SMST

It does look much better now. I just hope you'll redo the Greek Bireme next. Oh, and on that square pattern on the sails: historical? Seems a bit strange ...

I do not like the new Trireme, to be honest. Scale is way off (it is almost as large as the Roman Quinquereme!), the texture doesn't fit that well with the others and it is not as "aerodynamic" (if I might say so ) as the former one. I do like the ram section at the front better, but other than that, I wish the old one would stay.

Trarii are great. I agree that your proposed concept would solve quite a few issues regarding similarities between Roman ranks. I personally think, though, that this should only apply to infantry. It seems that the Romans gave WFG the most trouble throughout th wohle development.

Seeing as you already gave the Ptolemies three Champion Units in your DD for "The Successors", is something like this possible for the Persians as well? And I'd really like to know who the CavJavs are. I believe I saw one with a Phrygian cap and scale armor on one recent screenshot. I like this one here better, though. That's a relief. I know the DD for the Romans, but Unit portraits and the textures indicated that the Princeps (which is the singular of Principes) should be the Infantry Javelinist. Which would be kind of weird.

I am primarily interested in two things right now: 1. Is the Persian Cavalry lineup final as it is, or is there any chance of getting the elephant back into the picture by moving the Cataphract to the CS Cavalry Spearman slot? What will the Cavalry Spearman be, if not a Cataphract? And lastly, what are those Cavalry Javelinists exactly? Hycranian Cavalry? 2. What are the current plans regarding the Roman infantry? Will Hastati and Principes be seperate units, or will both fall into the same category? (CS Infantry Swordsman) Are Velites to be included?

Since the complete (as far as I can tell) unit art for 0 A.D. has been included in one of the latest public SVN releases, I took my time and tinkered a bit with the art assets. Particulary interesting are the factions that haven't been released yet - the Persians and the Romans. Their unit textures and prop meshes (weapons, helmets etc.) are all in the latest SVN version, and it was only a matter of stitching these files together in order to create the unit actors. Keep in mind, though, that these are just a arrangement of mine using the art assets - the official unit actors have not yet been in the public SVN and thus, the official units might look quite different from my arrangement. This being said, here are some units of yet-to-come-factions. PERSIAN UNITS: These seem to be the "Mada Sparabara" or Median Spearmen from various official screenshots. The basic spear unit of the Persian faction. There are only three variations of tower shields, however. Persian Javelinmen, or "Sparda Takabara", according to the Design Document. These are Sogidan Archers, which look especially cool, IMHO, although the armor on some of the elites might be a bit heavy? Cavalry Swordsmen (or Axemen - I gave them battle axes, as these were more common amongst Persians than swords), using the textures with filenames "pers_csw_x". From their looks and my limited knowledge of Persian military history, I'd say those are Median Horsemen, though I am surprised to see them as Swordsmen and not as Javelineers, as they are spec'd in the Design Document. Cavalry Spearmen, probably cataphracts. As you may notice, I made the Persian Champion Cavalry that was included in the Fortuna release the elite rank of the Cavalry Spearmen. This is due to the fact that the texture had the abbreviation for Cavalry Spearman (csp) in it, and also because moving the Cataphract from Champion Cavalry to Elite Citizen Soldier Spearman makes room for the Indian War Elephant as Champion Cavalry. Cavalry Javelinists, occupying the slot where the Median Horsemen should be. I honestly have no idea what they are, but maybe a WFG member can enlighten me. The one and only Cavalry Archer of 0 A.D., in form of a chariot. I used the Celtic chariot because there are no accurate chariot meshes for the Persians yet. The official chariots will probably be scythed, as were the historical Achaemenid chariots. ROMAN UNITS: Infantry Swordsmen, representing the Polybian Legions of the Roman Republic. Roman texture names are a relatively big mess right now, so I arranged them pretty much according to my own guesses. These units can represent both Hastati and Principes, though I don't know how WFG handles the three ranks of the Polybian Legion (Hastati/Principes/Triarii). I've seen several concepts for this made by the devs, but it seems most sensible to me to do what I did here andjust make Hastati and Principes one unit, as they weren't really that much different. Unless we can have TWO infantry swordsmen for the Romans. (which would be pretty cool) Roman Infantry Spearmen, the Triarii. Pretty straightforward. Roman Javelinists, Velites. It's not really clear to me whether they are intended to be in the game or not, as I find no fitting textures for them at all, not to mention their distinctive wolf helmets. (as seen here) However, this is my version of them, using a generic tunic texture and some roman shields and helmets. I hope that some developer can say something about them being in the game or not. (and what the alternative for the Roman javelinist is - I really hope they scrapped the concept of Principes being the Roman javelinists) Equites, Roman Cavalry. I like them a lot personally. Again, these units are NOT official ones, but something I created out of existing art assets. I guess, however, that the final units will be similar.

I don't think the Legions trained in the Colosseum. I also don't think that Gladiators were as popular during the Republican times than in the Empire. I was speaking of a commonplace way to level your units peacefully (for all factions, except maybe the two "Barabarian" ones), and not about a specialilty for Romans. EDIT: A new standard building might be overkill if we have the Barracks aviable which is yet spec'd to have no aura effect which can be used as I propose.

And still, the proper Greek adjective for "Greek" remains "Hellenikos", not "Hellenikoi", if you are referring to one person/thing.

I know all of that, of course. But "German" is really no proper term to describe a member of the Germanic Tribes, it's terribly inaccurate. There is a very clear distinction in the German language between "Germane" (a member of the Germanic tribes) and "Deutscher" (a German). And the Romans called them "Germani", which really means nothing more than "kinsmen" in Latin. (I am only half serious here, but if you want to be accurate, then let's be accurate.)

Fear not, the actual Roman faction in 0 A.D. is based off the Polybian legion. So you'll have Hastati, Principes, Triarii, Velites, Equites etc. Both Marian Legionaries and Imperial Legionaries are only in there for editor purposes.

Argh, I should start to read posts more carefully. Yeah, I feel pretty much the same way about R&F as you do.

If it would be entirely to my liking, the Carthaginians would also be blue and the Iberians also be red, but this kind of ruins the concept of giving each civ identifying colors. Edit: I suppose it is not possible to support alpha channels in the gui so that units would be shown in each player's respective player color?

There are Marian Legionaries already in the game. There are no appropriate heroes for the Romans, though. There may be a semi-official addon to Part 1, that includes the Fall of the Republic. The Gallic Wars could be in a campaign that is shipping with that addon, preferrably wrapped up in a campaign that covers the whole downfall of the Republic. (maybe told from the view of Caesar/Octavianus) Also, there are no Germans in 0 A.D., as Germany was founded in 1871 A.D. and is well out of the timeframe of the game.

How about civ-specific colours (Greece=blue, Rome=red, Celts=green, Persia=purple, Carthage=yellow, Iberia=orange), and mercs in black?

The dev studio went bancrupt, and the publisher finished the game. The developers were Stainless Steel Studios, who produced Empire Earth and Empires: Dawn of the Modern World, two very enjoyable RTS games.

Yeah, I just made the Thoakrites' unit portrait red because of your reference picture. I don't like the blur on the Carthaginian portraits that much, personally. Also, does that mean we have to have blue Roman portraits?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enclosed_oppidum

Thureophoros Thoakrites

I've heard of "Garmantines" mentioned as a people living in Northern Africa an being hired by Carthage as mercs, yet there is no viable info on the net. (one of the first Google links mentions how hard it is to find information on them and the rest seems to be Europa Barbarorum) For standard ancient Greco-Romano Names there would be Gracchus (name of two brothers who tried to reform the Roman Republic), Gelon (name of several Syracusan tyrants), Gades (city in Spain, modern day Cadíz), Galatia (region in Anatolia inhabited by Celts in antiquity), Gladius (well, you all know what that is), Gloria (Latin word for/godess of fame, might be a worthy sequel to "Fortuna"^^), Gorgias (Greek sophist, main antagonist of Socrates in Plato's epynomous dialogue) and Gyges (Lydian king, famous for his ring, that was used in a metaphorical legend in Plato's Politeia) But my favourite is Gaia. Simply because I am a bit of a pantheist.

If in Atlas, select "Object Placement" and then go to the top line, where it says "Entities". You will notice a dropdown list, where you select "Actors (all)". There you can select all kinds of eyecandy - you can filter certain categories of actors with the "Filter"-Tool, too, if you wany grass, for example, type in "grass" in the command line for the "Filter"-Tool and you can choose from different types of tall grass. Experiment a bit with actors, there are MANY of them.

Looks nice. It's called a forest, lol.

I like this, and Gigantes too. I don't know how that relates to Carthage, though.

It seems absolutely reasonable to me that Docks cannot be constructed on environments such as the Belgian Bog.

The GEMA (which is an institution who represents artists and benefits from licences of artistic work, see here) blocked several YouTube videos for German users because they could not come to an agreement with the YouTube operators about cophyright issues.

I thought the HP values would already behave like you described them. If the invulnerability is intentional, then you could perhaps play the animation a bit faster, as the current duration is too long, IMHO. Another thing I'd like to see is a way to "train" units, so that you don't have to rely entirely on combat to promote them. Maybe give the Barracks an aura, which makes CS units accumulate experience over time at a slow rate. (should be MUCH slower than experience gain through combat)