Nescio

The prop used by infantry and female citizens to slaughter domestic animals looks like this: As you can see it's a dagger designed for stabbing people. Cavalry is even worse: they use full-size swords. This is how a sacrificial knife (μάχαιρα) looked like in reality, at least in the Greek world: It would be great if someone could model them to replace the currently used prop.

A few images from Rémy Boucharlat “Archaeological Approaches and their Future Directions in Pasargadae” in Ali Mozaffari (ed.) World Heritage in Iran: Perspectives on Pasargadae (Farnham 2014) 29–59: More information and images: https://www.livius.org/articles/place/pasargadae/ https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Pasargadae https://www.livius.org/articles/place/pasargadae/pasargadae-photos/pasargadae-tomb-of-cyrus/ https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Tomb_of_Cyrus_the_Great Made for Cyrus the Great-day: Pasargadae is c. 43 km upstream from Persepolis: Anshan: ancient Elamite capital of the region Pasargadae: city (and tomb) of Cyrus II the Great Persepolis: palace city started (c. 515 BC) by Darius I the Great and continued by basically all Achaemenids after him Naqsh-e Rostam: tomb of Darius I; three others are believed to be those of Xerxes I, Artaxerxes I, Darius II, and an unfinished one possibly for Darius III. Also various Sasanian reliefs added centuries later. Istakhr, minor settlement under the Achaemenids, became more important afterwards, first capital of the Sasanians.

Great initiative! More animals are always welcome, and the gharial would certainly be a nice addition. Good to know. Indeed many crocodilians (unlike other reptiles) are capable of both a ‘high walk’ and a ‘low walk’, but there are indeed exceptions. Perhaps you could make the tail a bit longer? It seems to be nearly half the length of the animal: There are three crocodilians in the Indian subcontinent. Ideally 0 A.D. ought to have all three of them. The gharial (Gavialis gangeticus) lives in the Indo-Gangetic plain (Pakistan, Northern India, Southern Nepal, Bangladesh). The mugger crocodile (Crocodylus palustris) is by far the most common and lives throughout the subcontinent. The saltwater crocodile (Crocodylus porosus) lives along the entire Indian east coast (as well as throughout South-East Asia, Melanesia, and the north coast of Australia). Lets end with an example of peaceful coexistence (three gharials and one mugger):

The Gate of All Nations (the `hall.xml` in the public mod) would still be nice to have, however, it should be based on fact. To start with: The hall inside was about 25 m × 25 m. The floor was probably red. It had four stone pillars of about 18.5 m tall, supporting two pairs of thick wooden beams, to support the (presumably wooden) roof. Along the inner wall was a continuous, low, stone bench, upon which people could sit. In the middle of the northern it was interrupted by what probably supported an elevated throne. It had entrances on three sides: The one on the west, towards the stairs, was flanked by two colossal bulls. The one on the south, towards the Apadana, was the widest, and not flanked by sculpture. The one on the east, towards the unfinished gate and the Hundred Columns Hall, was flanked by two colossal lamassus. The doorposts were made of stone. Each entrance had two-leaved doors, probably wooden and covered with decorative metal sheets. The outer walls were about 5 m thick and made of mud brick. If you think you're up to it, perhaps you could start with modelling the colums, bulls, and lamassus? Here are some photographs: [EDIT] The pillars at the front of the palace.xml / tacara.xml are fine and can be used, although I have some doubts about the colours. The bulls of the apadana.xml are wrong, as are its gate doors (Islamic geometric pattern).

A few maps and maquettes of Persepolis from Ali Mousavi Persepolis: Discovery and Afterlife of a World Wonder (Berlin 2012):

No, in the end it's up to the team to decide; I can merely advise. That said, 0 A.D. generally aims for historical accuracy when possible. Persepolis is relatively well preserved, we know the locations and dimensions of the various buildings of the terrace. @Enrique's design is basically a recombination of various assets in game. It is not a correct representation of the Gate of All Nations. Rather than adding more fantasy stuff, I recommend correcting the structures already in game.

Interesting though incorrect: we know it didn't look like that. While the current Hanging Gardens is a fantasy structure too, I don't believe replacing it with this is an improvement. I fear you're wasting your time on this, @MrLux.

The Gate of All Nations, while of itself quite large (see https://wildfiregames.com/forum/topic/17552-task-wonder-persians-gate-of-all-nations/?tab=comments#comment-273423), was actually one of the smaller and unimportant buildings on the Persepolis terrace (it's the yellow one in https://wildfiregames.com/forum/topic/17552-task-wonder-persians-gate-of-all-nations/page/2/?tab=comments#comment-376429). And as you've pointed out, it's basically a square block which looks quite boring on the outside. In my opinion the Persian wonder ought to be apadana (audience hall) of Darius I the Great at Persepolis (red). This was not only the largest (and central) building of the palace terrace, but also by far the most important: this was where once a year representatives from all satrapies and peoples living in the Persian empire came to pay tribute to the Achaemenid king of kings. Moreover, it also looks impressive on the outside, having large porticos, stairs, and entrances on multiple sides. Suitable alternatives are the apadana of Darius at Susa or the older ‘Palace S’ of Cyrus II the Great at Pasargadae, both of which served the same function (the Achaemenid empire had multiple capitals). 0 A.D. has the following special Persian structures: pers_apadana.xml / audience hall of Darius (red on map) pers_hall.xml / Gate of All Nations (yellow on map) pers_ishtar_gate.xml / Ishtar Gate of Babylon (predates the Achaemenids) pers_tacara.xml / palace of Darius (green on map) pers_wonder.xml / a combination of the (legendary) Hanging Gardens of Babylon and the (real) E.temen.an.ki, the ziggurat of Marduk in the centre of Babylon (also predates the Achaemenids) Unfortunately, despite the names, none of them really resembles the real things. Ideally all of them ought to be deprecated and replaced with more accurate actors, but that's a lot of work for little benefit. (As I've requested elsewhere (https://wildfiregames.com/forum/topic/20820-macedonian-wonder/page/2/?tab=comments#comment-393823), I'd also like to see the tomb of Cyrus, a much smaller and simpler structure, but still standing today.)

It's not been committed yet, so you or others can still raise objections or request changes. For the sake of discussion: The mini map itself is generated by the C++ source code; how scaling is handled is too, I presume. Understanding and changing this is complicated. The gui/ JavaScript code defines how various elements interact. The gui/ XML files define the sizes and positions. The images themselves are art/textures/ui/ PNG images. D2806 and D2875 change the XML to accommodate more icons. The black line artefacts @Stan` spotted (previous page) are a completely separate issue, which is neither caused nor solved by D2806 or D2875. They don't happen at gui.scale = "1", but do when it is a different factor. To address this I scaled up the border PNG images by a factor 4, which I bundled as a mod. I've now modified and scaled up the minimap_circle_modern.png too, to ensure the ring has about the same line thickness and colour as the panel borders. Here is a new version of the mod: gui_borders.zip How it looks at gui.scale = "3" without the mod: Zoom in and look at the panel corners, as well as at the bottom of the mini map ring. How it looks at gui.scale = "3" with the mod: I've tried it at gui.scale factors 1, 2, 3, and 4, and did not encounter those black line artefacts. However, I guess they can still occur at other sizes. Although it's quite unimportant, it's nonetheless an improvement for people with high resolution screens, therefore I'd still recommend @Stan` to commit the scaled up images to the svn public mod. Interestingly the new 4× versions have actually smaller file sizes, although it's only a couple of kB, therefore presumably negligible.

And another month has passed. @wraitii, @Stan`, other team members?

0 A.D. has very limited biodiversity. This is quite understandable, given the amount of work necessary for adding an animal (creating mesh, textures, animations, icon, sounds). There are already large lists of wanted animals (here and here). However, not all species live in all parts of the world, obviously. It could be helpful for future map makers to list the species native to a specific part of the world, or at least the largest and most important animals (from a human i.e. cultural, historical, and socio-economical point of view). Since 0 A.D. has the Mauryas and several maps but few animals from there, I've decided to start with the Indian subcontinent (i.e. South Asia). Animals already present in the 0 A.D. svn version are stricken through. For the rest, I've added links to Wikipedia [WP], for basic information, and Wikimedia Commons [WMC], for free images. Jungle Book characters are within square brackets. Feliformia: tiger (Panthera tigris) [Shere Khan] lion (Panthera leo) leopard (Panthera pardus) WP WMC [Bagheera] cheetah (Acinonyx jubatus) WP WMC striped hyena (Hyaena hyaena) WP WMC Canines: wolf (Canis lupus) [Akela, Raksha, Rama] golden jackal (Canis aureus) WP WMC [Tabaqui] dhole (Cuon alpinus) WP WMC red fox (Vulpes vulpes) Bengal fox (Vulpes bengalensis) WP WMC Bovinae: gaur (Bos gaurus) WP WMC gayal (Bos frontalis) or mithun; the domestic gaur WP WMC Indo-Chinese banteng (Bos javanicus birmanicus) WP WMC Indian aurochs (Bos primigenius namadicus) – unclear when it went extinct in India – WP WMC zebu (Bos primigenius indicus) wild water buffalo (Bubalus arnee) WP WMC domestic water buffalo (Bubalus bubalis): river buffalo and swamp buffalo WP WMC nilgai (Boselaphus tragocamelus) WP WMC four-horned antelope (Tetracerus quadricornis) WP WMC Cervinae (deer): sambar (Rusa unicolor) WP WMC chital (Axis axis) or spotted deer WP WMC barasingha (Rucervus duvaucelii) or swamp deer WP WMC Indian hog deer (Hyelaphus porcinus) WP WMC Indian muntjac (Muntiacus muntjak) WP WMC Other mammals: Indian elephant (Elephas maximus indicus) [Hathi] Indian rhinoceros (Rhinoceros unicornis) WP WMC onager (Equus hemionus) or Asiatic wild ass WP WMC wild boar (Sus scrofa) Asian black bear (Ursus thibetanus) or moon bear WP WMC sloth bear (Melursus ursinus) WP WMC [Baloo] Indian hare (Lepus nigricollis) WP WMC South Asian river dolphin (Platanista gangetica) WP WMC Birds: Indian peafowl (Pavo cristatus) Indian spot-billed duck (Anas poecilorhyncha) WP WMC chicken (Gallus gallus domesticus) red junglefowl (Gallus gallus) WP WMC grey junglefowl (Gallus sonneratii) WP WMC green junglefowl (Gallus varius) WP WMC Crocodilians: mugger crocodile (Crocodylus palustris) WP WMC saltwater crocodile (Crocodylus porosus) WP WMC gharial (Gavialis gangeticus) WP WMC

Players interested in competitive multiplayer are a tiny minority. 0 A.D. has been downloaded over a million times from SourceForge alone (source) – and I guess most people nowadays got it directly from play0ad.com, a Linux distribution package, or even the svn version or a git mirror – so the vast majority does not go beyond single-player. I'm not saying bugs should be ignored, but there will practically always be other ways to exploit a game and gain an advantage. And if someone makes a modification to make playing easier, then I don't see why that is a problem; isn't that the whole point of open source?

No, I modify only the latest stable, i.e. A23, see opening post. Yes, this mod is still under development, there are many things I intend to do.

It's not merged into the svn development version yet, is it?

No, you're mistaken, they're actually slightly over 4 m tall in Blender: For comparison, the default cube with position 0,0,0 and scale 1,1,1 has dimensions 2×2×2.

Practically all images on Wikimedia Commons are released under a CC licence, so you could have a look at e.g. https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Albinism_in_zebras That's not really surprising, since Burchell's zebra (Equus quagga burchellii) is a subspecies of the common zebra (Equus quagga). Or did you mean the now extinct quagga subspecies (Equus quagga quagga)? [EDIT] The last photo is from the Quagga Project, a modern selective breeding programme which aims to get zebras with strongly reduced stripe patterns; see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quagga_Project#Project_milestones. Therefore it's not representative of zebras you'd encounter in the wild.

Also keep in mind there are three different zebra species, each with fundamentally different skin patterns:

You can find the relevant Sanskrit at https://sarit.indology.info/kautalyarthasastra.xml?root=1.5.6.5.44&odd=sarit.odd&view=div For translation and interpretation, see Patrick Olivelle King, Governance, and Law in Ancient India : Kauṭilya's Arthaśāstra : A New Annotated Translation (Oxford 2013) 142–143, 549–550. Kautilya, not Chanakya. I've tried to summarize the main points at https://wildfiregames.com/forum/index.php?/topic/27113-bibliography-and-references-about-ancient-times-book-reviews/&tab=comments#comment-402302

While in reality gravity is indeed an acceleration (i.e. distance divided by time square), 0 A.D. doesn't have real world physics, and <Gravity> is just a number. @LordGood did change it last year for many templates: https://trac.wildfiregames.com/changeset/23144 However, the new values are a bit arbitrary; e.g. archers and towers have a <Speed> of 75.0 and a <Gravity> of 39.81; javelineers have a lower <Speed>, but the same <Gravity>; other structures (civic centre, fortress, army camp) have the same <Speed>, but a <Gravity> of only 9.81; bolt-shooters have the highest <Speed> in game, 150.0, and the lowest <Gravity>, 9.81. Mods can experiment with what values would produce good-looking trajectories. If there is consensus for a particular ratio (e.g. 2:1), then a patch can be made to standardize the values in 0 A.D. And maybe the <Speed> ought to be related to the <MaxRange>.

More variation of animal skins (textures) is certainly welcome! That said, juvenile zebras are not present in 0 A.D., nor do cheetahs, leopards, and jaguars exist (yet).

What exactly? Can be done with a local aura. Basically the current Celtic civ bonus? Fine by me. A civilization bonus (i.e. free and autoresearched) or a special technology? Maybe fortresses too? And perhaps increase time to compensate for the reduced stone cost? Current team bonus. Maybe not a good idea. Just the Civic Centre, or also Barracks and Fortress? And by how much, +5? I'm not sure that's doable. There are two related nodes, <Loot> and <Looter>. <Loot> is what destroyed entities grant to the player that destroys them, <Looter> is what entities give to their owner whenever they destroy an enemy entity. Both are fixed amounts (integers). Technologies (and civilization bonuses) typically affect your own entities, not those of other players. I guess it can be done via local auras (which might be costly performance-wise), though that would not achieve exactly what you wrote: if an aura increases the <Loot> of an enemy structure, then anyone who destroys it gets the increased loot, not just gaul players; and if an aura increases the <Looter> of your units, then you get increased loot from anything you destroy, not just structures; as far as I know it can't be limited to specific targets. See previous point. Currently a special technology. Current team bonus.

https://code.wildfiregames.com/D2841#127227 Ideally, yes. More unique technologies would also be nice. It's probably best to introduce them one by one.

Actually I'm not sure it was actually removed; my guess is it was simply never implemented. Regardless whether it's “no longer true” or “not yet implemented”, in either case it's misinformation and shouldn't be displayed in game; hence D2720. Indeed it is. It also applies to fields, outposts, palisades, the structures shared by all civilizations. In A23 and earlier releases, wonders were affected too, but that's no longer the case in A24 (see D2686/rP23824). The same is true for the athen/mace/spart civ bonus: Structures +10% health and +10% capture points. Ideally each faction would have at least one, unique bonus, instead of these shared, broad bonuses; hence D2841. Other suggestions are certainly welcome! It doesn't; I don't like it either, and I recall @badosu and @borg- disliking it too. I've now included the removal of those population bonuses in https://code.wildfiregames.com/D2950

The information displayed in game in the structure tree is loaded directly from the relevant files and is correct. In contrast, the information in the “History”/“Civilization Overview” is often incorrect and can't be trusted. The current (A24) situation is: Britons: Civilization bonuses: Structures −20% build time, −20% health, and −20% capture points. Structures grant more population: Market +5; Barracks +4; Blacksmith, Farmstead, Fortress, Storehouse +2; Dock −3. Barracks, Range, Stable, Temple cost wood instead of stone. Team bonus: Allied Healers −20% resource costs. Unique technologies: — Gauls: Civilization bonuses: Structures −20% build time, −20% health, and −20% capture points. Structures grant more population: Market +5; Barracks +4; Blacksmith, Farmstead, Fortress, Storehouse +2; Dock −3. Barracks, Range, Stable, Temple cost wood instead of stone. Team bonus: Blacksmiths −15% technology resource costs and research time. Unique technologies: Workers +15% grain gather rate. (Town phase, 400 wood, 200 metal, 40 s)

The aura is defined in the theater.json file. The theatre is limited to 1 for everyone, see the simulation/templates/special/player/player.xml file. The {civ}.json files contain a lot misinformation and can't be trusted at the moment. There is a patch to update them ( https://code.wildfiregames.com/D2720 ), but it needs to be reviewed before it can be committed.