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Wildfire Games, an international group of volunteer game developers, proudly announces the release of 0 A.D. Release 28: “Boiorix”, the twenty-eighth version of 0 A.D., a free, open-source real-time strategy game of ancient warfare. The release is named after the king of the Cimbri Germanic tribe Boiorix. Easy download and install Download and installation instructions are available for Windows, Linux, and macOS. 0 A.D. is free software. This means you can download, redistribute, modify and contribute to the application under the same licenses: GNU Public Licence version 2 (GPL v2) for code and Creative Commons Attribution Share-Alike 3.0 (CC-BY-SA 3.0) for artwork. Although you might find some people selling copies of 0 A.D., either over the internet or on physical media, you will always have the option to download 0 A.D. completely gratis, directly from the developers. No “freemium” model, no in-game advertising, no catch. Don’t forget to deactivate every mod before updating the game to avoid any risk of conflict. If you’re a mod creator, please look at this page on how to port your mod to the new version. As always, feel free to reach out to us for assistance. Now is the time to contribute! The Release 28 is our first release without the Alpha label: our development process has matured, our releases are more frequent, and our commitment to quality has never been higher. Now is the time to join us and place 0 A.D. in the spotlight. We need your help to make the game flourish and to bring new features to life. As you can see, this release unfortunately comes without a video trailer. It is difficult for the current team to spread the word about our beloved game. We are in sore need of contributors in the following areas: Video Editing Social Media Management Website Design Of course, we are also always looking for, and providing a welcoming contribution environment, for: Testers and Quality Assurance enthusiasts Translators (get started right away on Transifex) and of course, Developers and Artists - the team will gladly welcome contributions in all areas. You can also support us by simply donating. This allows us to pay the server hosting fees for our multiplayer, websites, and development environments. A new faction: the Germans Terror Germanicus, the fear of the Germanic tribes migrating south, from the Jutland region, towards the Roman Republic, is coming to 0 A.D. in Release 28. The Cimbri were a large group of Germanic peoples originally from the north of modern-day Denmark. In the late 2nd century BC, their migration south into Italy and France would spark the decade-long Cimbrian War against the Roman Republic. Accompanied by powerful armies and seeresses, Germanic convoys, in long trains of wagons, brought livestock, shelter and goods. The Cimbri placed great importance on animals for religious sacrifices. In 0 A.D., we represent the nomadic coalition formed between the Cimbri, the Teutones, the Ambrones, and other Celto-German tribes simply as the "Germans". The Germans are a semi-nomadic civilization with a flexible economy owing to Supply Wagons and Wagon Encampments, which can be fortified. The unique technologies "Wagon Trains" and "Migratory Resettlement" lean into this flexibility, reducing dependence on territorial boundaries. The Germans also feature an aggressive lineup of siege units, with a crush-dealing unit available in each phase. Between their economic flexibility and unique military units, Cimbrian raiders, Log Rams, and Seeresses, the Germans are a mysterious force to be reckoned with. Play with this new faction, against their historical Roman foes, or turn history around by making them battle the 14 other factions of the game. Many other novelties await you in the new release of 0 A.D.! Top new features of Release 28 Gendered Civilians Direct Font Rendering Support for JavaScript Modules New Game-Setup Options Lobby improvements Engine upgrades and updated platform support New quotes and tips Various balancing improvements ... and much more! Gendered Civilians In an effort to improve historical consistency, we have replaced the visual appearance of civilian units. Previously described as a "female citizen", the basic economic unit is now called the "civilian" and has male and female models. This enhancement was made possible by incremental improvements of the engine, which now allows a unit to have variants not only in its appearance, but also in its voice and in other gendered characteristics. In the civilizations displayed in the game, women did not usually hold citizenship, which was a prized social status. The "female citizen" was a misnomer. It was also incorrect to display all men as soldiers, and most women as servants. Instead, we want to describe the armies of 0 A.D. as followed by a group of minions of lower social status, able to support the soldiers in the army camp, but not on the battlefield. Those are the new Civilians. Citizens, on the other hand, were soldiers, able to wage war as well as working, which we have always been accurately describing in the game with the citizen-soldier concept. The ambiguity of the term "citizen" is removed: this word now only describes citizen soldiers. This change does not touch the balance of the game at all. The so-called "female citizens" keep all their statistics, only their appearance and name have changed. The citizen soldiers are not touched at all. Direct Font Rendering In order to display text, we used to pre-render fonts and load them into memory when starting the game. In order to display scripts such as Chinese, we needed to load a large atlas of thousands of characters into memory, which could overwhelm the players' RAM. As a consequence, we were forced to provide East Asian languages as mods, which was an accessibility issue for non-English speaking users of these languages. On top of memory management improvements, we now use the Freetype library in the engine to render fonts on the fly when the game runs. Modding the fonts also becomes far easier with this new feature. This new rendering system also