feneur

Looks good, maybe should be posted in the announcements forum though if we want people to comment and suggest things

At the moment the text in the game is basically an image (the engine takes a font file and generates a bitmap with all the letters/numbers, I don't know how complex things it can do when generating it/reading from it, but I do know that limits things quite a bit ), so it's probably best as Sander says to remove our current and integrate an existing rendering engine.

I doubt someone will be able to create the ultimate guide yet as there are probably many changes still to come for the triggers, for now one will probably have to rely on e.g. http://trac.wildfiregames.com/wiki/Triggers and learning by editing the existing trigger maps. Not sure how much sense Javascript code would make to someone if they are not at least decently comfortable with English though, so maybe he should wait for when/if we have GUI triggers in Atlas

Do I understand your issue correctly that both of you were able to host, but none of you were able to join? Are you possibly both in the same place? (Behind the same router to be more technical.) Not sure that could lead to this, but it would at least be one thing to rule out

It can be a bit tricky to get to work in some cases, I've found that putting a period or a comma and then start to write it usually makes it work.

Please don't post things to the suggestion thread unless they absolutely belongs there. I created this forum about twelve hours ago.

I wasn't here when the initial discussions were held, so I don't know if it was an actual plan. It was more a way to explain how I understood the differences in the initial plan

If I recall correctly mercenaries should not be able to gather resources, and possibly not build things either. In a way be a middle ground between citizen soldiers and champions. I don't really know if that's changed though.

I just tried and it worked fine to download via the torrent and install. I did run into the issue of the installer failing because of me not having enough space on my C drive though. I guess that could have happened to you, but that wouldn't explain why the direct download would work

Are you possibly using a browser plugin that forces https even if the site doesn't support it? That has been the most common reason for downloads not working recently, so I would suggest looking into that.

Another thing to remember is that damaging a building should make it easier for you to capture a building, especially if you damage it enough for the garrisoned troops to be ungarrisoned. So it's not just a simple decision: "do I want to capture or destroy this building", but rather "do I want to destroy the building, or do I want to capture it quicker but have a weaker building, or slower and have a stronger building once it's mine". As to how much should be automated (e.g. should units choose more important buildings first automatically, should units attack buildings rather than units, etc) I think that's something that should be carefully considered. Not enough and the game will be too tedious, too much and you could just as well just press start and have the game play out on its own. (Of the two examples I'd say the player should be forced to choose what buildings to prioritize manually as that is a choice that actually matters and can differ from situation to situation, but maybe being able to set units prioritize buildings over units is a good thing.)

Ah, that explains a lot

The point of this thread, and forum, and testing at this point, is to experiment so we have a system in place to properly test the game once it is ready for proper testing. Not to say that "we think everything is ready, please come test it so we can fine-tune things". Maybe we could have been clearer about that.

Well, the important part in reply to your comment was that if something as big as adding a new civilization is done it should not be done during the Beta phase but before it. I guess it would be one thing to add a well-developed faction from a mod in one of the first Beta releases, but certainly not to add a completely new faction during the Beta phase, and even if it's already developed in mod form I don't think it would be a good idea to add something during the Beta phase at all.

I would say it's more like a café keeping a type of cookie on the menu, even if it's similar to other cookies, and even though shelf space etc limits the number of different types of cookies. Is it a good idea or a bad idea? I'd say it depends on whether or not enough people like having access to that type of cookie. And the same applies to the factions in the game, do enough people like to have that variety in the Hellenistic factions? And is it possible for them to be different enough to make them interesting to play? I don't know, but as far as I can tell people do appreciate the variety they add to the Hellenes. If anything it's the opposite I'd say, it's during the Alpha phase we can afford to be flexible. That said I would say that it is (i.e. at the moment, and depending on the people in the team and current opinions) the team's decision not to add any more factions for part one at all. But as with everything else it could change at a later date. I do however think that it is a good idea to be very strict with changing things on this level, especially since we are getting close to Beta. If we remove factions people are going to get disappointed, work that has already been put into them will be wasted, and since all limits are at least somewhat arbitrary there is some merit to staying with the ones we already have decided upon. Otherwise where do we draw the line? There has been plenty of arguments as to why the Iberians should be split up into at least two factions if not more. At the very least the author of Delenda Est has argued for adding another Hellenistic faction: the Thebans, and I do recall someone else arguing for having some other Hellenistic factions as well. There are plenty of other factions which could be added, of them it's probably the Scythians which are the most interesting imho. It is impossible to make a perfect decision though (there will always be someone who is disappointed, and arguments as to why you should have made a different decision), so the question is where do you draw the line and say "these are the factions we are going to include". I think it's better to have the focus gained from not having to consider the question again, and again, even if it does mean that we might be missing out on some interesting factions.

