dvangennip

Apart from realism I would think that having non-military male units could be confusing for players. Now, male units are always usable for combative tasks, building military structures, and so on. A pure civilian male cannot do that, leading to confusion because they look the same to citizen-soldiers (who hide their shield and weapon when gathering or mining). So I'd say don't do it unless these units are clearly distinguishable, e.g. have luxurious clothes or a crown or anything that sets them apart.

Are those 1-3% actually playing the game? I can imagine someone trying the game, only to find out that their older hardware does not run the game well, so they play only once or at least not that often. I think that on older hardware the game isn't going to run smooth or even playable, given the load on the CPU (which will probably be underpowered as well). Thus, my point is that not many actual players may be lost, at the benefit of the more than 95% who would benefit from an easier to maintain/develop code base.

That issue is separate from the monitor issue. Lag with many units is something that will happen anyway, because the game still needs optimisation in that area. Best is to not have more than 2 AI players in a game. I leave the monitor thingy to someone else. All I know is that on OS X it just uses the primary monitor, not sure why this wouldn't happen on (k)Ubuntu.

I've tried using the windowed mode, so that essentially means a 1024x768 resolution. Then I got the following performance: default: 30 fps fancywater: 18 fps superfancywater: 14 fps I have to say that just having water in view improves performance somewhat, even though it is just a few frames per second. To be complete, the maximum performance I could get with everything turned off in the settings panel (e.g., shadows, particles, all water effects) is just 42 fps with this resolution. I'm sure if I ran the game on Windows 7 on the same MacBook performance would be much better (easily 10 fps better), but I no longer have Windows installed so I can no longer compare that. At any rate, it shows the differences between the two more advanced water shaders isn't very large, but best left to more capable systems.

I tested the performance on the Polynesia map. My 2007 MacBook Pro (OS X 10.6.8, 2.2 GHz Core2Duo processor, 4 Gb RAM) with a 128Mb GeForce 8600M GT manages to score 22 fps without fancywater or superfancywater. Enabling fancywater drops the framerate to about 11 fps, and superfancywater further reduces it to 7 fps. The display had a resolution of 1920x1080. I tested it with the same view in each condition, and I had the quality settings on 10, with everything enabled. So for older computers with meagre graphics cards there is a notably difference between the two fancywater shaders. In short it means I should adjust my settings and leave the fancy stuff to the cool kids

SVN requires some extra manual steps and I wouldn't advice it to anyone not interested in development and testing. Setting up the dependencies, build environment and such takes time and considerable drive space. Plus, it requires manual updates all the time. Not everyone wants that Apart from that, the patch mentioned cannot yet be put into SVN, because of a problem I haven't worked on yet. I'll try and come up with something soon, so it can be included in the next alpha release.

Good idea! I would go without blood though, a lone swords looks better. Plus, in some countries the amount of gore/blood is subject to rules and requires removal (for example in Germany).

Hi, I will try to answer some of your questions, but others may have more details. The reason for this advice is mostly performance-based. It depends on how many units you think are going to be in the game at any point. With sword 'n sandal units it can be quite a lot, so to keep it playable the per-unit details needs to be limited. I think this is not a technical limit, but a computer might come to a crawl with high-poly units and buildings. As far as I am aware, for now any prop is static in its connection to a prop-point. I do not know how difficult it is to adjust code to make it possible. Currently, your complete tank would turn towards the target, similar to how ships do it in 0 A.D (which will be adjusted in time). Yes, I would say you can. I assume most of the things you need are in the game and/or can be added. I would make a list of how your RTS would differ in behaviour/requirements from 0 A.D. There are a few performance issues with 0 A.D. for the moment, which relate to pathfinding and the AI (which are both being worked on), plus it lacks multi-core support for now. That does affect how well it runs with lots of units and AI bots, but gameplay itself should not be affected. Maybe it is good to know there is already rudimentary support for planes. There is a demo map for that.

The problem with using such technologies is that it would water down the unique characteristics of each civilisation, because it becomes very easy to train units of another civ. Perhaps donating units to an ally could work, but I would not go as far as always having the option to train those yourself. However, some scenario map where there is an embassy that can be captured by players for such purposes could be fun.

