Boudica

I honestly thought this was just bots talking because the community is never this nice. Then I realized this thread is over 20 years old, and kitegirl's son is already an adult. I stumbled across it by clicking on what a random Guest User was viewing, so I didn’t expect it to be a wormhole into the past, back when I barely even had a computer. I hope some of you are still around and doing fine.

I didn't have much time for a proper response, so I fed my quick thoughts into ChatGPT and ask it to make that into a full answer. You might need to clarify whether you're asking about general player preferences in RTS games or specifically about their behavior in the current alpha of 0 A.D. If it's the latter, I have some insights: APM and Gameplay Style: Fast economic growth (booming) requires high APM (actions per minute). Many players, especially those who aren't pros, find it easier to focus on either growing their economy or fighting, but not both simultaneously. As a result, they often switch from economic growth to combat at a certain point. Engaging all units in battle means there's less economic management needed. Full Population Strategy: Reaching full population with all upgrades provides players with confidence. They know their opponent won't have more units or better technology if they themselves have maxed out their capabilities. Early Attacks: If an opponent attacks early, they spend significant time moving their units across the map, which can be inefficient. Subsequent reinforcements also take longer to arrive, potentially weakening the attack. The question might not be about wanting smaller fights. Instead, your concerns could be addressed by improving the UI to make unit management easier.

I honestly think that the 0 A.D. community could use less guessing of who is who and more banning of all these narcissistic smurfs. There is now a player who has been convicted of spreading lies and degrading the community. Letting him contribute in this way sends a message that this is tolerable. I understand that there is this concern that it might not be fair to ban one player and keep another (for now), but this fear will IMHO do more damage. It feels like trying to be nice to someone who is robbing you. I'd even recommend only talking to smurfs with a dose of contempt like I do. I consider remembering your password to be a sign of respect for the community. And not-remembering is almost always an excuse anyway because otherwise they'd pick a name similar to the one they're know by. Let's not tolerate the intolerant. P.S.: Posting publicly the whole contents of the chat including allied and direct messages is inappropriate.

So we doing the armchair generals in a nomad game, and I made this comment that one player will probably form a sandwich, but it wasn't clear whether he'd be the meat or the bun. And that one player ended up becoming the bun. Which means they ended up beating the meat with the other bun. Extra credits: aow for beating the meat, Peter_Nubia for a word slip (be/beat), @BreakfastBurrito_007 for pointing out the word slip

Perhaps Greek isn't all Greek to me.

You seem to be playing along my 1900 car analogy pretty well, so I'll translate what you're saying: "I've never seen a car that can outrun a horse. And the distances people usually travel aren't even that long, so I see no point of going any faster. Don't fall for people trying to tell you that a car helped them get something done. Being a good horse rider will always beat ownership of any car." Just for your information, the turn length really has little relevance here. That's just like a random fact you added to make what you're writing seem more informed, but it did the opposite. 500 APM is just above eight actions per second. It's more than a normal player would be capable of, but not even high enough if you really wanted to control all units in a fight individually. A turn doesn't restrict you to only one command, if that's something that also needs to be mentioned here. So no, I'm not "falling" for anything here. And whether or not you can imagine something done is not the relevant part here. You basically suggest to make this game a mod writing competition. You see, I haven't even been talking about the current state of a specific mod, that seems what you fail to understand here. But this ungrounded believe you expressed here only invites the question when a mod might start to be considered a cheat if not now. So are you going to be updating us with each new release if we're cheating yet or not? As if you dismiss the whole discussion about rules and try to replace it with whatever just fits you at the moment.

Congratulations on the third place among people who have said this thing in this thread. Furthermore, you've also won the a special award for naming the exact steps that could help cheaters cheat better. And... I see you are also putting yourself into the group of foolish folks who try to claim that mods don't even make a difference. It's a surprise that this is coming from someone like you, to be honest. It feels like hearing 1900 people bash the novel motor car idea because a horse is always a horse and it won't break down on the way. I don't even feel like going much deeper into the discussion (and give free ideas to cheaters), because it just seems super obvious. No player can control every unit in every turn independently, but a mod can. Are you going to claim that getting a free 500 of precise APM with possibly no overkill ever is just an insignificant, minor convenience? I don't really know who the "kid" is here now. I start to suspect that people talking like this might be just those wanting to use a mod to get an unfair advantage themselves, so they can finally be good and go challenge borg- (as long as he is without the mod, that is). It's never been like "Hey, Boudica, I've been testing this new mod that does eco for me, wanna try to play like this?". No. They preferably even create a smurf account and casually ask you to play rated. And this kind of dishonesty is what makes me lose any respect to those. Understand that I'm not scared, it's just contempt.

Maybe the Olympics should only have team sports because not every participant has access to top-tier drugs, thus making the game fair. Cheating has been an essential part of sports anyway, so why hate on the swimmers just because they hang onto a water scooter, or runners who decide to ride a motorcycle. You should realize that motorcycles have been known to improve the quality of life in cities with dense traffic. End of sarcasm. And with no due respect, your post must be the greatest piece of garbage I've ever encountered on the forums. I really lack respect for people who try to defend cheating (using humorously flawed logic, I must add), and I will stand for anyone who gets called a hater for calling out cheaters. P.S.: Your rule enforcement ideas are useless, which is the real reason why they haven't been implemented. There still are usable methods to detect various types of cheating. The real problem is people like you who try to justify cheating and make it seem like a non-issue.

