Radagast.

Yes, or as mentioned by @DarcReaver and others maybe finally fix the anomaly of citizen soldiers bearing their weapons around all the time. Very realistic IMO citizens can defend. But the "mayor" will have to ring the bell. Destroying your infra shouldn't be so simple then though. It should be more about occupying them. People focused. Can improve realism and feel

WIP implies, this document is likely not fully implemented yet? Let's try to reduce complexity. A lot of hard edges. Hard to balance and not strictly necessary. That is no offense. It is the natural way of finding a doable design. The document is still great. Few small changes: Bonus: via Officer's, Bannerbearer's Aura perhaps. Aura implies units need be close. So it can not be abused. Morale: Nice to have. It works without. Read more below. Panic-mode: Good idea, too complex design. It is not dependent on group. Formation has inherent advantage. No need for more variables to balance. Units either are in formation that obstructs enemies (friction) and barrage (arrows, stones, ...). Or are disbanded and hence every former member is back to vulnerable. Disband => Vulnerable Stronger: Disband => Vulnerable && Nervous Yet stronger: Disband => Vulnerable && Nervous && Panicky if not calm i.e. something happened / is close and unit is inexperienced. Beauty of this approach: It's independent, automatic, less expensive. Usually people get nervous, startled and panicky when they witness or expect harm done to others or themselves - or get word of "stories". Quite some battles were won only by word of chaos and demise where there wasn't. Alone at front line is even harder than in a group. If a formation size falls below min group size (currently 6) then it definitely will have its toll on calmness. Even if the situation isn't dangerous per se, calmness will be set to 50% to model confusion / uncertainty. To less or even 0% if the reason was death of a colleague. But that depends on experience (veteran vs. recruit, ...). Calmness is thus easier! You can be set and calm alone. And in a group. One event / thing alone can make you fully startled instantly. Morale in contrast is relative! It depends on who you oppose. Hence it is a super complicated concept to implement that way. It would depend on the unit you attack even if another enemy unit is closer that depletes your morale. A simple range check hence won't do. Drop explicit morale? Morale can be implicit instead. Supply and cohesion increase comfort, calmness, loyalty. That all together can be called "high morale". I'd rather add "Calmness" for determining a rout. That's easier to grasp and model. If you are not calm you make mistakes. Lose orientation, cohesion, can not dodge, fight worse, may even fall, ... (applies to horses too) and it is usually fully 100%. It not needs balance. It's the same for every unit. A percentage. No absolute value. Edit: To be fair experience influences the rate of depletion. That needs balance. Easier may be to make the experience the minimum calmness on / after shock. Startled: This happens. When rate of calmness depletion is very high, e.g. from >50 % to 0 % instantly. i.e. Yet yet stronger: Disband => Vulnerable && Nervous && Panicky && Startled As mentioned Nervous, Panicky, Startled are independent and can happen within formation. The average calmness needs be above 50% or even less hard edgy above > 0% and calculate group cohesion / density / penetratability via formula like column_distance between units = member_count / optimal_member_count * optimal_member_count * column_width * 100 / calmness Analog for row. This can serve as visualization of how well a formation is doing. May need random to make it interesting.

Sounds good. Promotion on victory cheer. Spot-on! Thanks Justus for the feedback I can understand if you guys and gals think different, but for me it seems some points of dispute in this topic are not mutually exclusive. So both your and @imperium wishes can be fulfilled? It can be as little as a UI setting / hotkey if you want to train only battalions directly (AB) or first individual units, then group them manually (A) or in batches. I call B AB as it sounds technically more appealing to me (but that may be subjective). I'd also train battalions directly by default at least after the village phase. Off topic: Villages could be cheap and automatic once in city phase to allow for suburbs without microing? The decision if and where you want suburbs / city edge villages should be yours though. Maybe like and yet all, i.e. uniq? Maybe it's more like the UNIX universe: You have the choice ;) Can in theory even be mostly peaceful focus (Settler VI, VII). Walls could be strong and costly to overcome or conquer, but it is far more costly, time consuming to construct. Then they are almost indestructible though. And not easy to relocate. Can use as a source for stone though

