Leaderboard

I ran several tests with the testudo formation and found that it currently doesn't seem to provide any functional benefit in terms of defense. Units in testudo are still taking damage from arrows even when they're fired directly at the shields from the front, and they don’t appear any harder to hit in melee combat either. This could be a great area for improvement, as enhancing the testudo to actually reduce ranged and melee damage would not only make it more historically accurate, but also add a valuable tactical option for players looking to counter archers or hold a defensive line more effectively.

The advantage is that it makes the army very dense. Soldiers dont need to walk that far to help each other, the army can go more easily through narrow passages and your enemy will have difficulties to estimate the numbers correctly. Do Romans really need a buff currently? They look pretty strong to me.

Thank you very much @Seleucids, this mod only exists because of @Duileoga, she is the driving force behind this project, I am just the creator of the game, and unfortunately I am too busy to dedicate the necessary and expected time to this mod, but I still hope to always help and this type of post motivates me even more to work on the mod seeking improvements, I believe that when the mod is more structured, third party opinions will be very important, and even now they are; so welcome! We have many merely temporary units, so don't mind them, if you have any good ideas, be sure to share them!

There is that one from 2007 too:

I'm creating a topic to promote this mod, in which I'm making much of the art created by @Duileoga available. This mod is mainly intended for fun and the promotion of civilizations from the most diverse corners of the world. I hope you like it, as all of this is created in our spare time and without any great intentions, anyone who wants to use art to create the most diverse mods is welcome (and let us know as we would love to play). CIVs: (playable, with some errors, with time they will be resolved) Lusitanos. Mayas. Mochicas. Garamantians. Yamatai. Development (updated): https://github.com/wltonlopes/Endovelico Link official: https://github.com/OilamDuileoga/Endovelico (I'm sorry for my english google translate)

formations don't really work in game as intended yet. We created some "auras" for the formations in historical. "auraName": "testudo", "Infantry swordsman promote 2% faster, gain .5 Hack and 1 pierce resistance, but walk/attack speed reduced by 3 % "type": "range", "radius": 3.5,

i'll give it a go. might be a day or so as my 32bit dev vm needs seriously updating. - it was just flagged on the sbo ci system.

Your interpretation is not supported by the the text you are referring to. Saying a player's superior strategy should beat another player's faster clicking (with a poorer strategy), does not mean that the vision calls for removing aspects of the game that involve many actions like training units from your buildings. To argue that macros and scripts are not cheats because they handle inputs that shouldn't exist according to this misinterpretation is a bit illogical.