improves the text display with GUI scaling, for users with Hi-DPI screens or who simply wish to use a larger interface. In the future, we hope to also use this feature to render ancient scripts, such as hieroglyphs and cuneiform. New Game-Setup Options New personalization options are available in the game setup screen. You can remove some players entirely (removing all of the initial buildings and units in their starting zone) in Skirmish and Scenario games. It is also possible to set the population limit per team: Lastly, some code refactoring allowed us to fix outstanding bugs in the game setup. For instance, in Alpha 27, a recurring issue would create an unwanted flood event in games where the user had previously played a flood game. This issue has been fixed. Lobby improvements The multiplayer lobby received some quality of life improvements. Verifying TLS certificates is now enabled by default when connecting to the multiplayer lobby, reducing the risk of man-in-the-middle attacks. A secure connection to the lobby will become mandatory in future releases, so please check that TLS encryption and certificate verification are not disabled in your settings, and report any issue you may encounter. It is also more straightforward now to host matches, as there is no need to decide whether to use STUN or not; and a bug causing freezes when joining a match got fixed. We have decided to rename the main menu entry for playing with friends over LAN or by direct IP: now called Multiplayer > Connect by IP, it is still the same system for direct matchmaking without using the lobby. Engine upgrades and updated platform support In Release 28, we have upgraded the SpiderMonkey JavaScript engine to version 128. This upgrade drops support for Windows 7 and 8.1, and for macOS below 10.15. Windows 10 and 11 are now the only supported Windows versions, and we will try our best to keep supporting Windows 10 as long as possible. Still on Windows, we now provide a long-awaited 64-bit build, which should address infrequent out-of-memory errors. The 64-bit version will become the default one for the next release, and the 32-bit build will eventually be deprecated in the future. On Linux distributions, special care is always given to release bundles for package maintainers, but we also walked the extra mile to provide an AppImage in official releases, starting with Release 28. We are also working close together with maintainers of the Snap and Flatpak versions, so that you can enjoy the latest release as soon as we get it out. New quotes and tips Our contributor manowar has brought gifts for the history nerds among you with a dozen new quotes in the game load screen, and, together with Vantha, they have added new tips for both beginners and seasoned players. Balancing improvements General Capturing Structure, Civil Center, and Fortress default (ungarrisoned) capture resistance increased from 0.5, 5, 10, to 5, 30, and 45, respectively. Civilians (formerly Women) given a capture attack of 1.0. Naval Warfare Naval technology tree simplified. Scout ships made available in Village phase. Ship balancing: Ram ships, scout ships nerfed; Fire ships, arrow ships buffed. Scout ships range 37 (from 45). Fire ships 175 wood, 50 food, 50 metal -> 100 wood, 0 food, 50 metal. Arrow ships 120 wood, 100 metal -> 100 wood, 100 metal. Acceleration increased by 25%. Ram ships 350 hack, 70 crush damage -> 320 hack, 50 crush damage. Group Movement Units' destinations are distributed around the endpoint, allowing groups to move cohesively without colliding and forming long lines. Champion Cavalry Melee Champion Cavalry HP decreased from 300 to 260. Cataphract Champion Cavalry +2 Hack and Pierce armor, but speed decreased from 17.1 to 14.4. Miscellaneous 3 traders are no longer required for researching Diaspora. Fortress accuracy increased from 2.0 to 1.25. Elephants +1 pierce armor, +0.5m splash range. Longsword champions +2 splash hack damage damage, but -2 direct hack damage. Faction-specific Carthage New civilization bonus: Stone gathering storehouse technologies are free and instant with each phase. Mercenary refactoring and differentiation: Celtic embassy: trains sword cavalry and infantry. Iberian embassy: trains unique ranged infantry mercenaries. Italic embassy: trains spear cavalry and infantry. New civilization bonus: Numidian cavalry +10% movement speed. Han - Minister rework Minister attack removed. Minister garrison aura and ministry garrison aura removed. Minister economy and building auras increased from 2% to 10%, but ranged reduced from 40 meters to 20 meters. no longer stackable. Minister health and armor reduced to 50 HP, 2 hack, 2 pierce armor. Ministers and Ministry available in village phase instead of town phase. Ministry cost reduced from 200 stone, 200 metal to 50 wood, 200 stone, 50 metal. Reduced cost of ministry technologies. Ministry resource trickle removed. Mauryas Mauryan maiden archers and swordsmen differentiation. Maiden archers increased movement speed, decreased range, decreased damage, increased poison damage, cost reduced to 100 wood 90 metal. Maiden guard increased movement speed, decreased health, decreased pierce armor, increased hack armor, cost reduced to 100 food 90 metal. Full list of changes The full list of changes can be found at the changelog page of the wiki. Team Changes After numerous contributions in many areas of the game, especially the user interface and the game simulation, Vantha has joined the team at the beginning of the preparation of Release 28. We are extremely happy to welcome him! Reporting issues If you experience a technical problem with the game, please report it at gitea.wildfiregames.com. This is also the first address to visit when you wish to dedicate some of your time to help patch the code. Got any further questions or suggestions? Discuss them with other players and developers at the forum or talk with us directly in the IRC chat rooms: #0ad and #0ad-dev on QuakeNet. Subscribe See our LinkTree. For press/media inquiries, please DM play0ad@mastodon.social on Mastodon, or email webmaster at wildfiregames dot com.

