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Could there have been black Roman soldiers? Yes, but they would have been rare. Would it make sense to include a super rare black legionnaire or auxiliary variant? Yeah, it could make sense. It would be a nice little detail. It just takes someone with motivation to add such a variant (texture, actor work). Is it a bad thing that they have not yet been included? No. You can't expect an historical game to include every outlier imaginable.

I replied there.

As far as I seem RTS games are major abstractions, unlike city builders or grand strategy games, both of which oftentimes try to represent some of the nuances of their subject matter. The RTS game is far different with its approach, tending more towards simplicity. Examples include units and buildings taking seconds to complete. Thus, a complex system is not necessary to represent its subject matter. That is why a simple, intuitive option can be introduced that does the job even if it does not consider my hoplite Lysimachus' views on the advantages of olive production. As I more or less laid out before, slaves would be good economic units, yet they would be fragile and capable of being captured (I thought for a while about the idea of them being able to potentially run away, but as I saw, a mechanic like could be frustrating.) I would stress that slaves would in many cases be an efficient economic unit, but not necessarily that much better than other units. Freemen would be much like a typical unit yet only be able to advance to the second rank. Citizens would be able to advance to the third rank. There are exceptions to these rules: helots would behave differently, and technologies could possibly make the dynamics change. For instance Rome to my knowledge had some of the best social mobility for slaves, and a technology to represent that could be introduced. Anyways, just to reiterate the primary point of this topic, I merely think that when you look at a unit in game, it should not be called a 'citizen' if it was not historically such. The simplest option of removing that description. Worker does an adequate job of establishing their role outside of soldiering.

The fact that women have a farming bonus is an abstract projection of historical agriculture being female specialized. You can't frame that abstract concept as concrete and claim the game is portraying every single women as a farmer. The same goes for almost all of the points highlighted on the top of this thread. You could lose that abstraction and actually design a game around with concrete identities, but as of now, the discussion is moot. It's the same reason why realistic time cannot be used in RTS games, and time is also abstracted away, which is why I cringe when someone suggests adding day and night cycles. Do you know how weird and stupid it would make the game when you add concrete timeflow.

As I see it, the original vision of 0 AD was to create a gameplay setting in which the ancient civilizations of a certain timeframe could all fight it out. Even if historically some of them never crossed paths, the fun was in seeing what the result might be if you took two or more civs, as-is, and pitted them against one another. From the beginning, historical accuracy was paramount, except insofar as the mechanics of gameplay demanded. https://trac.wildfiregames.com/wiki/0AD_The_Vision “It is a moment in time that never was. It is the spring of the world, and the dawn of history. It is a glimpse into an era when the empires of the world are at their zenith. It is but a breath of an age when mighty rulers wield rods of iron and brazen swords; to demonstrate that they are indeed the greatest ancient civilisation!” Now, no one’s denying that women served in leadership capacities or even in specific elite unit roles every so often, but I take issue with any proposed altering of the nearly-universally-male composition of 0 AD’s fighting forces to give the impression that the duly constituted armies of the Greco-Roman cultures and of their enemies contained a significant obviously-female rank-and-file presence. I fail to see any compelling reason, gameplay-based or otherwise, why such an ahistorical change is necessary, and the development team would need to see some reliable sources before they consider taking such a drastic step.

I will go further, I want to see blacks, asians and whites in every civs. Because it is FUN. I want to see white nubians among Kushites and black hastati among the Romans.

That was my thought, although I personally don't feel any sexism in the game and not offended by the idea of cavalry rush killing all women neither. I do that a lot myself!

Classes are meant to allow certain technologies, effects, aurae, selection to be performed on a group of entities. 0ad "Classes" and historical social classes have nothing in common at all. So slaves as a unit type could and probably should also get the Class Citizen. While the Class name Citizen isn't perfect it's not half as distorting history as depicting slaves as miners. The CEO of a global consortium like Nestle might have been a slave in Rome while the beggar living under the bridge would have been a freeman. Anyway changing the Class name Citizen wouldn't improve historical accuracy as it has technically nothing to do with history in the first place. On the other hand it causes major issues. The suggestion to only rename it on the surface increase complexity for maintainers and new contributors alike and should be considered code rot. The opinion that it's easy and doesn't come at a major cost and just has to be done right won't ever be uttered by a seasoned developer either.

