satchitb

I must play this </awe>

Indeed, UDLR is Up, Down, Left, Right. Any fixes for loading/unloading bugs possible?

No conversion? Shucks. I'm really interested by this. I like the idea of one-shot luck-based kills, but honestly, in a raiding party of 20 (which is pretty sizeable given a pop of 200), a little bit of luck can take the meat out of the attack very fast. I would also warn against the idea of attack speed becoming more important than the simple attack/defense paradigm we're currently in. Changes in attack speed are always less subtle than in attack (you might have five or six states for attack speed, but attack can range from 1-50). In such a situation, squads of cheap, quick attacking units will be able to wipe out a legion of hoplites. As a non-coder, I can't speak with much authority, but it strikes me that a morale/injury system would be distinctly difficult to do. Imagine if you win a Pyrrhic victory, and your troops are victorious but running ragged. For your next offensive, you mix them with fresh reinforcements. In your next battle, it isn't hard to envision the new troops fighting hard and the old ones bolting. I've played Age of Empires II and III since their release, and I've almost never used formations. There simply isn't enough time to focus on that. Balancing infantry and archers, FFing, using terrain and choke points (and, of course the handy Patrol trick ), all the while keeping an eye on your economy took all your time. While I like advanced tactics playing a role, I just don't see more than a handful of formations being used (when going through a narrow pass, infantry and cavalry MUST go before archers ).

Thanks for the replies. I have more to report! 7a. Gaia elements like trees have health bars displayed upon mousover. IMO, they should only show their health on click, else a player is liable to be confused with the multitude of health bars popping up. b. Gaia indicators on the minimap are of the same thickness and opacity as unit indicators, which even in 1P game make things confusing. When more players of different colours enter the game, it will become still more confusing deciphering what is an enemy/ally and what is gaia. Plus, it makes the minimap more cluttered. 8a. When you fully zoom in, then move to an area at a greater height, and back, the camera doesn't zoom in again. In other words, it doesn't "stick" to the ground, and shows a zoomed out view of the first area. b. UDLR doesn't adapt to a changed camera angle. This makes controls very confusing when you prefer a different angle. Also, it may be possible to adapt to different control when the map is rotated to standard angles like 90, 180, etc, but not when rotated to intermediary angles. I'd like UDLR to function independent of the angle to which the map is turned, because that is the most intuitive. 9a. There isn't any movement indicator, like the red X in AoE, so you don't really know where you've clicked. It would be helpful. b. It's impossible to have units move in a field without their beginning to farm. The only way to get them "through" a field is to click on the other side, which may not have been scouted. c. The attack cursor appears for a huge radius around an enemy unit. Not only does this make attacking a particular unit that much more difficult, but it also means inadvertently attacking when you don't want to. 10a. Why are there "alt" versions of each unit? For example, there are Hellenstic hoplites with different styles of helmets. Clicking on them reveals that one set has a yellow diamond next to their picture, and the other set a white diamond. I like the variety, but if you double click on a hoplite, only the surrounding hoplite of the same version are selected, when all should be selected. b. Unit stats are not displayed when you click on a unit. 11a. Loading units on to a ship can be performed from a huge range. I had a ship that was more than ten squares from the coast, and I was able to get a unit on to it. I was also able to get a unit to board a ship from the top of a mountain. That shouldn't be possible. b. Unloading a ship can be performed anywhere. I had a unit offloaded in the middle of the sea (IIRC, there is only one gradient for water?), where it was able to move freely on the sea bed. 12a. When units are crowded around a building, it naturally has problems spawning further units. However, when it encounters this problem, rather than pausing production, it cancels all further production. Further, an ugly code-filled notification pops up in yellow in the upper left corner of the screen. b. When multiple ships are selected, they have trouble moving. When a ship is blocked by terrain or by other ships, ALL the ships in the group stop. This means that you have to chart a circuitous and laborious route for the ships, all the while keeping a close eye on them. 13. The LoS of hippeus and trieres is way, way too much. You can see things on the opposite side of a mountain. 14. Gates don't function. 15. Meat doesn't rot. You can leave a carcass around for the whole game, and it won't drop in value. 16. No gather points implemented yet. 17. No animations for fish or for fishing, in the form of nets or anything. 18. No animation for oars. ^sorry for the last two. I know you are currently sans animator, but I just thought I'd point these out.

6a. It is possible to build buildings that are partly submerged. I built an Agora that was neck deep in water. Units spawned on the dry land by the coast. b. While it's not possible to complete buildings that are wholly submerged (builders give it two whacks with a hammer and then give up), you can still lay the foundation, which costs resources. c. When you have insufficient resources to build a certain building, you get notified only after placing the building. IMO, it should be as soon as you click on the button, or maybe those buildings you cannot build ought to be greyed out.

Hi. I'm new here, but since I don't code, I thought I'd point out a few bugs. They might sound obvious, but I couldn't find them mentioned after searching the forums. System: Ubuntu 10.10 0AD Version: Alpha 4 1a. Animals, when hunted, sometimes bleed, but never turn into a carcass. They just become immobile. b. Animals walk around, but don't fight back, which is ok in the case of gazelle, but not for elephants. c. Gazelle flee, but not chickens or elephants. d. Peltastes thrakaikos (thrakaikossa?) can't hunt chickens. They take about three spears to kill a chicken, and have to get into minimum range. Hand-to-hand units have no problems in killing chickens and thrakaikossa can kill gazelle without problems. e. Some animals have movement animations (like fleeing gazelle), but for the most part, they just glide. This is especially true of elephants. 2a. I could find very few default shortcuts. I found some basic commands like Del, Q, E, G, etc, but on a whole, it requires too much mouse movement. b. There no shortcuts in the menus. Simple things like Esc and Enter would go a long way towards making the game more playable. c. There ought to be a button to quit to desktop right from the post-game screen, instead of going through two or three more screens. 3a. I understand that the unit AI is very limited. For example, the AI will attack the closest unit no matter what. Cavalry will not attack ranged units just a few steps away because they're focused on fighting hoplites. I was able to counter an offensive of 20 units with just 5, as the enemy got preoccupied attacking my Agora. b. Your units have a supernatural ability to search for resources. I assigned some units to farming, and once the farms were exhausted, they moved to the other piece of farmland that I had discovered: in the enemy base, on the other side of the map. Please fix; else your units will get massacred. c. Marching units will not attack even if attacked. 4. Cavalry units like hippeus don't move much faster than hoplites, when, being on horseback, they ought to. 5. Hellenes is the only available civilisation, except on specific maps where you are specifically assigned a different civ (Celts is the only alt civ you can use). I really like this game, so expect more feedback