ThePoshBarbarian

I have been working on updating the illyrian mod https://github.com/0ADMods/illyrians from a24 to a28, https://github.com/ThePoshBarbarian/illyrians/tree/a24Toa28, though haven't touched it for a bit now, I have at the very least ported it near fully to a28, might still be a few issues though. And still no civ bonuses, unique techs, building, or team bonuses unfortunately.

Where did you find the map? Is it part of the base game scenario maps? Still great work Atrik.

IIRC, grapejuice's overhaul mod adds secondary weapons to missile units (mostly because they have limited ammo)

FFFFFFFFFUUUUUUUUUDDDDDDGGGGGGEEEEEE, there goes my hope then I can only really hope that activision also gets a bit of a restructuring itself and loses a few managment middlemen (doubtful)

Not necessarily the devs from what i've heard, just the team that was working on the marketing and esports stuff, that being World's edge. Forgotten Empire's is the dev studio, and that hasn't been given over to activision, unless they're a packaged deal?

I would still argue that athens unit tree should still include slinger, but they're only recruitable from the civic center, are cheaper than most other slingers, but are far weaker because of their cheapness (less range, slower movement, lower damage, or other choices). In essence psiloi. My other suggestion would be if slinger psiloi do become implemented, they should not be able to level up, though I feel this would be more of a gameplay balance sort of choice rather than an actual historical one.

Huh... I was kinda thinking maybe it could be implemented as a type of unit for Athens. Maybe I can try modding that and see how it goes.

Huh, neat reads. Thanks for the info. Speaking of historically attested military words that may or may not have been used to describe actual formations/army structure, I've seen the words "light hoplites" (Ekdromoi, ékdromos [nominative], ekdrómōi [dative] https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/ἔκδρομος), referring to loose formation of hoplites wearing lighter gear/not wearing much armour (mostly reduced to their shield and a helmet) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ekdromoi, though from what I've managed to find so far in terms of references isn't too detailed.

Been working on porting the Illyrians, Thracians, and Garamantians, all thanks to @Stan` pyrogenesis migration scripts. Currently working on just getting the Illyrians (my fork) up to date + adding a few details like civ bonuses, team bonuses and hero bonuses (plus naming the heros). Wanted to ask here, anything in particular I should keep in mind while working on these? EDIT: currently just working on using ancient greek language (I believe it's koine?) names for units, I mostly just referenced from athenian, spartan, and macedonian unit names, and checking through wiktionary https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Wiktionary:Main_Page. Checked to see what the status on the Illyrian language is, very few useable references, probably won't be able to use it for SpecificNames.

Agreed on the removal/restriction of techs for sparta. In general I'd love to see this applied to other factions as well, when it fits them historically. There could also be some restriction where some techs that would normally be available to some civs earlier, would be available later for other civs that have similar background/culture (bit misleading wording, but I'm thinking more like differences between gaul and britons, with gauls having better cavalry than the brits, and the tech requirements/restrictions reflecting that)

Actually for naked fanatics, I can't find the exact source, but I do remember some discussion a while back I had on an different forum, where it was discussed that while most "naked fanatics" were definitely naked, a few still kept their pants on. I'll try and find the discussion again, but it does sound kinda neat little visual easter egg?

In regards to some of the suggestions, specifically regarding unit tweaks/changes, would it be better to have "psīlós" (ancient greek word for lightly armoured troops https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/ψιλός#Ancient_Greek ). It seems to have been a thing amongst most greek armies https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psiloi and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ancient_Greek_warfare#Other_elements_of_Greek_armies , though I'm still trying to find more references atm. In terms of implementation, I'd argue that you'd have 3 unit types, slingers (sphendonêtai ?), javelins (ăkontĭstḗs https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/ἀκοντιστής ), and archers (toxótēs https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/τοξότης ), all recruitable from CC, and quite cheap, but with very poor stats. From the wikipedia page https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psiloi (though not seeing many good references on the page itself, mostly wikitionary pages for the word etymologies) "The psiloi were the least prestigious military class deployed by the ancient world. A member of the psiloi was normally a man or boy from the lower ranks of his society, unable to afford the shield and armor of the hoplites, let alone the horse ridden by the socially elite cavalryman, the hippeus (ἱππεύς). Another term for a member of the psiloi was gymnetes, (γυμνῆτες), "the lightly armed"." They also claim distinction between the psīlós and the euzonoi (either eúzōnos (nominative) or euzṓnōi (dative) if we're going by the game's naming style https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/εὔζωνος ), quoting from the page "Light infantry might also be called euzonoi ("active", "light armored"; a name shared with modern Evzones), though these might be any troops lightly armed, such as hoplitai deployed without their shields, who would not rank as psiloi." My guess here is that there was some form of distinction between the `poor/lower social status skirmisher` (psiloi) and `higher status people who could afford better equipment but were not armed in the manner of hoplites/didn't operate in the phalanx` (euzonoi). The term seems to be distinct from peltast, so not sure what it could be referring to? Speaking of peltasts, shouldn't there be a "native" greek peltasts represented in game, instead of just a thracian peltast mercenary? Hasn't it been attested that greek city states implemented peltast style troops? Though methinks implementation wise, could probably be unlocked as a city phase unit, not sure if as a champion or as basic-advanced-elite troop?

So, I'm not quite sure if this is some kind of development bug, or something on my end, but I've been setting up VSCodium so I can work on some mods for 0ad, so far the .rng schema's from the base files (mod and public) have been working quite well and linking them as references for the xml files hasn't been difficult. But when I created and then added the entity.rng as a schema for the entity xmls in the simulation folder, I get a ton of validation errors for nearly all of the entity xmls. I did check that when dumping the entity.rng schema from the game, I did not have any mods enabled apart from the base game. I'm just wondering if this is purely an issue with using the redhat xml extension, or if this is a larger problem with how the entity.rng file is made, if this even is an issue? Mind you, I'm just testing against the base files from public.zip. entity.rng settings.json

Tested, no more errors on my end. Can now hunt camels.

Ah sorry, forgot to specify. The camel file is from the base game files, so this would have to be edited and included in the mod files.

Whenever I'm playing on a map with camels on it, and whenever I hover my mouse over a camel, I get an error message, and the camel isn't selectable. ERROR: JavaScript error: simulation/components/Auras.js line 116 AuraTemplates.Get(...) is undefined Auras.prototype.CalculateAffectedPlayers@simulation/components/Auras.js:116:38 Auras.prototype.Clean@simulation/components/Auras.js:244:8 Auras.prototype.Init@simulation/components/Auras.js:18:7 ERROR: JavaScript error: simulation/components/Auras.js line 116 AuraTemplates.Get(...) is undefined Auras.prototype.CalculateAffectedPlayers@simulation/components/Auras.js:116:38 Auras.prototype.Clean@simulation/components/Auras.js:244:8 Auras.prototype.OnOwnershipChanged@simulation/components/Auras.js:489:7 ERROR: Script message handler OnOwnershipChanged failed ERROR: JavaScript error: simulation/components/Auras.js line 171 AuraTemplates.Get(...) is undefined Auras.prototype.GetType@simulation/components/Auras.js:171:23 Auras.prototype.IsRangeAura@simulation/components/Auras.js:196:14 Auras.prototype.GetRangeOverlays@simulation/components/Auras.js:89:13 RangeOverlayManager.prototype.UpdateRangeOverlays@simulation/components/RangeOverlayManager.js:29:51 RangeOverlayManager.prototype.OnOwnershipChanged@simulation/components/RangeOverlayManager.js:67:8 I looked through some of the files and I think(?) I found the issue, in `simulation\templates\gaia\fauna_camel.xml`, line 3 to 5 <?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?> <Entity parent="template_unit_fauna_hunt_skittish"> <!-- start delete --> <Auras datatype="tokens"> structures/corral_garrison_medium </Auras> <!-- end delete --> <Footprint> <Square width="2.5" depth="5.0"/> <Height>5.5</Height> </Footprint> <Health> <Max>50</Max> </Health> <Identity> <GenericName>Dromedary</GenericName> <SpecificName>Camelus dromedarius</SpecificName> <Icon>gaia/fauna_camel.png</Icon> </Identity> <Loot> <xp>10</xp> </Loot> <ResourceSupply> <Max>200</Max> </ResourceSupply> <Sound> <SoundGroups> <select>actor/fauna/animal/camel_select.xml</select> <order_walk>actor/fauna/movement/camel_order.xml</order_walk> <death>actor/fauna/death/death_camel.xml</death> </SoundGroups> </Sound> <StatusBars> <HeightOffset>6.5</HeightOffset> </StatusBars> <UnitMotion> <WalkSpeed op="mul">0.45</WalkSpeed> <Acceleration op="mul">0.45</Acceleration> </UnitMotion> <VisualActor> <Actor>fauna/camel.xml</Actor> </VisualActor> </Entity> I checked the other animal entities, the cows, pigs, and sheeps, they don't have the aura part in their xmls.

