oshron

i think i said it before, but i think that "plunder" should be a unique trait for one of the barbarian civilizations in the second release evem though people all over the world plundered what does everyone think about my cornucopia idea?

ive got a little bitty suggestion here, pertaining to aesthetics. for the resource icons, i think that food as a resource should be represented by a cornucopia

yknow what i think? i think most/all "minor" mods should be added into the post-beta release as official content, rather than something auxilary, even the wacky stuff just for the lulz

that looks awesome. it gives a new meaning to "ancient astronauts"

losing morale can simplify and represent that. while on the matter, there should be ready-made in-game functions for "hunger" in which you lose food constantly depending on how many people you have and when you have none left, people start losing health. it would work GREAT for siege scenarios

while on that matter, i think a more realistic approach would be to make units that are trespassing lose morale rather than health

amazing aqueduct

love it! thats just a the bridge edge itself, right, and not an actual bridge building? still, it looks VERY convincing.

if that were so, then it should only be especially large buildings like temples and fortresses, perhaps buildings that are exclusively available late in the game also, in empire earth, when you destroyed a building, there was a generic pile of ambient rubble left behind when you destroyed a building. perhaps something like that could be done as well?

well, im not on the development team, but i think i can answer some of that -- pretty much what you see is the most recent version -- as far as i know, there's no set date for the finished version, as it should be -- the walls i dont know about -- i imagine that they will have voice and sound files like that, but i dont think thats really a pressing matter

i think that may already be planned. i remember seeing a picture by one of the producers demonstrating pathfinding abilities that had roads on it, which units are programmed to use if they are closeby. this was also used in EE2, btw, and made for a great aspect of gameplay

i dont think it would be TOO difficult. havent the programmers already demonstrated that its possible to place units on walls, even though its probably not gonna be implemented in the initial releases? the same basic principle could be employed, allowing units to walk over neutral terrain "buildings" while it is still extant but be capable of destroying it (by visually digging or hacking into it with dirt and ice, respectively) if they are commanded to do so. another idea that comes to mind is the possibility of rock bridges that the player could possibly break down over time, or that could possibly erode (if they were made of dirt instead of rock) to close one passage that was available early on and create a new one DEFINITELY. it would be cool if you could build structures close to water, but then the rainy season comes and you have to retreat to a higher elevation while your buildings become flooded. it occurs to me that maybe a secondary water plane could be created that purposely discolors the terrain under it so that you can see where the water will rise to for such flooding effects, especially if its a periodic flooding of a large area rather than just the banks of a river. flooding with the seasons could also prove to be strategic; fords in real-world rivers can become impassable if the river floods but accessible again when the water goes down, so there could very well be scenarios and random maps alike where the map is divided into two or more regions by rivers that have shallow crossings at some times but become flooded in winter or the rainy season (or whatever season produces rain for that biome) and impassable, preventing armies from crossing the river without the use of boats, which could also be a strategic advantage if an enemy hasnt built a dock, giving another player either the strategic opportunity to attack in spite of the rain slowing them down or to build up their own defenses, traiin some more soldiers, or work on the economy by hunting or woodcutting in the rain (i imagine, realistically, that mining and farming would be halted by the rain). on certain types of the map (possibly included in the same file as the aforementioned types) that are supposed to take place in more northerly latitudes like scandinavia or northern russia, the rivers could possibly be impassable at all times OTHER than the "rainy" season, or winter, at which time they freeze over entirely or at fords that will allow you to attack other players overland only in winter.by the way, will units slide on ice? if they dont, they should OH! another idea! i know its been explicitly stated that there wont be any "indoor" capabilities, but wouldnt it be possible to make faux cave and building entrances that LOOK solid, but arent? this was already accomplished in AOM and it was pretty darn cool. wouldnt it be rather simple to create "fake" doorways, cave entrances, and the like?

there IS actually precedence for units physically walking out of the building; they did that in EE2 seeing the units training sounds a bit too complex to really be worth it. maybe there could be a mod or an auxiliary patch to include that, but, like my aging buildings idea, it sounds to be more trouble than its worth

im pretty sure earthen defenses like that are already planned for the celts. boulders would also be cool, but i think it would only work effectively in scenarios, not in random map modes. like there's an army of romans crossing a mountain pass so the celts drop boulders on them, not only killing alot of the romans but also blocking the path so that they have more time to build up their defenses, or in an rpg-like setting, the heroes are walking through the mountains and suddenly a bunch of barbarians start rolling boulders down at them, which they must evade. i think the best way for moats to work would be for them to be functionally similar to walls, so the build animation looks like the workers are digging into the ground (even though theyre not) and a terrain texture appears that looks like a moat, perhaps even with moving water. this, too, would work best for scenarios, i think, as opposed to random maps but i think another cool thing would be to make certain "buildings" that look just like terrain that you place OVER other terrain, like water, so that any player can later dig it away to expose a moat, lake, or canal. before then, the player can have their units walk over it, so it can be a strategic choice, too, cutting off two parts of the map so that you can more easily defend that frontier while you build up at a more vulnerable place, or open up trade between two areas (suppose its on a map simulating the middle east and mediterranean, you could create the suez canal to open up trade between southern arabia and greece). it could also be used for ice fishing while on that matter, it would be cool if, again for scenarios, you could create land bridges in-game by commanding siege such as catapults to fire boulders into shallow water, creating a rocky but solid bridge to attack an island like how alexander invaded tyre

it could also work for map design. suppose you want to create a flooded europe. just create it geographically accurate to the best of your ability, and then raise the water level it could also work for in-game disasters (which i think would be great for scenario design), such as a recreation of the old testament as a campaign, so you have to get two of every available animal and load them onto an ark before a timer runs out, at which point the map will flood by the water plane rising. or it could work for an atlantis-type scenario or even as a random map in which you must load villagers onto a boat on atlantis (in the center of the map) and sail out to other continents around the edges of the map, which are of a rather high elevation so that they avoid the flood. or, as mentioned before, it could possibly work for a drought, perhaps simulating the occasional prehistoric drying of the mediterranean that isolated populations of animals and spawned such creatures as the dwarf elephant, or it could work for an ice age where the water level drops in the winter because the (off-map) ice caps freeze more of the water in place and leave some landbridges available if such a thing were ever implemented, though, land units should be killed by water that completely surrounds them. it would also be cool if there were some amphibious units that can go on both land and water, or ones that can at least swim a short distance into water or in shallow water that would kill other units

LUCKY STAR - (must be in all caps to work) summons a giant computer monitor with an image of konata from Lucky Star on it to fight for you by shooting lasers

yknow, i was wondering one thing, though: can you change where the water plane is? like, in the scenario editor, just raise or lower it so that it covers up more terrain?

ive now got pages for six civilizations up on a wiki-like site. the pages themselves are protected--meaning only i can edit them--but im open to ideas as to how any gaps remaining in them can be filled in. here's some links to those pages: Egyptians Celts Mesopotamians Greeks Norse Cro-Magnons im debating whether or not to continue rendering the cro-magnons' language as proto-indo-european or simply go back to having theirs as modern english. what do you all think?

sappers would make for a cool unit. i think they should be portrayed as people undera shelter of some kind (in fact, i already wrote those up as the egyptian siege unit for my mythology idea). functionally, they should still be rams, though. i think elephants should technically count as rams, too, though have traits like a cavalry unit

i agree with that. after all, a huge focus of the game is realism speaking of which, i think nearly all cavalry units should have a "trample" effect, meaning that they hurt adjacent units when in motion. it was already suggested in the designdocument that the celts' chariots have that effect, and any elephants would almost certainly have that effect as well. for more regular cavalry it should be very small, though, while the celts' dog units dont have it at all

a few updates. the favor generation methods for all of the original civs are now complete! the egyptians still generate favor by building monuments the celts still generate favor by planting sacred trees the mesopotamians have an all-new generation method. before, i was planning to have it so that all of their buildings generated favor passively. now, ive made it so that they generate favor by first constructing Monoliths and then having one of their Priest hero units carve inscriptions on it. they get five different inscriptions, with a new one becoming available when they advance to the next phase. up until the legend phase, they share inscriptions. in the legend phase, each major god gets a different inscription: Marduk's Code of Hammurabi takes eye-for-an-eye literally; Ishtar's Stele of Vultures grants huge military bonuses; and Tiamat's Stele of Zakkur makes buildings impervious. all of those effects are only temporary though and cost 100 favor to be activated the greeks use the Theatron to generate favor. i believe i mentioned this one before, but ill run everyone by it again just in case. first, they build a theatron (which can be constructed from the village phase onwards) and garrisoned units inside it to watch plays portraying their myths, which pleases the gods. ive changed it so that the theatron can be improved to hold more citizens and therefore generate more favor the norse still generate favor by fighting. also, their heroes and super units generate favor simply by existing, but at a very slow rate i also got a unique favor generation method for the cro-magnons: they have their shaman hero unit enter a trance and coax favor out of the gods that way. since they only get one shaman at a time, though, he generates favor very quickly by comparison to other civs, and can generate it faster if he's near a temple. this means that the cro-magnons no longer share any favor generation method with another civ (before, they had had methods of sacrifice and dance, which ideally should only go to the aztecs and mississippians, respectively

