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Arminius actor draft. I'll need to use existing assets for these guys for now.

Hi everyone, this is a guide in which I'll share many things that you should learn if you are new to the game and you want to improve your rating, or just your proficiency in the multiplayer setting. Persia is my favourite civilization, so this guide will develop more on them than on other civs, but I'll draw some comparisons with other civilizations too. I want to explain as much as I can, so it will be a long guide, but there's much more to learn, so make experiments and look at your results, you will get better as you play. Mind that I'm writing this on my own, basing myself on my personal experiece alone, and I'm not the best player at all. However I don't see any other valid guide at the moment, for this alpha, so here I am writing. This post is somehow a tribute to @amadeus' guide for britons in alpha 23, that helped me a lot to understand some very useful game mechanics that made me improve way faster than I would otherwise. 1. Why persians Persia is an "archer civ", meaning that archers are already avaiable for training at phase 1. Archer civs are OP in this alpha. Cavalry too is useful, especially when fighting other archers (prominent in the meta), and persians have a lot of choice in fact of cavalry. They are, all in all, a solid pick, and they offer good variability in tactics, as much as you can ask from a single civ in this game. For instance mauryas are incredibly OP, but are also predictable and just boring. With persians you can vary. 2. Starting sequence Your starting sequence is the sequence of instructions you give to your people at the beginning of the game. There is no one single winning sequence, for what I now, but you don't want to improvise too much. Also, you must be as quick as you can be. A good standard for a starting sequence is: start a batch of 6 women in the cc put your horse on chicken, chicken are a very fast food source put your women on bushes (better if you build a barn next to them first) put your men on wood (as with women, you can build a storehouse next to wood first, but if you have trees next to the cc, you may prefer to take them first, but remember to move to a woodline soon) put all the first 6 women trained on wood, or at least most of them On the very following stage, it's important to balance wood and food production. Food is for making women, better if on batches. Never stop training them (avoid training infantry until you have barracks, consider training some horsemen). Wood is for: houses - you must keep building houses at a pace that lets you never stop training people basket tech in the barn - at least if you have many bushes, it's quite effective axe tech in the storehouse first barrack mind that, when you finish bushes, you'll need a lot of wood all together, for fields and for plow tech in the barn. 2.1. Other civilizations Your starting sequence will be quite similar regardless of the civ you are playing, althogh there are some relevant differences: civilizations that have 10 pop houses will play almost exactly the same, and they have to put put particular attention on the timing of first house realization, while civs with 5 pop houses don't feel the same urgency with maurtas, I prefer to build the barn with men, and then move them to the wood, whit the elephant following them on team games, with 10 pop civs, I like to take some time before building the first house, and use that time to research cartography at the cc. This tactic is very unpopular thogh, it seems I'm the only one who likes it. It really trades a lot of early development delay, for ally intel. 3. Economy: general notes Wood and food are by far the most important resourches, luckily enough, they are also the most avaiable resources in most maps. Stone is very useful between late phase 1 and 2: that's when you should build a bunch of barracks (for a 200 max pop game, you need some 5 barracks), stables (build stables after barracks, you also need many of them), temples and towers. After that point, be sure you'll have plenty of stone later, if you need it, but you won't consume any if you don't build fortifications, new civic centres, or throne buildings (also if you build back barracks and stables). You don't need much stone overall, so don't make stone gathering techs, and take workers away from stone when you have a good reserve. What you need is to have a strong, stable income of food and wood, and you also need to watch out for metal mines, as metal is often decisive for sieges and other phase 3 tactics I'll show below. For efficient gathering, put women on food and wood, and men on wood, stone and metal. As soon as you have barracks, start training archers and be careful never to stop, be careful not to be blocked by lack of houses, and don't be afraid of making tons of women, booming is the only one best strategy in alpha 24. When you have 2-4 barracks, research archer tradition in the cc, it's a relevant upgrade and will speed up training. 4. War/economy balance: how to lead the game After a match, take a look at your score (better if using graphs), you need to look separately at economy score and military score: those are the two keys for scoring a win: aim at having an eco score as good as best players have, and a military score that's better than your opponent's. Another useful statistic is kill/deaths ratio, wich is strictly related to military score, as military score is essentialy the same as the number of units killed. You are winning on the military side if you have a K/D ratio always greater than 1, you are winning on the economy side if you keep producing all the resources you need. Try to best your opponents on both fields. You will win if: you keep your eco strong and running, you manage to protect it from rushes, and you build back soon after being attacked (it's impossible to prevent assaults completely, you have to reduce risk, we'll come back to this in section 6) you make convenient battles A battle is convenient if the damage you cause to your opponent is greater than the investment you put in the battle, in this "investment" you have to factor: the resources to train back the soldiers you are losing the resources your men are not gatherig, while they're busy fighting the economic cost of inefficiencies that will naturally happen in your town while your focus is away. This is particularly important for rushes as your opponent will be able to keep his/her attention in his own town, while you can't follow what's happening in your and in his town at the same time. Not as well at least. These things can also be considered to evaluate the damage you are dealing to your opponent, together with the buildings taken, and the economic damage when you force your opponent's women to flee from work. These two rules are always valid, for all civs and all versions of the game, AFAIK. Follow them to the victory. Other general rules are: keep your pop high - never stop training people, when someone dies train substitutes avoid wastes - move your people fast from a job to another one, and never let them idle kill your women when you have too many, to make space for more soldiers there are several tricks for having better efficiency in general. I won't delve in those now, but try to learn them from here in the forum, the other players, and from the game itself. Beware not to micro-manage more than you can: remember that your attention is a resource. Make experiments, find what's better for you. 5. Know your men So, until the second phase, you should have done two kinds of soldiers: phase one horsemen (which is, javelin cavalry) and archers. You should also have two shield-bearer from the beginning of the game, don't make any more of them, they are slower than archers, so, they also carry resources slower, and are lost in attack. They are not totally useless, but they work well only in big stationary battles, they are pretty limited. Javelin cavalry is not bad, but requires a lot of micro-management, so train them only if you commit yourself to not letting them idle anytime soon. They can hunt of course, and that can really boost your early economy, and they are also good for scouting. They are also good for rushing. All this cavalry thing is a perfect example about how you have to find a balance between micro and macro-management: if you put yourself too much in following your cavalry, you will fall behind in economy. You can try to look at the economy score graphic at the end of the game, to see if a certain strategy has payed off or not. Early rushes are not very powerful in this alpha, but making use of your mounted strike force to kill some women can't be a bad thing, I encourage you to try if you never did, it's fun! Really there is no better way to start a match. Remember however, that in phase 1 stackes are very high and you can't afford to let your economy go, that would be like shoting in yourself's leg, you must keep your economy growing. Set good rally points for your buildings and save them on hotkeys, check that gatherers have plenty to chop and gather still, and that new houses are set for construction, and then follow your horses closely, while they enter your opponent's territory. Do it quickly, do everything quickly. Even then, take into consideration some inneficiency happening, because your attention is away from the home town. All this said to make you understand that rushes needs to pay off: heads must roll, otherwise it's a loss. It's hard and it won't work well the first time, but learning it makes you a better player, and one that has more fun. Go for the women, follow them until you make the kills. Don't attack men unless you find one that's isolated, you have to pick your victims while roaming around the enemy town, and kill them when they are left unprotected. Flee from any soldier getting close, better if before their very first hit. Don't make javelin cav in later phases, other types of cavalry are better in late game. Archers are your main infantry unit. Archers have the longest range of all non-artillery units, and they can take down artillery quite well too. When