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I think in the long term the fact that units don't actually knock over their opponents (and stop to fight them instead) will be quite the problem for the concept of trample damage. For the moment some sort of damage aura will be fine as discussed, but eventually we might have to discuss how to implement cavalry/chariot charges that are able to plough through infantry etc.

Wow, the video is gorgeous!!! Great job! Also did the play0AD channel get a revamp? Looking sharp as well. Big thumbs up to the WFG youtube crew !

^ I am against that notion; we had it in AoK and it made mangonels etc. very difficult to use. On trample damage: If you implement it as an aura around the unit it is important to activate it only when the unit is moving, otherwise you'll get weird results (if you remember the monster trucks (cheat units) in AoE3 you know what I mean ).

Hehe sure that . In the Age games the AI at 'hard' level or above would get resource bonuses if I remember correctly; I meant stuff like that, or no LOS restrictions etc. Good to know qbot doesn't need any of this apparently .

Looking forward to playing against qbot in the next release . Does it cheat by the way and if yes, in what way?

I know that document but it's too basic... looking forward to your exporting guide. So importing into Blender is not possible yet? Any ways around this? As I said some step-by-step instructions would be appreciated by any future animators I guess

On a side note; would any of the devs be so kind as to write a detailed step-by-step guide on how to import/export models from the game to Blender in order to animate them? I can do animations if I find the time, especially if your models are already rigged, and other animators might join in too if we get clear instructions.

^ Sounds good to me if we can clearly attribute certain colours to all civs. We could also have different shades of red if there are two or more Roman players for example. It might be a plus for historical accuracy; however, we'd have to let the players decide otherwise if they wish. I think most people would prefer blue as it has become sort of a convention in the RTS genre.

In any case you should have draft horses as a graphical feature in one way or another. They really add to it in terms of realism and atmosphere.

Does that mean you've got more than one?? Anyway good luck! Maybe you guys could push back the Alpha 8 deadline a bit to allow for Philip's pathfinding awesomeness to be implemented in time .

Nice. I love the rally point lines. The code behind that should definitely be recycled to indicate the trade routes of caravans, too. By the way I'd definitely push back the Alpha 8 deadline a bit if I were you guys... A lot of promising features like trade, attack move, gather points on resources etc. have just been postponed, and Philip won't be able to finish his pathfinding stuff in time either. If you allow for an additional month or so this could have a way bigger impact? Just my two cents.

^ yeah snapping is good. Philip I can't really participate in the discussion but there's some interesting things that you brought up, keep 'em coming .

I see, thanks for clarifying . If the battalions you envision stick together like glue (and only then) it might indeed be reasonable to bind the units together in order to act as a whole. What I like about the idea (if I understand it correctly) is that loose AoE-style formations can coexist with those tightly-knitted battalions at the player's will. Back to pathfinding: It has just come to my mind that AoEO neatly manages to move large masses of units around, maybe somebody wants to check that out (I myself can't play the game on my computer).

This is what he wants: This is Rise and Fall. [He adds to that by introducing the space bar to manually group/regroup units and in addition, just like we all want it to be, he wants to give formations a meaningful purpose (e.g. Testudo).] Selection/deselection, the issuing of orders, pathfinding etc. would work like in R+F.

Michael, could we get a comment from you on Rise and Fall's formations please? Because in terms of control and pathfinding that is the system you are suggesting.

Exactly, and that is where all the fun comes in! Michael, I would very much like to hear your opinion on R+F's formations, because that is what you are suggesting .

It is in fact harder to manage because you have to manually make+break formations (e.g. using the space bar) instead of just box-selecting units. So having an AoE-style management of formations (with the difference that formations will actually do something) is easier. Also I'm surprised you guys don't value individual control as much as I do. Have you ever felt that it was a hindrance 'in the middle of battle' of the Age games? I guess not? On the other hand, what do you think about the Rise+Fall formations? Those actually are exactly like Michael suggested 0AD's to be (the only difference being that they're not created manually but that's irrelevant here). I found them very frustrating as you cannot control your guys precisely, you can only vaguely order a group of units around. In AoE you could always mess around with a couple of guys by ordering them to attack something specific, to sneak around something, to withdraw if they're damaged (a situation that at the moment occurs all the time in 0AD), etc. etc. R+F was frustrating partly because it took away all these options from the player. I think being able to control all units separately is a very distinctive feature of the Age series that we should keep.

Actually, in one sentence, I'd like 0AD formations to work exactly like the Age formations, with the decisive difference that the term 'formation' implies more than units just walking in line and instead having formations that actually do something (visually forming a phalanx; recieving bonuses, blocking other units' way as Erik just said, etc.). In terms of pathfinding see my last post.