I believe that first image, used as reference for the ai, is carrying javelins? I at least think it's javelins, as the rider seems to be pulling it out of a quiver? It looks like it might be a large/long quiver but I'd need to find the original image to check.

I love imgur not being viewable in the uk

Honestly reading through these posts, I would recommend if any of you have total war rome 2, to check out the Divide et Impera mod. Granted TW is a in a completely different ballpark in terms of genre, but the DeI devs have managed to make every unit type unique across the various cultures, sub-cultures, and factions. Take for example some of the celtic and gallic factions, they managed to balance 5 different playable factions (scordisci, boii, nervii, galatia, and arverni) to each have different strengths and weaknesses in terms of roster balance. Managed to steal kindly borrow this chart from the DeI devs. Their reasoning for it was they wanted all the playable celtic/gallic factions to be equal in terms of overall strength, but each are specific in what they're strong/weak in, all represented in the 1-5 relative scale scoring, with 1 being the weakest, and 5 being the strongest in terms of unit strength. For example, the Scordisci have some of the strongest hoplite/phalanx/shieldwall units (weird TW specific term, just refers to units that have access to a phalanx like formation), mostly reasoned because they were in contact (and probably conflict) with the illyrians, dacians/getae, thracians, and greeks. In contrast, the boii, who live in/close to the germanic peoples, do not, but they have far better archers. Granted all of this is purely stat balancing, but that encompasses stuff like weapon stats, shield and/or armour stats, entity stats (aka the actual soldier stats like movement speed, melee attack chance, melee block chance, etc) and other things.

Hey so I've just tried to ue the actor editor, and unfortunately I get an error message. I'm on windows 10, and using a28.

Going to put my own implementation opinion out there, always kinda found it weird how 0ad does it but I've gotten used to it somewhat. Though if we were to take a page out of say a simplified "realism" argument, my implementation for damage types would be: hack = blade edge slashing/hacking (if you'll forgive the lack of better words to describe it) aka mostly good against non-armoured foes. (there's just one unit with falxes iirc, for macedonians, they can be an exception by just giving them a bonus against armour) pierce = spears/javelins/bolts/arrows piercing targets, doesn't struggle against armour, just a good all around option crush = a solid mass hitting another, aka big rock from onager/siege ballista crushing someone, or a getting a mace/club hit to the face. Great at dealing with really heavily armoured targets. Slings could be included in this but that's a can of worms. This is just a little thought experiment I've had, honestly I prefer 0ad's current implementation of the damage mechanics. Thinking about a bit more deeply, the system I've written up has some problems when it come to classifying certain units, eg falxes for when thracian/dacians/getae get implemented, or how slingers work (sling bullets are technically speaking a crushing type of damage, but they are also known to pierce through targets given enough force). To balance armour around this system would be difficult me thinks, I personally would use an armour types system with: non armoured = basically basic clothes, no armour, little to no resistance to any damage types organic = aka leather/linen/whatever material that is not made from bronze/iron, good resistance to slashing, decent to slightly below average resistance to crushing, little to none against piercing metalic = iron or bronze, great resistance to slashing, average to poor restistance against piercing, low resistance to crush. Already I'm having problems describing this armour system because of what little I know about armour materials and the physics behind how they mitiagate certain types of damage makes this way too unimmersive/game-ified to me. Again, this was just a thought theory of an implementation, I still think that 0ad's current damage mechanics work very well for it (and imho, a way better representation than AoE2DE does).

Might this tool be added back into the regular game install again? Seems like a very useful tool to modify actor entities with. Been trying to get into modding myself, the only thing that's been an abolute pain has been editing actor models in plain text.