serveurix

I fully agree. The fact that some warriors are female and that male soldiers can do economic tasks doesn't solve the sexism issue, IMHO. The lack of male non-soldiers citizen in every civ (not only the civs that practised military service, like Romans) still suggests that men are made for war, and it's a bit disturbing. We should be very vigilant with this.

You know, I didn't complain when some people asked the art team not to put any gods' depiction on maurya buildings, claiming that destructions of gods' representations could shock people in India, because I had no idea of how shocking this could be perceived in a different culture. But despite I think a free software game should de as cautious as possible with the relativity of cultures, as a european I think we should have gotten rid of this old swastika-fear now. Keeping getting panic-stricken each time we see a swastika is just making more advertising to nazism. But, anyway, let's focus on the important things. If two versions of 0 A.D. were released, one for Germany, without the swastikas, and one for the rest of the world, unchanged, would you still consider immoral to contribute to the project ?

I could model a tree just for fun, put it on Wikimedia Commons, some 0 A.D. contributor could find it interesting and decide to include it in the game. I wouldn't consider myself *involved* in 0 A.D.. Maybe the lawers would, but screw them. This is for the moral side, but in fact I don't know if your problem is about moral or about law. This is your European vision of the Swastika. Some people are not offended because when they see the swastika, the first thing they think about is hindu religion. Would you say to the priests of the Holy Week of Seville that, by wearing their capirote, they ignore the victims of Ku Klux Klan terrorism ?

Simply give the license of the song and the license of your project, we'll tell you if they're compatible.

Some RTS games provide a click-and-drag way for attacking. You click an few meters before the enemy and drag the mouse in the direction you want your units to advance, and instead of a flag, it draws a small segment on the ground. The units march in line until they reach the first point of the segment, then advance in formation to the second point of the segment. It's also a good way to ask your cavalry to charge on a specific part of the land.

The art department has made a lot of progress on mauryan buildings, but only two of them have been included to the current SVN version : the tower and the fortress. Mauryan have new units modeled though : the chariot and the female warrior.

With the current performance issues, using bigger maps is actually an effective way to make units slower. :]

You know, the fact that the swastika is illegal doesn't mean that the game itself is illegal. And it means even less that your own work is illegal. 0 A.D. is free software, you can modify is as you want, in respect of the license. If swastika is a problem, just remove/replace a few shields, recompile, and you get a game wich is legal in Germany (I say that because that's what Mythos_Ruler suggested : make two versions). But anyway, whatever the number of different versions is, the legality of what *you* produce depends entirely of *you*. You want to make a Hannibal's campaign scenario, and as I suppose, you don't plan to put anything illegal in this, so it's fine. Just publish your work under a license which is both compatible with the game's license and the requirements of the devs (I guess they only take copylefted works), and then you can include it in the original version of the game, in a modified version of the game, or even publish the files alone somewhere else, and if the devs are interested they will add it to the game. So, "being involved in something illegal" doesn't make sense in the world of free software / free art : you just produce a work and let contributors do what they want as long as they respect the terms of the license. As long as you don't include swastikas (or anything else illegal) yourself in your own scenario, technically you are not "involved in something illegal", even if the scenario is included in the worldwide version of the game.

Have you tried to play "Savannah Ravine" with the celts ? Celts need a lot of wood (for buildings, especially), and forests are small on this map. As you can't afford to spend all your wood in farms (the enemy attacks very early and often, you need towers and strong troops quickly, and to advance in phase as fast as you can), sheep are definitely the best option. One funny tip for oases maps (where the enemy's economy is focused on one point of the map) : expand fast and surround his territories with yours. Once he has consumed all his resources and sent his last army crash into your walls, you can feel the sadistic pleasure to raze his whole city to the ground with just a few units. Mwahahahahahaha. >:-D As the terrain is not tiled like in old 2D strategy games, rotating a building can help to put it in confined places. It' helpul when you want to defend an acropolis, for example. An other point is that when units come out of a building, they always come out from the same side, and rotating a building can help if you don't want a unit to be stuck between structures (even if I think this behavior should be considered as a bug). As Enrique said : that's what the scouts are for. ...And the outposts. City's line of sight is quite small in this game, so outposts are quickly essential to react quickly enough to repel attacks.