you have the longest range units, you can be the first one to hit, and you can always retreat when chased. That means, in practice, that archers have the faculty to choose either when or where to fight opposing infantry. And "where" is a very important in 0 AD, because your buildings (in particular the temple and all fortifications) can give a lot of protection to your men while they fight. When you send your archers to attack your opponent's town, you will probably meet his/her men while busy gathering resources. After the first hits taken, your opponent will probably call back the soldiers to group together, that's actually a good strategy. Chase them, strike as many blows as you can, but if you see they are more than you can take down, retreat immediately. When they stop chasing your men, make them start harassing again. In general, in any battle, you must try to have more men fighting than your opponent has, otherwise they will die at a faster pace. If you can hit stronger, chase your opponent, when tables turn, back out. 5.1. Cavalry from stables At a certain point between late age 2 and early age 3, you should make a little plotoon of axe cavalry. Persians can train three new types in cavalry from phase 2: axe, spear, and bow. Axe and spear cavalry both melee and their main difference is that axe cavalry has less armor but more attack, and - quite relevant - that attack is totally hack and crush type. This means they are particularly good at destroying rams, siege engines in general, and even enemy buildings. Rams in particular are a common threat, that is 99% (actual value) immune to arrow damage, so you must have some counter strategy to rams. Other rams work well, elephants even better, but axe cavalry is my choice of preference, they are way faster. So I train a bunch of it, I save them on a hotkey, and I call them only when in need. About the rest of cavalry, since they can't gather most resources, and they cannot build either, I reccomend you to not train them while booming, train them only for fighting. Spear cavalry instead, is my bet for fighting other archers, Axe cavalry is brutal, but they have terribly low pierce armor, it's quite risky for them to attack grouped archers. As for the battle plan, I usually use archers to make the skirmishing and start the fight, and then I send in the spear cavalry. Just remember that usual melee infantry has x3 bonus against cavalry, so avoid them as much as you can, and go for the ranged fellas. Bow cavalry is the perfect skirmisher I guess, but in phase 2 that property is already past its glory. If your army is mostly on feet, a portion of faster moving units is not going to be such a game changer. Bow cavalry has, however, many better stats than infantry archers have, at the cost of 50 more food. If you have lots of food, you could train some bow cavalry instead of infantry only. And finally, at phase 3, you can unblock champion cavalry, which is essentially spear cavalry, but much stronger. Cataphracts (that's the name of persian champion cavalry, although they have they behave in the same way of all champion cavalry on any civ) cost a lot of metal, so they are viable only if you have good metal income, and also have better chances to conquer enemy buildings. This is especially helpful when using them to raid the enemy towns: the best way to do it is to start from conquering an unguarded temple, and then use it as a base to raid all the surroundings, but you can also conquer stables for the same reason, and any other building you may want to destroy. For instance destroying some barracks won't finish your opponent, but will limit him or her greately. If you have the metal, and you like cavalry warfare, cataphracts are a great seal of quality of any cavalry force. They work well alone or together with other cavalry. All in all, the only cavalry unit I don't ever recommed is champion chariots. they are like bow cavalry, but stronger. I don't like spending so much food on Partian (bow) cavalry, and I certainly don't like to put all my metal on chariots that can't do much more than simple archers do, who are so cheaper. Bow cavalry is a better pick also because it's faster to train. 5.2. Siege units Persians can train battering rams from arsenals, and war elephants from elephant stables. Both these units are very powerful (better than rams or elephants some other civs have access to) So I often make a choice only based on my economy: elephants cost food, rams cost wood. Both rams and elephants cost a lot of metal too, and while rams are cheaper overall, they require more micro-management. Rams, as I already had the opportunity to say, have 99% resistance against pierce damage, while they are much more susceptible to hack and crash damage, so you have to follow them closely to prevent enemy melee units to reach them, and in particular swordsmen and other siege units. Withdraw your rams if in danger and repair them before sending them back to fight. Rams can also be garrisoned with soldiers (best if melee, like sparabara - shield bearers), mainly to defend them from ram counters: make your men exit the ram, as opposing soldiers attack. Another use of rams is that of a target dummy for opposing ranged forces: enemy archers prefer to shoot at soldiers, but can often be distracted by your rams and shoot at them, even if their arrow can deal virtually no damage. Elephants are more expensive, but they are real ancient world tanks. They are effective against opposing siege towers and rams, but they can't recover their health as fast as rams do. Deploy elephants together with healers from a temple, to gain in 'reusability'. 5.3. Persian palace: heroes and immortals Persian palace (the throne building) is a big investment, costing a lot of stone and metal, however, it gives access to persian heroes, who are all very strong. Immortals are another champion unit, and they can be trained efficiently with the same-named tech in the palace, and using Kurus, who is a hero that can train immortals in front of himself. Immortals are an even bigger investment in metal, and while they can prove overwhelming for your opponent, provided that you have a very strong economy, they have the same limitations shield-bearers have, while being stronger of course. For your first games with persians, I don't reccomend you to build the throne building at all. But consider building it to train economy boosting heroes (in particular Darayavahus for traders) and then switch to Kurus for supporting your cavalry or spamming immortals. This is a long term strategy that requires care and resistence to any attack of your opponents towards your economy. 6. Successful defence 6.1. Avoiding damage from rushes As I already mentioned, a strong economy needs risk reduction techniques, to avoid collapse if your opponent strikes inside your territory. In fact, unless the map clearly allows it, a complete lock down of your territory is generally infeasible. Also, if you put too much care in building defences, walls, and fences, you may find yourself giving too little attention to macro-management. In any case, here there are some good practices: build houses near to where your women work, and make them enter the houses when rushing forces approach. Women can also enter temples, civic centres and fortifications in general (the cc is by all means a fortification), but avoid putting women inside fortifications if you can put men in them instead some men around women can be of much help, especially in early phases. Beware not to fight larger opposing troups though, but retreat into temples and fortifications until reinforcements arrive build towers and temples in the zones that you want to protect from rushes, but never put them far from defending forces, because if your opponent manages to conquer them, they can be turned into a terrible thorns into your own territory inside. Every second a rusher is under a tower fire, he takes great damage, so he's forced to retire quickly 6.2. Fortifications and war zones I already mentioned fortifications many times in this guide, and they are central to the game, fortifications are actually op in this alpha, and this is simply how they work: each men that is inside a fortification, becomes an archer that can't be killed as long as he is in the building, and shoots arrows further than normal archers, and that make around twice the damage of a normal arrow. Pretty impressive, huh? Damage dealt actually varies and depends on the building, but among them all, fortresses are the most op. That also depends on the fact that it can host as many as 20 men, while towers only up to 5. Ungarrisoned fortifications are quite easy to conquer or destroy, but fortifications defended by a qualified army that includes ram counters and is operated by a good player, are almost impossible to take. Try to find your way around them, which is risky, but is better than suiciding your army on an impossible siege. "War zones" is the name me and my friends use to call those places where you prepare yourself to fight. So there you want to build a temple, to give your men the possibility to recover, and of course a fortress, which is already an overkill on its own. The fortress is slower to build, so I'd recommend the temple before, and the fortress afterwards, just in front of the temple. You can put axe cav in the fortress or the temple, to counter rams, and you can even put your rams in the fortress, from where they can exit to attack opposing rams, without any fear of incoming darts, which axe cavalry dreads. While fortifications are clearly a good defensive feature, their best use is actually in attack, as building a fortification near your opponent's town is easely a definitive way to claim all the surrouning to your control, and if a counterattack manages to destroy the fortress, it is only at a great expence of lives, which hopefully lets you strike again for the last blow. 7. Conclusion Thank you for reading, I hope I've been of help to you to learn this incredible game. There's much more to say, but I think this is enough for a brief guide like this one. I may even add something in future, please let me know that do you think about it.

