Leaderboard

Hello everyone, It is with great sadness and a little relief that I am announcing my retirement as project leader of both 0 A.D.: Empires Ascendant and Wildfire Games. It has been an awesome 12 years and 8 months, with its ups and downs. Making it to the team will remain one of my greatest achievements ever. After 6 years of 3D art struggles, getting the chance to join the team was unexpected (and, to this day one of my proudest moments), and two years later to be offered the leader job came even more as a surprise. It has been an incredible opportunity to be the leader of such a project. I would not have met half of the awesome people I met if it were not for it, and I would certainly have not have had the opportunities to go to the places I went if it were not for it. I don’t know half of you half as well as I should like; and I like less than half of you half as well as you deserve. Being able to spread the word about the game around the world has been an honor, and I hope the game will continue to shine at events. Recently, I had less and less energy and motivation to give to 0 A.D. The delay followed by the cancelling of A27 was no exception; I simply could not give the same energy I gave for the previous ones. The lobby became a source of permanent mental load and anxiety, first because of it is lack of moderation, then because of it started becoming moderated, and now because mods splat the community even more and the cheating is rampant. And it went downhill from there, as I started the longest break I ever took from 0 A.D. Those of you that know me know I was not really far, but I was simply not there. On the development side, I cannot seem to find any fun anymore. Everything feels more like duty than an actual desire, which can only work for so long until it breaks. The learning curve is just simply not worth the burnouts anymore. There are so many things I wanted to add to 0 A.D to showcase the true potential of the engine, as it is just immense, look at all the mods have done, look at all the thing people learnt about history, programming, art, bugs.. But I don't feel I can carry that vision anymore. I believe it is time for a change. I am therefore, effective immediately, quitting my functions as programmer, artist, video editor, documentation manager, translator, human resources, moderator, social media manager, public relations, system administrator, mod signer and modder, (all my mods can be considered archived until further notice). It is the only way for me to ever move on. I cannot just keep doing one thing for 0 A.D., unless I get a clean break I will continue feeling everything not covered by someone is on my shoulders, and it is a weight too big for a single person. I would like to thank everyone that made some or the whole journey with me, I will miss you all very much. I hope we shall meet again. I would also like to thank all the players that took action in the balancing department it has not been an easy task. I do not have ideas for the person who can or will replace me, nor do I know whether I should be replaced by a single person. I will leave it for the remaining people to decide what kind of leadership model they want to go for from now on. As for what I'll do next I do not know yet, but I've been working on Godot tools to import 0 A.D. assets and it's been fun, so I might continue that. I'm still working with Activ' Design this year as well. tldr; So long and thank you for the fish. May Wildfire Games and 0 A.D: Empires Ascendant live a long and healthy life after I am gone. Best regards, Stan

Since the sole role of leadership seems very taxing, I wonder if a leadership 'committee' would be better suited for a project like this. There could be 3 (or more) positions: Engine development lead, Multiplayer and lobby lead, Volunteer organization lead, and/or maybe outreach and public relations lead.

Definitely was the answer I needed and now I got swimming stuff to work, thank you for pointing me to him! https://www.moddb.com/mods/hyrule-conquest/videos/they-swim-now

Thanks Stan for everything (is it already 12 years? My god). Your contribution to 0 AD cannot be measured nor understated. On a personal level, I have fond memories of after-FOSDEM dinners and beers. Take good care and all the best.

Stan, thanks for the monumental effort that you put into helping WFG. If I had to sum up your attitude about WFG, it would be "I care." Period. You did the tasks others weren't willing to do. You never said "that's below my pay grade," when I brought an issue to you that I couldn't solve myself. You intervened when other staff were being petty. You were nearly always "on duty" and available. I agree that no one person can replace you. In fact, it's not fair for one person to do as much as you took responsibility for. Other staff were ignoring certain responsibilities and allowing you to take care of too much. That only works for so long, and now they see the consequences. Anyone in Stan's position would get burnt out. The work that Stan did should be done by a team of people, unless Stan would be paid for it of course. I mostly agree with this idea. I would instead structure it like this: there is a team leader who has authority to delegate. He has three subordinates who do tasks assigned by the team leader. The team leader is a supervisor who verifies that all necessary tasks have been assigned and are making progress. He also does work on these tasks, but he's not the only one doing that work. Maybe that's what was originally intended, but the subordinates just didn't do the tasks because they didn't feel like it or something along these lines. Correct me if I'm wrong, but this is the impression that I got. Anyway, maybe a new structure and agreement can be reached. Meanwhile, we have even more of a need for volunteers. It's not only programmers that we need. There are documentation, bug reporting, testing, artwork, scenario and map making tasks available for volunteers here. Contact your nearest dev or WFG staff to discuss how you can help.

