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

@wraitii If you feel overworked, I'd be happy to head up the community mod. That is if you could show me how to do a few things.

Don't worry, I took this as an opportunity to look for more info on the topic. I know you didn't imagine it like that. It's just that if you assert different arguments in a confident manner, you push your interlocutor to respond in depth. As you can see, the Cimbri are probably the best candidate to have such bonus for their women. Although they are still no warriors, they defended themselves with axes, swords etc. So at least they could have a better weapon in game for fighting. The Lusitanians could have a sort of women warriors, at least there are two strong evidences that some women could fight as regular troops.

It is very sad. After all, it is 0 A.D. became the reason that I began to be interested in antiquity and now I understand how ancient Roman temples differ from ancient Greek ones with flutes on columns, stylobates instead of a podium, and sculpted pediments. 0 A.D. to me has always felt like one of those games that can fight back against the ubiquitous, nauseating medieval setting.

It has been so good having you around @Stan. Feeling bad now I wasn't there much for the last 2 years almost. Meeting at FOSDEM and staying at your place on @Imarok and my crazy cycling trip has been a pleasure especially. Going to miss you certainly, but all the best. And be sure to be welcome around any time.

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.

Thanks for clarifying. It's better to postpone than a bad release.