A similar request has been made in the past. The thing is that only a part of the developer team is able to make performance improvements. It's not the case that adding content is at the expense of performance tuning. Also, people are ungrateful, so I'm sure they would only be like "the development is stalled, there are no new features". Anyway, I can't say I share the same experience regarding the performance. I noticed no performance changes since A25 (on my older laptop with an integrated GPU). Maybe my game already was laggy before.

I enjoyed reading more about the recent changes on that matter. The commercial games employ techniques to mask the actual command delay, even though the actual delay also can be lower as wraitii described it. You would usually start animating the units immediately and then smoothe their visual position into the actual one. We could probably do something like that.

I am surprised how much you delivered in such a short time! Thanks for all your work. I gotta check the Trac to see who made it possible. I am even more surprised by the new songs. I must have heard the old ones thousands of times, but they don't get old. Is it more from Omri Lahav, or are there some new authors? Maybe it's time to update https://play0ad.com/media/music/ too.

I checked for myself and the opening statement isn't even right. The replay does get saved after a rejoin. Do some research before you start saying stuff. So I suppose that when you claim it worked in A25, that's also going to be false.

Sorry, vinme, but I think I made myself very clear in the followup comment. Why write a lengthy response like this when you're only arguing with a straw man? Of course, I am not opposing the usefulness of watching partial replays. I used the word replay to mean replay files, which is both in accordance with how you used the word in the title and pretty obvious unless you immediately jump to conclusion that I must be asking something trivial and dumb. The fact is I never used to be able to view or replay any replay files that don't start from "command 0". If you claim it's something that has worked for you, perhaps there is something wrong with my game. Anyway, the game state won't appear out of nowhere and I didn't see it get stored after a rejoin last time I checked that.

I was just referring to the fact that the replay files without a beginning could not be used to actually replay the game because the initial state of such replay is not available. You only have player commands since a specific time, but those are of no use if you don't know which entities these are referring to. Replay files could be merged provided that there is no gap. Perhaps if you only quit and rejoin while the game is paused. It would be different if the game state after a rejoin would also be stored, but unless something has changed, that isn't the case.

Is the replay of any use if it is not from the beginning?

So now you're trying to rephrase your condescending post as a joke? Now that might be something that needs explaining. Anyway, the obvious didn't really need to be explained. One reason is that we had already easily and conveniently tested what we needed before you entered the discussion. But the main reason is that your contribution didn't really show more than that you weren't able to find anything related in the code. That is not the better or more exact way because... there could be something somewhere else in the code, right? How about instead of explaining the obvious you just focus on understanding the explicitly stated first? See how Freagarach contributed information about the code. Noticed any difference? Focus on how he introduced his post. That is a fun introduction, but doesn't call other people names and he only makes fun of himself. Then he references specific code parts to support his written point. Isn't it the opposite of just randomly linking the first file that had attack-move in it and acting smart about it? Take notes.

Do you like labels a lot? If the fact that you make a false statement and I correct makes me a "quality control guy", then yes, I probably am a quality control guy. I was talking about the XML files (but also the code that works with them). And what is your point now? That we have to go through the entire codebase to make sure there is nothing that changes the unit speed in our case? And you are trying to push this idea as the best way to settle a debate? I was treating you nicely when I called that "bad wording" instead of just a bad idea introduced by a wrong statement. And I see you are now trying to make this about myself, while it was your suggestion that was just bad. Yes, insert some irrelevant quotes instead of any reflection.

Nice tip, but not a good wording. As if you prove right there that it wasn't the best way to settle the debate. First of all, it requires both parties to understand the code. Second, you can't just take one snippet like this and post it as a proof. The specific values for speed etc. are composed from templates from various places. This snippet doesn't even define what the individual commands do.

I must say I actually appreciate trying to support your point with a video. That shows you don't intend to spread misinformation. I briefly tested what you initially claimed, even though I was pretty sure I know what the game does. Well, alre already explains what is happening there. Perhaps the walking animation is a bit confusing specifically with these Iberian soldiers, but this really seems to be the walking speed. I also tried to test if there is a speed difference between units with and without resources, and I noticed no difference. So like alre said, the animation with a sword belongs to the attack move (when the unit pauses it's movement to first attack any nearby units or structures). And the carried resources are still seen in the bottom pannel and they even reappear when you order a normal move. The only time the resources get dropped is when you start gathering a resource of a different type.

You didn't notice a different behavior. And no, it's not a bug when a unit with a passive stance doesn't automatically attack. It doesn't answer the question because you are making stuff up.

Some extra flare message suggestions (based on experience): Look where I just suicided my entire army because it's now your problem. The army you warned me about via the chat really came to where you said it's coming. I noticed some enemy cavalry, but I only make women, so if you don't come deal with it all by yourself now, I'm going to quit and it's your fault. I am just flaring again to help you answer your questions as to what my previous flare was supposed to mean.

You're right about the women because those are units with a default passive stance. A passive stance unit only starts running once it is actually attacked and hit, but the exact behavior also depends on the command it is following at that time. The attacking unit also starts running when hitting and following a passive unit. Other than women, healers are also passive by default. If you actually set soldiers to passive, they will act the same too. Anyway, you can still order a passive unit to attack an enemy unit (if it is capable of attacking), and the attack will take precedence over running away. When a unit is working on an economic task, it will try to run away when attacked but then return to that task.

Thanks for the games, @vinme! BTW, I organized and zipped your replays, so that anyone can just unpack it into the replay folder and go. 2022-05-04-vinme.zip

You're right, I forgot that.

While I like these suggestions for improvement, reading all this just makes me want to play a nice regicide. I wonder how many times destroying a CC with the hero elephant has been done successfully. Almost every time I saw someone going for that, including myself, the elephant hero died in the process. It sure can work with good support from your allies, but that rarely happens.