Sundiata

Imperial Roman multipurpose structure from Kent, UK: Agricultural building, Bathouse/sauna, and later extension possibly containing an internal Christian altar: https://www.kentonline.co.uk/faversham/news/delight-as-major-roman-building-unearthed-205026/

Yeah, their maps are really rough... They clearly don't consider geographic accuracy a relevant concern for their video's. A missed opportunity for a channel trying to bring lesser known histories to the fore. Their topics are definitely interesting and I enjoy watching their vids, but yeah, they could be better... I love Osprey, but yeah, it's not exactly academic literature in the narrow sense. Yep... Here's a very critical look at pre-Islamic North African trade with West Africa, from an archaeological perspective. It's definitely somewhat outdated, and completely ignores the written histories, but it's still interesting: https://journals.openedition.org/afriques/1145 This article is not very detailed, but still interesting: https://www.caitlingreen.org/2017/10/saharan-and-trans-saharan-contacts.html Contains a nice map depicting the locations of Roman and Byzantine finds in Saharan and Sub Saharan sites: This article is short and brief, but informative: https://www.ancient.eu/article/1199/the-roman-empire-in-west-africa/ (The Nok did NOT establish Djenne though, that's a huge fart on the writers part) One thing that isn't explored enough is the trade in West African gold, which I believe may have been substantial since at least Carthaginian times. The gold fields were usually kept secret, so you wouldn't expect many detailed written histories on the subject. They really need to get those chemical analysis done ASAP... Angus McBride's interpretation of Carthaginian traders in the Tichitt region of the South Western Sahara (they are ancestral to the Serer/Bafour/Mande peoples): The other thing that is constantly ignored, and this really grinds my gears, is the important role that the Kingdom of Kush played as an intermediary between Ancient, Greek and Roman Egypt and Sub Saharan Africa. They were by far the most powerful, wealthy and advanced civilization that stretched well into Sub-Saharan Africa, and their North-South trade was very strongly established since pre-Dynastic times, and continued on a large scale even after the fall of Meroë, up until the Islamic conquest of North Africa. Whatever volumes were traded across the Western Sahara during Antiquity, I am very confident that they paled in comparison to the volumes and variety of goods traded along the length of the Nile river. Kushite/Upper Nile Valley trade relations with more Western regions along the Sudanic belt, passing through Darfur are almost completely ignored in academia, but an important part of the puzzle in my opinion. In addition, there is a very large corpus of detailed depictions of Sub Saharan Africans in a Hellenic and Hellenistic context, of people with explicit Nilo-Saharan features (I'll make a separate post about this, because it's even more substantial than I originally realized) as well as a large amount of Sub Saharans in Roman art, many with Nilo Saharan features as well. And there is a wealth of not often cited written histories referring to these people as well, but even established researchers tend to get pretty lazy when it comes to Sub Saharan topics. Also the Byzantine relations with Christian Nubia (The Kingdoms of Nobatia, Makuria and Alodia) and with Christian Ethiopia (Aksumite empire) were direct and substantial, to say the least. The video did mention Aksum, but still didn't come close to really exposing the nature of the kingdom at the time. Oh well. I have this gnawing, purely conjectural feeling that Septimius Flaccus expedition to lake Chad may have wrecked some serious havoc in the region and may have even contributed to the terminal decline of the Nok Culture, by disrupting their trade networks to the Lake Chad region. As I said, just conjecture on my part , but I feel that the possibilty needs to be explored, as the dates coincide..

I was like:

Interesting question! For Kushites specifically, I don't really have an answer. Hammering stones (handheld, rounded boulder type rocks) were used, in Kush as well as in Ancient Egypt. As for proper hammers, I only read a description of a relief depicting a "hammer like object", but I haven't actually seen the relief. Other tools like tongs and chisels were also used. carving mallets are depicted in stone and wood working in Ancient Egypt and variants of this may have been used for smithing? In a Greco-Roman context, proper hammers, sort of like we know them today were definitely in use:

I think it's obviously a bad idea... You need to scout to assess the strength of your enemies. Seeing live scores makes it so easy to pick off the weaker players, and shouldn't be allowed in MP matches in my opinion.

