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I don't think that artwork is a gigantic concern, it is always changing and evolving. It could always be used in the scenario editor, and could be changed on civ selection in game. I think the depth of strategy it would return to the game would be worth the trade off. With fewer factions, this enables greater diversity. The more factions you have, they all start to blend together in similarities - with only subtle differences. Balancing a dozen plus factions is also challenging. Red Alert had 2 factions. Star-craft had 3. The original 6 civs were chosen because they had some distinct historical differences that gave players a unique experience when they played. Mythos changed that after I left. He really liked the Greeks and was influenced by his own desires to recreate his dream game "Age of the Aegean". So, when he took over the game design of 0 A.D. some of the original vision was lost. When I say balance, what I mean is that you don't want the outcome of the game decided by a players faction selection before the game even begins. Every faction should give players an opportunity to win if played with a strategy that compliments the faction. I'm not saying that what 0 A.D. is doing today is necessarily bad. I'm just saying that it is different than what was intended and (in my opinion) removes elements of strategy and makes the game harder to balance. (An extreme version of what I'm suggesting is that you start the game without a civ selection - just a generic civilization. Everyone starts the same. The civ is then selected in play after you have had a chance to observe the behaviors of your opponent and the map.)

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There's a lot of artwork that would go to waste when joining the gaul and brit civs again. There are village-phase buildings like houses and barracks made specifically for one of those two. So if they shouldn't be available as a pre-game choice, we'd miss that artwork. When I joined, the situation was actually backwards. A scenario could use the celt or hele civ, but it couldn't be selected for random maps. Of course, that created problems because the celt and hele civs were never properly tested, and were sometimes released with bugs. It's because of those bugs, and the exceptions they always needed in the code, that the generic civs were removed.

Hey! I am one of the authors of this paper. I'd be happy to answer any questions about Castle. fcxSanya is right about the general idea behind the system. The idea is to use video games to establish covert communication channels that are hard to detect. This WIRED article did a good job of explaining the ideas behind our system: http://www.wired.com/2015/04/app-hides-secret-messages-starcraft-style-games/ There's more to come from Castle! We're specifically targeting making Castle a Tor pluggable transport by the end of this year. A little note on the relationship between 0 A.D. and Castle: 0 A.D. is our go to game for demos. While we have Castle working over other big titles, we cannot release that code for legal reasons. However, we do not recommend using Castle over 0 A.D. in the real world, due to the lack of encryption and authentication of the move communication channel. The good news is, Castle is highly adaptable and can be moved over other RTS-games in about a day, if required.

Glad you got it to work Skeleton files seem to be a point of confusion for many people. I'm not sure if we already have a recent and up to date resource to point people to. If not, I think it would be worth capturing what was learned and sharing it with others that could be used in the future. It would also be good to capture and document your art flow from Maya as a legitimate method of making models and animations for 0 A.D. I know documenting is a pain, but it is a tremendous resource to those that don't know where to begin.

Fun fact 10 years ago 0 A.D. originally had only these civs: Celts Hellenes Iberians Romans Persians Carthaginians Two of the civs "branched" into sub-civs (celts - britons, gauls & hellens - sparta & athens). But, this was intended to happen during the game as a strategic choice - not something you decide and set in stone before the game even started. The choice would have shown itself during one of the town/city upgrade phases, and would have affected the hero choices, special structures, and late game technologies. I'm not saying the existing method is bad, just that I personally like the concept better (more strategy, easier to balance) than having dozens of civs that are slightly different from each other to choose from at the start. But... it is no longer my decision to make and hasn't been for years. I'm just throwing the idea back on the table

Wowgetoffyourcellphone: that's what I'm saying, yes. I definitely agree with you on the AoM-like screen, though it would be good to have all civs in one screen and no scrolling, so maybe have smaller shields. But that's implementation details.