Delenda Est has slaves, I don't see why vanilla 0ad can't. However, as Genava stated, not all civs used slaves so Maurya don't get any. That is a good nerf for them compared to other civs. I would still recommend waiting until at least A27 to implement slaves as currently lobby players don't really welcome big changes such as this. Also I agree with Delenda Est idea of having citizens of both genders: not all men in a whole city state go to war whenever there is a skrimish; there are always men who are unsuitable for fighting. However, I don't agree with Crea's view of the game being sexist because there are female warriors and heroes in civs where appropriate. Blame the ancient Greeks for being sexist and not the devs! Again, I would not introduce new unit roles for now, let's just change the name to worker-soldier or something along those lines.

First of all, all of the biomes are beautiful, so well done to all of the map makers and art department. However, I just need to point out the nub biomes: 1. Sudanian Savanna is nub, because of weird tree distribution. 2. Nubia is nub as the name suggests, as you can't really tell the fruit trees from regular palm trees. Tree distribution is also a bit strange. All other biomes are fine for TG, but watch out for the very small bushes.

I have added Marcus Aurelius and Emperor Aurelian as the 4th and 5th Imperial Roman heroes. Ideas for their bonuses: Emperor Marcus Aurelius Philosopher Emperor "Frontier Defender": All nearby Walls and Fortresses +50% health and +1 arrow "Temperance": Marcus +25% more health than other Roman heroes "Meditations": All remaining Technologies research instantly Mount: Marcus Aurelius rides his war horse Faustina when upgraded Soft Bonus: Choosing Marcus Aurelius unlocks the Roman Cataphract champion unit Emperor Aurelian Restorer of the World "Restitutor Orbis": Emperor Aurelian +300% more capture attack than other heroes "Cavalry" Aura: Nearby Roman Cavalry +20% health, +20% speed "Currency Reform": All tax paying units and structures +20% coin trickle Mount: Aurelian rides his armored war horse Invictus when upgraded Soft Bonus: Choosing Aurelian unlocks the Roman Cataphract champion unit ; also some other units look different (3rd century armor)

When firing, the cavalry archers currently implemented ingame has to stop fully, aim, then fire. This is great for taking an accurate shot but not necessarily historically accurate for all civilisations. Some cavalry archers like the Parthians could aim and fire while the horse is running at full speed. Although not always accurate, it is still deadly as a large number of cavalry means continuous arrow shower from all directions and the agility of the cavalry will save them from charging infantry. I am not the first person to suggest this, here are the posts:

Maybe don't ditch the name but since these are rarely used it would indicate that their current implementation is not worth it. Maybe embrace the name and redesign a unit around the name that is some sort of assassin? Maybe can only have 1 max, like a hero. They can kill hero's really fast but are vulnerable in some way so people would want to kill it before it reaches their hero. Or maybe some type of stealthy design that is similar, can only have max 1 or something.

Sometimes the archers don't shoot at the target that you right-clicked, instead they shoot at something else. This is also a problem with catapults. Also sometimes the model sizes are too small to be clicked on accurately.

so it's been a while since I posted DerpHammer 2.0 is progressing slowly, but it is progressing! I just ported it over to the Alpha 25 Pre-release version (the second release candidate specifically) everything went well, except I'm having issues with the structure tree for the Dwarf faction it is completely broken and I'm getting these messages, though I don't know what they mean: for the Empire faction, the tree works but I'm still getting some of the messages: I've tried looking what I did differently between the two to find out why one works and the other doesn't, but I can't figure it out...

Manjaro is only good for Linux noobs who want to try Arch but can't install it themselves. Manjaro is usable out-of-the-box and provides good support for gaming. Apart from that, it is trash. The last time I tried it it got itself into an endless loop of dependency clashes and eventually failed to boot. AUR works better on real arch. Remember this: real Arch or no Arch.

