Vantha

Not really. As far as I remember, 20595 is only chosen as the port on the host side and on the first gateway (in the case of CGNAT, your own router). The ISP's router at the head of that second, larger network, should ensure to consistently forward packets over and to the same ports. They just often do a terrible job at this. As soon as this consistency is lost (between contacting the STUN server and the target host) is precisely when STUN breaks. Whether this actually means that STUN would work with an ideal Double NAT / CGNAT: I don't know. It's difficult to reliably test stuff like this.

As I said in the PR, yes, players behind CGNAT are able to join some hosts (who have an open, server-like connection), but not the average one. And that's the frustrating about this problem. It might just be, because CGNAT often goes hand-in-hand with some strange and unpredictable port mapping or blocking performed by the ISP. About a year and a half ago, me and @Norse_Harold did a thorough investigation on this issue. This thread was really only the beginning. The information from my side here is quite superficial and outdated. The FAQ entry is a much better and up-to-date summary of my/our understanding of the issue. @Dunedan I don't know what terms you are on with @Norse_Harold right now and neither what he's been up to lately. But if you want to dig into this issue, I highly recommend you to contact him. He's the real expert on this topic.

I'm currently quite busy with some other projects here and I want to take enough time for everything I work on. If anything, I'm a bit overloaded at the moment. So: no, sorry. Not right now at least, but I might be more free in a few weeks.

Macedonian pikemen (phalangites) carried shields over their necks (a very innovative idea for the time). And Seleucid and Ptolemaic pikemen fought in this Macedonian manner too. Han pikemen on the other hand, only carried a so-called "Ji", which is better classified as a halberd rather than a pike.

Checkboxes... that do what? (So players can enter the tutorial from different levels of experience?)

I've mentioned this in the past somewhere already, but I fully agree with that. I get the point that citizen soldiers all need to have the more or less the same stats, so that players know what they get when they e.g. train a "Swordsman". (Even though I believe the issue here only lies in not being able to communicate differences in stats to the player very well) But especially for champions there's huge potential for differentiation. I really like, for example, that the Han pikemen have less resistance but deal more damage than Macedonian pikemen - since they don't even carry a shield.

Can you elaborate? I can't tell from the screenshots what you mean.

Any ideas how to improve the current tutorial UI? (not only visually, but also functionally)

That's true. When I wrote "European counterparts" I was referring to the medieval crossbows. The unique thing about the Gastraphetes is that the bow string is already secured in the trigger mechanism before it is even spanned. This means (depending on the exact design) it might not even need to have a fixed draw length. And that would allow it to be used by soldiers of all sizes and strengths without switching out the prod. Well, they were quite expensive and therefore not used by lower-class peasants - unlike in China.

Don't underestimate Han crossbows. Even the weaker arm-drawn examples had incredibly heavy draw weights by today's standards. According to Wikipedia, entry-level crossbowman were required to be able to pull at least 76kg (167lbs). Other sources report most of the average arm-drawn crossbows to have even around 90kg (198lbs) draw weights. And they were, even for those draw weights, incredibly energy-efficient as they had unusually long draw lengths (and resulting power stroke). They are at least en par with average European counterparts. Some of the strongest Han crossbows with multiple times that draw weight had an energy output of over 300 Joules and were probably able pierce some steel armor - which didn't even exist back then! And keep in mind that they didn't even require an extra spanning devices - which allowed for relatively quick reload times in pitched battle (not comparable to bows, but still) I don't even want to imagine how it was to face 30,000 of those dudes in battle. Must've been absolutely terrifying. When we eventually get back to the encyclopedia, I want to discard the current one and take some time to write an entire series of articles on this topic. I find it so fascinating. (Most of the numbers here I took from this excellent thread: https://historum.com/t/han-dynasty-crossbow-iii.179336/)

Something like this would be the ideal solution in my opinion.

It depends on how you define a "siege weapon". Crossbows are useful during sieges everywhere. In the Mediterranean, siege warfare was just a lot more common than in China. The main difference is that the Han had a standardized design and produced them en masse. And as you correctly stated, they were used by regular soldiers, in fact, the largest part of Han ranged infantry were crossbowmen. The Greek gastraphetes, on the other hand, was likely an elite piece, only used by single units, and reserved for those who could afford it. Else we would have more reports on it.

The gastraphetes is such a cool weapon. I'm so glad we have it in the game. And the animation is on point, as always...

Alright, I made the PR and updated the FAQ: https://gitea.wildfiregames.com/0ad/0ad/pulls/7613 https://gitea.wildfiregames.com/0ad/0ad/wiki/FAQ#failed-to-connect-to-server-this-is-often-caused-by-udp-port-20595-not-being-forwarded-on-the-host-side-by-a-firewall-or-anti-virus-software @Norse_Harold You've spent a lot of time studying this issue, could you look over them?

What's stopping you from editing it directly? It appears that I at least can do so... I am about to open a PR for a new error dialog (referring to the FAQ) and I've got a pretty clear idea for how to restructure the FAQ entry. If you don't mind, could you let me do all of that first and then check over it afterwards?