Radiotraining

I would argue that it's not even that. I find it quite lame honestly, but maybe I'm getting too ahead of myself. Anyway, yeah: the final results appear pretty generic. It seems to me that they kinda stitched together different work from different departments each with their own specific focus, but not very cohesive together. This would explain also the weird proportion of buildings and units and between buildings themselves. Or the completely different style from the announcement trailer and the artistic direction they took. Maybe the fact that they developed also during the pandemic didn't help to make things easier. The only really consistent thing I've seen were all the gold accents everywhere, probably the only really conscious artistic choice you can find. Obviously it's probably not really like this. That would be a bit too unforgiving. But that's the feeling I get

Yeah, and even that audience seems quite unsatisfied. I think the main problem is that they tried to make a game for competitive multiplayer, but at the same time they watered it down also for the casual audience, making something that should appeal to everyone but nobody in particular. In fact, there is a lot of criticism in that video. But I think is helpful because this review seems pretty clear and accurate and it would avoid to make similar mistakes as well. Also, it confirms the idea that the production has been pretty lazy because of the many perplexing choices

That's harsh!!! But also.. kinda true!

- - - - - small update : - - - - - - Hello people! This whole thread started a bit random and a bit for fun, but it's been a great opportunity to experiment with the modding tools of 0ad and bring together some cool talents in the forum on a shared project. Hopefully this could be also an opportunity to update this mod and bring some new interesting assets and feature to the whole 0ad project! So thanks to everyone that has helped so far and showed interest in the idea! Since there seems to be some participation, to make things easier I thought to open a small little Discord channel to keep the communication tidy and easy for everyone: https://discord.gg/jjGjFhcw so maybe is possible to discuss some details and ideas without clogging too much the forum with only a particular topic. So for everyone: feel free to participate! Also, I think it would be useful to check out for the council of modders: @Lion.Kanzen @Lopess @Stan` @wowgetoffyourcellphone or anyone who makes sure that the quality of 0ad keeps being high. Feel free to chime in! The forum is still the main venue, but maybe this channel could allow to discuss some minutiae or simply organizational aspects that wouldn't be deserving of a thread here. Hope I'm making the right thing, in case let me know!

anyway .. found this commentary and, I'm not even interested in the competitive play, but I think it's pretty spot on!

@Lopess talvez o detalhe no top pode ser assim? Um cubo e uma cúpula final? https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Mosque_of_Oqba_Courtyard,_Kairouan.jpg EDIT: porém a cúpula tem provavelmente significados religiosos .. então talvez não é uma boa ideia pra uma estrutura militar

don't know if can be related, but I got this video suggested on youtube, and is a pretty good inspiration for making ancient ruins

Fantastic reference!! Thanks for sharing!! It's a bit difficult to find good resources about Avars. Also, good suggestions for the roast of units! It's absolutely a good basis to work on! What's the idea of the "allied camp"? something like a mercenary camp, or more like cartaginese embassies?

À propos of the last movie of Dune, and for who is passionate about the novels, I wanted to share that the original game by Westwood Studio is available for free (yes! For free) on : openra https://www.openra.net and this is pretty amazing if you ask me!

Ehehe i was kidding because in English it sounded also a bit ambiguous I was ready to discover perhaps a whole new world in history that I didn't knew ... but what you said confirms what I also thought and I'm glad we're all pretty much on the same page! Also it would be very, very interesting to represent the relations with Byzantium! In the current mod there wasn't much of such interesting symbiosises

What do you mean with "few"? Small changes from the initial concept ..or instead we have to rethink everything? Anyway in cases like this, the presence of an historical perspective becomes extremely important, so thank you for chiming in!

I'm pretty positive to all the things you have mentioned! I'm fine about shifting towards Kievan Rus'. Maybe would be nice to have the opinion of @Andronikos Medinawho is taking care of the historical aspect of it. But I think it would work fine, especially considering the presence of Byzantium and Norse civ in the mod already, and the close ties between all these civs. About the previous civs, so far I was thinking more of Umayyads that are still without a proper building set, but @Lopesstook the initative to cover that aspect, and I'll probably help him in this. To be honest, the idea to work on the mod started all a bit spontaneously, but I'm disconnected from the people who worked before or those who manage the mod, so I'm all interested to hear the people already more involved. I agree this could be a good occasion anyway to revisit the previous assets and fix what was still unfinished

Good to mention this. But rest assured, I absolutely think the same! Since the very beginning I wanted to focus to maximum 3 civs that are well differentiated between each others. Exactly to not fall into the trap of too many similar civs/assets that are even more difficult to manage without confusion (like the many hellenic civs or barbaric tribes) So I proposed only Rus' (we can decide which of the factions ), Avars and Japan, which are all pretty cool.. and interesting in the same period.. Some people in this thread have proposed also Lombards, which could be also interesting, but I wouldn't go further than that. And I would still stick to maximum 3 civs as a goal

Yeah, honestly I picked Moscovite Rus because it had been already initiated in the forum.. but yeah, we can "twist" it to Kiev/Novgorod Rus' for that matter I also think that the buildings/aesthetics of it may be pretty interchangeable among those states that has formed around the Volga. And it's a pretty intersting and recognizable style.

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!