oshron

the norse generate favor by fighting, so whenever their soldiers enter battle, they start generating favor. theres also a much slower generation method where heroes (jarls) and super units (berserker, jomsviking, throwing-axeman, etc) all generate favor simply by existing, though this is at a VERY slow rate so you shouldnt rely on it. the main strength of the norse is in their mortal units since they cant generate favor as easily as, say, the greeks or egyptians. the aztecs get theirs through sacrifice by sending their own to a temple, garrisoning them inside the temple, and then pressed a special "sacrifice" button. alternatively, they could have a special "Sacrificial Altar" building that only they can build that they send units to to automatically sacrifice them without having to take any actions such as garrison and button-pressing. the historical aztecs DID take prisoners, but thats limited to just Quetzalcoatl's followers for godstorm (his bonus allows him to take prisoners from enemies that his soldiers kill similar to Set's slavery power). then, they can send the prisoners to be sacrificed instead of their own, and prisoners produce more favor than other units. its also possible for the aztecs to sacrifice livestock and breeding animals (like wild horses and camels and such), but they produce less favor.as for undead units, those would be labeled as undead (and possibly make them subject to some upgrades or grant them certain immunities) but they would otherwise be the same as any other myth unit, trained at the temple and costing favor, rather than appearing on their own among dead soldiers festivals...now THATS a possibility. i know for a fact that the romans and greeks had alot of those. maybe the romans could have festivals while offerings go to the semites (it somehow just seems more fitting of the carthaginians, hebrews, and canaanites than the romans, for some reason) certainly, if use of prayer to generate favor overlaps, there would certainly need to be differentiations. maybe thats--IDEA! the chinese could maybe gain favor by being idle, in reference to meditation. what do you think?the theatron is another idea. i think maybe ill give them that building after all (i was debating whether or not i should include that) but give it a different ability, where it generates favor faster or slower depending on how many units are garrisoned in it this is kinda based on the (undeniably modern) premise that teh major strength of christianity is from the sheer size of its following: there were far more christians by the year 1000 than there ever were greek pagans at any one time. but church services are another possibility. maybe that could be their primary means of favor generation for those two while they also get it by just existing, though at an incredibly reduced rate (even slower than with the norse heroes and super units) i understand that, which is why i want to make each one as unique as possible with as little overlap as can be achieved. if there need to be a few other cultures besides the greeks that pray or a few others beyond the aztecs that sacrifice, then them's the breaks

well theyd be coming out with 5 civs to a release (except for the last one, which is slated for just 3)

DPFAR: hey, what do you all think should be some of the favor generation methods for the other civilizations? im trying to make each civ have a unique generation method, but if necessary there'll be some overlap. here's what's down so far: Egyptians: build Monuments Celts: druids plant Sacred Trees and units pray around them Mesopotamians: (ideas include having buildings generate favor) Greeks: units pray at the Temple Norse: please the gods by fighting Cro-Magnons: (ideas include a combination of sacrifice and dance) Chinese: Aztecs: please the gods with sacrifices Japanese: (ideas include building special shrines and possibly praying at them) Hindus: Hittites: Romans: (ideas include possibly "buying" favor through a special market-like interface at teh Temple, meant to be like offerings) Christians: generate Favor by units existing Semites: Persians: Mandinka: (ideas include christian-like methods; remember that the mandinka here represent islam) Slavs: Polynesians: Na-Dene: dance (the Na-Dene are still just an idea for a native american civ; i wont formally add them until a 20th civ idea is decided upon as well)

well im not so much removing the merchant from the aztec civilization as i am simply making it so that its trained at the fortress. i listed it as "Super Merchant" and made its special that it doubles as an infantry swordsman (wielding an obsidian knife for defense) and has greater speed and line of sight. consequently, though, and because its just a single man, the pochteca carries only half as much as a regular merchant unit. dont worry too much about balance issues in this case; the aztecs still get their merchant at the same time as other civilizations. they just need to have a fortress in order to get them.

i say yes to natural hazards and disasters, even if they arent a part of regular random maps. they would make for great scenarios, like you have to lure a troop of soldiers that outnumber you to some quicksand to kill them

thats interesting. perhaps that could be their city phase super unit and double as both a merchant and a soldier, and they dont get a regular merchant unit (both the fortress and market would become available in the same phase)

yeah, maybe i oughta do that. not right now, though; im about to go on a walk models would be good, but i unfortunately have no modding expertise and none of the tools to do so. my strength is in writing, and i was originally, to be perfectly honest, making the designs in the hopes that they would be complete once 0ad is complete and that this would be picked up as the next project. trying to make some models myself wouldnt be too bad an idea, though. even if they end up looking like something from a nintendo 64, itll still be a huge improvement over anything that i had in the past. which is nothing. ive been working on the aztecs a bit more, and what ive basically done is give some new names to some of the buildings and renamed a couple of their units (the archer and slinger), though the rest of their infantry remain named after their respetive weapons. i DID decide to make their "cavalry" unit an eagle warrior, and that means i need a new city phase super unit for them. ive been considering giving them a generic mayan holcan kind of as a mercenary unit, though im not at all sure on the historicity of this. i also updated their pantheon a bit: MAJOR GODS: Quetzalcoatl, Chalchiuhtlicue, Mictlantecuhtli (i decided that this god of death and the underworld was more fitting as the "evil" god that Tezcatlipoca was) TOWN PHASE GODS: Chicomecoatl, Ehecatl, Mayahuel CITY PHASE GODS: Cihuacoatl, Nanauatzin (demoted from legend phase), Xolotl EMPIRE PHASE GODS: Huehueteotl (new addition), Huitzilopochtli (new addition), Mixcoatl LEGEND PHASE GODS: Coatlicue, Tezcatlipoca (demoted from major god), Tlaloc (promoted from city or empire phase; i cant remember which) ive unfortunately lost all the information i had on their techs, myth units, and god powers, but i gave a god power to tlaloc, a "natural disaster" power: Hail (i also changed it a while ago so that the egyptian Sekhmet doesnt have hail anymore and instead has "Acid Rain", which is supposed to be like a combination of the two interpretations of one of the Plagues of Egypt, which was variably either hail or fire from the sky

since the egyptians are virtually complete as a civilization, its probably about time we moved on to another one. we should probably go on to either the norse, greeks, celts, or mesopotamians since they are of higher priority (as the first civs for the mod), but i also move that we put the greeks on lower priority since their civilization in itself will be much easier to design because of a wealth of available information and because they are already similar to 0ad's hellenes; why mess with a good design? so which do you think we should work on next? mesopotamian, norse, or celtic?

thanks for that correction; its been changed accordingly by now, we actually have almost everything that we need for the egyptians. here's what we're still missing though: Civilization Bonuses: i decided to add this feature recently for all civilizations. these are some traits that are applied to a culture no matter which major god they have. at the moment, there's only one idea: technology bonuses, based on the library of alexandria, but im as yet unsure of what benefits could be included based on this. it would likely have something to do with research rates because of the huge amounts of knowledge the library held Team Bonus: some benefit that comes up for the egyptians and their allies once they make an alliance with another player Traits for Osiris: benefits that Osiris provides. the basis itself is down already (bonuses for agriculture and the Pharaoh), but the benefits arent decided upon yet Osiris' God Power: im pretty sure we came up with an idea for this before, but i cant remember what it is. Traits, Bonus, and Technology for Ra: any ideas would be welcome. remember: Ra was the god of the sun, rebirth, and renewal and traveled through the sky and underworld in a boat Traits for Set: no ideas here, ill have to look further into Set garbs, helmets, and shields for all of their units. their garrison and population costs, functions, and possible specials and histories will be easy enough to come up with, but their appearance is the more important thing after their names (which we've already established) oh, and perhaps a word for "royal" would be good so that its "Royal Elephant" instead of just "Elephant" (besides, having it as just "Abu" makes me think of the monkey from aladdin it would be nice to differntiate their elephant further)

khamul? you mean this guy? lol, couldnt resist thanks for those.

