LienRag

I disagree. The size of the herd may depend on the species, but even with Elephants and Giraffes it should be more than "a couple individuals". Else you force the player to keep micro-managing the herd (killing the third animal as soon as it is beneficial, in order to allow the spawning of a new one).

I used Flatpak to be able to test a24 on an OpenSuse Leap, but I don't need it anymore since I was finally able to test a25 through backports on another computer with Debian. Problem is, I don't have enough room on / to upgrade to the last Leap version, and checking the filesystem tells me that /var/Flatpak takes 4 Go, including 3 Go in /var/flatpak/repo in folders with non-recognizable names. When doing a flatpak list, all I get it this : zeroad translations com.play0ad.zeroad.Locale stable flathub system Lagrange fi.skyjake.Lagrange 1.2.2 stable flathub system Freedesktop.org Application Platform version 1.6 org.freedesktop.Platform 1.6 1.6 flathub system Freedesktop Platform org.freedesktop.Platform 20.08.6 20.08 flathub system Freedesktop Platform org.freedesktop.Platform 21.08.14 21.08 flathub system Mesa org.freedesktop.Platform.GL.default 21.3.8 21.08 flathub system Intel VAAPI Driver org.freedesktop.Platform.VAAPI.Intel 1.6 flathub system Intel org.freedesktop.Platform.VAAPI.Intel 21.08 flathub system FFmpeg extension org.freedesktop.Platform.ffmpeg 1.6 flathub system openh264 org.freedesktop.Platform.openh264 2.1.0 2.0 flathub system La Bataille pour Wesnoth org.wesnoth.Wesnoth master wesnoth-origin system La Bataille pour Wesnoth org.wesnoth.Wesnoth 1.16.5 stable flathub system Except Wesnoth (which I would like to keep in order to not lose all the add-ons I downloaded), what is there should not take 4 Go of disk space. Am I wrong to believe that 0ad was not successfully removed from my disk ? What to do to remove it entirely ?

OK. But "a certain number" should certainly be more than "a couple individuals" if the dynamic is to be interesting.

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Possible indeed, but quite lacking though. Realistic Morale would make battle very different (and more similar to historical ones) that what we have now, which also means that a morale system needs to be carefully balanced against playability and fun. If it's just "fight until you lose morale, retreat to recover it, lather, rinse and repeat" then it's no good. If it opens fully new maneuver possibilities, then it's probably worth the cost of implementing it.

As long as we don't have a morale and/or "orders" system, there's no realistic way of depicting heroes, so we're more or less stuck with unrealistic damage attack and amount of HP. One way to alleviate this problem would be to make clear that the hero represents not only the actual hero, but also his/her personal retinue.

Interesting indeed, especially if there's an upkeep for Mercenaries, and the mercenaries' morale largely depends on whether this upkeep is paid in full or not.

Apart from the flavor, musicians were important for cohesion and synchronicity (mostly march synchronicity AFAIK, but also a little bit for synchronicity of attacks). So as long as 0ad doesn't use an "orders" system, musicians would not be a very important addition to the game.

Romans were known for their impressive groundworks, so that could indeed be an interesting faction bonus. Maybe the Assyrian were too ?

A lot of interesting ideas, but I'm less sure about the cavalry needing to be only spear cavalry. Note too that roman legionnaires had the pilum but also the gladius, so is the sword infantry completely incapable of making pitched battles ? The ability of swordsmen and axemen to flank infantry formations is important and shouldn't be dismissed (maybe not against tortuga formations, though). I'm no specialist but weren't Gauls swordsmen ? Yes Caesar was able to finally destroy them but not without trouble, so maybe your proposal, though very good, may be a bit simplistic and not all swordsmen need to be dismissed (again, I'm no specialist, so if you have good arguments I can change my mind). I'll also repeat what I wrote elsewhere, the main importance of formations historically was for morale, so as long as we don't have a morale system it's difficult to represent pitched battles accurately.