my main thought was that buildings would be maintained over the in-game years even if we never see it. i just thought that aged textures would be cool for realism another idea also occurred to me. could it perhaps be made that specific textures have fades for the seasons, again to add to realism? for instance, a specific grass texture becomes covered in snow during the winter. this could potentially work for scenarios which are supposed to represent a real region. as an example, you have a grassy hellenic countryside with beautiful mountains that, during the summer, become covered in snow. iirc, the design document said that its planned that at least some trees will be designed so that they lose their leaves and become covered in snow during the autumn and winter

my thought was that they would begin to transition as soon as they are built. have you ever played age of mythology? in that game, there are special attack/life meters for certain units which determine how long you must wait until they can use their special attack again or (in the case of the "minion" undead unit) how long until they die. i was thinking it would be like that, going individually for each building, so suppose your start out landing troops on an island and you build a small base--a civic center, a few houses, a barracks, etc. time passes and an hour or so later, you go and build a fortress and a temple as well. by this time, the older buildings have visibly aged but you can clearly tell that the fortress and temple are brand new because of how clean they lookthe changes wouldnt be abrupt; instead, as soon as the building is completed, their "clean" skin begins to very slowly fade away and reveal the "dirty" skin no purpose, just graphic realism. and after all, 0ad is all about realism for the record, i wasnt envisioning new models for the "dirty" skins, just things like pine needles and moss that are painted onto the second texture

i was looking at a picture of an old viking longhouse taken in the present day and an idea occurred to me: what if the buildings in 0ad had two basic skins, one to display a brand new building--fresh-looking wood, well-polished metal, and no debris--and a second to display an aged building that looks like its been standing for a hundred years or so, with weeds growing up around it, birds nests and dead leaves on the roof, dulled wood, discolored stone, moss, and so on. could it be engineered that all buildings start out with their primary skin (the "clean" one) and, as time goes by, they slowly transition to the "dirty" skin, perhaps over the course of, say, half an hour or maybe an hour at most, slowly fading from one skin to the next. there's even a bit of precedence for this, though its on an entirely different engine with different filetypes: the sim game jurassic park: operation genesis has, on higher graphics settings, two skins for every dinosaur in the game: a "living" skin and a "dead" skin. without ever changing the model, a dinosaur's carcass gradually ages into a body that looks rotted, with bones exposed and whatnot

'kay, i just wasnt sure i also finally got an idea for the special abilities of one of the celtic super units. the Li-dhealbta Laoch (aka painted warrior or woad raider), which is the unique unit for Beira (who represents the scots), wields a scottish claymore in close-quarters combat but hurls lanceas at range, but only against infantry; what good will an infantryman throwing javelins at cavaliers do? anyway, he also has a special ability where he occasionally hurls a hammer with great force across the battlefield at a single target. the attack ignores armor and harms anything that it touches and not just the target, and does especially high damage to inorganic units (ie, siege) and buildings, but it cant be used against ships. this is actually based on the highland games, in which one of the events is the hammer toss. the range of the hammer should ideally be based on the record distance of the hammer toss. it was actually my mom's suggestion that i base the ability on the highland games before i looked that up, i was swaying towards making the woad raider a berserker-type unit ive also got some at least relatively updated celtic units as a whole: * ive given their main hero, the King, a welsh name: Breinn. he's otherwise the same as before, though * the celtic swordsman unit is now called the Kluddargos, a two-handed longswordsman who is more expensive than other swordsmen (because his sword isnt exactly common and he's also from a wealthy tribe) but also has a fair amount of armor and greater reach than most other swordsman. he can also hit multiple enemies at once because his sword is so long, though soldiers other than the one he is specifically attacking receive 20-50% less damage * their spearman is now the Silurae Birnai, a rather strange welsh warrior who has a darker skintone than other celts (its thought that this is because that particular tribe was actually iberian in origin) and is good against both infantry AND cavalry. unlike in history, though, he doesnt double as a skirmisher. this is more for balance than anything else. * the celtic archer is still lacking a name, but im leaning towards Sotaroas (not entirely sure if thats plural or not) * their slinger is more or less the same as in 0ad * their chariot may be renamed; thats still to be seen * the celtic ram has a new welsh name: Maharen * their fishing ship is the Coracle