Phalanx

It would be pretty cool! Just how much of difference would be between the 3 heroes versions of the Seleucids? Basically, would only different champions and tech be available, or would we need to come up with some more citizen soldiers as well?

Man, this whole discussion brings me back ;P I remember I tried to make a reformed Seleucid roster a few years ago, but most of the new units I suggested went into the Ptolemaic roster XD. This. I agree 2e4% ! I want to use Silver Shield Pikes with Kataphracts. But, I do like the idea of choosing the Silver Shield Swords over the Silver Shield Pikes, because that was a choice that the Seleucids actually made, and it creates an interesting dynamic and slight uncertainty playing against the Seleucids. Now, quote me if I'm wrong, but the verrrry basic vision behind the Seleucids is that they are a cavalry-based faction. This is in conjunction with the strength of their main rival, the Ptolemaics, who are infantry based. This comparison is made on the battle of Raphia I believe, where Ptolemaic infantry (miraculously) beat the Seleucid infantry, but the Seleucid cavalry was sooo effective in that fight, that Raphia was studied by cavalry commanders up into the Napoleonic Wars.

So, historically didn't it take the Spartans a long time to adjust to changing military practices? At least compared to Athens? Then wouldn't it make more sense to give the modern Theurophoroi to Athens instead of Sparta? They don't really need help with their infantry roster ;P

Granted, this has no historical basis whatsoever, but at least in my opinion it doesn't really make sense for the skiritai to have full blown hoplons. If they were supposed to be a crack company of light infantry no encumbered by armour, then why would they have a huge clumsy shield? Possibly a smaller shield like a Pelta.

On the topic of manes: It seems to me that the "Barbarian" factions, and low tier greek/hellenistic units should have natural manes, but elite/campion greek/hellenistic units should have cropped manes, because a mane is not necessary to mount the horse if they have proper equipment like a saddle and stirrups, but poorer soldiers might not have that equipment, therefore they need the name for help. Because there is art that shows horses with cut manes, and logically a long flowing mane would hinder the rider in combat...

As a player who uses an absurd and probably ineffectually large amount of cavalry in 0AD, I LOVE THIS!!

What I do: Don't attack till you have siege (ideally elephants or rams) then attack with your army acting as support for your siege. The AI LOOOOOVES their towers, so knock down about 3 towers for a nice safe opening for your army, then run your siege in at attack the CC. Even if your attack fails, taking out their CC is devastating. Also, always prioritize your targets. Infantry on infantry/cav. Ranged cav on infantry. Melee cav on archers. your army should win a fight easily. If you have elephants in your seige, don't hesitate to pull them back and have them help your army.

Personally, the Thracians make for sense for the Macedonians than the Seleucids. While yes, they are from the Kleuruchi which means they are settlers, I think they would fit better as part of the Macedonian roster. Maybe replace the Seleucid Thracian with a Bactrian sword of some kind? Keep in mind when you are discussing military balance that there is a major part of combat missing: formations. Once those work, all if this speculation here might be for naught. It might turn out that the Diadochi and Hellenic civs are stupidly powerful in combat. Or it might not. Just don't think too far ahead here. For instance, once formations work, the Macedonians will become quite formidable. I believe they are the only civ with pikes and hoplites. Like the French Empire in AOE III they could excel in field battles, but suffer slightly in siege scenarios. Honestly, why do the black cloaks appear in so many rosters? They are in the Spartan, Athenian, Makedonian, and Seleukid rosters. A tad unimaginative if you ask me.

On a side note (since we are wishfully thinking about formations) It would be amazing if phalanxes and syntagmas behaved how they do irl in combat. I'm talking specifically about the pushing. (I'm lumping both formations into the label "Phalanx") Phalanx combat isn't truely about stabbing the enemy, its about pushing the enemy. Hoplite on Hoplite combat was a pushing match between the two phalanxes, with Hoplites stabbing each other to try to lessen the pushing power of the other side. It would be cool if we could emulate this in 0ad. Although I'm not expecting it because it would be hard to do, hard to balance, and I only know one game that's ever done it. Total War Arena.

possibly if there is a way to save like, 2 formations a game or something. Say there are two empty buttons or a whole new row of formation buttons that can be saved. In theory, this could be simple. All you would need to do is maybe not paint (or maybe paint, that'd be dope) but you could just manually position units in the shape you wanted, then have the game save that as a formation for that match. One possible problem with that that I could think of is, say you have saved the formation above. If units die, it probably won't be a problem, your crescent might just get smaller, but what if you set that formation on a group that is larger than the original formation? It could be difficult for the game to extrapolate where you want the extra guys. This would be an amazing feature though! You could make a crescent and pull a hannibal at cannae or possibly a thicker hoplite phalanx from Marathon or Leuctra.

Is it in the SVN? Last I checked my phalanx kept breaking up

That's why I'm asking if a programmer could whip this up for me. Its impossible to just know the numbers right off the bat, and that'll be part of the challenge in the extensive balancing rework this game will most likely need once it's out of alpha. But balancing has seemed to be put on the backburner for now and justifiably so, as the devs just want the core gameplay elements to work. Because without them certain factions are useless, I think formations would be a core gameplay element. Besides, that's what we're here for! We will test the various buff and debuff values to find a good balance point. But for now, just getting units to stay in formation while attacking is the issue.

I think that once we solved the problem of units not attacking in formation (which has been an issue for a LOOOOOOOOOONG time) the plan was to add buffs for Phalanx and Syntagma. I think it was like all units in Phalanx get a massive damage resistance buff, and units in Syntagma get a small damage resistance buff, but a massive damage buff. I'm confused what you mean by this. Are you referring to the slow xp gain rate of pikes?

I mean, that's what a formation would do. A phalanx of hoplites wouldn't just split up under arrow fire. This would encourage players using their own ranged or cav to take down the ranged. EDIT: And players don't HAVE to use formations. I'm just trying to find ways for factions that need formations i.e. all the successors and greeks, to have formations that work. Obviously, phalanxes and syntagmas are both vulnerable to arrow fire in their nature.

Idk if work has already been done on this, but I had an idea on kinda how to make formations attack in formation. Hopefully its also simple to implement too, but idk because I'm not a programmer, I'm studying to be a game designer/artist. When units are put in formation, why don't we just change the stance? For more rigid formations like , battle lines, phalanx, and syntagma; units could be put in a "hold ground" stance where they attack anything in their combat range, but cannot move. For more flexible formations like general lines and columns, they could be set on a defensive stance with a very short leash distance. This could simulate formations for the time being so we can test how using formations on the maps actually might work. If this is easy to do, could someone whip this up, and sent me a copy to try it? If it kinda works, then possibly we can figure out how formations bonuses would work.

I don't think that would be quite good. This is a good point! But my main argument is we include the Achaemenids. This is an obvious reference to the 1st and 2nd invasion of Greece, which happened before the Peloponnesian War, which is a pretty significant event in Classical history. By combining all the Greeks into one blanket Greek civ, it kinda ignores that conflict. I'm honestly fine with having both Sparta and Athens, but more would be just a tad extra. MAAAYBE Epirus.... Maybe. Just for its interactions with Rome. On to Parthia: It is quite historically viable for this game. They had a series of wars with TWO of the factions we have in our roster; The Roman Republic (and Empire) and the Seleucid Empire. This puts them squarely in a viable timeframe, and (if my research is correct) they are technically more relevant to the military history of the era than the Mauryans are, as they only fought a tad with the Seleucids.

Wait, Parthia was Hellenistic? I'm aware that Pontus had a bunch of Hellenistic influence, but Parthia? I didn't know that one.

Hi! It's been a while since I've shown my face in this forum! With the release of the Kushites, even after the team said that there were gonna be no new factions, that got me thinking about factions in 0ad. I've noticed that we have multiple factions for each "big" culture in this time period. We have multiple Successor/Hellenistic factions, we have multiple Greek factions, Barbarian factions, African factions, and so on. But I've noticed that we only have one "Eastern" faction, the Achaemenids. There are a bunch of important kingdoms in the Middle East at the time, and we have one. I would like to think we should have at least one more. My two ideas were The Kingdoms of Parthia or Pontus. It would give players who want the Eastern style gameplay with light infantry and horses more options than just the Persians.

I feel like this would be good, as camels don't wander around the desert on trade routes unattended. And the merchant would give us a chance to incorporate player colour.

If this art is for the Cataphract, my opinion is if it could look a little more hellenistic, that would be great. Plus, keep in mind that Lord Good's art of the Cataphract is the centerpiece of a loading screen. So for the cataphracts to not actually look like that might be weird.

In my opinion, the most popular symbol of the Seleucid Empire is the anchor while, correct me if I'm wrong, the bee and the anchor are symbols of a particular dynasty or royal family. But are all of our Seleucid heroes from the same dynasty or family?

I like the nice new brown tunic. The old one just always bothered me for some reason, the stripe looked weird. But I love these new ones!! Great job!

If these are Seleucid, it always bothered me that the Seleucids had the Scarab on their thureos. I believe we removed the Ptolemaic Eagle from the "pool" of logos the Seleucids could get, and I'm pretty sure @Lion.Kanzen made a Seleucid logo for the thureos, but I can't remember if it has been committed or not...

@stanislas69 Alas, she is studying User Experience and doesn't have animation skills. (and to be honest is very oblivious to the world of computer games. She had no clue what Starcraft was. She had never heard of it) @Alexandermb I don't know if you can see it, but in your most recent gallop anim. The lower portion of the back legs flex really weirdly. I found different references for a gallop this time (thanks for the heads up, @Sundiata ) and I found what was weirding me and her out. In your anim, particularly the right back leg, the upper leg rotates forward till it is about at the point I captured in this still, and then the lower leg suddenly rotates downward, almost like a human leg, before contacting the ground. Apparently, for a gallop, it is more of an extending of the back leg (the butt kinda drops to allow the entire back leg it extend further) instead of a hard hinge. This video has a great portion at :54 that shows a nice gallop, and you can kinda see what I am saying. Forgive me if I'm sounding too nit-picky, I am really impressed by your work! However the new horses turn out, I'm just excited that they won't have the horrific walk anim they have now! FLOATING HORSES!!!

SO, I had someone who rides horses on my university's equestrian team review the anims. (She is also studying Computer Graphics with me) and she comments that the back legs of the horses in the run anim is really bizzare. In the anim, the lower leg bends way to high up. She suggests this video to see that. She says the butt goes farther down when the back legs are extended forward. Apparently it is really obvious and notable. Just throwing that out. I kinda noticed it as well, but what do I know about horses?