Nescio

A24 commits affecting gameplay balance: 24898: Increase the cose of cavalry/infantry levy techs. 24851: Reduce iberian fireship attack. 24850: Tweak elephant stable building time. 24849: Make unlock_spies technology cheaper. 24820: Reduce CS cavalry build time back to 16. 24802: Adjust cavalry movement speed and melee attack range. 24800: UnitMotion - Additional chasing fixes. 24799: A24 Cavalry build time increase / speed tech cost increase. 24798: Chasing fix - ignore the target's obstruction to avoid colliding with it. 24797: Check for movement success/failure on turn start. 24786: Fix persian cav archer being a Chariot. 24779: Increase outpost base vision to 10. 24776: Fix UnitAI range queries - allow queries to ignore sizes - partial revert of rP24217. 24772: Fix hero cavalry spearman bonus. 24751: Fix PreferredClasses following rP23831. 24738: Buff Iber champion cavalry damage. 24729: Tweak Maurya worker elephant. 24725: Rework attack forge techs. 24722: Update siege techs. 24719: Make gather technologies less effective. 24718: Remove starting hoplite from Spartans. 24709: Tweak Ranged spreads, reduce archer spread, tweak cosmetic stats. 24708: Fix chasing range cavalry. 24700: Increase Skiritai cost. 24697: Enable Cart apartment. 24693: Let Spartans start with a Champion. 24692: Merge wonder population auras. 24690: Tweak market technologies. 24689: Cleanup to / rebalancing of animal templates. 24687: Tweak mace, ptol, sele specific structures. 24685: Make siege engines uncapturable. 24680: Restore civic centre garrison healing. 24679: Delete armor_hero_01 technology. 24659: Purge Roman Sibylline Books and Cart Exploration techs. 24658: Reduce Archer and Structure ranges. 24657: Move infantry from fortress to barracks only. 24655: Tweak Ptol structure cive bonus again. 24649: Swap Ptolemaic Slinger & Javelineer. 24647: Improve cavalry balance. 24646: Fix a few template oversights in recent commits. 24640: Unlock Champion Cavalry with a technology. 24639: Remove Spartan population penalty. 24638: Tweak Melee Infantry range. 24637: Tweak War Elephant damage. 24636: Reduce ranged soldier resistance. 24635: Differentiate mercenaries further from Citizen Soldiers. 24634: Add Carnyx unit to Gaul. 24628: Make the Athenian long_walls tech cost stone. 24624: Make foundations not ConquestCritical. 24623: Remove population bonus from most non-house buildings. 24615: Adjust elephant temlate values. 24612: Enable elephant stables for all civs with elephants. 24608: Drastically change artillery attacks. 24606: Adjust some siege engine stats. 24605: Move shared vision / dropsites to CC. 24604: Seperate forge armour techs. 24597: Enable gaul assembly. 24590: Alter ptol structure bonus. 24589: Change nisean_horses technology. 24588: Add new Gaul civ bonus. 24567: 10% loot for support units and ranged slinger. 24556: Enable Mauryan palace. 24552: Tweak Fortress cost and Health. 24548: Introduce two new technologies at the stable. 24546: Change ship technologies. 24545: Make fireships unable to attack anything but ships. 24544: Move Citizen Soldier health increase from phase progression to promotion. 24541: Make unlock_shared_dropsites independent from unlock_shared_los. 24540: Increase defensive structure vision range. 24539: Unify ranged attack ranges. 24538: Deprecate Gaul Tavern. 24533: Increase turn rate of most unit types slightly. 24528: Give all civs rams. 24527: Differentiate domestic animals. 24523: Unify garrison heal rates. 24514: Change Parade of Daphne tech. 24508: Add a poisoned status effect to the maurya champion infantry archer. 24498: Add visible garrison points to Roman siege wall tower. 24496: Permadeath for heroes. 24479: Allow building palisades in neutral territory. 24477: Alter Roman army camp production queue. 24476: Deprecate Stoa and their champions. 24475: Standardise archer attack speeds. 24474: Balance hero health. 24470: Enable stable for all civilisations. 24469: Tweak maceman attacks. 24460: Lower cost of briton special tech for grain gather rate. 24458: Increase projectile speed slightly across the board. 24453: Fix entities turning when attacking while fleeing. 24446: Change tower armour tech to a roughly equivalent health one. 24443: Make slaughter actually kill animals in one strike. 24426: Add a flaming status effect to iber champion cavalry. 24422: Tweak Kush Amun temple. 24418: Reduce slinger attack speed. 24417: Restore the briton wonder stats for balance. 24393: Give Fortress a territory root. 24349: Adjust range visualisation and aura ranges following rP24217. 24316: Increase hack damage of pikemen. 24303: Remove female inspiration aura. 24226: Tweak human training times to make them feel less "spammy". 24225: Remove structure <Loot/xp> as most builings are destroyed by siege. 24217: Update range queries to account for entity size. 24088: Do not allow upgrading when entity is producing and vice versa. 24034: Cheer after combat when no enemy units are in range. 24021: Garrison outposts visually. 24020: Add turret points to gates. 24019: Allow a few more units on walls. 