Nescio

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!)

Simple structures, yes. But serious fortications? By the way, war elephants were used completely different from worker elephants. EDIT: And something else, am I the only one who thinks there is currently something wrong with health and capture points? (Especially the sentry tower.) storehouse: 800/300 outpost: 800/500 sentry tower: 250/800 stone tower: 1000/500 fortress: 4200/4000

Since this thread has gone off-topic, I might as well use the opportunity to complain about two other things: War elephants were *not* living siege weapons. (Have you have ever seen an elephant charging head on at a large stone wall? Exactly!) Elephantry had many functions: prestige, intimidation, high and relatively safe look-out posts for generals, platforms for archers to shoot arrows from (walking towers), and protecting vulnerable infantry against cavalry charges and horse archers (horses won't charge directly at elephants and arrows had little to none effect against war elephants); direct elephant charges at infantry formations were risky and rare. (Elephants were extremely expensive and hard to replace, so generals were reluctant to waste them in the melee.) The thing which bothers me most are those free bonuses heaped upon the phase advances (e.g. +10% health for citizen soldiers per age). If anything, they should be the other way around. Hunters, herders, farmers, peasents, and other villagers were valued as troops; they were used to enduring hardships, working in the heat and sun, shortages of food and water, and last but not least, they were eager to defend the countryside, upon which their livelihoods depend. Artisans, craftsmen, merchants, and other city-dwellers, on the other hand, were not interested in fighting for what was beyond the city walls; moreover, all sources agree they were unfit and poor fighters. Furthermore, cities are a notoriously unhealthy place to live, with a significant lower life expectancy, and up until c. 1900 AD, cities required a constant influx of people because mortality always exceeded birth rates. 0 A.D. flatly contradicts reality here, so this was one of the first things I changed in my mod (0abc).

Well, I don't disagree with you. Personally I think removing cavalry from civil centres is a good idea (as is increasing their population requirement to two slots). However, I don't really care whether or not this is changed in the main distribution, because it's very easy to modify the game to suit my own tastes (and significantly less time consuming than participating in these balance discussions. Oops!)

Historically: Cavalry archers and javelinists were used for harrassing the enemy with their projectiles in hit-and-run attacks (skirmishing) (Alexander's cavalry javelinists and archers repeatedly massacred the Indian chariots and cavalry swordsmen; not the other way around) (As a counter to cavalry archers the Iranian peoples (Scythians etc) developed cataphracts; however, infantry archers proved time and again to be the most effective counter vs horse archers.) Cavalry javelin-, spear-, and swordsmen were (light cavalry) used for scouting, raiding, foraging, as messengers, for chasing away enemy skirmishers on flat terrain, and for hunting down and killing fleeing opponents Lancers and cataphracts were shock troops (heavy cavalry): they acted as the hammer which crushed the enemy on the anvil (the heavy infantry phalanx); however, no suicidal frontal charges, of course There is evidence that mounted infantry (soldiers who rode on horseback to the battle but dismounted before actually starting to fight) predates and coexisted for centuries with true cavalry in Greece (mounted hoplites) and Italy (Roman cavalry swordsmen often fought on foot, possibly always) In the Greek, Hellenistic, and Roman worlds, horses were kept at manors and villas outside the cities, because horses were difficult and expensive to keep and required pastures. In Imperial Rome (AD, beyond the scope of this game) some cavalry was part of the Praetorians, but they were quartered in barracks and forts just beyond the city limits. Horses were really expensive; in the Roman Republic horsemen had to provide their own mount but citizens were refunded by the state if their horse was killed in action. In Classical Greece, where amateur hoplites were the most prestigious, the rich fought on foot and paid poorer classes to ride on the horses owned by them (the elite) and serve as cavalry. Armies with more than 10% cavalry were really exceptional The bulk of the massive Persian armies consisted of mere infantry as well For tribal peoples (e.g. Celts, Illyrians, Thracians, Scythians, Lybians/Numidians, etc) who didn't live in cities nor were organized in states, the situation was different; warbands could consist entirely of cavalry, and horse ownership was more prevalent. However, 0 A.D. is *not* about achieving historic realism

Units typically require 100 experience to promote, which is doable. Those Macedonians require an unrealistic 2000; they'll usually be killed long before that. If you're concerned your unit might accidently promote, you could set the requirement even higher, e.g. 60000. And if you don't want to use experience promotion at all for all units, then you could edit some of the js game files and set experience gain per hit or kill to 0. Or change the loot/xp value of all templates you use to 0. Alternatively, you could consider the “upgrade” function instead of “promotion”; you can set costs and a technology requirement, as is done with the sentry tower: https://trac.wildfiregames.com/browser/ps/trunk/binaries/data/mods/public/simulation/templates/template_structure_defense_sentry_tower.xml The difference is that upgrade is individual and non-automatic. So you'll have to manually click to upgrade your units, even if it's free and instant. PS Both suggestions are roundabout options which work, although I'm the first to admit that neither is beautiful.