Gameplay wise i think most heroes on DE start on foot and then upgrade to be mounted (unlike normal 0 A.D thing of some heroes being on foot and others mounted). But if there is a vanilla version of the faction then he should be a cavalry hero indeed.

In 1v1 the Briton civilization has: - one huge advantage = you can get to max pop (build your full army) sooner than any other civ - one huge disadvantage = poorer units, if you build your army and do not immediately attack, your opponent will be able to build his own full army and will defeat you as he has better units Because of this, Britons are very much like zerg in startcraft. So this is the strategy when playing Britons: build a lot more units a lot faster than your enemy, and when reaching 150 population urgently attack. If you fail that attack you lose, if you delay that attack you lose, if you are not the first to reach max pop you lose, if you do not know how to use many but weak units in combat you lose, and so on. Note: if you are a beginner today, follow this guide and you will reach a high score simple because there are also a lot of beginners that make huge mistakes. You need to memorize this build order, and always play it on normal Mainland map and configure your building batch size to 2: 1 - with your initial 4 women build granary near berries 1 - with your initial 4 soldiers build warehouse near wood 1 - put your horseman to collect food from chickens/sheeps near cc 1 - put your cc to train 6 women and set rally point to berries 2 - send your dog to go near the enemy base 3 - make the 100 wood upgrade from granary, that upgrades the berry gathering rate 4 - keep building women and send them to gather wood, your cc should be constantly training 5 - when your pop is 21 build a house 5 - use your dog to find an enemy woman ans harras him. Try to kill one woman, sacrifice your dog without regrets 6 - when you reach 24 pop now build slingers instead of women, pay attention to build a house whenever you are getting close to your pop limit 6 - build a tower near your berries, you need to defend against enemy harrass 7 - when your horseman has finished collecting all chickens send him to scout (see opponent building location) and then harass opponent (killed a villager) 7 - when your stone is depleted, train again women instead of slingers Since a 1v1 game should take somewhere between 20 and 25 minutes, the steps above are roughly your first 7-8 minutes, that makes it about a 3rd of the game. It should be memorized. Now comes the second third of the game: In these 7 minutes you need to achieve these goals: - have 9 full farms, meaning 45 women - advance age (500 food and 500 wood) - reach 150 population, out of which 45 are women and 105 soldier - have at least 3 barracks The third and last part of the game is your attack: you leave 10 soldiers to collect wood, and your 45 women to collect food. Thus you have 95 soldiers with which to attack. 1 - your goal is to ruin his economy = capture houses, kill women, capture unguarded barracks. What does it mean: 1.a - avoid towers of fortress (he will not have one at this moment if you played correctly) 1.b - it is very useful to know where his buildings are, thus you can attack form behind, where ha has houses or farms or barracks/blacksmith/marketplace without towers nearby, you gain this info in stage one, with your horse 1.c - he will pull his soldiers form collecting resources and use them to defend. Thus he has no more economy this is why this attack is so powerful 1.d - you have 150 units, out of which you attack with 95 soldiers. If you play it correctly, since any other civ does not get bonus population from his warehouses/etc, he will only have 110 population, out of which half are women, effectively you outnumber his soldiers 2 to 1 (or maybe just 3 to 2) 1.e - you keep your army together, while he has to pull his soldiers from different spread out places. If only a part of his army attacks you at one point, you have effectively a 5 to 1 superiority 1.f - your army composition is 3 ranged units (slingers or skirmishers) for each spearman 2 - your barracks and cc must keep training soldiers, so that you get reinforcements in combat 3 - proud opponents cannot believe they have lost so they will try some weak attack on your base with a few troops. Use those 10 soldiers gathering wood to defend 4 - if game drags on, advance last age and build yourself a fortress - if it gets into an attrition war, you have lost Most important notes on combat (this is what happens in the third part of your game): - your army should be 1 spear for every 3 ranged, so a 75% ranged units ratio - range units battles end up very quickly and you should devote your entire attention to them - the moment you need to pay most attention to is this combat moment, when your army engages his - the one who has his ranged units close together wins against the one with dispersed units, worse even, the one whose units move in a line and attack one by one - do not let your units run towards your enemy, as his ranged soldiers will kill your units one by one - put spearman in front of slinger, as spearman move slower they will spend most of the battle moving instead of doing damage - slingers do the most damage per second - in the heat of combat, moving instead of doing damage is wasteful - attacker will lose if he sends his army to an equally large army that is standing together still - put your units to most aggressive stance (they will engage any enemy), just to avoid useless movement during combat - never fight combats where your opponent has the same amount of army as you. Always attack only when you outnumber him. Retreat when he has the same or more. - the ideal situation when your army stands still grouped together, on aggressive stance, and he attacks you with his smaller army. Many people will attack you with roughly equal (slightly smaller) armies composed of better units. This is a psychological defect of the human brain that is very hard to resist. Easy win as moving close to you will kill 15% of his army before doing any damage. - never fight in range of towers or fortress If you follow this build order (I will update with timers and exact builds, maybe make a 1v1 commented match to explain) there is nothing he can do to mediate your advantage, thus you will only lose if you make some combat/late game/get greedy mistakes. Stay tuned for more, I will be adding and editing this post.