There's something I don't understand. If you were making a commercial game (I mean with a commercial economic model, relying on selling copies on physical support in stores), I would understand self-censorship : you would need you game to be legal in most countries as possible to maximize your customer base. But for a free game (both free-as-in-freedom and free-as-in-no-cost) ? Why is the legality of the game important ? I can't speak for Germany but in France, depiction of swastika is authorised if it's in a historical context. But I don't know if "0 A.D." is legally history or fiction. :/

Are you sure you know what you are talking about ? You can earn money with 0AD or 0AD derivatives. 0AD is free software (free-as-in-freedom, aka FLOSS : Free Libre Open-Source Software, aka "full source and data redistributed under a free license", aka "every user has the 4 freedoms on it") and not freeware (proprietary software distributed for free). 0AD is under a copyleft license : you can make a modified version as long as your modified version remains free software, with the 4 freedoms granted to the users.

Maybe it could depend on the civilisation ? I mean, I would rather imagine barbarian civs (such as celtic civs) destroying everything rather than occupy building. And Romans for example capturing buildings and train mercenaries rather than destroying. But this is just my stereotypical point of view, you history experts should be able to tell what would be the most realistic. If I'm right on making it depend on the civilisation, I don't know howerver what would be the best way to implement it. Giving the capture ability only to some civs ? Making the capture attitude random and give a different probability for each civ ? Or simply making the choice of capture more interesting in some civs than in other ? (I think the last is the best choice, as you can grab ressources from destroyed buildings. Maybe for some civs it could be more interesting to destroy and rebuild, and for some other civs more interesting to capture, depending on the ressources grabbed, the cost of the building, the time taken to build/capture, etc.). PS: I like the idea of "loyalty level".

Maybe they could move backward in two cases : - when there are too many obstacles (in combat, in ports, in narrows...) to turn back (but in that case the ship should turn back once it's far enough from the obstacles) - when it's asked to use ramming (I don't know if such a stance already exists) several times in combat.

That's good news because the Known Problems post says the opposite I've always thought it was a shame that 0AD wasn't able to take advantage of multiple cores (I was ready to ask for a Haiku OS version ^^ ). But if you can split some processes into threads, that's good. How many exactly (or approximately, if you don't have planned for a precise release yet) ? What can we expect in terms of performance improvements in the next Alpha XII release ?

I like that too. If my memory is good, in AoM and AoE III , when a villager is attacked by an enemy or a beast, he fights back, and all the villagers that are close to him (who can see the scene in their field of vision, I guess) stop their work to help him. When the danger is gone they all get back to their respective work. I've noticed that it was not (yet ?) the case in 0AD, but it would be cool if fighting herd animals (like elephants) had the same behavior.

