[===[COMMITTED]=== Horse winged peytrals and new saddles by Enrique]

3 minutes ago, Alexandermb said:

this one wich was also posted some where in the forums.

Ooooh, wow! Thanks for that one!

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

A crop of something I've been working for longer than I care to admit... It's like I'm scared to actually finish the piece... Kushite elite:

[===[COMMITTED]=== Horse winged peytrals and new saddles by Enrique]

@Alexandermb, as usual, amazing work!

I have to ask about the reference for the Iberian horse armour though... I've never seen such a thing so far West in our timeframe... Even the Eastern civs didn't use such extensive horse-armour until later...

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

@Lion.Kanzen So you still need references? 

Spoiler

HQ version of Taharqa

 

Two extremes of Ancient Kushite phenotype, North Sudanes (Nubian), South and West Sudanese (Nuba, Dinka, Nuer). Harsiotef and Nastasen were probably more of the "Northern" Look. Arakamani and Amanirenas more towards the Southern look.

Southern (some stern looking fellows):

 

South Sudanese model Anok Yai as Amanirenas?

 

or Nykhor Paul

 

 

 

Northern:

 

 

[===[TASK]=== Stables, Workshops, and Ranges]

 

1 hour ago, LordGood said:

AI needs to be rewritten to accept these, and from what little i understand that's no small task

1 hour ago, Nescio said:

Petra was already modified to handle cavalry stables and siege workshops a few months ago. What is needed is someone to make the decision to enable them in the main distribution.

So, which one is it?? lol...

 

[===[TASK]=== Stables, Workshops, and Ranges]

Sorry to keep beating a dead horse, but why can't we have this in alpha 23? With all the other new stuff, this would make 0AD really feel like a brand new game, and make alpha 23 legendary  It's also a really good one up over AoE DE......

I wouldn't care one bit if I had to wait another 2 weeks (or more) of testing/balancing for this...

[===[TASK]=== Weapons and Armory]

1 hour ago, wowgetoffyourcellphone said:

Oddly enough, the Persian quiver looks Greek to me and the "Greek" quiver looks Persian to me. The Persians stored their bows in their quiver along with their arrows.

I think you're kind of right/wrong  .... Persian quiver for the immortals is actually good. They carried the bow on their shoulder.

The fancy broad "Greek" quiver here (bow and arrow case), is some kind of variation of the Gorytos, I believe, which is actually originally a Scythian quiver/bow-case, and was used by both Persian and Greek levies, and probably found it's way to native troops on both sides of the Bosphorus, through Scythians, Sarmatians and Thracians.

The "standard" Greek quiver is more bland looking, I think:

 

"The Diana of Versailles, a 2nd-century Roman version in the Greek tradition of iconography"

 

"Piraeus Arch. Museum, Athens - Artemis - Photo by Giovanni Dall'Orto, Nov 14 2009"

 

Persian

 

 

Both types of quiver next to each-other, just to confuse us even more  

 

Original Scythian:

 

[Your 0 A.D. Screenshots]

Storytelling with 0AD... it's totally possible!

8 hours ago, Skhorn said:

The cycle of life and death

I'd be lying if I said I didn't have a mancrush for Ragnar Lothbrok, he's so awesome...  I'd be honoured to stand in the same shield wall as him!

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

The narration in these videos is absolutely magnificent  

"King of the Nile",  a narrated campaign in Total War: Rome II, Divide Et Impera (mod), by OfficiallyDevin

(By the way, Medewi = Meroë) 

 

The way he narrates over the weird high Nile Water glitch in the game at 3:50 is just perfect! 

