Thalatta

I'm not sure if this refers to the variant you made, or vanilla.

Hi @Caroby, indeed I feel hotkeys for certain things like the ones you mentioned are needed (and indicated with button tooltips or whatever), I have it written down for my future suggestions. Since there are some I've always used in AoE and StarCraft, I have to constantly remind myself that in 0 A.D. pressing H won't cycle between Civic Centres (nor could I find a key that does this yet).

I'm not sure what you mean, since all water seems to behave basically the same. What I mean is what could be done at different water levels. On a post some months ago I mentioned that water could be: -Shallow: for the transit of most land units (except siege for example) and small boats. Now I'd also add land unit coastal fishing (mentioned many times and done in the first AoE already), and possibly mining (as I just mentioned). -Moderate: for small and normal boats, but not the largest ones. Now I'd also add swimming for some like Iberians, and possibly deeper mining for a few (since the link mentioned 3.6 m deep). -Deep: for all boats. Maybe eventual bridges should not be built over it (except for the Persians, who could have also bridges made of ships). Now I'd also add that by that I mean placing a pier on it, a small hanging section over it would be ok. Now I'd also add Oceanic to differentiate sea and ocean going vessels, which was a big difference between many ancient Mediterranean and northern European ships, as recently mentioned. Of course this (and possibly other things just mentioned) might be too complicated for vanilla, but just to open the possibilities for some mod.

Although a straightforward fix should be possible, an idea could be to combine this with the concept of having multiple water depths, and to have workers wade into shallow waters to do some stuff, after all underwater mining was a thing in some places: https://www.turkiyetoday.com/culture/could-aristotles-divers-copper-have-come-from-istanbuls-waters-new-evidence-points-to-3210058?s=1 I also thought that, if something like this were to be implemented, Iberian units could wade in more than others, given that Livy in his History of Rome states: "There, having felled some timber, they [Hannibal's army] quickly built rafts on which to carry across the horses, men, and other baggage. The Spanish, without hesitating, stuffed their clothing into skin bags, put their shields above, and lying on top of them swam across the river on their own".

I’m not sure what do you mean exactly, but in principle I see that it says Tessarakonteres (Juggernauts), which doesn't make any historical sense, since that means forty-rowed, and only one was built, as a showpiece, since it was too unwieldy to be used in any practical sense. I'll expand on ships in my future post on the Athenians.

Sadly, right now a "DawsonKiboult" posted his first message, full of nonsensical spam. A solution I'm thinking of is if posts that are flagged as spam by a certain number of people (3?) could become hidden, for the mods (the only ones able to see them) then to decide what to do with them (as a way to keep things clean faster, help mods, but not give definitive power to non-mods, and of course any abuse of the actual purpose of this should be penalised).

Indeed, in this example, Liu Hu accepted straight away both neutrality and alliance, Antiochus rejected everything, and Ptolemy accepted neutrality but required a tribute for an alliance: It took me like 10 tries to get such a varied output, so there are some random starting parameters in this. The tribute asked was always 1000 Wood. I wonder if there's a way to display messages again after they disappear, I had to do all that a bit fast (but not so much for the order not to get messed up, since they take a second to answer). So, the game is quite good at describing things, but it would be nice if, when they don't accept, they mention that more trade would be needed if that's the case, or whatever is, although some friendliness indicator would be ideal.

But can this be deactivated? Or does the original species targeted have a priority? It's much harder to hunt gazelles than butcher sheep. Besides, I guess it shouldn't be "same stance", but "more passive stances than", because I'd think @Vrayer wanted to hunt passive animals as well after targeting an aggressive one (unless the point is to exterminate the aggressive ones first, which could be useful). To use the Target Area idea also for hunting (and the other things mentioned) would seem a less problematic and more encompassing solution to me.

When I'm concise, I'm misinterpreted, so I have to end writing more… The last couple of ideas were just alternatives for if people prefer them. Personally, I think I prefer the Target Area idea, which is what is described in your link, but only for fighting. My proposal generalises that idea to resource gathering (including hunting), garrisoning, boarding, and even repair, along whatever I can't think of right now.

A couple of different possibilities inspired by that, which might need refinement to condense on one useful thing: -Target types: if one queues this with a sheep and a gazelle, the hunter would hunt all sheep and gazelles he has around. This could be also used for chopping all trees, garrisoning certain buildings, and boarding certain ships, as long as they are nearby. In case of troops, maybe it could work as cavalry targeting archers, while pikemen cavalry, and so on. -Action stances: similar as before, but the target doesn't really need to be specified. One could hunt all non-aggressive animals (or also aggressive ones if that was selected) as mentioned, but could also work with things like "repair all", "board all", etc, as long as they are nearby.

My point being that, ideally, these should be historically informed. But I wonder why this is even the case, it seems quite independent from the objective of making a bot better than Petra, which seems you have achieved and I would be interested in playing against (and I think should make it to vanilla), just I wouldn't want additional inaccurate techs (if that's the case with those, and when there seems so much to clean up already). That's nice, although I guess it might be preferable if resource gathering speed is the same at all levels, and easier levels are easier for other reasons, to add uniformity and be easier to explain (by completely removing that "cheating" factor many don't like). Restrictions on the number of certain things seems fine to me, closer to modelling an actual player.

