[New Tutorial]

Hi, 

I already tried it. It is honestly a great improvement of the original. The instruction is much more compact compared to a wall of text of the original. I also love the way you can minimize the tutorial box when you press OK. I have some suggestion I'd like to share.

• I'm still torn between the interface of this tutorial and the transparent interface of the original. I feel the black background makes it easier to read but it is covering a quarter of my screen. The transparent original is hard to read but doesn't feel as claustrophobic.
• When the instruction is to batch train Slingers, any other unit seems to be disabled, even training single slinger. I think there should be a notification to tell player if they click the wrong button, like "You just selected a button to Train Woman, please press [Shift] and select Slingers" or "You haven't hold [Shift] button before selecting Slingers, please press [Shift] and select Slingers".
• Is it possible to have some ways to point a part of the screen to aid the player? Like flashing buttons or arrows to make it clearer. 
• How about adding some backstory of the tutorial for context? Making it like a mini campaign with historical background, just like its predecessor like Age of Empires series and Empire Earth. I just read up about Spartacus and it seems to be an interesting part of history that can be adapted. Age of Empires II introduction and tutorial can be a good example.

[Special buildings and so on]

From @Nescio's description and my brief research, Stoa is basically just part of Agora. Even the model of Hellenes' Agora consists of a Stoa and a fountain in its front yard. It makes more sense as an embassy indeed.

However if in the future 0 A.D decided to have different actor for civic center for different phases, the actors can come in handy. It is a nice progression from Stoa > Royal Stoa > Agora for Village > Town > City.

[Special units and so on]

I'd like to share my opinion on mercenaries.

I agree with @Lion.Kanzen that Mercenary Camps shouldn't be buildable. It should be neutral and capturable.

However for Allied/Auxiliary units it should be a separate building. I think every faction should have its own Embassy building that trains foreign non-mercenary units. Similar to Carthage's Embassy but only one instead of three kinds. But it should still work like mercenary camps, i.e. when captured it should be able to train native troops instead of faction troops like Barracks.

[Resizing unit]

2 hours ago, Stan` said:

Long story short nope. @sanderd17 attempted something like that in the past but it didn't work out. Else it could be convenient for visible garrisoning 

Ah that's sad. Hopefully one day it could be implemented. I can think of numerous ways it could be useful beside visible garrisoning. Making giant heroes (a la Empire Earth), realistic size (unit:structure scale 1:1, imagine that with realistic warship size), fixing wrong size, etc. Imagine the possibilities.

[Resizing unit]

Perhaps out of topic, but is there any way to change unit size without touching the art files? I.e. Something like UnitScale in templates if you want to make some units/structures larger or smaller

[[Poll] Armour tooltip format]

9 hours ago, sphyrth said:

So, the Alpha 23 displays this:

And the proposal (the one I voted for at least) looks like this:

But whatever your decision is, I'm gonna show how OCD I am regarding this:

Now, I don't know how Capture Rate, Attack Rate, Movement Speed, and Loot will fit into that, but that's just my suggestion.

I have come to think of current UI as an accepted reality, but seeing this, I know it could be improved a lot more.

Simplifying it further with icons also works well with this.

At least on the tooltip. We can have more liberty to explain what each icon means in the Detail (right click) window right? Just my two cents.

Hack, Pierce, and Crush should be replaced with icons as well, I just don't know how the icons should look like.

[===[COMMITTED]=== Hellenic Helmets]

So if a hero died, it spawns a tombstone of his armor and helmet? Sounds cool! It reminds me of 'Site of Famous Battle' feature in Total War games, where map is marked after a crushing victory/defeat in a battle. I don't know of any effect of the mark except my pride every time I look at it, though.

It could work like Iberian monument, i.e. it will give attack bonus to the owner. I suggest making it capturable as well, so tombstone could either give 'pride' aura to the hero's enemies, or if captured back by the hero's own faction, give 'revenge' aura. 

[City Building Mod (A23 & A24)]

23 hours ago, Alexandermb said:

This may be handly for this point 

 

Thanks @Alexandermb!

So it seems that the warships were financed and commanded by the upper class, boarded by middle class hoplites, and crewed by lower class. I guess the implementation could be that the number of warship  is restricted by the amount of upper-class units. 

1 hour ago, Alexandermb said:

@azayrahmad this also can be helpfull for the spartans:

Description of the reference in spanish says: skenoporos servant of the hoplite

I just looked up on this. I think it's probably meant to be skeuophoros? I think there is a Serf technology implemented in a mod, probably Delenda Est. I might either make similar technology or make Helots have aura that increase Spartiates movement speed.

[City Building Mod (A23 & A24)]

8 hours ago, Alexandermb said:

@azayrahmad in case you want to implement levy, theres a new animation for spear with two hands but less heavy than sarissa.

