Nescio

The transcription is quite inconsistent; either transcribe κ with c and ος with us (Latin style, most common in English and most modern European languages) or κ with k and ος with os (Greek style, uncommon), but do it consistently. Also, it is quite interesting that in the case of Seleucus I his epithet is left untranslated (Nicator means "Victor"), whereas in the case of Antiochus III it is properly translated (Megas means "the Great"), and in the case of Antiochus IV it is replaced with something completely different (Epiphanes means "manifest" (of gods), "coming suddenly into view", "illustruous", or something similar, but not "Righteous"). Of course I know it's not your fault; there are many inconsistencies in 0 A.D., the result of different people with different ideas committing different things at different times.

If you make a certain claim (e.g. "the proportion of ranged to melee units is historically inaccurate") you should be able to back it up with reliable sources. If you can't verify something, then don't quote it. Secondary literature has to base itself directly or indirectly on primary sources. If they somehow give a different number, then read it carefully to figure out their argumentation for their interpretation. Also, Hans Delbrück died in 1921; his views might be outdated. There is nothing intrinsically wrong in using 19th or 20th C sources, however, if you do, always back them up with more recent publications. If neither can be proven, then don't suppose anything. In the battle of Lechaeum, as descibed in Xenophon Hellenica 4.5.11-18, an Athenian peltast force defeated a Spartan hoplite regiment, killing about 250 out of 600 with their javelins.

Interesting; I'm especially curious as to where that number of "only 1,500 archers" comes from. According to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Gaugamela#Size_of_Persian_army "the main weapon of the Achaemenid army historically was the bow and arrow, and javelin." And according to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sparabara "nine rows of archers would be protected by one row of shield-bearers." However, we all know Wikipedia is not a reliable source. The most important of Alexander's biographers is Arrian. Gaugamela is described in book III. He also provides numbers for the Persian army: Arrian doesn't break the numbers down into heavy (melee) and light (ranged). And yes, Arrian wrote five centuries post factum and modern scholarship tend to view his round numbers as exaggarations and poetic licence. An example of a battle where the light troops are listed separately from heavy infantry is Herodotus' description of the Greek army at Plataea: There were seven helots per Spartan; the Greek army as a whole had about twice as many light troops as hoplites (69500:38700). Perhaps the army was somewhat smaller than the numbers given by Herodotus, but there is no real reason to doubt his troop ratios. Anyway, "a general analysis of army compositions" based on a single number from Wikipedia does not exactly convince me. Nor does calling it "not extremely unusual" help.

Whilst the Kushites are not entirely finished, the same is true about all other factions included in game. There are only voices for Greek and Latin; Athenians use Macedonian structure actors; Britons and Gauls share the same unit actors; not all units have corresponding icons; heroes are highly unbalanced, some have superb auras, others are practically worthless; template naming is inconsistent; there are at least three different transcriptions being used for Greek; Mauryas is still spelled incorrectly; etc. Most of these points will probably go unnoticed by the majority of users; however, all factions are rather identical; sure, they look different, but they all play about the same. Additional content is nice but certainly not important . Rather than including more civilizations (any selection is arbitrary), it might make more sense to move all factions into separate mods (one mod, one civ), and keep only the engine, gaia objects, and shared content in the main distribution, allowing people to mix and match their own civilization roster. Besides, mods such as Hyrule Conquest, Millennium AD, and Ponies Ascendant don't really need the default civs, nor would the not-yet-started part 2: 1-500 AD.

Tin from the British islands was imported into the Mediterranean to produce bronze. Egypt traded directly with India overseas. Roman glass has been found in China. Chinese silk entered the Mediterranean. These are just a few examples. Pre-modern Eurasia formed a single continuum. The Arsacids (Parthians) and Han China peaked before 1 BC and ought to be included in 0 A.D.'s main distribution. On the other hand, there is no evidence for any trans-Atlantic links prior to 1492 AD. Zapotecs and other pre-Columbian civilizations belong in a separate mod. However, somehow I get the feeling I'm merely repeating what I wrote myself five months ago. Let's simply return to the original topic: Alpha 24 name suggestions.

Yes, you're not mistaken. A peltast (πελταστής) is someone who bears a rimless shield (πέλτη). The term could and was applied to Thracians and other skirmishers, Iphicratean style hoplites, Hellenistic pikemen, etc. Furthermore, that hoplites, pikemen, and legionaries occassionally used javelins doesn't make them skirmishers by default. What I did in my mod is separating pierce into thrust (spears) and pierce (arrows); spearmen inflict 100% thrust, sabremen 100% hack, swordsmen 50% thrust and 50% hack; rams are vulnerable to all melee units.

