Thalatta

-Petra doesn’t seem to know that blades must be used against rams. I started playing a few days ago and won in very hard difficulty by leveling the AI’s continent using only a bunch of these unrealistic rams. -It also didn’t try to use transport ships, I guess because there was a land possibility, since on an island scenario I’m pretty sure the AI did it. That would have made things so much more difficult. -Also, it doesn’t send full armies as fast as it could towards the end, it kind of gives up. It should build way more military buildings to spam armies. -It should use more fields, traders and whatever to support the previous point.

It's not clear to me that most people prefer simplicity over realism, maybe that's the case in this forum but certainly it's not for the people that have told me they didn't continue playing this game because it wasn't that different from AoE (which then in part seems to explain https://wildfiregames.com/forum/topic/121875-why-is-the-0-ad-community-so-small/, although maybe I'll post what I think about that later on). I told them it was work in progress, maybe I was wrong. Rome II Total War had amazing graphics but failed in part because they dumbed down many things compared to previous titles (besides initial bugs). And what about those who like Crusader Kings and similar? Way beyond the scope of this game, I know and I agree, the point being that not everyone is how you state they are. It's not about making a "simulation", like some complain when people come, propose something, and then leave having been brushed off because what they said drifted too far away from AoE, it's just about trying to consider what other simple games have successfully implemented, but if that is indeed not welcome, then well, it isn't

That's better! It's just not stated in the description I read (it mentions only structures as having the re-arm aura). Has this made melee more prevalent somehow? Or more considerations like the ones I've mentioned might be needed? I like your emphasis on realism (it's also my philosophy, doing it in a simple way to solve problems that otherwise would exist, instead of proposing bad and unrealistic band-aids). A few comments: -Regarding your priest rework, it's a good idea, but also some civilisations had field surgery (but should be done hand-to-hand, not by hand-waving like most games). -Field camps are great, but I see field surgery might render them useless. Field surgery should heal up to a percentage. Or better, check the next idea. -Wounded state is great, but maybe it should be way clearer to see it. I would use 3 health bars, a green bar (over a lighter hue of same color) to represent minor wounds (automatic healing, accelerated by surgeons anywhere), a yellow one for moderate wounds (with penalties, and healed by surgeons inside structures), and a red one for severe wounds (with more penalties, automatic draining, and healed by surgeons anywhere only up to start of yellow bar). -Regarding ammo, I wrote extensively in this thread about supplies already. -Your unit rebalance does what must be done… I’d be disappointed if the base game is so much different than that. -I don’t like the word “champions”, it sounds medieval, but it’s game jargon. I’d have done it with 10 ranks, like Total War if I remember correctly. -Secondary weapons are great, it would be nice to also have a button to control them. -You introduce Spies Networks, which is nice, but I’d go as far as making Spies part of the game. They would spy on statistics, and look to the other player like one of their own units (attack own units should be introduced), so it would be fun to imitate what his units are doing, or just set on following some army. He could disguise as basic enemy units, and garrison enemy buildings to hide. I’d add the possibility of hiding in places for units in general, under trees for example, to conduct ambushes. Spies should also be the ones conducting bribes, and maybe trying to open doors. Many things could be considered (assassinations, arson...). -Charge attacks are good, the more relevant abilities the better. I hope many of these concepts (and more) make it to the base game eventually... I don't understand the apparent prevailing philosophy of having yet another AoE clone (when the 0 A.D. Vision Document states the opposite).

Well, nothing has to guarantee that a formation will be kept in the heat of battle, it’s just mostly for initial positioning. "Everyone has a plan until they get punched in the face". How much a formation would be kept could depend on unit experience for example. Also, I was thinking about formation-inclined civilisations like the Romans, for others like Gauls I'd remove lots of strict compact formations. And maybe in some cases some could be added after some research, if historically relevant. All this would enhance the differences between civilisations and the tactics that have to be used for each. But one wouldn't even know they are there unless using modifiers while choosing formation, it would be totally optional. Edit: and the panel wouldn't change size, what it's shown just switches between either formations, arrangements or priorities.

