Sundiata

@Alexandermb Some suggestion for barracks: Middle piece of the structure overhanging the courtyard seems a little disjointed from the model, so I'd suggest integrating it as part of the building (see roof). The upper and lower half of the building also feel a little disjointed because of textures clashing. Letting the entire top story be made of brick reduces the clashing effect of the large beige patch (and makes more sense, structurally). I believe you forgot the sides of the roof. Added some windows to the front of the top story

Basically, `sorry, we're not quite ready yet, please wait another year or two`. is exactly what they should have said. It causes frustration among some, but even more anticipation among others. Eitherway, force releasing an unfinished game is really not an acceptable option, and waiting to release it for bug-fixing and polishing would have gained the respect of many.. Yeah, they did obviously put a tremendous amount of work and love into it, and definitely deserve due credit... That's why I think it's such a pity that they released so early, because the current state of the game reflects badly on them, and they were pretty close (sort of) to making something really nice.... This will be lost on most people now, because all they see is an unfinished game. If they ran out of funds, that would be a really sad reason for this. I wish them success on their future projects, but I hope they learnt a lot from this situation.

I disagree completely with that. Why wouldn't you buy it after an extra year of development. At least the people following them would see they're serious about the game... Releasing early feels like a failed cash-grab/desperation. I agree with all the rest though They've basically made themselves to be the No Man's Sky of RTS...

Hmmm... I wouldn't know... Surely, they must have some skills we could cannibalize, no? We could definitely learn something from their publicity... They made it look like the next best thing in classic RTS, even though its not even 1/10th of 0AD... How does Empires Apart actually compare to AoE definitive edition? Curious about AoE IV, when is it coming out and what could we expect from it? I think once campaigns start being implemented, 0AD is going to be the undeniable king of the historical RTS games... (I already think it is, but some people are all about the campaigns) I think Wildfiregames is one of the most interesting development environments out there (not that I know so much about it), and the nature of this community comes with its own challenges, but it also seems to be the most potent! It's really fascinating to see so many volunteers working together, essentially on whatever suits them. This "who the shoe fit, let them wear it" approach has really brought so many wonderfully interesting levels of detail to the game. There is just so much here... The dynamic and constantly growing community also adds a lot. Its not a static team with dogmatic views, but is constantly adapting to new people, skills and resources. New possibilities are constantly being explored, tested and adapted... It's lovely to imagine who might come up with what next In a random response to the critiques of 0AD. It is indeed not a finished game, and this is not a secret. But to be fair, most issues like lag on large maps/high pop and pathfinding issues affect every other similar RTS, and 0AD has progressed enormously over the years. It's almost as if 15 years of development is finally bearing fruit , the sweetest fruits in the genre I can only dream of what Beta will be like, let alone a mythical official release of the finished game... I don't mind the perpetual development though. Its one of the biggest plus points of 0AD. It constantly gets updated (I hope forever), so none of us really know what the future may hold. If we look at the trajectory, its going to be the most AWESOME RTS ever! Yeah, and we'd probably have to delete this entire thread as well because, you know... Although I'm sure some of them would have already read it Dillema's...

Send them a mail: "So, we noticed Empires Apart falling apart. A real pity, but not to worry. Just come on over to wildfiregames and apply your skills to 0AD instead. Help give birth to the real dream-RTS that Empires Apart wanted to be. Also, forget about money. Or fame. Or crappy textures."

I kind of feel bad for these guys... I wanted to like it. I don't really understand what happened. It was a nice project with lots of potential but they shot themselves in the foot by releasing it so early... Looks like they could have really used another year of development... Maybe the budget ran out, and they just "needed" to start making sales?

I endorse splitting this discussion So, what exactly are the disadvantages of writing in word and exporting to pdf, for a simple country boy like me? which text editor exactly would you recommend (that works flawlessly with mac)?

