[Version Control system]

Agreed for the git pros:

• clearer use of branch (the huge one for me) and release tags
• remote
• being THE main standard
• The submodules possibility

1 hour ago, maroder said:

Yes the companies may shutdown their platform without any warning and we couldn't do anything about it. But how realistic is that?

Self-hosting means that there still needs to be someone in the team who puts in the work maintaining the server, getting new updates, doing other sysadmin stuff....

Sure, this reduces the potential risk, but it binds development resources that are from what I know very sparse right now. So is it worth it? Imo no.

I think the shutdown argument is a strawman. The problems are rather in my view:

• the use conditions of the platform
• the users'personnal data management by the company
• how much you're stuck with the proprietary solution

So my view is that self-hosting is a good solution over these points but using, for example, an instance of the community (FLOSS) version of GitLab from a provider is OK :

• Migration is possible in another instance of GitLab Community, self-hosted or not
• You're not stuck with the proprietary management of issues and all on GitHub for example.

I said it for GitLab but the same goes for any git management FLOSS solution (Gitea, Tuleap, etc.).

[Re-release of 0 A.D. Alpha 25: Yaunā]

Hi Ceres, apt pinning is possible but risky if you don't know first precisely what you're doing.

If you're not in a hurry, you can wait for a bookworm's backport of 0ad, it will come sooner or later.

If you're in a hurry, you may use the flatpack or snap packages of 0ad, which are up to date, until bookworm's backport of 0ad is ready.

It would be separated from the Debian packages if you want to compile yourself a version from the repository for testing purposes.

[Are civs in a25 more unique/specific?]

1 hour ago, sil-vous-plait said:

it appears to me online "competitive" players always jump on whatever bandwagon emerges from minuscule unbalanced advantages across versions (i.e. sling/ram in a23, archers in a24, what appears to be merc cav in a25), so maybe it's overstated how homogenous things need to be...there will always be some lever to manipulate, so to speak

Yes, in this idea, that's why I think that it is almost impossible to get a perfect balancing without playing too similar civilisations (one or two visible differences would not be enought), that's why it could be a good idea to create a kind of optionnal system as proposed by vv221 :

On 22/09/2021 at 10:03 AM, vv221 said:

I remember that Age of Empires Ⅱ (sorry, not the best example of civilizations diversity outside of a couple exceptions) provided an option for that: by default all civilizations would use their own technology tree, but you could enforce a default tech tree for all players if you wanted to play a very balanced game.

Another option would be to provide civilization "sets", a bit like what Battle for Wesnoth proposed through "eras": you can chose to play with a core/balanced set, perfect for multiplayer, or with a full/extended set, including civilizations with more interesting gameplay quirks.

I guess what is important to remember is that there are players who have much more fun with imbalanced gameplay. Playing human against AI is imbalanced anyway, and can not be balanced by playing very similar civilizations, so in my opinion the game could be much more engaging in such modes by embracing the imbalance instead of trying to level it.

 

[Are civs in a25 more unique/specific?]

2 hours ago, maroder said:

I agree very much with the type of civ uniques @chrstgtr is proposing. Unique techs are fine, but from a non competitive player perspective they don't make much difference for the unique felling of a civ.

It is way better to have something unique that you can easily see and experience. I.e. some phase two champ, the war dogs, the workers ele or as an extreme example the Scythians from DE who have a completely different gameplay.

@ValihrAnt for that reason I also agree that D4280 is superior to the alternative D4233

 

I can only agree with it: for a casual players, tech differences aren't really relevant, unique buildings, items, units, building improvments, etc. things which are really visible are.

[Are civs in a25 more unique/specific?]

vv221 proposes good alternatives to solve the problem which could please everyone.

I like both solutions. Maybe the "set" solution is the simplest at the moment ?

The "tech tree" solution would the most interesting in the long run I think.

[Are civs in a25 more unique/specific?]

I was thinking the same for a while !

The game seems to be more and more tailored only for hardcore competitors who expect perfect balancing between all civs : something which is impossible without making them completely similar.

This withdraws most of the game diversity except graphically and, to some extent, the interest to play different civs to get a different playing experience.
The game becomes quickly annoying for casual playsers and generally not hardcore competitors players.

I believe the game is not played only by hardcore competitors.

Maybe the generalizing civs movement was intentend to get a sens of balancing before re-adding diversity to the game to take it out of its competitor niche market ?