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mockup:

0A.D. - Napata War - 0ad game scenario (20/Jan/22) someone created a new map with a cinematic intro

Another topic of the day. Massive income of smurfers who make the game unpleasant for those who are new to the game or people who are playing 0ad for long and trying to balance out the game correctly. Rating has nothing with accurate rating's for such reason we have lack of 1vs1's. Smurf's are bad for any game. In 0ad smurf went advanced mode and simply creating massive amout of accounts. @elexis when used too be around was strict when it comes to changing nicknames but he was doing great job on holding off a lot of smurfs. Can anything be done with that? There is only @user1 in the lobby who afk more than me at work. lol (no offence to user1, he is a good person) @Stan`

Wildfire Games would like to thank to all the members of this awesome community and thank you for the continued support and patience. To continue spreading the word about 0 A.D. we designed those two best wishes cards, you can find the XCF template at the bottom for printing. card-templates.zip

Gallic Smackdown

I'd like to remind that it would be really helpful if matches could be loaded. That would decrease the damage of the "ddosing" already a lot. The savegame could easily be extracted from the replay.

With the introduction of A23 feature have been cut and the mercenary change probably affected your boom significantly. I was thinking about adding some features to make exploration and map control more important. 1. Corrals have the option to train cattle for free, but with increased train time. Since it requires no food to train cattle, having a corral is an strict advantage, whereas currently it is only an advantage if you consider it worthwhile to spend food on training cattle. 2. Create a map that has gaia corrals that can be captured. 3. Disable territory decay such that captured corrals in neutral territory don't decay. Steps 1&3 were easy. I would like if someone could give me the code to achieve step 2. The polar sea map gives an example on how to add owned buildings. I also was able to change the radius such that the corral is placed outside your territory, but it is still owned. However I don't know any good code to add randomly generated gaia corrals to the map. It would be desirable if these randomly generated corrals don't spawn near or very close to your territory. I also made a mod that shows progress I made with making a map. foodmod.zip

Wow's one here has some nice lines. I'm a sucker for Art Deco though. EDIT: I prefer the 0 A·D· logo though, as opposed to one without dots.

I actually now have all the assets just didn't find the time to put them back together

Unit update: Viriato

DDOS one more topic on it, why not? Maybe, someday players will be listened, maybe hosts will be able to make devs do something about ddos protection. Hi everyone, It seems quite a bit of time when I have posted last time on forums. Seems like we have the same issue after 2 and half years with hosts being ddosed. Usually, that's unknown players doing that. Balance of units sucks trully but that can be survived if we have survived with bad unit balance and non-stop gameplay changes but ddos'sing makes the game unplayable. I think yesterday we had a record of 10+ started games and 8 games which we trully did not play due hosts being ddosed. *(Please make a note: few people tried to host.) 1. Can 0ad devs hide hosts IP or visable only for hosts who is actuall provider of the match? If players hosts the game without connecting to lobby cannot rejoin the game once the connection is lost. OR 2. Can we get warning ingame for hosts with pointed out IP of the ddos? So we can copy it and somehow block it? 3. Open to sugestions. @elexis@user1 @Stan`@fabio@Freagarach

Standards appearing over battalions looks really nice and do help with gameplay. Now, I wonder how to make them civ-specific. I tried using the waypoint/rally point flag hack in the actor, which names variants based on civ codes ("athen", "spart", "cart", etc.). It works for the waypoint actor (obviously), but not for my formation standard actor. In the above screenshot, you see that the standards pick random variants instead of the civ-specific one. Both flags should be the "athen" variant, but they are not. Also, a new flag variant is chosen each time the formation is created. Here is the waypoint flag code, which works: <?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?> <actor version="1"> <castshadow/> <float/> <group> <variant frequency="100"> <animations> <animation file="mechanical/waypoint_flag_idle.dae" name="Idle" speed="30"/> </animations> <mesh>props/waypoint_flag.dae</mesh> </variant> </group> <group> <variant name="hele"> <textures> <texture file="props/banner_greek.png" name="baseTex"/> </textures> </variant> <variant name="pers"> <textures> <texture file="props/banner_persian.png" name="baseTex"/> </textures> </variant> <variant name="celt"> <textures> <texture file="props/banner_celt.png" name="baseTex"/> </textures> </variant> <variant name="cart"> <textures> <texture file="props/banner_carthage.png" name="baseTex"/> </textures> </variant> <variant name="iber"> <textures> <texture file="props/banner_iberians.png" name="baseTex"/> </textures> </variant> <variant name="scyth"> <textures> <texture file="props/banner_scythians.png" name="baseTex"/> </textures> </variant> <variant name="xion"> <textures> <texture file="props/banner_scythians.png" name="baseTex"/> </textures> </variant> <variant name="rome"> <textures> <texture file="props/banner_romans.png" name="baseTex"/> </textures> </variant> <variant name="imp"> <textures> <texture file="props/banner_romans.png" name="baseTex"/> </textures> </variant> <variant name="spart"> <textures> <texture file="props/banner_spartans.png" name="baseTex"/> </textures> </variant> <variant name="mace"> <textures> <texture file="props/banner_macedonians.png" name="baseTex"/> </textures> </variant> <variant name="athen"> <textures> <texture file="props/banner_greek.png" name="baseTex"/> </textures> </variant> <variant name="brit"> <textures> <texture file="props/banner_celt.png" name="baseTex"/> </textures> </variant> <variant name="gaul"> <textures> <texture file="props/banner_celt.png" name="baseTex"/> </textures> </variant> <variant name="maur"> <textures> <texture file="props/banner_mauryas.png" name="baseTex"/> </textures> </variant> <variant name="ptol"> <textures> <texture file="props/banner_ptolemies.png" name="baseTex"/> </textures> </variant> <variant name="sele"> <textures> <texture file="props/banner_seleucids.png" name="baseTex"/> </textures> </variant> <variant name="theb"> <textures> <texture file="props/banner_thebans.png" name="baseTex"/> </textures> </variant> <variant name="epir"> <textures> <texture file="props/banner_epirotes.png" name="baseTex"/> </textures> </variant> <variant name="han"> <textures> <texture file="props/banner_chinese.png" name="baseTex"/> </textures> </variant> <variant name="kush"> <textures> <texture file="props/banner_kushites.png" name="baseTex"/> </textures> </variant> <variant name="noba"> <textures> <texture file="props/banner_kushites.png" name="baseTex"/> </textures> </variant> <variant name="sueb"> <textures> <texture file="props/banner_germans.png" name="baseTex"/> </textures> </variant> <variant name="goth"> <textures> <texture file="props/banner_norse.png" name="baseTex"/> </textures> </variant> <variant name="zapo"> <textures> <texture file="props/banner_maya.png" name="baseTex"/> </textures> </variant> </group> <material>basic_trans.xml</material> </actor> Here is the Standard code, which does not work: <?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?> <actor version="1"> <castshadow/> <float/> <group> <variant frequency="100"> <mesh>props/standards/formation_pole.dae</mesh> <textures> <texture file="props/kart_standard.png" name="baseTex"/> <texture file="props/kart_standard_norm.png" name="normTex"/> <texture file="props/kart_standard_spec.png" name="specTex"/> </textures> </variant> </group> <group> <variant name="athen"> <props> <prop actor="props/units/standards/formation_flag_athen.xml" attachpoint="root"/> </props> </variant> <variant name="cart"> <props> <prop actor="props/units/standards/formation_flag_cart.xml" attachpoint="root"/> </props> </variant> <variant name="spart"> <props> <prop actor="props/units/standards/formation_flag_spart.xml" attachpoint="root"/> </props> </variant> </group> <material>no_trans_parallax_spec.xml</material> </actor> formation_flag_athen: <?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?> <actor version="1"> <castshadow/> <group> <variant> <mesh>props/standards/formation_flag.dae</mesh> <textures> <texture file="props/standards/athen_infantry_1.png" name="baseTex"/> </textures> </variant> </group> <material>player_trans.xml</material> </actor>

