Thalatta

Ok! Then I'll have a go at expanding point 19. I found it annoying that by default battalions would be automatically defined when selecting units, would override groups, and it’s not that obvious that you can disband a battalion and get those groups back just by breaking formation. If the “Battalion-style formations” is disabled I’m not sure how you can make battalions yet. If it’s enabled (default), and I have in Group 1 10 spearmen and in Group 2 10 archers, and grab 10 spearmen and 5 archers, that becomes a battalion, then pressing 1 would select the battalion and pressing 2 would select all units. And you cannot select multiple battalions because they become one big mass where groups don’t work anymore. The groups shown on the left of the screen become quite useless. Thus, selections, formations, groups and batallions interfere too much with each other. What I thought is, with that option disabled, battalions (whose purpose should be only to select all units in it by selecting one, and not mess up anything else) could be defined with ctrl+alt+number and selected with alt+number. Selections with the cursor would in no way be able to change any definition. Formations could visually appear on the left as a box surrounding group icons, and a label on the side with their number (right-clicking on it would disband the battalion), which would make intuitive how the whole thing works. If multiple battalions are defined, the same group icon could appear on multiple boxes (if a group is split into battalions). Ungrouped units in a battalion wouldn’t have a number on their “group” icons (needed to show them as part of a battalion). The flags would show up for battalions only. Then for example, one could define archers in group 1, and define them into 3 battalions. One can select the group with 1, or each battalion with alt+1, alt+2, alt+3, and set either the whole group or each battalion into different formations. Or one could even press 1 and then alt+formation, and all units are selected, but each battalion has its own formation (all the same in this way). This behaviour is like Total War. But one could do more things, like invert things and have one battalion with 3 groups in it, to which one can give different orders, for example each group shooting at a different target, or even move, without breaking up the battalion. All with the player not being compelled to do anything, selections not forcing anything, all is optional. One could seamlessly play like AoE, like TW, or like something new. Finally, it would be nice if 2 digit numbers were allowed, one might want to have group 1 with battalions 11, 12, 13, and group 2 with battalions 21 and 22 for example, to remember things easily. Ctrl ctrl and ctrl+alt alt could do something, like defining a group and a battalion respectively, using the lowest number available, or giving a time window to enter the number, all considering that ctrl+alt+number can become uncomfortable with one hand and the rightmost keyboard numbers. Also, to make some things more visual and easier, group icons could be dragged into battalion boxes, or the other way around (less intuitive, but should also work). I hope all this makes sense. Edit: and thinking about what @guerringuerrin said, clicking on the left on a group portrait in a formation box could select the units of that group in that battalion, double clicking it could select the units of that group onscreen, and alt clicking it could select all units of that group.

Hi @guerringuerrin, thanks for your answers! Tab indeed hides status bars, but still hiding only full bars would be missing, which would be my preferred setting. I see that alt + idle unit works, just not as intuitive as double clicking it I'd say (Edit: maybe double clicking could select all idle units onscreen). In your screenshot that button and the send flare appear together, while in my game send flare is on the upper left of the minimap, which I think looks better, not sure if that will change. I wasn't aware of the use of alt as offscreen modifier, I wonder if it would be too confusing to propose ctrl+alt+number to define battalions? I can explain an idea of how to make selections, formations, groups and battalions not totally mess up each other, and be completely functional at all times.

Hi, I checked 0 A.D. around 15 years ago, and only lately had another go at it. I found it quite nice, with some interesting ideas. Lots of respect for the volunteers, it's impressive how it looks already. Obviously it still has many rough and suboptimal things, as expected from an unreleased game (and released ones, for that matter). In some ways it’s so good that I feel compelled to say that in other ways I think it risks missing the mark in making itself attractive to new players, for reasons I might tell later on (obviously I don’t mean to be mean). For now I just wanted to mention a few trivial things I noticed (maybe some are actually implemented and I didn’t find them), I hope this is the right place for this: 1) The loading screen with tips goes away too fast for me, it should say “press any key to continue”. 2) Many times I would have wanted that double clicking on the idle worker button would select all of them. 3) Many times I wanted to remove a few units from a selection. I think this could be done with shift+right click on the selection panel icons, removing a unit from the icon clicked, since just right click removes the whole icon from the selection. 4) Continue Campaign should appear only under Single Player, otherwise seems too redundant, and a bit confusing. 5) New Campaigns shouldn’t be allowed to have the same name as a previous one. 6) Many times I just wanted to Restart Scenario, instead of having to set up everything again, or to Load Game from one. 7) It would be nice to have the option to hide health bars, and better, hide full ones only. 8) I know about ctrl+D, but extending a bit zoom range (both in and out) could be a menu option. And I also found myself wanting to look a bit upwards, but it has to be fixed for gameplay since structures that should not be seen become visible. 9) Camera controls could be applied to the minimap if the cursor is placed on top of it. 10) On the left or right of the game speed button there could be a camera button with all the controls, including one to return to default view, which I don’t remember now if it can be easily done. 11) A visual representation that commands indeed were queued would be helpful. 12) As someone posted in this thread long ago: units should not remember where they were when receiving a standard command, and repairing a dropsite shouldn't be an invitation to gather. All these things can be easily instructed if wanted. 13) The way unit information is displayed doesn’t seem the most intuitive, too much text. It wasn’t evident for me which class structures were, to be able to change phase (one has to build almost everything anyway). 14) There’s no limit of Traders or Merchant Ships a given trading route can have, and there should be because those continuous routes look ugly, maybe could be fixed with a time the unit needs to stop for business, to space them out a bit, automatically limiting their useful number. 15) Capture is interesting but seems broken. Buildings are taken too fast, and then suddenly collapse, it’s unrealistic and not fun. I wonder if capture, garrison and occupy turret (which I don’t know what it does yet) could all be combined in one button, or are there situations where more than one is needed for a given target? I see removing the ability of capturing Fortresses has been proposed, but this destroys realism, as the post before mine states, surely better solutions can be reached. 16) Army placement is not good. Maybe something like Rise of Nations or Total War is hard to code? Where by dragging the cursor at the destination one can see and control the final positioning of troops (considering formation limitations). 17) (Un)garrisoning should be gradual, now it looks unrealistic, and could help with landings in small places. One could drag the unit icons on the panel to reorder them, meaning in which order they would disembark. Doing it in or near a port could make things faster. 18) Ships not taking into account the size of units they are transporting is a mechanic a bit dated. 19) The relationship between groups, formations and battalions is quite messed up. I like all these concepts but I don’t think the implementation is right. I have an idea for it but it would take me a few lines to explain, not the purpose of this list. 20) As pointed out recently, the lettering is way too small, it just doesn’t look good, “unplayable” was mentioned. UI scale is buggy, makes quality worse, and windows won’t fit in the screen. One shouldn’t have to install mods to fix something like this. Regarding that last point and what I said at the beginning, default settings should be friendly for new players. There are many things I can say about that, along with more suggestions (some historical for the Spartans), if this kind of feedback is wanted.