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Hey Folks, As some of you may know I have been working for quite some time to add props to Atlas in order to make scenarios and maps more interesting visually and game-play wise. This includes, new textures, new props, some new buildings, new eyecandy, fences, ferns, dead trees... etc (More details here): EDIT : If I forgot any mapmaker tell me so I can tag them. EDIT 2 : If you guys want to contribute to that repo, feel free to do so. I tried to gather all @idanwin and i'll try for @Micket's work, and maybe @Leyto in a near future if he continues with such quality work

This October, I will be co-delivering a talk about human aspects in FOSS game development, with a developer from Spring RTS. The talk will focus on what players, developers and other community members want or need from their 0 A.D.-related activities, on conflicts that might arise between these groups and within them, and how those conflicts are (or aren't) resolved. I'd like to collect some players' perspectives on 0 A.D. for the purposes of this talk. Hence, I'd be glad if you could answer the following questions: How did you come across 0 A.D.? What motivates you to play 0 A.D.? Is there anything you want from any part of the 0 A.D. community and feel you're not getting? If so, why? Is there any more information you'd like to add? What is your age, gender, and location? Many thanks in advance! Aviv/Jeru

Hey everyone! Yeah, you saw that username right. I'm back. I haven't played in a while (over a year to be exact), real life stuff got in the way for quite a bit. Looking forward to getting back in the groove of things. TTYL, Timothy "Timmeh" Hamlett

I was just looking for FOSS games. As everybody else mentioned, it's FOSS. But in addition to that, the Wildfire Games team does not give up keeping this game relevant and updated despite the sluggish development speed. Slow and steady wins the race! I'd rather have something like this than what happened to Feudal Wars. Also (although it's natural with history-based games), this game made studying history very enjoyable. Finally, 0 A.D. is the only, and I mean ONLY, RTS game that keeps my hopes up about AAA-quality FOSS RTS, so I really hope that the team keeps it alive. Not even the Spring Games can have this kind of effect on me. Video Tutorials. There are video tutorials on how to playthe game, but they're now outdated even if they are still relevant. There are WRITTEN tutorials on how to make and install mods, contribute to the development, etc., but I'm one of those who learn better on video (stanlista's video tutorial on how to import meshes and their textures to Blender for example). I'm going to bring this up. I consider Empires Apart as your direct competitor. I appreciate both games bring an AoE-style game to the modern era, but I will only accept one as the true successor. Besides that, this is a contest on FOSS vs. Proprietary development models, and I want to say that Open-Sourcing 0 A.D. was the best decision ever made. 27 - Male - Philippines Edit: There was Lion's comment concerning OpenAge. It's also Open Source and that it's more of an attempt of remastering AoE than being a successor, so that's more of an in-house debate. I want to see this Proprietary vs. Open Source competition slugging it out.

These steps can be approached and mastered one at a time. By the end of it, you should be able to have a strong economy as you go from age I to III. Other aspects of gameplay matter too, such as specific builds, rushes, or tactics, but having a strong economy is the most important part. Don't fall into any of these early game traps: Farms go adjacent to your CC or farmstead, as close as they will go. I've seen many new players who put them a distance back. Don't do that. Don't use women for mining. Don't use men for food gathering. Use women or men for woodcutting. Cavalry are for hunting chickens or other animals. Only cavalry are good at this. Hunting is a very fast way to get food unless the animals are very far from the dropsite. If you have berries, build a farmstead right next to them and have some women harvest the berries. It's twice as fast as farming. Don't let your workers carry resources too far. Put the storehouse right adjacent to the trees when they chop wood. If your workers (except for hunting cavalry) are walking twice the width of a storehouse to return resources, they are walking too far. Don't make a barracks until at least the end of age I. A lot of noobs make a barracks way too early, or even more than one. Your CC can produce enough soldiers by itself. Don't make walls or wooden towers in age I either. Good players generally agree not to use walls, anyway, and plus in age I it's just a waste of resources that the enemy can simply walk around. Don't start mining anything until the end of age I. You don't need it. Practice until you can have constant production of units from your CC (Civic Center) for the first 10+ minutes. You should never let it be idle until you're in age III. That means: You need enough food income to produce women nonstop until population 50. You can produce soldiers after that. You need enough wood to make houses - and you need to make houses far enough ahead of time so that you don't get stopped by the population limit. In alpha 20 at least, once you hit age III the plan should be to make lots and lots of champion units. Practice not harvesting resources you can't spend. If you're ever thinking "I have more food than I need - but I wish I had more wood" then you need to transfer some workers from food to wood, and figure out some way to spend the food. (Actually, you probably needed to transfer the workers two minutes ago, but late is better than never). If you have 1000 of any resource in age I-II, you have way too much. If you have extra wood, a good way to spend it is on economy upgrades. The highest priority upgrade is berry gathering, then woodcutting, then farming, then mining. You want economy upgrades as early as possible so you get the benefit for longer, except for the upgrades that are super expensive. Adjust your typical build order so that you avoid having too much of the resource. If, last game, you had way more wood than you could spend, then this game, don't put as many workers on wood so early. And so on. This more than anything else is the mark of skill. You know you're doing it right when you have just enough of every resource you need, exactly when you need it, and little excess. Watch replays of good players! A lot of people don't know where replays are. From the starting screen, they are under Tools/Options. If you spectate or play a game with borg-, The_Company, or nobody___, then after the game you will have a replay of an expert. Switch to that player's perspective in the replay and follow what they do - what they build, when they build it, how many farms they make, when they get upgrades. Then try to copy them in your next game. If you're spectating a game with good players, you can switch to the perspective of the best player and watch them as they play, instead of going to the replay. Practice using Shift to queue up actions. For instance, don't just tell your woodcutter to make a house - tell him to make a house, then shift-click back on the tree! That way he will go back to woodcutting when he's done building the house, and he won't be idle. Work out exactly what you will do in the first minute. This is a "build order." For every civ, you want to put the cavalry on chickens and the women on berries, and the men on wood. You also generally want your first batch of 5 women to chop wood, and the next 4-5 women to harvest berries. The order in which you make a storehouse, a farmstead, get the berry upgrade, and make your first house can vary. Britons and Gauls can build a farmstead at the berries, build a storehouse at the wood, and research the berry upgrade. They will have plenty of time to get 75 wood and make their first house. Most civs have houses that cost 150 wood and grant 10 population. With these you can't get the farmstead, the storehouse, and the berry upgrade all at once, and still have enough wood for your first house. You have to pick two of the three. If wood is very close to your CC, you can get the farmstead and berry upgrade, and get the storehouse later. If wood is far away, you need a storehouse, so you have to skip the berry upgrade to have enough wood for the house. With these civs you will need to use 3-4 workers to make the house once you have 150 wood, so that it will be done in time. Iberians and Mauryans occupy a middle ground since their houses cost 75 wood but they don't have the population bonuses of Britons/Gauls. You can figure something out if you want to play these. Mauryans have an elephant, which can do the job of a storehouse or farmstead and help build houses. Ptolemies are weird. Batch Production. This is one of the secrets that separates the good players from the experts. borg- produces in batches of 5 almost all the time, and in batches of 10 when he has enough resources! Even a batch of 15 can be worthwhile. Batch production by 5 is 38% faster than producing single units. Batch production by 10 is 57% faster. Batch production by 15 is 72% faster. You need more food to batch produce women this way. That means more on berries (like 10), more hunting, or earlier farms. You need to plan houses more in advance, too, so that you have 5 or 10 population open when it's time to produce. Don't delay more than a few seconds to make a batch. It's better to just be producing 1 unit if you don't have enough houses or food for a batch. Some players have altered their javascript to let them batch 3 or 4 instead of multiples of 5. This is cheating. Use hotkeys for at least your production buildings, perhaps also other units. Select your CC and press Ctrl-1, and now you can select the CC again just by pressing 1. Your barracks can go on group 2. This helps you to keep production going smoothly even if your attention is elsewhere. Be familiar with rushes. There are many types. The primary purpose of most rushes is to deny wood from the enemy by killing woodcutters. The best way to learn how to do rushes is to watch replays of experts who rushed effectively. I recommend not rushing until you have mastered the normal economy boom from age I to III. Spartan Skiritai rush Ptolemy camel archer rush 3 minute cavalry skirmisher rush Briton slinger rush Roman swordsmen rush borg-'s 10-11 minute champions Not all rushes are "effective." If the rusher killed 20 women but lost 10 cavalry and was driven away, that was probably not an effective rush, since 10 cavalry cost more than 20 women. Check the attacker's and defender's economy scores and populations afterwards to see if it really worked.

