Boudica

That name does ring a bell indeed! Looking at the solved crossword, it seems it should have been easier than it was. It was a fun one, thanks! So... what is the secret message we were working so hard to find here?

That's the meaning I was looking for to put there. Maybe I was looking at the wrong spot, not sure.

Now I am really questioning why I didn't get this one earlier. You remember how on the wolf map you didn't really have to actually fight the wolves (like when hunting deer), but you'd just somehow kill them instantly? It's been years since I last played that map, but that was when I learned about this type of sorcery. Who'd have thought back than that that piece of knowledge would become critical years later? We've been doing it figuratively by champion cavalry, yet I forgot that you can quite literally just do it.

I thought it would be about something represented as a damage type internally that wasn't really damage in the original sense. Maybe something about capture defense when garrisoned. Or something with auras, healing, building or farming rate, gathering (but that one is separate I think). There also was poisoning and setting something on fire, which would seem like good candidates to possibly cause a lot of damage, but I don't see them fit. Then there used to be this damage dealt by fire ships when they were destroyed, but I don't see it used now. And the only word that I can think of as fitting the letters would be "clustered".

That one seems too short. What a random answer! Look at my spoiler-hint.

That's because we haven't 1vs1 today.

[20] There use to be a charge attack (doesn't fit). I guess they really are good and not letting me know. [19] Useless? There would need to be a comma in the legend. I thought it could be something about either blocking the way or preventing capture, but nothing that would fit. [12] Is that a new name? Diagonalo suggested it could be someone's full name. A high performing dev won't have much time playing or talking. [16] Already three letters filled. Someone please help!

Shame on them! I thought it's metaphorical though. Well, sometimes going to the destination is your destiny. Alright, I'll take one more guess on [4]. But first please gimme a minute while I...

I see, so it was more like a destination for the trader! That got me confused. I actually had a nice idea for "a trader's other destiny", which would be a spy. You know, using the never ever researched tech. That would be a nice answer, but it didn't match. Yoddhas, of course! It starts showing I haven't been playing much recently. Only clubmen came to mind, but I knew I was missing one other infantry type. Also the question wording made me feel it would be a unit that is easy to underestimate, so I wouldn't guess champion infantry (even champion swordsmen are a threat to buildings after all). I would guess the fire cav because they can possibly be confused with regular javelins. I see the question only spoke about their dimensional size though, not their greatness. Enough talk though, I think can do [4] now:

Oh, I get it now. It's gonna be the "siege tower" written with the space for the [17]. But it really used to be that they did nothing on their own, so it seemed to fit with the [9].

Oh, did I?

Who'd have thought that @diagonalo would do well here when the words are all just vertical-o and horizontal-o. Anyway, I think the missing words are still the main part of the challenge.

I like the cryptic style of the captions for something well-known, rather than using words people don't know. That makes it challenging, but (hopefully) doable. I was curious to try ChatGPT, but oh boy, it failed so miserably. So I thought it would at least help me put the words back into the picture, but it had problems matching the numbers and a whole forest was burnt down in the process to power all the GPUs. So here is my WIP. Can anyone add more? Teamwork makes the... "3v1 gg" messages come sooner.

Good point for the game resign at pause. That really happens quite a lot. It must be so disappointing for the player who rage resigned not to see other people's reaction before he leaves. I know we don't re-download the full replay on rejoins, but I only mentioned the game reload because it would be required to have that feature to allow rewinding the game in the cases when you do have the full replay. I was only talking about allowing you to replay what you have already watched while spectating.

Actually, building onto that first idea, if the game can now get delayed, it might also be cool to be able to pause the replay just for yourself when spectating. And when there is now a multiplayer game reload, couldn't the game just make an auto-save every minute (or less) and then let you rewind to those points? And then perhaps there could also be the feature to skip your delay a reload to the most recent state. So a lot like a YouTube live-stream. If these features aren't planned, they sound to me like something fun to vibe code into a mod. What do you think?

I've been playing around with the graphics settings, so I got to test how the delayed observer stream works. I've got two tips to share. It's quite possible that these are obvious and that this whole topic is thus useless, but we'll see: When the game is paused (which is quite often) and my replay stream is delayed, it would seem cool to let the simulation continue for me, so that I can catch up with the players. When the host is closed, I don't get to see the game end when delayed, because it just ends there for me too. Not sure how easy it would be to improve there. Anyway, the feature is cool. Today it saved like 30 minutes in total from just one game and my lag others didn't have to wait for.

Thanks for letting us know about the experience, but don't forget to reinstall soon, otherwise it will count as a win for the hard bot. Oh wait! Did I get that right that it made you angry that the hard bot was... hard? It seems funny that you made it a lot about "the gullible people", but I'd see the requirement for non-challenging gameplay as a similar issue to focusing too much on the flashy visuals you mentioned. They are the reason why many of the big titles aren't even fun to play anymore. Because that's what people want. To look at pretty pictures and have their ego stroked for absolutely nothing. Wouldn't you also prefer to have a payment option to skip to the "fun part" in the game? Right, those gullible people. Why are they all like that?

How hi are you? I wish you luck for the 0 AC challenge! This summer doesn't seem to be extremely hot, so I believe it's doable.

I can imagine that it's a fun lifestyle. I used to know a few ballroom dances, but those are usually only done on special occasions like weddings here. And last time I danced at one, it got me into a minor fight with my wife. It could be something about me touching another woman that she didn't like. We'll never know! So anyway, perhaps I already am beyond the end, where I just don't dance anymore.

Great job, @guerringuerrin. I missed one of the missing words on the second line, which is the first part of the three-word name that you already found. The remaining letters (left to right, top to bottom) give the secret message. Regarding the smurfs: The puzzle wasn't intended to endorse making alt accounts. Anyway, it just seems comical for someone to have so many of those that you can make a crossword out of them. I believe that the names mostly had been reported in the past. Not sure if they can be logged into, but they still can be found, so it seems that no action has been taken on them. I can remember what felt like a one-off event during which some people were made to use their original account, but that was a long time ago and it might seem like a waste of time reporting the same few guys who can be seen with a new account every month.

Thanks for giving it a try. You got most of them! Most of the ones used here anyway, otherwise we'd need a bigger grid.

Now for something a little more difficult. If you cross out words that are (parts of) JC's smurf account names, you'll get his life philosophy.

That's a good thing that you improved the cryptographic security. GG to anyone who thought about brute-forcing it.

Great! Wouldn't it be fun if the lobby rating reflected your knowledge of 0 A.D. lore based on quizzes like this one? Maybe that would be more useful for balancing. The solution is: Anyway, still wondering who the Romanian player is.