Prodigal Son

I think @wowgetoffyourcellphone's mod DE has a kinda similar system, you might want to check it.

@av93 The heavy skirmishers (Thureophoroi) would often be mercenaries, other times levies. Kardakes were of debatable origins and combat role. Theories that I'm aware of describe them as Kurds (or others) in Persian service or as a Persian unit after reforms, as light troops with varied equipment or as hoplite influenced. @MlemandPurrs Stoa has no relation to mercenaries.

Indeed for BFME series, though some other were underpowered, making things even worse. On 0 A.D. heroes I'm not sure for their removal but I mostly lean towards it. Besides balance issues, for me they limit historical immersion to a degree. I don't like to see, say, Leonidas available in every Spartan match-up in which I might want to simulate a completely unrelated conflict. Depends on the battalion mechanics. If you have to manage facing, morale, charge/running, stamina, stance, skills or any combination of a good number of those for each battalion, I strongly disagree. A simple, fixed battalion system, essentialy just a single multi-actor entity per battalion, would certainly have that effect of reduced micro, but to me it would feel incomplete, while removing the single unit micro that is interesting to many people. Perhaps a Cossacks-like system as @Nescio suggested could work as well, it isn't that heavy-duty. Personally if going with battalions I'd prefer to simplify eco and go to total war levels of combat detail.

True but BFME series have a very basic economy and rather simple (in the first one very simple) base building compared to 0 A.D. or AOE. That leaves you with plenty of time to manage it's relatively simple hero system, the battalion upgrades and the very simple combat tactics. On a point towards previous discussion, it's balance is pretty horrible, especially in the second game.

The balance between ranked up citizen soldiers and champions could be easily changed, it's just editing a few numbers in the desired direction. That said, I don't like them ranking up in the current gameplay form for reasons I've already mentioned. Your point of idealy having to single out and save individuals in order to have max army efficiency is another in that direction. The example from fantasy games was about a different approach to late game units, one with great variety, not about level up and heroes. It often mixes with that though and that's another big discussion with many pros and cons in gameplay. In general leveling units, much like battalions (or a combination of both), better fit in games with simpler economy because they usually require more individual micro. They are also very hard to balance. Especially in the case of leveling heroes with active skills and the like, the game becomes prone to focusing too much around them. They might lead to win or lose moments, where your leveled up hero can do too much if kept alive or leave your army helpless if killed and possibly provide a lot of experience to the killing player's heroes causing irreversible situations. The game becomes very dynamic but also very random and "snowbally". In other games with weaker heroes, those add unit variety and possibly some army enhancement, while causing distraction from other parts of the game in order to control and keep them alive. In the end it's all about a mix of personal preferance and striking the right balance with other game elements.

Maybe it makes more sense to wait for the new structures to get in game. Then forts will have more room for extra champions, or some could fit in barracks/stables etc or merc camps accordingly to civ and decisions.

Champions in general could use a redesign to be more interesting from a gameplay perspective. Some of the extra scenario (champion) units, added to the main game or not, were even more common than units from the core rosters, while others, added or not fit with the respective civs only as anachronisms (taking in account the design decision to depict each civ during one period and not the entirety of antiquity). I think Stoa was like the only available greek structure so it ended up hosting units

Indeed it sounds like AOK. And imo it's not about copying or not copying a game, it's about doing the best we can do. In AOK unique units are truely unique in function, by not being just stronger versions of low-tech troops. In other games with fantasy settings another approach is used, with late game units of various shapes, sizes and functions (a mix of flyers, monsters, giants, elite warriors, use of active abilities, magic etc). Both are superior from a gameplay perspective to the approach used in 0 A.D. but the AOK one is the only I can see fit for use in the game. Perhaps someone could come up with more unique ideas on champions that still fit in. I'm not against battalions, but I can see them a bit hard to implement on the coding side. Here I expand a bit on this. On ranking up vs tech upgrades, mostly agreed, excluding the fact that ranking up has a snowball effect so it affects gameplay. One extra issue I see with ranking up is that it encourages tedious microing. To be as effective as you can, you need to keep separating low rank soldiers for labor and higher rank soldiers for combat.