What dangers might this dense forest of ancient Japan hide?

@wowgetoffyourcellphone Hi all, proud to present the result of another project I made a retopology to reduce the polycount 29k tris ->7k tris. I wasn't entirely happy with the old diffuse so I baked a new one and added some details to it. The faces are difficult to paint as you can see lol. The ivory could be slightly brigther now that I see it. Mod's attached and here are some before/after pictures: athena.zip

We are going off topic but I think the best solution would be that if someone leaves the game without resigning, the opponent should still have the possibility to finish the match by eliminating the enemy and earn the points. This way, we don’t remove the possibility that if someone disconnects, the game can remain paused and be resumed once they reconnect.

Thanks! I think it's the ao map that darkens it a lot, as without shader effects it's a little brighter. Maybe we could lighten the ao map a little. Feel free to tweak the textures If you want I can easily bake a new diffuse. I'd love that!

Great job reducing the polies! Right, I'd make the ivory brighter like the original, but your gold is better than the original. Mind if I create some different sizes, slap together some actors and templates, and then make a pull request for the base game? I'd make some different sizes, including "monumental" versions for possible Capture the Wonder game mode.

Dear fellow addicts, its probably too late for a28, but i just wanted to have some short discussion about bringing back the random teamgame player positions, especially on mainland maps. i remember it was really cool, players would spot early to see who was their border. now we have in almost all teamgames the same setup: strongest players pocket (with 220 pop civ), weaker players border. i understand that many not-so-pro players dont want to be pocket in fear of getting rushed badly. i remember during a27 there were maps with "fixed positions" suffix, so you had a choice for that too. Now you dont have a choice anymore. What do you think about bringing back random positions, in all maps or in mainland? Maybe its also possible to just make a map with non-fixed-positions, so like in a27 but other way round, with fixed being standard... HF, Meister

Thank you for the new thread! Alternative: Increase the resources trickle (see below). This would amortize the Glorious Exp. Tech. earlier.

/kick /ban /kickspecs /banspecs /list /clear You can't force the player from the lobby back into the game, he has to join.

I miss random positions too (and I also miss allied view disabled btw...) I think lot of players would thanks this to come back. it would be great to add this and then the host could choose between Random or Fixed in Circle but also in Stronghold, River and Grouped Lines.

Yeah. I eventually build the ice houses, but I don't corral or slaughter. I just felt the investments slowed me down and delayed my progress, and since I don't really need extra food... Will To Fight.

I guess that's my fault before talking with @Dunedan I thought the lobby could not handle more than a few hundred players because there used to be issues with heavy logging in the past. It seems it will be okay. The biggest hurdles will be managing people, we'll need more moderators, the chat will be flooded and we'll need to handle the UDP 20595 port not being open a few times per day /hour. Here is a talk of another game that went through these hurdles https://ftp.fau.de/fosdem/2020/K.3.201/gamedev_spring_steam.mp4

This was when they were built in a23 (back when they were still useful). Usually to break a stalemate in a 3 (plus one very useless player) v 4 situation. The 3 would be outplaying the 4 in basically every way but couldn’t win because of pop cap limits.

I also liked the idea you posted awhile ago about it housing super strong techs like eco super boost, military super boost, and pop boost everyone did but some random person no one had heard of before or since. It didn’t matter, @Nescio was just awful and forced his awful vision for the game forward and lost many players in the process. I honestly don’t think the game has recovered since, which is a real shame because the game had just expanded a bunch during covid

IMO i think the primary purpose of wonders should be wonder victory and eye candy. If they were meta and part of the core gameplay loop, you would run into stuff like the annoyance of finding space for them all the time. Also if they were used every other game, I think they would lose their novelty.

I objected the changes and think the wonder is utterly useless; would never build it in a serious game. (With the RCs I'm like "press every button", so I built a few; e.g. the "interesting" German one.)

Could we just make it so that if the game is terminated for any reason it counts as a resign?

Strong agree. It used to automatically give a small pop bonus with the tech to get even more. Then our former glorious leader @Nescio said this was unnecessary and that the wonder was still useful as a temple. Such a brilliant understand of the game he had

Can this link in the first post be updated? It leads to a 404. @hyperion RC5 works on Manjaro.

Especially since even when you build a wonder, you STILL have to research the Glorious Expansion technology to get any benefit from it. The Glorious Expansion technology should be removed and just made part of the Wonder, to give it any use.

Wonders are one of the most useless building in the game. They super expensive in resources and time. I don't know if I've seen a game all alpha where building a wonder helped that team (assuming it isn't a win condition).

So, I just played the new Greek major god, Demeter. I have to say it's quite disappointing. Their decisions when creating this major god are baffling. Several pre-release fan-made concepts for Her were 10x better and more well thought out than what we received. If I were a Demeter acolyte, I'd be angry (lol). No female hero, which is a shame (No Medea? Circe?). No Hera minor god choice. Myth units are gangly and have odd abilities. No real Fortress UU (Amazons say hello!!!), just another bad Myth unit. I've also decided after several skirmish matches that 0 A.D. is just a plain better designed game in a lot of ways (especially with the DE mod, eh hem). Some of the animations in AOMR are just plain bad. Unit recognition at zoom is nonexistent. The environments are super cartoony and distracting. It's lacking several UX items that 0 A.D. has, like formation drawing, which is huge. I found myself frustrated that AOMR didn't have it. Whoever suggested the feature for 0 A.D. should get a gold star. AOMR's UI is bewildering. AOMR's unit and tech and building portraits are terrible. It's missing things like selection sounds for gaia objects (trees, mines, etc.) which are much appreciated in 0 A.D. That 0 A.D. has 'medallions' for heroes at the top of the screen is also sorely missing in AOMR. So useful for selecting heroes. AOMR's encyclopedia is pretty great. It also has a lot of game modes that 0 A.D. just doesn't have (yet?). I mean, does 0 A.D. even have any game modes yet, truly? lol AOMR has balanced strategies between rush, boom, and (now, after recent patches) defense. AOMR's textures and lighting engine are super nice. AOMR's expanding and contracting minimap is a great feature that 0 A.D. should have. But still, things are baffling, like boat sizes. Sure, 0 A.D.'s are too big, but AOMR's are the size of a battering ram and look cartoony as Hell, even more so than AOM's first release 25 years ago! In some ways, AOMR's water rendering is nicer (it has more features), but in other ways, 0 A.D.'s water looks nicer. Just, in general, I think 0 A.D. is heading in a good direction in a lot of ways when compared to a AAA game like AOMR. For all my criticisms and long wish list, 0 A.D. just plays more naturally and just feels like the player has more control over what's going on. I think I'll be playing 0 A.D. long after AOMR is dead. EDIT: And 0 A.D.'s music is just plain better! @OmriLahav

