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I have read the interesting discussion about moving farm fields away from civic center and I agree with some points of view of both sides. However, it seems to me that many of them at least somewhat depend on the time period (phase) of the game. Based on that I got an idea which in my opinion could both make the game a bit more realistic and create interesting new strategies. The idea consists of two parts. The first is that the civic center would have three different instances with different characteristics. What follows is only a suggestion and its main goal is to illustrate the idea. Village phase: the civic center is all-in-one building, basically as it is now, meaning that it would have the functionality of a drop site for all resources, defensive character, able to train citizens Town phase: the civic center could have mostly technological importance (it seems to me that some civ dependent technologies would be best), it is a drop site for only "expensive" resources (metal and possibly stone and meat), has defensive role (with possibly fewer arrows with more damage), trains citizens but not cavalry anymore City phase: the civic center has mostly territorial importance, does not work as a drop site at all, can only train female and one citizen soldier, looses most (or even all) of its defensive abilities The second part is that the more sophisticated civic centers would require "better" surroundings. For example, there would have to be a market and a temple nearby for the civic center to by in the last phase. Each building could e.g. have a "nice aura" with temple being positive and storehouse being negative. Hence the limit of n buildings required for the next phase could be removed. There could even coexist civic centers from different phases so that you could rule one city and one village while each of them would have its special traits. In that way there could be a very dense and simple society at the beginning and a sophisticated society with at least somewhat realistic city center at the end and it would present the player with the choice of placing the farms next to the civic center knowing that they would have to build a new one somewhere else or demolish the farms to get the upgraded civic center OR build the farms away from the civic center at the beginning. And because this is my first post here, let me thank you for this already great game

So basically: Give a tree HP and a death animation and you're good to go. It would totally ruin your gameplay, however.

how many weeks since this post was opened and not a single tangible solution? Mistakes were made? Yes. The errors of 24 have been improved, that's where we are. I honestly like the mechanics of A24 more than how horrible A23 was. Is it going to be unbalanced? Obviously, it is a game in development. People can stay on A23 if they want to, but many of the complainers don't propose anything, don't patch, don't test SVN, don't appear in The phabricator. How is it possible that we take them into account if they do not make a minimum effort?

Finally joined wildfiregames! So a few days ago i played with Atlas and somehow made a decent map. Hopefully this will gave some inspiration to other map makers and so the community will continue to thrive. This game is really something unique that you can't find anywhere else! Man i love what you have done with 0ad 24 so far! Whatever i upload is the property of 0ad/wildfiregames. /fishyfish moba_demo_v2.zip

Not sure how much this would change. As the CC is still the most defended area, I believe people will just build like this: Only depended if 8 fields are aromatically spawned (left) or if you get a reduced price for placing a field close to the farmstead (right).

My post always has a reason, and an introduction that tells that reason. I have seen many complain about the rush. Why don't we create a meta where can some strategies be predefined? AoE have their own rushes. I tried to implement as suggestions, a bit the slinger rush. I'm also in favor of an Archer rush and a scout rush (if we can agree on that unit / class it should be in the game). How should we implement a rush? Our game is asymmetric, not all civs should access the same rushes in a certain way. Factions / Civs should not access the Archer rush or Cavalry rush. At least in the early game. Nations with archery potential, from the days that they have the technologies, to do as archery tradition, should it. On the other hand, A generic rush for most would be with scouts (Cavalry) Others with sword infantry rush. We should allocate technologies to focus on the 3 basic strategies. -Rushing -Booming -Turtling Every player will think ... hummm I chose this faction to performance a rush of archers. In phase one there should be technologies to unlock defenses and for the civic center to defend itself (without garrison units), , in compensation they should have a price and time enough to choose between economical and rush technologies. Each phase should have its own kind of rush, this encourages further development of the faction. Our tech tree in the game is not developed and does not compare to that of AOE, even Delenda is surpasses us. (Without discrediting Wowgetoff's work ...)

Just change nothing here

Thank you your opinion. I would like to just clarify few things. each instance of the CC would have to look different - exactly not to confuse players the advancement into a new phase would not have to automatically change the CC, it could just unlock the new instance and just like a sentry tower can be converted into a stone tower the CC could be converted (if conditions satisfied) or a new one of the higher instance could be built. as I have imagined the idea it would be a forever change at least in the sense that the CC would never downgrade which might not have been clear I see the different phases as the transformation of the society and as the society being build around different structures (here represented by buildings). You transform the biggest farmstead in the village (CC of village phase) in to a senate building (CC of city phase) and while loosing the possibility to store thing there you gain influence in your region (territory). I might be completely wrong about the historical background for this and I will gladly learn from anyone better educated on this topic. Nevertheless, in the presented idea I have seen a potential to keep the beginning of the game simple while keeping the player from storing resources in the Agora which probably was not the case.