Ofc I don't mind answering your questions, that said many of them are pretty much answered in the application already. On the rest. I've installed svn, followed it for years, and based my mod on it. While working on the mod (and other projects for other games) there has been some teamwork involved and on the past I've worked with people from the team towards fixing minor issues with the main 0 A.D. project. I guess, to some people, I may sometimes sound like a smartass in the forums, but if you get to know me, even by online terms, I'm a friendly and when motivated hard-working person, that now feels awkward for the moderate self-promotion. Getting consensus accurately is almost impossible and for me, not a top priority anyway; not all ideas belong together in one gameplay proposal. We need to set a goal and then evaluate which ideas suit it or not and why. I'm no programmer and I didn't apply for a programmer position. Gameplay developer is pretty clear I think, and already explained in context by the application, but I could expand on it if you wish. On implementing ideas I don't agree with, answer is yes, and I think I've already answered that as well, even if not 100% directly. Ideas towards a cohesive gameplay goal (exactly what remains to be seen and I don't expect to decide alone), backed by critical thinking and relatively good knowledge of RTS design and ancient history. Also idea implementation, balancing, updates in general unless new code is needed. What else I could learn along the way to help the project if I'm welcomed in, the future will tell.

@Nescio I mostly agree with the above and especially on the historical examples my disagreements would only be small bits. Thing is, do we want to represent just citizens, mercenaries and elites by making all the male population in game belong to these categories, while in fact those combined were fewer than, currently non-existant "simple" male workers? What I'm saying is that the current system in game is not great, not because CC didn't exist, but because it's not the best way to represent them from a historical or gameplay perspective. If you read the rest of this thread (if you haven't) it's full of discussion around that, and mostly on the more important, imo, gameplay part.

Thanks for the kind words, I hope so too

Going to war during summertime and the (upper classes of the) farmer population as soldiers would be culture/region-dependant things, that said, mostly true. I think though summer was the prefered wartime due to favorable weather conditions (especially important to supply lines and ancient galley navies which had troubles in rough seas). However, the citizen levy wasn't that big as a percentage. To my knowledge, Athens with an estimated peak population between 300000-500000 people never fielded more than 15000 own troops, and that not speaking of single battles, but war-wide. Perhaps a few thousand more if you add fleet rowers, but still... A majority of the population would keep doing their jobs, unless under threat of immidiate annihilation, usually when trapped in siege defense, so in most cases every worker as a citizen soldier doesn't make sense. Maybe a bit more sensible for tribes and small states that were under grave threat more frequently. I'd say Spartans were a bit more hardened than that, even if their myth is indeed over the top, especially at periods when the agoge was esteemed. Wrestling, phalanx drills (and encouragement of helot bullying/murders by spartan youth) come to mind, as well as a very basic diet. Likewise, phalanx drills and generally military service/training in peacetime (including catapult shots for every athenian recruit at least during a period) happened for other states. Not every mercenary would just seek to eat and survive, many would become rather rich, well armored and powerhungry/politically successful. Others seem to have seeked adventures in general, but I agree that in most cases poverty was the main driving factor. More or less like today, but propaganda plays a bigger part now. Besides Macedon and Rome (btw Alexander's pikemen were able to perform some impressive maneuvers in full kit), most kingdoms would have a kind of professional/standing army. Think seleucid silvershields, persian "immortals" and royal guards in general. Even tribal chief retainers. Elite hoplite units like athenian logades and theban sacred band were probably something similar, even if not in the thousands. Anyway I'm partly getting careed away, but I largely disagree with your assumption if it is to suggest that citizen soldiers should be the standard in game terms, for historical reasons. Yes they were the majority of combat troops for most states/wars/periods of antiquity, but there were still a rather small percentage of the male population in most cases. Historicaly speaking, most workers in game should just be workers. In short, this: "They were probably added for historical accuracy and to differentiate early 0 A.D. from AOK. But even taking historical accuracy into account, not every male citizen, non-citizen (person with reduced rights, such as immigrants) or slave was a soldier in war times. In fact a minority in most cases. The classic RTS way of recruitment can be argued to be equally or more historical, representing the ones who went for training or picking up arms in the barracks as soldiers, while the rest as workers." Champions could be reshaped to be unique units with unique functions accordingly to civ, instead of just late game super-buffed-troops universally. Unit class upgrades would be superior to rank-up through combat from a gameplay perspective cause they don't snowball with each kill and provide strategic options (I have some resources to spend, do I need stronger spearmen or swordsmen? Or should I just train more?).

Format gets messed up while it displays fine in edit mode Nevermind, acceptably fixed.

