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Arsonist units for celts.

I was thinking that it might be better to separate the "Introductions and Off-topic" section. That's in the Welcome category, and there's probably little point in someone new to 0ad seeing politically-oriented posts in the same area where they're introducing themselves and being welcomed. The Off-topic section might fit better at the bottom of the forum. cc @feneur@plumo@mysticjim@Stan`

Depending on the cards, there is no balance between civilizations and even no chance of winning the right civilization on the right map. We can give attributes to civilizations but not an unbeatable side.

yes. yes, but not only that. pikes take so long to kill that they manage to be an effective annoyance even without ranged support (or without supporting the ranged guys, you may say). pikes just can't go wasted, they are so good. They also only need micro for when they get lost around hitting farms or such. About all ideas that came up for making civs more unique (some of which I find quite likeable), and about the original subject of the thread, I have a couple more things to say: - always remember that a bonus that gives an objective advantage to a particular player in any specific map, phase of the game, or team arrangement, should be avoided. the strategies available to all civs should be always balanced, at lest in principle. I, as @faction02, reject the idea of civs stronger than others is early game, or wither in late game, and I also don't like how imbalanced is naval warfare currently, it doesn't need more asymmetry, but more balance. - as I already said, and I hope @LetswaveaBook made a good enough argument for that, civs are already actually very different. people keeps asking for more difference because they can't see or can't appreciate what's already there. That's not their fault: for how 0AD is made, differences between civs are quite hard to navigate and understand. Some strategies being feasible with some civs is sometimes only the result of a series of quirks of the game that are very hard to spot, and I still wouldn't know about those strategies if I didn't see someone use them. Actually this is quite true about all RTS games, but is even more true for a game that is in its alpha phase, like 0AD. I'm not saying that civs can't be any more varied than they are now: they could have completely different sets of buildings and techs, like in starcraft, they could have different sets of resources even, different phasing mechanics, like in AOE4, and whatnot, but the level of asymmetry the game already has is not bad at all. I would rather see different playstyles enabled by new game mechanics, than fixate on how to change some civ economy so that it feels different from the others, without any real consequence apart from some eco convenience (not that such features are bad, ptole free houses for instance were very nice, but it can't be said they conveyed any particular playstyle).

What is it This mod lets you play alpha 23b balance in alpha 25 Download a23_balance_for_25.pyromod a23_balance_for_25.zip Why? I like alpha 25 but I like 23b balance better. Source code public repository https://github.com/nanihadesuka/a23_balance_for_25

Admin of DDoS service behind 200,000 attacks faces 35yrs in prison! I really hope this is our man, but I guess not. Still good to see how serious this is taken and that people get faced with their actions. 35 years in prison is a serious reaction.

Hi everyone I played for the first time 0ad around 7 or 8 years ago and then forgot about it. I recently remembered it and had the urge to play it again, I was so positively surprised at how far it has come, really such a beautiful project. I'm happy to be here

I only recently started playing this game and am really loving the overall art design except for one. The fortress. I just don't understand why the artist/s have decided to make the strongest defense structure in the game to be so short. They are literally shorter than your walls. It makes no sense I don't have any complaints about the area the fortress covers or its hit points, garrison and any other features. But for city builders and defense-based players who like to build walled cities defended by towers and fortresses, the fortresses are just visually unappealing. I think fortresses need to be designed much taller to give them a formidable and imposing aesthetic. And definitely taller than the walls.

Catapults/bolts are specific units that do allow for some civilization to have some strategies that other do not have. As mentioned by Dizaka in one of his post, catapults/bolts can be countered by mobility (which can be played by any civilization but unfortunately not on every map). If while the enemy attacks your base with catapults you can at least engage in a base trade with your rams/elephants damaging faster the enemy base than what the enemy can do with catapults, then having civilization(s) with (better) catapults might be ok. The issue arise if the Roman can also turtle too easily. In that example, I would see Roman civilization specificity not countered by other civilization specificity but by a particular way to play the game available to every civilization. If you give a strong economic bonus in early game to a particular civilization (as it was the case in a23), citizen soldiers implies that this civilization is likely to play any strategy better than the other and it would dominate all the others with mass infantry in late game. I would rather see different economic bonus for each civilization kind of balancing each other out such that there is no big difference in late game. To come back to my previous example, an additional starting citizen soldiers for romans would be a form of differentiated economic bonus which would compensate them from not having the faster wood cutting bonus that you would give to Gauls. The different type of economic bonus would give incentives to play differently each civilization, but they wouldn't imply that you should play a civilization in the way it was design. I think the game should be balanced only on mainland, for other maps just put a warning sign that game might be unbalanced. It would be the responsibility of the players to ban some civilizations, play mirror civilization etc... if they really want to play balanced game on these maps. balancing civilization on all maps would simply kill any attempts for differentiation. I strongly agree there, there are many ways to balance the game and every suggestions made might be the best for a particular vision of how the game should be played. Some people might want to cook a pizza, others might want to cook a pie, if we don't agree on what we are cooking, it is not possible to know if we need sugar...

I meant that indeed and it is problematic. Also for Javelin cavalry this is problematic. Not only for CS, but also for champions, which perform surprisingly well against melee cavalry. From 48 meter, the slinger does not do OP damage, but if the enemy gets closer it can have DPS comparable to the skirmisher.

Some ideas I had for gameplay diversification. If more experienced players see something that could be better, please point it out so it can be corrected. If players like this, it could be the base for a mod for testing the new playstyles.

I think that's probably the point raised by this thread: how to give civs more "flavour" beyond the basic rock, paper, scissor dynamic? As you describe in the example, it doesn't really matter which civilization you choose, you can simply ammass champions to make your army stronger and invade your opponent. I think that's what lies beneath the feeling of uniformity among the civilizations. They're carefully balanced together, but in the attempt to make them even they're more or less replaceable from one or another. Now, I'm a completely casual player and I enjoy the game as it is already, so I have no complaints. But I find the discussion very interesting and one of the things that can potentially increase the longevity of the game! Maybe the options that can be explored shouldn't be only exclusive to warfare, but could encompass other game dynamics. - Scythians are definitely a good example on how to bring a unique flavour of gameplay to the civilization. - But I also personally like the idea of a "trading civilization", that can be built specifically on trade and less from conventional forms of income. Protecting the caravans would then become a particular meta playing in this civ and add a new layer of difficulty - Another civ (Chinese maybe?) could instead get bonuses from farming extensively, but this would require also a lot of territory control on the map - A civilization strong on mercenaries can have a stronger army than the counterparts, but needs A LOT of resources, so you have to make sure to sustain a florid economy to use this potential to the fullest - On the contrary, a rush civilization may have cheaper and weaker units, but this gives the advantage of the big numbers. Maybe the can have the advantage of a cheaper/quicker expansion to other territories, so they can rely on map control in the middle/late game. - Other civs may rely on population bonuses for big numbers and others on social/culture bonuses with moral boost if they fight in their own territory (or some unique aura units like, idk, a priest or a standard bearer?) I'm just basking from previous ideas here, but I find some of them quite interesting to shuffle the game and make it less linear, depending on which civ you chose. Some civilizations have already their uniqueness with some special buildings/units and maybe is more a matter of making those small differences even more obvious, so is less about micro differences between single units, but more in broader, macro terms on how each specific gameplay will unfold. In that sense, I've found AOE 4 interesting from the sneak peek I've seen, with the choice of specific buildings to pass to the next age. It gives exactly that feeling of a deliberate strategic choice. Another game that comes to mind is C&C Generals, with the choice between generals in the beginning, and their respective "doctrines". The roast of basic units and counter-units was always present, but each general gave a different "extra" that made the game extremely variegate even by playing the same civilization. So yeah, maybe civilizations in 0ad could simply have that role instead.

