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Nescio

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Posts posted by Nescio

  1. 14 minutes ago, wackyserious said:

    @Nescio :self_hammer:I haven't noticed that I've put A21 instead of A23. I've checked the previous 0ad alpha releases, it was also alphabetical, the mod started to follow that format, so it had to be "E" but since it will be a special release, we wanted to set that aside to in favor of Xýlo since the main highlight would be the Byzantines. However, if someone can suggest a better name which will harmonize with everything, it would even be better.

    Quite frankly, I don't quite see what ξύλο has to do with the Byzantines. I can find quite a few examples stone, mortar, and brick Byzantine architecture but none of wood.

    How about ἐκκλησία (ekklesia), the Greek word for church? After all, Christianity was concentrated predominantly in the Byzantine Empire during this timeframe. Furthermore, the Carolingians supported and strengthened the Latin Church and converted what is now Germany. Just a suggestion; it's your mod, not mine.

    • Like 2
  2. On 5/10/2018 at 1:44 AM, wackyserious said:

    I think amendments could be done for this special release. :) Same with how the official game drops their naming method in order to facilitate the special release.

    The name of the previous release (A22) started with a V (Venustas), which is followed by W, the 23rd letter of the alphabet, so there is nothing unusual there. 

    On 5/10/2018 at 3:00 AM, wackyserious said:

    So ModDB release title would be,

     

    Xýlo 21 - Special Release

    Millenium A.D.'s A, B, C, D, X is a bit odd, but that's up to you, I don't really care, it's just a name :) However, why 21?

  3. A23 is rumoured to be coming soon, therefore I decided to update this (A22) mod again; the vertical GUI is reverted, females are renamed to women, cavalry can no longer gather, and many other minor tweaks and edits. 0abc-readme.pdf contains more detailed information.

  4. 16 minutes ago, (-_-) said:

    How do you mean?

    The button is active when a unit of any of the following class is idle.

    
    var g_WorkerTypes = ["FemaleCitizen", "Trader", "FishingBoat", "CitizenSoldier"];

     

    Yeah; now I want to replace "CitizenSoldier" with "Worker"; where can I find and modify the "g_WorkerTypes" variable?

  5. 42 minutes ago, aeonios said:

    That actually sounds cool but I don't know that the engine supports stackable auras. Really they should stack defense though, not attack.

    Yes, stackable auras are possible and are already used, e.g.: https://trac.wildfiregames.com/browser/ps/trunk/binaries/data/mods/public/simulation/data/auras/structures/wonder_pop_1.json

    I'm not sure how much lag will be caused by giving every melee soldier an aura.

  6. 16 minutes ago, causative said:

    (Note that the phalanx was vulnerable to flanking by cavalry, though invulnerable to a frontal attack)

    Yes, I know :)

    Spoiler
    5 hours ago, Nescio said:

    Anyway, how important is preserving the status quo, an outdated design document, or modern conventions? And how important is historical accuracy in 0 A.D.?

    Take, for instance, the pikeman. In 0 A.D. it is an extremely heavy armoured unit with a 3.0× bonus attack vs cavalry. Because a pike requires two hands to handle, their shields were attached to their left arm or shoulders; those were rimless (thus less effective against hacking attacks), much lighter than the heavy hoplite aspis (thus easier to pierce with a heavy thrusting spear), and not as large as the Roman tower shields (thus protecting a smaller surface against sling stones and bullets). Furthermore, pikemen did not need cuirasses (or other, heavy, metal body armour), because they were out of reach of ordinary melee weapons. Historically pikemen were thus actually lighter armoured than other types of Greek (and Italic) heavy (melee) infantry, in contrast to 0 A.D.'s.

    Contrary to popular conventions, pikes were *not* anti-cavalry weapons. It was primarily a defensive weapon, designed to keep enemies at a distance: the sarissa (pike) was twice as long as the dory (spear) and easily outranged all other melee weapons. As long as they stayed in a closely packed formation, pikemen were practically invulnerable to frontal attacks. They could serve to push back an enemy formation (e.g. Roman swordsmen) or pinpoint opponents on a certain location. However, pike formation had to move slowly to stay together; if they moved too quickly, the formation would break, and the pikemen would become vulnerable to attacks; chasing cavalry was not an option. Because of the compactness of their tightly packed formation formation and the unwieldy length of their weapons, pikemen were unable to turn around rapidly. The easiest way to defeat a pike formation was to outflank it and massacre them by an attack from the rear. Cavalry was especially effective at this. Pikemen were therefore accompanied by light infantry and cavalry to protect them against enemy cavalry. So rather than making cavalry vulnerable to pikeman, as in 0 A.D., it should actually be the other way around :)

    However, unlike pikemen, hoplites did not always fight closely packed together; 2 m distance in between was not unusual; “phalanx” is a generic term and means nothing more than just “formation”. Anyway, I suppose I'm going off-topic again :)

  7. 31 minutes ago, causative said:

    This is not to slight or diminish hoplites because when they died in melee, it was other hoplites killing them!  Comparatively, the (large numbers of) enemy skirmishers did not inflict heavy casualties; most casualties occurred during the melee push, once the lines of hoplites met.  In-game for this to happen, the hoplites can't take forever killing each other.  The melee battle should not last so long that the ranged attackers have time to kill the hoplites.