 

 

 

[Voice-over artist]

47 minutes ago, Nescio said:

My concern with the use of proto-languages is multi-fold:

• Only a handful of experts worldwide have knowledge of proto-languages (except for PIE, which is taught at several universities, and better known than all others combined)
• Although grammar and morphology (word forms) can be reconstructed with reasonable certainty, its exact pronunciation is sometimes just a guess
• When something is written down, it enters history. Proto-languages existed per definition long before any of their descendants was written down. E.g. the language we now call Proto-Berber probably ceased to exist before 3,000 B.C. 1000 BC

Agreed, sort of  Also, don't underestimate the similarities between Berber languages on one hand (I know they're not always mutually intelligible) and especially Touareg in particular as the most "divergent/isolated" archaic branch of this language group. Some Berber language(s) have been written down since BC era's so we know a little more about the Berber  spoken in our timeframe than hypothetical reconstructions. 

 

54 minutes ago, Nescio said:

If so, then ethnic Persians (heroes, Immortals) and Medians (light cavalry, healer) should speak Old Persian, Eastern Iranian units (e.g. Bactrian lancer) Avestan, other units Aramaic, unless a better equivalent can be found in specific cases (e.g. for the “Persian” Indian War Elephant).

Exactly  

 

54 minutes ago, Nescio said:

Our current timeframe predates the Roman Empire ; besides, even though two-thirds of the population spoke Greek under the Roman Empire at its height, Latin was the language of the state and the military, and continued to be so until 620 A.D.

Greek Dialects were, and sometimes still are spoken to some degree in parts of Southern Italy, especially during our timeframe, but I'm sure you knew that  Sicily and the Mediterranean coastal areas of France and Spain also had some Greek speakers even before the Roman conquest. I'm just cherry picking example here though, I know... 

[Voice-over artist]

@Nescio comparing Proto-Berber to Proto-Indo-European is totally not a legitimate/genuine comparison though... Indo-European languages are spread from Bangladesh to Iceland... Berber on the other hand is spoken by... Berbers. They are all closely related dialects. Also a historically reconstructed language like Proto-Berber is explicitly intended to be the most historically accurate approximation of the language at hand. I don't see how an equally hypothetical language from another continent is any more historically accurate. It's not like they just made up some stuff... They have written text and archaic forms of modern berber to work with. 

 

1 hour ago, Nescio said:

we should seriously consider using Aramaic for the Persians:

Hmmm, we should have Old Persian for Heroes and Champions.

Wikipedia says:

Spoiler

Old Persian is one of the two directly attested Old Iranian languages (the other being Avestan). Old Persian appears primarily in the inscriptions, clay tablets and seals of the Achaemenid era (c. 600 BCE to 300 BCE). Examples of Old Persian have been found in what is now Iran, Romania(Gherla),^[2][3][4] Armenia, Bahrain, Iraq, Turkey and Egypt,^[5][6] with the most important attestation by far being the contents of the Behistun Inscription(dated to 525 BCE). Recent research into the vast Persepolis Fortification Archive at the Oriental Institute at the University of Chicago have unearthed Old Persian tablets (2007).^[7] This new text shows that the Old Persian language was a written language in use for practical recording and not only for royal display.^[7]

I'm not saying Aramaic wasn't important because it obviously was, it just wasn't universal or exclusive to Persians. Achaemenid Persia is bigger than the Aramaic world...  It's also not a good idea to have the ancestors of Iranian muslims speak what's undoubtedly going to end up sounding like Hebrew, especially if the historicity isn't on point. It will be a bit cringeworthy. Aramaic is perfect for Western Provincial levies, but the let the actual Persians speak actual Persian, seen as that's what they spoke... You wouldn't let the Romans speak Greek just because Greek was more widely spoken in the Roman Empire, would you?

[Voice-over artist]

48 minutes ago, Nescio said:

What we need is someone to provide some appropiate phrases with a proper pronunciation.

That...

49 minutes ago, Nescio said:

My knowledge of Afro-Asiatic vocalubary is practically zero, so about anything would be acceptable to me.