You can use a technology requirement to promote a certain unit into another one, as is done with the Macedonian champion: https://trac.wildfiregames.com/browser/ps/trunk/binaries/data/mods/public/simulation/data/technologies/successors/upgrade_mace_silvershields.json https://trac.wildfiregames.com/browser/ps/trunk/binaries/data/mods/public/simulation/templates/units/mace_champion_infantry_a.xml https://trac.wildfiregames.com/browser/ps/trunk/binaries/data/mods/public/simulation/templates/units/mace_champion_infantry_e.xml Then in the second template you can redefine the unit's visual actor, stats, etc. It's not a beautiful solution, but it works. PS Nice selection markers! (a dozen or so posts up) You might want to edit the “footprint” in the templates to ensure the visual actor fits inside.

34. Thanks again! And done: https://code.wildfiregames.com/D911

34. Thanks! So I edited the modmod.xml file, which works for all columns, except for the (folder), which I specified to be in yellow: <column id="modFolderName" color="255 255 0" width="13%"> <translatableAttribute id="heading">(Folder)</translatableAttribute> </column> Which, however, does not seem to show up: Is it because the values of all other columns are defined inside the mod.json files, except for the (folder), which is the location of the file? Then where is this colour specified?

32. Then I'll leave it untouched for now. 33. Great, many thanks! Now I can finally easily distinguish all other players on the mini map 34. And where are the text font colours of the mod selection screen defined? (Dark grey text on a dark grey background is quite difficult to read.)

Just a heads up to clarify: resource upgrade and rank promotion are two distinct options, and you can choose either of them. You don't need to use “upgrade” if you only want “promotion”. Promotion is quite simple The template or one of its parents (typically the general template) needs to have the experience specified, e.g.: <Promotion> <RequiredXp>100</RequiredXp> </Promotion> The promoteable unit needs to have specified into which unit it will promote, e.g.: <Promotion> <Entity>units/athen_support_healer_e</Entity> </Promotion> And (only if its parent can promote) the final promotion stage needs: <Promotion disable=""/> The unit stats are identical to the parent (the entity in line 2), unless otherwise specified. The parent can be any template, not necessarily the previous promotion stage (it's perfectly possible to promote soldiers into towers; the other way around is more complicated). Keep in mind that if you promote a female into a healer, the female will cease to be a female, and starts being a healer. If, however, you would want a female-healer combination, you'll have to create or edit a new template (e.g. add build and resource gatherer options and classes to a healer or healing options to a female). PS It's also possible to automatically promote units by researching a specific technology, e.g.: https://trac.wildfiregames.com/browser/ps/trunk/binaries/data/mods/public/simulation/data/technologies/successors/upgrade_mace_silvershields.json

Found it: /simulation/data/resources/metal.json ; that was extremely easy! Now, which files do I have to edit for this? And I'd appreciate some help to achieve this as well.

There are actually two kinds of upgrades: Upgrading by investing resources, e.g. long wall to gate: https://trac.wildfiregames.com/browser/ps/trunk/binaries/data/mods/public/simulation/templates/template_structure_defense_wall_long.xml Free and automatic promotion by acquiring experience, e.g. advanced Athenian javelin cavalry to elite: https://trac.wildfiregames.com/browser/ps/trunk/binaries/data/mods/public/simulation/templates/units/athen_cavalry_javelinist_a.xml Now, if you want to use the former, you'll have to edit /simulation/templates/template_unit_support_female_citizen.xml only, and if you want the latter, the same file and all /simulation/templates/units/*_female_citizen.xml files. You also might want to have a look at (the first page of) https://wildfiregames.com/forum/index.php?/topic/21083-how-to-start-modifying/&page=1

Just a heads-up: Saka, Sarmatian, Sauromatian, and Scythian, although not exactly the same, are more often than not used interchangeably, and are in practice applicable to any Eastern Iranian (a linguistic term) people, tribe, or other group. And Herodotus, the most important source on the Scythians c.s., is often unreliable at best.

If that's the case, great No, I'm not sure; I think I did a few days ago, but I'm now starting to doubt. Anyway, thank you for your help and time, I do appreciate it!

“pidgins” [sic]? I suppose you mean pigeons (columbidae); a pidgin is a language which develops amongst people who share no common language (PS I fully understand the mistake, though; English orthography is simply horrible ...) (PPS And I fully agree more birds would be nice.) (PPPS And more other fauna as well.) EDIT: Apparently (ODE) “pigeon”² could also be an archaic spelling of “pidgin” (but not the other way around). And “one's pigeon” means “a person's particular responsibility or business”. (English ...)

To test I generated several random giant random maps with five players each: Without 0abc: 25s, 23s, 24s, 18s, 5s With 0abc: 115s, 183s, 162s, 138s, 165s (of which it takes about 15s to get to 99%) So it is indeed significantly slower, although I have no idea why. Does initialization time depend on the number of templates in existence? Yeah, the new output surprised me as well. No, I'm not; I just followed your earlier instructions: Anyway, I tried the above again, and now the following error messages are immediately and continuously produced when starting a game: ERROR: JavaScript error: simulation/ai/common-api/entity.js line 13 TypeError: this._templateName is undefined m.Template<._init@simulation/ai/common-api/entity.js:13:7 m.GameState.prototype.getTemplate@simulation/ai/common-api/gamestate.js:149:9 m.GameState.prototype.findTrainableUnits@simulation/ai/common-api/gamestate.js:710:18 m.HQ.prototype.findBestTrainableUnit@simulation/ai/petra/headquarters.js:526:11 m.HQ.prototype.trainMoreWorkers@simulation/ai/petra/headquarters.js:430:20 m.HQ.prototype.update@simulation/ai/petra/headquarters.js:2234:3 m.PetraBot.prototype.OnUpdate@simulation/ai/petra/_petrabot.js:119:3 m.BaseAI.prototype.HandleMessage@simulation/ai/common-api/baseAI.js:64:2 ERROR: JavaScript error: simulation/ai/petra/_petrabot.js line 106 TypeError: this.gameState is undefined m.PetraBot.prototype.OnUpdate@simulation/ai/petra/_petrabot.js:106:2 m.BaseAI.prototype.HandleMessage@simulation/ai/common-api/baseAI.js:64:2 ERROR: JavaScript error: simulation/ai/petra/_petrabot.js line 106 TypeError: this.gameState is undefined m.PetraBot.prototype.OnUpdate@simulation/ai/petra/_petrabot.js:106:2 m.BaseAI.prototype.HandleMessage@simulation/ai/common-api/baseAI.js:64:2 ERROR: JavaScript error: simulation/ai/petra/_petrabot.js line 106 TypeError: this.gameState is undefined m.PetraBot.prototype.OnUpdate@simulation/ai/petra/_petrabot.js:106:2 m.BaseAI.prototype.HandleMessage@simulation/ai/common-api/baseAI.js:64:2 This happens both with and without my mod (no difference), so I suppose there is some js error now. Yeah, the earlier error message does not occur in every game in my mod, only in some, and if it does, in the mid to late game. Actually the fact I don't understand the error is more annoying than the error itself.

Something I do? I've only changed files in simulation/templates/ and simulation/data/ ; how does this affect random map initialization? Anyway, any suggestions for that AI error? Yeah: “everywhere”, “etc”, “consistently”

Three other questions: 31. I'd like to display metal everywhere (costs, loot, market, etc.) consistently before stone; which files do I need to edit? 32. Likewise, I'd like to display crush armour and damage everywhere before hack (instead of after pierce). 33. Where are the player colours defined? I would prefer them to be brighter in my mod.

That's probably because I implemented a new template tree; I haven't looked at skirmish maps, (I actually forgot they existed), because I always play random maps, but I'll look at it to see if I can easily solve those issues. EDIT: there are indeed many error messages; I'll need to have a more careful look at this; thanks for pointing it out! PS How and why are skirmish maps different from random maps? Yeah, somehow generating random maps is quite slow; it usually stays at 99% for up to a few minutes. Loading an existing saved game is much faster though. No, I fetch the repository directly (git clone, git pull, git push); however, the zip contains exactly the same files, and I don't see why it would make any difference whether it's zipped or not. Anyway, I'll try it out now. EDIT: if I place the zipped version in the mods folder, 0AD doesn't recognize it. After I unzipped it, it works exactly the same as the repository fetch with command line git (which was to be expected, because they contain the same files). Have you tried running the mod under the stable a22 (which ought to work), or under the newer svn version (to which this mod is probably not fully compatible)? Thanks! I'll try that and see what happens. EDIT: here is the new output:

By the way, here is a new save game (attached) with the error message, maybe it could help. savegame-0001.0adsave

Why just two? I'm aware of the existence of half a dozen ongoing modifications (in chronological order): The standard public mod included in the default 0ad distribution wowgetoffyourcellphone's “Delenda Est”: https://wildfiregames.com/forum/index.php?/forum/448-delenda-est/ my (Nescio's) own “0abc”: https://wildfiregames.com/forum/index.php?/topic/22779-0abc-mod/ user1's “Pro Balance”: https://wildfiregames.com/forum/index.php?/topic/22798-pro-balance-modconcept-please-test/ Grugnas' “Monkey Wrench”: https://wildfiregames.com/forum/index.php?/topic/22855-monkey-wrench-balance-mod-alpha-22/ this (Hannibal_Barca's) “Vox Populi”: https://wildfiregames.com/forum/index.php?/topic/22869-vox-populi-the-ultimate-balance-mod/ But there are probably many more Different people have different ideas. The more mods there are available, the better. Having ideas you don't want to see implemented is also useful. Disagreement often can be constructive in discussions.

Working together? I only posted a few critical remarks because stanislas69 mentioned me earlier in this topic. If Hannibal_Barca decides to do something with any of my suggestions, then that's entirely his decision; it's completely his mod. (Personally I think it's better to let it evolve on its own way, without aiming to emulate any of the other existing mods; always be critical of my suggestions and do not hesitate to reject them.)

Actually I would (and do), if I can afford it, because 100+10+10=120, which gives you a huge advantage against foes who're limited to just 100. Anyway, if you're not interested, perfectly fine, I don't really care, it's your mod, not mine