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For the Dacians, I suggest at least: - A cheap and lightly armored falx warrior - Archers with scythian bows - Cavalry archers with scythian bows - Thureophoroi-like javelineer - Warriors champions with scales armor and a sword https://europabarbarorum.fandom.com/wiki/Drapanai_(Dacian_Shock_Infantry)#EB2 http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showthread.php?754138

Duileoga proposed them: I agree on those three, but I would consider Seuthes III as well. Maybe instead of Sitalces.

Merged the threads as requested.

Yes, I always facepalm when I see the healers healing each other while the army dies o when you send an attack order and all units including healers go to the front lines XD instead of healing position.

For the particular case of A25 we're going to be providing test bundles soon (1-2 days at most)

The RM scripts sometimes contain a lot of logic to avoid these issues, but it remains tricky.

Alpha 25 Pre-release/Release Candidate Testing Thread. This thread will become active as soon as Pre-release/Release builds of Alpha 25 are available. Check back for updates. First testing bundle - revision 25741 Second testing bundle - Revision 25760 First RC - Revision 25799 Second RC - Revision 25808 Third RC - Revision 25840 Fourth RC - Revision 25842 Fifth RC - Revision 25848

This thread started because of this: I would like to request historians and any players to drop below plausible names from each of the civilisations for the AIs to use. We need some Persian, Mauryan and Seleucid names, but any other civs names are also welcome, including mod civs. @Ceres @Thorfinn the Shallow Minded

alome Alexandra began her reign in 76 B.C. by decrying her husband's misdeeds. Upon his death, she booted out the Sadduccees and brought the Pharisees into power. To placate the Sadducees, Salome Alexandra granted them control of some military fortresses, but she made Pharisees her main officers. Josephus claims that "the Pharisees governed her" and were "the real administrators of the public affairs" (The Jewish War 1:5:2). This moderation temporarily ended the conflict between the Pharisees and Sadducees. The "country was entirely at peace," says Josephus (Antiquities of the Jews 13:16:2). Salome Alexandra's domestic decisions were practical, says Schiffman. "You've got somebody who's [a] relative to Pharisees, who can see the people supported the Pharisees, could see that her husband's fighting with the Pharisees had been a major part of [his trouble], and that the easiest way to cement her reign was by supporting the Pharisees." These factors made putting the Pharisees in power the "natural thing to do," he adds. What brought about this time of peace? In the last three decades of Alexander Jannaeus's reign, "he was constantly campaigning overseas," notes Atkinson. The queen "ended her husband's unpopular wars that had been going on for decades—foreign wars, civil wars," he adds. "The queen also "pushed off Tigranes the Armenian somehow and apparently participated in some campaigns to restore power on the borders of her own empire, which were weakened at the end of Jannaeus's reign," says Schiffman. By making peace with other nations and reinforcing treaties by taking hostages, Salome Alexandra kept her enemies at bay. "She increased the army [by] one half and procured a great body of foreign troops," writes Josephus. Judea became "became not only very powerful at home, but terrible also to foreign potentates" (The Jewish War 1:5:2). Peace lent itself to international trade. Salome Alexandra completed Alexander Jannaeus's "conquest of the Arab kingdom of Nabataea, which is in modern-day Jordan," Atkinson notes. Once she annexed Nabataea, she garrisoned the area and "reopened the trade routes" with Judea. The Talmud praises Salome Alexandra's reign. "It looks on her reign as a golden age, which is really quite surprising," says Atkinson. "They would look back at all the rulers and say, �Her reign was the greatest.'" But was Salome Alexandra's reign all roses? The Pharisees and their heirs wrote the Talmud after her reign, one in which "their points of view were being taken more seriously and they were much more powerful," says Schiffman.

Maybe if you consider a "tsunami" to be 1 ram, 2 spears, 2 skirms, and 13 women, "pouring" to be a single wave, and "at minute 5" to mean around minute 7. If you can't defend against that then you bigger problems than how many p1 and p2 buildings are required for your enemy to go p3. If you don't build a proper base then you won't have the benefits that come along with it, including population cap space from houses, men from barracks, military upgrades from blacksmiths, trading ability from markets, etc. Instead the current setup limits player strategy by forcing a specific build order. Just let players decide and the game will become far less predictable than it is now where I know every player builds a lot of houses, storehouses, and farms in p1, a market, blacksmith, and two other buildings in p2, and a siege factory in p3.

Me and @Lopess almost close to finishing the first version of this mod xd (after 15,000 years!)

I have not been given credit for the Latin voice when it says: "quid est?"

Thracians had siege weapons at least defensively, we have evidence of artillery fortification. Dacians, not at my knowledge (but I know much less their situation).

Those are Thracians

At first this seems outrageous, but is actually hella logical. This also opens up a bunch of possible strategies that are out of the envelope due to building constraints on going p2/p3.

Sorry @Yekaterina, while you may be no artist, I am neither an artist or programmer. I am simple gamer. What I can say is that I dislike mercenary cost reduction as a tech or hero bonus that is available for only a few civs. This means that no one will use the mercs that can't use those bonuses. Also, we should not need a tech/hero bonus just to make mercs affordable for a subset of factions, they should be affordable for all civs that have mercs. Perhaps a mercenary armor buff like +3 hack +3 pierce would be nice with a range of 60 m. After all, mercenaries are in a tough position, and I don't expect them to be usable in a25 either.

I had already compiled successfully with VS a few weeks ago, but it always is a hassle (for me ). EDIT: What is your recommendation in a25 about healers in the sense of stance, formation, and moving orders? Should they have the same as the battling unit(s) they are accompanying? Is there a way to kind of "glue" them to these other units, so they always stand/walk/run with them irrespective of stance, formation, and moving orders? Or do you keep the healers in the second (or third) line, awaiting hurt units? Is there a command/stance that sends hurt units away from the foes? If yes, in which direction - just opposide or anywhere, where there is room? Or even back to healers (if available)? I understand that all this might be too fancy (and too much automatism - the human player should still have the power to decide), but maybe this is just a small idea for future discussions.

Oh, that's wonderful news - thank you all! Then I shall be patient and wait.

This thread is about making the mods for Illyrians and Thracians compatible for A25. By default they are compatible for A23 or A24, and these are the screenshots of the current structure roster and unit rosters. Illyrians: Thracians:

And I find this a gem (lots of photos and inspiration - I am so sorry that I lack the skills to create something myself for 0 A.D. from it): http://etheses.bham.ac.uk/7749/1/Mangum17PhD_size_reduced.pdf More photos of historically accurate (it reads) Thracian and Dacian weapons: https://fi.pinterest.com/siresasa/ancient-thracian-dacian-weapons-only-historically-/ And you will find nice photos with text about Odrysian Cavalry Arms, Equipment, and Tactics there: https://www.academia.edu/744900/Odrysian_Cavalry_Arms_Equipment_and_Tactics And last but not least, here is some maybe useful info about the Thracian horseman, an abstract figure in Thracian religion as protector of life and health of the people: https://legio-iiii-scythica.com/index.php/en/history-and-artifacts/anniversary-events/thracian-cohorts-and-la-in-the-roman-invasion-of-britain.html https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thracian_horseman

use dacian mercenary actor as CS.

See there: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thracian_warfare#Infantry_and_Cavalry And about tactics/special wepons: And about a dreaded weapon called rhomphaia: I find it interesting to learn that this weapon even led to a change of Romans' armour. BTW, does 0 A.D. consider maluses and bonuses when specific weapons/armour hit each other? Sorry about my ignorance of this topic. If it does, then maybe Romans on the lowest rank do not yet have the reinforced armour, leading to more damage when hit by the Thracians' rhomphaia? (if this is too complicated, please ignore my idea) While referring only to Wikipedia so far, their webpage might bring more inspiration for the civ of Thracians in 0 A.D. If I find more, I will post it here. Is there anything else that you are interested in, or more details? E.g. what exactly about cavalry? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thracian_warfare The falx, a weapon with a curved blade that was sharp on the inside edge used by the Thracians and Dacians – and, later, a siege hook used by the Romans, is described there: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Falx For more photos, see there: https://stock.adobe.com/de/images/archaeological-finds-ancient-tool-of-the-5th-century-gladiator-weapons-sickle-thracian-and-dacian-falx-siege-hook/231262599 https://www.everypixel.com/image-9211900458387117226 The sica was a short sword or large dagger of ancient Thracians, Dacians and Illyrians, used in Ancient Rome too, originating in the Halstatt culture. It was originally depicted as a curved sword (see the Zliten mosaic as well as numerous oil lamps) and many examples have been found in what are today Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Serbia and Romania. It is also depicted on Trajan's Column; notably the Dacian king Decebalus is depicted committing suicide with one. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sica Uniform of a Thracian - that weblink might contain more stuff for inspiration, though I have no idea how authentic that all is: https://www.pinterest.co.uk/pin/811773901558874784/ A publication titled "THE FORTIFICATIONS OF THE EARLY HELLENISTIC THRACIAN CITY OF SEUTHOPOLIS: BREAKING THE MOLD" (you need to register to download the PDF, but you can read content without registration). There are sketches of a reconstruction of a fortification wall - maybe useful, too. https://www.academia.edu/424819/THE_FORTIFICATIONS_OF_THE_EARLY_HELLENISTIC_THRACIAN_CITY_OF_SEUTHOPOLIS_BREAKING_THE_MOLD Info about Helis, the capital of the Getae: https://bnt.bg/news/archaeological-discoveries-about-the-ancient-thracian-city-of-helis-the-capital-of-the-getae-126683news.html The Getae (/ˈdʒiːtiː, ˈɡiːtiː/ JEE-tee, GHEE-tee) or Gets (/dʒɛts, ɡɛts/ JETS, GHETS; Ancient Greek: Γέται, singular Γέτης) were several Thracian-related[1] tribes that once inhabited the regions to either side of the Lower Danube, in what is today northern Bulgaria and southern Romania. Both the singular form Get and plural Getae may be derived from a Greek exonym: the area was the hinterland of Greek colonies on the Black Sea coast, bringing the Getae into contact with the ancient Greeks from an early date. Although it is believed that the Getae were related to their westward neighbours, the Dacians, several scholars, especially in the Romanian historiography, posit that the Getae and the Dacians were the same people. Herodot is told to have written (see also there, though restricted access) about the Thracians:

Maybe a shield? I will give it some linothorax

@Stan` What do you think about this as a mercenary cavalry spearman? (my first attempt at creating an actor)

No it's only meant for debugging.

Currently the engine doesn't support affecting the pathfinder (or anything else) with terrain textures. I think the pathfinder consider the grid to be uniform, as in it would ignore units being slower on mud if that was implemented.

If I'm interpreting parameters in simulation\data\pathfinder.xml correctly, the maximum passable incline for both units and buildings is 45 degrees. Personally I think a good practice for any map maker is to mark any impassable inclines with a unique terrain texture. That way there is no ambiguity about where units and buildings can go.

I have commenced working on Dacians Mod. Please give me some suggestions and propose an unit roster.

Updates to the Judean Faction: 1. New heroes 2. New mercenary spear cavalry and champion sword cavalry 3. Special mercenary swordsman. 4. Fixed bugs and inconsistencies. Please check out here: https://github.com/Yekaterina999/Judeans-Hasmonian.git @Lion.Kanzen @wackyserious @Stan` it is pretty much ready to go, only need a few art models.

this thread is about a quick balancing issue. displaying the garrison on top of fortresses, like they are on walls, is something I would like a lot, but I don't dare to ask because it's also a lot of work. If you want to try that, I can only say thank you.

At the moment it is just about parallel research. I don't think most players can afford to research techs at that rate if we give it a bonus. The only reason why I can afford this is because I have mined a lot of metal in village phase and can barter more using excess food or stone.

Maybe it will be possible to restrict it using the new placement obstructors introduced in A25.

Need more Iberian names, so it seems.

I think it's likely you didn't recompile? I should have specified this was necessary. Now there has been an auto build, so you should be able to tweak things. It is definitely working for me, see the following comparison screenshots. This is 2 groups of 100 units crossing each other's path at 0 extension, 2.5 extension, 5 extension, and then at 2.5 with lower MinPushing factors. This is ordering these 200 units to go somewhere at 0/2.5/5 Edit -> BTW, you can 'hotload' your changes by quick saving and quick loading.

Athenians Britons Carthaginians Epirotes Gauls Han Chinese Iberians Imperial Romans Kushites Macedonians Mauryas Persians Ptolemies Romans Scythians Seleucids Spartans Thebes Xiongnu Zapotecs

ignore the palm tree, that is decorative from the locals. I don't know if this is ornamental. Short grass texture looks like this. Near the roads. The rock texture is like this. This soil is rock on some sides, there is no dirt. This is dirt, almost like sand. It is light in color and very fine.

Hello @user1 my lobby name: Bellanzio offending user name: troll The opponent was the host and they ended the game without resigning when it was clear they were going to lose commands.txt

Hey @stierkampf it's usually cause you still have mods enabled that were only compatible with A23. You can remove them from the user.cfg file. See https://trac.wildfiregames.com/wiki/FAQ and https://trac.wildfiregames.com/wiki/GameDataPaths

Usually it means a not good map design.

Possible reason: a part of that terrain is considered buildable for buildings, so the foundation can be placed down across the two types of terrains, as long as the greater part of the foundation is in the buildable terrain. However, it might be impossible for the worker to walk to an edge of the building and start working on it as they might be forced to traverse through an unpassable terrain. In this situation I recommend just deleting the foundation before you start and build it elsewhere. You won't lose much resources.

Good news still on this front: I've increased the flexibility of the system so you can play with 3 more settings, and fixed an issue so it's possible to have units push each other more, so things should death ball _less_. See https://code.wildfiregames.com/D4098 which I've merged. I'll still take player input during Feature Freeze, but I expect these new settings will be overall more satisfactory.

For the 50th consecutive Sunday (allowing for the one that was a few days late while I was moving house) - I have a Sunday replay for y'all! We're closing in on the first anniversary of 0AD Newbie Rush, 83 videos in total so far if you include midweek games, free 4 All's, tutorials and mod features It's been fun and plenty more to come.

Hi Yakaterina, I like it, cool concept.... Just one small suggestion on the Thracians...make all the roofs of all buildings, the same color... About those Illirians, I think that those guys did some piracy for some time under a Pirate queen, I watched a Kings and Generals video in Youtube, telling the story.... It will be great to make an scenario base on that war... The Roman Republic end up sending an Army to Illiria to get them.....anyway...is looking nice.... I like them.... .I am new to the game, and fallen in love with the Atlas Editor. Been playing and experimenting, learning and at this moment, working on a Scenario, that I have been going around showing to other players here on the forum, for the last few weeks...to see if anyone with experience at modding, or designing scenarios can help me polish it, either by testing, or by programming, or art design... I named 0 AD Empires at War, and is for 8 players or one or a few players against the Al....the scenario is base on the central European and Mediterranean world, and look like a Huge caricature of all that region, is a gigantic map, and have the 8 main civilizations of the age that tend to be the most popular or mainstream, or most History books. I have the Illirians and Pirrians as buffer states in the scenario, so a few Gaul tribes spread across what is supposed to be France, Germany and the low countries... I don't have the Thracians because I understand they were Macedonians or very closed related to that civilization, and are therefore well represented by the Macedonians, Someone should make the Germans, some day...anyway...... I do really like what I see on those pictures of your mod and would like to add those 2 to the 0 AD Empires at War scenario...what can you tell me about them as civilizations in the game,????? what kind of tech and military powers make them exalt as a Civ in the game????? And where can I download them??/ link please...... By the way, I want to take the opportunity to tell you that, a few days ago,I got in communication with one of your top modder's team members from the forum, but the man look very busy.... and he hasn't written me back...and I don't want to bug him neither.... But I do really want to let you know...that I'm looking for someone to help me polish the scenario for testing, fix any bugs, and for publishing on line, so people from all over the world can play with it.... In my personal life I am a Commercial graphic designer and have my own print shop ( close now by the way...because the virus) so I have been like a month working on the design of the map and have a few Ideas about the concept...that constantly change...but....I'm learning as I go.......and I do reckon that I do really need someone that know his ways around the game...for real man.... and know it's design engine, programming, triggering, and have a huge imagination... bigger and better organize than mine....mine is insane....LOL........so you know, to make it happens.... I'm putting a lot of love on it, man, for real......I do really think it will be a great Scenario because it will be educational for it's histical content, for all players from the start. Players will start with some buildings and units in the regions that really represent that region of the world....and a map like this one...if is done right by the right people...will kick ass....I'm sending you a preview...take a look and tell me what you think....what can make it better??....if you like what you see....let me know...and let's make it happens, tell some of your brothers at the forum about it..in case you can't, is cool with me...may be one or a few of your brothers may do...let them know........ and thanks for your time and attention Yakaterina....that name of your sound cool..where you from???? Here is a small preview of how is looking so far....thanks.

Odrysian mainly with the Illyrians all the tribes and their influence outside the territory.

What's the period why are talking about? Lysimachus' hellenic thrace or the Odrysians? Th Ardiaei for the illyrians?

As you can see, the Thracians are much more complete in comparison and have their own buildings and unit models. Meanwhile, the Illyrian actors are just a combination of Spartan and other Hellenic models. The Thracians can already run on A25 without many errors whereas the Illyrians are unusable. Looking at the structure tree here are the proposed fixes / improvements for each of the 2 civs: Thracians: 1. Give them some siege weapons 2. Fix training units and add units to correct buildings (with reference to the standard roster of A25) 3. Give them some champion units 4. Give them some team bonus 5. Give them their own wonder and more original unit models (thanks to the art team in advance) Illyrians: 1. Fix all their bugs first! 2. Replace Spartan models with more Illyrian stuff (art team needed here as well) I will be working on them for the next few weeks, as I have more urgent mods to take care of right now (bellum) before feature freeze.

I don't really have an answer to any of these questions. All I know is that an RTS like 0 A.D. is a complex system, and this looks like it could have a lot of subtle impacts, and I'm not convinced it would actually make the game more _fun_, or even more interesting to play. I'm just not very involved in gameplay at the moment (well, really, since forever), because I'm currently more interested by engine changes (including e.g. pushing, though I recognise it has gameplay impacts). I think the 0 A.D. gameplay is kind of coincidental, and we should mostly focus on improving what we have rather than changing it, because we don't have a very good plan on where to go if we were to do that, but we do have players that enjoy the gameplay right now.

I have doubts about directional attacks so long as then engine doesn't really care about rotation for units (and it doesn't, for the most part). That being said, perhaps I'm a bit pessimistic on this. I won't lie, I'll finish that sentence with "and it works very well for them". ---- Realistically, I don't think we'll get to directional damage in A25, and I am unconvinced (and have been for years) by talks of more advanced formation combat and such. 0 A.D. has a fundamental economic aspect and any fight system will suffer from the 'continuous reinforcement' effect, which is _completely_ unrealistic and breaks down any comparison with history or indeed games like Total War. And I personally don't particularly care to try and change it. I like Age of Empires a lot. Making retreating harder will simply make the fights even more snow-bally than they already are, and I fear that's not a great direction to go in right 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.