filter: Standard) Treasure Islands: Search treasures on small islands and on the water. Collect more treasures than your opponent to win. You can use fishing boats to garrison infantry and send them to other islands. Trade ships can be used to collect floating treasures, but you need to advance to Town Phase before they can be built. (Map type: Scenario; Map Filter: Naval Maps) Mod Selector and Improved Mod Support: The new Mod Selector allows users to enable or disable mods, save them or just restart into them to test them out. This way, it is a lot easier to test and play mods. This can be reached at: Main Menu -> Tools & Options -> Mod Selection. Also, modders can now easily make small changes to the game without having to copy and modify many files.Performance Improvements Several parts of the game and the engine have been improved for better performance. Comparing with Alpha 16, you’ll notice significantly higher framerates at the beginning of the game. There are also some improvements observable later in the game, but also additional overhead from new features. Improvements have been made in these areas: Simulation: Dynamic message subscriptions;Rendering: Optimise silhouette rendering, new unit renderer, optimisation for non-animated units;AI: Building placement code, handling of unreachable targets (i.e. for builder or gatherers), Defense — finding defending units;Scripting: Using new Javascript Map objects at some places.Graphics and User Interface Improved Culling for Shadows and Reflections: This fixes ugly pop-in effects for shadows and reflections while scrolling.Improved Water Rendering.Improved CJK text input using the Windows IME.Music: Omri has created a new and improved version of Honour Bound — the 0 A.D. main theme.Miscellaneous: Hellenistic ranged siege animations added; Carthaginian ballista added; Iberian barracks replaced; Rotary mill added; Ptolemaic blacksmith modified; Gaul farmstead modified; Ptolemy I hero for the Ptolemies; Snow wolf modified; Iberian wonder added; New Iberian tower models added (see screenshots above).Getting Support Please see the “Get Support” page on our website to find ways to get help from the active and friendly 0 A.D. community. We are well aware there is some room for improvement in 0 A.D. Some known issues are: Lag, visual glitches or textures not loaded, missing animations and more. When you provide feedback, we would ask you to focus on some of the other points that could be improved. Thanks. Please Contribute! We are seeking volunteer contributors in programming, art, sound, documentation and more. Programmers are especially welcome and can get started immediately. Interested? Log onto #0ad-dev on QuakeNet on IRC and meet the developers. Also, you are invited toregister on our forums and start participating! Map Design Contest Do you want to try your hand at creating new maps? Especially now that triggers have been added? Then you get some extra motivation from the Council of Modders who are now hosting a map making contest. They do encourage you to make use of triggers and graphical mods as triggers and better mod support are important features in this release. The deadline is 30th November. Why "Quercus"? We name our releases according to development status (“Alpha” or “Beta”), successive release number (1, 2, 3, …) and a word relating to the ancient world, in alphabetical order (“Argonaut” for A, “Bellerophon” for B, …). “Quercus” is Latin for “oak tree”. The name relates to 0 A.D. as it could refer to the oak leaves used in the corona civica, a military honor given to a citizen who saved the life of other citizens or soldiers whilst in battle. Recipients were allowed to enter the Roman Senate, and were required to wear them at public gatherings. (Thanks, Jonathan L.!) This name suits this version well because of the many bugfixes and optimizations in Alpha 17 that make the game stabler and more mature, like an old oak tree. Also, the increased support for mods allows the game to easily diverge into more varieties of gameplay, like branches growing from a tree trunk. (Thanks, ltms!). For the next alpha, we welcome fan suggestions for words relating to the ancient world beginning with the letter R. Keep it original and related to the time frame portrayed in 0 A.D. (appx. 500 BC – 1 BC)! Subscribe to 0 A.D. Development News Contact info for press, bloggers, etc.: aviv@wildfireLATINgames.com without the capitalized name of a language spoken in ancient Rome.

One more, 0 A.D. Multiplayer: Prodigal Son vs LordigorIIIofKiev I didn't plan to upload this, as the game start included some unwanted external voices and it generally didn't turn out that good, but since Lord will upload his, here's my perspective, with a little bit of it cut off. I'll eventually include a link to his video. The commentary is rather lacking, doing it live during a multiplayer game proved rather hard for me, but... trying will help me get used to it. This video serves to remind me (or anyone else on the same boat) one thing: Never underestimate your opponent. I saw his low rating and win percentage and was playing rather lazily, while random choice gave me Britons which I'm not familiar with. He chose the Persians. Map is Random-Mainland and game version is A17 (SVN). View to see the outcome.

