Nescio

Apparently there exists some kind of design document; could it be published prominently at a clear location on these forums? This could help people understand what you works towards to, not just now, but also in months and years to come. Anyway, I do hope this thread is not too frustrating for you and the other team members. Even though criticisms are posted more frequently than compliments, do know that many people greatly appreciate what's been done so far, what you're still doing right now, and what you all intend to do in the future.

The usage of war elephants is well attested for Indians, Achaemenid Persians, Alexander, Seleucids, Ptolemies, Epirus, and Carthage (in that chronological order). Yes, elephants lived in their neigbourhood, and yes, the Kushites exported ivory (and possibly live elephants as well). However, I'm wondering, is there any clear evidence they actually deployed war elephants (pachyderms)? (Sundiata?) And siege towers? HB, do you also intend to include your “dedicate temples to the gods” idea in this mod?

38. What is the correct place to post art requests? A few examples of things I'd like to have: A Ptolemaic civil centre without obelisks Cavalry stables for all factions Town walls for all factions (which fit somewhere in between palisades and city walls; cf. Roman siege walls) A gastraphetes (Greek crossbowman) unit Faction icons for new factions in the same style as those of the existing civilizations Existing unit portrait icons in different colour New unit portrait icons in the same style 39. Where to post feature requests? E.g.: Units can have different garrison sizes (e.g. infantry occupies one slot, cavalry two, elephants six, siege towers twelve) The possibility to directly specify a tech/civ/aura requirement inside a template's production queue Amphibious, flying, helicopter, leaping, and submarine movement types (instead of either walking or sailing) Triangular splash damage

From a programming point of view, improving the engine is far more important than adding new content or trying to balance the game in an Alpha stage. The team is quite small and I certainly do not want them to waste their valuable time. However, it would be nice if there was a clear and simple mechanism for others to propose tiny changes without being a burden to the workload of the team. For instance, a dedicated subforum where minor proposals can be posted and voted upon; if a proposal has at least a dozen votes with, let's say, two-thirds in favour, it can be implemented; voting ends in a week or 36 hours after the last vote (whichever is greater). The above could work for tiny changes, e.g.: Reduce siege ram base attack by a factor x and add a x bonus attack vs structures Enable Briton dog kennels in Village phase Increase pikeman pierce damage from 3.0 to 5.0 NB: proposals should be clear, ready to land, and easy to review; e.g. “add a Thracian civilization” is unsuitable, but change the costs of technology y is perfectly fine (provided it contains the to be changed code).

Although I didn't read everything in this thread, the last three posts were interesting enough for me to jump into this discussion. As far as I understand it, DE had incorporated the Kushites faction, VP has it, and now you intend to add it to TM as well. From my point of view this is both inefficient (the same work has to be done thrice) and undesirable (mods tend to diverge over time, so it will result in three slightly different Kushite factions). Besides, three copies of mostly the same files is costly in terms of download time and file size on disk. Wouldn't it be better to have a single “Kushites” mod, which could then be loaded by other mods? And mutatis mutandis for other new civilizations? A “one faction, one mod” principle would also make it easier to incorporate new factions in the default 0 A.D. distribution, provided they are complete and qualitively at least as good as the current twelve factions.

Did you also have a look at the simulation/templates/special/player.xml file(s)?

Yes, 0 A.D. is quite similar to Age of Empires, as are Command & Conquer, Cossacks, Empire Earth, Rise of Nations, and many other games, which is probably unavoidable. Citizen-soldiers, capturable buildings, and territory are rather minor points. There are just two fundamental differences: 0 A.D. is free and open source (and available for many different operating systems) and can thus be adapted, modified, or serve as a basis for future games. 0 A.D. has been in development for years and is unlikely to be finished in the forseeable future. Those looking for an end product might regret the second point; personally I think it's actually the greatest strength that the game is in constant development and will possibly never be finished. 0 A.D. can always be changed, updated, improved, and expanded, unlike commercial games designed for profit, which have to be released at a certain date and won't be changed afterwards. Yes, 0 A.D. is far from perfect, I'm the first to admit that. However, keep in mind it's still an Alpha. Nevertheless, the game is already playable, enjoyable, and modifiable, which is simply great. We should be grateful for everyone who has contributed in the past and for everyone who's currently helping to improve the game. Yes, 0 A.D.'s “Empires Ascendant” default distribution certainly has to be improved. However, different people have different ideas, and in group projects such as this it's often quite hard to find concensus on how to change the status quo. Far more important than the actual content (art, factions, templates, unit statistics, etc.) are the efficiency and performance of the underlying engine and the need for a capable and flexible AI. Everyone who watches https://code.wildfiregames.com/ can see that every day several people work on improving the game. Undoubtedly many persons have left over the years, but others are still contributing, and new people are always welcome. As long as that remains the case, progress is constantly made, and 0 A.D., which already is a great game, can only get better.

Cheats are one of many examples which I haven't touched and should thus work the same in 0abc as in the default 0 A.D. distribution. Yes, I changed the player colours with brighter ones for increased visibility. Black (or actually dark gray) was very hard to read above a dark background (e.g. unexplored areas) therefore I replaced that colour with purple. An obvious abbreviation which I had no difficulty with to understand 0abc is based upon Alpha 22; there might be issues when you run it under a different version. However, a general statement such as “it crashes” is too unspecific and can not be solved without additional details. Under what circumstances does it crash, what happens (e.g. lag, freeze, shut down), which error messages are produced, etc. 0abc is developed completely independently from DE and mercenaries are treated differently. Have a look at “2.1.2 Worker rates” of the 0abc-readme.pdf. Mercenaries can promote (as can champions) and can gather wood, but not mine metal or quarry ore.

You're right, many thanks for pointing this out! Another error solved, 0abc is updated again.

This has something to do with how skirmish maps are generated, although I don't understand why (I haven't touched any skirmish file). However, when a game has started, you can safely train additional ranged infantry without errors. Moreover, this error does not occur on random maps; there you start with two ranged infantry units, as it should be. Unfortunately generating a random map is significantly more time consuming (up to a few minutes). Frankly, I don't understand what you mean. True, mercenaries can hunt, forage, cut wood, and build, but can not mine metal, quarry stone, nor farm. In 0abc mercenaries are distinct from both citizens and champions. What do you mean exactly? Dogs, cavalry, camels, chariots, and elephants are all separate, disjunct classes. A building which can garrison one class is not necessarily able to garrison all others. EDIT: 0abc updated, most structures have garrison classes changed to just “Human” (which means you can now also garrison e.g. camels in centres). Could you be more specific?

Unfortunately it's *not* possible to directly specify a unit, tech, civ, or aura requirement in a template's production queue. Such a feature would be nice to have, though.

Here is a comparison of rank icons: Personally I think the chevrons in different metal colours look more aesthetically pleasing, but I suppose I could also create numeric icons, as an option with higher clarity. Keep in mind increased rank (e.g. drill researches) not only means increased stats, but also increased training time and reduced resource gather rates. EDIT: if you want to replace the rank chevrons with numbers, git pull or download the updated repository, then open 0ad/mods/0abc-unified/gui/session/selection_details.js and replace lines 500--551 (function getRankIconSprite(entState)) with: (0abc now has 16×16 pixel images for A--Z and for the numbers 0--100 (which might be useful if someone intends to create e.g. a Pokémon mod ))

Thank you for your post, I do appreciate feedback! Yes, it's not supposed to generate errors However, there might be errors occassionally on some maps and in some games. Several issues (e.g. A.I.) of Alpha 22 (newest stable version) are already fixed in Alpha 23 (svn version in development); 0abc runs on Alpha 22. A few barracks champions (e.g. thureophoros) require the city phase only, most (e.g. swordsmen) require unlock champions, several (e.g. Maiden archer) require “Glorious Expansion” (wonder). Oh, yes, I did, that's true and intentional: in my mind metal is more important than stone, therefore I changed it to display metal everywhere before stone, instead of after. Fauna in this mod ought to behave exactly the same as in the default distribution, because I haven't changed the animal files, nor do I intend to. If this is changed in Alpha 23 then it will automatically be changed in 0abc as well. Are you really sure? I checked the files first and then launched a test game; I could not reproduce it, every promotion has consistently higher stats than any previous rank, as expected. The only explanation I have is that you possibly confused the 4th and 5th rank with the 1st and 2nd. (Rank 0 has *no* chevrons; ranks 1, 2, 3 have one, two, three *metal* chevrons respectively; ranks 4, 5, 6 one, two, three *bronze* chevrons; ranks 7, 8, 9 one, two, three *silver* chevrons; ranks 10, 11, 12 one, two, three *gold* chevrons; but these are mere aesthetics.) If you want to know the rank of a single unit, move your cursor to the top left of the unit icon, and rank will appear in small text (e.g. “0 rank”). True. In an earlier version I had made hero templates dependent on their non-hero counterparts, however, I reverted it because it produced errors I did not understand. I've postponed it for now, although I still intend to implement it eventually. Unfortunately, I do not exactly understand what you mean. I've not changed any of this, therefore this mod ought to work the same as the default 0 A.D. game: Single click on a garrisoned unit icon to unload one Shift-click on a garrisoned unit icon to unload all units of that type Press U to ungarrison all garrisoned units Press Delete to delete a structure or unit (a confirmation screen will pop-up) Press Shift-Delete to delete and directly confirm (pop-up screen is skipped)

