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Version 1.3 is here. Fixes issues with Fresnel refraction factors with light going into the water, and with light coming out: e.g., when the Sun is low, very little sunlight should be able to enter the water, most of it reflecting back up instead; therefore bottoms of water bodies should darken faster than by mere ray-dot-normal. The light reflecting off the bottom and coming back out again is modulated by fresnel refraction, except in this case it is calculated by eye-view vector angle, rather than the Sun's angle. Particularly noticeable in the second picture below: The shadows of the floating leaves are not too dark. Why? Because sunlight is attenuated by Fresnel, and so most of the light the bottom gets, with the Sun so low near the horizon, is bluish light from the sky, rather. The wet coast hack looks a bit better now. Modulating water's specularity linearly over a couple of yards is a noticeable artifact, really. I now modulate water's index of refraction, instead, as I fade in bottom darkness. The way it works is it darkens the bottom early (as if we are walking towards the water), but water's reflectivity (and foam) fade in more slowly. If you have any problems with the mod, try maxing out settings like "number of shaders" and most graphics quality options, EXCEPT sharpening and MSAA. I keep MSAA at (4x); good enough for me. And be sure to report here. And if you have nice screenshots to share, don't hesitate. metal_shader_set_v1.3.pyromod

I made a little demo video, for the undecided ... The fish need alpha.

The biggest proof that a24 is better than a23, is to join a team game and see at least 6 different civilizations, where before we only had two haha

The walls were given because they usually did fortifications on hills (like a lot of cultures, btw) "The guerrilla warfare" (associated to Spain in Napoleon times, where the name came from the spanish) was more a Lusitanian thing. Iberians tactics weren't so different from spear walls. Also the sling thing it's more a feature from Balearic Islands, that were'nt connected to Iberians by any kingdom or Empire Before redesigning the uniqueness of civilizations, make a table and think collectively instead of adding and deleting design quirks individually on every civ. I would give the guerrilla/ambushing features to Britons.

The "Rathaus" oder "Bürgerhaus" ...

It'd be good if you could get a more consistent description because it sounds _very_ broken, but we've not really had reports of anything like that except from you as far as I recall. Maybe try playing and recording your screen/input? Ah, yeah, that problem. Indeed that will trigger H if you drop space before H. TBH this is really my fault, I did not anticipate that this would be a problem, and I guess I'm lucky in that I don't personally experience it using control groups (I guess I naturally drop the # first). I'll fix it for A25, but in the meantime the best advice I can give you is to avoid conflicting/ambigous hotkeys or train your brain to drop the letter first. The reason why I changed this was that there was unexpected behaviour in A23: for example if you pressed Ctrl, then D, then 'Ctrl' hotkeys remained active, but his did not happen if you went "D then Ctrl". There were a number of related oddities. Unfortunately in fixing that I assumed that 'retriggering' hotkeys when releasing a key was the most logical behaviour, when it probably would have been better to not do that.

I know I'm totally irrational about this, but I loved watching the elephants putting wooden beams on buildings with their trunks.

@mysticjimIn your user.cfg file, you can add `gui.scale = "1.25"` to increase the size of everything, including the icons.

Is it worth taking a snapshot poll of feelings towards A24 vs A23 now, and then again in a couple of months? I think my biggest worry is going to be if there is a gradual acceptance of things that are problems and a growing tendency to imply they'll be 'fixed' in A25. If a sizable chunk of the community simply find the game less fun right now, for whatever reason, their patience will be very short. And I don't think it's fair to tell people who claim to prefer A23 to simply go back and play that. They won't, they will drop 0AD altogether, like a stone - without looking back. There is a plethora of choice available in this genre, plenty of it cheap - if not quite free like 0AD. I'd be worried if the overriding trend is that A24 makes people less likely to enjoy playing 0AD - I wouldn't be telling them to go elsewhere. Probably because they will! I'm still getting to grips with A24 having not had anywhere near enough time to play with it, so far my only gripes have been the sounds (previously mentioned) and the slight shrinking of the icons (speaking from an accessibility point of view as someone with awful eyesight!). I've yet to encounter the balancing properly, but hope to see that first hand in my first few A24 team games. And until mods are working, specifically the Spec/Monitor mod, I'm not in a position to do commentary videos on other peoples games. I'm waiting to see if that sense of drama and action has changed negatively or been lost somewhat. If it has, if the I find myself getting bored commentating on an A24 game, then I'd say the whole project was in a bit of bother and it wouldn't bode well. Naturally, I hope that won't be the case, of course

At least it doesn't convert an enemy by shooting wololo at his face. I like the idea but to work it should be built really fast and I see how it could be abused by some players. By spamming it to block some units

Corinthian Ismuth4 does afaik. I like that bonus though What if you consider them surgeons and healers. Sure it wasn't 1940 medicine but they did exist. They didnt wave hands but it's a good abstraction IMHO adding healing camps might be too much mircro.

Looks incredible, great work!

Hello, I want to inaugurate this new A24 replay section by dumping a few of my multiplayer replays, showcasing the new unit balance and the increased diversity of units that can be reliably trained. I have a feeling sometimes players don't make use of all tools available to them. Champions, trade and siege (3v3).zip This teamgame showcases a lot of different unit types, but notably champions swordsmen, some champion archers, some trading, catapult+ballistas attack, and camel archer lategame composition on the other side. Roman sword cavalry champions (3v3).zip Features roman sword cavalry champions, quite a powerful unit. Cavalry and champions (3v3).zip Features sword infantry champions from Seleucids, cavalry compositions from mauryan and ibers (with a few firecav champions) Archer cavalry and roman champion cav (3v3).zip A teamgame that shows those 2 units in action. Valihrant (Koushites) vs Feldfeld (Mauryas).zip Small rush early game. Features town phase CC expansion, archers and elephant archers from Maurya, against archers and nuba skirmisher cavalry from Koushites Valihrant (Mauryas) vs Feldfeld (Macedonians).zip Features town phase CC expansion from macedonians. Skirmishers and champion infantry spearmen from mace against chariot archer champions from maur. Valihrant (Macedonians) vs Feldfeld (Athenians).zip Features a moderate early game rush. CC expansion from macedonians in the town to city phase transition. Gastraphetes from mace against slingers + ballistas from athenians. Feldfeld (Ptolemies) vs cl2488 (Ptolemies).zip Features mercenary swordsmen and mostly slingers against pikemen and slingers. StarAtt (Iberians) vs Feldfeld (Carthaginans).zip Features mercenary cavalry from Carthage. ElDragon (Kushites) vs Feldfeld (Carthaginans).zip Features village phase expansion from Carthage, with a composition of Sacred Band infantry supported by archers later. Archers and pikemen/spearmen from Kushites. You can download all replays bundled here: Feldfeld's replay dump.zip Hopefully that can address a few of the complaints I have read about the new version. For example, the diversity between civilizations has been reduced, yes, however keep in mind to compensate that the new balance between units should make some civilization specific strategies (eg. a unique champion, mercenaries) viable whereas it was not the case in A23 (which was notably a lot of slinger spam). About archers being OP: yes it is true that they have a very good accuracy, possibly making them OP, but they are less efficient than other ranged units against melee units (which have been improved in this version). Remeber there are other options than making citizen soldiers ranged units. Of course this doesn't mean we won't find OP units in the future. Champion melee cavalry look quite strong, champion archer cavalry maybe too.

K, well it'd be great if you could upload the replays next time that happens, because so far the only somewhat related issue we have documented is #6046, but that's actually too many orders, not the reverse

They are boolean expressions that every unit must pass (result in true) to be selected when the hotkey is pressed | means OR & means AND ! means NEGATE value ! has precedence over & and & has precedence over | You can use parenthesis Example: imagine you want a hotkey to select only the cavalry units and your dogs units, then hotkey.autociv.session.entity.by.class.select.Cavalry|Dog = "your preferred key" Example: imagine you want a hotkey to select only units that are cavalry and dog at the same time, then hotkey.autociv.session.entity.by.class.select.Cavalry&Dog = "your preferred key" Example: imagine you want a hotkey to select all units except cavalry units and dogs units, then hotkey.autociv.session.entity.by.class.select.!(Cavalry|Dog) = "your preferred key"

Some formations only work for certain units and some formations only work if you select more than X number of units.

