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Only if it doesn't work... Otherwise we're all in serious trouble.

WOOOOOOOOOOOOO It's done now I can go back to adding more civs into the game:

The original languages are fantastic element of 0AD, when and where they can be, and actually are accurate. I think this a good example of something that needs to be civ-specific. Some civs just don't have a rich corpus of written history in the original language to ever get it right, and so it doesn't matter to use generic names only in those cases. But that doesn't mean that the educational aspects of having accurate original terminologies where possible should be underestimated. I haven't read this much Latin and Greek since high school, because of the historical research involved in development and since the Kushites I've even learnt a little something about Ancient Egyptian and Meroitic. Of course I don't speak any of those languages, but becoming more familiar with them through 0AD is a real addition of value in my opinion. Also don't underestimate the subconscious internalisation of these terms when actually playing, especially for kids.

You all think it's bad now? Back in my day, we didn't even have an AI, or any multiplayer either. Imagine playing a game like that, then having it rewritten so that all terrain is solid black, and buildings, trees, water, mountains, and pretty much everything just let units walk right through without restriction. Units didn't automatically migrate to fresh resources, they just stopped working. As a bonus, depleted resources didn't disappear, so you had to manually pick each tree to see if the workers would gather from it. I think one reason it seems there's less progress happening today, is that there's less obvious progress to make. We're closer than ever to a completed game.

Some suggestions: Add special investigations to some factions as a replace of the "base" technologies. For example i have an enciclopedia (does it means the same in english?) wich takes some of the most notorious researchs from the history. Julius Cesar reforming the calendar, An egiptian guy who's name i forgot calculating the circunference of the planet with only an obelisk, a water well and the shadow of the sun, Philip II introducing Sarisa (Long 6Meter spear) who beated the hoplites to blacksmiths or aura. Make proper icons and add 20% of the technology benefits related to the history behind it, also add the researcher and the history to the information for better educational purposes. Rework the LOS: Divide the LOS in two factors: Long range sight: Use for spot buildings from afar as well as forest's and inanimated objects Short range sight: use for spot nearby units, fauna and moving objects. Add an aura or an function to trees and tall bushes to hide whatever is behind or nearby or reduce the chance of "being seen" (perfect for ambushes) Add auras to the trees to reduce cavalry speed, or to one particular tree of every forest kind, this way one army can go throught forests to escape from cavalry charge.

OMG, you're so dramatic! I think the most important thing is to: And whatever you think you can do towards improving the development of 0AD yourself, whatever your skill, The more work we do individually (and share it of course), the more other people will feel inspired to do more work themselves, regardless of the department. 0AD has been under development for so long. Even if we need to wait a year for a new AI developer to come along, I'll still be here! And my personal skills will have improved as well... Because one department has ground to a standstill, doesn't mean that every other department does too, nor does it mean that it's a permanent issue. There are so many things that took years to fix... I'm not too worried about the future of the game. Even though I recognize that there is a crisis of sorts, there's always a crisis of sorts... It's the way of the world. The thing is... 0AD has never been more popular, more stable, more fun and more beautiful than it is today! It has blossomed into one of the greatest games in it's genre, and something tells me we're just getting started 2012? 2018! The trajectory suggests greatness. Have faith my brother!

The most difficult faction to balance is Ptolemaic, for having free houses/store, among other things. Overall the mod is well balanced, we do not see the same civilizations anymore all games, players are choosing all civilizations. The mod provides an immensity of new strategies, that is great. Since the beginning of the work I have tried to leave each civilization unique, so new constructions and unique units are always perfect.

Software development and artwork are rarely discussed on the internal staff forums. Wildfire Games software development social media feed is http://irclogs.wildfiregames.com/. Everytime a bug is reported on http://trac.wildfiregames.com/, everytime a patch is uploaded to Phabricator at http://code.wildfiregames.com/ or a comment posted in response, the irc bot posts a comment in the chat. So by following IRClogs, you will follow most of what developers did that day. Artists use the public forums. The project struggled with many obstructions and unsolveable conflicts, even since it's founding in 2001 if we can believe the records (failed total conversion mod). In 2009 it was made free source because of a serious lack of developers. So the problem is not new at all. You're implying that donations equal content, but it's not as simple as that. First of all one needs donations, WFG received ("only") USD 2000 in surplus 2018. Secondly if one has funds, then one still needs to decide for which purpose they will be used, which is quite difficult (one person gets 28cent per hour, the other person only 8 cent per hour? or one person gets 25k for a new pathfinder and everyone else gets nothing at all?). The third problem is finding someone who can actually accomplish the decided purposes to Wildfire Games satisfaction (people who are capable of writing and integrating a new pathfinder are extremely rare, people who can write it in a bug-free, well planned way even more rare). There are a number of unutilized means in 501(c)(3) to address some of these problems creatively, hopefully in this decade. But even if the revenue is increased by a factor of 5, it would remain mayonnaise paygrade. 0 A.D. is a public good, written for public interest and unless we change that, it will inevitably depend on voluntarism.

