[Gameplay guideline]

I would just like to say that I like the design document.  It's a definite step forwards with a much more coherent vision than what is currently in place.  There is one point I would make.  The Stoa.  It was a commercial hub.  All said, is it bad that there are specialists trained there?  No, but they shouldn't be usual to give off the impression that this is a training centre.  Rather, they could have unique characteristics like a nearly instantaneous training time but paired with either a high cost or a hard cap to the number of units of them you could field.  To make it seem less militaristic, it could have some of the higher tier economic upgrades available at it, making its construction signal either a harder, more invested military push or a strategy towards an economic boom.  

[Application - Gameplay Developer]

Good.  I would say one thing about your assessment of 0 A.D., while I do not like the current state of citizen-soldiers, I do not find the concept itself bad.  It simply needs to be better implemented.  What could really make this game great is if there could be distinct changes apparent in the units with utility from the beginning stage to the later parts.  It will be hard to make work, but it could be done.

[Should Civic Centres Train Military Units?]

Personally, Civic Centres seem to make the barracks a bit redundant.  Granted, CC's cost a lot more, are highly defensible, exert significant territorial control, and so forth, but should they actually train military units?  Frankly, the idea seems a strange (should a citizen be equipped with weapons at what could be considered an administrative building?).  What are your thoughts?

[[A21] Catapults]

I would have to agree.  If catapults are purely for attacking buildings, they should be able to do a proper job of it and be distinct from rams.

[Virtual Reality god view.]

The problem with that system is the UI; it is hopelessly inefficient for RTS games, in which real time is important.  The head set view does have potential, but controls would probably still be left to a mouse and keyboard.

[Glory and Cult Statues]

Serapis is a good choice for the Ptolemies, but also don't discount the important of Isis with the Isis Cult.  If you are going with cults, the Mithra Cult was a huge thing in the Roman Empire, especially among soldiers.  The Isis Cult also had a pretty huge hey-day, but that's up to you I suppose.  Rune Stones would be inapplicable to the Britons since they did not right with runes, and most rune-like monuments come from the Megalithic Era.  For the Gauls, you could have wicker-men be a basis for that.

[Delete Key for Atlas]

This seems embarrassing to ask, but I can't find a delete function for Atlas.  Is there anything like that?

[0AD units upgrade]

Excellent job on the animations.  The one matter that I think is problematic is the two-hand sword.  To start, the weapon the swordsman uses in the animations isn't strictly a longsword.  Two-hand weapons generally differed from their counterparts by having longer hilts for both hands.  While the current length of the hilt may be slightly plausible for a @#$% sword, it does not provide enough length.  Generally the hands would be positioned at the furthest ends of the hilt to ensure maximum manoeuvrability and so that the individual hands would not interfere with each other.

[make bolt-shooters great (and usefull!) again]

What are thoughts of implementing the pass-through damage seen in Age of Kings for the scorpions.  It was always beautiful seeing massed scorpions in pro-matches.

[Carthaginian scaffolding]

Relevant point about the blue porta-potty.  The colour should match the player colour.

[Silver Shield Duel]

I would like pike units to have a marginal amount of range, encouraging them to cluster in ranks where they could attack simultaneously.  

[Map Concepts Based on Starcraft]

Objectives:

 

Make early game harassment possible by making most resources rest at the fringe of the initial borders.

 

Make expansion an important strategic choices by limiting the number of resources at each viable Civic Centre placements and giving good pockets to place new Centres full of meaningful resources.

 

Make Scouting an important stage of the game by limiting the number of initial hunted animals to be collected at the Civic Centre.

 

Balance between chokepoints and open terrain to diversify the types of possible engagements by balancing between offence and defence, making there be a limited but multiple number of windows of attack.  

 

Possible Objections:

 

This seems to make the game seem way more Starcraft-like when 0 A.D. had clear roots to Age of Kings: why the shift in map design?

 

While there are many connexions between 0 A.D. and Age of Kings, concepts such as the citizen soldier, differences in building uses, and passable forests make 0 A.D’s meta far more chaotic since choke-points become few and meaningless and citizen soldiers set an entirely different pace.

    Also a new map design can provide maps with more intriguing strategic depth since builds would be based largely on which resources are placed where. 

 

Below I have a mockup of a hypothetical minimap.  The shading represents the elevation: the darker the shading, the higher the ground.

[0 A.D. Players: I'd like to hear about your perspectives!]

1.

I was a general nerd surfing the net for articles on random ancient history and came across a website that had some articles.  I read more and learned that it was not so much as history article website as a game in development.  This was around the Pre-Alpha stage, and I did not see playability in the near future; not long later playability happened with Alpha 1 Argonaut.  I started following development not long afterwards.

2.

I like history and I like RTS games.  0 A.D. in my opinion does a fantastic job of making an engaging game without overly romanticising the past or botching up on facts.  I also love being able to be in a community in which I have seen my opinions take an active role in shaping the game.

3.

It's really great to me, and I don't have many complaints except that I would like more updates.  They don't have to be that official, but just casual explanations of recent developments would be brilliant.

4.

A witty and funny aphorism?  Nah.

5.

21 year old fellow from the States.

[Textures: Imperial Roman Shields]

Actually those seem to date from the Imperial era or extremely close to then.  The republic era shields had a sort of a brace in the front to maintain higher durability of the shield.  The final one does look suspiciously Samnite-like however.