Thank you All! For those of you that haven't realized yet, "The Kushites" will feature in the next release of the vanilla version of 0 A.D.: Empires Ascendant. Naturally, I couldn't be be more excited about this It is the culmination of 16 months of research and development. An epic collaboration between many esteemed (volunteer) members of the Wildfire Games Forum. This mammoth task would absolutely not have been possible without the contributions, support and interest from the community, and for this I will be forever grateful! It has been an absolute honor to collaborate with you all, and I sincerely hope to continue this collaboration on other projects as well. I would like to take the opportunity to formally thank the following people, who were instrumental in getting this project off the ground (apologies for tag-spam): @LordGood: The Master Modeler... Miracle Man... The Virtual Architect... The Guru... Imhotep Himself! @wowgetoffyourcellphone: The Master Modder... The Bringer to Life of the first playable incarnation of the Kushites... The man with a million good ideas! @stanislas69: The dude that made the major commit. The Tireless Fixer of Things. The skilled texture and modeling artist. The organizer! @elexis: The Code Charmer, Maker of Worlds (maps), also a tireless fixer of things, getting things done! @wackyserious: Commander of the Wardrobe, The Digital Fashion Designer, Maker of Units! @Hannibal_Barca: The Statistician, Master of the Tightrope, balance is his game! @Alexandermb: Maker of all sorts of Things, Lord of the Horses, The Virtual Weapon Smith... @Lion.Kanzen: Spanglish Man, Fashioner of Emblems, your enthusiasm should inspire us all! @balduin: Maker of the first Github, Organizer of Info, Asker of Questions @Skhorn: The City Planner, Major of Napata, Builder of the Great Temple Complex at Jebel Barkal @Sundiata: The Man That Just Tagged Himself, Knower of Things, the "could-you-maybe-do-it-like-that"-guy In addition to that list, a number of individuals contributed significantly behind the scenes in fields I honestly barely understand (code/balancing/testing) and provided invaluable feedback: @mimo @temple @Imarok @Grugnas @borg- @s0600204 @Itms @feneur @Pureon Thank you all!!! And thank you for the many likes and kind words of support for this topic: @Servo, @shieldwolf23, @GunChleoc, @av93, @fatherbushido, @Loki1950, @tuk0z, @Palaxin, @Prodigal Son, @Enrique, @Desophaeus, @AgamemnonPhlemnon, @Zophim, @Juli51, @SDM, @Nescio, @niektb and others. I sincerely apologize to anyone I may have left out (let me know) The second reason I tagged you all is because: In preparation for the next release and future reference purposes, the original post that started this whole journey has been completely and comprehensively re-written and updated. All images have been replaced by higher quality versions (directly uploaded to the server) and hundreds more have been added. Almost everything that was used as a reference in the creation of this new faction can be seen there, and so much more. I wished to update it further and eliminate some spelling mistakes and awkward sentences + more detail (I tried), but alas, I am no longer able to edit it any further. A more comprehensive and updated pdf version will be made available in the coming months. Feel free to give it a read and provide feedback. Maybe you might get some future ideas / see something I missed / improvements for the Kushites in-game: Maybe some of you reading might be wondering, what makes the addition of this civ so special? Why is the research so important to this guy? Simply put, it was a labor of love. Kushite history has been unduly obscured for a very long time, but times have changed. This is the most historically accurate representation of the Kushites in a computer game ever, and one of the first times that the Kushites even feature at all. Only Rise of Nations features the "Nubians" in the standard version and there are a few mods and DLC's (for Civilization VI (Nubians) and Total War), but they are not all that historically accurate... In fact, the Kushites in 0 A.D. may be the first truly historically accurate African civilization in a game ever. The original research post has become the most richly and accurately illustrated history of Kush ever published on the internet and has formed the backbone for the references of models, units and gameplay. This is the most important Sub Saharan civilization of Antiquity and one of the longest lasting civilizations anywhere. A forgotten powerhouse that should really be remembered. By adding the Kushites, 0AD has also added the only civilization in-game that was invaded by Rome, and successfully maintained their territorial and political integrity. They also stood their ground against Persians and Ptolemies, while reaching high levels of culture in almost every respect, making this new civ a formidable and well fleshed out faction. Diverse, and absolutely beautiful! Once again, thank you all! And most importantly, have fun playing!

Awesome! How about 12% opacity? Or you're not happy with the texture itself?

@Alexandermb Another minor suggestion for defense tower. Arched widows made to look a little more Roman/Byzantine:

@Alexandermb You meant like the alpha channel thing right (0% saturation, 15-ish% opacity, contrast and level adjustment)

@Alexandermb check minor edit in previous post (white line on CC)

@wowgetoffyourcellphone beautiful! @Alexandermb May I suggest 2 more windows for the front of the church, and 2 for the sides of the CC? [EDIT] and continue the white line on the CC around the corner?

