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Wildfire Games proudly announces the release of "0 A.D. Alpha 5 Edetania", the fifth alpha version of 0 A.D., a free, open-source game of ancient warfare. This release is chock-full of new features, from a new faction (the Iberians) to random maps, a new lighting system, unit formations and more. Easy Download and Install Download and installation instructions are available for Windows, Linux and Mac OS X. 0 A.D. is free of charge and always will be. You can redistribute it and modify it as long as you abide by the GPL. You can even use parts of the art and sound for your own projects as long as you abide by CC-BY-SA. No registration, no advertising, no catch. New features in this release: Gameplay: New civilization: Iberians Much improved enemy AI named JuBot (thanks Jubalbarca) Random map scripting (thanks historic_bruno) Unit promotions (thanks fcxSanya) Improved formations (thanks Badmadblacksad) New map: Acropolis II, in which the Iberians face off the Hellenes (Screenshot below) Graphics: New shader-based renderer mode, to support new effects and improve performance Improved lighting for warmer and more vivid colors Particles - fire, smoke, construction dust, sparkles near mines, falling leaves Terrain decals - smoother building foundations on bumpy terrain Hidden units are visible as silhouettes Various performance improvements (thanks in part ortalo) GUI: Idle unit button (thanks veprbl) Unit control groups (thanks Badmadblacksad) Unit selection limit raised from 40 to 64 Map setting editing in Atlas (thanks historic_bruno) Art: Eye candy - Rope bridges, River bridges New loading screen images and tips Audio: New sound effects: Unit selection, building destruction New music tracks: The first ones of what will be an entire soundtrack remake Room for improvement: Many unit stats are still unbalanced. Many planned gameplay features are not added yet: There is no research, no auras, no formation bonuses, no stances, no settlements and territories, etc. Many bugs and small missing features. There is no multiplayer matchmaking service. You have to connect by IP address. (More convenient ways may be implemented in the future). As you can see, there is still a lot of work to be done. We need capable programmers, artists and more. If you want to be part of this effort too, you're welcome to get involved! The Iberian Building Set: 1. Fortress; 2. Civ Centre; 3. Barracks; 4. Outpost; 5. Temple; 6. Market; 7. Farmstead; 8. Corral; 9. Monument; 10. Dock; 11. Houses. (CC-BY-SA Wildfire Games) Who were the Iberians? For most of the first millennium B.C., the Iberian peninsula was a mix of cultures and forms of settlements, from Celtic towns inland, to the cities of seafaring Greeks, Phoenecians and Carthaginians along the coast. There existed a distinct Iberian culture along the Mediterranean coast, often meshing with Celtic inhabitants of Iberia, but very little is known about the native Iberians, and the ancient Iberian language remains linguistically unclassified to this day. What little we do know from historical sources describing the Iberian tribes, however, is that they were not a warlike people; they did hire out mercenaries to other peoples, but they rarely themselves went to war. Organized as a loose confederation of tribes and cities, they mostly minded their own business. Their economy subsisted of agriculture, metalworking and exporting metals. (Indeed, Iberia was a rich source of minerals for all its neighbors and occupiers, including silver, iron, lead, copper and zinc). As their religious practice, they worshiped a pantheon of gods at small home altars. Male Endovellikos and female Ataekina were their chief deities. When under threat, however, Iberia did not lend itself easily to conquest. Not even the great Hannibal could accomplish the task, and it took the Romans 200 years. Part of this has to do with two distinct features of the way the Iberians waged war: One was the guerrilla war style of fighting they employed; in fact, the Iberians invented guerrilla warfare. The second was the strong fortifications they built, the oppidum (a fortified town) and the castro (a hill fort). (More info: Wikipedia: Castro culture and Wikipedia: Castros in Spain). In 0 A.D., the Iberians will have many bonuses to match their historic strengths. These bonuses include: Elite Warriors: Capability of causing great damage with few numbers. Cavalry Cost: Because of the large horse herds and some of the finest horses in ancient Europe, the Iberians' cavalry will cost less. Flaming Javelins: There was a frequent practice among some Iberian tribes of dousing their javelins in pitch. Some javelin-using units will throw flaming javelins after researching this unique technology. Screenshot of Acropolis II, a map bundled with Alpha 5 Edetania. On this map, the Iberians fight the Greeks — and on Greek soil, no less. (CC-BY-SA Wildfire Games) Why "Edetania"? We name our releases according to development status ("Alpha" or "Beta"), successive release number (1, 2, 3, ...) and a word relating to the ancient world, in alphabetical order ("Argonaut" for A, "Bellerophon" for B, ...). In honor of the release of the Iberian faction, we decided to dub Alpha 5 "Edetania". Edetania, the land of the Iberian tribe of the Edetani, comprised the district lying between the rivers Iberus (Ebro) and Sucro (Iucar), and bounded by the mountains of Celtiberia on the west. The territory includes the modern-day cities of Valencia and Zaragoza*. The Edetani's major city, and possible capital in certain times in history, was Edeta, which was continuously inhabited since the seventh century B.C. The modern-day city of Llíria lies on top of it nowadays. Map of extent of the Iberian tribes, circa 300 B.C. Land of the Edetani, an Iberian tribe, marked in black. (After Wikipedia, in turn after Luís Fraga da Silva; CC-BY-SA Wildfire Games) Edetania, along with many other parts of Iberia, was conquered by the Romans by 19 B.C. and eventually became a Roman province. Mentions of the Edetani, however, continued up until the second century AD, indicating that they had maintained their tribal identity for centuries after foreign conquest. (Main sources: Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography, Spanish Wikipedia: Edetanos, French Wikipedia: Edetans, 0 A.D. Design Document: Iberians). For the next alpha, we welcome fan suggestions for words relating to the ancient world beginning with the letter F. Keep it original and within the 0 A.D. time-frame (appx. 500 BC - 1 BC)! Long Time, No Siege Wildfire Games will continue releasing new versions of 0 A.D. periodically. Watch our news feed to keep updated, or follow us by e-mail, RSS, Facebook or Twitter. And you're always welcome to join the 0 A.D. community on our forums. * Fun fact: Zaragoza is a corruption of the name "Caesaraugusta". The latter name is what the city was called in honor of Roman emperor Augustus, who colonized it after the Cantabrian War in 25 B.C. Previously, the city's name was Salduba.

Wildfire Games proudly announces the release of "0 A.D. Alpha 3 Cerberus", the third alpha version of 0 A.D., a free, open-source game of ancient warfare. Now you can play on a round map, garrison units in buildings, watch units shuttle resources to a dropsite, set up games more easily, look at game statistics when they're over and more! Plus: This holiday season, we're fundraising to get a one of our developers paid to do 1 month of work on 0 A.D. Look below for more details. Easy Download and Install Download and installation instructions are available for Windows, Linux and Mac OS X. 0 A.D. is free of charge and always will be. You can redistribute it and modify it as long as you abide by the GPL. You can even use parts of the art and sound for your own projects as long as you abide by CC-BY-SA. No registration, no advertising, no catch. New features in this release: Gameplay: Added garrisoning; Added resource shuttling; Added circular maps; Improved pathfinding; Improved LOS computation performance; Rebalanced units. Multiplayer: Slightly improved multiplayer latency; Allow multiplayer matches to continue when a player leaves. Art: Hellenic and Celtic ships; Greek buildings (gymnasion, house, resource mill, fortress and gate building, or propylaea, as eye candy); Desert plants and pine trees; Treasure eye candy. GUI: Improved game setup screen; Redesigned loading screen; Added summary screen. Other UI aspects: Added double-click/triple-click selection of all units of a certain kind; Fixed hotkey bugs. Multiple new maps to play: Acropolis, Belgian Bog, Cycladic Archipelago, Death Canyon, Median Oasis, Miletus, Resource Demo, Saharan Oases, Savana Ravine, Ship Attacks Demo, Tower Attacks Demo, We are Legion Demo. Room for improvement: There is no computer opponent AI yet. In single-player games the enemy does nothing. There is no random map generation yet. Many unit stats are still unbalanced. Many planned gameplay features are not added yet: There is no research, no auras, no rank upgrades, no settlements and territories, etc. Many bugs and small missing features. There is no multiplayer matchmaking service. You have to connect by IP address. (More convenient ways may be implemented in the future). An overview of the gameplay feature status is on our wiki, and as you can see, there is still a lot of work to be done. If you want to be part of this effort too, you're welcome to get involved! Why "Cerberus"? We name our releases according to development status ("Alpha" or "Beta"), successive release number (1, 2, 3, ...) and a word relating to the ancient world, in alphabetical order ("Argonaut" for A, "Bellerophon" for B, ...). In Greek and Roman mythology, Cerberus (pronounced SUR-buh-ruhs) is the multi-headed hound that guarded the gates of Hades, the ancient Greek underworld. The deceased entered the underworld by crossing the river Styx ferried across by Charon, who charged an obolus, a small coin, as a fee. Cerberus was stationed on the far side of the river and prevented those who had crossed it from ever escaping. (Source: Wikipedia articles on Cerberus and the Greek underworld). According to our records, "Cerberus" was first suggested on our forums by 0 A.D. fan SMST. Thanks! For the next alpha, we welcome fan suggestions for words relating to the ancient world beginning with the letter D. We will prefer words related to the civilizations of ancient Iberia. Keep it original and within the 0 A.D. timeframe (appx. 500 BC - 1 BC). The One-Month 0 A.D. Development Pledge We've been making some significant and steady progress since 0 A.D. became an open-source effort in July 2009. We've had releases come out in almost regular installments, each with new features, bringing