Mythos_Ruler

At one point, I do believe Miltiades was in the design, but we scrapped him (and Socrates) when we combined the Spartan and Athenian branches into the "Poleis" branch. About the Bronze Age, that would be a cool add-on or mod.

Culture Branches (Hellenes: Macedonians/Poleis; Celts: Britons/Gauls) will each have 3 of their own unique heroes and 2 unique Super Units. Check this out for further information!

For December we've released a new Showcase detailing the 6 Hellenes heroes in the game. These heroes are very powerful units the Hellenes player may use to command his or her armies into battle! Click the preview below to view the lastest showcase. [img center]http://www.wildfiregames.com/~art/showcase/showcase-heroes-hellenes-200x150.jpg[/img center] Click Here to view the past Showcases in the gallery! These include: Macedonian Pezhetairoi, Spartan Homoioi, Maps and Biomes, and Charging and Running.

What is lacking in later Age games (AOM/AOE3) is AOK's sense of urgency. What I mean is, in AOK everything moved so quickly. Villagers chopped trees quickly. Units moved very swiftly around the map (high rate of speed). And you had to micromanage a lot more (farms, trade routes, more military units). All of those things brought a sense of urgency to the game that was fun and exciting. With AOM and AOE3, eventhough they feature "faster starts" the unit interaction (that urgency I was talking about - movement rates, econ/military balance of micromanagement) is not nearly as exciting as AOK. That is the thing people talk about when they say AOK is the better game or when they say AOK was the best RTS ever created. The player had to be ON THE BALL at all times, necessitating an exciting level of involvement.

I recommend we release a couple of videos for our New Year's round-up.

The only thing that stopped me playing AOM was it's superficiality. Sure there was lots of "layers" in the countering system, but it didn't *feel* deep. Plus the game didn't feel as exciting as AOK. Pop cap was low. Units moved kind of slow. The mythologies were blandly portrayed. And last but not least, the Atlanteans were a horrible choice as an xpack civ.

So max, basically you'd like the RTW battle screen, plus econ. That'd be kind of cool actually, but 0 A.D., economically, will be a lot like AOK/AOE3.

michael@wildfiregames.com

There's a list of "standard" units each civ can have. These units counter each other in multiple ways (mechanically and with artificial bonuses). Civs basically pick and choose their units from this list of standard units. Same goes for Buildings. Each civ has all the "standard" buildings, but a few have more and some less. What will make each civ truly unique in gameplay are their bonuses, team bonuses, Super Units (unique units), Special Buildings (with special abilities and bonuses), unique Heroes (with unique "auras"), and totally unique tech trees. That's right - totally unique technology trees for each civ. Undoubtedly this will be a BEAR to balance, but this will definately be where the community comes in.

Getting a "rax" up means building a barracks. The first barracks in an AOK Post-Imperial DM was usualy near the starting Town Center (TC), because with the initial 10 free villagers, a rax goes up insanely quickly. You use that rax to pump out units to either begin a rush, or to stake out a forward base before sending half your vills forward to begin construction. Keep in mind this usually happens within the first 60 seconds! ha. I used to have a roommate before AOM came out and we started an AOK clan ("Mythos Clan") and we'd play post-Imperial team death matches constantly. Back then AOK was notorious for not working on a home network, but he and I successfully found a way for us BOTH to have our computers playing in the SAME multiplayer match even though we shared a home network and cable connection without modding the game or hacking. Those were great gaming days. Imagine being able to shout locations and strategies across the room instead of trying to type it in chat while playing. Anyway, I think I can speak for everyone on the team when I say its that kind of high intensity excitement we want to try and replicate for 0 A.D. when you play 0 A.D.'s death match.

Yeah, haha, he looks very apprehensive.

We're sending you through hoops, aren't we nightblade?

Bernd - That's a pretty PIMP suit, m8! Unfortunately I don't have a suit at all in my wardrobe.

