Radiotraining

everything!! Just kidding ahaha I'm another nobody here in the forum. @Lion.Kanzen is the real boss! He will give you the right indications! But anyway, welcome around!

Very interesting! I always noticed some closeness between the two cultures. If I'm not mistaken the russians had some sort of admiration for the rich church of Byzantium. There is the story of prince Vladimir that, among all the faiths and religions, chosed the faith of Byzantium because he was struck by the might of the Byzantine ceremonies. It's probably a legend, but gives a sense of the close connections between Rus' nobles and Byzantium. I was thinking to have maybe a little wooden church as "church" in the game (like in the village in the second reference) .. and that monastery perhaps as a wonder? Although the concept of "monastery" itself is interesting. Maybe could work as a university to unlock some new techs? Let's see! To make a civilization work well in a game, it must be also balanced, so we have to be careful with any new "innovation" we may introduce So let's see step by step from the basic buildings and main techs what's possible

Yes.. I have that in mind. I don't think we're too far. Maybe in this case is more correct to reference on Kiev or Novgorod that were more a commercial and political centre at that time, more so than Muscovy. Muscovite Russia, in fact, was planned for the "famous" II part of the mod. But, since I hardly see that coming, I took the initiative to sketch some concepts and I took that momentum to actually try to implement them into the game! I don't know if it's completely "wrong" from the original idea, but I was thinking that perhaps Millenium AD could be treated like 0ad, where various civilizations are represented at the height of their power, even if there's no specific time where this happened simultaneously. So, similarly, the Rus' duchy may have flourished a little bit later in the timeline, but it would be worthed to represent it, even if it was more embrional before the year 1000. I don't know if it makes sense. Anyway, given the reason to not step too far into the timeline, at the beginning of this thread I stated that my idea was to focus to no more than 3 civs: Rus, Avars and -perhaps- heian period Japan. So it's easier to keep them vaguely connected to the same timeline

This is a perfect reference!!! Thanks!! ) Yeah!! That's my idea!! I would like the final result to look something like that. My reference have been also Apollinary Vasnetsov's paintings.. I think he depicted very well that rural / traditional side of Russia (albeit romanticized and not historically 100% actual.. but I think is pretty close!)

Thanks man!! ^^ yeah, very happy of the potential of this game..! Also I discovered that modding is so much fun!!

Guys.. let me introduce you the new Rus civilization for Millenium AD!! Finally, after some troubleshooting and a quick deep dive into 3D modelling, I managed to bring my customized CC into my new civlization!! Since now I was only experimenting with dummy models, but now I think I can really transfer those initial concepts to the actual game! Thanks to everyone that answered my doubts/questions!! It had been a big, big encouragement to not despair from the very beginning! EDIT: yes, I can still make that model a little bit prettier.. but overall is a decent result of what I had conceptualized! Next one: add props, decals, etc... Rus_civic_centre_08.blend Rus_civic_centre_08.blend1

Yeah, I agree with pretty much they say.. I'm also a bit skeptical about the game overall. Nevertheless I think it's going to stay around for a while. In the end they will probably add new civs to keep it "new" and patch all the bugs and missing features until people will stick around. (Or maybe it will die quickly.. who knows?) What I'm trying to say is that is better to recognize it as a new competitor in the scene without dismissing it quickly. I think it can stimulate some new dynamism in the rts arena and if people will end up being so disappointed, they can always come back to 0ad! That's why I see it as a positive opportunity!

But I mean, at the moment of exporting from Blender.. do you put the model of a unit side by side to the building to check? (hey, that could work, by the way!) I think I kinda solved by enlarging A LOT the model until I got it right.. but it felt random and arbitrary, so it was more to understand the correct method. But nevermind, I'll try your advice!

Yeah, seems quite tedious and elaborated.. I found a tutorial of Stan that explains it, but I haven't tried that step yet One question.. probably @Stan` at this point: I managed to add another structure, a house, to the game. This time, however, it became tiny tiny. You have any idea of why is that the case? And why it came out pretty okay in the first shot? In both cases I just copied and pasted the .xml files from the other civs and updated the links to the right meshes.. I guess the question should be more like: how to get consistent results? Is there a rule of size/proportions to keep? Gosh, is so easy to get lost

Found this on Reddit. Two days after launch it's already 13th played title on Steam. Like it or not, is anyway destined to be the next "big thing" for a while. At least is having a good momentum in the competitive arena. I see this as an opportunity more than a menace to 0ad. It means that there's hunger for good old rts games out there, and I think it's a solid alternative to commercial titles with boisterous marketing teams but a bit of less soul in it

@Andronikos Medina while I hone my poor 3D skills, we can use this thread to focus on the Byzantine civilization. The bone structure is already there, but there may be some cool innovation we could add, as you have suggested! One of the things is quite difficult to me to grasp is the architecture: there isn't much you can find online, unless you really know some relevant buildings to search. So I think it could be a good starting point also to revisit some of the current models. What do you think? Do you have suggestions on this aspect? Feel free to add all your knowledge, materials and indications. I think is very appreciated!

Taaa daaan! Managed to add my ugly model into my dummy civilization in the game and IT WORKS!! Soooo it's going to be all downhill from here!! (ahaha not really: now comes the BIG part but this thing at least is done!) Stan don't kill me: I know the model is ugly and the props are floating

ah, I get what you mean! I guess from your answer that you need to have separate objects in object mode first.. makes sense!

Meanwhile, I started what could be a storehouse ... now I'm going to see how to project materials on it One (dumb) question: - is it possible to group objects in edit mode? Sometimes I would like to grab the whole object, and not the single faces/edges.

Would you like to share the assets? So I can try and test as well! (I'm trying to learn ehehe)

Yeaaahh keep going my man! This is getting great!! :))

niceeeee!! Those are VERY good!! where have you find them? a mix of 1 and 4 looks like the perfect combination for us!

Okay update: I figured out how to mess into the documents and files of the game and I managed to create a customized civ!! Yuhuu!! I know it sounds risible, but for me it was quite a milestone to understand the system Now comes the fun part: all the meshes / textures / props needed to populate such civ ahaha! Let's go!

For the whole time I thought it was only a placeholder for the UI for developers or early demos and that they would have changed it in the final. I was wrong yeah, it does seem like a placeholder. Or at least that's the impression of the effort they put in it.

Thanks for the complete background always very interesting to have a bird-view of the complex web of relations at that time. Indeed, there were many relations between Venice and the East, especially Byzantium. And the architecture is a mark of this. But I personally didn't know all these historical details! Very appreciated. I can think that this aspect could be maybe translated with "mercenaries" in the game, so maybe could be a hint of the close relationships

Guys .. as I said earlier in this thread, I still have to figure out all the technical aspects of making a mod, so I wanted to limit the number of civilisations to focus on so they can be developed with enough attention. But if you want to help, then more civs can surely be added! Ahaha seriously tho, I keep asking around for guidance and suggestions on how getting started, so any expert advice that could help me decipher the files structure and where to put my hands is very welcome! talking to you @wowgetoffyourcellphone ahaha how you managed to make such a great mod? Is seriously amazing! Anyway about Venice.. I'm Italian soooo.. surely I would have tried to include some references from my history ahahah Honestly I was thinking more of a federation of Italian States. Something like the Lombard League that defeated the Holy Roman Empire, so that is possible to include many Italian states references, like a Genoese crossbowman, Venetian ships, mercenaries from Pisa etc..

Love it!! ^^ No no, let's keep also the ideas for Byzantine Empire! that's a good source of ideas, and I love the fact that is your area of expertise! We can start from that and then move to the next ones. For now I'll have to figure out also all the technical aspects required ehehe not an easy task for an absolute noob like me

I think the problem lies in planning too much stuff ahead that risk to derail a project. That's why I chose to focus on 3 civs for the moment, just to have a clear goal -relatively- manageable. Bear in mind that I have zero experience with modding. I just launched this idea just a few days ago and now I'm trying to figure out the rest. So even making a single civ could be an incredible accomplishment to me! So I would stick with some limited goals for now. This is to give some context. But again, the civs I chosen to focus on are completely arbitrary: I just picked up some interesting/influential ones that were already planned to be included in the mod somehow. So they surely can be discussed, if it's the case! For example, I was considering to switch the Avars with the Bulgarian Kingdom, since it had close contact with both Byzantine and Russian empires, so it could fit coherently with the rest. But I don't know. If you have knowledge about this one it would be incredibly helpful to plan it out, in case! Although I would say that if you want to pick a specific civ and take care of its details, feel free to do so and we'll see how to implement it. But in general, future civs could be added later, only after the first goals are accomplished. Otherwise it's a bit too much.

No, I haven't thought anything about it yet. If you go at the beginning of this thread I layed out my ideas for this mod, starting from what's already present and just adding a couple more civs. So I wasn't considering to touch the Byzantine civilization. But you coincidentally appeared right on time and I think that your knowledge and historical background could be really helpful to re-design some elements if necessary! So all the material that you're deeming necessary is very welcome! Btw: I took it for granted that you already played the mod, but maybe it wasn't obvious. Basically, if you have the version a25 of 0ad, you can download the mod from github here: https://github.com/0ADMods/millenniumad and should be possible to play it! There's already present a Byzantine civilization, together with a few others. And some historical feedback from you could be very interesting!

I think @DerekO has made something like that on Discord