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This map is my first serious attempt at making a map for 0 A.D. and after spending some time on it I still feel like it is missing something. So I am here looking for some criticism, tips or whatever to try and make it a better looking map/improve gameplay. The map is loosely based of a height map made from the Firth of Fourth (Linne Foirthe in Gaelic) in Scotland: The map is not accurate in any way though and neither is the scenario in which the north of the firth is inhabited by 4 celtic players (2 gaullic 2 briton) and the south is occupied by 3 Romans and one Iberian (will probably change this...). Screen Shots (the AI has already began placing some buildings in some of these shots): Actual map files: FirthandFourthMap.zip Slightly updated version: FirthandFourth2.zip

If you want to take a look at the code, the components that are relevant for this are RangeManager and Fogging. The former handles the fog-of-war (FoW), line-of-sight and other kind of unit ranges unrelated to the FoW; the latter handles hiding changes to buildings in the FoW. It's a complex part of the code, that needs a good number of optimizations so it doesn't become a bottleneck. Maybe our implementation is not ideal for your mobile platform target. You say it looks bad so you might actually be wondering how we render it - that's not my area of expertise but we render a FoW texture on top of everything that is inside it. The code is here: https://trac.wildfiregames.com/browser/ps/trunk/source/graphics/LOSTexture.cpp

Since someone asked about the OpenSuse repos, I'll ask about the Debian ones. Are you the maintainers of the 0ad packages in the debian repos as well? At the moment the newest version is still Alpha 21. Anyway, congrats on the new release. This game is incredible.

Hi there, I'm the Lead Programmer for Empires. If you guys got any technical questions, feel free to ask me.

First thing is to go into the options and enable the show FPS option. (It will appear as a little overlay.) This will allow you to more objectivity evaluate performance issues. Try a variety of maps to see if you notice a difference. (Some maps I can't play without a lot of lag and some maps run well.) Also, smaller maps run better, so try a small map with fewer players. Turn all the graphics options off and if possible run the game in windowed mode with a lower resolution. (Most of this can be done in the options, but setting the window size requires editing the config file.) Once you get it to run smoothly, start selectively adding features back to see what is causing the issue. I have found that on integrated graphics, the water features dramatically lower my framerate. The resolution also greatly affects the framerate.

He meant that people usually zoom in or out to see what's going on. I think what he means is that you'll see more easily your units if they are in formation. About visibility the tab key can help you see your units in battle Also double clicking on a unit selects related units so that might help too.

Ah bummer, that's a shame, it's a really good tool! No worries though, i'll do everything in DAW's.

As @Lion.Kanzen said, the main reason is the pathfinder. But it also could be the renderer issue, do you have lags on a game start? You could enable FPS counter to see your FPS.

There were some changes mostly about obstruction size. Look at the changelog for more information.

Thanks for the reminder, I'll get right on it

Hey everyone, Several years ago I was considering creating a sci-fi RTS here in 0AD. Due to my other project taking up too much time, I sort of set it off to the side. After getting fed up with the Medieval 2 engine I'm considering porting that big project, Hyrule Total War to 0 A.D. now. I've started some preliminary work, porting a few of the static buildings over from Medieval 2 into 0AD: I just have a few questions before I make the decision: I thank anyone for their replies, and I hope I can come back to 0AD soon.

