Phalanx

Those would be a good compromise imo XD EDIT: I'm just looking around to see what other "historically minded" mods for antiquity games call them, and majority I've found so far say Argyraspides Thorakitai. Roma Serrectum, Divide et Impera, Hail Ceasar, and a couple minor mods for games like AoE II classic and Rise of Nations all say Argyraspides Thorakitai. Divide et Impera names Thorakitai Agematos Basilikou or Royal Guard Thorakitai, but that is just a super lategame general unit, and DeI's roster still has Argyraspides Thorakitai. But I can't find any additional evidence for or against the idea. So I guess its just a matter of conjecture.

I've been debating for a bit whether or not to do my "every five years post" about renaming the Sword Champion, and I finally decided to do it. I still believe that they should be labeled as Silver Shields. The corps has been listed as being 10,000 men strong and only 5000 were present at Daphne, with another 5000 royal guard units appearing "in the roman style." It has been hypothesized by period and modern historians that these 5000 swordsmen were in reality the other half of the Silver Shields, retrained into Thorakites to shown the future progression of the Seleucid army, but I am aware that this point is debated amongst this community. While I still believe that they should be called Argyraspides Thorakites, I will settle for at least removing the "Romanized" moniker. This has been a term used by historians to describe a number of late antiquity swords units, because the concept was make famous by Rome, but some historians say the transition to swords in many armies could be influenced by Gallic and Galatian forces, which were common mercenaries and proved effective in this time period, and that warfare was shifting from a rigid formation based affair into a looser more flexible style. An alternate name if the Silver Shield title is not well-liked could be Agema Thorakites, or just Thorakites.

I really like all these ideas (I know I haven't had a presence in a while, college is busy) I just want to play devils advocate against this way of thinking. A lot of the people making this complaint are from AOE2, where most civs play more or less identically, even when it doesn't really make sense. Its a double edged sword, like most design choices. Making civs follow a stricter common layout like aoe II does make trying to news and exploring easier for new players. However, after a time, all the factions just blend together into sameness and the game can loose its charm, as a lot of players are motivated by learning to play games well, and once you are there in aoe2, there is little more to hold your attention (which is why the latest AOE2 dlc factions have been straining those common layouts as much as the devs dare without annoying their famously fastidious fans) The counter side, like AOE4, AOE3, or AOM; Makes civs that differ more from each other can make it harder for newer players to expand and learn the various factions, because different factions play differently. However, it can keep players on their toes as they play, as the differences in different factions can ellicit different responses from the player depending on the matchup. It can also keep older players engaged, since it takes longer to master each faction. I know it was a little tangent for this thread, but since the thought came up I felt like here would be a good place to mention it. I think the women and helot dynamic was a very interesting design choice, like others in this thread. I mostly just wanted to say that we shouldn't be afraid of making each faction unique, especially if it expands the historical basis of this game, which it prides itself on

I believe this is the source image

I'm just curious about this, we have the Thespian Black Cloak in the game files, are there any actual historical references to Thespians wearing black/having black cloaks? Or is it just based off of that one drawing that became the definitive version of the Thespians? I'm not pushing for change here, I'm mostly just curious about the historical facts.

I do actually like how DE treats the Kushites with their pyramids. It is very unique and makes them feel fresh and fun compared to other factions.

As I was catching up on these posts, I was thinking that exact thing. Or maybe an upgrade to the barracks that adds a ring of training posts around it. Basically the whole idea for this is just visibility for the training mechanic. It wouldn't really rely new anims, just attack anims against a post.

Heres an idea that could possibly be more engaging for the player: Make a new building that is a small training area with dummies and stuff like that. So currently units can be garrisoned in a barracks to gain levels, but that is not very engaging, the player doesn't SEE this happening. So a training area building with say, 10 training posts. Citizen soldiers can be tasked on these buildings and will gain xp while visibly attacking the dummies and training. So then training and level techs can have a place in this new training area that increase training speed or maybe even increase max level. For example, say that you can't train a unit to elite level at the training arena without a city phase level tech, or what have you. Basically its a more engaging way to show unit training as opposed to just hiding them in the barracks, and provides a building specifically for training techs and more accentuates the fact that training is an option for players. Because the fact that you can garrison units in the barracks to train is not really readily understandable to a new player.

Imo, if the game is already setup with op civs, then we've got nothing to lose from this XD I think this is a great idea. Making factions more diverse and interesting and unique is something I'd been pushing for many alphas back, but now that the game is in a more solid state, I agree that this is now the time we start to look at actually making the civs unique! They might not be his, but they are mine! I think that the Daphne Parade tech should work as a mass unit upgrade, or make Seleucid upgraded units be slightly more powerful (slightly bigger state changes for upgrades) but more expensive than other factions. Really cement them as a professional, but expensive army.

Yep! Its fixed on my new computer. No idea what caused it. XD

I just changed computers, so i need to re-setup SVN and DE. I'll get them up soon

Wow, some of these guys have talked about pikes at length

Imo, I think 0AD is already avoiding being an AOE clone. So, in AOE ( AOE I and AOE II specifically) Each faction is almost IDENTICAL with the exceptions of a single unique unit, 2 or 3 unique techs, and each tech tree is missing some techs here and there. Besides that, all the factions play the same, and have access to almost all the same unit types. 0AD has faction-specific rosters, which AOE doesn't ( AOE III does a better job of this ) I'm still a fan of fixing maps, but formations and cav charges need to be implemented first before all this.

So, weapon "switching" could be done like in AOE III. Where ranged units always fire in ranged mode with infinite ammo, but if a unit closes to melee, they automatically attack in a melee range.

I feel that soooo much XD

Yeah, Elephants are a fun topic. There is a thread somewhere discussing the accuracy of our elephants. I 100% agree, but extra mechanics need to be added to Elephants to prevent Elephant-owning factions from being super op against ones that don't. Specifically terrain limitations.

I kinda agree that 0ad needs some differentiation like this, but it opens up a huge can of worms that the devs and a lot of the community don't seem to want to futz with, as shown by the faction balance thread.

I agree, the Han could be super cool, and Scythia or Parthia would be perfect imo.

Could you elaborate on what you mean on the differences between the Spartan and Athenian Hoplites?

@Stan` We've started divy-ing up the sounds to work on them! I do have a question, for some sounds like marching, and siege movement noises, do we need a sound byte, like command acknowledgement sound, or a loop of actual movement?

Well, do you want HIS email so you could try contacting him?

@Stan` Has the Professor reached out to you? I've reminded him multiple times, but he seems like one of those qwirky professors who is a little scatterbrained.

Spartan CC doesn't render in and isn't selectable, but is still usable by the AI and attackable.

I have class with him later today. I'll check in XD

I know that this idea has been poo-poo-ed for the main game, but maybe here it would work. I still think it is a good idea to rename the Romanized Thorakite to Silver Shield Thorakite. I know, I know, we don't know if they were going to retain the "Silver Shield" moniker after reformation, and we don't know if the pikes would be completely reformed to Thorakites, but we CAN infer that those 5000 men were originally from the Silver Shield corps. Its been stated that the SSC generally was made up of 10k men, and at Daphne, there were only 5k phalangites. So it is plausible (and even likely) that the 5k Thorakites were members of the SSC. From a gameplay standpoint, it was be a great idea to rename them to at the very least inform players that these aren't the Generic Thorakites, they are special champoin Thorakites. The current name is underwhelmingly misleading imo.