Radagast.

Indeed once we have moved the damage to the weapons instead of per unit type things could really get interesting. No sword available? No prob, just grab that fork and see how far this might help against the enemies rushing your river village. Or: Lost or broke your sword? No prob, use your fist to try to knock out the enemy in a last-hope for survival action. Or try to disarm your opponent too. It could be quite fun. iNcog, I appreciate your detailed info. In general I think hard counters are indeed good for multiplying the countering-effect to make them very extreme. For those it might be too complicated to adjust the soft counters for the same effect, though I think that are edge cases only. Hard counters are just a simplification. If your model can't handle the realism, then it might be appropriate to approximate it using hard counters. Though for me hard counters are only trouble at this point. Later they might be used for fine-tuning. Whenever you balance or want to control something, you start out with few parameters and add more and more by time. That's why I first would like to omit hard counters. Though my opinion is just what it is: an opinion.

Wow, that's great news. You might learn programming in the process, comrade.

I think it would be nice to add the feather as a prop and make it a decal. That way we could make the top feather a plane and have a full-detail texture which could look nice. (though if we looked from straight front it may be invisible, therefore we could loop cut CTRL+R + Moving mouse over edges to halfen the plane and bend it a bit, such that it is visible from all directions despite its thinness) And it would save you the hassle, Stan. Your helmets are coming along better and better. Only that top feather is missing and it's another helmet that is done.

The shapes are impressive. Keep on the detailed work. It's pretty + awesome.

I agree that in some exceptions hard counters/multipliers could still be useful for distinguishing damage per opponent. (in this context they'd only be somewhat artificial soft counters distinguished by opponent.) Though generally it is a bit superfluous, because is a spearman's damage greater against cavalry than against infantry? If so isn't it rather because the horses approach much quicker and a rider has more weak points - in comparison to a heavy infantry unit? In terms of ranged units we already realised that e.g. accuracy (read: spread which is definable on a per unit base) should depend on speed. Just like charging damage would depend on the current unit speed. If a horse archers has velocity of 0 (e.g. stands ground), then it would have the infantry archer's spread/accuracy. If moving then the archer would hardly hit targets if the horse's speed is only high enough. Weak points would be ingenious, though I think Ykkrosh pointed out that units don't have a direction and thus it's quite difficult to determine weak directions, e.g. flanks. Though I'm not sure if the direction couldn't be derived by examining the speed or direction of the attack target as it could be assumed that a unit will turn to face an opponent and thus the direction could be derived from this vector: direction3DVector = target.position3DVector - source.position3DVectorThat hard counters come down to micro isn't generally valid. If lance cavalry had a big impact on light infantry because of the speed and plenty of weak target points (+ frightening damage), then it'd be also quite important to micro properly, e.g. keep the spearmen at front to counter the approaching lancers. Later with stamina + charging it'd be even more important as you always have to decide from which distance you should start charging such that stamina not runs out before you can hit the enemy lines. Perhaps "soft counter" is a misleading term. Realistic results can be achieved via a realistic model. Introducing a hard counter which also had to be balanced on its own makes this balance battle only harder.

One of the consuls did try to invade by sea too. Also the Romans finally made it to conquere the first harbour (the square one). Then one year later they managed to break into the city from there. Though the Romans also managed to breach the walls at at least two points, they never could overthrow the defenders behind those breaches (one the Carthaginians never managed to close despite working day and night). Quite interesting the Carthaginians even managed to construct a secret navy in the harbour and this could have been the turning point if the Romans hadn't put siege rams on ships and tried to attack the harbour to cut of the last resupply route of the carthaginians. Now the carthaginians panicked instead of futher keeping its navy secret and created a breach in another part of the harbour wall themselves where they left the city to attack the Roman siege ram ships. That's probably been one of the few (and most fatal) mistake the carthaginians made (as the Romans could have not repulsed a surprise attack on their navy as they'd been fully unaware of the carthaginian tremendous efforts (e.g. they produced hundreds of shields + swords every night, and the same speed they showed when constructing this secret navy). It could have been the turning point which could have changed history.

