Inclusion of American civs in 0AD (pre-Columbian)

[chrstgtr]

2 minutes ago, Genava55 said:

I think it was motivated mostly by the amount of work, the necessity to reach a good level of quality for each civ and the difficulty to balance the civs. Splitting the workload is not a bad idea, but putting a strict limit was not a smart way to deal with the workload.

Yeah, I get why the initial decision was made, but I agree with you that a bright line rule may not make sense, especially now/in the future. It also seems like that initial incubation phase may have already passed (or, at a minimum, will eventually pass).

3 minutes ago, Genava55 said:

Edit: btw there is less people working on 3d models and textures here than in any mods I work with. 

Can't that work be transferred over to EA? I thought they all run on the same engines. 

[Genava55]

49 minutes ago, chrstgtr said:

Can't that work be transferred over to EA? I thought they all run on the same engines. 

I work with mods for other games. Mostly Total War and Bannerlord M&B.

[Stan`]

2 hours ago, Genava55 said:

I think it was motivated mostly by the amount of work, the necessity to reach a good level of quality for each civ and the difficulty to balance the civs.

That is correct. Ensuring consistent quality and balancing between a huge number of civilizations is hard and even more so with a tiny amount of people to work on it. We have scripts of course, but before I joined the team, there were a lot of missing assets, broken models, unfinished ones etc.

I had been advocating for years when I was a modder for more civilizations integration, kinda gave up on it when I joined the team because some team members were really adamant because of the reasons I quoted above. Then the kushites got in, and finally the han.

Another big barrier to the addition of new civs is the scrutiny they go under. Everything is fine with a mod until it gets in SVN, or wants to get in it. Then you need to redo everything.

Another thing that is much less mentioned and is starting to be a problem is the art "quality"  in the performance sense. @Alexandermb did an incredible job in updating the assets to be more beautiful and more historically accurate (at least I think so)  but we now have FPS quality assets in an RTS game, which on the lower end computers is a big issue because of the number of Drawcalls (200 for ships due to lack of instancing) We have models that have useless unseen faces, too many textures variations too (Although I absolutely love it) Shields are made of umbo, ring, front face, back face, which all use a different texture, maybe they could be mapped in a texture atlas, but then we'd need a lot of meshes. Ideally we could control the UVMap position in the actor, but I'm not sure how costly that is.

More civs, more assets, more textures => less performance if not careful.

[hyperion]

4 hours ago, Genava55 said:

Edit: btw there is less people working on 3d models and textures here than in any mods I work with.

That might be related to the custom assets handling, if it just requires exporting from blender as a gltf for instance and the rest is fully handled by the engine I could imagine this to change.

[real_tabasco_sauce]

I would say the quality part seems to be a bigger concern. Recently, balancing efforts have been pretty smooth and successful.

[chrstgtr]

8 hours ago, Genava55 said:

I work with mods for other games. Mostly Total War and Bannerlord M&B.

Ah, I thought you meant for 0AD. But yeah, 0AD always could use more helping hands. 

6 hours ago, Stan` said:

That is correct. Ensuring consistent quality and balancing between a huge number of civilizations is hard and even more so with a tiny amount of people to work on it. We have scripts of course, but before I joined the team, there were a lot of missing assets, broken models, unfinished ones etc.

I had been advocating for years when I was a modder for more civilizations integration, kinda gave up on it when I joined the team because some team members were really adamant because of the reasons I quoted above. Then the kushites got in, and finally the han.

Another big barrier to the addition of new civs is the scrutiny they go under. Everything is fine with a mod until it gets in SVN, or wants to get in it. Then you need to redo everything.

Another thing that is much less mentioned and is starting to be a problem is the art "quality"  in the performance sense. @Alexandermb did an incredible job in updating the assets to be more beautiful and more historically accurate (at least I think so)  but we now have FPS quality assets in an RTS game, which on the lower end computers is a big issue because of the number of Drawcalls (200 for ships due to lack of instancing) We have models that have useless unseen faces, too many textures variations too (Although I absolutely love it) Shields are made of umbo, ring, front face, back face, which all use a different texture, maybe they could be mapped in a texture atlas, but then we'd need a lot of meshes. Ideally we could control the UVMap position in the actor, but I'm not sure how costly that is.

More civs, more assets, more textures => less performance if not careful.

Isn't this all true for any new civs? I get the concerns--they are very valid--but how are these relevant to timeframe restriction? A new Syracuse civ seems to pose the same issues above that a new American civ would. Or am I missing something?  

[Lion.Kanzen]

9 minutes ago, chrstgtr said:

Ah, I thought you meant for 0AD. But yeah, 0AD always could use more helping hands. 

Isn't this all true for any new civs? I get the concerns--they are very valid--but how are these relevant to timeframe restriction? A new Syracuse civ seems to pose the same issues above that a new American civ would. Or am I missing something?  

Some civs need their own biomes.

The Maya need tropical Mesoamerican, arid Mesoamerican, and temperate Mesoamerican.

The Mayans need their set of buildings. Different from that of the Zapotecs. Even though both are Mesoamericans.

New classes of warriors like those macuahuitl warrior ( is kind of mesoamerican weapon mix between a club and sword(?))