The Fresnel function worked the first time; no debugging needed. It's now incorporated in the metal_shader_set version1.3 pyromod's modified water_high.fs. It works a charm and a half. So, let's get back to the problem of multiple diffuse light bounces within a dielectric glossy coat: I was making a table that was failing due to using Schlick's Abomination, er, I mean Approximation, to try and visually educe a formula to relate how much diffuse light gets out of a dielectric at each bounce. To re-do the table using real Fresnel would involve more columns than fit in my poor man's screen; so I'm going to use LibreOffice Calc, and maybe I will figure out how to copy the relevant stuff to insert here ... Darn! To have "50% reflection ANGLE" as a function of refractive index involves a huge math operation on the Fresnel formula. I'm not sure this is even possible. I think my table is going to be a multiplication of refractive indexes and angles as a multi-page column, and resulting reflective coefficients in the last column, and then I can visually select input angle for 50% result.

depending on your keyboard layout and picked keyboard language on system, it could be something left from the enter, try to change picked keyboard language to English and then start the game

DONE! The water shader now uses TRUE fresnel for reflection and refraction coefficients. This is the Fresnel formula from Wikipedia; no approximations; no hacks. And it works! Updated also the Phabricator water_patch: https://code.wildfiregames.com/D3603 metal_shader_set_v1.2.pyromod

I didn't reference borg, feld or vali's involvement. I think their work towards balance changes in Alpha 24 is a really great start. Perhaps not perfect of course, and there's always room for improvement, but it definitely seems like an overall improvement from the looks of it, and I'm glad they were so heavily involved. I was responding to you, and then went on a tangential note to emphasize some things that I don't think get emphasized enough. Everyone is entitled to their opinions, but when these opinions include that we shouldn't have walls, that the game plays too slowly, that we should increase turn rates again (potentially reintroducing dancing on non-hero units), architect elephants (elephants building), that the game benefits turtling etc, then I feel compelled to point out that those opinions are at odds with what most players think is enjoyable, and are opinions too heavily biased towards competitive play only. Don't get me wrong, I really don't disagree with everything you've said. But complaining that a game now takes 25-28 minutes for example, just sounds really weird to any non-multiplayer. Most of us don't play this game to get it over and done with as quickly as possible... By the way, I think unit rotation speeds look and feel fantastic now. Anyway, on the point of civ differentiation I agree, but as already said, we'll probably see more of that again in Alpha 25. But why focus on these random things like walls for the Iberians (why do they get walls, of all people?). Free houses for Ptolemies (why should they get free houses, of all people). Why should only Macedonians have arsenals? I'm personally in favor of differentiation through unique tech trees. Let most or all civs get the same basic techs, but then add a level or two of unique civ-specific techs that are actually rooted in the history of that civ, not this random stuff. Anyway, I'm not trying to single you out or anything like that. It's nothing personal. But the game also gets feedback here on the forum, on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Mastodon, the official Youtube channel as well as comment sections on random Youtube videos about 0AD, comment sections on random internet articles about 0AD etc. If we cater too much to these hardcore MP desires from a number of individuals, we also risk alienating a large number of players who have often complained that the game actually plays way too fast, to the point of being stressful and overwhelming, and if you pay close attention to the lobby, even there you will see plenty of games that are far less competitive in nature, being played by people who just enjoy hour(s)-long games building and experimenting and exploring and fooling around in a way that would make pro players laugh out loud, but they are an important part of the demographic as well, and there's nothing that stops us from catering to both. Clearly it does, otherwise we wouldn't be having this discussion. It's just that your opinion isn't the only one we have to take into account. There are probably hundreds of thousands of 0AD players each with their own opinion of where the game should go. Of course. You seem to underestimate how many opinions there are about 0AD. Your opinion, nor anyone else's can be taken as a design document. People don't just automatically agree with someone because of who said it, even if you're a top player... Most players aren't top-players and their opinions matter as well, so you'll always have to elaborate on the argument you're trying to make and defend it. That's normal in any discussion.

I'd also like to hear some thoughts on altering or removing the passive stance. The main problem is with units doing the weird run and thus avoiding shots and baiting the attacking units after them. Most noticable on healers and women with the loom upgrade as units will run straight into the enemy army to try and chase them. Then there's also players who put the hero on passive stance and position the hero in front of their army as an easy alternative to dancing. Edit. Also with melee units becoming more usable and necessary, dancing should be far more difficult.