At least in ancient Athena I haven't found any source about two-handed spearman, their hoplite were always fight with spear and shield, even the peasant. It will be provided by the state if they can't afford it. This is perhaps going to be used in another civilization.

[City Building Mod (A23 & A24)]

A little mod diary.

As I've mentioned before, Phase II is kind of stuck because of my limited technical knowledge. I decided to postpone the Economy phase update until I gain sufficient coding experience and start researching and developing Phase III.

So Phase III is about Citizens. The focus here is the citizens and units in 0 A.D.. What I intend to achieve in this mod is to inject more historical details beyond military functions and visuals. These are the breakdown of the plan:

• More fleshed out social hierarchy. I'd like to depict the social life of each civs to be as close as historical reality at the time, e.g. Greco-Roman factions didn't have women as workers, Mauryan Kshatriyas didn't do manual labor (similar to Spartiates), cavalry were a luxury reserved for nobility, prevalence of slavery, etc.. Social caste should be apparent not only in their military functions but also in their civilian functions i.e. different social caste should have different gathering and building abilities and rate. Delenda Est has attempted this 
• More realistic units and buildings functions. Priest did not heal in 0 A.D. time period, and Temples are not hospitals (this is the age where medical science were born). Civic centers in different phase should serve different functions, and not all civilization use barracks to train soldiers, especially civs that use citizen-soldier concept (barracks are for professional soldiers and citizen-soldiers were trained military skills at home/gymnasium).
• A simple lore for contextualization. While waiting for campaign mode, I think it's not bad if we make up a little story about why skirmish map start the way it is. It is also useful as a guide to any new modification to the game to keep them thematically connected with the base game.

So I haven't implement all of these, but I'll show the example of new Athenian design. Last week I had a low intensity period at work so I used the opportunity to do some amateur research on ancient Athenian life, but I'm still no historian so feel free to criticize my draft. Forgive me for butchering ancient Greek but hopefully my points can come across.

LORE: You are a magistrate, sent by your faction leader to build an Athenian colony in a new land, and to conquer any who oppose you.

CHANGED BUILDINGS

• Civic Center: can train all Citizen units. Will be divided into three different buildings based on phase.
  • Village Center: +10 population bonus, can be used as dropsite, can be upgraded to Town Center. Use Hellenic Stoa model.
  • Town Center: +15 population bonus, can be used as dropsite, can be upgraded to City Center. Use Hellenic Royal Stoa model.
  • City Center: +20 population bonus, cannot be used as dropsite, can only have one in a game. Use Civic Center model.
• Market: will be available in Village phase but cannot train traders until Town phase.
• Barrack: will be renamed as Gymnasium, cannot train military unit, but all training upgrades from Blacksmith will be relocated here. Every added building increases all unit movement speed.
• Temple: Can no longer heal or train healer. Can still research religious technologies. Every added building increases all unit attack.
• Blacksmith: Can only research weapon & armor upgrades. Every added building increases all unit armor.
• Gymnasium: will be renamed as Strategeion (replaces barrack), can train champion unit only (Epilektoi).

ADDED AND REMOVED BUILDINGS

• Academy: imported from Macedonian Library. Can train healers.
• Embassy: Can train allied and mercenary units. Not sure about any existing building that can be used for this.
• Fortress: Removed because it looks like medieval castle. Siege weapons will be buildable by units like in Delenda Est.
• Stoa and Royal Stoa: Removed because used as civic center. Special units will be moved to Embassy.

ADDED UNITS

• Magistrate: Replaces starting cavalry. Your in-game avatar. Hero-like unit with building & gathering rate increasing aura. Can plot Village Center building, but cannot build by himself. Good for early scouting and rush.
• Armored Hoplite: Replace females. Basically Elite Hoplite but trainable in Village Phase. Slow but thick armor.
• Milita Hoplite:  Basically default hoplite, but with rank Advanced permanently.
• Slave: Worker units trainable in market at City phase. Good at all building and gathering. Capturable.

CHANGED UNITS

Units and their rank will be categorized into their social class based on Solonian Constitution. This means units don't get promoted, they get assigned rank in training. 

• Pentacosiomedimnoi: Aristocrats, founder of the city. Citizens can only build Civic and Military buildings, good at gathering food, mediocre at lumbering, bad at mining. Soldiers, move slower but stronger armor. Rank elite/champion. Units included: Armored Hoplite, Magistrate (Village), Priest (Town), Epilektoi (City).
• Hippeis: Similar to Aristocrats, but cavalry, so cannot build, only hunt. Trainable in Town Phase. Rank Advanced. Units included: Hippeus/Cavalry swordsman.
• Zeugitai: Commoner, middle class. Citizens can only build Economic and Defense buildings. Mediocre at gathering food and lumbering, bad at mining. As soldiers, has the same stats as vanilla Basic Hoplites. Trainable in Village Phase. Rank Advanced. Units included: Militia Hoplite (Village), Trader (Town), Healer (City).
• Thetes: Commoner, lower class. Same citizen stat as Zeugites, but poorer so no armor. Rank Basic.Units included: Slinger (Village), Podromoi (City).

Outside of the constitution, there are other social classes:

• Metics: Outsiders. Non Citizens soldiers. Trainable in City Phase. Units included: All mercenary and allied units
• Slave: Workers only.
• Mechanical and Ship: Haven't found any research on what social class handle these machines. 

Support also have expanded roles, like Trader can also be Supply Wagon that heals, Priest doesn't heal but have aura that increase attack, etc.

Let me know what you guys think!

[Meta Game: Civ Customization]

I think having to decide four different aspects at the beginning of the battle is too much for an RTS. Even in MOBA games you only get to choose your hero, with other customization comes later during the match. 

How about only choosing one hero at the beginning of the match, but each hero has their own set of starting structure, units and technologies? Although the negatives of this is once enemy has taken a look at your hero they could immediately know your entire starting sets.

What I'm developing in my current mod is to have starting generic leader unit that can be promoted after several kills to General, at which point can manually be upgraded to any hero of your choosing, each with different auras and unlocked technologies and buildings.

[City Building Mod (A23 & A24)]

56 minutes ago, bioinfornatics said:

Dear,

 

thanks for your mod

I tried citybuildingmod_0.2.0_a23.zip but on my gameplay I am not able to get coins. Could you check my game play ?

 

Thanks

savegame-0006.0adsave 1.33 MB · 0 downloads

Hi @bioinfornatics, thanks for trying my mod!

It seems that you use Formation Fighting mod alongside the City Building mod. This mod overwrites many changes made in mod, therefore most building don't get territory effects or produce coins. I'd probably make a compatibility patch in the future, but meanwhile I'm afraid you cannot use both mods at once.

[About Corral's Trickle Resource]

I think Hyrule Conquest mod has the best implementation of Corral so far.

So corral (I believe it's called Swine Farm there, belongs to Gerudo faction) automatically spawns a hog every 5 second until it reaches maximum amount and then stops. The interval or maximum amount can be upgraded via technology. I think a more polished implementation could be implemented in 0 A.D instead of simple trickling mechanic.

[Creating The Bronze Age mod]

I don't know why you got extra spaces, but it's possible you accidentally pressed space multiple times or other cause. Best way to avoid it if your text editor cannot detect trailing spaces is just delete the line and retype instead of copy-paste. This is also to ensure there's no typo as well.

Is it still displaying error after you retype the wallset stone line?

[Creating The Bronze Age mod]

There are extra whitespaces after wallset_stone there, can you try to remove it and see if the error persists?

[Creating The Bronze Age mod]

Okay, so it will be good if you can show me the xml files of all the units mentioned in the error, also the parent templates of those three units, like templates_units_infantry.xml and it's children, templates_units_infantry_javelinist/spearman/champion. Then we'll see what went wrong.

[Creating The Bronze Age mod]

How did you exactly prevent Spartans from building stone wall?

I imagine you should remove it from the template and add stone wall to every other civs except Sparta. Otherwise not sure.

[0 A.D. on YouTube]

10 hours ago, Servo said:

Does 0ad have a soundtrack compilation? I think if it has it should be posted in YouTube like this Dawn of Man soundtrack. 

 

If you use Spotify, it's available here. Honestly it's the music that made me fall in love with 0 A.D, before graphics and mods.

[Creating The Bronze Age mod]

I have also wondered about that. In Civ json, StartingEntities are apparently only apply to Random maps, but for Skirmish maps we have to use SkirmishReplacements. This is probably because in Skirmish maps the entities are placed individually, unlike Random where everything is decided by random generation. So it seems that if you want to add more starting unit types you have to edit every skirmish map one by one.

In my understanding Skirmish map should be premade map terrainwise but starting units and structures should follow the same list as Random.

[Creating The Bronze Age mod]

ERROR: CCacheLoader failed to find archived or source file for: "simulation/templates/units/acha_infantry_javelinist_b.xml"

So have you checked this file, does it exist with the correct name and is it truly in simulation/templates/units?

CMIIW, but I think Random maps starting units are unique per Civs and can be modified in simulation\data\civs and editing each civ. 

[Your 0 A.D. Screenshots]

16 hours ago, wowgetoffyourcellphone said:

Reminds me of one of my old screenshots in DE:

I

It was almost empty because all troops were deployed to attack. Using isometric view makes it feel more nostalgic, akin to a late 90s strategy games I liked.

[Creating The Bronze Age mod]

As a programmer, most of the time if it works then it works, lol. Only fix when I find bug.

