Deicide4u

Yes, modern RTS games are all about the E-sports scene. People forget that a major part in StarCraft's 1 success was that the game had character and a very good story (for its time). It also appealed to casual audience through Use Map Settings custom games, very fun and casual team games and a good balance of easy and hard SP missions. Age of Empires 2 also had fun casual gameplay, even more so than StarCraft. I guess you've already played Stronghold and, in a way, you want some of that feeling here. But I don't know why would anyone want a "Free Build" game mode in 0 A.D. As for the "laying down houses", just assign a couple of females to build them in quick succession.

Train time is already fast enough. Units dying too quickly can be solved in some other ways, like adjusting the overall health of units. Or you could stop sending them into heavily fortified areas to their deaths Siege units exist for a reason. This is not a game where you can just a-move your army and see the enemy's fortresses and towers fall like dominos.

@Thorfinn the Shallow Minded, the issue you're raising can in part be resolved by lowering the in-game speed, but that is only in single-player. MP community is highly competitive, that's a fact. RTS games nowadays attract mostly skilled MP players, most casuals either play against the AI (like myself) or choose a less demanding genre. Granted, I'm a veteran player of StarCraft 1 and even I avoid the MP scene there. I've also casually played AoE2 in the past. 0 A.D. can be played casually, just stick to the Easy or Normal AI. Move the difficulty up once you get better. Otherwise, try to find players that are of your skill level. One other reason why so few people play these games seriously is time. Most of us here are dinosaurs who have other priorities in life right now. So, I would often just save a game after about 15 minutes and go do other stuff. Maybe devs should pay more attention to the casual aspect, but so far its been fun for me as is.

Yes, batch training alleviates this issue. You wouldn't ever only train just one woman, except only at the very start of the game. I usually just either: 1) click two times, and come back 15-ih seconds later, 2) batch train 6-9 units at the time, 3) count exactly how many women I need to fill up a farm, then click that many times. Later on, when you have multiple production buildings ready, you'd just batch train units until your resources fall to around 400-500 food/wood. As long as you keep your resources low, it's ok. Also, keep in mind that you don't have to always produce units. Having a stockpile in this game can sometimes be beneficial. EDIT: Starcraft 1 Probe's build time is ~12 seconds on Fastest speed, the speed at which pro matches are played. 20 seconds is on Normal, which is too slow.

Where is all of the terrain? Is this just a replay? Sorry, I've never watched a replay of a 0 A.D. game

There's just too many sub-factions in play. You'd have to make them distinct enough for people to care. Also, it'll require a massive gameplay and balance rework.

So that is why Balder Knights from Dark Souls look a lot like Teutonic knights.

I've tried out the new Romans, and the strategy might work. Well, against noobs, at least. Don't waste resources on champions. Instead, train a balanced, huge army of citizen soldiers. Cover the usual bases, mass skirmishers as ranged, swords and spears to defend them. Max out, if you can. Leave some room for siege weapons and a Hero of your choice. Linger on a bit, to build up your stockpile of resources, because you'll likely need it soon. Making a good trade network is advisable, but optional. As you're preparing to head out, select your Fortress and click on the "Marian Reforms" tech. Congrats, now you have 200-240 champions eager to smash into the already prepared enemy defensive lines, as your opponent figured out what you're doing 15 minutes ago. Or, you push out, destroy his army and reduce his towns to rubble. If some of your elite warriors die, replace them with the resources from your stockpile. If the enemy tries to buy time by spreading out, roll out some cavalry to intercept him. One of these two things should happen

@Gurken Khan I have just finished a game with Romans. Just ignoring sieges until you have a good siege unit helps a ton (in the case of Romans, it's the Siege Catapult). Also, Marian Reforms turned my army of weaklings into around 150 champions led by Maximus. Needless to say, the Carthage was screwed. So, I guess the answer to my question is indeed: it depends on the civilization. Also, the performance was much better after some tweaking of graphics. I had average of 45-50 FPS during the large battles.

With all of the above in mind, what should be the focus of someone pretty new to the game? Quantity or quality? Do I spam units in the Town phase, or turtle and wait for champions? Or should I continue to spam CS even in the City phase, with some champions and a hero sprinkled in? Don't really wanna make a new thread if the answer is simple enough.

How about "Borderlands"?

This is basically a Age of Mythology's minor gods choices, on steroids. It will be very messy to implement, especially from the historical standpoint. It's better to just streamline the existing factions. For example, limit the bonuses and technologies to one bonus and one unique tech per civilization. Decide on three unique units per civ, and 3 heroes. Also, start excluding some "basic" units for civilizations that weren't very strong in that particular area. Need to counter champion sword cavalry, but don't have pikes? Tough luck, why didn't you make that armored elephant you have an unique access to? I hope you get what I'm saying.