The Council is both happy and proud to announce a brand new release!!! Rise of the East What is it? Rise of the East focusses on one faction the Chinese, during the Han Dynasty to be precise. With it's fancy theme this is surely one to mark! As a release name we've chosen Xù yuē. This means something like revival or renewal. We called it that way because of the huge changes to our project! What is new? The buildings are completely reworked with a brand new texture and various new buildings were added. I would like to thank Enrique (art dept. lead at WFG) in particular for helping us with it. Two songs were composed by Omri Lahav (the composer of the 0 A.D. soundtrack). These songs function as in-game music. Also we ironed out a couple of historical inaccuracies thanks to Mei Houwang (Chinese Historian). Current features: - One playable faction: Han (No worries, the civilizations from the main game are still playable) - 2 Custom Random Maps: Loess Plateau and Gobi Desert (made by Spahbod) Who are we? The Council of Modders was formed up of two small modding teams and a few newcomers: Aristeia (about the bronze age) and Millennium A.D. (about medieval times) CoM aims to create a umbrella for all wannabee modders and help everyone needed and of course create their own projects, one of them is Rise of the East. Rise of the East was added to the project list in early-2014 after an agreement with Scion's lead Rob Kimball. That having said: A lot of work in this release was done by Scion Development (almost everything), so we owe a large one to them for having paved the road for us to continue in their absence! How to: 1. Unzip the download but leave the inner archive intact. 2. Place the unzipped folder into <installationdirectory>/binaries/data/mods. You'll see another folder there called 'public'. 3. Launch the game and enable the mod in Options>Mod Selection. Press 'Start Mods'. 4. Enjoy the mod! Download: han_china.zip Mirror: http://www.moddb.com/mods/rise-of-the-east/downloads/rise-of-the-east-x-yu-17 Our thanks go to everyone that helped us to achieve this mod through contributing, play testing or in another way! If you have tips / suggestions, feel free to let us know. Also if you find bugs, let them know too. Support 0 A.D. if you like us: http://play0ad.com/community/donate/

Here is a WIP I kind of went overboard with the areas for which i thought alpha maps would be cool.. head could use a bit more work I think the tounge really puts a cool twist though I'll rig it up so it can be animated separately!

