mysticjim

Bit of bonus content today, bit of a teaser before this Sunday's new episode

Hello, This is a message to the creator of the fantastically brilliant FGOD mod - it's both a huge thank you for creating this uber-usual addition to the game, and a Youtubers cheeky wishlist of features I'd love to see added or adjusted slightly to make it even more brilliant and useful for me when I'm doing replays and analysis videos of 0AD matches and for my viewers when they're watching them to help them keep track of whats going on. So, long before I started doing 0AD videos, I first saw the FGOD mod in action in videos on the Tom0AD Youtube channel, where the use of the onscreen overlay has become pretty much ubiquitous, so it was a no-brainer for me to use it. It allows me to easily keep track of populations, breakdown of the types of troops each player has and which phase they're in without having to change views or click on any menus, etc. There isn't anything else out there that does this as far as I'm aware. And while it is great, I'd be really struggling without it, and I doubt it was ever conceived with this use case in mind, but there are a few things that would really take it to the next level; 1) The Overlay - Text Size, Readability and Overall Size The font is so tiny! I'm very short-sited so I do need to get quite close to the screen to make out the writing, so larger text would be awesome. I'd love it if there were more character space for the players names - I reckon 15 to 20 characters would be enough space to display their names in full. In fact, the whole overlay could be be considerably bigger without getting in the way of the action on screen. When I'm doing a replay commentary I'm generally focusing the action right in the middle of the screen, so the overlay on the periphery could be larger without covering key developments in the game. This would also useful for anyone watching the replay on a small screen. I don't think there is much you could for someone trying to watch it on a mobile phone, but for an Ipad or something similar, a slightly larger overlay would make the difference between being able to read the text or not. I think the background behind the overlay could be a fraction darker to help the readability of the text. 2) The Stats Once the game is over, there is nothing better than pouring over the stats to see where it was won and lost. The FGOD mod has a few additional charts that the base game doesn't have, but the following would be, for me, an absolute game changer. Population Count. I've mentioned this in the 0Ad feature request forum, but hadn't previously considered a mod providing this functionality. At the moment we can only see a chart of troops created and a matching chart of troops lost/killed. A chart tracking the actual populations over time would effectively show the fluctuations of both. You could see when someones population boomed or stagnated, or dropped dramatically after an attack, etc. It's such a simple thing to see and understand, it's brilliant for analysis - I find it hard to understand why it isn't actually there in among the charts built into the game, it would great to have it. Anyways, many thanks again for creating the mod. I'm sure you'll continue to improve it how you feel is most beneficial, but thought I'd throw my thoughts in there. Appreciate it's a bit of a niche requirement - but if you ever do produce the official Youtubers version, I'd be first in the queue to download it!!!!! Keep up the great work, it's massively appreciated. Many thanks Jim

Hello! Haven't plugged my videos on here yet, so figured it was about time My YT channel is called 0AD Newbie Rush 0AD Newbie Rush on Youtube It's a weekly show, typically aimed at and often featuring newer players. This is to make it a bit distinct from the Tom0AD and ValihrAnt channels, which mostly cover the top players. Here is the latest episode, released today; Likes, subscriptions and constructive feedback all welcome. Many thanks Jim

Greetings It's been about 2 years in the procrastinating but I've finally launched my Youtube Channel aimed at newer, less experienced 0AD players. The idea is to feature a match each week, highlighting some of the basics, plus the basic errors that most of have made early in our development (am still making in my case!) I've got enough material for the first three episodes but I'm probably going to need a few submissions from players to keep it fresh and interesting. So I'm hoping a few of you good people can help. I have some base requirements; 1) The caliber of players Ideally looking for matches with players rated from low to about 1400, although if there is a great tactic on show, some truly incredible action and drama, I'll certainly consider submissions from higher rated players.Ideally though I'm looking for matches between players still somewhat finding their way. Some moments of tactical greatness are welcome, but it's a warts'n'all thing - I'm looking for people making errors and blunders as well. The perfect games will be where there are lessons to be learned and good points for new players watching to take away and work with, but packaged in an essentially exciting game. 2) No silly walk over victories I'm not talking about a good early rush that ends a game early, I want those! I mean the games where a player spends the whole game building up an impressive force, only to find the opponent has done nothing but chop down a single tree! Or built a fence! The caveat to this would probably be team games - I don't mind the odd game where maybe one of the players is genuinely clueless but the others are going for it! 3) Be nice! The aim is not to make an opponent look thoroughly foolish 4) Replays of under an hour Most of the replays will be broadcast at insane speed, so anything under an hour fits nicely as a full episode, however I'll waive this is if the game is genuinely seat of your pants exciting. 5) Replay files If you can PM me a link where I can download the files that would be awesome. I'm on a Windows PC, and forgive my ignorance - I've no idea if the replay files for Mac or Linux users are essentially identical and cross platform, but assuming they are - all are welcome. Now, I've deliberately not spammed this topic with details of the channel as no-one appreciates people who use forums as gratuitous personal advertising opportunities, but if you do want to check it out, search on Youtube for 0AD Newbie Rush and you'll find the first episode that went live last Sunday. Many thanks for your time Jim