We all know that current citizen-soldiers can work and build buildings, as well as fight. This has been a major turn off for many people who came from Age of Empires and similar games. Instead of regurgitating all that's been said in the past, I'll just post a link to a comment that described it best: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32993448 So, I'll propose a system that's already present in some mods for the game, with a few caveats. The major changes would include the following. 1) Citizen-soldiers are no longer citizens. They are basic soldiers that can't gather any resource, but can still build some military buildings. Rationale is that this separates the responsibilities between your fighting units and economic units. This is a key trait that has defined RTS genre from the beginning. 2) Women are replaced by a "Citizen" unit that is randomly assigned a gender when created. These citizens are your economic units. They can gather resources, build all buildings, repair, etc. They don't have different gather rates, the difference is cosmetic. They cost only 50 food, so you don't waste wood on building any gatherers in the early game. Obviously, this requires a new model for male citizens. 3) Common soldiers can only be trained at the Barracks, Stables or Archery Ranges. Soldiers will not be able to build Civic Centers, nor should they be trainable from the Civic Centers. Some mercenary units that cost Metal could be made as an exception to this rule. 4) Common soldiers can still gain ranks as normal. No change is required here. Players can choose to train cheaper, more expendable units, or spend more resources for champions. I don't want to sound divisive, but the current model is very off-putting for someone who just wants to sit down and play a fun game. Different gather rates for females and male citizen-soldiers are the core of this issue. Why keep this feature and needlessly complicate the player's decision making in the early game? The player should gain options as he/she advances through the phases, builds up their town, researches upgrades. Not immediately at the start. Not to mention the balance considerations, the needless code that went into implementing a very questionable design decision. Even from the historical standpoint. Thank you for reading all this. If not, here's a TL:DR: Citizen-soldiers are an outdated concept, that has needlessly complicated the gameplay of this very promising RTS game for so long. The player must have a clear decision-tree at the start of each game, and gain options as he/she advances through the phases. The player shouldn't be punished for making gatherers (the wood cost). There should be a clear distinction between economic and military units. A new "Citizen" unit could replace the female worker, with a new male model added for each civilization. Citizen-soldiers could become just basic, expendable troops.

@cephalotus, then you haven't played the African Savanna map yet. The random and constant animal attacks were so annoying that I had to quit the game. Aggressive animals should be rare. Even in the wilds, the lions don't attack without a good cause.

I have something that might be a radical idea. Get rid of the capture system all together. It needlessly complicates the game. Just balance out the buildings so they are less susceptible to non-siege units, especially pierce damage. The game should be fun, first and foremost. Capturing building is not fun, it's a chore and another thing that needs to be coded/balanced against. The only exception could be neutral buildings that don't belong to a player at the start of a game. For buildings that become outside of a player's territory influence, make them rapidly lose hit points and burn down unless the player reclaims the territory.

Thanks @Stan`. I saw that Dacians could be added in one of the next releases. They pretty much cover most of the region where today's Slavs live. Pretty excited to try them out once they are ready. Wikipedia page: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dacians

Seleucids or basically any civilization with war elephants or strong heavy melee options. Which mirrors my favorites from AoE 2. My favorite civilizations in Age of Empires 2 were Byzantines, Teutons and Persians.

There could be an option to disable the unit confirming an assignment, but add some notification that the order is received (like a sound byte or something). For example, a distinct "wood-chopping assignment" sound will be played when I order a female to chop some wood. An "attack order issued" sound will play instead of units screaming "PROSTAGMAA!" every time I order someone to attack. This sound will only play while the unit voices are disabled.

The game is great, and super fun to play. Probably one of the best free RTS games, with plenty of potential to top even Age of Empires in a few years. But I think that the absolute highest priority should be optimizing the game. Let's face it, there's plenty to optimize, but I know that optimization coding isn't fun. I would suggest at least replacing JavaScript with Lua or something better before the final release, if at all possible. And maybe rewrite the AI routines in another, faster language. The AI should really be part of the core engine.

Hey Obelix, I've checked out that mod, and it's not available for Alpha 27. Thanks for answering, I guess medieval civs are out of the question, then.

I think some balance could be created by either nerfing the citizen soldiers (less health and attack), or buffing champions. So far, there is very little incentive to make a lot of champions outside of very late game. Champion units should act like tier 2.5, tier 3 units in other RTS games. Currently, they simply suck when compared to the costs. They do look cool, but they suck.

Incas and Mayans sound great, but they require an entirely new artwork. Maybe we can add some more European civilizations first? I just opened a topic in "Help and Feedback" section about Slavs.

Could you please add Slavs in the next version of 0 A.D.? I realize that Slavs are a very broad term, but you can use the Slavs from AoE2 DE as a starting point. The civilization should focus on strong Melee fighters, especially cavalry. Boyars, Cataphracts, heavily armored infantry. Economically, Slavs are not great even in modern times, but some Metal working bonus could apply. Slavs historically had great knights. I realize that this is a game of ancient warfare, but I don't think we should strictly hold onto that period. Age of Empires 2 already broke the historical setting they're in, so why stick to it like "pijan plota", as we southern Slavs like to say. I can answer some of your questions or add more info related to the names of buildings and units. Also, Slav mythology is great and very fun, you could draw some of inspiration from it. For example, our heroic knights are called "Zmajevi" (Dragons). Some actual heroes: 1) Časlav Vlastimirović (Часлав Властимировић), Serbian ruler. 2) King Simeon I (Симеон I), Bulgarian. 3) Prince Rurik (Рурик), Kievan Rus. Thank you for making this awesome game!