oshron

that makes quite alot of sense; i say go for it what's meant is the ability, as in most other RTSs, to simply click "delete" and instantly destroy your own building or unit

like i've said before, i think that the Pharos Lighthouse/Lighthouse of Alexandria should be reserved as an editor-only wonder because a lighthouse would seem to imply water being on the map as a requirement. therefore, i'd recommend a more iconically Egyptian wonder (and relegate the Library of Alexandria to the basic Macedonians)

while that's true, i don't think there are many other cases, and typical temples and other such buildings wouldn't be put in strategic places or fortified against attacks i guess my point was more that it would be less-productive to try and capture a fortress or tower thats shooting arrows or pouring boiling oil down on you when there are other, much more tempting objectives that arent trying to kill you. basically, have your siege knock down the gate from afar, have your army swarm in to engage the enemy's forces while your siege continue to attack fortifications, and once their defenses are gone and the army routed, your free to capture the important buildings and construct your own fortifications. again, the reasoning is basically that the defensive structures are manned from within and thus its less-likely for a group of soldiers to have as easy a time capturing a civilian structure like a house or a temple (which would be occupied by common citizens, not soldiers, and an unarmed priesthood, respectively) or even a civic center--which for gameplay purposes wuold likely be firing arrows at you like in AOK--the benefits of capturing it as opposed to destroying it would outweigh the risks of losing a few soldiers while youre capturing it. keep in mind that, when i say a tower or fortress would be manned, i don't mean that you have to garrison some of your soldiers in it, but that the people manning the defenses would (symbolically) come with the tower agreed. realistically, it would arguably be better for your peoples' morale to destroy a Wonder as opposed to capturing it (except for story purposes; ive mentioned in the thread about Wonders and which ones could be included that i think there should be special editor-only versions of every Wonder that have unique powers, and these ones would be the ones that can be captured) also agreed.

i believe i mentioned it before, but all cavalry units could conceivably have Trample abilities, just much smaller than elephants. this would also leave it open for special scenarios (particularly cinematics) where--in an example of gameplay and story segregation--a bunch of your cavalry (or allied cavalrymen) charge through an enemy squad, trampling all of them to death with little effort (eg, for the purposes of that one scene just to make them look cool, their trample damage is raised to high enough levels that contact with them in motion causes instant death; once you gain control of them [if that's part of the story] their trample damage is back down to normal)

i think i mentioned it before, but defensive structures should be exempt from capture on the reasoning that, unlike a civilian structure such as a house, a market, or even a barracks, the defensive structures would have soldiers actively stationed in them who are defending it from within. while, realistically, a group of invading soldiers would probably do everything they could to break down the door and capture a fort or a tower for their own use, that's pretty complicated in-game, so its just easier to require the player to topple defensive structures (towers, fortresses, gates), capture the rest of the town around them, and then build their own fortifications. as for barracks being "non-military" buildings even though they produce military units, you could reason that all of the soldiers stationed in there (symbolically) are out in the field fighting rather than manning any defenses and anyone who IS in the barracks is an old, retired officer who just has a desk job. y'know, a paper pusher. after all, the real-world Secretary of Defense may have been a soldier, but he doesn't actively go out into the field to fight when a war arises, and in the context of gameplay, such a thing would be unnecessary; 0AD is a military RTS focusing on macromanagement, so forcing the player to have to think exceptionally hard about such things would just be cruel. actions like that would be relegated to in-game cinematics and the plot of campaign missions rather than regular gameplay, and thats all we're currently talking about, really

i say keep it as three bars with the rest as icons or going un-stated: a red bar for Health with a numerical value below or next to it a green bar for Stamina (possibly with a numerical value), which can be repurposed for Packing/Unpacking in inorganic units and for "Special Attacks" in very specific units like in AOM; for example, if a hero unit is given a "special attack" like a battlecry to boost allied morale, his "stamina" would be immediately drained to mark that he can't use it again until his stamina bar has refilled; alternatively, since hero units likely wouldn't be capable of switching sides, they could have a different color bar to specify Power a blue bar for Loyalty Garrison Capacity can be specified with a numerical value along the lines of "0/10", with the numbers turning red or yellow when the cap is reached resource counts can be marked on units by the resource icon with a numerical value

tbph, that's probably way too complicated for regular gameplay. why would teh Spartans spend precious resources creating a unit that not only can't fight but can run away or be captured like livestock (as opposed to captured like a female citizen)

you mean the movie that sucked of the book that was awesome?

i notice that the Mauryans were excluded from the civ list

and besides, Wonders are mostly cosmetic buildings, anyway

in the meantime, we'll gladly brainstorm and tell you our ideas when you're ready

the male citizens are all soldiers

i'd say it would be better to just allow them to sabotage production buildings like in Empire Earth 2; the building is surrounded by a visual aura indicating that it's been sabotaged and is unable to produce units or research technologies for a minute or two (perhaps it could be signified by clouds of smoke, implying that it was set on fire from the inside by the spy, or alternatively that some kind of smoke bomb was thrown down). it doesn't hurt the building, just creates chaos within, preventing it from doing anything while the staff try to restore order. sabotage could perhaps cost metal (eg, you're paying the spy extra to undertake such a risky action). this would add further strategic value to the spy rather than just making them an invisible scout that is, i'd recommend just sabotage on the assumption that spies would be implemented in Part 1. if they're introduced in Part 2 (and retroactively given to the original civs as well as new ones), then they should be given additional powers such as: infiltration (allowing the spy to stay hidden indefinitely inside a building, or even just hunkering down in one spot, thus drawing less attention to himself; visually, he would either disappear into the building or sit down on the ground and use different idle animations, maybe fiddling with a musical instrument or eating some bread) poison (similar to sabotage, the spy poisons the water source in a civic building, hurting enemy units in the area around it and slowing down the rate at which resources are used) though again, if spies are given such powers, this should be balanced by them being VERY expensive and the player only being allowed to have one of them at a time

