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Congrats to the epic tournament win, @Feldfeld , and thanks for organizing. @seeh and @chocapoca you still have a match against each other, as well as @LetswaveaBook and @rm -rf

Possible specific names for units ; i used wiktionary and some names from total war mods Spearman: Harjaz (Warrior or commander) Warjaz (Defender, Citizen) Wīgamann (Warrior, Champion) Militia Clubman: Slahandz (Striker, Killer) Breutandz (Destroyer, breaker, Smasher) Warjaz (Defender, Citizen) Axeman: Slahandz (Striker, Killer) Mōdagaz (Brave, courageous) Akwisīwaldaz (Axe-Wielder) Javelinist: Jungilingaz (Youth) Slinger: Slingwandz (Slinger) Scout: Sōkijandz (Seeker) Cavalry javelinist: Welwô (Plunderer, robber) Cavalry Spearman Ridanz Champion Swordsman: Herunautaz (Sword owner) Gahlaibô (Messmate, comrade, companion) Sagjaz (Retainer, Warrior) Kuningasþegnaz (King's retainer, King's servant) Þegnaz (retainer, servant) Herthaganautaz (Hearth Companion) Haliþaz (Hero) Champion cavalry: Erlaz (Noble) Marhafrawjô (Horse Lord) Ram: Rammaz (Ram as in the animal; there is no evidence the word was associated with siege engines like in the classical world) Gatabreutandz (Gate smasher) Wolf Warrior: Wulfaharjaz (wolf Warrior) Wulfahadinaz (Attempted early form of Ulfheodnar) Blōþądrinkandz (Blood drinker, from Paul the Deacon's account of the Lombard "cynocephali" Wōdaharjaz (Frenzied warrior) Villager: Karilaz (Freeman) Slave: Þewaz Merchant: Wihslōndz (Trader) Kaupô (Inkeeper, Merchant; Borrowed from Latin) Priest: Gudjô Wīhōn Haljarūnō (Witch, sorceress; could be used in case they get a priestess instead of priest) Fishing boat: Fiskarijasbaitaz (Fisherman's boat) Trading boat: Rinaskaupô (Rine Merchant) Pig: Swīną Cow: Kūz Sheep: Skēpą Reconstructions of hero names: Ariovistus: Ariouistos (Celtic) Harjafristaz (Germanic; means army leader) Maroboodus: Marobodwos (Celtic, Great raven, great war god) Marabadwaz (Germanic, great battle) Marabodwaz (Germanic) Ballomar: Ballomaros (Celtic, great limb) Balþamerijaz* *The last one is a Proto-Germanic name who survived as the Galician ''Baldomar'', it is a fusion of balþaz (“bold”) and mērijaz (“great; famous”). I have not seen anyone else suggest this origin for Ballomar; it is just speculation on my part.

I've noticed that berries disappear a lot in fog of war this alpha. You will see them and then they will disappear in the fog. Sometimes they show back up in the fog. To be clear, berries aren't getting used up--they're still there if you get them into vision.

GenieBot is muting people for saying wtf, which is a common abbreviation for will to fight.

wtf is a profane slang but these days i think its widely accepted. Even higher level authorities like biden and trump uses it all the time (

What you mean by this? I haven't played original RA much, but OpenRA is quite simple to play, you can basically win by just spamming tanks and infantry and positioning properly. Or if you like more micro, you can go tech.

I think we should just have a personal "profanity filter" setting in the settings menu thats on by default with maybe some way for the user to expand the list of word filtering (into !@%^ - or something), and stop doing any sort of auto modding for profanity. These cases need context and need to be done by a person so that it can be differentiated from verbal abuse and banter for example. Though, i'm not sure whats a smart way to support this in multiple languages. Maybe theres a "list of curse words" to be found online. The first comment here could be a good start since its open source and can provide the list in JSON. It would be really easy to setup the chat to filter these words with such a list.

I'm not a fan of censorship at any level, but of course I can understand to control and censor offensive words in the main lobby. Still, I cannot imagine a single person in the world who could be offended by a wtf. Should I consider it a profanity then? A... profanity? Wtf? Wtf. Isn't it a little too much? It costed me days being muted to remember I cannot write "sh1t" in the main lobby, seems like I should prepare myself for some more silent days.

The Tavern could have the Whiskey Tango Foxtrot tech that helps improve unit dancing.

I think it's a fun upgrade concerning kills.

Let's have a vote. Do people prefer "strong hitting, incredible targeting" or "amazingly strong strikes"?

Should this change go into the Community mod or on Phab? Please advise.

yes i hope @chocapocahas time (i was writing him / some PM's)

From experience: a 1 to1 HP to DPS tradeoff is not going to work out how you want. The most important decider for how much damage a melee unit can do vs a range unit is not actually its DPS, but how much time it spends in attack range, which is determined by speed and effective HP. Consider that -10% HP on a unit that spends 80% of a battle walking to the enemy and 20% attacking is not a 10% reduction to damage dealt. It's -50%, as the unit is now only gets to spend 10% of its nominal lifetime on target. If you really want to test this, first you should try just doubling Melee infantry DPS. See how much that changes up the dynamics. If it is too much, then you can scale it back or look at some compensatory nerfs, but I think you will be shocked just how little difference it makes. Edit: and if the goal is to have gameplay that actually reflects ancient warfare--with 70+% of the fighting strength composed of heavy (melee) infantry--I think you will need to go much, much further with the melee inf buffs. I'd imagine somewhere in the neighborhood 2X DPS and 4X HP would do it.