Indeed. A good way to emulate that would be a morale system, with cavalry and ranged troops having very little effect on infantry units' morale when in formation. Only infantry would have effect over enemy infantry units in formation, and an effect proportional to its heaviness difference (i.e., light infantry has nearly no effect on heavy infantry, heavy infantry has devastating effect on light infantry). That would also allow for the other good proposal, "Cavalry should have a bonus against infantry not in formation" : it would have a morale impact on it, and a damage bonus against demoralized infantry units not in formation. Spear cavalry should have a damage/morale bonus against ranged units even when they're in formation (maybe not against heavy javelineers in formation, though - another way to differentiate those).

Thanks, I wasn't aware of that. But no, I didn't find any difference between women working on one, two or three-tilled rice paddies in the stats given by hovering over this symbol.

That's an option but it would not reflect the reality of Javelin use : a short but quite devastating rain of missiles just before melee engagement. Since it's not a nitpick but a real strategic difference (Javelineers would be used to screen other troops but never alone) it would be nice if the game could reflect that. Battles of the era were mostly melee (well, with the exception of Scythian horse archers and the like), but missiles played an important role to shape how the melee fared. That's what 0ad combat mechanisms should aim to reproduce.

Javelin soldiers with infinite reload ability will either be overpowered (if reasonable value for the damage are used) or unhistorical (if it is nerfed). They are really the soldiers that are the most in need of an "ammunition" system. Of course this ammunition system has to be not too micromanagy if the game is to stay fun.

A mod for Greek A.D. could be nice, if it fitted more precisely the period warfare...

A civilization with non-infinite fields (and not micromanagy like AoE, really non-infinite fields where you can't rebuild a field in the same place when the soil is exhausted) would play very differently and as such be a nice addition.

That is the only real problem, as there is no way to play the game without any siege ability.

Would be nice to have a game mode (or mod ?) for that, indeed. Like you get one preparation phase (not real-time) with some resources to put buildings and walls on the map before starting the real-time play.

Where is there gather rate shown if you don't click on the portrait ?

Indeed. Nice idea ! Well, having not-cavalry-though-similar-to-cavalry would make the civilization less different, so having a fast unit yes, but it shouldn't be as fast as cavalry. Could be faster than everyone in jungle, and slower than cavalry in open terrain maybe ? Training cavalry from captured stables should require a specific Hero imho, or a specific tech at least.

Isn't this how things are supposed to work ? There is no problem with a candidate civilization staying in limbo for a long time while it is put under scrutiny and its problems solved one by one...

One real improvement that Alpha 26 brought is that the mini-map is now actually a mini-map instead of a mini map. I mean, it's not just a repetition in smaller size of the big map, but it now bears very clear and legible symbols for all the important things (you don't have just a yellow spot for a gold mine, that could be confused with a yellow player unit, you now have a very clear symbol meaning "there is gold here". It could be even nicer if there was a way to toggle off/on all these symbols, when a player is in need of something specific. Also, there's a huge problem with relics : they are crucially important, yet once you spotted one but moved your unit away from it (because it's useless to try to capture it with only one unit) you have no way of remembering where it was. There are two possible solutions : 1 - Make the symbol for relics stay on the map, with a greyed color when it's not currently visible (since it may have moved). Of course remove the greyed symbol if the location becomes visible again and the relic isn't there anymore. 2 - Allow to put "pins" on the map, so when you explore and want to remember where the relic was (or another thing, like a commercial road) you can pin it. For the normal map, I find it often difficult to see where exactly is the highest point of an area (I mean, if there's a small mound somewhere, which is the highest point of that mound ? It's often really not obvious to see). It would be nice to be able to toggle geographic curves view... Also, when placing a tower, it would be nice to see the exclusion zone for other towers that it provokes. What is visible is only its range, which (from what I understand) is different.

The fact that it cannot be enforced doesn't mean that it won't be followed at all, since it establishes a common agreement of what is considered useful. Eisenhower famously said that "plans are useless, but planning is indispensable".

Indeed and it would be nice to have this fixed. But still, it's not the same problem than building a dock somewhere and noticing only later that the ships can't cross to the main water area...