krt0143

No no, no potatoes involved, it's about terminology. What I meant by "generating" is that it usually crashes in the Map Editor, while generating a random map, as opposed to crashing in the game, while trying to "load" that new map to play it. "Generating" = Map editor "Loading" = Game I understand the confusion since I've discovered that the game too can generate random maps... No, I didn't mean the game feature (I haven't really tried it yet), I meant the random map generation feature of the Map Editor. All right, as soon as it has something to tell. Right now it only states: "Engine exited successfully on 2023-09-11 at 09:34:26 with 773 message(s), 0 error(s) and 0 warning(s)." There is an "crashlog.txt" though, which is more verbose, and apparently contains data from those Map Editor crashes: Uh-oh. Well, I'll try it, but I've moved on since, now I'm exploring the landscaping/painting tools, and those don't crash. I only discovered this feature yesterday, by accident. That been said, I don't know if it's just an unlucky roll, but my only attempt, making a "giant" sized version of the "Hellas" map, did result in a nice mountainous terrain with just a lake, nothing like the preview pic which features a shore... Could it be the map creating algorithm is slightly askew for really big maps? I'd need to explore this some more.

Hey guys, it can't be that nobody around here knows the answer to those questions... I would really appreciate it if somebody took a minute of his time to tell me.

So, if I understood it right, they become "motorized javelineers"? Can the javelineer mount and unmount his chariot at will, or does he only revert to a standard foot javelineer if the chariot is destroyed? Also, who is that hero I haven't seen?

Probably not at all. From what I've seen, I'm afraid it will just use up all resources on its island and then wither away, with heaps of unused land troops it didn't find how to send my way. Why I say that? I played an "archipelago" random map, and the start island of the AI did have a (rather complicated) land bridge to the main island, so at one point the AI did attack my new settlement there, but it didn't follow up, probably unable to find that path again, or rather blocked by the fact that the shortest route would had been across a narrow water straight: I was just on the opposite shore, at outpost visibility range. (This was one of the cases BTW where it did build a dock but didn't even bother to build fishing boats.) I surmise that the AI used that existing land bridge (with initially goes in the opposite way) only as long as it didn't know where I was: Once it knew, it tried to take the direct path, which was stopped by water... Obviously the solution to that would had been the AI building transport ships and using them to ferry it's troops across the water, but if it doesn't know how to, it could only stand at the beach and shake its fist at me... Yes, I guess the "if my land units need to cross water, build transport ships, do [load routine], sail to a point close to the destination and do [unload routine]" thing is hard to code, but it needs to be eventually done, else the cheesy tactics against the AI is to hide behind water and wait till it runs out of steam.

Aw snap. This means I can't play any of those cute maps where the AI hasn't a direct (and large) land bridge to my town center. Bummer. (Maps like Corsica vs. Sardinia, Dodecanese, and such...)

Sorry for the probably stupid question, but does the AI know how to use ships (beyond simply fishing)? I've played several maps with big stretches of water, and while the AI did build a dock each time, and did usually launch some fishing boats, it only once built a war ship, and that warship didn't do much (I eventually stumbled upon it while exploring). Long story short, I got the (maybe wrong) impression the AI isn't very comfortable around ships. So, is the AI able to handle island maps, or will it be just launching a few ships without much conviction or purpose? Does it know how to transport units on ship?

And where does the appimage put the /mods folder? That's why I preferred using the classic installer instead of a snap/flatpack/appimage or whatever. Since I don't yet know my way around 0 A.D., I prefer avoiding complications.

Thanks. I think I solved the initial problem (although I'll never know what it was): I've been trying lots of things lately (creating new units and such), it all works and doesn't throw any errors anymore, so I guess I'm doing it right. Yes, and no: I normally use Linux, but for 0 A.D. I use Windows I've kept just for games. As I explained further up this thread the Linux repo version is outdated (0.0.25), and I'm too lazy to check how to get the newest one, since I can have it on Windows...

Okay, having badmouthed the editor, I feel I needed to do it some justice... The random map generation feature is buggy and often crashes for giant maps, that's for sure, but beyond that the editor works quite well, even if it isn't very intuitive (at all). For instance, one would expect it to work like the game, but no, it has its very own (and undocumented...) way of working. Took me a couple days just to find how to simply scroll around, rotate items, and other basic things like that...

I understand. Now I'm all for historical precision (and thus would be tempted to question some choices), but on the other hand a rich technology tree (with several choices to make) enhances gameplay, and this is first and foremost a game, isn't it... I've chosen to make my debut in 0 A.D. (and 0 A.D. modding) with the Britons, who have pretty little choice in units and structures compared to some other civilizations. In my case this keeps things simple and helps keeping track of things. And while I admit this is pretty much reality of that civilization at that time (especially compared to some others...), on the other hand from a purely gameplay perspective the Britons aren't very "sexy" to play with: Not many strategical or tactical options besides "me see, me hit". Having some unique techs or units would be nice. And not just the fairly common champion swordsmen, lots of other civilizations have those. I mean something other civilization could be jealous of... TL;DR: Historical reality should allow for small (not too blatant!) compromises, generalizations, and even inventions, if this makes some of the more "unsophisticated" civilizations more interesting to play. (IMHO, YMMV and all that.)

Which is?

No, they are cool as a quick way to format large groups of random units. But groups should definitely take precedence over them, not the other way round.

That's precisely where the problem lies: Groups should trump formations, i.e. if I select a group (by hitting the number key), it should always acts as a group, never mind if it's also part of a formation, ideally even be able to make garrisoned units leave their buildings! Said differently: Group orders should have priority over everything. You create groups for specific tasks, like, your scouts, or your rapid intervention group, or your cavalry. They should be able to come when called, without you having to do a whole clickfest of selecting, un-formation, re-selecting, moving, re-selecting, re-formation, etc. It defies the very purpose of groups, which is to have a selection of units you can call rapidly and without fuss.

Thanks! That been said, formations shouldn't mess up groupings. Those are totally different things...

Just to say, the game's skirmish maps are amazing! Real pretty! Yesterday I played in the "Mediterranean Coves" and, having spent many years down there, I did get the sudden urge to leave on a vacation... It only lacks the constant cicada background noise! The Hindu Kush map with it's hot sunset light was very suggestive too (especially since it's still sweltering hot here). Too many to mention, and I didn't try them all anyway. I like when my maps make me travel, maybe because I don't travel as much as I used to. Atmosphere is very important to me, and 0 A.D. maps are amazing in that aspect. Thanks guys! Edited to add: Forgot to add what I'd like to see -- More of the same please, but bigger. Same maps, in larger sizes? Especially the maps for more than 2 players which are ridiculously crowded; I understand the competition folks like it when it means business, but my own thing is rather to "create my settlement despite the nasty neighbors". Said neighbors should be some way away, not right beyond the fog of war. There should be interesting landscapes to discover (and potentially use), things like that. Don't make it a cage fight.

All right, grew impatient and tested (civ = Britons). 1. Selecting a unit (cross cursor), right-clicking + dragging seems to do it. Took me a while and an accident to find it. Well hidden! 2., 3., 4. 5. An infantry merc unit (Thracian black coat) was fully controllable in the game. The viking longship on the other hand, despite having been placed as "Player 1" in the editor, automatically reverted to Gaia in the game and I had to put it down. Too bad. 6. Rotarymill does nothing, but can be used as a food dropsite (like the farmstead). The merc_camp_egyptian appears in-game like a standard barracks (complete with "rigorous training" perk), but with the merc camp visual. Cute, but I don't see the use. The practice range I had forgot to mention unsurprisingly allows training of ranged infantry (slings and javelins in my case), but it has no "rigorous training" perk, so it's kind of pointless.

Let's assume I have a group of units called "1" + a bunch of other units. Now to move all this to some new place, I select them all (draw rectangle), et tell them to move. Then, I want to separate my group "1" and hit the "1" key to select them. Nope. Too late: Somehow, probably due to that nasty automatic movement grouping, now all the other units have been added to group "1"! In other words, auto-formation also affects groups. It happens consistently, selecting + moving fuses groups. If you select a group 1 + group 2 + some ungrouped units, everybody becomes group 1 and also group 2, even if multi-grouping isn't allowed in the settings. (0 A.D. 0.0.26 on Win11)

In the list of those "please, pretty pretty please, must have" features, allow us to set the stance units built in a building arrive in. (i.e. being able to set that units built in a given building will rather default to "defensive"/"passive", etc.). Right now new units always default to "aggressive" -- and off they go to conquer the world all on their own, one after the other. It's like herding cats, only more annoying. I've lost more units to irrepressible blood lust than to enemy action...

I see, thanks. Still, if a mod can do it, the game itself should be able to do it too... I'll check that "autociv" eventually. Right now I'm getting used to the basic game.

True, and I don't see why they couldn't be in 0 A.D. too. Same way you build buildings: Select a couple workers, select "ram" as a project, and point to a location. It would take some time to be built, couldn't move before that, and during that time the opponent obviously would try to use to stop it from finishing. Give them an even slower speed, making traveling over any distance almost impossible: Given the difficulty of successfully finishing building one near enough to its target, they could indeed be shamelessly overpowered, players would probably only manage to finish building one or two. I second that. Siege has always been tricky and kind of overpowered in those games (even in specialized games like "Stronghold"). Trebuchets were the bane of AoE, to a point I always banned them in my scenarios: They made any fortification useless and could even bother ships... Here it is rams. I didn't try any of the civilizations having ballistas and siege towers, but I'm skeptical. Besides, the combat AI needs some overhaul: While better than anything I'm used to in AoE, it still falls for the classic kill zone (place a couple forts and towers somewhere the AI has to or likes to pass through, and leave them unattended while they decimate your opponents' units as fast as it can build them... Every now and then send a worker to put a fresh coat of paint over any scratches, that's all. AI should avoid obvious traps like that. Take a detour, something, instead of throwing endless rows of units against that small group of forts, leaving me the time to prepare the final strike. I can understand this might be important (or even the only thing important) to some, but for all those standard stand-alone players like me it's kind of unimportant... The thing would be to find a balance. From what I see some people want a stronger accent on simulation, other apparently more competition-adapted mechanisms.

??? Am I supposed to know what that is?

Uh, sounds Chinese to me. Chinese with a heavy Maori accent. Thanks nevertheless, I think for the time being I'll stay with the tedium of constantly using the drop-down menu, it will be safer than trying to debug why it tries to uninstall the game instead of just switching to x speed...

I've discovered even worse: You can cram 40 rams in a single ship. That's about the double of what you'd need to totally annihilate an adversary, and there is nothing at all he can do to avoid that ship of doom, short of totally walling off all beaches... Towers don't affect neither ships nor rams, so you would simply sail to the beach nearest to his town center, unload, destroy his town center, and then mop up the few buildings that don't switch to Gaia, and any attempt at a new town center. Then send in the army to eliminate the survivors. I discovered it and tried it out on the "Mediterranean Coves" map. I sent a single ship, unloaded 15 rams, took care of the town center and towers, then sent in just 20 spearmen (with 4 druids) to mop up all those enemies desperately trying to destroy my tanks rams. And I didn't even try to load any infantry into the rams. IIRC each ram can contain 10 units, so (population limits allowing) you could send 40 rams with 400 units of infantry in a single ship! There is really nothing the adversary could do against such an onslaught. Seriously, I think ships should be limited to carrying 2 rams at most. First and foremost rams are big and cumbersome, you can't stock them below deck. Also 40 rams would be heavier than the ship itself... Besides, unlike infantry which simply jumps off the ship using its own two legs, unloading such a heavy contraption would take hours for each of them.

Okay, I did try the game speed thing for 2-3 skirmish games and yes, it does help in those cases where you have to take a dozen important decisions all over the map at CPU speed. But to really replace an active pause, this speed thing would need to be hotkey-able: You need to be able to toggle "turtle speed" and "normal" with a single key. having to use the drop-down menu each time gets tedious, and playing all the time on "turtle" is bad for my blood pressure: I'm too impatient to watch snail races. Ergo: Still needing an active pause.

Agree. This bothered me too, especially when I plant a farmstead in the middle of sand dunes and build thriving farms... But it is vital, as you said yourself. What I'm saying is that if you introduce water, of all things, you'd have to use it to its full extent. Else just add another symbolic stylized resource ("fertilizer" or some such). Not water, water is special. You need to go all (or at least most of) the way, because some time later people are bound to start asking why things don't far enough.