[Tree performance]

Lots of grasses, which are preferable for a realistic looking map, also cause lots of lag. Related? 

[Hyrule Conquest]

 

[Reconstructed Han Dynasty clothing]

1 hour ago, wolflance said:

(just look at the halberd head!).

I'm not an expert on China (not by a long shot), but what's wrong with the ji (dagger-axe with spear)?

Spoiler

 

And mentioned in 13 BC Han Equipment Account book: http://historum.com/asian-history/45323-han-dynasty-donghai-military-inventory.html

 

"During February 1993 some medicine harvesters stumbled upon a grave, inside which lies a military account book. It was titled "The Military Storehouse of YongShi's 4th year Equipment Account Book" 《武库永始四年兵车器集簿》. This puts the date at 13 BC. People say that this was their military inventory for Donghai commandery. However, from the account, it seems that the Han had an unreasonably huge amount of equipment for such a sparsely populated region. In fact to me it appears that this would actually be the military inventory's entire total, rather than the amount for just one commandery. Any more info would be appreciated. 

I have taken the trouble of translating:

Bows&Crossbow: 
--------Crossbow: 537,707 (imperial owned: 11,181)
--------Bows: 77,521
--------Subtotal: 615,228
Projectiles:
--------Crossbow bolts: 11,458,424 (imperial owned: 34,265)
--------Imperial owned arrows: 1,199,316 (imperial owned: 511)
--------Subtotal: 12,657,740
Armor:
--------Jia Armor: 142,701 (imperial owned: 34,265)
--------Iron thigh clothing: 255, 1 pair of unique ones
--------Kai armor: 63,324
--------Armored thigh clothing: …ten thousand 563
--------Iron lamellar armor: 587,299, 
--------Leather armor is 14 jin [7.5 lbs]
Helmets:
--------Helmets: 98,226
--------Horse armor: 5,330
Shields: 
--------Shields: 102,551
Polearms:
--------Bronze Ge: 632 (imperial owned: 563)
--------Spear: 52,555 (imperial owned: 2377) 
--------Imperial owned sheng: 943
--------Pi sword-staff: 451,222 (imperial owned: 1421)
--------Ji halberd: 6,634
--------YoFang: 78,393
--------Duan: 24,167
--------Subtotal: 614,546
Blades:
--------Sword: 99,905 (imperial owned: 4)
--------JingLu Dagger: 24,804 
--------Saw…sabre: 30,098
--------Sabre: 156,135
--------Great Sabre: 127 (232)
--------Subtotal: 311,069
Axes:
--------Iron axe: 1132 (136)
Battle Carts:
--------ChengYuZheng chariots, drum chariots, 
--------WuGang chariots:18 
--------Soldier’s ChengYu chariots: 24
--------Interconnected Crossbow Carriage: 564
--------Charging chariot: 37
--------Drum Chariot: 4
--------Battle Chariot: 1
--------…chariot: 564
--------…chariot: 1
--------WuGang strong crossbow chariot: 10
--------ZuiBi chariot: 1
--------Battle chariot: 502
--------3 wheeled soldier’s chariot: 1 (168)
--------Tracking: 9
--------High…chariot: 11
--------….chariot: 7
--------….chariot…chariot: 2133
--------Su…heavy chariot: 1993
--------Soldier’s…chariot: 677
--------He chariot: 2
--------FeiLow temporary chariot: 2
--------Subtotal: 7174 (imperial owned 42 + 7132)

As you can see this would be enough to arm an army of ~1 million men. How could so much equipment be localized within one commandery? Wouldn't it be unreasonable to have such a huge surplus of equipment, unless if it was for the entire empire? From the equipment list the only thing that seems lacking would be the Wugang chariots and helmets, if the inventory was for the entire empire. Weiqing was said to have sniped a Xiongnu chieftan with such a chariot, and this would be unlikely to have happened unless if the Wugang chariots were common. However here the list shows only 18 Wugang chariots and 10 Strong Crossbow Wugang chariots. It was recorded that there were only 98,226 helmets while on the other hand there is enough body armor for 793,324 men.

This is the original text I translated from:
弩弓：弩537707（乘舆11181），弓77521，小计615228
矢：弩矢11458424（乘舆34265），弓乘舆1199316（乘舆511），小计12657740
甲铠：甲142701（乘舆379），乘舆铁股衣225两1奇，铠63324，股甲衣□□□万563，铁甲札587299，革甲14斤。
头盔：（左革右是）暓98226（乘舆678），马甲（左革右是）暓5330
防牌：盾102551（乘舆2650）
枪：铜戈632（乘舆563），矛52555（乘舆2377），乘舆鈒943，鈹451222（乘舆1421），戟6634，有方78393，锻24167，小计614546
刀剑：剑99905（乘舆4），泾路匕首24804，锯□刀30098，刀156135，大刀127（232），小计311069
斧：铁斧1132（136）
战车：乘舆钲车、鼓车、武攠车18乘，乘舆兵车24乘。
连弩车564乘，冲车37辆，将军鼓车10乘，轻车301乘，将军兵车比二千将□鼓车116乘，□□车180乘，钲车8乘，鼓车6乘，战车1乘，□□车 564乘，□车1乘，武刚强弩车10乘，嘴弊车1乘，战车502乘，三轮兵车1乘（168），踪⒐瓿?乘，高□车11乘，□□车7两，□□车□车2133 两，素□重车1993乘，兵□车677乘，合车2乘，蜚楼行临车2乘。小计7174乘（乘舆42+7132）

