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Hi all, I'm working on a City Building mod. This mod is trying to incorporate elements of city building games like Caesar or SimCity to 0 A.D. The end goal here is to have a RTS/city building hybrid mod using 0 A.D engine. The balance between the two genres that I'm trying to achieve here is to ensure that the city building part should be fun enough without getting too complicated. The plan I've made consists of several phases, each with different features to implement. But currently I'm focusing on two mechanics: I. Building placement In city building games, building placement is important. Especially housing zone. People will only live in your city if their needs are met. Job, food, desirable location. Otherwise they will leave. Resource and storage building placement is also important, finding sweet spots to shorten the route without disturbing existing residences. Since this is still a RTS game, effects need to be tweaked in such a way that normal player can play the game without crippling penalty, but player who takes time to plan the city can optimize it to gain edge. Implementation: Every building has aura that indicates their desirability, which will increase or decrease population count of nearby houses, e.g. civic building increasing nearby house population, military building decreasing it. Since resource management is already complicated in 0AD, alternative implementation is using building aura to increase performance of related nearby building, e.g mining dropsite increase nearby blacksmith research speed, blacksmith increase nearby barrack training speed, etc. This will cause crowds of buildings in desirable area, so to justify it every building is implied to have been constructed along with its nearby infrastructure, increasing nearby unit speed. Status & TODO: Released, but with general rule. These are the desired changes and their detailed implementations. A complete explanation of Phase I and download link is posted here. II. Economy In city building games, money is usually the only resource the player needs to build the city. It can be gathered from each citizen, or received by importing resources to other cities. Implementation: New resource available to simulate productions. Money: House and Economic buildings trickle money periodically. The amount of taxes will be influenced with the same rule as Phase I. The trickle should be low enough that player should spend responsibly, but should also be high enough so that it's not the first resource to run out before other resources. Money should be requirement of every building and unit creation, as it is analogous to builder/soldier salary. Weapon: Blacksmith will be available to construct in town phase and trickles weapon over time. This will be used to train soldiers. It would consume wood and metal, so wood and metal resource for unit training can be removed and replaced with only food, money, and weapon. Training time should also be made faster. Working animal: Horses/Elephant is trickled resources as well. Useful to train cavalry. Status: In progress. Money has been proven to be workable, but still tweaking 0AD GUI to support more than 4 resources. Weapon and Working animal is still being researched. TODO: Test other impacts of new resources, finding out other uses of money, learning about Summary screen (after battle) GUI as it is bugged out on Resource Tab. III. Citizens City building has NPCs that simulates production chain and distribution. To enhance the experience several new citizen types can be created that work like modified Trader but between resource dropsite and market/house/blacksmith. This is still in research phase. Feel free to criticize or ask if any of these doesn't make sense/needs work/impossible to implement in 0 A.D. I still have a lot to learn in modding 0 A.D, any feedback is welcome. I will keep updating this post if there's a new idea to share. Thank you.

The Scorch "We are in the late antiquity or early dark ages of an alternative universe. The Roman Empire (or rather, it's equivalent) was still expanding, while experiencing a relatively peaceful transition to monotheism. Philoshophical and scientific schools have progressed largely untouched by religious dogma, leading to great advances in knowledge and technology. That was until the past couple of decades, when a series of cataclysmic events, including natural disasters, climate change and a so-called barbarian invasion, reshaped the landscape to a largely barren scenery, while killing huge portions of the population and threatening all people of the known world with extinction. Superstition and hopelessness are on the rise, while tensions between the monotheistic majority and the pagan and secular minorities, as well as between the upper and the lower classes have never been higher in recorded history. The old world is divided in new factions, with current clashes and revolts bound to become large scale wars for survival and control of the remaining natural resources." This is a synopsis of the back story of a strategy game concept I'm developing, on and off, for some years now. It's ment to be social commentary and satyre as much as an RTS game. I've been thinking of using 0 A.D. or Warcraft 3 as the basis for it. The former would give increased gameplay flexibility and a more authentic setting, while the later ease of work and models for the inclusion of a variety of units (steampunkish airships/drones/vehicles and possibly even fantasy/magic). I'll propably not work on this for a while, but feedback and brainstorming is welcome, as well as suggestions for possile 0 A.D. building sets for the factions if the game is chosen. Short descriptions of the four factions/civs follow. Order: "The remnants of the old imperial state are rapidly turning into a much harsher totalitarian regime, of the religious variant, largely controlled through the influence of the Church Of Light. The majority of the population follows, willingly or not, providing the numbers of it's levy armies, along a small core of knightly imperial guards and elite church funded-zealots. Cheap propaganda, spoken to great effect by his holyness, the Minister Of Truth, demonizes whoever is living on the other side of the borders and promises rewards for the honorable and loyal servants of church and state, in this or the next life. The young ambitious emperor is currently little more than a glorified warlord, bound to prove his worth in military success, see what's left of his empire replaced by a complete theocracy or worse; face annihilation." Possible units: Greed: "A number of weathly merchants, landlords, provincial governors and other oligarchs have formed a shady (and possibly loose) alliance backing a claimant to the throne, which controls most of the few remaining valuable lands and a majority of the former imperial armies. Bolstered by mercenary soldiers and scholars, their force is a numerous as well as technologically advanced one. Their espionage, propaganda and provocazia methods are second to none, with their full potential largely unknown to outsiders, making this cunning faction the most likely candit for ruined world domination." Possible units: Freedom: "In the power vacuum caused by the retreat of imperial troops, a number of minor provinces have claimed independance. In some cases there are efforts of horizontal self-governance by the people, backed by some renegade philoshopers and inventors who refused Greed's gold and escaped Order's persecution, as attempts to survive the new conditions through cooperation rather than face oppression. Their raids on oligarch properties along their religious freedom often get them labeled as criminals, terrorists or devil worshipers." Possible units: Chaos: "Forced to migrate by the events of The Scorch, tribes of steppe riders have approached from the far northeast. Unified with clans living on the imperial border through conflict, marriage or blood oath, they marched towards the weakened empire in hopes of settling in what they hoped to be greener pastures. Since their entrance was forbidden, they have defeated several imperial armies during what has so far proved to be a desperate march against time and arid land. Regarded as barbarians, they have been largely fended off the strongholds guarding most of the few still fertile lands, while a number of them has found employment as mercenaries in Greed's armies". Possible units: