Sundiata

@LordGood, you also deserve a statue or two... Iron Johnny Also what are those towers? They look gorgeous...

@Alexandermb, "Your labours , your privations, your sufferings and your valour will not be forgotten by a grateful online community"

@Stan` Dude, sweet... Really! Lovely

Random facebook comment: Not a shabby suggestion in my opinion... Some Lavandula to make things pop! The Romans loved it...

I'd have to disagree somewhat on that. If knowledgeable people, especially specialists, say that they don't know, and aren't able to find evidence to answer a question decisively, I'd say that's valuable in it's own right. In the example of the scutum with a Greek style gorgon, the lack of available evidence points to the unlikelihood of such a design on a republic era shield. The Greek style gorgon probably wouldn't be as misplaced on an aspis of a Roman hoplite from the regal period or the early republic, but I wouldn't know for sure. This guy for example is described as a Roman hoplite from the time of the Servian reforms of the 6th century BC. I'm unfamiliar with the references, or even original source of the artwork... I agree entirely, and I didn't mean to argue for the Greek gorgon. Just trying to provide some refs, to attempt to illuminate the subject, with the cautious conclusion that even if Republic era Roman shields were decorated with a gorgon, that it probably would have looked different from the Classical Greek example.

Yeah, those examples are Imperial. Although the iconography clearly evolved from earlier Greek forms, and may well have been used by the Romans at much earlier dates, but without period references, how and where exactly these gorgons were depicted remains speculative, it seems. I can't even find period depictions of the Imperial scutum examples that I gave. I used to think that Rome-experts were a dime a dozen. I was wrong, lol...

I'm not an expert on the matter myself, but I believe it might be inspired by the Imperial Legio I Minervia: Minerva sometimes carries decoration of a gorgon's head representing medusa. Either way, Roman gorgon's are depicted differently. They seem to lack the sharp teeth sticking out in the Greek versions, for example. This decorated shield boss is also interesting

It's an official screenshot: https://play0ad.com/wp-content/gallery/carousel/PersianTradeRoute.jpg

@Stan`, I think it looks great! Yes, leave the facebook and twitter links in. Those sites might not be super active right now (I'll try to get a bit more activity going on facebook ), they are still the primary source of information for thousands of fans who aren't active on the forums. I'm not sure, but don't you download something "at" a website, and not "on" a website? "Download the game at play0AD.com/download" Using some different screenshots you get this: Not sure if it's better, perhaps an alternate version, or nah? Do with it what you will

Might be interesting for @Monder87's "0AD Economy Similation Mod" Or even for @azayrahmad "City Building Mod"

@Stan` I always appreciate you taking the time to explain, thanks!

I understand, I just don't agree with the logic. I'm sure elephants were sometimes used for ploughing, but even then, they always had a handler, not withstanding the fact that they would have overwhelmingly used oxen. I really just don't like the idea of animals acting with a human sense of agency. [EDIT] I misread a little. So the elephant carries seed while a unit does the seeding? Still seems just as illogical. Why wouldn't the people carry the seeds themselves? Why do they need a massive elephant on such a small patch of farmland, to carry something that they could easily carry themselves? I imagine that elephants are expensive. What is a lowly peasant doing with it? Etc.. I like the first of the farmland paradigms, and actually suggested very similar mechanics as this in the past. I'm strongly in favor. It's natural, organic, immersive, realistic and adds depth to farm placement in a way that's not only strategically interesting, but important. It's sad that it's from 8 years ago and a much more convoluted approach was chosen instead. I just hope that "farmland terrain textures" doesn't mean magically pre-ploughed fields, like the ones visible in some of the maps. I'm a huge fan of the color-graded "Efficiency Overlay" when choosing a fertile location for a new field. Then there would be no need for pre-ploughed fields. Just make sure that those areas which are indicated with a green color actually correspond to green/lush terrain textures, and yellow and red correspond to dry shrubbery and desert terrain textures or obstructions like rocks. I also think that this approach can compliment my suggestions from the previous post, which rather focusses on the specific sequence of the animations (ploughing→ seeding→ crops grow while farmers are weeding→ harvesting→ rinse and repeat). The cyclical aspect of farming doesn't conflict with any of these suggestions either, but compliments the natural sequence of animations. Apart from actually choosing a fertile spot for your farms, it also doesn't add any micro at all, since we're just talking about a cycle of animations. Just that a large amount of food comes in every 6 minutes or so (cyclical), as opposed to small continuous trickle of food as it is now. The former is more realistic and strategically interesting, while the latter is just a boring old convention from the 90's. I don't like the second paradigm that was linked. It's unrealistic, incredibly unintuitive, illogical, confusing etc... How are players expected to make sense of this? Really, this is bad game design in my opinion, like our current farming system, it lacks logic and intuition.

