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Considering the latest news about the Autociv mod, it seemed like a good time to do this poll. While it's possible that some community member will start maintaining this mod, perhaps this is a good opportunity to think about what features we think could be incorporated into the vanilla game in the future. I want to take this opportunity to eternally thank @nani for the invaluable contribution he has made to the game with all the time dedicated to the development of Autociv. I'm sure that most of the community shares this feeling. Thank you very much, nani. You're the best. If I have omitted any feature that you think is important, please mention it in your answer.

Ok i forgot to explain With this PR, (https://gitea.wildfiregames.com/0ad/0ad/pulls/7633) units will only get stuck attacking a building (or capturing) if you have directed them to do this. If you didn't, they will consider units of higher priority. So it means that if you looked away from your army and they start attacking buildings because there are no units nearby, they won't get stuck doing this. Also, it helps with units like bolts to not get stuck attacking a house or something.

Screen Recording 2025-02-15 202422.mp4

Week #2 As Marc and Ginnu had no time, I did the organizing today Game 1 (Mainland) commands.txt Game 2 (Red Sea, Regicide) commands.txt

I support this. Do note however that integrating the code will be non trivial as some things are hacked around the game and we will need to take the time and make them proper. E.g. the corpse thing i tried to port in 5 different ways and none got in.

Helllo, If a bot performs tasks on your behalf and this feature isn't available in the vanilla version, it's considered cheating. Other players don't have the option to do the same. I don't want to play against cheaters, whether they're weak or strong; it's the same. I'm convinced that someone who focuses on rushing with their cavalry will manage it better because they won't have to click on these buildings and produce, or even think about it. The player without the mod won't have this advantage. If QuickStart were in the vanilla game, configurable and accessible to everyone, I wouldn't like this feature, but I wouldn't oppose it. I also think that issuing commands during pause is a form of cheating for those with autociv. I find it comfortable with all the pauses in the games. The goal isn't to issue 50 orders but just 1 or 2. Should issuing orders during pause be in the vanilla game? I'll let you debate that. People don't ban it ,because they don't know it exist. If tomorrow a super developer creates a bot that plays entirely in your place, performs excellent military maneuvers, automatically sends resources, and starts transitioning farms on its own, would you still find that acceptable?

and online at https://replay-pallas.wildfiregames.ovh/

I see nothing other than mentions of ProGUI and Quickstart. The other cheats discussed in November have been patched up. I wont argue whether proGUI is cheat or not. If you feel that ProGUI and Quickstart are cheats, you can use it yourself. As far as I know, no host bans ProGUI nor Quickstart. You are always welcome to use them in my host.

Need to start the game I believe

Macedonian pikemen (phalangites) carried shields over their necks (a very innovative idea for the time). And Seleucid and Ptolemaic pikemen fought in this Macedonian manner too. Han pikemen on the other hand, only carried a so-called "Ji", which is better classified as a halberd rather than a pike.

Is it possible to see the list of players' mods? this way seems correct. I have no issue to play with someone use theses cheat if everyrone agree in the game. But i like play with the same weapon, even if it give a very little advantage It shouldn't be allowed against me. This reduces the number of possible errors, the player cannot forget to reproduce by example. The game already has a function for queuing units. I don't like playing against bots. Now I feel bad for playing against bots without knowing about them. It's like digital rape.

Actually we might have the feature already. The problem would be making techs force variants. It's somewhat similar to this https://gitea.wildfiregames.com/0ad/0ad/pulls/7069 Requires A LOT of actor change though.

I have received reports of Feldmap generating maps with the same seed. I also observed the issue myself. I investigated it, and I believe this is a bug of A27, unrelated with feldmap. I wrote a report here https://gitea.wildfiregames.com/0ad/0ad/issues/7632 If you have this issue, as a temporary fix, it should be enough to delete your `matchsettings.mp.json`. See here to find where this file is located: https://gitea.wildfiregames.com/0ad/0ad/wiki/GameDataPaths and follow "For user config and logs" (example: ~/.config/0ad/config) If you see lyx in the lobby, please tell him that he can also fix his issue (Survival of the Fittest script in unrelated maps) by deleting his `matchsettings.mp.json`. The problem will appear again after starting a multiplayer saved game as a host. So after doing that, you should delete that file again. I may eventually write a (potentially hacky) fix, in a separate mod, but no guarrantee.

