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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

Stan, thank you for the outstanding job you did. Besides the remarkable commitment and contribution to the project development, I have admired your patience, tolerance, responsiveness and involvement demonstrated to every member of this community, from the newest forum user, to the ones claiming they know better. Even more so, considering the responsibility and high pressure that the role demands. 2023 has been a tough year for 0AD and the project is more fragile today than it was one year ago. My wish for the future is that the new leadership will successfully tackle the "few can ruin the experience of many" problem, that so deeply harmed the game and the community. Fair winds Stan. Whatever you'll do from now on, it'll be a success.

Thanks to Stan for his leadership. For his gentle style to moderate and his way to give motivation even for small contributions.

Thanks Stan, we'll remember forever the time you was leading this project and how much you did for the game and the community.

Big thanks for dedicating yourself in open source and in 0ad more specifically. All the best to whatever you decide to do in the future. Έρρωσθε και ευδαιμονείτε

@Stan` I pray you win a big lottery or something that makes you so happy and strong and come back to work for 0ad, You might think I am being childish but I was thinking a lot how to get money for 0AD development somehow, but my life is kicking me here and there my Computer that can run 0ad with out annoying other players is dead, I can't even play now. I can with my laptop but will be dead slow and others will ban me

Stan, I thought hope dies last. Well, with you going seems like 0ad may not live for long. Sad too see but also signs has been given. I have talked in the past about lack of moderation and the main issue was lack of trust in some of us. The cheaters, should be excluded by giving the hosts to allow and disallow hosts to allow external modifications or sort of a plan to fight it back. Thank you for your time and work which you have done for 0ad. Regards, Emp

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.

Thank you Stan, you're a champ!

Hi! Trying to play together with my daughter but when I host a game and she tries to join, her game throws a few lines with errors and never starts. Everything works fine in the lobby, she can see me and the game and chat works too. Also, she can play the game in single player mode. I took a screenshot when the lines with error shows. "Insert image from URL" does not seem to work so I'll post the link to the screenshot here instead https://ibb.co/dg9hj6s She runs Ubuntu 22.04lts and the game is installed using snap. (I run PopOS and .deb install) I had a look at crashlog.txt and it looks like this: Assertion failed: "!m_Worker" Location: UserReport.cpp:516 (~CUserReporter) Call stack: (0x55c67e9ed10e) /snap/0ad/592/binaries/system/pyrogenesis(+0x5ed10e) [0x55c67e9ed10e] (0x55c67e9a18a1) /snap/0ad/592/binaries/system/pyrogenesis(+0x5a18a1) [0x55c67e9a18a1] (0x55c67e9a35f3) /snap/0ad/592/binaries/system/pyrogenesis(+0x5a35f3) [0x55c67e9a35f3] (0x55c67e6d92e3) /snap/0ad/592/binaries/system/pyrogenesis(+0x2d92e3) [0x55c67e6d92e3] (0x7f5208c15031) /lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libc.so.6(+0x43031) [0x7f5208c15031] (0x7f5208c1512a) /lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libc.so.6(+0x4312a) [0x7f5208c1512a] (0x7f520adb7888) /snap/0ad/592/usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libX11.so.6(+0x40888) [0x7f520adb7888] (0x7f520adb79ba) /snap/0ad/592/usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libX11.so.6(_XError+0x11a) [0x7f520adb79ba] (0x7f520adb48eb) /snap/0ad/592/usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libX11.so.6(+0x3d8eb) [0x7f520adb48eb] (0x7f520adb4995) /snap/0ad/592/usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libX11.so.6(+0x3d995) [0x7f520adb4995] (0x7f520adb52c5) /snap/0ad/592/usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libX11.so.6(_XEventsQueued+0x55) [0x7f520adb52c5] (0x7f520adb8085) /snap/0ad/592/usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libX11.so.6(_XGetRequest+0x55) [0x7f520adb8085] (0x7f51a9644bb2) /snap/0ad/592/usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libGLX_mesa.so.0(+0x34bb2) [0x7f51a9644bb2] (0x7f520db1f7b3) /snap/0ad/592/usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libSDL2-2.0.so.0(+0xcb7b3) [0x7f520db1f7b3] (0x7f520daf2746) /snap/0ad/592/usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libSDL2-2.0.so.0(+0x9e746) [0x7f520daf2746] (0x7f520daf48e4) /snap/0ad/592/usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libSDL2-2.0.so.0(+0xa08e4) [0x7f520daf48e4] errno = 9 (?) OS error = ? I also had a look at interestinglog.html and it says this: <!DOCTYPE html> <meta charset="utf-8"> <title>Pyrogenesis Log</title> <style>body { background: #eee; color: black; font-family: sans-serif; } p { background: white; margin: 3px 0 3px 0; } .error { color: red; } .warning { color: blue; }</style> <h2>0 A.D. (0.0.26) Main log (warnings and errors only)</h2> <p class="error">ERROR: JavaScript error: gui/common/l10n.js line 69 Script value conversion check failed: v.isString() || v.isNumber() || v.isBoolean() (got type undefined) translate@gui/common/l10n.js:69:36 TitleDisplay@gui/loading/TitleDisplay.js:11:13 init@gui/loading/loading.js:10:19 switchToLoadingPage@gui/gamesetup/Controllers/GameSettingsController.js:282:10 pollPendingMessages@gui/gamesetup/NetMessages/NetMessages.js:42:13 onTick@gui/gamesetup/SetupWindow.js:106:29 @gui/gamesetup/SetupWindow.js:57:64</p> <p class="error">ERROR: GUI page 'page_loading.xml': Failed to call init() function</p> <p class="error">ERROR: JavaScript error: gui/loading/loading.js line 22 g_LoadingPage is undefined reallyStartGame@gui/loading/loading.js:22:2</p> <p class="error">ERROR: Out-Of-Sync on turn 1 Players: user Dumping state to /home/user/snap/0ad/592/.config/0ad/logs/oos_dump.txt</p> <p>Engine exited successfully on 2023-10-16 at 19:32:09 with 1568 message(s), 4 error(s) and 0 warning(s).</p> I also began to open oos_dump.txt but changed my mind when I noticed the size Not sure what to do now. Should I reinstall the game but choose the .deb version instead of flat version? I checked the permissions but they looked good but you never know. system_info.txt: (generated 2023-10-16 18:32:42 UTC) OS : Linux 6.2.0-34-generic (#34~22.04.1-Ubuntu SMP PREEMPT_DYNAMIC Thu Sep 7 13:12:03 UTC 2) CPU : x86_64, Intel Core i7 Q 740 @ 1.73GHz, 1.73 GHz Memory : 15918 MiB; 11736 MiB free Video Card : NVIDIA GeForce GT 425M/PCIe/SSE2 Video Driver : 4.6.0 NVIDIA 390.157 OpenGL 4.6.0 NVIDIA 390.157 Video Mode : 1920x1080:24 Sound Card : Built-in Audio Analog Stereo; Sound Drivers : 1.1 ALSOFT 1.18.2

