Caesar

If I can find anyone else interested in this, I'll take you up on that offer.

I keep coming back to this, I know, but I do think the Renaissance has a lot to offer an rts game. Unfortunately I am far more of a historian then I am a graphic designer. I have drawn up a couple plans for such a mod, but I do not possess the talent to do anything with them.

If I remember right, the original plan for the map had the map divided into various "provinces". Perhaps in each Province a local mercenary unit could be made available. A non-playable general faction, just for circumstances such as these (rebel slaves, bandits, ect.) like the Gaia faction in AoE II or the Slaves/Rebels of RTW, could be added and the slave army of the Servile Wars composed of the mercenary units that would be available in the Italian provinces.

What of the Servile Wars?

I also wouldnt mind seeing more of the Romans. Have any screenshots of the Romans in formation? Hmm, now that the topic of formations is in my mind, do you think the maniple formation could be put into use by players or is it too impractical for a game?

How about Persians vs. Greeks? Have a shot of a host of Persian infanty bearing down on a Macedonian phalanx with the cavalry close behind. Do you have any hero units yet? If so you could include Alexander and his hetairoi and Darius III and the Immortals, perhaps in a depiction of a historical battle like Gaugamela or Issos.

AoE3 is much more of a colonial-era game, not a renaissance game. There is a differance.

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The problem with factions in a game that covers such a vast period of time (come on, 500 years for one part is a rather long time) is whether or not to go with states or nationalities- for example, the Greeks could be considered a single nationality or culture, but between 500 BC and 0AD there were many states within that nation, the Athenians, the Spartans, the Thebans, Corinthians, Epirotes, Macedonians ect. ect., which rose and fell within that period. Or it could go the other way where within one state there were many nations- within the Persian Achaemenid Empire there were Perisans, Medes, Arabians, Turks, Thracians, even some Indians and Greeks. 0ad seems to have gone for a combination of both.

Nice thoughts, but in all honesty does anyone here really want to be fretting about which horses to breed when the enemy army is slaughtering your villagers and decimating your army? A lot of the ideas here to improve accuracy are nice, but much of it is impractical and would seriously interfere with gameplay. If many of these things were put into the game players would be so beset by many minor matters that they wont be able to focus on military strategy which is what this game is really about. You cannot combine RTS, RPG and City-building into a single game.

I'll admit that I always found AoE rather laughable in this respect. The bodies decompose and turn into skeletons before the battle is even over.

I see. Of course, or at least this is my understanding of history, the military reforms under Camillus and Marius focused on the organization of the army, while the equipment changes took place gradually over time. I believe even in the Imperial era the distinctions of hastati, principes and triari remained, if only honorary (denoting the length of service or something like that) rather then separate units. So the civil war under Sulla and the conquests of Caesar will be put off until Part two?

Part One would only deal with the "early" legions, while Part Two would have the classic "Augustan" legions. It is the latter that mastered the testudo formation. The legionary of the late Republic would have worn a montefortino helmet and ring-mail armour while carrying an oval shield, like so: The segmented cuirass armour was not commonly employed before 10AD. Same goes for the rectangular shield. Also, it is probable that the gladius sword, even until Caesar's day, was somewhat longer then that of the Imperial era.

I'm still a big supporter of the Renaissance mod idea...

Got my issue today. Looks great. There is a showcase on 0ad in this edition.

Perhaps something based on earlier civilizations- the Sumerians, Babylonians, Egyptians, Medians, Chaldeans, and such.

Interesting idea. I think this mod would be quite good. Though I cannot speak for the historical aspects as I tend to focus more on western history.

Currently what is the unit-number cap?

So are you now calling them the Homoioi instead of Spartiate now? I would definately support the use of more precise and historically accurate names for the units and factions.

As I understand it, 0ad only has six playable factions in the first installment, so you will be limited to that number in the mod. Ok, I'll address my opinions on Abadu's post, Faction Names: I like the idea of using Latin for the European factions, though there were some regions that did use Latin either politcally or religiously until later then the 500s, so you might want to consider that for the "first period" of the game. In a religious context, there were also the Slavic peoples in Eastern Europe who used Slavonic. Will Latin also be used for the unit names, or will you employ the local vernacular language wherever possible? Approach to the Faction: Seems a little complex, though I am interested in the idea. So, if I have this right, you will only be using the dominant factions in certain regions during each "period" with advancement being based on political branches of a faction? Perhaps you could go with certain dynasties, ie. Francia (Period I) Merovingians -> Carolingians - Francia Orientalis (Period II) Eastern Carolingians - Sacrum Romanum Imperium (Period III - IV) German Nobles -> Hohenstaufens -> Hapsburgs - Francia Occidentalis (Period II - IV) Western Carolingians -> Capetians -> Valois Vasileia Romaion (Period I - IV) Justinians -> Heraclians -> Isaurians -> Phyrgians -> Komnenids -> Angelids -> Palaiologans Or something like that. I obviously left out some dynasties with the "Byzantines" (their rulers had that nasty little habit of election by murder, or at least by mutilation). And with the Franks/French the Valois were still part of the Capetian dynasty (even the unfortunate Louis XVI was a Capetian). The Holy Roman Empire is a bit difficult since, in theory, the kings were elected and then had to be crowned emperor by the pope, though there are certainly some distinct dynasties well before the Hapsburgs. I generalized the monarchs who ruled between the Carolingians and the Hohenstaufens as "German Nobles". The above list was just a quick example, but I do think a dynastic system would be the way to go. Changes in Warfare: Another interesting idea, but it does sound good.

Still on edge...

I do agree that the soldiery of Western Europe did not have too many significant changes until about the mid-1300s and the greater use of gunpowder on the battlefield, but what about the world outside of Western Europe? In particular I cannot see this mod being able to represent such an unwieldy timespan with only six factions (through two branch into three sub-factions each), especially when this era saw the rise and fall of many states and peoples.

That is why I am curious as to whether you intend the factions to be based on political entities or specific peoples. Using actual states will prove difficult considering that, generally speaking, many were not clearly defined or only somewhat independent, and could encompass various cultural groups or split others apart. So I would suggest that you use specific peoples instead. Another issue I was considering was the timeframe. Among the many difficulties with historically based games is that the developers often try to condense immense periods of time into the game, thus sacrificing a lot of the historical accuracy. I would find this especially hard to do with the period 500AD to 1500AD, even if you broke it up into two periods, such as 500-1000 for the initial game and 1000-1500 for the expansion. My suggestion here would be to pick a more specific era in medieval history for the first installment of 0ad, and then develop it further for the expansion. For example, you could work with the Early Middle Ages from the fall of Rome to the dissolution of the Carolingian Empire, or the High Middle Ages and the Crusades, or the Late Middle Ages and the Renaissance.

How about using the more precise names of the factions and units in their own languages? The reasoning behind this is to avoid the appearance of an AOK knock-off and place greater emphasis on historical accuracy (which I can already see is very important to this mod). For example, using Romei/Romioi (Romans) or Vasileia Romaion (Roman Empire) for the Byzantines (a term used by Europeans from 1557, after the fall of Konstantinoúpolis to the Osmanli Imparatorlugu); European factions could be represented either in their vernacular languages or in Latin, so the Holy Roman Empire becomes either the Heiliges Römisches Reich or the Sacrum Romanum Imperium (though I do not know whether you wish to base your factions on specific peoples or political entities- either way the Holy Roman Empire will be hard to pin down). If possible, I would like to offer my services to this mod in regards to historical research. I have a great interest in medieval history, especially in regards to the Crusades, and I have a working knowledge of both Greek and Latin (though I will admit my Latin is generally ecclesiastical). I have a great number of ideas for such a game as this.

I'm on edge here now. Come on guys, get your stuff in!