What do you think about doubling armor rather than changing inherent human properties? If you get close to an officer or focus on it then this opens new tactics possibilities. or by UnitAI Sounds a bit too micro? Else great article always

As for time there will be a ratio 1s doesn't equal 1s ingame. 1 person doesn't equal 1 person ingame. Without reference, all we do is guess and then quarrel about it as the years have shown. If not the cap, then at least natural population growth and decline and demography may be helpful or at least an interesting experiment Edit: I'd even encourage to remove the artificial cap. When it's balanced, it won't be needed anymore. It's a "hack" (no offense meant). More realistic: cap = living space (volume) / living space per person (if you can't feed them, the people will reduce naturally anyway ;)). Edit2: living space can be territory-derived, not necessarily living houses built. That allows for a very risky uncommon strategy to skip structures, gathering people and go on elsewhere early conquering or hiding in the mountains. Or starting construction at easier to defend location. Also this means enemy won't know your exact position only because they know the map and start locations by heart.

IMO for this as for the balancing, we need to work something crucial out: Time. The essence of the problematic is the very basis of 0 A.D.: Pitched civilizations in a City era. That's a great start. Yet (ingame) time is a requirement for getting balancing right. When we have time, we can finally balance the pop cap / reproduction rate, max age, training times, unit speeds, ... because we can use real world values that are well known. Likely we then have to keep it somehow interesting. Also for MP. That may be the real balance act I think the potential of 0 A.D. for such experiments has risen significantly. Our beloved balance discussions can bear a healthy amount of fruits if we have some reference. Instead of relatively balancing a small part of the picture, the entire picture requires our attention. A crucial setting is the real to ingame time speed ratio. If an ingame day is over after 10 minutes, we may never have that true thrilling and interesting feeling. The friction and spice. Edit: The most suitable magic number likely needs some trial and error and is subjective hence may require some consensus poll after some experimentation

Not exclusively for walls, IMO also for all other structures. People should be allowed to farm or mine or even live anywhere. Their "ownership" would change depending on the influence. Territory may be better served by a dynamic implicit control. I'd not visualize this as it's not visual in real world and would spoil fun. Fog of war is fine. That's very close to this concept. I second that. Maybe we need more natural realism? 0 A.D. acceleration is in. Do units slow uphill? That's a first step? Forest also slows? Walls should persist. Not get destroyed. In real world walls change hands. It's the Ancient. Even today warfare not dissolves matter such that structures simply disappear. Only because a swordsman hammers into the bricks ...

There were discussions about this on several occasions. Gameplay isn't a focus of the iron core. I am a proponent of such creative ideas. Generally lifting restrictions benefits everyone. Sure there is a matter of control. One can still be crazy and build a wall outside in the forest. Despite not having control of it. Won't work well. Just like in real world. And that's how it should be IMO