Currently, the majority of players are much better than even the Very Hard aggressive AI and find it easy to defeat. Therefore, I would like to request the addition of even more challenging AI settings for pro players to practice and experiment new skills on. The current 'very hard' AI consistently makes a few strategic mistakes which slow down its eco and decrease its attacking ability even though they have 56% gather bonus: 1. Using women to mine 2. Not researching upgrades 3. Using men to gather food 4. Not using formations 5. Small pushes - real players often commit all of their units to a big push 6. Not knowing to retreat after rushing 7. Unwise timing for expansions 8. Chasing after lone enemy cavalry - causes idle time and increases risk 9. Lack of selection in where to attack - they attack a random location which could be well defended. They never outflank or make sneaky moves. 10. Not training in large batches 11. Not using enough women in early phases 12. Scattered troops and sending small groups of women out of the safe zone to build new cc If the devs can fix these then the AI would be much more fun to play with. To make the AI more realistic we can also add a cavalry rush or archer rush feature. Just increasing the gather rate does make their boom faster but doesn't make the AI feel like a more challenging nor intelligent opponent. With that said, we can push the very hard AI's gather bonus to 100% to make it extra tough. Meanwhile, the very easy AI could do some smaller rushes, for example with just 5 archers. This makes the learning curve shallower for beginner players.