A big change in 0 A.D. Alpha 25 is the reworking of biomes. This is something that’s slightly slipped under the radar in the run up to the launch of the new Alpha, so here is a brief look at some of the changes you can expect to see. Biomes are integral to 0 A.D. They are the visual and physical environment that each game is played within. We all have our favourites – or bogey biomes we dread getting in a random match. They’ve remained largely the same over that last few iterations of 0 A.D. – but Alpha 25 will see them undergo something of a shake-up. What Technically Is A ‘Biome’ In The Context Of 0 A.D? Biomes bring textures and natural objects, such as trees and animal species, together to simulate an environment you would find in the world. Why Are Biomes Different In Alpha 25? 0 A.D. Forum member, modder and contributor, @wowgetoffyourcellphone, has been adding new texture assets to diversify and modify existing biomes in his 0 A.D. expansion mod, Delenda Est, for some time. He has been the driving force in getting these enhancements into the core game, along with assistance from fellow contributor, @maroder. The result of this work will be seen for the first time within Alpha 25. What Will Be The Most Noticeable Differences? New terrains and their biomes will be more coherently put together, as opposed to the more ad-hoc nature that they were added previously. And the new terrains with be of a consistent 2k resolution, incorporating normal and specular maps. Previously, terrains were of varying resolutions and only a few had normal or spec maps. Wow, These Biomes Look Awesome! They sure do! And it’s worth highlighting that all of the new terrains come from sources licensed as Creative Commons CC0 – ‘No Rights Reserved,’ – to show how far CC0 assets have come and that you don’t have to purchase assets in order to make your game look good. What About The New Names? Are These Whole New Environments Or Just The Old Ones Renamed? Some (like temperate) are extensive redresses of old biomes, while others (like India and Nubia) are completely new. More new biomes should be in the works for the following alpha as well. Eventually all the old assets will be superseded by all-new ones.

That the Earth isn't flat is a fact, not an opinion. Your opinion about it can be wrong or right like you said. Another example, a gender biased society during ancient times and across multiple civilizations is a fact. Your opinion about it can be wrong or right in regards to this fact. Portraying differently the society in 0AD is a choice. Your opinion cannot be right or wrong in regards to a fact. It is easy to critizise when you are not trying to formulate a criterion yourself. You are simply saying the game has inaccuracies and you follow by asking for further inaccuracies. This is a logical loop and there is no criterion in your formulation to bound it. When I gave you nonsense examples like what if the Romans had black powder, it sounded illogical to you. But at no point you were able to formulate a criterion to explain why it sounds illogical. That's the issue with your reasoning and your whole demonstration trying to say there is no absolute rule we follow. Your reasoning and arguments are a pandora's box by itself because you can apply it to any suggestions.

These are really nice! It really appeals to my inner Romeaboo . That being said, you might want to save Aurelian for the Dominate Romans, if you're planning on making them? I can understand wanting to have a more cavalry-based hero for differentiation, but imo coming after the Crisis of the Third Century makes him part of the Dominate, even if he came before Diocletian. Better choices for a solidly Principate-era emperor could be Claudius or Hadrian. Claudius was known for strengthening traditional Roman religion against the eastern mystery cults, maybe one of his powers could be increasing the healing power of the Priests? He was also known for using freedmen in his administration, maybe he could unlock the ability to upgrade slaves into something like the Chinese minister. Hadrian would have the same wall-building power as Aurelian, plus the ability to unlock certain Greek structures or mercenaries, since he was a huge hellenophile. And you could add one of the bad emperors as an easter egg. Nero or Commodus could be fun to play with

Thanks, glad you're liking it! I've played it a few times since you added them, I think it really adds a lot to the realism. If you want to differentiate the civs like in Mare Nostrum, you could use Olive Groves (Elaionas) for the Hellenic civs and Date Palm Groves for African and Asian civs. You might have missed those templates; they aren't located in the regular civ folders, they're located under structures/hele, structures/mesop, and structures/nile (long story short, I rewrote Builder.js to replace {civ} with the culture code if it can't find the template with the civ code, so for example will look for structures/hele/field_cash_crop if it can't find structures/athen/field_cash_crop). Here's what they look like: Off the top of my head you could use cacao groves for the Mesoamerican civs and silk worm farms for the Chinese. I haven't added those factions, so it isn't high on my priorities list, but you might want to look into it.

Agreed. It's like if we made a game about modern warfare and folks insisted the Saudi faction include female soldiers. Just an example. There are ways to include women in the game. The two-gender citizens patch is a good way. Most Athenian citizen women, for example, would have been cloistered inside, but there were likely plenty of lower class and metic women who had to tend the family shop or do some farm work, not to mention the pornoi (prostitutes) and hetaerae (companions), who were out and about. And then there were festival days when women of all classes could leave home and participate. So, as an abstraction, having a mix of female and male citizens can make sense. Mixing in female variants into the soldiery, there isn't much justification there. Though, we don't have to completely dismiss any female representation in the ranks, as there are a handful of extraordinary examples we can include in the game, especially in campaigns. And then there are a couple possible factions, such as Scythians and Xiongnu, where we can justify some significant female presence on the battlefield (or at least in some supportive roles).

There is a proof of concept lying around, but it is far from finished (and outdated). Do note that using BuildingAI for the turret mechanic will probably not be favoured, since the unit misses the animation. That said, with the current mechanics one *can* use turrets for chariots, but ordering them will not behave as expected. In short: You can make a patch, but I think the chances are slim it will be implemented, unless someone improves the handling.

Actually, the earth is flat on every infinitesimal point on it. That said, please, @Genava55 and @m7600 keep it polite and don't attack eachother on this argument. You don't agree on this point but you both still love the game (and eachother <3 ).

What if the Romans discovered black powder? What if the Spartans were bodybuilders fighting naked like in 300? What if this is a pandora box full of nonsenses that knows no end? Maybe you are simply lacking any motivation about history, thats why you are missing the point.

The problem with your position is that you are nitpicking every details unrealistic or not historical to argue for further unrealistic and not historical details. This attitude is really bothering and you are acting in bad faith. Where is the limit in your view? At which point you are considering that historical accuracy should have a weight in decisions if you consider de facto the game as inaccurate? My position is always the same, the game cannot be totally historical or realistic but we can still portray civilisations the more accurate possible to give a better representation to people of what they looked like. For me, an issue like Britons fighting the Kushites isn't bothering me because at least the civs are more accurate on their own. Britons fighting Kushites is a contextual issue in regards to history. While a gender neutral society for each civ is an issue per se. It will dampen down the accurracy of the civilization portrayed on its own. For such cosmetic changes, I don't see the benefit outweighting the cost.

I was just nitpicking, if the elephants lose their crushing damage, I am fine with it. Their role in siege warfare is minor. But I really object against any gender neutral army, this is going in contradiction with ancient cultures and their beliefs.

That makes sense. This will probably make chariots more fun to use. It is probably also more balance-risk to enable this for non-chariot units.

Brilliant idea ....that i completely forgot to add, oops! It will be there no worries

I really don't understand until today why the two gendered citizen mod was not added, I believe some civs, merchants and priests could also be of both genders.

Another problem: people don't enjoy 0ad purely because it is historically accurate or politically correct, they find it FUN. What makes 0AD enjoyable: the challenge to survive and thrive with your civilisation on a map with limited resources, while facing attacks from the opponent. At no point did absolute historical accuracy come into that statement. We can even forego history completely and make the game full of cheat units, aliens, gunners and so on and it still would be just as enjoyable as long as the balancing works. However, we still want some historical accuracy to be consistent with the theme of Classical era history. Another aspect is commanding these civs to fight with others and rewrite history, which is also fun. It doesn't matter whether Mauryans ever had a fight with Britons, it is fun to watch how it plays out in a theoretical situation and say gg at end. So unit roster is probably more important in my opinion than whether the civs made contact with each other. Sexism is not that important unless it actually offends someone. I am not offended at all because women in 0ad are just javascript AIs, they are not relatable at all so I really don't mind. And what will these units do? We can turn them into monumental structures like the iberian monument

as expected. I run windows in a virtual machine and I feed microsoft with fake data about myself.

I think most javelineers would prefer to throw the javelin in front of them. However, we can give this mechanic to chariots only, not other cavalry archers.

that's the way it is and our game is apolitical, for political correctness, the companies are already there. our game does not marry politics and any ideology.

Because the Britons have fought the Romans and the Gauls, because Greeks and Carthaginians had knowledge of the Britons. Since the Romans, the Gauls, the Greeks and the Carthaginians are in the game, they can fight each other and the same for the other civs. We shouldn't restrict a civ to fight only a couple of others. If it bother you, the game has even illogical things like the Mauryas, a dynasty founded in 322 BC that could fight the Achaemenid empire that fell in 330 BC. The game portrays historical events occurring between 500 BC to 100 AD approximately. So it is mandatory to broke a bit the reality to fit everything in the game. Both geographically and temporally. Name one ancient civilization that employed female fighters in an equivalent amount than the male fighters (even nomads didn't). An egalitarian society in ancient time isn't something credible. There is no historical motive for this. There is no gameplay motive for this. This is purely political. At least, the idea that two distant civilizations clash is much more credible than something that wasn't observed anywhere at that time. And like I said, there are gameplay motives for it. In the future, there won't be any campaign portraying Britons fighting Kushites. There will be campaigns about real historical events like the Punic Wars, Alexander's conquests, wars between Kushites and Romans, the conquest of Britannia by the Romans etc. At least those events would be fairly portrayed in the campaigns. For the custom battles and the multiplayer, this is logical they could fight each other to let the player have fun.

It is true that horse archers are more powerful than regular archers, and adding this mechanic to them will make them more powerful. However, it is undeniable that there is potential added value for gameplay as well as realism. Which brings me to Dragonoar's point below. Horse riding takes balance and it is my guess that it is harder to shoot at the same rate as when you are stationary. Also I think bigger bows are stronger (provided other construction qualities are constant), and would tend to shoot farther, so it makes sense in general that horse archers should have shorter range. This is not a balance problem since horse archers are faster than regular archers. I feel going for a 1.5x multiplier to attack repeat time and an accuracy nerf while moving should be enough to balance the "shooting while moving" aspect. @Player of 0AD I know that horse archers are pretty OP in a24 and likely a25, but doing this is a way to fix them in the long term. The goal is to make the unit more distinct in usage, and to add skill depth to the unit. We are fortunate that we can add some realism while helping gameplay. I initially wanted to consider this mechanic for skirmisher cavalry but I am not so sure now...

It is often phrased that way but indeed 0AD isn't a real portray of history, nor putting historical accuracy above everything else. Actually, the gameplay and the design of the game are above the historical accuracy. HOWEVER, the gameplay and the game design themselves try to take inspiration from history to create a basic set of rules to follow, a framework. There is a kind of back-and-forth logic in how the game was framed and designed. History and gameplay aren't contradicting each other all the time. Now this is true the game didn't follow historically accuracy in absolute. But this is like everything in real life, it is rare that something follows an absolute rule. From a more practical oriented phrasing, the community made a huge effort to portray ancient civilizations as accurate as possible without hindering the gameplay and the fun from playing the game. Obviously there is a line to not cross. If someone argues about naked Conan-like berserkers with giant two-handed axes or to put lorica segmentata on Punic Wars hastati, this should not be ok. Even if it is cool or fun.

Can you make the templates or should I make them? Also please propose structure tree, unit roster etc

Hey @Lion.Kanzen, you couldn't fit in a phrase against socialism in your post?

His smug appearance mocks me

I'm using Debian (testing) and that fares pretty well on a rig that is comparable to what you describe. (Intel Centrino 2 @3.06 GHz, 4 GB @1067 MHz with a GeForce 9700M GT with 512 MB)

That is called choice.

hopefully I don't think there is a general problem with introducing social classes including slavery into the game. Most (if not all all) ancient civilizations used slaves to build their empires and because 0.A.D pays close attention to historic facts, this would fit to the concept. But the problem is the specific implementation, which is why I think it is not a good idea. For one, there are the concerns @Stan` mentioned, about how to depict and balance complex social classes for all the different civs. There are also moral implications (which I will discuss based only on my thoughts, so the generalizations I make are only assumptions ): 0 A.D is a game of classical warfare. This means explicit depiction of violence and war is to be expected. Also the violence is used by all players, so there is the concept of resistance, counterattacks and so on. Therefore the game tells a tale of a cruel but "fair" fight for the win between equal parties, using classic motives of victory and heroism. This is why the violence is morally justifiable for many people. The problem with depicting slaves is that it is only a one way violence relationship. And because complex sociological roles and the effects they have are hard to depict in-game (we have no concept of popularity as a commander or morale of the units as Stronghold for example), they would probably just be very weak "throw away" units. So this could change the story of the game from playing a commander fighting "honorably", which has a positive connotation in many cultures, to playing a slave owner exploiting slaves, which has a negative connotation in many cultures and will deter people from playing, even if it based on historical facts. And just to remind everyone what effect the depiction of social roles has and how people react to it we can look at women in 0.A.D: So the questions for me are: Do we have a concept for an implementation that doesn't have the inherit bad connotation of playing a slave owner? Can we really depict the historical complexity in an accurate way? How would the gameplay actually benefit from the introduction of social classes and slaves and is it worth effort to finding a good implementation? Now about the naming question: I think it makes sense to stick to common terms everyone understands even without historical background or knowledge about the game. The term citizen may not be correct for all units, but it is the word that everybody understands and that is used in many RTS (I believe?). If we want to change it I would either switch to using the unit roles e.g "worker" and "soldier" ect. or use a generic term like "residents". Word combinations as "worker-solider" are really not good in user facing texts, because no one knows what is meant by that when seeing it for the first time.

I cannot post in Balancing Discussion, but I agree with removing Citizen class from units that are historically not citizens. Replacing them with appropriate classes are also welcome (Metics, Helots, Plebeian, Shudra, what have you). Worker and Soldier are already existing classes in 0 AD. I still don't understand the backlash against depicting slave unit in a game that depicts war.