If anyone could noticed faults in my translations, that would be appreciated too."

 

[The Kingdom of Kush: A proper introduction [Illustrated]]

40 minutes ago, Rolf Dew said:

So are the Kushites going to added to the Main game or is it a mod?

The Kushites will be included in the main game in the upcoming release, very soon  

The first mod to introduce them as a playable faction was Delenda Est, and a second mod, Vox Populi also allows them to be played. You can also check out the latest version of the Kushites in the development version of the vanilla game.

[Faction: Byzantines]

@Alexandermb This is the Great Palace of Constantinople (bird's eye view):

I'd suggest using the sea front facade as the Byzantine CC:

 

 

[Faction: Byzantines]

5 minutes ago, Alexandermb said:

The "Senat" could work

Ok, so I believe the Palatium Magnaura Senat was originally built before our timeframe, though I wouldn't know which parts are old and which ones less old... It will also easily be confused with a church.

The "Port Monumental Du Grand Palais", to the right of the Senate dates to 532 AD... But it also looks churchy (and is basically just a glorified front door). 

I thought the first 3 images would be the obvious choice for a CC. They're all distinctly Byzantine, clearly administrative/palatial/governmental, and difficult to mistake for anything else but a CC. They're even reminiscent of the Roman CC in the vanilla game. They offer both continuity and uniqueness.

[Faction: Byzantines]

@Alexandermb I think the main issue with your byzantine CC is that it's only a very small part of that particular palace and seems to be some kind of forum, public meeting place, but doesn't have the feel of an administrative/government centre. It think with some polishing it would be great as a special building though. Byzantine Forum with some economy techs or something...

Here are some more appropriate palatial structures from Constantinople as inspiration. These have a much more awe-inspiring feel, that the Byzantine CC should really have (also from the right time period):

 

Some other stuff:

 

 

[The Kingdom of Kush: A proper introduction [Illustrated]]

3000 year old horse grave discovered in Sudan, by archaeologists from Leiden

So... my mom sent me a link... Turned out to be gold... lol!

@Lion.Kanzen,

Quote

The messed up thing about Kushites is that most archaeological sites have only been partially excavated. Many have never been excavated at all. That also leaves a lot of future surprises for us to look forward to.

.

Quote

I hope so.

 

So a horse grave was very recently excavated in Tombos, in Northern Sudan. Tombos was originally a New Kingdom Egyptian administrative centre in Kush when it was an integrated province of Egypt. At least ten small pyramids were built for Egyptian noblemen. Later, Tombos became an important city/town of Napatan period Kush.

So what's so special about the horse burial? Well, it's one of the most well preserved horses ever excavated in Nubia, and it dates to 949 BC... The oldest horse burial ever found in Kush, predating Piye's horse burials by more than 150 years! This period, c.950 BC was about 100 years after the collapse of the New Kingdom, but more than 100 years before the first attested ruler of the Napatan Dynasty, a period known as the "Nubian Dark Ages". Not much is known about this period. The horse was well cared for, and died at the ripe old age of 12 to 15 years. It was buried underneath the offering chapel of a repurposed pyramid of a New Kingdom nobleman. The bit that was found with it, together with the signs of stress in the ribs and spine suggest it was a chariot puling horse. The bit was made from iron... IRON! This 10th century BC iron bit is the oldest piece of iron ever found in Kush and one of the oldest in (Sub-Saharan) Africa, and may begin to reshape our understanding of the spread of Iron working on the continent. 

 

That's the actual horse... 

 

Schematic, showing a faience scarab for the horse.

 

The bit, one of the oldest pieces of iron ever found in Africa (at least 949 BC)

 

https://www.universiteitleiden.nl/en/news/2018/04/discovery-3000-year-old-horse-grave

 

https://www.livescience.com/62419-ancient-horse-burial-tombos.html

 

 

[Suggestions for 0 A.D.]

