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It's now a few months proGUI has been around and we have had the time to form an opinion and evaluate the consequences on the gameplay and the game experience. Although I have never used the mod myself, I played in several games and watched replays with players using it and here is my evaluation on the matter. Most of what I am writing here is personal opinion, so please take it with a grain of salt. 1. Non-negligible advantage proGUI gives a non-negligible advantage to players. We can observe (in the sense of measure, more that just notice) that players using proGUI have a significantly better economy compared to other players of the same level, and even of higher levels. We regularly observe less experienced players having an economy aligned to that of experienced players. We also observe good players making the difference in games against players far beyond their reach. I don't want to dive into discussions on levels and skills, which can easily go out of track, I'm just appealing to the reader's experience, which might match mine. See this post for an actual experiment supporting this claim. 2. Unfair advantage This is 100% personal opinion, as the definition of what is fair and what is not depends on each individual's sensibility. From my point of view, the use of proGUI oversteps the threshold of what is fair. In a game like 0 A.D. the combination of economic growth and military strategy are skills that players value and seek. One of the two aspects is not fully, but greatly automatized by proGUI, making the whole game assuming a different flavor. Sure, there are configurations (f.e. deathmatch) and mods focusing exclusively on the military side, and I am not against all-proGUI-games. But I think it's unfair to mix proGUI players and non-proGUI players in the same game, due of the artificial advantage introduced by proGUI. It's a bit like mixing bikes and electric bikes in a race. 3. Against the game spirit Again, personal opinion. The concept of 0 A.D. (and games alike) revolves around dominating the opponent on two main levels, intrinsically combined: economy and military. proGUI artificially forges one of the two. proGUI is not an eco-bot that plays for you, but it's not even far from that. The game vision expresses clear positions on certain pitfalls that should be avoided, and I don't see proGUI giving a contribute in that direction; rather the opposite, I would say. So, what? Well, I don't know! Personally, I would kindly invite those who use proGUI (or similar) to refrain from using it in regular games, but of course it's up to their sensibility to keep the game "fair". Far from me pushing towards enforcement of rules or other robocop solutions that, in my opinion, don't help making this community more cohesive. It would be nice to behave in accordance to common sense, but I can see that common sense varies a lot depending on who you ask. That being said, I know the developer of proGUI is a good guy, with a genuine curiosity and the best intentions. As an open project as 0 A.D. is, it is desirable that satellite projects (such as mods) are likewise open. It's on us -as a community- to find the solution to this problem, if we evaluate it as such.

@Mentula, Firstly I'll want to thank you for this opportunity to clear this topic and maybe address common objections/misconceptions, that players who haven't tried it may have. I think a lot of things are missing from your analysis. Firstly, I'll summarize what the mod does since it's critical to understand why would any player benefit in skill level with it: ProGUI is a fork of BoonGUI with the right panel modified to display stats more focused on players rather then observers. It also has a trainer panel (probably the most criticized feature) that simply allow you to queue units instead of using the building panel. This panel can be used to plan army composition. Other then queuing units in barracks (through using another panel) it doesn't do eco. If you have no food for native auto-queue, it breaks. If you have no food with proGUI trainer, no units are trained. The only difference is that I have a lazy and more interesting way to plan army compo, and other productions. It looks like a "bot" because you don't see the queue, but really it's just smarter auto-queue with a dedicated panel to manage it. A good deal of clicks too: this is also maybe something you know if you don't play with it, but actually if you're not a noob, you'll want to manage actively the panel. It's fewer clicks still for sure, but the mod has no game plan ofc. It's a tool to achieve your plan. You can find satisfying to be able to think "I want 70% ranged units" and get 70% ranged, and have units training accordingly as some may die to maintain the ratio I can change at all time, if for instance I need to counter some cav with pikes. If I need wood for a building, I can simply plan it in the panel for it to not consume the desired amount. This is better then having native auto-queue consuming uncontrollably resources, but obviously, it requires some level of planing. => If you don't know how to eco, it's not going to do magic for you, so why is this mod so controversial? Because it calculate for you the batch sizes and queue it? Instead I have my own personal opinion that I'll develop below. Totally OP: So does it provide an edge? If the mod is just queuing brainlessly units how could it provide any significant advantage? Try to imagine: Imagine you'll have to micro every gatherer to return to drop-site every time they are full capacity, you can maybe queue a few dozens orders but it's still takes your attention. Attention you'll place elsewhere otherwise. Well you'll be noober, and the game would feel less rewarding. => Same is true when having to queue units while you are in critical fight. Not particularly rewarding, leading to poor fight management, can't progress in skill game if you're not clicking faster, can't even spend your time enjoying/managing the fight you prepared, half of the time, for 15min! So yes, if you're not liking this very situation, this trainer feature can have your back. You can also have it off while booming and enable it when you need to focus on something else, also without the worry that half of your barracks are being idles while one of them has 20 units funded and queued. Not useful to everyone: I don't think all players would be better using this mod feature, some players are just good in being in the flow of managing every single resource they consume, and calculating batch size on their own. They rarely use native auto-queue for this reason anyway. But they could still end up wanting the mod for instance for the idle units or building panel. By default the mod has everything off, you can activated the ones you think feel comfortable using trough your game. Game more enjoyable for me: before having this features, I tended to be bored at a point in game, where I would stop putting the necessary effort to repopulate. Now, I even tend to want to continue playing a lost game, just because late game is actually the fun part, and that things I was finding unrewarding aren't there no more. Just personal experience. Because of this simple fact, It would be very difficult to convince me that proGUI isn't doing good, as a humble nub mod as it is. Game more enjoyable for allies: having more attention to give to my allies and game situation, I can be more useful in team game. Things I do less if I'm busy calculating a batch size. I also like the tribute feature that would send any floating resource (I can define what's the threshold of "floating" ofc). A few simple rules to define sending resource and that makes your allies much more resilient. Game much worse for opponents? Still haven't heard any convincing argument for this one, beside that a user generally have better eco curve. By the way a common feedback I got by all users that truly tried it was : "I boom slower with it". The better eco also mostly comes once you use your new free time efficiently. Simpsons paradox of OPness / ProGUI for ProPlayers: I myself have more than a thousand games even if I've been here for less long then you @Mentula. Most players that I know that are using proGUI and use the most advanced feature like the trainer are very OP players already, and predictably, they didn't become unbeatable overnight, barely noticeable improvement if at all when they start using it. So once more, I'm not that convinced it provide any "Unfair advantage". Powerful users doing powerful things with a (call it powerful) UI is just cool.

