Palaxin

Best design/gameplay concept for 0 A.D. I have read so far. Would totally go for it!

I feel like it is time to sort topics in different threads in ordner to not loose overview... E.g. "[gameplay] trade system", "[gameplay] resource system", "[gameplay] military system", ... Some ideas and unrelated stuff from my notes for the military system. Sorry that I won't tell much more, I currently have not that much time. Basically I think it would be nice to have more phases to emphasize the development/availability from weak to strong units. Something that mentioned @DarcReaver as well. foundation phase: allows training of support units tech that allows armament of support units village phase: allows training of basic units tech that allows basic -> advanced promotion town phase: tech that allows training of advanced units tech that allows advanced -> elite promotion city phase: tech that allows training of elite units allows training of champion units allows training of heroes world city phase: (after building wonder) e.g. tech that allows promotion of champion units e.g. tech that allows promotion of heroes support/basic/advanced/elite/champion/hero infantry HP: 20/60/80/100/140/320 ranged infantry HP: 20/40/50/60/80/160 melee cavalry HP: 30/90/120/150/210/480 ranged cavalry HP: 30/60/75/90/120/240 melee armor: 1/6/7/8/9/12 ranged armor: -/2/3/4/5/8 melee attack: 1/3/4/5/7/16 archer attack: 1/1.5/2/2.5/3.5/8 slinger attack: -/2.4/3.2/4/5.6/12.8 skirmisher attack: -/3/4/5/7/16 100% hack attack for swordsmen 50% pierce attack, 50% hack attack for spearmen 100% pierce attack for pikemen and ranged 25% crush attack, 75% pierce attack for slingers

Overall very good analysis and proposals. Here are some remarks (since you provided very much information and there is much more I agree with than I disagree with, I will only focus on things I think could be improved and/or implemented differently): I would favor "call to arms" to be a timed ability, since it seems to better distinguish "citizens" from professional full-time soldiers. However, we have to ensure there must be a trade-off for sending citizens to war. I'd suggest that if citizen are promoted in battle, they get a permanent malus in gathering speed (as it is now), e.g. -30% for advanced level and -50% for elite level. About women: not sure if this is what you proposed, but essentially women should have slower gathering rates for all resources and are cheaper (real life: lighter and eat less) and train a bit faster (real life: reach maturity earlier) compared to men. Furthermore I agree with @wraitii to link women with population and further suggest to link them with population growth. For example they could define a soft cap of max pop (hard cap would be houses) and/or define training speed. E.g. there could be a train time multiplier TTM that is calculated from the total number of women #w and the total number of men #m by TTM = #men/#women for #men > #women and TTM = #women/#men for #women > #men. I think it is important to use a continuous distribution of the TTM in order to avoid annoying micro. Not sure about splitting metal in two resources and their names (if so, I'd stick to "metal" and add "noble metal" to follow the current generic resource names). However, I think it would be nice to have an additional resource (does not necessarily need to be a materialistic resource) that is very scarce and difficult to obtain and that is only used for the most advanced units, techs and buildings. My general views and proposals about resources can be found in this thread. Additionally, MinMod tries to make metal collection more strategic and interesting. About buildings and phases: since 0 A.D.'s factions are not developing throughout the ages in a sense like in AoE, I generally question their existence (see also this thread). There have been planned cities like Alexandria that nearly went out of nowhere in a short time scale. If we could find gameplay mechanics that would still force a player to carefully plan (e.g. by means of increasing unit/building/tech costs and thus an increasing variety) his economy and military, I would favor to develop a phaseless concept and/or replace phases by more suitable limitations. About territories: It somewhere has been proposed to let territories define the core city with most buildings, but to allow building some economic buildings for resource production (storehouse, farmstead) and for scouting (outpost) outside of the territory. I would vote for such system. Regarding the directional attack system, my topic about LOS might be helpful to recognize technical limitations. I disagree with @wraitii that all details have to be presented now, since we need to start with general ideas and then further flesh them out as soon as some consensus is achieved.

I appreciate your application @DarcReaver and hope that the team does as well! This is a huge chance for 0 A.D., take it

I brought this point up, too, but no one seems to understand that. AoE 2 has 30s train time for villagers IIRC, we have 8s (?) for females. By the 10 min mark you did not have more than 23 villagers in AoE 2, in 0 A.D. 120 and more is possible easily (I remember a pure booming replay with 150). Training females in batches from a single CC in 0 A.D. is faster than producing villagers from 5 TCs in AoE 2. This just doesn't feel like "training" but merely like industrial production of humans. Ofc this is also a matter of personal taste, but such train times have obvious disadvantages. Such rapid growth limits your ability to effectively micro units in a stress-free manner. IMO This pace is just way to fast. And one of many reasons why I played 0 A.D. with game speed 0.5 or less. But no one cares so I don't know why I should continue to write posts with similar suggestions and proposals...

May I propose: preparing a big meeting of dev team - dev team chooses an organizer for the meeting - dev invites some trusted community members to the party - each dev can invite one member - if one dev does not (want to) invite a member, another dev is allowed to invite an additional member - community members can ask to participate, but are not guaranteed to do so - organizer develops an agenda - invited members can make proposals - organizer summarizes the proposals - organizer publishes agenda - invited members think about the various points and send their feedback/answers to the organizer - organizer summarizes the feedback/answers in a way that they can be presented at the meeting during the meeting - presentation of brainstorming part of summary by organizer - discussion - brainstorming (if not all questions have been answered yet) - what makes a good team? - which tasks must be worked on? which departments are needed? how many people do we need? what skills do people need to work on tasks / in department? - which roles must be filled? which hierarchical structure do we need? what traits do people need to fill the role? - what motivates people to work on the game? - what are the goals of the game? - what is the priority of these goals? - presentation of observation part of summary by organizer - discussion - observation (if not all questions have been answered yet) - looking separately at each team member - what does that member wants to work on? - what should (according to current official role) that member work on? - what is that member actually working on? - how is it working? - how often/long/much is it working? - what are strengths? - what are weaknesses? - what are players saying about the game? - new players? players that have witnessed several Alphas? - players with experience from other RTS games? players new to RTS games? - pro players? casual players? - singleplayers? multiplayers? - presentation of analysis part of summary by organizer - discussion - analysis (if not all question have been answered yet) - identify differences between reality and requirements - can we currently fill all roles/tasks/departments? - do we need to reassign people? - do we need to recruit new people? - do we have at least three members that are willing to regularly work on gameplay solutions? - if not, start a campaign looking for new team members - if yes, do we have a member that has great amount of experience with multiple successful RTS? - if yes, do we have a member that also has technical/programming skills? - if yes, do we have a member that can ...? - define exact tasks the three members will work on and compare if all can be mastered with the available skills - what can we learn from the players? (not: how do we defend our concept against them) - critically analyzing the own workflow - why did the Design Committee fail? - what were past milestones? - Did we achieve them? - Why/How (not)? - What could we do better? - gameplay - what is bad, what is good - what works together, what not - what seems to attract players, what not after the meeting - ask new people and start a recruiting campaign - form a new department with at least three members, that - watch about 3 multiplayer games/week each - make notes about their observations - come together to compare their observations - identify fields of enhancement - think about possible solutions - formulate a conclusion - present that conclusion to the other devs and community - get feedback - pick the best solution - in cooperation with devs work on a monthly gameplay and balancing update - collect feedback - organize new meeting - ... Schemes like this should provide a direction for discussion and workflow. I'm pretty sure some of these things have been tried similarly in the past. And I'm aware that strictly following this scheme may overshoot. But it's not about strictly following this scheme, but making us think about our current workflow and develop solutions. Such process, of course, requires to bear (constructive) criticism, but this should be a trait one could expect from a member participating in a team. Conclusion: - Get back on track! - Ask: What can I learn? What can we learn? Learning is key to success! - Get new members with willpower and vision into the boat. I would be glad, if @DarcReaver would join the party.

After reading this discussion I feel compelled to give my honest opinion on this topic, too. I can at least partly understand @DarcReaver and others getting in rage mode after trying to provide valuable input for the dev team regarding gameplay enhancements, only to get no to insignificant feedback and/or to observe the game heading towards a foreseeable future that is so wayyyyy below the true potential of the game. The usual answer - "we are all volunteers and if you want to change something then work on it" - does not address the problem properly since (at least from my experience and my observations) you will only waste lots of time trying to implement bigger changes, e.g. by means of a mod. AFAIK @wowgetoffyourcellphone has spent countless hours for the DE mod with tons of new features, techs, ... - and got some icons committed so far (correct me if I'm wrong). @wraitii has proposed a new market mechanism long time ago, received predominantly good feedback, provided a patch, ... And 15 months later no one remembers about it. I have the impression no one tries or dares to really touch/experiment with gameplay because "it would make XYZ complicated" and "AFAIK this already has been discussed 7 years ago ..." etc. (exaggerating a bit). Actually as soon as a ticket receives the "design" (= gameplay) keyword it's doomed into oblivion. It seems to me that the dev team is not well-rounded enough and especially is not covering certain tasks/roles/characters. We first of all lack a leader with the big picture in mind, a vision, a plan to follow, and who can take quick decisions or at least quickly comes to an agreement with some core devs. This is just my observation and no personal critique - @Itms is certainly a valuable dev, but I only associate programming issues with his name. As @DarcReaver said, we need a clear, recognizable gameplay concept that allows and forces a player to choose between a large variety of different strategies. Factions need to have stronger gameplay characteristics. A basic ruleset for military strengths, weaknesses and counters. A basic ruleset is such a necessary thing. It's defining the game like a constitution is defining a state. If we don't address these things the game will remain more a historic accurate simulation but will not be playable for long, at least not for a great majority of players. And a big number of players will help us all, since it will attract more devs/contributors addressing our lack of manpower. Similar to @DarcReaver suggestions, here are some sample rules that could be combined to a ruleset: RULE: The higher the value of a unit/building/tech, the higher its cost. (currently this is not true for population) example: Civilians require 1 pop, infantry units require 2 pop, cavalry units require 3 pop, elephants require 4 pop, heros require 5 pop, ... RULE: The higher the value/complexity of a unit/building/tech, the more diverse its cost. example 1: basic units cost 1 resource (food), citizen soldiers 2 resources (food and wood/metal), champions 3 resources (food, wood and metal), ... example 2: village phase techs usually 1 resource, town phase techs usually 2 resources, city phase techs usually 3 resources, ... RULE: The higher the value of a unit/building/tech, the more rare the needed resources are ... RULE: There are three classes of buildings/units/strategies/factions. Each class is strong against another class and weak against yet another class. Alternatively: There are five classes of buildings/units. Each class is strong against two other classes and weak against two further classes. Or each class is strong against another class, weak against yet another class and about as strong as two further classes. example 1: (melee) cavalry beats ranged (cavalry/infantry), ranged (cavalry/infantry) beats (melee) infantry, (melee) infantry beats (melee) cavalry example 2: buildings beat soldiers, soldiers beat siege, siege beats buildings example 3: booming beats turtling, turtling beats rushing, rushing beats booming example 4: swordman beats pikeman (1v1), pikeman beats spearman (formation), spearman beats swordman (formation). pikeman beats swordman (formation), swordman beats spearman (1v1), spearman beats pikeman (1v1). RULE: The stronger a faction can potentially be (in terms of tech upgrades, units, bonuses, ...), the slower its development example: early game faction, mid game faction, late game faction These are illustrative examples that could help to achieve a red line in gameplay. But it is important to formulate such rules, make tickets for their implementation, etc.

I think this setting fits quite well since in the polar regions sun always appears at low angles. I like the shadows created by the hills.

Must be r19211. The wooden tower templates have been renamed.

@LordGood is currently working on Zapotecs, which could be merged with the existing Rise of the East mod (see the discussion in the screenshots thread). Actually the Kushites (in the far south) would be a logic addition to the Hans (in the Far East) and Zapotecs (in the far west), at least in respect of most civilizations featured in 0 A.D (see also LordGood's post).

@tmm88 thanks for your many tracks! I think you definitely have the potential to contribute great music to 0 A.D., I still agree with @av93. Additionally, I think in many of your tracks (at least the earlier ones, I couldn't listen to all) there is no clear climax. There not necessarily needs to be one, but personally I like it when you feel tension which suddenly breaks at a certain point. However, regarding music I'm only an average person. It would be great to get some expert advice from @OmriLahav, but AFAIK he has been busy recently. Edit: here is an example; tension builds up from 2:25 and is released at 3:03 (climax), another climax e.g. at 4:35 Edit 2: as you can see, I love epic music

@Lion.Kanzen Perhaps you can tell @soloooy0 that he should avoid posting literally the same in two threads (see Siege Weapons Many Changes Ahead) and write in English? If he is not comfortable writing in English, I suggest to add at least a machine translation to the Spanish version.

Actually percentage bonus (I will call it relative bonus) is clearly better than integer bonus (I will call it constant bonus). Which is pretty OP for very weak units (high bonus in relative strength) and pretty useless for very strong units (small bonus in relative strength). Balance is not touched if relative strength between weak and strong units stays the same, which can only be achieved by relative bonuses. However, balance between weak and strong units is shifted with constant bonuses because weak units profit better from them. Why? Because strong units usually are proportionally more expensive than weak units (this is the most simple explanation, but I could dig deeper if you wish so). Let's say there is strong type of unit A and a weak type of unit B. A costs 100 resources, B costs 50 resources and A is twice as strong as B (a well balanced game manages to link unit strength and costs similar to that, of course it is not always pure combat strength which is taken into account, but also e.g. speed, gather rate, ...). Player 1 used 100 resources to train unit A and player 2 used 100 resources to train two units B. If we would apply constant bonuses now, the two units B would each receive the bonus, though player B only invested half of the resources for each of the units B, whereas there is only one unit A which gets the bonus. Consequently, unit A which has double the strength of the units B, but also double the costs, needs to receive double the aura bonus in order to maintain balance. This is achieved with relative bonuses. I hope this is clear. As explained above, it must be this way. The gap is not widened, it only seems so. The absolute difference of the stat XY between a weak and a strong unit is increased, however the relative difference of the stat XY remains the same. But the stronger units always are more expensive than the cheaper units. Please do not. I actually waited for relative bonuses and with the exception of armor (because it doesn't work linear, but exponentially), IMHO all techs and auras should only use relative bonuses in order to avoid balance shifts. At least from a mathematical point of view I'm convinced that this is necessary. Regarding the spelling changes in r19052 I do not always understand the logic: It is not clear when to use capital letters and when not. I suggest to not use capital letters at all since it is easier and more correct IMHO.

Totally agree. Perhaps because I really like city building. Nevertheless it's a pity many great models aren't used currently...

Oh I remember well... Was a tough mission I think it makes sense to distinguish between artifacts (wheeled relics) and normal relics and provide both...

Hi @Orpheus, I have found the reason for that issue. In fact, it is different than assumed. I will fix it in the upcoming version 0.3, expect it to be ready no later than the beginning of January.

I just rebased the mod to Alpha 21, apart from the maps, which will require the most work to adapt. I am pretty sure that this mod is not suited to be included in a .diff because of two reasons. First, you need art because it is crucial to add visual feedback to the mines in order to avoid confusions. I also think there is a higher chance for the mod to be committed if it already provides the necessary art, at least as a temporary solution, until a proper artist can make improvements. However, I think that only little improvements are needed. Secondly, even without including art, the number of files and the total memory needed is very high. Just for your information: without art, without maps: 236 files, 0.4 MB with textures, without maps: 395 files, 18.4 MB without art, with maps: at least 428 files, at least 63.1 MB with textures, with maps: at least 587 files, at least 81.1 MB This would require at least 52 new templates and with art we would further need 18 MB. But I'm considering to implement this feature in the next version. I assume mining gold itself is not faster than mining iron; however, in the same amount of mining time you should get a greater value from gold than from iron. Actually iron is far more abundant than gold, so it seems strange to me to give gold a higher amount of metal. Ok that is convincing But what if we protected the mines with said mercenaries / barbarians / gaia gold miners? Thx for your interest

Why not allow a choice between square and circular maps?

I mean that each relic has a different effect/bonus which makes them more interesting. The effects can be very different and one civilization or strategy will benefit from a relic with a special bonus more than another. A relic may even be useless in rare cases. We don't have morale implemented. But a gather speed buff could be an example of an unique relic effect. How would citizens visit exhibitions in an RTS?

Primarily I tried to include as many visual differences between mines as possible. Including different gather speeds. But you are right, probably it isn't realistic, so I may consider to remove that feature. Finally someone seems to be interested in my mod Thanks, @Eraser I won't have time till after Christmas to update the code. But if you keep interest, I will try to provide you with an Alpha 21 / SVN compatible version. There have been a lot of changes in the relevant files, so this probably will require a good amount of time. However, not using above-mentioned feature of different gather animation speeds would greatly reduce the amount of work... The zipped mod folder currently needs 20 MB. Not sure if you consider that small enough. Without art the size may be <1 MB.

I would prefer AOM style relics with unique buffs, e.g. +10% archer attack, +10% gather rate, spawning (and respawning after death) a special unit (e.g. a hero or a few champions), a resource trickle, etc. Or player could choose the relic type in game setup: no effect, metal trickle (AOK) or unique effects (AOM)

Must have been inspired from my elephant mod. Thanks for implementing 50 sec burning time seems a bit long though for a pig, don't you think? I'd propose 30 sec, so you have to set them to flames directly before use... That reminds me, that I never really finished the mod

I'd say relics are much like global auras linked to an object.

I think a ticket for relic implementation could be created. Or are there still some design decisions to be made? According to the gameplay feature table relics are planned for part 1 and could even be an interesting feature for the next Alpha...