8 hours ago, XLightningStormL said:

Aethiopians (although it'd be a bit tricky since the kingdom of D'met was disestablished in 400 BC) and the Aksumite Empire wouldn't appear until 100 AD. There's the Kushites/Nubians that are being worked on IIRC (though not sure if they're gonna be Alpha 23,

Kushites will be in Alpha 23. The Kingdom of D'mt and Aksumite empire are indeed both from the wrong time-period (500BC - 1BC). Garamantes are the primary African civ that could still be done, but that won't be easy in terms of reference material, and other factions like Scythians and Thracians are a little more important with regard to the other civs already in-game. That having said, Aksumites would be incredibly cool for Millennium AD.

 

8 hours ago, XLightningStormL said:

since that seems to be nothing more than a dribble update, or at the least a very private, secretly guarded feature update

A tremendous amount of people have put a tremendous amount of effort into this and every other alpha update. You can follow the evolution of individual updates/bugfixes/new features etc. here: https://trac.wildfiregames.com/timeline

 

8 hours ago, XLightningStormL said:

and they're probably just going to be used as an excuse just to have the Aethiopian peoples classified under them, despite the latter being Greek-influenced rather than pre-foreign led Egypt.

I'm trying to figure out what you're saying here? That Napatan and Meroitic period Kushites were more Greek than Egyptian influenced? That would be incorrect. There is clear Hellenistic influence, but at no point in their history does it become dominant. They liked Mediterranean wine and the Greek language was known by at least some Kushites (for trade and diplomacy), but they remained firmly a Nile Valley Civilization till the very end, with their own unique twists of course. They worshipped "Egyptian" gods, continued using and adapting hieroglyphs, built pylon temples and truncated pyramids. The last temple of Amun was built in the 3d century AD, for example. No temples to Greek gods were ever built. 

Also the term Aethiopia ("place of burnt faces") in classical Greek literature refers primarily to Kush and not Axum. Only later does the term become more widely applied to areas south of Kush as well, including modern day Ethiopia.  

[Question about the Chin Crossbow]

3 hours ago, Lion.Kanzen said:

defenses(fort wagon)

Xiongnu actually built some (permanent) fortifications, but I'm having having difficulty locating pictures or reconstructions of the ruins. If those fortifications used similar construction techniques as the Xiongnu capital city of Tongwancheng or other "cities" like Khermen Tal, they would have been built from rammed earth and wood. Ironically, I think the Han Chinese rammed earth fortifications of Northern China are the closest approximation for Xiongnu fortifications I can think of. I suspect (pretty sure) they heavily influenced each other, and the radical difference in Han Chinese architecture on the steppe and Han Chinese architecture further south, indicates that steppe architecture indeed influenced Han-Chinese on the steppe. 

In short, Xiongnu should have access to unmovable rammed earth walls and fortress.

Remains of Xiongnu fortification/palace at Tongwancheng:

 

Han Chinese rammed earth watchtower in Dunhuang, built against the Xiongnu

 

Something on excavations in Khermen Tal:

http://www.globaltimes.cn/content/1088258.shtml 

[Gameplay features A24]

2 hours ago, Nescio said:

Ceterum censeo Carthaginem delendam esse.

Or that... Thanks. My Latin is a little rusty, and by rusty I mean nearly non-existant  

Sum, es, est, sumus, estis, sunt is pretty much what I remember from high-school... Oh, and the compluvium and impluvium of the Roman domus, which actually seems to be missing in the Roman house models in-game, so I'll add that to my wishlist for alpha 24..

[Gameplay features A24]

AI banter: The (enemy) AI sends scripted messages during the game: aggressive/arrogant when attacking, Valiant/confident when defending, begging/pleading when near defeat.

Could be a nice space for some creativity and humor. Could be (partially) civ-specific/historic. Since it's "just" written sentences (taking only few mb's), we could have hundreds of them. Lot's of variety. Everyone in the community could come up with some  

Messages along the line of:

• "By Jupiter, I'll have you flayed for this" (after a successful raid on a Roman AI)
• "Carthago Delenda Est" (anytime a Roman AI attacks a Carthaginian player)
• "Vae Victis" (after Gaul AI destroys a Roman CC)
• "I'm sure we can find a way to settle this little squabble somehow" (when AI is near defeat)
• "By the gods, have you no mercy?" (when killing AI women)
• "I will erase from memory, your very existence" (when big AI army attacks)
• "Your walls will not protect you from the might of Ahura Mazda" (when Persian AI sees your walls)
• "You're town looks like it needs a remake" (when AI attacks)
• "Zeus will not abandon us" (when attacking a Hellenic AI)
• "Just because you do not take an interest in politics, does not mean politics won't take an interest in you" (when you refuse an alliance with Athenian AI) 
• "The only true wisdom, is in knowing you know nothing" (when Athenian AI utterly destroys a player)
• “Spartan woman are the only ones who give birth to men” (When Sparta AI attacks)
• “He is richest who is content with the least, for contentment is the wealth of nature.” (random, passive Athenian AI)
• “I count him braver who overcomes his desires than him who conquers his enemies, for the hardest victory is over the self.” (Hellenic AI when defeated)
• "I shall make Egypt taste the taste of my fingers" (when Kushite AI attacks Ptolemies) 
•  "where they make a wasteland, they call it peace." (When Briton AI is defeated by Romans)

 

 

[undefined discussion subject]

30 minutes ago, Lion.Kanzen said:

https://www.livescience.com/62272-oldest-meroe-inscriptions-sudan-africa.html

Awesome! And pretty!