    Yes, I'm aware of that, and agree with many of your other points. However, in 0 A.D. hoplites are indistinguishable from other spearmen, and your suggestion to give them a low hack armour would make them vulnerable to (cavalry) swordsmen.

    • Like 1
  8. 10 minutes ago, Sundiata said:

    That's definitely in the works... But the point of the first post is that anybody can easily read a complete rundown of Kushite history (fully illustrated), online. So that all this stuff can finally be disclosed to the broader public, because a lot of it actually comes from pdf's and books, which aren't indexed by google, making it seem as if their content doesn't exist on the internet. What's the point of uploading a pdf if it's content can't even be googled...

    A lot of the juicy stuff was always "hiding" in these difficult to navigate libraries that only experts in the field read. I want to change that :) The plebs deserve to know about Kush! :P

    There already exists a thing called "Wikipedia", so perhaps you should just try improving the corresponding page over there. Or perhaps start your own Kushite article on the significantly harder to find https://trac.wildfiregames.com/wiki if you want to restrict yourself to 0 A.D. specifically.

    11 minutes ago, Sundiata said:

    There are several hundred images in that post now (often grouped in a single large image containing 2, 3 or 4 separate images, to save space). It's already a careful selection from thousands of images, and I would preferably add another 10-ish images, but I can't add any more without totally loosing the ability to add or correct the text itself. It almost seems as if single posts in this forum weren't intended to write illustrated books... <_<

    Forum posts are unsuitable for anything longer than c. 500 words.

    • Thanks 1
  9. 26 minutes ago, Hannibal_Barca said:

    While the pikeman as it is might be a little incorrect, making cavalry counter/do well against pikes seems not an option

    Why not?

    9 minutes ago, Sundiata said:

    Just playing :P , forgive me, I know you're right :P 

    :)

    5 minutes ago, wowgetoffyourcellphone said:

    The game (or just the game engine so mods can do it) needs to support battalions to make this kind of combat realism possible.

    Having formations behave differently from individual units (perhaps as is done in Cossacks) would be a great improvement, yes, but even without we could have a look at actual history for inspiration of unit roles.

  10. 44 minutes ago, Sundiata said:

    That's not the issue, the issue is that I can't save changes anymore, unless I obsessive compulsively keep pressing the refresh button until 5 in the morning, when it magically does decide to save after attempt #37... Each attempt takes forever, because of the loading times. I don't have this with any other topic so it's clearly just too much for a single post. Oh well, with pain in my heart I deleted some images and it helps a little bit. 

    If you want to make your life easier, just edit it in any simple text editor, compile it into a pdf, and post that on the forums.

    • Like 1
  11. Anyway, how important is preserving the status quo, an outdated design document, or modern conventions? And how important is historical accuracy in 0 A.D.?

    Take, for instance, the pikeman. In 0 A.D. it is an extremely heavy armoured unit with a 3.0× bonus attack vs cavalry. Because a pike requires two hands to handle, their shields were attached to their left arm or shoulders; those were rimless (thus less effective against hacking attacks), much lighter than the heavy hoplite aspis (thus easier to pierce with a heavy thrusting spear), and not as large as the Roman tower shields (thus protecting a smaller surface against sling stones and bullets). Furthermore, pikemen did not need cuirasses (or other, heavy, metal body armour), because they were out of reach of ordinary melee weapons. Historically pikemen were thus actually lighter armoured than other types of Greek (and Italic) heavy (melee) infantry, in contrast to 0 A.D.'s.

    Contrary to popular conventions, pikes were *not* anti-cavalry weapons. It was primarily a defensive weapon, designed to keep enemies at a distance: the sarissa (pike) was twice as long as the dory (spear) and easily outranged all other melee weapons. As long as they stayed in a closely packed formation, pikemen were practically invulnerable to frontal attacks. They could serve to push back an enemy formation (e.g. Roman swordsmen) or pinpoint opponents on a certain location. However, pike formation had to move slowly to stay together; if they moved too quickly, the formation would break, and the pikemen would become vulnerable to attacks; chasing cavalry was not an option. Because of the compactness of their tightly packed formation formation and the unwieldy length of their weapons, pikemen were unable to turn around rapidly. The easiest way to defeat a pike formation was to outflank it and massacre them by an attack from the rear. Cavalry was especially effective at this. Pikemen were therefore accompanied by light infantry and cavalry to protect them against enemy cavalry. So rather than making cavalry vulnerable to pikeman, as in 0 A.D., it should actually be the other way around :)

  12. 8 hours ago, causative said:

    Heavy infantry includes citizen-soldier hoplites, and they were historically heavily armored enough that they could mostly shrug off projectiles of skirmishers, archers, and slingers.  Most damage to heavy infantry was dealt during a melee clash with the enemy heavy infantry.  Melee infantry should get a lot more pierce armor, and lower hack armor so they die quickly in melee but slowly to ranged.