New Release: 0 A.D. Alpha 22 Venustas Wildfire Games, an international group of volunteer game developers, proudly announces the release of 0 A.D. Alpha 22 “Venustas”, the twenty-second alpha version of 0 A.D., a free, open-source real-time strategy game of ancient warfare. Easy Download and Install Download and installation instructions are available for Windows, Linux and Mac OS X. 0 A.D. is free of charge and always will be. Although you might find some people selling copies of 0 A.D., either over the internet or on physical media, you will always have the option to download 0 A.D. completely gratis, directly from the developers. Moreover, you can redistribute the game and modify it freely as long as you abide by the GPL. You can even use parts of the art and sound for your own projects as long as you abide by CC BY-SA. No “freemium” model, no in-game advertising, no catch. Top New Features Remake of many models, animations and textures, two new music tracks Configuration-free Multiplayer Hosting Capture the Relic Gamemode Aura and Heal Range Visualization Twelve new maps, including scripted enemies, rising water and a tutorial Espionage Technology, Team Bonuses and Hero Auras Petra AI Diplomacy and Attack Strategies Summary Screen Graphs Cinema Path Editing Buddy System A complete list of user-relevant changes can be found in the changelog at https://trac.wildfiregames.com/wiki/Alpha22. Capture the Relic Mode A relic is a wagon that holds the sacred remains of a great leader. Like to have your armies boosted or construct buildings with a discount? Venture into the unknown and secure these priceless items before they fall into the hands of the enemy! The team that manages to keep all relics for a manually set amount of time wins the match. Spartans guarding a captured relic A Catafalque captured by three enemies (10MB Super-HD) New Graphics Hundreds of models, animations and textures were handcrafted to replace the lower quality art. Together with the improved icons and new main menu backgrounds, both new and experienced players can (re)discover 0 A.D.. Damage Variants and Scaffolding present (only) Carthaginian buildings in new variety: Scaffolding at construction sites (21MB Super-HD) The new unit models bring both visual and gameplay balancing improvements. Here we present the never-seen-before Ptolemian Infantry Champion Pikeman: New Ptolemian Infantry Champion Pikeman (11MB Super-HD) New Music The original soundtrack was extended by the songs "Tale of Warriors" and "Sunrise". You can hear the former in the trailer. Listen to or download the entire 0 A.D. soundtrack at: https://play0ad.com/media/music/ . Lossless quality versions can be found at https://trac.wildfiregames.com/browser/audio/trunk/music/. Configuration-Free Multiplayer Hosting This release of 0 A.D. brings hosting multiplayer matches to the mass of players. It features a new "STUN" option that enables most players to start a match without any prior internet router configuration. STUN option when hosting a lobby match Aura and Heal Range Visualization Mauryan Hero Healer Chanakya (23MB Super HD) Finally players can judge the effect range of aura bonuses and healing abilities of their fighters and supporters. A solid line indicates an aura, while the plus-symbols indicate the heal radius. New Maps Players of the new release will be able to enjoy the game in twelve new worlds! New Tutorial A new tutorial, that can be started from the "Learn to Play" option in the main menu, was put in place to help beginners find their way into the game mechanics. New Economic Walkthrough New Scripted Maps Three new maps come with scripted events that shape the story of each match. On Danubius, teams are separated by the Danube river, which is defended by reoccurring Gallic ships that focus the players fleet and land invasion forces. Each side of the river comes with a Gallic stronghold that spawns attackers until it is wiped out by the players. Danubius (9MB Super HD) On Extinct Volcano, players have about twenty minutes to rush their enemies until the water starts to rise. Attacks and marches will become risky as the water level can rise suddenly anytime. Units below the sea level will drown and buildings become unusable, so you better get the ships ready to evacuate! Extinct Volcano (9MB Super HD) On Polar Sea, there is virtually no vegetation, so players have to use their initial wood treasures and market wisely. Wolf packs reappear from time to time and look for meat. Any kind of meat! Polar Sea (11MB Super HD) Notice that these maps have not been optimized for computer players. New Regular Maps Wild Lake (15MB Super HD) Corinthian Isthmus (4) (8MB Super HD) African Plains (15MB Super HD) River Archipelago (15MB Super HD) India (12MB Super HD) Arctic Summer (13MB Super HD) The Botswanan Haven and Cinema Demo map are not depicted here. To live up to its title, the unique "Survival of the Fittest" map was reworked to spawn heroes, some never-seen units and to become exponentially more difficult in later stages of the game. Espionage Technology After having researched the Espionage technology, players are able to bribe a random trader of a selected enemy, letting it share its vision and thus supply potentially invaluable insights into the enemy's home base. The diplomacy dialog is used to select an enemy and initiate the conspiracy. Team Bonuses Each alliance between players now confers bonuses upon the allies, depending entirely on their choice of civilizations. For example, if you choose to be an ally of the Macedonians civilization, you get 20% more sales when bartering resources at the market. The exact team bonuses can be found in the History section of the "Learn to Play" menu and in the changelog at https://trac.wildfiregames.com/wiki/Alpha22#TeamBonuses. Hero Auras Many heroes' auras were added and rebalanced that require players to decide more wisely which leader to announce. Wish to see what our "Swag" aura can do? Play Iberians and have a great experience discovering new additions at every corner! The details are revealed in the Structure Tree of the game and in the changelog at https://trac.wildfiregames.com/wiki/Alpha22#Heroes. Petra Diplomacy and Attack Strategies Like to play single-player games with bots? The AI bot, Petra, became much smarter this release. It can strategically plan attack and defense strategies depending on the different types of victory conditions (Conquest, Regicide, Capture the Relic, Wonder Victory). It also fully takes capturing into consideration. The economy of the AI was improved as well. Petra now avoids establishing trade routes that cross enemy territory and researches economic technologies sooner. Find a complete list of changes at https://trac.wildfiregames.com/wiki/Alpha22#PetraAI. Team Notifications To improve the cooperation between players, chat notifications have been added that inform allies of tributed resources and researched phases. Summary Screen Graphics The chronology of all military and economic game statistics is now visualized in the summary screen. Track your and your team's progress throughout the game on a graph and derive factors that decided the winner of the game. Summary Graphs Buddy System Keep up with your friends and locate them in-game with this feature. As a host, you can optionally prefer buddies to become players in the match setup and allow only buddies to join running games as observers. Cinema Path Editing With Alpha 22, our map editor Atlas has received new controls to create and edit cinematic camera paths (like the ones seen in the release trailer). Try the Cinema Demo scenario map in the game and in the Atlas to see an example. Consult the Atlas manual for further instructions: https://trac.wildfiregames.com/wiki/Atlas_Manual_Cinematics_Tab. Cinema Path Editor Under the Hood Creating a custom mod of 0 A.D. has become easier. Hobby developers can now add new resource types and match options with a few keystrokes or debug AI matches by simulating many games in a row. The Windows and macOS helper libraries have been updated to resolve security issues. Several ways to cheat in multiplayer games were plugged. If you couldn't play the game before due to a crash, try this release! Make sure to checkout the options page and hotkeys, since new entries were added there as well. Why "Venustas"? "Venustas" is latin for "attractiveness" and was picked to match both the foremost feature of the release (the new models and animations) and the release numbering (V being the twenty second letter in the alphabet). This time we will not ask the community to find a name for the next release, Alpha 23. We have decided that we will name it after Ken Wood, one of the founders, who passed away in 2006. Support Us The work is still in progress and can use every helping hand. You can support us by translating the game into your language on Transifex, contributing art or code or simply by donating. If you experience a technical problem with the game, please report it at trac.wildfiregames.com. This is also the first address to visit when you wish to dedicate some of your time to help patching the code. Got any further questions or suggestions? Discuss them with other players and developers at the forum or talk with us directly over IRC. (The "C" stands for "chat") . Subscribe Contact info for press, bloggers, etc.: aviv@wildfireCAESARgames.com without the capitalized name of a well-known Roman dictator, whose family claimed to be the descendants of Venus.

