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  1. Currently, no standard version is available (the first one will probably come with Alpha 18 19), but you can get the current work in progress one following the instructions bellow. To install the mod: Get a working installation of the SVN version of the game.Follow this link.Click on "download zip" (at the bottom right).Unzip it into binary/data/mods of your SVN installation.To keep track of changes without having to re-download the mod every time, you can follow this guide. (You need an account, cloning the directory and then sync to automatically get updates)Keep in mind that the mod is far from done. Many concepts are partial, balance isn't ready yet and bugs exist. The mod might even be unplayable until fixed if SVN updates break something. Known Issues: - Using the in game Structure Tree will result in an error (no crush though). According to Leper this is a strange issue on the engine's end, so nothing I can fix now.
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  2. I've collected quite some papers about RTS bots. From time to time I'll present here either a recently published one or one otherwise interesting. Research on agents in RTS games is very active, because the time constraints and the broad range of needed AI technologies is challenging. Doesn't doing science by playing RTS games sounds like an acceptable job description? I'll start with the 100 page thesis BDI agents for Real Time Strategiy games It is about an 0AD bot written by Andrea Dallatana. Unfortunately he no longer works on the bot. He describes in detail the mechanics of his bot. One idea I especially like is the job market to avoid units standing around doing nothing. Here is the module structure of ABot: Currently discussed at HackerNews is A Survey of RTS Game AI Research and Competition in StarCraft (2013), 19 pages. The authors specifically analysed bot versus bot games and state: ... the top three ranked bots in the competition (Skynet, Aiur and UalbertaBot) do not change their strategy at all depending on their opponent. For example, the Skynet bot (both in 2011 and 2012), always uses the same opening (two gates), except when playing a Terran opponent, when it uses nony. This reflects the trend that the performance of bots is still more dependent on carefully handcrafted and non-adaptive behaviors, ... The paper includes and describes a long list of detected bot strategies. Might be interesting to some human 0AD players too. Very technical is Kiting in RTS Games Using Influence Maps. Kiting is a trick bots can do easier than humans, because the micro management is overwhelming. In short a unit does a ranged attack on another unit and flees out of the range of the attacked unit before it reacts. I'm eager to implement this in Hannibal. Have fun reading!
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  3. Thanks for the info. I have Blender on my macbook too, and it has the Collada import option, so I'm using that comp for the moment. I also found this page on the wiki which answers a lot of the questions I had: http://trac.wildfiregames.com/wiki/Basic3DImplementation Thanks again! This is a really beautiful game and I've been playing it more and more the past weeks. What I love most about it is its openness and the fact that you can improve it and benefit from other peoples' improvements. Seeing this grow is a treat.
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  4. I bet there's many more who get it, but yeah it's going to play a part in this mod. It's one of the major changes I'm currently working on. I've decided for it, to further differentiate the mod from the core game. I completely agree it's a great feature, with many pros, but it also has it's cons. It's realism is debatable. I can see that many workers could double as levy troops, but in any state that would be only a portion of the population. Also, weapons appearing out of nowhere for a working woodcutter for example isn't realistic and moving to a structure to equip isn't implemented (nor desirable gameplay-wise imo). Females as the only workers is only a placeholder, I plan to have males as well. It also breaks the early game economic balance if I further differentiate early unit costs, power and train times between civs, which is in the to do list. It makes raiding far less viable since workers can fight back with an equal power to the raiders. I'm also considering to have 1 worker per farm. That would make raiding the farming economy more important since farms will have to be more and more spread out to provide the needed food, and raiding farms was an important asset of warfare. Males will be viable farmers as well, which is also realistic. In conclusion I can't say one choice is bad and the other is good, just a different gameplay approach, more realistic at some parts and less at other. Have an open mind till you see it's final form, then judge it:)
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  5. O dear. ..citizen soldiers just stand around, cannot work/gather. Feels annoying, whole eco done by women. Is this your vision of historical correctness? The citizen soldiers are one of the greatest features of 0ad. Changing this is a shot in the knee, imho.
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  6. This massage should only apply to the walls (and buildings but the CC), not the units and the CC. I'm on it. Thanks for reporting!
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  7. Edit: That water is much better!
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  8. Esgaroth (Lake-town) from The Hobbit. (updated)
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  9. Well, there are different types of reachability: Unit wants to go from land cell to another land cell, both not connected: No pathfinder needed, that's terrain analysis. The path can be blocked by water, mountains or other non-walkable cells. It helps to have a list of regions which are connected and the mean of transport (ship, feet). Unit wants to go from island beyond shore into water: pathfinder should stop at first or nearest dee water cell and no repeat. Unit wants to go from land cell to another land cell, obstructions can be non-movable (houses, etc), completely blocking the path or just some cells. If full blocking there is no need to run the pathfinder again as long as the house is still on the map. This can be solved by temporarily splitting a region into two and make the pathfinder listen to destroy events. Or there are other units blocking cells or the path. Here a time limit makes sense. I think the challenge is to tell the module asking the pathfinder, why the pathfinder failed and that module should be clever enough to not hammer the pathfinder with unsolvable requests. Basically a pathfinder response is success w/ path, partial success w/ partial path, permanently blocked by terrain, temporarily blocked by immobile obstruction or temporarily blocked by mobile obstacles with partial path if available. On top the size of a unit matters, elephants and sieges should not get lost in a forest. I'm not sure if temporarily blocked by wall should get a partial path or not. The player might want to destroy the blocker with his units or not. In case of an AI having it self locked out, I'm not sure too. But an AI should be clever enough to not build houses on the only way out of the village. Unfortunately that sounds more easy than it is. What should not happen are AIs randomly building structures on the map and destroying them because the pathfinder said so. What I have in mind for Hannibal is taking the CC, creating a circle around and from 10-16 points on that circle let the pathfinder compute a path to the cc. Then you have a list of cells from multiple paths. I think building houses on cells which appear multiple times in that list is not a good idea. The idea is to make "streets" an obstruction for buildings.
