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Hero with formation deployment. Opened for suggestions. If you would like to see some hero with specific units as hero bodyguards, let me know.

The main issue is that there are no people working on the gameplay concepts. There are a few artists and some guys doing UI stuff (and work on path finding, along with other engine-related stuff). That's why those discussions are pretty pointless. I also made several big topics about gameplay related stuff, ranging from resources to teching and unit counter systems. There are dozens of issues that have not been adressed/thought through yet, and the "manspam train" is just a tip of the ice berg. Having the "manspam trains" is a direct result of the (really old) design decision that 0 AD military units are "single training, expendable spam units" simialar to games like AoE II. There is no way to circumvent this - AoE is not the only one who does the manspam train, games like C&C (especially the old games) and even old Starcraft also use it. It's been like this "forever" and has not been questioned at all because 0 AD used to be a mod for AoE II. To remove unnecessary micro (which is one of the old design document principles) it would be just logical to make units train in battalions, they keep their formations automatically and that's about it. Special units can still be single units (i.e. Heroes, or War Elephants or whatever). Battalion size can vary in size (depending on the type of unit) and units within the battalion could be adjusted to a certain formation. I.e. hoplits walk in tight formations while Slingers run in loose bandages. Cossacks has been named numerous times. The thing that I question about the whole "single unit AND battalion system" is why there is a need to have both. Having single units doesn't help the game. Not sure why everyone thinks that the old 1999 AoE II system that worked around weakass computer systems is the holy grail in 2019. btw: hf reading

Indeed it's problematic. A "real" solution would be to introduce squad based combat with higher buildtimes. Formations with constantly switching amounts of single entities soldiers leads to even more chaotic battles. But it's good this topic keeps reappearing every now and then to remind people that this area has been lacking since quite some time.

What about Iphikrates? He gives bonuses to formations. I agree formations are broken. I train units in batches and use control groups, so no I have no real 'manspam train' and at least a bit of order on the battlefield.

By this picture: The bottom curve of edge is the same direction as the top one. I think the bottom edge should be like this:

Thanks for uploading. I'm adding my commentary as a spoiler:

So, this has been discussed in the past, but no conclusions were ever made and thus no decisions made on the design level. I think the loading screen could use some improvement, because right now it is rather static. Here is an old concept for some loading screen improvements (but is not a coherent design by any means) that I once found on the forums: Another idea I had was to have the current design with the "tips" but either have the tips rotate automatically every 10 seconds as the map loads or there can be left and right arrows that lets the player cycle/scroll through them at their leisure as they wait for the match to load. But most assuredly, I think the general aesthetics of the loading screen could definitely be improved.

Can we not just make them Hellenistic and give them some ethnic aesthetic instead? Here's what I threw together from @wackyserious and the crew from the Millennium AD team's work. Possibly for the Arab Javelineer (Seleucids). The Nabaetaean Camel Archer can use the Elite Umayyad textures and props. At least starting out. We have any good references for Arab/Nabataean units for the antique era?

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On the other topics well I'd like to see more activity on formations and stuff. But I'm too stupid to figure these things so I'm focusing on least interesting stuff for the game. Programming wise there is four big things on my list this year. #3488 Which allows to use visible garrisoning and to restrict certain units at certain place for instance Garrisoning a catapult on a wall would put a little catapult on top. Percentage of chance I might do it 15% It requires UI changes and I suck at it, because it also affects gameplay and stuff D557 #657 To place rally points or markers to show unit destination a bit like StarCraft. This is a cool feature I think. Was in a good state but still broken because of patrolling and other stuff Percentage of chance I might do it 15% Percentage done 60% (Needs a rebase and a few other stuff) Ambient sounds. This I really think will improve the game. Currently you can't play windsounds for mountains in a specific area and that sucks. Walking sounds would be nice but they need to be less annoying. Currently they are awful if you enable them. Percentage of chance I might do it 25% Percentage done 0% Building sockets. Allowing you to place building on top of each other (For instance mines) could also be settlements or special areas. Percentage of chance I might do it 25% Percentage done 0% And then there is all the rest, all my other patches art review getting every art of this forum in the game and trust me there is a lot of wasted stuff there such as Micket models but they need animations and good ones. Also all the mods Aristeia Terra Magna Milleniumad Trinketos's 'mod Ponies Ascendant and finally my own mod I need to make to improve my stagnant skills. Btw need to go so much things to do right now .

Nah, it's just way too time consuming to create fixes or a game design concept that gets discussed over a few pages on the forum and then put to sleep without any consequences at all. Look at the thread I posted, more than 6.500 words to initiate a start for a new game design concept, and with hints on which areas could be switched or improved, along with a lot of discussions and input from various people. That was 1,5 years ago. And since then nothing has changed at all. At least neither heard or seen improvements at all. It's not really defeatism, it's more like pragmatism. I've created gameplay concepts for existing games/mods in the past, and those alone already consumed hundreds, maybe thousands of hours in tinkering, writing, scripting and debugging. And that was with games that already had "rules" and a working gameplay in the first place. Creating a complete, original gameplay concept for this game from scratch is a mammoth task, since there is almost nothing to rely on. Copying from AoE and calling it a day won't do much nowadays, with AoE II and AoM HD and their Definitive Editions + AoE IV in the makings. Tbh, the only reason to play 0 ad is for Wowgetoffyourcellphone's delenda est mod, which improves 0 ad to the maximum it can be at the current state.

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Thx for the compliment. I also like to keep stuff simple. Buuuuuuuuuuuuut... 5 suggestions are not enough because the game mechanics in no way are finished and polished enough. So for 5 suggestions to work you have to elaborate each one in detail. Which is a hell of a lot of work. And like I said, nobody on the 0 AD train who can "code" is interested in game design or has an idea how game mechanics work/how they affect the game. That's why there's no point, unless you're willing to spend a lot of time to actually create a coherent game design first and then fitting game mechanics for players to enjoy, accompanied with pretty graphics.

Instead of broken formations you could either introduce a "rout" feature that does the following: - routing squads/battalions cannot be controlled by the player - will no longer attack enemy units (unless it's surrounded and cannot run away) - will automatically try to reach a nearby player town center and can be reinforced back to old strength again for resources Similar with economy. It would be way easier if population, food costs, women/citizen soldiers and the resources would work more automatically. Example: Remove "house population" and replace with "food consumption" - instead of eating berries, animals and other stuff to build units the food is stored, and the amount of storage depends on city level, amount of granaries etc. - build various different types of food productions (farms, granaries, sheds etc.), additionally there can be neutral cities or manors that can be captured and then give a tribute of food to the play who currently owns it - each battalion/military unit requires food, regular citizens are split to builders/architects to allow building and repairing structures - other cities can be captured/raided to gain food (and other resources) to the raiding player - lumber/gold/stone/metal are used to train soldiers and the amount of gatherers per resource spot is limited so players have to expand to multiple mining/forests to get more resources, making map control more important. Villages and Cities can be build on the map to give control over the areas (i.e. good farming lands, or a big forest) etc. These are just some quick shots. Since noone really works on this it's unlikely you'll get a significant improvement on the game. Tbh I'd rather go with AoE II or AoE Definitive edition, they offer nice graphic enhancements while also having superior game mechanics.

Correct me if I am wrong. While you are dragging, your line will get one mouse position per simulation cycle. When your game is lagging your mouse is much faster than the simulation cycle.

Your fix looks good to me

I'll commit it tonight then

Formations are broken at the moment. There is no support for bonuses in the main game although some mods have it. Formation in the current state cause lag. They won't be fixable until a few Pathfinder patches are in. So I'm afraid you'll have to wait.

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Thanks for concern, I use them and know how to counter. Still they seem a bit too op to me so i made a thread about it. Thats not crying or complaining. If players will report things that are way too strong or too weak i believe it will make gameplay better Thats very good start but they will still kill elephants with pierce damage.

had very long break, cant believe how rusty i am, but I won anyway i did a lot of mistakes that im correcting now this forum category seems quite dead so ill put replay here (to watch it you need to put it in replays folder in Documets/My games/ 0 ad/replays) and you need to have FGOD or edit txt file and remove part with fgod commands.txt metadata.json

In my patch siege rams has only pierce dmg, no bonus vs bulding, it's just a mobile tower.

It would be great if it was a standalone mod so other mods could easily use it or make it a dependency. Or better yet, made a patch for the core game so that it can be maintained.

This is a great conversation about organizing the structure of lines. Yes, voice actors may just want a simple list, but a heirarchical organization of lines that allows for more detail to be added sounds like a good idea. It needs to be clear what is the bare minimum, but these added details sound awesome to me. Perhaps an ideal solution is to have the "simple list" that covers everything needed and then a "detailed spreadsheet" that helps the overachievers add character, situation, or other contextual variation. Firstly though: I can't find any docs for how voice actors, musicians, etc can contribute. Shouldn't there be a section on 0ad.com/participate or at least a page in the wiki? As someone who was bothered by the lack of variation in voices and am still trying to figure out how I can help fix it: maybe this is a big part of why the pool of voice actors is small.

@stanislas69

What I have in mind is a movable 3D mesh of units in the game, with little trivia about them so that the audience could learn facts about the units in the game. Something like an in-game sketchfab? Like the loading screens in the TESV: Skyrim.

Is very beautiful wowgetoffyourcellphone. But as a good player, I wish see the civilization of the players.