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

Hello, I want to inaugurate this new A24 replay section by dumping a few of my multiplayer replays, showcasing the new unit balance and the increased diversity of units that can be reliably trained. I have a feeling sometimes players don't make use of all tools available to them. Champions, trade and siege (3v3).zip This teamgame showcases a lot of different unit types, but notably champions swordsmen, some champion archers, some trading, catapult+ballistas attack, and camel archer lategame composition on the other side. Roman sword cavalry champions (3v3).zip Features roman sword cavalry champions, quite a powerful unit. Cavalry and champions (3v3).zip Features sword infantry champions from Seleucids, cavalry compositions from mauryan and ibers (with a few firecav champions) Archer cavalry and roman champion cav (3v3).zip A teamgame that shows those 2 units in action. Valihrant (Koushites) vs Feldfeld (Mauryas).zip Small rush early game. Features town phase CC expansion, archers and elephant archers from Maurya, against archers and nuba skirmisher cavalry from Koushites Valihrant (Mauryas) vs Feldfeld (Macedonians).zip Features town phase CC expansion from macedonians. Skirmishers and champion infantry spearmen from mace against chariot archer champions from maur. Valihrant (Macedonians) vs Feldfeld (Athenians).zip Features a moderate early game rush. CC expansion from macedonians in the town to city phase transition. Gastraphetes from mace against slingers + ballistas from athenians. Feldfeld (Ptolemies) vs cl2488 (Ptolemies).zip Features mercenary swordsmen and mostly slingers against pikemen and slingers. StarAtt (Iberians) vs Feldfeld (Carthaginans).zip Features mercenary cavalry from Carthage. ElDragon (Kushites) vs Feldfeld (Carthaginans).zip Features village phase expansion from Carthage, with a composition of Sacred Band infantry supported by archers later. Archers and pikemen/spearmen from Kushites. You can download all replays bundled here: Feldfeld's replay dump.zip Hopefully that can address a few of the complaints I have read about the new version. For example, the diversity between civilizations has been reduced, yes, however keep in mind to compensate that the new balance between units should make some civilization specific strategies (eg. a unique champion, mercenaries) viable whereas it was not the case in A23 (which was notably a lot of slinger spam). About archers being OP: yes it is true that they have a very good accuracy, possibly making them OP, but they are less efficient than other ranged units against melee units (which have been improved in this version). Remeber there are other options than making citizen soldiers ranged units. Of course this doesn't mean we won't find OP units in the future. Champion melee cavalry look quite strong, champion archer cavalry maybe too.

You need to set the civ prior to playing in atlas for formation are civ & unit specific.

Translate with context iirc. I made the phab diff editable for non contributors.

That's incorrect. What that means is pathfinder is no longer a bottle neck after threading. You can check what it's doing per thread by starting the profiler2 https://trac.wildfiregames.com/wiki/Profiler2 The threading will eliminate most of the lag spikes but not all.

Nice tools! Total Commander has been the first thing I install on a fresh system for decades; my license probably goes back to when it was called Windows Commander. (And for decades I mostly was too lazy to retrieve the license from my backups and just lived with the nag screen...)

As I don't like this approach I created a cross root to build a static 64-bit pyrogenesis.exe. Well, I got all dependencies cross-compiled with only sm and fcollada missing. Got stuck at building a rust cross std lib, guess will take a while until I have time and energy to get back to it.

Recommendations for Windows 10 devs: 1. Sublime text for editing xml files. It provides very good autocompletion and allows simultaneous editing of multiple files. 2. Use MultiCommander file explorer with the default one, because MultiCommander supports tabs in the same window so if you need to look at many folders simultaneously.

I am simply saying that turning it from visible to invisible, if possible, would probably be the easiest solution. I am no programmer and cannot comment on the difficulty of implementing specific things, but to my understanding, typically simple solutions are simple to implement. Actually representing miners as slaves is not very far from the truth. Many slaves who were given that status due to heinous crimes were sentenced to work such areas where life expectancy was quite low. Many impoverished people became slaves as a result of debt, so the idea of a beggar becoming a slave is not entirely out of the question since although they would not necessarily expect a great life, most of their daily needs would be met.