Cyrus and Boudicca are out of Empires Ascendant's timeframe too. Unless a better alternative could be found, Temple at Uppsala could definitely be a good choice.

It's out of millenium's timeframe but it looks nice

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.

If someone would like to tackle the challenge, it would be great to have the Pantheon in Rome added to the game (perhaps as part of a group of wonders for a possible "Capture the Wonder" game mode). For DE I'd like to use it for Augustus' wonder (I'm able to change wonders and other things based on who you choose as a hero). Shape. Statuary along the roofline and in the pediment. Bronze Rooftiles. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Mozaik 3D replica. https://us.mozaweb.com/en/Search/global?search=pantheon

Working on some Roman Cataphracts, based on 2nd or early 3rd century examples. Right now they use Seleucid cataphract armor, but what they really need is a whole new horse armor set, like this mount here (full set): (rider's helmet would be a bonus) And/or this half-set here: There isn't currently a set of horse armor in the game that looks like this that covers the neck as well as the chest. Also, the awesome chamfron for the horse's face would be a separate piece. Currently, the only chamfron in the game is the Seleucid cavalry chamfron ith a transverse crest which is clearly not Roman.

I was thinking they could use their own look. Something like this:

@Huffman3829 Also get your armor (and attack) upgrades in the forge!

Another possible special building for them: Library: (Library of Celsus). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Library_of_Celsus

Maybe this has been discussed before but I couldn't see a topic about it. Arrows fired are almost invisible of how tiny they are, is there a way to make them just a very little bit bigger so that they can be seen without zooming in to the maximum just a thought, thank you

A side note here, how come the romans have a good cav roster? With champ swords and trashy spear cav to tank hits? From battle reports against hellenic forces we know that romans were inept at cav combat, standing their ground and fighting like infantry thus using cav in a more defensive role, wasting the most important atribute of a cavalry corps, it's agility.

Yeah, disables with radius = 0 right? But what I get then is even more units overlapping and no push mechanics. I want them to behave the same as the sheep, pigs, etc units do but can't find what I must modify in the templates.

Is the question correct? Is A26 planned?

We can give factions each an economic bonus such that it cancels out, or we can give none of them an economic bonus. I don't see why the difficult option would be worth the effort. That feels weird to me. I would prefer to make the trumpeter champion useful. Maybe the trumpeter is all ready useful, but it does not see a lot of play. I like this idea, but I doubt if it works in practise. If they are weak, they can be hunted down by cavalry and most often, players place their buildings such that there is not much to be captured. However adding extra units in the game is not bad as nobody forces players to make them. I think the game should be balanced on maps such as mainland. Other maps might not be balanced. If people like to create other maps, they need to keep balance in mind. So that might sound the same, but it is a different way of thinking about it.

I find it good that some civilizations are poor in siege units. Rome is ROME. Is a highly developed civilization with excellent siege capacity. Wall, military camp, long-range siege. To counter them the Gauls can send cavalry raids in ennemy base, attempt to kill the sieges with sword cav. Rome is good design differentiation. Gauls lacks something, but it good too. Gauls has the unit which decreases the enemy attack it is nice and the buildings are faster to build. Good food production in the fields. We can have little idea very easy. Delete all tech for boost monk (druid) on temple and remplace by an unique tech which teaches druids to morally boost their allies. When druide heal ally they boost 20% dammage for 5 seconds of the unit. Very usefull on infantery fight. So we can imagine druide with mounted druid (but produce in temple or in stable if temple is already built ?) If the idea about the druids refused. We can create new unit produced from house. A pillager unit with flashlight and a small dagger, very fragile and bonus plunder multiplied by 3. This unit can burn building, but they are very weak in fight ! Fast moving like a skirmish unit. 40 wood 40 food and the unit pick up ressource at 0.4 Ratio -> it will be well written that this is a poor collection unit.

I get the point but how do you view the current situation between e.g. the romans who have access to multiple siege weapons and a civ that only has rams (and no eles) lets say the Gauls. Is it not already implied that the romans are more favorable in late game? The counterargument I can think of would be: No romans are not stronger in late game, because their different siege options cost a lot of resources and Gauls can just produce more cheap units. And this is more the direction I was thinking of with the different playstyles. same here. I would say Mauryas have an advantage on the low wood maps through their worker ele. So should we get rid of it? Should we only have maps that have the same resource composition? I think advantages are fine to a certain degree, as long as they don't automatically decide who wins. I mean good for you if you see it that way, but it very much depends to what other games you compare it to. Basically you say the problem is not the game, but the expectation of the players, which is a valid point I guess. Since there is no up-to-date design document that describes how the game will develop in the future or how each faction should play, each player brings his own ideas and wants them implemented. Which brings me back to my original post -> It would be really good if we would create a design document, so that everybody is on the same page. agreed

It is mostly "whatever floats your boat". So if you have worked with git before, go for it. Else I would say use SVN just for the sake of our code being developed there. ^^ That said, both "svn diff" and "git diff" will be able to produce patches.

Discarded possible wonders: 0.a. "Externsteine": https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Externsteine The largest (sacred) rock formation in continental Europe. Although labeled as a sacred place for the (late coming) continental Saxons, and having inscriptions dating the X century, this place was known as a worship place for many Germanic tribes that preceded them. But considering the last choice of removing Stonehenge as a wonder for the Britons (and giving them a construction with a population bonus), then this option is unlikely. It's also too big as for being reduced it to the size of a wonder. But Externsteine along with a Black Forest (Schwarzwald), are must have maps for this faction. And it would be cool if Britons also would have a map with a real scale Stonehenge complex (whether possible to capture it or not as a wonder), along with other stone complexes like Bluehenge, Stanton Drew stone circles and even Drombeg stone circle. 0.b. "Irminsul": https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irminsul Again, it's more related with continental Saxons (whom don't fit the time frame). But I have to admit, it would fit perfectly as the wonder of the Germanic tribes in that area in Millennium AD. (A (continental) "Angles-Jutes-Saxons-Frisians" faction that could actually use Anglo-Saxons houses). In case the name is too long, they could be named "Frisian-Saxons" (or "Saxon-Frisians") (the two most relevant of those tribes, also the ones more famous for their wars with Franks). (Saxon wars, Frisian-Frankish wars). And designing it would require artistic make up as well. Maybe a large pillar like this: Surrounded by smaller pillars like this one (and some trees): Actual possible wonders: 1.a. "Alemannen Langhaus": Since none of the current buildings actually represent Langhäuser of a larger size (although they were pretty common). (It could be nice to make at least the civic center as similar as possible to those houses, if this is not the final choice for the wonder). (Maybe make it even larger if possible, around the size of the Norse civic center). The term "Alemannen" wouldn't come as a reference to the museum of which I spoke before, but from the words that gave origin to their name "alle männer" ("all peoples"). (And Alemanni were also part of the Suebians, as stated in my previous comment). Maybe decorate it with some sacred poles and bulls and horses skulls? 1.b. ***** "Semnonenhain" (Semnones grove) (my personal favorite): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grove_of_Fetters https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Semnonenhain From a quick look on Wikipedia, Semnones were Suebians too: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Semnones "The Semnones give themselves out to be the most ancient and renowned branch of the Suevi. Their antiquity is strongly attested by their religion. .... All this superstition implies the belief that from this spot the nation took its origin, that here dwells the supreme and all-ruling deity, to whom all else is subject and obedient. The fortunate lot of the Semnones strengthens this belief; a hundred cantons are in their occupation, and the vastness of their community makes them regard themselves as the head of the Suevic race." A sacred grove (common among Germanic pagans). A wonder as large as possible (and probably without the population bonus*). And clearly, a less rectangular (more "randomly shaped, Brownian distributed") wonder, representing the inner altar surrounding a big tree in the forest (it would require artistic imagination as well). But we already have an artistic representation: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grove_of_Fetters#/media/File:Semnonen_Hain_by_Emil_Doepler.jpg 1.c. "Suebischen Ganggrab" (Suebian burial mound): (I lack of information on this one, but it would indeed require a little of artistic inspiration). How to make that burial mound any different from the Xiongnu, Scythian and Illyrian burial mounds proposed as wonders for them too? From a quick search online: Denghood burial mound: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Denghoog Harhoog burial mound: https://www.komoot.com/highlight/419436 (In case those aren't included as wonders, they could be modeled and added to the Suebian maps of which I spoke before). Possible special buildings: 2.a. "Kreisgrabenanlage" ('circle', 'dig', 'enclosure'), (circular ditched enclosures): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neolithic_circular_enclosures_in_Central_Europe Wooden circles (historically) used with cultic purposes. And "serving" the function of calendars. I have to admit the first time I saw these I thought they were used to train units. (So I thought of it as an special building where infantry units could upgrade their ranks, with some limitations for not OP this faction too much). But they could offer a health / temple bonus instead. And matter of fact, since these constructions are related with other Germanic and Slavic peoples, they could be a shared technology / special building. Whether for "Frisian-Saxons" and "Baltid-Slavs" in Millennium AD? (or it can be used as the Wonder for the Suebians...) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goseck_circle This simply looks gorgeous and seems to fit so naturally for Suebians: 2.b. "Batavische Kaserne" (Batavian Barracks): In case there is going to be an special technology (or building) to unlock Batavians as special champions (both infantry and cavalry). (Yes, Suebians are going to be a very infantry focused faction). Maybe another Langhaus with a different style. What about using a Treveri Langhaus? (just as a variation). (Despite of being a Celtic tribe, they were closely related and placed to Germanic peoples). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treveri Treveri Langhaus: I'm really excited to see the complete development of this and many other factions in the game

@andy5995 That's interesting. I'd not really considered it, but indeed, the off-topic section - you do kind of plunge into a sea of global politics. Maybe introductions ought to be separated, then new forum members can discover the off-topic section when they're feeling a little more intrepid?

By this you mean that skirmishers can beat either pikes or spears 1 to 1? I agree this is a problem that won't be addressed by attack-ground. Would you prefer just reducing the damage of skirmishers? (I guess we could also reduce skirm cav damage too since they beat spearcav in 1 to 1 also)

To bad, I did not see your posts earlier. 0 A.D. locked-up on me. I was able to unlock it by killing the process. After that, i cam to look a the posts. Anyway ... I an not familiar with Debian. I do know that with Linux you can establish multiple work spaces. I am using Linux Mint. I have established 4 workspaces and programmed shortcut keys to access each workspace. I was able to "kill" 0 A.D. by switching to a different workspace and stopping it through the command line. An unexpected problem with 0 A.D. was that it locked my ability to use the system monitor to kill the 0 A.D. process. I was forced to use the command line which fortunately worked. So no need to reboot. I reloaded 0 A.D. based on this topic and reran the grep command: "ps -ef| grep /usr/games". I did get two results: "/bin/sh /usr/games/0ad" and "/usr/games/pyrogenesis". However, at the time 0 A.D. crashed, I got three results when I ran the grep command. The third result may have been the one where 0 A.D. got hung-up. Unfortunately, I don't recall the name of that process. Check-out the Debian forum for creating multiple workspaces and how to create keyboard shortcuts to access each workspace.