24016: Debuff outpost and remove un-necessary technologies. 24015: Balance economy techs to make City Phase less of a snowball. 24014: Slightly buff melee units by making ranged units promote slower. 24013: Allow training Axeman Cavalry at barracks. 24012: Move cavalry movement tech to village phase and make it cheaper. 24010: Improve splash damage falloff calculation to account for obstruction size. 23934: Tweak vision of walls and some special structures. 23931: Remove territory influence from arch, monument, pillar. 23928: Disable artillery towers and bolt towers in-game. 23921: Allow women citizen to lay the same foundations as citizen soldiers. 23915: Delete paired wall technologies. 23895: Unify infantry walking speed / vision. 23893: Update Briton war dog. 23892: Tweak the Spartan "Agoge" tech, affect champions only. 23891: Buff "archery tradition" tech. 23890: Enable Macedonian gastraphetēs (crossbowmen) at the siege workshop. 23889: Reduce palisade health and repair ratio. 23888: Disable Persian Hall & Ishtar gate as buildable structures. 23887: Train champion chariots at the Persian fortress. 23886: Update gate cost to be proportional to wall costs & not cost stone. 23868: Tweak champion cost to make the viable again. 23840: Remove the build time malus from Greek civ bonus. 23839: Allow Rome to build palisades. 23838: Make the Seleucid reform/traditional split affect infantry only. 23837: Tweak military structures build time and cost. 23836: Reduce the cost of the silver shield technology and increase the research time to match the other civ phase tech. 23832: New Gaul team bonus: reduce blacksmith tech cost. 23831: Rework PreferredClasses to target either Human or Human/Siege. 23829: Give Macedonians a champion swordsman. 23824: Tweak wonder/pyramid cost and remove healing aura from wonders. 23823: Give Mauryan a 30% bonus to elephant build time. 23820: Increase citizen soldier capture attack strength. 23819: Tweak Macedonian champ infantry to have more attack, not more armour. 23818: Move train time increase for advanced/elite to the upgrade tech. 23810: Fix broken templates following rP23804 while retaining the same functionnality. 23804: Differentiate African and Indian war elephants because of their sizes. 23803: Deprecate rotary mill, and instead introduce a special technology (town phase, workers +15% grain gather rate) for the Gauls, to reflect the fact they invented a harvesting machine in the Iron Age. 23802: Allow to train mercenaries from embassy by any civilisation. 23801: Lower the repeat rate of spear cavalry. 23800: Decrease penalty -50% to -30% when promoting to advanced and elite. 23798: Increase cost of "upgrade mercenaries rank" tech to make it more like the other armor techs. 23793: Allow building Kushite mercenary camps in neutral territory. 23782: Make javelineers easier to catch by cavalry, by reducing their speed slightly. 23781: Remove the briton kennel as it's not historically correct. 23780: Introduce axeman templates. 23764: Increase the max # of embassies from 2 to 3. 23753: Make rams less effective by reducing speed and preventing attacks on organics. 23752: Remove 'Structure' preferred class from elephants, shorten max range. 23746: Train champion cavalry at stable. 23745: Standardize wonder healing. 23737: Unify Cavalry walk speeds across citizen/champion/hero variants. 23728: Make elephants more interesting by reducing their cost. 23715: Allow training all barracks champions at captured barracks. 23713: Make wall segment cost proportional. 23579: Give worker elephants an aura. 23559: Standardize structure loot to 20%. 23549: Use chariot unit instead of foot soldier for Amanirenas. 23547: Reduce Blemmye and Nuba camp building time. 23544: Enable archery tradition for kush. It is historically correct and will buff Kushites a little bit. 23543: Balance ranged infantry citizen soldiers. 23541: Experience trickle. 23461: Buff loom to double female citizen HP. 23399: Nerf citizen javelinist team bonuses, because they allowed too quick reinforcements and economy boom. 23285: Siege Artillery rework. 23179: Amphitheater name fix, Gladiator commit and amphitheater integration, Maurya double towers, ptolemaic sentry tower actor update. 23160: Bolt tower and ampitheater commit, updated ptolemaic sentry tower while I was at it, and radiant flame texture added for directionless fire effects, babylonian tower template switched to persian denomination for potential upgradeability. 23159: Give the Macedonian defense towers the ability to upgrade into artillery towers. 23094: Artillery tower master commit, Keep your eyes open for errors, everything's good on my end but my subversion is filthy. 22984: Enable workshops for all civilisations. 22802: Use the @wowgetoffyourcellphone's Uffington Horse as the Briton Wonder committed in @Enrique's special commit rP19095. As such the building is no longer garrisonable, and no longer gives a population bonus. 22202: Bring the palisade templates under their own parent (instead of the stone wall). Please let me know if I missed any.

