Nescio

Exactly! How something is written and how something is pronounced can be two different things. And the common English equivalent can be yet another thing too; however, that's not the discussion here, so perhaps rename this topic to “Transliteration of Ancient Greek” without “into English”. The standard itself can be perfectly suitable for others (e.g. library catalogues), yet be an inferior option for 0 A.D.'s specific situation. If you want to convince others, please provide strong arguments, and refute mine. No, certainly not! We can both be knowledgeable and yet vehemently disagree on something. Don't take it personal. It's not about winning a discussion. Although I proposed it, they are not my own ideas conjured up out of thin air—it's based on modern scholarship. If ignoring everything else, do take a careful look at the sources in the spoilers of my earlier posts. mea culpa The entire corpus of all European (in a geographic sense) languages up to c. 500 AD is about 90% Greek, 9% Latin, and a tiny remainder consisting of everything else. As for Celtic and Meroitic, my knowledge of those is practically zero, but I assume @Genava55 and @Sundiata know what they're doing. And I'm not even sure what is used for the Carthaginians (Hebrew?) and Iberians (Basque?). Anyway, let's just focus on Greek.

The AI doesn't use DropsiteMetal or DropsiteStone, instead, it uses the Storehouse class, which means it will build centres or storehouses near mines, even though it can only drop of iron at the forge. I made the forge a requirement for every phase, to ensure the AI builds one, but as a consequence its units move long distances to and from the mines.

Thanks, I tried that, but the AI doesn't build forges near mines. My guess is something should be changed in lines 421 onwards.

Yes! And if a structure has both archers and javelineers inside, it ought to fire both arrows (long range, lower damage) and javelins (shorter range, high damage).

Same problem with “you”, isn't it? (English ...) Yes, we all agree on that, I think. To clarify, I started https://trac.wildfiregames.com/wiki/SpecificNames because of https://code.wildfiregames.com/D1935#80243 It's a proposal, not set it stone, open to discussion for everyone. However, I would appreciate it if people won't say something is bad, but explain why they think something is wrong. (In the end it's up to @Itms to make a final decision, because he's the project leader.) This was the last attempt at standardizing Greek, four years ago. I believe it can be summarized with: β→b γ→n before γ, κ, χ, ξ and γ→g elsewhere κ→k, χ→kh, ξ→x υ→u after vowels and υ→y elsewhere η→ē, ω→ō α→a, ά→á, ᾶ→â, ὰ→à My proposal goes a bit further: ξ→ks {κ, χ, ξ→k, kh, ks} is consistent with {π, φ, ψ→p, ph, ps}, ξ→x is not (Attic) ΧΣ = Ξ (Ionic) ks is common in modern scholarship (see earlier post and below) υ→u (all positions) for transliteration consistency (see earlier posts) reflective of different Greek alphabets common in modern scholarship (see below) indicate vowel length, i.e. differentiate between α, ι, υ and ᾱ, ῑ, ῡ dictionaries indicate vowel length the difference is meaningful, e.g. ἄᾰτος and ἄᾱτος are two different words (from first page LSJ) allows distinguishing between αι (ai) and ᾳ (āi) common in modern scholarship (see below) both of you (@Stan` and @Itms) expressed macra would be nice to have Ideally 0 A.D. would use similar standards for different ancient languages. Celtic, Greek, Latin, Persian, Sanskrit are all Indo-European languages; there is an entire academic discipline for that. Here are three pages from R. S. P. Beekes Comparative Indo-European Linguistics / An Introduction [Second edition; revised and corrected by Michiel de Vaan] (Amsterdam/Philadelphia 2011): As you can see, my proposal complies with that.

Feature requests (things I can't do myself): AI: build forge adjacent to metal mines; fundamentally, dropsite determination ought to be based on resource type, instead of treating wood, stone, metal all as one and the same AI: replace all hard-coded template file name paths with classes attach points for units (e.g. chariots, elephants), to allow soldiers to fight and be killed independently from the unit that's carrying them `<BuildRestrictions/Distance>` applies to other players as well, e.g. you can't build a fortress right next to one of a different player damage variance: instead of a fixed amount of damage, attack damage now varies from 50% to 150% of the defined value currency-based market, rather than barter-based (see D1957 and onwards) units should be able to have a garrison size greater than 1 (similar to population); e.g. cavalry occupies two garrison slots, elephants six resource variance: resource suppliers now start with a random amount between `<ResourceSupply/Min>` and `<ResourceSupply/Max>`. resource consumption for attacks; e.g. everytime a stone-thrower shoots, you pay 1 stone elevation bonus is taken into account for attack range visualization elevation bonus applies to vision range as well different ranged attacks for different garrisoned units (e.g. archers, javelineers, and stone-throwers on quinqueremes)

You're doing it again Sometimes it's best not to assume any gender at all; singular they can be a suitable option.

A decision should be based on the strongest argument, not personal opnions, a raise of hands, or a vote count. We should not aim for the acceptable but for the best. There are numerous reasons why I think adopting the LoC standard would not be an improvement: it is a standard by librarians for librarians; 0 A.D. is not a library catalogue it is a broad romanization, which does not differentiate between orthographic transliteration and phonetic transcription; this might sound academic, but it is relevant for 0 A.D.: the specific names should only be based on how something is written, the audio voices only on how something was pronounced. Here are two pages from P. T. Daniels, W. Bright (eds.) The World's Writing Systems (Oxford 1996) with examples to illustrate the difference: it ignores accents and iota subscripts; an example from the LoC: ΑΓΝΩΣΤΩΙ ΘΕΩΙ (= Ἀγνώστῳ θεῷ) Agnōstō theō ideally transliteration ought to be a bijection, i.e. work both ways, not only should it be immediately clear how to convert Greek, but also should it be immediately clear what the original was when viewing the transliteration; i.e. Greek↔Latin, not Greek→Latin→Greek* No, it does not make sense. 0 A.D. uses US spelling for English language strings, however, the specific names are explicitly non-English; moreover, they ought to be language independent, i.e. the English, French, German, Italian translations have different generic name but are supposed to use the same specific name transliteration ought to be directly based on Greek, not via Latin or English if it's inferior then why consider it? To summarize, the LoC standard is very much a compromise based on what is conventional, rather than on what is correct, therefore it would be a step back for 0 A.D.

0abc updated again, numerous changes, including: javelinist → javelineer blacksmith (a person) → forge (a workshop) (siege) workshop → arsenal removed native language specific names, because “Athenian Hoplite (Infantry Spearman)” is more informative for a player than “Hoplítēs Athēnaîos (Athenian Hoplite)”, and because there is no consistency between the standards used by the quite different languages (compare e.g. cart, kush, rome) reduced the number of selectable civilizations to eight (cart, gaul, kush, mace, maur, ptol, rome, sele), to focus exclusively on the 3rd C BC to avoid extreme diachronisms, and to make differentiating factions easier iron (metal) can no longer be dropped at centres, docks, storehouses, or worker elephants; instead, the forge is now the dropsite for iron, to reflect the fact you have to smelt ore to get metal resource true price reflects gather speeds trader gain is now fixed at 100% silver (done by incorporating @Freagarach's D1846) slaves available at the market in the city phase for all factions worker elephants can no longer build; instead, they have a 15 m aura, which increases worker build rate by 20% standardized unit attack time to 2 s (formerly 1 s) houses: wood (gaul, maur): 80 wood, 20 time, 4 population and garrison size, 400 health, 200 capture points, consume 0.02 wood/second mud (kush, ptol): 60 wood, 60 time, 6 population and garrison size, 600 health, 300 capture points, consume 0.03 wood/second normal (cart, mace, rome, sele): 120 wood, 30 stone, 40 time, 8 population and garrison size, 800 health, 400 capture points, consume 0.04 wood/second appartment (cart upgrade): 180 wood, 60 stone, 60 time, 12 population and garrison size, 1200 health, 600 capture points, consume 0.06 wood/second – and has minor ranged attack when garrisoned military structures: stable (village): cavalry arsenal (town): siege engines, chariots, crossbowmen shipyard (town): wargalleys mercenary camps (town): civ-independent mercenaries hall (town): civ-specific infantry mercenaries barracks (city): infantry champions elephant stable (city): elephants removed many obsolete technology files [And that's one thousand.]

Isn't that the whole idea? Take a popular, successful, old game, change as little as possible, then sell it for more than the original price?

Yes, I fully agree with that, all structures of the same type ought to have the same shape and size, regardless of civilization. However, that's not what I meant; my question is why only squares are acceptable. Ideally, different structures would have different shapes and sizes. Now have a look the Briton barracks and temple: same size, similar design, require more than a single glance to identify what it is. Or compare elephant stable and centre. Wouldn't it be better to say barracks is 6×6 and centre 8×8, but temple 4×8 and elephant stable 12×4?

About that, why all squares? Wouldn't it be better to have e.g. a 4×8 instead of a 6×6?

First of all, it's a draft proposal, to have something to work with, not a final decision. It includes diacritics per https://code.wildfiregames.com/D1935#80248 That doesn't involve Greek, only Old Persian. Actually I'm not quite sure what you mean here; Ancient Greek has three accents (rising tone, falling tone, rising-then-falling tone), Modern Greek just one (stress). Yes, I'm aware that minuscules are an early Medieval invention (same for Latin); nor did Greek have word-separators yet. However, 0 A.D. is a 21st C game, so we use spaces, punctuation, upper case and lower case distinction, diacritics, modern fonts, etc. Again, there is a fundamental difference between orthographic transliteration (converting one writing system into another) and phonetic transcription (converting sounds into written signs). How something is pronounced is of fundamental importance for the latter (audio voices in 0 A.D.), but quite irrelevant for the former (written specific names in 0 A.D.). It doesn't really matter whether we transliterate Υ/υ→Y/y or Υ/υ→U/u, as long as it's done consistently, i.e. map every upsilon to one and the same letter (e.g. ευ→ef, ου→ou, υ→y is understandable but ugly).

How about “Ancient Empires of the Americas” or simply “Americas Ascendant”? Both ancient and antique go ultimately back to Latin ante “before”. That font is simply horrible (e.g. e, m, w). The more strokes a sign (or dots) a sign has (eleven for that i, twelve for that x) the more effort it is to draw and the more space it requires. For comparison, have a look at the Phoenician script: Each sign is unique, rotation- and mirror-invariant, has few strokes, and is thus easily recognizable. No wonder it was adopted by the Greeks and form there resulted into numerous variants, including the Latin and Cyrillic alphabets—and via idea diffusion to even more, e.g. the Cherokee syllabary.

You mean https://trac.wildfiregames.com/changeset/16285/ ? As you can see, it only tweaked the stats of existing files, it did not include art, code, or feature changes, nor did it add (or disable) new units, structures, technologies, auras, etc.

Indeed, further complicating things is that ideally we want a game that's enjoyable for single player and multiplayer, casual and competitive players, small and large maps, two to eight players, etc. Related changes can (should?) go in the same patch, but fundamentally different things should go in separate proposals. Diffs should be reviewable. No objections here. If you want to have a chance to see those things implemented, then the next step would be creating some diffs for the svn development version and uploading them to phabricator

Fundamentally, nothing will change, unless people make the effort to submit patches on phabricator (e.g. https://code.wildfiregames.com/D1762 ). But even then, no guarantees: you still need to convince people your proposal is really an improvement and find team members willing to review and hopefully commit it.

How about the adapana of Darius then, the central structure of the terrace? 6×6 columns inside, and on the east, north, and west side open galleries with 6×2 columns each, the gallery walls containing reliefs of all the subject peoples of the Persian empire bringing tribute. [EDIT] The Behistun inscription and the tomb of Darius are also magnificent on the outside, but having a vertical rock wand as a structure coming out of the ground would be weird.

To start with, I'm fully in favour of having the Hanging Gardens of Babylon replaced with something Persian. Maybe you should start a Babylonian architecture set (Hanging Gardens, Ishtar Gate, etc.). And remove Persian details (lion tile is Babylonian, flanking men are Persian): However, I'm not convinced the Gate of All Nations would be a suitable wonder. It is, in fact, already present in game: the Persian hall, where you can recruit Kardakes and elephant champions (it could use some improvements, though). Moreover, it's actually one of the smallest structures (only four columns inside) of the Persepolis palace complex: https://www.livius.org/articles/place/persepolis/persepolis-photos/persepolis-terrace/ https://oi.uchicago.edu/collections/photographic-archives/persepolis/persepolis-terrace-architecture-reliefs-and-finds So if someone is ambitious, why not try your hand at the very large hundred column hall of Artaxerxes (cyan) or the even larger adapana of Darius (red)? (I'm not sure what 0 A.D.'s current Adapana is supposed to be.) Separately, it would be nice to have the tomb of Cyrus, still standing after 2500 years; see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tomb_of_Cyrus for images.

Put a proposal at https://trac.wildfiregames.com/wiki/SpecificNames

0 A.D. pretends to focus on the 500-1 BC timeframe; its coverage of the 5th and 4th C is decent (although Syracusae is missing), the 3rd C is great, but the 2nd and 1st C are incomplete (Parthia, Armenia, and Han China peaked here). However, having more of the same is not always an improvement, so I'm currently contemplating reducing the number of available factions to eight (Carthage, Rome, Gauls, Macedon, Seleucids, Mauryas, Ptolemies, Kush). This would allow removing diachronisms and make it easier to differentiate factions. I'm posting here because I haven't decided yet; thoughts?

What several people in this thread have been trying to point out, is that your mod does too many things at once. So if you all you want is make a mod that's fun to play, great, continue like this. If, however, you want to get something changed in the default 0 A.D. repository, then it has to be done in small steps, and for each change not only list what you do, but also explain why.

Hamarana- means “battla”, but what is -kuba and where did you find it? https://code.wildfiregames.com/D1935#80019

And another detailed example of Achaemenid imperial iconography (on Darius' tomb):

Scythians, Persians, and other Iranian peoples were well known for wearing trousers: Most of their units already have trousers, but some don't, so it would be great if that can be changed for the following: units/athenians/infantry_archer_c.xml (Scythian archer) units/persians/cavalry_swordsman_b.xml (Hyrcanian cavalry) units/persians/fisherman.xml units/persians/infantry_archer_b.xml (Sogdian archer) units/seleucids/cavalry_archer_b.xml (Dahae horse archer) (pers_infantry_javelinist_b and *_a don't have trousers either, but that's fine, because those are Anatolians Lydians.)