There aren't really any towers that the Celts built. This is something that is tolerated for the sake of the gameplay but there is no indication that there were watchtowers or fortified towers in the landscape. On the other hand, the northern Britons built Brochs, Duns and Crannogs. Jarlshof Broch and Caithness Broch are the inspiration for the current fortress of the Britons. Technically a broch is not a fortress, but a fortified hamlet or a fortified house. In some cases, the broch is only constituted of a single tower like structure. I cannot say much for the tower but indeed fortified small buildings were widespread in the landscape. So why not implementing what you propose.

I did a mistake! I forgot to create the folders gui/loading/ ! Now it works Thanks a lot for all the support, especially Norse_Harold that patiently guided me via MIRC last night and ofcourse Vladislavbelov for pointing to the solution! It delights me to be able to play 0AD together with my daughter.... ON LINUX! Hopefully this thread can be to some help to someone else.

Hi Vladisslavbelov, I'm checking out the 6433 ticket you mentioned and Norse_Harold gave me some really good pointers yesterday. However, I didn't manage to solve the problem so I reinstalled the game using .deb instead. This is what I've been doing now. 1. Located public.zip and extracted TitleDisplay.js 2. Modified line 11 by adding the config mentioned in ticket 6433. /** * This class choses the title of the loading screen page. */ class TitleDisplay { constructor(data) { let loadingMapName = Engine.GetGUIObjectByName("loadingMapName"); loadingMapName.caption = sprintf( data.attribs.mapType == "random" ? this.Generating : this.Loading, { "map": translate(data.attribs.settings.mapName || data.attribs.settings.Name) }); } } TitleDisplay.prototype.Generating = translate("Generating “%(map)s”"); TitleDisplay.prototype.Loading = translate("Loading “%(map)s”"); 3. Copied the modified TitleDisplay.js to /usr/share/games/0ad/mods/public Unfortunately, I got the same error ERROR: JavaScript error: gui/common/l10n.js line 69 Script value conversion check failed: v.isString() || v.isNumber() || v.isBoolean() (got type undefined) translate@gui/common/l10n.js:69:36 TitleDisplay@gui/loading/TitleDisplay.js:11:13 init@gui/loading/loading.js:10:19 switchToLoadingPage@gui/gamesetup/Controllers/GameSettingsController.js:282:10 pollPendingMessages@gui/gamesetup/NetMessages/NetMessages.js:42:13 onTick@gui/gamesetup/SetupWindow.js:106:29 @gui/gamesetup/SetupWindow.js:57:64 ERROR: GUI page 'page_loading.xml': Failed to call init() function ERROR: JavaScript error: gui/loading/loading.js line 22 g_LoadingPage is undefined reallyStartGame@gui/loading/loading.js:22:2 GAME STARTED, ALL INIT COMPLETE ERROR: Out-Of-Sync on turn 1 Players: user Dumping state to /home/user/.config/0ad/logs/oos_dump.txt Harold asked me about mods yesterday and I didn't see any. However, today, looking at the .deb installation, there is a file called mod.json in the same public folder. Don't know if that can be a problem. It looks quite empty. { "name": "0ad", "version": "0.0.26", "label": "0 A.D. Empires Ascendant", "url": "https://play0ad.com", "description": "A free, open-source, historical RTS game.", "dependencies": [] } Harold also mentioned that the problem can be on the other side, on my computer. Because we noticed that if my daughter hosted a game, my computer game crashed instead, with totally different errors. That is for sure pretty darn strange.

what? why?

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!

The JS error doesn't seem to be matched. UPD. A similar error was fixed here: https://trac.wildfiregames.com/ticket/6433

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

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

@Stan` Thanks for all you've done for the project. Hope you "recover" well and I wish you all the best for the future!

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

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

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.

I like that, I've already created something similar for my fun but not with this beauty that you achieved, something cool that I can imagine and create maps of a campaign mod in which you choose a civ and fight scenarios (similar to : https://github.com/wraitii/0ad_grand_strat ) to the one with cities already created, to conquer the map you must defeat enemies and capture all cc or strategic points on the map for "x" minutes.

Well, it should exist, it just shouldn't be the only worthwhile micro. Instead, it should be a tool in one's skillset that depends on the conditions of a given fight. Balance is the way to fix this.