I'm at work right now, so I cannot confirm, but have you tried for 2) using this?

<TerritoryInfluence disable="">

I see some code use that so it's probably simpler than setting the Radius to 0. 

[A question to modders.]

As a modders I welcome any update that add depths to the gameplay, especially this one. This could potentially solve the problem of ranged unit OPness without nerfing.

[Civic Center Aura?]

23 hours ago, sphyrth said:

The question "Does it Destroy Gameplay?" can be expressed by the players' opinions. Take for example their popular mods (Champion's Mod, and borg-'s Mod). These two are examples of "The Hardcore Players' Mod". Last time I checked they don't employ the "Mod-makers Mod". Why?

I think both hardcore players and mod makers, as you say, have very different goals set in minds.

Hardcore players have spent considerable time mastering current state of the game, therefore the mod they wish to make is one of subtle fixes and mechanics. Extreme changes means their effort learning the game could potentially be invalidated. Even bugs are embraced if it could be taken advantages of.

However modders as a whole seek to exploit 0 A.D engine in any way possible to reach its full potential. Sometimes it means crazy weird changes with utter disregard of market needs. So in a way we're all biased toward certain goals.

So I think we have to be open to new ideas and try them all, while the game is still unfinished and the risk of extreme changes is not as big as if we try it later on Beta stage. Although I predict whatever changes are applied to 0 A.D, some people will claim that it destroy gameplay, simply because they are not used to it. Look at every discussion whenever an online/esport game releases new update. But after a while the protests died down as players, hardcore and casual alike, get used to it and perhaps enjoy it even more.

TL;DR: Modders wonder if they could, hardcore players wonder if they would, we need to work together to figure out if it should.

[Civic Center Aura?]

Wow, a lot of good discussions here. Thanks @Philip the Swaggerless for starting this topic!

6 hours ago, wowgetoffyourcellphone said:

I had the same notion once, and implemented in my mod. I found that by taking the dropsite functionality away from the CC, it caused confusion and frustration for me as a player. I am sure I'd get used to it eventually, but it felt like it would be a pretty big curve to overcome. I could experiment with it again and see if I'd change my mind.

Exactly my concern, @wowgetoffyourcellphone. I grew up with AoEII and StarCraft, so it's hard for me to imagine the possibility of CC to not handle resource dropping as well, especially at early game. But then again, Strongholds games do exactly that, although it does force you to site your granary at the beginning of the game. Even going so far back to Red Alert where you can only mine ore after building ore refinery. 

5 hours ago, Nescio said:

It makes perfect sense from a gameplay perspective—minimum walking distance and maximum protection—it's just not really historically accurate to farm in the middle of a city centre.

As one of 0 A.D. principles is balance between history and gameplay, the notion to change this for historical accuracy should be considered.

5 hours ago, Nescio said:

A necessary evil, unfortunately. Imagine you don't pay attention during a raid, lose your units as a consequence, and are down to just a centre (I've seen it happen to AI players more than once). Now to rebuild, the centre needs at least to be able to do the following:

• provide sufficient population capacity for training basic units
• be able to train a unit that can gather resources required for basic units
• serve as a dropsite for resources required for basic units
• be able to train a unit that can gather resources required for basic structures
• serve as a dropsite for resources required for basic structures
• be able to train a unit that can build basic structures

 

4 hours ago, Feldfeld said:

Well, if you take away the possibility for fields to be near Civic Center there should be an appropriate rebalance of the game, because the protection offered by the CC (both garrisoning and arrow firing) is a big deal to defend against rushes. Without this, if you don't have an equal or superior army in the location of the rush, you're as good as dead.

Also, if you just have garrisoning but not arrow firing, an enemy raid can stay in the economy and idle it until it gets chased, you also have to consider this for rebalancing.

 

4 hours ago, wowgetoffyourcellphone said:

I wouldn't mind giving the players 4 free (Sentry) towers at the start, like in AOM. You can then upgrade them individually to Defense Towers in Town Phase as is now.  (Delenda Est does this already with 4 free wooden towers that can be upgraded to stone later).

So I think this is achievable via tweaking. Perhaps with changing dropsite to only fire arrows if garrisoned, or by giving free sentries. I think in current state of the game, resources are always close to CC anyway, so dropsites near it should be within CC arrow's range.

5 hours ago, Nescio said:

You can remove other things from the centre, e.g. arrows or metal dropsite (I actually did in my 0abc mod, but I still have to figure out how to make the AI build their forges near metal mines to save walking time).

Your 0abc mod is one of my inspiration by the way. At first I was confused but when I finally made sense of it, it is actually a great idea. Also, isn't AI already automatically search for any building with metal dropsite attribute to build near metal source? Although you should probably check queuePlanBuilding to ensure forges has no minimum range to resources.