In AOK:Conquerors, I'd usually play 3v3 Death Match (Post-Imperial) with my clan mates vs 3 others. Wow - were those games HARSH! If a player on the wings didn't have a rax up within 30 seconds, that player was finished - simple as that. Very fast paced, yet, sometimes these games would last an hour and a half. They were titanic, each side losing 10,000+ units. Each player would usually have a civ that complimented its team... like Franks+Brits+Mongols or Celts+Brits+Teuts.

The bonuses are definately going to be implemented (or attempted to be implemented). A turma of cavalry performing a headlong charge into the front of a phalanx or syntagma would be suicidal. However, attacking the rear of the phalanx, especially with the cavalry in wedge formation and using the "charge" feature", would be devastating to the phalanx.

The nature of super units goes in this direction: 1 Super Infantry and 1 Super Cavalry unit. In the Poleis' case, there really wasn't a dominant cavalry unit that could be used as a "Super Cavalry" unit, so what I had to do was use a specific infantry unit for the purpose. What that does is kind of drive home the point that the Greeks in the 5th and 4th centuries BC were very heavily infantry-oriented. I'll leave that up to you to speculate which exact unit I chose.

Seleucids and Ptolemys used Indian Elephants in the 3rd Century BC. Our Greeks are from the 5th and 4th Century BC.

We won't. heh

Yes, exactly. Like politicians in AOE3 or Minor Gods in AOM. The game won't have mercenaries like in AOE3. If you see units like that, they will be part of a civ's "standard" units.

Heh, that's a cool idea, jms, but I can guarantee it won't be implemented.

Battle will be very similar to Age of Empires games, but with a greater emphasis on formations. So, I guess in a way it'll be a little like RTW as well. There will be bonuses for charging and flanking, but all-in-all, unit countering and numbers of units will be important, like in Age games. We toyed around with Morale, but felt it was something that didn't fit well into the RTS mold. In RTS games, the player is like a god, controlling the actions of his units. It would be extremely frustrating for an RTS player for his units to "lose morale" and run off the map. The player should be the one to, more or less, "lose morale" and decide to withdraw his troops. That's the essence of RTS gaming. Total War games are very differe.t Resource management is all based on Macromanagement. Rather than choosing the specific spot to build a barracks, the Total War player just chooses to build a barracks and the option to place that barracks somewhere is not included in the game whatsoever. This is a very different direction and style of play. Both are strategic, but one uses more micromanagement, and one uses more macromanagement. In RTS games, the player is a god-player. In TW games the player is a General or manager.

LOoks like Greta Forkbeard.

I like how the Xerxes one looks lost. lol

[img center]http://www.wildfiregames.com/~art/screenshots/Magna-Graecia-small.jpg[/img center] Our monthly screenshot has been released and it's entitled, "Magna Graecia." What you'll see for the first time are resource harvesting and territory borders! The shot also includes a complete Mediterranean Biome terrain set. We're very proud of this month's screenshot, so click the preview to see the entire shot in full 1152x864 resolution glory!

The problem arises when dedicated members have real-life issues that take them away from making progress on the game. Our recruitment efforts lately have been fruitless as well. Sorry to rant here, but whenever we admit a few new promising members, they never seem to pull through for us. We've had the same three principle artists almost since the project went into development phase (Wijit, CheeZy, and I). We've had some great supporting artists here and there (DNAS, Irish_Stag, Brownboot, Keough, especially!), but we have a big problem with retention when we "hire" new people and they seem to drop off the face of the internets. Not to seem condescending, but when I join a project of this magnitude it's for the long haul. I don't understand the attitude of joining a project and then dropping out immediately. A commitment is a commitment. You could say, "Oh, we're just kids, give us a break!" but many of our dedicated members joined the team in their early teens and have stuck with us until their late teens (present day). It's not about age, but maturity. If you can't hack it in a part time project like this, don't even dream of going into the gaming industry with its 50-60 hour work weeks. You. Will. Not. Make. It. I apologize if I am venting. But we would have been to Beta by now if a few of the promising members we've hired had stuck with us. I mean, to join this team you go through a semi-rigorous interview and evaluation process. Even before you are admitted to the team, you should have a relatively good idea what this all entails and what kind of commitment is involved. Alright. Done.