wowgetoffyourcellphone

I think the main issue with that, was that it was originally only going to give you different heroes and champions, and that was it. If it were to be designed today, I think the choice would be at the beginning. Leaving it until City Phase makes the "Hellenes" for example feel very generic, until you pick "Macedonians" in City phase and get Pikeman and Spear Cav champions. You lose out on all the Macedonian flavor in the early phases. No Thessalians. No Hypaspist champions. No Thracians. No unique architectural elements. No unique techs (until the very end). It wasn't a bad idea for its time, but we know so much more now about how these factions were unique (specifically militarily, when talking about the Greek civs). The original design had no Seleucids and their awesome War Elephants. The original design had no Ptolemaic Egyptians with their awesome architecture and mix of ethnicities. I could see something where you choose your "Civilization" in game setup. So, "Greeks" for example or "Successor States" or "Romans" or "Celts" or "Nomads", and then when the match starts you get a popup where you choose the "Faction" from that Civilization. So, Greeks -> Athenians, Spartans, Thebans. Successor States -> Macedonians, Seleucids, Ptolemies. Romans -> Republic, Principate, Dominate. Celts -> Gauls, Britons, Celtiberians. Nomads -> Scythians, Xiongnu, Huns. That way, your enemies know what Civilization you chose, but not which Faction until they scout you.

The story of Seleucus is in my list of screenplay ideas. Han Chinese are a very large and extremely influential civilization. Scythians and Xiongnu are civilizations that span the breadth of Asia and link East with West. They'd also add all-new gameplay possibilities. Honestly, Scythians and Xiongnu would probably be refreshing to a lot of people (even if hard to balance; but again, there's no rule to state you'd have to allow them in your rated multiplayer matches [we can can include a Random/Settle Civilizations option that excludes nomads, see:DE]; also, we could surprise ourselves and actually balance them fairly well, we don't know yet). That's fine. I just think 1 or more new civs are eventually going to be added. You'll probably enjoy them even if they don't fit your theme*. * Civs like Zapotecs and Maya and Olmecs (Mesoamericans, essentially) don't fit at all, we can agree on that. I still would like to see them as some kind of "official expansion" or mod in the download section eventually (perhaps as part of an Alpha release; a kind of "content" pack released in parallel).

Mauryas ended who? Kushites what? Spartans are largely a backwater, insular city state, but they're included because they are famous and fun and add diversity. Mauryas included because they are awesome and add diversity, but had zero contact with Rome. Kushites had a few minor border wars with Rome, but are included to add fun and diversity to the civ roster. Han could be included because "If the Chinese and Romans ever fought, who would win?!?!" is a super common what-if scenario people talk about. Plus they add diversity to the roster and the opportunity for new gameplay.

Indeed! If volunteer developers enjoy building new civs instead of doing other things, more power to them!

Exact same code.

Only Corrals allow animals to garrison, so the "sheep garrison into a house making it uncapturable" scenario is moot. Thank you for testing! Simply removing the garrison regen for corrals seems like a simple and elegant solution to me, since only animals can garrison inside. Respectfully, I don't think it's ugly at all. It simply and effectively solves the issue without any kind of far reaching component changes. I think extending or changing the Capturable component or adding new components for capturing is beyond this particular diff.

Thank you for bringing up that potential issue. I'll have to test it.

https://code.wildfiregames.com/D4380 Those who would like to test gameplay patches for potential inclusion of the game, and whose interests veer toward balance, can test out the above patch for the animal food trickle feature. Please, first read the entire discussion at that link before adding your two cents (your questions may already by answered). SUMMARY This adds a 1 food/4 seconds trickle for Sheep, Goats, and Pigs and a 1 food/2 seconds trickle for Cattle when they are garrisoned into a Corral. This is accomplished with an aura at the Corral. The exact trickle amount can be debated. This patch also cleans up Cattle templates a little by moving some duplicate code to the parent template. TEST PLAN Apply the patch Open Atlas scenario editor Place a Corral and some animals (Cattle, Sheep, Goats, and/or Pigs), all Player 1 Run a simulation Garrison the animals into the Corral Confirm the food count continuously goes up for each animal garrisoned Ungarrison the animals and verify that the food increase stops Agree with the feature Debate endlessly the exact food trickle rate