Everybody can win from multiple cultures - also in gaming. The art works you guys do, are really impressive!

Note it was made faster by wraitii to prevent dancing.

To say this release has been rushed is a little ridiculous on it's own to be honest.

As promised the concept. 6.100 words of pure gameplay related stuff. Note: As this thread digs REALLY deep in the gameplay development, please read the document carefully and try to comprehend what I've written. I don't want read one liner comments like "idea X on page Y doesn't fit my personal view". You have to look at the concept as a whole instead of nitpicking small details. The layout isn't set in stone, it's meant as an approach to get a red line into the game. And thus it's important to get connections between different game aspects. Edit: the current text layout still isn't 100% like I want it to be but oh well... I'll leave it "as-is". If there is a strange looking paragraph simply ignore it Have fun reading! Part I: Gameplay Analysis “From sticks and stones to an Empire: How to employ a civilization concept for a modern time RTS” Game: 0 AD example faction: Athenians Author: DarcReaver Date: March 5th 2017 Introduction This document aims to summarize the current game mechanics, compare them to the original gameplay/game design concept, identify differences and problems with the current layout and create a solution concept. As some of the proposed concepts and ideas require quite a bit of restructuring or addition of code this is to be taken as a serious roadmap that can be followed for all civilizations in the future. If there are technical difficulties are not solvable by volunteers I’d honestly suggest to start another kickstarter campaign to hire a couple of professional coders who are then assigned the tasks that the internal team cannot solve. I know that this has been done in the past and failed, but I think the failure at least partly has to do with the fact that there is no “greater aim” for the game in its current state. There is no direction the game, so there is no amount of code able to finish it, thus the money would have gone to waste anyways (note that this is my personal opinion). But before doing kickstarters, or hiring coders, artists or whatever there has to be clear in which direction the game is heading, which leads us to this document. I believe there has to be a separate discussion on the kickstarter campaign some other time. Don’t get the wrong idea, I know that the proposed concepts below require extensive work and testing. However, please keep in mind that I’ve taken the original gameplay document as reference and adjusted my concepts towards implementation of the intended features. It’s just that my personal believe is that 0 AD in its very heart is not intended to be a “mass up an army and throw them into battle” style RTS. And to be honest – why would someone need another macro oriented game? We already have Age of Empires II HD, Stronghold, RUSE, Starcraft II and a couple of other games which already please that kind of player audience. And trying to mess with those games will most likely lead to a defeat since they’re made by professionals with years of experience in the game creation and have/had huge budgets available to polish their products. The result of this should be clear: 0 ad has to follow its own path instead of trying to copy and combine aspects from other games. So, let’s move on and summarize the current status of the game: General observations: City Borders When starting a game, the player base is surrounded by City borders. Inside the borders, construction of buildings is allowed. The border range can be increased by techs, certain buildings and progression in the city phases. Resource system & starting economy Basic soldiers, cavalry and women can harvest resources. The earlygame revolves around building basic infantry or women and assigning them to resource spots. The training speed is fast, resulting in high counts of collecting villagers in the earlygame (more than 30 or 40 units with 8 minutes). Resources are used to create more buildings and soldiers and research economic and military technologies. Houses and other buildings have comparably long construction times. Various economic upgrades can improve different aspects of gathering processes and are fast to research. Gameflow Most essential military units are available in the first Phase, allowing very early rushes with a variety of units. Building times are very high for buildings and very low for units. Resource costs are mostly the same for all types of military units. The available buildings allow defensive gameplay (farms, citizen soldiers, houses can garrison). The capturing mechanic helps raiding by being able to take over enemy buildings. As the game progresses there are more units unlocked to use. Every building is required to tech up. Siege is available very late, until then the mixture of capturing buildings and raiding economy is the way to go. Synopsis, current faction content: Buildings: Phase I: Agora – main building - House – provides population - Sitobolon – farm tech building and drop off point for food - storehouse – economic tech building and drop off point for minerals, lumber - Agros – unlimited food production - Epaulos – tech building for herdables/huntables/cavalry - Watchtower – scout building - Limen – harbor building - Strategeion – main military building Phase II: - Blacksmith – military tech building - Naos – advanced tech building - Emporios – market - Pyrgion – Defense tower - Theilos – defensive walls - Stoa Hellenica – specialist barracks building Phase III: - Epitheikisma – Fortress - Wonder – wonder building - Gymnasion – advanced military building - Theatron – economic civic tech building - Prytaneion – economic military special building This is the complete building number that is available to a player when choosing the Athenian civilization, 19 buildings. To unlock Higher City phases a number of buildings of the previous phase are required. Units: Phase I: - Hoplites (spearmen) - Peltastes Thrax (skirmisher) - Prodromos (ranged spear cavalry) - Psilos (slingers) Phase II: - Rhomphaiaphoros (heavy melee) - Thyreophoros (heavy skirmisher) - Iatros (healer) - Hippei (melee cavalry) Phase III: - Oxybeles (scorpion) - Lithobolos (catapult) - Epilektos (phalanx city guard unit) - Toxotes Skythikos (ranged archer) - Toxotes Kretikos (ranged archer) - Epibatos (naval infantry) - Heroes (Themistokles, Perikles, Iphikrates) Right now, the player starts off with basic infantry (hoplites), basic cavalry (Prodromos) and a basic ranged attacker (Psilos) without any necessary teching. Building a barracks adds a basic skirmisher (Peltastes) to the mix. Phase two adds healers, a special infantry and a special skirmisher (Rhomphaia/Threophoros), available through a second barracks and cavalry (Hippeis) Phase three unlocks siege (Oxybeles/Lithobolos), a City Guard Phalanx (Epilektos), ranged units (Toxotes Kretikos and Skythikos) aswell as naval infantry (Epibatos) and heroes. Summary of current game mechanic issues (note: “tier” means tech level) City Borders While in theory an interesting concept, the implementation at this stage is limiting the game more than being a useful feature. - Expansion is hard to do (Agoras require Phase II and lots of resources/time to be built) - No good options to expand the city borders apart from spamming houses or barracks - on certain maps it’s impossible to place drop off points for lumber and metal near the first major forest, leading to a low efficiency lumbering early on Result of this feature: Cavalry rushes and booming (don’t expand and spam economic units) are the choices to pick when playing the game. As it’s hard to work towards resources in the center of the map it’s easier to stick to the own borders and produce food with farming and harvest nearby lumber while building more and more economic units. Cavalry is very mobile and useful for harassment. Regular units don’t do the job well because it’s not possible to chase villagers Buildings: - no interconnection of building types: This means that there is no possibility to limit the amount of unit types available to the player. Every unit is trainable quickly, that way there is no interesting unit transition like archers into cavalry into infantry. Of course it’s possible to first field archers then cavalry and then infantry, but this doesn’t require planning or build orders. Just build a barracks and you’re done with your military. - forced construction of building phase buildings does not allow flexibility, players always have to build everything to get access to higher tier: This is an issue for the game duration. There is no possibility to follow a fast tech into a high tier to finish off opponents with superior units, or to deliver a teching advantage. As an example in AoE there are civs which are fit to quickly advance through the ages (like Byzantines, Mongols or Saracens) to field superior units like knights. Combined with the lack of additional military content in phase II the city phase feels dragged out. It takes ages to get through this phase without gaining a significant difference or advantage from phase I. - Building cost- and tech-requirements are unbalanced i.e. a fortress only offers two siege weapons while requiring lots of teching to reach and lots or resources to build. This results in unbalanced strategic options for building progression. Players have to build overpriced or underpriced buildings to get benefits that do not match the initial price. The progression should be: the more important the building the higher the cost should be. Units - Too many units are available at the start Overall the game offers a wide number of different units, but the unit arrangement is strange. In a strategy game the unit strength is usually increased over time, either via upgrades for existing units (called scaling) or by giving access to stronger units. A player starts off with his weakest units and as the game progresses he unlocks more and more powerful units, ultimately with some type of specialist unit that offers a very large advantage in one area. Most units with specific strengths have specific weaknesses which create a so called “rock paper scissor” counter system. The more specialized the unit is the harder the weakness is applied to enable countering it. This is essential for a wellrounded counter system. - Unit upgrades gives too large gaps between unteched and teched units It seems as if the bonuses provided from teching are very large, while unupgraded units are extremely weak, upgraded units almost take no damage compared to them. This is bad, as it requires players to instantly upgrade their units to stand a chance against an opponent, limiting the choice to “mass” weak units instead of choosing to tech up to get a smaller force of more advanced, stronger units. - Heroes come late and require lots of resources for limited effects This is a separate issue and my personal opinion on this matter is that heroes have too little effect on the game. According to the design guide the game takes inspiration from Warcraft III in which heroes have a very large role from the very start of the game. Getting early heroes, leveling them up and fighting the enemy is very important and can decide a match early. The hero system in 0 ad doesn’t nearly as much influence the overall game, which makes me question the reason why heroes are in the game in the first place. - Formations are fiddly and micro intensive The Formations are interesting, as they provide tactical options for fighting, like forming a phalanx to attack melee warriors. It’s a logical thing that there is a necessary minimum of soldiers to form a formation. The problem with the formations right now is that it’s not possible to select units in a formation and ignore units that are not included in the formation. Since units in 0ad are pretty small in a battle there is a constant reforming of formations since new trained units rejoin the formations on double click selection if you reassign the formation. - Unit training times are too quickly, massing troops early game is absolutely possible. Rushing with units from the town center is possible. This dumbs down the game. There is no strategical choice between building a military building path to unlock certain units and an early economic boom defensive playstyle. Instead it’s possible to train relatively potent units from the very start and the “man-spam train” is on track. While creating variety in the early training order this dulls down the tradeoffs that have to be made in the earlygame by players. In a good RTS there is a variety of choices to make. Either train melee units early, train ranged units or try a mobility approach for harassment like cavalry units. Each path means that the other military units are delayed by X amount of time and there is a tradeoff between having more pressure on the enemy or have increased economic power. Since cavalry can also collect food, there is zero disadvantage in training cavalry compared to training economic units. In 0ad there is no delay for fielding other types of units (except for the time to collect the required resources and building time), so army compositions are very flexible. This renders tactical advantages from training certain units useless as they can immediately be countered. I got the feeling this is why there is so much cavalry rushing going on. A mobile early cavalry army allows to put pressure on an enemy, and can only be countered by other cavalry as regular units are too slow to catch up. The mobility of ranged units is high; most skirmisher cavalry and cavalry archers available to the civs at the start. Ranged cavalry can outrun their counters and pick off single units. In RTS players who can choose their battles are in an advantageous position.

Returning to the old train times is something that has been requested by quite a few people. Rotation times have also been unsatisfactory for some and the ranged infantry move speed equalization has been reverted, but not as extreme as it used to be. This mod is here to test out these changes, see if players would really prefer these changes and also avoid surprises in case of backtracking, because as a24 showcased there can be many unexpected side effects. The rotation times are only changed for citizen soldiers, so champions, heroes and siege still take a while to rotate. The train time increase in a24 was to reduce spam. In my opinion, it only increased spam as the meta went from 1 early barrack to 2/3. Equalizing ranged infantry move speed worked to make archers unpunishable because if they were caught out of position or overextended they couldn't be punished. Changes: Citizen soldier train times back to A23 values. Rotation times for citizen soldiers lowered. Archers 0.6 lower move speed, skirmishers 0.6 higher move speed. Archers 0.5 extra spread. New version: messed with rotation times slightly, gave archers the 0.5 extra spread they have on the release version to see how it fares in combination with them moving slower. RotationTrainTimes.zip

To be honest I am very happy with how CCs and Kleroukhia work right now. Please don't change anything.

Chinese cataphracts:

Hi, thank you for the opportunity to take part in the discussion on this topic. I think more battles between the players before P3 leads to more varied gameplay. Very simplified, I win in 0ad if I have siege weapons to tear down the opponent's CC. I obtain siege weapons through: • Booming: have as many units and technologies as possible, as fast as possible • Turtling: have as many units and technologies as possible as safely as possible; (the many citizen soldiers and especially in a24 the archers as well as the tower spam transform Booming from phase 2 to turtling for cavalry raids (tower spam = turtling against citizen soldier rush)) • Rushing: I slow down my development to slow down my opponent by slow down by idle time and picking up single units (cavalry raid = over reaction, pop cap, mis macro, deny resources for a short time) stop as long as possible by denying resources (cavalry raid, towers, citizen soldier + outpost (a23)) reverse development by blocking resource gathering, blocking space, taking over and/or wrecking buildings so that the opponent surrenders (All in (if all goes well) and raiding with slingers, archers, cavalry, dogs, champs, ele). Personally, I don't like All Ins in the first 4 minutes of a game and the CC is the counterbalance to those strategies. When I first played 0ad, Turtling was my strategy to get to know the game. Now it's Booming to be able to use siege weapons as quickly as possible. Rushing doesn't seem as worthwhile to me because it's too hectic and outside of 1v1 my opponent is mostly "just" slowed down. If I have enough hunt available a raid with cavalry is OK. I like the straight forward approach of 0ad. The tree like growth with the citizen soldier as trunk. You get what you invest. When I played Age of empires for the first time in my childhood it seemed odd to me that some people just stand around or fight. The citizen soldier being able to collect resources in a time with less specialized roles makes more sense to me. I think I read suggestions from Borg to create a technology for melee units tradition and for Britten or Gaul to allow forge technologies earlier in the barracks. As well as suggested by Nescio (https://wildfiregames.com/forum/topic/37312-balancing-defensive-structures-test-mod/) allow more variance in stats of defensive strutures. Technologies (greater variance in stats) that differentiate Rushing or Turtling more could help.For example, a technology that lets twice as many women quarter in houses, gives legionnaires in turtle formation pikmen armor and the speed of Rams, gives the CC 70 or 75m radius for little resources and lots of technology research time. Further, I don't understand the reduced collection rates for rank 2/3 citizen soldier. If I keep attacking and winning in TG pizza my collection rate will be lower, no incentive here. On the other hand, as soon as more space is available, it makes more sense to use cavalry to slow down the opponent most of the time and defeat him in P3 with siege weapons. Bonuses, mechanisms and abilities that have historical origins would be good. I think "scouts", archers... raids are possible and take place in P1 to slow down the opponent. In P2 the citizen soldiers are so numerous that a turtling effect occurs. More differentiation of Rushing and Turling (start lower with the values) strategies could help here. Stopping the opponent or resetting his development are only possible in smaller spaces or take time or game sense with good execution.