Your dedication and leadership have been instrumental in shaping this project over the past 12 years. Your decision to step down is both respected and understood, and your contributions will always be remembered and appreciated! Wishing you the very best in your future endeavors Stan'! We may have never discussed it before, but now is the perfect time to make it happen! Let's break the tradition and have that 1v1 match.

I think I speak for everyone when I say--you will be missed. You oversaw a great development period for the game. Thanks for all that you've given and I wish the best.

It was a great time to work with you! You've done uncountable amount of things to improve 0 A.D. in many areas. It was taking a lot of time and energy, it wasn't simple for you but you've made much further than many others in that situation. Thank you for all you've done! I wish you a nice journey and to only do things you really enjoy 0 A.D. development is keep going and I'll be always glad to hear your feedback if you came to say hello

Farewell Stanislas. You have been a fantastic leader and your involvement has been remarkable. We will miss you, but I understand your decision. I wish you the best and don't hesitate to come back to say hello on the forum.

WORK IN PROGRESS (Open to suggestions and help) 12-13th Century Castle Simulator A.K.A (Stronghold in 0ad mod, loljk.) Repository: https://github.com/0ADMods/xiiiad STRUCTURES CIVIC CENTER: Village Hall (Village) | Town Hall (Town) | Citadel (City) BARRACKS: N/A (Village) | Town Barracks (Town) | 1.) City Barracks 2.) Castle Barracks (City) DOCKS: Village Docks (Village) | Town Docks (Town) | City Docks (City) FORGE: N/A (Village) | Town Forge (Town) | 1.) Castle Forge (City) FARM FIELD: Village Farm Field (Village) | N/A (Town) | N/A (City) FARMSTEAD: Village Farmstead (Village) | N/A (Town) | N/A (City) HOUSE: Village Dwelling (Village) | Town Dwelling (Town) | City Dwelling (City) STOREHOUSE: Village Storehouse (Village) | N/A (Town) | N/A (City) TEMPLE: Chapel (Village) | Church (Town) | 1.) Cathedral 2.) Monastery (City) MARKETPLACE: N/A (Village) | Town Market (Town) | City Market (City) OTHERS: APOTHECARY HOSPICE *Monastery TAVERN GUILDHOUSE *Town Phase COURTHOUSE *City Phase UNIVERSITY *Monastery CASTLE STRUCTURES WALLS Stone Curtain Wall (Hoarding Upgrade) *Town Phase Single Stone Wall (Hoarding Upgrade) *Town Phase Double Stone Wall (Hoarding Upgrade) *City Phase TOWERS Square Lookout Tower *Town Phase Small Square Tower *Town Phase Large Square Tower *City Phase Great Square Tower *City Phase Round Lookout Tower *Town Phase Small Round Tower *Town Phase Large Round Tower *City Phase Great Round Tower *City Phase KEEP Small Keep Large Keep Great Keep UNITS CITIZEN-SOLDIER Serf Spearman (Basic) | Militia Spearman (Advanced) | Sergeant Spearman (Advanced) Serf Archer (Basic) | Militia Archer (Advanced) | Sergeant Archer (Advanced) Serf Crossbowman (Basic) | Militia Crossbowman (Advanced) | Sergeant Crossbowman (Advanced) Mounted Serf (Basic) | Mounted Militia (Advanced) | Mounted Sergeant (Advanced) CHAMPION Bannerman (1 Bannerman = 1 Fortress) - 1.) Provides military bonus 2.) Can train units Squire (Basic) | Knight (Advanced) | Royal Knight (Advanced) Mounted Squire (Basic) | Mounted Knight (Advanced) | Mounted Royal Knight (Advanced) MERCENARY Mercenary Spearman (Basic) | Experienced Mercenary Spearman (Advanced) | Veteran Mercenary Spearman (Elite) Mercenary Swordsman (Basic) | Experienced Mercenary Swordsman (Advanced) | Veteran Mercenary Swordsman (Elite) Mercenary Archer (Basic) | Experienced Mercenary Archer (Advanced) | Veteran Mercenary Archer (Elite) Mercenary Crossbowman (Basic) | Experienced Mercenary Crossbowman (Advanced) | Veteran Mercenary Crossbowman (Elite) Mercenary Rider (Basic) | Experienced Mercenary Rider (Advanced) | Veteran Mercenary Rider (Elite) HEROES Bishop Lord Marshal

For those that don't know, Ekdromoi were hoplites lightlier armored than the others. They could break away from the slow phalanx formation for example to attack skirmishers. They wore hardly any body armor in order to increase their speed and mobility. From the research I have done, Ekdromoi champions seem to have been in the game a long, long time ago (as javelineers for some reason even though they definitely weren't javelineers). What happened to them? I can't find them in the game files. Did I miss them? I know that the SpecificName of the Skiritai is 'Ekdromos Skiritis'. But (from the research I've done for the encyclopedia) the Skiritai's role in battle still unclear to this day. It's not proven they fought as Ekdromoi. Plus, the Skiritai are swordsmen. While, of course, like the other Hoplites, Ekdromoi also carried swords, it was not their main weapon. And they are not faster than hoplites. Actual Ekdromoi should do the same damage as hoplites, have weaker armor and a higher speed.

A recent revision proposed by @borg- is under review and its goal is to provide an upgrade of the female citizen, for the Gauls and Britons, to a female warrior. The description of the revision is the following: I expressed my concern about the revision, due to the absence of evidence provided. The phrasing above is also very bold and very affirmative, which is bothering to me. @borg- answered with this message: I have several issues with this answer and I will challenge different aspects he mentioned. From his answer, I see the following key-points: In Celtic societies, women warriors were not uncommon. Many women in Celtic societies were trained to fight. The patch is made to bring women as a last line of defense. @borg-does not provide evidence, does not know any reference supporting the claim and says the counter argument, which he phrased as "women couldn't fight", is as difficult to prove. I will start with the point n°4 because I think this is an important issue and I think @borg- need to understand the problem with this kind of attitude. What you are doing @borg- is shifting the burden of proof to me while you are the one making a claim and you are following a fallacious reasoning known as the argument from ignorance. Furthermore, you are expressing another fallacy known as the strawman argument, by saying the counter-argument is to prove that women couldn't fight. The issue is not to know if women could or not fight. I will say it directly, all women could fight, whatever they are Celtic, Roman, Greek etc. My issue is that you are making a patch that would enable the possibility to upgrade all women as warriors for the Celtic civs. By asking to prove that women couldn't fight, you are asking for an impossible challenge which is irrelevant to your claim. And the problem I have with this attitude is that it is disrespectful to others in a debate. I know you didn't mean to be disrespectful, I don't think it was intentional on your part. But I want you to understand that despite everything, this is not a healthy attitude. Remember Brandolini's law and consider the time I am taking to answer here. Now let's start with points n°1 and 2. By saying the women warriors were not uncommon in Celtic societies, you are saying this was not rare and not exceptional. As if it was something the Celts were used to see in their societies, even if it was not the majority. The same about the training of women, if they were many. By looking at my favorites books I use as references, I don't find any support to this claim. For example in The Celtic World edited by Miranda Green, it deals a lot about the women, it mentions the quotes from the Romans about their aggressiveness and stature, it mentions that we know several burials of wealthy women suggesting they had access to political power etc. but at no point it is written or even suggested that the women fought as warriors or were trained to use weapons. The Celtic World is a massive book of 800 pages with 40 contributors, all historians or archaeologists. Yet it is not mentioned. In Barry Cunliffe's 2nd edition of The Ancient Celts, he doesn't mention any evidence for female warriors, females fighting on the battlefield or females training with weapons. Quite the contrary, he mentions that during the Galatian raids, the people following Leonorios and Lutorios were mentioned