I share same mind as Mentula I vote for integrating it to vanilla of 0ad to make it essentail part (currently there exist already queue management but is terribly written, so overwriting it with this proGUI implementation would be best) this would make issue resolved all have same starting line.

India before activating shaved trees: my PC running at 48fps since the beginning ] India after shavedtrees and dark ground: 143FPS! The fps is already nerfed by the screen capture software; it was running at 170FPS on average and occasionally reaching 200+ fps! This is a whole 100fps improvement! @leopard @MarcusAureliu#s no more lag on your stream!

Hello everyone, This is an update on the progress of the Alpha 27 release. After extensive deliberation, the team has decided to abort the release process for the foreseeable future. As some of you know, we've been in a "feature freeze" for the past 3 months. This period, during which we halt all new code merging except for crucial bug fixes, is typically a final step before a release. Unfortunately, progress on the release has been slower than anticipated, and Alpha 27 is still several weeks away. Some of the outstanding issues include: Acquiring the necessary macOS certificates for signing the packages Completing the trailer for the announcement, and finishing the announcement itself More testing is potentially needed, and some important bug fixes are not yet merged. The balance of A27 has not been extensively tested and refined. The time it takes to actually release (uploading packages, informing maintainers, etc.) is potentially more than any of the team can commit to right now. Our current pace on these matters is unsustainable. Following a vote, we have chosen to abort the release and refocus. This decision wasn't made lightly, but we believe it's in the best interest of 0 A.D.'s long-term health. We will use this time to: Merge improvements that have been developed during the feature freeze, such as optimizations and further fixes. Identify and address the issues that have hindered the current release process, as we cannot hope to release in the future without fixing them. We will likely come back to the community with more information on this last point and potentially requests for help. We realize that this news may be disappointing. We thank you for your patience, understanding, and ongoing support. On behalf of everyone at Wildfire Games, Wraitii

Hello everyone, I think it's time I reveal a "secret project" I've been working on occasionally: a “Grand Strategy” campaign mod for A25. Because our UI is flexible, and because campaign data is just JSON, we can do quite a lot in terms of modding. My intention here is to do something somewhat similar to Rise of Nations' Conquer the World campaign, though with some twists. The code is over at the github repo: https://github.com/wraitii/0ad_grand_strat . If you want to help out, the easiest is to make PRs or issues over there. The end-game is to merge something back for A26 or later, depending on advancement. As you can see, the mod is currently unfinished: it's technically playable, and some of the core mechanics are there, but it needs a ton of polish and quite a few features (& well, testing) before it's properly done. Though at the moment new core code in 0 A.D. itself isn't necessary, some things might be easier to do there. Screenshots: You can download a .pyromod from GitHub. Changelog:

not quite. you can take radical economic choices with ProGUI activated, and feel more confident about them because of the mod; you can and you would very often turn off the auto-production, to then turn it on again. not every game is the same in any ways more than with vanilla. it's a bit like when autociv's autoqueue was out (and now it's in the game), except ProGUI is more helpful.

proGUI won't magically transform a novice into a professional player. Hand this tool to @borg-, for example, and you might find his gameplay significantly deteriorating in comparison to when he uses traditional methods. Ultimately, it's all about effective management. The minor edge that proGUI offers is the ability to precisely train the exact number of units, ensuring that it doesn't exceed your current population cap, provided that you have sufficient resources. This contrasts with the traditional auto-queue that handles this process one unit at a time. Beyond this, I don't perceive any extraordinary aspect in the mod that warrants labeling it as a cheat. In competitive environments, like tournaments, the use of proGUI could even be completely restricted and it somehow understandable. Would anyone call Quickstart and farm management a cheat cause it saves you 10 seconds of clicks?

for you.

I agree on points 1,2, and 3. modders are free to do what they want, but if I was in a tournament and my opponent was using Progui, I would call it cheating. I can tell you for sure that with all players using automated eco, and even more so for automated sniping, the game would simply be a lot less fun.

autociv had autotraining long before vanilla, let the devs add some progui features if they want to or let ppl use the mod without conditions

Hi Now I have made so many maps for Iran in the Middle East I've made many real historical scenarios of iran and Middle East if any one wants to have Iranian maps and scenarios just let me know

Woah now, definitely stick to 25% for each upgrade. Remember that 25% is already a greater change to gather rate with each technology. The game is already well balanced around 25% increase for each upgrade, so 50% would be unpopular in my understanding. As for the pricing, it is best to try and avoid upgrades costing more than 2 resources, but I wouldn't be 100% against it. The reasoning here is to keep costs simple so you can set up your economy for particular strategies. As for the problems in a27, I can't see the new version in mod.io. what is the current version number? Often things that cause mods to not work are files in the wrong directory, missing commas and other syntax, and misspelling modification paths.

Some screenshots: This is what a rush might look like with all these features enabled. You can see the ranged overlays and the golden projectile. Again, you can choose to only have 1 or 2 things from this, or all of them. New Arctic biome: no more hurt eyes