Usually, on simple, small two-players maps (like the Acropolises), 0AD is quite fluid at the beginning, and at a certain time, begins to struggle when the number of units increases. On those maps however, the game is playable till the end. But on some maps it's not the case. I've identified two cases in which 0AD is really slow on my computer (Lubuntu 12.04 with mesa libs from oibaf's PPA, AMD Athlon II X3 445 CPU, 4GB RAM and AMD 880G aka Radeon HD 4250 aka RS880 GPU (IGP) ) : - Maps with a lot of water (like the Azure Coasts). The game struggles more and more as more water can be seen by the player. - Big maps. The game is not particularly slow at the beginning, but slows down faster than usual (despite only a small part of the map is revealed). This happens in Arcadia (the size of the map is "default", but it seems bigger than the others). Strangely I get the same effect in Death Canyon, which is not a big map, AFAICT. The maps with a lot of players slow down fast too, but I've not tested them enough to be able to say if it's not the quickly increasing number of units that's at the origin of the struggle. Anyway, on all maps I've played, the game significantly slows down when the population number reaches a certain level (around 120 - 130 units). I've not tried to get a more precise number because I have not verified if it's really the number of my units (in fact : the units I can see) which is problematic, or the total number of units on the map (including the nemy units I don't see). Maybe I get always a similar result because the AI and me are creating units at the same rate ?... I've put a Radeon HD 6450 in my computer and I was suprised not to get a significant increase of performance (except at the beginning of a match, the game is perfectly fluid, but then I get the same struggle, at the same moments. I was also concerned by the case of the Arcadia and Death Canyon maps, so I've decided to run 0AD in windowed mode, while watching the graphs of gnome-system-monitor and radeontop. I don't know those things well enough to understand what each line of radeontop means, but this is what happened : - When starting a match, the CPU 3 usage increases to 90%, and slowly increases until it fluctuates around 99% after several minutes of game. The bars of radeontop oscillate irregularly between 30 and 90%, depending on what I'm doing/displaying. At a moment I create 30 citizens at the same time, the population increases to 149 units, and I see the CPU 3 usage sticking to the 100% line (no more fluctuation). The bars of radeontop keep oscillating as before. I open the settings window and uncheck all the boxes. Strangely, when I open this window the CPU activity goes down to 70% and the GPU activity increases to 80-90%. I go back to the game. CPU load goes back to his 100%, GPU load goes back to his irregular oscillation. Verdict : The limiting factor here seems to be the CPU. My knowledge in the domain is very poor, and my method is not rigorous at all, but this is what comes up to my mind after this test. This is a bit disappointing, as the Athlon II X3 445 admittedly is not a racing machine, but is not a particularly bad CPU either. Conclusion : If 0AD is slow on your machine, don't blame the GPU too fast. And if you choose to buy a CPU with the idea of making 0AD Alpha XI "Kronos" run on it, prefer a CPU with powerful core rather than a high number of cores, as 0AD will exploit only one of them. (PS : Has a "performance and config feedback" thread been started yet ? It would be useful to know what the best configurations to run 0AD on the different OSes/kernels/drivers are.)

Yep. I've just made simple performance test and I've noticed that. Maybe I will detail this in a new thread. I agree with you in the case of the laptops. My laptop heats like a furnace when I launch Warzone or 0AD. On my desktop computer howerver I don't feel any difference. The AMD IGP is integrated to an ASUS motherboard covered with heat sinks (I guess the quality of the cooling in the case of destkop motherboards is the same as in the case of fanless graphic cards), and my computer case is full of big Noctua fans, so I don't worry a lot. :]

To make it clear : Defensive walls or "enceintes" are made of towers linked to each other by curtain walls. You can also build defense towers, which are meant to stand alone, not to be part of a defensive wall. With the exception of celtic civilisations, wall towers can shoot arrows and host garrisoned units, exactly like defense towers. In celtic civilisations, wall towers are simple, passive parts of defensive walls.

Sorry to dig this topic up, but integrated graphics can be fine for 3D strategy games. Warzone 2100 is perfectly fluid on the Core i3 M350 of my laptop, even with 8 players on a big map. Of course 0AD is more advanced graphically and the sets are more sophisticated, but I think the difference of performance is currently bigger than it should be. Anyway, apparently we can expect a big jump of performances in 0 AD in the future, so I wouldn't be suprised if then performances become acceptable on a Core i5 4xx processor.

The Gardens look great ! Do you still plan to add flying birds and falling leaves, or did you abandon this idea ?

I noticed that I couldn't make a screencast when xserver-xorg-video-ati was installed. But it seems that this is due to some packages from the install CD that are buggy, or not properly installed. After a : apt-get install --reinstall libgl1-mesa-glx libgl1-mesa-dri xserver-xorg-core everything works fine again. I can record a screencast, even when xserver-xorg-video-ati is installed. I reinstalled all my system and generated a few glxinfo outputs : http://paste.geeknode.org/12aa5b09 #with the -ati package http://paste.geeknode.org/d5249e2c # without the -ati package http://paste.geeknode.org/572a6df0 # with the updated packages from you PPA http://paste.geeknode.org/57fcb216 # with the fglrx driver from the official ubuntu repos http://paste.geeknode.org/1810b6ea # with the fglrx-updates driver from the official ubuntu repos To summarise : I can screencast with all the free drivers. The free drivers from your PPA make the game much faster, thanks ! It's not completely fluid, but it's playable ! I think I will use those ones, at least for screencasts. I can't play without the xserver-xorg-video-ati package. Maybe it' normal, this package is probably necessary after all, but I'm just surprised that 0ad displays only text without it, as other GL games seem to work fully. I can't screencast with the non-free drivers. All I get on my video is a black screen with a cursor moving. Anyway, I should receive a new video card in the next days, I'll test 0ad on it and I'll keep you informed.

