Prodigal Son

I think just making them a little smaller would look nice and closer to the original. But it will look great without them as well, like a more detailed version of the age of mythology lighthouse:)

I'm little by little making an ancient themed RTS on the Warcraft 3 world editor. While I like strategy game design and how it turns out, WC3 is fantasy themed and lacking modeling/skinning skills reduces my enthousiasm (and I turn out to focus mostly on my other hobbies, like writting punk rock music). The gameplay and faction design is mostly done, it was actually playable with 4 factions and AI until I broke many things to alter the core gameplay. Is anyone here familiar with WC3 modding and willing to help or make it as a team? I'd mostly need minor model/skin edits, but anything from triggering/terraining better than mine to just advice or playtesting is welcome. I'm also using 0 A.D. icons on it (I hope it's ok since it's freeware) to give more of an ancient era feel and plan to advertise 0 A.D. within the map and on the hosting forums. If someone is interested I'll post more details.

I've actually found a reference (War Elephants, By John M. Kistler) to 20 Pathian War Elephants being used against the Seleucids in 130bc, so maybe they could have them as well.

About elephants, I've read that there are claims they were used in other campaigns as well but some doubt it. Anyway I'm not suggesting to have them as a main champion unit, but as a tech-unlocked one if this idea gets accepted. About horse archers, sure they were not used as much as by parthians or steppe nomads but they certainly had them. Both in as local troops and as nearby/vassal nomads that they often used in battles. So I believe they could be an unlockable unit as well. I still might be wrong with this or other of my points, I just like this idea a lot and would love to see it in game. Some of those units were core army parts for their factions for sure anyway. Edit (thought of how it could work in more detail, added to the bottom of the OP as well): It could work like, each civ has 2 champion units by default (or more for factions having some civ bonus on this). Those would be the most commonly used or better gameplay serving ones, mixing best with the rest of each civs unit line up. Then with reform techs new ones would replace some of the default champion units (or even some citizen-soldiers in some cases for a bigger cost). Other techs would unlock extra champion units for some civs instead of replacing old ones, when it fits historical accuracy or gameplay. This should generally cost more than reform techs as it would broaden the available unit rooster. The number of extra units granted this way and the cost of the reform/unlock techs could besides following historical accuracy depend on late game faction strenght. So say the Gauls prove weaker in late game, they could have cheaper reform/unlock techs or more extra champions than other factions.

I think they're planed for Seleucids and Ptolemaics. The Persians could also have them as they used them, at least against the Lydians and some part II civs could have them as well.

Thanks:) The icons are just used for a non-comercial map in Warcraft III. Like an atlas scenario, only in Warcraft you can include imported files in maps.

I know, that's why I said it's just a suggestion that's coming from personal preference. Never said it's intended to be used the modern way. Anyway I guess I shouldn't have mentioned it, at least in this topic, it totally distracts from the rest of my post.

I think it's kinda different with it being the main game logo, but anyway, don't wanna make a big deal out of it, just a suggestion:)

Hey and welcome! I think it's great overall but you should sacrifice some length (and maybe make the front part a little smaller overall) to make it better fitting in game.

Extra Italics are my comments on Mytho's comments.

Nice, glad some of them might prove useful:) Do you want me to post the part II specific ones as well? Edit: Since I made the post anyway, here they are: Citizenship: some kind of buff for roman auxiliary troops or turning them into legionares Envenomed missiles: Scythian horse archer also deal a small damage over time (or increases their attack) Full Scalemale: Increases Scythian (or other as well) Catafract armor Lorica Segmentata: Increases the missile protection of legionares Testudo formation: Unlocks it for extra missile protection while in this formation. Steppe Hardiness: Increases the hit point regeneration of Scythian/Hun organic units Scythian (and/or Hun) Civ Bonus: Buildings besides civ centers cost no resources. They are build from pack horses or carts (which can also double as resource drop-points), an extra "worker" unit. Those have a fixed cost and can transform into buildings. Buildings can pack back into a pack horse/cart like siege weapons, and can be redeployed/rebuilt into any other building since it's essential a just a tent. Scythian (and/or Hun) Civ Bonus 2: each phase up grants 2(?) pack horses/carts at the researching civ center. Urbanisation: Increases Scythian building hitpoints and grants them access to some greek (bosphoran units). It disables the ability to pack buildings back into horses. And some ones I didn't post for part I since they are somewhat simular to existing techs but they could be used this way (each one disables the rest): Offensive Core Infantry: Increases the attack damage or attack rate of swordsmen. Defensive Core Infantry: Increases the hit points or armor of spearmen. Pike Core Infantry: Increases the movement speed of pikemen. Guerrilla Core Infantry: Increases the attack damage or attack rate and movement speed of skirmishers. I'm also using celtic war dogs as cheap/weak age I zergling-like units trained from the farm/house for rushes, which is fun and gives a new mechanic to the celts but I guess is ahistorical.