Herodotus account: [60] I cannot give an exact breakdown of how many men each contingent contributed to the total, because not one person has recorded this information, but it turned out that there were 1,700,000 men altogether in the land army. The census was conducted as follows. Ten thousand men were assembled in a single area and packed as closely together as possible; a circle was drawn round the outside of the body of men (who were then dismissed) and a waist-high wall was built around the circle. Then more men were introduced into the enclosed area, and so on until everyone had been counted. After the census, the men were organized into contingents based on nationality. [61] Here are the peoples which made up Xerxes’ army. First, there were the Persians, dressed as follows. On their heads they wore tiaras, as they call them, which are loose, felt caps, and their bodies were clothed in colourful tunics with sleeves (and breastplates)† of iron plate, looking rather like fish-scales. Their legs were covered in trousers and instead of normal shields they carried pieces of wickerwork. They had quivers hanging under their shields, short spears, large bows, arrows made of cane, and also daggers hanging from their belts down beside their right thighs. They were commanded by Otanes, whose daughter Amestris was Xerxes’ wife. In times past the Greeks used to call Persians Cephenes (even though both they and their neighbours called them Artaei), but then Perseus, the son of Danaë and Zeus, came to Cepheus the son of Belus, married his daughter Andromeda, and had a son, whom he called Perses. Cepheus had no male children, so Perseus left Perses there, and as a result the Persians are named after Perses. [62] The Median contingent wore the same clothes as the Persians, since it was in fact a Median style of clothing, rather than a Persian one. Their commander was an Achaemenid called Tigranes. Medes used to be called Arians by everybody, but when Medea of Colchis left Athens and arrived in their country—this is what the Medes themselves say—they too changed their name. The Cissian contingent was clothed and equipped in the Persian style, except that they wore turbans instead of caps. They were commanded by Anaphes the son of Otanes. The Hyrcanians also had the same equipment as the Persians, and were commanded by Megapanus, who later became the governor of Babylon. [63] The Assyrian contingent wore on their heads either bronze helmets or plaited helmets of a peculiarly foreign design which is hard to describe. Their shields, spears, and daggers resembled Egyptian ones, and they also carried wooden clubs with iron studs, and wore linen breastplates. These are the people the Greeks call Syrians, but they were called Assyrians by the Persian invaders. Their commander was Otaspes the son of Artachaees. [64] The Bactrian contingent wore headgear which was very similar to that of the Medes, and were armed with native cane bows and short spears. The Sacae, a Scythian tribe, had as headgear kurbasias whose crowns were stiffened into an upright point, and wore trousers. They carried native bows and daggers, and also battleaxes called sagareis. They were in fact Scythians from Amyrgium, but they were known as Sacae because that is what the Persians call all Scythians. The commander of both the Bactrian and Sacian contingents was Hystaspes, the son of Darius and Cyrus’ daughter Atossa. [65] Indian gear consisted of cotton clothing, cane bows and cane arrows with iron heads. For the duration of this expedition they were assigned to the command of Pharnazathres the son of Artabates. [66] The Arians were equipped like the Bactrians, except that their bows were in the Median style. Their commander was Sisamnes the son of Hydarnes. Also fitted out like the Bactrians were the Parthians and Chorasmians, commanded by Artabazus the son of Pharnaces; the Sogdians, commanded by Azanes the son of Artaeus; and the Gandarians and Dadicae, commanded by Artyphius the son of Artabanus. [67] Caspian equipment consisted of jackets, native cane bows, and akinakeis. Their commander was Ariomardus the brother of Artyphius. The Sarangae were conspicuous for their coloured clothing. They wore knee-high boots and carried bows and Median-style spears. They were commanded by Pherendates the son of Megabazus. The Pactyes wore jackets and were armed with native bows and daggers. Their commander was Artayntes the son of Ithamitres. [68] The Utians, Mycians, and Paricanians were fitted out like the Pactyes. The Utians and Mycians were commanded by Arsamenes the son of Darius, and the Paricanians by Siromitres the son of Oeobazus. [69] The Arabians wore belted zeiras and carried on their right sides long, reflexible bows. The Ethiopians were dressed in leopard skins and lion pelts, and were armed with bows made out of palm fronds. These bows were long, at least four cubits in length, and their arrows were short and tipped not with iron but with a head made from sharpened stone—the kind of stone they also use to engrave signet-rings. They carried spears as well, whose heads were made out of gazelles’ horns sharpened like the head of a lance, and also studded clubs. When they go into battle they paint half of their bodies with chalk and half with ochre. The commander of the Arabians and the Ethiopians from south of Egypt was Arsames, the son of Darius and Cyrus’ daughter Artystone, who was his favourite wife. He had a statue of her made out of beaten gold. [70] So Arsames was the commander of the Ethiopians from south of Egypt, as well as of the Arabians, but there were two lots of Ethiopians in the army. The eastern Ethiopians were assigned to the Indian contingent; these Ethiopians are exactly the same as the others to look at, but they speak a different language and their hair is different. The eastern Ethiopians have straight hair, while the Libyan ones have curlier hair than any other people in the world. The Asian Ethiopians were equipped more or less in the same fashion as the Indians, except that they wore a head-dress consisting of a horse’s scalp, including the ears