Ah ok CS was citizen soldiers desculpa

Done.

Well that is a shame , at the moment when you make a syntagma , the phalangites just spread out like normal and i was expecting a bit more going forward but oh well.

Welcome young child. The Holy Church of the Beaver Absolves you of your sins. In all seriousness. Personally, i dislike your idea of Changing the role of the City Center every Phase. It's not a bad idea, but it definitely would not fit in a game like this. Not unless several extreme changes were made to adapt to such things. As it is, it's best to have it as the all-in-one thing forever. If you want to change anything, it should be a forever change, not an as-you-advance thing. That would be too confusing for new players and make too many Cheek strategy's evolve. I like the whole Having one city-center in different areas thing, like actually making them "City-Centers" Instead of just I'mTerritoriesAndTrainsWomens Buildings. We could also tie this in with DE's idea of being allowed to build buildings outside of territories instead of just outposts. (but still degrade over time, of course) This would make building towns less difficult, Those circular territory things can be a pain sometimes. And also have them be much father away from each other (which would make city placement a strategy of itself!) Also making building further away from your territory would mean more loss of HP for your buildings would be good too. The aura stuff is a full-blown-no from me. 0AD is not a city building game. If you want something like that i can suggest a few Also about the Farming stuff, i think it should be kept Simple. Either put them wherever you want, or just around farmhouses. The latter would also help in the (Yet-to-be-developed) Animal Housing building which you can herd animals into and have an infinite food source at a steady rate. Farms being better of course, but requiring more effort (I.E People)

The problem with changing training times is that it does nothing to fix the fundamental issue. Barracks serve a primarily economic role in the Village Phase. Some people might not consider that a problem, but to me, the average Athenian just getting equipped to serve for the military doesn't say to himself, "Whelp, better start hoeing those fields." Introducing a gather-rate penalty of some sort to units trained in the barracks would generally fix this problem. Suddenly booming would otherwise be done by researching fertility festival and training women or going with a suboptimal investment that would leave the player better protected at the cost of efficiency. And there you go. Booming would not be turtling.

Let's say there are approximatively 300 tree variations. (650 files in gaia, minus the rocks, plus the files not named tree, minus bushes, minus tree leaves) If we wanted to do it the the art way, you'd have to change those 300 files to have various animations, maybe one or two. Some trees are made of multiple parts e.g can come under the form of three palm trees. If we wanted to do it the programming way, the problem would be that three would look weird when falling because it has no roots. To fix that you need new art which 300 new roots. As for death damage the engine already supports it for living units, but not really for resources because they do not have HP and as such can't die. You could do it like sheep however, and have the death deal death damage, then play the falling animation. Relevant discussions. https://trac.wildfiregames.com/wiki/List%3A_Entities%3A_Nature%3A_Flora%3A_Plants#TREESTUMPS https://trac.wildfiregames.com/ticket/1017 https://wildfiregames.com/forum/topic/15322-need-blender-help-please/?tab=comments#comment-228892 https://wildfiregames.com/forum/topic/20290-falling-trees/?do=findComment&comment=311983 https://wildfiregames.com/forum/topic/35725-tree-stumps/?do=findComment&comment=415025 https://wildfiregames.com/forum/topic/24628-flora-agriculture-related-ideas-and-requests/?do=findComment&comment=358975

Yeah, stone "mines" can look like quarries or something like this:

Redpillled anonbro

Hey, good choice of terrains and assets! Using a MOBA style map as inspiration is a good idea. Attack lanes, sneaks, etc., are generally signs of a good map.