    Hoplites could hold their own in almost any fight and certainly did not die quickly in melee.

    • Like 1
  13. 29 minutes ago, Alexandermb said:

    now as it should be (WIP Still have to match the size of the tower with stairs)

    Only the façade is made of limestone blocks; the core of the walls consists of mortar and rocks; and the colourful layers of bricks are there to make it more resilient to earthquakes. Have a look at this partially demolished section (and click to zoom in):

    theodosianwalls.jpg

  14. 4 minutes ago, Alexandermb said:

    And maybe reduce the duration of heroes by reducing their life, they are like tanks with that HP and breaks immersion looking 12 units killing him taking some time, maybe reducing their hp but increasing their aura strenght and reducing the range, this way player could value more the life of the hero and use it more wisely and with captured hero mechanics maybe after died he won't died at all at the 1st time he could be capture and move it to the closest enemy civic center or frotress allowing to be rescued by capturing or destroying the building and if its killed 2 times permanently die whitout chance of train again.

    Or perhaps disable heroes by default. Catafalques are normally unavailable either. 0 A.D. doesn't have to resemble the DC universe.

  15. 3 hours ago, aeonios said:

    I did not know that. It's now on my to-do list for a24.

    Great; a (fantasy?) mod which would want to use a dozen damage types is not inconceivable, nor is one using only one damage; both should be possible.

    Another nice-to-have feature would be resource consuming attacks, e.g. a boltshooter consumes 1 metal per shot and a stonethrower 1 stone; if you run out of the required resource, your unit won't be able to attack.

    (This would also allow making siege weapons cheaper; e.g. an "onager" currently costs 400 wood + 250 stone, whereas a stone defence tower costs 100 wood + 100 stone and a long city wall section only 28 stone - but that's a different discussion :) )

  16. 12 minutes ago, aeonios said:

    IMO the current damage/armor types are overcomplicated as well.

    Yes, I fully agree. Part of the reason why swordsmen are better than spearmen is that the former inflicts hack damage, whereas the latter inflicts pierce damage, as do archers. A simpler melee/ranged/crush damage system might work better, or perhaps even only a single damage type (dead is dead). On the other hand, to have a meaningful counter system without hard bonus attacks one probably needs more than just three (effectively two) damage types. Unfortunately damage types are currently hard-coded. What is really needed is making adding, changing, or removing damage types at least as easy as modding resources is.

    4 minutes ago, Lion.Kanzen said:

    This.

    That is a poor example: in AoK a paladin could defeat a pikeman or heavy camel, their supposed counters, in single combat; massed crossbowmen could take out skirmishers; and an early swordsman rush could destroy a player.

    More importantly, 0 A.D. shouldn't aim at being merely an AoK clone.

  17. Historically, heavy (melee) infantry formations dominated the battlefield and decided the outcome. Light (ranged) infantry was there for harassing the enemy; although they frequently outnumbered other troops, their numbers did not always “count”. Cavalry was almost always less than 10% of an army; they were often light in function, organized in squadrons on the flanks, and served for reconnaisance, protecting against enemy cavalry, and especially for chasing down fleeing enemies. Bigae (light two-horse chariots) more or less had the same function as cavalry, unlike quadrigae (heavy four-horse chariots), which were located in front of the heavy infantry formation and served to disrupt the enemy's; they were replaced with elephantry.

    An interesting characteristic of Hellenistic warfare was that, because of the rather standard army deployment: “in battles between combined arms forces, similar troop types tended to find themselves fighting one another – cavalry against cavalry, light infantry against light infantry, elephants against elephants, and so on.” (CHGRW 404)

    • Like 3
    • Thanks 1
  18. 12 hours ago, Hannibal_Barca said:

    Each unit increases cost of same unit type by 0.5/1%.

    Rise of Nations had a similar system (although more like subsequent units ramp up at 5% and structures at 10%), which worked great there, however, it also had income limits and all resources were infinite. 0 A.D. is a different game.

    • Like 1
  19. 1 hour ago, vladislavbelov said:

    As I remember, it was GL3.3 compatible. But I'm may be wrong, it was quite a long time.

    I wanna write some hacky things for GL3.3 to reduce number of drawn triangles for tries. It'd be good, if you'll be able to test it. Btw, what videocard do you have?

    17 minutes ago, aeonios said:

    http://feedback.wildfiregames.com/report/opengl/feature/GL_VERSION It's a bit outdated but still probably relevant. It isn't really possible for us to collect exhaustive statistics but probably still representative.

    According to that sample, 20% has 2.1 and 30% 3.0, so requiring 3.3 would alienate many players.

     

     

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