by the classical authors as being constituted of 20'000 persons from which half were non-combatants, because those were the children, the elders and the women. He also mentions that during the last battle of Boudica's revolt, the bagage train and the chariots were uphill and the women and children stayed with the bagage train to have a good view on the battlefield. I have the same struggle to find any reference about female warriors in the literature written in French (books written by Jean-Louis Brunaux, Venceslas Kruta, Luc Baray etc.). In the commentaries of the Gallic Wars written by Caesar, there is no mention of any fight including women, or only as passive victims. So I am really sure of myself when I am saying there is no mention of female warriors. The only mention of the aggressiveness of the women is from Ammianus Marcellinus (4th century AD): Ammianus Marcellinus is not a contemporary of the description he is writing. It is obvious he is mixing different references, notably from Diodorus Siculus, Strabo and Caesar. Although the whole account about the women is unique and does not exist in the original sources, it is also heavily exaggerated and scatty. But even in this account, it doesn't say the women use weapons to defend themselves or their husband. Quite the contrary, the animal strength of the women is compared to catapults. So in conclusion, the evidence concerning directly the Celts are lacking. Let's see what is said about their neighbors. There is one interesting account during the Cimbrian invasion, at the Battle of Vercellae, when the Romans defeated the Cimbri, Ambrones and Teutones. Plutarch also mentioned the women at the battle of Aquae Sextiae against the Ambrones: Strabo also mentions the role of women before and during the battlefield among the Cimbri: Plutarch and Strabo are considered as reliable enough in general. I will now show you the account by Orosius, a Christian priest of the 5th century AD, generally considered as unreliable [he is also dub enough to confuse the Cimbri as Gauls]: @borg- this is an interesting case where the women weren't trained as warriors, didn't fight in the battlefield but could have been aggressive after the defeat of their men. Just an example of a different interpretation from the aggressiveness described by the classical authors. If you want a real account describing women carrying arms and fighting, there is one by Appian. He describes the wars in Lusitania against Viriathus: In this case, this is a very explicit account. The kind of evidence which is lacking for the Gauls and the Britons. ( And before reading moldy arguments like saying that the Lusitanians are Celts so it's as if we could extrapolate to all the others, no the Lusitanians are no Celts: https://academic.oup.com/book/36477/chapter/321084624 ) The women of Salmantica, a city of the Vaccaei, they set a trap and hid weapons in order to protect the city against Hannibal, they fought against his soldiers. During the siege of Iliturgi, an Iberian city of Southern Spain (nearby Cordoba), the women helped the men to defend the city by providing ammunition: Concerning the martial arts, there is a mention of such training through a description of Cynane, half-sister of Alexander the Great and half-Illyrian from her mother Audata : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cynane An example of women defending their cities with their husbands, the Aetolians, a Greek people, who were besieged by the Galatians: Otherwise, is there anything in the archaeological record? Yes. There are at least two burials of Celtic women with weapons. One is the "Rigana of Oleggio". A burial nearby the Lake Maggiore in Northern Italy and dated to the 2nd century BC. A woman was buried in an individual tomb, n°53 of the necropolis, with a complete panoply of weapons and several wares as her grave goods. One of the plate has the writing "Rigana". The term refers to the feminine counterpart of the Latin regulus and of the Celtic rix. And one is a burial in Bryher/Scilly, recently analyzed genetically and it appeared it was a female: https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/old-iron-age-female-warrior-scilly-iburial-rcna96595 But in both cases, those burials suggest noble women, with a lot of prestige. It is not clear if those were proper warriors or mostly leaders.

