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Everything posted by Nescio
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Please delete: and: Those are modern interpretations. Please use real attested letter forms (marked in red). For Athens: and for Sparta: (Screenshots taken from L. H. Jeffrey The Local Scripts of Archaic Greece (Oxford 1961).)
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Yeah, about that, the simulation templates use different numbers. Was it 1:4? I recall you explaining it to me in the past, but I forgot when or where.
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Personally I think each civilization in game ought to have exactly one, unique faction emblem, which is used for everything (banners on stuctures, rally points, garrison flags, etc.).
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Yes, the Persians did use large numbers of Greek mercenary hoplites. However, the kardakes were neither Greeks, nor armed in Greek fashion, and not champions; whether they were ethnic Persians, Iranians, or a multi-ethnic mixed force cannot be determined, nor whether they were a standing force, mercenaries, or a war-time levy. Because the immortals only appear in Herodotus and the kardakes primarily in Arrian, the latter might have been a replacement of the latter; in any case, both fought as heavy (i.e. melee) infantry. Anyway, given how problematic 0 A.D.'s version of the kardakes is, I support removing them from the current Persian roster.
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Thanks, this is looking promising! Don't forget the cart low walls ought to lengthened as well, they ought to have the same length as palisades. Furthermore, there are several more palisades: palisade*straight should have the same length as the palisade*long, but rotated by 90° (don't ask me why it exists); palisade*curve has the same length and orientation as palisade*straight, but it's curved, not straight; palisade*gate is supposed to have the same length as palisade*long, because you can upgrade the latter to the former; widening the doors is not a good idea, so you'll have to put something on either side. Those are the units used in the simulation templates; I don't know how they correspond to Blender units. I'm not sure lengthening palisades (currently 4.5, 9, 13.5) to the same length as city walls (12, 24, 36) is a good idea. I'd prefer half that (6, 12, 18). Or maybe have six palisade lengths (6, 12, 18, 24, 30, 36), allowing mods to choose which ones they want to use. (It's possible to copy and paste in Blender, isn't it?) Yes, let's have a look at how they would look in game!
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Hares would be great to have! However, yours does not really resemble one, hares are much leaner than rabbits: For more free images, see e.g. https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Lepus_europaeus and https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Lepus_europaeus .
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The problem is that wall towers all have different footprints...
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Click on the entire link; sci-hub was created to help people without university library subscriptions. (The alternative, locating and contacting authors, tends to be highly time-consuming.) Paying for individual publications is inadvisable. From the article in question: V. Conclusion In sum, the κάρδακες must remain somewhat enigmatic. Despite our effort to reconcile often conflicting source traditions, establishing a firm view is predicated on assigning greater validity to some pieces of information. Rather than supporting the belief that the κάρδακες were light infantry, the evidence indicates that they are better understood, in the main, as general-purpose infantry, though it is not impossible that the term could refer to other troop-types,[75] as one interpretation of Xen. Oec. 4.5-6 might suggest. Their deployment at Issus suggests that they were expected to take their place on either side of the Greek mercenary heavy infantry, the possible replacements of the ἀθάνατοι, and were therefore not acting as light infantry. These circumstances are what presumably prompted Arrian to describe the κάρδακες as ὁπλῖται, even if they did not exactly correspond, in their combat role, to the more usual modern interpretations of the term.[76] That Arrian provides the only extant account of the κάρδακες in battle means that it is simply not possible to draw any watertight conclusions about their role, but is arguably enough to affirm that they were not merely untrained recruits, as one interpretation of Strabo would have it, and not exclusively Thracian-style peltasts. The question of ethnicity, however, is more difficult to resolve. They were possibly of mixed ethnic origin as per Briant,[77] but were likely to have been commanded by Persians, to be used when circumstances demanded, as is possibly indicated by Xenophon (Oec. 4.5-6).
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For a decent (and recent) discussion of the “kardakes”, I highly recommend: https://sci-hub.tw/http://www.jstor.org/stable/41722251 Whilst it may be quite useful for hobbyists (the images certainly look nice), the problem with the work of Duncan Head is that's not always clear what's actually supported by sources and what's his own interpretation.
