oshron

personally, ive put some speculation into "false factions" for my mythology mod idea where a unique technology replaces all the units and buildings of a civilization with something different, both historical and fictional ones (so, for example, there could be a "false faction" simulating Atlantis)

were the cultures whitewashed in AOM? my point is that, while the athenians and spartans are distinct from one another, at their core they are both still culturally greeks first and athenians or spartans second

personally, id keep the faction splits; i think it would keep the game simpler

i think there was always gonna be a hurricane/typhoon godpower in for the japanese (or perhaps tsunami) in reference to that, but keep in mind that im also considering other civs as well; if the japanese get tsunami, then hurricane might go to the mississippians or aztecsany other input you might have would be much appreciated

ooh, i just got an idea! maybe, if it ever gets to that (perhaps as filler) the current hellenes could be divided into the Macedonians and Poleis (as, i believe, youve already speculated on) with the greeks diverging into different significant city-states (Athens, Sparta, Syracuse, and one more) while the Macedonians can diverge into different post-Alexander states: the Attalids, the Seleucids, the Ptolemaics, and the straight-up Macedonians (since macedonia itself persisted as a rump-state after alexander's death). the only difficulty i see with this would be that the buildings wouldnt be as unique, so the "egyptians" wouldnt really look like egyptians. it could also fill-out that #8 civ that i suggested in another thread

arent the celts already split into the gauls and britons, though? its just that, before, there were only two splits in any given civ (Macedonians vs. Poleis, Gauls vs. Britons, etc), i mean, like, more significant splits to other civs. i remember before that some people suggested that the persians could have one split going off into the armenians (speaking of persians, i would personally suggest changing the official name to "Achaemenids" if there's plans to include another persian civ in part2 and if youre gonna include more than two splits for a given civ, then what will the maximum be? personally, id recommend four, and maybe include the Syracusans as another split for the greeks (iirc, it was suggested a long time ago that the rise of syracuse could be used as the learning campaign when it gets to that)

iirc, some ancient indian armies that fought alexander used longbows made of bamboo for heroes, you could perhaps include King Porus, who commanded indian forces at hydaspes (i know nothing about the guy, i only just learned of his existence on wikipedia)

incredible! i was never expecting the mauryan indians to make the cut for part 1! but now you guys should come up with an eighth civ for a nice, even number 1-2 is too few, 3-4 is okay, 5-6 is ideal, 7 is NOT OKAY, 8 is AWESOME XDDDDD do you think you'll make more factions within the other civs, depending? i had always thought that there would be just two divergences for each faction where divergences were included, but since theres now going to be three for the hellenes, what about other potential divergences? like the scots/picts, perhaps?

personally, id recommend spending alot of time pre-programming to design the civs on paper (and of course decide on what you want to include) and then do the same thing as with part one, with the alphas and then release it all in one go. of course, part 2 would probably come up alot sooner because the engine will be complete by that point

i see you guys decided to not go with "Jericho" even though the walls are fully functional

i said it before, but ill say it again: there should be a third and fourth pack after the two planned ones which include more "exotic" civilizations like the japanese, chinese, egyptians, indians, mayans, and aksumites

you win the internet XD

personally, i think it would be good to have some special "siege infantry" included; for example, i designed my mythology mod's ancient egyptians as having axemen with a bonus against buildings because they really WOULD sometimes take axes to the doors of temples and break them down

alternatively, you could go for the AOK and have a singular image showing every generally available class (with appropriate additions and cross-outs for each civ). if there's eventually going to be a "view history" option like in AOM (so that you can view the stats of a unit as well as what improvements they have and what units they are good/bad against while fighting and some history on them), then using a static picture for each civ that shows the tech tree might be a little problematic

do we really need a whole new thread for every suggestion or group of suggestions? there's already one official and heavily frequented thread SPECIFICALLY for suggestions

awesome though it occurs to me that maybe a "full patrol" option would also be good, if you just want to loosely protect your town and want to instead focus on the rest of your civilization for a bit

if it hasnt already, i'd recommend a "history" page like what we had in AOM where you could double-click on a unit or building's icon while its selected and allow you to see not only all of its stats and bonuses in simple and explained language (for example, the "stench" aura that camel units would have could be described under "Special Abilities" as "Stench: enemy horses loses morale when nearby"). this could also help with aforementioned suggestions

iirc, seasons and a day/night cycle have been put on hold until part 2; i agree that its awesome, but it doesnt contribute much to gameplay, and the point is to actually FINISH the darn game first

what will the patrol function cover? will you be able to guide the direction of a unit's patrol route like in AOM, or will it automatically go all over your town like in Empire Earth?

perhaps some civs could have "smooth" walls and others dont? you could alternatively make it so that most citizen-soldiers and other units are simply incapable of attacking walls

since its looking more and more like functional walls will be implemented in alpha10, i still say that "Jericho" is the best choice

i think you could probably assign individual behaviors in that case, or enable or disable attack capabilities to give a bit of precedent, on the AOM random map "Vinlandsaga", the main landmass (which you had to sail to) was loosely populated by "Skraeling" units, which looked identical to a norse ulfsark unit but which had entirely different traits and description, and the descriptions of which gave a bit of history concerning viking colonization. to justify their hostility towards the player, they were given this one-line summary: "He wants to kill you for invading his lands." the same basic thing could be given to a hostile GAIA-only unit (for example, a random bandit could be described as "He wants to kill you and take your money." and an entirely fictional monster could have "He looks hungry..." incidentally, ive speculated that a justification for why some wild animals attack the player instead of avoiding them could be something like "Lately, food has been hard to come by around here, so this lion has resorted to man-eating."

actually, standard-bearers and drummers could work as morale-boosting units; you simply train them and they have a special aura that gives a morale boost to nearby allied units. you dont NEED to make a battalion system

im definitely a turtler; even in fast-paced Call of Duty: Black Ops, i like finding a place to just hunker down and hold my position with a red-dot galil ready to fire at an unsuspecting capitalist pig/communist dog when it gets right down to it, i think i may well end up playing as the iberians most often, since theyre a more defensive civ (at least thats what ive gathered)

aah, so the wall system IS going to be like the one in AOM. good; i like that one exponentially more than the wall systems in AOE1, AOK, and Empire Earth. its annoying having to build each segment of wall individually