@Genava55 Thanks, very interesting, and nice to see more of this info disseminated to a larger audience I do feel like he missed a lot... It's actually not a video of "Roman trade with Africa", but more a video of "Roman trade on the Indian Ocean". His maps aren't that accurate. And no mention of Kush Rhapta (in modern day Tanzania), Nicon and Sarapion were much further South than his map depicts. Nubia wasn't a term used in the 1st century. The Kingdom of Kush was actually a much more important trading partner with Rome than his glossing over the region suggests, and unlike the "primary" sources he refers to (the writings of the Periplus of the Erythraean Sea which deals specifically with the Indian Ocean trade), the evidence of Roman-Kushite trade can be clearly seen in the archaeological record, as well as other written sources. Also, how could he not mention Nero's "peaceful but not so innocent" expedition to find the source of the Nile, in collaboration with the reigning Kushite monarch? There is no mention of the Roman trading expeditions to West Africa No mention of Cornelius Balbus expedition, who defeated the Garamantes in 19 BC and sent an expedition further South that reached a huge river, probably the Niger river! Roman coins and apparently even ceramics were found in Mali... No mention of Suetonius Paulinus expedition which may have reached the Senegal River. Roman coins and fibula attest to commercial links at least as far south as modern day southern Mauritania. No mention of Septimius Flaccus and his joint Roman-Garamantian commercial expedition which reached lake Chad. Likewise no mention of Julius Maternus who also lead a joint Roman-Garamantian commercial expedition to the same area (Central African Republic)

I'm pretty sure their "ammo" was refilled on the fly by some poor servant dudes running all over the battlefield as needed. Or they'd retire to their baggage train to refill (and have little drink and rest in between the fighting). Also, if there are archers on both sides, both sides would have people running around collecting the "spent" enemies' arrows lying all over the place.. I suspect the same for sling rocks. "Infinte" ammo is an acceptable RTS abstraction in my opinion. The main issue isn't even the ranged units themselves... It's that directionality of shields' defense is not taken into account. Firing arrows at a shield wall isn't quite the same as shooting them from the back, or the sides, or shooting at unarmored units. Combined with battalions and working formations, adding directional defense into the game would really add some tactical depth, and make battles feel more like actual battles instead of mosh pits.

Asking the real questions here... I'm curious myself!

Archers have a higher rate of fire and can be massed. Slingers need more space to sling, but have a higher range. Slingers are for long range harassing. Archery can get more "up close and personal" (because of the massed effect, they're just as lethal "up close", but slingers can't mass, so the closer you get to them, the lower the density of projectiles heading your way).

My point was that in different places and contexts, you'd find different types of archery techniques. Persian archers in pitched battles like Gaugamela would operate significantly differently from Nubian archers employing guerrilla tactics like at the First Battle of Dongola. Clearly there was some trick archery going on there. I'm not saying that they were somersaulting all over the place like Lars But aiming for the eyes, for sport, in the midst of battle, while hanging from an elephant, or hitting exactly those parts of the body that your enemy was taunting you to hit, like with the Arabs... Sounds pretty epic to me. PS: This stuff is also very relevant/worth investigating for your Nomadic Civs, because those guys weren't your run of the mill archers either.