Wow, that is an awesome suggestion!

Hello all Loving 0AD, am not nearly clever or technical enough to suggest anything in the physical gameplay to be improved that probably hasn't been already suggested and debated here, but I have some suggestions regarding the experience the player gets at the end of a game. I'm talking about the game statistics. Stats are a bit boring, compared to the action in the game, but they effectively are the story expressed in numbers of what went down and when, displayed in summary form. 0AD does provide multiple pages of stats on the players performances, and when I first began playing (and getting horribly slaughtered time after time) - the stats were a really good visual indicator about what I may have been doing wrong. To be honest, they still are - I've improved a bit, but I'm still blatantly a complete novice, but stats have given me the insight into what I need to focus on and what my opponent did better than me to give them such a decisive advantage (or on the rare occasions when the stars align and I actually manage to scrape an unlikely victory, how the hell I managed it!) While I appreciate the current multitude of stats - I feel there are a few glaring omissions in terms of giving me the full picture. Here is a list of all the ones I feel would be most useful/nice to have; 1) Population Count So currently we have the unit stats which show basically the rates at which the players churned out their population units throughout the timeline of the game. This is handy for seeing just how rapidly my opponent out-produced me, which is super useful (but sometimes makes painful viewing for me!) But I'd really love to the players actual overall population mapped across the timeline. Unlike the unit production stats, this would show the rises, stagnation and falls in population at any given time. I could see how effective attacks were, and where the eventual victor got a critical mass of population over the opponent - or how well or badly they responded to a devastating attack in terms of their efforts at rebuilding. I think it would provide useful data to study, learn from and apply in future games. At the moment if I want to know this I have to watch the replay and keep contrasting the players populations. This is interesting, and I probably would still do this anyway, but I'd love to have easier access to this statistic. I feel this would be useful in gauging how productive my attacks and defences were in a game, and probably highlight a number of times when I should have pressed on with an attack because I was closer than I thought to achieving an unassailable position, or when I didn't attack or defend with sufficient forces and took a costly hiding! I imagine this would probably be the easiest stat to implement into the game as it's just a running total for each player. I've love to have this at my disposal and be able to chart population count alongside the existing stats for unit production and loses/kills. This could probably be expanded to include similar stats for resource count and number and type of buildings. I'd bet there is no warmer feeling inside when you look back at a game and realise that the simple strategic capturing/destruction of your opponents poorly positioned and defended farm led them to running low of food and really screwed them over at a critical point in the game! 2) More In Depth Breakdown of Units Despite all the colourful array of the individual units a player can produce, the stats break it down by workers, infantry, cavalry and so forth. This really only gives part of the picture. I'd love to see the breakdown of how many swordsmen, pike/spearmen, slingers, archers, etc, or the split between ranged and sword cavalry that got produced in a game. And what about women? I know I can calculate the split of workers against the feminisation percentage, but seriously, who the hell wants to do that for fun! Appreciate that this might be a bit more tricky - I'm assuming that the would require a bit more tagging of the data for the individual units, so coding that into the game might be a hell of a lot of effort just to produce a slightly more in depth page of stats - I concede that perhaps the time would be better spent working on the physical dynamics of the gameplay, but it would be great! 3) Kill Stats I suspect this is another thing that would be seen as fanciful, time consuming folly, but I'd also love to get better visual representation of how effective units are at killing the enemy. At the moment I can see how many of a class of unit I've produced - in the broader terms I discussed in the previous point, and I can see the corresponding numbers for the opponent contrasted - i.e. I know how many infantry I produced, how many were killed and how many of the equivalent type of enemy unit were killed, but these stats aren't a true picture. Even though, say I produced 80 cavalry units, and killed 70 of the opponents, those kills will almost certainly not all have been attributed to my cavalry, my infantry probably did most of that, or my heavily weaponised towers, etc. Owing to the sheer number of units, the gradual decrease of health of units due to multiple skimishes with different emeny units, etc, I appreciate that it's pretty much impossible to attribute an individual units death to any one exact factor, so honestly I have no idea how this might be done, but I'd really like some kind of measure as to how effective a type of unit actually was in a game, especially in terms of analysing the strengths and weaknesses of different civilizations and understanding the strategies of a really good opponent in terms of why they were able to slaughter me so darn effectively! I think that will probably do for now, I suspect I could go on, but I seriously doubt that many other people get that excited about statistics!!!!! And of course, stats can be just as divisive as they are revealing - but for me at least, as someone who is always looking for little secrets and insights to becoming a better player, I always appreciate more of them!