well lets see first if i can find any words without bullshit letters in them. ill just find anything that could be applied from that site. the one i was using was of similar construction to that one (but with the coptic words on the left and their rough translations on the right). ill get a link to that one here yes, youre right on teh gods there. i had planned to give the assault ladder to set, but now im not too sure. a ladder may be too complex for teh game (i know its just a ladder, but there's nothing especially similar to it in the game itself for a base unit). maybe i should just give set the camel (since he's the god of the desert) and give osiris the elephant as filler (and maybe because of his association with pharaohs and royalty; in every other depiction, you always see the egyptian elephants labeled as "royal elephants" chariots are a possibility, but i think id prefer to keep them as citizen-soldiers because they were the mainstay cavalry of the egyptian militaries; they didnt ride on the backs of their horses like they presumably did with camels. the elephant and camel would also be a good tip-of-the-hat to age of mythology (in that game, the egyptian civ also got elephants and camels, which were anachronistic but worked for the game). so, just in preparation, ancient egyptian words for elephant and camel would be appreciated here's a link to the coptic lexicon i was using before: http://web.archive.org/web/20080110023750/...ticEnglish.html i think its pretty much the same as the one you linked but just with a reversed orientation

thee market is gonna be a required building, so if all else fails, we can just bullshit our way through that with a coptic word (hey, missing one out of over twenty or so isnt too bad) what would you suggest as the name for "Monument to the Gods"? also, if you have any ideas for what the other two egyptian super units could be, id be glad to hear them. to remind you (since its been a while), the super unit setup for Godstorm is that every civilization gets two super units, one in the city phase that is availble to all players of that civilization, and then a second in the empire phase that is unique to each major god. at the moment, the all-egyptian super unit is Wau-Iqehu (formerly Mi-neb), a "siege" infantryman with an axe, and the only other one i have so far is ra's unique super unit, the Medjay (nubian military police that has a bow as his primary weapon but uses a khopesh at close range). other ideas for super units include historical assault ladders (this would technically be a ram, but it wouldnt be able to attack and would instead allow allied soldiers to climb a wall and jump down on the other side), anachronistic war elephants (the egyptians DID use elephants historically, but just not during the new kingdom), and fictional camel cavalry (nothing came up with any ancient egyptian military using camels in my research, but this isnt too much of a stretch of a unit since camels WERE used by other civilizations from that region, and they were already being used as beasts of burden so, again, new kingdom camelry isnt too much a stretch)

those ones are meant for the other two monuments: "Monument to the Pharaoh" (or "of the Pharaoh", "of Pharaoh(s)", "of the King", or other variations of that depending on what each translation comes up with), and "Monument to the Gods" (or similar). however, ive already got a name for the Monument to the Gods, "Menu Ntere" (though i may swap out "Menu" for something else and use that for the wonder) EDIT: went back and edited the monuments; now theyre "Shesep" instead of "Menu" or "Touwt", and the wonder is now called "Menu-aa" also, i was thinking, do you think i should maybe give the skirmisher name to the slinger unit instead of the javelinist? i just cant help but think that the egyptians deserve a slinger more than they do a spear-thrower