On lubuntu 12.04.1, when I have both xserver-xorg-video-ati and xserver-xorg-video-radeon packages installed, the game works properly (I just can't record any video of it, but that's the case of all GL games I try to screencast). When I remove the xserver-xorg-video-ati package, 0ad can't diplay anything but text and mouse cursor. Other GL games don't have display issues. Menu screen with xserver-xorg-video-ati : Menu screen without xserver-xorg-video-ati : There is probably a problem with xserver-xorg-video-ati, as games are very slow without it, my cursor tends to blink when it's not installed, and there's this screencast problem common to all GL games. But there might be an issue with 0ad too, as it's the only game which is unable to display graphics when the xserver-xorg-video-ati package is not installed. (my concerns come from the fact that I'm unable to screencast 0ad with free drivers at the moment : in both cases the video will show a mainly black screen)

As promised. (This is my config, starting from the default config, adapt it as you want.) #!/bin/bash cp /usr/share/games/0ad/config/default.cfg ~/.config/0ad/config/local0.cfg cd ~/.config/0ad/config/ for i in `seq 0 9`; do echo $i let "j = i+1" echo $j sed -e s/"hotkey.selection.group.select.$i = $i"/"hotkey.selection.group.select.$i = $i, Num$i"/ -e s/"hotkey.selection.group.save.$i = \"Ctrl+$i\""/"hotkey.selection.group.save.$i = \"Ctrl+$i\", \"Ctrl+Num$i\""/ -e s/"hotkey.selection.group.add.$i = \"Shift+$i\""/"hotkey.selection.group.add.$i = \"Shift+$i\", \"Shift+Num$i\""/ local$i.cfg > local$j.cfg done sed -e s/"hotkey.selection.idleworker = Period"/"hotkey.selection.idleworker = Period, Semicolon"/ -e s/"hotkey.session.rotate.cw = RightBracket"/"hotkey.session.rotate.cw = RightBracket, \"Ctrl+WheelUp\""/ -e s/"hotkey.session.rotate.ccw = LeftBracket"/"hotkey.session.rotate.ccw = LeftBracket, \"Ctrl+WheelDown\""/ local$j.cfg > local.cfg for i in `seq 0 10`; do rm local$i.cfg; done; exit 0;

Mea Culpa, it was right under my eyes and I didn't check. I'll write that bash script to make it up. And the "è", and the "ç", and the "à"...

My opinion on this is that for the most used shortcuts, games should use the keys that are common to the majority of the layouts. And for less used shortcuts, let the user map them if needed. That's why I think using the numeric keypad is good : the layout is the same for everybody, and the group number shortcuts are often used in a real-time strategy game. And before you lanch a game, perhaps you're going to remap one key or two (AZERTY users are already used to remap W to Z and A to Q in FPS games (I've never figured out why FPS don't re-map WASD keys automatically, basing themselves on the locale, BTW), but you're not going to remap all the 30 [0-9], Ctrl+[0-9] and Shift+[0-9] keys (when it's a config file like here it's not a big problem, a simple bash script could do the trick, but through a GUI, that's painful). BTW, what is the naming convention of the keys in the config file ? For the ";" I guess I have to enter "Semicolon" in full letters with a capital "S", but how do I set the "1" key of the numeric keypad ? "Num1" ? If I want to use the "1" key (without pressing Shift, so it's the "&" key) should I write "Ampersand" ? What about the " ' " key (corresponds to "4") ? "Apostrophe" ? "SingleQuote" ? What about the "é" key (corresponds to "2") ? Edit: If I remember well, in AoM you can create groups of units by using banners at the top of the screen. When a group is not created, the banner doesn't appear completely, only the bottom of the banner is displayed. You click on it, and your group is created : the banner appears with a number on it, and each time you click on it, the group is selected. Thus, the player can manage his groups without using the keyboard. Maybe 0AD could provide the option ?