Currently the game in many cases encourages players to stay within their own territory for the first territory, apart from a little cavalry opening. I would like to try a mod to change that resulting in more dynamic play where controlling the neutral territory is more important. I am aiming these changes to benefit the early game in 1v1s or 2v2s (where there is relatively much neutral territory). So that leads to these changes. -stables now have a batch multiplier of 0.7 as training mass cavalry felt to slow early on. (Later in the game, players can easily afford multiple stable resulting in smaller batches and then this change becomes less impactful) -I created a map (Mainland with corrals) where players start with a corral and corrals have the option to train cattle for free, but that option requires 6x the training time. Since this change means extra cattle, it encourages cavalry play. - in the map map (Mainland with corrals), there are neutral corrals to be found. Corrals do not have territory decay. Controlling these corrals thus gives the option to train cattle for free. - For balance, the corral upgrade moved to p2. A cow can be trained for free in 360 seconds and has 300 food. So an unupgraded corral will produce 50 food (in the form of livestock) per minute and an upgraded one will produce 66.67. If you have 3 corrals the upgrade pays back in about 150 seconds Other reasons p2 is now more important: Cavalry get +25% health on with the health upgrade. As a compensation, they don't benefit from the first armor upgrade. -second attack and defense upgrade available in p2. The 2nd armor upgrade is split of from the first one, such that cavalry users don't need to research the 1st one, as it no longer benefits cavalry. Personally I consider it bad that in A25 there is a huge difference in unit strength between p3 and p2. -p2 allows the player to build farmsteads in neutral territory for more efficient hunting/ berry gathering -mercenaries and skiritai are now good at collecting berries or hunt (being rank 2 slows them by 30%). -If you want to collect far hunt with your units, then you are in luck as gather capacity upgrades cost now -100 wood. -archery tradition now has its cost halved but it is a p2 tech. ->This means you can collect all the food on the map, which makes scouting more important to know where the food is and which food is being taken by your enemy. There is in A25 a big difference between the effiiciency of mercenary cavalry and regular cavlary. This is changed -Mercenary cavalry now cost 60 food and 60 metal, but can hunt (being rank 2 slows them by 30%). -Promoting to rank 3 requires +50% more XP -Mercenaries need 20% more XP to promote than rank 2 CS need (so in total 1.8 times as much as rank 1 units) If you want to expand to control extra territory, you will also have an easier time - newly build CCs cost -100 of each resource and -100 build time. They can often also train units that a normal CC can't. However they have less HP, capture points, default arrows and less territory. If you want to have a "normal" CC then you can upgrade the newly build CC to a regular one, similar to how you can upgrade sentry towers. -Gauls and Britons get as tribal faction the option to build CCs for -100 stone. That means for 1100 resources, you get a building that can train like a barracks, supports 20 population, is a dropsite and can shoot arrows like a tower. If splitting your units makes you more vulnarable you can choose for extra options at the towers -sentry towers can be upgraded in p1 to stone towers for 100 wood and stone. -stone towers shoot 2 arrows by defealt. -the sentries tech has reduced price. -Other tower technologies are now affordable as well. Notable faction specific changes Gauls: Naked fanatics now cost less metal and train faster. They get also a slinger in the CC upon reaching p2. CCs are cheaper (and benefit from the gallic building bonus) Kushites: Can now build pyramids in p1 for 150 stone (might be to cheap) Persians: Can train now both spear and jav cav in the CC in p1. In newly build CCs they can train hoplite mercenaries. Spartans: Skiritai are now rank 2 but move 30% faster and are good at hunting/collecting berries. Also for better balance: Spear cav +1 armor and melee infantry +0.5 attack. The reason for posting this on the forum is to find people that might want to try these changes. foodmod.zip

Regicide has never been a popular gamemode, because it is broken: the hero is given completely randomly, so one player could end up with Scipio Africanus and the other player ends up with Cleopatra. As soon as the game starts, Scipio Africanus can run to Cleopatra's base and murder her. There would be 0 chance the Cleopatra player can defend, because the sword cav is just much stronger than the infantry archer in close combat. Since you cannot garrison heroes, there is nothing that Cleopatra could to to save herself, and therefore the game ends there. Furthermore, some heroes give bonuses that are just too OP for booming, making it a very imbalanced game. So we need to make changes to make this mode actually playable.

First I would like to offer the disclaimer that an emphasis on balance is not a bad thing. It helps to maintain a thriving community, and the community is integral to an open source topic. That said, many design decisions that have changed the game on an integral level were done so with balance in mind, not an end vision. Again, this is not bad either, but ultimately it means that many of 0 AD's design choices are near sighted and balanced =/= good design. Ultimately a problem I see with the game from this standpoint is that the factions are fairly bland. Yes, there are restrictions to what units are available, but at the end of the day a Persian spearman has the same statline most other factions. Many great proposals have been done to flesh them out better. I would particularly mention wowgetoffyourcellphone's and my own, but I'm sure that there are plenty of others. Despite often a great amount of thought being put into them and at least some of the community having positive opinions on the alterations, to my knowledge little if anything gets done. This is ultimately motivated by the fact that these would throw the balance in flux. While this is exasperating to people who would like change, the points behind these conservatives are valid. The multiplayer community might suffer. That said, I think that there is a reasonable compromise that 0 AD can and should take to help diversify factions and gameplay for the longterm without ruining the competitive scene. One by one factions could experience overhauls with key things in mind: How would their economy function differently from other ones? Are there any ways to reward strategic building placement? Are there any glaring inaccuracies in the design? What are current strategies used in the competitive scene, and how could these be expanded upon? These new iterations of the factions would initially be an option until all factions have experienced an overhaul, allowing for players to freely choose between the current, more balanced faction designs and the more experimental ones. Then, the team could in theory even turn around and continue the cycle of overhauls.

Adding a corral is just like adding any other entity, trees are entities, buildings are entities, animals are entities. So in your case, you need to add the entity corrals where you want in the map. If you want the corrals to be placed more o less randomly, see how the other maps (e.g. mainland.js) place gaia animals like sheep and deer and do the same but with the corrals.

Right flank.

Troll house.

It's fine on minimal resolution, but I'd rather not inflict this on other resolutions if we don't have to. Yeah. I think it'd generally look better. Might be weird on the biggest screens, but it's going to look a little weird on the biggest screens anyways so. Yeah sure. I'm just giving you my opinion haha. IMO the 'art-deco' box border is out of place. I preferred this one if we're going for art-deco-ish. I would probably prefer something else still, but I'm not entirely sure what to be honest. I actually liked the initial pyramidal notch, even though most of you seemed to think it wad 'too modern' haha. But the rest of the menu is super sleek and modern so I didn't really mind. That being said, this is just my opinion and I can certainly get overruled. It's not like it's the ugliest thing on Earth either, just not my preference and I think overall it's still an improvement on the current menu.

indeed, but that's always the case at the minimum resolution. Only option would be to make the font smaller (which I don't want to do). And having nothing on there? Yeah it's the same one, just shifted to the top. See, the problem is the that the pictures wow posted were just the first design I did with those double lines. But then I asked @Stan` and @wowgetoffyourcellphone how they liked it or if they would prefer one of my other drafts and they both choose the current design you don't like. So ... you see my problem? Kind of going in a circle :/

The helmet will be added into the game for the Iberian faction, so you can use it in your mod too. I tried to follow your details and recreated most of the textures that you made since your last commit at github (by most like almost every texture was corrected, I can commit it later if it is okay with everyone) Thank you also, and also I really love the texturing that you did for the Lusitanian units, why I corrected the UV map overlaps because I really liked your texture work for them.

Now @wackyserious you are admin too, let's wait just a bit for @Duileoga to see the previous message about helmets, maybe he has something new, about textures can be free to merge with the current mod

for a26 yes. Commands.js L1654: const cmpVisual = Engine.QueryInterface(formationEnt, IID_Visual); if (cmpVisual) { const civ = QueryPlayerIDInterface(player).GetCiv(); cmpVisual.SetVariant("animationVariant", civ); } Formation.js LoadFormation function: Formation.prototype.LoadFormation = function(newTemplate) { const newFormation = ChangeEntityTemplate(this.entity, newTemplate); let cmpVisual = Engine.QueryInterface(newFormation, IID_Visual); if (cmpVisual) { const cmpNewOwnership = Engine.QueryInterface(newFormation, IID_Ownership); const player = cmpNewOwnership.GetOwner(); const civ = QueryPlayerIDInterface(player).GetCiv(); cmpVisual.SetVariant("animationVariant", civ); } return Engine.QueryInterface(newFormation, IID_UnitAI); }; template_formation.xml Commands.js Formation.js

Mission 12 is now converted and re-vamped for a25. Thanks all for the help and of course, thanks to the original creator of the city that Alexander conquers in this scenario.