Ok that makes more sense. Thanks for bearing with me. I think it's a valid goal and one that makes sense for the community mod. I, however, see three main pitfalls right now. For the first one, I think you can make a slight adjustment to get rid of it before testing. For the second and third issues, I think you just have to test it. It should be a health nerf instead of an armor nerf. Otherwise units that rely on crush for damage, such as slingers, clubs, axes, and cata, will get relatively weaker (esp. clubs and axes, which are already so rarely used). Also, while changing armor for spear/sword is easy (because they have the same armor) it is hard for pike (because they have different pierce/hack armor values relative to their armor counterpart and relative to other melee units). Health is also just easier to deal with because it will make even changes across the board (instead of doing calculations for pike armor changes and possible crush armor changes). This will impact melee units' strength relative to defensive buildings because they will not be able to stand under buildings as long. I don't feel great about this, but I'm on board for testing it. You can't really adjust for this because any adjustment will also impact range units' survivability under defensive buildings. This will impact impact infantry's strength relative to cav. Right now, spear should be the counter to cav (query on whether that is actually true...). Making spear die faster will exacerbate any imbalances that exist for inf relative to cav. It also will outright make melee cav stronger relative to melee inf. This could be dealt with by adjusting cav health, but we've already seen proposals on that fail. Whatever you do to melee infantry I think has to be done to melee cav too because otherwise melee inf will get too big of a nerf relative to melee cav. Even if you do that, I think there might be some problems because of already existing imbalances. I don't feel great about this, but it's just something that has to be tested. What values are you thinking? I would want to keep the decreases in line with the increases so we can test if change actually adjusts the meta in a desirable way. Something like a 10% decrease to survivability and a 10% increase in attack? Maybe a 20%-20%? I wouldn't go as far as making melee dps equal to range dps because that would require like a 50% reduction in survivability, which would make them die really fast. Unlike everything included in previous community mods, I have no idea whether this will succeed. This is exactly the type of thing that I think should be tested in the mod, though.

This, as it turns out, has more to do with their armor than their damage (and the fact that so few players get hack armor). Usually when ranged units start to get hit by melee there is plenty of time to just start running away. The idea here would be to increase damage substantially, and decrease armor to like either 4 or 3 hack and pierce (for swords/spears). For one reason, one wouldn't want melee units to be much more susceptible to hack versus pierce, as this would basically make swords much better than they already are. The primary reason is that we don't want 5 to 10 swordsmen to be able to beat almost 40 skirmishers for example. They should be highly damaging to ranged units but still killable. The whole idea of reducing armor a little is to alleviate the meat shield meta. If my ranged units can find decent damage now versus enemy melee units (which are also more valuable to kill due to their higher damage), maybe I will let them target melee instead of always sniping.

Your logic/goal is starting to make more sense--you want melee fights to be a true fight as opposed to a sideshow. That seems like a valid goal. (Note, my solution of making melee units faster so they can just get to enemy range units didn't address this, so I think you might be onto something). This sounds like you can achieve it with just a hack armor decrease, right? Why would you need to increase attack? If you decrease melee's hack armor then that will make melee's attacks more powerful against other melee, which seems like your goal. Increasing melee's attack will also make melee more impactful against range, but melee is already very strong against range when they actually engage. Why do you want to decrease melee's pierce armor? That will make range even stronger vs. melee (i.e., it could eliminate the need for a meat shield because range would be more able to fight with melee head-on).

I've noticed that berries disappear a lot in fog of war this alpha. You will see them and then they will disappear in the fog. Sometimes they show back up in the fog. To be clear, berries aren't getting used up--they're still there if you get them into vision.

I noticed that too, since the beginning of the alpha (it didn't happen before). It is related to the initial explored area when the game begins, there can be explored berries near the end of the explored area, but when you have a unit scout near the berries, but without the berries being in its line of sight, then the berries will disappear (and that includes the minimap). They will reappear forever when they get in the line of sight of one unit.

Yeah, let's change to "strong hitting, incredible targeting."

It's been a while! New Stelae and other prop additions look good, though some might need a slight selection ring readjustments so units don't clip through them

Sure. How is that organic, though? I don't think it is. That would be an excuse for other behavior.

For clothing maybe something like this: Basic:Wearing only pants, loincloth or naked. Advanced:Barechested or naked with a cloak (From Roman art and Tacitus'descriptions it seems they often wore the cloak without the tunic) Elite:Cloak and tunic. Maybe the champions could have armor; but they have a chance of spawning without it. Other ways to distinguish them from citizen units would be to give them scabbards, some kind of jewelry (The neckchains described in Germania?) and fancier clothes. Possibly use this sort of ''flannel'' pattern. Shields could be used as well: Basic:Oval or Rectangular shield with wooden boss Advanced:Oval, rectangular or hexagonal shield with wooden boss Elite: Oval, rectangular or hexagonal shield; metal reinforced spina or metal boss Champion: Rectangular or hexagonal shield; metal boss with some having reinforced rim For javelin units you'd have: Basic: Wicker Shield Advanced:Small oval or Rectangular shield with wooden boss Elite: Small oval or rectangular shield; metal reinforced spina or metal boss The patterns on the shield could vary according to rank too I think this is would be a good idea for a bonus; maybe could call it ''Furor Teutonicus''.

Gone are the good old opera days

Just wanted to pop in here to say that Frank Zappa was great.

Apologies for my absence these days, this below is the reason.

Someone made a UI redesign mockup of the grandfather of RTS: Dune II. Some good UI ideas here. More here: https://www.behance.net/gallery/102033829/DUNE-II-Reimagined

A pleasant morning in an elvish town (don't ask me how i found time to do these ) The 'Council of Rivendell' looking building(thats the C shaped building) over there is abt 65,000 tris XD