Brendan_

Not that there aren't already more than enough interesting cultures in 0 A.D.'s time frame to history-nerd out on, but I found this quite interesting. http://www.livescience.com/16916-castles-lost-cities-revealed-libyan-desert.html In the most inhospitable parts of the Sahara, satellite photos and subsequent ground explorations have found remarkably well-preserved remains of fortified oasis farming settlements of a civilization I'd never heard of and which Romans considered nomad troublemakers at the edge of Roman North Africa-- the Garamantes. The Garamantes seem to have used chariots, built pyramids (though small), and to have mummified their dead-- oddly similar to the Ancient Egyptians. But a Garamantes mummy was found dating to 5500 BC, earlier than the oldest Egyptian mummies found. Around 2,500 BC, as the Sahara's climate changed from fertile with rivers and lakes, and desertification steadily encroached on their lands, the Garamantes found a way to survive where no one else could. Their construction of underground irrigation channels called foggara supplied by "fossil water" that had been sealed in limestone strata allowed them to flourish, using slaves to work their fields. Slaves also mined for pretty rocks in the mountains (amazonite, if the Greeks are correct). All of this led the Garamantes to become great traders with their Mediterranean contemporaries and slave raiders to other Africans. They also had their own written alphabet. Their kingdom lasted from around 400 BC to 600 AD, though very much in decline, most likely due to the non-renewable water supply being depleted over the centuries. With little to trade and nowhere to go, they provoked a crushing Roman response, and faded into history, their cities ultimately conquered by the desert. http://ilbonito.wordpress.com/2007/11/12/whispers-in-the-sand-a-message-from-a-lost-civilization/

Indeed!

A failure of terminology. What I mean is that heroes would be sent to fight and die so another can be made. The hero's death is actually good news provided the resource income to afford them in waves of attacks. Other than the limit of one alive at a time, they are strategically the same as regular units, who also are sent to fight whether they are expected to rout the enemy or just weaken them by kamikaze. Although the hero is a single unit with unique buffs, the only reason to keep them in reserve is the same reason you keep any forces in reserve-- countering a possible enemy attack after sending main forces away on mission. Whether you can deploy 10 of a given hero or just 1 at any given time, the strategy will be the same for them as for any other unit. If heroes can be downed for the duration of the match, if they cannot be replaced, that changes everything. Players must then gamble on whether to employ their strongest units-- heroes-- in a grinding action where they expect the hero to survive each engagement, or to expend them in an effort to breach the enemy's defenses for regular units to exploit to victory. Likewise, players must wonder whether to plan the defense expecting a conservative or aggressive deployment of heroes. A successful feint to lure an opponent into expending heroes could tip the balance of power in a more focused and permanent way than just massacring their replaceable regular units. That would demand a rapid follow up to K.O. the temporarily weakened defenses, whereas a permanent weakening of their offensive power by herocide would favor a booming strategy to hold off attacks while building up overwhelming force. And after permanently losing heroes, whatever one's strategy was before, it will require a rush to prevent the enemy's defenses from being strengthened enough to neutralize you and give them time to build up that overwhelming force.

While it may not be normal to zoom in that far, the Bactrian lancer's eyes look scared. Surely a brave warrior from a land most people only know for camels (if they know anything at all) would a glint in his eyes saying "Dammit, I'm not a &@*#ing camel, you ignoramus!"

If heroes are meant to provide significant, unique tactical advantages, then the controlling and opponent players have reason to focus on them, no matter how their training-births and deaths are handled. If heroes are "one per player at any time" then heroes are simply a super-unit, and the winning strategy is to spam heroes as often as affordable. Minus the training costs, hero deaths are actually an opportunity. If heroes are "one per player the whole match" then heroes become secret weapons to be employed only when and where the player is confident of ultimate success ...or out of sheer desperation. The presence or absence of a hero is decisive in picking times and places in proportion to how much stronger heroes and their buffs are. The winning strategy then is to deploy them conservatively in raids and only to main battle during the endgame (or attempted endgame). If heroes are "down but not out" when beaten as in AoE3, the player has a motivation to re-enter territory where the enemy proved stronger "sometime" and try to evac or stand the hero up again. Or heroes could auto-heal and "sometime" will be when the game says it is. But the hero's return to duty would be an option for the player throughout the game and a recurring danger for the opponent (corpse camping being the best control). Alternatively, downed heroes could have a "bleed-out" counter, meaning that without a successful rescue mission in territory the player already lost one skirmish in, the hero dies with no option to get him/her back. This creates a strong motive for a game of capture the flag/corpse by the player and the opponent. Again, this means it's wise to keep heroes away from fortified enemy positions until they're confident of crushing the enemy position. As for economic oriented heroes (increased gathering rate during lifetime) the strategy is to train them early and keep them inside fortifications. If such a hero is downed, it's either "lights out" for that player because their base has been overrun, or a forced retreat to another town center and a hasty counterattack on the victorious enemy siege party to rescue the econo-hero.

After playing Alpha 7 for a few days, I just uninstalled it ....because it was stealing all my time.

I'll have to swing by your channel then. Developing a FOSS game can be brutally hard, so I'm looking forward to "interviewing" your team about what has made 0 A.D. thrive. I hadn't heard of Machiavelli the game before. It's not quite what my idea is, but seems to have interesting use of Game Theory over several interactions. My themes are more interpersonal than military, but mechanically there is a lot of common ground. So thanks for that.

Hello, all. I'm Brendan, and I'm working on a FOSS game in an entirely different genre. But since 0 A.D. is not only a fun game but also one of the most successful FOSS development teams I've seen, I'm here to steal like an artist whatever ideas you have that will translate to what I'm trying to do. Of course, I'm also intending to contribute where I have something valuable to 0 A.D. I'll just have to find out where and what they may be as I "tour the factory".