0abc updated Removed experience loot from all structures which can not shoot arrows. Army camp, civic centres, colonies, crannogs, fortresses, outposts, and towers have a default experience value equal to 10% of maximum health. Reduced the number of arrows civic centres can fire (both default and maximum), but also added “town watch” and “city watch” technologies which each add one default arrow. Briton, Gaulish, and Iberian civic centres are 20% faster to construct, cheaper, and weaker than those of other factions. Wonders are now all completely statistically identical to each other: Celtic (Briton and Gaulish) wonder no longer has -20% build time, capture points, and health Greek (Athenian, Macedonian, Spartan) wonder no longer has +10% build time, capture points, and health Persian wonder is no longer affected by “Persian Architecture” technology Seleucid wonder no longer has 4400 (instead of default 5000) health (D936) All wonders heal garrisoned units at 5 HP per second (instead of some at 1 HP and others at 8 HP) Each wonder has the same five auras: heal units within 50 m radius at 2 HP per second (instead of some not at all and others at 3 HP within 30 m) increase maximum population limit by +10.0 (flat) increase territory influence radius by +20% (equivalent to a theatre) increase maximum population limit by +10% (requires “Glorious Expansion”) increase territory influence radius by another +20% (requires “Glorious Expansion”) Celtic druids (healers) have +20% walk speed, +4 crush, hack, and pierce armour levels, but also +50 metal and wood costs, and +100% training time; and they have two auras: enemy soldiers within 10 m radius have -10% attack strength own infantry within 20 m radius have +15% walk speed Many other minor changes

You're right, in most situations that's completely true. However, many mods simply consist of slightly edited files from the default distribution and as far as I know, people can not claim copyright conflicting with the license of the original files from which they're derived. All human soldiers have an attack rate of 1 s; given that cavalry is more expensive, can not build nor gather most resources, and occupies two population slots instead of one, I think it's justified they have a somewhat higher attack than infantry. Anyway, I'm still making minor corrections and updates to my 0abc mod, the most recent version is from yesterday; see the github repository: https://github.com/0abc/0abc-unified And yes, I do hope wowgetoffyourcellphone won't quite over an apparent misunderstanding and will return soon.

Unless explicitly stated otherwise, you can safely assume any mod is completely free and open source, and presumably is covered by the same copyright license as the default 0 A.D. distribution.

Two more structure template questions: 36. How does “TerritoryInfluence/Weight” work? (Is a higher weight better or not? Does it decrease with distance? etc.) 37. What does “ResourceSupply/DiminishingReturns” (template_structure_resource_field) do?

Honestly, I don't understand what's going on here. If a mod worked before this patch, it should also work afterwards. There is no need to change any templates if you don't want to.

Are you really sure? You only need internet to download the game, but after you've installed 0 A.D., you can play single player regardless whether or not you're connected to the internet. Nor do I understand why you would want to use a CD or DVD.

That complicates things, because I want to change minimap colours only in my mod, not in the default distribution, and if I touch MiniMap.cpp file (supposing I would understand it; I haven't worked with C++ for years), it will affect the whole game, right? Ideally I'd want something like this: Yes, I know it's ugly (I'm not a map designer nor a graphical artist), and no, not *exactly* like this, it's just an example. That image is merely to visualize the concept. Legenda: #000000 black: unexplored areas grey-ish: map background blue-ish #8080A0 blue-ish: water green-ish #80A080 green-ish: normal land red-ish #A08080 red-ish: inaccessable terrain dark colours: resources: #800000 maroon: fauna (meat and fish) #808000 olive: fruit trees #008000 office green: wood trees #000080 navy: metal mines (ore) #606060 dark grey: stone quarries (rock) bright colours (red, blue, green, yellow, cyan, magenta, orange, purple): players (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8) #FFFFFF white: gaia (player 0) In the current 0 A.D. distribution I have serious difficulty with distinguishing resources from the terrain background. Although changing resource colours is possible and easy to do, the effect is limited, because the minimap background terrain colours seem to depend on the specific texture, and thus vary from map to map.

