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I was thinking the same for a while ! The game seems to be more and more tailored only for hardcore competitors who expect perfect balancing between all civs : something which is impossible without making them completely similar. This withdraws most of the game diversity except graphically and, to some extent, the interest to play different civs to get a different playing experience. The game becomes quickly annoying for casual playsers and generally not hardcore competitors players. I believe the game is not played only by hardcore competitors. Maybe the generalizing civs movement was intentend to get a sens of balancing before re-adding diversity to the game to take it out of its competitor niche market ?

I don’t intend to debate the merits of each change. But what I can say is that something like the globalization of siege factories made some civs less unique because things like Mace’s “quick siege push” strategy or Persia’s mass cav with health bonus is now no longer unique. While I agree a25 has more players playing with more strats this diversity seems to be a function of unit balancing and upgrade changes, which is distinct from civ diversity where I think we can still improve.

And we no longer have the problem of ele civs often being completely unable to push with pointless stalemates. https://code.wildfiregames.com/D3350 would argue that the library being completely unique to Ptolemies increases differentiation. I didn't actually realize the lighthouse was changed, it's effectively now an outpost on steroids. The value can probably be changed to suit the bigger maps, but the idea is certainly an improvement over it being banned on every naval game. And they got a new unique tech that affects their champion cav The worker ele? Don't see how it being nerfed reduces diversity, although iirc I saw a patch returning its old behaviour. That's true, I forgot about this. Would like the P2 champs to come back as they were a really cool trait and the new tech doesn't make up for it. Is simply being able to build a siege workshop the kind of uniqueness we want though? Its such a basic building that I think it's far better if every civ gets a siege workshop and mace get a unique tech for their siege, on top of the crossbow produced from the siege workshop. I far prefer the diversity of a25 to a23. Just compare the types of units and strategies we see now, it is no longer an infantry spam fest and there are also cavalry and champions involved now.

there are some big caveats here, though, which I would contend make all the difference. See celts building pop bonus, stables, ptol eco buildings now have a cost (although still technically unique it is less so), all civs have rams, all civs have siege factories, multiple civs lost universities, lighthouse changed and as a result is now unused, cav health tech was propagated to all civs which devalued Persian and sele civ, Maury ele is less helpful now, Athens lost p2 champs, Sparta lost champ types, Roman army camp while still unique is also less capable and therefore not used as much. There are more but that is what I can come up with without having to think. I know some of these might be coming back, but there is no doubt that a lot of the game is fundamentally different now. For some civs like mace their uniqueness has basically been almost totally eliminated. The diversity isn’t as bad as it was in a24, but I don’t think it is anywhere near where it was in a23 (as imperfect some things were in a23) I agree that the game should put back in many of the unique aspects that are most noticeably and used

If taking this as a fact we should conclude any mention of OP is either to have an excuse when loosing or an attempt to hamper any play that doesn't fit into the narrow scheme of what should be legit in the individuals view. If imbalance were an issue we would have mirror matchup settings (civ/map) seen implemented long ago. Also usually cries of imbalance start the day after a release, making it clear there can hardly be any substance to such claims. If balancing was taken serious, ranked games (and maybe others) should be collected and the data evaluated properly. I'm sure statistics will show a different picture in many cases than what people expect. I also second @vv221 claim that all civs playing the same reduces the replayability of the game. This should be obvious to anyone. I would even go as far as to claim imbalance may be desirable for you can easier find an interesting matchup if you can have civ selection slightly favor the weaker player. Well, ofc, if there are millions of players this point becomes moot.

Hello was wondering if civs are more unique/specific as far as i remember you guys were generalizing the civs a while ago as in civs would be really similar to each other except graphically maybe so im curious now if civs in 125 are more unique?

In my opinion Graphic Artists of 0AD have achieved a tremendus success in defining the modern graphic style for modern RTS games. All units, Biome and scaling is better than all other RTS game of this time. In case of music,sounds 0AD can also be regarded as a masterpiece. Gameplay has also improved significantly after the latest release. Although I would recommend beetter AI for FFA single player. Therefore I would deliberately recommend/suggest/support a massive marketing campaign for 0AD in this situation when people are eager to choose a new RTS leader for the upcoming time. Thanks All Artists, Musicians, Programmers for creating an awesome game like 0AD.