thanks so much for that. i updated the ones that you mentioned, but i decided to leave the Pharaoh as is as for the "great monument", thats intended for the Wonder building (many RTS games have gigantic monuments, statues, etc., that are called Wonders), and its my intent to make it so that, while all wonders take up the same space on the map and are technically the same building, they each have a different appearance depending not on the civilization but on what Major God it belongs to (for example, Zeus' Wonder is the Temple of Zeus while Poseidon's is the Colossus of Rhodes, they are still referred to as the same building by the same name; this "function" was present in Age of Mythology) this is why naming can be a bit tricky and i asked for just an approximation of "great monument" so that it could refer to any building: Osiris' Wonder is the Pyramid of Giza, Ra's is an Egyptian Sun Temple, and Set's is the Temple of Karnak (iirc, Karnak was the center of Set's cult) EDIT: oh, and maybe just "kings" would be good instead of "to the Pharaoh"; thats intended for the monument buildings that generate favor i mentioned before

yeah, gimme a sec, ill put it all up: Pharaoh (their quintessential hero; i dont think any new word is needed, but if there's one available that makes it more authentic, then so much the better) Vizier (mass-production hero, same with the pharaoh situation) Governor (was looking it up recently and mention of provincial governors came up, so maybe this would be better than having mass-production viziers since there was historically only one vizier) Monument (thanks to your recent input, "Touwt" is probably incorrect, so if theres a word for something like statue or idol or monument or the like, itd be much appreciated) "to the Pharaoh" (just a translation of pharaoh, ruler, king, something along those lines would be good) "to the Gods" (same as with the above, but ive already inserted "Ntere" so this one is of less priority) Slave (just for Set's bonus; i plan for pretty much all god powers and techs to be in english where applicable so that the player would more easily understand) these ones are for actual units: Swordsman (khopesh) Archer (composite bow) Skirmisher (or Javelin-thrower, Spear-thrower, "throw-stick", anything that could apply to a javelinist) Slinger Magician (just in case this one is added) Standard Bearer (or flag-bearer, signaler, or anything similar, just in case this one is added) Spear Chariot (or the name could be "Melee Chariot" or something similar, or even just "Chariot" Chariot Archer (same situation as the above; this one would require an additional word: the melee chariot could be just "Chariot" while this one is "Chariot Archer" Woman (for the female citizen) Merchant/Trader/something similar Healer (just in case this one is added) Ram/Siege Tower Barge (for the trade ship; Weskhet will probably suffice for their only warship, but id need to figure out what it means again) Fishing Ship Axeman (just to be safe, for their "siege infantry" axeman unit) Town/City/Citadel (Civic Center) House Farm (or something similar, for the Farmstead) Pen/Enclosure/Corral Mill/Storehouse/Cellar/something similar Tower (again, this will go for EITHER the outpost or walltower: i only want to give them one of them Gate/Doorway/similar Dock/Port/Harbor/similar Market Barracks/Camp (for their military center) Temple Fortress/Stronghold/Palace/Fort/similar Great (to add on to "Temple" for their Temple of the Gods, or it could be named after a historical cult center) i didnt include one for the wonder because i guess that the words for "great" and "monument" could be combined, or it could possibly be named after an authentic egyptian word for a pyramid, but only if the word is different from the english pyramid (since the pyramids are their most recognizable monuments) ill also throw in some of the english words that were being used for their myth units: "Winged Giraffe" (this is currently Bastet's myth unit) "Clay Man", "Mud Man" (or something similar; this is the mudman we discussed before, and he currently has the name "Reme pa-Yar", but i just want to be certain here, in case there's anything else that can be used) "Sphinx" (again, just in case theres a more authentic egyptian word) "Giant Scarab" (im pretty sure that "scarab" is already just the egyptian word for "dung beetle", but i once again just want to be sure; if nothing else, "giant" will come in handy here) "Serpent of Duat" (i personally think this name is perfectly fine, but, once more, being certain cant hurt; just "serpent" would probably be fine) "Crocodile-ram" (currently plugged in as a unit for Ptah) "Mummy" if you could also give me a link to this other dictionary, id be very much obliged