Hi to you all! In continuation of the last contest we organize a new one: Mapping Contest 17. (Number 17 because the current release is Alpha 17) I'll elaborate the requirements of the to be created map further down the announcement. With the new implementation of the mod loader and triggers we decided to be a bit more lenient towards the map designer. It is now allowed to create a trigger-based scenario and add graphical mods. This time we have removed the Northern Highlands theme, we however felt that Ancient Highlands wasn't used in Mapping Contest 16 and hence pushed it once more as a theme. The theme list for this contest is as following: 1. Ancient Lands: Once there was a highly civilized kingdom, now only pain and rocks. However, rumors say that great treasures are to be found beyond the walls of this destroyed city. 2. Amorica (Nowadays called Bretagne): A large peninsula with epic cliffs, catchy beaches and beautiful grasslands. 3. British Lowlands: Although this flat and rainy landscape seems peaceful at first sight, danger could lure around any corner. 4. Peloponnesian Wars: For the trigger-based scenario we decided to push this one as inspiration. These themes are meant as an inspirational source. If you have a better idea yourselves, don't hesitate to use that one. As for every contest there is a set of rules:The jury is not allowed to participate in the contest.Taking inspiration from other maps is allowed, literally copy-pasting isn't. Note that too obviously being inspired by other maps results in a lower originality rating.The jury always has the final word.It is up to the designer to use either the SVN repository or Alpha 17. Jurying is twofold: The community votes for the best map in the category (which are listed a bit below) and the jury rates every map. Then the results are compared by the jury and the winners are announced. This is the points-breakdown the jury will handle: Gameplay 30Aesthetics 30Originality 30Overall Harmony / Coherence 10 As for the jury, the jury consists of the following members: Shieldwolf23: Lead jury, veteran scenario designer, co-creator of the Gallic Wars map Thamlett: Co-jury, initiator of the Council of Modders' Mappack Niektb: Co-jury, creator of the Schwarzwald Random Map and the Gallic Wars map For each theme we do have the following awards (note that the italic awards only apply when there are more than 15 submitters): Best overall mapMost originalMost aesthetically pleasingBest gameplayThese awards are: A badge / medal to beautify your forum profile, as well as an icon in the map preview image. The ultimate victor (the best of both themes) lands as the default map in the next release, Alpha 18. WFG reserves the right to make little tweaks and / or additions to this map.Winners get into the Council of Modders' Mappack if they're not included in the main game.In a submission we require a zip with the following: All the map files should be included.In case you choose to create a Scenario triggers are required!One screenshot and a 400x300 map preview image. (Reduce the fog if you have many to get a clear overview, please no signature in the preview image) To create a screenshot in Atlas: Zoom / rotate till you have the part at the screen that you want to create a screenshot of, then click Misc hacks in the top bar > screenshot. Check the message for the save location.The map should be either normal or medium sized and should have 2-4 players (depending on the flavour of the designer). The amount of players is not important in case of a trigger-based scenario. We also require to release the map under the CC-BY-SA 3.0 license to be able to land in 0 A.D. or in the CoM Mappack. By submitting your map you automatically release it under the CC-BY-SA 3.0 license.The deadline on the submission is 00:00 GMT 30th November 2014. You can submit your map by posting an attachment in the topic that will be created at the Wildfiregames forum, a week before the deadline. After this deadline the community is allowed to vote (in a topic that also will be created) and the jury will discuss the winner behind closed doors. We're trying to organize a contest every Alpha release, so no worries if you don't win, just try again next time. One last tip: Make use of the Environmental and Post Processing settings to enhance the look and feeling of your map. It can really make a huge difference: For technical discussion refer to this topic: http://www.wildfiregames.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=19229 For any other question you can ask in this topic: http://www.wildfiregames.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=19230 (announcement in the WFG forum) Have fun and may the best win!

The Update Loop How does an AI works? Every AI has an update loop, an method, which is executed every n seconds or milliseconds. We have set the difficulty from the game settings dialog, which calculate the interval time and balancing it in this code lines: this.Config = new m.Config(); this.Config.updateDifficulty(<Difficulty>); this.Config.personality = settings.personality; The update loop in an ai is the most important method of an AI. In this method the AI will be moved Units, build buildings and so on. We want to use the onUpdate Event and add the following lines to the file newai.js: m.NewAI.prototype.OnUpdate = function(sharedScript) { /* If the game has finished, the AI hasnt to do anything. */ if (this.gameFinished){ return; } //Your update code }; Important!: The this Object in Javascript is not the same as in Java! this is in Javascript the reference object, which represented the function, which has executed the current Javascript function. Every Javascript function has the hidden argument this. this is an reference. Source: http://www.mediaevent.de/javascript/this.html Now my complete file newai.js contains the following code.

I've recorded a tutorial commentary on early game economy, which might be useful to new players or those struggling with it. It also doubles as a chance for you to mock my terrible English and newbie self-recorder's anxiety:p. Feedback is very welcome:) It's on current SVN, which should be exactly the same with the upcoming Alpha 17 release.

I did in the morning tanque_1.7z

I think we'll have some form of trigger editor, now that we have triggers, but did it actually work pre-Alpha? A lot of things were implemented pre-OS, then were removed when the simulation was reimplemented by Philip, etc. Did you try loading maps from anywhere in Atlas? That was broken for years until A16(?), because maps are loaded through the VFS, which is mapped to only a few real directories on your computer. The old file dialog was misleading that way, you couldn't really open or save anywhere. http://releases.wildfiregames.com/

@stanislav Thanks, but unless the photos are near vertical, I can't do much else than to eyeball the sizes, which is what I've tried up until now. @enrique If you get some profile reference shots (and, preferably top or front view), that would speed up the process. Photos at even a slight angle are difficult to work with. Edit: Wolfhounds was easy to find, thanks to all the dog owners who just looove to show them off at dog shows. Perfect. Mastiffs are quite varied however, so I need help there. I did some tweaking, and unwrapped it. I'm calling it done now. Technically, this is a female shark, since I didn't model the two dicks (yes! there is two!) greatwhiteshark.zip

Np:). You should consider it at some point though, the more people playing and giving feedback on test versions, the better the following alphas get.