@feneur - much obliged, thank you! Everyone is so friendly here!

@Jofursloft - hello, it's a possibility, yes. Wouldn't mind playing you 1v1 to begin with, just get some idea of just how far advanced you are - or rather should that be, how far below you I am: That would probably make for a good early video, then possibly we could contrast how I do later on after a masterclass or two! I'll PM you with my email in a bit and we'll sort something out.

Hi @Servo - awesome, thanks dude. I may not be in the Lobby till a bit after that as it slightly clashes with when I'll be trying to get my youngster to bed (the joys of parenting!) but I will have a look in and see if you're still around. Don't know if this forum/PM thing works both ways, but if I can PM you I could drop you my email address and we could co-ordinate a future time for game that would be great. Probably be a very short game based on my recent performances mind, but like I said - the video series is as much to indicate what I might be doing wrong and areas myself and other new players can improve on, so it's all good.

Cool, thanks for that - lets hope @feneur notices And if so, please pretty please can I have a bye on the whole forum post / PM limit thing.

Hello, thanks for the steer! Hadn't realised that was a thing on this forum, ah well! Do you know how many posts someone has to make to enable PM'ing? Failing that, I might ask the admin as you suggest. Is it okay to just contact an admin directly or is there a web form or something? Many thanks

Hello Good People of 0AD land I'm Jim, very new and decidedly poor 0AD player! I'm about to do what I hope will be a useful series of game commentaries on Youtube aimed specifically at other new players and I'm looking for a bit of assistance. I need to find a few people in a similar place in their 0AD learning curve, i.e. also new to the game, to play a few example 1v1 matches against me so I've got some content to commentate over. I've got a fairly prominent 0AD Youtuber interested in hosting the videos on his channel - he's interested as his videos are primarily aimed at fairly experienced players, whereas this is most definitely aimed at beginners - should hopefully open up the channel to a wider range of players. It's all going to be a learning experience - I expect to get trounced a few times! But that's the aim, I'm looking to highlight beginner errors (especially my own!) Potential players should; _Hopefully have mastered the absolute basics and be able to at least hold their own against the AI on the Very Easy setting. I'm setting the bar low, but more experienced players are welcome - it's just you probably won't get much challenge playing against me!!! _Be alright with the replay of the games being video captured, having my commentary and analysis stuck on top of them and ultimately being made viewable on Youtube. Naturally, this isn't in any way a profitable venture, it's a bit of fun, but hopefully will be of some benefit to new players. _Ideally be based somewhere in the world where we're on a similar timezone! I'm in the UK and I work full time, so for me this will be an evenings thing, so I guess UK and central Europe are best for syncing up times, etc, but I'll be happy to play anyone in a far flung place if they're prepared to play at some ungodly hour! The first couple of games are just going to be examples for me to provide to the Youtuber, just so he can check out the quality and the presentation style, and if he likes them then this could become a regular thing. If anyone is interested, just drop me a PM for more info. Have a great evening and if you're about to play a game, may you fight well and achieve a decisive victory! Jim