Factions like Syracuse already have in common Greek/Hellenic troops and buildings in that architectural style.

 

Still Syracuse is famous for the elements created by Archimedes. Such defenses do not exist in the game and need animation.

 

With nomads it takes time to research their buildings and warriors.

Implementing, for example, the defense of wagons is still complicated.All that technical level of programming and concepts.

nomads did not build towers except in settlements. all its defenses happen to be nomadic and temporary.

There are also units used by the Smokes that would lasso their victims and turn them into warrior slaves.

[wowgetoffyourcellphone]

1 hour ago, chrstgtr said:

Ah, I thought you meant for 0AD. But yeah, 0AD always could use more helping hands. 

Isn't this all true for any new civs? I get the concerns--they are very valid--but how are these relevant to timeframe restriction? A new Syracuse civ seems to pose the same issues above that a new American civ would. Or am I missing something?  

Mmm, not quite. A new Syracusan civ can reuse numerous assets from existing civ sets. So the art problems are largely irrelevant. Balance etc. still remain. 

[chrstgtr]

3 hours ago, wowgetoffyourcellphone said:

Mmm, not quite. A new Syracusan civ can reuse numerous assets from existing civ sets. So the art problems are largely irrelevant. Balance etc. still remain. 

Fair. Thanks. I guess it would still apply to civs like Xiongnu, though, so maybe that’s the more apt comparison.

I guess a civ like Syracuse truly is easier. But more Greek civs just sounds so boring

Edit: sorry to derail the thread--I was just curious about a reappearing theme re the timeframe that I didn't understand. 

Edited February 13, 2023 by chrstgtr

[AIEND]

8 分钟前，chrstgtr 说：

 但是更多的希腊文明听起来很无聊

I totally agree with this point of view.

[Lion.Kanzen]

1 hour ago, AIEND said:

I totally agree with this point of view.

yes but it is necessary. maybe another italic civilization.

[Genava55]

On 14/02/2023 at 2:14 AM, Lion.Kanzen said:

yes but it is necessary. maybe another italic civilization.

Etruscans would be nice.

[LienRag]

On 13/02/2023 at 12:42 PM, Stan` said:

Another big barrier to the addition of new civs is the scrutiny they go under. Everything is fine with a mod until it gets in SVN, or wants to get in it. Then you need to redo everything.

Isn't this how things are supposed to work ?

There is no problem with a candidate civilization staying in limbo for a long time while it is put under scrutiny and its problems solved one by one...

[LienRag]

On 12/02/2023 at 6:14 PM, real_tabasco_sauce said:

3. rarities, gemstones, and actual metal can be justifiably lumped in with "metal" as a resource for things like technologies and champions, as in these cases I would say it represents pay or wealth.

Indeed.

 

On 12/02/2023 at 6:14 PM, real_tabasco_sauce said:

 A civ bonus can replace their forge tech's metal costs with stone,

Nice idea !

 

On 12/02/2023 at 6:14 PM, real_tabasco_sauce said:

they can have a class (1 melee unit, 1 ranged perhaps) of fast infantry to partially take the role as cavalry as well as the ability to train cavalry from captured stables.

 

 

Well, having not-cavalry-though-similar-to-cavalry would make the civilization less different, so having a fast unit yes, but it shouldn't be as fast as cavalry. Could be faster than everyone in jungle, and slower than cavalry in open terrain maybe ?

Training cavalry from captured stables should require a specific Hero imho, or a specific tech at least.

[Lion.Kanzen]

18 minutes ago, LienRag said:

Training cavalry from captured stables should require a specific Hero imho, or a specific tech at least.

sounds understandable.The harder it is, the better.

[man_s_our]

I want also to add these civs, at least in a mod:

Vandals (and a campaign of sack of Rome)

Judea (and a campaign of Torah wars)

Kingdom of Sheba

Quraish

early Muslims in Medina (and a campaign of rise of Islam)

[Lopess]

2 hours ago, man_s_our said:

I want also to add these civs, at least in a mod:

Vandals (and a campaign of sack of Rome)

Judea (and a campaign of Torah wars)

Kingdom of Sheba

Coraixita

early Muslims in Medina (and a campaign of rise of Islam)

@man_s_our all mods that are related to the creation of new civilizations depend on a good level of work and time to be carried out, the good side is that much of what these civs need can (and should) be reused from other mods or even from the main game, see in particular Umayyad civ from Millenium AD - REVAMP, they need better models for the buildings, they weren't one of my most inspired creations, Middle Eastern architecture is very different from what I did with Mayans or Japanese. If you need tips, don't hesitate to send messages.

 

[man_s_our]

On 26/10/2023 at 5:02 PM, Lopess said:

@man_s_our all mods that are related to the creation of new civilizations depend on a good level of work and time to be carried out, the good side is that much of what these civs need can (and should) be reused from other mods or even from the main game, see in particular Umayyad civ from Millenium AD - REVAMP, they need better models for the buildings, they weren't one of my most inspired creations, Middle Eastern architecture is very different from what I did with Mayans or Japanese. If you need tips, don't hesitate to send messages.

 

when will we be able to play it on A27?

[brucezubaa]

The idea was to have Empires Ascendant and Empires Besieged both covering 500 years of history. Then you get Millenium AD covering the 500 years after that.