Thanks for pointing out that patch; indirectly it helped me figure out what I did wrong in my mod. What caused the random map errors was that I had edited the "WallSets" in the {civ}.json files. After I reverted those to the default values, the errors disappeared, and random maps can now be generated again. Although I still don't understand why the error message complained about a (non-existent) 'structures/gaia_fortress', it is now gone.

Thank you for your quick replies! Adding or removing the <civ> element in the parent wallset template has no effect. And yes, all fortresses, wallsets, and other structures under simulation/templates/structures/{civ}/* overrule the civ element. And even if a structure would have no <civ>, it results into only a warning, not an error. E.g. if I remove the <civ> from all wallsets (parent and children) in my mod, I get: "WARNING: The "structures/athen/wallset_city" template has a defined civ of "undefined". This does not match the currently selected civ "athen". This does not prevent a game from starting. In other words, the problem is something else in my mod. And skirmish maps start without errors. Only random maps fail to generate.

Currently I'm working on my mod ( https://github.com/0abc/0abc-a23.git ) again, reorganizing templates. When I generate a skirmish map, it starts without any errors, but when I attempt to generate a random map, I get six errors, and then it quits: ERROR: CCacheLoader failed to find archived or source file for: "simulation/templates/structures/gaia_fortress.xml" ERROR: Failed to load entity template 'structures/gaia_fortress' ERROR: Invalid template found for 'structures/gaia_fortress' ERROR: CMapGeneratorWorker::LoadScripts: Failed to load script 'maps/random/rmgen-common/wall_builder.js' ERROR: JavaScript error: globalscripts/Templates.js line 165 TypeError: template is undefined GetTemplateDataHelper@globalscripts/Templates.js:165:1 readyWallElement@maps/random/rmgen-common/wall_builder.js:265:17 loadWallset@maps/random/rmgen-common/wall_builder.js:49:26 loadWallsetsFromCivData@maps/random/rmgen-common/wall_builder.js:33:1 @maps/random/rmgen-common/wall_builder.js:8:20 @maps/random/kerala.js:2:1 ERROR: CMapGeneratorWorker::Run: Failed to load RMS 'maps/random/kerala.js' I haven't touched any map files or scripts, nor does a `gaia_fortress.xml` file exist, so I have no idea what causes these errors. And because I usually test with a AI vs AI skirmish map, but no random maps, I don't know when these errors where introduced by my mod. Can anyone help me identify and solve the problem? @elexis, perhaps? (There are also 14 unrelated "Could not remove token 'ConquestCritical' ..." warnings, which can be solved with D1626 .)

To clarify, I'm not saying there are two separate Noah stories in the Bible; I'm merely pointing out there are *artefacts* of different versions present. It's not a case of a single author who has two different texts before him and suddenly decides to merge the two into one. The different accounts were probably merged (unconsciously) long before they were codified. Orally transmitted stories tend to evolve; every time a story is told it is slightly different; the story-teller and audience do not always notice this. And when there are different stories or versions alive in a community, they tend to influence each other, and, often, merge eventually. The Iliad is the result of a tradition of many generations, and as a consequence it has artefacts from many different periods and societies: heroes are descibed as chariot-warriors but typically fight on foot; iron is prized as worth more than gold, and shortly afterwards simply said to be useful for making farm-tools; Pylaimenes is killed in book V but still alive in book XIII; etc. Something similar probably happened with the primeval part of Genesis in the centuries before it was incorporated into the pentateuch. Yes, half-way Gen 2:4 the first narrative ends and the second narrative begins. However, saying "mid-sentence" is misleading. Keep in mind neither word separators, nor capitalization, nor interpunction were used in Antiquity; those were only gradually adopted during the Middle Ages and Renaissance. Where many translations (including yours) have a comma between "... were created" and "in the day ...", many others have a full stop. Also a note on the numbering: a book is the text of a single scroll; a chapter the text of a single column on it, c. 25 lines; a single line of poetry is called a verse. That the first six days are described in Genesis 1 and the seventh at the beginning of Gen 2 can easily be explained: Gen 1 is already 31 lines long, there is no space to squeeze another five lines below it, therefore those are at the top of the second column. Chapter lengths are not constant; if a scribe decided to write somewhat smaller he can fit in more lines, and if he uses a greater space between lines he can fill up a column with fewer; as a consequence the longest chapters can be twice as long as the shortest. Although it might sound weird to people depending on text editor software, this is actually quite natural in a pre-modern world; if you hand-write dozens of unlined pages, not all of them will end up with the same amount of text. Anyway, the point is the numbering is descriptive, nor prescriptive.