It's fine but we should tell him.

As an avid bolt shooter user I can point out that the Ptolemies have a bolt shooter almost identical to A23. And its the most useful in the game in my opinion. Rate of fire is far more useful than more damage, they can already one shot most things with just 160 pierce damage. 240 is overkill unless used against elephants, the big elephants die in roughly four shots. An interesting idea, you could make a technology that improves rate of fire for bolt shooters.

Greetings! I'm from Sri Lanka. I speak Sinhalese and a little Tamil. I'm happy to help you if you plan on developing this civ in the future and I think adding the Tamils is a great idea because they were the biggest power in Southern India. However they don't achieve the height of their power until until the medieval age (900 AD - 1300 AD). The same could be said about the Sinhalese. In my opinion both these civs would be more fitting in a millennium AD mod. But still they both did exist in the 500 BC - 500 AD time frame and had a good level of sophistication.

Updated my texture repository at wackyserious/0adtextures (github.com)

Carthaginian Standard Bearer (might be used for Battalions, if @Freagarach makes them possible. ). A couple of potential positions. Right flank or center.

This sounds like a fun idea for unit diversity and encouraging expansion.

I was thinking more about letting the units be responsible for how much they contribute to the GarrisonRegenRate.

I think the main issue with that, was that it was originally only going to give you different heroes and champions, and that was it. If it were to be designed today, I think the choice would be at the beginning. Leaving it until City Phase makes the "Hellenes" for example feel very generic, until you pick "Macedonians" in City phase and get Pikeman and Spear Cav champions. You lose out on all the Macedonian flavor in the early phases. No Thessalians. No Hypaspist champions. No Thracians. No unique architectural elements. No unique techs (until the very end). It wasn't a bad idea for its time, but we know so much more now about how these factions were unique (specifically militarily, when talking about the Greek civs). The original design had no Seleucids and their awesome War Elephants. The original design had no Ptolemaic Egyptians with their awesome architecture and mix of ethnicities. I could see something where you choose your "Civilization" in game setup. So, "Greeks" for example or "Successor States" or "Romans" or "Celts" or "Nomads", and then when the match starts you get a popup where you choose the "Faction" from that Civilization. So, Greeks -> Athenians, Spartans, Thebans. Successor States -> Macedonians, Seleucids, Ptolemies. Romans -> Republic, Principate, Dominate. Celts -> Gauls, Britons, Celtiberians. Nomads -> Scythians, Xiongnu, Huns. That way, your enemies know what Civilization you chose, but not which Faction until they scout you.

Mauryas ended who? Kushites what? Spartans are largely a backwater, insular city state, but they're included because they are famous and fun and add diversity. Mauryas included because they are awesome and add diversity, but had zero contact with Rome. Kushites had a few minor border wars with Rome, but are included to add fun and diversity to the civ roster. Han could be included because "If the Chinese and Romans ever fought, who would win?!?!" is a super common what-if scenario people talk about. Plus they add diversity to the roster and the opportunity for new gameplay.

Indeed! If volunteer developers enjoy building new civs instead of doing other things, more power to them!

I'll add it further. Why should balance team have any say in what features get removed from the gameplay? IMO, it shouldn't. Balancing should be about finding the underdog civs and finding ways to improve them while finding the overpowering civs and either bringing all others to their level or bringing everyone a notch down using stats not features (e.g., not removing Mauryas worker elephant but adding cards to some civs). For example, slingers vs bows vs skrimishers and bringing everything in line with regards to usefulness. Another example is champions. Additionally, Mercs and usefulness of heroes. Balance should encompass: Unit balancing (timings, stats) Structure balancing (timings, stats) Upgrades (timings, time cost) Hero bonus stats What structures build what units (within reason) E.g., Delenda Est is completely different in how Carthage works with Mercs but also similar. It's weirdly cool and more developed IMO. (note: to me this is both a balance and feature change). Civ bonuses and stats (as long as within spirit of civ) Balance should provide suggestions/ideas for (things that won't necessarily get added, but could be nice): Ideas on new units. Ideas on how a civs can work differently (e.g., Ptol/Scythians/Han)