I totally agree that formations should exist and be improved, but they would be more useful if units were more solid. Many times I get many units at the exact same place, which looks really bad, as do blobs fighting blobs. It unnecessarily cheapens the game and destroys immersion. Regarding formation order... Can't these be an option for the player? What if one could press ctrl+formation to turn the formation panel into an arrangement panel, showing the possibilities you have mentioned, for the clicked formation. One could alternate between arrangements for the chosen formation, and if done with ctrl it would turn the arrangement panel into the formation panel again. For example, to have hoplites and javelineers form in close order, first javelineers at the front, then behind, one should press ctrl + close order to form in some default arrangement and open the arrangement panel, and then if needed one chooses ranged infantry on the first row. When wanted, one chooses them on the second row, and they switch places with the hoplites. If done with ctrl, the panel would also switch back to the formation one (the default arrangement shown now being the last one selected). Unit symbols have to be clearer, I’d make hollow squares for infantry, triangles for cavalry, rhombuses for elephants, and circles for the rest (support), with a dot in the middle if ranged (Edit: actually, filled instead of dot could be better, and melee/ranged symbology could be switched, depending what's more intuitive). Different colors would help. I’d also rework “stances” (the ones below formations) a bit, units take too long to return to their positions. Edit: ugh, only now I noticed that you also want to deal with Heroes, Champions and Citizen-Soldiers... the problem is that they could be any kind of unit mentioned before. Combinations are needed. Well, shift+formation and shift+arrangement could open a... "priority" (or whatever) panel for this, with their ordering being indicated by other icons, like star, cross and dot, respectively. Ctrl+priority could return to formation panel, and shift+priority to arrangement panel.

It would be interesting if some Gaia units were a bit problematic, I just played a scenario with "pirates" and they were there doing nothing, and were too weak. If battalions are not that big but bribing them costs a fortune (wouldn't be good for their future business), yes, balance. Particularly for civilisations that would need to rely more on them, from bonuses or techs.

I see, although it's similar to what someone else was saying regarding going back to base, which is not accurate. More realistic would be for the Baggage Train to have a big supplies bar that would go down when recharging another unit's ammo bar. Raising the supplies bar could be done making the Baggage Train like a port: a dropsite for wood (to make arrows, but food and other resources could/should be considered, along with plunder mechanics) and a destination for Traders, with their other end being set at an own’s or allied Market or Supply Depot structure, which could have logistical techs and produce the Baggage Train unit (and also Traders). When a Trader supplies a Baggage Train, it should not raise the supply bar more the more distance is traveled (many possibilities could be considered), so a supply bag icon instead of a resource with a number could be used in this situation. Up to here not much in the game has to be changed, and almost no micro would be needed. It makes it hard for the enemy just to go around defensive buildings, just like it was in reality, since they and their garrison would be the bane of supply lines. If the campaign is overseas and one doesn’t have territory there, the Traders would need to be transported manually by ship, and “back to work” has to be used after disembarking (just tested this with markets on separate islands), adding micro, but seems a fair balancing mechanic considering the more complex logistics of the situation. There could be alternative ways to replenish ammo rooted in reality: if shot upon, foot archers could slowly resupply considering taking arrows from the ground (unless shot with short arrows some civilisations would historically use, who in turn might have been able to reuse bolts). Horse archers wouldn’t be able to do this. Attrition outside one’s territory could be a thing to involve all units in all this, although not with the HP bar but with some attrition bar that would only start having some effect when empty, so no problem with short raids, but that can’t turn into an extermination campaign, fixing one of the most annoying forms of early game snowballing. In the late game, snowballing is not much of a problem, the game has to end at some point. Regarding plundering (questionably called looting in 0 A.D.), without a Baggage Train armies should just resupply (not that they could carry much extra), and with it, many possibilities could be considered.

As some have correctly stated, flight archery (shooting upwards) was not that common, the arrow loses too much energy from air friction. For the same reason, archers wouldn’t shoot at maximum range, but at around one third of it, which means shooting straight at the enemy from a close distance (also to greately increase accuracy). Thus, the reason for missiles historically not dominating is not friendly ”fire”, although that puts constraints and I agree it should be included. The main reason is that one runs out of missiles incredibly fast. An archer can shoot around 10 arrows per minute, and can carry up to around 70 arrows (a horse archer around half that). They are done fast but in over 7 minutes because the pace cannot be kept. They need to be resupplied, like the 10000 Parthian horse archers were at Carrhae by camels, which allowed them to shoot around 2 million arrows on the Romans. Imagine the volume all that would have taken. It’s all about logistics. This is one of the main advantages firearms had when they appeared: lead balls are small and easy to transport (let alone easier to produce). Shooting was slower but more efficient, and required less training. Friendly fire was not a big concern. Someone proposed somewhere for ranged units having limited ammo and going back to replenish. He was closer in pinpointing the issue with ranged units, although that is not how things were done in antiquity. A baggage train would follow the army, which could be resupplied from local resources (trading, plundering, living off the land) or, in case of long term campaigns, supply lines from one’s territory. Supply depots would store supplies. Earth 2150 implemented resupplying amazingly, a building would produce automated flying units to distribute munitions to whoever needed them. No micro. One just has to keep supply lines open. For 0 A.D., a clumsy Baggage Train unit could accompany the army to resupply what’s needed (arrows for now). I think Rise of Nations had one for attrition reduction bonus when outside one’s territory. I have ideas on how to make this even more realistic, using what the game already has, but don’t want to turn this into a “supplies” discussion, unless asked.

I thought about rebellion considering the Carthaginian Mercenary Wars, but wanted to keep it simple for now, maybe the basic ideas has to first be tested. And that should happen if you run out of metal while the contract is on. Bribery would be interesting, but troops under Hannibal should cost a fortune for example. I forgot to say that the cooldown countdown should start after the battalion returns to their closest camp (called Embassy in the game now I remember, but sounds too formal for me, Iberian Camp would be nicer for the context), otherwise they might be instantly available after the contract is finished, which is not the idea. They need to replenish, rest, spend their hard earned money...

I wonder if completely changing the mercenary system can be considered, right now not much differentiates them from regular units, making them boring. I know they are cheaper in general, expensive with metal, and more experienced, but the Carthaginians seem just overcrowded with similar options, which doesn't make them interesting enough. I think mercenaries should aim at being used by those who have the metal but not the kind of unit, population or time to put in place an army. I don’t know if any of the following can even be done (or if it breaks gameplay somehow): I would make mercenary camps produce units in fixed battalions, fast, with a cooldown, and counting for less population, maybe half. Besides one having to pay a certain amount to hire them, they would charge per certain amount of time as long as they are hired. One can cancel this contract any time, after which they would automatically return to the closest camp of the same type (building a disposable raft if needed, I guess, or they could just vanish on some shore if too much extra art is required for now). The cooldown is always a base time plus a time that depends on their losses, to imagine they have to replenish their forces and avoid spamming them if they are getting destroyed, which would be annoying for the other player. This way one should strategically alternate between all camps, like the Carthaginians should. The only variables needed are size of battalion, population cost per mercenary, metal upfront and rate, and base plus penalty cooldowns, which need to be decided for balance, and maybe modified with techs and auras (considering Hannibal was an inspiring figure for regulars and mercenaries alike).

Well, maybe for my last proposal that would have made sense, but before that I posted a list of 20 suggestions, I don't think 20 new threads would have been productive . I'd leave a new thread for a bigger suggestion requiring more discussion, but what do I know. I can take the opportunity to ask: I really don't know how things work for suggestions to actually be taken into account, some of my suggestions were well received, but that's about it, I don't know what is actually done after that.