I like it. Reminds me of my game play rework I still at times cope with. Are the resources lost if the storehouse gets destroyed? I tried a fully distributed approach in the HybridAI - which is a general term for something currently pretty infamous: distribution. Though it might be interesting to get it to work on the blockchain. Let's see. I went to excess with my changes. Every item was a real physical item. Having to be stored. Processed. (I coded heaps of recipes for that purpose, like how to create dough and bake a cake or bread from it.) This last effort turned havoc on my progress as it resulted in a mega patch due to too many new gameplay features being reworked which resulted in a maintenance nightmare when 0AD introduced random white space changes (and stopped HannibalAI support which deprived me of a running comparison which was quite fun and kept me going as it was something where I could check my algorithms real time until my HybridAI changes to the engine were complete). The smart groups allowed any entity to take control of the group, even replacing each other in case of death. I have put this to use in my drone projects, too. And currently I work on a related arts project with visual magical hp, lotr Mithrandir effects. All people gained experience in what they did. Could become general. With a long white beard. xD Could get abducted and getting hit by a single arrow resulted in being wounded. More realistic. Less speed. Less hectic. More peaceful focus on economy, diplomacy, beauty of the worlds, endeavours. Could truck trees away from a neighboring kingdom to block a high mountain pass. Adding strategic depth. The citizens randomly decided to take a look at a nearby lake or to broom the stairs or dance at the market. The structures [static] should be accessible to units [mobile] I think. Support lines should require protection. Though to avoid micro, all units deal with it automatically. You can overrule it by directions or micro at any time. Though it's fun to see your generals try crazy maneuvers without success. Your changes iron out some inconsistencies (default arrows) and artificial restrictions (structure spacing). It's a good step forward. I wish to see more. I am not up to date. Have a nice time all. Hope you are doing well Yours old odd friend from far away

I can only sign this. Though I tried to give this virtual engagement a more personal note long ago when I desperately tried to arrange a meeting with forum powers I valued a lot. It was all rejected though despite me offering to travel to France. But if we really all have a nice friendly gathering one day, or if we ever meet to plan our world peace plots, then I will also offer drinks to all these amazing contributors. (I am no less serious) The works are all very impressing! not only those by LordGood, but of course he replaces and entire army (and produces shooort great videos that are no tutorial but still have very loud sound that made me feel in dire need of some utilities from the Weasley brothers lal - not to forget these trees that grow as if made for marksmen, tricking interpolation, putting Atlas Cedar on two feet - all at a single day. what a man).

Interesting. Any reason not to update the "value" every move command instead of frame? Could take coordinates' offsets into account to filter double clicks, redundant script/AI commands with similar coordinates. Then include this "value" in speed calculation. Remainder as is. First issue: looks like simulating momentum and @FeXoR said there shouldn't be such phenomenon. Would you mind explaining? I thought those battalions had been shaped quite nicely already some time ago. What's the blocker? There is a lord that hides as a butler :-) that surely knows @stanislas69 Sounds like a subtle change. In reality reaches very far. It requires debating whether to give a unit more autonomy to reduce micro or not. This has been a point of diverging opinion before. I personally advocate more self-responsibility. Not necessarily per unit. Rather per commander for performance! There usually are far less officers. This comes closely with battalions though, both something more than just me have worked on several times before. Me at least never managed to finish. Pity! Promises so much more depth to strategy and atmosphere.

Another reason to change _e templates to _v[eteran]. ;-) Remove _b suffix it's even a nice alphabetical order. @Genava55 & consorts: The direction this is going looks very promising. IMHO the both handed swordsman should not be missed too much considering the medley and high speed in-simulation. Am I the only one that thinks a lot of 0A.D.'s attraction comes from its tried historical accuracy instead of individual units? Variation is important, but to achieve this there are other ways. The solutions with the Indian is a good idea but there is more we could do. F.e. idle animations where units play with their inventory, laying e.g. their La Tene "long"sword onto their shoulders holding it relaxed (maybe this could distract players from the fact that the two-handed sword has been removed). Definitely the anims will not be lost effort I hope. What about replacing the sword with a long stick and assigning the two-handed fighting anim to a celtic child (idle/playing) or shepherd (to dispel flies from their sheep and themselves!). Thanks for the historical accounts. Interesting read! Looking at Tacitus' report, it seems we are still far from being historically accurate - not so much models, but mechanics, tactics, significance of weather/storms, riots, diplomatic means, ... IMO what we maybe can learn from Caesar's affairs with Britain is that one rather subdues and collaborates than to go to war as long as the enemy is civilized (care for rights, hold their words, ...). It feels this still applies to our world of today. Whatever account of war one reads or listens to, the common people always are the losers one way or the other. I hope you are all fine and I wish you swift chariot acrobatics in 0A.D. soon. :-) Considering the brutality of 0A.D. one could add those horse killers @Genava55 cited. It appears few people know of the poor fate horses often faced. It thus may be to spread the word about their loyalty. @Lion.Kanzen Yes, sad to see such great drawings depicting wrong facts. Not an easy task for artists to know who to trust. It appears they almost have to be historians themselves and follow the procedures/thinking @Genava55 outlined. Is there any chance the modders cited could join forces? Why not reuse their content from medieval TW or whatever it is for 0A.D.. Create once, use twice. Sounds like more fun :-)

What about storing longitude, latitude per cell/map? One could derive climate from it and weather could still be varied by simulation or magic/chemistry like some modern cultures try to influence weather. I imagine swarms of birds travel along the coastlines south and north according to season :)

hmm ... respect to all creative minds. art is a spectacular piece of epic :-) walls are hard coded but if aquaduct approach is kept simple until some AI supports roads (plans exist) then it can work @ little maintenance if you are fine with aquaducts circling around hills or tunnelling on demand loaded sector maps reduce height serialization cost, address TW-like campaigns and finally make snow possible to the very delight of santa yippiih I already see him carve in on his sledge, reindeers in front and caesar in his backpack ready to be delivered to the senate of rome before he passes the Imperium river tztz.

True. It is very smart. And I try to maintain this when merging it with the other open source engines out there. At first though, there will be no more JavaScript. Sorry. But I guess many won't mind. Epic! I have some good news for HannibalAI too. Actually I managed to compile old versions of 0AD which makes upgrading Hannibal a much nicer experience.

Sorry for not answering properly: You can simply stop playing when reaching gunpower era. ;-). As said one can also start in any point of time one wants to.

Wise words! We can make this world an even more epic place. I am certain. I am a strange man because my princesses made me that way. They taught me what really matters. And I stand to what I am doing. That I am trying to make this world sustainable, repairable and epic (LotR & HP tech). We can live self-sustained. We are not in the middle ages. There is the internet. And there is free tech to replace the internet should the need arise. The recipe is open, green tech. No more paying 1000$ for replacing an entire PCB (that costs much less in production!) like I encounter so often at work. Instead simply fix the error yourself following open online schematics. The worlddevelopment eco system (machines set et alia) is designed to be modular and yet green. And DIY. Actually in the recent years we - the independent free tech guys and gals - have made so much progress. Every day I am amazed at how wonderful this world could be. The free world looks into a bright future. If only the right, good hearted beings would know about all this open tech and trust it. Knowledge is key. Once worlddevelopment club manages to finish the robotic manipulator project, then we will be able to produce green food freely and fully automated. I hope the whole world will replicate it. I will throw all that I learned about software, hardware chaos over the years into these projects. IMO complexity is just entropy. If one manages to get it in order, then it suddenly no longer seems as complex. This is why we often think "oh man, what did I do back then .. me noob!" Because we learn, get new knowledge about the how and suddenly it all looks so obvious. Because it organizes well in our brain (experience, know how). So I do support the good. But I certainly do not feed the sharks of this world. Which is why I release openly but develop closed source. Not having versioning and changesets makes it much more difficult to do harm with the tech (code) I develop. I don't want to be responsible for providing an autonomous robotic manipulator that costs 1000$ to terrorists. I may not be smart enough to make us explore the universe, but I am not a fool either. At a later point I will create a worlddevelopment tavern for LotR and HP enthusiasts - a safe haven for open tech contributors. Something like these roleplay gatherings but not so strictly planned. Free green food and drinks for those that contribute - authenticated using some virtual signature key system. It's time that evolution takes selflessness into account. It's time to give the good people an edge.

But I will be honest, I share your fear that your backers might have issues with your decision. I listened to your vid on Patreon and read the comments. If I were better then we could straight out convince them that pyrogenesis or derivatives (like the new 0B.C.E. engine) can even be more epic than Total War due to the freedom that is possible in free, open engines. (OK, again, our engine will be free. But the world has made me a lone wolf, I am over suspect, critical ... people critizing my dreams always hits me hard as has been shown since my active times in 0A.D.. @LordGood was right with his being iron theory. Unfortunately when it comes to my dreams I am soft like plumpudding. Ah, how great, this reminds me of Hogwarts. haha). Extrapolating 0A.D. development should give your backers enough reason to second your move. At least I hope, because I like some of the nice creatures you create. Just like Lord's ponies, unicorns. Caught me forever. Unfortunately never had time to play it ... sad priority list. I wish you to not have to regret your decision to switch over. It is a very honorable move IMO. It definitively helps me reshuffle my list. Getting HannibalAI back to SVN has just risen. The AI controlling workers is what HybridAI does. Maybe I can adapt the concept to HannibalAI but I'm not so sure. I had no such big updates planned for the 0AD.AI worlddevelopment club declared to maintain. The grand strategy map may at some point be taken from 0B.C.E. Currently I can not say anything about the possible entity counts. It will feature LOD, bullet though. And weather. As long as worlddevelopment not dies out before I can finish it all. haha. (it's not so unlikely currently, but it'd hit me hard because worlddevelopment club is the glue for the overall concept, it's my only credibility that I am really serious about the open, free nature of my activities)

Hey Lion, I already did. But I think I should terminate it. Even thinking of money makes me sick. And to take money from such noble beings like all the contributors and helpers (be it 0AD or other free tech)? No really what a @#$% guy I'd then be. Whatever you donate to me, I have to refund you to not die from morale defects. haha. Patreon would love it for sure as they'd maybe earn something. But this is wild guessing. I have a european bank account hidden in a picture on http://ciry.at but till the open bookkeeping (Treasury) is not set up I shall be embarassed to accept any support. You should not worry about me. It's my free decision to work at -2 deg Celsius during winter times. My priority list has fixing this temperature and water issue very low because it only affects me in my crazy under developed base in the wilderness (antithetics to high tech). I often ask me, what if I were the only loving being in the world? Oh what horror. What shudder! I do only live for others. So what benefits others and even if only in the long run is higher on my list. I do not see the temperature issue rise on priority. It will always be preempted. ;-) Like Dumbledore I have my reasons to know why. haha But I must say I am touched by your offer. The will matters. Very honorable. I will not take it, but that you even thought of it makes me live easier. I am always amazed when I am reminded that still many good souls are busy on this little blue planet next to nowhere in the universe. Just wow.

I respect and appreciate your both words. True, it will be an experiment: freedom. I don't say it will work. But generally the idea follows an overall concept that I have for the real world, too. Free, open source distributed technology and open economy. The simulation will be similar, because it is what the real world is like. Survive with what you have. (it's your choice. want to have the tree covered in many epic little lights, just do it. live your dream.) You can exploit and overpower others. Or you can play the defender that often just feels lost and not knows how to make the world a better place. There are few living beings that prefer feelings and avoiding material things. The real giants are those that have either really nothing or real power and yet do not abuse others only due to egoism (like the 18 years old king back then that wanted to become famous, took command and attacked the Turk sultan and easily died, turning the tide of the battle after it was actually virtually won - with far reaching consequences that can still be felt today; see the everyday news haha). As I am in the glass house, I can only reiterate that I am an open source guy top bottom. I may not have warm water, but I have not lost my heart and I rather die than doing harm to the still quite abundant goodhearted beings in this world. People call me a dreamer. And lack of progress is not to my advantage. But who wants advantage. I just want to tame that entropy to have a chance to get my dreams done. And my dream is a world of magic, harmony and colors. TL;DR Let's just all enjoy our lives peacefully, being busy with things that really matter: fulfilling dreams. Not just ours, rather those of others, make this world an epic place for those that we love. Because only what you give is what you really have. So we now have a new website in the works ciry.at and yes, no ads. You can use noScript ... no javascript is used - no hidden money traps or something. Because I may talk a lot but I hold my promises or I die - whatever comes first.

The more functionality related code you have, the worse to open sources prior to release, because it will spin out of control if your manpower|time is low. Without version control (Git) powers I see no chance to survive such a project (if you were to implement the features you mention). As you have mostly data files (XML, JSON) and release often the opposite is true. Other devs will help you, likely directly fixing things in your repo using pull requests. (because your project is quite reputed) One of the early patches that added healing worked like that. So it depends on what abilities you'd want, and if actually having buttons for those is the best way (which it might be if there are a few). Reminds me _strongly_ of what mind bending code is still being worked on by worlddevelopment club. The capability system is exactly targetting this. It's a fluent redesign of how actions, commands and related are handled in 0AD (yes, UnitAI monster is basically recreated, the new code is dynamic, such that all the actions like teleporting, roundabout attack, mutli-target, magic spells, become a blaze). It's number 2 of 4 very big rocks on our way to release 0 B.C.E. What about hiding resources after they are 0 (or do not change) for a prolonged period of time? This simple GUI mod not restricts other functionality which can be good, because why not have other players|factions tribute something you do not directly gather? One can still trade it or tribute to others. I second @stanislas69 with the projectiles. Once upon a time when I reworked animations it did check props for the projectile. It's a bit hacky (to use leper's words, and it's not a mod, thus not only mods are "hacky") In 0B.C.E. pyrogenesis props no longer exist. Every object is equal. As are structures and units. Simplicity rules. Why artifical separation? It is positive that leper says you should not follow 0A.D. naming conventions. Though a lot has improved in 0A.D. over the recent years to be honest thanks to a lot of great devs.

@stanislas69 Please excuse the wording which sounds little friendly! I am aware of the fact you know GuiInterface as shown in the Diff you took over. My proposal serves to show that no hide,show is required and targets specially the target click thingy as "project leader" now prefers - which is different to waypoint of your https://code.wildfiregames.com/D557.

Great, Lion, comrade. If it really helps, maybe provide the .blend and I'll debug edge cases. I might be good for finding weird new model|actor|template errors - even if I'm pretty useless as always. Edit: But please first try the proposal in my previous post. For the learning effect. If that fails, too, then I'll debug it.

OK. IMO duplicate waypoint (rally point) XML. Allows to create variants as needed e.g. when interacting with the mouse with walls or if supplement info like context (e.g. rotating exclamation|question mark 3D model should be shown [as prop to be explicit as we both like :)]). This then'd only be a matter of selecting the correct variant using a GuiInterface call. It may be wise to allow more such graphical-only (unselectable, non-interactive) quasi entities per player at the same time for the case that the animation has not finished playing all frames when the knightly player already clicked other units to its target positions|interaction points. Else one could simply add one such entity per faction,player with position set to -1 by default and on demand moving it to the correct place, showing it via GuiInterface call, selecting the correct variant depending on GUI interaction context. (Maybe my friend to make it easier this single entity approach is a good start?) Edit: May be even better to always keep the quasi entities ingame, but the non-looping (!) animation's rest position being far below ground level. This way no timeout is required to hide the entity|move out of world. Neither is moving into world required then (saves 2 of 3 engine calls, good for performance). So no show,hide and instead: Move to cmd.target coordinates. Select animation which triggers it to play once (making it show and disappear like in your great model and animation, @stanislas69. High quality works. Thanks man!)

Surely nice to have. Usefulness could be questionable if one considers all the lines crossing all over if you give more queued orders for multiple units|groups. Stan, you are in the GUI, this means you have to use GuiInterface to interact with the simulation (if you want to add a simulation entity). There are other graphics only ways of course but I'm of no help as I am overwhelmed with thousands of code issues myself. That's the thing with virtual world - it adds to the real world issues. haha. Which is why I wish to reward all those altruistic open source contributors.