A24 was less diverse than A23, but the idea that A25 is less diverse than A23 is mostly wrong. I guess the idea comes from the fact that nonexistant bonuses were removed from the history page, https://code.wildfiregames.com/D2720. The only actual existant bonus which was removed is the Gaul and Briton population bonus, https://code.wildfiregames.com/D2950. It's also true that every civ getting a stable removed the uniqueness of the Persian stable, but I think that's an acceptable casualty for better gameplay. From A23 to A25 most civs have gained actually existing bonuses, only exception being the Britons who haven't yet gotten anything. The gameplay is far more diverse than it was in A23, which was just infantry spam with an occasionaly early rush. The Carthaginians might not have gained any direct bonuses, but they've also gained the most identity with the mercenary changes. I also don't get from where the notion that the competitive community is pushing for the game to lose civ diversity and how the competitive players are the reason that not enough civ differentiation is done. If there's no one there to make patches nothing will happen.

This is an option of course, but not a good one in my opinion: I played 0 A.D. for more than 10 years, but learned only recently about the ability to download mods. Keeping in mind that I am what you could call a "technical" user, so I’m at ease with downloading/enabling mods. But more casual players will often be stuck with the vanilla game, with its focus on balance tailored for fair multiplayer games. My case is that the multiplayer players are usually the ones who have the best knowledge of the game and its options, so if there is a switch to flip between diverse/casual and balanced/hardcore it would be in my opinion a good move to set the default to what would be more fun for the casual players.

That’s right, and points out at the core issue: some players favour balance, other favour diversity. I for one would play much more often if there was more diversity between the civilizations, but I understand that other players want (almost) perfect balance. Since we can not have both at the same time, I think there is roughly three choices: (easy choice) Focus on balance, at the cost of diversity (easy choice) Focus on diversity, at the cost of balance (hard choice) Provide both experiences, and allow the player to chose one I am of course all in favour of the hard one, but if I were to chose between the easy ones I would without any hesitation advise cutting the balance in favour of fun original gameplay (I guess you would disagree on this one ). A perfectly balanced game means that I have very low incentive to try multiple civilizations, so it reduces a lot the time I’m willing to spend playing 0 A.D. before switching to something else.

Nah, merge DE.

Some Sunday entertainment

Yeah, with the billions floating around this game, turning off one DDOS certainly should be worth 500k...

Big difference between an accusation and a thought. Jumping to the accusation based on what was written by @BreakfastBurrito_007 is concerning. There was only a thought without supporting evidence that may imply something. Yea, how does one know of something that isn't a secret?

Most competitive players are not playing the game often, so it's not being built for competitive players. The fact that we don't have such diverse civilizations is because there is no design plan and someone to command it. I've even started working on it, but it takes a lot of time, and unfortunately I don't have my free time to spend on it anymore, Besides that the part of 0.ad community is extremely ungrateful. You spend hundreds of hours working on various improvements, to find two or three problems/errors and post on the forum all the time when the new alpha is bad. I said several times that a24 was a work in progress and that a25 would be much better, but they continued to talk a lot of crap. Well the "end" result of the work is an alpha25 much better than alpha24 and 23 as I said. Lack of patience is a problem, especially for those who don't move a finger to help with anything. Basically the alpha 24 - 25 was mostly build by me and @Nescio (gameplay/balance), but we're not working on it concretely anymore, so if no one else is interested in this, players are destined to play with these civilizations / gameplay / balancing for many years, like that how was a23 sling + ram.

Ah, ok. So there was some misunderstanding then on my part too. From what I know and have seen, the lack of diversity doesn't have any greater reason than noone simply going out of their way to implement it or lead the implementation of it. I just recently started making some patches with the goal of implementing economy bonuses for civs and a problem that I encountered is that there isn't any design plan for how different/assymetrical the civs should be, what should be their playstyle (or should civs not be nudged into any playstyle), about how many bonuses, unique technologies for each civ should be targeted.

There is no need to accuse people without serious suspicions. If it wasn't an accusation, I would say that there is no need to post something that could be seen as an accusation. Yeah, how does someone new to the forum know this big secret?

I saw that in the mod selection menu, there is the option to chose for cute ponies with ponies ascendant or for the mod delenda est. Especially Delenda est seems good if you want diversity. In a25, civs are a little more unique than in a24. However they are mainly the same. Every faction is now affected by their own team bonus, which has substantial impact on some of them. Athens and Sparta received a technology for hoplites. The real benefit of A25 is that suddenly mercenaries and cavalry become very viable. One disadvantage is for me that units tend to stack a lot and it is difficult to see how many there are in a certain spot.

Yes, not everyone puts balancing above everything else. I would also go with the hard option, except it involves a lot of discussion among players. Diversity means some civs will be favoured more than others on certain maps. For example the mauryan worker elephant is OP un Belgian Upland or Anatolian plains.

Hello what do you need help with exactly?

Champion cavalry has entered the chat and would like to have a word.

vv221 proposes good alternatives to solve the problem which could please everyone. I like both solutions. Maybe the "set" solution is the simplest at the moment ? The "tech tree" solution would the most interesting in the long run I think.

In terms of uniqueness, they are similar to A24 and less diverse than A23. However they are extremely well balanced in A25. Imbalance will inevitably arise from diversity.

I agree that the civilizations lack a distinct feel outside of graphics. I guess this is because of multiplayer balance that you do not go with more original concepts? I remember that Age of Empires Ⅱ (sorry, not the best example of civilizations diversity outside of a couple exceptions) provided an option for that: by default all civilizations would use their own technology tree, but you could enforce a default tech tree for all players if you wanted to play a very balanced game. Another option would be to provide civilization "sets", a bit like what Battle for Wesnoth proposed through "eras": you can chose to play with a core/balanced set, perfect for multiplayer, or with a full/extended set, including civilizations with more interesting gameplay quirks. I guess what is important to remember is that there are players who have much more fun with imbalanced gameplay. Playing human against AI is imbalanced anyway, and can not be balanced by playing very similar civilizations, so in my opinion the game could be much more engaging in such modes by embracing the imbalance instead of trying to level it.

¡Eres bienvenido! ¿Quieres que haga texturas normales y texturas especulares? lol *Google Translate

You'll have to garrison a spy in the structure for that.

Starcraft 2 looks nice in 2021.

Just me and the boys Hacking Catalina's CC to dust before the developers nerf us to oblivion. Seriously, some initial observations. Tiny Mainland is my idea of dangerous sandbox, so this is where I go to test new changes in new alphas. I do admit that Catalina does make a great effort to boom, but it has some odd quirks. The main difference that stood right out was that it spammed a lot of cavalry and attempted to hunt down every deer on the map. Unfortunately I tend to populate my border with at least 3 small towers as soon as possible, so they met a quick end once they crossed the border despite their great numbers. In tiny Mainland there is still a decent amount of room between the initial borders so my towers don't really threaten the enemy until I have extended my border with 2 or three barracks with another tower added with each barrack extension. I went level 2 at about 7 minutes. Catalina continued to produce farms and collect wood, but by this time my towers were on his border. Like Petra he continued to build houses close to the border within range of my towers and still suffers the same malady as Petra of sending a women to try to repair minor damage on all those buildings. Despite having over 30 wood cutters and 30 farmers on 10 farms he could not generate enough food to level up to 2 before twenty minutes. At this point my towers were also threatening a market he was also trying to construct on the border so he launched an attack on the tower but with no upgrades at this point he could not mass enough troops to even damage a fully garrisoned tower. Sometimes infantry wood take a couple of hacks on a tower, give up and go try to continue repair a next to useless house. Until this suicide issue is addressed the AI will never have any respect. At this point in a typical match in this scenario Petra stops being able to produce soldiers, but only sends an occasional women out to repair a border building. Catalina did at least continue to farm and cut wood out of range, but remarkably did not attempt any mining. By 40 minutes all the remaining workers had one by one gotten their final order to abandon their farm or tree and go repair a building. After one more try after producing one infantryman to attack a captured barracks, retreat to the CC to heal and return for another try he finally expired leaving the CC with 302 food 42 wood and 333 metal and no desire to produce more. (Usually Petra stops when it has less than 50 food. Of course I kept spamming consular bodyguards to get my screenshot and little jab at the balance team in the thread I'm not allowed to post in. This brutal humiliation of the enemy also works on Petra up to very hard. Petra really can't function very well in a small environment. I started Catalina here on medium, without checking the level beforehand. I will give the other harder levels a try. Finally notice that 3 of the champions in the lower right hand corner are facing away from the building. In my raiding to capture all the other buildings, various individuals kept getting stuck or not responding to the attack command. Though motionless they did not have a resting pose. I've never seen this before, even when having upwards 75 or more champions surrounding a building, or moving in unison across the map.

