Nescio

38. Could anyone remove those obelisks from the Ptolemaic civil centre and military colony?

Off topic. Sundiata: regardless which year you choose, any cut-off point is always arbitrary. Time is a continuum and (in your own words) “a lot of really interesting and interconnected stuff was happening the 2 centuries or so before and after” can't be avoided. Therefore humanity typically reverts to traditional years, which although inherently wrong are actually quite convenient starting dates: Antiquity: Archaic period: 753 (legendary foundation Rome) Classical period: 480 (Athens burned to the ground, Greeks defeated the Persians) Hellenistic period: 323 (death Alexander) Principate (Early Roman Empire): 27 B.C. (Octavian defeats Antony and becomes Augustus) Dominate (Late Roman Empire): 284 A.D. (Diocletian becomes emperor) Middle Ages: 476 (fall of Rome) Renaissance: 1406 (Florence conquers Pisa) Early Modern Era: [Eastern Hemisphere]: 1453 (fall of Constantinople, end of Roman Empire) [Western Hemisphere]: 1492 (discovery of America) Modern Era [USA]: 1776 (declaration of independence) [France]: 1789 (French revolution) [Latin America]: 1808 (Napoleon invades Spain, de facto start independence colonies) [most of Western Europe]: 1815 (Waterloo, Congress of Vienna) [Germany, Italy]: 1871 (German and Italian unifications completed) [Russia]: 1917 (Russian revolution) I always assumed 0 A.D.'s work-in-progress-part-one excludes the Archaic period and covers the Classical and Hellenistic periods (regardless of the arbitrary cut-off years) and 0 A.D.'s intended-but-probably-more-realistic-to-be-scrapped-part-two covers the principate and dominate Roman empire and excludes the Byzantine Roman empire.

By the way, could someone remove those obelisks from the Ptolemaic Civil Centre and Military Colony? (Pairs of obelisks were erected only at the most important Ancient Egyptian temples (before 1000 B.C.), not at the average Hellenistic settlement.)

Well, I typically agree with you, fatherbushido, even if I do not always quite understand what your (cryptic) messages mean

is what I wrote directly above that list Different people have different opinions (personally I don't want an archery range, for example). I'm not saying all of those listed have to be buildable in “0 A.D. Empires Ascendant”, however, creating and including them (unused) in the main distribution would certainly be helpful for modders. In Ancient warfare infantry, cavalry, chariotry, elephantry, camelry, and artillery were all separate branches, organized independently and operated differently, therefore it would make sense to have separate structures for each of them (I already did this in my 0abc mod, hence the need to display more than 24 icons in the gui). At least two camel units (archer and spearman), potentially more (supply, cataphract, etc.) Likewise, if someone would want to extend 0 A.D. into the Archaic period (c. 800-500 BC), e.g. the Assyrians would have at least four chariot units (light/heavy melee/ranged). Furthermore, the Britons already have a dog kennel and the Carthaginians a distinction between commercial dock and naval shipyard; why only they? Again, I'm not saying 0 A.D. should use all those buildings; however, at least having the art would be great.

This seems really promising, many thanks! The projectile does seem a bit long, though; (Ancient) crossbows shot stones or bolts, but not arrows. Furthermore, the gastraphetes was used exclusively in siege warfare, so maybe you could give the soldier some protection (e.g. leather armour, helmet). Again, it looks really great already

Which units are trainable at which structures can be decided at a later stage. Creating new art for structures is far more important (and you're doing a great job); even if not all buildings end up being used in the main game, it doesn't hurt to create more visual actors than strictly necessary (they could be useful in campaigns, mods, or future changes). Ideally I'd like to see the following structure visual actors for all factions: economic dock military shipyard siege workshop barracks archery range cavalry stables chariot stables camel stables elephant stables dog kennels

Thanks again for your help. I think I'm starting to understand the game session GUI: However, I still have to figure out a way to solve that techtree GUI problem.

Thanks again for your quick reply! You're right, there was indeed an earlier error message; after solving the other errors also disappeared. And specifying the rowLength also worked. However, is it also possible to increase the size of the panel, instead of decreasing the the size of the icons? It looks quite ugly if unit, building, and research icons are not the same size; and making all of them smalling isn't visually pleasing either. And any recommendations how to solve: ERROR: "maur" has more structures in phase phase_village than can be supported by the current GUI layout #13, the elephant stables, is not displayed, even though there appears to be enough space: I've looked at all files in gui/reference/structree/ however, I couldn't find where the maximum of twelve items per row is defined.

