Unarmed

Dinosaurs!? Did I hear dinosaurs!? When I was a very little kid I used to always take dinosaur books from the library (but also about ancient armies, pirates etc.) If you haven't seen Walking with Dinosaurs you are not a true dinosaur fan, though Walking with Dinosaurs has errors in it. Good thinking. I like these ideas. Everyone has their taste. I never play gears or the polar maps because I play partly for the atmosphere and authencity. So in my opinion fictional maps are fine, but it should be very clear they are. I would be very dissapointed if I clicked on a scenario or biome that says: "Brittania heathlands" or "Persian highlands" and I play the map and it has buildable dragons, citizen-soldiers replaced with robots and a tinky winky, and the map itself is drawed like male genetals. I know, I know, that's a big exeggeration, but I think this makes my point very clear. I don't play scenarios either because of the population, even without lag I prefer to play around 200, I hope it is a priority to make population customizable for scenarios. And people who have a not-so-great computer can't possibly play scenerios, which is kind of sad.

Seems good like a indefinite placeholder. Maybe people like it that much that the triplet is not needed. Though it could be exploited somewhat. Let's say I want units from the Roman embassy and Iberian embassy, I make units from the Roman, delete the Roman embassy and build the Iberian. I have no idea if that's worth doing, but I guess this is worth mentioning. I personally would prefer the triplet system hence I said indefinite placeholder. Is there a way to combine the hero limit and the double system?

I am the copyright holder of original works I post in the Wildfire Games 0 A.D. Art Development forum. I hereby release all original works I uploaded to this forum in the past, and those I will upload in the future, under the Creative CommonsAttribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license. EDITED: see below.

That is because Provence is not a oceanic climate but mediterranean climate. Well, I thought, this map seems better than I had in my head: I thought Europe, was only classified with oceanic + mediteranean climate (and if you want to be precise alpine). But this map shows you guys are right, there is a difference. But I'm not sure if it justifies a difference in buildings. EDIT: on the other hand a wikipedia map about oceanic climate is in my favour:

Walk and run toggle I would really like. Incendiary arrows too. Though I must say, somethings I would like more realistic. I had another example but I can't think of it. I know one though, but this is also historical accuracy. For incendiary arrows I would like them to be used like they were used in history. I think they were mainly used to fire over pallisade walls and set fire to wooden houses* (wooden houses without walls can be torched). Also for destroying siege engines I thought. I don't think they were used against infantry. But, it is not a big issue if incendiary arrows would be used against infantry. *Would be cool to have somekind of "barrage" ability or better said attack ground ability, so archers can actually fire over pallisade walls to destroy houses.

In the suggestion thread I talked about having different units through choosing with Mythos. We talked how the Irish wolfhound could be implemented; the mastiff would be better at x, while the Irish wolfhound would be better at y. This is one of those examples in which unit choosing (like the upgrades in the mill: you can choose from two but pick only one) would be great. The units available only in scenarios are also potentials. One issue with unit choosing is balance. Though it is my opinion that you do not need to exclude units to achieve this balance, only in extreme cases.

That seems much better as a pop up window. Though with females and males it becomes a bit more difficult, but doable I guess. Something I really would love, is seeing the experience levels expanded, I explained how in the combat enhancement thread. But not people seem to like this. Let me tell a story and everyone will understand it is great, especially with the planned names for units: "You are playing 0 A.D., you have some soldiers. You are attacking a enemy group. The fight is over, you notice one citizen-soldier looks different. You click on him, his name is <something> Maximus. You are like cool. You fight more battles and you see Maximus leveling up to stage 3. Kind of cool. You look at him again and see he has gained stage 4, which is rare. And even later he has gained stage 5 which is extremely rare. Maximus becomes somekind of a proto-hero and is capable of taking on a few soldiers at once (not too many, and not too easy). But then "Noooo Maximus!", Maximus dies like Elias in Platoon or Boromir in the Lord of the Rings. And you are sad." EDIT: Imagine this: Or this: We only need the expanded level system, the names and of course overly dramatic death animations. _______________________________________________________________________________ Concerning that, I would also like some little statistics how many my individual soldiers have killed. In Company of Heroes, which has this, I sometimes have a veteran 3 tank with let's say 65 infantry killed and 4 tanks. When the tank get's destroyed, I'm really sad, I sometimes say out loud to my screen when alone: "Noooooooo! Why!?" I had another idea, which surely few will like; I think it would be awesome if regular soldiers turned into heroes instead of making historic heroes, it makes more sense to me a hero is created on the battlefield instead of in a building. It would work like this: -if individual unit reaches x kills (a amount that would be rare to number), it turns into a hero -if another one reaches the same kills he does not turn into a hero, but if the first one dies he will When I thought of this, I didn't think of auras, but yeah, I am pretty sure no one of the developers wants to change the current system and I think few would like this. ___________________________________________________________________________________________________________ The next idea is different, see the red part of this: In Company of Heroes you could select buildings there. I think this would be very nice to have in 0 A.D. So in the red part you would have all the little icons of buildings and when you click on them it goes to the building you clicked on, if there are more you would click again. I'm not sure though, maybe some think hotkeys are good enough and this is not needed.

About the German video, I have heard in the past that Germany is the biggest real time strategy market. So you might want to keep them as friends.

I think you misunderstood me (or I am misunderstanding you), maybe because I said Warcraft 3 system. I was not proposing a unit limit.I was proposing the same thing as you but different. As your military population goes up, you gather less. Not because citizen are becoming lazy, but because you have a big army which needs to be maintained. In real life, citizen would not cost 50 food, but 50 food in a week so to speak; they would have to be maintained too, everything else too. But I ignore that. I understand your idea now. But take into consideration not all people can have 300 units on screen. I have a good computer for 0 A.D. but some have a okay computer, if you force them to play with 300 units you might lose them. I first had the same idea for upkeep in the beginning. But than I saw the Warcraft 3 system of units gathering less when population increases, it is exactly the same as how Company of Heroes upkeep works (here I got the idea of upkeep from), but since you don't have actual units gathering in Company of Heroes I did not think of that. I thought that it would be confusing and too radical if you lose resources so I prefered the Warcraft 3 idea. However in the case of mercenaries, this becomes very interesting. You could include historic stuff with this: -mercenaries pillaging (I have heard of this quite often) -the cannon fodder you said I would think to make mercenaries go gaia, and start raiding farms by destroying them or like the bear idea in the animal raiding thread. Though I'm not sure if these kind of things appeal to most players, I actually think a lot won't. The upkeep, higher military population, less gathering, seems like something little people would have a issue with. And it isn't something radically different.

Of course in case of minifactions, I think it should be optional either through options or by maps. I think it would offer more strategy, but some might not like this. I like your idea. My first idea of having minifactions just like regular factions but seriously handicapped I don't like anymore. Besides your idea I also like my second idea based on Age of Empires 3 though, of having the outpost work as a tradepost. And the idea inspired by Seven Kingdoms; giving resources before the settlement becomes ally. How about this: You have two options: 1. destroying the settlement, when destroyed it leaves some resources or you gain resources automatically when the settlement is destroyed 2. you first build a outpost inside the settlement (like Age of Empires 3 but with a outpost) You can choose again (idea is from Seven Kingdoms): -attack but people will defend -give them resources but this costs you resources -by time it will be allied to you, this takes much longer than the options above, however it is free. Will not work if outpost is destroyed. Whatever you choose, the settlement will become allied to you, unless the outpost is destroyed. You'll be able to train mercenaries and have upgrades (similar to Age of Empires 3) As you can see no capturing. I prefer the idea of capturing enemy buildings (I assume though capturing means the building will be yours but you cannot build the units the enemy made in this building). It makes sense to me a enemy building would be captured. But a native village would be subdued by force, "bought" by giving them valuable materials or they would allow mercenaries over time. Your idea seems simpler though if the capturing is done. It's a good idea to already design these things, even if it would be added in a very late stage. This sounds kind of arrogant, but I really like my idea, it is a mixture of Praetorians, Age of Empires 3 and Seven Kingdoms (1&2). I would think it would appeal to people. But let's see what everyone thinks.

I don't care that much about realism in 0 A.D. Except for buildings being destroyed by swords and arrows, I really prefer the Age of Empires 3 way with units throwing torches. Historical accurate I do care about more, which I guess is realism though. This applies to units but also flora and fauna. This makes the game authentic.

I don't understand? This is what I'm saying? I did not say anything about a unit or population limit. Or do you mean the population limit needs to be removed (a big no-no, some people need population limit for performance reasons) EDIT: Sanderd makes it a bit clearer for me but I still don't understand.

Watching it. Haha, I remember playing Age of Empires 1 deathmatch on Zone.com. I was a kid so I was not patient enough for regular play. Deathmatch was so silly. Everyone made just one type of soldier, build thousands of buildings to recruit them and if allowed lots of towers. Most players were Choson with legions or Hittite with horse archers if I remember correctly. Some factions weren't used at all (I thought even in regular play some factions were not used). I tried different tactics like centurions with composite archers but I failed. It was fun hiding my villagers and pissing people off. EDIT: I agree with his opinion fully.

Upkeep means that a large amount of (military) units means that your income is decreasing. Imagine if you have a big army in real life. It costs to manage this army even when it's made, for example supplies. I think that's why Company of Heroes has upkeep but also to give players that do not have enough of the map in this game (the game is about capturing territory) a chance. The latter I don't think is really needed. I think most players want to win because they are doing great, and not give someone who isn't doing so great a better chance to win. But the main reason for upkeep would be to similate the costs of maintaining an (big) army, and also to make it in late game not float that much resources. Though that seems to be not the case in multiplayer: I begin to float when I have a big army and have built about enough (I think you mean this). And AI is rather easy to fight as they do not retreat and so upgradable soldiers do not upgrade. I can imagine at this stage I would have little trouble against a player too, but a player would of course not let you reach that stage. I have been mostly playing Company of Heroes, a very different game. Late game I have it easy in 0 A.D. Only when I'm attacking I forget about my workers, and my farms would be gone but that's about it. I guess I have trouble with the farm thing since I'm so used to Company of Heroes, where you don't have resource gaining and can focus on combat. You only need to look at your base in that game to reinforce troops. Though of course, it is very important that the game does not get too demanding when it comes to management; casual players are important for 0 A.D. But I guess management increases by the skill that you are playing. When I played Company of Heroes competively, it needed my full attention and I needed to be fast. But I played a game with someone on a forum for fun against some bots. I could relax and the game did not need my full attention. I have not thought about that and how Warcraft 3 does that. If I would implement it I would suggest it like this: -upkeep begins when the population reaches x, I think 100 or 150 would be good -than it slowly increases as the population increases Maybe it should not apply to citizen-soldiers. There are many things possible. Important: I do not even think upkeep is necessary per se, what I feel is more important is late game, seems too easy at the moment but that might be because it is Alpha. Upkeep could be a solution to this but maybe there are better solutions to it.

Nice map by the way. I was under the assumption most went for the landscape and culture. If you want to go on a real sun vacation there are better options like Spain. It are mostly families going to France, young people who want sun and beach don't go to France. I think the temperature difference is neglectable, though I guess it does rain more in Great Britain compared to France. It would be fine as a difference since it is a game, but I prefer historical cultural differences. I like how most of the Briton buildings are round. (Note: these sentences do not apply to the different buildings that have been made)

I believe converting units is something the team would like. I really like the idea of converting buildings, but being able to build the same soldiers as your enemy in it makes no sense to me (not that the team is planning this). But how would prisoners work? When would units become prisoners? (I do not like tower pushing too by the way; it is building towers forward to your base right? The AI sort of did it to me, I was building my base and had just builded a tower and the AI builded a tower on the other side, and I laughed out loud.)

You don't have to say sorry. I can understand you well. I didn't see any errors at all in your post. I scored high on English at school, but I still make many errors. Someone else suggested something similar but different. It would come in handy, though I wouldn't like it on the screen on default. I prefer a pop-up window showing such statistics as you said or statistics as someone else suggested (gathering rate). Kind of like the diplomacy window.

I could play AA fine on Windows XP without bugs. But on my new Windows 7 it did not seem to work. I haven't played the sequel but it had good ratings so I suppose it is like AA but improved for it's time. Conquest is indeed a successor only in name, so I've heard. Haven't played it. I bet there are many more real time strategies not well-known, with great features or potential great features. Which we can use as inspiration for 0 A.D. By the way, preatorians, I recognised the cover art, I think I have seen this game in a RTS top/chart.

Is it really true that GB is colder as France? I suppose if you compare Southern France (mediterraean climate) to Northern Scotland, but I don't think it is such a notable difference otherwise. It is true France is more southern as GB, but I think they are both oceanic climate. I'm not a expert at the subject though. I did take a quick look at average temperatures of France and GB, at first glance no notable differences. But I clicked it away before taking a good look, which I don't want to do right now. I thought it wasn't as simple as being more southern means higher temperature, but I could be very wrong.

I hope this is not already in the game or planned, this is alpha after all. I searched at Google, tracs and the forum. It was mentioned 3 times on the forum but not discussed in depth. Company of Heroes has upkeep, which I like. But I wasn't sure how this could be implemented in 0 A.D. , especially without making people upset. I looked at Warcraft 3 review because we were talking about other strategy games. And I see that it had upkeep, you would gather less if you had a big army. It is basicly the same as Company of Heroes but still slightly different. (Company of Heroes has territory supplies that gives you resources, and you would gain less of it when you had a lot of units) I'm making this thread because I want to make a poll. I'm curious if people would like or dislike upkeep, or think it's not needed. On a side note, I feel like economy is a bit too easy late game (hence I would like this). I float resources most of the time. But maybe in multiplayer this is not the case? I mean, it shouldn't be that extreme that you can't build big armies and lots of fortresses late game. But in late game I can make in theory 100 fortresses and lose 500 troops in a short amount of time. I would like to be able to build 10-15 fortresses and 300-400 troops in a short amount of time. (badly explained but I hope everybody gets what I'm saying).

I think it's not good to turn the game into Total War. But if you mean features of total war I agree. And I think there are developers who play the series so they might use it as inspiration. Mythos said that he imagined the map of Rome 2 to be as he imagined it for 0 A.D. I have no idea what that means though, is the campaign supposed to be something like Total War? I enjoy the classic base building and resource gathering a lot. But I would like combat to be more like Total War + Company of Heroes. And the diplomacy to be more like Seven Kingdoms maybe Total War (I have no idea how diplomacy works in Total War, only played Rome total war demo and Medieval 2 demo).

Cool, will check out the video. One important reason that I make a thread for Seven Kingdoms is that it is not well-known and unique. If you or anybody else know games not well-known feel free to share. Lords of the Realms 2 is another game I'm sure not many know. It was sort of Medieval total war: 0.5. But it does not have any features I think would be fitting for 0 A.D. Same with the Settlers clone Knights and Merchants.

I really really like choosing between different technologies or path. I want 0 A.D to expand on this idea so players can pick their own playing style even more and it is also very strategic (should I choose this against x enemy or should I choose that against x enemy) Though I'm not sure if this appeals to competive players.

When you first play it it might seem a bit boring, I played it yesterday again and in the beginning it can seem rather boring, even to me. But it is a good game. Maybe someone wonders what is stopping me from playing this way, let me explain: In Singleplayer: -you start as enemies instead of neutral, AI is not diplomatic at all, they do not ask for resources, ask to trade, ask to become friendly etc. -market can be used effectively without actual trading -resources are nearby and not placed randomly so you do not really need to trade because you have all the resources In multiplayer you could have players asking for resources and players asking for alliances. But the last two points apply to multiplayer. Some of these things I mentioned, when changed, might not be good for competitive players. I would like starting neutral to be default when there are no teams, but when locked teams is checked everyone should be enemies. The resources is not a big problem. I can make maps myself where resources are placed differently. The market I'm not sure about. I will ask on the idea and suggestion forum what people think about it. I have never heard of praetorians, but I see the developers have played this. What I like about Age of Empires 3 is the treasure guardians, the natives and the trading routes (though in case of trading routes, I wouldn't want it to be the only way to trade), and I would like them in 0 A.D. The treasure guardians if implemented should not be on competive maps or modes. I played Empire Earth 1 only. I don't think it had any features that would be nice for 0 A.D. I guess you know for Empire Earth 2. I heard Spartan Ancient Wars was nothing special, though maybe it had some cool features or systems you know of. I heard it had Greek belly bows, Gastraphetes, which is kind of cool. (not sure though) Rise of nations I played the demo. I thought it was nice, but I can't remember what features it had. It had something cool. The Blizzard games I'm not fond of, but I haven't even played it. I saw Warcraft and Starcraft played on Korea TV and it seems boring to me. I also watched some Starcraft 2 videos which I also find boring to watch (I don't have Dawn of War 2, but I enjoy watching those matches). I don't want to bash any of the people who like it, and I should try it before making assumptions, but it does not appeal to me. I bet it has some nice features though, it is popular for a reason.

I like the idea of taking the best features of other games and making it own by improving it or expanding it. Original ideas are good too of course. To NoTowerPushing Prisoners could be interesting in someway, but also have the potential to be annoying I think. If you like the idea I suggest you explain it in depth, and tell what could be issues and how these issues could be solved.