I'm not trying to put presure on anything, just suggesting things, knowing there's still much to change. On your examples, I'm aware of most of them but I believe they are rather speciffic situations instead of combat rules: - Swordsmen could hamstring elephants with heavy casualties if they were well drilled and brave. Imagine an equally brave and drilled pikewall though. It would butcher the beasts much more easily, if they dared to charge it. - Archers could kill some cavalry at range and generally get butchered at the first contact. I get what you did there, and as I said it's ok, balance comes first and I'll love the game anyway. Maybe though Spear Cavalry could beat archers as well, as it should be no different than Sword Cavalry in this aspect, and Skirmisher Cavalry get beat by archers instead, representing that it generally didn't charge, so at range archers have the advantage of extra range, stability and a bigger target. - Archers should be the kinda the same vs swordsmen and spearmen, again I find the examples situational. Sword or spear doesn't change armor/shield, and the change in mobility and melee attack vs a mostly defenseless at close range target should be minor.

I'm not entirely sure about the formation system and how it will turn out. So far all the best RTS games I've played use single unit combat, with unrealistic but balanced unit counters, kinda like 0 AD is now. It could turn out well though if worked correctly. I think I've seen it suggested before, maybe a Total War like combat system would fit better with formation combat. Or there's the other way, of soft counters and unit roles instead of fixed hard counters. Warcraft-esque style. The article I've linked above has an interesting part about this. The most easy solution overall would be just keeping the Age Of Empires style hard counters that are now in the game while trying to make them as realistic as possible without breaking balance.

Up to this it sounds great: I like the idea of fixed value per building appearing at the market and the market also slowly generating them. It could also work combined with a percentage of fallen enemies as captive slaves. However the rest sounds overcomplicated for an RTS.

How about an aura for some units, like champion cavalry and elephants, that slightly reduces the attack damage or attack rate of nearby enemy units, representing their intimitation? A tech version of it ("elephant bells") could make elephants even more fearsome. A "(Promise of) Afterlife" tech at temple could simularly slightly increase the attack damage or attack rate of organic units. A Faith tech at temple to increase Priest hit points. A Coinage tech could give an amount of metal per ally in game each X seconds. (Would this need triggers to be implemented first?) A Fire Arrows tech to make archers, ships, and structures more effective against structures, ships, siege and war elephants. A "Footwear/Boots/Sandals" tech to increase infantry speed. A Gladius tech to increase Roman Swordmen attack or slightly reduce their attack while increasing their attack rate. A Heavy Horses (Mounts) vs Swift (Fast) Horses tech pair to grant cavalry hit points or speed accordingly. An "Import Elephants" tech that allows factions who occasionally used War Elephants an extra champion unit without breaking balance. See here for more related ideas. An "Imported Construction Techonology" that makes previously weaker Roman Ships/Siege/Structures on par with or slightly better than greek and carthaginian ones. A Linothorax tech that makes hoplites slightly faster and slightly more ressistant to missiles. A "Logistics" tech that makes Roman infantry cost half population. Or reduces their training time. A "Loom" tech that increases female villager hit points. An "Athletic Games" tech that increases citizen soldier (or champion to simulate famous victors?) hit points and/or movement speed. A Marksmanship tech to increase the attack damage or attack rate of archers. A Medicine tech to increase/add hit point regenaration of human units (all minus celts). Will we have regeneration? A "Herbal Lore" tech that increases druid healing (celts) An "Advanced Blacksmithing" tech to increase Celtic melee unit attack on village phase. A "Crossbreeding" tech to increase war dog hit points and/or attack A "Trimarcisia" tech to increase/add hit point regeneration of Gallic Champion Cavalry. All these are a little offering from my Warcraft 3 custom ancient RTS, some are my ideas, some other are copied from games like age of empires and total war, maybe some would fit into 0 A.D. I've got a few extra more that could work for Part II civs.

Are the unit counter roles desided to work as they are now? Will they go away or change once formations are implemented? Some of them seem unrealistic like: -Swords Counter Elephants. Spearmen, especially pikemen should be better than this due to range and swordsmen should be weak or unbonused in this field. A fire arrows tech could also work as an addition to skirmishers (who are already bonused). -SpearCavalry weak against Archers but SwordCavalry strong against them doesn't make much sense. There's actually quite a lot more like those, no point going in detail I guess. I know it's hard to transform realistic combat into balanced rock-paper-scissors and it wouldn't be gamebreaking for me even as it is now. I'm just wondering if there's going to be any focus on making it as realistic as possible and how the combat system will finally work in general. There's interesting article here quite short while informative and a part of it discusses balance and counters (even if it mostly has fantasy/sci-fi examples).

I like your new one better LordGood:) The blocky roof on four tiny collumns looks a little strange on the old one.

I've come across some ideas while testing the game and this thread inspired me to come up with some suggestions: I believe the Seleucids should get another spearcavalry (could be Thessalian/Macedonian Settlers/Xystophoroi, Galatians or Median/Persian Lancers) with the Companions being made into a champion like the Macedonian one. Antiochus III's Companions (and I guess Seleucid ones in general) where quite devastating. Even in defeats like Raphia and Magnesia they routed their opposing enemy flank (at Magnesia actually being a Roman legion, not cavalry or light troops). If there's an issue with Cataphracts being a Champion spearcavalry as well, the Cataphracts could be made into a tech upgrade of the Companions with increased armor and reduced speed (Though both units coexisted even after the introduction of Cataphracts).If the above brings an issue of too many champions for them (see bellow as well) the Scythed Chariots can become normal units, they were quite outdated and ineffective anyway. Models could be the persian ones with armored riders or just one of them working as skirites and other one-rank citizen soldiers. A simular downgrading could work for the Maurayan Chariots as well. Edit: How about all chariots as one rank non champion units that can't gather? Makes the most sense to me.The Seleucids could get the Maurayan bonus of many champion units, since it fits them well with so many different units and subjects and the Maurayans could get something else. Or both could share it (or see bellow).I'm not too fond of Ptolemaics having only native phalanx, since its use was limited compared to Greek/Macedonian one. Seleucids as well could have the Silver Shield Pikemen as a champion and a regular phalanx as spear infantry. Same with Macedonians and a pezaitaros/bronze shield phalanx and an Agema one. Having 2 x pike units for those factions could be an overkill from a gameplay perspective though.Now to the major idea: Champion units in general could be somewhat redesigned. Like some of them requiring reform techs (that would replace another champion when applicable): Spartan Pikemen (Cleomenian Reforms) - Add them or replace Spartan Hoplites with themSeleucid Cataphract Reforms - Add them or replace Companion Cavalry with themSeleucid/Ptolemaic Thorakites/Infantry Romanisation ReformsMacedonian Late Pikemen (Perseus Reforms) with heavier armor. This could also be a paired tech with a cavalry tech or contain a cavalry debuff to reflect the increasing focus on phalanx and the decline of cavalry in late Antigonid Macedonia.Macedonian Royal PeltastsPersian War Elephants, Horse Archers and Kardakes/Mercenery Hoplites (as core game units)Carthaginian Sacred Band Cavalry (as core game unit)Athenian Iphicratian Hoplites/PeltastsMauryan Elephant Archer turned into champion (as any elephant unit should imo)Cretan Archers/Rhodian Slingers could also be champion mercenaries replaced by some generic levy versions as citizens.There's more I can't think of now I guess. Even Marian Reforms could work this way if you deside to implement them. It would work sweetly with having more famous/fancy champion units without breaking the game balance since the reform/research techs could be priced accordingly. Edit: It could work like, each civ has 2 champion units by default (or more for factions having some civ bonus on this). Those would be the most commonly used or better gameplay serving ones, mixing best with the rest of each civs unit line up. Then with reform techs new ones would replace some of the default champion units (or even some citizen-soldiers in some cases for a bigger cost). Other techs would unlock extra champion units for some civs instead of replacing old ones, when it fits historical accuracy or gameplay. This should generally cost more than reform techs as it would broaden the available unit rooster. The number of extra units granted this way and the cost of the reform/unlock techs could besides following historical accuracy depend on late game faction strength. So say the Gauls prove weaker in late game, they could have cheaper reform/unlock techs or more extra champions than other factions.