Position: Gameplay Developer Do you understand that Wildfire Games is a non-commercial project, work for 0 A.D. is volunteer, and work is done for free? Yes, and while I wouldn't mind any interesting professional occupation paying my expenses, I value non-monetary interactions as superior towards creativity and honesty. Do you agree to distribute all your work for Wildfire Games under Creative Commons Attribution Share-Alike license? I'll shoe ya all if you steal MY work (Actually, no I won't throw sues at you and yes, I agree) Are you sure you are not wanting to work on something programming related? (Then you don't need to send in an application form.) Yes, but I could occasionally do some simple tasks like in the past. Name: Nikos (or Nick), from Nikolaos. Full name currently classified (I'm getting funny). Email: I'd rather not post it in a thread. Location: Athens, Greece. Availability: I generally could offer several hours a week, often many hours a day and would also usually be reachable during my work hours. But as my schedule and priorities aren't always stable, I might have small periods of inactivity. The motivation of working on something I really like, from a position I consider meaningful, would probably mean I won't quit unless something really serious happens. Age: Soon to be thirty-two. Occupation: I'm now eating dried nuts with honey (I'm getting funnier). But I'm an optician/salesman/bored/whatever... Motivation: Love of history, strategy games and their design. Creative/healing brain activity. Working in a team instead of alone. Personality: Ignorant human being, skeptic, anti-authoritarian, a weird mix of a romantic and a cynic, rather shy, wannabe philoshoper, trying to be a decent/just person. Skills and Experience: See just bellow. Short Essay: I've been a strategy game player since about the year 2000, starting with Age of Empires, Age Of Kings, Myth I & II at friends' places, without owning a computer. It started for good though 2-3 years later when I bought Age Of Mythology and soon Warcraft III, which are probably my most played games, along with Rome Total War and World Of Warcraft. The first thing I did when I first run AOM was to create a scenario with the editor. I found about 0 A.D. online, sometime in the mid 00s, while searching for new strategy games. I've been a minor contributor to the game as well as a modder for it and RTW, WC3, Civ V. Also a map maker/scenario designer for AOE, AOK, AOM, AOE 3, Rise Of Nations, Stronghold Crusader and Civ III-V among other games. Besides playing, modding and designing strategy (and rpg) video games , I've designed tabletop/card games since a young age and been a history nerd since my pre-school years, with the ancient era (and it's military part) being my favorite. I'm intrigued by strategy game design from creative, balancing and realism/historical perspectives. While trying to find what works best under any given circumstances, besides a lot of trial and error, I've read on game design and self-studied on how various games work and try to achieve their goals. Interests and Hobbies: Music listening/composing (with a focus on lyrics), reading, writing, the occasional mountain-walking, socio-political/scientific/philosophical discussions. I'll soon try to sing my songs in a band for the first time instead of playing guitar. May the higher beings of the universe help me. Staff: I don't know any team member personally. Community: Currently none besides this one, but I have participated in several game forums (thehiveworkshop and twcenter among others) and still check some of them at varied frequencies. Favorite Game: Impossible to single one or a couple. Lately I play Crusader Kings II more than anything else. I wish 0 A.D. becomes my favorite. Work Examples: You could check the mod Ancient Empires, though at the moment it's broken by game updates, stagnated and much of the information on the forum is outdated. If need be I could also dig for and provide my work for other games, in various states of playability. I fear all of this might not be tempting enough and I'm also not sure that the team wants a gameplay designer, but I strongly believe one or more are needed. So I thought, why not apply instead of keeping to spam the forum with suggestions as I've done occasionally for years now. To be honest I've thought about it in the past as well but this is the first time I took it seriously. I'd love to make my dream strategy game or mod a reality, but at this point I'm so full of ideas it's hard to choose on which to work and working alone is a serious drain on my motivation. If I were to be accepted in the team I'd prefer to focus on a practical approach. I'd like to know what is planned, how the team works internally and to what degree changes are debatable as of now, because what I get from reading the forums is rather confusing. I guess it's most realistic not to have extreme expectations about possible changes, so I'll provide some short proposals bellow based on that assumption ( = don't shoe me for making no mention of battalions). Mind that my observations are based on playing up to A21, and then on, only on impressions from forum comments, so please excuse any neglect on my part. Anyway, to the proposals: Phases & Tech-Tree Layout Capturing, Rank And Looting Mechanics Citizen Soldier Concept Unit Roles, From Historical And Gameplay Perspectives. Counters And Their Function Game Pace And Scale Territories Visual Cohession Civ Differentiation Heroes Maps I can take the time to provide a more unified and personal gameplay proposal with additional details if that's desired, but I thought this rather generic approach describing possibilities is best since I have almost no clue on what is planned (and to what degree things are planned) behind the scenes and even if accepted I don't expect full control on the design anyway. What I would find ideal is working with a small number of sensible and friendly people that have a clue on gameplay design, while taking in account other team and community opinions as well. This was my first application on anything ever, I hope it's not terrible and that my english are fully understandable. Thanks for taking the time to read, Prod/Nikos

