The Crooked Philosopher

I,ve found something strange in the Mauryan sandbox, it seems there's a unit called elephant archer like Age of Empires elephant archer did. Is it possibe that the team could add some option like elephant stampede or charge option or some kind of melee option so that it may not look like a walking tower but a multi role cavalry unit?

Yes, but not without shield and helmet. http://www.forensicf...cMercenary.html

There's something missing from the Gaesata unit, the unit seems to fight with two-handed sword without helmet and shield. Is it historically accurate or the developers decision?

Parthian only use them once as camel cataphract and then they disappeared from military history, Sassanids however do not consider them as primary military machine and they prefer elephants and heavy horses. It would be better for camelry become mercenary but i agree with Moros that some possible faction should have camelry.

Good idea, why don't you include pillage as an option for survival? since there's no war without raiding and looting.

I suggest that 0 AD should have deployable base where logistic convoy could drop supply, providing supply for the soldiers, becoming defensive structure when under attack, able to heal soldier when wounded soldier came nearby and most of all deployable and it would be more logical to have such deployable base when player waging war on hostile land.

It would be better for 0 AD as open source than consumer product.

It is the map not the enemy that generates the attrition that harm player's unit, unlike Rise of Nations, RoN's attrition was generated by hostile and neutral player region and they can be upgraded by certain tech not by the map itself. My concept of attrition was generate by the map not the enemy nor the player and its uncontrollable, for a faction belongs to the region would have an upper hand against a faction that is unfamiliar to the nature of the map while both faction who are stranger to the custom map will gain no advantage from the map but to depend more on their logistics supply because the army was unable to adapt to the map. 0 AD team member did mention weather and season, so what would it be when such feature was implement into the game？The answer was simple, attrition. Both player and enemy's unit may begets disease due to unfamiliar weather and region , so if a soldier was immune to exposure, hunger and sickness in the game would cause most weak faction to demise when confronting a powerful faction.

The thing is Google Books version you post omitted most of the paragraph and archive.org have a complete book for free. As far as i know, 0 AD was the only independent RTS that have put a considerable time and effort to create a true Indian faction instead of a splinter faction. Unlike the modders that we know for working certain project they could barely achieve what 0 AD could due to the limit that the original game imposed, thats why i intend to see the Mauryan faction become a playable faction and perhaps i have become a little bit impatient to see the next release with the Mauryan included, anyway i just want to see it release as soon as possible.

You misunderstand my intentions, what i suggest the losing health feature in a very slow rate at a foreign land. For example: if a Celtic player engage battle in Kalinga, they loose some health gradually (sick) and stamina (exhaustion) due to different geographical influence. On the other hand, Mauryan player may suffer the same effects if they engage battle in Gaul. Historically, most of the military expedition especially when an army enters a foreign land, they will definitely suffers attrition and this is inevitable when the supply line was too thin. The principal of logistics was simple, to supply an army the daily needs for survival in the battlefield, an army will never win a battle if they have no logistics at all even they have a million well armed, well train elite soldiers. For me, i would definitely support such feature to implement into the game.

I found the book Indian shipping; a history of the sea-borne trade and maritime activity of the Indians from the earliest times in archive.org/ but i'm not sure if this is illegal to upload the link or not but if anyone wish to read the book just visit the website and type the book name and its free. Hope this could help.

Do they have unique tech?

I strongly disagree with the idea of surrender, if we have surrender option then rout and desertion will become another option for military unit. Warhammer 40000 Dawn of War have implement rout in the game but no surrender option, if the game have surrender option then it will certainly involved a lot of micromanagement and there would trouble for player to manage the POW.

If there's a surrender option, then all military unit should have morale bar and other minor feature, but was it necessary? In my opinion, it would be unnecessary to add a surrender option into 0 AD because player should have full control on the units not the units decide player's move. Surrender should be a script option not in custom battle.

Good idea, Sighvatr. Another question for the team What about skirmish? Is there any music for a skirmish since skirmish was a different matter? In game skirmish could escalate into an all out war and when it escalate into a field battle will battle detection able to detect it or treating a battle as a skirmish?

That reminds me The Settlers 4 when battle music ends but no generic music appears to make matter worst even skirmish have battle music too. I like the idea about the concept of critter attack where visual ‘ping' on the mini map indicates the location of critter attack plus a visual sign to indicate critter attack. If a battle become a siege warfare, will the battle music be used or a new siege music introduced to indicate a prolonged siege is going on?

Critter attack should counted as critter attack, while skirmish should be considered as minor armed conflict between two rival factions. Battle however was an organized armed conflict meant to destroy an enemy's armed forces. 1. A soldier or civilian engage battle with a critter should considered as critter attack. 2. A skirmish should have at least (in theory) 10 soldier mostly consists of skirmisher, archer, infantry and cavalry (in most case light cavalry or mounted skirmisher) where the attack should be less organized then a true battle. 3. A battle should have at least (in theory) 50 soldier in which almost all types of soldiers should present at the battlefield from scout, light cavalry, cavalry skirmisher/archer, heavy cavalry, light infantry, heavy infantry, skirmisher, archers, siege weapons and at least one field commander or solely made up of one, two or three types of unit with at least 50 unit present with a commander at the battlefield. 4. A battle end either with the total annihilation of the enemy or the player's military unit or the withdrawal of the enemy or player's military unit from the battlefield. Withdrawal can be counted as victory, rout or stalemate where player or enemy may attempt to fight another time but annihilation was different where one side suffers a crushing defeat and almost all unit never survived the battle. 5. A battle can include coalition forces in which player or enemy's ally send aid to the battle, this include several forms: - small contingent of troops, mostly unorganized and lack of leader's guidance - an army, organized and capable to endure prolonged fighting. This is my idea of battle and skirmish but more idea will come .

I have some opinion to express, the elephant archer should change to war elephant or samnahya in sanskrit while Varu for royal elephant as a replacement to the howdah elephant.

I found a useful link where it have a thorough description about Ancient Indian Ship and its shape and sizes, hope you guys will like it. http://www.new.dli.ernet.in/rawdataupload/upload/insa/INSA_1/20005af4_137.pdf

I have found an article from http://www.emotionar.../DHANURVEDA.pdf and i wonder if this could help? I have found an interesting link http://www.crystalinks.com/indiaships.html where it mentions indian ships and warship and i found a book about Indian shipbuilding from ancient time to present. The book Naval Construction in India which i found it in scribd did mentioned Chandragupta Maurya was the first to recognize admiralty as a state department. There are three kind of ship: Sarvamandira: Royal ship for transporting treasuries and horses, have the largest cabin from one end of the ship to the other. Madhyamarnandira: Pleasure ship, have cabins only in the middle part of the deck. Agramandira: Warship of Ancient India.

I wonder if you know how they use the weapon "Gada" ? Perhaps you could visit the website: http://www.scientificwrestling.com/public/325.cfm?sd=2 where they have some good explaination of Gadha and its function.

Sounds good.

Welcome, Atenmeses52.

I wonder if 0 AD was able to implement infiltration, espionage, sabotage, and countermeasures? The purpose of having such abilities is to provide player more option to execute new strategies instead of waging war with numerical advantage. Spy could avert the tides of war with the skills they have as strong factions can be subdued by weak factions while most RTS could barely offer such option. The abilities of a spy: 1.Tech stealing: from all structures except for tower and other structure without technology. 2. Exposing enemy movement: spies could expose enemies movement as player could react against enemy. 3. Sabotage: spies could sabotage any unit production facility except for some specific structure to stop a structure to produce any unit. 4. Infiltration: Spy could disguise as enemy's civilian or soldier in order to enter enemy's territory and when the time is ripe player could execute plans that would cripple the enemy. 5. Bribery: Spy could bribe soldier or civilian to do their bidding. 6. Control structure: Spy could control certain structure for example: gatehouse with the help from player's soldiers and winning a siege without wasting further time on sieges. Countermeasures and preventions: 1. Watch tower and outpost: Building watch tower and outpost at the border to detect spy. 2. Spy for counterintelligence: deploying spy on strategic structure to prevent enemy infiltration 3. Heroes for spy detection: Hero was given special ability to expose enemy spy and neutralize the enemy threat.

I wonder is it possible for 0 AD to implement such feature because there's two future faction who have a weak infantry roster? The key features of organized dismount, dismount, unhorse, mount and emergency mount option: 1. Cavalry (primarily lancer and melee cavalry) receive a large shield and increase of armor. 2. Cavalryman who choose to dismount instead of organized dismount will not receive a shield on the game and armor increase. 3. A hero was the only person who have the authority to consent an organize dismount. 4. A rider receive a slightly higher hit points than any other infantry when dismount. 5. A rider or hero must return to his horse mount in order to mount on horseback. 6. A chariot soldier (except for scythe chariot) or hero ride on chariot like a cavalryman must return to the chariot where he belongs in order ride on chariot. 7. If the rider was killed during a battle, the horse mount remains alive and player was able to sell it on the market for a reasonable price or if the enemy have the horse they could sell it in their market too. 8. Chariots can return to the nearby facility where the designated unit was created and receive a retraining where the chariot receive a soldier but not for certain heroes who ride on chariots. 9. For deceased heroes who died in battle when fighting on foot, their horse mount or chariot should return to the nearby facility where hero training was available as a means to regain the training cost (for example: 40 percent of the training cost) of the deceased heroes, for heroes ride on chariot such action was to eliminate the population burden that player bear. If the enemy captured the horse mount or chariot of the deceased hero and sent to the nearby hero training facility, they could gain the deceased hero's entire training cost multiplied by two. As for player who have captured the enemy's hero horse mount or chariot also gain the enemy's hero entire training cost and multiplied by two where the enemy gains. 10. There a certain percentage where hero or cavalry may unhorsed due to lack of stirrup and fear factor generate by certain creature, for example: elephants, camel (campaign only) as they suffered an unhorse they may loose thirty to forty percent of hit points. A hero who have suffered unhorse should mount on his horse mount as soon as possible to avoid becoming an easy target.. 11. If a rider was forced to flee, he could gain the horse mount of his companion or a deceased companion by clicking emergency mount button. If a group of dismounted rider must retreat but lack of horse mount, emergency sharing is a good option but only for temporary until they reach a safe place to dismount the rider who have lost his horse mount. A hero who have lost his horse mount or chariot was able to use the emergency mount and gaining a horse mount to reach safety but it doesn't mean he did not require a replacement horse mount or chariot. A rider could use enemy horse mount too as long as the enemy leaves his horse mount unguarded. 12. If the horse mount or chariot was killed by enemy, the rider and the chariot soldier should go to the nearby facility where training of the designated unit was available (for example: dismounted or unhorsed Hetairos must go to the fortress to receive a replacement horse if the horse mount was killed but he could do it at any player's own fortress as near as possible) to receive a replacement horse or chariot.