But the hunter has to be at the last of the previous species already, by "would then continue with the species of the queued individual animal", I would understand the species of each queued individual animal, that is, if you queue a sheep, a goat, and a gazelle, the hunter would hunt all sheep, goats and gazelles nearby, which is not what happens, and is what @Vrayer seems to want from his first post (what you say is the present behaviour, and he wouldn't be posting anything to begin with), and I understand his concern, but it's some micro that apparently has not really bothered players much. I've come across this kind of issue in the past when, for example, a few trees in a patch remain, and I'd like that, when workers are finished, for them to go mining, but if I try to queue this I have to click on each tree, otherwise they'll go mining after finishing the individual tree they are chopping right then. If others are up to reduce micro in this case, the "Target Area" button I mentioned could be considered, also including the possibility of targeting resources in that area. It would be just like expanding the pointer to an adjustable circular area for gathering, hunting, combat, and maybe other things like multiple garrisoning and ship boarding, for which units could automatically redistribute properly (right now I guess one would just queue orders and units would iterate among those until finding a spot).

It doesn't work like that, I just tested it with the Corral. They do continue with the species of the last queued animal, as would be expected, but the animals neither specifically queued nor belonging to the species of the last queued animal are left alone.

CTRL has its uses, but wouldn't do the hunt thing. CTRL+A rotates the view for me (I think I didn't define that).

But, if I'm not wrong, you would be tasking the hunt of individuals, and not whole (nearby) species. I see some use for things to be the way they are, that is, not to switch to an aggressive species, but I've also noticed the additional micro @Vrayer is referring to. Something I thought could be useful would be an "Target in Area" button, where after pressing it one would adjust the area of a target circle, and all attackable (Gaia and enemy for example) units inside it would be queued to be attacked. This would be useful for hunts and fights, not having to precisely pinpoint some target. It would also avoid a weird issue I usually have, which is that after the target unit is killed, the attackers retreat to their previous position instead of keep killing enemies they have just beside them, although maybe this is related to their stance.

@mod_3d "Added research technologies with bonuses for units": You mean new ones? Which ones? "Bonuses to resource gathering speed are DISABLED on all levels": You mean it doesn't cheat anymore? "Game difficulty levels": Is the Medium level actually that, as in other games? There was some discussion about it here, with a suggestion for additional levels:

I've been thinking about this for a while (left the relevant text for this answer), since I don't quite like how that's specifically organised (it doesn't make much historical sense, although I know it's a preliminary idea), but something like this could be useful to organise civs and their tech trees better, while facilitating the possible eventual implementation of the mentioned Grand Vision. Now, given that the Dorian invasion hypothesis has fallen out of favour in recent decades, and considering the latest genetic studies (https://www.science.org/content/article/greeks-really-do-have-near-mythical-origins-ancient-dna-reveals), I think something like this would be more accurate (incomplete, simplified, and still debated): The issue is, all these transitions happened before 500 BC, so this is not for present gameplay transitions (that's why I removed P1, P2 and P3), unless the time frame is eventually changed. For now it would serve mostly to organise things better, since basically all Greeks would be covered if the Achaeans are included (nice logos for the four tribes would be needed), thus any city-state could be easily implemented from this if needed (for campaign reasons for example, which is how this thread started), each ("hypothetical") transition opening different options. EDIT: For some reason I missed that the Athenian and Spartan logos were there already, and searched for them again.

Had a fast look (since I'm quite busy with other things right now) at The Oxford Handbook of Palmyra, Chapter 12, Palmyra and the Military, From the Roman Period to the Islamic Conquest (that is, "between the first and the early seventh centuries") to have some idea in what units to focus on. I wonder what's the idea of this civilisation anyway, being that they were independent for just a very few years. Regarding Romans in Palmyra -"The presence of alae is unsurprising in the Palmyrene, as horses would have allowed for the mobility necessary to guard and patrol the vast Syrian steppe". -"The Ala Vocontiorum" "was replaced by the Cohors I Flavia Chalcidenorum Equitata Sagittariorum", which "included a cavalry element, infantrymen, and Palmyrene archers". -"Following the events of 272 and Zenobia's rebellion, a garrison of six hundred archers was left in the city". -"The presence of a legion—which in late antiquity may have numbered some one thousand men—rather than an auxiliary unit, is indicative of the growing importance of Palmyra as a stronghold along the eastern limes". -"Limitanei (frontier troops)" were also present. Regarding Palmyrans in the Roman army -"It is reasonable to believe that the military skills of Palmyrene soldiers derive directly from a military tradition first developed to protect the caravan trade and that this ‘caravan police’ was later integrated into the Roman army" and "their adaptability to arid conditions played a pivotal part in their recruitment". -Sometimes "Palmyrenes constituted auxiliary troops of their own", an example being the "Ala I Ulpia Dromedariorum Palmyrenorum": dromedary riders. -"Numeri Palmyreni Sagittarii (Palmyrene archers) are known to have been present" at some early Roman campaigns, while some "may well have been Palmyrene militia not in service in the Roman army at that time". -"The Cohors XX Palmyrenorum" had "their headquarters" "in the temple of Azzanathkona", "and included infantry and cavalry". -Towards late antiquity, "the Cuneus Equitum Secundorum Clibanarium Palmyrenorum was a vexillatio comitatensis—a cavalry unit—made up of an elite mounted unit of clibanarii, heavily armoured shock cavalry". A "Ala Octava Palmyrenorum" is also mentioned. Regarding Palmyrene militia -Native militias had the "role of" protecting "the lucrative caravan trade to the east", and "there are at least three known ways in which soldiers could have served in this militia": 1) To "be recruited by the synodiarch or archemporos to provide caravans" "with military protection". 2) To "actively" combat "the nomadic threat, and served under a ‘strategos of the peace’". 3) To "guard nodal trading posts in Persian territory", and "detachments of horsemen" are mentioned. In any case, and for these points, "their composition and organization remain obscure". There's plenty of bibliography at the end of the chapter, some of which could include illustrations.

