Vantha

Ah, and the economy walkthrough's status doesn't update after completing it? I honestly don't know if and how campaigns are currently supposed to end, but that actually sounds like a bug.

The answer depends on what exactly you mean. If you are referring to scenario maps (games in a predefined historical setting but without a storyline), then: Yes, the game has many different ones to offer. You can select them in the map section when starting a new game. If you are instead referring to full, story-driven campaigns, then: I'm sorry for having to disappoint you here. The base game unfortunately comes with none. @SciGuy42 (https://github.com/SciGuy42/) has made several ones, I personally haven't played them, but they're said to be pretty good. You can find installation guides in the designated threads on the forum. However, they haven't been updated to the latest version of the game yet, so you likely won't be able to play them on A27. However: adding more singleplayer content is a big goal in the game's development and I'm excited to be able to say that we are indeed actively working on a new, four-game-long, narrative tutorial campaign. You can follow the progress here: I can't promise anything, but I hope we can include it in the next release (that'll be version 28 - which in all likelihood won't by far take as long as A27).

The idea was to enable players to switch between civ-specific and more generalized playlists (maybe for those who tend to always play the same few civs)

Just took a look at DE's soundtrack distribution and I gotta say, I like it a lot better than what the base game has. I'm all for it. I'd like the idea too, I might look into it. (Only for scenarios/campaigns or all maps?) I can't speak for everyone, of course, but that sounds like a good compromise.

Yeah, it can be a bit distracting, but it's so inspiring. Would be a really quick change... which civs would you add them to? Gauls and Britons?

Oh man, you're more than right, Tavern in the Mist really is brilliant. It's wonderful. I never got to listen to it in the game, though... it's one of the default soundtracks, which are superseded by the civ-specific ones. I'd love to have it somewhere else too. Maybe for the future German civ?

What exactly is the difference between batching and instancing?

One option is indeed to split up the grass patch models in smaller ones and use them as props part of a larger actor (like @nifa did with the palisades in the thread linked above). Judging from the comments over there, this would be very performance-heavy (we'd need at least 10 to 20 times the number of objects). Maybe still be worth a try, though. Does the engine do batch rendering?

Agreed. This is certainly not a perfect solution, because the grass now protrudes at a right angle to the slope - not straight upwards like it would in reality. But this is a much smaller flaw than the original one in my opinion. Actually bending the mesh is a lot more complicated and would likely require the models to have a rig. To my understanding this could be done relatively easily as well, but it's not related to this implementation. Unlike props (which are only part of a larger entity), the "Actor" map decorations (like bushes and grass) actually create their own entity and instantiate the position component when placed down.

So, call me pedantic but I actually dug around in the code and implemented a way to fix this: https://gitea.wildfiregames.com/0ad/0ad/pulls/7542 Now, as I said, the screenshot above is a bit of an exaggeration and and quite misleading. My situation looks more like this: And with the patch: I know these are very extreme camera angles (that I'm not even sure can be reached in the game), but it is hard to capture the full issue in a still screenshot. It is a lot more noticeable when rotating the camera around. Or at least I can't unsee it now and - call me pedantic again - I can't bring myself to continue working on the map before fixing this

Sure, go ahead. (Mind telling me what's wrong with it?)

Working on some new tip images... My computer is quite old, so I usually keep my graphics settings at medium to low. But every time I crank them up to take some screenshots, I'm just blown away by how good everything looks - even up close. It's truly incredible. Huge respect to the people behind it.

Thanks everyone, I noted down all the suggestions. I might add them to existing categories for now since we'll need more more than that for a separate category. @ramtzok1Let's put nomad mode into the 'advanced' category.

So, as multiplayer tips are added in #7503 (by @ramtzok1) we plan to split all of the existing tips into three categories (which can be switched between on the tips and tricks page) Here's a first plan to divide them up: Is there anything you'd change? (I know there might not be much for debate here, but still) By the way, if some of the competitive mp players wanted to make some tips on their tricks and strategies, now'd be a better time than ever. I'd be willing to create the images for them. We could add an category "Expert"... take that as an invitation

The slope in the screenshot is the steepest of the whole map (and lays on the very edge). There are no cliffs (in the sense of exposed rock) at all in the area, only a few hills. I'd estimate that more than 95% of the map is still fully passable and buildable. But the same also happens on the flatter hillsides; it goes wrong basically as soon as there's an incline.

I've run into an issue while creating the map for the tutorial campaign. Most of the terrain is quite even, but there are also some hilly parts. Now, the problem is that vegetation props don't align their rotation the slope. (I am aware that entity templates can be configured to do exactly that, like rocks and ores for example. But these props simply aren't entities, only actors). This works fine for most of them, but looks very wrong for low and wide actors (in my case underbrushes and grass): I used especially those two quite a lot for the rest of the map, so simply leaving out them in affected areas is not a option. And there aren't any good replacements for them either. Any ideas how I could work around this?

An idea I had a while ago (that would provide a practice opportunity to player) is to add some sort of "coach". It watches games and every now and then sends notifications to remind the player of something they forgot or could improve. For example: "Your wood production is struggling to meet demands while your storage is overflowing with stone. Move over some workers from the stone mines to the forest", "You have reached your current population capacity and can't train any more units, build more houses to increase it.", "A significant portion of your units is idle. Have them work at all times for maximum efficiency." I believe this could really help players new to the RTS genre with the multitasking and all of the casual single players. I've heard from a number of new players that they found the game way too hard (and it was for me too when I first started playing). It's not as hard to implement as it might seem, could be expanded on by the more competitive multiplayer community and even be made into a "challenge mode", similar to what @Lion.Kanzen suggested. And, of course, it would also come in handy for the unguided sections in this tutorial campaign. But let's keep this thread on-topic. I'll probably open a dedicated one once I get to it.

What do you mean? These campaigns are fully playable, no?

Me too, but that's sadly nowhere near feasible right now. Such introductions to our civs would certainly be nice to have. And, as you said, wouldn't even require that much work. Let's keep it in mind for the future.

I'm not sure I get it... if there's no story, then how is it different from an ordinary game?

No story and just single games? That defeats the whole purpose of a campaign, right?

What about the idea of practice games in between that we talked about at the beginning? I mean, they are present to some degree in the current plan: The player learns how to play through the village phase in scenario 2, so in scenario 3 the instructions only start after completing that (and reaching the town phase). Before this point, the player just repeats (and practices) what he learned in the previous game. In scenario 4, the same is done for the town phase as well. Do you think that's enough?

Scenarios 1, 2, and 3 all take place at the city and its surroundings. So, I'm hoping to be able to use the same map for all of them (the one that I'm creating right now). But we will only see whether that is actually possible once we get to the concrete implementation. Scenario 4 will definitely require a different map, though, if we decide for the idea with Hemeroscopium as the final target, since that city needs to be situated further to the North (somewhere not covered by the first map). But it might be possible to reuse parts of the first one for it.

I think the cause could indeed an IP change. A while ago, I had a router that would get assigned a new IP address on every reboot. My connection back then was pretty weak and I had the habit of restarting it before reconnecting to a game I was disconnected from (just don't question it; it actually helped with the lag). After doing so, I - as far as I remember - pretty consistently rejoined as observer the first time (and would only be assigned to the open player slot after leaving and joining a second time - without any reboots in between).

Sharing some more progress on the map... I'd estimate I'm about halfway there.