Honestly, I've seen a lot of (well-meaning, but ignorant) comments like: They shouldn't spend time on new civs, they should spend time fixing lag (or insert the commenter's pet peeve)! Ignorant in a sense that generally the people who work on civs aren't the ones who are going to fix lag or networking issues. I think there are a minority of multiplayer players who would prefer fewer civs for balance-sake. Single player players, in general, and I think a plurality or majority of multiplayer players appreciate greater content, which may often include new civs. I'm using a lot of weasel words because hard data is difficult to come by. And even if a player doesn't want new civs, there's no rule telling them they have to play those civs or even allow them in their multiplayer matches.

Still does IMHO.

Indeed. A24 had more than double the changes than a more "regular" alpha, precisely because it had more than double the development period. Imagine the outcry some of the current players would have over the changes from Alpha to Alpha in the early days. lol. Each Alpha adding a slew of new features, new bugs, random stats changes, and entirely new civs! The horror.

I personally don't think something needs to be 100% accurate before it's added. None of the current civs were 100% perfect when they were added by any means. But I suppose if there are niggling issues that bother some folks about the civ, it's okay to address them first. Just know that more issues will arise once they are added, and they will make the current release blockers look trivial. That's how every civ release has been.

OoooOOOoOOOOoooo. Bactrian Camels CONFIRMED?

Hence, this thread. I think part of Alistair's point in his rant video is that each Alpha will have a "flavor," based on the changing balance, changing meta, changing features, no matter what, and that's fine as long as new stuff is added and the game's design moves forward. Also, for "Balancers", isn't it fun to balance new things? Sure, you don't want an Alpha to come along and throw everything into complete chaos, but new civs and features to balance should be welcomed by someone who enjoys balancing these things, right?

I want to emphasize that any time and energy anyone puts into trying to make 0 A.D. better is appreciated. My point was just that there are different roles that any individual can fill based on the topic at hand. There are different "hats" you can wear. Some people are good at wearing different hats, some people aren't. Some people want to just wear 1 hat. All of that is fine, as long as folks recognize that the hats exist. Xposted from @leopard's post.

Right. IMHO, making compatibility-breaking changes is definitely Alpha, not Beta.

Question for discussion: Why should the "Balance Team" have any say in what features get added to the game? Isn't it their duty to balance the features the team decide to add? That's not to say Balance team members can't participate in gameplay feature discussions. But those are two different roles. You can't come into a gameplay feature discussion and then derail it with constant balance concerns. You have to go into a feature discussion with a mind toward expanding the game's features in good faith. My latest discussions on Phabricator have had a few mentions of balance, but all-in-all have been a fruitful discussion about making the gameplay feature work. The exact statistics can always be decided later through gameplay experience and with input from Balancers. Again, Features and Balance are linked in the end, but they are 2 different things. You add the former, then try to do the latter. If it can't be balanced, then the feature can be removed, but you can't know a feature's balance until it's tried.

Hmm, I haven't seen many references like that for the Scythians.

I tried this out with Alpha 25 and it's pretty cool! Your mod is like a fantasy Amazonian civ. You should make a new thread for your mod in this forum: https://wildfiregames.com/forum/forum/18-game-modification/ You can post screenshots and ask for help.

Actually, it needs a lot of work. The selection buttons should be cobbled together by the GUI code, the way it does for the structure tree, rather than using static png images I made in Photoshop. Something more along the lines of Hyrule:Conquest's hero selection screen.

Implement DE's hero choice feature. Done.

What if, randomly, everyone gets the same hero? Or only heroes of the same class.