oshron

well in Empire Earth, farms COULD expire, but had so much food in them that they would only expire if you left the game alone for, like, three days straight i think the farms should have lots of food in them and eventually need to be reseeded, but there should be something to allow those farms to be reseeded indefinitely and at the cost of wood for each reseeding. otherwise, as mentioned before, you can just turtle with an infinite supply of food

an idea came to me last night. first and foremost, can players construct buildings on land they dont control (either neutral land that hasnt been claimed yet or enemy territory)? i imagine that the use of this feature would depend on whether or not youre playing on a provincial map. anyway, my idea is Palisades. in addition to stone walls, civilizations that use palisades or similar defenses should be able to build them, but only on territory that they dont officially control, kind of like those wooden forts that the US army built out in the wilderness in the 1800s, because they dont have the time to build permanent defenses. they could also be useful for scenario design. palisades wouldnt be available on non-provincial maps (since all the land on those types of maps are entirely neutral) unless they are specifically enabled

got a bit of an update. ive decided to work towards replacing the inca that i had planned before with the iberians. ill be drawing from as many sources of spanish mythology as possible. its currently looking like most of their content will be taken from the cantabrians, catalans, basque, and lusitanians the iberians will be easier to design than the inca, i think, because most/all of their content will be based on their counterparts in 0ad also, good news! there's enough varied iberian deities to make a complete pantheon! i may need to equate some of them with roman gods in order to get them down, but all in all im very happy right now, since i honestly wasnt very satisfied having the inca as Godstorm's 20th civ

if there's a history of women warriors in a given culture, then teh female citizens of that civ should be able to fight back. that doesnt mean they should be GOOD at it. a single standard hoplite should be able to take on 3 female citizens by himself, and a fully upgraded one 5

if theres a history of female warriors in a given civ, legendary or historical, those female citizens should fight back, but of course not be as good at it as citizen soldiers mainly because they arent trained or equipped for it. its not like every woman of the ancient and classical world was eowyn of rohan or tomoe gozen. for gatherers being attacked, if possible, a gatherer who is being attacked should run to the nearest dropsite. it wouldnt make much sense if they just casually saunter back to the storehouse while theyre being cut to ribbons. maybe as a kind of penalty for this, while theyre running they drop resources which can then never be used again. suppose that a roman gatherer is picking some fruit from a tree and suddenly a celtic warrior approaches him. he panicks, but also realizes that he has to get this food back home or his family will starve AND get his weapons. so he runs (twice as fast as his normal walking speed as a gatherer, plus a new animation if possible), and in his hurry he drops some of the food on the ground, ruining it (bugs, dirt, rabbits, being squashed underfoot by himself and the celt, etc). he tosses the remaining food into the storehouse, grabs his weapons, and emerges to kill the celt. the food and other resources being dropped wouldnt have any animation, but i think it would greatly add to realism. it could be at a fixed rate for each resource: 0.1 units of any given resource is lost per second in the confusion. so if the guy is running for ten seconds, he loses one unit of that resource. chances are, he'd be able to get to the dropsite in that time (unless, as you mentioned mythosruler, it was very far away).

alternatively, certain units could be programmed to automatically switch to melee mode when enemies get too close

oh! you know what would be good? if in random map mode you could had the option of either seasons or a day-night cycle (the two could be combined in other scenarios) or neither

as long as its in there eventually there SHOULD be a day-night cycle, though, for scenario design.

when it gets to that, i think the third release of 0ad should have six more factions that DIDNT interact with rome (or at least not to a great extent), primarily the han chinese, mauryan indians, and yamato japanese

right, thats how special attacks generally work. the unit performs its special attack, and then has to wait a little while before being able to use it again

they should have a hand-to-hand attack if that can be programmed, but only if they actually cant move, like they get backed into a corner against some buildings or trees while on the matter of alternate attacks, it would be cool for RPG-like scenarios if certain unique units, ie special heroes, could switch between infantry and cavalry modes. alternatively, there could be some super units that have two modes of attack depending on if there are obstacles or distance in the way. ill use a random example: suppose the celts have some sort of highlander unit. he's armed with a scottish claymore and uses that in close quarters, but when an enemy unit is too far away, he'll throw a javelin instead there should also be special attacks and other abilities for some units. for example, maybe one of the war elephant units could occasionally gore enemies as a special attack

i think 500 would be a good amount. that was about as many as in Empire Earth and Age of Mythology, and those trees could last for a good long while.

perhaps a burning function could be added in a later release? it sounds like it would be a good feature and alternative to capturing buildings. i would recommend that it be something that isnt done automatically; you have to actually TELL the soldiers to burn a building in order for them to do it

speaking of this in particular, wouldnt it be cool if there was an editor-only "Slave Driver" unit for campaigns and scenarios? suppose someone makes a scenario with a fictional setting where they play an enslaved celtic people rebelling against the romans, and the first thing they need to do is fight back against the local slave drivers, who look like standard roman infantry but carry whips

maybe spiked trenches could be included for civs which historically used such traps, and they could be constructed similarly to walls. the difference would be that most units can walk over them, but they receive damage for the entire time that theyre on them

weaving should be available to all civs that used it, and benefit the health and/or armor of all units as well as enable some other technologies lke the aforementioned linothoraz

well theres already some programming, iirc, where a polar bear will occasionally attack a seal that it finds lying around somewhere. the same could probably be done for wolves, lions, and so on

perhaps there could be something in the unit where, for the sake of simpler gameplay, they dont drop any resources theyre carrying when theyre attacked, but instead just lose some of their fighting capabilities: they become slower and lose some attacking power depending on how many resources theyre carrying. you shouldnt be able to lose resources youve collected unless the unit carrying them iskilled

well what if the nearest dropsite is several in-game miles away? they could have some way to defend themselves at all times, like a hunting knife

and i imagine some form of teutons would be included in the second release

for the spy unit, you could simply make it a stealth unit, perhaps with greater stealth abilities than some other types. in Empire Earth 2, there was a spy unit which could only be seen by towers and other spies i think spies should be reserved for super units, though

perhaps there could be a HC-like function as an alternative mode of gameplay where, every ten minutes or so, you are prompted to pick whatever bonuses pertaining to the home city (ive never played AOE3, so i dont know how it works) for a certain number of "rounds", but every ten minutes during those times and for the rest of the game, you get whatever bonuses, which would appear at the civic center

for that matter, increased line of sight at greater elevations would be another good aspect

graphics are great and all, but as was said before, they dont make the game. if visible wind physics and cloth movement are feasible, then they should be added, but be put at the very bottom of the to-do list. we need to FINISH the darn game first

why not that, then? "epona" sounds like a much better idea since its a recognizeable name, even if it IS more associated with a nintendo game than celtic mythology