well there's nothing to say that spies would have a greater line of sight than an outpost, and that's all they'd need, really point out to their allies where the outpost is, have a siege engine destroy it from afar, and then the spy can advance further ahead retrospectively, i agree about the champion units as detectors, that would give too many detectors to the player incidentally, i'd say that spies should be limited to one per player at a time, three at most if one simply seems like too few

i'd say make spies invisible (cloaked, hidden, etc.) to all units and buildings except for a select few of each, namely: Heroes: these will be uncommon enough to warrant them being used to spot enemy spies Champion units: (maybe) because they will also be less-common than citizen soldiers and non-combat units Outposts: a standing tower in the wilderness will be suspicious of anything that doesn't look familiar, so they'd likely single out a passing spy Fortresses: forts would be on high-alert and single out anyone approaching them that shouldn't be other spies: naturally, spies would be trained to spot other spies

for simplicity, i'd say that all that's really needed for a spy unit is to give them an enormous line of sight and make them invisible to most units and buildings, so they can travel unhindered to most places and observe for the player

the Spartans don't build stone walls either. i don't see anyone complaining about them lacking that

the focus of the Mayans would, in any case, be focused primarily on their infantry. since unit classes are what they are, they could very well have every infantry class and one "cavalry" class; for another project of mine based on 0ad's designed, i decided to write up that the Aztecs get every infantry class and one "cavalry" class which is functionally the same as cavalry even though it's ACTUALLY an infantryman (it was the Eagle Warrior, in the same spirit as the Eagle Warriors in AOK: The Conquerors) the Iberians also lack warships, yet they are planned for inclusion no matter what; the reasoning was that they didn't necessarily NEED warships as long as they had SOMETHING to get them across water (which would be their trading cogs) and that, on naval maps, they could instead rely on allies to do the naval fighting while they defend themselves and their allies and engage in land battles alongside them and in point of fact, the Mayans apparently did engage in siege warfare. a quick google search brought this up, which mentions detailed depictions of siege warfare in Mayan culture: http://www.authenticmaya.com/maya_warfare.htm though i'm honestly not sure if they really had siege weapons. in the same way that the Iberians may well need to depend on allies for a navy, the Mayans may have to for siege warfare. though there's nothing to say that, in typical RTS style, that they can't just start swinging their spears at the enemy gate even if that's discouraged and inefficient in actual gameplay. without having to devote alot of their resources to expensive siege weapons, they could easily spend that to get more (and cheaper) infantry to support themselves

not in relation to the other civs, but as a civilization they do. the Mayans were at (or approaching; i forget which) the height of their power during 0ad's timeframe

TVTropes actually has several pretty good lists of stock prehistoric animals (particularly dinosaurs) though i would personally recommend basing it on public domain fiction like Doyle's original The Lost World species list, or the Crystal Palace dinosaurs alternatively, there could be a number of notable ones from each of the civilizations' main locales (such as Megalosaurus and Iguanodon for the Britons)another possibility would be some straight-up fictional animals to be used situationally, ones just used for a few scenarios or random maps (like the dragon mentioned in some game designs) or for cheat codes

the Vikings themselves fall outside 0ad's timeframe, though i would recommend including them anyway as editor-only units, with some Norse mercs being used as special units for different civs (like Varangians for the Byzantines here)

i think the official inclusion of East Asian civs will be inevitable, but Part 1 of 0ad should just focus on the current scope: the Roman world from 500-1bc (Mauryan India notwithstanding)

it's still the most iconic building associated with the Syracusans; even if it isn't feasible as a weapon, it looks cool

i like this idea. even if the buildings are fundamentally the same, it would be a nice little "easter egg" for observant players if there were slight architectural differences to the different Hellenic buildings. perhaps different imagery could be included as well, based on what we know was present in Spartan, Theban, Syracusan, Athenian, and Macedonian structures? very true. personally, i think it should be limited to a specific number, though; a nice round one in fact, if the Ptolemaics and/or Seleucids ever get off the ground, i'd recommend also including the Attalids (though i'm not sure how distinct they would be from the other Macedonian civs). in this way, not only will the major Peloponessian poleis be included, but also all of the major Diadochi states plus Alexander's actual empire. that would also give us an even 15 civs speaking of broad groupings, whenever it gets to that, i think a good feature for civ selection in random maps would be a Random selection which (obviously) picks one civ at random. to get more specific, though, there could also be, for instance, a Hellenic selection (the Poleis and Macedonians) and (possibly) two even more specific ones: Diadochi (to broadly refer to the Macedonians since "Macedonians" themselves are already a specific playable civ) and Poleis (Hellenes besides the Macedonians). there could be a similar one for the Celts and, in the second part, one for the Roman civs and so on

the tower should instead by the Syracusan Wonder