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Position: Gameplay & Graphics Programmer (Maybe AI) Do you understand that Wildfire Games is a non-commercial project, work for 0 A.D. is volunteer, and work is done for free? Yep Do you agree to distribute all your work for Wildfire Games under Creative Commons Attribution Share-Alike license? Yes, of course Name: Vladislav Belov Email: thebvog (at) gmail (dot) com Location: Eastern Europe/Russia (UTC+3) Availability: I can spend on average 11 hours in week Age: 21 Occupation: Student & teacher Skills and Experience: I have started programming and learning algorithms since I was 13 years old. I'm interesting in a procedurally generated content, data mining, graphics or gameplay programming. Most used instruments & languages & platforms by me: C++/Python/Javascript + OpenGL/OpenCV/SDL + Linux/Windows. My projects: - The Project: Shining Star - Space RTS - PGPlanet - lib to procedurally generate planet landscape and render it, source not yet open. - PTestgen - lib to generate tests for science or students testing (using if acm.kpfu.ru for programming contests) - other projects related to the research activities. I also teach students to algorithms and create programming contests of our university. Motivation: I enjoy solving problems of programming, algorithms and etc. Personality: Serious, creative, and of course, optimistic guy. Short Essay: I like RTS and I try to follow the news in this area. But I have learned about 0 AD only about 2 years ago and I liked this project. It is the successor of of Age of Empires, but much better. The game is still in development, there are issues and bugs. And I would like to help solve them, contribute to the community of 0 AD, and develop the game further. Interests and Hobbies: Cycle racing, art, drums. Staff: Unfortunately no. Community: gamedev.org/gamedev.ru most interestring for me, but many good articles about algorithms and technologies are divided between personal blogs. Favorite Game: Many of them, but short list of most favorite: - American Conquest & Cossacks series - TES series - Freeciv - Mafia: The City of Lost Heaven - Age Of Empires series - Battlefield series - S.T.A.L.K.E.R series Work Examples: The Project: Shining Star - Space Procedurally Generated RTS (http://www.desura.com/company/0-planet/news/pre-alpha-space-strategy-game), work in progress, beta will be released over autumn 2015.

There should be a balance between realism and 'arcade' (as in: hyper fun, but no sense of realism) gameplay. But that's where the difficulty is: everyone (more or less) has a different opinion about what the balance between realism and 'arcade' should be. 0 A.D. (at least that's what I understood from my time around here) tends to try to follow history where possible (especially when it comes to unit rosters and civ bonuses) but ofc realism has to be sacrificed every now for the sake of fun. I think that there should be some sort of design commitee (The previous one is no longer active) (preferably consisting of some longer active, well-known guys that are quite good players (that excludes me)) that takes a thorough look into the balance of these two aspects (amongst other stuff ofc) and really set those in stone, accessible and readable for everyone. <= that's what I lack a bit ATM. (these are just my two cents )

Like on desert maps. That might be a LITTLE BIT too complex. What happens when all the food is destroyed? Do you just.. die?

A fair amount of the unit concept art was created by Brendan Keough, including the piece of Marcellus you commented on. The best way to contact him is probably via Twitter: https://twitter.com/beekeo As for the other ones/to know which ones are by which artist I think Wijitmaker is probably the one who's best able to answer that.

As a side note for this matter: Act of War (a modern warfare RTS released back in 2005) introduced a unique feature: Prisoners of War. When you fought enemy infantry/vehciels and you destroyed them, there was a chance that the drivers/soldiers survive and can be captured by the winning side for additional money (only resource in the game). They were also imprisoned when you build a medical station, generating cash for your side. This made fights pretty intense, because the winning side got additional funds for killing stuff. There could be something like a "enslave" mechanic for your armies. Either enslave wounded soldiers, or kill them for additional experience on your army or something (like for civs like Sparta, Mace and Celts for example). So you either make your army to elite or you improve your economy. Enslaving could be displayed with a resource multiplier. Like 10 slaves give additional +5% gathering rate on your resources (just an example). And factions that in reality relied on slave armies/soldners could get better training times/lower resource costs for their infantry units instead. Or factions/units that can pillage from the weapons of their enemies. The possibilities are pretty much endless I guess I'm just throwing in this concept as it came into my head.

...those cells won't help, since you cannot destroy your building anymore after capturing started.

Hello I've played a couple of full games against the AI, I find capturing very interesting. It was a bit misleading at start not to think about swordmen and slingers to take down early buildings but anyone can be usefull now. To "destroy" a building, you need to capture it and destroy it "from the inside", or use siege. It takes building settlements to an other level, because once it is build, it's likely to be there for a long time either for you or your ennemies. Abandonned or underdefended settlement can be easily captured (even towers turning against their owner!), while garisson still make strongholds requiring siege weapons. I haven't checked that but walls seems to be more valuable to prevent invasion and tower capture. I thought in the first place to make defensive buildings not capturable but it work well that way. If defended (garrissoned) it won't be capturable unless really overwhelmed. I like the way you have to be there to prevent your settlement to be used against you. That's all for now. I need to play more (and online) to try more things.

There's actually a new pathfinder being written: https://github.com/na-Itms/0ad/tree/pathfinding Check the documentation here: https://github.com/na-Itms/0ad/blob/docs/docs/pathfinder.tex

Welcome! programmers can start contributing without an application form. You only need pick tasks in our development trac http://trac.wildfiregames.com/ http://trac.wildfiregames.com/wiki/GettingStartedProgrammers

CC-BY is compatible with CC-BY-SA (which is a bit more restrictive).