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  10. ----I'd rather see a larger focus on caravans, corrals (which is being worked on), perhaps even a fertile terrain mechanic so that map control matters even more---- I totally agree about caravans, regarding corrals best of luck to thee who work with them, they gonna need it to find a proper place in game logic for them, they were useless like males nipple in Aoe III . These fertile terrain is excellent thing, i mentioned it earlier. ------If it doesn't change the game fundamentally, then all it really does is give coders extra work doesn't it?------ regarding these farm ideas, there re small ideas, and good ones, i suppose. U can take them or not. Neither makes them good or bad. We do not come with small ideas only, we come with different ideas on different topic. I did not understand that small ideas are forbidden. I am just big supporter of realism. Never played Warcraft, starcraft and other Smurfs for that reason. When buildings out of players territory start to lose their health for no reason my heart cries
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  11. If it doesn't change the game fundamentally, then all it really does is give coders extra work doesn't it? Indeed, 0 AD has a lot of concepts in it that differentiate it from other, solid RTS games. That doesn't mean that 0 AD should do everything differently for the sake of being different. If you want to introduce a new game mechanic then it should be relevant to the way the game plays: how the units interact, how the economy works, what strategies you might use, how everything comes together. Changing farms slightly just for the sake being new and unique doesn't mean much when it doesn't change the way the economy works. I'd rather see a larger focus on caravans, corrals (which is being worked on), perhaps even a fertile terrain mechanic so that map control matters even more. Perhaps you could introduce of draft animals, mobile drop-sites for every civilization (no reason for Mauryans to be the only ones to have the fun), etc. Realism is always interesting but I don't believe that realism should be more important than an actual fun game. Realism should definitely influence how mechanics work in the game
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  12. Introduction This is a general guideline on unit availability and roles as the game progresses. Some civilizations have variations in unit strengths, attributes and might miss some unit classes but this topic aims to give an average overview on how the game works.This is a work in progress and many of it's parts might change. Village Phase Players might choose to skip Village Phase military and go straight for the Town Phase, relying on palisade defenses or withdrawing to the Civ Center for protection if attacked. - Spearmen (50 15 1 ) are the only military unit available in the Village Phase, reflecting the dominance of Hoplite-style (and generally melee) tactics early in the game's timeframe. This also makes balancing easier than having civs start with different combinations of unit types. Spearmen can be used defensively or to rush the opponent. Later on they are still usefull as average line infantry and a cavalry counter. Town Phase A variety of possible units and strategies starts to become available at this point. - Skirmishers (30 40 1 ) become available, as an easy to mass ranged support unit and a threat to Spearman-only armies, as the introduction of Peltasts and other light troops brought the end of Hoplite dominance. They also counter other melee infantry units and War Elephants later in the game. - Archers (30 20 1 ) fill a better all around ranged support role compared to skirmishers due to their superior range, but take much longer to train and are very weak if caught in melee, especially vs cavalry. Upgraded with fire arrows they become a semi-siege weapon in the late game. - Pikemen (50 20 2 ) are a slow hard-hitting anti-melee unit, exceptionally strong against cavalry. They will easily overcome Spearman, Melee Cavalry and often Swordsman armies, but are in need of support against more varied forces. Out of the three melee infantry types, they are the most vulnerable to missile fire. - Light Cavalry (100 3 ) present a viable option for raiding and countering ranged (and later siege) units. A good farming economy will be needed to mass them, so they will probably come in small numbers till later in the game. Other melee units and especially Spearmen and Pikemen will easily defeat them if they reach them. - Cavalry Skirmishers (60 40 3 ) are effective in hit and run tactics, especially vs support units like Villagers and Traders, but are vulnerable to Light Cavalry and melee infantry if they get caught. - Defense Towers become available as an early form of defense. - Additional Civil Centres can be constructed, allowing expansion. - Light Warships become available, kickstarting naval warfare. City Phase Most of the tech tree is unlocked at this point. - Swordsmen (40 40 2 ) are unlocked as a general purpose infantry unit with high base attack. - Slingers (30 30 1 ) provide excellent ranged support and counter other ranged units but are helpless if caught in melee, especially vs cavalry. They have the longest train time among ranged infantry types. - Heavy Cavalry (70 80 3 ) are tough and expensive general purpose melee units, almost only threatened by anti-Cavalry units. - Camel Riders (60 40 2 ) are a great counter to cavalry but generally weaker against infantry compared to horse cavalry . - Cavalry Archers (60 50 3 ) are very effective in hit and run tactics, but are vulnerable to Cavalry and melee infantry if they get caught. - War Elephants (200 75 5 ) are costly beasts with a good siege ability and devastating against most melee units, but relatively weak against massed skirmishers and anti-cavalry units. - Chariot Archers are ranged anti-melee units, weak to other ranged units. - Rams, the first Siege Units become available. - Fortresses become available as an advanced form of defense. - Medium Warships become available. - Most Unique Units and Mercenaries are unlocked. Imperial Phase The entire tech-tree is unlocked at this point. - Some Unique Units and Mercenaries are unlocked. - Advanced Siege Units become available. - Heavy Warships become available.
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  13. Actually the current corral system is not the finalised plan. Rather, animals that are capable of being herded can be garrisoned in corrals for a useful purpose such as providing a steady flow of food or in the case of horses they would make for a small discount. Farming should be the primary source of food historically speaking.
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  14. so you are, Bienvenido , you speak Spanish don't you? Your mod is about Uruguay in century 19th and some Latinamericant Battles
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