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@Vanthaand I talked about it a few times, nothing conclusive, I do have some ideas.

There is a mod that adds water as a resource but it hasn't been updated since a22 https://github.com/0ad-matters/resource_water which I forked from https://github.com/0ADMods/resource__water

Frankly, I prefer "has fallen in battle" over "has been vanquished". Ther former is a bit less formal and better understandable to the casual Englisch speaker.

Yep, I'd be onboard

I was thinking about the Egyptian AoE campaign... And a little bit about William Wallace's campaign. The first escenario in AoE is hunting, we can combine this with foraging farming and explore Which are the following scenarios. In the following, you will learn how to increase the population, use the corral, capture animals, research technologies, prepare defenses and withstand an attack, as well as pass the phase. The following map would be water. Water exploration, fishing and trading as well as preparing for a second CC expansion on the other shore and offensive combat. Those would be the first 3 maps of the learning campaign.They are not all that there would be, but it is the basic idea. I leave the source with the link for more ideas. https://ageofempires.fandom.com/wiki/Ascent_of_Egypt

Such a grande planne™ is fine and all, but would take 20 years to complete. I got time (I hope), but just understand how much work this is. Starting with a tutorial campaign as you mention there is key to such a plan. It proves it can be done and with quality. Personally, I don't want something just thrown together. We are long past putting low quality content in the game. While this stipulation slows things down, it at least keeps the game consistent. So, let's develop a tutorial campaign first. Block it all out, scenario by scenario. Decide what the goals for each scenario are first. Here are some random thoughts: It would be a cool "behind the scenes" thing to name each scenario after a piece of music in the game (and then have that piece of music by the first song you hear). Each scenario can be a different faction, so the player can passively get comfortable with the varied factions, at least comfortable with the aesthetics and names of everything. Each scenario must have a goal in mind and revolve around that goal. "What are we teaching the player in this scenario and what are the steps to do it?" The goals for each scenario should have a natural progression and escalation. Start with basics and work up to higher level things. We can't teach every single UI feature, hotkey, gameplay feature, or strategy in one tutorial campaign, so choices must be made on what to teach and what to let the player discover on their own. We will need UI code to allow us to highlight things in the UI. Flashing icons. Circle overlays, etc. And the trigger scripts for these things. So, if the narrator tells the player to click the Hoplite button in the UI 5 times, then that button should flash and we have some kind of overlay to highlight it (a circle over it, an animated arrow, sparkles, something). Not only does this help move things along, player will expect this kind of user experience polish.

I found this interesting ticket (by @wowgetoffyourcellphone) for a hero death notification. I already wrote the necessary code, but there are still some details left for decision, which I want to discuss in this thread. Firstly, what exactly should the chat notification say? And what players should it be broadcasted to? If more than just the affected player himself, it should be indicated whose hero it was. Maybe by coloring the hero name in the player's color? (Though I'm afraid that might cause some confusion; the hero could be mistaken for a player). Currently, my best pick is "<ColoredPlayerName>'s hero <HeroName> has fallen in battle.", but I'm positive we can find a cooler formulation. Secondly, the ticket also mentions a sound effect. I found the following unused hero death sound among the game files: alarm_hero_fallen_1.mp3 I think it sounds alright, but it's just... rather boring. Here is an alternative I was able to create (supposed to sound more epic), it resembles an ancient military signal horn: alarm_hero_fallen_2.mp3 Which one do you prefer? (Keep in mind that it is not the unit's death sound, but a globally played notification - like the alarm when being attacked) And, yes, as suggested by the ticket, I also created a skull icon that appears over the portrait after the hero dies. Here is what it looks like in the UI:

This is not the first cheat mod and wont be the last, here's just my opinion on this tedious discussion. So everyone has to draw his line where cheats begin on about this spectrum: -Map revealed -Chat revealed -Let ranged units automatically back up if mellee come too near, make them follow if melee goes away (cav in a ~22 were like this and broke game mechanics) -Automatic aim at most wounded units -Army shoots the exact number of projectiles at one unit necessary to kill it. -Automatic dodge arrows -Automatic wounded units run to next temple -Automatic deleting structures at 55% capture rate -Automatic set houses according to resources and demand -Automatic queue units according to resources -Automatic start with instant command to move women to berry's, men to wood, cavalry to chicken with perfectly executed cc-teleport (Quickstart mod) -Make more contrast for better visibility -Disable fog for better view -Increase zoom.max = 500.0 (this should be standard anyway btw.) There has already been cheaters/modders that enabled 1. and 2.. Most optimize their settings for the better in some way. This has gone way too far for me. I would rather have a complete vanilla setting and disable all mods for all players than this state. To me proGUI is a clear cheat and I know a lot (clear majority) that also consider it a cheat. You set your line maybe else where, where cheats begin, but that's not up for the individual player to decide. Atrik at least has some fairness sense that map revealed is a cheat. If I get raided by Atrik get demotivated because he doesn't have to watch his base and can focus only this raid. Usually you can stick arount, make his units waste time and be sure the player only has that much APM. But he doesnt have to spread that amount of APM across a bigger map. He plays a different game than me. I don't accept this as a loss at a fair game. a) is not an option. If it were next comes the map revealed mod (or one of the other suggested cheats above) and we all do that. b) same argument. Some have map revealed. Not a sane option. Quickstart is also a cheat and AFAIK incorporated in proGUI. It could at least emulate a good player. But it sends does all these commands instantly. Ungarrision from the cc in 3 different directions with different units instantly is just silly. chrstgtr is a opponent of proGUI yet Artik and knight002 used at least quickstart in a game hosted by chrstgtr. The wishes of other players do not get respected. It's clear that many users dislike the use of these mods. It does not get stated each host. But chrstgtr made it clear here and Atrik knows it. I just saw another rated 1v1 with quickstart (at least) enabled for one player with no anouncement. If quickstart were no cheat, why doesn't the game just start a few seconds later with the woman already gathering berrys etc.. It is not intended that way and playing it down won't convince me. On Grautvornix: Why isn't this a real competition? Because there's no money involved? People gather together and want to play a game with even odds and give it some effort. Good performances earn recognition of other players and bad performances gets .. lets say reactions too. People care and the game is in a good state so that one can put in some effort and it's fun to rise in the leaderboard and also optimize ones skill regardless of how useful this skill might be. It's also annoying to me that this gets cited like a dogma to automate everything: "Repetition - If you find yourself doing the same action over and over without thought, then we need to either eliminate or automate such an action. Linear repetitious procedures are meaningless and boring." If you take it that serious over every other argument, next time you close the game, leave it closed. Don't open 0ad again. It's a really sad state and critics get shouted at like in the attached snippet. I don't know what to tell you Atrik what hasn't been better formulated by others already better. It's either a lost cause or needs time for you to reflect on the matter.

Oooooooo. This is very nice, especially at the 6:00 timestamp: So, what we could do is, don't have a "tutorial campaign" per se. Instead, have various missions that teach you new things that players can play at their leisure. You could play them sequentially, but it's not necessary to do so; you could just jump to "Advanced Map Control" for your 2nd tutorial lesson if you wanted to, or if you tried playing online and were utterly demolished, you could go offline and play a relevant tutorial mission to help teach you what you lacked online.

Unfortunately it will take more time but it's not forgotten:)

I am loving it! Could there be a way to carry over resources from one game to the next in row?

I imagined that Vantha might get involved in this project.

Thx that worked (:

Arctic biome on a small map

I like seeing it like this, in graphical form which creates immersion, rather than just a list of scenarios as in more modern games. The reason it's no longer done like this is less about and aesthetics than about the fact that it takes time, energy, etc. ($$) away from development elsewhere. Since we don't have a budget per se, the money consideration is taken away and all we need is someone to come along and want to create the assets to make this work, then have a programmer who wants to slap it together. Once the framework is in place, then creating the 2D assets for the maps and icons to click for the next scenario is pretty simple. Creating the campaign(s) and scenarios themselves doesn't have to wait for some great UI like in those images in order to commence design and construction. The game already has the "simple list" UI for basic campaigns.

I say this because I have a conceptual proposal. I want to draw an outline of what the campaigns would be like, not the scenarios. I mean there will be an advanced learning tutorial campaign. Then this will be unlock 3 faction's campaign then this other 3... It would be like Starcraft campaigns. You will start with the Greek colonization campaign Being the same campaign with a proto Ptolemy faction. The one about found colonies. The Greeks will come from across the sea to Egypt to help the Egyptians. The campaign, you will help the Egyptians against the Persians. It will be the story of Neukratis And the relations between Egypt and the Greeks. This unique campaign will unlock the Persian campaign and will unlock the Greek city campaigns. Persia Athens Sparta these campaigns will unlock the Macedonian campaign. Macedonian Then the Maurya campaign is unlocked. And unlock the first Carthaginian campaign. And Diadochi campaigns. Then this will unlock the Roman and Iberian campaign. And so on.

Shameless plug: https://github.com/Dunedan/ghaction-wiki-sync/tree/improvements It's a fork of an existing Github action to sync parts of a Git repository with a Git wiki repository and works on Gitea as well. I looked into that for another purpose, but it'd work for the 0ad wiki repository as well. It'd however require using another repository as its source and doing all changes as pull requests. As there hasn't been any response from the original author to my PR with improvements I'll soon merge my changes to the master branch of my fork and use that as a base for some stuff. That said, personally I'd prefer a solution which would still allow the same low barrier we have for changes to the wiki right now plus the ability to propose changes via pull requests.

I think the second one is the current 'player resigned' sound. The first is rather complicated and similar to the resign sound. I think it should be quick and simple.

No need; I can take care of creating any sound if needed (just tag me). There are a range of unused attack-alternate sounds which may work (and were recorded with real ancient horns and flutes rather than samples), perhaps one of them would work? e.g. 06-Alt, 09-Alt seem sort of mournful to me. I cannot remember though which one we chose for the game though, and obviously this sound should be different! https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fo/f6ot29y8g0h7w9zi4zyux/AJzOb3kuVNWPyqfuMhy7xSE?rlkey=ojaj28tbanhgsmg0yxp2hhejo&st=tvrfmeo3&dl=0 Attacked_06-Alt.wav Attacked_09-Alt.wav

This is a good watch for those familiar with the automation debate. Ok so maybe its a different game from 0ad, but many points on automation are valid across RTS games. Maybe the most important is the division of attention between fighting and economy. The controversy of this farm auto-placement puts into start contrast the motion to automize unit and technology production like in proGUI. In 0ad, we already have some things heavily automated like autoqueue. Admittedly, autoqueue is more justified in 0ad given the citizen soldier mechanics, but I heavily advocate against further automation. Some say 0ad is too hard, but I say let it be hard. Learning how to do hard things and winning for your efforts is rewarding and exciting. To improve the experience of new players, focus should instead be placed on improving the ui, ranked games, and matchmaking/finding. Obviously, we don't have any kind of matchmaking, but it is important that new players get a few games with players of roughly equal skill so they can experience more than just village phase. Excessive automation makes RTS games easier sure, but also shallow, and shallow games are not fun for long. One of the main issues with aoe4 is that where aoe2 is deep, aoe4 is shallow (homing bullets, 1-click strategies). We can make 0ad more deep by increasing the amount of player-controlled features, adding more technologies (unique and/or unit-specific), and diversifying unit stats.