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I modify the marmara Map to make it more lorefriendly and I divided the Europa side and Asian side with the sea. I set the age during the late VI bc, when Bizantium, Kios and Ilum were one of the powerful cities of the ionian koine. I put also a Gaia Neapolis with a lot of gaia hoplite and soldier, a ionic Gaia pirate settlement in the east and a Thracian Gaia settlments in the north west. For a proper roleplay I suggest the use of Athenian/Spartan to play the archaic greek, without the use of rams and siege weapon, theaters, and Athenanian/Spartan Trireme TierIII ship (there werent during the VI bc), and to play Persian I suggest to play without the Elepant. I play also with a mod Terramagna 26, and I use the scythian to play the Cimmerian invasion of Asia minor. For play the map put the files in skirmishes. I hope some one will like it and play with me with this custom map! Cheers! Byzantium: Kios: Ilium: GDR_Marmara.pmp GDR_Marmara.xml

Hello Stan. I know all too well the feeling of not being able to carry on anymore, despite wanting to. You have been an extraordinary leader and the best successor I could have had when I decided to step down. You should indeed have absolutely no regrets, including in this decision of stopping and focusing on yourself and your health. Others have worded it perfectly during these ten past days: thank you for making 0 A.D. the best game that exists. I am certain that, thanks to your work, the project will endure.

Thank you Stan for your hard work. The game in even its current form is simply a stunning achievement and really a tremendous amount of fun to play.

Signing in to also give my thanks. I'm usually lurking nowadays, but I've been following for a very long time. You've been leading for so long, it's hard to remember when you weren't in charge. Whoever will be taking over have big shoes to fill.

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

I like how the cities integrate in to the terrain. In 0 A.D. the maps who have cities protected by cliffs are mainly acropolises. Which look unnaturally exposed.

Syracuse is already in Delenda Est

bizantine acqueduct mechanic is interesting. even if acqueducts don't make a lot of sense for it, that kind of math could be more reasonably applied to trade network, and I'm curious to know which turn out to be the strategy implications.

That folder shouldn't be empty. I think that using an environment variable in the path only works with certain apps, like the Command Prompt. Let's replace the environment variable with its most likely value. @Chandragupta Mourya Directly after experiencing a crash with the 0ad editor, please open file explorer and navigate to your home folder. It's probably C:\Users\yourusername, where "yourusername" is replaced with your Windows username. Then navigate to AppData\Local\0ad\. Right-click on the "logs" folder, go to "Send To", then click Compressed Folder. Complete the wizard using the default file name of "logs.zip". Then attach logs.zip to a post in this topic. Thanks.

What about Roman road technology? This tech would make Roman army and its allies move more quickly.

https://code.wildfiregames.com/D4676 It was done because of a dislike for for the capturing mechanic. There's a lot of legitimate gripe with that meta. This change attempts to thread the needle a bit. To say the least, the other competing proposals were much more complicated. I think there is no real harm in trying out the change in default unit AI behavior--you'll probably get used to it pretty quickly and adjust accordingly

0ad is an amazing game and it has become my current favorite RTS game, but one thing I still don't enjoy is capturing. There is something that feels wrong to me with the current system, it is way too confusing, it's also annoying for units to try to capture a building automatically. The animation (which I get is a placeholder) feels out of place and ruins the immersion. I know that it doesn't make sense for infantry to attack stone buildings with swords, but maybe some animation of the troops using makeshift rams with logs or blunt weaponry could make it more realistic. Changes to mechanics By default, buildings are not able to be captured. Unless they have certain % of HP diminished. IF that is the case, units can be ordered to capture the building by garrisoning. This could simulate the idea that maybe the walls and doors were damaged allowing invaders to enter through the breaches. Buildings could have a number of slots for capturing enemies, that is, for example a building can garrison 20 people, then 30 enemies could enter a building to capture it, turning the odds in favour of the invader (which already commited some troops and siege to breach the building) If there are no people garrisoned the building is captured immediately. If only women are garrisoned, the building is also captured immediately, the units inside would be kicked out. If there are people garrisoned, depending on how much each side has in the building either the attacking or defending army would start losing men. This could be a tricky thing since I don't know how damage to each side would be calculated, initially I thought the bigger numbers should win, but some people maybe wouldn't like elite soldiers to die to skirmishers for example. Some buildings such as houses and warehouses should be easily breachable. This could be an interesting change, because it would make capturing a more deliberate choice, with the attacker and defender choosing to put more troops in a building if it's important. This probably is a lot of work and maybe it has a lot of issues that I haven't thought about, but let me know what you guys think. or if it's even doable in the engine, or maybe it's just a stupid idea because of balance and all that. Or maybe it can be improved... you tell me haha.

Not sure these new civs fit into the theme of Age of Empires.

After years of Torrent-seeding 0AD, I've checked the 0AD site again and noticed the news. I've registered here to thank you @Stan` for all your time and heart spent working on 0AD and give you remote support and a hug! Thank you! If the project/community will need a new system administrator, please PM me. I and my ~9 years of SysOp/Linux experience will do my best to help the project!

Thanks @Stan` for all the work! I haven't been here for a while, but I've dabbled with some other open source projects. I think I agree with @real_tabasco_sauce with splitting up the command. The same person who's overseeing the engine doesn't have to be the same person that oversees the art or the PR or the writing, or testing. Different people or better, yet different teams of people could work on each. The one issue I've found is that the contribution system looks very confusing. It might turn out not when I eventually submit a patch, but it looks like it. I'm actually kind of nervous when the time comes to start putting patches of the encyclopedia into the game. Maybe with an easier, more straight forward (but still self-hosted) all in one bug tracker solution would be better, like GitLab, so people wouldn't need to get multiple accounts on different old programming systems to submit something. Oh Also, a dev/ WFG staff (I don't know who is in charge of it) but I can help with documentation, just PM me with something and I'll see what I can do.

It's quite clear that @Stan` work has been great. From being a contributor, irenic leader, and dedicated volunteer, 0 AD looks a lot better from his involvement. While this sort of announcement does seem unfortunate, I hope you continue to bring the qualities you have to whatever new passions you encounter.

@Stan` I want to express my sincere gratitude for all the support and encouragement you have given to the project and to each of us here. I'm sure you'll be successful in whatever direction you decide to take from now on. I hope to continue seeing your presence here on the forum.

@Stan` really was the ideal project lead. He really knew his stuff and learned on the job very quickly.

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.

Well done Stan. Pushing the game forward for over 12 years. That is an excellent contribution and quite an accomplishment. Take a minute and look over the before and after differences. You will be proud. That is 2x the length of time of what I was able to give it. I think it would be helpful for the team to push through a few more days and formulate some sort of a succession plan. Whether that be some sort of election process or maybe a search plan for nominations or recruits. Or perhaps it would be as little as helping to facilitate the conversation for the team, internally. Maybe formulating a helpful internal poll? The project still needs some sort of leadership to continue forward. As the last one to wear the mantle it would be wise to the team bestow it instead of allowing chaos to emerge in the vacuum... Unless the game is destined to have some sort of division/branch like when Alexander the Great died suddenly

@Stan`it's been said repeatedly but I'll be repetitive - THANK YOU. THANK YOU for contributions you've made to 0AD and Wildfire Games.

As Nibbles said twice in Tom & Jerry, "C'est la guerre!"; well, c'est la vie to all of us... Am grateful for your service to the free world; 0 A.D. will never be the same again after this passing of torches.

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, 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.

@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

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.

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.

farewell Stan. Be back sometimes.

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!