Sort of agreed here. A bad "all in" (and even a rush) can have massive consequences in the end game. It's actually hard to rush and eco boost at the same time (especially with wrong civ selection for the phase you attack in). Many times it is easier to ignore a rush and counter near base as long as you don't go all women. I've found the best way, when selecting civs, to address this is to pick civs that have advantages in the phase you want to attack in. Early p1/p2? Pick Maury because of worker elephants ability to access hunt for your cav. Hans, if you get lucky with hunt RNG, can be deadly with sword cav. If you are going vs Rome/Iber you likely won if you have a lot of hunt. Know that Romans/Iberians have no counter to melee cav in P1 (no spearmen). Rome/Mace/Hans can really wipe them out in p1 with mass cav. Any civs (e.g., Mace/Seleucids) with pikemen (and only skrimishers - no access to archers/slingers) are vulnerable to skrimisher cav who can outmaneuver them Any civs (e.g., Mace/Seleucids/Gauls/Romans/) without archers/slingers are vulnerable to Ptol Camels in P1 Mid/Late p2? Civs with no archers/slingers/melee spear cav are vulnerable to Kush Camels. Very vulnerable. Pick Gauls as the sword cav have an innate damage bonus. P2 sword cav can dominate nicely. Pick Maury/Pers/Hans as you get extra pop so that means its an innate damage bonus with mass cav. Late p2/early p3? Pick Maury, p2 ele stables make it possible to trample through players if support is a good player immediately upon hitting p3 Pick Kush/Athens/Cartha/Maury if you want instant p3 champs like with maury p2 ele stables (Athens can build champ building in p2 and count towards p3. Same with Kush and Carth temples.) Pick Mace/Sele for Skrim/Pikeman combo Pick Mace for amazing siege dmg (siege hero, will to fight, siege damage, omfg) Pick Ptol if you want to do quick phasing and get a siege tower up in 11 min (possible/doable, almost instantly kills a player) Late p3? Pick Carth/Persia/Gauls/Maury/Han/Romans/Sele if you are in the long cav game. Don't pick a ram civ. Go with a ranged siege civ. Rams in late game are hard. Maury/Iberian sword bonus in late phase is amazing. Iberian champ sword are great. Kush R3 instant priests are great too. Only valuable priest is a R3 priest. Anything else sucks. Agreed. Interestingly, I've seen few players take advantage of the environment. Very FEW players, for example, will build on the side of mountains using mountains to create choke points and funnel enemy armies. Some players do it. Some good players fall for it. Some good players actually wont' fall for it and walk around it. This is a big one that bothers me. Which is why I hate the *micro* in the game (alt+attack for ranged units). It is tiring and shouldn't exist IMO.

@Stan`Enjoy a rest! Good luck on future undertakings, I know you'll succeed with anything you put your mind and heart to!

Dear @Stan` You've been our last standing man, driving the project forward in its darkest hours. Lack of developers, unpaid work, and your commitment to listening and addressing issues defined your legacy. I wish the project will go on, carrying your spirit. Sincerely, sanafur

Oh goodness, thats an even bigger scam than normal iberian towers XD

Thank you for all your time. You always had the overview but still commented on many small things. I apreciated that.

farewell Stan. Be back sometimes.

This one's pretty good

Thank you Stan, you're a champ!

Thracian peltast https://github.com/TheShadowOfHassen/0-ad-history-encyclopedia-mod/pull/56 We can reuse parts of this text (if not the whole text) for other peltast units.

As an eternally sometimes active and sometimes burned out dev, I relate to the struggle. Thanks for all the years of leadership and support, thanks for all the events you attended, all the mods you carried and updated, and all the releases you shipped ! Enjoy the rest

It’s sad to see you go, but not unexpected. No one can bear so many things by themselves for so long. I hope your replacement will be a team instead of an individual, to prevent people getting burnt out. Anyway, it’s good to see you have other projects now, I hope we will soon find some time to discuss these with a cold beer

Thank you for all your work over these years Stan! I so appreciate your immense leadership on the project, and always coming in to help out even volunteers with very little experience like myself. You always made everyone feel very welcome and I can't thank you enough for that! Best regards for your future endeavors.

Thanks for all your work over the years, Stan!

Thanks for everything, you did a great job, i really enjoy a lot <3 take care.

I thought that you might quit, I know I was annoying sometimes to you and community I apologise for that and I wish this is a joke but you sound dead serious. You did a great job, you took 0ad to this level. hope the new project manager take 0ad to the next level.

Taking advantage of your historical knowledge, I have been working on a patch so that Britis can build towers in neutral territory, the objective here is to bring some gameplay different from other civilizations. The name of the bonus is "great towers". I don't know if this is historically correct, could you help me here please?

Thank you for expressing your concern about this and taking some of your time to share your historical knowledge with us. Well, I believe you misunderstood what I wanted to express. I didn't give you the responsibility to prove it, if it seemed like that, I'm sorry. Before making the patch, I read some Celtic characteristics and women warriors were there, of course, it's not scientific at all. I always try to respect the premises of 0 a.d, and perhaps the main one is the historical factor, so if this really cannot be proven, so I think it should be removed. Well, I'm not a historian, so I won't have enough arguments to debate this, and I don't really want to. I don't mind that much, I just thought it could be an interesting feature for the gameplay. I think the name "warrior women" might sound bad, so if we choose not to remove that, I think the name could be changed.

You've been a massive pillar for the project, and your energy did not go to waste. Thanks for teaching me the ways of 0 A.D. Senpai.

I second @Genava55! Always welcome for a chat! Farewell, to the truest of that word, to you!

after I built A27 and executed pyrogenesis I got these two results: when I placed it in system (debian, pyrogenesis in /usr/games and data in /usr/share/games/0ad and .so files in /usr/lib) it gave me this error: CreateDirectories: failed to mkdir /usr/data (mode 448) Function call failed: return value was -110300 (Insufficient access rights to open file) Location: file_system.cpp:168 (CreateDirectories) Call stack: (0x564f5ee82375) pyrogenesis(+0x673375) [0x564f5ee82375] (0x564f5ee31d21) pyrogenesis(+0x622d21) [0x564f5ee31d21] (0x564f5ee337d3) pyrogenesis(+0x6247d3) [0x564f5ee337d3] (0x564f5ee31f33) pyrogenesis(+0x622f33) [0x564f5ee31f33] (0x564f5ee44baa) pyrogenesis(+0x635baa) [0x564f5ee44baa] (0x564f5ee44822) pyrogenesis(+0x635822) [0x564f5ee44822] (0x564f5ee447c7) pyrogenesis(+0x6357c7) [0x564f5ee447c7] (0x564f5ee5926e) pyrogenesis(+0x64a26e) [0x564f5ee5926e] (0x564f5eadb882) pyrogenesis(+0x2cc882) [0x564f5eadb882] (0x564f5e8c69d2) pyrogenesis(+0xb79d2) [0x564f5e8c69d2] (0x564f5e8b2688) pyrogenesis(+0xa3688) [0x564f5e8b2688] (0x7f9dba6e0d0a) /lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libc.so.6(__libc_start_main+0xea) [0x7f9dba6e0d0a] (0x564f5e8c3aca) pyrogenesis(+0xb4aca) [0x564f5e8c3aca] errno = 13 (Insufficient access rights to open file) OS error = ? (C)ontinue, (S)uppress, (B)reak, Launch (D)ebugger, or (E)xit? trying to use -writableRoot always give me error: Skipping file '/home/user/.local/share/0ad' which does not have a mod file extension. when I run it inside binaries it works fine.

How is this different from an aimbot in counter strike for example? I'm totally against it.

Man, what in the hell are you doing. Sniping is something everybody can do or learn, and also a part of this game. With this mod you are destroying the game absolutely. What's next, if you dont play good install this mod to make everybody equal, if you don't know how to fight download this mod to fight only winning fights, if no runs. I am destroying my fingers sniping and trained for so long and now everybody will snipe perfectly? What in the hell is this.

Athens might be the originator but by the time of 0ad I believe it already spread across Greek, so giving it to others doesn't feel that wired to me. If it was a named theater used as a wonder then it would be a different story.

https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vulkan

although I wanted to make a bigger post of meshes. I came into a problem. I need textures.. (you can see stretched texture from older helmet on new one). Please tell me if you know any open texture websites or straight from Wackyserious. Am also open to feedback and tips 'n tricks

Thanks! Yeah, putting props on structures is kinda hectic haha, I am currently working with the Steppe People structure set, I studied your Xiongnu art set and tried to recreate it in the mod. Glad to see you around, buddy! Thanks, Stan! Feel free to give the repository some hit!

I think houses in the game look better than the reconstruction and that's an artistic license. artists who make the buildings models are always trying to give a visually rich representation of them, which is not quite the same as four walls with a roof that shows a small opening... a house of that kind would have a porch and items in the inside that our artists will rather depict in the outside.