Early access for players testing versions R28 or R29 of the game. It's basically Petra, but with customization options and for game >= R28. Some features from Petra_Expert have been added. Added the ability to customize the bot before starting the game. Values are not saved when exiting the game or returning to the previous menu. More detailed description of parameters: Added the ability to recruit support units from houses. The number of barracks has been increased to 5. The Research Manager has been slightly redesigned (instead of searching for technologies in a cycle, all technologies are stored in the cache and selected by a direct key: name or modifier by 1 step, the cache is updated when moving to the next phase or after the construction of a building is completed). Technologies from the Storehouse, Forge, and Champions remain in place, while the rest are currently disabled. With certain settings, the bot can reach up to 200 units in 11-12 minutes of play. Mod support: r28-bot.zip

That's why initially I proposed a tutorial on Alexander the Great's youth. Aristotle was his primary tutor from the age of 13. In 340 BC, the 16 years old Alexander was regent of the kingdom when his father laid siege to Perinthus and Byzantium. He fought and defeated the Maedi revolt, a Thracian tribe. He colonized their territory and founded a city which he named Alexandropolis. In 338 BC, he participated decisively at the battle of Chaeronea against the Thebans. He is clearly the best historical figure for a tutorial that builds to a crescendo and precedes an epic campaign. Edit, short introductions about the story: Edit: past messages

@Vantha I think your idea around Carthago Nova as a tutorial is really good, but I wonder if this could be put in the framework of a larger campaign. Stories are interesting when they are character driven, and one of the most interesting characters around that time is Hannibal Barca, and as I see it there are 3 options: to have just Carthago Nova and miss Hannibal's story, to have both separate and risk being thematically repetitive, or what I like most, for the tutorial to be a prelude of a Hannibal campaign. The whole campaign wouldn't need to be ready for just the tutorial to be released first, it could later on be incorporated into the campaign when it's finished. Regarding how to narrate it, I was thinking about how the Mongol campaign in AoE II is done, the author of The Secret History of the Mongols (as revealed at the beginning) narrates it in cutscenes for each scenario. No cinematics, just drawings, which is how things could be done at first. I think movies like The Last Samurai are nicely told (historical accuracy apart), with the narrator (who takes part in the movie, one realising it at the end) saying something just at the beginning and the end, as an epilogue and prologue. The middle of the campaign would be like a movie, or Starcraft campaigns, for more immersion. Hannibal’s campaign would be the only one with a prelude (tutorial). In it, hints would be given to the player (checkboxes is a great idea, like StarCraft II), but not by the narrator since I feel that cheapens the experience (having some ancient author telling you to click here and there). So, I’d structure them like a book, also with a foreword and afterword (explained in a bit). Combining all these ideas for a Hannibal campaign, a foreword would briefly explain the contents of it, then as prologue a narrator with drawings could tell about Carthage’s defeat in the First Punic War, and the prelude would be the tutorial, starting with Hamilcar (Hannibal’s father) and Hasdrubal the Fair (his son-in-law) taking Hannibal as a child to Europe, founding Carthago Nova, etc. Then the main campaign would start with Hannibal in command, and end with his defeat in the Second Punic War, with many battles being interesting to have (I hope camouflage will be a thing in the future, for Lake Trasimene, and an ability of Numidian cavalry for Cannae). An epilogue would mention his exile and the later destruction of Carthage in the Third Punic War, that the narrator, revealed around this time to be The Histories author, Polybius, witnessed. An afterword would then mention that he’s remembered as one of the most brilliant tacticians of all time, that Rome would end having his monuments because they considered him their most worthy foe, and that later on the Roman emperor Septimius Severus would be born in those lands, being himself a native Punic speaker, to end on a not so grim note. I hope all this is somewhat relevant and doesn't deviate too much from the present plans.

