Sundiata

That sounds pretty cool... Daco-Thracians, mmmm.... Considering eagle hunting is most prevalent in Mongolia today, the Xiongnu should definitely have this ability if implementable (Chinese sources mention the practice), and there seems to be evidence for Scythians practicing it as well, making it a perfect general Nomadic civ trait, to help mitigate their lack of farming. Seems to be another thing women excelled at. Female Eagle Huntresses: I don't see why? They weren't 100% horseback all the time. But when they campaign, it was all horses, so I think that created the impression they literally all ride horses all the time. In very general terms: even when migrating, there would have been a lot of walking involved as well. They have slow moving animals like sheep, goats and cattle and their carts don't usually travel at light speed either (and would need regular pushing, and pulling). Don't forget the old folk, pregnant women, and babies. Families and clans would usually have a highly mobile component of riders and a less mobile component: the household and the rest of the family. Everybody also forgets that they ruled over sedentary populations as well (Northern China, Tarim Basin, Sogdiana, Black Sea Coast etc). Especially at their height (Huns, Scythians and Xiongnu), the wealthier families/clans/tribes, whatever, had access to a lovely array of slaves whom I doubt would be given horses. Cavalry having a building ability reminds me of the Maurya elephant being able to build by itself. How did that ever pass the review? We were arguing about elephants' "siege" capabilities, meanwhile some of our elephants are freakin' architects, engineers and construction workers all in one, as well as being a mobile drop-site on top of that... Of course, for the Nomadic civs, I'd change my mind if dismounting units ever becomes a thing.

@wowgetoffyourcellphone, two words: Eagle Hunting I think it took out a fox in the video, but I've seen video's of these babies taking out wolves as well!!! Would make for a very unique specialized hunting unit. Wouldn't be simple to implement I assume, but sooo epic. Perhaps even as a scout unit, although I'm not sure whether they outfitted their eagles with go-pro's in the BC era. Might have to check up on that. Also, why is throat singing so freakin' epic?!?! Some Turkic folk music (that flute, so simple, so perfect...): Top random youtube comment: "These people usually hunt wolves and foxes, but occasionally they conquer the world"

Ooooh, yes please

Having a first person mode to walk around your town and explore the map up-close would be sublime though. Adding some simplified arcade-style first person battle mechanics would be hilarious. Maybe just for SP?

You made me laugh. I like that.

Individually upgrading CC's could help. "city phase" for the Scythians would give them access to permanent structures? For Xiongnu could also provide access to fortifications in "city phase"...

Cool! They should have a bunch of female warriors. The Xiongnu and Scythians probably more so than the Huns? For Xiongnu, the women can be embedded in the regular troops, but it would be nice to also have a dedicated "Amazon" unit for the Scythians. I guess that's what you mean with egalitarianism? I've read somewhere that an estimated 1/3 of Scythian warrior tombs belonged to women and there are apparently Xiongnu female warrior tombs as well. Xiongnu should have access to walls of rammed earth, stronger than palisades, weaker than stone walls. Scythians should indeed have access to the most impressive type of fortifications for the "nomadic" civs (heavy stone walls, Greek influence in the Black Sea area), forming a sort of in-between civ with a "settlement" option as you indicated (Scythian Neapolis) and can even have a wonder: "The mausoleum of the Scythian rulers of Neapolis", also known as the "tomb of Skilurus": (or we could just pretend it's a castle? ) Scythians should also have access to the most elaborate armours (extensive use of scale and leather, and even Greek influences). They should look like the most opulent "nomadic civ". Their team bonus could be trade related ((proto-)silk road). All three could have heavy loot bonuses: Sounds perfectly appropriate!

Yeah, most of us aren't prepubescents playing a free game we found in the cereal box anymore...

I also wonder about this... I sometimes execute my units for their insubordination. Simply can't allow such insolence...

Yeah, exactly... To be fair, I've had loads of fun as well, and had more positive experiences than negative. We're just more sensitive to negative occurrences, and the quitters are a little too regular to ignore. Sure, but it's not always easy to get into those epic team-games (especially if you looked at my rating), and although it's nice to play with people you "know", it's also nice to play with random strangers (why does that sound so wrong?). In the 1V1 games, somebody would usually ask me if i wanted to play, and if I said yes, more than 50% chance they'd intentionally break the connection when loosing. I couldn't host games myself for some reason, so that's why I was at the mercy of those guys. I should try hosting myself again...

