Leaderboard

We're starting to be more careful with the estimates. We used to have such ETA for the final release! --- Day changed Sun Jan 29 2012 <...> 21:47 < Igorel> hi all 21:47 < Igorel> when will be the relise of 0 A.D. 21:47 < Igorel> ? 21:47 < Igorel> final realese? 21:48 < quantumstate> we don't know yet, possibly about a years time 21:48 < erik_feneur1> Probably some years into the future. 21:48 < quantumstate> I may be being too optimistic 21:49 < erik_feneur> I've learned not to be too optimistic. Jason said "perhaps within a year or two" when I joined in 2007 =) <...> 21:59 <@Philip`> It was "perhaps within a year or two" when I joined in 2004 :-)

Once we run out of letters maybe we'll have to move on to beta, then gamma, delta ect

You guys could also play on SVN and report these things before the release. That's also why we have release candidates. Yeah not much people on SVN but I'm sure you could sort this out

There are usually balance issues in any given major release. Then it takes until the next release to fix them, and meanwhile the release under development has its own balance issues that are barely tested due to few people playing svn. What is needed is a faster turnaround time to change the balance in the current major release. This could be achieved with an official "balance mod" that touches only XML/JS so it can be updated to every client within hours, without having to wait for the next major release. Components of the system: When you start pyrogenesis, it checks if you have the latest version of the "balance mod" from an official wildfiregames server. If not, it will prompt you to download and install it if you choose, and then switch to that latest version of it. So, you would have multiple balance mods installed, one for each version, and the latest would be active by default. The balance mod would be a very small download since it only has to change stats on a few units, so it would not increase server load much. The game list in the lobby will display a concise abbreviation of the mod(s) for that game. B-3 for example could be the 3rd version of the balance mod within the current release. When you try to join a game with a mod that's not currently active, and you already have the mod, it will ask you if you want to switch to that mod. If you do, pyrogenesis will restart with the mod active, and join the game.

If you are adding some own stuff and don't follow what petra expects, you can also replace that line if (template.hasClass("Storehouse") && this.metadata.base) by if (template.hasClass("Storehouse") && this.metadata && this.metadata.base) So that petra works even if you don't fill the metadata it expects (in fact i should add that protection in the svn version).

We shouldn't forget about infantry skirmishers either. In the no-cav games we find out that archers usually don't stand a chance against them.

Yeah testing svn is key. I won't say more about it but let's say content sharing might become a bit easier in the future. We do lack someone with commit access that is dedicated to balancing though I think @Yves wanted to work on that @LordGood also wanted to give it a go. We can't just recruit someone on the forums though. We don't have a balancing department though it might fall into the programming part which is already crawling under work I don't think elexis sleeps anymore. To recruit someone we need someone with experience but also someone we can trust and someone for whom we can attest such competence. Which is the hardest part. Once that person is found it should go well. But when and who are questions I really wish I had answers too. About gameplay mods I'm not even sure you guys test each other mods.

I care. Also I think we do care not releasing a broken game. It's just we are a small team and we prefer investing time in content rather than in playing. But that just means we need some help not that we don't care. When I proposed the staff matches a bit ago that was an improvement. But none of us have the time to be the best lobby players and therefore know how to properly test multiplayer. Also we are trying to reach the point when it makes more sense to balance the game (aka beta) In the meantime all the help is welcome. Well technically there is some time between feature freeze and the actual release (and that can take a month) so people can actually download the RC ( Whether its properly advertised is another matter) and make their feedback constructively on the forums.

About cav, in DE you can only train 2 Cavalry Scouts in the first phase [a new unit not available in Public mod]. They are good at scouting, as their name implies, and they're also good for hunting. Their small number makes the player choose what to do with them. Scout or Hunt, or split their tasks between the two? They are not good fighters at all, wielding only knives in most cases [a bamboo spear for Indians, but still the same attack stats]. In phase 2, cav restriction is lifted, but cavalry take 20 seconds to train instead of Public mod's 12 seconds. To unlock the Levy Cavalry tech, you have to build a Corral first, and then you can research the tech to reduce cavalry train time. In DE, cavalry are also generally slower than in Public mod, by about 15%, so they're not flying around the map raiding the Hell out of everybody.