I agree that some sort of snake movement that can break up into small groups would be the best pathfinding solution gameplay-wise. As I said though, in practice it might remain a potential problem to decide on the exact circumstances in which the snake has to break up into groups (it would probably give us a lot of trial&error to do during development). Secondly I guess it is a lot harder to implement technically than just having large masses of units breaking up into groups of 30-40 from the start when being issued a command [a good temporary fix for now?]. I guess we need some expertise from our programmers here though to discuss these feasibility issues. Philip et al. ? EDIT: Make large masses of units break down into groups of 40 that follow each other in a snake-like movement!!! Easy as that ! I hate standard bearers too . Your space bar solution is preferable to them, it's also quite easy to handle, but I argue that it lacks control of the individual units. My proposal would be dynamic battalion creation that relies on box selection/control groups (keys 1-9) only: Have a look at my magnificent sketch again . (To paraphrase my sketch: In AoE, rudimentary formations form when a group of units is issued a command. In 0AD, I want meaningful formations to be formed when a group of units is issued a command; i.e. in the same automatic way but with actual gameplay impact. Example: Box-selection of a couple of Greek hoplites -> attack command issued -> hoplites use phalanx formation automatically while attacking. So quite simple really but very effective.) The advantages are: - Battalions that can act as a whole (indicated in red). - No sacrificing of individual control (a must for any Age gamer). - Dynamic and 'on the spot' creation and dissolution of battalions. - Consequently, formations will be used widely. Agreed: +1 for a context sensitive choice of formations. Agreed. Agreed! Formations are a good opportunity for 0AD to shine.

Good one! My favourite suggestion so far (even over Herodotus) . Edit: Found some good historic articles on him: http://www.iranicaonline.org/articles/achaemenid-dynasty http://www.iranicaonline.org/articles/achaemenes-greek http://sitemaker.umich.edu/mladjov/files/persia_achaemenid_period.pdf

I think Philip made an excellent point in his last post - 0AD doesn't have a clear idea yet on how formations and combat should look like. So it doesn't make sense to set the programmers off on formations when no minimum consensus on these issues has been reached yet. This is where the community and the game design department need to step in first, so it's good we're having this discussion now. Now, to add my own ideas: In terms of pathfinding I guess we have to acknowledge the fact that no RTS yet has made it possible to command a single formation with 100+ units across the map without ignoring obstacles like trees, other units, etc as if they were ghosts. Considering that we don't want our units to do this I think Michael's proposol would be an excellent fix: This is probably a very efficient and reasonable solution. The only alternative involving arbitrarily large groups of units that I can think of would be snake-like movement (possibly producing very large snakes). Snakes are more or less amorphous though so I can see big problems coming up in terms of when and how these snakes should regroup into formations. Second, on formation combat: I think I made quite a good proposal on dynamic battalions that act as a whole (enabling advanced formation behaviour, like, for example, a Testudo) but do not cancel out individual unit command in this thread. Maybe you might want to discuss this. These battalions could enable advanced 'formation combat' (like a Testudo crashing into a Phalanx) as opposed to the AoE-style melee pool. [On a sidenote, we should really cut down the number of formations that are available to the player in order to make them meaningful alternatives (again as opposed to the senseless choice of formations that AoE offered/that 0AD offers now) and, probably even more important, not to overburden our programmers. I would be fine with, say, about two formation types per civ, as long as they are actually meaningful. Testudo and Phalanx are good examples of this.]

That's true I said nothing about pathfinding sorry. If I had to I'd probably go for a snake-y kind of movement though simply because it's probably easiest to implement. I think formations/battalions still need some fundamental debate as a whole though before advancing in their implementation, that's why I joined in. In the end pathfinding will depend on WFG's overall formation/battalion concept too I guess so maybe we should flesh that out first? Michael the spacebar thingie is a neat idea although a solution that combines battalions with uncompromised Age-style control over individual units would be best . What do you think of my suggestions? If WFG decides not to try itself at such a compromise I'd go with your idea too though.

Well costs do indeed matter for me. There are two types of costs involved: 1.) The actual construction costs (probably wood and man hours) and 2.) opportunity costs, as farms have to be slower than other sources of food (otherwise other sources of food would be superfluous, right). Opportunity costs are the losses suffered from the player's decision to have his units gather from slower sources than from faster ones. (E.g. in 60 seconds a farmer can gather, say, 50 units of food, while a hunter can gather 90. Opportunity costs for farming compared to hunting during the same time = 40 food.) You have to consider both of these costs. I hope this will make you understand that I did not say 'make farms as cheap as possible' or 'costs don't matter'. I didn't make any statements on how much the overall costs of farms should be. In the end we will be able to balance their costs easily by adjusting their gather rates (raising/lowering opportunity costs). (In fact this is why I said 'infinite farms are not overpowered per se'.) However, what I did say is that you should minimize their construction costs and get rid of reseeding because these are just no fun. This is for two reasons: 1.) High construction costs make the player less flexible when they have to restructure their economy (e.g. when you need a lot of food very quickly but you can't afford a sufficient number of farms nowhere as quickly) and 2.) reseeding requires a sort of micro-management that is annoying and therefore died out with good reason in any post-AoK Age game.

Sorry should have made this clearer . Well, the automatic battalions (red) benefit from any bonuses that make them meaningful formations as opposed to simple AoE-style groups (a key objective of 0AD if I understand it correctly): Think of graphical changes, like units moving and fighting in an actual phalanx for example, or of statistical advantages (higher HP etc.), special attack actions... you name it. Think of a Testudo for instance. My idea is just a layout on how to make meaningful formations possible while keeping individual control. Well your concept would imply letting go of individual control, a sacrifice that 'Agers' are not willing to make ... Some nice ideas there though.

To add to my draft above, please take your time to study this piece of art haha: