kumaryu

Original AoE randomly threw together civilisations from widely disparate time periods and disassociated geographical areas regardless of historical relevance. Their choice of civilisations more accurately reflected interests of the regional sales and marketing departments of a global corporation, and their crass and patronising pandering to the demographic rather than historicity. Consideration of whether the game is eurocentric is also somewhat moot if we are aiming for some level of historical relevance. So far 0 A.D. appears to have kept a better grip on historicity by concentrating on civilisations and ethnic groups that came into contact with the Hellenistic empire and Republican Rome. I think this is what makes 0 A.D. more compelling than AoE. I do believe however that even within the focus of Republican Rome and Hellenistic civilisations, there are factions that we could consider adding such as the Numidians (as in my previous post above) that would introduce more "diversity" without sacrificing historicity.

During the Punic Wars, the Numidian Kingdom (350-25 BCE) of North Africa led by Masinissa (202-148 BCE) played a key strategic role as allies of Carthage, and then switching sides to side with the Romans at Zama. Masinissa united the western and eastern Numidian kingdoms to establish a powerful independent regional power. Subsequently, it was the Numidian conflict with Carthage that precipitated the Third Punic War. Numidia's position as an independent power was later illustrated during the regin of Masinissa's grandson, Jugurtha (117 - 105BCE)when they went to war against Rome, Jugurthine War (112–106 BC). Although the Romans won a number of battles, they were never able to completely defeat the combined forces of Numidia in alliance with Mauretania. Although known primarily for their cavalry, Numidia was fully capable of fielding an army that could stand up against the might of Rome. Not much is known about why Rome which had defeated Carthage as such a difficulty with Numidia. Sources in antiquity blamed corruption among Roman officials as the primary cause for her failure but it may also be due to the fact that the core of the Numidian forces was made up of a full-time warrior class of men able to to be in the field for years at a time. Rome in contrast had to train and conscript her citizen armies in response to individual crises as they arose. That the famous Marian reforms (107 BCE) that overhauled the organisation of the Roman army and created a permanent professional army came about as a direct result of Rome's inability to defeat Numidia tends to to support this point of view.

Two quotations from Marcel Duchamp, an artist who single-handedly redefined art in the modern world and then promptly retired to become a chess player. “While all artists are not chess players, all chess players are artists.” and “All in all, the creative act is not performed by the artist alone.. the spectator brings the work in contact with the external world by deciphering and interpreting its inner qualifications and thus adds his contribution to the creative act.”

Does this have any relevance? STUNTMAN, an open source STUN server software...

So would I be correct in understanding that an attempt was made to implement such a feature using miniupnpc but was not completed? Or does it partially work already? Is the issue primarily to do with lack of time/resources to identify/fix the issue? Alas I'm not a dev so my contribution to a fix would be negligible to non-existent. That said however, bringing multi player game-play to those who, for whatever reason, cannot set up port-forwarding on the router may help to further stimulate interest in the game. My recent rekindling of interest in the game (as well as past interest in similar games) is precisely due to its multi-player features. ---- Lady Tanit, Face of Baal, hear our prayers and help us overcome the demons of aether blocking our packets. I hearby pledge a hecatomb of goats should you choose to grant us this wish.

I think many of us are connecting from behind routers that are not within our control. This being the case, port-forwarding configurations cannot be changed. One way to bypass the problem might be to implement a NAT punch-thorugh? At present, the function of the lobby appears to be to find and match players. The game connections are presumably made directly between the host and the client. Would it make sense to develop a NAT punch-through server alongside the lobby so that the connections between the host and the client both behind NAT'd routers could occur and there would be no need to open ports on most routers? This would obviously increase the processor load on the server but not as much as if the games were hosted on the server. Scalability may be an issue if the number of connected computers increased massively but that would mean that the game is becoming more popular and with popularity would come more possibilities.

As with many things such as music or films, video games can be "considered" as art as well as entertainment. Its most often encountered in the context of business however. Games publishers are businesses with profitability as the bottom-line and hence their product designs are largely influenced by business concerns.

Bridge Feature Work points Here's a tentative list of things I thought might be worth considering from features perspective. It would be good if we can develop it further, prioritised from community perspective and commented by the developers as to their feasibility. Must-have FeaturesAbility to build bridges across waterways.The bridges may be traversed by most units. In-game prerequisites?:Restricted to specific civilisations?Town or city level should be a basic requirement?Engineering tech development may also be a prerequisite?Perhaps longer lengths ought to be dependent on tech dev?Introduce engineer units (pros/cons?)Certain bridges (pontoon and smaller stone bridges) may not allow siege engine movement? TypesPerhaps it would be best to start with the simplest and the most basic bridge type first to test the concept and its impact on the game as well as facilitating quicker implementation.Wooden bridges (degradeable) Pontoon bridges (degradeable) Short stone bridges (permanent) Long-span stone bridges (permanent)Here's a good cross section of Roman bridges that have survived to the present day. That they've lasted means that they're all stone bridges and many have later modifications which would not be suitable for 0AD. Nice-to-haves:Degradation Destruction through enemy action Between different elevations Overlapping movement Integration with roads

I'm sure the ancient military engineers built bridges in places where it required the least amount of engineering effort. Wherever they could, they would build bridges across the narrowest stretches of calm water, where the ground on both banks were level and of about the same height. This is the rule of thumb that should be applied in the game as well. Having an engineering solution to meet every foreseeable challenge under all natural conditions (or for that matter, the whim of the consumer/player) is a very modern concern. In other words, a bridge spanning two cliff-tops separated by half a day's sailing distance should not be allowed in the game. There were exceptions of course. Civil engineering feats such as aqueducts that spanned chasms between very different heights, but they served different purposes and were built to different constraints. In the make-believe world of 0 A.D. bridges should first and foremost serve a military/tactical function. For this reason, that there may be restrictions on how and where a bridge might be built; that they can only span narrow widths between banks of equal height should not be considered as a issue but a constraint that more accurately reflects historical reality.

If the release is due for December, it would have to be Saturnalia...

Understood... then again perhaps I've misunderstood but would there be a need for units in water, such as boats or fishes to go under the bridge? To all intents and purposes, a bridge would merely be a terrain that could be "built" by the player. And once the water terrain has miraculously been transformed in to a land terrain with suitable "bridge" renders, it would allow units to pass over them just like any other flat terrain. Indeed the type of bridges I had in mind, such as Xerxes' pontoon bridge across Hellespont (480 BCE), or Caesar's bridge over the Rhine (55, 53 BCE) would not have permitted vessels of any significant size to go under them. For larger bridges at a later date, perhaps that would be a "nice-to-have" cosmetic touch but hardly a "must have" for a tactical tool/feature. In time, it may be good to allow the bridges to be destroyed by enemy action, deteriorate over time or be garrisoned in some way but those are all secondary to the function of allowing them to be built and walked over. Fishes, like so much sushi, are likewise luxuries that I can personally do without.

Understood. I get that the roads are not a priority at present for the reasons given in the discussion linked above. I still feel that an ability to build bridges might be interesting for some factions and on many maps.

Please forgive my ignorance (, laziness, and impertinence) if this is a topic that's been discussed countless number of times in the last two millennia, but what's the situation with bridges and to a lesser extent roads? Although the list of possible structures that can be introduced is endless, bridges and roads have been of crucial, overriding military importance for a number of civilisations. What's the current take on the matter?

Thanks! These "nomad" maps are great! I'm amazed at how just by changing the resources available at the outset, it feels like a different game. Less is more!

I guess scutum is too much like scrotum, and subligaria is just pants. Spatha might just cut it but sagittarii would be my best shot.