Silver

- I don't know, like I said, it all depends on how this game and gameplay turns out. - If you could give me an example from a game and the strategy you like, it would really help me try to give a guess at how well it works. I'll give you my gameplan/tactic that I used in AoE I for Random Map (You start with 200 Food, 150 Wood, 0 Gold, 75 Stone. Approx. haven't played in quite a while.) I used to be in VoE on The Zone - if you played age of empires or age of kings you would remember The Zone. Anyways VoE was an AoE I clan that specialized in Random Map. They were one of the better clans out their for AoE I. The strategy of almost every VoE member including myself goes as follows - We picked Assyrian, a civilization that doesn't do very well in late games, but is strong in early games. Why pick Assyrian? The villagers move 30% faster then others, making it much more efficient to collect resources. The arrows from Archers shoot at a faster rate. Chariots can be researched to make Chariot Archers and both can be picked up in the 3rd Age (Bronze Age). The Strategy in numbers: Getting Started - To the Tool Age: I can't remember it very well, but here's a shot at it - Build house, granary and first 7 villagers on berries. 5-6th villager builds a second house and then put on berries, once you are at 20 or so villagers with 12-15 on berries + hunting, advance to tool. (It will take 5-9 minutes to get to tool, it's preference here.) Building houses 2-3 villagers in advance of Population limit. While advancing to the Tool Age, build a barracks. Tool Age - Bronze Age: The goal here is to buy as few villagers as possible, while advancing to the tool age, you should have saved up a good amount of food. It should be a minute or maybe 2 to get enough food to advance to Bronze Age. While all this is going on, take 2 villagers off of wood (or 1 and 1 from each resource.) and then build - Market + 2 Archery Ranges. Advance ASAP. Getting as low a time as possible is extremely important, the fastest I have ever achieved has been just under 13 minutes. (The best time I remember someone getting is VoE immortal getting 11 minutes.) Still no military has been built at any point. Bronze Age and Beyond: Alright, now that you have just advanced, go to Market, advance wheel, and start pumping out villagers from the Town Center. As soon as the wheel is updated, build chariot archers. Just keep pumping out everything at a steady rate, send more and more villagers to wood (and 1/3 new villagers goes on food until wood is no longer an issue.) Build more Archery Ranges, closer to enemy bases and more in my original starting place. I pump more and more archers and more and more villagers. Rush as soon as you have 6-10 Chariot archers, hit their villagers, avoid their army and just try to cause as much damage until you have an army of 25+ Chariot Archers. Confront the player and then raze every building and kill every villager. This is really general and probably has some mistakes, since it's been so long since I was in VoE. I had no defense, I had a strong economy because of villager bonus and because I only need two resources. I have a strong military and usually before everyone else because I advanced quickly. Some of the small things I do during a match - My villagers are usually in groups of 4-5 (6-7 if I'm killing elephants for food.) I keep them spread out, and during a game I can be VERY offensive with my villagers (So small groups means less will die if I ever get caught unaware), sometimes taking food almost directly beside my enemies base. I'll explain why later. I will almost never build farms unless I can't find any food in immediate surroundings. I always hunt, pick berries. If there are any shore fish, they are the priority for me. Remember, farms are the slowest food source of food in AoE, so if you are farming too early, it can have huge consequences especially against an evenly matched opponent. Because farms are the slowest, I usually go far out of my base for animals and berries. The longer I can stay on a faster food source the better. I'm not sure if this game will be like AoE in the Random Map type game, so this strategy could be useless.

Iberians, I want to raid and rush the fun out of my first opponent. I always liked fast moving armies, if I try them in single player and have problems my second choice would be Romans/Greeks.

Celtic just to be clear - northern northern northern Scotland, big heritage thing for that side of my family 1/2 and 1/2 of Unknown.

