Not a Spartan

Saw the cheats topic and the talk about the superheroes and flying saucers and thought I might expand on the 'microcivs' a bit. I was thinking that they'd appear mostly to act as trading posts/eye candy in the 'Unknown' random maps. But maybe they could ally with the player once the player had traded a reasonable amount of goods with them. Obviously, 20 mixed units wouldn't make a very strong ally. But every once in a while (maybe 1 in 20 maps), there'd be a fun anachronistic/offbeat microciv; for instance a Time-Travelling British Fort housing powerful Redcoats, Native Cavalry and Mortars, or a Secret Laser Pepperpot Drawer hosting laser-shooting pepperpots screaming 'exterminate!'.

Thanks for the tip- not too familiar with codecs and all but I'll poke around with the settings. Also, is there any way to hide the error messages in Atlas? Using planes now produces a constant 'GetCurrentSpeed' error. Running bots also gives a Java error or something like that.

Hmm. It wasn't that way last version- as an Atlas junkie I used bots there a lot. Though it would get unbearably slow after a while with both sides at a stalemate, with units trapped behind other units and all that...

I did say I used 'a few other innovations'. For the flying ships, I turned water height to full and murkiness to zero. I didn't mess with the visual effects, but I decided to snoop around the 'actors' list (from the drop-down menu in Atlas' Object tab) and found the 'particles' section, which gives the fog/snow effect. By the way, there's a lot of fascinating stuff in that section, including a Stonehenge! (and winter-themed Celtic buildings, as seen in the first shot) Now if only the video'd came out. I'm a bit miffed. (handy tip: don't record file sizes over 2 GB if you have the CamStudio screen recorder!)

Thanks for the reply! And speaking of ships, I think their armour needs to be upped a bit. I don't think wood on biremes should be weaker than human skin. Pierce armour especially should be up. It's fairly easy to sink ships with archers or with arrows from other ships, which shouldn't be the case if rams are going to be introduced later. Though I guess the weak armour's just an interim 'feature' until rams come up. Damage wise, Spartan women should have their attack upped a bit; I'd imagine that they'd be a bit fitter than other civs' female citizens. Not to soldier level, but enough to hinder attackers somewhat. Also, what happened to JuBot? It was my favourite bot- it'd actually garrison units, something which I didn't see qbot do.

Mmm. Thanks for the tip! How many more useful shortcuts am I missing? It really looks brilliant. I'm also a tad annoyed after I spent 2 hours or so recording another fairly epic battle to put together, using that key and a few other innovations, and then a video output error came up. >_< I'll definitely remember to have the sky on in any future videos- the results look fantastic. Yes, those are Mauryans and a combined Samnite-Persian force battling outside a small alpine trade town. With supporting skytriremes and things.

Quickie suggestion: why not reuse old models to greater differentiate civilisations? The Spartans could get the old version of the dock from iirc 2 alphas ago, since they weren't big on their navy. The Gauls could also have the longhouse as their standard house, given that they were more 'urbanised' than the Brits. (then again I might not know what I'm talking about- history isn't exactly my forte!-, but those are the general impressions I'm getting)

Spartan special building suggestion? An Agoge, which produces Spartiates at the rate of 1/20 of the population every 5 mins or so, assuming population cap isn't reached. The Spartans weren't known for grand infrastructure, so I suppose their wonder could just look like an average (but larger!) functional building.

IMO men are already quite well represented in the game already (in other words, as overrepresented as they were historically ). As some mentioned, most young men in those days were probably expected to take up arms if need be. If we do have male citizens, we'd probably need to make them come in 'wealthy', 'entertainer/public servant' and 'elderly' classes only. (with the differences being purely cosmetic)

Okay, I'm sure this has been thought of before (everyone loves more content!), and it's probably buried somewhere in the 'nice to have' list, but in any case it'll be pretty neat: mini and micro civs! Minicivs would be useful if there're any large scale campaigns planned. A big 'Rise of XX Empire' campaign could have them at the initial stages, e.g. a Rise of the Persians campaign would have them battling the Babylonians and Egyptians at the start. They wouldn't be ordinarily playable except through cheat codes and the Map Editor, but would have a decent range of buildings and units. For instance, an Egyptian miniciv profile (I won't profess to know a lot about history so this is just a quick example!) might look a bit like this: BUILDINGS: (village) • Egyptian palace (civ centre) - trains cannon fodder archers (either unupgradable, or with just 2 levels) and cannon fodder spearmen (likewise, with either none or just one level up) and normal citizens • Egyptian house • Egyptian Field (+10% productivity when near rivers) • Egyptian mud-brick wall (slightly stronger than a palisade) (town) • Egyptian 'barracks' - same units as civ center, but has 'refined composite bow' upgrade (100 wood) that adds +1 pierce damage to arrows, or trains them at level 2- (though they're still cannon fodder overall ) • Egyptian frontier fort - not quite a fortress, but not quite a defence tower either - trains Nubian (?) chariot archers • Egyptian guard camp - trains Medjay champion units with sickle swords (weaker than 'normal civ' champion units) (city- upgrading to city stage costs less than it would a 'normal civ') • Palace - acts as dropsite - trains hero Ramnses the Great (monuments build faster), Scorpion (can build civ centers), Cleopatra (can take over Roman/Ptolemaic buildings), and <generic other pharaoh/warrior etc.> • Sphinx (increases productivity of fields near rivers a further 10%) • Egyptian dock - builds Reed Galley (a multifunction fishing-merchant ship. garrisoned units fire arrows) • Assorted other easy to model but characteristically Egyptian New Kingdom buildings - eye candy Microcivs are totally not playable and can appears as Easter eggs on the map- they only consist of one building and a few units- you could have an Axumite trade dock (home to Axum warriors- may also build Axum Trade Galleys, and regular Axumites) or an Armenian Noble House (home to Uratuan warriors and horsemen and regular citizens). They have a population cap of 20, and are generally peaceful and can be traded with. The population may auto gather, and both their units and buildings ignore zones of control.

Greetings! I'm glad to be part of this community, even with my disagreeing keyboard (I'm having to type this on my iDevice as my keyboard had some of its letters die. These things always happen with excellent timing grrsshhmumble...). Anyway, I've had 0A.D. for a few months now and am definitely a bit of a junkie. I'm not sure if I can contribute too much, but I'll be more than happy to churn out ideas/neurotic commentary or things of that sort! Also, am I the only person here who uses the editor more than the actual game? The editor is actually a really fun sandbox in itself- it's interesting to just plop in some units, and then 'create your own adventure' from there- place enemy forces, do a rough narrative etc. Speaking of which, here's a preview of a video I'm going to upload next week after Christmas! I'm taking my time stitching all the takes together*, do the video certainly isn't complete or very smooth currently though it should show why I love the editor so much- creativity and camera angles! (*and I don't really want to ruin the pre-Christmas mood with videos of animated 3D Spartans receiving tactical bombing anyway) I've noticed a suggestions forum and will definitely try to be civilly active there. So that's all I can add currently, and to everyone celebrating, Merry Christmas! I joined after checking the site for a new alpha, which I've just downloaded- I'll definitely poke around in it, and possibly sing praises about it, tomorrow. (okay, just one mini-suggestion! anyone wants a Google+ 0AD community?)