I still really fail to see why elephants should be seeding anything... They shouldn't. I also still fail to see why worker elephants wouldn't have a mahout... They should. For actual human farmers, it would be nice to see them using a hoe in the "construction" of the field, instead of hammers. Then they could just use the hoe to go from one end of the field to the other as the "construction" animation, creating rows of fertile, exposed soil in the process (one person going up and down 5 parallel rows, or 5 people, each going down their own row). Then seeding. Then some more use of the hoe in random spots on the field, to represent weeding. It would be sublime to animate the crop itself as well. After seeding you'd see the crop "grow", simply by seeing the crop rise from underneath the ground (reverse sinking). When it's matured (preferably yellowed in color), the farmers would use a sickle for harvesting. It would be nice if the farming could thus become a cyclical thing, instead of continuous food income, you'd see workers harvesting at set intervals of 6 minutes or so. Regardless of when you construct the farm, all farms across the map for every civ will be on the same cycle (food income determined by amount of workers on the farm during the cycle). So there will be a "harvest season" every 6min or so, which could add strategic depth (interrupting someones harvest will cost them that harvest, as the fields turn fallow).

Carthaginians used the North African species of elephant (see the Carthaginian coin in my previous post). Hannibal had an elephant named "Surus", which has lead some to believe that he may have had a "Syrian" elephant (only 1). So maybe only Hannibal specifically could possibly use an imported Syrian/Indian elephant. Bonus, some more African forest elephants being ridden: And African bush elephants:

@Alexandermb I think the scratches look cool but I think they would look more convincing on the upper to middle part of the shield, with very few scratches (but more dirt) on the lower half. Great work on everything by the way. Keep going!

Barracks can double as an armory. Not even really an abstraction. It would also make people place barracks at more strategic locations.

Hünenburg bei Watenstedt, a fortified German Bronze Age site:

Why do so many people like to pick on a little autistic girl? Sure, it was awkward, and I'm not even a fan of Greta, but it's so weird how the internet selectively targets individuals, almost at random it seems, and just tries to destroy them. Surely, there's worse people than her you could make fun of, no? Either way, I think that video belongs in Funny Relevant Videos and Memery, although I'm not even sure about that...

They were mentioned in Piye's triumphal stele at the siege of Hermopolis, but the translation is tentative, I have no idea what they looked like and the text dates to the 25th Dynasty, predating our timeframe by more than 200 years, so I'm not really arguing to add catapults for the Kushites or anything. Just an interesting mention of stone throwers at a really early date, a generation after King Uzziah's stone throwing devices just a stone's throw away in Judah. I strongly agree with Rams for every civ though. They're not exactly marvels of engineering so they can be the generic go-to siege engine for everyone. More specialized sieging civs like the Greco-Romans have enough unique siege options to continue standing out enough as the best in siege. It's just that advancing with elephants alone is really difficult if you're up against players that know what they're doing (slinger can even take down a fortress, imagine what they can do to an elephant...).

@wowgetoffyourcellphone, I'm sure you've seen this one before, but it's still worth the share... I'd never seen it with subtitles for some reason. The subtitles make me want to see the rise of the Khanate again, lol... I love how they infused Western influences like that and still stay true to their roots. Also, there's some nice idea's for Xiongnu or silk road maps... Beautiful setting... @tengrist, your thing?

Diomedes? Dude, what about Memnon and Penthesilea? I want to see some Aethiops and Amazons on the battle field. They were very popular among the Greeks themselves, even though they fought for "the enemy", they were hugely respected and a popular topic in their art. I want to see Memnon slaying Antilochus, Nestor's son, and then I want to see the fight between Memnon and Achilles, that was so epic that even the gods of Olympus watched on in awe as these demigods clashed... I'd like to see the arrival of Penthesilea's Amazons and see them kicking some a__ on the battlefield, and see Achilles falling in love with the great Amazon Queen just as he kills her (talk about drama)... Would make for some amazing cut scenes! Check these:

I forgot, who made this piece again? They should have totally contacted him for some proper concepts...

Another Meroitic period graffiti, from the Gate of Hadrian at Philae Compare this 2nd century AD (or later) Meroitic representation of a ship to the 14th century BC New Kingdom Period Ship from the Theban tomb of Amenhotep called Huy, Viceroy of Kush under Tutankhamen (first image). c. 1500 years of cultural continuity. CALLING OUT TO ISIS: THE ENDURING NUBIAN PRESENCE AT PHILAE https://www.academia.edu/26548898/Calling_Out_to_Isis_the_Enduring_Nubian_Presence_at_Philae?auto=download

@Nescio, @Genava55, dudes, I just casually bumped into a Nubian Khopesh! It's from Zuma, an archaeological site 40 km downstream from Napata/Jebel Barkal and 10 km south of El Kurru, deep in Kushite territory. The archaeological site is associated with post-meroitic to early Christian Nubian tumuli graves, but the khopesh may have come from an as of yet undiscovered Kushite or perhaps even Egyptian gravesite. Personally I think the most attractive tentative explanation is that these Post-Meroites may have supplemented their own grave goods with items looted from the nearby royal Kushite cemeteries (both Napatan and Meroitic period). Weapons are frustratingly rare finds in Sudanese archaeology, and the khopesh in general is a rare find anywhere, so finding a khopesh, intact no less, in the archaeological record, so close to Kushite royal cities and cemeteries is pretty cool... https://issuu.com/sudarchrs/docs/s_n06_zurawski/16