SDM

It is very arbitrary indeed. That's why a native name would be most ideal. Unfortunately, no matter what you do, it will be very inconsistent since there isn't much information about some of the peoples.

Maybe peoples would describe them better.

You seem like a well-educated person, so do you have an alternative term to describe these peoples?I think that choosing names that the peoples identified themselves would be a better choice than choosing a Romanized (unless they're Roman) or contemporary name. It would be the most neutral choice. However, if there is a lack of knowledge on what they call themselves, then there isn't much that can be done.

As mentioned earlier, that's a bad and arbitrary reason. I'm not saying that WFG should make a Chinese civilization in the game (however nice it may be), but if they do so as a DLC, it should not a civilization that is automatically ruled out because of geography.

Check this out: http://artefacts-berlin.de/uruk-seleucid/index.php?l=eng

Too much micromanagement. If food cost per units needs to increase for balancing reasons, the better way to do it is to increase the initial cost rather than have a periodic cost.

Yes. Not because they don't trust you, but because it is a scientifically more reliable procedure and prevents abuse.

Can one of the models be repurposed to suit another building type?

What's basically been said is that foreign mercenaries are essentially a mini-faction if you can create it independently and add a few structures here and there. There hasn't been talks about the implementation as far as I know from him.And I think we can discuss implementation elsewhere. This should be about focusing on African peoples and research on cultures.

I just found a link that seems to be authentic that has information about not only the Bantu people but also the Khoi-San peoples. I think it's extremely easy to add the San people in-game given what we know and the references in the site. From the page, we can infer what their houses look like, their bows, clothing, and way of life back in the day. We also know that they are 1.5 m tall in average, which should still be shorter than the average people of the time. I want to find a picture of their clubs though. Here are the Khoisan: http://www.south-africa-tours-and-travel.com/san-people.html#THE%20KHOISAN http://www.krugerpark.co.za/africa_bushmen.html And the Bantu (weapons are still not found) http://www.south-africa-tours-and-travel.com/bantu.html

Oshron is talking about something else separate from a wholly independent mini-faction. See Ptolemies's foreign troops for example. Separate from that, even if the mini-faction idea fails to be adopted, if anyone models and converts the Bantu culture in-game, they can be placed in Atlas

I hadn't considered looking through Wikimedia, but the Western Han house minqi pottery is a great reference for an in-game house structure! Here are more references as promised. The sha, ge, and ji are all polearms. The jian is a double-edged sword used for stabbing and the jian are single-edged used for slashing. Please correct me if I am wrong. EDIT: Added a Han Crossbow reconstructed by Selby.

Yes, the references are for potential volunteers who want to try their hands on modeling something basic and not game-critical.

Here are pictures of the houses from the link above:

It's the three levels levels of bells that I think is unnecessary. Even from reading the description, there should only be two and should be an on/off switch. The first level would be the default "no-trumpet/bell" level. Red alert is off. Clicking it will turn on red alert. The second level would be the "Red Alert" level. Clicking on the button will turn off red alert and go back to default state. Any other additions would be unnecessary clutter or involve micromanagement. If I misunderstood the reasoning for having an extra icon, please clarify for me. I regret that I don't have the game installed, but I think a more streamlined GUI and smoother gameplay experience is valuable in and of itself. On the bell/horn discussion: No one has been trolling anybody in this thread. We should use whatever is available for the time period. From the looks of it, trumpets seem to be more reasonable, but that means little since I'm no expert. Are there any more references for the artist to use?

Well, since there's been no one condemning me, here's a few of the references I found: More shall be posted later.

If the mirror tower doesn't make much sense, how about the historical (possibly) more cannon tower: http://www.livescience.com/8383-study-archimedes-set-roman-ships-afire-cannons.html

Hi, even though there's already a temple made, I just though I'd drop these pictures here as references for other Ptolemaic buildings. EDIT: Just realized the temple is being used as the wonder. Hm.

Here's a site that has two housing structures for the Bantu and the Khoisan peoples: http://africatermpaper.wikispaces.com/Indigenous+Architecture

I don't think it would be a problem if we're just using them as references and inspiration as long as we're not directly copying from them.

Okay, I'm in a college library at the moment. Should I be aiming for illustrations or are we digging up facts?

But there is! Scion Development is (slowly) working on a Chinese faction. Some of the devs on Wildfire Games is also part of Scion. So you can think of Scion as the unofficial official add-on DLC devs of 0 A.D.

Nice~

Do you know which font? That's a pretty neat looking character. I couldn't have imagined that's what inspired it.