Jeez, so many weirdo's... I haven't been playing alpha 23 online, but I played a bunch of MP-games the previous alpha, and my lord, so many weirdo's. I had lots of fun as well of course, but literally more than half of my 1V1 games, the host cut the connection when I was overrunning their base... The games often start out casual enough. A little chit chat... Nothing out of the ordinary, and then when they start loosing, they go quiet... You still see them making moves, trying not to get slaughtered, and then bam, connection lost... It's not like I was only playing noobs. Sometimes I did, but I'd help them, even if they were my opponent, I'd give them tips on what to do and what not, some insights into the mechanics, and I'd play casually, allowing them to build and attack. We'd both end up having fun while the newbie is learning. But the ones that are all about the rating sometimes start out arrogant, trying to trigger you... When you stay calm and don't respond to the trolling, they get even more upset, and then when they see they've lost, they really loose it... I've had a lot of weird experiences. People would ask me where I'm from, then ban me the moment I answer... This happened often. Maybe they assumed slow internet, which could happen, not lying, but almost always, lag was coming from another player, and when I play with guys with good connection, I hardly ever have any problems at all... I've had some N-words thrown at me (although that didn't happen often) and I've had people unhappy about "allowing an African" in team-games. I remember annihilating a guy like that in a team-game, he got even angrier about an African in the game and started saying no-one should allow Africans in their games because we "eat cats", and then ranted a little about muslims... I don't eat cats by the way (nor do I know anybody personally that does), and I'm not muslim either, although I don't understand what would be the problem. I know plenty of delightful muslims. Either way, totally irrelevant, right? I've played in games where the host bans his own allies because they weren't playing the way he wanted them to play... I mean, jeez... Or those guys that change the settings last minute right when every-one else clicked stay ready, to suit their own personal preference. Or those simpletons that blame everyone else for their own short-commings and start hurling insults in all directions. I wonder if they cry themselves to sleep after checking the summery statistics... It's amazing how uncivilized some people can be, playing a game of ancient civilizations... Anyway, I guess that's the internet for ya... One of the reasons I'd like to see more in-depth SP mechanics. The AI has much better manners.

Ooooh, we disagree I wasn't being an apologetic when I was a kid reading genesis. I was used to the literal interpretation, but when I read it for myself, it didn't make sense to look at this ancient text as something literal. If you're a little familiar with ancient Egyptian religion for example, you'll see that the gods all represent ideas. The stories are just for "kids", but the deeper knowledge that was studied by the priests included mathematics, astronomy, architecture, medicine, philosophy etc... I definitely think that a lot of people interpreted it literally, but those people were commoners, and their interpretations nearly irrelevant, considering they were not the ones producing this stuff. Mystic knowledge is past on between initiated individuals, not through the entire population. Priests were the "scientists" of the ancient day, and the knowledge they possessed with regard to the movement of the sun, moon and stars for example, was used to determine the calendar (when do the rains come, when to plant, when do eclipses occur, when do certain comets pass). We take these things for granted today, but more than 99% of the population today wouldn't be able make such predictions without consulting the news, who in turn consult astronomers among others... Ancient religious texts like the bible are chockfull of parables and metaphors... Stories sometimes borrowed from other cultures. The accuracy and exact sequence of events in the story is not nearly as important as the underlying message it conveys. The plebs might tunnel vision on "miracles", but theologians aren't interested in supernatural events, per se, they rather seek to see the relevance of God in the everyday natural world. The mystics and deeper truths behind religious texts are rarely understood by the masses. Take the Quran for example, with its mathematical literary composition and structure. It's insane... Meanwhile most people can barely do math in the first place, let alone recognize it in a religious text. Most of these religious texts started out as oral traditions. This means that the keepers of those traditions knew the entire text by heart! Meanwhile most religious people can't even be bothered to even read their religious texts in their entirety, let alone memorize it... Also, ancient Greeks were a very diverse bunch. Again, I don't doubt that a majority of the population probably took these stories about gods and titans and monsters and what not literally, but Ancient Greece also produced some of the finest thinkers of the ancient world, laying the foundation for Western philosophy (and the god of the philosophers). I believe Socrates and Plato, for example "rejected the Homeric image of the Greek Pantheon". Not to say they were atheists, but their views on theology can hardly be described as conventional. Neither were they unique to those individuals.