I ment the gatherer>ulfsark mechanic not as ideal or more realistic, but as preferable to the packing one. Need soldiers fast? Lose resources and workers and you get them. If well balanced, it's a kinda interesting trade-off. Still I prefer the WC3 one. In the case of the timed WC3 ability, workers run to the civic center to pick up weapons, they don't get them out of their pockets. I don't consider your proposal terrible, but for me it has the downsides I've already described.

Here's one in english: They've been selling this mediocre (and that after many improvements) warscape engine for over 10 years and about the same number of games. At least this time it's free(mium)

Indeed the game pace could/should be slower. I'll blame mostly the crazy movement speeds though and not the resource settings (which are something to consider, as of which should be the standard setting, but a minor and easy fix). Something like almost half movement speeds (as well as vision/unit range) would be great, talking about a classic RTS setting like current 0 A.D. and not within an advanced combat system. I haven't tried RON multiplayer, but the single player, though interesting in many fields hasn't impressed me as a whole. If the game goes more towards the advanced combat/grand strategy genre it might have things to take from RON. Rare/strategic resources similar to RON would be a nice addition (ruins no, "treasures" in 0 A.D. are also a bad idea for multiplayer). How resource gathering works would fit rather well with a semi-advanced combat system. The way techs are acquired is also rather interesting (Civilisation does them in a similar but even better concept). AOE 2 might be aged visually (but not so much considering it's 20yo), have some annoyingly oldschool mechanics (no so much if you like a variety of micro tasks) and is not very historical, but for the most part is awesome. I'd rank it as the best RTS game along with the first Starcraft. AOM without the Titans expansion being close to them.

Catascopium is a latinized greek word, but perhaps it's the right one as it comes from the greek word for watcher/spy. Karavokyros should mean captain/owner/master of a ship as far as I know from "καράβι" (ship) and "κύριος" (mister/master). Paratiritirion (perhaps with better lettering for pronounciation, modern greek is "παρατηρητήριο", ancient should be "παρατηρητήριον") should be right for greek sentry tower.

My main issue with worker-to-soldier "packing" would be that it makes no more sense than the current system. It would still be weapons and armor appearing out of nowhere even if not instantly. It would also need new animations or look weird. Going to the Civ Center to pick up weapons or hide makes more sense. I don't see an issue if some workers potentially get killed before they can defend/hide because the raiders had better micro or were massed at one place. If you don't have much more workers than the raider has soldiers you're doing something wrong anyway, and the better scouting and town layout you have, the less workers you will lose. Also I really hope that cavalry won't be available until phase 2 (besides maybe a single starting unit) or at least not trainable at the Civ Center. WC3 has this seemingly protected base but it also has stealth and flying units, as well as loads of abilities that can hit over or destroy obstacles and rather fragile structures. I wouldn't say it's a game really favoring defense. On mercenaries I'm in favor of a simple but relatively realistic concept. They cost only metal (and are slightly expensive) while they train very fast, like a last resort rapid defense, or luxury unit when you have a strong economy. If they can build or gather depends on how the rest of the economy works. Then accordingly to civ and the rest of the gameplay they could be available earlier and/or in more variety.

It would probably need rebalancing of like half the tech-tree to get those in though, maybe much more time is needed for changes and testing.