Yes the difference is that units look near the resource they were gathering and not near their own position when the original resource is depleted. This does lead to the issues you've noted. This change was introduced somewhat by accident a little over 2 years ago, to fix a much larger bug (introduced by unrelated changes), and basically (though I did notice the behaviour like 1.5 years later) neither I nor other people thought necessary to change it for A24. In hindsight, it's probably annoying enough that it should have happened. All I can say is "shame". It adds a bit of micro to the economy, but to be honest I don't think it's _horrible_ in the early game, you have nothing else to do, and then later on you can plot storehouses as needed. Regardless, it'll definitely be fixed in A25.

Hi, this topic is not used to explain a problem, but a big congratulations to Wildfire Team for the Amazing new Alpha 24! Keep it going! Don't give up!

Perhaps an adjustment in the cost of metal or some other attribute may be enough instead of being able to collect resources?

Maybe civilizations with great mercenary potential like carthage, can train level 2 mercenaries instead of 1 like other civilizations, it's just an idea.

I personally don't use walls because I don't like them and I don't think they should be in the game. Strategically, I am rarely in a position where I need to use walls because I am usually the player on my team that makes the offensive push. Regardless of whether you think it makes sense or not, it is empirically true that the vast majority of top players never use walls. If anyone uses anything, it is palisades, which the vast majority of top players never use. And there have been threads/complaints calling out the players that do use palisades for their abusive tactics. and there will be complains for Roman's being op because they have siege workshop and camps to produce rams which most players don't know how to counter? There were siege camps in the last several alpha and very few people complained about them being op. And, the players that did complain about them being op were the ones who did typically did not know to use swords on rams. If that is the base level that you are concerned about then siege shouldn't be in the game or at least should be extremely difficult to make (unlike now). The Nisean horses technology (city phase) is still available to pers and sele only. The techs have changed. The Nisean tech in old alpha is more analogous to the horse breeding tech that gives a 10% health buff in this alpha. Horse breeding tech is available to all civs now. Before the Nisean tech used to be a 20% health bonus to all cav. Now the Nisean tech is a 20% health bonus buff, 10% increase in production time for champ spear cav only. Persia/Sele's bonus used to be relatively stronger/more versatile. This without a doubt makes persia/sele's cav less special than it was before. This is unfortunate, I don't like it much either. The reason it happened is because it's more important to get the basics right and having a balanced core gameplay, from which to further differentiation later. This isn't really necessary, though. There was differentiation before. The biggest problems with balancing was that slingers were too strong and archers were too weak. That problems were corrected this alpha. And, those changes have nothing to do with anything I have complained about or about the civ differentiation. In fact, I initially said this is one of the things I like most about this alpha. Regardless, is having 12 civs that are boring and really just one civ better than having 6 OP civs that are fun and 6 civs that need a buff? You can ignore that 6 bad civs, but you don't get the choice is all 12 civs are basically the same. Regardless, as I have said earlier, a lot of the civs are basically the same as one another with extra features, which will eventually prove to make a new list of OP civs that everyone plays. I'm sorry your experience has been an unhappy one. We're all human in an imperfect world. Gameplay and balance are discussed in numerous threads on these forums, as well as in private conversations and via other channels. It's impossible for anyone to keep track of everything. Moreover, making changes is a slow process, it's not unusual for a patch to be committed (or abandoned) months or even years after it's proposed, which means that even if some comment was read and replied to in the past, it may have been forgotten by the time a final decision is made. Therefore it's really important to keep the discussion unified in a single place: the relevant patch on https://code.wildfiregames.com/ , because it's there the actual development happens and commits are made. In case you're referring to https://code.wildfiregames.com/D2507 : you left one comment there and disappeared. Others continued the conversation, on-and-off, the patch was revised six more times, and in the end several people agreed it should be given a try; it was left open for a couple more months and finally committed in December. If it turns out to have a horrible impact, then it can be reverted in A25, of course, though so far I haven't seen people complaining about palisades in A24. Can you clarify which change you're talking about? We certainly want to avoid this type of situation. If you no longer voice your opinion, your opinion will _indeed_ be ignored. 'We' are not some secluded private studio with a completely opaque decision process: every diff and commit is available and open-source on https://code.wildfiregames.com. You literally have no reason not to voice your disagreement or concern with changes there. It's possible a few diffs get committed without player consensus, but I want to highlight that this really isn't how things have been done in general in the A24 process: most if not all gameplay commits got some agreement from some top players, including usually borg-, feldfeld or valirhant. it is water under the bridge. This was a hot topic for a week or so and I thought I had added more to the thread but apparently it was just talking in the lobby with and without devs. The general feeling was that we had been ignored, so we didn't beat a dead horse. I have been asked in lobby by devs for my opinion on other matters and felt I had the same experience. I am not trying to be petty, I am just trying to point out how in the ideal world we can all improve and in this instance that safeguard of borg, feld, vali clearly fell apart because in this instance only one liked the proposal and others did not. I have been around for multiple alphas. I remember when a22 was released and players immediately recognized that cav was broken. And, I remember when a23 was released and players immediately thought it was an improvement. I am not saying all changes are bad. But I am saying that some changes are undesirable. Regardless, the point of this is try to make the game better now that I (and a large number of other players) think we have taken a step back.

