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As much as I'd love several extra civs for the core game, 12 are already hard enough to balance and some of them still need extra artwork, especially the Seleucids.

If you open template_unit.xml (in simulation/templates), you'll find this piece on Decay: <Decay> <Inactive/> <DelayTime>80.0</DelayTime> <SinkRate>0.01</SinkRate> <SinkAccel>0.0</SinkAccel></Decay>You could simply increase the DelayTime or make it inactive alltogether. Keeping the slain units around does increase the amount of rendering that needs to be done, so it might have an effect on your framerate.

Wildfiregames presents: 0AD's unit upgrade. -Why do you work on this upgrade when you should be working on pathfinder and performance improvements? -Please note that this upgrade has been done by an artist who hasn't any knowledge in programming. This upgrade has not taken away any precious work time to 0AD programming developers who continue to work on the needed pathfinder and performance improvements. -Why do you make this upgrade? For a number or reasons: Unit models are very old, around 6-7 years old. These new models are closer to today's industry standards. UV mapping and model proportions aren't ideal on the current models. The new ones have realistic human proportions and much better UV mapping. Old animations cannot be modified, only created from scratch. With the new models we can maintain the blender source files of the animations and modify them at will. Since we share the blender source files, the team and the community can make variations for their own model variations and still use the new armature. Old model's armature (skeleton) is very basic and limited. With the new model's armature we can achieve more detailed animations and are capable of basic prop animation -Are these new models already implemented? Do they work with the old animations? -No. The models are finished and ready to start animation production. We will remake all the unit animations and implement them when there are almost all of the required animations completed. However, the models are commited to the SVN version of the game with some test examples that you can check in the map editor. These examples and the models will be released in the next Alpha release (Alpha18) if you don't wan't to set up a SVN version. To check some unit examples in SVN, go to the map editor and in the object tab, search for all actors and filter by "newunit". Once selected click on "Switch to action viewer" to isolate the unit and zoom in. (please note these are just examples and they aren't final unit setups) -Do you have increased the number of unit variations of the game? -Yes, now there are non-armored unit variations, and armored unit variations with some differences. There are plans to add some more in the near future if time permits. -Can I make my own animations for my mod and use these new models? -Yes you can! Check at the bottom of this post to download the blender source file(s) of the armature and check the SVN newunit xmls example for setting up your own units. Don't forget to check the presentation video where there's a short explanation of how the armature works. -What is left to be done before I can play with these new models? -Since the unit heads have different size than the old ones, all the helmets in the game must be resized to fit them. Also as pointed a few lines above, we're going to upgrade all the animations to fit these new models. When these two tasks are complete or close to completion, we'll implement them and you'll be able to play 0AD with them. -Is there something I can make to help with this task? -Yes! If you are a skilled animator with experience in human models' animations you can open a thread in "Applications and contributions" subforum, tell us about yourself and show us some of your animation works! Male unit variations (Old Work in progress): (Click following images to enlarge) Female unit variations (Old work in progress): Download the blend file and start animating! Enjoy! New unit upgrade animation template.zip

(Sorry if this is a duplicate, couldn't find anything else like it) So do you guys know how some units have both melee and ranged weapons? (Will use the Persian "Immortals" champion as reference) How about the ability to use not only ranged or only melee, but based on the concept and historical references able to use both melee and bows, such as spears for CQC and a bow for those further away enemies. Or like how the Spartan hoplites have both a spear and sword, maybe able to designate which to use against said enemy (Hold Shift + Left Click would use sword, whilst normally tapping left mouse button would allow them to use the standard spear) Also, a big deal (For me at least) is that the Mauryan civilization have not only the melee Maiden Guard, but also ranged Maiden Guard, it would save quite a bit of space (Population Cap) to just throw a bow on their backs and let you shift click to use it, no? Also, historically, archers carried some type of sidearm, such as a sword or dagger. This is mainly just a preference issue, please leave some feedback for me!

