Dade

Sorry, been busy this last week. Thx @FeXoR for taking your time to explain this points, which were in my mind at the time of writing but wasn't 100% sure until I read you and @niektb. As I can see, maybe this kind of proposal could rise with a bigger core dev team, when the game is in a much more stable situation or with a clear non-fundamental feature developement.

Hmmmm Sintagma with a priest in the middle <3

Very nice! With the Moai's would be incredibly original map to play.

Installing Mumble again on Ubuntu ¡

Well, I think we all agree on one this: either ranged units get nerfed range so catapults are useful and possible to protect or catapults get a higher range with the same result. @causative I understand ancient archers could reach those distances, but I won't be sure they could really be effective from outside 50-100 meters. Of course you can shoot an arrow to almost 200-300 meters and hit somebody into formation but as @wowgetoffyourcellphone it's all about scaling into the game. I mean, we can't consider real ranges if we don't also consider the scaling of the game from real world sizes.

I am not part of the dev team, but as one of the many 0AD followers I welcome you and hope your contribution will be inspiring also other students. As said above, ¡welcome and good luck with you course!

@wackyserious thx @AtlasMapper Here in Spain, there are not much art faculties using software design tools as far I know, but of course it could be interesting if that's not the case in other countries @niektb I already tough this could have not be done early because of some sort of problem or organizational issue. I guess mentoring is a time consuming task but we could assist in something to make it easier for mentors? Also, what happened to that group of students?

Personally, if your idea includes high defensive buffs to garrisoned units I won't say it's a bad idea (maybe in a castle of 20 units, 5-10 are inside "safe" and the rest is outside). About ranges, maybe is a matter of tastes but probably we would need to see how to scale all real distances into the game (maybe we would even have to discuss some micromanagements options for archers commans). From what I've read, actual archers hunting 'effective range' is someway between 35yd (~32 meters) and 50yd (~45m), maybe this can be used as orientation. From my own experience, I've built bows with my father with recycling materials, this ranges are probably correct in a warfare situation. Also check Composite Bow and Auxilia - Archers. I'd also like to point, as my personal opinion again, I don't think the matter is to let any civ to be able to easily break any defense. Don't forget battering rams are a very simple concept, only sophisticated by very few civilizations (Persians on 0AD for example).

Edited to include the alternative Thus I'm not sure if it's a good idea because wouldn't those structures have less range than ranged units themselves?

Hello community, I've recently remember about some news I read much time ago related with new faculties establishing in my country universities (Spain), fully dedicated to games development. From a quick search, I've found the following: DigiPen (in english) ESNE Universidad Complutense de Madrid Universidad Complutense de Madrid - Máser I am not aware if this has become common on many other countries over the years, but it may be useful to get some extra pair of hands in the development and artistic design of 0AD by collaborating with this particular institutions. I am sure it would be a nice curricular achievement for most students and an opportunity for 0AD team.

Sorry to bump up the post, but it's related to lag issues. It's possible pyrogenesis process is only using one core? (Under Ubuntu) I checked process manager when hosting some games and when the true battles starts, CPU usage is stuck at 15-17% so I guess the process is just not using my full CPU. Stable pings (although they start to rise when this cpu bottleneck arise) and RAM under control.

Man, you can't even imagine.

To sum up, from what I've read on this topic, I think the easiest and simple way to currently fix this without exploring new mechanics are actually: Improve catapults range, so they are not being attacked from walls/fortifications at same height and we can place at least 2 lines of troops in front to defend them without being attacked. Alternative: Reduce wall turret range (and look into reduce Fortress range too). They are suppose to be defensive, after all, not offensive. This benefit all attacker units equally. Buff rams when they have garrisoned units aka: extra damage, a little defensive bonus and a great capture points bonus. I think this last is one of the more important, is very annoying to have a ram full of champs being captured with full HP. IMO a fully champ garrisoned ram should not be able to be captured until 25% HP, else you are sending a free gift to your enemy with a nice shiny ribbon Rise repair timings related to walls: already planned in #3707 & #3811 Rise the minimum space between wall turrets, thus this could be a problem in certain cases and we would have to modify the trajectory of our wall line to something different due to this restriction and map shape. As for new ideas/mechanics, we have the following: Walled City tech: set an amount X of stone to 'activate' walls and turrets foundations around your CC Starving: players need to not only be able to actually buy units, but also to sustain them. Siege player could try brake his opponent economy to cause lack of supplies to enemy civilization Sorry if I've missed something.

