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small update to 3.2. featuring a slight transparent main menu, experimental new logo design and other small fixes people mentioned.

First, I would like to praise the 0 AD team for making a great engine, as well as for making it so accessible to modders. The vanilla game is very enjoyable, the music is great, even if the AI nearly always massacres my towns. Also the use of JavaScript is a great choice, as I use it recently a lot in my work, so I don't have the bad feeling of playing too much... But I have to admit, being no real fan of AoE series, the game was attractive for me for the modding options. There were no wizards and dragons, so I thought about making some for the game. Download here (currently 18 MB). Currently compatible with version 0.25a only! The file contains a .zip, which can be simply extracted to binaries/data/mods folder. The file is irregularily updated. Parameter for launcher: -mod=scythia The mod basically adds a new faction of Sporians, which are very roughly based on 6th c. Sclaveni, as they are described by Byzantine authors - Sporoi where their mythical ancestors according to Procopius. The fantasy aspect is more important - from rhomphaias and bronze armors to dragons and thunderbolts. I was even thinking about making Red Sonja the faction's main hero. In short, as a "civilization", they are somewhat simplified: units can be trained only in the central building and the fortress. There are no barracks, no stables (cavalry needs the Corral), no "female citizen" unit (all units choose a gender variant randomly at training). On the other hand, basic infantry is cheaper than most units in vanilla and trains slightly faster. Units can also be healed in houses (3 at a time) from the beginning. The mod is far from being finished, but I wanted to ask for advice about some features. 1. Instead of temples, the faction can build an idol: a wooden statue of a god. As in Age of Mythology, the player has to choose one: Peraunu or Welinˀsu, which provide units with different upgrades. The idol decays in time, but can be repaired by a shaman (the healer/magician unit) dancing around. The decay is provided by a global aura, which is "researched" automatically when an idol is built. Even if there is a limit of one idol per player, the aura destroys any subsequent idol, if the first is lost. Is it thus possible to "unresearch" it or otherwise deactivate a global aura? 2. One of the functions of both idol and its shaman is to serve as a drop-off point for a new resource called "skulls". I got an inspiration for this new functionality from an older game called Sacrifice, where you collect souls of defeated enemies to strengthen yourself. Defeated enemy combat units have a chance to drop an "intact skull", which can be gathered by your units and brought to the shaman or idol. Only skulls from enemies (technically, the dropped skull is an entity granted to the player, who killed the unit) can be collected. The skulls can be used to upgrade your units, e.g. with rhomphaias or dragons (btw, now you need a fully trained Champion and 30 skulls for one). The problem is the gathering itself: to prevent combat formations from running away from battle, I set the scripts so, that only one skull is gathered at once. Also, for some reason, the units are unable to find nearby skulls dropped by dead enemies for gathering. Why does the gathering AI ignore them? 3. Concerning the dragons: update removes the flying ability. Flight is unwieldy to control - they land and take off again each time a new target is selected, they don't always correctly face their targets, and can use only a melee attack. The flying script is somewhat hard to follow, and it somehow overrides attack AI of the unit. Is it possible to set up a simpler flying motion using the UnitMotion component? Or at least without the circling around coded for the P-51? 4. Another solution for the dragon problem would be to make it a "packing" unit: it could have a walking mode, in which it would use a melee attack, and a flying/floating mode, in which it would throw down flames. The problem was, that packing uses a new entity, so a new visual is generated. This affects only the rider, which is small anyway, but I plan to add more variation to the mount too. Is it possible to use the packing feature and preserve entity visuals? 5. There is also a horse archer upgrade, available to Raiders with the Peraunu idol. As I looked for a way, how to make them capable of shooting on the move, I made them to contain two entities, i.e. a horse with a dummy attack and a "turret". Visually, it is not ideal, as the 1. prop did not place the turret entity correctly unless it was parented to root, and 2. it dies separately from the horse. As I saw that some nomadic factions are in making, are there any more elegant solutions for such a feature? Thanks for any advice, and feel free to try the mod if you wish.

This is very much expected. In multiplayer the game needs to be synchronized over the internet. In order to do this, any command you send needs to be shared with all clients before processing it. More precisely, a client need to send the command to the host, then the host shares it with all clients. Hence when you give a command it is only executed a little while later. IIRC this "delay" is hardcoded to be .6s (or .4s?, whatever). In future we might implement having this time "dynamic" i.e. it would be as low as possible depending on the used network connections (this also related to the idea of "variable turnlengths"). This would make the game more responsive in some situations, in particular two computers on the same network. However do notice that there will always be some delay. In particular, if you are playing with someone on the other side of the globe, you will have at least .133s delay (we need to travel from the client to the host and back, so basically travel a full circumference of the earth). Simply by the laws of special relativity (nothing can move faster than the light). Likely this will be even higher, since your signal probably will travel slower and with some detour.

Hola guys! Premise: so I was thinking how to make a good medieval version of 0ad that can be fun to play and can stand together with the main game. I think it could be a strategic choice, given the recent hype surrounding the release of AOE 4 (which is, after all, the progenitor of 0ad itself) and the latest interest surrounding classic rts games in general. An alternative mod that can be presented together with the main game could be also another element that showcases the potential of pyrogenesis engine and, hopefully, attract new talents and devs that could enjoy working for the game. For this reason, I think Millenium AD provides already a solid base to work upon. It's been updated to the latest alpha version (thanks Yekaterina!) and it works quite flawlessly. The name itself works very well in a continuum with 0ad and re-inforces the overall brand of games that can span from ancient wars to modern times with a set of different titles that can offer various gameplay experiences. But the project seems to be abandoned. The last messages in the forum date back to 2-3 years ago and I have no idea if there're still people interested in the project anymore. The original creators also seem to have left and what remains is an interesting work with some good ideas but a lost potential. Since the mod relies mostly on the features in the vanilla game, I think the work required to revamp the game would be mostly cosmetical: - new civs, new assets, UI update etc.. because all the other gameplay features would just follow along each alpha release of 0ad. So what I want to propose is a simple roadmap to refresh the mod and make it enjoyable to play, despite the long hiatus. -Very simply: stick to a more indefinite timeframe around 1000AD (from the fall of the Roman Empire up to 1200-1300 ca.) and compress the two original parts of the mod into a single one that can "generically" evocate medieval times in that timeframe. -Focus on 3 new civs only that can offer enough variety in the game together with the other civs already present. In synthesis: Kiss. Keep it simple, stupid! ahaha Seriously though. It would be nice to have a fun and playable mod, and I think the shortcut would be to focus on simple goals that can be manageable and can keep the game fresh without too much strain. So for now we have: Europeans: - Carolingians - Anglo-Saxons - Norse Arab: - Umayyads Middle-Eastern: - Byzantine And I wanted to propose: Nomad/Turks: - Avars East Europeans: - Muscovy Russians Asian: - Feudal Japan Hopefully this set of new civs could give enough choice and variety to the gameplay by having some unique characteristics. (*Further it may be expanded with some European civs, like Holy Roman Empire and Italian States, and Goryeo or Song Dinasty in Asia, but only after this first roast of civs) Now, the tricky part: I'm no developer and no 3D artist (but I can learn this part!). I only tried experimenting with some concept art for the Russian civ and I had quite some fun with it, so I think I can design a detailed concept for each civ: buildings, units, techs that can be more easily adapted into 3d assets and into the game. But then I have to defer to more experienced people in the forum if they want to chime in and participate with their talent and expertise. And, generally, if you guys think it's a wortwhile project, alongside the current schedules. Or if simply you have suggestions, how to start with a mod etcc.. I don't know. I have no idea about the current schedules of 0ad development, so this is only for the funsies! Beside, let me know your comments! This is just a proposal, but I'm very interested to hear opinions, suggestions or anything that can be helpful to the discussion!

Standards appearing over battalions looks really nice and do help with gameplay. Now, I wonder how to make them civ-specific. I tried using the waypoint/rally point flag hack in the actor, which names variants based on civ codes ("athen", "spart", "cart", etc.). It works for the waypoint actor (obviously), but not for my formation standard actor. In the above screenshot, you see that the standards pick random variants instead of the civ-specific one. Both flags should be the "athen" variant, but they are not. Also, a new flag variant is chosen each time the formation is created. Here is the waypoint flag code, which works: <?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?> <actor version="1"> <castshadow/> <float/> <group> <variant frequency="100"> <animations> <animation file="mechanical/waypoint_flag_idle.dae" name="Idle" speed="30"/> </animations> <mesh>props/waypoint_flag.dae</mesh> </variant> </group> <group> <variant name="hele"> <textures> <texture file="props/banner_greek.png" name="baseTex"/> </textures> </variant> <variant name="pers"> <textures> <texture file="props/banner_persian.png" name="baseTex"/> </textures> </variant> <variant name="celt"> <textures> <texture file="props/banner_celt.png" name="baseTex"/> </textures> </variant> <variant name="cart"> <textures> <texture file="props/banner_carthage.png" name="baseTex"/> </textures> </variant> <variant name="iber"> <textures> <texture file="props/banner_iberians.png" name="baseTex"/> </textures> </variant> <variant name="scyth"> <textures> <texture file="props/banner_scythians.png" name="baseTex"/> </textures> </variant> <variant name="xion"> <textures> <texture file="props/banner_scythians.png" name="baseTex"/> </textures> </variant> <variant name="rome"> <textures> <texture file="props/banner_romans.png" name="baseTex"/> </textures> </variant> <variant name="imp"> <textures> <texture file="props/banner_romans.png" name="baseTex"/> </textures> </variant> <variant name="spart"> <textures> <texture file="props/banner_spartans.png" name="baseTex"/> </textures> </variant> <variant name="mace"> <textures> <texture file="props/banner_macedonians.png" name="baseTex"/> </textures> </variant> <variant name="athen"> <textures> <texture file="props/banner_greek.png" name="baseTex"/> </textures> </variant> <variant name="brit"> <textures> <texture file="props/banner_celt.png" name="baseTex"/> </textures> </variant> <variant name="gaul"> <textures> <texture file="props/banner_celt.png" name="baseTex"/> </textures> </variant> <variant name="maur"> <textures> <texture file="props/banner_mauryas.png" name="baseTex"/> </textures> </variant> <variant name="ptol"> <textures> <texture file="props/banner_ptolemies.png" name="baseTex"/> </textures> </variant> <variant name="sele"> <textures> <texture file="props/banner_seleucids.png" name="baseTex"/> </textures> </variant> <variant name="theb"> <textures> <texture file="props/banner_thebans.png" name="baseTex"/> </textures> </variant> <variant name="epir"> <textures> <texture file="props/banner_epirotes.png" name="baseTex"/> </textures> </variant> <variant name="han"> <textures> <texture file="props/banner_chinese.png" name="baseTex"/> </textures> </variant> <variant name="kush"> <textures> <texture file="props/banner_kushites.png" name="baseTex"/> </textures> </variant> <variant name="noba"> <textures> <texture file="props/banner_kushites.png" name="baseTex"/> </textures> </variant> <variant name="sueb"> <textures> <texture file="props/banner_germans.png" name="baseTex"/> </textures> </variant> <variant name="goth"> <textures> <texture file="props/banner_norse.png" name="baseTex"/> </textures> </variant> <variant name="zapo"> <textures> <texture file="props/banner_maya.png" name="baseTex"/> </textures> </variant> </group> <material>basic_trans.xml</material> </actor> Here is the Standard code, which does not work: <?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?> <actor version="1"> <castshadow/> <float/> <group> <variant frequency="100"> <mesh>props/standards/formation_pole.dae</mesh> <textures> <texture file="props/kart_standard.png" name="baseTex"/> <texture file="props/kart_standard_norm.png" name="normTex"/> <texture file="props/kart_standard_spec.png" name="specTex"/> </textures> </variant> </group> <group> <variant name="athen"> <props> <prop actor="props/units/standards/formation_flag_athen.xml" attachpoint="root"/> </props> </variant> <variant name="cart"> <props> <prop actor="props/units/standards/formation_flag_cart.xml" attachpoint="root"/> </props> </variant> <variant name="spart"> <props> <prop actor="props/units/standards/formation_flag_spart.xml" attachpoint="root"/> </props> </variant> </group> <material>no_trans_parallax_spec.xml</material> </actor> formation_flag_athen: <?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?> <actor version="1"> <castshadow/> <group> <variant> <mesh>props/standards/formation_flag.dae</mesh> <textures> <texture file="props/standards/athen_infantry_1.png" name="baseTex"/> </textures> </variant> </group> <material>player_trans.xml</material> </actor>

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.

Update: More amplified projectile woosh sounds when launching Added hit sound for every type of impact

Missing the dots in 0 A.D. But it's looking really nice. I miss not seeing EMPIRES ASCENDANT somewhere though.

Hello, I recently found out about this game and I am truly amazed. The game is very responsive in single player mode, however when I host or join an online multiplayer game I get about 0.5s (or worse) lag, for instance, from the moment I tell a unit to "go somewhere" to the moment it actually performs the action. I tried on two laptops, one with windows 10 and one running linux (flatpak) and I have the identical issue, all good in single player, long response time in multiplayer, even if I play alone. Can anyone help troubleshoot this issue? Thank you very much. Cheers,

I'll point out that the behaviour is by design because doing it dynamically is harder, and we haven't done it yet. Ultimately, we would like to reduce the response time, but it hasn't yet been implemented.

Happy Sunday SG.74.4v4.Conflict comebacks and capitulation.zip

If you play the Iberian faction, their horse javelin unit with flaming javelin enabled work wonders against siege units and buildings. 20 of those in a group can take care of 3 to 4 battering rams in seconds. I also do away with siege units completely when playing this faction and just use them for razing buildings. They are much faster and more flexible than battering rams, and can defend themselves effectively and not requiring escorts. Best of all if they are in real danger you can always stick them in the safely of a temple. Have two rotating groups of flaming javelinist doing their work and with the temple itself covered by arrows from garrisoned civic centres and fortress (20 units max each) pretty much sums up my late-game gameplay. You can fill the civic centre and fortress with cheap skirmisher units and it will shoot the same arrow as more expensive ones, they can be put to work when the complex is not under attack, save the metals just for the fire javelinist and replace lost units here and there. I strike here and there with the horse units, taking down a couple of buildings and retreat, drawing in the enemy units to be whittled down by my base defense, then switch to my other group to strike out again while the first group heals. If the enemy comes with siege units take those out first while they are still on their way then withdraw back to the temple. Set the horse units on defensive mode so they only attack what you tell them to and don't stick around absorbing unnecessary damage and losses. Good and effective game play boils down to a plan consisting of a simple number of steps that you just repeat over and over again. Building up and surviving until you can put the plan to work is the key. Preferably getting everything in place before their escorted siege units arrive. (If you are playing another faction champion sword cavalry units in groups of at least 20 is still your best counter against siege units. Try to save and reuse champion units as they are too valuable and expensive to be used up in one battle. Infantry champion units are too slow and will be overwhelmed while they try to destroy siege units. Lump your units with ctrl+number keys to better control them in the mess of men during battle and set attack mode to defensive so they don't act out on their own. Bolt crossbows will work against battering rams and catapults but they are a pain to pack/unpack and hard to defend against other enemy units.)

This is basically why I always play with the Iberian faction, because of their flaming horse javelinist. A team of 20 takes out fortresses (very costly to capture especially when fully garrisoned), battle rams and catapults like a charm. Basically everything else can be handled by garrisoning troops in strategically placed civic centres and fortresses. Two teams of 20 horse javelinist (flaming tip enabled) taking turn one whittling down enemy units and structures while the other heals in a temple. The temple itself cross-fired by a civic centre and fortress allowing a full garrison of 40 other units providing cover fire. The flame javelinists can come out to take down battering rams and catapults should they threaten the buildings. Those three fully garrisoned buildings are hard to siege and takes a long time to destroy without siege weaponery.

Many thanks Stan. We have not been able to fix the issue but rather got it work by using the multiplayer lobby instead. This is rather strange, as I assume that the multiplayer lobby is connecting each player using internet rather than we connect to each other over LAN, if the issue is on the router side then it should be the same thing whenever I browse internet or streaming? Anyway, this is how we handled the issue for now in case someone is experiencing the same issue.

