LienRag

What about having some Civilizations getting (either from start or through a tech) the ability to hire mercenaries on promised pay ? These mercenaries would cost metal upkeep (if they don't get paid they risk to stage a revolt or swithc side), limited while they're idle, higher when moving/building, and more important when fighting (maybe with higher costs when wounded). I'm thinking of 1 metal per second when fighting ? Their fixed cost would be set somewhere on the trading or diplomacy panel, with a button "pay the mercenaries". It would not be possible to hire new mercenaries as long as the debt to the first ones is not settled (even the dead). There could even be some heroes still able to hire mercenaries while a certain amount of debt is still owed, so as to vary the gameplay. Once paid, these mercenaries could either leave the map or be re-hired (probably at a lower cost). The amount of mercenaries that could be hired on a promised pay will be fixed either by the Civilization, by a Tech level or by buildings, or by random - or timed - events (they'll need to be hired all at the same moment, since it's not possible to hire mercenaries while the debt to older mercenaries is not settled). With timed or random events, it's even possible to allow multiple players to compete to hire the same group of mercenaries (by a blind auction mechanism on a limited period of time, let's say 10 seconds). Needs good balancing to allow early rush while not making these early rushes impossible to counter, obviously.

The flatpak (main option to install it on a Debian stable) still tells me that it can't install as it needs 3 Gb while I have 500 Mb (there is definitely more than 3 Gb free both on my /home and my / partition)....

Really ? "O + Left Drag over units on map: Only select wounded units. " Thanks for the info, I never noticed. If so, all that is needed would be a stance "go heal yourself"...

Very interesting idea if done right... The concept is that all players would get a chance at hunting these animals, provided they anticipate their movement. It also provides for early-game interaction as denying the enemy access to this food resource becomes an interesting strategy. There is an important balance to achieve though : 1 - There should be enough animals that one player cannot kill them all before they leave his vicinity (except with huge amounts of cavalry), and not that much that they become the main food resource in the game nor that it doesn't matter what the enemy does (I mean, if whatever number the enemy kill you still have more animals that you can use when they reach your vicinity, then it's a gigantic tap of food for everyone, not the object of strategic conflict). That probably means that these animals should have good food value (200 at least) but also good hit points and reasonable armour (thick hide). 2 - These animal herds should avoid any players' territory (maybe run through it if they don't have any way outside of it) so that it's not possible to corral them in a closed area (which would assure the player succeeding in that endeavour a ginormous and unbalanced amount of food). Maybe have a "stampede" behaviour that allows them to destroy palisades when cornered, and maybe even to kill themselves (spoiling their food) against stone walls if they cannot escape otherwise. 3 - Their speed should be lower than cavalry so that they can be hunted, but carefully adjusted : a player spotting them should have time to exploit at least part of the herd, but the herd should also cross to the other parts of the map quickly enough that other players get a shot at them. 4 - Their AI behaviour should also be carefully crafted, so that it's possible to isolate (and maybe corral) some animals from the herd, without being able to divert the herd entirely from its itinerary. 5 - Their path (if they enter the map at a point and leave it at another) should be predictable enough that players can integrate them into their strategy, but with enough variation that it's not possible to surround them without putting enormous numbers of cavalry to the task. Their time schedule should also get some variation so it's a "keep prepared" situation rather than a "appointment" one.

Could it possible (sorry if it has already been suggested, as the topic is 153 pages long I didn't read them all) when selecting a group of units to have a button saying "send all wounded units to garrison in nearest healing building" ? That would cut micro-management a lot... And not overkill in battle as one usually don't want to remove from the frontline the units that are not deeply wounded (which that button would do). Maybe have some hero whose aura would allow automatic replacement of wounded units on the frontline by fresh units ?

I get "metadata.blob not detected as an object" (which leads to a failure in getting the mod list).

If there are slaves in the game, slave revolts should definitely be a possibility... What would be strategically interesting is to have the probability of slave revolts depend on which civilization you confront : especially, slaves would not revolt if their masters are attacked by another slaver civilization, but when the ratio of troops around said slaves favor a non-slaver civ (for example, Maurya, if I read the discussions well) then a slave revolt would be likely to occur. Also, have some heroes (Danaerys T. ?) raise the probability of slave revolts (against their enemies) in their aura. Maybe even have cruel heroes that raise the probability of slave revolts in their own civilization as long as they're alive ?

