Deicide4u

It will be balanced around the 6 original civilizations.

I'm proud to present to you a new mod for 0 A.D. called Imperia Vetera. As the mod is based on an alpha that introduced the final original civilization, Romans, it makes sense to name the mod in honor of their ancient language. Imperia Vetera is "Old Empires" in Latin, and the name itself reflects the vision and the source for the mod. Be aware that this is a so-called "retro" mod. It doesn't and it will not, represent the full features of the original game. Changes when compared to Alpha 9 vanilla. Siege Weapons overhaul: Siege weapons are much better at destroying buildings, but much worse at killing organic units. At the same time, all economic and civic buildings are more vulnerable to hack damage. Building costs overhaul: Overall, higher tier buildings (Fortresses, Army Camps, Gymnasiums, etc.) are now much more expensive to build. This is in part to compensate for the lack of phases. Houses and other civic structures are cheaper, except for Carthaginian apartments (Bets). Champion units: They now cost more population space. Champion infantry costs 2 population, champion cavalry costs 3. So, there is no more champion unit spam. Heroes: All Heroes are now just very powerful units, identical to Greek heroes from Age of Mythology. I'm still working on implementing a training limit. They also cost more population space. Celts and Hellenes can now train only 3 Heroes, the same as other civilizations. Hellenic heroes are Leonidas, Alexander and Themistocles. Celtic heroes are Boudicca, Brennus and Vercingetorix. Mercenaries: They all now train at an Advanced rank. Ranged units: Removed minimum range. Archers were heavily nerfed. Technical changes: All features that weren't implemented, or were implemented partially, were either removed or tweaked. Charge attacks are removed because they didn't work and they were cluttering the UI. Priests are removed, but the Temples now heal faster and can garrison up to 30 troops. GUI buttons that did not work are removed. Civilization pages that showed technologies and bonuses are also removed, as almost nothing was implemented at the time. Population cap is now at 150. In Age of Empires 2 campaigns, you had only 75 population space. I think 150 should be more than enough, considering the lag at higher unit counts. The AI (legacy qBot as base) is now harder, and attacks with more units. Hellenic AI can now train Siege Towers. Towers and Fortresses: Towers are now weaker, but you can build more of them. You can now only construct 5 Fortresses, so turtling is not really an option. Changes not considered: Technologies and phases are not in the game. This is a feature, not a bug. The full mod, changelog and install instructions are inside the ZIP file below. EDIT September 4th, 2025: - AI bugfixes, mostly Carthage. - Reduced the range of melee Cavalry. - Nerfed Persian Chariot Archers and reduced their cost. Previously, they were comparable to Brythonic Champion Chariots. Screenshots: 0ad_alpha_IX_mod_Imperia_Vetera.zip

Changes so far, when compared to Alpha 9 vanilla. Siege Weapons overhaul: Siege weapons are much better at destroying buildings, but much worse at killing organic units. At the same time, all economic and civic buildings are more vulnerable to hack damage. Building costs overhaul: Overall, higher tier buildings (Fortresses, Army Camps, Gymnasiums, etc.) are now much more expensive to build. This is in part to compensate for the lack of phases. In the future, there may be some form of requirements for certain buildings, similar to StarCraft. Champion units: They are now much stronger than Citizen Soldiers, but also cost more population space. Champion infantry costs 2 population, champion cavalry costs 3. So, there is no more champion unit spam. Heroes: All Heroes are now just very powerful units, identical to Greek heroes from Age of Mythology. I'm still working on implementing a training limit. They also cost more population space. Celts and Hellenes can now train only 3 Heroes, the same as other civilizations. Hellenic heroes are Leonidas, Alexander and Themistocles. Celtic heroes are Boudicca, Brennus and Vercingetorix. Technical changes: All features that weren't implemented, or were implemented partially, were either removed or tweaked. Charge attacks are removed because they didn't work and they were cluttering the UI. Priests are removed for now, but the Temples now heal faster and can garrison up to 30 troops. GUI buttons that did not work are removed. Civilization pages that showed technologies and bonuses are also removed, as almost nothing was implemented at the time. Population cap is now at 200. In Age of Empires 2 campaigns, you had only 75 population space. I think 200 should be more than enough. I considered reducing it to 150, but it could have made some scenarios hard. The AI (legacy qBot as base) is now harder, and attacks with more units. Roman AI can train Marian Legionaries from the Army Camps, while Hellenic AI can now train Siege Towers. Towers and Fortresses: Towers are now weaker, but you can build more of them. You can now only construct 5 Fortresses, so turtling is not really an option. Changes not considered: There are some features that won't be included. For example, does it make sense for our civilizations to research "Iron Plow"? No, so technologies that can be researched won't be included. For the short term, I will explore other options for bonuses, that don't require compiling the game from source. I would like to implement auras on the more basic level. More changes and testing is on the way. I will provide more when the testing of the current changes is complete in Single player.

