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A look at what I've been able to do with @LordGood's new "Badlands" cliffs

Crest updated so far:

Weren't we close to reaching some sort of consensus that Thracian Black Cloaks make a lot more sense in the Macedonian roster than in the Athenian one? With the Thracian rhomphaia the Macedonians will be just as capable as any other civ and people might actually start playing with them. More historical accuracy and better gameplay. It's like, literally a win-win. *Not saying that Black Cloaks should be removed from the Athenians (but perhaps a slight increase in cost to reflect their distance to Thrace?)

Right, if these are who you're referring to, then yes, I agree wholeheartedly. And yes, I think the "Royal Stoa" units for Spartans/Athenians should be completely rethought or (preferably) removed completely.

Shaved , tanned. The classical Greek men ideal can get(?)

We do not have a choice, they are the basis of the rts design, we would get lost looking for realistic buildings in addition to their realistic proportions.

Enjoy:

@Alexandermb, @Stan`, @Nescio, the topic of war elephants recently surfaced in the thread : ===[TASK]=== Animations Re-Export and Unit Meshes Fix I didn't want to muddle up the thread so I thought i'd start a more specific one. We were discussing whether the scales on the armor of Seleucid war elephants were turned upside down. I shared a page from a book on war elephants that stated that the Seleucids turned the scales on their elephant armor upside down for better protection against upward thrusts, but it didn't mention the original classical source. The same text also said that the Seleucids also switched to smaller numbers of African elephants in later years, because Indian elephants were becoming difficult to acquire. Again, the original source for this statement eludes us. But I did find something very, very interesting. It had been staring me in the face all this time, and I never noticed... The wikipedia page on the now extinct North African Elephant (Loxodonta Africana Pharaohensis) features an image of a fragmented Roman bronze statue of a war-elephant, currently in the Staatliche Antikensammlungen in Munich. It's an African war elephant with scales turned upside down! Now, I don't know if this piece is supposed to depict a Roman, Seleucid or even Ptolemaic or Carthaginian war elephant, but it does show an African elephant, probably the smaller North African type with the unique, aforementioned type of armor, so I just had to share it... Bonus: Historical reenactors using actual African forest elephants for their Punic troops. African forest elephants, though rare, aren't extinct (yet). They have the same stature as the North African Elephant. Note how "tiny" these elephants are compared to the enormous African Bush Elephant (and noticeably smaller than the Indian ones as well)... Alexander, you see your colored Phrygian helmets? Second bonus, very rare historical photographs of Africans riding African elephants (most of these also look like forest elephants): Third bonus, people riding full sized African Bush Elephants. I've always been told that this is impossible, so imagine my confusion when my sister came back from a trip in Zimbabwe, telling me she took a ride on the back of an African Bush Elephant. She did tell me they're difficult to control, and they mostly sort of go where they want to go, lol, but it is apparently possible to ride them. If you're patient enough... 4th Bonus Bush elephant choreography? Anno early 1900's? Looks like some kind of forgotten colonial project/experiment... Not sure... Not even sure where this is... 55580618_324172821782360_7280992477606051840_n.mp4

Alcibiades used Iberians mercenaries, even when he was still serving Athens, it could be a replacement although a bit exceptional. Or the Thracians mercenaries could be simply generic swordsmen with sika-like sword. Neither the Spartans then, if this reasoning is valid (which it is).

Adding hair to missing helmets: Added a crested boeotian variant following a reference.

Separated legs from tunics: Before: After:

Actual the convention is very strict because each building = one specific function (or a very few). This is a legacy of AoE with each faction being a clone from the others. But the convention and the template applied are not mandatory to follow this logic of 1 building = 1 function. The template could be based only on functions directly and be more adaptive to the particularities of each culture. For example a basic military production function and a basic defensive structure at the stage 1 could result to barracks and towers for the Greeks and to an unique building for the Celts like a fortified farm doing the job of both a barrack and a tower (this is just an idea to illustrate my point, not necessarily the right thing to do).

I am not questioning the whole thing. There is totally the necessity to tweak the reality to put it in a game. I am questioning the use of a strict template in which each factions must fit in, a template that is very restrictive in comparison from other RTS games. This template never have been thought to fit most of the ancient cultures. There was a huge dose of cynicism when I said that the game needed a lot of factions to bring diversity.

There is little differences between the different nomads in the art. It depends only from which perspective the Huns will be built as a faction. Especially since there is the Xiongnu planned in the mod, a 100% nomadic faction representing the core origin of the Huns. Although the actual Huns in Europe were probably a mixture of people, with a lot of permeability in the side of the nomads as it seen in multiple findings http://www.silkroadfoundation.org/newsletter/vol11/SilkRoad_11_2013_giumliamair.pdf So if the Huns represents the generic nomads in the beginning of the 4th century AD as reported by Sogdians, then a purely nomadic symbol will make sense. But if the Huns as a faction will be centered on the European Huns from Balamber to Attila and his sons, maybe it will make more sense to use a "bâtard" symbol from cultural transfers.

Well of course I forgot to check that... I guess that's for all the lefties out there.

I would think those would be rare variants.

Enough for today, my internet wasn't the best this day. Note: Compare how ugly the helmets looks with a white specular while it looks awesome using bronze specular. Tomorrow i'll continue with another highcrest and also add a better snake crest and if my internet lets me, finally upload the fixed animations wich i know they remain broken for today's fix to group variants.

Map Mainland (Normal) Autumn biome Team 1 Rauls Tauriel Ricsand lapatiencos Team 2 andy_beauty chrstgtr bbgotbanned Pudim Highlights of game are:

Even art references say that.

Did they? Battalions of Greco-Macedonian swordsmen? I think not. They did hire mercenaries though. Elite units will have switched to sword when attacking a fortified position or something, sure (makes sense), but that wasn't their primary armament elsewhere as in pitched battles.

Lo que buscas sea esto.

this is more Achemenid if you try to lated fig 14. Conic style similar to Levantine (Phoenician - Israelite) Persian Achemenid Helmet in Olympia after Marathon victory from the booty captured by the Athenians after the battle of Marathon, 490 BCE.

More Ancient than Achemenids. Very close to Assyrians than Iranians. For example the (3) Marlik. http://www.iranicaonline.org/articles/helmet-i From Russian to Spanish. http://referatwork.ru/info-lections-33/articles/view/38473_teyshebaini_i_dr

Urartu helmet I havent full acess to document but if someone can check a look. https://brill.com/view/journals/acss/19/2/article-p277_3.xml?lang=en

It's a reminder to newcomers to see that everything is coldly calculated.

I knew that vid from long ago, but it's really fun to remember... They're not only really good, also spot-on... Saludos desde....er... España

Roman feathers are white, black, beige yet we have orange, red, black, white, blue, yellow, green, orange. And to be honest crest's and feathers will look way better with alpha channel hair and their respective default color, White + Black, Purple but we use the "player color". The poin't isnt just following the accuraccy, but to also have a distinctive asset between pikeman phrygian and spearman phrygian, while also distinguishing from other factions phrygian. Theban Sacred band for example they have white painted helmets, yet that also means white could be gaia, while they also have red bands between the white color. (or at least that show the latest reference). Carthage painted their helmets in black and also others colors, that doesn't mean they painted they helmets in purple orange cyan etc... But here we have some player color on some thracian carthage helmets.

So let's say that we create a Faction that does have Barracks. That would... Go against familiarity "Where's my Barracks!? This civ doesn't have it? Then how am I supposed to get an army going? How am I supposed to play this thing?" It depends from player to player, but I'm one of those could certainly get used to it . So, it's not much of a problem... for me at least. Breaks Balance - You have to justify how your faction is going to play without Barracks. Is it intended to be a Support Faction that's filled with Support Units (Traders and Healers), or something else? Right now, we have the Macedonians as an example. They lack Swordsmen Historically that's being challenged by the forumers here (Macedonians DO have Swordsmen). But let's just assume that it doesn't. You have to balance that faction accordingly, or at least justify gameplay-wise why you're not going to allow any Sword-type units for the Macedonians. Now that Nomadic (i.e. Barracks-less) Factions are being considered, how would they fit in the game if they're gonna be picked by a player?

Would break sound

With the phenotype system, we could have lefties and righties (probably not the best use of the system though)

Yeah, im considering increasing frequency on other crest's to 3 and leave pythons in 1. Question: Will mace spear champions use the player color phrygian helmets?

(1) Yes (2) Kinda (3) they don't fly (4) I'll make some adjustments.

@Stan`Would these meshes be okay for "bushMedium": "actor|props/flora/bush_medit_me.xml", (7) meshes, 6 meshes have 144 verts. One has 600 verts (1) texture 512 x 512

I was getting really annoyed because of the load time each time i wanted to look a helmet because it loads all the modifiers of the helmets in the collection. So i made another main collection for all the assets that goes directly to game and leave the baking collection intact:

Which is mostly copy-pasted from AoE in our case. Which is itself a convention not based on historical facts but on a legacy from Dune II and Warcraft 1. I am not saying it is bad, this is a practical design that stood the test of time, but it is important to highlight the background of this convention. My point is that looking exclusively to the unique buildings/tech/units of the game to nitpick what is correct or not is equivalent to focusing on the tree hiding the forest. I am impatient to see the day when a nomadic faction will be added to the game. It will challenge both the coherence of this convention and the historical accuracy.

It's called a gameplay convention.

I'll be sure to make it fit/replace with the current Mediterranean textures.

I sound like a used-car salesman.