@wackyserious, I appreciate that you appreciate my not so subtle subtleties

Yeah, some props and player colour. And weeds, don't forget some weeds:

I will go to wikipedia soon. That article is generally speaking pretty bad. Actually it's quite terrible.... I get a headache just looking it. So I just need to "mentally prepare" a bit for that. Wikipedia articles can't share hundreds of images either... The visual references are very important. I could spend paragraphs, even pages discussing a Meroitic relief or some statue, or the excavation results from some city somewhere in Kush, for example, or I could just show it to you... Get me? This is the first time this history has been so comprehensively visualized. Anywhere. Ever. Before it was all scattered in the 4 cardinal directions. Wikipedia wouldn't help much in that regard, although I could definitely help it. That's a very good point. I actually reserved one post down (by moving my references into the main article) for images of Kush in popular culture. Those images that aren't necessarily 100% accurate, and therefore don't belong in the original post, but are still relatively accurate and interesting for art-refrences/ideas. I've been thinking for a long time that there should be a dedicated part of the forums for civilizations and their history only (not those puny wiki-pages). Each civ would get its own subforum, with a main history article on the entire history of the civ, fully illustrated, and incorporating as many of the sources actually referenced in the game as possible. These should be easily updatable. I'd offer to write for the other civs, but I think I could only do one every couple of months or so... I'm most familiar with the Gauls, so that could be a start, but I'd definitely help from other history buffs/research enthousiasts like Nescio for Hellenic civs, wowgetoffyourcellphone, lionkanzen and everybody else interested. A sort of in-forum civilization wikipedia (that puts the actual wikipedia to shame, with regard to visual sources, because we don't care about copyrights in the forum anyway, right? Right? No? Yeah? Yeah! Freedom of information for the win! wooot wooot!)

That's definitely in the works... But the point of the first post is that anybody can easily read a complete rundown of Kushite history (fully illustrated), online. So that all this stuff can finally be disclosed to the broader public, because a lot of it actually comes from pdf's and books, which aren't indexed by google, making it seem as if their content doesn't exist on the internet. What's the point of uploading a pdf if it's content can't even be googled... A lot of the juicy stuff was always "hiding" in these difficult to navigate libraries that only experts in the field read. I want to change that The plebs deserve to know about Kush! There are several hundred images in that post now (often grouped in a single large image containing 2, 3 or 4 separate images, to save space). It's already a careful selection from thousands of images, and I would preferably add another 10-ish images, but I can't add any more without totally loosing the ability to add or correct the text itself. It almost seems as if single posts in this forum weren't intended to write illustrated books...

Just playing , forgive me, I know you're right

That's not the issue, the issue is that I can't save changes anymore, unless I obsessive compulsively keep pressing the refresh button until 5 in the morning, when it magically does decide to save after attempt #37... Each attempt takes forever, because of the loading times. I don't have this with any other topic so it's clearly just too much for a single post. Oh well, with pain in my heart I deleted some images and it helps a little bit.

Thanks! Almost finished... There's still some spelling mistakes and a few weird sentences that could use a re-write, but saving changes to the post has become a real pain because it's so long... The page times out while saving or something, often causing me to loose my progress... Oh well . I really hope to finish it today...

true... I was mostly commenting on those Han period reliefs of "carriage chariots" with axemen. Unit diversity is greatly appreciated by most players (especially since we're all used to those immense Total War unit rosters). During the Han period chariots were steadily being replaced by mounted cavalry, and chariots became mostly used as command posts. But that does show that chariots were in fact still in use. Truth is that 500 BC to 1 BC is the timeframe that chariots were being replaced by mounted cav in every civilization that used them. That goes for every civ in the game as well. Even British chariot use has been greatly exaggerated in pop culture... But the 500 BC to 1AD timeframe without any chariots would be plain wrong. I think each civ should have an as complete unit roster as possible, strictly within the confines of historicity of course. Even if it only adds fun to SP matches (because indeed, chariots are a little useless in pro-MP matches). The point is to allow people to compose a (historical) army the way they see fit... Otherwise it all gets reduced to a single stale and boring format. Always the same army setup in every match is just blah... More units, more possibilities. I think too many historically accurate units have been culled/purged/ignored/sidelined because of questionable reasons. I would like to see a reversal of the trend (anno 2018, people expect options).

It's supposed to be the phonetic symbol "ɜ", instead of "3", but I wasn't "able" to get the correct symbols of The International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA), at the time. We'll be using @Djedptahiuefankh rendition with proper diacritics for alpha 24. @wowgetoffyourcellphone & @stanislas69, indeed, unique models would be nice. Though, there should be some superficial similarity between Ptolemaic and Kushite architecture (like with Hellenic civs), and since they teamed up to capture elephants for war, the elephant stable is a good candidate for a shared building model. Proper flat-roofed "Egyptian" style houses as a shared variant for both civs would be cool too. Both differentiated by props and texture of course...

The man loves his binoculars... "Kim looking for a stable internet connection" That's sooo interesting....

@Alexandermb Nice! Real nice...