Basically there are three steps: 1. Copy a template XML file from a similar building and alter its contents. The templates can be found in /binary/mods/public/simulation/templates. I think the XML files mostly speak for themselves, although you could also use the Actor Editor (but not on OS X). A template file assigns the properties of the entity (e.g., a building or unit), thus what it is and can do. 2. Assign a different actor file/slash copy one and alter it. These are found in /binary/mods/public/actors. These files assign the 3D model, texture(s), animations, and such. In other words, what the entity looks like. Look at other actor files to see how you can accomplish what you want (e.g., attributes). 3. Model a new 3D shape, export it as DAE file, and finally assign this file (put in the right place) in the actor file. It requires quite a bit of manual work. For example, look at what I did to add an attack capability to Spartan females (the link gives the proposed code changes). Also, you would need to use SVN, as the Alpha releases do not have the original XML files (but rather a pre-processed variant). I would say, just try and see what happens.

I have made an attempt to address this minor improvement, see the Trac ticket here. It is not yet working correctly, but perhaps someone has an idea for what the issue may be. By the way, I opted for a ranged sling attack ability. As an alternative, a short range knife attack or something of that order would be appropriate. This is mostly a design issue. I figure both a knife and throwing (nearby?) rocks at an enemy are realistic for a busy Spartan woman. I favoured the ranged attack because close they would stand no change against a true soldier, hence fleeing would always be better than defending.

Well, I would say it is the graphics card which is unfortunately insufficient. If the drivers are indeed up to date, there is not much to be done about it.

So the game now installed fine, without errors? Can you reproduce the problem with a map not loading? What did you choose, because the wording 'campaign' is a little misleading. Campaigns are meant to be a series of battles, like a scenario, but it's currently not implemented.

I think you are doing well! Clear instructions and their effects. I actually learned that the arrow keys mimic the functionality of the WASD keys I did not know that.

I feel this would add unnecessary micromanagement to the game. I get that it is realistic, but it defeats the inherent flexibility of citizen-soldiers. Plus, how would players immediately see if a citizen-soldier is ready to fight? Perhaps this transformation happens automatically but that would mean a citizen-soldier walks away from an attack to a building, only to come back to see its female citizens brutally murdered That makes the game generally less flexible, more time consuming, and perhaps frustrating because units do not do what they are ordered to. In the same vain, switching from lumbering to working on the field would require a similar switching of tasks / equipment. My opinion is that would be less flexible and lowering the gameplay experience, even though it sacrifices a little realism.

I think it looks very good. I can't say anything about its historical accuracy, but I did notice that it is planned to train chariot units. Maybe I am nitpicking but the door seems a bit small for a chariot? I know no building and units in 0 A.D. are meant to be to scale, so feel free to ignore me The Greek fortress has very wide doors, but the Roman one has not. So perhaps just do what looks good.

I was merely trying my hand at modding, so I decided to make a few female warriors based on the Amazones myths. The most believable explanation is that these women were Scythian/steppe people who's husbands were out of town (and perhaps died). Any references are mainly Greek, so you are correct with your guess on the appearances. However, I just remixed existing props and textures, so the body texture is actually of the Britonic queen Boudicca Other units borrow from the Scythian ones as available among the Persian and Hellenic factions.

There is one such animation available that looks fine to me (used it for a little mod of an Amazone cavalry unit): <animation event="0.84" file="biped/rider_archer_atk_a.psa" load="0.16" name="Attack" speed="50"/> It is not perfect, as the bow goes through the horse's head, but that is a minor thing

Looks good, but would it not be an option if these options are visible directly, that is without the need for a popup? Maybe it would not fit on a small (1024x768) screen. Otherwise, for visual consistency: adding the gold-coloured border around the popup would put it in line with the overall look and feel of the GUI.

Random worlds in general are not seen in everyday life, could be fun though The fact that these maps are symmetric does make those maps more balanced for all players (same starting conditions and resources), at the cost of realism. I suppose maps like that are also easier to produce by a script, which is what random maps essentially are, as compared to Scenario maps which are made by hand. Of course, you could try your hand at a nice handcrafted map with the Atlas editor. This is probably the easiest way to contribute to 0 A.D.

I have this as well, but repeatedly pressing the button sometimes works. Otherwise you can open the console (~, thus Shif+`) and type: exit(). That is easier than forced closing, and a quick way to exit the game completely.

Hi, what do you want to know? Whether there are updates to Alpha 7? What the name Geronium stands for? In a few days / next week (?) Alpha 11 will come out, and it will be named Kronos. Perhaps that is enough of an answer?

I can no longer see anything underneath, so yeah, for me it is fixed

I had never noticed it until a recent change, and now (r12557) it is gone again. At least, it is no longer visible under normal circumstances. I checked with the brightness up to its maximum in a dark room, and now I can see some faint outlines. Practically everything is hidden, although those with very bright monitors and perhaps different colour temperature settings may see something. I'd go blind or never sleep at night if I did that And you are right, normally someone would not use the reveal map option.

Yup, thanks