SMST

I would gladly work with you. I think I open a new thread in the mod section already where I can lay down my concept a bit further. Your civs are good, but there is the problem (if it should fit in my plans) to find representations for them in all ages. (something I struggled within my own civs, think of Ancient Russians, for which I finally chose Skythians/Sarmatians)

What I meant is that the "American" faction would be native American until Colonial age, then turn into the United States.

Sorry, but what problem is there with the aztecs?

I think about EE1/2 in a similar way like you, oshron. Apart from having changed unit accessability (every civ gets pretty much every unit class, except for some notable exceptions (Greeks lack offensive (sword) infantry, Persians and Egyptians lack siege, several nations lack heavy warships), I designed the civs pretty much like the ones of 0AD. Having all the globe into an RTS game was always one of my wishes, and with Pyrogenesis, I will be able to fullfill it. The whole globe, I said. Actually, my plans go for 18 civs in total. However, I am by no means planning to release them as one, but to split them up in two bunches of 9 civs each. The first 9 will cover the area of the world that 0AD is also set on - Europe and the Middle East. (since I will have no problems with environment changes here) The second 9 cover the rest of the world and will come with an expansion pack. This includes Asian, African and American civs. Basic Game: French faction British faction Greek/Italian faction (Ancient Greece -> Byzantines -> Italy) Roman/German faction Russian faction Persian/Iranian faction Egyptian faction Phoenician/Spanish faction Turkish faction (may change into modern day's Israel in Modern Age) X-Pack: American faction (USA) Aztec faction Incan faction Bantu faction Chinese faction Japanese faction Korean faction Mongolian faction Indian faction

Yes, yes, yes, yes, perhaps. (if I can find proper representation throughout all ages for them, maybe the would be the ancient version of the American faction)

Actually, I have a mod idea for 0 AD that turns it into the timeframe of a game like EE or Civilisation, which is the whole history of humanity. I will probably show the concept in public when the Alpha is out. It contains pretty much all of the civs that you mentioned.

I thought up of a more sophisticated answer, but this sums it up quite well.

The Greeks did actually just fight against other Greeks, thus, it was basically Phalanx against Phalanx. There were no invasions (because you have no reason to invade Greece, after all) until the Persian Wars, in which luck and discipline and the Persian focus on light armoured missile troops which were not able to damage the heavy armored Greek infantry won the battles for the Greeks. After that, the Phalanx was heavily modified and went towards a more staggered formation, plus the use of skirmish troops such as Peltasts. (which had beed used before, but to a minor extend) I think both points are true - the basic Phalanx formation until ~500 BC would be probably the position as depicted in 0 AD, however, I agree with hylonomus (first reptile ever^^) that it would be just too inflexible against anything else and thus, I think, it developed more into a looser formation as cited in the Anabasis .(whose events take place after the modification of the Phalanx, when missile troops were much more important) I suggest everyone just calms down a bit.

I was startled, Ephestion, that you said that Carthage was Greek. I am even more startled now as you say that Rome was Greek.

I know what Semitic means in lingusitic terms. I was only wondering what people oshron is referring to by naming a faction "Semites". As you said, there is no record of such a people.

Hmm, if the word hadn't been abused by the most cruel and tragicomic German's ideology, I would the Indian faction "Aryans". Otherwise, I would prefer "Hindus", since Indian culture is much more than Hinduism. What are "Semites"? The Hebrew?

*grin* No problem. There were actually some concerns (also by me) about changing factions halfway through a campaign. I think it was Alandil who wrote that the identification may get lost.

There was a similar idea of mine about the Second Punic war some posts above, if you noticed.

Got it. I agree in what you say that you shouldn't have to go back to base every ten minutes to tend after your economy, but to establish it once and then let it work almost automatically. But I think not that combat should determine your economy, first, because the philosophy as itself is questionable (I do NOT intend ANY offense by saying that), second, because it makes the game feeling somewhat un-organic in my opinion. I don't want to conquer the mine, I want to conquer the territory (or something) around the mine and then send my workers to start mining - I actually like to do such things because it makes me feel more involved. But after I established the mine, I expect it to work without any other interfering by me (respective the player) unless it is under attack or something, so that I can focus on my technology or my troops. I think that is a point where we both agree. I also agree that tactics and not speed should win a game, but "tactics" should not refer to military tactics alone in my opinion. Why don't you put some economic pressure on the enemy. Your rare ressource idea seems to be pretty interesting in that. My idea concerning these goes like this: You took control of a rare ressource (say, saltpeter) which enables you to build a certain line of troops. ("unlocks" the technology rather than needed to actually spend it - the actual unit will cost you food or metal or whatever basic ressources you want to have) Now, your enemy does not have control over that ressource and now you may tease him a bit ... offer an alliance where you grant him share of that ressource (which means he gets the bonus as well as you), but in return he has to pay you some tax of his own gathered ressources, has to hand a territory over to you, or something else. Since he is dependant of that ressource, he will most probably agree (if you don't make ridiculous demands or if he has a military force roughly strong enough to capture the ressource from you or if he just hates you too much) and you took a opponent out of the game without need of military tactics, but dipolomatic movements and economic pressure. This system, of course, only works if there actually is a more sophisticated diplomatic system (like EE2) than "ally-neutral-hostile".

Well, I do not like that "focus-only-on-battle"-philosophy too much, because I think it is just too straight-minded. But that is just my opinion ...

Great! I, for myself, was not able to use the Actor Editor and went for the .xml-files. Did you do new textures for that model? (the shield looks like it)

You mean a RISK like map? That would be really great, but it would best fit in a game like Empire Earth or Civilisation (yeah not an RTS), where you have actually the whole world. For 0 A.D., a huge map of the ancient world (Mediterranean, Britain&Gaul, Persia) with each civilisation in the proper starting positions would be fitting.

troians = anatolians = hittite. I think we can assume that for the purpose of the mod.

I like the idea of "minor", non playable factions. That would be great to include in a mod. *takes note*

You are aware that RMS scripts for 0 AD are already based on real locations?

Hiram, as I said previous in this thread, I had a similar idea to yours. The ancient civilisations before the rise of Greece. Having six factions, replacing the old ones in 0 AD. Egypt Persia Mesopotamia (Babylonia/Assyria) Hittite Mycenean Greeks (there could be also a "Aegean" faction, with Minoans/Myceneans as subfactions) Phoenicia OR Judaea Since the idea is not too different from yours, it would be apropriate if we could work together. I have actually nearly no graphical or modelling skills, but if you do, then it would be great if you considered forming a modteam. I did actually some research about Egyptians and Hittites, but not much. I will start to investigate more time in this when the 0AD alpha comes out.

Go and find a banner representing the whole Greek or Celtic culture.

Alandil, you first scenario is way too long, I think. Remember that you need to keep the motivation going, especialy in a tutorial, and that you as a newbie player need to get a reward in form of completing a scenario. And I skipped Cumae in my draft because there is too much messing up with Etruscians. For other topics, we could search other Greek colonies or have a "Rise of Rome" campaign with the founding, the struggle against the Etruscians, and the Samnite war.

I just found this video: Good to see your system in action. Also, the new font looks a bit nicer than the old one.

I could see 5 and 6 done as one. Just listed them seperately to get a round lot.