I, too, find it VERY annoying when there is even a small amount of input lag, or a moderate amount of FPS lag. I haven't seen either of those in 0 A.D. (maybe I just have a better PC), but I have seen it in other games, and it severely reduces my ability to play competitively. Part of it is aiming with my mouse; when the screen is lagging, I must wait for feedback when moving the mouse pointer, whereas I wouldn't have to if there were no lag. I know how you feel here, but like you said, this is probably besides the point. I cannot say I have experienced this myself. When I struggle to concentrate, it is usually due to sleep deprivation, which has now become my primary limiting factor to becoming better at 0 A.D. (as well as everything else in my life, woe is me). But this is a different point to the one you made before: Is it not? Let me clarify. Suppose that there is a modified client that has multiple features. Some of those features can be described as "macros" (i.e. single buttons to do what would normally require multiple keyboard commands), and other features can be described as "scripts" (i.e. computer code that is capable of making in-game decisions on behalf of the player, using elements of the game as input or feedback). What I tried to say in both of those paragraphs, is that neither category of tool is considered unfair to use in rated multiplayer. Those to paragraphs are logically adjacent to each other, but not contradictory at all. In fact, they go hand-in-hand. My case is that the challenge, the skill, of 0 A.D., comes from strategy. Other factors, such as a player's reaction time or coordination skills, are not nearly as important in 0 A.D. as they are in other genres (though, that is not to say that they don't matter at all). This is supported by the 0 A.D. vision, which clearly states that there should be a "greater emphasis on strategy" in 0 A.D. than other RTS games, and I interpret this as implying that 0 A.D. will de-emphasize other elements of gameplay that I described above. Macros are easier to explain: they directly reduce the mechanical load for the player, but since 0 A.D. (ideally) already does not have a mechanical load problem (or shouldn't, else this needs improvement), and mechanical load is not considered part of the game (again, stated more or less directly in the Vision), then the use of macros cannot be considered cheating. People in this thread have frequently mentioned the macros of a mod called "AutoCiv", such as the ability to create a hotkey to select only specific types of units, and those types can be finely customized. I would not consider this cheating, as it only makes it slightly faster to do what a player would already be able to do, just with more keystrokes. Though speed does matter in a real-time strategy game, it does not matter on the scale of split-seconds that one would save by using a macro (more or less, depending on their overall typing speed), nor should it if 0 A.D. is going to maintain an emphasis on strategy as opposed to quick reflexes. Scripts are a little harder to explain: my original point was that it is true that scripts can be described as making a strategic choice on behalf of the player, even if they aren't actively thinking about it in that moment. This may seem like it enables the player to offload certain aspects of the gameplay from their working memory, whereas a vanilla player wouldn't have that luxury. However, I said that using scripts in this way would be a mistake; even though a script can make a choice on your behalf, the game is deep enough that a simple script would not be smart enough to make the "best" choice in every potential scenario. You would inevitably be leaving yourself strategically vulnerable in ways you don't even realize, and an adept player would recognize those weaknesses, especially if they are common to all matches that you participate in. You could attempt to improve your script to make it better able to make the "best" choice, but with so many potential choices and moving parts in a game as deep as 0 A.D., a script that could reliably and dependably handle an entire aspect of gameplay without any human thought would have to be so smart and complex that it would effectively be artificial intelligence, and I doubt any of the mods mentioned in this thread are on that level. Even if they were, I still wouldn't consider that cheating, because I think it would be an interesting experience to compete against a fully or partially automated player, though I already know many people would disagree. Fair point. Really, I'm just trying to say that they're comparable, which you already agree with. This is important because we generally accept that we can't control the fatigue levels of each player in an online match, even though this has the potential to greatly impact gameplay (For me personally, my performance in the game is directly proportional to the quality of my sleep). Again, this was originally said by @Atrik in the old thread which was deleted, and I apologize for not making that clear the first time. @TheCJ I know that I didn't address everything that you have posted so far, particularly your point that an auto-trainer, like the one described about ProGUI by others in this thread, does not replace the need for concentration, but it does make the failure to do so less punishing. I think this is a valid point, and I have an idea of what I can say for this, but I need more time to think about it, so for now... stay tuned!

@Deicide4uYou might try alpha 1 too!

Buenos días o tardes; -Muchas gracias por su ayuda. En este caso , yo no puedo ayudar ,ya que solo me dedico al apartado artístico, de las mecánicas se encarga @Lopess.Si encuentra más errores o tiene sugerencias,críticas,información etc...publíquelas ya que nos ayuda mucho. -¿Qué facción le gusta más y por qué y cuál le gusta menos y por qué?Espero que le guste el mod. Disculpe las molestias*

