Donner

I would suggest that working soldiers take two identities; a disarmed worker and an armed soldier. The soldier, if ordered to work, would discard his equipment at the nearest resource drop off or military facility, transforming into an unarmed worker capable of working but incapable of attacking, and subsequently perform the order. When the soldier is ordered to attack or given a transforming command, the soldier in his worker state would run to the nearest of the aforementioned buildings (it doesn't have to be the same building that the soldier dropped his equipment off at) and transform into his soldier identity. The soldier, now in his armed state, is capable of attacking but incapable of working. Such a transformation can be triggered by the same function that orders the female workers to garrison. The arming action can also be triggered automatically, such as if hostile units approach to within a certain radius. Overall, I think this option is more realistic than the arms that always seem to be conveniently lying in the fields for instant arming.

The the selection of the statistics that are to be displayed on the summary screen could be left to the discretion of the individual players through configurable settings displaying the statistical subject and their relevant checkboxes.

The mini factions could remain as exclusively non player entities in the standard skirmish and campaign games with the full factions. However, I would suggest that a special game mode in which all players are exclusively playing mini factions be created. This would allow the mini factions to be played without the game imbalances that would be caused if the mini factions were pitted against full sized civilizations. This would expand the gameplay options of the players and attach higher value to the creation of the mini faction (which, at least with the impression I am getting browsing through this topic, seem of little more importance in the current forms they are taking in this discussion to the gameplay that the deer which are currently prancing around the game environment).

I have noticed that the attack animations used by the spear wielding cavalry units are the same as used by the sword wielding cavalry units. I think that the slashing attack animation should not be used by the cavalry spear men. Are there plans to differentiate the attack animations between the two classes of melee cavalry, or at least to remove the slashing attack animation from the cavalry spear men?

I think cavalry really need the ability to push other units. As of now the cavalry in 0 A.D. (and all of the other RTS games I have played with cavalry units in the games) are little more than mounted infantry which are faster to move around. The ability to displace units in a charge would make the cavalry much more useful and may allow them to be used as a tool to disrupt infantry formations and possibly break the formations.

In what language will the audio attack notifications be? In the native languages? English audio notifications would be strange given that the units speak their native languages. The more desperate "we cannot hold!" notifications could be given if a formation is under attack and is about to collapse.

Will the formations be flexible? As of now I see two main problems with the formations: The formations are too rigid (It is quite amusing to watch large formations of units march around making point turns and looking at the units at the front and back of the columns rushing to keep formation as the formation degenerates into a spiral flurry. Works with line formations also), and the formations just fall apart when contact with hostile units is made. I know the latter problem is is being addressed but the former I also see as a problem at least from an aesthetics point of view. To me, the formations should flow, especially the column formations, and should snake around the paths the units take. The line formations should be more rigid of course, but the units should not rush around to keep formation, and formation reforming and turning should be slowed down to do this, with an added benefit of slowing down the forming of formations being that it places more tactical importance on pre-battle planning. The flexibility of the formations is also important when the formations meet hostile formations with fronts narrower than the other formations (an example being, say, a ten man wide front against a three man wide front). In these situations, will the larger formation keep its form and waste manpower that could have been used to end the hostile threat more quickly, also reducing attrition to the formation, or will the formation flex, achieving the destruction of the threat faster with less loss of health, but compromising form and making it vulnerable to a subsequent attack made right after the last attack. This may also add complexity to the formation system as there is no absolute front, back, and flanks anymore relative to the formation as an envelopment by it essentially turns the formation into one side front and flanks and three back sides (This also applies to surrounded formations which are essentially three sides front one side back. This effect would apply even if the formations were rigid). Finally, what happens to the formations front when a unit at the front gets killed? Obviously the side which had the unit would send another unit to fill the gap in the formation, but will the other side force one of its units into the gap. If it does this, it would be interesting to see how the front line evolved over the course of the battle, but sending a unit into the gap is essentially also breaking formation.

The new menu buttons look quite confusing. The gray colour of the stone texture make the buttons look as if the buttons are grayed out and unusable. My suggestion for the buttons would be that a different colour be used for the buttons. However, it is an improvement over the current UI. I quite like the brass frame around the menu buttons. I can barely wait for a redesign of the HUD.

It will really need to pick up if it is going to even meet half its goal. The rate that the donations have been flowing in has slowed considerably, and is now at around roughly $300 a day. At the current rate, the fundraiser will not even reach $30,000 by the end of the campaign. I am afraid that the fundraiser is hitting donor exhaustion.

My internet connection isn't really one of the fastest nor the most reliable. If I try to download the file directly, it would take an estimated 4 hours with a 60% chance (my estimate) of the download failing and having to start over again. Could someone provide a torrent for 0 A.D. Alpha 14, as it is much easier for me to download by torrent with the internet connection I have.

I very much hope that the AI will be able to use ships soon. However, I do fear for the fundraiser. The rate the donations have been flowing in has been decreasing and now I doubt the fundraiser will actually go past the $50,000 mark, which is less than a third of the fundraiser's goal.

If you were going to model real ancient cities, there will be limitations that you will run into, mostly in the amount of work it will take to create them. The basic building in 0 A.D. has a scale of about 2:3. You will have to upscale the building models first, as soldiers walking around a dwarf city is not very realistic. The basic in game buildings do not cut it if you were going to make a city with any realism, and many custom building models would have to be created. This would take much longer than 1 to 2 months for one man to create a city unless he was working full time. At least there is some realism in the effort it will take to make one. It would be great if we had historical cities in 0 A.D..

For the fundraiser to be successful we (not just "we") will have to spread the word about 0 A.D.. Even with all these donations flowing in the fundraiser still runs a significant risk of not meeting the goal as it eventually will likely meet donor exhaustion, turning that flow into a trickle. If the fundraiser is to succeed (as in meet the fundraiser goal) we will have to actively promote the project and draw new donors to our cause. Promoting it around gaming communities will be a big part of of this fundraiser's success.

If units are to be given more than one mode of attack (say, pila or gladia for a Roman legionnaire), what if unit groups of a certain level and headed by a commander are able to automate basic attack events that can be set. For example, a group of like units can be set so that when hostile units come into the attack range, the group can be set beforehand to either attack by melee, throw javelins and then charge attack, or throw javelins until the group makes contact with the hostiles and then attack by melee. The units that will be able to do this will have to be of a certain level (not any old conscript will be able to do this), and not all types of main infantry units will be able to do this. This will give an advantage to mainly units that have combined attack and is quite useless for units that have only one type of attack. This makes combined ability units very flexible in that you can choose whether to make them act primarily as melee or ranged units. I think that while the particular idea above can be discounted, the idea of basic automation that is a bit more complex that walking forwards and backwards and harvesting should be considered for adding to the gameplay.

Lots of the talk in that forum thread is about optional day and night cycles. If it ever gets implemented, I wonder if it will be a setting toggled for each game (like the population cap) or as a graphics setting preference. If applied individually, players who turn off the day/night cycle off will have an advantage over players who keep it on (that is, if night affects the line of sight of units). It would be cool to have "moving shadows" (shadows that vary throughout the day, like in the real world).