and mane. The mane acted as a crest, and the horse’s ears were stiffened into an upright position. Instead of regular shields they had targes made out of crane skins. [71] The Libyans came wearing leather clothing and armed with javelins whose ends had been burnt into sharp points. Their commander was Massages the son of Oärizus. [72] The Paphlagonian contingent wore plaited helmets on their heads and were armed with small shields, medium-sized spears, and javelins and daggers as well. On their feet they wore native boots which reached halfway up their shins. The Ligyan contingent had the same equipment as the Paphlagonians, and so did the Matieneans, Mariandynians, and Syrians (whom the Persians call Cappadocians). Dotus the son of Megasidrus was in command of the Paphlagonians and the Matieneans, and Gobryas the son of Darius and Artystone was in command of the Mariandynians, Ligyes, and Syrians. [73] The Phrygians’ equipment was very similar to that of the Paphlagonians, with only minor differences. According to the Macedonians, the Phrygians were called Briges for as long as they lived in Europe next to the Macedonians, but then when they moved to Asia they changed their name along with their country. The Armenians were fitted out just like the Phrygians—but then they were originally emigrants from Phrygia. Artochmes, who was married to one of Darius’ daughters, was in command of both the Armenians and the Phrygians. [74] The Lydians’ equipment was not very different from Greek. A long time ago, the Lydians were known as Maeonians, but they changed their name when they named themselves after Lydus the son of Atys. The Mysians wore a native style of helmet on their heads and were armed with small shields and javelins whose ends had been burnt into sharp points. They were originally emigrants from Lydia, and are also known as Olympieni, after Mount Olympus. The Lydians and the Mysians were under the command of Artaphrenes the son of Artaphrenes, who was jointly responsible, with Datis, for the invasion at Marathon. [75] The Thracian contingent wore fox-skin caps on their heads and were dressed in tunics with colourful zeiras on top; their feet and lower legs were covered in boots made out of fawn-skin. They also carried javelins, bucklers, and small daggers. After they moved from Europe to Asia they were called the Bithynians, but, as they say themselves, before that they were called the Strymonians, because they lived on the River Strymon. They say that they were driven out of their original homeland by the Teucrians and the Mysians. These Asian Thracians were commanded by Bassaces the son of Artabanus. [76] 〈The Pisidae〉† carried small shields of untreated oxhide. Every man among them was armed with two hunting-spears in the Lycian style, and wore a bronze helmet on his head. Each helmet had the ears and horns of an ox, also in bronze, attached to it, and had a crest as well. They wore red cloths wrapped around their lower legs. There is an oracle of Ares in their country. [77] The Cabalians (who are known as Lasonians, despite being of Maeonian stock) were fitted out in the same way as the Cilicians, and so I will describe their equipment when I come to the Cilician contingent in my account. The Milyans carried short spears and wore cloaks fastened with a brooch. Some of them had Lycian-style bows and wore on their heads helmets made out of leather. The whole Milyan contingent was under the command of Badres the son of Hystanes. [78] The Moschians wore wooden helmets on their heads and carried shields and spears which were short, but with long points. The Tibarenians, Macrones, and Mossynoecians had the same equipment as the Moschians. The Moschians and Tibarenians formed a single contingent under the command of Ariomardus, the son of Darius and Parmys, who was the daughter of Smerdis and granddaughter of Cyrus. The Macrones and Mossynoecians together formed another contingent under the command of Artayctes the son of Cherasmis, who was the governor of Sestus on the Hellespont. [79] The Mares wore plaited native helmets on their heads, and carried small shields of animal skin and javelins. The Colchians wore wooden helmets on their heads, carried small shields of untreated oxhide and short spears, and were armed with knives as well. Pharandates the son of Teäspis was in command of the Mares and the Colchians. The Alarodian and Saspeiran troops were equipped like the Colchians, and commanded by Masistius the son of Siromitres. [80] The tribes who had come from the islands in the Red Sea to take part in the expedition—the islands where the Persian king settles the people known as ‘the Dispossessed’—closely resembled the Medes in respect of both clothing and weaponry. These islanders were commanded by Mardontes the son of Bagaeus, who was one of the Persian commanders a year later at the battle of Mycale, where he died. [81] These were the tribes and peoples who marched by land and were organized into infantry contingents. I have already given the names of the commanders of this division, whose job it was also to organize and count the troops, and to appoint officers to take charge of the brigades of 10,000 and the battalions of 1,000; the leaders of the companies of 100 and the sections of 10 were appointed by the brigade-commanders. There were also other officers in command of the various regiments and tribal units. Anyway, the commanding officers were as stated.

@hopeless-ponderer I implemented the Cash Crops from your mod into DE! They are a way to "harvest" coin as opposed the more passive ay of taxes and trading. I really like it, and thanks for the idea! Hopefully I (we?) can differentiate the cash crops going forward for each civ.

Open to suggestions for these guys.

My proposals for the maps: -The Granicus -The Crete

Judging nowadays society, 0 A.D must change all actors into genderless, non-binary Humans soon.

The game also contains: - excessive violence - slavery (all units are your slaves) How can sexism be much worse than that? Shaking my head. I think nothing should be done against the "sexism" in the game.