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.

There's now a patch to add this to the game at https://code.wildfiregames.com/D4191 but it will need feedback and review.

its a bit tricky to make sure gates are placed correctly to not block important paths, also getting rid of resources in the way for example to circle town with walls is kind of just by luck just lack of code

I probably see what you mean but could you give a bit complex example? See Valihrant 1vs4 AI. He caused huge havoc with just a few cav passing by. If 1 of my scout cavalry goes near their territory, immediately a few AI units drop their work and start chasing after me. If we can add a feature which says to the AI: If enemy Units Spotted<=2 then don't respond If enemy Units Spotted >= 10 then emergency defence

I have tried it out. On very hard settings, it seemed to post more of a threat than PetraBot as it had quite a decent army composition and uses some cavalry appropriately. However, it was not much harder than Petra Bot; I managed to push and smash its base at the loss of only 2 units. The early raids were pretty deadly though; they slaughtered all of my miners eve though they were standing under my temple. I will check the replays to see if their boom speed was OK. Please excuse my nubbing as I was trying to test how the AI would respond in late phases but it never had time to make siege...

No need to write it from scratch, renaming is just so you can let it play against petra. Some old releases of 0ad had more than one ai bundled. Wfg could also organize an AI tournament ...

Citation needed!!! In my impression, exactly the opposite occurs. Apparently, experienced users know "the tactic" of how to win 0 A.D. matches, but this is not something obvious or easily assimilated by most players, especially those who do not play regularly. Perhaps it is the case that we think about how to improve 0 A.D. video tutorials.

I am now working on a mod that improves the strategy used by the AI. I copied the .js files controlling the petra bot into my mod folder, but I am not sure where I can change the eco bonus of the AI. Can someone give me a hint please? I have already adjusted their strategy slightly by increasing the number of units trained before phasing up. Here are the 3 easy points I will tackle first: 1. Using enough women for eco (I see some improvement) 2. Not phasing up too early (they phase up at around 60 pop now compared to the previous 40 pop, could do better) 3. No suicide push. (haven't started editing this yet)