Thank you for your quick reply! Yeah, I've already discovered and edited the player_defaults.json file about two weeks ago; I didn't know some colours were defined in templates, though, thanks for pointing this out. However, is it also possible to change the minimap colours of terrain textures? E.g. I'd like to have water show up in a fainter shade to increase contrast between background and actors.

35. Which files do I have to edit to change minimap colours (terrain, resources, etc)? Finding a blue unit (player) on a blue background (water) is occassionally challenging. Furthermore, I'd like darker colours for mines to improve their location visibility.

The following should work for any mod:

wowgetoffyourcellphone seems to agree with me on several points in this discussion. Maybe I should try out Delenda Est However, large, bold, full caps are used too often in the captions of the github README.md file to my taste. Why not change it to the usual MD headers? # Title ## Section ### Subsection #### Subsubsection Also useful for itemization: * item * item * subitem * item Anyway, back to war elephants and battering rams, a very easy and effective solution is: Give war elephants e.g. a 0.1 bonus attack (i.e. a 90% damage penalty) vs structures; this makes them still more effective against structures than any other human soldiers, but significantly less than siege weapons Reduce battering ram base damage to a quarter and apply a 4.0 bonus attack (i.e. a 300% damage improvement) vs structures; this does not change their effectivity vs structures, but makes them less capable of crushing human soldiers Oh, yes, gates. Currently in 0 A.D.: Gates (or actually converted long walls) are wider than they're high and are effectively the thinnest and weakest spot in the total walls. Such Lord of the Rings Mordor style gates are fantastic but ahistorical. Historically: Gatehouses were the largest, deepest, highest, most massive, and often the strongest parts of the city walls. The most famous are probably the Ishtar gate of Babylon, now in Berlin, and the Porta Nigra in Trier (Germany). However, in general this applies to city walls everywhere from the early Bronze Age to the Modern Era when walls became obsolete. (Examples of Medieval gates: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tower_of_San_Niccolò,_Florence and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holstentor ) The gate doors were typically higher than they were wide and actually relatively narrow; they were choke points and prone to traffic jams, a frequent complain of all ages. Gates were a symbol of the power of the city and were often (but not always) decorated. (In Mesopotamia gatehouses also served as the district courts of their adjacent neighbourhoods and the place to conduct trials, consult the laws, read the ruler's edicts, sign contracts, and challenge business deals.) 0 A.D.'s Carthaginian fortress probably resembles more how a gate in Antiquity would have looked like than 0 A.D.'s Carthaginian gate. When generals had to breach the city walls they looked for a weak spot (harbours, sewers, unfinished wall sections) and this seldom was the city gate. City walls were amongst the most expensive (and durable) structures and could easily take years to construct (for comparison, palisades and fortified army camps could be erected in an afternoon, a decent fortress in a matter of weeks). 0 A.D.'s walls are too cheap and too fast to construct.

No? Why not? Philip's siege of Amphipolis in 357 BC is just one of many examples in which battering rams were used to breach massive city walls. (City walls of over 10 m are no exception; in Lugo, a provincial town in Galicia (Spain) the Roman city walls are still standing.) The idea is that if you weaken the stone at the bottom enough, the walls will collapse, and you can send in your troops to enter the city. The same principle applies to sending in sappers to undermine walls via tunnels (for which there are also many examples). These options were time-consuming and allowed the besieged to take counter measures (e.g. constructing secondary walls within the city walls, which was done on numerous occassions). Instead generals typically prefered quicker options, such as treachery, bribery, surprise attacks, and direct assault by sending in ladders to scale the walls. (Yes! We need ladders in 0 A.D.) And if no other options were available (e.g. pre-Hellenistic Greece, pre-Assyrian Near East, etc) the besieger could do little more than surround the city and hope to force it to surrender through starvation. Anyway, that was not my point. Historically: War elephants were used in pitched battles, not in siege warfare Battering rams were used in siege warfare, not in pitched battles Currently in 0 A.D.: War elephants can destroy most if not all buildings 1:1 Battering rams can crush many if not most human soldiers 1:1 Personally I have no problems with compromising realism to some degree, but I feel occassionally obliged to point out when the game flatly contradicts reality. Yes, complete realism is impossible and unwanted. If you leave out everything unrealistic, you'll be left with nothing left. And having fun is certainly more important. I'm the first to admit all this. However, as wowgetoffyourcellphone wrote earlier, using history to bring in authencity to the game is important as well, otherwise we could just make it a fantasy game. (Introduce flying purple hippos!)