It is not difficult to ignore, explain away, or smooth over internal consistencies, as has been done by many commentators, translators, and readers over the centuries. However, it is not unusual that when an orally transmitted story is codified, people try to unify different accounts into one text, leaving artefacts in the final version. Something similar is visible in the Odyssey: Although books 5-24 focus on Odysseus, he's entirely absent in books 1-4, which concentrate on his son Telemachus, who does little but complain, talk, and listen to others in the palace (1), Ithaca (2), Pylos (3), and Sparta (4); he's sent by Athena-disguised-as-Mentor to find his father, but at the end of the Telemachy he still doesn't know whether Odysseus is dead or alive In books 9-12 Odysseus tells the fairy tales of his travels; at the end of book 10 Circe orders him to visit the Underworld to ask Teiresias for advice on how to get home; in book 11 he talks to Teiresias and several others but doesn't ask nor receive any directions; at the beginning of book 12 he's returned to Circe, who gives him instructions on how to sail home, as if nothing has happened Odysseus, his son, and two loyal servants massacre the dozens of suitors of his wife in book 22. In book 23 he's reunited with Penelope, the two go to bed, tell each other what happened in the past twenty years, and go to sleep; the Odyssey clearly ends here. However, then we still have book 24, in which Odysseus and Telemachus visit his father Laertes on his farm, suddenly an enemy army shows up, they prepare to annihilate them, and deus ex machina Athena appears, ordering everyone to calm down and make peace. Some commentators consider book 24 to be a later addition and a few translators even omitted it entirely, because they view it as a disappointing anti-climax unworthy of Homer; yet it is clearly part of the text, linguistically and stylistically as old as other parts of the Odyssey The remark on Medieval Lilith-vs-Eve was intended as a fun fact, not a proof of anything, which is why I put it between parentheses. However, it does illustrate even monks who believe every word of the Bible to be litterally true felt a need to reconcile the two creation stories. Both Genesis 1:1-2:4 and Genesis 2:4-2:25 are very short, however, it is clear the former is not an introduction nor the latter a summary. It's the same story told differently; some points are longer in the first, others in the second; the order also differs. Genesis 1:1-2:4 is the creation in seven days; on the third day God creates Earth, plants, trees, and fruits; on the fifth day fish and all animals that live in the water first, then the birds, and blesses them; on the sixth day he creates all land animals; he then made man and woman to rule everything else, and gives them his instructions. Genesis 2:4-2:25 starts by stating Earth was empty, there were no plants; God then makes man out of dust, subsequently continues to make the Garden of Eden, places man there, and gives him instructions; then he notices man is lonely, therefore he creates animals and birds, and brings them to man, who names them; but because God didn't find any animal suitable to match man, he puts him to sleep, steals a rib, makes woman out of it, man wakes up, and speaks. To me this appears to be two different stories; likewise, there are differing accounts in Noah's myth. It's not difficult to find articles, books, and scholarly publications on this. However, I'm not trying to convince anyone; everyone is entitled to his own opinion. I do urge you to read Genesis yourself; it's a short but rich text full of beautiful stories. Reading the entire book might take less than two hours, and it's really worth your time; Gen 1-11 is about a fifth of the total and could be done in perhaps twenty minutes. Read it, critically, think about it, and make your own judgement on it.

Another month has passed, development is still largely frozen.