Ok, let's keep hijaking on more thread to DE. Whatever I agree with your description, but your solution is one of a extreme imbalance and randomness. I can see me liking it from a realism perspective but in action, losing so much by one wrong choice or pure bad luck in possitioning, while at the same time the other player gains so much.. no, too bad for multiplayer. "As much as I can" doesn't sound good for balance (that was part of my point). Edit: just got what pary back means. The other part was on the function of some techs to which I've got no detailed example, it's just out of hazy memory from back then. Anyway you've got to balance about 15 civs with about 15 units each and too many, mostly unique techs (add to that many squad upgrades if squads become a thing)... good luck with that. I'd like the engine to support extra things like squads and advanced combat even if not used in the main game (though they shouldn't be a priority in that case). Indeed the gameplay would change dramaticly, but you would find out that even with less military entities, combat micro would become a lot more demanding. Unless battalions are mostly cosmetic, without advanced combat. Your blacksmith is another thing I mostly like in theory but can see to contribute a lot in balancing difficulties. More or less agreed on the worker thing.

(This as a reply to many people and points in one, to avoid like 8 quotes) While I'm guilty of commenting without having played A22 at all, I think the game as it stands is full of bad decisions in gameplay design. If the goal is enhancing it's current (or recent:p) form I'd stand mostly for reduced diversification, especially in the early game which is most affected by assymetry. 12 civs are a lot, all RTS games I can think of with similar numbers of civs have relatively small tech-tree variations. That said, while citizen soldiers for all (preferably just one class) or for no civs (best choice) would be my preferance, I can see how having them for just some civ(s) might work. Take the example of levy hoplites as the only CC for Athens in a match-up against a civ with no CC. They could be slow moving and relatively weak especially in attack, making them not ideal raiders, while the opposing civ has appropriate units available to fight them from the early game. Or, as many have suggested, have a timed Warcraft 3 style "militia/call to arms" ability, so that they cannot be on the offensive for long. Then a non-early game tech could increase the duration of it, or even make it last until turned off. The packing system would be a lesser solution imo. An instant, non-reversable, paid Villager->Fighter mechanic like in AOM could be better in that direction. I don't like the idea of ranked up or upgraded CC's gathering slower as it adds a rather pointless micro mechanic in spliting unit groups of mixed ranks to workers-fighters all the time and not offering anything really interesting besides a debatable illusion of realism. Likewise, the looting mechanic might sound cool, but in practice it's another snowball effect, rewarding resources to one player each time the other loses a unit, though it somewhat fits in current design as a flawed choice to boost raiding a little. Balance of history and gameplay is a tricky thing, for reasons already mentioned and because history many times isn't clear, having missing links, conflicting sources and dishonest motives. I'd say most important is to keep historicity very high in the looks of the game (already true for the most part), while focusing on the gameplay side for the rest (ofc taking inspiration for techtrees, bonuses etc from history). Counters and them being hard or soft might or might not fit well depending on target gameplay. Current form would benefit from a mix of hard and soft counters. It is close to classic RTS combat and due to having a huge variety of simularly human units, it's hard (and very ahistorical) to go too far with attribute balancing/differentiation and succeed. Also several units have very illogical attributes as of now. Counters can reflect unit roles where mechanics can't and are relatively easy to balance.

I haven't played it in a long time. I think last time was a few years back when we played together. I've played at most 10 games in old versions as far as I remember. That said the quantity and mix of features you've added or plan to add make me not very optimistic that it can be reasonably balanced for multiplayer. Prove me wrong when the time to balance it comes, I hope you manage to do so because I'd like to play it in it's full form (that holds true anyway, balanced or not). On more specific reasonings on why, without re-reading your blueprints for more arguments, the balance between economy/combat micro, the function of some techs (as well as their huge number), the presence of the (heavily prone to snowballing) capturing mechanic, the variety of battalion upgrades and the addition of even more civs come to mind. But let's not lead the thread there, if you want to keep debating on this we could continue in private or link it to a proper DE thread.

Done reading it as well as a good number of comments. While he has many points on things that don't work well and some interesting suggestions, I disagree on so many things I don't even know where to start. Btw do you also mean that the team has settled on any major gameplay issues in the meanwhile? If so I'd be very interested to know.

Depending on the chosen gameplay I might agree, but we need to be carefull not to add too many same class units per civ. Say militia, citizen soldier and champion spearman, doesn't serve gameplay much, especially for classic RTS style. That's another issue, immersion breaking weapons and armor appearing out of nowhere. I'd say successor "katoikoi" settlers, fit in the citizen soldier description though. I've also thought of the Roman infantry progressing from velites to triarii but all those class changes might be an issue gameplay-wise. Perhaps it could be fleshed out though.