Thank you for your quick reply! I've replaced the occurence of “24” with “60” in the gui/session/selection_panels.js file. It's partially working: Building icons #25 and #26 are now displayed. Unfortunately it's still limited to eight items per row (how to increase that to e.g. 12?). More annoyingly, I get this error: ERROR: JavaScript error: gui/session/unit_commands.js line 179 TypeError: Engine.GetGUIObjectByName(...) is undefined hideUnitCommands@gui/session/unit_commands.js:179:3 updateSelectionDetails@gui/session/selection_details.js:475:5 updateGUIObjects@gui/session/session.js:895:2 onSimulationUpdate@gui/session/session.js:824:2 __eventhandler62 (simulationupdate)@sn simulationupdate:0:1

Thank you for your helpful replies! Well, I already tried editing gui/session/selection_panels_right/construction_panel.xml: Unfortunately, this does not allow more icons to be displayed, it only makes them smaller: I'm at a loss how to remove the 3×8 limit, especially since both cart and ptol have now 26 available structures in my 0abc mod (and I intend to add more).

0abc updated again: Fortresses are now purely defensive structures (cf. towers) Siege weapons and -technologies are moved to siege workshops Heroes are moved to civil centres Elephants are moved to elephant stables Champions, unique technologies, and “will to fight” are moved to military halls and occassionally other structures Barracks and stables: combined barracks: brit, cart, gaul, iber, rome combined docks: brit, gaul, iber, maur infantry barracks: athen, mace, maur, pers, ptol, sele, spart camel stables: ptol cavalry stables: athen, mace, maur, pers, ptol, sele, spart chariot stables: currently unavailable (generic template and technologies are created already) elephant stables: cart, maur, pers, ptol, sele military halls: all except brit, iber, rome military harbour: cart shipyard: athen, cart, mace, rome, pers, ptol, sele, spart siege workshop: all All factions can construct battering rams in town phase New unit: gastraphetes (Macedonian champion crossbowman); art by Alexandermb Rearranged a few things in the session GUI: detached the minimap from the central panel and moved it to the top right corner resized the central panel from 1024px to 960 px (because 960*2=1920 and 960*4=3840) left part is 360×240 middle part is 240×240 right part is 360×240 all icons use 32px images, except the single unit selection big icon, which is 64px (because all images are in powers of 2: 16, 32, 64, 128, 256, etc) left part can support 8 stances, 25 formations, 5 barter resources, 3 alert bells, 20 garrisoned units (only barter and formations conflict) central part can display up to 20 units right part can display up to 60 icons new, clearer rank icons added a different background image for the left and right panels, to make it clear 0abc is loaded Several other minor changes More details are included in 0abc-readme.pdf

Many thanks for pointing this out! There was indeed a typo in many of the level 4 templates. I've now checked and corrected them all. 0abc is updated again.

42. The GUI of units (and structures) has a maximum of three rows of eight slots, which means a maximum of 24 structures. This is problematic (e.g. Carthage already has 24 structures in my mod), because I intend to add more structures in the long run. Also, the Structure Tree does not accept more than twelve structures per phase (and all factions have eleven or twelve different ones in the village phase), nor more than four units per trainer unit. Any suggestions on how to solve this?

That shooting range looks really nice! And yes, ranged units were specialists: archery and slinging were skills which require years of practice (boys trained from early childhood); accurately hurling a javelin is much easier and could be learned in weeks or maybe days. On the other hand, non-mercenary melee infantry (especially hoplites) were typically untrained amateurs. (The famous Spartan Agoge training included dancing, singing, sports, chasing hares and clubbing them to death, etc, but not spear fighting or phalanx warfare.) Furthermore, it's great you're discussing adding cavalry stables and siege workshops. Hopefully you can also create elephant stables for all relevant factions. (And maybe a sacred band barracks (cart) and royal guard barracks (mace, ptol, spart), cf. AoE's Academy.)