Another great Sunday 4v4 Those darn towers!!!! Replay Download below SG.73_4v4 Towers of Doom.zip

Some screens from the current build: https://github.com/stereotipo/millenniumad

Hello people!! Happy new year everyone! I hope y'all had some nice holidays.. here it's been a bit of a mess getting sick for a couple of weeks. I took advantage of the circumstances to advance a bit with this little project. I wanted to share some advancements with you all so I made this little bullshit promo image ahahaha - Anyway some changes have revolved around a restyle of the current civs and now I finally tackled the new one the Rus which is already quite playable! - I tried to introduce also some little game mechanic variations, like a couple of buildings in the roast when necessary and some alternative techs for some civs. Nothing extraordinary, but maybe it could be a bit of an experiment for features in the Vanilla About the assets: - Music have been sourced here: https://pixabay.com/%2Fsv/music/ and https://archive.org - Textures have been sourced here: https://www.textures.com/ which is a pretty good repository for assets that can be used for game production and similar (it clearly states in the terms that: "You are allowed to use our photos for many kinds of projects and even sell them in combination with 3D models.") - The rest of art / 3d models and illustrations have been made by me (aaand the previous people that worked on it obv). So is 100% free stuff The game still need some polishing but I feel like it's getting to a nice advanced stage, so guys I would be happy if some of you want to try it out and share some feedbacks. The game can be downloaded here: https://github.com/stereotipo/millenniumad

slowly slowly I'm updating the mod to include some new features, assets and all the good stuff. If you want to try it out, you can find it here: https://github.com/stereotipo/millenniumad Current changes had been : - A full building set for the Umayyad civilization (was lacking) - An update of some Byzantine buildings, to make them more historically accurate and improved textures (thanks to @Andronikos Medina for his historical supervision, as scholar of Byzantinism) - A new civ, the Rus (currently on hold) with new planed features and mechanics Today, as a personal exercise I also made an alternative splash screen, featuring the Norse and I'm planning to make a few more! Once completed, I hope that this mod can have the chance to promote 0ad and Wildfire Games through early medieval history!

- Quick update: I moved some of the discussions around concepts and production on a separate Discord channel to not pollute too much this forum with inside debates and too much of technical conversations, but I'll try to offer an updated view of the progress also in the forum. Currently I have to thanks @Andronikos Medina for the historical background and @Dasaavawarfor participating with feedback and ideas! - Together we came up with an initial review of the current meta of the game (Gameplay_sketch) And, from that, we distilled a plan of present and future features that would be possible to implement: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1gEokmKtmHw_1vQwC2tTUMvgxO_ttm3Z_Xq1GBUeMKT8/edit#gid=2057863749 (it's meant to be a general blueprint, some things may be further reviewed in terms of gameplay balance) - The main focus would be on the current roast of civs: Byzantine, Umayyads, Carolingians, Anglo-Saxons, Norse + a new faction: Rus. Some things have to be completely updated (Umayyads buildings set, thanks also to @Lopess support!) and some things may be refreshed following a organization of civs into 3 main categories: "Empire civs", "Medium civs" and "Tribal/Nomadic civs", to help manage the balance of each of them. Something that @Dasaavawarhad already conceptualized in this thread: https://wildfiregames.com/forum/topic/58002-civ-differentiation-playstyles/?do=findComment&comment=460284 - Currently we've decided to focus on refreshing the Byzantines, the most complete and central civ of this mod, thanks to @Andronikos Medina particular interest and expertise around this civilization and historical period. We decided for the introduction of an administrative building (Bouleterion, based on the monastery of Nea Moni) that could: 1. Mark the imperial status of this civilization 2. Offer a blueprint to update current buildings/texture pack somewhere in the future 3. Experiment new techs that could be adapted to the following civs and revive the gameplay that hasn't been updated since a23-24 After this first step we would have maybe reached enough maturity and expertise to tackle maybe a new civ like the Rus' and hopefully provide a new, fresh update to Millenium AD. but we're still at the very beginning of the adventure! Gameplay_Sketch.txt

Working on this mod, so far I managed to make something similar to what @Lion.Kanzenwas explaining. I introduced a new civ (Rus) and a new building with special functions based on my initial idea/concept at the beginning here: Stan gave some suggestions in this thread on how to develop the concept from the templates available: So here you go! A new 3d model that can be built in neutral territory and, as you can see from the pictures, act as a market (and also as a dropsite!). It's all playable here : https://github.com/stereotipo/millenniumad If you're interested I can keep you updated on future progress! I didn't exactly know how the Council of Modders operated, but now I think it will be good to share more of new material here in the forum, so it can benefit also of the supervision and feedback of more experienced people! I just hope I'll not bother too much

Guys.. let me introduce you the new Rus civilization for Millenium AD!! Finally, after some troubleshooting and a quick deep dive into 3D modelling, I managed to bring my customized CC into my new civlization!! Since now I was only experimenting with dummy models, but now I think I can really transfer those initial concepts to the actual game! Thanks to everyone that answered my doubts/questions!! It had been a big, big encouragement to not despair from the very beginning! EDIT: yes, I can still make that model a little bit prettier.. but overall is a decent result of what I had conceptualized! Next one: add props, decals, etc... Rus_civic_centre_08.blend Rus_civic_centre_08.blend1

Okay, here an example of how these civs can be developed. Here's the Muscovite Rus' (just a draft). Muscovite Rus' The Grand Duchy of Moscow (or Muscovite Rus’) was a Rus' principality of the Late Middle Ages centered on Moscow, and the predecessor state of the Tsardom of Russia in the early modern period. It was ruled by the Rurik dynasty, who had ruled Rus' since the foundation of Novgorod in 862. Ivan III the Great titled himself as Sovereign and Grand Duke of All Rus'. The Muscovite Rus’ is a great commercial empire, spanning from the Baltic Sea to the Bosphorus. For centuries this land has been territory of passage between the germanic tribes of the north and the hellenic civilizations of the south and a crossroad between East and West. The trading of furs, wood and precious metal is the source of the richnesses of the Russian Grandduchy. For this reason, one of the key buildings of this civilization is the Trading Post, a unique building available at a early phase that can be placed in neutral territory and act as universal dropsite and trading hotspot. It allows a quick expansion into the map, and it can be upgraded as a Civic Center (economic expansion), or as an Army Camp (military expansion). Army The core of the Rus’ army is its light/medium cavalry and ranged units, due to their tradition of hunting wild game in the forests. One of the special units is the scout, a light cavalry unit always followed by 2 hunting dogs that can be used for exploration or early incursion. The infantry is generally very basic and weak, composed mostly by peasants (citizen-soldiers). The élite is composed mostly of mercenaries coming from the north: the Varangians, while the cavalry relies on “Qazaqs” from the Caspian steppe and their military traditions. Economy The Russian civilization has cheap and fast buildings and relies heavily on three resources for its sustainment: food, wood and metal. This makes the civilization very competitive in forest-based maps, but weaker when this crucial resource is lacking. However, due to their trading bonuses they can often trade the underused stone to compensate. The enormous extension of Russian plains allow for an extensive food production: Rus’ farmfields are 25% larger and allow up to 7 farmers to each field. A later technology called “Serfdom”, allows to train “serfs” (slaves), cheap and productive units that can sustain the rest of the army.

Not gonna lie, I'm having fun! ehehehe Some concepts for basic Russian buildings

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.

I propose they are only able to capture walls and/or fortresses.

IMO that should be true for all siege weapons. Capturing them takes twice as long or more than just killing them. For siege towers it's even worse since in order to be useful they have to be garrisoned, and if they're garrisoned then they're uncapturable. I think a better idea for siege towers is to give them the ability to capture buildings. They should have a low base capture rate, but gain a large bonus per garrisoned unit, like 2 or 3 times the usual capture power of the average unit. That'd be cooler, a lot more historically accurate, and would make them actually useful as siege weapons, which they supposedly are but currently they're more or less useless against buildings since they barely do any crush damage.