There is also a chicken coop in Opfermoor Vogtei, on stilts and with wicker instead of a wall

those buildings look really nice! germanic longhouses had the entrance on the side and were split into two halfes with people living on the one side and animals on the other. They were long and big in size and with the roof nearly until the ground. I think this could be a nice special building (like the appartment buildings of the romans or carthagians), with a bigger population bonus and animal corral combined. Also I noticed the chicken coop/ henhouse on stilts (like in the background on those pictures). Would be a nice addition too. It would give individuality to the germanics but I understand if it breaks the balance/ scale..

guys this game is awesome. The units are wonderful, the animations great, the buildings beautiful. Performance is good for now but I haven't stressed it out with huge maps yet. I run on a Ryzen5 3400g (Vega11) 16gb ram ddr4-ssd So all very nice except one thing. The writings are really too small, especially those concerning the information of the units and the different types of damage. And the music, honestly, does not excite me. I played this gorgeous game years ago, the leap in quality is huge.

There are plans yes, but the problem comes from the fact setting incorrect values might make it impossible to revert back. Follow https://code.wildfiregames.com/D3037 for progress. You can either overwrite some of the tracks, or edit music.js and civ.json files.

Electrophile (loves electrons / negative charges) Nucleophile (loves positive charge) Hydrophile (loves water) Philopator (loves their dad) hmmmmmmm?

Why does Antiochus always score 100% in his tests? Because he is Antiochus the Righteous! He is always right!

Guess the Spartans shouldn't have called them "The Village People" before...

One day you thought you'd booked some gospel musicians, but instead a group of Carthaginian spearmen turned up in full armour. "And who the hell are you guys?!!!" you exclaimed. Their leader just looked up and said: "The Sacred Band!"

If the first time I played something made by WFG it was that mod. I downloaded many mods from there.

capturable ruins.

https://www.academia.edu/3990448/Römische_Helme_aus_dem_Thorsberger_Moor https://www.academia.edu/3990440/Der_germanische_Helm_aus_dem_Thorsberger_Moor https://www.researchgate.net/publication/270900114_Neue_Forschungen_in_Thorsberg_und_Nydam

Hero selection for Sparta. Need techs for Lysander and Cleomenes.

Queen Gorgo, now trainable if you choose Leonidas as your hero. She has a number of "homeland" benefits and can only be trained once (as opposed to 5 times for your selected hero).

Some of us like roleplaying to play.

Which is exactly why my original proposal was to split the civiv center functionality (see top post). Defensive buildings do the defense, the farmstead is for storing food and the storehouse is for storage other resources. But it seems this is not the preferred option, which is why I included other options in the discussion. To the problems with petra: this is a second problem that needs to be fixed. If its worth it depends if you like a more realistic city layout. There are some people who would like that (again, see top post) but also people who are ok with the current unrealistic layout. I am just wondering why so many areas of the game are closely based on history, but the standard build order involves that the heart of the cities are turned into one giant farming area. And again: the goal is not to make the game hyper-realistic. With the right solution we don't have to sacrifice a fun gameplay. The goal is to find a solution that is fun, but looks better/ and is more realistic than the status quo.

I agree with the debuffs part. Fields built near the Civic Centre having an arbitrary malus to collection makes little sense. That said, having some ground be more fertile to incentivise players to farm in those areas makes sense and adds another layer to the area control aspect of the game.

I tried removing dropsite from CC for a while in DE, but I found myself annoyed that I couldn't use it as such. I might try it again and see.