Although I'm not a fan of the literalist approach to interpreting thousands year old mystic literature, you need to keep in mind that the Bible is a large collection of transcribed oral traditions with obvious parallels in other Middle Eastern traditions and even some Egyptian influences. The editors of the "final" written versions would not always have been as familiar with all the original source-material, and therefore might not always have even known that they were merging/conflating stories, or even be 100% aware of the underlying messages accumulated over many centuries. The first time I read Genesis I was a kid, and even then it seemed obvious to me that this stuff isn't literal. I always interpreted the "days" in which the Earth and the universe were created as eras, rather than literal days. How can a "day" for God be the same as a day for man? Also, god creates "mankind in his own image" on the 6th "day" in Genesis 1. It doesn't say anything about Adam. Then the 7th day comes and the lord rests. Then comes the story of Adam and Eve and the garden of Eden. It doesn't say they were the first people. This is demonstrated in Genesis 4, in the story of Cain and Able. When the Lord condemns Cain to be a wanderer on the earth, Cain cries out "whoever finds me will kill me." Who is he talking about, if supposedly he, his father and his mother are the first and only people in the world? He clearly referred to Able as his brother, so if he's talking about his later unnamed brothers and sisters, why doesn't he call them his brothers and sisters like normal people would. Further into Genesis 4, Cain makes love to his wife. Where in the world is she coming from?? And one sentence later he's building a city. For who??? Adam and Eve are a beginning of a special line of people, a chosen people, but not necessarily the first. The bible seems to differentiates between the sons of Adam, and the sons of Man. Either way, non of it is clearcut, and was never meant to be, imo. The dominant narrative today is just one of the interpretations that people "agreed" upon at some point in time. The flood-myth is irrelevant from a scientific perspective, which is logical considering that it was written down well over 2000 years before the development of modern science... But the fact that that it's a recurring theme the world round is interesting to say the least... As mentioned earlier, the combination of local flooding events and the global rise in sea level would have undoubtedly contributed to the spread of such stories, as well as the shared heritage of many Middle-Eastern accounts, further blurring the lines between fact and fiction.

Lol! I enjoyed those movies a lot when I was a kid... Should probably rewatch them... This scene always stuck with me... Poor assassin... Don't bring a sword to a gunfight eh... ;';===

That whip though What do you think about Star Citizen?

Another interesting note is that global sea levels have risen by 130 meters since the last glacial maximum, c. 20.000 years ago, rising more than 100 meters over a 7000 year period from 14.000 years to 7000 years ago. Not exactly a sudden deluge, but it's effects on pre-historic human populations and their movement (often traveling and living on the coastlines) would have been significant, and definitely left some kind of mark on the collective global memory. Areas between landmasses which were previously connected and probably "densely" populated according to Pre-Historic standards became submerged: British Isles and Europe were connected, the Aegean sea and islands used to be coastal plains, The Adriatic, Black and Caspian Seas were much smaller, the Bering straight, South-East Asian Islands and the Asian mainland (Sundaland), Australia and Papua New Guinea, India and Sri Lanka, Arabian Peninsula and Iran Korean Peninsula and China (perhaps even Japan) Distance between Yemen and the horn of Africa became negligible Basically every coastline of the world was affected.

Maybe you should check out Terra Magna mod for those Xiongnu I think we all want Scythians

Basically Xiongnu with lots of Germanic mercs? Nice... Here's the source for the Total War emblem. Not too shabby... Other Hunnish stuff:

I didn't say Mauryan fortifications, did I? (although even they were built with multiple moats) I don't know anything about the specifics about the design of perishable wooden doors on the gates of 2000+ year old fortifications... God knows I'm not looking at Viking gate designs for inspiration... I'm looking at Indian gates of later times to extrapolate what earlier Indian gates may have looked like. This is a necessary step if you're going to feature things like doors in a game representing 2000+ year old civs. Or we could just start scrapping everything that doesn't have a primary period reference, like 90% of the Carthaginian civ and about 50% of everything else. Also, we do actually have period Maurya references about elephants assaulting fortifications. The Arthashastra mentions something called nagarayanam, the art of assailing forts and cities with elephants.... It is clear from all three of those references that elephants of the attacking armies advanced up to the actual fortifications breaking through the earthworks in the third example... Also, please allow me to quote myself from the previous page on this very thread: So as you can see, I'm not arguing that elephants are siege-equipment, or that it should be their primary purpose. BUT, the idea that elephants have any problem with destroying buildings is 100% ridiculous. As I said, a fortified wall might be a little much, but what do you think most ancient structures were built from anyway? I'll give you a hint, it's like 90% clay/mud/brick/wood/straw... As I said before, Asian elephants can way more than 5 tons. Their hide is so thick it takes specialized rifles to shoot them. Their tusks, without blood vessels, are way denser than bone, and are actually enlarged teeth, embedded 1/3 into their skull. Ivory is a natural "high strength nano composite". I mean, they use it to fight other 5 ton elephants... I'd like to emphasize (again) that elephants weren't primarily used as siege-equipment, but removing this very soft abstraction from the game (not really even an abstraction, more like a rarity), whilst swords and spears and even arrows can take down structures, is utterly ridiculous in my opinion. In addition to that, I don't even see the problem with elephants. They're super vulnerable as it is. An elephant sent to attack a garrisoned fortress in-game, simply dies... In addition, they are often too unwieldy to use effectively on the battlefield. I'm just going to end this post with angry elephants trashing stuff so you people will grow some respect for the destructive powers of the mighty elephant I'll end with a picture I took myself of some African elephants