From what I've read, loot doesn't have a big impact in the game anyway. I'd leave loot just for buildings being captured (would have been less probable to salvage something from a destroyed one), after all plundering a city would have been way more profitable than scavenging a battlefield. One gets experience from fighting and surviving already. And no need for small treasure icons to appear on the ground. Also, capturing and deleting would stop being a troll move and would make sense in many situations, just like in reality, plunder first and set ablaze later. Although, deviating from the present game, I'd prefer if no self-destruct button was there, and one would have to destroy buildings manually (attacking them, setting them on fire, or dismantling them and getting resources back).

Since I was told that “creating a dedicated post for a specific feature” is a good idea, as is including “diagrams or mockups to make communication with other community members easier”, I’m going to do that for my idea of how to better deal with selections, formations, groups and battalions, explained here: In summary, selections automatically define battalions, which override groups and can be disbanded by breaking formation, making all these concepts unintuitive and entangled, when they could be useful and independent. I proposed for battalions to be defined and selected with ctrl+alt+number and alt+number, respectively. I mentioned battalions to appear as a box surrounding group icons, but I’m going to invert that since battalions are a more “compact” concept than groups, thus icons will be battalions and boxes with labels will be groups. The following figures are edited, I did not code anything Figure 1: this is how battalions would look like, with battalion 1 for hoplites and battalion 2 for javelineers. Battalions must have exclusive definitions since their function is just to treat the battalion as a unique unit. Each would have the little flag, and the icons on the left are representing them with their number. A formation has been set for them. Figure 2: this is how 3 groups, group 1 for hoplites, group 2 for javelineers, and group 3 for all of them, would look like. The boxes around each icon with a label indicating the group they belong to are shown on the left. The icons themselves don’t have a number because in this example they are not part of a battalion. No little flags. No formation is set here, but it could. Figure 3: this is how battalions 1 and 2 belonging to group 3 would look like. A formation is set for the whole group 3. Clicking on the icons would select the battalions, while clicking on the label would select the group. The label is thinner but one could smash the cursor against the side, and when a label is there no sideways movement should happen. Right clicking on icons or labels would disband battalions or groups, respectively. Figure 4: same as before, but if one were to use alt+formation instead, for each battalion to acquire that formation. The same could be achieved by forming each battalion independently, but it would be slower, particularly when having a lot of battalions in a group. Figure 5: splitting battalion 1 into battalions 3 and 4 to better show the advantages of the previous concept. This is how Total War games work. It would be good if 2 digit numbers were allowed, not to run out of single digit ones (for group labels maybe they should be written vertically). Figure 6: now to something TW games don’t do, groups inside battalions. Battalion 5 has been defined for all units, with group 1 for hoplites, group 2 for javelineers, and group 3 for all of them. When a group doesn’t include the whole battalion its label should be shown on the right. This is useful to sometimes have different parts of a given battalion do different things, for situational flexibility. This is the last case, the following figures are considerations and variations of this. Figure 7: to show its versatility, this is what would happen if group 1 includes more units, mostly Skiritai in this case, and group 3 includes more units besides battalion 5, mostly surgeons in this case. Clicking on the label 1 besides battalion 5 could select the onscreen units from group 1 belonging to that battalion, clicking on the Skiritai could select the onscreen units of group 1 not belonging to that battalion, using alt would also select the offscreen units, and double clicking any group 1 label would select the whole group 1. Similarly with battalions, clicking once on battalion 5 with label 1 would also select the onscreen units from group 1 belonging to that battalion, but double clicking it would select the whole battalion 5. Edit 1 day later: I think better to forget this "alt" modifier and make no differentiation between onscreen and offscreen units (just like groups work now anyway) since it would be confusing with alt+number, used to define battalions. Figure 8: an option or alternative to have for Figure 6, show an icon for composition of the subgroups. This also increases the area for clicking them. They don’t need to have a number 5, because the parent already has that number, and it would be redundant, there cannot be sub-battalions, by definition of what a battalion is. There can be subgroups of subgroups, just that for now they would appear as new groups (just as 1, 2 and 3 appear here, 1 and 2 being subgroups of 3), but there could be another way I’ll describe at the end. Figure 9: an alternative of how to represent Figure 6. I like this more, but wanted to show more intuitive things first to be clearer. Figure 10: final figure, using the previous concept, with the icons for composition of the subgroups to expand the area to click them, and considering that more units, mostly surgeons, not belonging to any battalion, belong to group 3. With this fleshed out representation there could be an alternative way to represent subgroups of subgroups and so on, just by attaching them horizontally (vertical multiplicity of icons and labels for parents will also increase, but I doubt anyone would need so many subgroups). I hope this was clear and be considered as a possible way to comfortably use groups and battalions at the same time, and if there's a weird case you think this wouldn't work let me know, it would be fun trying to figure out what the representation should be.

