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Enhancement to freehand formations: units now actually order themselves by distance, and don't cross each other's paths. Nice when microing ranged cavs. Before : After : Committed for integration in R29 too, as part of https://gitea.wildfiregames.com/0ad/0ad/pulls/8525 (use common sorting functions).

You are good enough for TGs and I know how to balance you. That's all that matters.

after the ai bubble bursts,hopefully the prices come down enough for crowdfunded people like WFG to get smth like it

Cause it doesn't change anything until it's live. if life gets in the way or it is never finished, then it's as good as not being done. Initial work on that started years ago...

WHY DO YOU SAY SUCH A BIG THING SO NONCHALANTLY?

Obviously, but the truth is that...

We have added more diversity and complexity in our version of an "Expansion" Classical Warfare AEA! That's one of the reasons the project was started. @Grautvornix I wasnt able to edit and add in your quote as well But there is already a mod (plenty actually) out there that add variety and complexity.

Ah my bad It's an A27 mod signed for R28 --' Shouldn't do too much when I'm tired EDIT: Fixed.

OK I played 1v3 against very hard AI and it was easy for me. Case closed. metadata.jsoncommands.txt

Ah. I must be blind! Thanks

Double bet, lol.

1984 "big brother" was actually Petra all along

"oh yeah a guy is working on that super giga big thing pfft,no big deal"

Even that one cheat is enough, when combined with all-seeing eye of the AI. We don't need more. I am actually fine with the difficulty of AI. Medium AI should play like a half-competent player, that's the point. It's just a fair challenge without any bonuses. People just got used to weak AI in the past releases, so they will have to adjust their strategy. Proper booming is now a hard requirement to beating the Medium AI, and players need to learn how to do that. It should be nearly impossible to beat the AI 1vs2, otherwise the AI is very weak. Honestly, it's boring to always curb-stomp the AI without a challenge. People need good introduction to the meta, and your changes to the AI achieve that well.

No, medium AI is fine. It's about the level a somewhat competent player can beat consistently after 1-3 tries. AI can be made easier by decreasing how many units they produce (e.g. Very Easy AI stops producing units when it hits 1/4 of max population), and only advancing to Town Phase / City Phase when the majority of human player clicked on the update. Giving units / buildings bonuses to their combat stats is a terrible idea. It makes it virtually impossible to learn the game. You cannot learn to gauge the strength of your opponent's army, and learn how strong different unit classes are if AI units "behave" differently. Discounts seem pointless when you already have an eco bonus. The only one that looks acceptable is training time discount.

So, after playing for a few months now (almost a year), and through my work on Hyrule Conquest and experience playing games such as Halo Wars and Warcraft, I've been thinking: the civilizations in 0 A.D. aren't really that unique. Most civilizations are statistically and gameplay wise almost the exact same, with differences between them being almost purely aesthetic, both in names and actual art. While I know we can't get the races as varied as in a fantasy RTS (with flying races, aliens, monsters, magic, etc.) I feel like the varying ways each race operated in history is not used almost at all. So, using my knowledge of history I've composed a small list of things that could be changed to the few races I actively know about: Athenians: Strong navy & walls, more techs Britains: Faster units and stronger/more dogs Gauls: Fiercer units (more damage and RoF) Germans: Mobile dropsites and houses Romans: Defensive units (more resistance) and formation focused Spartans: Offensive units (more damage & health) This list is incomplete, I ask everyone who reads this to post some thoughts about the other civs and I'll edit this list to fit those ideas.

I was wondering literally today why they overlap in the first place! this will be nice to have @Atrik I believe you used the wrong link for the pull request

this scale is okayish as well but it seems a bit too generous. in your scale you assume them a bit better than I do,which is close enough to be still almost same as mine

but if i were a host doing TG i would judge rating like as follows: <1000 as useful as maginot line in WW2 (complete new,as useful as a tiny roadbump) <1200 knows how to get full pop at some point <1300 can get 200 pop at min 17 with a few forge upgrades <1400 mature enough to play the "elite" TG if hes lucky. can get 200 pop in 15 mins and all forge upgrades in 17, but dumb at choosing what fights to take,how to fight in a battle,that (actual fight) sort of thing <1500 has enough IQ to understand what is rushing and how to play with/against it pretty well. has eco good enough to reach 200 pop before min 12 and all forge upgrades in min 15, can be officially considered as a "strong player" in most TG games these days <1600 old enough player to know what is OP,what is gimmicky,what works great in a given specific situation, what is bad asf, and etc. <1700 knows the very rarely known things (e.g what type of army to make against a certain civ, what kind of resources your particular civ takes up a lot, how to heal heroes at giga fast speeds without any temple) and knows how to play atleast one civ perfectly well, in the best way that civ can be played tactically 2000+ right now = vinme,vali,borg,wolf

as a bourgeoisie of this scale, I must say that I divide people in classes by using petra: >1100 = can't defeat very hard petra >1200 = can defeat very hard but will be tough 1300 = can defeat multiple very hard petra bots 1400= can defeat 4 very hard petra bots but barely 1600= can defeat 4 very hard petra bots with time but easily enough 1700= can defeat 5 very hard petras alone. this scale is calibrated for a27 dumb petra,not the gigachad we have right now thanks to troops scanning for units even while attacking buildings (lucky if you did it in a27, 1400+ is nigh impossible in a28)