if your opponent has 20 units when he attacks you and you only have 5 units to defend, then that means that your build is unsafe. you should be using a build that has more units out to defend when his attack hits. You have defender's advantage to work with as well, since your units have no distance to travel once they're finished being trained. We also have the border mechanic in 0 AD, which prevents people from building forward bases too early in the game; this acts as a secondary defensive mechanism. On top of that, soldiers which are trained for defense can be tasked to gathering resources*, so you don't even lose out on economy if you make defensive units. If, on top of all the defense mechanisms I just talked about, you also have very strong buildings (CCs and towers), then a match of 0 AD quickly becomes a match of "who can take the map with CCs the fastest", which isn't actually very fun. It's the primary reason I don't play the game as much as I did when I discovered it. 0 AD as of right now is all about taking the map with buildings that are much more cost-efficient than actual units. It's not very interesting no matter how you look at it. That said, units being vulnerable even when they are garrisoned in buildings is a mechanic that helps alleviate that problem. A few more nerfs to CCs and towers and the game's design will become quite sound. *I actually have an issue with the fact that the unit rank upgrade is now gone. before, it meant that if you wanted units which were strong in combat, you had to sacrifice your economy. so if you wanted to rush, you would get the upgrade asap, if you wanted to play defensively and economically heavy, it made sense to wait until you could safely support a house boom or caravan boom before getting that upgrade. now, that line is kind of gone and i'm not sure if that's good or not, since it makes defensive, economic play the "best", on paper anyway. well, this would take play testing on my part to confirm, just wanted to throw this thought out there.

Guys I updated the thread please check it out, we seem to be a bit off topic now.Please reread the thread.

It can be done, but I'm not sure the added complexity is worth the confusion. You choose archers to have ranged troops, and swordsmen to have melee troops. Letting archers do both means the choice you have to make is less pronounced. I would argue against this idea, except maybe for some hero/champion units, as it negatively impacts the role of your strategic decisions. If you want archers, you have to choose and accept the negatives (no melee) along with the positives (ranged attack). My view is that this double attack-type idea doesn't aid the game. However technically, it can be done and the elements for that are partially in place. The animation part wouldn't be hard. A swordsman uses the same body and can use the animations as an archer to perform a bow and arrow animation. Given that both animations are necessary and available anyway, there is no additional animating necessary to let a swordsman use a ranged attack animation. The actor file readily supports this, including overwriting props to go along with that animation. So an archer can hold a bow in rest and its attack_ranged animation, and props can be reassigned for a attack_melee animation. In fact, this can be used now to give an archer a dagger to use for an attack_slaughter animation when dealing with domestic animals. In other words, the animation system supports different attack animations depening on what the UnitAI code requests (I was involved in the patch for that two years ago). There is some rudimentary support in the UnitAI code for choosing between different attack types. Domestic animals will always be attacked with a one-hit-kill Slaughter attack (which was implemented to ease the use of animals as a food source). I believe there is some code in place that tries to pick the optimal attack type to use if both melee and ranged are available. I think it takes the strongest of the two for a chosen opponent and just goes with that. Assuming archers do more damage as archers than by using their sword, the game will simply always use the ranged attack. If an opponent is too close for that to work (there's a minimum distance), the archer will move away and try again. Changing unit behaviour to favour a melee attack when too close for a ranged attack (instead of walking to increase distance beyond the minimum required), probably means your ranged unit is going to behave much like a melee unit, especially if enemy troops advance and close the distance (which is what any opposing melee unit does). Archers typically have weaker armor, so staying as far away as possible is a better alternative. Going by the numbers that's simply the best thing to do, and the UnitAI does so accordingly. I guess that realistically no archer would use a sword or dagger as long as the bow can be used. Only if it broke or he/she ran out of arrows it makes sense, but that doesn't apply in this game. Use torches for attacks against structures might be a nice idea, but I'm not sure if units will be changed to capture instead of destroy structures in the future.

I'm aware that pretty much everything needs hours of coding behind. There's no pressure really, we're all just day-dreaming a bit.

it should definitely be done automatically!

I don't like the battering ram needing soldiers to move. The ram cost more population allready which is a simulation of men inside it to move.

I invite you to read through all the posts in this thread. Just in case you don't: realize that time is also a resource in an RTS game. You are required to specialize in certain techs even if you can research them all: you don't have time to research them all unless the match goes to the late game. Specialization is there even if techs aren't paired up. You actually have more specialization since you can make the choice to get a lot of tech early on (to the detriment of your economy or your military spending, meaning you have to play defensive) or you can choose not to invest into a lot of tech to get a quick military lead (meaning you have more units -> you use those units to try to get a lead by doing damage).