I see, although it's similar to what someone else was saying regarding going back to base, which is not accurate. More realistic would be for the Baggage Train to have a big supplies bar that would go down when recharging another unit's ammo bar. Raising the supplies bar could be done making the Baggage Train like a port: a dropsite for wood (to make arrows, but food and other resources could/should be considered, along with plunder mechanics) and a destination for Traders, with their other end being set at an own’s or allied Market or Supply Depot structure, which could have logistical techs and produce the Baggage Train unit (and also Traders). When a Trader supplies a Baggage Train, it should not raise the supply bar more the more distance is traveled (many possibilities could be considered), so a supply bag icon instead of a resource with a number could be used in this situation. Up to here not much in the game has to be changed, and almost no micro would be needed. It makes it hard for the enemy just to go around defensive buildings, just like it was in reality, since they and their garrison would be the bane of supply lines. If the campaign is overseas and one doesn’t have territory there, the Traders would need to be transported manually by ship, and “back to work” has to be used after disembarking (just tested this with markets on separate islands), adding micro, but seems a fair balancing mechanic considering the more complex logistics of the situation. There could be alternative ways to replenish ammo rooted in reality: if shot upon, foot archers could slowly resupply considering taking arrows from the ground (unless shot with short arrows some civilisations would historically use, who in turn might have been able to reuse bolts). Horse archers wouldn’t be able to do this. Attrition outside one’s territory could be a thing to involve all units in all this, although not with the HP bar but with some attrition bar that would only start having some effect when empty, so no problem with short raids, but that can’t turn into an extermination campaign, fixing one of the most annoying forms of early game snowballing. In the late game, snowballing is not much of a problem, the game has to end at some point. Regarding plundering (questionably called looting in 0 A.D.), without a Baggage Train armies should just resupply (not that they could carry much extra), and with it, many possibilities could be considered.

I wonder if completely changing the mercenary system can be considered, right now not much differentiates them from regular units, making them boring. I know they are cheaper in general, expensive with metal, and more experienced, but the Carthaginians seem just overcrowded with similar options, which doesn't make them interesting enough. I think mercenaries should aim at being used by those who have the metal but not the kind of unit, population or time to put in place an army. I don’t know if any of the following can even be done (or if it breaks gameplay somehow): I would make mercenary camps produce units in fixed battalions, fast, with a cooldown, and counting for less population, maybe half. Besides one having to pay a certain amount to hire them, they would charge per certain amount of time as long as they are hired. One can cancel this contract any time, after which they would automatically return to the closest camp of the same type (building a disposable raft if needed, I guess, or they could just vanish on some shore if too much extra art is required for now). The cooldown is always a base time plus a time that depends on their losses, to imagine they have to replenish their forces and avoid spamming them if they are getting destroyed, which would be annoying for the other player. This way one should strategically alternate between all camps, like the Carthaginians should. The only variables needed are size of battalion, population cost per mercenary, metal upfront and rate, and base plus penalty cooldowns, which need to be decided for balance, and maybe modified with techs and auras (considering Hannibal was an inspiring figure for regulars and mercenaries alike).