Today I started creating a gameplay mod for the current (svn) development version of 0 A.D. “Empires Ascendant”. Although there are already multiple gameplay mods, and the aim of improving gameplay for the next alpha is not unique, this one has a different approach: each change has its own patch on https://code.wildfiregames.com/, to make it easier for the team to discuss, play-test, review, and implement them. Open gameplay balance patches available on phabricator (can also be found withhttps://code.wildfiregames.com/search/query/MwAW9pins9Vt/ ): D3565: Make all support units bribable. D3563: Make theater cheaper. D3528: Bring turnRate back to realism. D3523: Bring projectile speeds to realistic values. D3488: Lower unit movement speed. D3487: Unify unit vision range. D3486: Lower soldier vision range. D3466: Make wall turrets upgrade into proper towers. D3431: Increase ram damage D3418: Purge Battlefield Medicine. D3417: Balance pike again. D3416: Fix unlock shared dropsites requirement. D3407: Add food/researchtime cost to reformed_army / traditional_army. D3404: Make gather technologies less effective. D3392: New kush civ bonus. D3390: New cart market civ bonus. D3377: Enable cart basic infantry javelineer. D3341: Move some trainable animals to higher phases. D3319: Differentiate rams. D3318: Move will to fight technology from fortress to wonder. D3246: Increase advanced and elite and lower champion ranged attack damage. D2988: Replace corral technology. D2965: Separate chariot templates. D2956: Tweak ship costs and tweak merchant ships. D2900: Separate camels from cavalry templates. D2886: Introduce crossbowman templates. D2854: Introduce centre tech progression. D2845: Change phase bonuses. D2769: Add visible garrison points to wall towers. D2648: Make Caratacos and Maximus auras local. D2535: Remove pop cap civ bonuses. D2508: Prevent ships and siege engines from attacking fields. D2506: Allow building fields in neutral territory. D2477: Garrison units on short wall segments. D1400: Hero aura revision. D1351: Reduce cavalry gather rate. D904: Themistocle aura 1 modify. D497: Allow hunting aggressive and violent wild animals. D76: Revisit Vision (and Ranged Attack) ranges. Abandoned: Tagging everyone listed in the `balancing.json` credits file: @Acumen, @Alex, @Alexandermb, @Allen ROBOT, @alpha123, @arissa_nightblade, @bb_, @borg-, @Deiz, @elexis, @fatherbushido, @Feldfeld, @Freagarach, @Grugnas, @Hannibal_Barca, @historic_bruno, @LordGood, @Matei, @mimo, @Mythos_Ruler, @Nescio, @niektb, @Pureon, @quantumstate, @sanderd17, @scythetwirler, @Stan`, @temple, @ValihrAnt, @Wijitmaker, @wraitii. Please refrain from discussing individual changes in this forum thread; go to corresponding phabricator page instead (click on the links in the list above). To try out individual changes, just include the corresponding patch in your repository (e.g. `arc patch D888`; and `svn revert -R *` to remove them again). If you know of other small, up-to-date patches (only gameplay balancing, not art, maps, mechanics, etc.), feel free to propose them for inclusion in this list. Other feedback is also welcome.