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

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

These steps can be approached and mastered one at a time. By the end of it, you should be able to have a strong economy as you go from age I to III. Other aspects of gameplay matter too, such as specific builds, rushes, or tactics, but having a strong economy is the most important part. Don't fall into any of these early game traps: Farms go adjacent to your CC or farmstead, as close as they will go. I've seen many new players who put them a distance back. Don't do that. Don't use women for mining. Don't use men for food gathering. Use women or men for woodcutting. Cavalry are for hunting chickens or other animals. Only cavalry are good at this. Hunting is a very fast way to get food unless the animals are very far from the dropsite. If you have berries, build a farmstead right next to them and have some women harvest the berries. It's twice as fast as farming. Don't let your workers carry resources too far. Put the storehouse right adjacent to the trees when they chop wood. If your workers (except for hunting cavalry) are walking twice the width of a storehouse to return resources, they are walking too far. Don't make a barracks until at least the end of age I. A lot of noobs make a barracks way too early, or even more than one. Your CC can produce enough soldiers by itself. Don't make walls or wooden towers in age I either. Good players generally agree not to use walls, anyway, and plus in age I it's just a waste of resources that the enemy can simply walk around. Don't start mining anything until the end of age I. You don't need it. Practice until you can have constant production of units from your CC (Civic Center) for the first 10+ minutes. You should never let it be idle until you're in age III. That means: You need enough food income to produce women nonstop until population 50. You can produce soldiers after that. You need enough wood to make houses - and you need to make houses far enough ahead of time so that you don't get stopped by the population limit. In alpha 20 at least, once you hit age III the plan should be to make lots and lots of champion units. Practice not harvesting resources you can't spend. If you're ever thinking "I have more food than I need - but I wish I had more wood" then you need to transfer some workers from food to wood, and figure out some way to spend the food. (Actually, you probably needed to transfer the workers two minutes ago, but late is better than never). If you have 1000 of any resource in age I-II, you have way too much. If you have extra wood, a good way to spend it is on economy upgrades. The highest priority upgrade is berry gathering, then woodcutting, then farming, then mining. You want economy upgrades as early as possible so you get the benefit for longer, except for the upgrades that are super expensive. Adjust your typical build order so that you avoid having too much of the resource. If, last game, you had way more wood than you could spend, then this game, don't put as many workers on wood so early. And so on. This more than anything else is the mark of skill. You know you're doing it right when you have just enough of every resource you need, exactly when you need it, and little excess. Watch replays of good players! A lot of people don't know where replays are. From the starting screen, they are under Tools/Options. If you spectate or play a game with borg-, The_Company, or nobody___, then after the game you will have a replay of an expert. Switch to that player's perspective in the replay and follow what they do - what they build, when they build it, how many farms they make, when they get upgrades. Then try to copy them in your next game. If you're spectating a game with good players, you can switch to the perspective of the best player and watch them as they play, instead of going to the replay. Practice using Shift to queue up actions. For instance, don't just tell your woodcutter to make a house - tell him to make a house, then shift-click back on the tree! That way he will go back to woodcutting when he's done building the house, and he won't be idle. Work out exactly what you will do in the first minute. This is a "build order." For every civ, you want to put the cavalry on chickens and the women on berries, and the men on wood. You also generally want your first batch of 5 women to chop wood, and the next 4-5 women to harvest berries. The order in which you make a storehouse, a farmstead, get the berry upgrade, and make your first house can vary. Britons and Gauls can build a farmstead at the berries, build a storehouse at the wood, and research the berry upgrade. They will have plenty of time to get 75 wood and make their first house. Most civs have houses that cost 150 wood and grant 10 population. With these you can't get the farmstead, the storehouse, and the berry upgrade all at once, and still have enough wood for your first house. You have to pick two of the three. If wood is very close to your CC, you can get the farmstead and berry upgrade, and get the storehouse later. If wood is far away, you need a storehouse, so you have to skip the berry upgrade to have enough wood for the house. With these civs you will need to use 3-4 workers to make the house once you have 150 wood, so that it will be done in time. Iberians and Mauryans occupy a middle ground since their houses cost 75 wood but they don't have the population bonuses of Britons/Gauls. You can figure something out if you want to play these. Mauryans have an elephant, which can do the job of a storehouse or farmstead and help build houses. Ptolemies are weird. Batch Production. This is one of the secrets that separates the good players from the experts. borg- produces in batches of 5 almost all the time, and in batches of 10 when he has enough resources! Even a batch of 15 can be worthwhile. Batch production by 5 is 38% faster than producing single units. Batch production by 10 is 57% faster. Batch production by 15 is 72% faster. You need more food to batch produce women this way. That means more on berries (like 10), more hunting, or earlier farms. You need to plan houses more in advance, too, so that you have 5 or 10 population open when it's time to produce. Don't delay more than a few seconds to make a batch. It's better to just be producing 1 unit if you don't have enough houses or food for a batch. Some players have altered their javascript to let them batch 3 or 4 instead of multiples of 5. This is cheating. Use hotkeys for at least your production buildings, perhaps also other units. Select your CC and press Ctrl-1, and now you can select the CC again just by pressing 1. Your barracks can go on group 2. This helps you to keep production going smoothly even if your attention is elsewhere. Be familiar with rushes. There are many types. The primary purpose of most rushes is to deny wood from the enemy by killing woodcutters. The best way to learn how to do rushes is to watch replays of experts who rushed effectively. I recommend not rushing until you have mastered the normal economy boom from age I to III. Spartan Skiritai rush Ptolemy camel archer rush 3 minute cavalry skirmisher rush Briton slinger rush Roman swordsmen rush borg-'s 10-11 minute champions Not all rushes are "effective." If the rusher killed 20 women but lost 10 cavalry and was driven away, that was probably not an effective rush, since 10 cavalry cost more than 20 women. Check the attacker's and defender's economy scores and populations afterwards to see if it really worked.

I think I give this up, too. It's all too complicated. Old tools/SDKs etc. to be installed on a current Win 10 system, not clear which components are the minimum requirements, and other hassle. If somebody else would like to keep this going, please feel free. Maybe I can edit the Wiki accordingly, but for the time being, it's just too frustrating for me to even set up the building environment.