well i thank you for your assistance on those names. ill go change those now before i forget. i HAVE tried to use actual ancient egyptian (or an approximation of that) in the past, but they just never really turned up much that i felt i could really use. if you have any other ideas or sources for names i could give, id be glad to hear them while im at it, i oughta share the names for units that i have thus far in case those are incorrect, too: -- Shfe (Infantry Swordsman; "coptic" word for sword) -- (Infantry Archer; uses a composite bow; no name atm) -- Merex (Infantry Javelinist; "coptic" word for spear or javelin) -- (Infantry Slinger; no name atm) -- Naxbi Brqoout (Cavalry Spearman; "coptic" words for spear and chariot) -- (Cavalry Archer; uses a composite bow; no name atm, but "Brqoout" was planned to be part of it--couldnt find a word for bow or archer) -- Sauxs (Female Citizen; "coptic" word for woman) -- Barwx (Merchant; "coptic" word referring to a pack animal that is not a donkey, probably a camel) -- Moui (Ram; "coptic" word for ram, intended as a siege tower) -- (Merchant Ship; no name yet, but "Qaqetol" was planned--it's a "coptic" word for a light ship) -- Louboie (Medium Warship; a "coptic" word referring to a Nile River boat, planned as a barge with soldiers that fire flaming arrows from the deck) i actually DID come up with what i THINK is an ancient egyptian name for a ship exactly like the Louboie a while ago but had apparently given it up. the word was "Weskhet". i could probably re-implement this name for the egyptian warship

so, Stronghold 3 fails at life?

ive been doing some more research into all this, actually using a darn BOOK this time instead of just the internet (made what i think is some pretty good progress on the mesopotamians) and im working on the egyptians right now. ive been reworking some of their units and whatnot, but ill just post all of the new stuff ive come up with: the Egyptians are still a Sovereign civilization that acquire a Pharaoh automatically and for free and can train Viziers to support the Pharaoh ive reformed their favor generation method: while they still build special monuments, ive cut it down to just three and come up with coptic names for all of them: the Touwt is the basic monument and available for the entire game; you can have up to 3 of them per civic center and they can take on numerous different appearances, just for hopeful authenticity (so this could potentially include small step pyramids, miniature sphinxes, or statues of gods such as anubis); the Touwt Rro is a more advanced monument available from teh City Phase onwards, and is supposed to be roughly equivalent to "Monument to the Pharaoh". this one you can only have one of per territory and you need to have a temple in order to build it (in case you lost an earlier temple or if its a scenario that started you off in the city phase without a temple). the third and final monument is the Touwt Xoout, or "Monument to the Gods", which individually produces more favor faster than any of the other monuments, and is supposed to depict the major god of the player (so if you played as Ra, it would depict a man with a falcon's head, for example), and you are required to control a Temple of the Gods and be in the Legend Phase to acquire it. you can only have one monument to the gods period. all of the monuments except for the one to gods can be captured by other players, but only egyptians can continue to acquire favor from them not that many changes have been made to the major gods. ive decided to give a coptic name to set's slave units, renaming them "Xal" (but theyre still referred to as "Xal slaves" in the description for simplicty). im starting to reconsider Set's technology, "Ships of the Desert" the egyptian mainstay infantry is a khopesh-wielding swordsman their mainstay ranged soldier is an archer armed with a hyksos-style composite bow (remember, theyre dated to the New Kingdom, and the egyptian armies of that time were heavily influenced by the hyksos) they also have two other ranged soldiers, a javelinist and a slinger. i havent come up with much for them yet magicians and standard bearers are still debatable the egyptians also get two cavalry soldiers, both chariots: a spearman and an archer, both of which have less armor and health but are consequently faster (New Kingdom chariots were lighter than those of other Middle Eastern civs of the time). yes, suprisingly, they DONT get regular camel cavalry! i looked it up and they didnt really use them. the egyptian demigods thus far are still the Mi-neb and the Medjay (siege infantry and versatile archer, respectively). just to give them a sort-of characteristic middle eastern unit, im debating whether or not i should give them a camelry soldier as another demigod and which god to give it to: Osiris or Set? war elephants are also possibilities, but they didnt historically use elephants at that time ive also got names for most of the egyptian buildings: Civic Center = Baki House = Xw Farmstead = Qwpro Field = Koie Corral = Xoi Mill = Axo Barracks = still need a name Outpost/Tower = Meqtwl (im debating which of these two i should give them: the freestanding outpost or the wall tower? whichever one is chosen will get the name) Wall = Sobt Gate = Kerso Dock = Mooun Market = Xosb Temple = Rpe Fortress = Periperoi (this term refers to a royal palace; from what i could find, there's no equivalent word in coptic to "fortress" or "stronghold" or something similar) Temple of the Gods = Au Rpe (combing the words for "great" and "temple") Wonder = Moeixe (im not exactly sure on the sense of the word here, but it was the more likely of the other translations i found because it listed ONLY wonder and not synonyms such as "amazement") also, each of the major gods gets a "different" wonder even though they are all functionally the same building: Osiris gets the Giza Pyramid, Ra get's a Sun Temple, and Set get's the Temple of Karnak thats about it

