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my idea for pikeman is a unit with a high hack damage absorption and strong hack / pierce attack, but slow and weak against projectiles/ranged units. Historically is more correct.

I don't mind giving some civs more citizen soldier options, but keep in mind that civs having weaknesses is also a good thing. Pushing champions to phase 2 is something that should be experimented with, though moving cavalry champions and ranged champions would likely be a bit too much. Phase 2 siege can be interesting but I don't think it should ever be more than rams. I disagree, going to P2 gives you absolutely no benefit if you plan to play aggressive. The eco techs are quite expensive and military techs are much too expensive. There's a reason you don't see players getting military upgrades in P2 and why the P2 eco techs frequently get left until after clicking P3. For Athen P2 champs, there is this patch: https://code.wildfiregames.com/D3930

Your point about pikes absorbing projectiles is interesting, but you can't possibly use a 6 meters long heavy pike like a baseball bat, you may at most hopes it catches something by chance. Also, phalangites couldn't move shields with the same liberty as hoplites and legionaries (they needed both hands for moving the pike), so they couldn't make a wall shield like other heavy infantry. That was a very common tactic, it was not unique to romans (although it's understood that romans employed a perfected version sometimes, called testudo). I did a quick reserch, and I found this interesting Q&A. It's also worth noting that phalangites wore very effective armor, that persians weren't used to confront, Alexander himself used to wear an armor of the same kind phalangintes had access to (linothorax). In a fair simulation like 0AD, if players are in pair with armor and armor-piercing technologies, archers should be pretty effective against phalangites, more so than against hoplites, I think, not less for sure.

there must be limits on how micro can be effective, otherwise dancing is acceptable too. My idea is that you should never be required to tell your men exactly who to aim to, there shouldn't be strategies to attract enemy fire to units that are a distraction and that, at the same time, manage to avoid projectiles or the consequences of hits taken in any way. There is request for lowering turn times of jav cavalry. That should not work for dancing though. Assigning damage to whovever is being shot, without any randomness, would resolve this problem once and for all, and it's the same path taken by all AoE-style RTS I know. I think it's mostly a good idea. By the way, he problem with that video is actually that the camels weren't shooting at the cav. You can see that they are chasing women and ignoring the horsemen. If cav attacked the camels, they would have achieved even better results.

My comment: If you move the Athenian Marine to the barracks or gymnasium, then I suggest you rename the unit back to its original name from years ago: Athenian Ekdromos. Full circle. If you have it trained from the dock, then "Athenian Marine" still works, but I'd keep it trained only from the dock. Keeps it unique and also keeps it thematic (marines make sense trained from a dock or ship from an in-gameworld perspective). I like either option.

Creo que hay una animación en mi mod hecha por @Lopess.

Please put some reasons why you disliked or liked the alpha 23 ranged infantry speeds in comparison to alpha 24's ranged infantry speeds, and what should have been the course of action to equalize the overall power of different ranged infantry types, slingers being more op than the other two in alpha 23.

This mod incorporates structure tree changes proposed by our historian @Thorfinn the Shallow Minded: 1. Athenians can build gym since phase 2 and train champions from it, complemented by a marathon tech to speed up champions. 2. Spartans can build Military Mess Hall in phase 2 and train the champion spearman from it. 3. Macedonians can build siege workshop in phase 2 then train siege tower and crossbow from it 4. Macedonians have access to Hetairos Companion Cavalry since phase 2. 5. Sparta and Rome get new allied slinger unit. 6. Athenians can train phase 2 champions from gym and after unlocking Iphicratean reform, marines can also be trained from the gym. 7. Romans can train Socii Slingers and Socii javelin cavalry from the new Socii Auxiliary camp, available since town phase. 8. Iberians get an unique Soliferreum elite champion javelineer unit. Newest update: compatible with A25 Git link: https://github.com/Yekaterina999/Thorfinn-Balancing-mod thorfinn.zip

In the light of the complains about increased turn rates that prevent dancing, I would like to understand if we considered simply removing spread for ranged units. It seems to me that in that case dancing would not be an issue, and we could consequently go back to normal turn speed. In my opinion, it would also reward better micro management of units.

there is an Iberian weapon, which was very important against Rome and in the Punic Wars, but it has not been added to the 0AD, nor mentioned. the Soliferreum is a heavy spear of ductile metal, created to disable shields or pierce armor and in the best case the death would be quick. to include an Iberian heavy ranged infantry, similar to the Hellenic heavy javeliners of A23, would be very nice to bring back the champions in phase 2 for all Hellenes. macedonian, sparta and athenaeans http://www.redjaen.es/francis/?m=c&o=29312&letra=&ord=&id=92508 http://www.museuprehistoriavalencia.es/web_mupreva/catalogo/24865/fr https://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soliferreum https://www.researchgate.net/figure/Figura-11-Punta-de-soliferreum-a-Vista-de-una-cara-de-la-pieza-Las-lineas-discontinuas_fig11_310662843

Exactly. If we use the exponential model and choose the appropriate value for k then the problem would be solved. The extra range of archers would not increase its damage per second because each hit has been diminished so much by the long distance.

