Zeta1127

0 A.D. has never looked better. The problem is, at this point I don't play it very much, because I am really tired of the AI and random death balls of units as fast as possible. I also accidentally deleted my Empires Extended mod that ported the Epirotes and Thebans from Delenda Est when I installed Alpha 22, forgetting that it would delete everything when uninstalling the old version before installing the new version, but it wouldn't take more than a few hours to port over again.

Between this nonsense and GameStop killing Impulse after they acquired it from Stardock, with Supreme Commander Gold and Stardock's stuff being the only thing from there I still have access to, because THQ apparently switched it to Steam before they went belly up. I hate DRM and Steam, but if everything else is just going to die off. I am willing to bite the bullet and really use it, because at least it isn't going anywhere anytime soon.

Windows 10 exclusive, it just figures Microsoft would pull that nonsense. If the old games actually worked on Windows 10, most people who still have the original version wouldn't feel like they absolutely had to get this version. I have the original version of all three of the games, AoE, AoE2, and AoM, that have been remastered, but the only reason I can't play them is because my XP computers all quit working at basically the same time.

I would, but I can't afford to back anything. I haven't even backed Star Citizen yet, even though I believe in the project.

This looks extremely interesting, very similar to some of my ideas, though I would have technological progression through future tech and into space. Kind of like a 4X, but more planet focused.

It was good to see Day9, since I kind of stopped watching him since he stopped making StarCraft II content and switched to Hearthstone, though since I recently got into Hearthstone and he will be back for StarCraft Remastered, maybe I should start watching him again.

Number 2 is a legacy thing from several Alphas ago when rank upgrades where a thing.

The numbers are worker count.

I never play low pop games, and don't train more than like five Worker Elephants anyway, so I think they are a pretty good trade off between mobility and micro. I mean how often does one really build new Farmsteads or Storehouses, Farmsteads aren't needed in mass, for Stone and Metal Worker Elephants are fairly efficient other than being too slow to keep up with workers when moving to a new resource node, and for Wood moving a Worker Elephant replaces building a new Storehouse. I love walls, but even as a solo player against AI, I have a hard time making effective use of walls, mainly due to the difficulties with snapping to terrain. I haven't played Random maps much in recent alphas, usually favoring Skirmish these days, so the Iberian walls aren't as much of a factor for me, though I do like their rather varied unit roster and excellent Defense Towers. I believe the Carthaginian Embassies could use some attention, because the build limit on them severely limits the options for using mercenaries. If it wasn't for me insisting that a limit of one favored training time reduction over cost reduction back when there were technologies for mercenaries, then we would probably still have a limit of one instead of two, which I am now starting to think might still be too limiting. I have made the embassy limit work for me, because I just prefer the Iberian Mercenaries due to the fact they provide access to more units and the core for a ranged army, since Swordsmen are more fragile than Spearmen.

I always try to take advantage of unique things, like the Mauryan Worker Elephant and the Carthaginian Embassies and Colonization unique tech. I pretty much exclusively use the Mauryan Worker Elephant, after an initial Farmstead and Storehouse for research, especially for woodcutting, though I often forget about the assist with constructing buildings. I always try to not build more than five Houses before I research Colonization, so I can take full advantage of the technology for building Houses and Temples.

I beg to differ. Unit types are very distinctive. I have never misidentified a unit based on its type, because units of the same type look similar enough, but are still quite distinctive due to the emphasis on historical accuracy, which is going to be further emphasized when formations are more than just eye candy for screenshots like they are now. Units in formation are not going to feel like ants, instead they are going to feel much more like the battalions you want. Naval combat is also criminally underdeveloped, and is also going to benefit from formations, along with ramming and other mechanics that will make it more historically accurate. I can support a bit more rigid tech tree, with some prerequisites like Fields requiring Farmsteads, and increased training times to give progression some structure, but much more than that won't be 0 A.D. to me.