Hi, i care about 0 ad. Doing something again and again is the deffinition of insanity. If 0 ad or wfg doesnt change i see no future here. Break paradigms, change is the only unevitable law in the universe. Donations for me are like begging for coins in the street. People work different if they do it for free. LET THERE BE 0AD!!! 9days till tendon flies away

Just quickly scanned through the article: Sounds suspicious. Read it again more thoroughly. Read "blockchain" --> Really suspicious ^^ If it's not, you should explain it more. Edit: Read the indigogo entry: Sounds like a social media platform for FOSS with a built-in cryptocurrency for distributing bounties.

To start off, as an amateur classicist, I want to point out that I appreciate 0 A.D.'s attempts to present the units and structures in a way so that players can see what they would be called in their original languages. I just don't think it works. When it come to GUI, one of the main points is to present information as clearly as possible, which is more difficult due to this. After all, which is easier, house or oikos? Furthermore, many of the ancient languages such as Punic, Celtic, and whatever the Iberians spoke is hard to accurately model. For Carthage, many buildings are missing their Punic names due to shortages of known words. Although these could be supplemented with a similar Semitic language, the result could be misleading to people who, trusting the attention to accuracy 0 A.D. takes, might themselves be misinformed as a result. The case is even worse of course for the Iberian language, but I think I have made my point on this matter. Another issue I find is the lack of consensus even amongst people more well acquainted with Greek in attempting to transliterate the language. Even when one of them is pleased, it leaves a different opinion unanswered. Thus, for the people who don't know the language, the transliteration is probably confusing; for those who do, it would likely feel like an unsatisfactory choice when the original alphabet of the language could just be used (Unless we are talking about Latin).

I see a lot of people pointing to the educational aspects of the current system, which I acknowledge is fair, but the primary purpose is not that but clarity. I would say that a system where the player can choose the options they want would be good. For instance, the default could be the English (or whatever language the player speaks) name followed by the transliteration of the original language, or even better to me, it in a rough equivalent of their alphabet. The clarity is good, and the people who want to know the original language are happy; if they prefer the way it is now, that could be an option as well. If people want less clutter, they could opt for only one of the two ever being displayed. The point is that options should be provided.

Is all about trying to.preserve the original but at the same.time making it accessible. For once I don't mind it.not being perfect .

Even the houses themselves are clearly inspired by AoM...

Just small mental update what is going on last days I am messing with AI and I am trying to implement different things. Things pretty ready: AI moves batalion as group of units (no more long line of walking units). Things done but needs more tweaks: Resources are not marked as available if height difference in position of resource and dropsite is big. (that helps units to not choose as first resources which are close but because of cliff, they would go way around) After near resources are depleted AI should build new dropsite closer. AI builds farmsteads near fruit bushes to collect them faster. What I need to fix: AI tends to build a lot of dropsites really close ( no clue why ). What I need to do before kind of ready: I need to rewrite attackplan update function to react with batalions and not single units. And more important to do the same for defence. So there is a long way before me @Diatryma thank you for respond, I ll try to think about something more practical.

In my journey without internet after 80h whitout power, i made the Mount/Dismount Animation. if i anyone on the gameplay mods done are willing to use it, they will be included in the horse update mod files uploaded here.

One layer bud, there are no source texture files. and i have a whole one blender file for all the character animations I ever make. You'd be looking at layer 3 Elite_swordsman.zip

Union_Rifleman.zip I do believe that's everything

1 million dl 1000 different players per month 0.001 retaining gamers % u are all op failling on keeping players in 0 ad there is something that isnt working and then someone begging in lobby for donations... very rude donations to improve the game, for us players to keep on comming i love this game, but its feels like a boat, where us players are the sailors (1000) and then there are 30 captains that dont make decissions, so boat doesnt move and sailors leave mucho cacique y poco indio in spanish, (too many chefs in the kitchen) only one chef is needed we eat mayo here, no ketchup

Looks like I just added an asset import mission to my to-do list

Hey! applied your patch and recompiled, Here you have your registers: Thanks for your attention!

tnx so much!!!

https://github.com/0ADMods/A-Mythology-mod-f-or-0-A.D.

where I can donwload this mod?

Yes, donations are done without return value consideration. But that's not everything that 501(c)(3) is. -> Hat

What I thought was to make a small cost for houses and stores (example 40/60), and a quick build, its make more sense to me, since the houses were faster construction, but fragile and cheap.

Update: Added a few designs. Updated some of the already done. Change the colors of some of the designs for a better distinction using some player colors. while waiting for @Genava55 doc design i've already started some of the faction distinctions: 2 Shapes for Brit Spearmans; Both Big Shields 2 Shapes for Brit Javelinist; Both medium shields 2 Shapes for Gaul Javelinist; Both medium shields 1 Shape for Both factions Slingers: Small shield Basic rank; Medium shield Elite rank 3 Shapes for Gaul Spearman; Big Shields Applies for the cavalry version of the infantry. Having some doubts of this design (Wijitmaker profile pic), its a flag in the modern days: Files:Celtic_Shields.7z

The solution to people leaving rated games too early is that we as wfg host the games on our server. We can hopefully do this somewhere in the future. But it needs someone to implement changes in the game.

Mauryan elephants can build, which is super weird if you ask me. They can't initiate a construction, but they can build it. I think like free ptolemaic houses and starting walls for the Iberians, it's one of those civ specific things that doesn't make a lot of sense to me. Having the elephant boost construction speed when other units are already building seems really cool and even intuitive, but the elephant building by itself is weird.

Actually I think this would be weird for elephant to be able to build and if unit cannot actually build structures, it should not have ability to place one. (just my opinion)

I have on my task list a plan to make the display of the specific name optional.

There are already some mods or total conversion, see for example this: https://www.moddb.com/mods/hyrule-conquest Some features may currently be missing, but if an interesting mod emerge they may be added, as already done in the past. But someone should be committed in investing months of work designing models, animations, scripts and so on. As an alternative, partially free (Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial license), RTS ,WW2 game you can have a look at Spring 1944: http://spring1944.net/ .

Imagine how cool it would be when some kid is learning at school about ecology, environment etc. and their teacher says that ecology comes from Greek oikos, and then it suddenly realises "WOW, true, just like I saw in 0 A.D. oikos=house" Just like for me when I hear any terms in English like sword, wood, lumberjack, resource, etc. it immediately reminds me of AoE lol...

For me, "free" stuff like houses is really immersion breaking. I know time is a resource, I just don't understand the desire to keep this feature in a game like 0AD... The increased build time is equally confusing as to what makes this desirable or sensible or immersive? It's mud brick architecture, why would it cost more time to build? If anything, the logical thing for Egyptian houses is for them to be built in a shorter time. Think about it for more than a minute. How could vernacular architecture possibly take more time to build than say, a Roman house? Why don't we go for a compromise, and give a nominal cost, at least. The next cheapest houses are 75 wood. So why not let the Ptolemaic houses cost just 50 wood? Still a big advantage, but not immersion breaking. And reduce the increased build time dramatically please. Same for dropsites. Civ specific traits should be based on the actual civilization, and what made them unique or special. Not what another mythology inspire fantasy game did. There is so much to work with, as has been pointed out many times before. For Ptolemaic Egypt specifically, off the top of my head: Super densely populated (houses can have extra pop) Grain basket of the Mediterranean (increased income from farming) Incredibly rich (trade and/or mining bonuses) Mercenaries from everywhere! (they can hire everything from Kushites to Thracians, there was even a notable population of Scythians in Alexandria) Monumental temple construction, Egypt, land of the ancient gods (religious fervor, priestly bonuses) One of the most powerful navies in Antiquity (naval bonuses) Countless engineering marvels (improved siege, other techs related to construction) etc

As far as I am concerned, I would love to see specific names eventually in the original writing (thus eliminating the headache that is transliteration). This is blocked by the same issue that makes us package Asian languages as a mod, which is our poor handling of fonts. I am also very much in favor of having the specific names displayed optionally, so that competitive players, players with accessibility needs, or just players with a different taste than mine, can remove those names (which would be even more visible in the original writing). I wouldn't mind if we remove the specific names for civs where we lack information. I don't have a strong opinion on this: reconstructing some words and explaining our rationale, or limiting ourselves to accurate sources, seem both interesting to me.

They're not based on references at all, that's the problem! That's not what Ancient Egyptian houses looked like, and as a historical game we should be careful not to perpetuate unnecessary stereotypes. I made a post about Egyptian housing before, I'll just share the artist references here again. Keep in mind that most of these are Dynastic Egyptian, not that different from later periods, but multistoried apartment blocks became more common in the Ptolemaic period. I'd go even further than what Genava said and say that this applies to every single civ in game. None of them appeared out of nowhere. All of them were built on the enduring legacy and heritage of those that came before them. The world wasn't empty in 500BC. It was already rather populated, and a significant number of our civs were already pretty developed before the 500BC date as well. .

Another important point is that the specific names are the same for everyone, regardless of what language they speak. It's a unifying element, as someone from Kazakhstan can use the same name for a specific unit or structure as someone from Argentina.

We could find in different places (docs, tooltips): "Since they are made of mud brick, Egyptian {foo} are free of cost, but are very weak."

Then Seleucids should have the same with Persian, Assyrian and Babylonian heritage. I think we all agree there is not a flawless reasoning behind the free houses and free deposit. From what I know, the Ptolemaic economy is characterized by a good coinage, a good wheat production and a strong government with hierarchical institutions.

As said above, time is resource.

Eratosthenes.from Cyrene. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eratosthenes

Can I use this for genocidal purposes?

may be new little features to give people the sensation of change, no only visual.

This is something I will look at more carefully for version 1.4.

This looks really nice. Even if many players want to control individual units (Age of Empires style gameplay), perhaps one or two of the main civs could be retrofitted to be battalion based civs to allow for more overall civ/gameplay variety. Rome or one of the Greek civs would be good candidates.

You are totally correct, and I also thank you for the kind words. We are in a dip in the programming activity, due to a low availability of the programmers. On the other hand, the output of our artists and of the modding community is staggering these days! There are up and downs in all the areas of the development, and that's the reality of the life of the project (or any project, for that matter). I am very likely to prioritize programming over leadership in the upcoming months, because the state of the review queue is indeed now one of my biggest concerns (personally, I'm happy that I have no bigger problems than that to fix right now ). But I can't make miracles, I can only do my best. I usually don't answer this kind of thread because they are nerve-wracking. I am genuinely sorry that our best is not good enough for you. It is very difficult to see you guys angry or disappointed when you make such great contributions! Not being able to allocate time to include your work is heartbreaking. The best thing you can do to help is to be supportive (like Sundiata). It really helps us to read nice messages: motivation is our only fuel. I understand the need to complain and push people into doing things, that is something we do a lot in other situations, but that doesn't work for volunteer work. I don't blame you for complaining, but it doesn't help, and sometimes it goes too far. I am really encouraging you to give us ideas about concrete and realistic things that we could try to do, that is always welcome! (especially with the matter at hand, which is, how to make the project attractive for new AI contributors). But just stating the problems we have or might have is not helping, as we are painfully aware of them already.

Is fixed in the new version 1.4 (release next weak). Sorry for it and hf.

There's a couple of pretty memorable quotes in there, like: "Tadaaa, there it is, now you can go home" "I don't know what the hell I'm doing, but if you wing it hard enough, you can do anything" "This is truly an awful program" "Yo, this is where we get whack!" "Is that detailed enough for ya Stan?" "I've got to piss like a Russian race horse" "If you wanted a tutorial, you should have asked for a tutorial. Please don't ask for a tutorial..." That last one killed me, because I did actually ask for a tutorial, and you definitely delivered a tutorial... Of sorts... Thanks man! Anyway, I'm trying... Not quite succeeding, but trying nonetheless... Acacia attempt 3... In Dutch, we would say: "Schoon van ver, maar verre van schoon", which roughly translates into "pretty from afar, but far from pretty"... I have two main problems I see, which is that the geometry of the branches sucks from up close. They're just bent plains (2 bends). And the tris count is getting too high 700 tris, and none of the faces have been doubled with flipped normals to counteract the backface culling, which would increase the tris count to 1200... By the way, why can't backface culling be disabled for trees? Because doubling the branches/leaves to counteract it, essentially doubles the geometry for trees, doesn't it? Is rendering two faces of a single polygon really more "expensive" than rendering 2 separate one sided polygons? Anyway, close up of the ugly: One thing I did like about my attempt, is the detail in the acacia specific texture (512x512). Which is why I decided to post anyway: I'll probably get back to my flora modeling attempts at some time in the future, but for now, if anyone more skilled than me feels compelled to give the acacia a go, here's the CC0 texture I made using wikimedia CC0 images. It was pretty tedious to manually separate the leaves, but with a few adjustments, it would look pretty good, I think... And here's a previous version: Used for this attampt:

I could finely create my 'tree people' civ. It makes no sense. I wanted a hero ability to turn the enemy units into trees. That way I can harvest them to death. I did get harvest-able villagers working (through upgrades). They turn to trees and then you chop chop chop. A temporary ability would work better though.