I have played 0 AD since mid A23. And I personally feel that there has been to much focus on balance and not enough on actual game improvement. Specifically I am referring to things that make civilizations feel and play uniquely. A24 was a net loss of Civ features for something that already felt like a full fledged game with differentiated civs, it just needed a little balancing to ranged siege and slingers and it would be fine. Then further differentiation of civs could have been done to flesh things out. A25 while nice is still just A24, now with a skirmisher meta, extra blacksmith goodies and better pathfinding. I really hope A26 returns some of the sparkle from A23.

Making a launcher, either in the style of steam or old school WoW would solve some of the problems preventing quick patching and fixes. Currently, updating regardless of how small or big it is, is copy and replace. However, if there are two templates changed, thats > 99% unnecessary data. Also, multiple version management may also be a good thing. Maybe someone reading this might want to give that a go because creating a barebones launcher with those sets of features is extremely simple. Or perhaps create a ticket and tag simple. In fact, it literally requires no changes to 0AD. Just make a simple GUI in X language that can download binaries and put them in different namespaces. `play0ad/v24/` and `play0ad/v25/` or something. Launch with writable root to prevent cache mixing I guess. If you want to make it fancy, write a content map and you could have an update process that downloads only change files. If you want even fancier, maybe consider binary diffing too. I am just pointing out the Minecraft launcher, so maybe look over there if thats something desirable.

Always welcome from me

The big problem is that balancing patches go through the same democratic process as other large patches. We have some patches with a small number of changes (status) that are a few months in the queue waiting to be checked. My suggestion is to create a small team balancing 3-5 players who listen to the community's suggestions, and based on the suggestions, talk and agree on the changes (vote if necessary). After the changes are agreed upon, the patch is built. Ideally, we need a moderator with the main role of balancing patches and gameplay that is more available for this type of patch. This moderator would not exercise his opinion on the patch, he would just test it for possible bugs and code breaks. There have been a lot of good suggestions on the forum over the years on how to work with civilizations, but the process of having to break those patches into dozens of little patches and all being discussed individually doesn't work well, because when you have ideas about changing a civilization, you think about global changes, one patch often depends on the other, and in the current form it's almost impossible to work.

You give an extra load on the lobby, because you have to download stuff, and all the clients of the game needs to keep pinging it to know if there are updates. It's possible that it would introduce some security flaw where the person(s) currently having fun ddosing players (and sometimes it seems the server) might inject other fancy stuff. While assuming we have recurrent updates, a mod with team verification on modio with manual download seems much more secure and requires much less infrastructure. Secondary attacks, attack ground, mixed gender citizen soldiers, scouts... probably a lot more. I believe @Freagarach was working on something that could allow directional damage. And because I'm a jolly mood, the hans

I don't know what goes through my head sometimes

Personally the house walling concept is something I dislike; they take away the idea of using other structures for defence like... walls. I think that a soft way of punishing that sort of tactic would be to allow a town phase technology that allows infantry to set buildings on fire. If they are too close together, the fire would spread, but I digress. Walling with buildings is nothing new to RTS games. What we want to think about is ways of providing more nuance. Another thing blacksmith adjacency could do is award experience to units trained from nearby barracks. Honestly there are so many cool, thematic synergies that have remained unexplored that could add some much needed spice to the economic/base building side of the game.

Lol. This is why we can't have nice things.

I fixed it in e657e80, line 541 The muskox was set to the player instead of Gaia... so I changed the first argument (i) to 0. @norjay

Elephants are too OP. Everytime I play with a friend and this guy introduces like 40 Elephants in the battlefield, I know I'm already defeated. They should be more expensive at least in terms of food (from 4 to 5 times the cost of horses, around 600 to 800 of food) and require more population available (and probably a lot of others things).

I haven't heard of @Bigtiger in a while. I hope he is doing fine. I'd say the mod is stalled until further notice. Also since there was no test mod provided it cannot unfortunately be continued by other artists.