[Celts or Gauls?]

Haven't seen a source for that either. Can't be certain against it, as times before the Dorians reached Southern Greece are actually pre-historic, but I guess that's mostly a theory rather than something with proof.

[Celts or Gauls?]

Dorians were one of various tribes amongst the latest ancient settlers of the Greek region. They certainly wouldn't be the first Greeks, by regional definition. (On "racial" definition don't get me started, most people here in Greece believe in bullshit due to nationalist propaganda). However they were not that many, so if what you say holds true (first time I hear about it though) it's more possible that Dorians were a branch of Celts than the opposite.

[Diplomacy AI]

Vassals are interesting in RTS, always thought about them missing. Their main features could be a percentage of gathered resources going to their overlord, and possibly the ability for him to train or control some of their troops. Or even reducing their pop cap and adding that amound to the overlord's pop cap. However I'm not sure what's the best way to implement them. Instant defeat if they choose to break off like Lion said (did i get it right?), might be ok-ish as gameplay but not realistic. But then if they can break off, what's the purpose of keeping them instead of annihilating them. It could be somehow desired for exploiting the benefits and then maybe crush them before the totally rebuild though. Or, make them totally fixed for the rest of the match. Overall it could be a nice mechanic but needs a lot of work and balancing.

[Teams assigned to maps]

They are the most balanced and best looking (together with the scenarios, but the later have less host options), so I like them as the first option. Random maps might have more choices, but until texture blending and map generation are improved, they won't look that great (on balance I'm not sure which of them are intended to be unbalanced and which are not). So it's better for the game to promote it's currently best maps.

Btw, are the generic Hellenes and Celts updated/rebalanced in line with the main factions? I thought they wouldn't be so I'm skipping the scenarios including them so far.

[Unit And Building Names]

Pyrovolos would be the right one, meaning fire striker/launcher/thrower. "Pallo" means swing, "Vallo" means launch/fire/strike/throw and they are verbs so "Pyropallo" (I doubt this word even exists/makes any sense at all) or "Pyrovallo" would be the verb forms of it.

[Suggestions for 0 A.D.]

Euh, melee infantry also adds arrows to ships (I guess ships have the bows available )

Didn't know, didn't even try actually:p, thinking they wouldn't add damage, like in land garrisons. Still the power of garrisoned vs ungarrisoned ships and vs land units needs some major check.

there should probably be a garrison cooldown.

American conquest had a single-file garrison system that worked very well.

when a building came down before they were all ejected, those units were lost, and surrounding units were damaged.

I do have to say, stuffing a siege tower with pikemen make them very resilient to a cavalry charge

The problem with this is that it can cause a lot of micro. If your units get damage when the tower is destroyed, but not when you eject them when the tower is at f.e. 10hp, a good micro player will eject his units just before the destroy point.

I do agree that there should be some way to punish those units that are ejected. Keeping trac of the damage being dealt while the unit was in the tower, and applying a fraction of the damage to the unit seems too complicated to me. And it defeats the purpose of garrisoning, which is defense for the unit.

Maybe we can disable the fighting ability of unit who are just ungarrisoned? So when an ungarrison happens in the middle of a battle, they are in serious problems. But I have no idea how we would make it look natural.

I don't really like this, not even just more micro, but also inability for the attacker to know what bonus damage he will suffer for attacking, and complete lack of realism (you can't deploy a spear/pike phalanx in a tower).

Btw, the other problem is that moving siege towers aren't attackable (units keep chasing them without attacking). But this should be fixed in a few days.

Yup, indeed, still they'll probably be overpowered though, even if less, when with garrison they can one-shot almost any unit.

[Suggestions for 0 A.D.]

And if you have a Army with Elephants why don't think the scythe can use all counter elephants, with ships I can say how counter that, I said today that to Ieper about naval maps. Be need coastal defense Buldings may be, but Helepolis it's good in that shape, May can be good thinks tactics to counter that for each civs.

You got me completely wrong there. I never said there shouldn't be a counter to elephants, nor my point about was Skirmishers/Javelinmen. I said that the elephants are the only counter to Helepolis full of ranged units, and only if they are too many. But, if the ranged units in the Helepolis are Javelinmen, (which Macedon has available) they can ungarrison them and kill the elephants easily. So there's NO counter for the Helepolis + Javelinman combo. And only one counter for Helepolis + other ranged troops, mass elephants, which is not even available to all civs.