 

The messed up thing about Kushites is that most archaeological sites have only been partially excavated. Many have never been excavated at all. That also leaves a lot of future surprises for us to look forward to  

[undefined discussion subject]

16 minutes ago, Nescio said:

https://news.nationalgeographic.com/2018/04/mass-child-human-animal-sacrifice-peru-chimu-science/

Brutal... 

[Faction: Byzantines]

30 minutes ago, Alexandermb said:

they had slightly curved swords?

Seems like yes...

Quote

The paramerion is a saber-like curved sword used by the Byzantine military.^[1] The one edged cutting weapon was primarily used by the Byzantine cavalry and took inspiration from similar swords of the middle east.^[1]

Example:

 

 

[undefined discussion subject]

2 hours ago, Nescio said:

 

www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-43899393

 

Interesting...

And how about the Tollense Valley battle c 1250 BC, in north-east Germany, with "people from across Europe" joining in the fray... Seems rather brutal, in a stone-age kind of way  

http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2016/03/slaughter-bridge-uncovering-colossal-bronze-age-battle

[Faction: Byzantines]

59 minutes ago, Nescio said:

"Byzantine" is a modern term to cover twelve centuries. Rather than trying to contain all that anachronistically in a single civilization, you should chose a single period or dynasty and base your faction on that.

I'd strongly suggest just keeping it at "Byzantine Empire" or the "Byzantines". Keep the specifics about dynasties and such for the history descriptions/campaigns... 

This faction is basically going to be the "benchmark civ", that can and should be fully fleshed out, so I personally don't see any issues with concentrating on them next. Should be relatively "easy" with regard to research and refs. 

I love the double headed eagle, but it seems to be associated with the Palaiologos Dynasty from 1261 to 1453, though it was in use as a decorative motif before that:

 

The Chi Rho symbol is also cool, but not exclusively Byzantine, and seems to have even fallen out of use during the early Byzantine period:

 

What about a mosaic of the head of Justinian I?

 

[Faction: The Franks]

Lovely unit-portraits  

57 minutes ago, wackyserious said:

jesus? 

 

[[Map] The Aerie & Tordheim]

Nice...

[Possible Game Optimisation for Next Update?]

@Rolf Dew, have you tried using Atlas though, because that's completely bugged on my end. Very frustrating to use...

@however has used Atlas on a macbook pro (13 inch, 2017 model, 2.3 GHz Intel Core i5, 8 GB 2133 MHz LPDDR3, Intel Iris Plus Graphics 640 1536 MB)

• I can't delete anything, so everything needs to be done in one go
• some of my saved versions just disappeared after hours of work 
• I can play some map-versions I made in Atlas, but can't actually find them in Atlas later ?!?
• I can't type anything in entities/actor search without every letter doubling itself. I have to copy paste the word I'm searching from a text-editor (every freakin' time)
• Random and repeated crashes, even though the game itself runs like a charm
• adjusting water height on a large map causes crashes

[Possible Game Optimisation for Next Update?]

5 minutes ago, stanislas69 said:

Can you tell us if A21 was faster ?

I can't,  My 7 year old mac at the time was falling apart and I couldn't open A21 for some reason... A22 is way faster (and way better looking) than A20 though, that's for sure (but the new mac certainly helped that as well).

[Possible Game Optimisation for Next Update?]

7 minutes ago, Rolf Dew said:

Strange alpha 21 was a bit laggy for me, but alpha 22 runs way better for me even with high spec mods (hyrule conquest), I thought that alpha 22 was was optimised quite a bit due the significant lack of lag on my system (I am using a Mac though) 

For some reason, macs run this game quite smoothly... Runs like a doozy on mine as well.

[The Kingdom of Kush: A proper introduction [Illustrated]]

7 minutes ago, balduin said:

Just to get an update. The Kushites will be part of the next 0 A.D. version 23 release?

Yes  

[===[TASK]=== Kushite Heroes Icons]

50 minutes ago, Lion.Kanzen said:

and accurated

Sexy! But not so accurate...

Warrior Queens of Kush, euhm, looked a little different  

 

Royal ladies:

 

Lordgood's masterpiece:

 

This one is kind of sexy and accurate, although she's more of Warrior Princess  

 

Try to give all the heroes a uraeus (rearing cobra) in the portraits if possible

[Civ: Minoans]

You have nice books @Tomcelmare  

I love Minoans...