Leaderboard

I thought it could be interesting to stream in twitch.tv while I'm doing Art stuff for the game. Since art dev is open, I couldn't think anything as open as that As I'll be working on art stuff, streaming does not take extra effort, so if anyone's interested I'll be streaming here: www.twitch.tv/exmanko I'll be announcing here when there will be streaming sessions and the topic of them. The hours of the streams will be dictated by my work schedule though. If people gets interested we could schedule live tutorials on how to add assets for 0AD, ao baking, actor creation etc. Recorded streams: https://www.twitch.tv/exmanko/videos/all

@Wraitii -The dead branches is the one I made, the leaves texture was already ingame. They're at the bottom of this post. New aleppo pines and new oaks! tree_dead_branches.png.e08a0b1435b1db6f.dds tree_euro_beech_a.dds.8180d2db7078b70b.dds

0ad is far better because almost every aspect of the game is thoroughly examined by both players and developers. It is amazing that the game is doing so well despite being in alpha and having a solely volunteer development team.

Here's to another one of my random "we should remove features" ramblings. I will in this post argue for removing phases from the game entirely. Let's begin with "why phases are broken". Why phases are broken. It's really quite simple. We have 3 phases. They simply are not different enough. The second phase brings the market, the blacksmith, new CCs, and some towers which you can't really use for offensive purposes. The third basically brings fortresses. And it feels like we could just make fortresses way more expensive and have the same effect. There's not a lot of strategical finesse either: rushing isn't reliant on phases, and any other strategy is going to involve champions which means fortresses. Town phase is sort of an awkward in-between, necessary but never "enough". You really don't want to stay in town phase. Why is this worse than in other RTS? Well for one thing phases don't really make sense as they did in say AoE or RoN, where they represented huge technological advances, so you could completely upgrade units and stuff. In 0 A.D., the idea is that you're simply… having a bigger town, I guess? We don't really "unlock" that much nor upgrade our units a ton, so it all feels very forced and not really that useful. As I said, you just want fortresses, there's really no reason to stay in town phase. It's no castle age or anything. Another oddity is that they really aren't that costly compared to units and buildings. Particularly since the in-game economy tends to be super easy to boom, you quickly end up with fortress age being limited by the speed at which you build the required buildings (which can be somewhat big as you hardly need them in town phase), not by ressources. So what do we replace them with? That's of course the more difficult question. We don't want to go back to earlier alphas where the winning strategy was just to make a fortress straight-away. I see one course of action: upgrading buildings manually. You'd start with a small town council, upgradable in a town center then a town hall or something. Each time, you unlock better techs and abilities (say, batch-creating villagers, more citizen soldiers…). But those upgrades are quite costly. Same with the blacksmith. Barracks. Temple? Whatever we can think of, really. The idea is also that the top buildings, techs, and upgrades should be more costly and tied together. Can't build fortresses until eg you have upgraded your town hall enough (sorta simulating phases but differently) or you have enough barracks, or you have unlocked some tech, or you can straight away but they're sorta weak and useless until you pour more ressources in, and champions have a super long build time until you research tech. But why? This would have several adantages: it makes it way easier to diversify strategies. Want to focus on champions straight away? Well it's going to cost you a ton of ressources but if you do it properly and the opponent doesn't scout you it's game over for him. Want to trade right away? Doable. Basically it allows going way crazier. Individual upgrades of buildings also give more info on what your strategy is (particularly if we go with specialization, such as for example allowing a barracks to specialize in ranged or cav units), so that properly countering your opponent's strategy becomes more reliant on scouting. Overall I think this would be a positive change for the game, making gameplay both more unpredictable and more strategic, while also removing a completely artificial system in favor of something that makes a little more sense. The biggest drawback would be of course multiplying our art substantially.

