Sundiata

One thing I need to agree on with the author though is his criticism of a uniform tech tree... Focusing on the specifics of each culture or civilization to derive specific and unique tech trees from that, is in my opinion a juicier way of visualizing different paths of progress for each civ. Some can be similar to each other, others can diverge wildly. Balance is always the main concern here, I guess, although just giving each tech a civ specific name would already add a more nuanced veneer to the tech tree.

Those guys look pretty epic...

The author seems to be critiquing Hegelianism, or Hegel's Philosophy of History, but doesn't mention him in the article, choosing to talk about Darwin and Spencer's Social Darwinism instead. Those are of course relevant as well but most of these games follow some sort of Hegelian principle more than anything (stages of history)... 19th and 20th century history narratives, both explicit and implicit are still ingrained in our education systems, media, popular culture and the very psyche of society itself, even today in the 21st century. These often erroneous narratives, which are often the result of systematic omissions of certain histories, and idealization of certain other histories, need to be actively addressed, even today, but the social studies crowd are making a hot mess out of it, trying to replace one simplistic narrative with another. Even some historians seem painfully ill equipped to address some of the longstanding biases in their respective fields. And others play this weird game, where instead of addressing the erroneous biases, they try to come up with "explanations" for why things are "the way they are", often based on a lack of knowledge on the subject matter at hand. Germs and Steel is perfect example of this. Rather than addressing the holes we collectively have in our historical understanding of the world, the author of that book tries to confirm our biases, but just provides different "explanations". The author of that vice article does something similar. He doesn't challenge our understanding of historical events, but tries to change the way we perceive them. He argues that we should abandon the idea that one civilization could be victorious over another, that history has no true victors, and that history is not about "competition between nations and/or races". I don't even know what to make of that conclusion, other than that it's poorly thought through, and not in the slightest based on the actual study of history, but rather some kind of misplaced socio-political statement. I wouldn't want to play his idea of a fun game.

Sure, that's true... You know I'm just a dreamer that likes all the civs from Antiquity. Yayoi just look really charming, and few games ever depict this period of Japan. Han Chinese were of course the big boys of the East, but it's also nice to give them some local sparring partners, like Xiongnu and Yayoi... Yayoi were relatively isolated, but they did actually have contacts with the mainland, and there is evidence for trade, at least.

Nice... @coworotel, something for community maps mod?

People flippin' love it! To be fair, they love everything LordGood produces. Japan would be a great addition to the game though. Mod or not...

Just checking, what's actually the reason we don't have those? Perhaps even being able to garisson the towers with artillery, to compliment the new artillery towers, or would that be complete overkill?

Why would you prefer another status bar to a beautiful animation though?

Yummy!

This should be the temple, or something: A lot more stuff:

Some more architectural refs from the Yayoi Period:

I used to play Settlers III when I was a kid and I still love all their animations! Miners going in and out of the mine. The smelter smelting iron. The blacksmith hammering at the anvil. Logs being fashioned into planks at the sawmill... Almost every building had associated animations. It was glorious! Very understandable

Fair enough. Quite the contrary, I believe that providing more visual information is exactly the point. Same reason animations at barracks would be cool, so that if you invade an enemy territory, you can identify the high profile targets from the duds. In real life, barracks full of soldiers would be a more important target than an empty building. Scouting would be rewarded in more ways than one, as would keeping enemy scouts out. Also, it would look fantastic and immersive

Nah... Perhaps if the building is under attack, the blacksmiths just goes back inside.

Jomon: Yayoi:

lol, check this out: A Kerma Period Kushite striped hyena ivory inlay (1700 BC - 1550 BC): Originally part of a typical Kerma Period bed, a design which persisted for thousands of years and were actually depicted in New Kingdom Egyptian tribute scenes depicting the produce from Kush. Somewhat similar beds are still used for marriage and funeral ceremonies in Sudan today. A reconstruction of the original piece, with inlays of striped hyenas, the goddess Taweret and Ibexes (Ibex are already in-game I think): Original next to reconstruction: Detail of the inlays including ibex and hyena

; Nope, not for the Kushites. There were a notable number of fortifications and fortified settlements which were lost and reconquered many times over in their history, so they must have had their ways. Apart from the mention of "catapults" in the Victory Stela of Piye's ("things" that throw rocks), or the evidence of sapping/tunneling/fire at Buhen, both of which predate 0AD, I have no references to go on. In the Egyptian record however, pictorial evidence for sieges, however rare, do exist. The tombs of Beni Hasan show exactly what you were talking about: they attack the top of the wall with long poles, protected by a light wooden construction, presumably covered in animal hides (not wheeled, but carried). I think the point was to clear the battlements of enemy fighters, partly destroying it. Then infantry could use ladders to climb the walls, or "demolition crews" could start hacking away at the walls or gates, or both. I would argue for a tunneling technology for all civs. So that you train a "tunneling crew" at the siege workshop. This crew would build a little tunnel entrance at x amount of meters from the target structure, and tunnel towards the target (with a disturbed earth decal for visual indication). When the tunnel reaches the base of the target structure, dust particles at its base will provide a visual indicator that it's under attack. After x amount of time, the target structure will collapse. Can be prevented by taking out the tunneling crew by simply destroying the tunnel entrance.

Why is this so good?? That chorus is legit..... I feel like there is some deep social commentary here... Or maybe not... I dunno... "Evil comes in round shapes..."

I mirrored your post about development progress, with a little more information and there seem to be a few bites: 2 programmers and an artist showed interest, 2 other programmers were tagged by their friends and there were 9 shares . People definitely respond positively to open and honest communication. They don't mind if development takes a while, as long as they know development is ongoing. They just need to be reminded sometimes that it's Open Source, volunteer based, and free. Then they will be more sympathetic to "delays", although I think that's the wrong word to use. There are no delays, because there is no fixed schedule, nor would a fixed schedule benefit anyone at this stage. It will just lead to stress, unnecessary friction and burnouts. On a previous post, one of the fans said: "Este juego es como el vino porque entre mas tiempo pasa, más bueno se pone" A livestream with devs, a podcast or some youtube Q&A really isn't a bad idea, but it's also time consuming and perhaps a bit stressful, if you want to do it right. As you said, it needs to be announced well in advance, and people need to be prepared. I think currently the devs are in the middle of discussing some things to try to get a slightly smoother development process going, so I'd wait at least a month or so, to see how the programming side goes, and then, when the devs feel comfortable/confident enough with the direction of development, they can think about "releasing" a simple roadmap with some specific plans for alpha 24, easy to understand for the fans. Just a list of bullet points, followed by a live Q&A stream. Of course this all depends on the devs themselves, who probably prefer to spend their time coding, but perhaps one or two would be interested. Perhaps if some of the artists are interested, I'm sure they have a lot to say/share as well, and could provide a lot of visual interest for a well prepared stream. Either way, I think it would be a really good initiative, to engage the community in such an interactive way, but be prepared for a lot of work, for something on which you might not see immediate returns (more of a long term positive effect).

Wow man...

Oh my god, @feneur, @Lion.Kanzen, it was really as simple as that. Just needed to write something in the header.... I'm so sorry to waste your time, and thank you for the help!

That doesn't work. The option to uploads gifs is not a part of the setup. If I try to upload it as photo/video, the upload screen just freezes. I can wait 30 minutes and nothing happens... As you can see, the option to share, or even preview is even greyed out. It's just stuck there in perpetuity... Every time, whether I use Safari or Firefox.