@Stan` you are the VIP here, how we can access to the "boss" of the project?

Not sure I really understand this point. In my view, you can still have close range damage to a reasonable value, so that it is not too overpowered. Maybe you can elaborate a bit more on this? What I like with @Yekaterina proposal is that it still feels like "unique" approach to projectile in RTS, while solving dancing/turn rate issues. Constant damage independently of distance, I am afraid this is again a recipe for hard balancing between ranged units . Also, having decreased damage when distance increase will also counter balance the fact that archer are too good at turtling, without having to touch their mobility. WDYT?

Very good idea. Let's get started: which points have we decided to change and how? I think I can easily merge a few of my mods to make a big community one.

It depends i think , there is skill in optimizing your eco and that is almost completely different from combat skill. The first tends to become a glass ceiling while the latter is far trickier to gauge precisely because it has so many variables. Being good at troop micro and game sense / map knowledge are good ways to measure a player's skill but aren't always rewarded. For example, micro management's impact decreasses as the game goes on( and most games only end after phase 3) as it either dies when the game starts to chug and/or isn't really effective when going for a players home base( from my experience, an overwhelming majority of fights happen at someone's doorstep , there isn't almost any open field battles) and lastly some, not all, micro intensive units suffer from extremely awful path finding and collision issues. Might as well just set the spawn point of barracks to where the fight is and shift + mouse 1 away.

Here is my mod for the camp according to nani. Changes: 1. Health decreased from 2250 to 1500 2. Maximum garrison is 30 units 3. Maximum arrow count decreased from 15 to 7 4. Capturepoints decreased from 1500 to 1000rome-camp.zip 5. Capable of all Roman siege and ram (if captured by other civ), but rate of production decreased from 0.7 to 0.49. 6. Maximum range of defensive arrows is now 40 metres with damage 6.7 instead of 10. 7. Default arrow is 1 instead of 3.

Please do. I will upload my version of Zapotec and Bronze age Egyptians onto mod.io as well. Just registered an account there.

Good idea. If you haven't already made the fire unit I will make it.

Done https://trac.wildfiregames.com/wiki/Localization/de_DE.

It's better if they are but it's not mandatory. Reviewing means you attest that a word or a sentence is 100% correct and matches with the other translations. https://trac.wildfiregames.com/wiki/Localization As you can see at the bottom there are dedicated pages for each language where you can add more rules. I can create a German page if you want.

OK. I will drop the Myceneans. I think my approach would be to restore the civs separately instead of in a pack, so that people who only want 1 faction can just download the mod for that 1 faction. It is also easier for me ; )

Actually 0 A.D. was supposed to be the name of the franchise (e.g. Age of Empires) The game you play is called Empires Ascendant, and the Suebi, Imperial Romans, Parthians ex were supposed to be Empires Besieged.

Buenas, Y aquí líderes(caudillos/generales) Celtíberos para la "ia"[inteligencia artificial]; 1-Olíndico;----------------- (Olónico) "Caudillo celtíbero" (169 a. C.) 2-Caro de Segeda;---------(¿?) "jefe militar de la tribus celtíbera de los Belos"(153 a. C.) 3-Litenón;------------------(¿?) "Caudillo de Numancia "(152 a.c) 4-Ambon;------------------(¿?)"Caudillo de la tribu celtíbera de los Arévacos" 5-Leukon;-------------------(¿?)"Caudillo de la tribu celtíbera de los Arévacos" 6-Tangino;------------------(¿?)"Guerrero celtíbero que rompió el cerco de numancia"(141a.c) 7-Megara;-----------------(¿?)"Caudillo de Numancia " 8-Retógenes;-------------(Rectugenos)"Caudillo de la tribu celtíbera de los Arévacos"(133a.c) info en orden de aparición (1-8); https://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Olíndico https://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caro_de_Segeda http://dbe.rah.es/biografias/22746/litennon https://www.celticahispana.com/los-heroes-de-numancia/ https://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guerras_celtíberas https://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tangino https://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Megara_(Numancia) https://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Retógenes_el_Caraunio Posibles unidades para héroes íberos; 1-Caro de segeda. 2-Tangino. 3-Megara. Disculpen las molestias*

See the discussion here https://code.wildfiregames.com/D2884

@Ceres Sorry it took so long. I've added you as reviewer.

It contains some other changes than just the iberians, but now you can train a champion skirmisher from barracks since P2 and they do a little bit of crush damage aside from pierce.

thorfinn A25 iber jav.zip Hi @soloooy0 Sorry to keep u waiting here is the mod for dev version of A25. It might run on A24 as well.

I agree. I don't think the resilience of attributed to phalangites against ranged infantry had much to do with their gear. While its true that they were heavily armored, its not like heavy spearmen weren't wearing the exact same armor too, with the added advantage of a great big shield. Something worth considering is that in ancient battles, moral and intimidation were much, much more important than they are in modern warfare. Enemies were defeated, not by killing them to the last man, but by convincing them to break and run away. It could be the tight formation of pikemen made it harder to see the casualties inflicted by projectile attack than the looser formations used by other infantry types. Or maybe they were so hemmed in that it was impossible to turn and run away as an individual even if you wanted to. Regardless... I agree that the point is well made. The pikemen models in the game do not look they should by 25% more resistant to ranged attack than the spearmen. This is a case of art design saying one and gameplay saying another.

I don't think using anything as a baseball bat to smash arrows out of the air will work. The tale of pike formations using their long pikes to stop arrows is fairly common, I doubt how much it worked in practice. My guess would be that it won't give complete protection and won't be as protective as equipping each soldier with a big shield. For light armored units, big shields were fairly common and they provided good protection against arrows. The so called shield wall formation was also fairly common throughout history and lasted until late medieval periods. So I think it is justified to repeat my questions without going astray: 1-Why do pikemen have high armor (pikemen did not carry a shield as big as swordsmen did)? 2-Why do swordsmen beat spearmen in melee and why is pikemen in melee defeated by both swordsmen and spearmen?

I get it. So this mod simply provides a baseline for accuracy, pumping up long term damage especially at longer distances. Don't think I like it though. What I personally would like most is a deterministic (random is ok, but it doesn't make much sense in a game with health points I believe) damage that depends on distance, similarly to spread, but doesn't depend on movement or any other thing that has to do with details that aren't in the scope of 0 AD to simulate, like density of formations.

I feel the need to point out that in A25 the icon for barracks have been renamed to 'barracks.png', in A24 the name was 'pers_barracks.png'. Modders need to beware of this. The appearance of the icons are still identical.

Pikemen typically formed a phalanx, in which the sarissa of the men in back rows are lifted at an angle, forming a dense matrix of spikes (like a hedgehog). The sarissa points are capable of deflecting incoming projectiles. Very few projectiles can actually pass the columns of spike and reach the soldier. Even if they do, the soldiers have helmets to protect them. At the front the Sarissa prevents enemy from reaching them, and can intercept incoming projectiles like how you would play tennis / baseball.

If there is someone who is rated above 1400, I would be open to try a mod with that person and test balance. So if you see me around in the lobby, you can ping me. It is not that I have a problem with people rated below 1400, but I feel that the result would depend on the difference in player skill instead of the mod features.

I do like that we are considering unit roles. What my questions are about the game: 1-Why do pikemen have high armor (pikemen did not carry a shield as big as swordsmen did)? 2-Why do swordsmen beat spearmen in melee and why is pikemen in melee defeated by both swordsmen and spearmen? To be historically accurate, if you have a spear you can carry a big shield and you deserve the defensive bonus, while the pikemen should win in melee against spearmen. So it seems to be in reverse.

@soloooy0 here.

If you want P2 champs check out thorfinn the shallow minded mod

One MEELION polygons.

Bonus Rust Some ingots. ingots.psd

true that. the second part of the clip is the relevant one here.

Sure. You need to run git diff -U5000 > file.diff at the root of the repo and upload the diff file on Phab.

Brilliant @nani I think we just need to make sure that there is a reasonable amount of time for stopping the upgrade if one really wants to keep that enemy camp from getting stronger, perhaps a bit longer than current sentry to defense tower upgrade. Thoughts?

I agree, but at slow speed as nani suggested. I see a mod coming up.

I make suggestion: Keep the same cost as of now: only 500 wood Keep the same minimun proximity from other camps (keep it as it is now) Lower the hp to 1500 Lower the max arrow count to half Lower max garrison to 30 Make optional upgrade for each camp of 500 metal (or stone idk) to increase by 2x the hp and arrow count (this could be two diferent upgrades too, metal for arrow, stone for hp) *** The upgrades would only affect the upgraded camp Allow to make siege again, maybe make it 30% slower to produce That I think would please people, easy to make easy to kill, leave enemy too much time with roman camp then is your fault he made upgrades.

Roman camps needs siege to be built from them. Otherwise, they are just decorations on enemy territory.

Well.. I can start I guess. I liked that different attack strategies were used depending on the ranged unit types. Ranged units were much more dynamic and variable in a23. The damage increases for slingers and skirmishers did not come close to compensating for their inability to reach archers. Archers have neigh unlimited flexibility and they can not be over-extended easily like in a23 archery accuracy and archery tradition were enough to make archers a bit op, let alone the effective buff to their speed. I think a good idea would be to revert speeds for them all to a23 levels and start changes for a25 from there. Slingers could remain the same speed as in a24, with skirmishers a bit faster and archers a bit slower.

Hey everybody, happy to report a LOT of new 0 A.D. music coming! I'm working on a bunch of tracks, and @Samulis contributed a lot of excellent ones as well! I've noted the request for more battle music, will see what I can come up with! Though to the best of my knowledge there are two combat tracks from Jeff Willet, Elusive Predator and First Sighting - is there only one on the game playlist? Might be worth checking. Thanks, Omri

Notice that no palisades were (ab)used by this player !!!!!!!! This is clearly an invitation for the enemy to come and try to take the civic center down. To me this demonstrate a high sense of morality and ethic by this player who wanted to assess the strengh of the combination fort/civic center with the only aim to try to comment on balancing posts in the forum!

-.- good start

Great reference here: