iNcog

Would there be a way to use LAN for online multiplayer though (tuungle or hamachi?) ? I feel that a good connection would do so much for the game. From what I understand, the hosting player on 0 AD hosts an actual server.

Thank you for answering, thank you very much. I'm having my mod in the works right now, but it's kind of big so it won't be ready for a while.

I think that one of the most pressing issues with 0 AD is actually multiplayer command lag. I'm not sure how stuff works when connected, but I will say that it's extremely laggy. Playing 0 AD offline feels quite nice, playing offline, even against AI opponents, is very laggy. It almost feels like 1000 ms of command lag, which is 1s, which is huge; I think that 150 ms command lag should really be maximum. Is there LAN in the game? Could you not have a feature that directly connects players between them? I'm not sure how any of that works, but I will say that it's in dire need of fixing.

Hey guys, I've been messing around with the game a bit and I'd like to go further. Ideally, I would like to be able to modify .json files. What program do I need / is recommended to mod such files.

Hello, I would like to know where it's possible to edit tech trees in 0 AD. Perhaps I don't want some units to be in a certain building for example, perhaps I want some civs to have this building, but take out another kind of building. If possible, I would also like to manipulate technologies. Thanks.

Gorgeous work.

I have little free time to speak of and I've thrown most of it into starcraft 2, I'm mostly waiting for A17 as of right now. Half of that reason is because A16 kinda sucks, the other half is because I'm not smart enough to get the balance branch working properly. I'm looking at this balance branch and I agree with a lot of changes on paper; i think progress is being made. I'm also devoutly against team game in RTS. I'll try to get on sometime

I think I once played the game on faster speed and it felt more pleasant than playing on normal speed. Maybe it's because I play a starcraft a bit, but it did feel quite nice.

ETA on A17? It's impossible to get a game at the moment.

you could always open your laptop and clean out the dust if it's overheating, i guess

How is the balance branch coming along by the way? any good results with these fixes?

Do people enjoy playing against the AI?

In a related issues, which ports do you open to play online? I'm home now but I can't play. ^^

For 0 AD I think that you can make every unit unique and well-rounded without using multipliers, or using it only for things like spear infantry against cavalry. As of right now though, multipliers are indeed somewhat of a mess because the way multipliers work make no sense. I think it's either skirm-cav or archer cav that have a bonus against archers or something. can't remember exactly, but it's one example of multipliers not being used right, in my opinion. In the "balance branch" thread I made another post where I go more into detail and alpha123's view on how units should interact is also there. check that out ^^

Oh nice! You got OBS working? much trouble? ^^ going to watch this

Right, so I'm going to give a personal update (since I've been asked to play the balance branch) and I'm going to also give some personal thoughts. First off, I have little free time as of right now, things irl are gobbling up all the time I have, I barely have time to just play games, much less 0 AD. This means that I don't have time to figure out how to install the balance branch and even less time to do actual play-testing. This unfortunately means that you have to scratch me off the play tester list. I'm going to continue to play a few games now and then though. I'll be doing it on A16, even if it's not as good as A17, At very least I can keep in touch with the game during that time. As for the actual game itself, I have a few thoughts. I believe that the game itself needs to be broken down and rebuilt, at very least the units themselves need to. I PM'd alpha123 and he linked me a text document that explained some of the changes that were in store for the game. These changes would basically invalidate the counter-system completely, which is something I agree with. These changes also mean that we would no longer have need for multipliers. It also means that all the changes being tested would become irrelevant as well. Alpha123 is envisioning a total and complete rework of units. So trying to balance things out from the way units are right now becomes somewhat un-needed; everything is going to change anyway in the future. You can PM alpha123 for the details. I'll just leave this here: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1PxeSahVf5J6h32jy2iqTHlnogtQSHPocXKqNSspyMUs/edit In the mean time, I'm going to write an open document about how I believe units should be changed. I had started writing this but I don't have access to my laptop as of right now. I'm either going to try to find the document I wrote or re-write everything. E: basically the changes I would so would be the following. There are three big attributes that a unit can have: Stats (attack/HP/rate of fire) Range Speed My, very basic, idea is that units should have only two of these attributes as their strengths. No unit should have all three. For example, the way things work in the game currently, ranged units tend to have stats that are quite comparable to those of melee units. Skirm-cav have all three attributes, which is why they are broken. They have the attack, the range and the speed to make them very versatile units. Ranged infantry have good stats but they're also ranged. The attack/HP that melee infantry aren't good enough to compete with ranged units. My idea is that every unit should have two of these attributes as strengths, the last one would be a weakness. For example: Melee infantry: Stats: Lots of HP, lots of dps (hack) Range: 0 Speed: infantry Ranged infantry: Stats: Low HP, medium dps (less than melee infantry) (pierce) Range: Medium to high Speed: Infantry Melee cav: Stats: lots HP, lots of dps, higher cost to reflect that (hack) Range: 0 Speed: Cav Ranged Cav: Stats: medium HP, low dps, medium to high cost (pierce) Range: Low to medium Speed: cav You can then make a distinction between units. Spear infantry would get a mutliplier against cav, that's the most obvious and needed attribute they need. they get lower dps than swordsmen to reflect their cav mutliplier, as well. however spear men and swordsmen, if they catch ranged infantry with a melee attack, they should win. ranged infantry should have their range be their winning attribute, not their dps. e.g. ranged infantry can use their range to attack melee infantry without being attacked themselves. this attribute makes them good if they're well-positioned (at range, under the cover of a CC, behind friendly melee units, etc), but bad if they're not (caught by a flank from melee infantry, caught in the open by cav without spear men protection, etc). similarly, ranged cav should get very low dps, to reflect their speed and range. they'll become scouting and harassing units. they'll be good at picking off reinforcements, attacking harvesters, scouting, etc. however ranged cav will then be bad in straight up fights. you can also make distinctions between units themselves. e.g. archers will be medium dps but long range. skirmishers will have shorter range and medium dps. you also can give skirmishers very high attack, but low rate of fire. this means they're very good hit and run units, but they need to be micro'd to be really efficient. you can play on these attributes to make units feel and work differently. spear men could give a range of 2 or 3 meters, this allows them to be able to fight with less surface area than swordsmen for example. so swordsmen that have a good surround do well, but if they don't have good surface area, spearmen with their small range have the upper hand. ^these are the kinds of changes that make units unique. units have a role. you can do all this without multipliers (except for spear infantry vs cav units). units will feel and act differently but there are no hard-counters in the game. units well used and well positioned come out on top. you can balance a unit through stats. e.g. you can give skirm-cav just enough dps that they're good harass units without being good in fights. same for other units. this is the best way to "fix" things, imo.

Trading posts in Aoe3 were used to quickly accumulate experience points which meant faster shipments. Shipments were basically stuff that you would get for free. Some shipments were things like +20% infantry attack or +20% cav attack. Other shipments were resource shipments, e.g. 700 wood or 700 coin could be sent. You could also send units, villagers, economic upgrades, mercenaries, ships, special buildings (factories and fortresses) and unique upgrades for every civ. Builds and strategies were focused around sending shipments. Building a trade-post would allow for experience points to accumulate faster, so you could get more shipments faster. However 1 trading post used to cost 250w, which is a pretty significant investment in the early game. 2 trading posts would be 500 wood. This is even more expensive if you consider that wood gathered quite slowly. Some civs would benefit greatly from getting trade posts (Ottoman and Spain being the biggest iirc). Others would be better off using their villager gathering time to build other, more useful buildings. Hard counter system had nothing to do with it at all. The hard counter system is essentially balanced in itself, since any decent player would go for a unit composition and not just a unit. Battles in aoe3 were fought with both players controlling 2 to 4 different unit types; even if the units were very unique, generally speaking the player with better micro won. Trade posts in aoe3 were there to add strategic depth to the game. Also noteworthy is that you could upgrade the trade route your trade posts were on to be able to accumulate actual resources. This could be a substantial economic boost.

If you're going to make a city building game, make sure it has realistic unit sizes and supply lines! nah just kidding gl with your project

Pretty sure it stopped midway, saying something was corrupted.

I haven't been able to get github to get a working clone up. corrupted something or something

Not really. Ensembles studios was an excellent gaming studio that were excellent at what they did. That's how they made hard counters work in aoe3. Hard counters is what was attempted in O AD and as you can clearly see it's not working out at all. It's actually pretty difficult to implement properly, you have to make sure that the units synergize well between themselves. Hard counters isn't just adding multipliers and saying "i'm done LUL". The units have to respond well to each other as well. 0 AD failed at that and alpha123 is taking the game somewhere else as a result of that. I agree with this decision because things as they are right now need change. Soft counters are easier to get right, just look at starcraft where they invent the weirdest units ever (swarm host?) and get away with it.

the house-boom is awesome ! it's the best tool I have to shut people up about how infantry gathering in the game is bad design. there are three different harvesters in the game right now, as well as the dimension that infantry that gather well don't fight well. ^that's so much depth right there. it's one of the best things about 0 AD!

Well, 0 AD and Aoe3 are two different games. So I also agree that you could get rid of hard counters in 0 AD. I actually think it would also make the game more interesting, however you would have to balance the attack/dps/HP/armor that units have just right. In my past few posts what I've been doing is defending the hard counter system generally speaking; I don't think that hard counters should be in 0 AD.

YEAH LOL that's so true in aoe3 the AI would trash talk you and stuff, was so funny. you'd get a treasure and they'd be like "haha @#$%ing scrub you got a treasure? LUL i'll win the game", or you'd kill their army and they'd be like "@#$% you lucky @#$%". was actually really hilarious, though i'm not gonna lie the AI, even on expert, was so bad. I had a friend who once managed to 1v3 expert bots. reminds me of a time where i tried to 1v5 some friends i knew irl. they were so bad I genuinely had a shot at winning. like, they were the kinds of players who would make some units here and there and some villagers here and there, whereas i was someone who actually knew how to macro. so I managed to kill like 2.5 of my friends (like 2 died and had to rebuild somewhere else and I severely hit another) but by that time the other two still managed to get enough units out to attack me. i held that off but was eventually whittled down and the 2 players i knocked out earlier on were slowly rebuilding and I had no way to actually kill them now. so I lost, but the game itself might have lasted an hour. they all made fun of me the next day at school but in all honesty those scrubs had to 1v5 me to win the game so my ego was still stoked. good times. i miss high school

I mean get the 400 resource upgrade which allows you to train villagers from houses. Then you just hotkey all the houses in a single control group and you can make 10 villagers at a time in the span of 15 seconds. This only costs 500 food as well. It allows you to get a crazy economy going very quickly, even if villagers are slightly less efficient that infantry when it comes to gathering wood, stone and metal. You can't do this with infantry which is why villagers are excellent harvesters to boom with. You need the houses anyway so with this method of booming you can still make 5 villagers in 15 seconds with the right upgrade. Shameless self plug: Notice that in that game I went for a house boom with map control and just had SO many villagers. Was crazy. Making villagers is great.