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's about making the unit orders more logical for new users. I have problems with the (otherwise great) feature of "go there, do something, and then come back": The "Oh cool, they come back!" becomes all too often "Aw crap, they go away...". I waste inordinate amounts of time trying to catch stupid units deciding they have to go/return to some point on the other side of a "giant" sized map, instead of staying put and wait for my orders. And no, the attack movement doesn't necessarily help: For instance what can you do when unloading unit groups from a ship, and they all start scuttling away like scared cockroaches? While you need to take care of some urgent matter on the other side of the map? Wouldn't it be real nice if they stayed put, waiting for you to tell them what to do? What I'm suggesting is to reverse how it (seems to) work right now: Unit stances ("aggressive", etc.) should only and exclusively determine how a unit will react to enemies in its vicinity (or being attacked). Units should not remember where they were when receiving a standard command (standard right click), nor try to go back there when they consider they have finished their task. Never, ever. Units should remember where they started from and do their "do something and then come back" thing only when specifically ordered so (Key+right click). That "memory" should only last for that specific task, i.e. when they come back they forget about everything, and are ready for new type #2 or #3 orders. Repairing a dropsite shouldn't be an invitation to gather. When building one, okay, that makes some sense. But repairing my dock is just that, a repair, and I shouldn't have to catch the repairers before they vanish into the hinterland to cut wood... It's even more annoying with the "Norse" civ which has a dropsite ship. Each time I repair that one (and it happens often!), my repairers scuttle off to cut wood... What this changes, is that you won't find yourself chasing after units which, for some unfathomable reason, kept a memory of some past location, and won't lose it unless you memorize a new location, which is just shifting the problem but not solving it. When you have 300 units to micromanage, of which 150 have a mind of their own, your head explodes. People trying to second-guess your intentions is already annoying with normal humans, it gets horrible with hundreds of stupid-but-lightning fast AI units... I guess you all have got used to it, and probably don't even notice it anymore, but for new users it's a major pain in the neck, compounded by the lack of documentation. Here you are, making two coordinate but separate attacks on very different places on a giant map, all the while the AI is trying to storm your CC somewhere else, and you need to spend waste most of your time catching your rebellious units... (Also posted this in the suggestion thread, but made a copy here for the discussion I feel coming... )

I can reproduce this on A26: - put units in defensive stance while idle (or not, I suppose) - tell them to garrison something - make sure that the garrisoned unit/building doesn't have a rally point set, and ungarrison it in any way the unit will move towards the previous idle position. this is very broken, needs fix. Possibly just add an instruction to forget this.heldPosition when garrisoning in UnitAI.js. thanks for reporting.

If you want, you can contribute to the game by making a patch. Seems like a perfect beginner patch.

They might not always make pauses between decisions, but they do have idle workers sometimes. Moreover they're pretty inefficient: sometimes they send workers across ~half the map for a new task; sometimes they gather res really far from a storehouse and they don't build new storehouses for example at woodlines. All those shuttling times really add up.

Note that attackers didn't necessarily need to damage the walls to capture the city. Surrounding the enemy and starving them out was a popular strategy. In some sieges, a traitor would open the gates for the attackers. Siege ladders and siege towers were used to put troops directly on top of the walls without needing to damage them. Huge siege ramps, made out of dirt, sloping up to the top of the wall, were another strategy.

The cards at least add a level of meta that is currently lacking in 0 a.d. I personally don't think one time use powers are gimmicky. How they are used and their timing can be very strategic, especially if they are limited. But I'd rather have something like what I call "Policies" that affect how units behave. So imagine once you train a hero, you get a number if buttons in the hero's UI that set Policies, such as Plunder, Massacre, etc. that dictate what your units do. So, plunder could make your units default to destroying buildings instead of capturing them. The opposite policy would default your units to capturing instead if destroying. Things like that. There could be a small set of standard policies for all civs and heroes, and then perhaps 1 custom policy per hero or civ.

I believe siege mines would be a great addition to the game. I have been thinking about that for some time now, but I've never put the work in.

- More historically centered had been the introduction of an additional building to the Umayyad faction that allows to unlock advanced techs that reflect the high sophistication of their civilization. They were called "diwans" and were various councils that administered the bureaucracy, organization and decision within the caliphates. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Divan The main concept behind this administrative building (similarly with Carolingian's library) was to offer more options and decisions to take also in the late game, hopefully improving the longevity of the game experience that, in my personal experience, tend to slump towards the end. All of this is still obviously a beta test to try out some possible options that can be explored as gameplay Anyway open to feedback / suggestions! EDIT: forgot, credit to @Lopess for the 3D model of this and also many other buildings of the Umayyad civilization