Zapotecs version 0.1 Based heavily upon the great work being done by the Terra Magna mod team The Zapotec lived in the Valley of Oaxaca, the largest expanse of relatively flat land in southern Mexico. Around 500 B.C.E. they built Monte Albán on the flattened top of a mountain in the center of the valley, the first urban center in Mesoamerica. Monte Albán covered an area of 2.5 square miles and its population grew from 5,000 to 25,000. It boasted the first centralized political system and population divided into social classes. Lasting for about a 1,000 years it became the dominant power in southern Mexico, ruled by nobles and strong military. Lacking in a strong agricultural base, their economy was based on the collection of tribute from surrounding groups. By the 7th century C.E. its power began to wane through competition and unsustainable population growth. Other characteristic features of Zapotec civilization can be found in the periods following Monte Albán's founding, including a characteristic two-chambered temple architecture, a market system, a rubber-ball game, and the human-like funerary vessels called Zapotec urns. Between 200 - 900 C.E. Monte Albán acquired a Classic style representative of Mesoamerican groups, most likely through conquest. Population growth, writing, architecture and art flourished, centering around the noble class and the hierarchy of Zapotec gods. Units Civic Center Zapotec Citizen Male and Female variations. Some textures and meshes by @Lopess Jaguar King (Hero) Nearby Soldiers are stronger and move faster. Nearby Citizens and Slaves gather much faster. Battle Priest (Hero) Reduces the effectiveness of nearby enemy units, due to his terrifying visage (Battle Priests wear the skin of their enemies) Has a healing aura for nearby Zapotec units as well as a strong self-healing ability. Barracks Zapotec Runner Lightly armed Scout unit Can Hunt Can build Outposts Zapotec Spearman Macuahuitl Infantry Archery Range Zapotec Slinger Zapotec Skirmisher Zapotec Archer Archery Tradition tech gives them greater accuracy and -50% xp required for promotion Fortress Zapotec Noble Warrior Champion Macuahuitl Warrior Mercenaries Mixtec Jaguar Warrior Mercenary Champion Spearman Very much like the Gaesetae Naked Fanatic for the Gauls Otomi Maceman Mercenary Maceman A small Crush attack Teotihuacan Warrior Mercenary Multi-purpose Warrior An extra fast ranged unit, similar to a Cavalry Archer or Cavalry Skirmisher in ability Can swap between atlatl-thrown javelins and a (melee) heavy spear Others War Captive Slave class unit, trained from Storehouses and Farmsteads Zapotec Priest Battering Ram War Canoe Fires arrows and can fish for food. Trade Canoe Zapotec Structures Zapotecs have average-strength structures with an average number of structure technologies and upgrades. They have no access to cavalry, so do not have a Cavalry Stable. Their "Cult Statue" glory trickle building is the Ball Court. Only 1 is buildable, but it gives a trickle of glory 4x greater than a regular Cult Statue from a different civ. The Wonder gives a trickle of glory as well and can be praised by units for more glory. They have a greater reliance on stone for technologies, and a less reliance on metal compared to other civs. Lastly, they start each skirmish match with a free extra stone mine nearby. Atlatl can be a special technology. Adds range and accuracy for Javelin infantry. Eventual the Maya will get this special tech too. More References

City Building Mod: Building Aura This is Phase I of my city building mod that focuses on improving building auras to simulate city-building. Download the latest version here on GitHub. Overview Base-building is one of the main parts of RTS games, including 0AD. However because of 0AD focus on combat, base building mostly revolves around build order, with building placement is usually optimized for resource gathering and defenses. The resulting city layout becomes strategic but unrealistic. Civic center surrounded by farms, houses built in countryside as walls; these are strategically viable but not realistic nor historically accurate. This mod attempts to bring realism of city planning to 0AD, to encourage careful building placement. Features Fluctuative Population With this mod, population cap is no longer based only on how much house you built, but also where you place it. Every single building in 0 A.D. has been revamped with new aura effects that influence desirability of its nearby area, simulated by house population. This means that a house built next to a civil center supports more population than a house in country side. Building a military base beside it will reduce the population even more. This will encourage you to find a good place to construct houses, just like a city planner would. Every building costs population to run, and default house population has been reduced by half to keep it spicy. Production Chain Imagine how a soldier got his weapon. Wood and metal are collected in the storehouse, then they will be brought to blacksmith to be forged, then they will be received by the soldier at the end of his training. If all of those building are very close together, the soldier doesn’t have to wait too long to receive his weapon. This mod emulates such situation by giving effects if the buildings are nearby. Storehouse fastens nearby blacksmith’s research, and blacksmith fastens nearby barrack’s training. By arranging the buildings in specific way you can optimize your barrack to pump armies as fast as possible. Infrastructure Units are also affected by this mod. In real life, in the area where a city center stands, roads and other convenience are made to anticipate crowd of people running around. This mod simulates this by giving units speed boost while walking around the city center. Putting your storehouse right next to a mine also gives gatherers one extra resource to bring back. Mix and Match Since every building influences another, there are bound to be some compromises. Barrack will reduce nearby house population, but house will fasten barrack’s training, so if you need soldiers fast then you can build them next to each other at the cost of one population. There are so many possibilities. Experiment and discover your ultimate city that serves your strategy to conquer the world. Improved AI Now AI has been taught basic lessons on city planning. Beware that the nature of this mod allows AI to optimize this and might get surplus population early if you're not careful. The city pictured above is not my creation, it's purely built by AI with tremendous efficiency. New update also reduced default house population to nerf the AI because it was just that good. Installation Mod is available for download on mod.io (waiting for moderator's approval). It is available both for Alpha 23 and Alpha 24. Simply download the one compatible with your installed 0 A.D. version. Extract the entire content into My Games\0ad\mods\public folder and enjoy. Alternatively it is available for download at GitHub. Choose the branch according to your installed version and download. As I am not well versed in modding nor I am in history, please let me know if you think the modding could be improved or if it can be made more historically accurate. Enjoy!