It would be nice to have some white stripe variants of the crests as well. Probably for heroes so they stand out.

Remaking crest's: Infantry:

Finally did it! improved the mining animation:

i've just read the discussion here, in my humble opinion not as art deparment member, not as the Venezuelan guy with the worst download rate conection, but as a player ignorant of the history and the download size because as pc gaming community player i won't worry too much about download size if i really want the game, i mean. I pay for something i wan't if i can't afford it yet i save some money (if i could), in my country does exist also pay per MB connection and its increasing due the internet cable steal rate increase this past year, but going back to topic: I consider adding more civs shouldn't be an estigma to the game nor a pain in the end of the back neither should exist too much discussion about it. A code dev always gonna be worried about code, an artist dev always gonna be worried about art, if i were a programmer dev i wouldn't vote agaisn't or in favor of adding a new civ neither as an artist, i just would say: "Show me the references and i'll see where i can help". Civ should be added if the artwork is finished, if its completly different from other core game factions and if it has his unique civ roster while also having the history behind. In my opinion, Thracians should be added when finished too, Han chinese should also be added, and if this civilization reaches a whole new unique building aspect and his own unit textures, it should also be added. The only question we should be doing is "They enter in the 500-0.B.C timeframe"? Even millenium ad factions should be added to the core game if we reach at least 8 civilizations but making the game just like "Empire Earth" selection: Ancient Era > Republican Era > Middle Era > WW2 Era and block factions to the timeframe, and even make another selection for "Time traveling" making the player able to fight as byzantines agaisn't the hitites. The game is already compressed enough, it would only worry if i had to download 30GB, and even that players still buy Total War Rome and download the High GB amount of it and if we ever implement texture size quality wouldn't that mean we will have 1024 texture size +512 + 256?. There shouldn't exist bounds to size neither to an ancient doc dessign. I mean don't you have that feeling when looking a whole movie or serie franchise after the ending you say? It is done? Now where i could find something like this? i wish this would have been longer" i belive the old devs put that limit due their manwork power, i mean i wouldn't write a text saying: "I will live in Denmark in a house in the mountain away from what in my country is called "barrios" where all the desidious people live, If i can't even say i would live another day tomorrow because of the high mortality of my country. I belive devs also put that limit because this were the easiest factions to develop and to investigate, i mean their are like the core factions of any ancient era game tbh, if i would make a new game i wouldn't start developing the suevians nor the xiongnu if i have a completly full range of historical documents talking about carthage or rome or even the gauls just like math problems when i study before all my teachers left the country, i wouldn't waste 30 minutes developing a whole math problem from 10 problems if the other 9 can be done in 5 minutes each one, Same that happens to me when doing animations, i don't waste 1 hour animating if i can't find a good perspective of the motion if i can invest that time doing a better helmet. In fact i belive iberians were a placeholder using the gauls due their copy of the ships and their empty roster when they can be developed in the lusitans, oretans, etc...

Okay. Thanks for explaining some of the technicalities that prevent a more streamlined system. It would be nice if there was an easier way to access that information for moderating purposes, but there are more pressing concerns than just the multiplayer scene I'm sure.

Someone who leaves a rated 1v1 without resigning will be warned or banned for more or less time from the lobby. The problem is not what to do with the information that someone left a game, but how to obtain it. If I mention it in chat that you are left a rated game without providing any proof, you get people accusing each other incorrectly resulting in wrong bans. The real problem lies in detecting when someone left. If you trust the host, then the host can send the same packet and also cause others to be banned under his wish. For example banning the opponent from within the game or by dropping the IP address communication, thats the same as the user becoming disconnected. So the only solution that we have discovered in the past years is to have WFG host the game, then WFG can detect who disconnects, or replays being uploaded automatically and having a machine comparing. But the latter sounds like a workaround. So implement that, one first needs to implement dedicated hosting (i.e hosting without rendering the game), which means having to rewrite the gamesetup to allow players to setup the game (instead of the host). So its easily several months work if one wants to do it this way. And the replay-comparison isn't really making it easier except for the gamesetup part, because a dedicated server that receives the simulation orders and compares them is almost the same as the dedicated host. And we want a dedicated host software anyhow. And we want players to be able to setup the game also anyhow (see success of the autociv mod, which has existed in other mods before as well). It will come, but it takes some time, and especially dedication to not work on any other projects for the time it takes to implement that.

Some recent work on the flora and geology area by @Bigtiger @Sundiata testing_new_flora_ao.7z

Hi, I live in Ghana (where my father is from), GMT -0, but I grew up in Belgium, in the Flemish part (where my mother is from). Sundiata Keita was the founder of the Mali Empire, and I'm fascinated by African history and empires, so... That's where the name comes from... Oh, and my profile pic is one of the famous "Ife Bronzes", from medieval Nigeria...