Wildfire Games, an international group of volunteer game developers, proudly announces the release of 0 A.D. Alpha 24: “Xšayāršā” (pronounced: Khsha-ya-ṛsha), the twenty-fourth alpha version of 0 A.D., a free, open-source real-time strategy game of ancient warfare. The release is named after Xerxes the Great, ruler of the Achaemenid Empire from 485 to 465 BC. Youtube: PeerTube:  Easy download and install Download and installation instructions are available for Windows, Linux and macOS. 0 A.D. is free software. This means you are free to download, redistribute, modify and contribute to the application under the same licences: GNU Public Licence version 2 (GPL v2) for code and Creative Commons Attribution Share-Alike 3.0 (CC-BY-SA 3.0) for artwork. Although you might find some people selling copies of 0 A.D., either over the internet or on physical media, you will always have the option to download 0 A.D. completely gratis, directly from the developers. No “freemium” model, no in-game advertising, no catch. Top new features Balancing adjustments Building snapping Renderer improvements Hotkey editor Formation improvements Status effects (and modifiers) World population setting Lobby improvements In-game user interface (GUI) improvements Unit behaviour improvements Reinforcement-learning interface Art: new models New Skirmish maps Under the hood Balancing adjustments With the help of several of the top-ranked players in the A23 lobby, hundreds of balance tweaks have been made in the past year and almost all units and structures have been adjusted. The end result is a sleeker, more balanced gameplay experience in A24: Civilisations have been rebalanced, giving players more viable choices. Late-game has been reworked substantially, with less snowballing and more viable champions, which means more variety. Heroes can only be trained once per game, so you’ll have to know when to use them. All civilisations now have a stable, for training cavalry and chariots, and an arsenal, for constructing siege engines. Fortresses can no longer train soldiers but have a territory root, making them more defensive structures and better at protecting your base. Female Citizens and Citizen Soldiers can now place the foundations of all structures. Many, many other small tweaks and corrections. Building snapping City-building fans will enjoy this new option: you can now easily place buildings next to each other with snapping! This functionality can be toggled with Ctrl, and you can choose whether you want it on or off by default, so it is, as always, up to you. Renderer improvements This release introduces anti-aliasing in the renderer: you can choose between no anti-aliasing, FXAA and various levels of MSAA, if you have the GPU power for it. A Contrast Adaptive Sharpening filter has also been added to the engine. For using these options we recommend your system supports OpenGL 3.3 or later versions. The ocean shader also received some tweaks, most importantly near the edges of the map, which now looks better Hotkey editor This new in-game editor will make it much more accessible to change your hotkeys. Further, the hotkeys have been reworked to use scancodes, so the default hotkeys will be compatible with any keyboard layout! Formation improvements Alpha 24 gives you new tools to work with formations: you can now pick a default formation to put your units in when given “Walk” and “Patrol” orders, and you can also choose to automatically disband formations when your units are ordered to Attack or Gather, etc. Status effects (and modifiers) Modders will like this one: you can now give status effects to your units, changing their stats in various ways. Stat modifiers can also be applied directly by triggers and in other ways, without having to hack around auras or technologies. 0 A.D. does not yet use them much, but this really gives you more power to make new custom maps and custom game-modes without having to create a lot of new templates, e.g., tower defence mods. World population setting Despite our best efforts, the game can still lag when there are a lot of units on the map. World Pop (Population) gives you one way to still have epic fights but good performance: choose a maximum total pop which. When one player is defeated, their share is distributed among the remaining players. Start a 4v4 with 150 pop-limit each, and the last 2 players can have 600 pop between them! Will you keep that poor enemy alive to hinder your opponent or can you use the extra population capacity? Lobby improvements This was requested a lot: you can now host password-protected games in the lobby! This makes it easy to play with your friends without having to find your external IP or setting up your router. Further, we’ve also improved your security by hiding the host IP until players have successfully joined your game, which drastically reduces the risk of DDOS by hostile players. In-game user interface (GUI) improvements We strive to make the game more accessible and easier to use, and this release is no different: You can easily see your number of active gatherers under the resource count. An overlay with ceasefire time has been added so you don’t get caught out. Tooltips in general have been significantly improved, in particular the resource gathering rates. Map browser For those looking for an alternate way of picking a map to play, Alpha 24 introduces the "Map Browser". Accessible from a button in the Match Setup interface, users can navigate through maps a little more intuitively than using a dropdown menu. Catafalque overview Those who play the “Relic Capture” gamemode will no doubt be aware that the "relics" in question are Catafalques - reliquaries of dead heroes encapsulated within wheeled carts - and each of these has a small selection of beneficial auras. Alpha 24 introduces a "Catafalque Overview" screen, accessible from the "Learn to Play" submenu of the Main Menu, which makes it easy to learn their different characteristics. Civilization overview The long-existing “Civilization Overview” screen has had some background improvements. Because most of the information is now pulled from the game files, it is now considerably more accurate than in previous Alphas. Game set-up There have been a few added capabilities to the game setup, such as choosing the landscape of random maps when several are available, and a more obvious indicator that the game will be Rated for Online Play. Unit behaviour improvements This alpha improves on many small things: Ship pickup has been improved and should require less micromanagement. Units no longer ‘slide’ at the end of their movement, and movement in general has been improved, with far fewer cases of units being stuck. Cheering has been reworked: instead of cheering when receiving a promotion, units now cheer when all enemy units in sight have been defeated. If you’ve played MP, you might have seen an annoying strategy called ‘Dancing’ where enemy units would easily avoid arrow fire and force you to micromanage your archers. This is no longer possible, making the game more fun for all players. Packing/Unpacking behaviour has been improved. Reinforcement-learning interface Reinforcement learning is a Machine Learning technique that can be used to train AI to play games, and now 0 A.D. has one. We’re excited about this new possibility, because the extensive and easy moddability of the game means you could set up many kinds of complex environments and RL agents without having to recode everything from scratch. We invite any AI developers, researchers or anybody else to help with our AI. More could be found in here. Art: new models The new art developments are too numerous to list individually, and include reworked meshes, animations (including new idle, attack, defence and gather animations), textures and materials for a large number of units, as well as new models, including new horse models, textures and animations, new shield models and designs, new helmet models and variants, especially for the Romans, Gauls, Britons and Greek civs. Many new and improved unit textures, weapons and props for a number of civs including, among others, the Persians, Iberians and Carthaginians. The Ptolemies now have a few more historically accurate Hellenized building models and the Britons have a new blacksmith, while the Gauls have a new, more historically accurate wonder and an assembly building that can train trumpeters to intimidate the enemy. New scaffolding, dirt and decal textures for buildings have been added. Many of the ships in-game have been entirely remodeled from the ground up. Siege artillery has been completely remodeled as well, including considerably improved animations. There is also a lot of new and improved flora, including trees, bushes and grasses. We have new cliffs, new particle actors for snow and clouds and a few new terrain textures, as well as new sounds, and voices. There is a brand new welcome screen, and there are also many improved icons, and unit portraits for the GUI. This is in addition to a myriad of smaller fixes, corrections and optimizations. For more screenshots and details on the new art in this release, see our last two development reports here and here. New maps 0 A.D. Alpha 24 has been enriched with 7 new skirmish maps. Atlas Valleys, Farmland, Obedska Bog (day/night), Oceanside, Sahyadri Buttes, Temperate Roadway, Vesuvius Under the hood New Requirements: Windows XP, Windows Vista, and anything below macOS 10.12 are no longer supported. The game also now requires SSE2. Furthermore, while ARM macs are supported, unfortunately the code running on them isn’t native yet, so users on this platform should expect a performance loss. Several modules of the game have been partly rewritten or extensively modified for Alpha 24, which will make them work better and make it easier to extend them in the future. Notable examples include the GUI GameSetup pages, the UnitMotion component, and the renderer has seen plenty of changes with the removal of the OpenGL 1.0, 90’s style “Fixed-Point” pipeline. Which in turn raised the lowest supported version to OpenGL 2.0. In addition, we started to fully use the ARB shader pipeline.(Modders, all of this means you will also find there are plenty of new cool things you can do!) Alpha 24 sees the adoption of Visual Studio 2017 as the main Windows compiler (Alpha 23B had Visual Studio 2013) , and we have upgraded our version of C++ standard from C++11 to C++17, allowing us to write faster and cleaner code. This release also saw major upgrades to many core libraries we use. Alpha 23 was released with Spidermonkey 38, released alongside Firefox 38 in May 2015. This time, we’ve upgraded to the last “ESR” version, Spidermonkey 78, released in June 2020! This means we can use newer Javascript syntax, and the engine bindings have been upgraded. Other libraries have been updated on macOS and Windows, which let us support more platforms but also required us to drop some. The name Xšayāršā Xšayāršā (pronounced Khsha-ya-ṛsha; IPA: /xʃajaːr̩ʃaː/) is a transcription of the Old Persian name (x-š-y-a-r-š-a), better known by its Greek spelling: Xerxēs. Xerxes I the Great was the ruler of the Achaemenid Empire from 485 to 465 BC. We decided to name Alpha 24 after this inspiring ancient ruler to celebrate the ancient Persian civilisation, and to reflect upcoming changes in the internal governance structure of 0 A.D. The Persian Empire was considerably larger than any preceding state anywhere in the world, and its administration system would have a long-lasting impact. It consisted of about two dozen satrapies (provinces), which were former kingdoms or conquered peoples. Each satrapy was headed by a satrap (governor or viceroy) and supplied the Persian King of Kings (emperor) with a yearly tribute and troops, but were internally largely autonomous. This organisation outlived the Achaemenids and was continued under the Macedonians, Seleucids, and Arsacids (Parthians). Xerxes inherited the empire from his father Darius I the Great. He continued his father’s reforms and expanded the imperial building programmes. Early in his reign, he led an ultimately unsuccessful invasion of Greece, with victories at Thermopylae, Artemisium, and Athens in 480 BC, but defeats at Salamis, Plataea, and Mycale in 479 BC. The rest of his reign was largely peaceful. The Persian Empire arguably reached its zenith under Xerxes. What’s next? This release cycle is the longest we’ve ever had as you no doubt noticed, and it was a bumpy ride. Despite this, we’re hoping to get back to a more regular schedule now. As usual, for the next alpha, we welcome fan suggestions for words relating to the ancient world beginning with the letter Y. Keep it original and related to the time frame portrayed in 0 A.D. (c. 500 BC – 1 BC). Post your proposal here ! For press/media inquiries, please DM @play0ad on Twitter.