Hi everyone, I stumbled on this game a week or so ago and would love to be involved with some of the development. I finished uni a couple years ago with a degree in Audio for Games & Game audio programming but haven't put it to use since, so I see this as a perfect opportunity to be involved with a great project while brushing up on my programming & sound design. I was wondering if anyone could let me know what the deal is on the development side of things? Is there a particular person involved with the sound side of things or do I just crack on and make some noises? If I just crack on what noises are needed? If there's any other information you guys think I should be aware of please let me know :)! Cheers guys, Ell

Looking forward to it. And I think I'm not the only one

Sure. https://trac.wildfiregames.com/browser/ps/trunk/source/tools/templatesanalyzer I'm not sure its mod compatible. Pretty sure it isn't actually but I don't have time to fix it right now.

That's not a big deal, just share the replays as you prefer (the really important rules are the ones about being nice to each other). I only gave the one-topic rule as a recommendation, in order to attract people. Personally I'd be more interested about opening a topic called "3v3 Arctic Summer - Trade Overwhelming" (because the map is cool, or I want to learn how to trade efficiently) than an uninformative "replay serie, mostly 3v3" (no offense). That may just be personal taste

The Debian maintainer is currently working on it, and you should not have to wait for very long.

Am a massive lover of 0 A.D so please dont take what I say as hate or nasty I am simply just addressing some issues I have faced with the new 22 update. I have found even with further lowering my graphics the moment my troops move and I mean like even 1 or two they are jittery and laggy. The new graphics look great but are not very well optimised and it removes a demographic such as myself with more lower end pcs to not be able to play the game we love due to the issue of graphical lag. I run games like Fallout New Vegas or Counter Strike GO fine and on pretty good graphic settings but even on the lowest settings 0 AD is atleast currently too laggy and would really benefit from optimisation before adding any new features, units etc. So people like me and others who have low end PCs can play this amazing game again.

Technically speaking they are not. Skirmish maps are mostly handmade, but one can import an height map to make it faster. Random maps have a pregenerated height map in the code and the rest is procedurally generated by Is code. @FeXoR is more knowledgeable.

@ray_ark So something like this ?

You could also try to disable glsl and postprocessing.

You can find the manually updated documentation for Alpha 22 here: https://svn.wildfiregames.com/entity-docs/ I'll try to make the "trunk" one work before you start using the development version

This should be good now: https://build.opensuse.org/package/show/games/0ad

There is also a python script in the source who generate stats and graphs so you can have a better idea on how units react to each other though the best way is still to try.

I'm running into some confusion about animations again, specifically skeletons. How exactly does an Actor.xml look up and know what skeleton.xml to use?

@wowgetoffyourcellphone thanks for the helpful insights.

Very nice. Updated automatically on Linux Mint. Now to download the Windows version...

Ok this confirms that I experiment before , when you try to get multiorder especially pressing shift , the game start a lag. @elexis you can confirm this? @fatherbushido

As always, great job! EDIT: moddb isn't udapted

This game makes my back pain stay, can't do work OT, might be forced to buy a good pc chair and a 21" pc. I haven't gone over all factions bonuses but Seleucids is my favorite for single player and late part of game in multiplayer if I survive enough. Ptolemy is becoming an very good faction having more bonuses and new champ. Now that Iberian hero auras are defined they become my favorite multiplayer faction. It could make me survive longer even if I play with the best players. Carthagenian was my all around favorite on any maps and have more flexibility once I made it through town phase. Hope to play you guys later and thru the weekend.

Man, I really love this game... The development team has done an amazing job!

FMOD might be gratis for "small" users, but still uses a proprietary license, which prevents us from using it.

@Constou Hello and welcome to the forums ! If you could attach the files named in the message your reported it would help us help you. In the meantime if you haven't already make sure you are using A22 which was released yesterday. If that still doesn't work go into the options in the main menu of the game and disable GLSL and post-processing. Else it's something else and we'll need the file to debug it.

Map: Danubius (6 relics) Players: (Grugnas, Barxten, D_D_T_, elexis) vs (B_Smoke, RetardadoSVN, Platin, Macaco) vs. Gaia Summary: Gaia quickly made it 3v4, but that didn't decide the game at all. The ships brought us fun throughout the entire game but in the end, it was decided by a mass of bolt shooters. 2017-07-27_0014.zip

(Until Itms fix, 0 A.D. entity XML documentation.html)

Currently all objects have obstructions only on plane, and to make it 3D only need to add a height. But objects have different form, so to make really good obstructions we need to add 3D collider mesh, which is the really complex task.

Hello Ell! It's a real pleasure to see you are motivated by the audio side of things As feneur said, we don't have anybody in charge for real, but me and Pureon are indeed the ones you should ping in case you need something in the audio area. The topic Lion linked contains a few pointers to the things that need immediate attention, but the list there is not exhaustive at all. Don't hesitate to give your input about existing sounds if you think they could use some improvement. I think Stan gave you all the necessary information to get you started, but in case of need you can also join our IRC channel at #0ad-dev on QuakeNet. Welcome to the community! Looking forward to hearing from you!

At the moment we don't really have someone who has the responsibility for audio. I think @Itms and possibly @Pureon as well have some opinion on it as least, but ideally we would find someone who can focus on it So you are definitely welcome @Ell

Hi @Ell and welcome to the forums. First thing first you are going to need to download the latest developpement version. If you haven't already I'd suggest you clone the svn repository. You can find more information on how to do this here in https://trac.wildfiregames.com/wiki/BuildInstructions the section acquiring the code. Sound files are assigned to units in template files you can find under binaries/data/mods/public/template/units . Template use a sort of parenting, which means they inherit stuff from one another. In those file you'll be interested by the soundgroup section defined as follows. <Sound> <SoundGroups> <attack>attack/weapon/arrowfly.xml</attack> </SoundGroups> </Sound> You'll then need to make an actor file for your sound in xml format (If you are not sure feel free to ask for more details I'll be happy to help) in the following subfolders binaries\data\mods\public\audio\actor The file will look like something like this. <?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8" standalone="no" ?> <SoundGroup> <Gain>.3</Gain> <Priority>100</Priority> <ConeGain>1</ConeGain> <Looping>0</Looping> <RandOrder>1</RandOrder> <RandGain>1</RandGain> <GainUpper>0.5</GainUpper> <GainLower>0.4</GainLower> <RandPitch>1</RandPitch> <PitchUpper>1.2</PitchUpper> <PitchLower>0.8</PitchLower> <Threshold>100</Threshold> <Path>audio/attack/weapon/</Path> <Sound>arrowfly_28.ogg</Sound> <Sound>arrowfly_20.ogg</Sound> <Sound>arrowfly_21.ogg</Sound> <Sound>arrowfly_22.ogg</Sound> <Sound>arrowfly_23.ogg</Sound> <Sound>arrowfly_24.ogg</Sound> <Sound>arrowfly_25.ogg</Sound> <Sound>arrowfly_26.ogg</Sound> <Sound>arrowfly_27.ogg</Sound> <Sound>arrowfly_211.ogg</Sound> <Sound>arrowfly_29.ogg</Sound> <Sound>arrowfly_210.ogg</Sound> </SoundGroup> For some reason that file is in the wrong folder. I don't know if it was done on purpose. See the above xml it seems archers do have sounds. then you'll need to add your sound in .ogg format in the following folder groups depending on what sound you have made binaries\data\mods\public\audio\attack\weapon Notes : - Sound files are not hotloaded which mean you'll have to restart the game each time you change something. - SoundTags include <walk>actor/human/movement/walk.xml</walk> <run>actor/human/movement/walk.xml</run> <attack>attack/weapon/sword.xml</attack> <death>actor/human/death/death.xml</death> You can also have 'build','gather_fruit', 'gather_grain', 'gather_wood', 'gather_stone', 'gather_metal' Not sure all are actually getting called though. Maybe @feneur will correct me, but the one who will review your sounds will be @OmriLahav Also maybe if nobody wrote a guide like this before this should be pinned or added to the wiki.

And pro tip: test the game and try to figure what sounds are missing, for example archers don't have sounds, catapult i( ballista) mpacts, and can be nice have sounds for messaging and alerts like wonder or attacking is very basic and you can improve , post your work in a new topic if is possible.

Thanks Lion, thanks for the link to the audio thread also. I'll have a read and look to get started asap :)! Cheers, Ell

Welcome to our forums.

Most units and buildings use the standard health, armor, attack stats from common parent templates. For example, a spearman from one civ tends to have the same stats as a spearman from another civ; a blacksmith has the same health and cost from one civ to the next. There are exceptions of course! And those exceptions are what give the civs their flavor. But in general, if you make their buildings stronger, you should balance that somehow, probably with cost and build time. Same with exceptional units. But for overall civ strength, you can't know that, usually, until after many many multiplayer games between your new civ and the others. Then you can buff or nerf according to that data.

I guess you can take as reference point the stats from any already existing civ. Notice that Celtic tribes and hellenic civs have a particular bonus/malus on buildings healthpoint, so i'd rather look at the other civs. Any unit has the same stats independently from the civ and any civ has access to the same technologies unless some technologies which are a civ peculiarity (f.e. sword master for iberians and mauryans only, colonization for carthage, another technology i can't remember the name for Persians, and from alpha 22 rank upgrade for mercenary units )

Y

Zoom. Enhance. Zoom. Enhance. I see you made a walkable wall!

Yeah, why not?

one can try to recreate carthage ?

I think it would be nice to have some missions where the main objective is not to build a city and win a battle like standard map. Say, for example: a trigger choice-map similar to: a mission where you don't have to build anything, you have some champions/hero and you have to reach some objectives (kill a single unit, capture a specific building, rescue a monk, reach a fortress, ...); survive for X minutes (not necessarily a tower defence map). This would add some variations on the playability.

Looking great indeed! I'll just avoid the English recording since it will be difficult to translate. For consistency with the existing game I'll suggest to only have the on-screen text, can be easily translated and also changed if needed.