0abc updated (again): Heroes are weakened but somewhat cheaper: all heroes require 0 population (and are available at all civil centres, starting at village phase) healer and infantry heroes cost 100 food, metal, and wood, 30 training time, and have 500 health cavalry heroes cost 200 food, metal, and wood, 40 training time, and have 1000 health chariot heroes cost 300 food, metal, and wood, 50 training time, and have 1500 health war elephant heroes cost 400 food, metal, and wood, 60 training time, and have 2000 health all hero bonus damage multipliers are removed; new damage penalties: archer infantry and chariot heroes: 0.5× vs elephants cavalry heroes: 0.75× vs camels and chariots, 0.5× vs elephants war elephant heroes: 0.125× vs structures hero armour technology is no longer available; instead, heroes gain +1 crush, hack, and pierce armour level per phase advance and: Macedonian hero Alexander no longer inflicts bonus damage vs other heroes Mauryan hero Maurya has a new global area: elephants have -25% training time Persian hero Cyrus can no longer train immortals Ptolemian hero Ptolemy I is now a cavalry hero (instead of war elephant) Ptolemian hero Ptolemy IV is now a war elephant hero (instead of cavalry) Spartan hero Agis has a new local aura: units within 60 m move 15% faster Battering rams gain +0.2 movement speed per infantry unit garrisoned inside (Roman) scorpion is now half as cheap and half as strong as other bolt shooters Fourth level cavalry and infantry drill technologies are removed, because the AI doesn't construct wonders three levels of war dog drill technologies are available at the Briton kennels three levels of war elephant drill technologies are available at the Mauryan elephant stables three levels of camelry and chariot drill technologies exist but are currently unavailable Civil centres have 0 default arrows, but each phase (village, town, city) there is a technology available which adds one more arrow Fortresses can no longer train heroes nor cavalry or infantry champions (only siege weapons and occassionally war elephant or chariot champions) Some champions are directly available at the barracks, some require an additional research, some can be trained at special buildings, some exist but are unavailable. Greek (Athenian, Macedonian, and Spartan) Royal Stoa can no longer be constructed Macedonian siege blacksmith can no longer be constructed Mauryan champion infantry maidens can no longer be trained anywhere Ptolemean barracks is now an infantry-only barracks Ptolemian camel archer can be trained at the market, instead of the barracks Ptolemian market is available in village phase, costs 50 food, 100 wood, and has +50% construction time Roman army camp is buildable again Several other minor changes As usual, have a look at the 0abc-readme.pdf for more detailed information.

Sparta itself didn't have city walls in Classical times (because they considered it unlikely any enemy would be able to reach it; something similar applied to Principate Rome), nor did they allow other settlements in their territory to construct walls (they were constantly fearful of revolts). However, Spartan colonies (e.g. Taranto) did have massive city walls, and the Spartans themselves repeatedly erected stone walls outside their territory (e.g. at the Corinthian Isthmus or at Thermopylae) to strengthen their control of the battlefield.

To clarify, a temenos (feel free to translate it with sanctuary) is not the wall, it's the whole sacred area (any area which is cut off from the normal world and dedicated to supernatural being(s)). Whether or not it's surrounded by a wall, moat, fence, rope, or nothing at all is irrelevant. A temenos does not necessarily have to contain a temple or altar, it could actually be almost anything: temple grouds, a single tree, a spot where lightning has struck, crossroads, a cave, spring, lake, grove, hilltop, or a complete island or mountain top. And each temenos could have its own rules (e.g. “wash your hands before entering” or “no threspassing; fine is three drachmae”). Nor is it restricted to Greece and Egypt; yes, it's a classical Greek term, but the concept itself was and still is present throughout Eurasia (and probably elsewhere as well). Mount Athos is a fine example (the whole peninsula is sacred in Orthodox Christianity, women and female animals are not allowed in), as is this Japanese temenos:

Thank you for your feedback! I indeed forgot a line of code in the army camp template, which is now fixed. Unfortunately I couldn't reproduce the grain field bug you mentioned. I just checked and females have no difficulty with building nor working on fields. Are you sure you're using 0abc with Alpha 22 (and no other mods enabled)? If you encounter any other bugs or errors, please post them here.

To do that more “necessary core mechanics” probably need to be added first, as well as “fixing the stuff that's already in the game” (e.g. remove hard coded damage types and instead make adding or removing them similar to and as easy as adding or removing resource types), which is likely a lot of work before any visible change can be applied

This is a great paragraph I can fully agree with. Other than that, I've not encountered anything really interesting after quickly skimming most of that design document.

0abc updated again, minor changes: heroes: are trainable at civil centre (instead of fortress) are available in village phase (instead of city phase) to allow their auras to make a difference earlier in the game have only 50% health in village phase, 80% in town phase, 100% in city phase (to prevent a single village phase hero from wiping out other players on its own) village phase grants structures +1.0 health regeneration, town phase halves this to 0.5, city phase reduces it to 0 (because decent defensive structures are only available in city phase) goat, sheep, and pig are no longer statistically identical changes to unlock champions and other technologies, structures, units, etc. As usual, have a look at 0abc-readme.pdf

Thank you for your reply, Sundiata, I was asking out of curiosity. I know next to nothing about Nubia/Kush/Aethiopia, only that it's the area between the first and sixth cataracts (nowadays Sudan), was heavily Egyptianized, conquered Egypt at least once in the first half of the first milennium, and had a farao Taharqa; that's all

Sorry, I don't understand what you mean. I do realize domestic animals exist in 0 A.D. and I'm not proposing to do it differently than how it's done now. This thread (see first post) is merely a list of domesticated animals which are already included in the game (goat, sheep, pig, chicken, peacock) and which are not yet but would be nice to have.

Any suggestions on how to implement the following ideas? 40. If you use an ally's dropsite, you tribute 10% of the resources (and obtain the remaing 90%), and if an ally uses yours, you receive 10% of the resources. 41. Domestic animals trained at the corral (goat, sheep, pig) start at e.g. 40% of maximum food capacity and slowly fatten over time.