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Most city walls (plus siege walls) have short, medium, long lengths of 12, 24, 36. (ptol are slightly longer, sele slightly shorter, it seems.) Palisades and cart low walls are much shorter: 4.5, 9, 13.5 respectively. In my opinion they are too short and too much hassle to actually build. They should certainly be shorter than city walls, but I would highly appreciate it if palisade (and low wall) lengths could be increased by a third, thus to 6, 12, 18, i.e. half as long as their city wall equivalents. Not sure whom to ask. @Stan`?
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Rats tend to be even tinier than chickens or rabbits, they might be a bit small for the game. Having said that, if people want to create rats (or other animals), they're certainly more than welcome to! Anyway, there are several different rat species; both the black rat (Rattus rattus) and the (larger) brown rat (Rattus norvegicus) are native to different parts of Asia, but are nowadays found in practically all the countries in the world. There are clear differences between the two, Wikimedia Commons has an useful image:
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Adding custom "StartEntities" to a custom Civ
Nescio replied to KingDuits's topic in Tutorials, references and art help
"StartEntities" only applies to random maps; for skirmish maps, you need the "SkirmishReplacements"; those that are not listed in the civ file default to the templates listed in `simulation/templates/skirmish/*/*.xml`. -
The approach outlined in the design document and implemented in 0 A.D. is largely descriptive. E.g. spearmen cost wood, because their spears and shields are made of wood; however, part of their equipment was also made of iron (e.g. spear point, side-arm) and bronze (e.g. spear counterweight point, helmet, greaves; shield rim, boss, spine, decorations); and how about things that can't be easily grouped under one of the four resource types, e.g. a linen cuirass? Moreover: food is a bit different (farms), but all other resources are gathered basically in the same way all resources can be obtained equally from traders units can cost food, wood, stone, metal structures can cost food, wood, stone, metal technologies can cost food, wood, stone, metal So, in practice, there is not much fundamental difference between different resource types in 0 A.D. A different approach is prescriptive: define which function each resource type has, then stick with it (or redesign it, of course). This is the approach I'm taking in my 0abc mod. Both are valid approaches, one is not necessarily inferior to the other. To be fair, I'm not even sure the current implementation in 0abc is an improvement; I've overhauled the resource system more than once, and I might do it again in the future. Besides, that something works in a mod doesn't mean it's a good idea for the 0 A.D. default too.
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Also the length and material of the sling, and whether the projectile was released after three swings or just one. That said, there are also different archery traditions, with different bows, arrow lengths and weights, etc. And because 0 A.D. is a game, some kind of generalization is unavoidable... Now this is valuable information, thanks a lot! I believe Greek lead bullets tended to be lighter, in the 20 g to 50 g range. Maybe there should be two types of slingers in game, one for Greeks, the other for Celts and Persians etc.? Or perhaps keep the one slinger we have, but introduce a special technology (“lead bullets”) that doubles the range but halves the damage? Yes, obviously I am, on effective range, based on what Xenophon wrote in his work on the c. 400 BC campaign. As for javelins, there was possibly even more variation than for other projectiles. Here are two pages on the weapons used by the Romans during the Republic, again from The Cambridge History of Greek and Roman Warfare: To summarize the text, there were apparently four types of Roman javelins used in the 3rd C Roman army, each with a different range and, presumably, function: hastati and principes had two, one slender, one stout; both were short-range weapons (and yes, their primary use was probably to render the enemy shields unwieldy) velites had five light javelins, c. 2 cm thin and c. 0.9 m long Q. Navius' special forces had seven javelins of c. 1.2 m in length In general, you're right: not necessarily indeed. However, in the case of sling stones, the only real variable is the mass, since the shapes are all similar, and the material (i.e. density) is the same. Heavier means larger and slower. A tiny bullet would penetrate the body, a pound-weight projectile won't. To use an imperfect modern example, rubber bullets can deeply penetrate the body, rubber truncheons won't.
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You're welcome. Off-topic, I also think all military units ought to cost metal, and that structures shouldn't cost food (D2686).
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Translating Specific Names
Nescio replied to Akira Kurosawa's topic in Game Development & Technical Discussion
Yes, Britons and Gauls use the same language and pronunciation in 0 A.D. I believe “u” represents /u/, like in zoo, but ask @Genava55, he's the expert on things Celtic. There is https://trac.wildfiregames.com/wiki/SpecificNames, but that's more about orthography than pronunciation. -
Why not? An arrow hitting an arm is not as deadly as one through the eye. I agree. The average damage per second stays the same.
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Slingers shouldn't cost stone. Stone in 0 A.D. is a building material obtained from a quarry. There were different kinds of sling projectiles: fist-size rocks picked up at the battlefield smooth pebbles obtained from riverbeds terracotta (baked clay) balls lead bullets In any case, they were not crafted from stone obtained in a quarry, which would be quite cumbersome. Although it's possible to hurl rocks of c. 500 g, which would have high impact, in practice sling projectiles were much lighter, under c. 50 g, sometimes as little as c. 5 g. The lighter the projectile, the higher the speed and range, and the greater its penetrative power; tiny bullets would go deep into the enemy's flesh and were very difficult to extract; besides, their small size made them difficult to see and dodge. (I assume the 111 is a typo for iii, because the relevant paragraph is indeed in book III, section 3.) Xenophon (Anabasis 3.3.16-17) insists Rhodian slingers (who used lead bullets) could shoot twice as far as the Persian slingers (who used stones). In terms of effective range, something like: Rhodian slingers > Iranian archers > Cretan archers > non-Greek slingers > javelineers would be realtistic; I'm not entirely sure implementing that would actually be a good idea. Here are two pages from The Cambridge History of Greek and Roman Warfare, an accessable introduction: One other thing, I have some doubts about that several slingers in 0 A.D. have shields.
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Damage randomization adds realism, which is why I added it in my 0abc mod about a year ago; I simply inserted a `* randFloat(0.5, 1.5)` (@Freagarach pointed out which file and line I needed.)
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Thanks, a tool like that could be especially useful for medieval or fantasy mods. Personally I'm quite happy with the patterns already in game. Besides, I'd like to avoid touching art files myself.
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There is one on the coin you posted earlier, above the Λ in the word ΒΑΣΙΛΕΩΣ: Nonetheless, I'm not sure it's appropiate to use symbols on coins for shield patterns.
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The anchor, bee, elephant, and eagle with thunderbolts in its talons were all royal symbols. Hellenistic kings liked displaying their own heads on their coins, often with a diadem. Invoking Alexander the Great was popular as well; the horse you're remaking is probably Alexander's horse Bucephales, the name means “ox-head”, hence the horns. Various gods and heroes were also frequently depicted, e.g. However, a word of caution. Imagery on coinage was royal propaganda. Extrapolating symbols from coins to shield patterns is not necessarily a good idea. The few depictions we have of thureoi suggest much plainer designs. Here are two famous painted Hellenistic tombstones from Sidon, Lebanon, now in the İstanbul Archaeological Museum:
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Could you explain why? As for rP22408, I don't remember the details (@bb_?), but I guess changing e.g. armor_hero_01.json from "cost": {"food": 0, "wood": 0, "stone": 0, "metal": 600}, "modifications": [ {"value": "Armour/Hack", "add": 2.0}, {"value": "Armour/Pierce", "add": 2.0}, {"value": "Cost/Resources/metal", "add": 50}], to "cost": { "food": 0, "wood": 0, "stone": 0, "metal": 600 }, "modifications": [ { "value": "Armour/Hack", "add": 2 }, { "value": "Armour/Pierce", "add": 2 }, { "value": "Cost/Resources/metal", "add": 50 } ], was a lesser change compared to changing it into "cost": { "food": 0.0, "wood": 0.0, "stone": 0.0, "metal": 600.0 }, "modifications": [ { "value": "Armour/Hack", "add": 2.0 }, { "value": "Armour/Pierce", "add": 2.0 }, { "value": "Cost/Resources/metal", "add": 50.0 } ], Also, there were things such as "add": 0.10
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To clarify, I'm not opposed to trailing zeros per se. Where they are necessary or meaningful, they should obviously stay. And yes, I'm aware that in some languages adding a full stop can differentiate decimal numbers from integers. However, I do like consistency, and e.g. <food>200</food> <wood>50.0</wood> is ugly. Since the current trend seems to be to remove unnecessary trailing zeros (e.g. rP22408 ), I think it's best to avoid introducing them in new templates, such as the hippopotamus'.
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Again, I'm merely commenting on what I see. I don't expect everything I say to be done; you're all volunteers with limited time, and what may seem easy and straightforward can actually be a lot of work to implement. Besides, I'm not always right, obviously (humans aren't infallible); Celts are outside my comfort zone, and I'm not an archaeologist. If @Genava55 approves of it, I won't object. Anyway, the current version is certainly a great improvement over Stonehenge!