Sorry, I added this line before you quoted me:

The title of thread is: "Are there balancing changes planned for A24?"
 Instead of discussing this, the thread is becoming another hack and slash on 0AD's flawed gameplay mechanics. That's not what this thread was about and that's not what borg's mod is about. Obviously the one affects the other, but they're separate subjects. There are glaring balance issues that have little to do with gameplay, but which affect the enjoyability of competitive matches. Battering ram shenanigans. Slinger spam. Only 3-4 civs are played competitively. Underused units. etc. Borg is not a master of C++ to my knowledge. He is one of the best, or the best players out there and he has a lovely demeanor as well. He helps and teaches people how to play. He has used his experience and his skillsets to improve the balance of the game, with the stated intention of addressing many of the issues that many players have brought up repeatedly. If a team of experienced players commit to playtesting the mod and ironing out potential flaws, then we're looking at a tangible improvement in one aspect of the game. WHICH IS A GOOD THING. Regardless of whether it addresses core gameplay issues. That's a different subject, handled by different people with a different expertise. Borg's balance mod has been hugely constructive in terms of addressing some of the recurring issues that competitive players, as well as single players have complained about. Try to do your best to facilitate and improve on his productiveness!
 As for gameplay, don't get me wrong, I think 0AD can do way better. And we should actively try to overhaul (parts of) it. Unlike what some people say, 0AD is loads of fun. Otherwise none of us would be here. But it could be a lot better. Our biggest problem is lack of manpower. This is obvious. But some of the discussions on gameplay do little to inspire people to work on it. Quite the opposite. Even if I had the skills, which I don't, I'd be very hesitant to put my hand in this wasp nest. I had recently actually typed more than 4 pages of condensed suggestions for 0AD, thought through over a period of several months, many of which address gameplay one way or the other, but decided not to write it out and share it because it was obvious to me at the time that every capable person is already buried neck-deep in work. A lot of things that aren't immediately noticeable to the end user but are necessary, and often boring tasks just to keep this project going. Then my computer flipped out on me and I lost all my brilliant and not so brilliant suggestions (a sign, perhaps?). Anyway, my point is basically, learn C++ and javascript if your passion lies with improving gameplay mechanics. Seriously, we need the people! Be brave, put in the work, even if nothing comes out of it. That's the risk, and always will be. But at least you might actually learn something in the process, and inspire a more capable person to pick up the cause, or support you efferts. If you're not willing to put in the work, try to find people who are, outside of the small and already overworked pool of talented, yet under appreciated contributors. Scour forums of programmers and game-developers for capable and willing individuals. Talk to capable people in your environment, or make some publicity for 0AD on Youtube/social media, with the intention of "recruiting" people. We need people that understand what free and open source means. People that have the strength to walk the whole nine yards. Not more people that have pages of suggestions but can't do anything about it themselves and expect it to just be done, like a teenager that never folds the laundry but always has a closet full of fresh, clean clothes, and never even thinks of where they came from. @DarcReaver I agree whole heartedly that 0AD shouldn't try to be another AoE clone. But deciding what it shouldn't be is a lot easier than deciding which one of the infinite other possibilities it should be. Reaching a consensus seems to be one of the hardest things in the process. It's obvious that we all have our own ideal RTS in our mind, and it's also obvious that our definitions of ideal RTS are wildly divergent. We're all going to have to make compromises somewhere. But it shouldn't feel like a sacrifice. We need to develop a shared vision, in order to manufacture consent for our ideas. We need to foster good relations, first and foremost, because the most valuable resource to our disposal is the human resource. People need to want to work on something, not be made to feel inadequate, even though mountains have been moved over the past few years. I'm not saying you need to sweet talk anyone, just recognizing the work that has been done so far (I remember a time when 50 units would lag out the game, there were only a handful of civs, no walls, no MP, barely any gameplay at all... A complete mess, basically) [Pause Writing: there are pigs on the land! The same ones that had me up last night wondering if I'm being burglarized... Going to chase them away now. Update: The pigs are hostile! I repeat, THE PIGS ARE HOSTILE! Sending in the dogs... Hmmm, the dogs made the pigs bleed... Good! (Don't worry, the pigs are fine, just shaken) Bye Bye pigs. Doggos get some nice fish as reward. Good boys End Pause] Yes, I love art, history (antiquity in particular), variety, the ability to build a town, raise an army, murder the living daylights out of my opponents, or fight for survival. Those things make the game compelling to me, as for many others. Yes, the gameplay can be a little lackluster sometimes, but baby steps man, baby steps. It's only been about 15 odd years or so, give it some time, jeez Just kidding... Like I said, we need manpower. Without the right people with the right skills, we're going to be having these kind of discussions for many years to come. It's not as simple as just deciding what to do. Someone has to actually do it. And without pay, that might take a while. Also, just because the game isn't progressing as fast in the areas you'd like it to be progressing doesn't mean that there hasn't been stellar evolution in the quality, stability, performance and art of the game.. Not a personal attack, just a general observation. Obviously you do And that's not a bad thing. My point is, just to do what you can do. If you don't want to anymore, that's fine. But try to keep the criticisms constructive. 0AD and Wildfire Games forum are large communities. Even if we don't see eye to eye on some topics, there's always a myriad of other items we can work on, together, or separate. It doesn't matter how, as long as it mutually benefits us, there's reason to continue working on the project and sharing our progress as well. I see you're still around helping people here and there, so again, not necessarily a personal comment, just a general sentiment.

This discussion is weird. There's serious balance issues with the game. Borg made a balance mod to address these issues. Big success, no negative feedback. Help Borg implement those balance changes that don't affect core gameplay/historicity etc. in the vanilla game. If you're unhappy with the balance changes, then comment something substantive on what you'd like to see changed and why. This discussion is turning into borg having to defend why he improved gameplay. It's making me cringe... Don't behave like an autoimmune disease.

That's pretty darn cool... Are you sure it's best to just spawn resources like that on arrival? Wouldn't it be better for the resource trickle to go directly to the player that controls the trade post. If nobody controls the trade post the camel just passes? Anyway, really cool job! I'm sure @wowgetoffyourcellphone might be interested in implementing something like that on some of his new maps...

This is gold Apparently the old woman that threw the tile was the mother of the soldier that King Pyrrhus was fighting Somebody should make a movie about this guy's life...

Wow, I need to play the game more often... I never even noticed that. perfect. My reservations are hereby cancelled. Blemmyes and Nuba were semi nomadic peoples that liked to show up and settle where they don't belong, causing all kinds of havoc, so being able to build in neutral territory does actually fit their character very well

From Preview: Medewi 2.0, a TW mod (ignore every other unit in that roster... Way too much conjecture/speculation and plain wrong equipment) This unit didn't actually look so bad. I actually quite like it. Quilted cotton armour for the rider should have long sleeves, and extend down to as low as the knees. Quilted cotton armour for the horse shouldn't extend to their heads.

I agree with build time. Still somewhat skeptical about being able to build them in neutral territory. Seems logical/fun/intuitive, but it risks upsetting the balance in the opposite direction.

Nice man!

@jaytee These might help

Balance isn't my strong suit, so I just went along with what the balance guys did. I have no strong feelings about the suggestion. As long as you don't add any wrong units to them, it seems cool to be able to build them in neutral territory. But if they're cheap and quick to build in neutral territory you could theoretically spam them at your enemy's border which I could imagine being very frustrating in a negative way.. Skirm spams are annoying as it is. The problem with Kushites is that their archers seem underpowered. Slingers can't take on experienced archers because in real life you can't mass slingers. They need a lot more room to operate. The problem isn't that Kushites are underpowered per se. It's that slingers are overpowered. This keeps coming up, and it needs to be fixed. Tweaking the stats in everything but slingers is dancing around the problem. Solve the slinger issue. They were not the champions of the battlefield. They're a support role. Kushite archers on the other hand aren't a support role. They used archery much more offensively (front line action).

I think, like with the Greek civs, there is supposed to be some (minor) overlap between the models of Kushites and Ptolemies (only having a few "Ancient Egyptian" style house variants for both of them would be good enough in my opinion). Ptolemies are very distinguishable as is, and if Lordgood continues his Hellenization project, I'm sure they will continue to be more than distinguishable enough from other Greek civs and Kushites alike, for the man knows what he's doing I think the slightly desaturated textures that Wow is using look excellent.

@stanislas69 or @feneur, could you remove @jaytee's post limit?