Thorfinn the Shallow Minded

I think that perhaps there could be a choice between the two personally for those who don't care so much about weather and more about time.

I actually think that large picket lines should only deal out damage to soldiers that charge them practically head on and especially harm cavalry. (Excepting elephants, which could just bulldoze right through them almost unscathed.) The smaller ones should give minimal damage to the units, but would lower their defenses significantly because they would be too distracted with their feet getting pricked.

I would like to give a couple more suggestions with experience. The whole idea is cool, but it seems relatively unrealistic for a soldier to merely change his armor when he upgrades. My idea is that instead of showing that a guy has a lot of experience with his appearance in that respect, instead, when a unit is selected, they show how much how much of a veteran he is by the chevrons that hover over their health bar. The chevrons would first be bronze, but once they attain three, their the unit would have a gold chevron instead, after they have three gold chevrons, they would acquire a silver chevron. The armor could be used for various technologies such as a Corinthian helmet upgrade, a cuirass upgrade, etc,... The important thing to that could make it more unique with these technologies is having only the units trained wielding these if you put that armor for automatic use. In this way, one could have the ability to toggle between a lighter armor that allows for more speed, and a heavier one that has a lot more bulk. The units that have been trained before the upgrade do not have an automated upgrade, but for a small price of metal or wood, one could update it to the latest kind of armor. The way I would commend having the upgrades be done is similar to Empire Earth. In that game, there were many various upgrades on the unit armor/attack that surrounded the GUI of the unit you were controlling that only needed a click to update.

Thorfinn is not a developer and doesn't have the game installed anymore, but he certainly would use your artificial intelligence if Thorfinn did have the game installed.

I just wanted to note something. The fiery shots of siege weapons are epic, but it would be neat if you could switch between the fiery shots and the normal kinds. The fiery ones would do a temporary morale decrease (Lower attack rate.)that affects the basic units quite a bit, the advanced units is far more negligible, the elite units and super units only have a smattering of their morale affected, and heroes are unaffected. The thing that would make the fiery shot not as effective as the normal kind is the fact that it is not very accurate.

Well mondtanz, although the game is not incredibly realistic, this is an real time strategy game, not a real time tactical game. I agree with you on most of your points, and if I were to make a computer game, I think that it would have hundreds of complications like taxes and advanced communication systems. The real problem with having this things though, is that it won't appeal to the people who want one of those more classic real time strategy games like Age of Empires making it hard to really popularize this game. Thanks for the feedback though.

The Carthaginians get an Iberian Mercenary for that class.

Irrigation, a technology researched at the the farmstead, is a Town Phase technology that costs some metal and wood. This technology would allow your farms to regenerate in food production much faster. Fletching, a technology researched at the blacksmith, would significantly increase the accuracy of your archers. This mainly cost wood and would be available the Town Phase. Linothorax, City Phase technology, would be researched at the blacksmith. This technology would increase the stamina and speed of hoplites. Perhaps instead though, since the elite hoplite and toxotes already has one, this technology would make the elite rank of various unit classes that wear these, available.

I like the idea of researching upgrades, but probably soldiers would only get an XP that upgrades their level, while heroes and super units gain experience that allows you to research specific military techs and unlock special formations.

In the wiki/trac, it says that soldiers gain experience simply by existing. I for the most part, disagree with this. Besides being unrealistic, it could in some ways become somewhat annoying since the advanced soldiers are not as good at overall resource gathering than basic soldiers. I recommend that you have units gain experience in several different ways besides fighting. One way they could gain experience without fighting is patrolling and acting as a sentinel by being garrisoned in towers and other watching points. I don't think that this kind of stuff should give a really good rate of experience, but at perhaps one experience a second. The other way that soldiers could gain experience without fighting is perhaps by standing within the aura of a barracks. While standing in that aura, perhaps they could do different things like march, do attack animations, etc,... This would be the preferred way to have soldiers gain experience without fighting I think.

Perhaps dust should rise when buildings are destroyed too.

Thorfinn suggests that a photo be uploaded to the gallery showing the new particle effects. (Awesome work by the way.)

I commend the idea of having dust be kicked up when the soldiers run, especially with cavalry. I also think that they should kick dust up always while they are on sandy terrain. (They should kick up even more while they run.)