Believe in the process, the first release that actually accounts for balance taking player experience into consideration will always be controversial. It had to start from somewhere, remember all cav or all champ metas, how is it that different? If you feel a game is slower you can make proposals, e.g. decrease economy requirements overall (buildings/training cost) etc... Granted, 0ad does not make it easy to provide accountable feedback, no continuous testing mechanism or a better platform (forum is too difficult to track and prioritize channels and discussions). Testing dev version requires dealing with SVN some technical prowess, synced rev, etc.. Hopefully with 6-mo cycle it will be more straightforward (though I'd better have a weekly release, make an AppImage for linux, exe for windows built by CI gg). The only thing that has turned me away are the sounds, maybe I'm a bit autistic but I can't absolutely play with those sounds so preeminent in the foreground (unit selection, unit move, fight actions, etc). Maybe I'll play when there is (or I make) a mod to have unit selections/actions sound fader.

Thanks for commenting this game! Was actually tough to be 2v1 on my side, and supporting a bit the other team. I could have done better. Instead of going to Crypto, should have get down WeirdJokes on my first attack, maybe, not sure.. Anyway, I felt bad loosing with @Boudicaepic performance! GG to team 1. The title could be 3v4

Sunday fun, and possibly the most exciting game I've covered so far?

Indeed. Maybe kinda like Hillcountry from AOE1. I only use the good tree models for my maps. If I have my way, all the maps for A25 will do the same until all the trees look good.

Hey, merry Christmas everyone At 7pm tonight I've got a premiere of a 1v1 game featuring Borg that was very kindly donated. Alas, I don't think I'll be able to make it for the prem - I shall probably be indulging in a late Christmas dinner!

Here you go. I didn't really move many assets, except the badly placed grass actors. I also replaced the stone and metal mines with DE ones. I can see the designer of the map has taken to heart my suggestions for mountain shapes (almost fractal). I can see many opportunities for improvement on the map, such as: Forests and stone mines should cluster around the base of the mountains and goats, sheep, deer, wolves, and bears should all be relatively abundant, being quite a mountainous and forested area. Example of trees clustered around the mountain:

Some fantastic midweek action

New premiere at 12pm GMT today

To brighten up your Wednesday

Hi, it's me again this time for a WIP gaul farmstead according to this reference from AOE if i'm correct : Also I want to know which hand cart do you prefer ? Comes from those references ;

Here are two variation of the model. The historical one and the other with just the height of the roof fixed. I don't really know what to do with the back part on the last one, that's why its flat.

I'm not using any software ATM for the texture was given by the team. That's a big time saver. Okay =)

With the wood deposit ?

Here are some variations of the model, which one do you prefer ?

Well I'm not offended though its hard after working for hours on a model to be asked to get rid of everything

Hi What about now ? EDIT Variant @LordGood : Do you want something like that ? According to the request for this building " Iberians barracks structure. Needs new model. Should have a "cubic" feel like the iberians constructed. Should have the same footprint as the other civs barracks. Prop pints: "garrisoned" and "projectile" I can't really change the shape.

Thank you Anything else ? EDIT : Updated with swords also Improved the cask texture.

Hello, Small Update : - Raised Roofs - Added Details to walls and roofs - Added Props - Scaled to the size of the javelin man Next Update - Add Falcatas on the table (I need the model though) - Improve according to comments

Hi =) Added the entrance en the back, and the dummy I'm using 3Dsmax, No texturing program yet since you gave me the UV I guess i should be able to import a model with the Dae plugin.

Hi, any better ? =)

Would it be possible to have some steps when building a building. Like some scaffoldings.