4 resources - AOE II ripoff city phases - AOE II ripoff Blacksmith/technology system - AOE II ripoff "counter" system - AOE II ripoff Combined with a @#$% game pace. But yeah, using a squad based system is a ripoff... So what? IT's not about whether the system was used by another game at point X in the past. It's about creating a concept, using various tools to make the whole game itself unique. Currently 0 ad has what absolutely, unique and OUTSTANDING gameplay element? Ah yea, soldiers can gather resources.. wooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooow So units can do the most boring task in the game to not be idle. Impressive.

The question is : what do you want to accomplish by a "disband" function. As has been stated already, single units are more of a burden than a relief for the player. Units cannot be distinguished from each other due to lack of easy-to-notice art features (compare to age II, AoM or SC II). There is no benefit for single unit micro aswell. I can't think of reasons why it would be beneficial for the game itself and for game controls to have manual disbanding options for formations.

He actually sums the point up pretty well. Reinforcing troops can be accomplished in many ways. Either automatically when nearby a barracks, or in owned territory. Alternatively for resources with a timer and so on. This doesn't really have to do with logics, it only depends on how much effort is put in the reinforcement mechanism coding. I'd suggest you actually look how battalion gameplay concepts are realized in other games.

This is a mod I'll definitely play countless of hours!

Best design/gameplay concept for 0 A.D. I have read so far. Would totally go for it!

To put a quick reference: Age of Mythology only allowed civic expansion on certain spots of the map. IIRC correctly this was done to reduce the Town Center spam from it's predecessor, AoE II, where Town Centers were built nearby all kinds of resources, especially gold and stone, to quickly harvest those resources and boom the economy. A similar different concept are the expansion gold mines in Warcraft III and the mineral mines in Starcraft. To prevent players from simply sending out their first soldiers to expand everywhere, Warcraft III used a neutral creep system. The creeps were hostile to every player and had to be killed in order to take control of the gold mine. The creeps were a variety of unique unit types like ogres, trolls and other fantasy creatures and provide heroes with experience points and gold to buy items. This way, even if not taking control of the gold mine with an expansion was worth it as it makes the player's army stronger. On top of that there's a natural progression to get players fighting. The maps are symmetric, and creep strength increases the closer they are to the center of the map.If both players fight creeps on their side of the map they'll meet their enemy eventually, creating a natural transition from fighting neutral units -> fighting the other player. Of course, it's possible to attack players directly and ignore the creeps, but this is a choice of the player and has advantages and drawbacks. BFME also used neutral creatures like trolls, spiders, Orcs or Wargs to protect settlement points. Starcraft did not require neutral creeps, since the unit production is much faster and it's a lot easier to destroy enemy bases even early in the game. Also, base defense mechanics are less present in Starcraft than Warcraft. If 0 ad featured neutral provinces, it would be interesting to have somethiing like this aswell. A province would consist of a small small city or village that native to the map that the players are fighting on and hostile towards them. - small provinces: feature additional free food, like herdables and berries or fields, wood and a single bonus resource like stone or iron. They only are guarded by armed peasants are are an easy target to provide experience for the player's soldiers and heroes - medium provinces: feature free food, wood and additionally a larger pile of resources that are scarce, like stone and silver, or iron and silver. The province is protected by a decent sized, basic garrison army that cannot be beaten by only a couple of soldiers. - large provinces: like medium provinces, but feature even more resources. The garrison consists of experienced soldiers which are hard to take on. To prevent maps to be overburdened with neutral units everywhere, I think the provinces should be connected to map size. Tiny, small and medium maps only feature a couple of small provinces and maybe a maximum of one medium province, while large and gigantic maps also offer large and medium provinces. Since large maps usually feature many players, working together to bring provinces under control becomes easier. Apart from this there are also resource spots that do not belong to anyone, so even in case a player missed his opportunity to take control of provinces he still has a chance to harvest "advanced" resources. One thing I'm unsure about is whether this works decently with random map scripts. The games that use this kind of system usually have pre-defined maps, where neutral units, buildings and expansions are always the same. Actually, it might be not that hard: Simply use the map creation algorithm from player starting locations, and add (depending on map size) for example 3 neutral starting locations and switch the owning player to gaia/hostile. The player starting locations need a pre-defined distance from each other anyways, so this could work. i.e. the map has an inital property that defines it as "northern". The spawning file then places Gaul warriors and a civic center. While a map like Latium spawns roman warriors or Iberians (as a sort of replacement for etruskians) or something like that. Just to put an example. I'd like to hear the opinions of a RMS creator regarding this.