Here are the armors, just included:Horse_new_armor.7z front_armor winged_armor back_armor blanket

Winged test:

Strategy is the overall way that you would develop in-game. Tactics is more about situational decisions in a strategy context (mainly micro). So making a rush is a strategy, but seems the mainly one, negating the others. The difference between rushing and raiding, IMO, is that raiding doesn't aim to kill at once the player, just annoy or try to suffocate eco with a few units. Rushing would try to kill the enemy by force and numbers. Please. We know that the debate about game design had been long and complicated. But something like planning the Alpha like a 2 phases (one for the features, and then for the design and balance?) wouldn't help? I know that should be the other way, but the game almost handle all the basic engine features of a RTS game, except abilities and battalion/squad system.

This game has gone though a lot of improvement since I first encountered it, around 2012, I think? Happy new year everyone! Hoping that more contributors would join this cause.

I thought it'd be good to have a topic on this issue, maybe to build a consensus. The current system (minus bugs): There's two levels of alert, the first for women and the second for all units. The alert affects all units within the area (except those garrisoned). When put under alert a unit stops what it's doing and tries to garrison in the nearest building, or continues on to the next one if that's full. When the alert is lifted, the unit ungarrisons (if needed) and returns to its pre-alert work orders. The philosophy behind this, as I see it: Units put under alert should drop what they're doing and run and hide. When the alert is lifted they should come out and return to what they were doing previously. So the questions are: Is that a good philosophy for the town bell/alert? And if so, can we make improvements to the current implementation that are consistent with it? Keep in mind that since the town bell is an emergency measure, its behavior should be relatively simple and intuitive -- we don't want to rewrite Petra.

Because 0 A.D. is still in development, and what the full release of Part 1 Empires Ascendant will look like still isn't known quite yet. The decision to add the Successors and Mauryans, split the Hellenes into the Athenians, Spartans, and Macedonians, and the Celts into the Britons and Gauls, were both rather sudden changes. If I am not mistaken, some work has gone into triggers, which are a major roadblock for campaigns and are technically planned for Part 2 Empires Besieged. With that development, I honestly wouldn't be shocked if campaigns for Empires Ascendant were revisited eventually, which would probably lead to the inclusion of the Thebans.

Moving the storehouse classlabel seems to have fixed it. The AI seems to be able to get to the city phase without any errors now.

The animals' purpose is to provide food so they should generally be easy to kill in order to allow fast and easy access to the resource. If you're talking about the animals that don't drop food and are hostile, such as tigers, I don't see why they should be harder to kill. I do agree on us being able to tame them, however. It could be an interesting implementation and add a new level of gameplay. How do you suggest the animals could be tamed?

I've implemented some things (mostly causative's ideas) in D681 and D937 and was looking for any feedback. I think for the moment I'll stick to women and traders and wait until later to add a bell for military units since they might want it at civic centers too and that might be tricky.

I added trot anims + Winged Peytrals to my list.

I'll fix it thanks for the report. As for blanket it either needs a better texture or different UVMap.

Cart cavalry javelin horse are using base_horse_swordsman variant instead of javelin.

Full body blanket

Technically Gamma is final product it it wouldn't change much to use Greek letters

Cav limit, including scouts, is lifted in phase 2. Yeah the scouts remain useful in later stages especially on maps with good hunting.

Thank you very much for contacting them and getting involved and of course for all the translation work!

Then advertise it the next one time

Alpha means everything is still possible and anything could be changed. Beta means the focus is on bug fixing and balancing, but not new features. Officially complete means you can not expect any improvement. A few examples: RTW has non-working features (e.g. morale), a dumb AI (weak cavalry charging head-on into a pike formation), and a complete lack of balance (economy increases exponentially with the number of cities; once you have acquired enough territory the scales tip in your favour and you can fight the whole world simutaneously and still win). AoE was a great game but partially unfinished, RoR was also released prematurely. AoK had new features but broke balance, TC just added content. AoM was balanced, but TT was of lower quality. Now, about twenty years later, they have been re-releasing these games. But did they actually solve any of the issues the original games had? No. Therefore I believe we should treasure 0 A.D.'s permanent alpha status.

Using the entity limits? Then one can train more than 2, but at most 2 simultaneously. Not a bad idea, but maybe this unit could remain useful in the later ages as well. Maybe if the global vision & attack range reduction would be implemented for all units except the scouts. Might be a desired feature for alpha 24. (Same as counters in my view :-/) For alpha 23 I'd rather nerf the skirmisher cavalry accuracy and be done with it. If we add anything else, I'm sure the balancing will break even much further in some unforseen way than only one random unit being OP.

Indeed it didn't help us. :/ But you are right, projectiles shouldn't just pass through walls and mountains. Catapults would still be able to shoot beyond walls, but only if they don't collide with it. There was a trac ticket for that as far as I know. The additional checks won't be good for performance however unless we maybe add some new kind of pathfinder grid.

@The Undying Nephalim I managed to replicate it with the hylians (I had to patch them again). I think I found it. The parent template: template_{civ}_economic.xml It has the Storehouse class. Just remove that and add it to the civ's actual storehouse. I tested this with Hylians. But my files are different. I kept getting that error when they built an additional farm or a market (who's parent of those files and probably others is that template). Let me know if that fixed it.

I think that Pyrogenesis can't do "platoons" or "banner armies" (fixed batch training with a concrete mix of units). It would be cool to support it (the ability to train fixed numbers of units, and a mix of them) Having or not having guns is not a "engine feature", just an art thing. Guns could be added, the only support that would be needed should be adding "muzzle flashes", as Stanislas said, and maybe smoke trails: a particle emitter when a unit is attacking, and a straight one tied to the projectile (the second one I think that could be done now) The game have a lot of features.... you just need to understand them well. Wall converting to a door individually is not a feature, it is the possibility to a entity to upgrade to another. With this upgrade component, units can be changed to a another one (spearman to a hero, packed building in a wagon to a proper building, but also archer going to a melee archer mode) I think that the gameplay features that the engine are capable are scattered all around the wiki, and not every one is listed. Also keep in mind that the game is being developed, so a lot of info could be outdated. Just play the game and try to understand what the game can do, and how it could be changed, like the upgrade component.

Yes I've fixed all of them, including putting the Storehouse class back. I've noticed that the same problem happens with the other 3 factions as well, just not nearly as early on or as frequently as with the zora. I wonder why the AI would freak out about placing a storehouse, they place the first pair of Storehouses just fine.

I have received an answer from Transifex. It seems they know about the issue and they say that: And: So, if/when I get further info about the issue from the support of Transifex, I will write again here.

@Itms I think the issue has always been there, or at least I do not remember any period of not getting notifications about "Tutorials", ever since it had been added to the project. I have contacted Transifex about the issue just now. I will write here with more info if/when I get an answer from their support.

And https://www.gog.com/game/oxenfree is free on GOG for 42 hours There are so many free games

However, 0 A.D. is about achieving historical authenticity. A Spartan player massing shock cavalry and overrunning the enemy should raise eyebrows. Not impossible, but difficult to pull of. I agree that slavish adherence to historical accuracy is detrimental to gameplay. But realism can give guidance to gameplay. Else, why is the game based on history anyway? Might as well make a fantasy game if historicity is ignored.

You mean accuracy or minimum distance? IMHO, the MinDistance of the towers in Public mod is too far. Kind of restrictive. I think it was made that way to prevent the seriously annoying Tower Creep strategy, but you can fix that by making sure the tower's territory effect is smaller than its MinDistance. Also, the sentry tower/defense tower distinction in the game really bothers me, but that's a different discussion. I agree with this. Units need roles, and arrow/javelin/sling units' role shouldn't be anti-building. +1 Nah, I think Spear Cavalry historically are the "heavy cavalry" of the age, meaning they are the stock cavalry unit, tougher than others, higher attack, more armor, making them best for charging large numbers of ranged units or attacking enemy infantry from behind or taking punishment from nearby towers. I think conceptually, swords>spears, so the Sword Cav should be the anti-cav cav. Just my opinion. Do the same for the ranged infantry too. Only have spear infantry and women at the CC so all civs start the match on equal footing. Things get more diverse after building the barracks. I don't understand the adherence to the idea that the CC must have a bunch of trainable military units there. Build orders can be changed. It's an alpha. Why has no one brought up the notion of increasing training times? Age of Kings regularly has train times close to 20 seconds for some units. I am well-aware that 0 A.D. is not AOK, something I've been trying to wriggle into the zeitgeist myself, but it's just an example. I do like the idea of stables though. Helps remove the "7 different units trained at the barracks" syndrome. I'd think you would be interested in the challenge! Or an "Horse Stables" add-on for the barracks, i.e. "upgrade", akin to Starcraft. Can also be achieved more cheaply, as far as manpower, with a tech.