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That makes sense, and I can see why you wouldn't want civilisation playstyles to diminish options, but there are two reasons I think playstyles would be better. 1. Balance I think that the game really has to make a choice between civilisations that are mostly identical, with only cosmetic differences, or civs that, in some way or other, do end up encouraging different playstyles. Since the consensus on the forums seems to be against identical civs, it seems that civs will have to differentiate in some way. If this has to happen, it's better that it happen in a planned way, so that civilisations don't end up completely unbalanced, and each civ's direction is coherent. If the different playstyles are planned, the playstyles themselves can be balanced without making the civs identical. 2. Options. I don't think that distinct playstyles would diminish the options for player strategies. It might diminish the options available for a certain civ, but it would make more strategies available overall. As it is now, there are certain strategies available to most civs, but civilisations are played in mostly the same way. With distinct playstyles, choosing a certain civ would give you a lot more options for strategy. For example, on a mountainous, rough map, you might want to choose a civilisation well suited to raiding and quick mobility, or you might want to go with heavy fortifications. Or on a naval map, you might want to go for naval superiority, or build a trading fleet to fund a more traditional army. Choosing civs with specialised playstyles would allow any of these strategies, while right now most civs have only slight advantages for any of these plans. Additionally, this could introduce a huge variety for team games. What civ each player chooses could become a much more important decision. One player could go for a powerful economy to fund a mercenary-oriented ally, for example. In short, I think that even if playstyles decrease options for individual civs, they would increase options overall. In my opinion, that's a beneficial trade-off.

Much of the discussion about differentiating the civilisations in the game is right now focused on small changes to enable different strategies for the different civilisations. But I want to open a discussion here if those changes are not a bit too "small". If we look at other successful strategy games (in the widest sense) be it card games as magic the gathering or competitive online games as league of legends, we see that they enable the player to have completely different playstyles, which is probably why so many people like to play these games -> everyone finds a playstyle they like. For me 0ad is at the moment more comparable to chess; you can play different strategies, but it's still chess and always kind of the same, regardless which strategy you choose. I know that the civs kind of already represent different playstyles, but what if we would really accentuate that? I think vanilla AD could learn much from Hyrule conquest in that regard. So accentuate the playstyles of each civ, but also give them weaknesses through that instead of trying to balance them in every phase of the game. here just some links to interesting videos who touch upon this topic in game design: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WXQzdXPTb2A https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R5Uk13mQdm0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6QuKpJTUwwY But to come to an end here, I very much agree with sera in this discussion here https://code.wildfiregames.com/D4273#182067 The thing that would be needed first to do that is a design document about how each civ should play. So feel free to tell me if you agree or disagree on this ( every civ should have a vastly different / unique playstyle). If this was always the goal of the differentiation and I just didn't get the extent of the planned differentiation then please excuse my slow mind. Also independent of your opinion regarding the above, feel free to give your ideas about how to best structure such a collaborative design document creation process, as that may be beneficial nevertheless.

I feel a26 could be a great improvement if we are able to add and then balance out some good civ differentiation options like those from @Dizaka and an attack-ground feature for ranged units. Bringing AOE catapults back alongside attack-ground feature would be awesome.

Some general gameplay classes for styles I've thought of, just brainstorming for the moment Defensive civ, slow expansion, resistant to rushing Raiding civ, good at building small bases, very mobile, but weaker in a straight fight Trading civ, good at trading, other economy is weaker, vulnerable to trade chain disruption Seige civ, good at destroying cities and heavy fortifications, weak early game Economy civ, powerful resource production, vulnerable to raids destroying production structures Mercenary civ, good at amassing a powerful army quickly, but requires massive resources Naval civ, good at destroying ships, more vulnerable on land

It looks like the community maps mod hasn't been updated since a23, so I've made a temporary fork of the project called community maps 2 It's pretty basic, but it gives access to the maps again. And I've run some migration scripts on the maps themselves to make them compatible with >=a24. Though I haven't checked them all for warnings or errors. If you notice any problems, just open a ticket on the community maps 2 repo and I'll try to fix things up; or you can make a PR if you feel like it. The pyromod file can be downloaded from the releases section