@Alexandermb, @Stan`, @wowgetoffyourcellphone, are these selection overlays something you'd like to have available in the svn version? 256x256 circle (left) vs 128x512 ellipse (right), for comparison:

Well, we all know earth is a flat circle, and if you throw it down that hole, “a brazen anvil falling from earth nine nights and days would reach Tartarus upon the tenth.” (Hesiod Theogony 724-725)

Only desert-dwelling peoples (“Arabs”) fought from dromedary camel-back; they occassionally served as auxiliaries or mercenaries for (or against) larger empires (Assyrians, Persians, Seleucids), but there is not really a need to create separate actors for different civilizations. Basically: Arab camel archer Arab camel javelineer Arab camel spearman (just in case) Arab camel swordsman The sword in question was very long (four cubits) and very thin; basicallly it was 2 meter-long needle, probably only useful for piercing; see Livy below. Arab camels serving in Xerxes I's army (480 BC) are attested by Herodotus: Arab camels serving in Antiochus III's army at the battle of Magnesia (190 BC) are attested by Livy: and by Appian, apparently deriving from the same source: Although it's possible Arab camels served in a Ptolemaic army (the Nabateans were allied with them), I don't know of any actual evidence for that.

According to Polybius, the hastati, principes, and triarii were all similarily equipped, and wore three c. 0.5 m long, upright, dark feathers on their helmets: http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Plb.+6.23&fromdoc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.01.0233 http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Plb.+6.23&fromdoc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.01.0234

As @Angen pointed out, it's actually perfectly possible to allow placing units on gates; the issue is that those units are within the gate's <PassRange>, which means it will always remain open, which kind of defeats its purpose. However, I don't seen why short wall segments are supposed to be ungarrisonable; hence D2477. Just because Japan is influential nowadays doesn't make it significant in antiquity. (Han China was.)

It's set in space, isn't it? So why do you want to have maps with animals and trees?

Removing is more work than adding, though it shouldn't be too difficult per se. Basically you have to remove all occurrences of the resource types you don't want to have. Try starting with the following: gui/common/setup_resources.xml gui/text/tips.DELETED simulation/data/auras.DELETED simulation/data/cheats.DELETED simulation/data/civs.DELETED simulation/data/resources.DELETED simulation/data/resources/one.json simulation/data/resources/other.json simulation/data/technologies.DELETED simulation/templates.DELETED

Actually Rouen has been renamed to Ratumacos and is a random map, as is Marmara:

Yes, you can see which technologies are being research (globally), but you can't see which structures are researching or training something. This thread is about adding animations so you can see if a structure is busy. Simply adding a production status bar would serve the same purpose, be possibly clearer, and would work for all entities without having to add animations for every actor.

What do you mean exactly?

How about a production/research/training status bar, similar to the pack/unpack bar of artillery?

Currently 0 A.D.'s city walls are a bit simplistic: they are symmetrical (the inside mirrors the outside) and the wall segments run from the centre of one wall tower to the centre of the next. In reality, city walls typically wouldn't have battlements on the inside and wall towers/bastions would be on the outside. Also, the latter would usually be massive up to the parapat level of the wall segments and wouldn't have doors at the bottom or stairs inside (contrary to border forts (0 A.D.'s fortresses) or outposts (0 A.D.'s towers), which are hollow on the inside). Being able to build city walls with a clear city-side and country-side in 0 A.D. would be a nice improvement. @LordGood, @Stan`.

Yes, I can understand that, however, you currently enlarge the entire minimap panel with all gui elements, rather than just only the map itself.

The idea is nice, but enlarging the gui elements (ring, buttons, empty corners) looks really ugly in game. Is it possible to display only the large map itself, without the gui elements? Also, Alt+M (for map) or something might be easier to memorize than Shift+Tab. For comparison, Ctrl+B toggles the barter window and Alt+Shift+T the structure tree.