Hi, I checked 0 A.D. around 15 years ago, and only lately had another go at it. I found it quite nice, with some interesting ideas. Lots of respect for the volunteers, it's impressive how it looks already. Obviously it still has many rough and suboptimal things, as expected from an unreleased game (and released ones, for that matter). In some ways it’s so good that I feel compelled to say that in other ways I think it risks missing the mark in making itself attractive to new players, for reasons I might tell later on (obviously I don’t mean to be mean). For now I just wanted to mention a few trivial things I noticed (maybe some are actually implemented and I didn’t find them), I hope this is the right place for this: 1) The loading screen with tips goes away too fast for me, it should say “press any key to continue”. 2) Many times I would have wanted that double clicking on the idle worker button would select all of them. 3) Many times I wanted to remove a few units from a selection. I think this could be done with shift+right click on the selection panel icons, removing a unit from the icon clicked, since just right click removes the whole icon from the selection. 4) Continue Campaign should appear only under Single Player, otherwise seems too redundant, and a bit confusing. 5) New Campaigns shouldn’t be allowed to have the same name as a previous one. 6) Many times I just wanted to Restart Scenario, instead of having to set up everything again, or to Load Game from one. 7) It would be nice to have the option to hide health bars, and better, hide full ones only. 8) I know about ctrl+D, but extending a bit zoom range (both in and out) could be a menu option. And I also found myself wanting to look a bit upwards, but it has to be fixed for gameplay since structures that should not be seen become visible. 9) Camera controls could be applied to the minimap if the cursor is placed on top of it. 10) On the left or right of the game speed button there could be a camera button with all the controls, including one to return to default view, which I don’t remember now if it can be easily done. 11) A visual representation that commands indeed were queued would be helpful. 12) As someone posted in this thread long ago: units should not remember where they were when receiving a standard command, and repairing a dropsite shouldn't be an invitation to gather. All these things can be easily instructed if wanted. 13) The way unit information is displayed doesn’t seem the most intuitive, too much text. It wasn’t evident for me which class structures were, to be able to change phase (one has to build almost everything anyway). 14) There’s no limit of Traders or Merchant Ships a given trading route can have, and there should be because those continuous routes look ugly, maybe could be fixed with a time the unit needs to stop for business, to space them out a bit, automatically limiting their useful number. 15) Capture is interesting but seems broken. Buildings are taken too fast, and then suddenly collapse, it’s unrealistic and not fun. I wonder if capture, garrison and occupy turret (which I don’t know what it does yet) could all be combined in one button, or are there situations where more than one is needed for a given target? I see removing the ability of capturing Fortresses has been proposed, but this destroys realism, as the post before mine states, surely better solutions can be reached. 16) Army placement is not good. Maybe something like Rise of Nations or Total War is hard to code? Where by dragging the cursor at the destination one can see and control the final positioning of troops (considering formation limitations). 17) (Un)garrisoning should be gradual, now it looks unrealistic, and could help with landings in small places. One could drag the unit icons on the panel to reorder them, meaning in which order they would disembark. Doing it in or near a port could make things faster. 18) Ships not taking into account the size of units they are transporting is a mechanic a bit dated. 19) The relationship between groups, formations and battalions is quite messed up. I like all these concepts but I don’t think the implementation is right. I have an idea for it but it would take me a few lines to explain, not the purpose of this list. 20) As pointed out recently, the lettering is way too small, it just doesn’t look good, “unplayable” was mentioned. UI scale is buggy, makes quality worse, and windows won’t fit in the screen. One shouldn’t have to install mods to fix something like this. Regarding that last point and what I said at the beginning, default settings should be friendly for new players. There are many things I can say about that, along with more suggestions (some historical for the Spartans), if this kind of feedback is wanted.