us, slowly but surely, closer to a finished game. All of this was accomplished by volunteers in their spare time, away from school, university and real life jobs. Just think what we could accomplish with one month's solid work of one of our developers! To that end, we are raising $3,000 via Pledgie. That's like 150 people donating $20 each. The funds will go to compensating a developer of the team's choice for 160 hours of work. If we don’t achieve the amount we need for a full month, we’ll round it to the nearest week, and put the remainder aside to help with maintaining the website and the SVN servers we use for developers. Thanks in advance! <a href='http://www.pledgie.com/campaigns/14160'><img alt='Click here to lend your support to: Sponsor a Developer on 0 A.D. and make a donation at www.pledgie.com !' src='http://www.pledgie.com/campaigns/14160.png?skin_name=chrome' border='0' /></a> Long Time, No Siege Wildfire Games will continue releasing new versions of 0 A.D. periodically. Watch our news feed to keep updated, or follow us by e-mail, RSS, Facebook or Twitter. And you're always welcome to join the 0 A.D. community on our forums.

<object width="640" height="385"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x2QgByWOhR8?fs=1&hl=en_US&rel=0&hd=1"></param><param'>http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x2QgByWOhR8?fs=1&hl=en_US&rel=0&hd=1"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x2QgByWOhR8?fs=1&hl=en_US&rel=0&hd=1" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="640" height="385"></embed></object> Wildfire Games proudly announces the release of the first alpha version of 0 A.D., a free, open-source game of ancient warfare. After 9 years since the concept of 0 A.D. was designed on paper, we have a close approximation of a playable game. This release comes with aggressive units that attack enemies on sight, lifelike animals that escape danger, two new maps, in-game multiplayer chat and much more. Alpha releases of 0 A.D. will each get a number and a name, so this one is "Alpha 1 Argonaut". Easy Download and Install Download and installation instructions are available for Windows, Linux and Mac OS X. 0 A.D. is free of charge and always will be. No registration, no advertising, no catch. New features in this release: Maps: Added new maps "Arcadia" and "Hellenized Egypt", improved the "Multiplayer demo" map; Added textual descriptions to maps. AI: Added animal AI (walking around, running from danger). Redesigned unit AI: added order queues, auto-attack, auto-gather. GUI: Added in-game multiplayer chat; Fixed GUI stretching on widescreen resolutions; Improved selection outline rendering; Many other GUI changes, such as buttons and cursors; Changed camera controls. Graphics: Added floating decorative objects, such as lily pads; Added building collapse and corpse decay; Tweaked animation speeds. Gameplay: Added 'delete unit' command; Added rally points. Installation and compatibility: Added Windows installer using NSIS; Added Linux packages for many distros; Improved compatibility when 3D acceleration is missing; Improved FHS compatibility for Linux installations. Miscellaneous: Added terrain smoothing tool to Atlas map editor; Added some sound effects; Improved performance; Fixed bugs. Room for improvement: There are no victory conditions implemented yet. There is no computer opponent AI yet. In single-player games the enemy does nothing. There is no random map generation yet. There is no fog-of-war yet. Many unit stats are still unbalanced. Many planned gameplay features are not added yet: There is no research, no auras, no rank upgrades, no settlements and territories, no resource dropsites, etc. Many bugs and small missing features. There is no multiplayer matchmaking service. You have to connect by IP address. (More convenient ways may be implemented in the future). An overview of the gameplay feature status is on our wiki, and as you can see, there is still a lot of work to be done. If you want to be part of this effort too, you're welcome to get involved! Why "Argonaut"? From now on we will name our releases according to development status ("Alpha" or "Beta"), successive release number (1, 2, 3, ...) and a word relating to the ancient world, in alphabetical order ("Argonaut" for A, ...). The Argonauts were a band of heroes in Greek mythology who, in the years before the Trojan War, accompanied Jason to Colchis in his quest to find the Golden Fleece. Their name comes from their ship, the Argo, which was named after its builder, Argus. "Argonauts", therefore, literally means "Argo sailors". (Source: Wikipedia). To celebrate Alpha 1 Argonaut, we included a recreation of the Golden Fleece, which can be found on the "Hellenized Egypt" map. Referring to the original Jason mentioned in Greek mythology, the word "Argonaut" is a tribute to our former project lead, Jason "Wijitmaker" Bishop, who managed the game's development between 2002 and 2008. 0 A.D. would have never made the transition from an idea on paper to a piece of software that runs on your machine without the countless hours of work by this gifted leader. Thanks, Jason. Long Time, No Siege Wildfire Games will continue releasing new versions of 0 A.D. periodically. Watch our news feed to keep updated, or follow us by e-mail, RSS, Facebook or Twitter. And you're always welcome to join the 0 A.D. community on our forums.

Wildfire Games proudly announces the release of "0 A.D. Alpha 2 Bellerophon", the second alpha version of 0 A.D., a free, open-source game of ancient warfare. This release comes with victory conditions, fog of war, formations, a new in-game GUI and many other features that make 0 A.D. feel more like a real RTS than ever before. Who will emerge as the victor? Download and play to find out! Easy Download and Install Download and installation instructions are available for Windows, Linux and Mac OS X. 0 A.D. is free of charge and always will be. You can redistribute it and modify it as long as you abide by the GPL. No registration, no advertising, no catch. New features in this release: Gameplay: Added fog of war; group movement and basic formations; victory conditions; health bars; hunting and fishing; population limits; repair command. Performance: Improved pathfinder performance greatly. Moved data files into a zip file for faster loading. Added automatic texture compression; Added streaming music decompression. GUI: Completely new in-game GUI. Improved minimap, added unit-following camera mode, added building rotation keys. Art: Savanna biome (terrain set, flora and fauna such as baobab and giraffes); All Celtic buildings revamped or remodeled; Greek fishing boat; Theban Sacred Band; Hellenistic Spartan Phalangite; Eyecandy such as broken and fallen columns, unfinished Greek temple, Royal Stoa, stone fence, etc. Multiple new maps and scenarios to play. Room for improvement: There is no computer opponent AI yet. In single-player games the enemy does nothing. There is no random map generation yet. Many unit stats are still unbalanced. Many planned gameplay features are not added yet: There is no research, no auras, no rank upgrades, no settlements and territories, no resource dropsites, etc. Many bugs and small missing features. There is no multiplayer matchmaking service. You have to connect by IP address. (More convenient ways may be implemented in the future). An overview of the gameplay feature status is on our wiki, and as you can see, there is still a lot of work to be done. If you want to be part of this effort too, you're welcome to get involved! Why "Bellerophon"? We name our releases according to development status ("Alpha" or "Beta"), successive release number (1, 2, 3, ...) and a word relating to the ancient world, in alphabetical order ("Argonaut" for A, ...). In Greek mythology, Bellerophon (pronounced buh-LEHR-uh-fun) was the hero who tamed Pegasus, a magical winged horse, and rode him, using a golden bridle given to him by the goddess Athena. Bellerophon also defeated the Amazons and slayed the Chimera, a monster with a lion's head, a goat's body, and a serpent's tail. As Bellerophon's fame grew, though, so did his hubris. Bellerophon felt that because of his victory over the Chimera he deserved to fly to Mount Olympus, the realm of the gods. However, this presumption angered Zeus and he sent a gad-fly to sting the horse, causing Bellerophon to fall all the way back to Earth. From then on, Pegasus would never let Bellerophon or anyone else ride him again. (Source: Wikipedia). To mark Alpha 2 Bellerophon, we included a Pegasus unit in the game. For the next alpha, we welcome fan suggestions for words relating to the ancient world beginning with C. As a loose guideline, they should have to do with at least one of the six civilizations set to be represented in the game. Long Time, No Siege Wildfire Games will continue releasing new versions of 0 A.D. periodically. Watch our news feed to keep updated, or follow us by e-mail, RSS, Facebook or Twitter. And you're always welcome to join the 0 A.D. community on our forums.