well im thinking that just any urban civilization should get them, and also if an appropriate word in that language can be found for each one. i was inspired after seeing a photo of a clay model of a two-story house from ancient mesopotamia in a book earlier today while doing research into godstorm, and the mesopotamians pretty much spear-headed teh earliest of urbanizations

here's an idea for future expansions: perhaps some more urban/metropolitan civs could be able to build Manors (similar to the Manors that the Atlanteans could build in AOM:The Titans) that are made only by upgrading a pre-existing House into a Manor, basically just adding a second story onto it. Manors would provide twice as much housing, but you could only have half as many as however many houses you happen to have, rounding down to the nearest one (so if you had 3 houses, youd only be able to make one of them into a manor, and if you had 5 houses, you could only have 2 manors). while on this, is there any limit to the number of houses that a player can have at a time? if there isnt, there should be a cap somewhere (like maybe 20 houses or so, or maybe it could fluctuate with each civ, so more urban cultures get more of them while nomads have less). if there ISNT a cap on the number of houses you can have, there should definitely be one on manors (if theyre implemented)

i had also had thoughts that maybe a "plunder" feature would be cool, where resources are physically deposited and kept in a resource drop sites like storehouses and the units of civilizations that can "plunder" (ie, huns, vikings, etc) would steal a portion of the resources deposited there when they destroy them as well as steal resources from gatherers if theyre carrying anything. imagine a few swordsmen are gathering berries and suddenly a hunnic cavalier charges up and kills him. instead of the berries basically falling to the ground, unusable, the hun then picks them up (all instantaneous) and is now carrying the food that the other soldier was carrying. crates and other containers sound just as cool if not moreso, though

i think the cavalry should stay as dedicated cavalry, but maybe there could be a bonus for cavalry-oriented civs so that infantry could be permanently transformed into cavalry (or maybe they could be changed between those modes in civs that have infantry and cavalry that use the same weapons, ie, a mounted and foot archer) however, what i think would be GREAT would be if heroes could independently become cavalry or infantry, which would work well for scenarios, so you could perhaps have alexander begin as an infantryman and switch between infantry and cavalry modes at any time, so in a cinematic, you would see alexander talking to someone while on foot and then walk over to a stables (or something like that) and transform into a horseman. this would ideally have a cinematic animation of him getting onto his horse, but in regular game mode, it would be instantaneous. this would work like the packing and unpacking thing with the trebuchets in AOK

well, for the edge, you could just have it turn to immovable blackmap with a barrier like in AOE, or possibly make it so that the border is visible only in the editor, and while testing a background comes up

why, thank you EDIT: wait, i think i got confused....

incredible map. may i ask if there will be egyptian ruins lying around for aesthetics? also, pardon my ignorance, but does this mean a roughly playable 0ad will be available?