Indeed. There are enough similarities between the myths of Deucalion, Noah, Utnapishtim, Atrahasis, and Ziusudra that there is a consensus all these have a common, Mesopotamian, origin. It has even been suggested the "deluge" of the story was a severe flooding of the Euphrates in c. 2900 BC. It is not unusual that myths are borrowed and retold elsewhere; many (possibly most) Greek myths came from the Near East; e.g Adonis is Tammuz/Dumuzid. As for the Bible and Torah, Genesis was probably codified shortly after Cyrus allowed the Jews to return from Babylon to Jerusalem, maybe as a consequence of the construction of the Second Temple, subsidized by Darius, i.e. somewhere around 500 BC. The Mesopotamian versions of the flood myth were written down more than a thousand years earlier and it is highly unlikely the Jews living in Babylon for decades never heard or read the Babylonian version. Anyway, Genesis consists of two different parts, the primeval (Genesis 1-11: creation of the world; Adam and Eve; their descendants; Noah; his descendants, Tower of Babel, etc.) and the ancestral (Genesis 12-50: Abraham, Isaac, Jacob; Joseph and his brothers, the migration into Egypt) history. The latter serves as an introduction to the stories of Moses (Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deutoronomy). Many scholars believe the primeval part of Genesis (1-11) is a later addition to serve as an introduction to the ancestral part of Genesis (12-50). Also, Genesis 1-11 is the result of merging at least two different versions, which explains why this part frequently contradicts itself, e.g.: the first woman is created twice, first simultaneously with the first man (Gen 1:27), later afterwards out of a rib of him when he was sleeping (Gen 2:21-24). (In Medieval times the explanation was that they were two different women, the former, Lilith, considered herself an equal of the man, and was not willing to obey him, therefore God created the latter, Eve, out of Adam, to serve him as an obidient wife.) Noah collects one pair of each animal (Gen 6:19) or seven pairs of all clean animals (Gen 7:2) the deluge lasts 40 days (Gen 7:17) or 150 days (Gen 7:24) Noah releases a raven once (Gen 8:6-7) and (?) a dove thrice (Gen 8:8-13) Anyway, the story of Noah in the Bible actually confirms a Mesopotamian origin of the myth, not vice versa.

Basically there are two different questions: was there a world-wide myth about a flood? was there a global deluge? The answer to both is actually negative. First the former: it takes more than just "there was a flood" to conclude different myths have a common origin. There are numerous trickster myths throughout the world, but that doesn't mean there once was a single myth shared by everyone (nor that there was only one trickster ever, on which all later myths were based). The Greeks had several flood myths (Deucalion and Pyrrha, Philemon and Baukis, Achilles vs Xanthos/Skamander, Atlantis), but these are all separate stories with different origins. Then the second. It is true global sea levels have been rising over the past thousands of years, albeit at varrying speeds; the increase since c. 5000 BC is practically negligible. What matters more is that continental plates are moving, causing some areas to submerge and others to rise (e.g. the Atlantic Ocean widens at about 2.5 cm each year and Mount Everest in the Himalayas becomes nearly 1 cm higher yearly). It is also true the Black Sea was not always connected to the Mediterranean, the Mediterranean not always to the Atlantic. and the Persian Gulf not always to the Arabian Sea. However, although there are some who argue this might have happened at single, catastrophic events, the majority believes that all these changes happen at too slow a pace for individual humans to notice. People tend to overlook that flooding is actually quite common. Rainfall isn't constant and river levels fluctuate. Usually rivers stay within their course but occassionally they inundiate nearby areas, sometimes for days, sometimes for weeks. We know from Latin and Italian sources that e.g. the Tiber (Rome) and Arno (Florence) frequently flooded; it was part of normal life; only particularly severe ones enter collective memory, e.g. the Seine (Paris) in 1910 or the Arno in 1966. Only last month (August 2018) there were severe floodings in Kerala; c. 500 people died, over a million were evacuated to relief camps, five million more were directly affected; and Kerala is a relatively wealthy state with weather forcasts, emergency services, mass communication, and dozens of dams to control water levels. In a different time or area there would have been a far greater disaster. Given that the vast majority of human population throughout have lived since pre-historic times, and still are living in the present day, near rivers, and that it is not unusual for rivers to flood, it is perfectly understandable (unrelated) flood stories are present in different parts of the world.

Furthermore, you can change the default batch training size and the scroll batch increment ratio in game under Settings/Options/In-Game.

Let's approach it differently and rephrase some things more sharply: War elephants are highly effective vs buildings in Age of Mythology, therefore 0 A.D.'s war elephants should be battering rams. 0 A.D.'s Mauryas can't construct any siege weapons, therefore 0 A.D.'s war elephants should be battering rams. Some 16th C A.D. Mughal fortresses had anti-elephant spikes on gates, therefore 0 A.D.'s war elephants should be battering rams. Humans can raze stone walls, elephants are much larger and stronger than humans, therefore 0 A.D.'s war elephants should be battering rams. These statements are all improper arguments. In my opinion historical accuracy should matter for 0 A.D. So far I've not seen any evidence war elephants were used to batter down city walls or gates in 0 A.D.'s timeframe (500-1 B.C.), therefore they shouldn't be effectively battering rams in game. Interesting; could you quote or link to a translation? The third, you mean Livy's account of the siege of Capua? Read carefully. The Romans were besieging the city and Hannibal arrived to rescue his Capuan allies. The "earthwork" is not Capua's city walls, it's simply the emergency fortification surrounding the Roman army camp, probably erected within a few days at most. And the text says the elephants arrived at the earthworks, i.e. they had broken through the Roman field army formation and had now reached the camp behind it. This is yet another example where elephants are *not* used as battering rams. None of the sources indicates elephants were actually ordered to attack gates or city walls. Elephants are occassionally mentioned in descriptions of sieges, yes, but so are archers and cavalry, and those are not effectively siege weapons either. Good, we're in agreement on this then. There seems to be a misunderstanding here, I never said elephants shouldn't be able to attack structures. What I'm saying is that war elephants shouldn't be organic battering rams. In 0 A.D. they clearly are: a battering ram inflicts 150 crush damage per 1.5 s, a war elephant 150 crush + 20 hack damage per 1.5 s, so elephants are not very effective vs massed human soldiers, but can actually raze a structure quicker than a ram can. In my opinion this should really change. PS Not exactly Apelles, but still enjoyable to look at:

Yes, Pyrrhus' army included elephants, however, they were not used to batter down city walls or gates either. Plut. Pyrrh. 32-34 describes what happened during that chaotic night in Argos: Yes, I fully agree, preferably in the town phase.

Basically: make a new directory in 0 A.D.'s local mods folder (see https://trac.wildfiregames.com/wiki/Modding_Guide#Wherearethemods ) put a `mod.json` file there to allow your mod to be detected and loaded in game place your audio files under `{yourmod}/audio/voice/persian/civ/` copy the templates of the units you want to use your audio files, place them under `{yourmod}/simulation/templates/units/`, and insert <Lang>persian</Lang> between "<Identity>" and "</Identity>" launch 0 A.D., go to Settings/Mod Selection, then select your mod, click "Enable", "Save Configuration", and "Start Mods".

Mauryan fortifications? Or something from many centuries later? Let's first have a look at those three sources cited. Panormus (Palermo), 250 B.C.; Plb 1.40: Numantia, 153 B.C.; App. Hisp. 9.46: Capua, 211 B.C.; Liv. 26.5: Yes, armies with elephants besieged cities, however, in all three examples it is clear the fighting took place or started outside the city walls. The usage of elephants as living battering rams is not mentioned.

Are there? Please find me one clear reference for 0 A.D.'s timeframe (500-1 B.C.).

See https://trac.wildfiregames.com/browser/ps/trunk/binaries/data/config/default.cfg lines 256, 314, and 315. single click: select unit double click: select all visible units of the same type treble click: select all visible units of the same type and rank with alt: include offscreen units in selection "LeftBracket" and "RightBracket" mean the keys representing the [ and ] characters on an US-qwerty keyboard, i.e. <AD11> and <AD12> respectively (the eleventh and twelfth key on the fourth row from the bottom). All of the above works fine for me (Fedora 28).

The European parliament (representing the EU's population) decided the proposal can be adopted in principle. The text is still a draft. Now it's up to the European council (representing the governments of the EU's member states) to decide upon the precise wording and turn the directive into law. In other words, it's still possible to change the more controversial articles into something vague and ineffective, but that's up to your national ministers. And remember it's not the end of the road. Nothing is permanent in politics.

Including a large number of civilizations but separating them into epochs sounds rather arbitrary for me. For instance, the Early Middle Ages have a lot more in common with Late Antiquity than with the Late Middle Ages. Of course, one could subdivide them into shorter epochs, but then you'd also have more cut-offs of factions which belong in multiple groupings. Besides, these epochs are heavily eurocentric. Furthermore, some might prefer geographic groupings (e.g. only Indian civilizations, but none from Europe or elsewhere) rather than chronological ones. A more sensible approach would be to put all factions into separate downloadable mods (one civ, one mod), giving people the freedom to decide for themselves which ones they want to install and use. It would complicate multiplayer a bit, though, because players have to have the same mods active to be able to join a game.

Your suggestion reminds me of Empire Earth.

However, if you only want to try out new sounds (or other content) you created, writing a tiny mod is far more efficient.