Palaxin

I finally went for "Expert", thx for the feedback

@Garaf Thx for the tip and the extra work I haven't worked with DEM-files yet, but it seems to me that there is no height data for ocean floor (bathymetry) available making the in-game ocean very flat in the end you still import a 8-bit grayscale image in Atlas so this does not actually increase precision (in-game height difference between two shades of gray) In the last section of my heightmap guide I described how to overcome this problem. Basically you need to use a script to write the height data directly to the .pmp file which stores the height data of the map. The guide is not 100% finished though...

Hm... or toggle steady recalculations either with a simple checkbox in the GUI or automatically when the obstruction overlay is active. BTW how can I make the overlay visible in Atlas (like in the spoiler images here)?

@niektb is it really necessary to update terrain obstruction in Atlas in real time? Couldn't it be done when saving or running the simulation test? In Atlas you can place objects anyway without following obstruction rules...

Even the existing terrain tools heavily lag on my notebook when I choose the maximum brush size and strength Edit: Actually it is independent of brush size/strength

In AOM you started with a citadel instead of a village center. Basically the same but stronger. Perhaps in this case civic centres should also have double the HP, capture points and max garrison.

Some games also provide economic victory conditions like Economic resources be the first player to store a certain amount of food and/or wood, stone, metal could be made more interesting with randomly placed treasures Economic buildings be the first player to possess x1 buildings of type y1 [and x2 buildings of type y2 [and ...]] similar to wonder victory condition Economic units be the first player to possess x1 units of type y1 [and x2 units of type y2 [and ...]] Economic population be the first player to hit x total population Other popular victory conditions which are still non-present are Regicide/Herocide every player starts with a unique king/hero unit and loses when it is killed already planned, see #2160, discussion can be found here King of the hill in the map center there is a structure which has to be captured and owned by x minutes without interruption in order to win not that much discussed yet Relic capture all relics on the map [for x minutes] first relics need to be implemented, see this topic Defense you start with x1 buildings of type y1 [and x2 buildings of type y2 [and ...]] and need to hold all / at least one of them while destroying the enemy ones a common example is wonder defense Defense units could be a victory condition where you must not lose a group of units (generalization of regicide/herocide) Invasion singleplayer version of defense: hold the buildings for x minutes in order to win Invasion units could be the singleplayer version of Defense units I would also be interested in some experimental modes like Bloodshed be the first player to kill x1 units [of type y1 [or type y2 [or ...]] [and x2 units of type x3 [or type x4 [or ... ]] [and ...]]] unit type would usually be citizen soldier and champion and hero if you lose units of the required type yourself, they could be removed from your count, so effective healing is a key to success during village phase the count per killed unit could be tripled, during town phase doubled Destruction like Bloodshed, but only destroyed buildings add to the count building type would usually be any, because otherwise players would avoid building the required types Capture could be a victory condition where you need to capture the buildings instead of destroy them It is very important to be able to combine several victory conditions, see elexis' ticket.

Some pictures of height-based texturing using a script I am planning to do a good amount of tweaking, but if someone (@Player1) can't wait to test the map himself in Atlas, here are the files: WesternMediterraneanDemo.zip - Have fun! BTW what do you think about square vs circle map shape? A pretty big problem is the shoreline because of the limited resolution of the 8-bit grayscale heightmaps. The topography heightmap says the grey areas are under water, the bathymetry (ocean floor) heigtmap says they are above sea level... I probably need to combine them with another source

Added illustrations to the Basics and Beginner sections You suggest to rename it to something else? E.g. Advanced II? Or a more content related caption like .pmp file hacks or scripting or something similar? BTW thanks for linking the guide

Ok I posted the guide here. Just need to add some graphics to make it more interesting... @FeXoR more Atlas features for height manipulation would definitely help. Both at heightmap import and afterwards...

Introduction Basics Beginner Advanced Expert Changelog

Thanks @elexis and @leper for reminding me that these changes would spam e-mail inboxes as well as the trac timeline, so the annoyance would be greater than the benefit. For any future interest in this analysis I may add that I checked all tickets up to #3984.

I noticed there are some useless tags in trac tickets and listed all of them below. The only official guideline for the use of tags which I know is [PATCH]. Also [ATLAS] and [NEEDS INFO] are used, but they can be also accessed via the component and resolution filter (which also include many tickets where the tag is missing). There are also many tags which are only used once. AFAIK tags are used to mark a category / group of things, not single ones. Now the problem is that ticket summary changes will spam the IRC channel. It could be done between around 02:00 and 06:00 UTC where there usually are no conversations. I could do it if you allowed the cleanup. Perhaps there are also some unofficial guidelines I don't know. Perhaps you also think this is totally useless though I think cleanup is never a bad thing... [Art] x 1 - remove because you can also filter with Art & Animation [ATLAS] x 50, [Atlas] x 8 - remove because you can also filter with Component is Atlas editor, alternatively add the [ATLAS] tag to all tickets with the respective component [DEFECT] x 1 - remove because you can also filter with Type is defect [ENHANCEMENT] x 1 - remove because you can also filter with Type is enhancement [Fixed] x 1, [Solved] x 1 - remove because you can also filter with Resolution fixed [i18n] x 1 - remove because you can also filter with Component is I18n & L10n [NEEDSINFO] x 13, [NEEDS INFO] x 83, [NEEDS MORE INFO] x 1 - remove because you can also filter with Resolution needsinfo, alternatively add the [NEEDSINFO] tag to all tickets with the respective resolution [PATCH] x 1058 - leave as it is [PATCH READY] x 1, [PATCH / DISCUSSION] x 1, [WIP PATCH] x 1, [PATCHES] x 1 - rename to [PATCH] [Petra-AI] x 1 - remove because you can also filter with Component is AI [REVIEW] x 1 - remove because you can also filter with Keywords contains review [SOUND] x 2 - remove because you can also filter with Component is Music & Sound FX special tags (do not use as a tag because there is usually only one or two tickets using it): [ATTACHED] x 1, [BUG] x 2, [Copy & Paste] x 1, [CRASH] x 1, [CRASHLOG] x 2, [Formations] x 2, [FreeBSD compat] x 3, [Git] x 3, [Information Leak] x 1, [Integrated graphics] x 1, [Mac OS X] x 2, [Mac OSX 10.7] x 1, [nvidia linux driver bug] x 1, [OOS on rejoin] x 1, [PERFORMANCE] x 1, [Premake] x 1, [Proposition] x 1, [Step 1] x 1, [Step 2] x 1, [Step 3] x 1, [spam] x 1, [STEPS TO FIX] x 1, [ Testudo / Syntagma not working] x 1, [Typo] x 1 no actual tags and/or not at the beginning of the summary (x 1 each): [0], [2], [7341], [br], [j], [p], [pre], [shipId], [SVN], [-Wempty-body]

Hey @Orpheus, did you use SVN (r17785)? The mod is not compatible with the current Alpha. Mainland and flood random maps have been added after I finished the 0.2 version. I have plans to rebase it in the future (perhaps for the Alpha 21 release) but due to this change it requires me to edit 200 or 300 actor files, so this is a good amount of work... Edit: If you don't like to use SVN you can try to run the mod with the Alpha 19 release. I didn't test it but it should work fine...

Welcome @civilis, regarding number 4: edit this file in your installation folder and you are done Ideally put your edited file in a separate mod (it's always better to leave the public folder untouched, especially for multiplayer). If you need a more detailed explanation just ask me.

Ok I will do when I'm finished

Thanks for the reply I couldn't find the function, but I'm making progress with direct changes to the .pmp file with a hex editor. May I create a new wiki page with a tutorial how to create accurate heightmaps from bathymetry and topography grayscale images?

Added my suggestions to the ticket Do you know where this function is located? However, I currently don't have the environment (and not much experience either) for compilation, so I'm not sure if it's worth the effort...

In Atlas there is no feature to define custom height limits when importing grayscale images. As a result the imported map will be scaled to the full height (which can be changed by editing the heightmap) and shows discrete terrace-like elevation steps (which can't be influenced) because there are used only 256 out of 65536 possible elevations. Is it possible to hack the Atlas code somewhere to change this? I would need to compile after that, right? May I open a new ticket for this issue (implement custom height limits)...? EDIT: or would you recommend to read the heightmap data with a script and directly write into the .pmp file?

If I remember right, it was initially there. He may have removed it (accidentally?) when editing the post...

TheViper is probably the best AoE II player of all time, but I'm still not sure if he could live well with his earnings from tournaments... Compare that to the players in this table. BTW sitting all day long should be the contrary to sports... Citing Wikipedia: Sport (UK) or sports (US) are all forms of usually competitive physical activity or games which, through casual or organised participation, aim to use, maintain or improve physical ability and skills while providing enjoyment to participants, and in some cases, entertainment for spectators. E-sports improving physical ability? Well if it's about finger muscles... we could debate

@Lion.Kanzen expansions etc. are very nice but they typically do not change gameplay. I think better gameplay is more important than more civilizations. I would say nothing against a number of 3 total civs if gameplay is perfect. Personally I tend to like a good amount of complexity and realism. However, the game should start very simple and evolve with the possibility to choose between many techs, buildings, units, strategies, ... For me a good RTS match lasts at least 1 hour and can be more than 2 hours if there are enough late game possibilities. About Microsoft... regardless if they will make AoE IV or not, I really don't expect anything from them and don't care. AoE II can be only beaten by itself, e.g. if it's destroyed with new expansions like AoM. 0 A.D. is a somewhat different kind of game and has great potential to be successful in it's own way.

@MetaPhaze I don't assume you will ever read this, but I'm working on wildlife balance, see #3778 and #3918. Currently wolves are overpowered indeed when compared to other aggressive animals and I want to change that.

@Lion.Kanzen additionally, using spoilers could often help when posting several images or TL;DR excerpts from Wikipedia. No offense

True. 0 A.D. is a great game in many aspects but I think it still shares one weakness (in a less extreme way, perhaps) with AoE III: You do not have that much the feeling to make great advancements with your civilization. This is personal opinion of course. Visually it feels like you start and end in "Imperial Age", because the initial CC usually looks like a high level building from start and the structure models don't change at all. Advancing in phases feels a little bit arbitrary and not that epic than ages (I know that this already has been discussed). There is no real timescale. There is no feeling to grow a big empire out of @#$%. I know the reasons why there are no ages and I don't really question this basic concept. I would advocate though to start more nomad style like e.g. with some tents / a camp so you can regain a bit of the described feeling. Assuming we had infinite motivation, programming and artistic resources I would indeed go for the AoE I style where you start in Stone Age. Not before the start, but during the game you would make the decision into which civ you want to evolve. E.g. at the beginning you have to decide if you want to migrate to Europe or the Near East or America (symbolically, could be a huge GUI element like in AoM). Depending on that choice you can choose an early civ and from that develop into (one of several) later civs. The timescale is what I am missing most in 0 A.D. Gameplay wise it (currently) feels like you just pump out as many units as you can early on to hit XYZ pop at 10 minutes. After that you mass champs as early and as much as you can. Just mass production. No 3 militia unit rush, no attempts to steal the enemy's boar and lure it to your base etc., little things that made AoE II so interesting. I know this is Alpha so complaints should be spared. I also know that we will more likely have battalions and even more units than AoE II style microing. This is good and bad, but I'm sure I will always miss that early game with super @#$% units where every little achievement adds to bare survival. It might be time to write an RTS Utopia, a Chuck Norris of all Design Documents. Actually... it neither will be possible nor help anyone with anything...