My twitter: @Trinketoss I don't have a moddb page.

Still a nice patchwork

It's a bit more complicated than that. It's not so much about the ideas, than putting them in practise. Since the departure of the last AI programmer, the AI is not being developed actively. We fix the bugs, but we do not really add new features.

We can ask borg, Valihrant and Feldfeld to design an AI to make it smart instead of just having bonuses

When I played my first match against the very easy Ai I also found it impossible. The reason why Ai is hard for beginners is they rush early with the combination of spearmen and ranged units, which is very hard to defend against. If you could let the Ai rush with only a few ranged units or a just a few spearmen then that would be much easier for the player. The very easy AI and very hard Ai use identical strategies, which is the problem.

0ad_rl_maps.zip Try this mod. ping @irishninja

Suggestion: - Very hard stays at 60% - Introduce "Super hard" (100%) - Ridiculously hard (200%)

It's funny cause most new players complain about the AI being too hard

Playing against 2 AIs is not always the most enjoyable because you don't get the 1v1 experience. Sometimes we want to practice 1v1 and 1v2 Ai is just not the same.

Just a few concepts. Touman: Modu: Laoshan:

I found .dev ppa and made this. Markdown file here0 A.D. a24 SVN Current Changes.md 0 A.D. a24 SVN Current Changes Build: Jul 26, 2020 (23898-development) General Credits is added to the main page. Many Languages are added. New Kushites background. Panel Slide has smoother animation. Structure Tree is smaller and centered. History is now called Civilization Overview. FXAA anti-aliasing, game-setup new player notification, snap to edges (3 people can stand between) for buildings and multiple control group membership is available in Options. Game-setup Now able to reset Team with one click. World population cap (shared between all players) is available to a maximum of 1200. Ceasefire setting is now a slider. Bot configuration shows the gathering rate and trading gain altered for per difficulty level. In-Game New appearance, sound effects and music. Champions are cheaper and prior to Heroes in production panel. Advance/elite techs changed. Gather penalty decrease from- 50% to -30%. Health decrease from +20% to +10%. Siege Workshop is available for every civilization. Fortress can no longer produce siege engines. Loot 20% the cost of structures (wall gate 10%) and 10% the cost of soldiers (mercenaries are looted as normal units). Heroes remain 10F/25M. Ships aren't affected. Expertise In War no longer causes +20% training time for mercenaries, but cost 600M instead of 200F/300M. It no longer takes the Greeks and the Hellenistics 10% more construction time. A maximum of 3 embassies can be built, up from 2. No Mills for the Celtics anymore. Structures Village Phase House The Loom increases women's health by 100%, up from 50%. The Loom research cost increased from 150F to 200F. Farm Every subsequent gatherer works less efficiently. Corral Gauls and Kushites get a 75F livestock (might be a bug that 75F only get 100F in return). Wooden Wall (a24 Palisade) Walls Cost changed from 4W~13W to 4W~12W. Build time changed from 5s~11s to 4s~12s. Health decreased from 275~1100 to 220~1100. Gate Cost decreased from 20W to 10W. Build time increased from 5s to 6s. Health decreased from 637 to 500. "Tower" Cost increased from 5W to 14W. Build time increased from 8s to 14s. Health decreased from 825 to 770. Barracks Non-Celtic or Mauryas' Barracks cost 200W/100S. Archery Tradition is altered and is now available for Kushites, Mauryas and Persians: Cost 500W/300M. -10% training time, +8 attack range, and -10% attack spread for archers. Town Phase Defense Tower Some civilizations can upgrade it in City Phase. Stone Wall Walls Cost changed from 15S~28S to 12S~36S. Build time changed from 15s~45s to 12s~36s. Gate Cost decreased from 60S to 20W. Build time increased from 10s to 12s. Health decreased from 2550 to 2500. City Phase Wonder Cost changed from 1000F/1000W/1000S/1000M to 1000W/1500S/1000M. Siege Workshop Available for all civilizations. Build time decreased to 180s. Fortress Can no longer produce siege engines. New buildings: Artillery Tower Shoot bombards. Available for Athenians, Carthaginians, Macedonians, Ptolemies, Romans and Seleucids. Can be upgraded from a Defense Tower costing 150W/100S and taking 200s. Cost: 200W/200S Health: 1400 Ranged Attack: 35P/25C, Range: 20~78(+14), Interval: 5s Circular Splash Damage: 25P/5C Armor: 25H/30P/3C Garrison Limit: 5 Projectile Limit: 2, Default: 1, Per Unit: 0.2 (garrison 3 units to get the second shot) Loot: 40W/40S Only armor upgrade works. Bolt Tower Shoot bolts. Available for Athenians, Carthaginians, Macedonians, Ptolemies, Romans, Seleucids and Spartans. Cannot be constructed directly. Only can be upgraded from a Defense Tower costing 100S/100M and taking 200s. Health: 1400 Ranged Attack: 55P/5C, Range: 15~84(+14), Interval: 4s Linear Splash Damage: 12P Armor: 25H/30P/3C Garrison Limit: 5 Projectile Limit: 2, Default: 1, Per Unit: 0.2 (garrison 3 units to get the second shot) Loot: 40S/20M Only armor upgrade works. Rampart Tower Archers can garrison to shoot on the towers. The rampart doesn't protect them from ranged attack. Only Available for Mauryas. Cannot be constructed directly. Only can be upgraded from a Defense Tower costing 150W/70S and taking 200s. Health: 1200 Ranged Attack: 12P, Range: 10~76(+14), Interval: 2s Armor: 25H/30P/3C Garrison Limit: 20 (16 exposed) only archers Projectile Limit: 7, Default: 2, Per Unit: 1 Crenellations doesn't increase the Projectile Limit. Units Woman Gather rate increased from 0.8F/0.7W/0.3S/0.3M to 0.83F/0.7W/0.35S/0.35M. The Loom increases their health by 100%, up from 50%. Infantry Citizen-Soldier Gather rate decreased from 0.6F/0.8W/0.5S/0.5M to 0.58F/0.75W/0.5S/0.5M. Infantry Archer Damage increased from 6.0P to 6.7P. Movement speed increased from 9.9W/16.5R to 10.8W/18.0R. Archery Tradition is altered and is now available for Kushites, Mauryas and Persians: Cost 500W/300M. -10% training time, +8 attack range, and -10% attack spread