To me the main reason why we're keeping all these Hellenistic factions is to not throw away the work that's already been done. I personally would probably have preferred to have fewer Hellenistic factions, and perhaps add one or two others, but it's not really the matter what I or anyone else think personally. What matters is what makes sense for the game, and from a development point of view. To me it's hard to argue for adding more factions as it's a lot of work even maintaining the ones we have and make sure they are as interesting to play as they can, and will be as balanced as they can be. I still don't think it's a good way to go to remove factions we already have though. Both because that would mean that the work put into them would have been wasted, and because we have said that the game will include these civilizations. Sure sometimes you have to change things, and remove things, even though you have said they will be included, but to remove something just to add something else instead doesn't seem like a good way to go. While I sometimes do use the word civilizations as well I prefer factions as the word civilization has some problematic connotations, i.e. is a group of people more or less civilized, or for that matter how do you define exactly what group of people is a civilization. A faction is simply a group that's been set apart as a unified group for this game, so it doesn't carry the same problems.

What do you think it would add to the game? As I see it it does have the good effect of being possible to intercept by the other players, which would add one more thing one could do to affect the outcome of the game. I do think it does at the very least have some things which would have to be thought through before adding though. Using a trader would mean that you would not only be losing resources because you are giving them to someone, you would also lose the ability to use the trader to gain more resources during the time it's used to deliver the tribute. I think that would mean people are less likely to tribute resources, and if it's not used/rarely used I think that's an argument against it. Especially since it's something that can make e.g. a situation where one player is focused on by the enemies more fair/balanced as the allies can easily help by tributing resources, but if you would have to send traders through a battle-field to help out it would be a lot harder to do. It also means that it's harder for a player who is just about to be defeated to send any remaining resources to their team mates, but I guess that could be seen as a good thing if you want matches to be over sooner/give bigger benefits to the winning team. When giving tribute to an enemy it would give the added risk of someone else intercepting it etc, but I think it would add more angry players than benefits ("did you really send a tribute? you might be saying that you did, and that someone else destroyed it, but how would I know?" etc). Maybe it can be seen as an added dimension, but to me it seems like a lot of hassle, for a small added benefit.

Selection is defined by a box as far as I know, and not really depending on the model or animation. At least that's the case for buildings, I'm not sure if it differs with units/animals.

I've hidden three recent posts because they were unrelated to the topic, and if anything only could serve to cause conflict. If someone wants to be sure that others take their opinions/suggestions seriously I would advise to not bring up old conflicts but rather new ideas

It's only for random maps, change the first dropdown list (Map type) to be random rather than scenario or skirmish (These maps are handmade, so they come with the players they were made to feature. Random maps are put together by the game from a script and based on the settings you choose, so they are more flexible.)

Unless I'm mistaken that means that the AI will build up its civilization, but will not set out to attack you. Any units you send near it will still be attacked though.

Just realized there is the option to, if you choose to play on a random map, choose to only have one player on the map, yourself.

You can still destroy buildings, it's just not the default action because we want people to discover the capture mechanic (Use Ctrl+click to attack rather than capture, and siege weapons will always destroy, also it's easier to capture a building when it's lower on health.)

If you want to keep an opponent on the map to fight eventually you can set the AI difficulty to Sandbox (then it will not attack you). I think you could do that, and then set the victory condition to Wonder and you could still win the game when you want without having to fight (though I'm not 100% sure the AI won't build a wonder eventually, someone else will have to tell you about that). If you just want to build and don't worry about another player (and don't care about winning after you've built up your civilization), just use the developer controls (Alt+D to bring up), select Reveal Map, then Control all units, and then delete all the opponents units. That will give you a win dialog, but you can just select no and continue building as much as you like (I don't know how well it works with saved games, but at least for a single play session it should work fine, and there's no harm in testing -- apart from lost time I guess).

Are you using the version from this thread? Because if so it shouldn't be expected to work as it's for the Alpha 17 version of 0 A.D. The version in is the one which is supposed to work with Alpha 21 of 0 A.D.