To be fair, I don't think there's much specifics available about taking down gates during sieges of 500 -1 BC in general... The Carthaginians for example are based almost entirely on very limited secondary sources and other civs like the Seleucids are obscure. Even the Ptolemies leave many unanswered questions, including about their use of war-elephants, and the Kushite war-elephants are also attested from rare finds, not from thoroughly documented period battle reports specifying siege tactics. Elephants were notorious for breaking down gates on the Indian subcontinent, to the extent that fortifications were specifically being designed to withstand elephant attacks (pikes on gates and a secondary lower wall, to keep whoever is on the back of the elephant from scaling the primary wall). The Mauryas are in the game... Elephants seem to have been an element during sieges... As much a liability as an asset, but an element nonetheless. So they were also used to break sieges. So perhaps that should be one of their explicit bonuses. They'd need to be more mobile than they are now though... Can't their obstruction box or whatever be reduced in size to allow them to move more smoothly. I mean, it's an organic unit, not a rigid log. Male Asian elephants weigh more than 5 tons, and wild elephants routinely destroy entire villages in some parts of South Asia. Breaking down a fortified wall seems a little much, but simple structures are no problem. Also, I like your avatar...

This would be so nice... The first slow projectile representing the actual digging of the tunnel, would generate a moving decal of disturbed earth until it hits the wall. The following projectiles could generate dust at the base of the wall, representing the actual sapping. Maybe this could be done by specialized one-time sapping units trained at the siege-workshop. Like, three grimy guys with shovels. One-time units, because, let's face it, those poor saps probably didn't have a high survival rate, and I assume it would make coding a little easier if they just die at the end of the attack. They would build a simple tunnel entrance, and then enter, disappearing from sight. Then it would be like 4 slow "bullets": one bullet for digging, generating the decal, and three bullets for each of the sappers. The first bullet only generates the decal. The following three bullets generate dust at the base of the wall. After the final "bullet" hits, the wall collapses (and your sappers die/disappear under the rubble, a worthy sacrifice). You would just task the sappers to attack a wall or any other structure of choice, and they would automatically construct the tunnel entrance at the same site siege-equipment would choose to unpack, out of range of the towers of whatever it's attacking. The entrance to the tunnel (looking like a small mine entrance) can be destroyed by the enemy, thereby killing the sappers (lack of oxygen). (the disturbed ground decal would slowly dissipate over time) So we need a code-charmer huh... Anyone feel compelled? I think most people want this. Also, units specialized at taking out rams, like sword units, shouldn't ignore rams on the battlefield. It's good that that ranged units automatically focus on organic units, but swordsmen should give equal priority to killing organic and inorganic units like siege and rams. This would do a lot to eliminate unnecessary/unnatural/annoying micro when there's rams on the battlefield.

The subterranean slow bolt shooter thing didn't work out? Any plans to make it less hacky? Twas pretty cool... And mind you, I was originally skeptical towards sapping techniques in RTS-games...

Ah, indeed. As it's been brought up before more than once though, including in this thread, elephants weren't primarily used for sieging, although they could definitely take down simple structures and ram gates. Elephants were more of a risky elite battlefront unit, used to scare the living daylights of anyone on the other side. Their ability to take down structures should be a nice extra, but not their main feature. That task belongs to proper siege equipment. Wasn't @LordGood working on a tunneling mechanic to undermine walls? That's another siege-tactic that was pretty universally used (and effective), and can help mitigate the lack in other siege-equipment for some civs.

I've mentioned it before, but I think every civilization needs a battering ram as the standard close range siege-equipment. It's not some kind of technological marvel that only the brightest thinkers of the ancient world could figure out. It's just a glorified log to smash down a door... (see the Xiongnu ram) As with many civ-specific details in this game, the fact that some civs have rams and others don't doesn't seem to be based on anything tangible/not based in history. It's rather a cheap way of differentiating civs. The reason this annoys me, like starting walls for the Iberians or free houses for the Ptolemies, is that they not only seem to be poorly thought out, but actual historical nuances between the civs that make sense are continually shunned for "balance" concerns.

0AD needs a civilian aspect with villagers forming the backbone of the economy. It's really that simple... Citizen soldier concept should remain, but they should have bonuses for building military structures, and penalties for gathering resources, so that villager units are the logical go-to for all economic activities, citizen soldiers only being used for eco during an emergency/expansion. This means "women" will become villagers, 50/50 men/women. As mentioned in another topic, specific female representation can be preserved through a specialized healer unit trained at the temple (female clergy). Male priests would be used to boost general attack stats instead (morale, when implemented). Generals and the likes could influence other attack stats, relating to formations or battalions.