Hello everybody. Just to let you know, I proposed the release video about the "0 A.D. Alpha 12 Loucetios" for "Media of the Day" on Wikimedia Commons. The video needs 7 votes supporting to be featured on the project's Main page. - https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Featured_picture_candidates/File:0_A.D._Alpha_12_Loucetios.webm Questions - Why an Alpha 12 video? A: Because is one of the most beautiful 0AD videos. - May I vote? A: Editors whose accounts have at least 10 days and 50 edits can vote. Regards, Sturm

I also voted for 0AD last year, who else has a modDB profile? Voting phase ends on December 11, 2015

Streaming in a few minutes. I'll be doing some more oaks and pine variations and maybe some fox animation. I'll do it mainly to familiarize myself with twitch options and get feedback how things look. Enjoy! www.twitch.tv/exmanko

I agree with the fact that our tech tree is too much linear, and that we must open more choices for the player, and I miss a bit the pairs we had before A17. But as they had some drawbacks (the options of each players were constrained by its first choices), we should improve the way they worked. I had started a patch some time ago where I added some requirements in the pair template, such that the first chosen tech would have only its own requirements, while the second one would have its own requirements plus the extra requirements from the pair (such that it can require another phase, or additionnal techs, or ...). That would give a lot of possibilities for diversified tech trees. I could try to finalize it.

All civs should be able to win regarding unit roster. I think that aoe 3 made a good design (at least in the vanilla), some civs were harder to play but could strike hard with the right strategy. Today I played some games, and almost everybody playeed Britons. Currently rushing it's not viable and therefore turtling it's not needed. When designing unit military roles, you should take into account economic side. Booming it's the only strategy cause there's no real choice: you can make more or less citizien soldiers or woman, but an average player would try to set up a ranged CS economy. Cause booming it's almost the only way (to get champions), phasing doesn't have really sense. If the idea of phase I the choice to make a rush, some structural changes have to be made. For example, as Ancient empires mod, I think that spearman (militia) should be the only unit trainable in phase in civic center. Then you could build barracks and train spearman (rank 2), one ranged (rank 2) and cavalry javeliner. Militia units shouldn't be able to rank, in contrast with barrack infantry that should start at rank 2 with better stats, but 50% penalty at work. Then you should have to make more decisions between training units on civic center or more military oriented units in barracks. Defending a rush should be more difficult without ranged spam. Then cavalry javs could fit main rushing role (with low range attack, but not the OP way of the first online alphas). They should die if spearman gets close, but expect hit and run tactics. If player suppose an early rush, he/she should build towers that cav javeliners shouldn't be able to stand / capture. Civic center should grow the fire potential with every phase, starting lower. With this post only wanted to say that unit should be viewed in the broader context, taking into account the economic side of the CS, the availabilty, their role as defenders.. Sorry for the randomess.

Yes I like this. More notifications. I like see in AOK or AOM that it tell you enemy has reached an age before you. Like you say, it was kick in the pants and added a little bit of momentary drama to the game. And choices like you say can be Military: Offensive or Defensive Economic: Gathering or Trading/Bartering Team-Based: Yourself or your allies In my example I use 4 phase because with more phase you get more big choices, plus can differ the phases better. The standard meta would be like this: Phase I - Agrarian phase, hunting/gathering, setting up your economy and putting things in place for the rest of the match. Only infantry available, no cavalry. The only defenses are palisades. Very vulnerable at this phase. Phase II - Diversification. Diversified economy and military. Military: Cavalry become available. Blacksmith unlocked. Shipyard unlocked, Wooden Defense Towers unlocked, etc. Economy: Market unlocked and good number of new Farmstead and Storehouse techs. Phase III - Settlement is now very organized and strong. Heavy hitters become available: Stone Walls (every respected city should have walls, nay?), Stone Towers upgrade, Fortress, Heroes, Champions. These are all expensive, so hopefully you have robust economy. Building more Civic Centers becomes available now. Your population is growing so you need colonies (because number of houses are limited by Civic Centers!). Wonder unlock as well. Build Wonder to unlock next phase. Phase IV - The very strong meta technologies are become available. This can be the phase to help break stalemate. This can be the phase where you throw everything you got at he enmy. All hero and siege techs unlocked. Massive battles for territory control. So, choices can adjust this meta game up or down based on your strategy or the assumed strategy of your opponents. Maybe even at the start of match you get a choice screen right at the beginning for Village Phase. So, Village Phase choice could be between Hunting and Ranching boost (unlocks cavalry a phase early if you capture and corral a horse?) or Gathering boost (maybe unlock all Phase II gather techs ahead of time?). And then when you go to Town Phase there can be a choice between Defense (unlock Stone Walls and Stone Towers upgrade a phase ahead of time) or Expansion (unlock Civic Centers ahead of time). When you go to City Phase you can have another meta choice (Ally boost and trading vs. selfishness, lol, dunno). When you go to Empire Phase you can get another meta choic.

If I remember correctly votes from logged in users are worth more though At least it has been that way previous years.

And done!

I like that suggestion. Choice = strategy Your choices at the phase could bend you either toward a strength in military (perhaps sub divided in aggresion or defense) or economic (perhaps subdivided to favor certain resource types) It would also make it more interesting if the phases weren't globally applied to your entire civ on the map, but instead utilized territories and were localized to each town center. My view of phases are that they are gates players go through to unlock more capability: new structures, new technologies, new units. They also help measure the pace of the game. I belive AOK notified all players when they reached different ages. If you weren't in the castle age when your opponent reached it before you, it served as a good kick in the pants to say... you better age up, and fast! Just some random thoughts

Actually OBS can write to a file simultaneously to streaming iirc so that could solve your problem.

It has to do with units being damaged. So once we have that, it's going to be easy.

The roles you outlined for units are accurate, but imo they are too different. The core issue in 0 A.D. is that most civilizations have vastly different unit rosters (see attached image). You also need to consider the champion/citizen soldier dichotomy. All civs have spearmen. Not all civs have champion spearmen. Here are the viable rolues imo, assuming we'll get charging someday, and not relying on formations particularly. CS = citizen soldier. CS Spearman/Pikeman: cannon fodder, somewhat useful against cavalry charges and cavalry units. Pikeman a bit more general purpose (because Mace has no spearmen). CS Swordsmen: more agile, slightly stronger, not really good against charging cavalry but will tear down non-charging cav. So pretty much the same unit but slightly better at raiding. CS Ranged: Most civs have javs (except mauryans), but not all have archers. I'd say they should have mostly the same role, with javelineers being more powerful but much riskier since they'd have a much lower range. As ranged units, they would be absolutely destroyed by any melee unit, but should deal reasonable damage to unprotected units, including champions. Basically the idea is that having ranged units tips the balance in your favor. The CS cavalry javelinist should be OK-ish at raiding and that's it. More of a scout. The CS melee cav (either sword or spear) should be useful to have a cheap mobile force that can target ranged units, but should never get into real combat. Maybe some light raiding. I don't think they should really be able to charge, or not super efficiently. Champion melee: both spearmen and swordsmen champion units would serve the same role: be a general-purpose good army unit. I think the dichotomy from the CS can be somewhat kept, but under no circumstances should champion swordsmen really be too vulnerable to cavalry charges, or civs that have champion swordsmen (gauls, brits) will get absolutely torn down when facing the civs with cavalry champs. The next two roles would be more niche-roles, but you'd still want them. Champion Melee Cav: They would be countered by melee infantry, which is a problem. I think they should have the role of highly expansive, "joker" units that have an absolutely devastating charge but not much more use beyond that. A very strategic unit that would have one shot at tipping the scale of a battle in your favor if used at the right time, but get completely mauled down otherwise. Champion archers should probably be glass cannons, compensating for a weaker base infantry. And have a sniper role. These however would be quite strategy-dependant: Champion cavalry archers imo should mostly be great raiding units (and I mean great) but circumstancial, they'd require your opponent's base to be somewhat open. Not sure if we have champion cavalry javelinists except for the Iberian "siege cav", which is again circumstancial. Slingers are an odd case. I agree with Karamel that making them longest-ranged makes sense. I think we should use them so that they become somewhat useful to bring down infantry units from a distance despite their protection (since the crush damage should go through armor - which it doesn't right now), and help against buildings and other things since the civs that have slingers are usually weaker in the siege department. But I'd make them less mobile. And a very poor accuracy. So really more of a siege helper with a slight support ability on the side. I would add that citizen soldiers would by default be quite rubbish, but upgrading them to elite status should make them somewhat cost-efficient options against their counters. The rock-paper-scissors would go, for both CS and champions. Melee Inf > Melee Cav > Ranged Inf > Melee Inf (as support). However cavalry charging into engaged melee infantry should be quite efficient to make it a viable tactic - we don't need formations for that. Melee champions should be much stronger, which makes them the core of late-game armies. However I think they should be slower to build than they are now, to make them rarer. In combat, having unsupported champions should also be somewhat easily counterable: having ranged units, some CS melee inf to hold them and a simple cavalry charge should make short work of them. This dynamic doesn't really exist right now as champions are just waaay too tanky and mobile. But this is very reliant on population caps. On top of that we'd have a few units with a different role intersecting in there. Then on top of that we could add some civilization specializations. Some shielded units should have higher base pierce armor making archers or other ranged units less useful against them. Some civs would have army comp that make them more archer+melee or cav+melee. Some civilizations might have citizen soldiers that become viable units on their own with upgrades, I dunno. I think we need to completely change where units get trained and how they get upgraded and stuff, too.

I think having options as in age of mythology is very appealing and adds unique strategical value to the game. It does not need to be complicated it just needs to be visible and clear to the player what they get from it. Fundamentally I think this is the manifestation of players want for more technology's, particularly either/or ones as in alpha 16 (though those ones had little strategic value, but if they were grouped together?)

can show us some examples?

I would love to help out making some sound effects, if you have a list of things that need doing, I can get working on them soon

Yeah, better names came be thought of. But the idea is still there. They can be base on the culture too. Add more culture to the game that way.

When you say it is literally the worst way to do it, you're talking about minor gradation of bad. The current way is just a hark back to Age of Empires. It is not hat bad. It fulfills a gameplay role of the bottleneck and demarcating progression when the bottleneck is overcome or the goal is reached. it is very meta in that way. I think what the phases are missing are visual progression and gameplay differentiation and perhaps some choices when you Phase Up, like in Age of Mythology. Just quick idea off the top of my brain: Town Phase, choose either: A. Agrarianism B. Mercantilism City Phase, choose either: A. City-State B. Hegemony Empire Phase, choose either: A. Imperialism B. Alliance Building Each with different effects. And by the gods, make the choice visually appealing too, like in Age of Mythology. Put some effort into thing like that. The presentation is important. About technologies in general. I don't think the pairs in my mod are ideal. But they are more interesting that the vanilla game's supremely generic and uninspiring and weird tech tree ("Fertilizer"? eh hem). My ideal tech tree would be the tech web as discussed many months ago. You have pairs in that you can choose 2 different directions off each tech but you can always go back and get those tech you missed.

Better solution would be that the units in your selection behave as they should when tasked to something. There should have been a sword cursor show up, so that's what the solution should have been.

Done Also you don't need an account. Guests can vote.

Here's the stable, the inside structure is quite complex, so I hope the drawing is understandable. As for all the Saxon roofs, it would be more accurate if they were all flat (and not sectioned as the celtic ones) and dark brown. The Norse roof structure could be reused here.

Done, And best of luck you guys deserve it.

http://www.indiedb.com/games/0-ad 0 A.D. Empires Ascendant in the 2015 Indie of the Year Awards don't forget the link

You're a not the only one. #3648 was trying to say that, I think.