Thebes and the Boeotian League, from Britannica: Boeotia and Boeotian Confederacy, free article on the Oxford Classical Dictionary: Other sources on their history: Boeotia, on Livius: https://www.livius.org/articles/place/boeotia/ Thebes and Boeotia in the Fourth Century B.C. by S. C. Bakhuizen, on JSTOR : https://www.jstor.org/stable/1192571 Subdivisions of the Boeotian Confederacy after 379 BC by J. Rzepka, on academia: https://www.academia.edu/download/61549003/Rzepka_Subdivisions_of_Boeotian_Confederacy.pdf The military policy of the Hellenistic Boiotian League by Ruben Post, on McGill University: https://escholarship.mcgill.ca/concern/theses/z316q5029 Thebes, the Boeotian League, and central Greece: political and military development and interaction in the fourth century BC by M.S. Furman, on St Andrews university: https://research-repository.st-andrews.ac.uk/handle/10023/12254 A history of Boeotia by R.J. Buck, a 220 pages book. The flamethrower of the Boeotians (5th c. B.C.) It was the first flamethrower in history and was first used by the Boeotians in the Peloponnesian War for the burning of the Dilion/Delium walls. It consisted of a scooped out iron-bound beam (ripped at length and reconnected) that had a bellow at the user’s end and a cauldron hung from chains at the other end. A bent pipe from the airtight orifice of the beam went down into the cauldron which contained lit coal, sulphur and pitch (tar). With the operation of the bellow, enormous flames were created that burned the wooden walls and removed their defenders. Later it was used for the offence of stone fortifications causing cracks in the stones because of the high temperature and the parallel infusion of vinegar, urine or other erosive substances in them. Thucydides, 4, 100: [1] The Boeotians presently sent for darters and slingers from [the towns on] the Melian gulf; and with these, and with two thousand men of arms of Corinth, and with the Peloponnesian garrison that was put out of Nisaea, and with the Megareans, all which arrived after the battle, they marched forthwith to Delium and assaulted the wall. And when they had attempted the same many other ways, at length they brought to it an engine, wherewith they also took it, made in this manner: [2] Having slit in two a great mast, they made hollow both the sides, and curiously set them together again in the form of a pipe. At the end of it in chains they hung a cauldron; and into the cauldron from the end of the mast they conveyed a snout of iron, having with iron also armed a great part of the rest of the wood. [3] They carried it to the wall, being far off, in carts, to that part where it was most made up with the matter of the vineyard and with wood. [4] And when it was to, they applied a pair of great bellows to the end next themselves, and blew. The blast, passing narrowly through into the cauldron, in which were coals of fire, brimstone, and pitch, raised an exceeding great flame, and set the wall on fire, so that no man being able to stand any longer on it, but abandoning the same and betaking themselves to flight, the wall was by that means taken. [5] Of the defendants, some were slain and two hundred taken prisoners; the rest of the number recovered their galleys and got home. More details: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Delium https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Boeotian_flame_thrower,_5th_century_BC,_Greece_(model).jpg https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Boeotian_Flamethrower.png The Boeotian League is also known to have implemented military reform during the Hellenistic period. One of the source supporting this is the Great Stele of Thespiai, from which there are mentions of peltophorai (phalangites), an Agema (elite troops unit inspired from the Macedonian army), epilektoi (elite troops, either hoplite like or peltast like), pharetritai (archers), sphendonatai (slingers). In addition we need to add thyreaphoroi/thureophoroi and traditional hoplitai who are mentioned in other sources. It is also very important to highlight how the Boeotian League and Thebes implemented a lot of training for their troops, from their confrontation with Sparta which also inspired them and their imitation of Athens which developed the Ephebeia. The institutions of Ephebeia and Gymnastikós (gymnastics) were promoted, amplified and strengthened. Xenophon tells us that “all Boiotians exercised under arms” and Plutarch that the Boiotians became famous for “the attention they paid to exercise”. Diodorus also said, when Alexander the Great’s Makedonian troops attacked the Thebans during their revolt in 335, they were still “superior in bodily strength on account of their constant training in the gymnasium”. Boiotians seem to have been more successful than Athens in making the Ephebeia mandatory. Not only do epheboi and neaniskoi train to fight in formation with a shield, they also train with a bow and javelin and in skirmishing techniques. The young men were assessed during a festival called Pamboiotia, which enabled the troops to demonstrate their individual and collective skills.

I've mentioned this in the past somewhere already, but I fully agree with that. I get the point that citizen soldiers all need to have the more or less the same stats, so that players know what they get when they e.g. train a "Swordsman". (Even though I believe the issue here only lies in not being able to communicate differences in stats to the player very well) But especially for champions there's huge potential for differentiation. I really like, for example, that the Han pikemen have less resistance but deal more damage than Macedonian pikemen - since they don't even carry a shield.

