Thorfinn the Shallow Minded

That's why we need to branch out and launch Spork AD.

11

Well Overreign is clearly the future of Age of Empires 2.

0 A.D. the mmo, coming 20??

I feel like a lot of this discussion centres around a key sort of point made at a lecture for GDC about 'cursed designs.' Essentially games can sometimes have two or more contradictory goals that make the end game experience they plan to make impossible. The classic RTS game essentially does this by having two components to the game: the economy and the military, both of which require attention to win, but given the realtime nature of the game, this makes it difficult to immerse oneself in. For instance, a player could be having an intense battle when they realise that they've forgotten about the harvest season. This oftentimes leads to designers attempting to rectify the issue by putting the focus on one aspect or the other. Company of Heroes relies purely on area control for the basis of economy while the emphasis remains on a company level with the military. City-builders represent essentially the opposite camp, letting the economy be the driving force of the game. This sort of dichotomy I would say is essential to recognise for the future of 0 A.D, and depending on which aspect is preferred, the developers should work to streamline the other as much as possible. Of course it isn't a matter of going with one extreme, but the limitations should be recognised.

I don't get the problem with the infinite queue. I can't say I'm totally correct here, but the amount of resources that could be collected from a site in Rise of Nations were virtually infinite, which is a reasonable basis for the feature. It's a simple quality of life feature that is optional; the same can be said for things such as rally points.

Simple sort of idea that I think is worth considering: Having the Theatron building widely available seems like a bit much. The Spartans were hardly known for their love of drama, and I'd say whenever we do think of Greek playwrights, only Athenians come to mind. That all said, it would make sense for that structure to be exclusive to Athens and perhaps making its effects more interesting than a simple buff to territory. As to what it could be, I can't necessarily say. Maybe it could make workers within x radius work faster; I'd be open to better ideas though. Another structure that I would say is sorely missing from the Athenians is having an academy structure for a variety of technologies. Maybe there could even be minor yet exclusive ones that reflect philosophical teachings of various schools. The list goes on.

So just to start off, I'd say that a lot of these ideas are great, but adding complexity does a number of things. Probably the most notable one is that it increases the skill cap of the game, which is critical in the RTS genre. Some games are more economically focussed (usually city-builders) while others are more combat based (Company of Heroes comes to mind). In short, each feature should do the following: make the game more in depth without requiring a significant strain on a player's attention. I'd say that the idea of a food being automatically used up by existing units would be a great option. It could provide a much more interesting way for how people would spend that resource since a raid could quickly cut off that source. Roads I think would be a fantastic option. I doubt that many expert players would use them, but that would definitely allow for players who enjoy base-building to have a much more enjoyable time.

Here are some more general points I'd like to give for your design, Lion. Focus on contrast that brings out the direction of the lighting. All too often it feels like the darks are not dark enough; that kind of shading is crucial to making facial features pop out. Next of all, I'd say that your faces look good. Unfortunately good is problematic since the small irregularities that do exist seem even worse because of that (Think of the uncanny valley.). Sadly, there's not an easy fix for getting the placement of facial features right aside from meticulous practice. I haven't really applied myself to any significant degree on Illustrator or other graphic design programs to demonstrate, but a useful trick I've done is figure drawing. Spend different intervals of time trying to draw different poses of people, and the insight you can get from just a couple hours of practice is surprising. Best of luck.

i really like what's going on with the picture thus so far, Stan. My one general suggestion I'd offer is more irregularities. The stubble for instance would seem more plausible with variation on density. Currently the facial hair has practically no fading before going to the part with no stubble. Unless he is trimming this stubble in a particular way, I've found that men have the most density right around the goatee area. From there it gets a lot more patchy especially leading out to the extremities. Aside from that, I would like to see a lot more small flaws. It could be small scars, wrinkles, freckles, the list goes on. Granted, that's just my non-expert opinion, but again, I think that the work looks great regardless of whether any of those suggestions get implemented.

Then again there were raven scouts in Age of Mythology...

The flaw with the Briton team bonus lies in the healer. Healers alone are simply purposeless unless there is a secondary purpose provided. I personally wouldn't be against the idea of them converting units, but I'm sure that alternate options; priests served many roles that could be represented such as a simple aura that improves attack or improves gathering speed. The list goes on.

Strictly speaking siege weapons tended to be just built on site. I'd recommend just to have a unit that is trainable called the sapper. It would be vulnerable to melee attack but would itself have a decent building attack along with a much more important role of being able to construct siege engines.

As a proposal for those interested in making one, I'd recommend making it based on the greek letter ψ. It has the advantage of looking like a fork and being classy as well.

What I want to see is a logo. I looked around the internet for 'epic forks' yet found nothing satisfactory for meme purposes here. That needs to change.

Do you think that forests of a particular density should be impassable? One of the things that does bother me about 0 A.D. map design is the complete lack of proper chokepoints, and this would do a good job of changing that. Perhaps there could also be a middle ground. Some units like skirmishers could move through them, but most would be unable to do so. On the other hand maybe cavalry could be the only ones. Thoughts?

By and large I like a lot of these changes done. They're minor, but a lot of them are quality of life things that definitely seem like they should have been implemented. I was wondering though if there would be a way to have people working at an economic task could have a different movement rate when they are armed. I feel like that would be the ideal option; coding it might be admittedly difficult though.

Age of Empires was never meant to be played indefinitely; matches tend to last 20-70 minutes depending on players. Running out of wood rarely the decisive issue when things like gold and stone deplete much faster. You're clearly looking for something else in single player that can't be found in Age of Empires.

I don't really follow your critique of Guns, Germs, and Steel, Sundiata. Simply speaking, the book explains the decisiveness of particular technological advancements that allowed for europeans to defeat significantly larger forces in battle and effectively subjugate empires that were sophisticated on their own right and then explains a lot of the factors required to develop such advancements. The topic is straightforward, and the author doesn't diverge. There were impressive advancements to be found in the Americas that are worth study, but those were largely unrelated to the thesis and were not addressed. How is this a problem concerning historiography is baffling to me.

I think that it would be fair to point out that the armour that the Metatron is referring to is post-Marian reform. The point being that soldiers at that time were provided with their own arms due to their being professionals. Pre-Marian legionnaires would have supplied themselves with helmets and the like, meaning that it would be unlikely that there was one single kind of way to identify a centurion.

There was a proposal a while ago to make walls be a matter of making a circuit around a selected Civic Centre with the press of a button. This would make the walls be able to get away with being directional without the aforementioned problem. Obviously this restricts the player's ability to use walls compared to Age of Empires and was probably scrapped for that reason. That's not to say that someone couldn't mod that sort of thing into the game though...

Not to say that this justifies that choice, but Age of Empires III lacked blood.

I definitely wouldn't be surprised if they went a bit too far with the nerf. Usually that's the way balance patches work.

Saw that game too. Not every day you see Viper that far on the back foot. All said though, it's not surprising with Steppe Lancers. When Rise of the Rajas came out, Vietnamese were overpowered, and Malay were dominant on water-maps. Apparently the developers are going to be hitting that unit pretty hard in an upcoming patch. These are a list of the alleged changes coming up: Gold cost from 30 to 45 Attack speed lower Movement speed lower -2 attack on both normal and elite These changes will make them only 25 resources cheaper than knights but with two less attack. Add to that fact that their attack speed was already a bit slower than the knight's, and their movement rate will probably be at least the same as the knight now, and the result should be a good deal less effective. Time, however, will only tell.

Here's a clearer outline of one of the factions I proposed: Placeholder Name: Nomads (or Horde) Lore: Earth gradually dwindled itself of resources, and humanity had to leave, but all attempts to terraform planets proved expensive and resulted in failure. Instead, the people who survived of the human race did so through intense genetic engineering. Now they roam from planet to planet, taking the resources before finding a new target. The few that remain unaltered humans are the elite, commanding their thralls from the comfort of small habitats suitable for the true remnants of the human race. Bonuses: Nomadic: All buildings are mobile, but there are limits to how many can be built. Training units and researching technology can still be done in a moving structure at the cost of increased time. Scavengers: Resources are gathered faster but are diminished at an even faster rate. Units and Buildings: Cloning Facility: Produces Workers. Worker: Primary economic unit. Collects resources faster than others. Barracks: Produces Scavenger and Grunt. Most weapon upgrades available here. Scavenger: Infantry unit that is able to gather resources like the worker but at a much slower rate. Good cannon-fodder. Grunt: Infantry reinforced with an exoskeleton. Slower than Scavenger but much beefier. Recon Centre: Produces Angel, Scout, and Dragoon. Requires Genetic Engineering Lab and Barracks. Angel: Fast unit capable of flying short distances. Scout: Unit capable of camouflaging. Has a strong sneak attack that reveals it. Slower when cloaked. Dragoon: Cavalry unit that is fastest unit available to the Nomads. Possibly can attack while moving. Emplacement: Self-propelled artillery battery that can also train Sappers. Sapper: Suicide unit does explosion damage when attacking. Genetic Engineering Lab: Area where most technologies that unlock units and provide improvements to existent traits of units. Glider: Unit that can be built that transports units. Not a fast unit, but one that allows for creative attack angles. That's a general template of what I've got. One of the reasons I would say there is some merit to this race is that it would allow for a Starcraft-like faction to exist without just a copy-and-paste of Terran, Protoss, and Zerg. I tried to make for some interesting mechanics that fit with the thematic picture I'm also trying to portray.