It's a bit frustrating though... Maybe have them get only one level of advancement ?

Anything that help differentiates a civilization from others should certainly not be removed... Nerfed maybe, or given to another Civilization is the one benefiting from it now is too powerful, but never removed.

Oh, also having some heroes/heroins giving a fighting boost to women could be nice and there are certainly historical precedents. It could be either as an aura or as a general bonus as long as the hero/in is alive.

Formations should have a very important role on morale, shouldn't they ? (going both way : units with low morale leaving formation - historically, mainly from the rear, that's one of the reasons to have multiple ranks - and units still in formation getting some morale bonus, the level of which depends on the formation)

I believe (not an expert, but I read some vulgarization) that in most societies of this time, all male citizens (i.e., not slave) were supposed to be able to fight in a war if need be ? If there are societies where there were non-slave citizens without any fighting skill, definitely yes the game should represent that fact for their in-game civilization (and it may be an interesting differentiation point to have woodless citizens that do not suck at mining), but apart from that there's no point in creating yet another anachronism. Also, if it's possible to represent slavery in a strategically interesting and not totally icky way, that could indeed solve part of the problem as women would basically disappear from the workforce and as such from the game (save from female priests, traders and champions). But I'm not convinced by the ideas presented so far (and haven't tested Delenda Est)... Another option would be making women's tasks (like weaving and spinning) more prominent in the game (but of course only if there's a strategic impact, not for gaining woke points). I don't have many ideas on how to do that in a meaningful and interesting manner, though.

Some animals should have 0 armor. Buffalo hides are thick. Elephant also, I guess some deers do also have quite thick skin. Also, loom should probably give women back their 1 armor. Armor level of women could be a civilization trait, too (with reasonable levels) : thick clothes do protect quite well.

Is there a peertube instance or channel for 0ad ?

Thanks, but then why killall -9 pyrogenesis brings "no process found" ?

Hi all. I'm testing the Asteria mod on 0ad KenWood without problems for a few days, but on Friday it seemingly crashed after a woman was killed by enemy fire (I still have the mouse pointer but it has shapes not seen before for the game, and I can't click on anything). Problem is I can find no way to get out of the game fullscreen to access the other windows on my Debian Mate computer (on Bullseye). Alt - Tab isn't working, neither do Alt F4 nor Alt Shift L (to lock the Mate session). I can open a console with ctrl alt F1 and with htop I see that the RAM is quite busy but not saturated (11 Gb occupied on a total of 16, and around 1 Gb of swap used). What is surprising is that I don't find any process that I can relate to 0ad : what is the name of the processes that I should be searching for ? Trying to launch 0ad on another computer I find a process named pyrogenesis something something, so on the stuck computer I trie killall -9 pyrogenesis but I get "aucun processus trouvé" (no process found). I also tried killall -9 mate-session but to no avail either. Is there a way out of it ? (except shutting the computer down, as there is unsaved work on the other windows)

Interesting mod, by the way... Especially since "discovering black powder" is not the same thing as "having the metallurgy to mass produce canons"...

Historically, naval battles were a combination of ramming and boarding, with very limited role of on-board archers I believe ? Also a few catapults on Roman ships, and incendiary traits sometime used by some, and of course greek fire. But to have interesting tactics using such technologies, I guess that the game would need a different scale as it had been pointed out ? About the anti-infantry use of ships (that is overpowered as of now) : If the ships are made less efficient against infantry/buildings and cannot anymore by themselves interdict a land strait, they would need a specific togglable mode for their onboard infantry "disembark, destroy and re-embark" so that they could be put near a land strait (like Gibraltar in the Meditteranean map, where as of now putting two warships allow to kill all merchant convoys between north and south) and have the onboard infantry destroy any enemy coming near (unless of course the enemy is strong enough to defeat said infantry). Also, ships would need a slow healing effect, so that it's possible to use such tactics without micro-healing the troops.

Since Debian is still on KenWood (the flatpak to the 0.25 doesnt work for me), is there a way to find KenWood's version for the mods I'd like to test ?