I think only ramming ships should be able to board, and should have a harder time with faster ships, needing to ram them a bit beforehand. Then, a defending “base garrison” would need to also be overcome in “virtual combat”. This base garrison could be depleted by ramming, making the target ship incur a speed (and maybe attack) penalty. After capture, the base garrison from the attacking ship (never involved in boarding actions) should be automatically distributed among both ships. Base garrisons could slowly replenish at sea, fast at ports. All this easily removes the necessity of having to garrison everything, while making things realistic by keeping boarding fairly common (as it was) but preventing snowballing from opportunistically hoarding ships. Better explained: It would be annoying to have good ships get captured by hit and run tactics from slower ships with a small crew and when not even engaged in combat (which happened mostly with sails lowered, but I guess the game simplifies this and that’s why the ramming ship has them like that). This is the Fortress capture problem at sea (which these ideas also try to solve). Boarding should then be done only by ramming ships, the one representing close combat. They should have a “Grappling Hooks” button that would work when really close, but the target ship should have a chance to get away depending on its speed relative to the attacker’s ship. Ramming was done not just to sink ships, but also to slow or stop them by shearing their oars (which would injure or kill the oarsmen). Only then using grappling hooks for boarding would be feasible. The corvus could prevent the target ship from getting away, but it wasn’t just “way more efficient at boarding”, it was necessary because the first Roman ships were slow compared to the Carthaginians’, after a couple of battles their ships improved and they ditched the corvus (which apparently made ships unstable), so it shouldn't be seen as a technology that improved things from then on but as a short lived early necessity. I’d change needing “4 or more garrisoned troops” and instead give every ship a “base garrison”, taken into account for the defenders when in virtual combat. This would be just a few parameters regarding how many they are, their attack, and defense (and loot, which I’d reserve for a successful boarding, but maybe that’s extra code and not how the game works). The number of troops needed to take an ungarrisoned ship would then depend on the ship itself (would be annoying having to garrison the biggest ships because of small ships with 4 archers lurking about). I feel units like cavalry or elephants shouldn’t count in any of this. An attacker can choose to disengage the grappling hooks if things are going south, which would also automatically happen if the defenders repel the attack (leaving the attacking ship only with its untouched base garrison). Most oarsmen were skilled armed free men, who were killed or taken prisoner, not generally made row a captured ship (which is very complicated, they had to be willing and motivated). This is why I disagree with “the first ship will receive part of the second ship's garrison”, it's not rooted in reality, and it's too snowbally. If the boarding is successful, the base garrison from the defending ship could be considered killed (or sold to slavery considering loot, etc), and the one from the attacking ship would need to be split (maybe in proportion to capacity). A depleted base garrison should give speed penalties to the ship. After all, captured ships had to be scuttled or were slow after battles for being poorly manned. The base garrison could replenish slowly, fast if close to a port. All this makes keeping ships harder than just boarding and capturing, allowing for more strategic decisions and preventing disproportionate gains. When everyone is killed in the target ship, one would take control of it and, while still hooked, one should be able to choose if to keep it or scuttle it (and maybe if just abandon it). For now I'm not proposing any base garrison manual redistribution not to complicate things. I’d make ships suffer damage mostly from ramming only, I feel ships are too weak to arrows in this game, they should be more like rams, while arrows should mostly affect their garrisoned troops, and the base garrison should be affected mostly by ramming (oar shearing and hull breaching). I would add this mechanism on everything, siege engines and buildings. Fortresses would have a decent base garrison with a bigger defense bonus than on a ship. They wouldn’t count as population, they’re just a “resistance to be taken” parameter (which is going to be implemented one way or another anyway, better to rename things realistically for immersion and intuition, all this is a bunch of parameters only), and a “speed (and maybe base arrow rate) penalty” if depleted, for things to work nicely on ships to take faster ones. Big ships is one of the things that are good about this game, no need to try to be just another RTS clone. A few words about realism: what I said before greatly simplifies reality, even when much was written. The only difference from the original proposal is the few parameters to characterise a base garrison, whose quantity would influence the speed of ships and be reduced by being rammed (if just being damaged can be considered for now that’s ok), and that faster ships could get away from the grappling hooks (Edit: and removing the arbitrary troop quantity requirement to be able to board, one might try capturing a small ship with 4 soldiers, but a big one would be suicide). If one would want more realism, ramming should be done on the sides (made difficult when ships are formed side by side), and shearing should be done with an angle from the front (diekplous), or back after going around (periplous), but I know this is too much detail for a game like this (although the more is taken into account the better for tactics).

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.