With ships you can counter that by doing the same, but still ships like that can unrealisticly and easily wreck any units on the shore, and it feels just wrong to have 40 units inside every ship to have a competent naval force while the entire population cap is 300 or less. Added to that, it makes ranged troops the only good option as ship crews, and a must have-one way strategy making naval engagements boring. So reducing the bonus there, to make ungarrisoned ships at least competent against (ofc still weaker than) garrisoned would make much sense. Coupled with other options (bonus for melee crews, ramming, capturing etc), which I guess can wait till naval warfare gets some major love.

[2 Preguntas]

Thebans would be nice and not too much work. Could also consider having Parthians (approx 250BC-250AD) for the first part and with Sassinids instead of them for the Second part. The Parthians were an main rival for the Seleucids, from as early as their beginnings and fought the Romans as well, well before the AD times. They could use a mix of Persian (mostly) and maybe some Seleucid assets to make them easily.

[Suggestions for 0 A.D.]

The siege towers have been fixed AFAIK. They now only fire 0.5 arrows per soldier. Are you sure you're talking about the current version?

Changing it to 0.25 isn't hard, but I don't think it's really needed.

For me it's no highly needed not all players know that, full a tower it's difficult, produce one take time with full units. It's more when you are closing to win or when you are near to unbalance the victory to your side.

ok but its not too strong if you have to counter. for a good reason its one most good machine to take cities.

sorry the before answer is for CC about early stage. now the navies can be like buildings or platform with units over them. the naval gameplay its cant a be big issue for now. with the lobby naval battles can be explored. i never play a naval battle in this game.

Speaking of alpha 15, not SVN (if you mean that). And even if at half, 231 damage, it one-shots almost anything.

They are definitely overpowered. Full army (me) vs most army (scythetwirler - as he used some to distract my ally).

• Scythe has 160 skirmishers, most of them in 6 Helepolis
• I have on first occasion 100+ archers, 30+ Armored Elephants, 50+ other troops (mostly spearmen)
• I have on second occasion almost full pop of Melee cavalry

-First occasion, the spearmen soak some missiles, the elephants could beat the helepolis with crush damage upon reaching them, but tada! Skirmishers ungarrisoned, bye elephants. Obviously lost the fight with minor losses for scythe.

-Second occasion, I lost around 200 melee cavalry in seconds, without even killing a tower or unit. And melee cavalry is supposed to be anti-siege.

Ofc scythe's a great micro-er and far better than me in general, but still I think you get the point. Nothing can counter those in the current game state. Loaded ships with missile troops are the water version of this.

[Suggestions for 0 A.D.]

Some factions have starting civilian units that counter other civilian units from a different faction. Romans can wipe out Macedonian civilian soldiers. If another player can wipe out the first 15 working units of the game, the game is dramatically delayed and victory is guaranteed for the early rusher. Do you make a racing game just so that people have the ability to run you off the course completely at start?

Starting units are always of 3 different types (excluding females), as many as the civ center units. No matter what the opponent trains, you'll have a counter or an equal available. It's a bit of a gamble, but scouting can reduce that. The rush attack army has to walk to you, not working and not having fast reinforcements, giving the advantage to the defender. Besides player skill only luck in troop composition and position of strike can be of advantage to the attacker, but they may as well be for the defender. Overall rushes can feel like a cheat/sure victory, but that's just cause they are usually preferred by good players (especially at micro). Those players would usually win anyway, even if it goes to booming for both. The game is not that racing, it's actually well bellow average speed for RTS, something I do like.

Usually I'm annoyed by rushes as well, but they're not unfair or game-breaking, you just need to learn dealing with them.

Maybe we should make the CC arrows stronger and the range bigger (but don't give (a lot of) extra arrows for garrisoned soldiers). This way, people could be working in the protection of the CC, and rushes should be countered easier.

Its suppose to be in early stage none faction can attack effectiveness to others, even the AI.

This could work, but not changing it too much. Also, about building range/base attack, i haven't noticed, are they slightly above archer stats? I think they should.

Another issue. The Macedonian tower "Helepolis" is seriously broken/overpowered. It can reach 462 attack with 20 ranged units inside, it attacks while moving and has enough protection to kill anything sent against it (only a huge elephant army could beat 6 of those towers with heavy loses, only to fail when the skirmishers inside got ungarrisoned striking the eles with bonus damage, and even an almost full pop melee cavalry force failed to get even one of the towers! There's no real counter to them if the controller knows what he's doing).

1. They should either be limited to 1 (the Helepolis was 1 anyway)
2. Or be given something like 1/4 of the attack per garrisoned unit
3. Or have garrison size reduced.
4. Make them unable to attack while moving (however they could attack while moving in reality so not best fix imo)
5. Further nerf their hit points (not their biggest issue though, could even be buffed again if the attack gets really debuffed)

Same could apply to ships as well (fix 2 could be a good universal fix, as small transport capacity would make transporting really tedious), as they get extremely strong with garrisoned ranged units, and maybe buildings (especially forts) as well, but to a lesser extend since they are immobile at least. 1/4rth bonus damage for each ranger for Helepolis and Ships and 1/2 for Structures (or just forts) would be great imo.

[Suggestions for 0 A.D.]

Well rushing is perfectly ok for some reasons (besides being annoying sometimes, for new players and people liking other playstyles more, myself included):

• People see it as a way to spend less time per match.
• Usually it can be countered without major loses unless the attacker is a clearly better player.
• It's just another possible playstyle, and it would be mean to people who like it to have it forbidden.

[Naming Things]

Probably means something like naming the one hoplite "Mike" and the other "Agathocles".

[Are there any strategy guides?]

I'm not saying it's that hard to find:) But the vast majority of people keep playing cluelessly or ask for advice in game. It's their choice being lazy but makes it hard to find a proper match.

That's why I would like to have it somewhere directly in front of their eyes to make them remember to check for tips:p.

[Are there any strategy guides?]

The econ tutorial is that "challenge" at which you have to build things in time before the next are suggested? Having it at a more obvious position might be a nice start, it's kinda hidden where it is.

Edit: Feuner, this part actuall looks pretty good for a general direction, if only it was at a more obvious place as well.

I'd say placing a guide link directly on the frontpage, or a bot comment at upon lobby entrance saying "new players go there and check that for help".

[Concept: Persian Horse Archers]

Were they mercenaries, not vassal allies?

[Are there any strategy guides?]

http://trac.wildfiregames.com/wiki/0adManual

I think most new players would prefer something more basic, like "mind your dropside distances", "build an early barracks", "check what unit is stronger against the units you face" etc. Like a short-ish compilation of begginer tips.

[Are there any strategy guides?]

Yeah that's a good idea:) It could have bits about everything game-related, while guides should be linked to the frontpage of the wiki. Then the wiki could be linked to the frontpage of 0 AD or the main page of the forums. Or perhaps a guides subforum of this is too much trouble.

[Are there any strategy guides?]

Hey vmos did we play yesterday:)?

I was thinking of making a basic multiplayer guide (since I'm no expert myself), with tips on efficiency, speed, generic build orders etc, also including issues like hosting problems. Thing is, where would it be linked to be obvious/visible to people? I find myself facing new players all they time and giving them tips instead of having a real fight. And pretty often, people who can't really host create a game, wait, none joins and none can explain to them what's the issue, cause the chats aren't linked in same way, and then log off, probably never to return for some of them.

[Suggestions for 0 A.D.]

Wait, there's worse than scythetwirler?

[Concept: Persian Horse Archers]

I was thinking of giving the Achaemenids a Scythian Horse Archer as a Champion unit. Maybe give them War Elephants too, but perhaps with a train limit (say, 10 or something). That reminds me, I need to change the civ naming schema. (pers->achae, rome->romerep, so we can have other Persian and Roman civs later).

Nice:) Will they replace the Bactrians or just an extra champion? Limmited elephants could work for other factions as well, like Rome (maybe after marian reforms at the auxiliary camp?) and Macedon (actually used the quite a lot, if you consider Alexander and Western based Successors like the Antigonids, they probably used more elephants than the Ptolemies and almost certainly the Persians). The Persians could also use some change/buff in the early game, they seem the weaker by far (ranged micro player ability excluded).

[Concept: Persian Horse Archers]

Agreed with this. And they definitely were used more by the Persians than the Seleucids that now have them.

[Joining the Multiplayer Lobby]

Yup port needs to be opened both on rooter and firewall, I forgot that at first. Btw I'm still slacking around the lobby, move there for a match forumers!

[Joining the Multiplayer Lobby]

For anyone having host issues (people not being able to join etc) for me it didn't work by UPnP, but worked with port forwarding. It also seems like the server has lag issues when people attempt to host more than one game at the same time.

It needs work but it's a great step for the game. Already had great fun in two matches so far and multiplayer gameplay is already shaping up nicely:)

[Joining the Multiplayer Lobby]

Oh yeah, I downloaded alpha 14:p. So who's gonna host games at the lobby? Will some people/team members have that extra ability so it works somehow for sure? Or it will work at times while others not for now?

[Joining the Multiplayer Lobby]

I'm currently downloading the new alpha and I'd love to join the lobby and start having multiplayer matches. However I remember reading somewhere that you'll still need to do something with the IP to join. Is it just giving your address? Opening some port (if so which one)? Could someone explain?