Read the beginning of the topic.... the Iberian peninsula is divided into three areas, the Iberian properly (Mediterranean coast), the Celtiberic, and the Celtic. The Lusitanians are included in the Celtic. And the classic authors, make reference that the Celtiberians and Lusitanian used the same weapons. The current Iberian civilization, mixes the three, the buildings are Celtiberian, and mix Celtiberian and Iberian units.... Lusitanian, there are only the darts. Still, somewhat characterless. The current Iberian civilization is defensive, possibly inspired by the Roman siege of Numantia. This was not the war tactic of the Lusitanians, who were notable for their warrior nomadism. In addition, as I said, the major war events that took place in the Iberian Peninsula, BC, were carried out by the Lusitanians with Viriato and Sertório. And once again, I think it would be a huge gap, not being Sertorio among the Lusitanians, it would be a natural evolution in the Lusitanian game mode. As for scale armor, I have repeatedly cited liria pottery, as well as Strabon's express mention of the use of heavy army by the Lusitanians. And once again, I don't know why the surprise, the previous versions itself, and I'm mistaken, the current one also correlates scale armor. Now... if you have new theses about it, as I said, write a scientific article and defend it academically. Untimely to weave innovations here.

As far as I know, there are no evidences that the other Celts (Britons and Gauls) used any sort of armor made of scales. If you know evidences for such armors in a Gallic or a Brythonic context, I would be really interested. Do you have a reference? Is there an account from classical authors mentioning armor made of scales on the peninsula? First, because I am an annoying nitpicker and because I am genuinely interested to seek the truth. But also because I don't want to see the Lusitanian faction suffering the same issue than the Iberian faction. If both the Iberians and the Lusitanians use the same references, then there is no point in creating this faction.

Las unidades de infantería, con sus subdivisiones: espadachines, piqueros y dardos, en su fase 3 creo que ya podían hacer uso de cascos de bronce (montifortinos y calcidico), además de cota de malla y armaduras de escamas. Las unidades actuales de los Ibericos, en el modo actual 25, en su tercera fase ya hacen uso del casco calcídico, y en el modo de los juegos anteriores 24, 23, etc ... la infantería piquera ya hizo uso de armadura escalada . En la fase 2, podría utilizar armadura de linotórax, con cascos de cuero. Recuerdo que los modos anteriores 24, 23 ... tenían una buena variedad de cascos de cuero. A menos que me equivoque, la infantería espadachín actual, en su fase 3, todavía usa casco de cuero. En la fase 1, infantería, ropa ligera. En cuanto a las Unidades Campeones, podían utilizar completamente la armadura pesada, incluido el uso de bucculas (máscaras). Especialmente en caballería. Además del uso de bucculas, el uso de bipene (hacha de doble filo). Creo que también sería interesante hacer uso de la espada tipo "la tene" (espada larga/lejos), plenamente documentada arqueológicamente, por la infantería en general, además de las tradicionales gladius hispaniensis y falcatas. La espada de la tene, ya tiene en los Britones, basta agregar. Recuerda también que las capas no solo estaban hechas de pelo de cabra, sino también de lana. Hay capas negras en otras unidades del juego ya hechas, sería suficiente agregar.

A new 3d modelling of Corent, an oppidum with a sanctuary.

Well the goal is to have it in Vanilla so other mods can use it too.

No, it's secret

Sounds great!

Bring back A23! Seriously though I think this would be a great addition to the engine. I can see it being used for the 1866 mod.

Re: @Micfild Yes, javs have higher armour for the case that they need to approach slingers or archers without melee units in front. However, even with higher armour, they will still lose, though they won't get massacred like in vanilla a24. Thier dps is high enough to make them the best choice for head-on battles. Re: @wowgetoffyourcellphone What weapons are these Cav Scouts using? Re: @andy5995 If you want to play with Catilina bot in vanilla, please do keep a copy of the version you have. It's made for testing purposes only, so its parameters are not optimized for vanilla a25. Since more features (like new techs, units and civs) will be added into Res Gestae, it's necessary to make Catilina adapted to these features - it's very likely that the future versions will not be compatible with vanilla. Since there will be a lot of extra work, I would not make a separate project. Also please have look at @Angen's Kiara bot, which has superior algorithms and I suppose it should always be compatible with vanilla.

Timestamp: 5:49 I just wish he used newer footage of the game, but his endorsement was well-written and well-made.

I always liked the idea of units "garrisoning" in a forest, to ambush the enemy.

For those who struggle at booming:

well they did have some form of walling around all their settlements. it's just that fields weren't usually included.

#urban gardening This is such a immersion breaking thing, still hard for me to understand why people would not want to change it.

An approach to a more realistic mediterranean farm fields...

@nani what is your point about champ cav?

Joined 8 hrs ago. Knows about this game developed for decades.