[Empires Apart. ==Freemium==]

Personally though, I don't see that with this game.  The units and buildings are clearly stylised given the low-polygon models and simple textures, but I frankly find this choice to merely be minimalism as Lordgood explained.  The gameplay seems promising and the units lack the wild exaggerations of AOEO; frankly I find you being too dismissive when it is clear that they are attempting to make a game that is old-schoolesque and the artwork reflects that.  

Also regarding this game's audience, it seems generalised to call it simply call the targets casual.  Age of Kings was a simple game but offered a rich meta-game that rivals highly competitive titles like Starcraft.

[Effective army control]

I have to second wow's opinion; formations carrying an integral role to combat has been core to 0 A.D.'s vision for a long time, and denying those mechanics to combat would be a major turn from the game's original ideal.

[Arms and Armour terminology!]

Regrettably my Gaelic only extends to a small amount of Old Irish.  The little I do know cannot be a legitimate enough basis for an objective opinion.

[Fix the "Greek" Voices]

"Ti esti;" as it would be more or less spelled to convert the Greek letters to Latin, is the combination of "Tí," which means 'what,' and "esti," a conjugation of the Greek word eimi, which is the 3rd person singular form of 'I am.'  All of that to say, it basically means "What is it?"

 

[Why the Citizen-Soldier Concept is Wrong]

First, I wish to say that it is not entirely wrong; in fact it is a unique and innovative system I appreciate.

 

The concept is not inherently flawed, but there are cultures in which it is an easy way to misconstrue the actual social and military systems present.  It should not be removed entirely, but it should be changed and adapted better reflect the cultures.  

 

The Athenians, Romans, Iberians, Gauls, Britons, Persians, Mauryans, and Spartans all remain fairly viably accurate though differentiating Persian levies from actual citizens and Spartan Champions from other champions could lead to greater diversity and depth to the meta and historicity.  The remaining have problems though.

 

Macedonians, Seleucids, and Ptolemies all maintained professional forces that were employed outside of a few exceptions, but those can be exceptions to better diversify the three.  There still could be citizen soldiers, for the military colony maintained retired soldiers that were called Kleruchoi if I am not mistaken.  These could act as experience tier II or III units, not being tremendously reliable from an economic standpoint, but capable of providing protection while simultaneously building and collecting from strategic yet disputed areas.  

 

Carthage also lacked many citizen soldiers, and the depiction of mercenaries as citizens not only for Carthage but for other Civilisations is peculiar inaccuracy.  Mercenaries could be expensive and competent, but also have short training times to compensate.  Making them at least Champion-esque would be a good idea.  

 

These are simple things to alter, and any economic setbacks they would have could be remedied by the employment of slaves.  Although I do not claim that slavery was necessarily a justly conducted institution, it was a very present part of Ancient life.  In the period of Imperial Rome, for instance, it could be that even one fifth of the population was enslaved.  Making these a way to channel labour in a new way would lead to interesting strategic implications.

[A roman sword discovered in the U.S. ?]

The buckler there seems to be scanty evidence for Roman presence; buckler shields were preferred during the 13th century A.D.

[[Gameplay discussion] Phasing out phases]

Perhaps the problem is that we are not looking in-depth at how functional games do it. Upgrading buildings seems a bit strange; in Starcraft there were building tech trees. The same could be done for 0 A.D. the Civic Centre would unlock barracks, which unlocks more units, which in turn unlocks the fortress after a tower has been constructed.

If we are talking about phases still existing, I would look to Age of Kings as an example for our framework and move from there. In Age of Kings the Dark Age could see rushing, but this was mainly just simple harassment. The actual contact would come in the Feudal Age, in which fighting could occur with soft counter units used offensively and the hard counter ones defensively. The alternative would be to wall, a practical option, and jump to the Castle Age, when crossbows, knights, and siege revolutionise the battlefield. In the Imperial Age real power could come to play with unique units, trebuchets, and gunpowder, yet the army compositions would also have to be balanced with cheaper trash units as the game continued since resources, being finite, would continue to limit the purchasing abilities.

The point is that there must be a point to the phases, and Age of Kings did that job extremely well. While everything seemed coherent, it was also distinct with one age to the next. Currently 0 A.D. lacks those distinctions, so the purpose is lost.

I personally would advocate for the ageless concept. It may seem avant-garde, yet it works for the current vision of 0 A.D.

[[Gameplay] SVN Balance Feedback]

Penalty? Walls in 0 A.D. take far too long to construct in most situations, and compared to most walls such as in Age of Kings in which they cost 2 wood for palisades and 5 stone for a stone wall. Compared to these rates coupled with the fact that there are very few chokepoints in 0 A.D. games means that walls are impractical. Age of Mythology priced them at 3 gold. Surely the walls could be more inexpensive in 0 A.D.

[Heroes redesign concept]

The only issue with this proposal is that it could detract from the historical flavour of the heroes.

[Running, charging, stamina and stances (with a bit of formations)]

I do not really wish to sound too critical, but the system you propose doesn't really seem to make much sense to me. Running/Charging based on stances? I prefer the stamina bar. It is not that complex compared to the mana bar to units in Starcraft, and certainly the abilities cast in Starcraft introduce far more complexities. Double-clicking being like too much micro compared to the stances option you propose, and also micro is an important component to RTS. Double-clicking is intuitive with games like Total War, and 0 A.D.'s combat would emulate that in some ways.

[Gameplay Feature: Battalions and Formations]

I am pleasantly surprised by how good the implementation sounds. The only thing I would argue against is the name of the Spartan officer. Polemarch is an Athenian term and hardly had any military background. Strategos is a more appropriate generic term for a leader.

Perhaps rather than giving an armour debuff to units in the column formation, flanks should simply be a more present relevant part of the weaknesses of formations.