Synergy is an interaction or cooperation giving rise to a whole that is greater than the simple sum of its parts. The term synergy comes from the Attic Greek word συνεργία synergia from synergos, συνεργός, meaning "working together. as part of leading 0 A.D beyond being an AoE clone. You have to give it a certain immersion, in this case an immersion that gives the player benefits and that is an extra mechanic . It occurs to me that civic buildings like the temple and houses augment auras and potentials themselves as in Empire Earth. The temple should not only heal, it should obtain money (metal) since most cultures made donations, this will depend on the culture. But going back to the idea, if a temple is in the same area or territory where there are more than 2 houses, it should give a morale bonus that would translate into greater defense and resistance.(like the bonus of the Iberian monument). The houses should produce a greater concentration of territorial loyalty to the CC.If there is a market and a temple, you should collect income as bonuses. In ancient times temple sacrifices were sold in markets. A armory and a barrack should train soldiers faster. Ideas like that of placing buildings together to make bonuses. There are many buildings ignored in the attacks. And also when creating new settlements or cities.

Fixed. Thanks for the report @Old Roman

I like the idea. It will give them a short edge, not too early and not too late. I think the Romans should have a population bonus. Their manpower was enormous for the time:

I think beyond uniquess there should be at least 2-3 viable ways to do the different play-styles (Edit: Note, I'm a fan of games that average about 22 mins of playtime and, sometimes, go for 40+ in a very rare case - but with constant battles and few boomers). Note: I'd also split Camels/Horses into Camels/Calvary with Camels getting a bonus vs horses, especially close combat camels. However, strongly weak vs infantry. Britons: Quick phasing ('instant' or cheaper phase upgrades) p2 rams (b/c rams are only siege) p2 heroes Cheaper puppies (p1) and puppy champions (p2) Ability to upgrade skirmishers to skrim cav OR skrim chariots. p1 chariot skrimishers that are non-champion. Skrim cav are p2. p2 champions Chariot Priests Gauls: Start with a mounted priest p1 sword cav (even w/ bonus) instead of skrim cav p2 rams (b/c rams are only siege) p2 heroes p2 champions p1 fanatics that are less expensive ability to upgrade skirmishers to skrim cav OR skrim chariots Can build spear calvary in p2. Mounted Carnucos Cav Mounted Priests Spartans ("Walls? What true man builds walls?") p1 skiritai spearmen in p2 skirmishers in p2 p2 rams (b/c rams are only siege) p2 heroes in p2 upgrade skiritai to cavalry skiritai no walls, no palisades (like in a23) skrimisher chariots captured barracks in p1 can build spearmen/skrimishers. Mauryans (Elephant exhibitionist civ) regular javelineers 2, 3 and 4 population elephant archers (see atlas - could be buildable seperately or by individually 'mounting' archers) 2, 3 and 4 population elephant javelineers (elephant skrimishers - 3 and 4 pop as above could be buildable seperately or by individually 'mounting' skrimishers) 2, 3 and 4 population elephant spearmen (non siege elephant, similar to archers/skrim8shers on mounting extra units) 2, 3, and 4 population elephant priests (yes, lol) elephant hero does a bonus Macedonians: p1/p2 arsenal p2 upgrades in arsenal p2 siege tower p2 heroes AOE tech for ranged catapults in arsenal Remove the sword champs. Current champions counter fine. +20% bonus vs athens/sparta and 10% debonus vs rome. Romans (No palisades civ, vulnerable p1 and/or p2 b/c stone walls expensive. Basically, a civ that can entrench in a forward position but has issues defending hometown.): Encampments produce catapults and bolts. Units can be transferred between encampments if encampments are within XYZ of each other's range. Remove arsenal from buildings Put all arsenal upgrades in fort and ecampment buildings Building of fort enables upgrades from encampments and fort. If you lose fort upgrades to siege not possible until a new fort is built. Add AOE upgrade to catapults No palisades (don't need 3 types of walls). Siege walls include palisades properties and current properties. Siege walls more expensive. Regular walls more expensive (e.g., their roads allowed enemies to traverse their lands quickly) On Roman influence areas enemies, allies, and romans (all units) move 15% faster. Seleucids Add more cavalry diversity phase 2 elephant stable Camel swordsmen AOE tech for ranged catapults in arsenal regular chariot buildable in p2 that can be upgraded to champion chariot Chariot Priests Iberians Let them build walls connected to starter turrent. Somehow this doesn't work now. p2 heroes phase 2 rams (b/c only has rams) cavalry swordsmen (see atlas) in p1 and champions in p3. Iberians need cavalry swordsmen. They should be there. Mounted Priests Athens: Champions from barracks. Use current champion buiding for another purpose (make that the barracks equivalent?) Archers are non-merc Sword cav in p1 AOE tech for ranged catapults in arsenal Carthagians: Merc buildings in p1 Merc units in p1 AOE tech for ranged catapults in arsenal Civ that shines in p1 and p3 but has a dry spell in p2 basically. Sacredband units give a +10% dmg boost to nearby units but not other sacred band units Ptolemies: Old no-wood dynamic returns Skrimisher mercs buildable in p1 Heroes buildable in p2 Expansion building buildable in p1, including all mercs from building Camel swordsmen and spearmen AOE tech for ranged catapults in arsenal Kushites: Merc buildings buildable in p1 Merc camel clubmen Persians All non-champion calvary units available in p1 (including non-champion chariots - buildable from CC and stables) Return of the chariot archers that are non-champion (but leave champion chariot) Mounted and Chariot Priests

Tell me Blizzard didn't have playstyles in mind when they designed the civs for Starcraft. Tell me Westwood didn't have playstyles in mind when they designed the civs for Command & Conquer.

I would like to see a mid-game "Spartan Phalanx Push" be just as viable as an early game "Britons Slinger-JavCav Rush." Spartans wouldn't be locked-into that strategy, but their military would be generally geared towards it. As much as Macedonians would be more geared toward a late-game combined arms approach, and Persians heavy on cavalry and Mauryas relying on massed archers, augmented by War Elephants and Chariots later.

Disclaimer: I'm not a competitive, or even particularly good player. I mostly just play 0ad casually, and I don't have too much experience. That being said, however, I completely agree with this. I think that more gameplay styles would make the game much more enjoyable. Right now, basically all strategies can be done with all civs, with only varying degrees of effectiveness. What I would do to differentiate styles while still maintaining some balance is this: I would give each civ a unique style or bonus, but each style or bonus is countered by another civ's bonus. That way, each civ is unique, while not being overpowered. For a very basic example: Britons raid, giving them strong early attack and the ability to build bases beyond their borders, but are weak in the late game. Iberians turtle, with strong walls and defensive structures, but weak offense. Macedonians have good seige, giving them the ability to destroy defensive structures easily, but a weak early game. The Iberians' defense counters the Britons' raiding, the Macedonians' seige counters the Iberian defense, and the Britons early expansion counters the Macedonian's late game. This is just a basic example, a more elaborate design would be necessary for the game, but I hope it gives a good idea.

ZERO A.D.

I want that... and Arsonist unit.

Romans didn't employ many mercenaries during the epoch of the game (though, they did do it from time to time; Balearic Slingers and Cretan Archers for example). About half of their armies were made up of Roman citizens, and the other half made up of local allies (local to the theater of war; the Pergamenes and Rhodians in the East for example, Numidians in North Africa), and their Italian subjects (the "Extraordinarii" were picked from this group). Later, the Social War in Italy would force Rome to make all free Italians into Roman citizens, increasing manpower for the legions ten fold.

I feel this might go to far for sparta, but I like the "make him ride a horse" upgrade idea for some civs. Could you please elaborate on this one? Is this a new merc? @Dizaka I think these are great ideas overall, and I like the vision for each civ. There are a couple things here and there that seem a little op.

Well, it would make their playstyle more predictable, but it wouldn't and definitely shouldn't make their choices obvious. As @Dizaka wrote, each civ still needs to have multiple options and strategies, they should not be one trick ponies.

In my mod units have a "Strength" property that determined the damage it does. So each weapon had its standardised properties, which were multiplied by the strength. Champions would be a bit stronger, but moreover stay at the same strength for longer (Stamina).

I know that we are all looking to diversify civilizations, and I think it is great to focus the civilization on what they do best. However, I think we should avoid narrowing the options available to that civ. Britons, for example: The problem with this is it would make player behavior predictable. I prefer giving britons a great early game, and an average late game. If I can sum up my views on civs in one sentence it is: civilisations should not have playstyles, civilizations should have options, players should make the playstyles. Does this make sense? I think it is good to give each civ a few things they are great at, but not limit player choices because they feel the need to do what is "best" for that civ. I give an example of a bad civ for uniqueness/options balance in a25: Carthaginians. Carthage has one strategy that is "the best", it is almost impossible to counter. Uniqueness should come from unique options and not entire unique strategies.

Yes, that probably wouldn't be a very good design choice, it would probably be better to have more than one civ per gameplay style/strategy. The concept I was trying to illustrate was that different playstyles would counter one another, and that each civ would be optimised for a certain playstyle. The counters shouldn't be so powerfull that it's nearly impossible for one civ to beat another that counters it, but it should provide a difficult challenge.

I kind of expected many people disagreeing with this which is why I want to have this as a very open discussion, so please rather comment than click on the confused smiley. Just as an example of a unique playstyle: the nomadic Scythians in DE are much fun to play

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

boonGUI User interface mod for the RTS game 0 A.D. Everyone can follow the development, contribute to discussions, report bugs, suggest features or even make pull requests. Install Choose your preferred method GitHub git clone https://github.com/LangLangBart/boonGUI.git Linux: ~/.local/share/0ad/mods/ macOS: ~/Library/Application\Support/0ad/mods/ Windows: ~\Documents\My Games\0ad\mods\ Pyromod Drag and drop the file over the 0ad start icon or double click it. The mod will be unpacked and placed in your 0ad mods folder ZIP Unpack it it in your /0ad/mods/ folder Launch 0 A.D., click Settings and Mod Selection. Double-click boonGUI, click Save Configuration and Start Mods. Troubleshooting If you get errors/warnings after upgrading, delete the existing boonGUI folder and install the mod again. If that doesn't help, just post a message here or on GitHub.

that's the spirit of that map, that gaia units don't let you fight. then you have to break through and use them to find your enemy. Inspired by the map (AoE 2) of the Spanish youtuber Matakito. I made a version 2 with more items and treasures.

Of course until now I haven't played "Battles In the Dirt" since a23, but last night I noticed several errors scrolling by about 'treasures'. I also vaguely recall the center of the map being being full of some rather nasty gaia troops. Both treasures and gaia were missing from the map, which was still quite playable.

3, 2 (Currently used), and 4 No, just regular units (sword/spear). However the clubmen would be for kush.

Since StarCraft 2 you could make several options even manipulate the ai.

Fair, but just because they don't have to, doesn't mean they can't get closer to reality, specially if it imposes less restrictions on unit diversity. If that is the case, then nothing wrong with making the legionnaire have a mixed damage type (hack and pierce) like the spearman has. I not only adds historical accuracy but also adds diversity. Hmm, it might make the game a bit more complex and add a new challenge to coding but why not have then a 2 pronged approach. Units would have a damage type (hack, pierce, crush or mixed) based on the weapon capabilities, and it could also have a damage source (spear, arrow, sword, etc). This way, attack modifiers would be linked to the source (weapon), not the damage type. I personally prefer the 3 damage type solution currently in use. I think it's more easy to understand and work with.

I've added The Limes to the community maps 2 mod.

I have voiced my issues with crush damage here and there on the forum and I agree with the room for improvement. What I would like crush damage to be, is damage that is not as deadly as pierce and hack against weakly armored units. However I would like to see that heavily armored units don't see their crush damage improved as much as their other armors, so crush would be something to overcome armored units. That is also somewhat historically correct. So an citizen ranged unit could have 6 crush armor and a champion infantry could have 10, which is a difference of 4, while for hack/pierce the difference would be 7.

Having sword cav be your mainline cavalry unit doesn't make sense historically.

Just unloading the healthiest of the type first would be good enough for me

It would be interesting to see this at play in a mod. Though maybe 1.5 humans being 1 humans needs renaming of the term 'population.' Specifically, what I find problematic is that the population dynamic would dramatically impact the current 1 human : 1 population dynamic for models. With currently how elephants/rams are I can understand the 5/3 population distribution (e.g., rams cannot kill units or farms).

I think this is a good start. I wouldn't do the hover/right click thing nor the scroll bar. There's no time to sit quietly in RTS. U need fast and synthethic information to make fast desitions Just show the units this way (maybe type-unit in the first line, and then just the health bars in the lower lines as said before. The settings in the options menu could be used to apply this filter. And u could click the bar to ungarrison the group of "-%" or "+%" previously defined. At least, hotkey implementation using actual "Wounded unit health" its a simple good start. And I want to add, regarding your topic the fact that Control groups cannot be selected when garrisoned, I think it should be able to keep selecting them even if they are garrisoned. Maybe this option actually exists and i'm not aware

If there are slaves in the game, slave revolts should definitely be a possibility... What would be strategically interesting is to have the probability of slave revolts depend on which civilization you confront : especially, slaves would not revolt if their masters are attacked by another slaver civilization, but when the ratio of troops around said slaves favor a non-slaver civ (for example, Maurya, if I read the discussions well) then a slave revolt would be likely to occur. Also, have some heroes (Danaerys T. ?) raise the probability of slave revolts (against their enemies) in their aura. Maybe even have cruel heroes that raise the probability of slave revolts in their own civilization as long as they're alive ?

No, it's secret

I'm in favor, there are so many interesting possibilities. Although it may make balancing harder.

Note that splash damage was removed in A24. Bolt shooter was the only one able to keep it...

It is realistic that rams don't harm people. It is realistic that catapults do harm people, either by very destructive direct hit or by limited splash damage

I agree that catapult need to be fixed. They were OP in A23, weak in A24 and A25. They were OP in A23 because they were effective at killing both infantry and buildings, with huge resistance to pierce damage. Catapult spam = unstoppable. They were weak in A24 because, although they still had fair accuracy, archers could shoot them down easily without getting harmed themselves. In A25 they are trash because they are not accurate at all and vulnerable to everything. So we want them to be something between A23 and A24. My proposal: Boost accuracy: spread = 2 Keep maximum range at 100 metres, but decrease minimum range to 30 metres. Keep damage values the same as A25 Increase armour slightly so that they can finish their job before getting shot down. Keep them ineffective against infantry; no splash damage. So that they have to take out infantry units 1 by 1 so not OP at all.

Settlers IV had this feature, with individual HP bars for each garrisoned unit. In that game with towers and castles it was more critical because when under attack 1 unit at a time answered the front door and fenced to the death with a single opponent. The graphics were simple semi primitive but worked well. You could choose a wounded resident to send to a healer or replace him with a fresh soldier.

This is great, good job!

I would turn Skiritai into the "Eagle Warriors" from AOE2. Essentially really fast spearmen, good for raiding and flanking, but can get massacred by swordsmen and archers if they don't keep on the move. They could even use the Phalanx formation when in pitched battle.

I will keep asking for the champion in phase 2 ibero soliferrum, in the mod it looked good. for athens and sparta they need a champion in phase 2 macedonians can use siege in phase 2, one unit, the question is which one without it being op the argas briton swords that have bonus vs cav and smashing damage catafracts to be the heaviest cavalry unit with the highest armor of all the units finally that the chariots can move to melee in some way ....

So you want units that have a critical attack that can be used once every Y successful hits? Much like the greek heroes in AOM.

kataphracts: more armor hetairoi/agema: +speed, +small bonus vs infantry and reduced bonus vs cav.

Add a hotkey for "Push order in front" Queue up some orders e.g. gather berries, build a house, ... Press the key combination and select something that needs to be done NOW. The units will do it and still remember all the unfinished orders. push_order_front.mp4

I'm liking the pace of it, and autotrain is literally a game changer, as in, it feels familiar - but the dynamic of the game definitely has changed. It's certainly helping me as I was terrible at balancing unit production, but I know everyone else has that as well now! Waiting to test it all out in anger this week, see if I'm still a terrible player! But overall, I feel A25 is a vast improvement. I'm biased, I'm doing the PR work for 0AD - but before the release I officially suggested that A25 would over deliver - I genuinely feel it has. I'm really enjoying it straight from the off.

First of all, if it does not give major problems, there is no reason to remove it. These units are trained sometimes and I like to keep them as an option. Also I think we should consider the nature of 0AD as a community project. These units are someone's contributions, so it feels unfair (and maybe a little unrespectful) to cut it without strong reason. Also (this argument is not popular by me) 0AD is still in alpha, which means there is no reason to cut now it if you can cut the unit from the game later.

This situation seems to be natural state of the citizen concept. If you attack your opponent, the opponent will tend to have more units at his base than those in your attacking force. Sometimes players make some cavalry very early and rush, hoping that you can find a group of women that are ill protected. However as the game progresses, there will be less unprotected women. However there is something we could do to help rushing and encouraging people to make more women. There are 3 strategies: -booming with women: Only food is needed for the units. -cavalry rush-- Mainly food is needed for the units. -turtling with citizen soldiers and sentry towers: requires as much wood as food for the units. So if we would want to make turtling less common, we could increase food gathering rates and reduce wood gathering rates. So I would be in favor of such changes.