for archers. Slinger Damage decreased from 9.5P/1.0C to 9.2P/0.9C. Javelineer Movement speed decreased from 12.6W/21.0R to 10.8W/18R. Spearman Movement speed increased from 8.5W/14.2R to 9.0W/15.0R. Pikeman Movement speed increased from 7.0W/12.0R to 8.1W/13.5R. Swordsman Movement speed decreased from 9.4W/15.7R to 9.0W/15.0R. Cavalry Cavalry Javelineer Movement speed increased from 17.5W/29.2R to 18.0W/30.1R. Cavalry Spearman Damage decreased from 6.0H/5.0P to 4.0H/3.0P. Interval decreased from 2s to 1.25s. Movement speed increased from 19.3W/32.2R to 19.8W/33.1R. Cavalry Swordsman Cost changed from 100F/30W/20M to 100F/40W/10M. Movement speed increased from 21.1W/35.1R to 21.6W/36.1R. Cavalry Archer Movement speed increased from 17.5W/29.2R to 18.0W/30.1R. Siege Engines Bolt Shooter Movement speed decreased from 8.1W/13.5R to 8.1W/8.1R. Siege Catapult Movement speed decreased from 7.2W/12.0R to 7.2W/7.2R. Battering Ram Movement speed decreased from 8.1W/13.5R to 7.2W/7.2R. Cannot attack field or organic units. Siege Tower Movement speed decreased from 6.3W/10.5R to 6.3W/6.3R. Champions Infantry Now cost 80F/60W/80M. Movement speed changed to 9.0W/15.0R for melee and 10.8W/188.0R for ranged. Cavalry Now cost 150F/80W/100M. Movement speed changed to 19.8W/33.1R for melee and 18.0W/30.1R for ranged. Cavalry Spearman Damage decreased from 12H/10P to 8H/6P. Interval decreased from 2s to 1.25s. War Elephants Basic cost is now 300F/200M. +10% value (cost inclued) for Mauryas and Seleucids, -10% value for the others. Movement speed increased from 8.5W/14.2R to 8.5W/14.3R. Heroes Infantry Movement speed changed to 9.0W/15.0R. Cavalry Movement speed increased from 16.6W/27.7R to 18.0W/30.1R. Cavalry Spearman Damage decreased from 24H/20P to 16H/12P. Interval decreased from 2s to 1.25s. Civilizations Athenians ̶A̶l̶l̶i̶e̶d̶ ̶s̶h̶i̶p̶s̶ ̶c̶o̶n̶s̶t̶r̶u̶c̶t̶ ̶2̶5̶%̶ ̶f̶a̶s̶t̶e̶r̶.̶ Allied Warships -25% construction time. Artillery Tower and Bolt Tower are available. Britons War Dog Kennel is removed. Now trained by Barracks to a maximum number of 20. Health increased from 90 to 110. Movement speed changed from 14.4W/24.0R to 13.5W/27.0R. No promotion. Starts with basic rank. Carthaginians Hannibal's Tactician (+1 capture and +20% attack within 60 meters) now affects allies. Artillery Tower and Bolt Tower are available. Light War Elephant. Gauls ̶-̶1̶0̶%̶ ̶r̶e̶s̶e̶a̶r̶c̶h̶ ̶t̶i̶m̶e̶ ̶f̶o̶r̶ ̶t̶e̶c̶h̶n̶o̶l̶o̶g̶i̶e̶s̶ ̶o̶f̶ ̶a̶l̶l̶i̶e̶s̶.̶ Allied blacksmith -15% technology resouce cost and research time. Farmstead New Tech: Harvesting Machine Cost 400W/250M. Requires Town Phase. Workers +15% grain gather rate. Naked Fanatic Movement speed decreased from 16.4W/27.3R to 12.6W/21.0R. Iberians ̶C̶i̶t̶i̶z̶e̶n̶-̶s̶o̶l̶d̶i̶e̶r̶ ̶i̶n̶f̶a̶n̶t̶r̶y̶ ̶s̶k̶i̶r̶m̶i̶s̶h̶e̶r̶s̶ ̶a̶n̶d̶ ̶c̶a̶v̶a̶l̶r̶y̶ ̶s̶k̶i̶r̶m̶i̶s̶h̶e̶r̶s̶ ̶-̶2̶0̶%̶ ̶c̶o̶s̶t̶ ̶f̶o̶r̶ ̶a̶l̶l̶i̶e̶s̶.̶ Allied citizen javelineers -10& resource cost. Kushites No extra mine. Civic Center New Tech: Monumental Architecture Cost 600S. Requires Town Phase. Moved from Large Pyramid. ̶+̶2̶5̶%̶H̶P̶ ̶a̶n̶d̶ ̶-̶5̶0̶%̶ ̶b̶u̶i̶l̶d̶ ̶t̶i̶m̶e̶ ̶f̶o̶r̶ ̶C̶i̶v̶i̶c̶ ̶C̶e̶n̶t̶e̶r̶s̶,̶ ̶T̶e̶m̶p̶l̶e̶s̶,̶ ̶P̶y̶r̶a̶m̶i̶d̶s̶ ̶a̶n̶d̶ ̶W̶o̶n̶d̶e̶r̶s̶.̶ Civic Structures +20% buildtime, +20% health, and +20% capture points. Blemmye Camp and Nuba Village Can be built in neutral territory with a 0.5/s territory decay rate. Temple Meroitic Temple Guard Damage increased from 11H to 12H/4C. Interval increased from 0.75s to 1s. Armor increased from 7H/7P/20C to 7H/8P/20C. Armor-piercing Axes (+30% damage vs. Champions and Heros) is removed. Sword class removed. Small Pyramid Cost changed from 300F/300S to 300S/100M. Large Pyramid Cost changed from 400S/400M to 450S/150M. Meroitic Pyramids (Civic Center +10% territory influence) and Patriotism (+15% gether rate) is removed. Exhortative Presence now provides +1 armor level and +10% melee and ranged attack damage within 70 meters. Monumental Architecture is moved from Large Pyramid to Civic Center. Grand Temple of Amun Powerful Priesthood no longer stack, only -5% health for Heros. Light War Elephant. Missing % for Nastasen. Macedonians Hellenic League (attack bonus and debonus vs. different civilizations) is removed. Artillery Tower and Bolt Tower are available. Champion Crossbowman can now be trained by Siege Workshop. Theracian Black Cloak can now be trained by Fortress. Mauryans (a24 Mauryas) Elephants -30% training time. Worker Elephant Can no longer constructs buildings. Now provides workers +25% build rate within 15 meters. Training time decreased from 15s to 14s. Elephant Archer Cost decreased from 200F/80W/20M to 175F/75W. Training time decreased from 15s to 14s. Movement speed increased from 8.8W/14.6R to 9.0W/15.0R. War Elephant Training time decreased from 30s to 24s. No upgrades in Siege Workshop. Heavy War Elephant. Persians Barracks Can train Hyrcanian Cavalry. Stable Cost changed from 200S to 200W/50S. Cavalry movement speed upgrades are also available in Stable. Bactrian Heavy Lancer is moved from Fortress to Stable. Hyrcanian Cavalry Cost changed from 100F/30W/20M to 100F/40W/10M. Damage increased from 6.5H to 6.9H/2.3C. Interval increased from 0.75s to 1s. Sword class is replaced by Axeman. Ishtar Gate and Persian Hall are removed. New unit: Babylonian Scythed Chariot Can be trained by Fortress. Same as Seleucids' one. Ptolemies No loot from free structures. Artillery Tower and Bolt Tower are available. Light War Elephant. Romans Allied infantry -10% training time, down from -20%. Army Camp no longer cost metal. Artillery Tower and Bolt Tower are available. Siege Wall Walls Build time decreased from 15s~45s to 12s~36s. Gate Cost decerased from 80W to 20W. Build time decreased from 12s to 10s. Health decreased from 1912 to 1875. Loot decerased from 15W to 10W. Seleucids Artillery Tower is available. Heavy War Elephant. Spartans Skirital Commando Health decreased from 144 to 121. Movement speed decreased from 10.4W/15.7R to 9.0W/15.0R. Gather rate increased from 0.1F/0.2W/0.1S/0.1M to 0.29F/0.37W/0.24S/0.24M. Loot changed from 7.2F/7.2M to 7.2F/5.76W/1.44M. Bolt Tower is available. 0 A.D. a24 SVN Current Changes.md