Depending on the Civilizations and how everything works in 0 A.D. I will end up having to completely change strategy, or make some minor changes to strategies I already use in the Age of Empires series. The main thing I will be looking for when I employ a strategy or tactic in a new RTS game will be - How big is the economy in the game? For the record I like to employ a rushing strategy first - In AoE games lasted 12-20 minutes because everyone would reach the bronze age and fight with chariots, Assyrian was too strong in random map. In AoM and AoE III, I also employed rushing strategies because of Home Center and bonuses in AoE III and all the bonuses in AoM. In AoK I was always changing and tweaking and testing new ideas. The reason I like rushing is because the economy is such a big factor early on in the game. If I can rush myself into the bronze age with a good economy, I can build a military and destroy the opponents economy. As for tactics within the military itself, I am going to have to wait and see what formations and bonuses are given before making a decision on how exactly I'll plan an attack. My guess based on other games and the quick read on each civilization - Romans will be a 'boomer' (Meaning they will have a slow start economically and then once a strong/average economy is in place they will be insanely hard to play against because of strength in the military.). Strong infantry and siege is almost a guarantee. Carthaginians will be a 'boomer' as well, however they will have better cavalry, navy and a different economy (via trade routes). Celts will be a rushing civilization (Attack early get the opponent down.) - They don't have the power or knowledge to have strong buildings, siege and a powerful navy. They will be relying heavily on numbers and power to deal with lack of organization and armor + siege. I believe everything will be cheaper and since it is cheaper, I think 'rushing' with them will be the best way to win. Hellens will be a 'boomer' just like the Romans and Carthaginians. They look great defensively and with the phalanx formation of the hoplites coupled with what I hope will be a powerful economy, I believe they will be a strong boomer, competing with the Romans and Carthaginians on an almost level playing field. Iberians - This one is easy because of the description - I think rushing + raiding is the best option here. It even says that in the description on this site. Attack early on, retreat and repeat. It's great way to frustrate the other player, it will deal a serious blow to their economy each time and cause the other player to panic and make mistakes. Based off the description, I see offensive units who are fast and will deal a ton of damage and disappear before they get exposed (There's a good chance the Iberian armor on any military unit will be much lower because of all the bonuses they get on the offensive side of the military.) Persians - They look to be a jack of all trades in strategies. You can rush with massive numbers of infantry (even though they aren't very effective or powerful.) early on. You can 'boom' later on in the game and create an army of cavalry (strongest in the game.). And they have many different types of everything, allowing for choices in what to train and choices in countering enemy units. All that with a strong trade routes makes them a good balanced civilization with lots of options in terms of strategy. Those are just some of my thoughts, the developers could have something different in mind. Also - remember rushing and booming are just two general strategies that are used most often when I played AoEs + Expansions. You could obviously change it up in game, tweak things. And this is all based on an RM game style (Random Map, start with few resources, build an empire.)

I like the aspect, but it also makes me want to play those civs and then I can't

How good do you think the AI is going in 0 A.D. ? Will the AI be fairly good like in the original Age of Empires, or will it be more advanced then that like in an AoE 3 or AoK match?

I found out about this because I played AoE original + Rise of Rome and I kept in touch with them after zone stopped supporting AoE. After no reasonable multiplayer hoster, I was looking around for another RTS styled in the Greek or Roman eras of history. An old zone friend told me about 0 A.D. and to wait for it to come out, I searched it found this and can't wait for it to come out.

This is GREAT it adds an aspect I feel that almost every other RTS has neglected. How will you work that out though? Sounds like alot of coding Will it be that you can't just click your men to attack archers you ahve to manoeuvre them around the main front of enemy army to the sides/back?

Thanks, I wasn't actually serious about the boarding idea, I was just using it as an example of how they did carry troops in ships but boarding function does sound cool even without seeing the actual combat.

That sounds good

If they did it right you would have ships ramming each other for one hit each, and you would have to have troops to board the other ship, because besides ramming other ships not much else they could do. (I could be wrong but I haven't really studied Roman history.) And they would be faster since they were all oared ships.

Will the extra troops increase damage and/or speed up ship? Or will they just be in the ship until they are unloaded?

I like this idea, if there is any ability to switch teams there should be a penalty every time that does happen, and over the long run if you're switching sides almost every game, it can really affect in game play/economy/military. (One not all of them) I also like that idea of the fighting for land with people who share a common goal, that could also decrease team switching.

Then you got lucky or you haven't played much, when something like rating comes on the line and you are free to switch teams it becomes very annoying. Allowing creation of alliances would require either a huge slow down in game, a military that relies more heavily on economy, or super slow combat so that you can't just gang up on one person and destroy him.

Kennylz brought up several points, one in particular caught my attention. Will Warships be able to carry troops like they did when they were used? Some of the famous Roman ship battles involved troops using planks and crossing into enemy ships. I was just wondering if warships will be able to hold people and fight? (instead of having a particular ship for it, like in AoE they had transport ship that couldn't deal damage, only transport.)

I keep coming back to this site and decided to register, after The Zone took down online play for Age of Empires series (single player and other hosters had too little people), I quit gaming and started doing other things (friends, school, work) etc... Ancient RTS (Bullets has always killed games for me maybe it's the fact that you shoot them, they take damage and don't die/injure? Atleast with swords/arrows you tire after hitting each other) has always been my favourite type of game/thing to do, and I am impressed with the Wildfire team , they aren't cutting corners or anything. Can't wait to see this game released, because I haven't seen any Ancient RTS worth playing since AoE. I can only hope it comes out soon Best of luck and I hope it comes out in the next couple of years. (No sarcasm, just so no flaming goes on, making a game is rough.) Well finally decided to post looks like it's going to be great game Sorry about this post going on and on I'm just really tired Silver