Hahaha, yeah, my Afro-Asiatic is also quite rusty, huhum, huhum... Aramaic/Hebrew mixed with Proto-Berber then? Any Aramaic/Hebrew and Proto-Berber speakers in the forum? Anyone?

[Voice-over artist]

18 minutes ago, Nescio said:

although there are some differences, of course

That's what I'm worried about. There are some modernisms in regard to pronunciations and expressions in modern Hebrew derived from the modern Yiddish and Sephardic speakers that reconstructed the language. It's exactly in their pronunciation that they differ. And Berber words enter at unexpected places.. It's just things like the following quote that make me apprehensive about having modern Hebrew sounding carthaginians in what are today Arab and Berber countries:

"Add to that the fact that Phoenician does display some rather surprising discrepancies with Hebrew when it comes to some of the most basic verbs, such as “to be” and “to do”, which are, at least in writing, identical to their equivalents in Arabic and Aramaic respectively rather than Hebrew, the closest relative, and it turns out the answer to the question whether Hannibal could have a talk with the priests of the Second Temple becomes less and less clear."

Mixing archaic Hebrew with Berber would work though.

[[Proposal]: Clearly (Re)define The Core Gameplay]

@sphyrth, I think you brought up a very valuable point there... The current playerbase should be taken in to account and maintained of course, but there are much larger playerbases for other historical strategy games which often use different, yet interesting mechanics. As @Nescio points out, we shouldn't shy away from looking at other, yet similar genres like historical city builders and civilisation management games. 

I think most historical strategy gamers have been waiting for an epic marriage of historical city builder/civilisation management, with Real Time combat mechanics. Something in between a simulator and classic RTS. 0AD probably has the most potential in this regard. To keep it manageable to play for the more simple players, both the city builder aspect, as well as the combat mechanics need to be simpler versions of the respective industry standards. This means something like an arcade version of Anno in regard to city building, and an arcade version of Total War in regard to combat. As it stands now though, the classic RTS format is too "simple" for most historical gamers to enjoy. 

It's also nice to have many factions, and it's even good to have some of them be very similar to each-other (like the Hellenic civs) as some sort of "Culture Group". But having fundamentally different factions (culture groups) with fundamentally different styles of playing is also a must in my opinion. Look at Hyrule Conquest... This is a balancing nightmare, I know, but balancing "Barbarian" factions along the same line as imperial powers like Rome or Persia is killing the historicity and potential for original/creative/accurate/challenging game-play (derived from these histories).

Also, if wow's battalions can drastically reduce the number "combat entities" a player would have to control, and simultaneously increase the scope/scale of battles because each "combat entity" consists of 20 or more individual soldiers, that would be a big plus to battalion systems, and possibly lay the foundation for Total War style battles.

Just my 2 cents  

[Voice-over artist]

Remember that modern Hebrew is not the same as ancient Hebrew, and ancient Hebrew is not the same as Phoenician, and Phoenician is not the same as Punic. I think modern Hebrew for Carthage is a recipe for controversy. Phoenician mixed in with proto-Berber is the most appropriate approximation for Punic, I believe. 

[Black Panther]

I haven't seen the movie yet myself, but I will at some point.

4 hours ago, wowgetoffyourcellphone said:

I saw these shields in the movie:

Lol! Dem Azande shields... 

I'm honestly not the the biggest Marvel or DC guy... I always prefer history over fantasy , but the production value on Black Panther seems through the roof, looks gorgeous and everybody seems to love it... It's also an interesting premise for a movie and it kind of reminds me of Coming to America with Eddie Murphy taking the role of Akeem, the crown prince of "Zamunda"(totally different movie, but you get me...).

It's nice to see a technologically advanced Africa for a change. We're used to the image of an underdeveloped starving, warring continent, but there's so much more... In Ghana for example, we have a lot of problems, but we also have a lot of cool stuff going on. Kind of reminds me of some "corporate" friends I have over here who are totally in to tech and gadgets. I saw my first advanced drones in action here years ago, when my friends in Belgium barely knew it was even possible for a private individual to own one. Using it for digital surveys/mapping and HQ promotional videos for tourism. Kantanka Automobile has been producing quality Ghanaian cars (4x4 ,SUV, Sedan) for a few years now. The first Ghanaian built satelite was launched in to space (by space X and the Japanese Aerospace Exploration Agency ) last year. Just yesterday I was watching a news-piece about a Ghanaian video game company in Accra . One of the chief robotics engineers at Nasa and "the leader of the team that designed the Mars Rover robot that landed on the red planet", the Ghanaian born Ashitey Trebi-Ollennu, has established the Ghana Robotics Academy Foundation to inspire and teach young Ghanaians how to build and code (simple) robots. These are just some example from Ghana, and It's difficult to keep track of all the developments continent wide but it's an exciting time..

So I should watch Logan huh?

[Your 0 A.D. Screenshots]

13 hours ago, wowgetoffyourcellphone said:

Looks incredible though. I can imagine a "siege" scenario where the Romans and Kushites fight over the city.

Uhu, imagine, if the game gets optimised to the point that this map becomes comfortable to play, you could have a Roman/Kushite campaign (The sack of Napata). Prince Akinidad apparently died at Dakka in 24BC, after failed negotiations with the Romans, so:

"After failed negotiations to end the war with Kush, and the "accidental" death of prince Akinidad, hostilities reopened and Gaius Petronius at the head of a large legion, pushed on to Napata, to face the treacherous cult of Amun and the Napatan temple guards as well as a bunch of really pissed of townspeople..."

The Queen Mother Amanirenas was apparently away from Napata at the time. Prince Akinidad apparently died at Dakka in 24BC, after failed negotiations with the Romans. King Teriteqas had died at the start of the war, and with the sack of Napata and the decimation of the cult of Amun (again), this seems to have presented the perfect opportunity for Amanirenas to assume full power. Now Queen Amanirenas, she marshalled  a large army from the South, and eventually pushed the Romans back to the Egyptian border, and besieged Roman positions at Qasr Ibrim with an army of 30.000 men. Frontal assaults were made impossible because of Roman artillery, but from the topology of the area, it seems clear that the Roman forces were entirely encircled, which might have been an important factor in the negotiated peace-deal that was remarkable favourably to the Kushites.

[Voice-over artist]

3 hours ago, Lion.Kanzen said:

you know about the closets language for Kush?

Yeah, Napatan, was basically a dialect of late Ancient Egyptian language, was in use throughout 0AD timeframe, especially during the Napatan Period. Meroitic replaced Napatan as the dominant language around 300BC-ish. Meroitic is not understood, but has some resemblance to proto-Nubian (Nilo-Saharan) and Beja (Afro-Asiatic). Modern Nubian seems appropriate enough. I'll still try to do some recordings myself soon, but I don't know if it will be up to standard. We'll see

[Home Screen Panel and GUI textures]

One of my pet peeves with the game is the outdated look of the Home screen selection panel. I think it only looks outdated because of the dull dark grey tiled texture which is neutral enough, but pretty bland... I put a number of textures to your disposal here, (all CC0), and if you like any of them, please consider using them to jazz up the home screen, or any other element of the GUI. I don't know exactly what the changes are to the GUI for Alpha 23, but I suspect one of these textures would go well with all the other exciting new updates to get an all round new-ish look. 

What it looks like now:

 

What it could look like:

 

 

 

Textures:

Spoiler

Of course you might want to play around with contrast/colour/transparency settings etc (I did), to get the ideal look. Some of these textures would look supercool with a bit of translucency, so you'd see the background painting moving behind it.