At 2:32 when he tries to recruit a worker he gets a message on the left saying there is no more pop left Other events could trigger such messages.

Typing banani should ban nani.

I hope that we can make it so we don't need to remove corpses. I have a PR with some promise https://gitea.wildfiregames.com/0ad/0ad/pulls/7616, but more can be done.

I know, i was just sharing.delete_projectiles.zip

Any ideas how to improve the current tutorial UI? (not only visually, but also functionally)

That's true. When I wrote "European counterparts" I was referring to the medieval crossbows. The unique thing about the Gastraphetes is that the bow string is already secured in the trigger mechanism before it is even spanned. This means (depending on the exact design) it might not even need to have a fixed draw length. And that would allow it to be used by soldiers of all sizes and strengths without switching out the prod. Well, they were quite expensive and therefore not used by lower-class peasants - unlike in China.

Gastraphetes also had very long draw length, don't get confused with medioeval crossbows that evolved into a shorter draw length. I don't think they were considered an "elite weapon", nor that they were used by soldiers of particularly elevated social status. They were produced as a mean of defending city walls and kept by the city guard, or produced before sieges by campaign engineers. I don't think they were usually sold. There are not a lot of sources or archaeological evidences though.

Don't underestimate Han crossbows. Even the weaker arm-drawn examples had incredibly heavy draw weights by today's standards. According to Wikipedia, entry-level crossbowman were required to be able to pull at least 76kg (167lbs). Other sources report most of the average arm-drawn crossbows to have even around 90kg (198lbs) draw weights. And they were, even for those draw weights, incredibly energy-efficient as they had unusually long draw lengths (and resulting power stroke). They are at least en par with average European counterparts. Some of the strongest Han crossbows with multiple times that draw weight had an energy output of over 300 Joules and were probably able pierce some steel armor - which didn't even exist back then! And keep in mind that they didn't even require an extra spanning devices - which allowed for relatively quick reload times in pitched battle (not comparable to bows, but still) I don't even want to imagine how it was to face 30,000 of those dudes in battle. Must've been absolutely terrifying. When we eventually get back to the encyclopedia, I want to discard the current one and take some time to write an entire series of articles on this topic. I find it so fascinating. (Most of the numbers here I took from this excellent thread: https://historum.com/t/han-dynasty-crossbow-iii.179336/)

There are also different sizes of crossbows. The ones depicted for the standard Han Crossbowman are smaller personal weapons with a lower draw strength than the siege crossbows shown for the Macedonians where you need the force of your upper body to help push/pull the draw mechanism. The Han of course also had larger crossbows as well.

It depends on how you define a "siege weapon". Crossbows are useful during sieges everywhere. In the Mediterranean, siege warfare was just a lot more common than in China. The main difference is that the Han had a standardized design and produced them en masse. And as you correctly stated, they were used by regular soldiers, in fact, the largest part of Han ranged infantry were crossbowmen. The Greek gastraphetes, on the other hand, was likely an elite piece, only used by single units, and reserved for those who could afford it. Else we would have more reports on it.

The gastraphetes is such a cool weapon. I'm so glad we have it in the game. And the animation is on point, as always...

Deutsch, while you're nitpicking, and it wasn't invented in 1871. (Not a complete list.) Aren't they grouped as Hellenics? I haven't fully dived into the subject, but I believe Germanics fit better than Germans.

Could be Germanic Tribes? We don't do gaul tribes though.

Its fair for the players because everyone is playing the same game and has the same opportunities to succeed. I'm not as hardline about banning progui as some, but I think the status quo needs to change. Frankly, it is not a matter of opinion whether progui provides an advantage, so users need to request when they want to use it, like a handicap in other games. The reason I am not concerned with progui going "underground" is that players actually do a great job of enforcing the rules so long as everyone is in agreement. "no cav" a22, ("no bolts" eventually didnt have to be said), we even started having "no merc cav" games in a25. The reason there is not widespread agreement right now is because of disinformation regarding progui, lack of awareness, and the monumental effort required to get widespread multilingual agreement to disallow something when its easier to just start the game. The problem is that all negotiation work is on numerous clean players to come to an agreement to disallow it, when it should be the work of the mod user(s) to ask for permission to use it.

One idea I got to make it harder to cheat is to limit the mods available for multiplayer games to signed mods. This way all mods would be verified not to give unfair advantages, as they are reviewed before being published on mod.io. This still wouldn't prevent cheating, but would require recompiling 0ad to do so. I'm not sure though how testing new mods which with multiple players would work with this.