Know your history, zippy: http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boeing_B-29_Superfortress

The sound alert must be different, in AoE when a priest are trying to convert a unit or building the sound is different from the main attack. I know in this moment we lack about soun designer for have something appropriate. Edit1 --------- I don't like the idea to use attack move in buildings because is the same shortcut to garrison in to a ally building, I mean if you are losing the building to recover the CP ( capture points) you need garrison into your own building ( obviusly if the building have the garrison option enable). The other matter is use mouse cursor Like this I like this, is like a hand taking

Here's the guideline I went off of (though the final stats of what I committed may be a bit "off"). These stats assume that charging will be implemented. Highlights: Skirmish Cav (Javelin Cavalry) are countered quite well by Javelin Infantry (almost every civ has these) and Sword Cavalry (the one civ that doesn't have JavInf has SwordCav). If you've done "2 quick tests" and JavCav seem overpowered, it's because your opponent is unaware of the counter.Both types of Melee Cav are now better counters against ranged units.Spearmen and Pikemen are differentiated by their armor, speed, severity of their CavBonus and attack damage. Spearmen have a heavier base attack and charge, but less armor and smaller bonus against Cav in comparison to Pikemen. Because of their low attack and high bonus vs. Cavalry, Pikemen at first seem like a one-trick pony cav-counter, but because of their high armor functionally they also act as a good meatshield unit. Melee Cavalry are differentiated by their base attack and charge bonuses. SwordCav = higher base attack, but smaller charge bonus. SpearCav are the opposite.Like Melee Cavalry, Spear Infantry and Sword Infantry are differentiated by flip flopping their base attack and charge bonuses.If you don't have a meat shield for your ranged units, you're gonna have a bad time.I didn't do much in regards to Fortress, Civic Center, Defense Tower, Siege Weapon balancing.You can mix and match your balancing ideas with this or discard it altogether. However, I think the counters I have set up make a lot of sense, definitely more sense than the old counters and I didn't do weird things like give Slingers crush attack. In my commit I also fixed some special techs not working (Nisean War Horses, Hellenistic Metropolis, et al.) that no one has seemed to bother fixing.Things could be balanced further by removing ranged cav from Phase 1 and giving every civ a Phase 1 melee cav instead. Or look at ways and unit combos in Phase 1 that keep a simple rock/paper/scissors dynamic (that does not mean give every civ the same starting units, but look at different combos that can work; some civs have historical considerations too, they are important). Sorry about the "surprise" commit, but there needs to be discussion about multiple ways to balance, not just one "balance branch" with 3 or 4 guys playing it intermittently. Also, this game is still in alpha. There are good gameplay items still not implemented. Balancing will become even more fun and challenging for you (and rewarding) once everything that affects combat is in (charging, formations).

While I don't fully agree with the "surprise" commit (it could have a forum post with a little explanation, major changes list, etc) I don't see the issue either for the same reasons as Brian.

I don't see an issue with it. I see it as another combination to try. If we end up liking the balance branch better than the recent changes, it won't be a big deal to add it to SVN.

I think I define "balance" much more broadly than hardcore players. I tried to explain that in my post, but it seems that most here only view changes that affect fairness as balancing. I was trying to explain that having a "balanced" game isn't all about super serious competition but also casual play. Perhaps there is a better word I can use to avoid confusion, but I can't think of one at the moment. Here's another example: Casual players want an AI to use hero units. If we limit hero units only to higher difficulties, then they get left out. That's not a fair tradoff in my opinion. Now I know that's AI and not the civ balancing that you are referring to, but it gives you an idea. Casual players still want to be able to enjoy this game. Keep the experience balanced between doing what you need to do to make the game fair, but don't pursue fairness at all costs and make the game boring. AoK civs were mostly the same and were still hard to balance for fairness. I'm not saying that I've seen that as an issue at this point at all, but we are embarking on some potentially serious gameplay changes. I fear that there is a possiblility that it can happen during this balancing process, so I'm making the point now rather than after the fact. I just want the full spectrum of players to be taken into account.

I would disagree, although the focus changes to what makes the game fun, rather than what is fair. It is more like balancing colors in a painting rather than weights on a scale. Having some imbalances wouldn't affect a casual player's strategy all that much, but could absolutely ruin a match for experienced players who aim to take advantage of every possible opportunity. Unfortunately, I've seen fun features in other games completely removed or "nerfed" to the point of extinction simply because experience players "abused" them. Here is a fictional scenario just provided as an example: Say siege towers are used by casual players to drop their units on the other sides of walls, while experienced players only use them as arrow towers on a battle field. It's determined that siege towers in the hands of experience players are just too powerful, so their defense is weakened so that they are easier to destroy. This is done very carefully with testing and the result pleases the experience players who feel that they are neither too powerful nor too weak. However, an unintended side effect of this change is that the siege towers are generally not strong enough to survive all the way through a battlefield and make it to an enemy's walls... I just wanted to make a point that we should take every effort to make sure that the final game is actually fun and not lose that during the process of balancing for experienced players. I'm not at all implying that anyone would intentionally want to make the game less fun, just that it can happen by accident.