Awesome stuff there. It's great to see the that kind of progress in the game.

Actually, in the final game, there will be actual animations for the buildings being created. The design document in the Wiki/Trac explains about it pretty well.

Awesome rams Pureon. The only thing that I would recommend for improvement is making them have variating shield patterns. Keep up the good work!

Well, there actually is a technology called "Othismis" or something of the likes of that which does the same thing. The problem with having all units be able to form the phalanx is this. The phalanx formation is entirely dependent on the shield, the hoplon. The hoplon was large enough to be able to cover the body of a man except that it had the hand-grips on the right side so that the hoplite had an ample amount of space for his spear. This led to hoplite to adopt this formation so that he could have that side free. The formation is all about a wall of bronze and was mainly used by the hoplite because they were about the only type of soldier that really needed to use that kind of formation. Because of the wall though, it made them pretty tough to get past.

Alright, I can probably clear up a couple things. First off, the reason that the animals don't decay right now is because the animations have not been created for them. That goes for a lot of those sliding units. The reason for that is because the team has no animator unfortunately. The reason that elephants don't flee is this reason. They attack instead. (or at least they should.) If you don't see them attack, then it is probably because there is no animation for it. The chickens don't move mainly because they are supposed to be stupider than a gazelle I think. As for the AI, it comes down to this. The AI is currently very limited. Nevertheless, Alpha 5 should include some more intellect for the AI and should have some more cool stuff like formations, running/charging, unit promotions, and more. The reason that cavalry are about as fast as hoplites is this reason. The cavalry currently can only walk. Once Alpha 5 is released though, it should be fixed so that they can gallop at a very fast speed when ordered to. Infantry will be able to run also. The reason for marching units not attacking is because they are too disciplined to bother about that. If you had them attack everything that attacked them while they were marching, it would be tough to get them to their destination. Please note that I am not part of the team so please don't hold me liable for any accidental mistakes I made while explaining some of the bugs and holes that have yet to be patched up before the game is released. Thanks for the feedback by the way.

The armies aren't anything incredible, but still pretty decent. The highest population you can reach is 300. (infantry cost 1 population slot, horsemen cost 2 slots, and chariots and elephants cost around 3. There will be an importance in formations in this game. Phalanxes, syntagmas, wedges, and skirmishes are some of the more unique formations that give bonuses, but you still have formations such as box, closed/open line formations, etc,... These have small bonuses too. For instance, the box gives additional defense against archery. Ambushes, charging, and many other cool kinds of tactics are to be included. Therefore, this game will have pretty decent tactical scale.

I don't blame them for being scared. Great artwork by the way.

If this is implemented, does it mean that there would possibly be blocking animations?

Well you have to take into account that every other faction's soldiers would plunder resources. Actually though, there is a Celtic Hero that gives a plunder bonus.

Phases do cost you resources, just like in Age of Empires.

to julius1 You are right about there being no ages in 0 A.D. Instead, you have "phases". The phases are a lot like ages except that they show advancement in your civilization instead of the civilization aging away. They go as follows: Village phase, Town phase, City phases, and then I think that it is Empire phase, but I may be mistaken. to Alpha of the Eagles you made a pretty good point, but the Roman Hastati are actually swordsmen. Only once they reach the elite rank do they have the capability to hurl spears.

Well, the name Thorfinn the Shallow Minded is comes from two sources, my head and and a book. I have several books about the Viking Age and like reading them. In one of mine, there are several genealogies about Norse jarls, hersir, kings, etc,... and I found it pretty fun reading them because of the interesting titles that were given. One of my favorite names though, was Thorfinn. although few Thorfinns have been able to match with infamous pirates such as Harald Hadraada, I liked the ring of the name so I selected it. The title "Shallow Minded" came from the gracious woman Aud the Deep-Minded, freer of Vifil the grandfather of Gudrid who had a son named Snorri Sturlson who was the author of the Poetic Edda and has given us insight into some of the most fascinating Norse literature. Anyway, I didn't like the title "Deep-Minded because it sounded inaccurate. Instead, I chose "Shallow-Minded", since it seemed to fit my IQ, which I think is relatively low.