Due to janky animations, it is hardly noticeable. Units either die too quickly or are practically immune to attacks. Some balance changes need to be made to make it work as intended. For example, units died to siege very fast. That's why I made organic units almost invulnerable to crush attacks, as they are in recent alphas.

It will be presented later, in a separate thread. Yes. Gameplay will be different. Core part of it will be the lack of phases, as they don't really make sense to me in 0 A.D. The timeline is fixed, and the city development can be balanced differently. One example is with structure costs. Higher tier buildings will require much more resources to build. Most will have build limits, as well. We'll see, I'll post details when most of it is ready.

Update: Roman Army Camps can now train Marian Legionaries. I've restricted them to training only melee infantry and Siege Rams. I've also made a bunch of other "balance" changes. Looking now for a way to limit the population cap to a more manageable number. EDIT: Was an easy fix inside simulation/components/Player.js

Not applicable or appropriate for the Alpha 9 version, that I'm using. I'm doing incremental updates to an earlier Alpha. My first big plan is to backport healing by Priests, and any bug fixes possible. I've already removed the useless and legacy "Stamina" attribute. There was a blue bar next to health, now it's gone. Eventually, I hope to make a total conversion mod for this specific version, complete with custom AI and build orders. If you've ever played Praetorians RTS, that is something I have in mind.

I proudly present my first game modification I've replaced the weird Hellenic infantry spearman portrait (found here) with a more aesthetically pleasing one (just a previous icon, really): Here is how it looks in-game: Now, let's see if I can replace that ugly old Barracks portrait. And maybe fix some bugs by backporting code to this version. EDIT: I've replaced the icons for both Barracks and the Roman Army Camp. Alpha 9 used Fortress portrait as a placeholder for the camp. EDIT2: Persian Barracks and stable portraits also backported. It's already much nicer to look at.

Good enough for me. Add range and speed below them, and it's perfect.

I don't think using Call to Arms is worth it in the context of directly assaulting the enemy bases. When CS drop off their resources, they tend to form a single-file line during the attack-move part. It's better to reserve this feature for quick defense, or to gather soldiers near the enemy's territory. Then, when all troops are gathered on one spot, use the attack move as you generally would.

Just finished one of my most difficult and excruciating battles against the AI, ever. No replay, since the version is old (alpha 10), but here are a couple of screenshots. About 12 of those buildings razed were Fortresses. I was Sparta.

Time for another classic gameplay video. Siege without packing/unpacking. Unit portraits look to be heavily inspired by Age of Mythology.

I will test this in Alpha 9 (where trading was first introduced), to see if this is an regression introduced in recent patches.

If you believe HBO and the mainstream historical accounts, Caesar was killed because of his altruistic stance to civilians from all parts of Roman Republic, including those that he recently conquered. Nobility, aided by political class, killed him out of spite and envy.

Guts, slimmer Guts and Griffith walk into a bar... On a more serious note, all of the figures look amazing. Good luck and I hope you have a lot of fun doing this.

War Elephants (only the Carthage has them here) saving the day from a 2-pronged attack. They ruined my economy and killed a bunch of fodder, oh well...

@guerringuerrin thanks for the suggestion, I might have overstepped a bit. However, I seem to have forgotten my MP password. Also, I don't think any of you guys play Alpha 9 right now It really feels like a different game. So clunky, so chaotic.

You might be right, we'll see I hope not, I'm really liking this one.

The best version for casual play. 1) Has all original civilizations, 2) No tech tree, it's all in how you use resources for units and structures, 3) The AI is smart enough to do the same, 4) Introduced my favorite and the best ancient civilization, 5) Counter system that works and 6 it has a cool name.

We can argue about minor details for days, but until you show me some replays, I'm not going to reply to questions that have obvious answers.

Of course you can't. Going for a cavalry rush is almost always wrong, especially if you don't have enough APM or micro skill to use them. I sense that is your problem. Once the Fanatics arrive, you don't have enough infantry to stop them.

I remember earlier alphas stopped music when you paused the game. Is this single-player?

Yeah, I regularly use mass archers in my games without support. I also conveniently position them so that each Fanatic can reach them just fine. Oh, and I'm not even microing my units, because why would I? After all, I am not playing multiplayer, so I can't grasp such tactics. /s just in case, and I won't feed the troll anymore. I rested my case.

7 Fanatics not good enough for you? How about 10 Fanatics versus the same force? I didn't even micro the spearmen.

8 basic spearmen and 12 javelineers destroyed seven fanatics, with all javelineers and 3 spearmen remaining. It took 5 minutes to setup the demo.