You can define some values as to how the projectile moves, I believe, but not how the projectile itself looks. At least when comparing the quinquereme and trireme templates, I saw nothing to explain why one shoots large stones and the other just arrows. It seems to be defined in the actor files, e.g. https://trac.wildfiregames.com/browser/ps/trunk/binaries/data/mods/public/art/actors/structures/ptolemies/quinquereme.xml

Those look good! Nonetheless, there is space for improvement: The power of torsion engines (i.e. the force by which the projectile is launched) is proportional to the thickness/mass/volume of the string. To be able to shoot a rock, one needs a massive string, say at least a hand in diameter, whereas in those actors the string of the largest actor seems visibly just as thin as one of the smallest scorpion. Consequently, the larger engines would also have much thicker arms, to prevent them from snapping. The largest has two wheels on each side, operated by one man each, which looks a bit ugly and unnecessary. It would be better if two men would turn one wheel. Furthermore, there will need to be more differently sized packed artillery actors, with the correct number of men. Also, could you show all artillery, from small to large? The smallest stone-thrower should be visibly larger than the largest bolt-shooter (and have a larger crew). Given their size, towers would typically be unable to host anything larger than a scorpion (small bolt-shooter) and should thus have similar projectiles, not large rocks or fireballs. Only exceptionally large wall towers, bastions, or fortresses might have space for a small or medium stone-thrower. Off-topic, it would be nice if the projectile actor could be defined in the templates, rather than in the art files, to improve modifiability, e.g. a Briton fortress firing sling stones or an Iberian tower javelins.

So I had to look a couple of times before I noticed what's new. I agree it's visually pleasing, though I have a few concerns. First of all, why only the blacksmith's? Either all structures researching or training something ought to have animations, or none at all. Secondly, how does it affect performance? Furthermore, as you pointed out already, if structures have animations, then that reveals information to other players; is that desirable? And finally, does the AI take into account which enemy structures are researching something. While those animations certainly look nice, it might be better to put them into a mod, rather than making it the default for 0 A.D.

For the spotted hyena (Crocuta crocuta), the following images might be helpful: However, the spotted hyena lives outside the area covered by 0 A.D.'s civilizations: So if you have time and enthousiasm left when the spotted hyena is finished, it would be nice if you could also create the striped hyena (Hyaena hyaena), which fits in 0 A.D.'s area: And if you're not bored then, maybe adding the other two hyena species for completeness (in case someone want to make a “Zoo Tycoon” mod) would be nice as well. The aardwolf (Proteles cristata): And the brown hyena (Hyaena brunnea):

How many different artillery actors do you currently have?

Triggered by @Alexandermb's recent activity, I revisited artillery in my 0abc mod and organized the templates as follows: template_unit_siege_boltshooter.xml template_unit_siege_boltshooter_large.xml template_unit_siege_boltshooter_medium.xml template_unit_siege_boltshooter_small.xml template_unit_siege_stonethrower.xml template_unit_siege_stonethrower_large.xml template_unit_siege_stonethrower_medium.xml template_unit_siege_stonethrower_small.xml bolt-shooter : small , medium , large per shot: pierce damage : 50 , 75 , 100 thrust damage : 30 , 45 , 60 metal cost : 2 , 3 , 4 unit cost: iron : 50 , 75 , 100 wood : 100 , 150 , 200 time : 60 , 70 , 80 miscellaneous: garrison size : 4 , 6 , 8 health : 100 , 150 , 200 pack time : 4 , 6 , 8 upkeep per second: silver : 0.03 , 0.04 , 0.05 food : 0.06 , 0.08 , 0.10 stone-thrower : small , medium , large per shot: crush damage : 90 , 120 , 180 stone cost : 3 , 4 , 6 unit cost: iron : 90 , 120 , 180 wood : 180 , 240 , 360 time : 90 , 100 , 120 miscellaneous: garrison size : 9 , 12 , 18 health : 180 , 240 , 360 pack time : 9 , 10 , 12 upkeep per second: silver : 0.06 , 0.08 , 0.12 food : 0.09 , 0.12 , 0.18 (Other stats are equal for different sizes.)

https://trac.wildfiregames.com/wiki/BuildInstructions#Running1

They look nice! Light means bolt-shooter and heavy means stone-thrower?

True, but there was quite some time between the wars in which those engines were obtained and the wars in which they were used. It's similar to the example of Scipio (a few posts above), who seized a large number of artillery when capturing Carthago Nova and used those a few years later when about to besiege Carthago itself. However, artillery being captured, turned around in the heat of battle, and starting firing on the troops of its previous owners? Unlikely. In some earlier alpha, rams were capturable, but that was later reverted. I think it makes sense to have capturable structures but uncapturable units. Gameplay changes should probably be discussed somewhere else, though.