If I'm not wrong @Lion.Kanzen told me it's a planned feature.

@Mr.Monkey With all the respect, wiped guys from 1.6 or Source seeking for their opportunity at GO is not exactly a success to a game which intention was to be again king of FPS competitive scene. Until Valve's Majors almost no professional teams took CS:GO seriously, and I know what I'm talking about because by the release of CS:GO I was competing in BF3 and most of my team mates and their friends were 1.6 professionals too. About competition size, I think you just explained my point: we can't ask devs for major changes for a minor/niche competition at this moment. We want to make a ladder/tournament/league or whatever? Fine, but keep it low profile until game is stable enough. New players, specially if they come just for competing, will fly away fast as they come if their games starts to lag and/or are not able to play. And those kind of players, hardly comes back. I didn't play SMITE actually, but MOBA's usually have a single map per game-mode just to try closing the balance gap between characters, which is something I think is not acceptable on any other game genre. Also, I feel like we are talking about different things, we should first agree on what we all interpret as 'balancing'. I wish I could give you thousands of likes, and I might add AssaultCube as an example of what you just wrote about kowtowing. Last I'll re-quote myself: "If we still wants to make some sort of competition, why we couldn't start with something simple like 'Release Cup' and/or 'Release Candidate Cup' (epic hah), achieving both stimulating competitions and helping devs with live, instant, first hand feedback and even material for video-changelogs? As an additional suggestion, including winner and runner-up nicknames on the game credits could be enough prize for now "

Correct me if I'm wrong @SeleucidKing, but I guess your question behind the lines is: Are we (community and/or dev team) prepared for this? My personal answer is: NO WAY! Before even seriously consider large scale competitions there are still so incredibly much things to do... and competitive focused balancing is probably at the bottom of the list. Moreover, balance cannot be achieved in variety, it's just another marketing strategy from game publisher to sell more titles but truth is no one still has made a true balanced game (I can make a list of games I've played where there are clearly a maximum of 2, maybe 3, dominant weapons/strategies). As for RTS, the only balance is playing with identical factions on a symmetric map, but then again - given same skill level - there would be a dominant strategy --> wait behind walls; unless of course, we introduce some candy micromanagement feature which can be game-changer (for example, flanking damage, formations bonus/malus and cavalry charge). Back to topic, I'd rather approach new games with exciting features rather than promise of competitive-aware development. For example, I'm sure many Company of Heroes players would enjoy to see another game having dynamic cover or different movement speeds depending on terrain. Maybe we need to brainstorm to bring something original idea and bring even more glory to a game which is already great at this stage of development. If we still wants to make some sort of competition, why we couldn't start with something simple like 'Release Cup' and/or 'Release Candidate Cup' (epic hah), achieving both stimulating competitions and helping devs with live, instant, first hand feedback and even material for video-changelogs? As an additional suggestion, including winner and runner-up nicknames on the game credits could be enough prize for now PS: @Mr.Monkey I'm not a CS fan, but CS:GO was really disappointing in it's release, and there was no competition at all. Competitive scene rise up when Valve started to put money prizes on tournaments, then most pro players from older CS versions switched to GO. If we make a competition with a million dollar pool prizes, be sure you won't need much to get players into your game hah

Ive had a little research and found this article. Seems like Roman's catapults could easily reach 300 meters O_o

I'd agree with Mr.Monkey, but remember the game is in alpha stage and doesn't even have some features enabled which will turn guides and tactics into some 'use this (exploit) / (forgotten unit balance) until next version', and then people crying because in the following version this has been fixed and they get wiped again (which, btw, is the story of AC from 0.93 to 1.2.0.2). And please, by all means, do not take AC as an example of absolutely nothing if you wish any sort of success to 0AD. My main suggestion, if there is a plan to open pandora's box (aka Multiplayer Forum) is to think about clear forum rules, give moderators shiny and fancy ban hammers and make it clear for players they can't cry on forums each time they loose a game about balance or who ever is hacking or not. I'm not against multiplayer or 'competitive scene' (if you like more this term), I just don't want devs to feel pressed and commit mistakes just because there is noise on forums. One last though, before getting into competitive 0AD as a way to attract new players, I think we really need a full and deep revision of the game balance, unless we want to see only the dominants bretons/macedonians in every match, or things can really get nasty.

