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I have quite a few loose ends to tie up before i get back into development, Ptolemies and vegetation were my go-to's on return.

So Citizens are villagers that serve war from time to time. Fine. Then the current concept still is crap. It doesn't even have to do with imagination. The system doesn't remotely reflect that. Resource gatherer 90% of the time and 10% going to war means that the citizen should be unarmed all game long except for a handful of times when the base it attacked. The concept that military units permanently harvest resources is simply bad. I have named numerous reasons why that is. Either timed option to turn villagers into militia for defense or upgrade option to turn a villager into a soldier for a resource cost. or remove it altogether (which is the best option to avoid players spamming villagers from his buildings, running them to the enemy base and transform them into soldiers of various kinds to counter enemy units). btw that's how a defensive mechanism for a villager/resource gather can look like via ability (obviously this game was some comp stomper noob in wc3 so the skill/execution is bad, but you can see the game mechanic):

Batalion Test Update soldiers are trained in battalions of size 15 (infantry) + banner carrier cannot build cannot be disbanded cannot be merged hero deploys with his specific battalion to use ram or siege tower you has to "garrison" battalion into it, but units stays visible and can be attacked garrisoning into buildings is possible and in garrison panel all units from battalion are grouped under one icon (you can ungarirson only all of them) units can be put into Free formation, in this case they will not keep any of the shape and this is preferred in city spaces ammo refill should be fixed technologies have been removed from structure tree visualisation because of space house has 10 population bonus some buildings have been moved to phases Sentry Tower -> town phase Palisade -> town phase Farmstead -> town phase Barracks, Ranged -> town phase (+ blacksmith) Stables -> town phase (+ corral) Field -> needs farming research (available town phase) Stone Tower -> city phase Stone Wall -> city phase Technology Forging is needed for archery axes swords spears mace City Phase is needed for chain armour Vision range of units is lower ( a lot ). Infantry speed is lower, cavalry speed is a bit higher (percentage wise compared to infantry). Gather rate is drastically lower -> technologies has huge boost for gather rate. Worship of gods You can choose which god your people will worship. You can worship 3 gods from 6 (now). In each phase you can choose one from pair. First two are in CC. 3th is in temple. God of animals (cavalry training boost) God of builders (building boost) God of family (worker training boost) God of farming (farming rate boost) God of blacksmiths (research in blacksmiths boost) God of war (infantry training boost) A bit changed Civilisation selection. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Each battalion has its banner carrier, but they do not really fit in as unit type yet. Running or charging might not drain energy for battalions (I am not sure what I messed up) Capturing is kind of not possible using battalions yet ( dont worry, it will be). AI is a bit broken because of number of units in battalions and slowdown (to be fair I broke it) so enjoy smashing AI because it does not train soldiers. Or find someone for MP (better to test it) --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Thank you for support Please report weird animations (like alive blooded soldier, soldier without helm but rest of his battalion has, not moving capes - this drives me mad, I always find one)

This mod contains experimental gameplay features which might not be perfect yet. Also I am aware of some bugs (but if you find any, please report them). NEVER MIX (ENABLE) THIS MOD WITH ANOTHER MODS AND PATCHES WHICH ARE NOT VITAL FOR GAME. I WILL NOT SOLVE CONFLICTS FROM THEM. github repository https://github.com/SlavomirSlovenkai/0ad-gameplay-mode For more changes reade here: https://wildfiregames.com/forum/index.php?/topic/24764-battalion-test-mode/&do=findComment&comment=367259 Features: Phasing is cost free and automatic. Phase requirements Town phase 5x House 1x Market 1x Farmstead 25x Citizen City phase 15x House 1x Blacksmith 1x Market 1x Temple 40x Citizen General You need 1 Farmstead for every 4 Fields to build. Fields has to be build at minimum distance 80 from Civ centre. Soldiers can not gather and can build only military/defense buildings. Cavalry can still hunt. New unit Hunter available in village phase from civic centre. It is melee unit with nice slaughter attack and weak melee, so you can hunt animals even you do not have access to cavalry. New support unit Male. Can build special and military/defense buildings, also storehouse and corral. Only Female can build House, Farmstead, Field, Temple, Market. Melee infantry is trained in barracks, ranged infantry in range barracks, cavalry in stables. Stances got rework. Technologies Every soldier is locked by technology (or more) For example: Spears -> Spearman Spears -> Pikes -> Pikeman Spears -> Hoplite (tech - as they have special formation) -> Hoplite (unit) Swords -> Swordman Javelin -> Javelin throwers Archery -> Archers Cavalry + Swords -> Sword riders (tech) -> Cavalry Swordsman Champions + Swords -> Champion swordsman (tech) -> Champion Swordsman ( unit) Cavalry + Champions -> Champion Cavalry + Swords -> Champion Cavalry Swordsman (unit) Every unit starts with no armour and no shields (some civilisations have shields from start). There are 2 available unit upgrades in the row ( every unit class has its own upgrades ). Each one adds some equipment to the unit, but they needs to be unlocked. For example: Swords + Shields -> Swordsman upgrade (tech - giving shields to swordsmen) Champions are trained fully equipped, but that equipment has to researched. Melee weapons, infantry melee units upgrades and melee infantry champions are researched in barracks. Ranged weapons, infantry ranged units upgrades and ranged infantry champions are researched in range barracks. All kinds of cavalry, their upgrades and champions are researched in stables. Cavalry and champion cavalry itself are researched in corrals. Champions are researched in civic centre. Siege weapons are researched and build in siege workshop. Training is done by garrisoning units into barracks/range/stables. While they are inside, they get experiences and rank up. Units with lower or no rank fights worse ( exception are champions and heroes). You can train them by fighting but they will probably die fast (especially when your enemy has better trained troops than you). As this takes some time, to train unit from nothing to basic rank takes 30 seconds, to advanced next 30 seconds (60 seconds), to elite next 30 seconds (1 minute and 30 seconds), to fully trained in total 2 minutes. You should care about your troops more and you will not want to throw them away and let them fall in battle for nothing. Damage types and armour: Fire -> Special units ( add-on damage, small compared to others, but no unit has strong protection against fire ) Pierce -> Spear, Pike Hack -> Sword Crush -> Slinger, Club, Mace Missile -> Archer, Javelin Range units have minimal range when they can use their weapons, if they cannot they use weak melee attack. Range unit according to spread: Slinger, -> Javelin -> Archer Melee units have MissChance, which is the most 0.5. It means that unit has 50% chance to miss target with attack. Spread and MissChance gets lower as unit levels through experiences. Champions and Heroes now have chance to deal critical damage, what means they can find weak spot and kill enemy with one single attack. Shields and armour Protection is divided between armour itself and shield (based on shield type and armour type unit is wearing). Bigger shield means higher protection than smaller one ( also shield from metal/iron means better protection than shield from wood - roman shields are exception ) Also Chain armour gives more protection than some basic kind of armour. Wearing helmets means extra protection. Attacking unit from back (melee or missile) removes protection given by shield. Rams are 100% missile proof, but weak against all kinds of melee attacks, also their attack rate is reduced. Capturing happens by garrisoning units into enemy building ( aka they brake doors and go in ). To deal with them defender has to garrison troops with better capture rate as enemy does. If attacker and defender are equals in capturing strength and defender owns more than 0.5 of the building or defender is stronger and owns whole building, troops of attacker slowly loose health. Exception are walls ( and maybe later another buildings ), where garrisoned units are visible and they fight against each other. Attacker has to use siege towers to ungarrison units on the wall. Rams and Siege towers requires minimum number of units to be garrisoned to be able to move. Rams requires minimum number of units to be garrisoned to be able to attack, When Gate is under 50% of health it is force opened even if was locked before and remains broken ( unable to close ) until its health is above 80%. Friendly fire is enabled. So you really want units upgrades to not miss their targets. Ammunition ranged units have certain count of arrows/stones/javelins to use. They will get it back slowly. Some champion units (e. g. persian immortals) can switch to bows, throw javelins or spears. Every range unit has ability to disable range attack. Running on command draining energy. Energy is required for running and melee attacks. When melee unit has no energy fights worse ( melee units have some chance to miss ). Melee cavalry can Charge with double click on enemy unit. This drains energy as running. Charging is done to the position enemy is staying, so when he moves, target place is fixed. While units are charging they deal mount damage (no armour can save you from this damage) to every enemy unit they pass around and they deal extra damage when they reach target position. When they charge into formation turned towards them, they get anti-charge damage. Hero selection on the start of the game and auto spawn after that. No resurrection later. Formations They have attack and armour bonuses to overcome units fighting in no formation. Control Selecting one unit from formation means selecting whole formation. You can ROTATE one unit or whole formation with Shift + R and right click to position you want them to face towards. -------- ( Still working on changes )

You only smashed him ? Must have been a very close game then

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Yes. And before determining which resources are used there needs to be decided which ones actually should be in the game. About sustainable logging: Unless there is a reason why the forests on the map should be removable (i.e. to provide building space) there's no need to clear forests. This also depends alot on the planned average game length and the amount of resource spots per player. Thorfinn stated the unreal Citizen Soldiers first, I just took over his statement. However I support that opinion, it IS unhistorical the way it currently is. - No ancient soldier ever chopped wood while carrying a Sarissa/sword/armour/bow/shield (just like you said) - most Citizens indeed had a job, but only few worked as farmers, miners or woodchoppers, especially in cities.They were fishermen, salesmen, blacksmiths, smelters, stonemasons etc. They created trading goods for sale or use, but not for the government to supply their armies. That's what tax money was for. But... why? What's the point? Why do you train military units as resource gatherer (that in fact are no military units because they have no weapons) to pick up weapons for defense and then return to gathering resources again when the enemy is gone? Why not simply make automated, node based resource production and players get to train basic troops (low tier) and professional troops (high tier)? Why is it so important to keep a crappy feature?

@DarcReaver I agree that the current system is flawed, primarily because "Citizen-soldiers can instantly react to an attack", as Thorfinn and others have pointed out. I personally prefer this system: Farms built on fertile lands. farm income based on amount of assigned workers and fertility of the soil. Mines (stone, iron, gold) built on sockets in in rocky/mountainous areas away from your starting CC. Most of them shouldn't deplete, but provide a set income based on size and amount of assigned worker (slaves or serfs). Workers assigned to a logging camp, with a wood income determined by amount of assigned workers and trees within its radius. Set the logging camp to clear the forrest for a large, quick, unreplenishable income of wood, or set it to sustainable logging, for a slow but permanent wood income (forrest remains intact/regrows). I disagree however with your statement that Citizen Soldiers are unhistorical. That's not true at all... The way they are implemented is the problem (switching between working tools and weapons in a split second). Professional standing armies of paid soldiers was definitely not the norm in Antiquity. The majority of warriors in most civilization had a day job (farming, herding, hunting, day labour, civic jobs, a little bit of this, a little bit of that)... The thing is that they should be called up to fight, run towards an armory (barracks), and be equipped with weapons and arms. This would be different from recruiting a new army, which would take much longer. Calling your already trained citizens to arms wouldn't cost you anything excepts for the time it takes (and the the lost resource income because of fewer workers). This alone would help a lot to level the playing field between attacker and defender. A standing professional army should ideally compliment your citizen soldiers, when and where necessary. But the distinction/nuance between resource gathering citizen soldiers and non-gathering champions is really nice in my opinion. And historically more accurate than scrapping the system entirely. It just needs fine tuning (no immediate switch between tools and weapons), in combination with a revamped economic system (node-based).

If gathers should not be able to repel attackers then WHY make military units that can attack gather resources in the first place? That's complete nonsense. Military units are meant to fight. That's why they are military units. This is not a city building simulator but an RTS. So, again - why should citizen soldiers gather resources? When I look over the boards I see dozens of topics about historical accuracy for buildings, uniforms, weapons, unit types and so on. Then why is one of the main components of the game (economy) based on fantasy? Yes there can be more subtle differences between soldiers and gatherers. For example you can give gatherers an ability to defend themselves (Town Bell, Call to Arms/Militia for a period of time, hiding in buildings, permanently transform them into a military unit for a resource cost etc.). But what's the point to have fighting gatherers and gathering fighters? Either remove the split altogether or split economy units and military units but don't mix both. There are dozens of unique and working gameplay concepts for RTS resource gathering (DoW franchise, BFME franchise, C&C red alert, C&C Generals, Warcraft 3, Rise of Nations, Hearts of Iron etc etc.) that can be utilized instead of using a 15 year old modding reference "to make it different from AoE II" without putting any thought in the system itself and how teh game requires it to work. Let's summarize: - citizen soldiers are mostly unrealistic from a historical viewpoint - citizen soldiers cause trouble with resource balance (each second a military unit walks/attacks/chases enemy units instead of collecting resources = lost resources for the military unit owner) - citizen soldiers cause trouble with attacking/defending (resource gatherer can protect itself) - citizen soldiers are annoying to micro after an attack (since military usually forms up for defense you have to readjust every soldier back to his original task) So, apart from "it's different system from AoE" is an advantage of this system? All the issues can easily be avoided by admitting that it's a crappy concept and start over with a different concept that actually makes sense. Just to name some examples: 1) Scrap military/economy split by either removing citizen soldiers OR gatherers with a new resource system. Possible options: based on map control: player who controls areas on the map gains resources automatically - settlements, quarries, mines etc. are on the map to be captured and produce resources automatically (DoW/CoH system) buildings that gather based on the terrain, i.e. you can build quarries next to stone resource spots, and a limited amount of workers can gather resources from there , either automatically or trained by the player from the building (Warcraft III/Starcraft/C&C Generals system) Farms/quarries/mines can be build anywhere but require to be spaced out, else they produce less resources (BFME system) You simply gain resources over time automatically based upon the amount of cities you have (hearts of iron) 2) You stick with the original AoE II/AoM approach. For this the game needs to be slowed down. DRASTICALLY. Having a detailed economy means players need time to plan. No planning time means it's too chaotic to have fun. The more the game is based on fighting the more automated the economy has to be. Managing 4 or 5 resources, hundreds of single workers and military at the speed of starcraft is bad. 3) You think of an entirely new concept. However since the last time this happened Citizen soldiers were introduced I doubt that's a good idea...

@Anaxandridas ho SkandiatesSkandiatesSkandiatesSkandiate You should find everything you are looking for here https://trac.wildfiregames.com/wiki/Audio_Voice_List Ignore the table at the bottom. Remember you have to sign the legal waiver as well as anyone recording voices with you. Also everyone doing so have the rights to be credited properly even if their contribution is only linguistic. As for hiring actors that's something we cannot afford. As for replacing Farsi with old Persian it's planned @Itms and @dmzerocold are working on this I believe. Contact them directly for more information. I committed the Farsi voices to improve the game experience a bit and because I believe the contribution should be valued. Could always be used for a mod as well.

Are there issues with the current system? Yes, but the line between soldier and gatherer can still be more subtle than what DarcReaver argues. There are a few issues with the current system, some of which have already been mentioned: Citizen-soldiers can instantly react to an attack. They shouldn't. This would properly penalise a player that does not have adequate knowledge of what an opponent is doing while rewarding opportunistic raids. Citizen-soldiers are a broad generalisation for the roles of men in society. Most labour at least in the Greco-Roman world was done by slaves, which should be implemented in some way. It is questionable to have citizen-soldiers be able to mine resources. Furthermore, women are overly generalised. In most Greek and Roman societies, they mainly did housework, not collecting resources. There would be some exceptions such as maybe Spartan and Celtic women. Cavalry probably should not hunt. They represent the nobility, who would not be doing much personally to gather food.

What is missing is the code infrastructure for any test saying test it is simply not possible at this time with out the underlying code to actually do it and writing that code is not repeat not a trivial task when there is no definition of expected behaviour which is that design document it all about so quit kibitzing and let them get back to work. Enjoy the Choice

I have not been this impressed with a game (that is free to boot) in a very long time. Never so much as to actually join a forum for it in probably over 10 years. Well done. I plan on supporting this game and mentioning it to all of my friends for years to come. Its nice to meet you all.

So, how about a better mod name than "game mod"?

I tend to try to help people enjoy the game as much as possible