For a campaign I suggest you go total war style to make the game more playable. Build a preset map where players have to expand an empire; Optimize with 2 different modes of battle. #1 Build a base. #2 Ready to go army and reinforcement squads. Of course you want to make the campaign different than Rome; Total War. For example you could establish trade routes to boost your economy, and strengthen alliances. Add 3 new factions than divide all different tech trees into groups of 3 default allies. Unlock different tech, and heroes to be used in campaign. Gain up to 300 new troops from each build a base challenge. Use smaller maps, and more squad generic AI to avoid lag during the ready to go army and reinforcements mode. Perhaps introduce a caravan scenario where players compete with limited resources and buildings, and a siege challenge later on. Let players customize your empire a bit. Introduce some campaign only tech; Collect animals, technology, troops, different heroes, all kinds of economic bonuses, relics, and capture the wonders of the ancient world. Release content step by step however you want campaign wise... Do something completely different when it comes to managing territories, forming alliances, interesting events or scenarios. Personally I think the AI is really hurting on the auto formation, lack of hotkeys (displayed ones at least) the game could use a better interface something antiquity, and more visual appealing. I think you should eliminate all the useless formations, and only make the squad form up if you press a hot key... But I'm not sure what the most optimal AI settings are to reduce lag late game. Some kind of attack move instead of having to halt troops in combat would be nice.

From Sourceforge back in the day The dedication of the development team No, not really... I mean I'm just getting back to it, so I have no complaints xD You guys rock. Seriously.

@sphyrth Openage is other serious competitor because is open source. And based their engine in AoK.

I don't know about the replay speed, but. I agree with the TimeBar. I had a lot of times when I wanted to skip or go back to certain moments in the game. It can even help when someone makes a video commentary of a certain replays.

Welcome back.

1. From my brother who founded it on google in 2013. 2. I love RTS games and this one is already and will be one of the best. It's open source (it's free!!!) and I can contribute to it. 3. The game should be improved with other play modes. Examples: arcade mode, regicide mode (like in AoE2&3), king of the hill mode(AoE2). 4. I rejoin Lion.Kanzen on that : mercenary camps, advanced diplomacy, etc. It would be cool to have a map or 2 where the resources like stone or iron are mostly guarded by mercenary camps or brigands fortresses like in AoM (I don't remember the name of the map). 5. Read my description

1. From google in 2004/2005 2. The many starter features , and the open source, that make the game very moddable 3. Improved the game to add more features that aren't considered by the team. Like add arcade mode. Because is a lot of working to the team...( can be nice whole project try to be better than AOE series. 4. Mercenary camps, advanced diplomacy ( EE2.and RoN) , a system of reforms, and a system of revolution( some factions can rebels from original faction and becomes in another) feature from expansion AOE 3 Warchiefs. 5-,30 Male Honduras.

Fog of war: black thing covering the unexplored areas of the map you are playing on ATM : At the moment

To reduce late game lag, I want to recommend a few changes to AI and suggest a different variety of displayed hotkeys, including a strategic interface for controls. One of the main problems I perceive is that units automatically form up once selected, and don't automatically engage enemy troops. This allows you to take advantage of the computer and cut off their army while they are on the way. I think that units should only move into formation if you order them to and they should automatically engage enemy units at will while in formation; This will encourage players to move their offensive armies into formation, and requires little background processing compared to some other AI functions that have yet to be implemented. Next up I wanted to cover formations; Remove all the useless ones, there really only needs to be one formation (box/line) and any units that have special formations like shield wall or phalanx. Maybe cavalry can get their own charge formation. Archers aren't shooting in volleys so anything like scatter of wedge is useless, its hit or miss; Line always works best. Everything else is for show, maybe put them on there for players to have fun, but not for computers to cause lag. Finally the economy in this game... I realize your trying to copy some cool styles and like it, but focusing the resources around 8-16 focused areas and making battlefields inbetween might stop these computers from spreading out endlessly. Naval AI should only apply to game maps where you need to cross water to attack. Stop making weird cliffs, because its causing pathing errors, try to make the edges more clearly defined. I hate it when they walk around the edge of the wall. The big problem though is trying to move across your own buildings. If we could move right through nonwall allied buildings I think it will save the game from a lot of late game lag. Just make a necessary gap between nonfarm/nonwall buildings.

The lag has nothing to do with the AI it is caused by the pathfinder routine which has to be run for every unit that moves period less units on screen less lag it is being worked on,and formations are currently turned off as they do not work again related to the pathfinder.All this is documented here on the forums use the search function. Enjoy the Choice

EDIT : Sorry for crappy quality

@sarcoma: instead of a side bar you can now find it here: https://wildfiregames.com/forum/index.php?/discover/

I know development continue for core game, so this is not critique of development. Do not take it that way. My question is if it is better to wait on making mods for this game. Right now because of all the changes probably 50% of my modding time is fixing thing to be compatible with new core game changes. I feel like I am wasting my time. If I had critique of official team it would be to ask why they put the effort to support modding so early in the development. But can't undo that of courese, lol. I don't post this to discourage, but I think modder need to understand what thy are getting into. Stick with graphical mods for now if you do not want to spend a LOT of time keeping track of game changes and monkeying around in Notepad++. Just one commit from core team can set you back a hour or more.

Thanks for the guide. Barracks in age 1 still makes sense if you have enough food and wood income, especially if you don't need quick age 2. Shouldn't we reduce the wood gather rate of females from 0.7 to 0.5? You forgot to mention early scouting, often done after the initial chicken. IMO sometimes it is even important to do it earlier. First of all to find berries in and near near your territory, so that you can avoid to build fields for some minutes. Secondly to check whether you can hunt there. Third of all to check where your enemy is, how many metal mines there are, whether they are close to the enemy. If they are, try expanding your territory with houses and barracks there (instead of placing houses just somewhere in your territory) and build a house wall around the exposed mines. This way enemy towers will hit the houses and not your miners and you can safely build a tower in front of the mine behind the houses. This often needs to happen in the first 2-3 minutes. In team games you also need to figure out whether you're in the pocket position or on the frontline, which allies are on the front and might need early economic support to build towers before the enemy does. Batch Production we need more tooltips to show those numbers instead of having to look up the code to figure out how it works (= cheat?) Some players have altered their javascript to let them batch 3 or 4 instead of multiples of 5. This is cheating. -> In alpha 21 everyone can, it's a choice not a cheat. Rush: Killing units is great, but not killing can give you a substantial advantage too, if you can just make them walk around all the time / idle instead of gathering. With ptolemian you can't do much if there is a tower, but you can still force your enemy into building a tower in every single place of his territory and thus drain him economically.

Nice Guide Causative, I have a few point to add: - When Hunting, use shift click and click behind the animal you want to hunt then click on the animal. That way the animal you hunt will "escape" in the direction of your CC --> faster gathering - Have a control group for your guy making houses, it helps a lot - When you get rushed, always keep in mind that your enemy has a bad economy so if you succeed you'll be ahead! - You can make a lot of villagers kill with two spearman cav (they two-shot villagers, so one-shot with 2 cav). Just run and click "H" near a villager, they will one shoot her and you can move away. - Watch Alekusu's video for build orders. Wait what?? https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCjMIlqRx48mSLOQo98VygJQ I'll make videos again from a21, my builds are a bit old now but there are many tricks in it

I can understand it's hard work when you're making a mod that doesn't only add features (like adding a new civ), but also modifies features. Certainly modifying templates currently means that you have to copy a lot of data over, and keep the things you want unchanged synched with the main game. I hope we can find some solution for #4076 soonish, which would certainly help maintainability of mods by reducing the amount of data that has to be copied from the start. So I agree that modders need to know what they're getting into, but it's only thanks to modders that we know what's still lacking in our game wrt moddability. So we really appreciate your effort and the effort of other modders. PS. if a single commit sets you back an hour or more, it's likely someone on our side also worked an hour or more on related data changes. Ofc, our team is a bit bigger, so I agree it's harder for modders.