I don't get this ant size unit argument at all, formations are an integral piece of the puzzle that hasn't been fully fleshed out yet. Formations aren't fully implemented so units stay in formation during battle. 0 A.D. harkens back to the CnC and AoE/AoM way of doing things, with the twist of historically accurate citizen-soldiers and formations add into the mix. Healing may need some work, but the temple and healer dynamic is sound. Perhaps you are right about the training times being too fast, and things like making farms require farmsteads are good ideas, but other than that I just don't see most of the problems you see.

Darc, I just don't see the problems you see. Formations, and the full implementation of naval combat, will solve a lot of the problems. Perhaps some tweaks to the tech tree to address the progression problems are also needed, but other than that I think formations, naval combat, and a somewhat more rigged tech tree are all 0 A.D. really needs.

Oh, so your Temple healing aura graphics won't work without changing the footprint, well that is annoying.

Wait, so citizen-soldiers behave differently based on what type of infantry unit, when gathering resources? Well, that explains why some people feel the system is broken. If they were standardized when gathering resources, I think that would go a long way toward fixing the system.

Indeed, which is why, for example, MULEs, Spawn Larva, and Chrono Boost are important in StarCraft II, separating the good players from the average players.

Map design is indeed going to be extremely important. Farming is so extremely important right now, simply because many maps don't necessarily offer many foraging opportunities and herding isn't fully implemented yet.

Interesting ideas. On the subject of territories, I think some of the issues can be mitigated with better map design.

Unfortunately, formations haven't been fully implemented yet.

If my units aren't gathering, then my army isn't doing its job. The other day, I played a multiplayer match, a little Roman FFA on Tuscan Acropolis, and I used the approach I outlined. The matched ended with the host ending the game because it started dragging on, though I had clearly won, with very little expansion, I ended up losing my initial extra Civic Center before eventually recapturing it, and good use of Entrenched Army Camps. All of this talk of booming and Champion spam on these forums, and I thought for sure I wouldn't win with my approach, but I did.

Even with the Citizen-Soldier system, I still separate my economy from my military to a certain extent. I use Female Citizens to gather food and wood, ideally totaling about 6 to 8 batches for farming since foraging is always exhausted quickly, which will probably change once the Corral trickle is implemented, and about 6 to 8 batches dedicated to woodcutting depending on how much wood is needed, and dedicated Citizen-Soldiers, that cost food and wood, in order to gather stone and metal, totaling 2 to 4 batches for each. I usually group my ranged infantry, melee infantry, ranged cavalry, and melee cavalry into separate groups for my army, and use the infantry for building structures for reaching new phases and houses until I reach the population cap. I actually don't use Champions very much, only if I feel I need to augment my Citizen-Soldiers with them, which is usually true for the Spartans and Mauryans.

The Thebans have their own unique thing, the Pyrobolos or Fire Raiser. Also, the dynamic between the formations, especially the Phalanx, with its caveats for the various city-states, the Syntagma, and the Testudo, will go a long way toward adding diversity to the various Hellenic factions and combat in general.

All of the Hellenes factions are needed in order to properly do the campaigns in Part 2: Empires Besieged, and actually the Thebans and Epirotes will probably be needed too, in order to capture all of the major conflicts in the Greco-Roman world. Also, proper naval combat will really help flesh out the Athenians, Ptolemies, and Seleucids.

I have been arguing for the Thebans too, in order to round out the Greek-Persian Wars and the Peloponnesian War for the campaigns in the future, and the Epirotes, especially Pyrrhus of Epirus, were too prominent not to include, and it looks like the Scythians will also be included in Delenda Est eventually, so porting them from Delenda Est was all too necessary for me.

We already tried the multiple paths route. Originally the Athenians, Spartans, and Macedonians were one faction, the Hellenes, which had the choice between the Greek city-states (which also included a bit of the Thebans, in addition to the Athenians and Spartans) and the Macedonians, while the Britons and Gauls were one faction, the Celts. Eventually it was decided to divide the Hellenes and Celts into several more distinctive factions, which eventually led to the decision to add the Mauryans and the Successor States.