The main thing making archers underpowered in a25 is their inability to target ranged units like skirmishers because the skirms are behind some melee units. This effectively means their range advantage is nearly useless. Since they do so much less damage, they would be unable to kill melee inf as fast as skirms can, so skirms are a better unit. If you add attack-ground into the equation, it could be possible to begin killing enemy skirms before they can even attack your melee units. This adds variability and balancing to gameplay without even changing unit stats. @alre the main reason champions are massed (champion cavalry) is because there is no way to beat them with CS units, even spearmen. I would be in support of adding back champion training to forts with no unlock upgrade, and adding 500 food 500 wood and 500 metal to the barracks or stable training upgrades. If this were the case, you would usually see a few champions added to mostly CS or merc armies, and would see massed champions only after a long game. Also I recommend should go to the "all civs are my favorite" page and share their thoughts on @wowgetoffyourcellphone's ideas for civ differentiation there. I am particularly interested in the new kinds of military upgrades that would raise the cost and gather rate of the unit they affect (buy rank 2 for spearmen), these upgrades could be offered in different amounts to different units per civilization.

@LetswaveaBook lets get real here the pikemen are the real support units for the ranged chads.

I think pikemen are not problematic, the powerful ranged units that support them are. In the scenario editor I saw that if a force of 10 swordsman attack 5 pikemen and 5 skirmishers, the skirmisher survive all and 1 or 2 pikemen survive. If we take a weaker ranged units such as the archer, the swordsman defeat the pike+range combo by a small margin. The fact that 1 on 1 the spearman can't defeat the javelineer convincingly is something to keep in mind concerning this topic. I do not agree with the fact that these changes are too small. I will list some thoughts on uniqueness. Group 1: Uniqueness from the start. Ptolemies: There is no reason to call them ordinary. Mauryas: Starting with an worker elephant does significantly impact how you can play the game. Also they have unique options with swordsmen and elephants. Iberians: Starts with walls, giving them a totally unique feeling on top of all other uniqueness they gain. Britons: The are the less unique than the 3 factions above here. They start with a dog, which can be used to bring the deer towards your CC in the start of the game. These deer allow you to get more cavalry, which can rush excellently with the help of the dog. The war dog can be a very convenient unit for rushing. Having with slingers allows you to put that 300 starting stone directly to work, which means you can produce ranged infantry very conveniently at the start. Also the hero Caratacus makes the Briton units the fastest in the game. Group 2: Uniqueness in p2. It is not difficult to reach p2 and reaching p2 becomes all ready feasible at 40 population. Carthaginians: Strategies where you advance to p2 with 40 or 50 population and go for merc cavalry are very much feasible. Also they get the colonization technology, which is worth after you have build an (extra) CC. Once you reach p3, you get access to powerful heroes and you can instantly train champion infantry from the temple (does not require a technology like most champions do) Seleucids: They get their military colonies for 160w, 160s,160m. what you get for this investment is a great deal, 2 population space (equivalent to 2 houses=300wood+100sec build time), a resource drop of point (valued at 100 wood and 40 seconds build time, I will ignore for this comparison that you can also drop food on it), a defensive structure(a tower cost 100w, 100s and 150 sec build time) and you can use it to produce mercenaries(mercenary camps of kush/carthage cost each 200 resources and 150 sec build time). So the value totals at 500 wood, 100s, 200 extra resources for the value of merc camp and 540 seconds of build time. I am ignoring in this value, that it is a resource drop of point for food, can train women, allows for territory expansion and can heal garrisoned units. All in all the value of this building is much larger than its costs. Furthermore the faction boost instant hero and infantry champion production at p3, as you do not need to build an extra building or wait for a technology for the champions. On top of that, it also has good unit variety. Kushites: Once you reach p2, you can build mercenary camps which makes it feel unique. The Noba clubman is one of the few tools that can efficiently deal with fortification in p2. Also it gets a pyramid for faster gather rate. Once you reach p3, you can instantly produce champions from the temple. It heroes are fine and they have a big temple for rank 3 heroes. They also can mass elephants easier. Overall, this faction is still feels under-powered because the archers are under-powered. The kushites have 14 different types of soldiers (elephant included) and 2 siege weapons. So the Kushite problem is not a problem with its design, but with balance between ranged units. It could be more unique if it would be allowed to train pikemen in p1 or its pyramids would get available earlier: see https://code.wildfiregames.com/D4280 Group 3: Factions lacking things that make them feel unique. I don't mean to say that these are bad or don't have unique properties. However the unique things that they have mostly don't make much of an impact until p3. Gauls, Romans, Macedonians, Athenians, Spartans, Persians. Now that I have concluded that 6 out of 13 factions lack the unique feeling, what can and needs to be done about it? First of all, there aren't completely bland. Secondly it might be nice to have a group of more standardized factions and those who are more unique. Just a few suggestion: Make Naked fanatics more usable, make the temple of Vesta more special (like larger aura), No idea for Macedon, Give Athenians a Theatre bonus and allow the council hall to train champ hoplites in p2, Persians could use their levy upgrades and spear cavalry in p1. Having 7 factions out of 13 being unique is not bad. I am not opposed to p1 champions. I feel that it would be well balanced as people would prefer in p1 to make units that can gather resources over melee infantry units. Even if it allowed for gimmick strategies, Sparta was know for a militaristic culture and aggressive wars to enslave fellow Greek populations. Furthermore, I have decided to end every post with this quote Cato Maior: Ceterum censeo Carthaginem esse delendam, LetswaveaBook: Furthermore I think ranged damage must be reduced.

yeah my bad, I have not put enough thought into the examples. The best already implemented example of such an "unique" playstyle i'm thinking of are the scythinans from DE.

I think civs are already very different, competitive players see that and pay attention to adjust their strategies accordingly. The problem is that such differences are not very enjoyable, and it's pointless to try to introduce other differences yet, if they are not going to make the game enjoyably different. For instance, ptole houses and drop sites are considerably cheaper, which make ptole boom quite faster, but that doesn't streak quite as much in players experience as free houses, like they were in A23. When that bonus was dropped, there was much complaint, and it appears we still haven't learnt what makes people happy in terms of civ differentiation. But that is a eco bonus, it doesn't affect military composition and strategies. I want now propose a small analysis of how varied are military units in the game now, viable tactics, and how this can affect different civs. ---- Each civ starts with a particular cav type available to phase 1, for this reason, cav rushes play quite differently among different civs: spear cav rushes don't feel like jav cav rushes, which don't feel like camel rushes, they are quite balanced tactics that feel different from each other. This is a successful differentiation. Unfortunately, sword cav doesn't quite fit in here because they are simply OP, but we can include dogs in the comparison: they add a nice variation mainly because of their low vision. When coming to infantry, I think differentiation is much less enjoyable: archers are very different from skirmishers, but they are also very worse. I still think it was an error to take away from them the walking speed they had in A24, because archers could actually be employed in a way that is quite enjoyably different from shorter range units, if it just was viable. Same problem holds for pikes and spears: pikes are just better, because they are so damm persistent. Their speed that is so low does make them feel different, but the toy is broken because their role as undying pests is too effective in a game like 0 AD (and is also anti-historical, so that's another reason why I'd like to see an attempt to change them). About swords, they are simply not a valid substitute for spears and pikes, and one may decide to mix them in the melee for some extra hack, but apart changing your army stats a little, they don't change tactics in any enjoyable way. Now to champions: they are just units stronger than CS. Their usage consists in ammassing enough of them so that you have an army stronger than any other and thus you are unstoppable. Champions are effective tie breakers, but don't result in any particular tactic different from any other in the game. Even iber fire cav is just comparable to rome champ sword cav gameplay-wise: you make a big enough bunch of them, and then you go to rain havoc wherever you please. Will champs in P2 be a substantial buff to any civ that gets them? Definitively, especially in the current meta. Will that be a fun, enjoyable differentiation? I don't see how. The game must try to propose new and different game mechanics in order to have in itself the variation the many civs need. It's nice to read about civs good in ambushed or smaller fights, but how exactly? the game as it is now doesn't allow it. This is not a problem about civilizations, is a problem about game mechanics. The game allows, for instance, ammassing horse archers rather than fighting for map control, and I played some nice games around this strategy choice in A24. With a sufficient number of well balanced tactics like these two, the game can provide well differentiated civs that never play the same.

Keep in mind that building the Syssiton itself is an expense; supposing that there was no batch training possible and Spartans had something like a sixty second training time, I would hardly call that a completely broken mechanic. This could be coupled with their champions having reduced stats that improve with each subsequent phase. Making them spawn from the Civic Centre would make the Syssiton a redundancy, an unideal outcome. My point is that Spartans should be able to viably have Spartans at the beginning of the game in a way that is not a massive opportunity cost. Keep in mind that we are talking merely hypothetically, and calling such a mechanic either weak or overpowered is a false dichotomy without further experimentation.

Those city textures that appear under the buildings are really nice, it could have something like that in 0ad.

ask the trilateral commission and Zbigniew Kazimierz Brzezinski. The man who planned the war in Afghanistan was him, but he's already dead.

I was a little bored, so... A concept for the Norse' wonder, Temple at Uppsala: (It still requires; a proper coloring. The tree, chain, pool and runestones. And probably a simplification on its polygons). I designed it both based on the few information available online https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Temple_at_Uppsala (and particularly the artistic depiction https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/df/Olaus_Magnus_-_On_the_Glorious_Temple_Devoted_to_the_Nordic_Gods.jpg, although it lacked of proportion in some parts of the structure). And clearly inspired too by the actually known different models of "Stavkirker" (stave churches). I hope it can be helpful. 1735522378_UppsalaTemple.dae

Metroids; Super Metroid and Metroid Primes. Zeldas; Majora's Mask, Ocarina of Time and Twilight's Princess. Conkers bad fur day, Kirbys, Pokemons. F-Zeros (F-Zero GX <3), Starfoxs, Pikmins, Battalion Wars, Fire Emblems, Luigi Mansion and Smash Bros games. Tales of Symphonia. Mother (Earthbound) and Final Fantasy. Baten Kaitos and Phantasy Star Online. Lugaru and Overgrowth. Soul Calibur V. Dark Souls (1 and 3), Bloodborne & Blasphemous and other similar games. Castlevanias. Metal Gear Solid. Resident Evil Remake and 4, Dead Space. Oddworld. 007s, Perfect Dark, Wolfensteins, Dooms, Halo 2 and Medal of Honor. GTAs (San Andreas, IV, and V). Silent Hills (1,2,3,4, Homecoming and Shattered Memories). Nitrome Videogames (both from the website and the android platform); Ice Breaker, Rubble Trouble, Mutiny, Steamlands, Final Ninja, Skywire, Feed Me, Turn-Undead, Parasite, Toxic, Twin Shot, etc. Other indie games; popcaps's Peggle and Plants vs Zombies. Maldita Castilla, Cuphead, Grezzo 2, Limbo, Postal 2, Inside, System Shock 2, Window's Penguins, other flash games, etc. And of course now I play a lot to 0 A.D.

https://www.zocalopublicsquare.org/2021/09/09/roman-emperor-hadrian-unwinnable-war/

I really hate the champion unlock techs. I feel like they're completely unnecessary, or cost too much/take too long to research as you indicate.

I had that thought as well and was about to test it in DE.

Limitations of a 2D 3D game.

Some sort of fatigue would be cool for a mod. Only replenishes when near a building which is tied to an area that has a civic center(to prevent capturing a building and instantly being replenishes) Fatigue affects move speed and armor/attack/combat. That way an attacking army that wins has a decreasing effectiveness over time. Maybe some way to control running/walking more. Maybe if they haven't run for 30 seconds then their next command will run for the first 5 seconds.

Pikes should not be longer than 6 metres because that would become unrealistic. The longest sarissa was 6 metres and it was already bending. Longer pikes put more tension in the material and very few materials back in 0AD can withstand such stress, while being of a reasonable mass.

I have just push a commit (branch "gameplay-a24") to github - i'll hope i have this done correctly Norse, Byzantines and Carolingians seems to be ready - now looking for Anglo