 

https://pxhere.com/en/photo/612044
https://pxhere.com/en/photo/1409922
https://pxhere.com/en/photo/988503
https://pxhere.com/en/photo/995771
https://pxhere.com/en/photo/1168981
https://pxhere.com/en/photo/229535
https://pxhere.com/en/photo/556243
https://pxhere.com/en/photo/1062793
https://pxhere.com/en/photo/840824

 

[Skirmish map - Egypt (previously "Egypt condensed")]

3 hours ago, mimesot said:

Have any Kush pyramids ever been found in the vicinity of Thebae? I would use them in the very south of the river Nile, perhaps creating a little sandy plateau for that purpose. Perhaps I should also replace the current southernmost pyramid with Kush pyramids, but that would still be quite far in the north. What do our experts say?

Actually... Something not often mentioned, by anybody, is that New Kingdom Egyptian nobles built small steep sided pyramids, as royals started using rock cut tombs in the Valley of the Kings. These were in all probability the inspiration for the later Kushite pyramids (as opposed to the much larger ones from Gizeh). Deir el-Medina, the home of the workers and artisans that worked in the Valley of the Kings, is the most famous site.

Spoiler

Deir el Medina with small pyramid tombs in the background

 

3 hours ago, mimesot said:

Transforming the city of Thebae into a Kush settlement and including  pyramids from Meroe is an exciting prospect.

No need to wholly "transform" it in into a Kush settlement, although adding some Kushite models will add some authenticity.

I found that Kushite houses mixed in with Carthaginian houses provide the most authentically Egyptian looking feel for any Nile Valley settlement (Carthaginian houses look a lot more Egyptian than the Ptolemaic Egyptian houses...):

Spoiler

 

[Rome Total War II Desert kingdoms]

4 hours ago, wowgetoffyourcellphone said:

A Nubian/Kush style series similar to Xena would work well. Imagine a Candace forced to abdicate her position by a corrupt priesthood or some other similar premise. So Candace wanders the earth on adventures. 

"Shanak, the Warrior Kandake"  (from Queen Shanakhdakheto)

Spoiler

 

 

 

[Rome Total War II Desert kingdoms]

26 minutes ago, Lion.Kanzen said:

she is very histrionic.

Now I honestly thought you were just making up words...

Spoiler

 

histrionic 

hɪstrɪˈɒnɪk/

adjective

1. 

excessively theatrical or dramatic in character or style.

"a histrionic outburst"

synonyms: melodramatic, theatrical, affected, dramatic, exaggerated, actorly, actressy, stagy, showy, artificial, overacted, overdone, unnatural, mannered, stilted, unreal; 

noun

1. 

melodramatic behaviour designed to attract attention.

"by now, Anna was accustomed to her mother's histrionics"

synonyms:dramatics, drama, theatrics, theatricality, tantrums;

2. 

archaic

an actor.

 

 

[Rome Total War II Desert kingdoms]

17 minutes ago, Lion.Kanzen said:

That series have everything. the feel of ancient world (Conan style) give idea how funny and diverse could be.

 

Yeah, they were all over the place, those series! From the minotaur of Crete, to centaurs and Amazons, titans and harpies, gods like Poseidon, and Ares and Hera, to Roman legions, barbarian warlords, ancient China and the underworld! Remember Callisto? She was sooo bad! Funny memories coming back.. Lots of fun mythology though... Good for kids! Good laugh for adults... And that "low-key" lesbian vibe between Xena and Gabrielle throughout the entire series... lol! I think that's what attracted a lot of fathers... They were like "oh, but the kids really like this show", lol!

[Rome Total War II Desert kingdoms]

10 hours ago, Lion.Kanzen said:

together Xena with warrior princess.

Hahahahahahaha, OMG, Xena.... The Warrior Princess! I grew up watching the series ... And Hercules, The Legendary Journeys... And both series crossed over! God, I could still enjoy those when I was a little kid. Funny stuff to rewatch today...

 

And let's not forget Gabrielle!

 

Hercules and his trusty friend Ioulaus!

 

[Rome Total War II Desert kingdoms]

I still love that movie...