I found this because I was searching about the fox issue. It's really surprising to have those shy little guys attacking my army (they should attack smaller animals though). I agree with @cephalotus points, unless objected by @Gurken Khan, with whom I agree with everything, except that I do think animals are moving too slowly (both when attacking and fleeing). To avoid chasing them across half the map, or making them killing machines, I'd just give them less HP. How many well placed hits does one need to kill these animals anyway? I think they are too slow and strong right now, maybe with some exceptions like elephants.

In all honesty, I couldn't give less darns. That doesn't give you any authority or veto over matters of historical fact, so, instead of fallaciously waving insignificant pseudo-credentials, a reliable source or two is what would do it. Otherwise, I couldn't care less if you, or anyone here, have been around since the Big Bang. I'm not making assumptions beyond what's said. It's clear that you "did it with AI", that it will struggle with "Iranian boots in 3rd century", that they are "sketches or approximations", and that you don't necessarily say "this is 100% historical", so there will be mistakes, hopefully pointed out in the discussion you yourself said could happen, so, again, re-read your whole reaction to me just doing that.

And from what I see, @Anaxandridas ho Skandiates left, and you are still here, so... I'm not saying that, but if you just dismiss or demean whoever points out something from an AI image, don't rant if you get called out. You are wrong if you think I'll just idly sit and take your BS. Do the smart thing and either provide clear evidence or just say "I don't have any, so that part of the AI image has to be ignored by whoever does the models". And, again, that's simply the end of it. Multi-post whining from you is truly not needed.

Gosh. The artist intended to portray accurate footwear, which doesn't have straight edges near the eyelets, but curved ones, as every piece of evidence shows. You are just making up what you can't see from a far away sideways drawing. Delusional. Not enough. Which is just what I did, in a couple of lines. It's you who started acting like some kind of crazy person regurgitating posts that didn't even address the actual point. Just go back and read again. It's not hyper-realism, it's pointing out errors to filter some of all this information. I am also concerned and commented about combat disorganisation, but that is irrelevant right now. Sure, you can keep you-are-new-splaining after an error is pointed out if you want, I just think it would be better for you to try not to look like an ass. Look in the mirror after reading all this exchange again. Why only one? I went through about a dozen books for the Spartans, and same for the Athenians. I went through one just for the Sasanians (and at least an additional article) because @wowgetoffyourcellphone wanted information fast, and I was shifting my focus from what I was actually doing. Ideally I'd want to go through all vanilla and then DE civilisations, but available time is obviously an issue, which I'd prefer not to waste because some crazy person on the forum can't tolerate being told that one of this random AI images have inaccurate footwear and thus needs to demean the discussion he himself says is supposed to happen, which makes the whole thing utterly ridiculous.

That which only existed recently and for which there's no evidence to have existed centuries ago... And I've just discussed it to expose bad AI. Indeed plenty of things have not survived, and one has to also consider artistic and literary sources, although not mindlessly. I'd have hoped that since "several artists create initial designs, which are then evaluated by the community and experts", obvious mistakes from ancient representations like spiral configurations in torsion siege engines wouldn't have made it into the game, and yet they did. That is one of the many things I'll point out in my post on the Athenians, but I'm still, at least, 2 books worth 800 dense pages to go (I'd recommend you to read more and play with AI generators less, but if you are not that inclined to do that, then at least try to learn not to gratuitously wave away proper criticism). Obviously utterly irrelevant for the points made. You can also save the rest of the you-are-new-splaining, which went truly nowhere. The boots I pointed out are clearly modern, that's part of the discussion expected to be had regarding dubious AI images, and that's evidently the end of it.

Which is my point. Your image now is much closer to what we actually know about. Both styles are quite different.

Can you show evidence of any ancient boot, Persian or otherwise, looking like that?