Hi Amadeus, I would like to share my opinion about the strategy you propose: I don't agree at all with this: britons have one of the strongest army composition in game: mass pikes + slingers + rams Set rally point to wood it's much better, then you train 3 women to go on berries (total is 7 women on berries and 6 on wood) Mistake: the dog is a very important unit. You can use him to scout much the enemy base and also to slow enemy economy. If you keep going/run away from enemy berries you produce a bigger damage in economy for the player (1 women is practically nothing) This will make you waste wood for an unuseful building: 1) berries are already in cc range, so you don't need to protect them so much (the women take a little time to run away) 2) a tower deals not much damage if not garrisoned, and remember that the men are taking wood, not berries I would say that 9 fields are too many for your strategy game: they are good if you project a long game with more than 400/500 unit for player lost. If you want a quite early game don't make more than 8 fields (if upgraded they can be more than enough for all your game) 3-4 barracks are useful for a long game. If you want this type of strategy use just 1-2 barracks or you will finish your resources too fast I would leave at least 20 to mantain a good wood economy This is your project: if you are talking about the third part of the game (14-15 mins) calculate that a good player can have something like 250 pop + fort, and he can counter you very very easily Maybe the attrition war is what will make you win with a strong civilization like britons xd Slinger attack: 9.5 every 1 second. Skirmisher attack: 16 every 1.25 seconds If you don't consider dancing, that is very useful Never fight combats where your opponent has more upgrades than you. The number of soldiers is not what makes you win (a player can win a 2v1 even with dancing Also, you forgot the most important thing to say: fight and do economy with upgrades. If you have upgrades and the enemy not you can win a fight with really less soldiers than the enemy CONCLUSION: If you like to attack in the early game to win, I wouldn't advise you to attack around minute 14-15, cause the enemy can have P3 full pop. Maybe try to use a strategy (that I usually copy from borg- xd) for a 8-9 minute heavy attack with britons. This because there are many ways to counter your strategy