Greetings people:) I'm Nikos, from Greece. I've been frequently checking this game for a long while now, since I love ancient history and strategy games. Haven't played much since the lag is quite annoying (I'm not whinning, I've read what causes it) and when I tried multiplayer a year or so ago it proved hard to find other players. But overall I'm quite impressed and I want to thank you all for the hard work and say this has great potential. I made a forum account some years ago but somehow forgot my password and didn't bother to get it back until now, but I've been lurking around and checking progress frequently. I have no real programmer or graphic skills to really help on development but I'll try sharing some thoughts around the forums from now on. Besides that I'm little by little making an ancient themed RTS on the Warcraft 3 world editor. While I like strategy game design and how it turns out, WC3 is fantasy themed and lacking modeling/skinning skills reduces my enthousiasm (and I turn out to focus mostly on my other hobbies, like writting punk rock music). The gameplay and faction design is mostly done, it was actually playable with 4 factions and AI until I broke many things to alter the core gameplay. Is anyone here familiar with WC3 modding and willing to help or make it as a team? I'd mostly need minor model/skin edits, but anything from triggering/terraining better than mine to just advice or playtesting is welcome. I'm also using 0 A.D. icons on it (I hope it's ok since it's freeware) to give more of an ancient era feel and plan to advertise 0 A.D. within the map and on the hosting forums. Lastly, any hope on changing the Celtic Cross (or anyway extremely simular) game logo, since nowadays it's a fascist symbol? I know it's not intended to promote fascism and it fits with the game but I'd prefer something else.

Perhaps you could have both Parthians and Sassanids in the game for part II without much extra work and making sense (like the Greek and Celtic factions): - Simular buildings and many common units, since they mostly had the same territory. - They briefly fought against each other during the part II timeframe - Sassinids should have a some heavy infantry power plus more elephant and mostly catafract focus - Parthians should have only weak infantry, good catafracts, (maybe) no elephants and more of a horse archer focus. Parthian timeframe is almost equally split between the two game parts so they could also fit for part I. They could also be considered for having some of the nomad faction mechanics since they started as nomads before occupying a revolted seleucid satrapy.

Nice to see both things will be included. On capturing it could be partly random on if the losing ship sinks or gets captured, or maybe depending on the type of attack used against it.

What i'd love to see about sea combat, nomatter what way you end up doing with the crews, would be capturable ships. It was a frequent and important sea battle event and most games don't include it. Even if no mobile crews exist, it could work with some special ability and a "ressistance left" bar like the stamina/xp bars. Or the same way buildings are captured when you impement it, the same mechanic could work i guess? Another note on ships, will the trade ship just gather treasures in the final version or also trade between docks? The gather thing alone is kinda pointless imo.

I talked about the AOE influences because it's pretty much the most simular out of the 4-5 strategy game editors i've used. As of layout, looks, current functions etc. No clue on code. Glad to see you plan to include this feature, way to go:) And the more functions and ease to use it the better, it can keep this game to life for very long.

The object editor can actually do that as well:) A new "town hall" that creates new villagers/soldiers, who can build new structures which have have new units and techs. Or some new and some existing ones, works whatever way you adjust it. Only thing it can't do is adding the new "faction" at the selection menu, so i guess that's where an extra function would be useful. For those new units/building etc, you can adjust the existing models/icons or use the import system that saves imported models and icons within the map. I'd be really pleased with an object editor even without the import option if that's hard.

This is my first post although I've been following progress for years and have played most of the alpha's. I must say I love the awesome work you people have put here and how it moves on:) I'd like to suggest something on the way the editor works and it's possibilities. I have no clue on programming so not sure if those things are really hard, or if they are doable as additions to the existing editor. Have you seen the Warcraft 3 world editor? It works quite differently in many aspects than the 0AD one (and the age of empires one which i guess is the main influence on 0AD). There's many interesting extra possibilities on it that you can check, but what mostly want to focus on is the object editor part. It allows for customizing the stats, abilities and models of units, buildings and doodads (as well as creating completely new ones) within the editor with much ease, and saves any changes in the map file. It's a very usefull and interesting feature for mapmaking, and one of the main reasons for WC3's lasting power as a game all those years. Would such a feature be possible in 0AD?