If this is referencing the mentioned feature of ProGUI that automatically restarts the auto-queue when you once again have enough resources, then I think it's a stretch to describe that as "self-managing the barracks". Self-managing the barracks would mean more like the game automatically making decisions about what to train based on external game factors. Even with something like that on someone's computer, they do not become a formidable force just because they have those scripts installed, and they still have to pay attention to where all of their units are, and if unit production has stopped or is slowing down, why is that so? And that's not to say that the script always makes the "right" choice; as I said, you become more predictable of a player when you over-rely on these tools, and this actually makes you a worse player even if your score in the summary seems to be improving. I think you are confusing several issues here: 1. This is not how the ProGUI/ModernGUI a.k.a. Atrik's Mod smarttrain works. The mod's GUI allows you to define your army's composition as a percentage or infinitely produce certain units of your choice. Then it automatically assigns all available Barracks(and other military units) to produce the most efficient amount of units based on your available resources. It does this instantly, and as long as you are not haused and have enough resources, it will continue to produce units infinitely as long as you have the resources available and will produce always on idle barracks rather than the vanila system which sometimes triggers a bug in where you end up with some barracks stacked of units and many barracks idles. It never stops production unless: you have no resources, no houses available, you have reached the unit ratio assigned in the GUI, or you make a mistake in this assignment. This means you can continue maneuvering your units on the attack and not have to alternate between selecting your barracks to monitor their production status, allowing you to focus your attention in the right place at crucial moments. Another, more irrelevant but more graphic example is autostart: you configure your preference in the options, and as soon as the game starts, it automatically moves your units to the resource you've chosen and simultaneously produces units from the CC. That is, you can literally have your hands off the computer and your eyes closed for the first ten seconds (more or less depending on the batch size you chose and whether or not you decide to build a storehouse/farmstead) of the game while the other players execute the orders manually. 2. This is somewhat irrelevant if we discuss the root of the disagreement as has already been discussed in many threads, which is the automation of orders. Using automation won't inevitably lead you to victory, and it's not the only variable that defines your skill as a player, just as using a revealed map won't necessarily lead you to victory. So I could use your argument to say that using a revealed map doesn't necessarily give you an advantage. Do you agree with using a revealed map? I imagine not. But I don't mean to confuse things. Ultimately, some aspects of the multiplayer environment are defined by consensus. 3. This isn't necessarily the case either. Automation significantly improves the average player's production, but it doesn't define their style. You can play in very different ways using it. I wanted to limit myself to responding only to the short paragraph of mine that you quoted (which, by the way, I believe does not fully reflect the substantial part of my argument when I have intervened on this topic), but I will add a few short quotes to try to convey my point of view to you more fully. 4. Returning to the topic of consensus: a similar case can be seen in AoE2, where unit production is entirely manual. The community reached a consensus that using self-produced mods in a competitive multiplayer environment was cheating. On the other hand, some mods that visually modify the game, such as making trees smaller or showing fish icons in the water, ended up becoming almost a standard, and top players can be seen using them. Here, we have not yet reached the necessary consensus on what constitutes a fair multiplayer environment and what does not. This was one of the reasons I stopped participating in these discussions, which ultimately became aggressive and circular arguments. I felt frustrated when I realized neither side was budging on their position, and while I'm against using automation, I have a greater interest in bringing positions closer and reaching a certain consensus. But this is impossible if the parties don't budge on some aspect and if there's no attempt to reduce the discussion to more basic issues instead of prioritizing personal tastes or totally subjective and anecdotal opinions like "I produce the same with or without automation," or "I'm still better than you even if you use ProGUI," or "I'm bored of repeating the same task over and over," or "without that mod you wouldn't be as good." At the end of the day, I believe that the most important thing in an RTS game is to build a sense of fairness in a competitive multiplayer environment. I think the contrast between a system as limiting and buggy as the vanilla version of 0ad and the improved ProGUI system is so great that many players have felt unequal, and there's nothing we can do about it other than hope that whoever uses it doesn't use it, and hope that those we don't know if they use is don't use it, or watch replays to detect who uses it (wtf??). So, it's also understandable that without easy and secure mechanisms to detect mods, so that hosts can choose whether or not to allow mods in the game, the feeling of powerlessness grows and sometimes the responses of those who use the mod are arrogant and this generates even more animosity. I'm currently working on a mod that I plan to PR for the next version of the game that eliminates (or at least considerably mitigates) the bug in vanilla that causes units to be assigned to already occupied barracks when producing from multiple barracks, leaving other barracks free when the necessary resources are insufficient, while respecting the essence of the system, which is automation-free. I have received help from @Atrikto do this and I believe it has now been incorporated into ModernGUI. Even with the major disagreements I have with him on these aspects of the mod, we have been able to work together.

The Athena Varvakeion is great, a c. 1 m faithful Roman marble from the 3rd C AD, but it is a copy of the Athena Parthenos, not of the Athena Promachos. As for coins, they tend to depict the goddess, not necessarily a specific statue. So I don't know which one you're working on, and I don't really care, any Athena statue would be great to have, but it's best to be clear from an early stage, to avoid future confusion, hence my earlier post.

I see what you mean, but honestly, if the game acquired a model that looked like this, I wouldn't be angry in the slightest: One of the things I like about this sculpt is her facial expression (you may disagree). To me, she kind of looks otherworldly or even psychotic in a way, with her bulgy eyes staring straight through you. Kind of like how I'd imagine a supernatural goddess of war to look. Like she could snap her fingers and murder you without giving it a 2nd thought. We are insects to her, or unfortunate collateral damage at best. She only really cares about any one individual human being when that unfortunate person pisses her off. Just an interesting interpretation of her visage.