I think the biggest problem with the rating system is its too easy to "farm" points and then refuse to play against bettter players. So in a lot of ways most of the ratings you will see don't mean anything. For 1x1 it should be more like SC and you get assigned a player based on your rating, so new players can only play new players etc (For rated games) that way you cant get to 1500-1600 by only playing 1200 players I try and find rated games of ~100 of my current rating, but its harder cause a lot of 1400/1500s don't want to play rated, mostly cause they probably aren't 1400-1500!

Acknowledging that following call is not relevant to 1v1 and no-team matches: Don't forget the impact of Alliances with strong Team Bonuses.

0 A.D. does cosmetic uniqueness well, by making every building and unit of each civilization look different. Champion units are nothing special, they are only stronger versions of basic unit templates. Also, each champion template is the same across civilizations, with some small differences unique to some civs. Again, the game treats uniqueness through special civilization-specific bonuses and upgrades. Every unit template is the same and has identical base stats. If an Elite spearman of your civ looks like he's stronger than an Elite spearman of another civ, he just looks stronger. They are the same unit template, so they have the same stats.

I don’t mean to suggest that your observations aren’t a valid concern, I’ve also experienced connectivity issues after switching ISPs, and I’ve felt some frustration. I’m not the right person to give a definitive answer. However, my limited understanding of the topic leads me to think that moving from a P2P system to a server-based one is not as trivial as it might seem. I hope I'm wrong about this

@Emacz that's great and much appreciated, of course! My point was that if @Perzival12 has some good ideas it might be useful to test them individually in a small mod (possibly even limited to only 2 or 3 civs at the beginning) to acquire a feeling for the suggested changes. Alternatively it might be useful to join forces and work on the same mod?

Bruh

@wowgetoffyourcellphone

Thanks for the reply. I'm using Delenda Est and chose Random/Romans. As you can see, it asks for Temple Vesta to advance to the Town Phase. Even stranger, there isn't a Temple Vesta to be had in the menu, only a Temple of Mars. No worries, I don't have to use Romans.

A curiosity of this discussion is that all of the above traits for each civ are already addressed by bonuses/techs/heros ect in game. Surely there are others where mechanics can be adjusted or added. I think its important to distinguish between real gameplay uniqueness and perceived uniqueness. Example of real uniqueness: skirm cavalry for carthage has extra move speed, while skirm cavalry for iberians has reduced cost. The base unit is the same but the bonuses applied to it are not equal or similar. 0ad does a good job of not chasing cosmetic uniqueness. I look at aoe4 as an example for cosmetic uniqueness. At a surface level all the civs have dramatically different units, building types, bonuses, and even unique economic units. This creates a problem where there are almost no basic units in play, and no basic civ setup. As a result everything for every civ is unique, and so the uniqueness loses its value as the respective bonuses and unit strengths must be co-equal. When civilization balance is taken into account in aoe4 every civ must have a "unique" way of doing the same thing, for example every civ in aoe4 has some way of generating indefinite gold through various "unique" implementations. There is more diversity of strategy per civ for 53 civs in aoe2 than there is for 10 or so civs in aoe4. In 0ad and aoe2, the civs are asymmetrically balanced such that a civ's strongsuit can not be exactly matched by another civ and in order to accomplish this there must be a baseline roster and build order that civilizations share.

1100-1200: Pretty noob plays, always loses, except VS other noobs like him. 1300-1400: Can win if he really, really tries to, but still pretty noob. 1500-1600: Yeah, he is still a noob alright. Will lose a lot of 1v1 games, but win some 4v4s. 1700-1800: Finally starts winning some games, but it's still considered a noob by peers. 1800-2000+: A good player, someone who can be considered regular in 4v4s. 2000+: A literal God of 0 A.D., probably played the game since A17. As you can see, there is a fine line between being good and being a God here

As someone who is around this rating, I’d say that the basic skills are: General understanding of the controls Starting to learn how to have a self-sustained economy (doesn’t need micromanaged in order to get returns). General knowledge of what techs and units to train over others. General tactics (turtling and massive attacks)

OH YEAH BRIDGE ME DADDY

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Banking_in_ancient_Rome

Also @victorcrimea is working on dedicated servers.