Overview of Roman Arrival (note this was the final last stand of Carthage before it was burned down) Triple walls covered the west: Triple-Walls in cross-section: No idea if it's possible to garrison in Atlas. 18:53 < rada> anotherone: "Can you set units to be garrisoned inside ships in Atlas?"18:53 < rada> I have no idea myself ...18:54 <@leper> no18:55 <@leper> (you could probably do something with triggers though)

Carthage in the Punic period (courtesy Musee de Carthage, KK) If you used SVN then you could put units on the wall. Fall of Carthage sounds adventurous. If you think using a historical map as reference is overkill. Then you could make Cathage much bigger, i.e. only showing a part of Carthage, one single part of wall. Half the map could be covered by Carthage city buildings and Romans could try to storm this wall. Triggers could be handy here, e.g. once a wall breaks you could call up the citizens to help defend the city. You could make heroes appear and try to close he hole that broke. Once this hero fell you could trigger a last stand action of Carthage trying to hold the territory where the hero fell in all circumstances! You could make the Carthaginians gather and try an excursion to free some pressure of the broken wall. You could wait for the Roman leader (hero) to enter the crumbling city and once he's inside trigger an encirclement or change ownership of the hero (i.e. capture the hero). You could spawn helper armies from Carthage's allies. If triggers are no option, then I think it still could be fun if you put units on walls + make the city cover at least half the map. it could be called an "urban map" then. Carthage should have much cavalry I think. And the Romans massive siege units. This would force the carthaginians to risk an excursion to destroy the siege units. Roman Carthage Conquering the harbous could be a separate map? (if you really want to model the complete city then there is no other way than to look for a map of carthage). Pre-Roman Carthage Empire of Carthage Queen Dido building Carthage in 900B.C. (The Phoenician's alternative settlement of Tyre, Carthage was called 'New city' in its native language.) Carthage's harbous in "Rome - Total War" (btw. Total war is a very bad name! There is no more unethical war than a total war as total war means civilians are targeted too!)

Hard counters always are to be avoided as it's even yet another parameter to balance (additionally to the soft counters). That's why I'm also an advocate of soft counters. That'd be more realistic too. Nevertheless omitting unit types is already possible. Not sure if some simulation components might throw errors but generally it's possible (the Assyrians won't have a swordsman e.g., therefore they are excellent for testing secondary weapons as the spearmen use both spear + sword. But this is music of the future.) Thanks iNcog for the endless effort to drive our visions forward. Our community in general excels at ideas. That's another fascinating part of 0AD.

Note different price per building is not doable. Anyway, to not overstretch the art sector, I would prefer not having a separate unit type at all. Instead simply choose one of your units as emissary once you have researched an ambassador/diplomacy tech. It's up to discussion if this unit should loose the gathering/fighting skills for the time being ambassador or one of the emissaries. The un-/packing (e.g. putting up a tent or a shop/market stand) then of course won't be possible but it'd be a nice start. Once we have exchangable entity templates (gameplay) we could make a technology upgrade for emissaries, i.e. transforming them in a real un-packing unit. Sander told me we have to unify the promotion functionality for this to work. Though this might possibly be a not-so-easy task. Alternatively we could create a companion later, e.g. a horse pulling a cart, which could be unpacked and turned into a small market/stand/shop/tent/small embassy in the allied territory. (as we plan vehicles we could even make it a buckboard or wagon with which the emissary could garrison inside to move quicker. This would also work for a horse, i.e. Pony Express would be possible too. LordGood, our master of ponies, might well be interested. Or a 0AD extension Wild West) The prior post's embassy then could be abstracted to a tag in a similar way. i.e. mark a building (or even just coordinates) as gather place for the next alliance council.

Just to give a short feedback: In my opinion this can be done and I have an imagination of how your proposals could be added. The point is I still wonder if it's okay if your ally is not asked to allow the emissary to enter? 2.5 solutions: a ) the ally first has to build an embassy where the ambassadors of all allies can gather. If your ambassador (only one per civ!?) is in your allies' country, then loyalty will increase through the dialogue, i.e. the alliance will be tighter. Also, while your ambassador resides in the ally-built embassy it will allow you to use all buildings of your ally with your units, e.g. dropsites et alia. If you send it to the ally's market, then it works as your trade emissary (as Tango_ described excellently). If you send it to a dropsite or resource, it's economic inspector/emissary. and so on. b ) You cannot send an emissary but only request one in the diplomacy options. Once your ally agrees (the AI could be made agree always or depending on loyalty, e.g. if allied and loyalty > 50 then yes, otherwise you have to first raise your allies trust by e.g. defending his buildings, freeing the ally's captured slaves and such). c ) Simply always force to welcome an emissary . I.e. it can't be denied access. The denial of access (e.g. solution a or could be used for neutral parties. Not sure if it should be possible to request an enemy to accept an ambassador at least for an emergency meeting? a ) + b ) can also be combined. Both approaches use the same emissary + escort (e.g. a horse, post chariot ...) as in Tango_'s post. The b ) has the benefit of requiring less artwork. Though it could still be nice to call in all ambassadors (chief emissaries) of all your allies for a council.

That's because they forced them/this region into military service according to our Assyrian book (link above). The spearmen were 2nd most numerous and had to build the main battle line, thus suffered the highest losses. @Zophim: The spearmen also were the sword units ?

I wonder what the animals did there: We can't use decals for all shields. Some Assyrian shields had spikes:

And definitely there is a huge difference as of treatment of slaves between Rome and the Assyrians. It's known slaves were part of the family. In Assyria things were different, they were painfully sewed together to not flee and civilians were deported in masses ... among others. see: From: The Seven Great Monarchies: Assyria by George Rawlingson.

Indeed it looks like they specialized on military + expansion. Nevertheless every such supressing civilization (that just needed the other people for their immense irrigation system + new military campaign as cannon fudder) is quite unsympathic. Though this other-peoples-exploiting property is of course not limited to the Assyrians. -- @Zophim: Are you okay with using the real Neo-Hittite actor for e.g. the basic rank (1) Neo-Hittite Spearman of the Assyrian civilization? We don't necessarily have to hack the rank-up functionality. Instead we can give the Assyrian Neo-Hittite Spearman an own template (as stats might be different if they are force-fighting in a foreign army anyway and the weapons to use might also have differed).

Thank you for clarifying. It confused me that a producer left without a note. The removal of his Avatar already was the prophecy, though whenever he'd been in the forum, it had always been a boost. (true for team members in general as it shows interest in the community's opinion and ideas). However, the main thing is that we who are active will do our best to work on the game, not to focus on those who are not active at the moment. Understood. I felt a bit too pessimistic when posting the topic. And at least you are back. It was uncertain too for a while which made me think there'd be suddenly all gone without notice. It's always good to have a nice mix around, be it historians, artists, programmers or authors. I also notice Ykkrosh wants to avoid the Red Fox scenario (who was put a apart by the community's demands + general critics because clearly everyone expects a lot of paid development) but Ykkrosh's strict + amazing works on performance lately really surprised me so much that I felt either something was wrong or he'd try to save 0AD. I had to force me to not believe the latter, therefore I had to expect the worst. There is no doubt he's the most awesome contributor ever (on the C++ side for certain) and is undoubtful impossible to replace. The community just wants to avoid that he has a hard time to help 0AD due to work and paid development at least seemed to solve this. Indeed, with triggers in now even funtionality of Part II has come earlier, and I feel it's pure epicness. 0AD is the most promising project I have seen for long (since opensourceecology failed). In future even teaching history might be possible with it. Might be that I'm a dreamer. But I like if things are useful and not senseless. And 0AD is useful for sure, especially as it is open source and as a consequence stops mankind reinventing the virtual wheel again and again.

emissaries indeed were planned for the Rome mod once ... I like the caravan / provide escort idea though should the emissaries only be allowed to walk around allied territory? Isn't it easiest to simply create it at home and send it to an allied building to be garrisoned inside? (like traders, where you specify markets) It's another special unit which we should surely add! The trumpeters/signal givers are also noted. As are the standard bearers who should raise moral.

Sad. As it seems, Mythos_Ruler has decided becoming a 0AD mythos. He's listed as Former Staff. With that I now fear Ykkrosh will also leave soon and not get employed by us. If it weren't for the trigger commit today I'd be pretty pessimistic for 0AD. 0AD is an outstanding project where so many people from all around our blue planet pursue a set of joint goals, making things happen, recreating worlds of the past and teach history as a side effect. It's outstanding where this is leading, though to recover from yet another two titans leaving the team (after jason + 0AD founding consorts) will be pretty hard. I will try to help by continuing to help with all mods as much as my time permits. Thanks for this awesome community full of talents, artists, programmers and historians and those interested in history and civilizations. THANK YOU MYTHOS_RULER FOR MORE THAN 10 YEARS CONTRIBUTING.

I agree with auron, if countries become too big and powerful then strange things happen, e.g. the system gets marode and falls apart due to differences or subdued and enemy peoples - usually arch enemenies - forge a joint alliance to bring the powerful empire to an abrupt fall once time has come. Civs were always unbalanced though technology spread quickly in especially war- and perhaps also peacetimes. Example: 30 years war: farmers vs. invading + own armies (as all was a mess). It was imbalance pure, no matter if the farmers were many many more. They were more but they were also easier to trick because they had no war experience (what finally was their doom, e.g. when a scandinavian + north german army had to deal with very huge farmer-armies, they simply told them they'd get what they want if they would dissolve or at least give the city free, i.e. leave their good strategic position. The poor people of course thought this was a gamechanger and now the enemy had understood them. At least they thought they should try to trust and see what happens as it's better to die (as surely many many of the really ill-equiped farmers, some using sickles for fighting, had to die should the army really try to capture the city despite those huge amounts of farmers. Now the problem was, it was all a strategic move of the enemy and all the farmers were hunted down once they had left their strategic position and partly dissolved in sub-armies. The same strategy which was so fruitful against Napoleon so to say.)). Switching ranged and melee cavalry sounds reasonable, the balance changes in the branches you mention also sound as if they could address further problems (if any arise). @iNcog: You are right, there has to be a compromise. Though generally I wish to have a time machine, that's what is fascinating me, not the playing thingy. But that's a personal view. If one wishes to 'play a game' then your arguments are very valid indeed and a compromise should be well considered. It's all about personal taste. (I think 0AD is indeed going this route as unit sizes are inconsistent with historical accuracy, nevertheless the supply lines are generally planned. I hope your are not angry at my time machine dream.)

Awesome. Btw. I must dream .. or are you really using blender now?

Next is to create the head model with the special beard.

Thanks commander, I somehow only thought of multiple diffuse textures. Great your posts directly explain how things work. Committed the pharao. Atlas currently not working for me, must be connected to my current local changes. Therefore couldn't test for errors. Oh no!! I didn't activate selection only on COLLADA export. Will recommit. Am I right that mirror modifiers have to be applied and blender handles UVs for us?

No It was a joint decision to keep only the Han in Rise of The East. Rise of The East is an Iron Age extension for 0AD. All other ages like Medieval (Millennium) & Bronze Age (Aristeia) include eastern civs.O 0AD has no plans to include Han China thus Rise of The East was necessary. The other possibility would be to pack all Eastern civs of all epochs in Rise of The East. Though the general opinion was against this and thus RoTE only contains 1 civ: Han China.

Okay back to topic: have created a bronze_age texture for the pharao, it's all a bit delayed now but perhaps I still can commit the Pharao tonight. Then I'll focus on the remaining Egyptian + Han buildings. After that the Assyrians get their units. Then their buildings. Then I leave Bronze Age and finish the early medieval Japanese in a rush. Then back to Bronze Age Hittites. At this point we'll have three full civs in Bronze Age and are ready for A17. Millennium will have the Japanese as new civ and is ready for A17 too. The Iron Age will be completely finished for A17, i.e. we'll finish the Han Chinese + the Lusitanians. Then it's all getting easier as only Bronze Age + Medieval remain and especially Medieval is what I'm really looking forward to.

That's what I also fear. There is nothing more important than historical accuracy. That's why I think even buildings should not be forced into a size / footprint pattern. i.e. if the chinese castle was big in reality, well then it's big. It should not be made less big only for game reasons as historical accuracy is what 0AD is all about. I know fun is also a goal of 0ad but isn't it fun to have a pitched battle of past civilizations like they really were, not like we make them to make it more balanced. If historical accuracy guides us (and we can get the soft counters right, like iNcog said), then I think our time machine 0AD will be great fun. If you choose a random civ and get a less strong one then it'll still be fun as you could reach the impossible by extraordinary tactics and last-hope manoevres. Still a lot of fun.