Hello dear community, I've seen lately lot of players on my games with lag problems, apparently caused by WiFi connections. WiFi connections are hardly - or never - stable as Ethernet cable connection, so if you ever get a chance: connect your pc by wired connection when playing online games. General Dedicated space for extra tips about WiFi (intereferences and similar). Depending on users. WIP. Windows from XP SP3 until now Long story short: Windows does scan for WiFi networks even if it's already connected to an existing one, which leads in sudden lag spikes. Solution: WLAN Optimizer (Author URL: http://www.martin-majowski.de/) Download (wopt021.zip), unzip wherever you please and execute WLAN Optimizer. Once open, make sure "Disable background scan" is correctly ticked, and play with the other settings if you wish to achieve some extra performance. NOTE: WLAN Optimizer won't speed up your WiFi and/or reduce noise/interference, it will prevent lag spikes caused periodically by Windows. Of course, feel free to make questions or additions

Nice to see some clans taking a step into 0AD, will watch the replay soon. If I can suggest something, forget about AC and keep it up with 0AD.

Totally agree, the changelog-videos are awesome. Congratulations to @BrynnOfCastlegate! Unfortunately I wont be able to test much this version, but an extra SSD is coming

Nice tips. I'd suggest you to add something like:

Do not fear, the more we can discuss, the better we can improve ideas overall. About (1), I talked about Romans, because I read about them but I guess other civilizations may have similar 'technologies'. About barbarian civs, that's exactly what I meant in the main post: "Civs picks will have direct consequences when/if a siege situation come into the game". In my opinion, barbarians would still be played by aggressive players which wants to brute force the match, or as the perfect complement in team games (thus you will need more synchronization with your team players). Regarding the rest of points, I'm glad this is already planned at some point for the game Of course, as you point out, there is still a lot to learn and think since the capture update but I am sure all together we can bring nice ideas and feedback to our nice devs. Thanks for your compliments. I'll be glad to discuss more. Have a nice day!

I have changed thread topic, so we can have a more general vision about siege aspects of the game. I guess it shouldn't be a problem. Some additional ideas: Castles should have the ability to train or improve a new and simple feature: rock throwing. Quantity could be standard and/or depending on garrisoned units. Mechanism is simple, whenever enemy units approach to your castle and stick to walls, they start draining HP because of this falling rocks. To counter this, civilizations as Romans had a siege weapon called musculus, which is nothing else than a very resistant box used by Romans to approach enemies fortifications Soldiers positioned on walls should have much more armor rate, as they actually die as they were in the middle of the field. In addition, they should also have some other kind of advantage to reflect the fact they are positioned on a higher position than their opponents, this could be translated into game as little more damage, extra range or additional fire rate This one could be probably hard to implement but it would be great if ranged units could not bypass buildings, walls or terrain with their shots. I'll put an example in case this one is not clear: suppose an Iberian player, which is being sieged by an enemy without catapults (hence, no danger to fear collateral damage) and it's main door is about to get down, no matter how hard he tries to repair it. With this feature, he could place his soldiers next to walls and have a last chance to defend his place. Unfortunately, actually everyone get hits from archers from the other side of the wall which is not realistic at all Related again with ranged attacks, specially from arrows and slingers. Units inside forests/woods should receive less damage from arrows and slingers, are they are actually harder to reach/hit and units could cover.

Hi Lion, the opinion paragraph is just that, an opinion about what could possibly change after modifying units damage to normal and defensive buildings. Proposed changes are just: