0 A.D's Built-in Encyclopedia

[Genava55]

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Delium

https://www.karwansaraypublishers.com/blogs/ancient-warfare-blog/euripides-and-the-battle-of-delium

One of the first use of cavalry in battle

[Vantha]

I wrote the text for the Athenian Cavalry Javelineer, as well as reworked the Spartan stable and the Spartan Spear Cavalry.

https://github.com/TheShadowOfHassen/0-ad-history-encyclopedia-mod/pull/49

 

I will write Athens' infantry units next, starting with the archers.

[ShadowOfHassen]

https://github.com/TheShadowOfHassen/0-ad-history-encyclopedia-mod/pull/50

Farming for Athens. Some of Sparta's farming I put into mixins for both of them.

[Vantha]

Scythian Archers

https://github.com/TheShadowOfHassen/0-ad-history-encyclopedia-mod/pull/51

And I'm almost done with the Cretan Archers

Edited October 9, 2023 by Vantha

[Vantha]

PR for Cretan Mercenary Archers

https://github.com/TheShadowOfHassen/0-ad-history-encyclopedia-mod/pull/52

[ShadowOfHassen]

Here's the last Pr to add metric to our entries with measurements:https://github.com/TheShadowOfHassen/0-ad-history-encyclopedia-mod/pull/53

[ShadowOfHassen]

Athen Temple and Wonder

https://github.com/TheShadowOfHassen/0-ad-history-encyclopedia-mod/pull/55

 

[Vantha]

Thracian peltast

https://github.com/TheShadowOfHassen/0-ad-history-encyclopedia-mod/pull/56

We can reuse parts of this text (if not the whole text) for other peltast units.

Quote

Peltasts were a type of Greek light infantry unit originating from Thrace, often fighting as mercenaries for various Greek city-states. They were named after their uniquely crescent-shaped shield (pelte). It was not only smaller than a hoplite's shield but also thinner and lighter due to it being covered in hide rather than bronze. They wore minimal armor and carried a short sword for close combat, in addition to several javelins. Peltasts often used the so-called ankyle, a leather thong attached to the javelin. It was looped over two fingers and slipped off when thrown, extending the leverage and therefore increasing the javelin's momentum and the distance it would travel.

Peltasts fought as skirmishers, harassing the enemies with their javelins at short range. They were especially effective against hoplites due to their lighter equipment and higher mobility. They could, especially on uneven terrain, easily evade hoplite charges, then regroup and attack again.

 

[wowgetoffyourcellphone]

32 minutes ago, Vantha said:

Thracian peltast

https://github.com/TheShadowOfHassen/0-ad-history-encyclopedia-mod/pull/56

We can reuse parts of this text (if not the whole text) for other peltast units.

 

This one's pretty good

[Vantha]

Athenian slinger

https://github.com/TheShadowOfHassen/0-ad-history-encyclopedia-mod/pull/57/files

I did not write about slingers specifically, but rather about the skirmisher militia units of Athens in general.

Quote

Throughout most of Ancient Greece, soldiers had to provide their own equipment. In wartime, people of the lowest social class in Athens who couldn't afford a hoplite's expensive equipment served either as oarsmen in the Athenian navy or as light infantry troops on land. These units were called “Psiloi” (skirmishers) and were armed with different kinds of missile weapons, such as slings, bows, or javelins. It's said some would even just carry stones and throw them at the enemies. Their lack of body armor and shield left them vulnerable in close combat, but also gave them an edge over the heavier-equipped but slower hoplites by enabling to outrun and outmaneuver them.

However, for a long time, Athens hired mercenaries instead of recruiting capable ranged infantry units themselves; most Athenian “Psiloi” were just militia and therefore lacked training and experience. Compared to hoplites, they only had little effect on the outcome of most battles, as they weren't part of the main phalanx formation. Instead, they carried out skirmishes, tried to disrupt the enemy's formation, guarded the army camp, scouted the terrain, and pursued fleeing enemies.

 

[Hemachandra]

I accidentally found sketches by your artist.

https://www.deviantart.com/lordgood/art/Hoplite-Portrait-671683221

Interesting enough. Are you planning to add a "Sketches" section to the encyclopedia?

Edited October 21, 2023 by Hemachandra

[Vantha]

Athenian Marine Champion Swordsman

https://github.com/TheShadowOfHassen/0-ad-history-encyclopedia-mod/pull/58/files

Quote

Besides ramming, boarding and taking over the enemy's ship was a common tactic in naval warfare. Consequently, each Athenian warship was garrisoned by a number of marines, depending on the circumstances. In addition to the 170 oarsmen on each trireme, around 15 to 30 marine soldiers were part of the ship's crew. It is estimated that around 2 out of 3 of those were naval hoplites (called “Epibatai”); the rest were archers, mostly mercenaries, for example, from Crete.

The “Epibatai” on the other hand, were Athenians. It seems like many of them were recruited from the fourth (and lowest) class of Athenian citizens, and a good few from the third social class as well, who usually fought as hoplites in the land army.

As mentioned above, the “Epibatai” also fought as hoplites, carrying a large round shield, a 2-meter-long spear, and a sword as a secondary weapon. Compared to those fighting on land, they were probably armed lighter to compensate for the need to move between ships and to enable them to swim should they fall overboard.

 

 

 

[Vantha]

5 hours ago, Hemachandra said:

Are you planning to add a "Sketches" section to the encyclopedia?

Yeah, why not? I like the idea. We will focus on finishing all the articles for now (which will probably take a few months), and after we have finished the entire base encyclopedia we can expand it.

[ShadowOfHassen]

8 hours ago, Vantha said:

Yeah, why not? I like the idea. We will focus on finishing all the articles for now (which will probably take a few months), and after we have finished the entire base encyclopedia we can expand it.

Actually putting the sketches in the encyclopedia article is one of the things I requested. I don't know how to set that up, so we're dependent on the DEVs but, I hope that something like that will eventually come along. However, the only thing we can do until we get a new UI is write the articles.

@Hemachandra you seem interested in the history side, you're welcome to help write.

Edited October 21, 2023 by ShadowOfHassen

[ShadowOfHassen]

So I'm preparing to write the Athenian Civic center, which as with the Sparta is going to be an overview of their government at the height of its democracy with banishing people and all the voting. I'll probably write it sometime next week but in the meantime if anyone has any bit of cool/obscure information they think should be included post it here, so I can know.

[Hemachandra]

12 hours ago, ShadowOfHassen said:

@Hemachandra you seem interested in the history side, you're welcome to help write.

To write historical information, you must have access to the latest information. Unfortunately, my sources, firstly, concern almost exclusively and only the classical ancient nations - the Greeks and Romans (no Celts or Asia), and secondly, they were written during the times of the Russian Empire. Therefore, if you do not want to get from an encyclopedia a collection of imperialist stereotypes, which can be obtained if you use, for example, the books of Wallace Budge, then you need a person who has access to Oxford.

But, if you are interested in my sources, then here are links to Russian-language sites. I think Google Translator will generally cope with correct translations. True, sometimes he “swallows” words.

Here, almost imperceptibly, there are buttons to read online in whole or page by page. I don’t recommend downloading, since Russian sites of this type pay little attention to security.

https://coollib.net/b/584177-faddey-frantsevich-zelinskiy-istoriya-antichnoy-kulturyi

Edited October 22, 2023 by Hemachandra

[Vantha]

On 22/10/2023 at 9:05 AM, Hemachandra said:

To write historical information, you must have access to the latest information. Unfortunately, my sources, firstly, concern almost exclusively and only the classical ancient nations - the Greeks and Romans (no Celts or Asia), and secondly, they were written during the times of the Russian Empire. Therefore, if you do not want to get from an encyclopedia a collection of imperialist stereotypes, which can be obtained if you use, for example, the books of Wallace Budge, then you need a person who has access to Oxford.

You don't necessarily need books, there are plenty of useful resources online, especially about the Greeks or Romans. I myself do most of my research on the internet, it can be a hassle sometimes, but still.

Just so you know, your help would be welcomed and appreciated. (no pressure, of course)

[Hemachandra]

7 hours ago, Vantha said:

You don't necessarily need books, there are plenty of useful resources online, especially about the Greeks or Romans. I myself do most of my research on the internet, it can be a hassle sometimes, but still.

Just so you know, your help would be welcomed and appreciated. (no pressure, of course)

I don’t know English very well and the messages that I write here on the forum are typed text in Russian, translated through Google translator. This way, if I start writing texts, they will definitely be from Russian-language sources, maintaining typical Russian punctuation and sometimes with inappropriate words that you would then have to correct.

Still, I would like to see a grammatically correct game that respects tenses and pronouns (in Russian, many objects have a gender, while in English they are more often associated with the pronoun “it” rather than “he”). I don't think players will like fancy word constructions.

Spoiler

 

Edited October 24, 2023 by Hemachandra

[Vantha]

2 hours ago, Hemachandra said:

I don’t know English very well and the messages that I write here on the forum are typed text in Russian, translated through Google translator. This way, if I start writing texts, they will definitely be from Russian-language sources, maintaining typical Russian punctuation and sometimes with inappropriate words that you would then have to correct.

Still, I would like to see a grammatically correct game that respects tenses and pronouns (in Russian, many objects have a gender, while in English they are more often associated with the pronoun “it” rather than “he”). I don't think players will like fancy word constructions.

If you want, you can privately message me the texts copied directly from Google translator, and I'll do some grammatical cleanup and all the GitHub stuff. IF you want. If not, feel free to decline. This is just a friendly offer from my side.

Btw, I'm not a native English speaker either which actually slows down my writing process quite a bit.

 

[ShadowOfHassen]

Quote

I don’t know English very well and the messages that I write here on the forum are typed text in Russian, translated through Google translator. This way, if I start writing texts, they will definitely be from Russian-language sources, maintaining typical Russian punctuation and sometimes with inappropriate words that you would then have to correct.

That's completely fine. I wasn't that good with English myself a few years ago (and I'm native). If you don't want to get a GitHub account and use the repo you can PM either me or @Vantha. I'd be willing to try to explain why English does certain things in case you want to learn.

Of course, no pressure if you don't want to write. I just wanted to extend the invitation.

Here's a PR with fishing for Athens as well as rewriting fishing for Sparta, and adding a template for the civs that don't have interesting, specific fishing information. There's also a few bugfixes.

Edited October 24, 2023 by ShadowOfHassen

[Hemachandra]

5 hours ago, Vantha said:

IF you want.

18 minutes ago, ShadowOfHassen said:

if you don't want to write.

The fact is that my sources are not officially listed as free. If on the forum the publication of excerpts from a book can be deleted at the request of the copyright holder, then getting into the game itself this can become a headache. Of course, there is a law that allows the use of such borrowings as training, but for how long..?

What about the information that the Spartans traditionally hunted and killed helots for sport? I remember discriminatory quotes about women were also removed from tooltips at one time.

Edited October 24, 2023 by Hemachandra

[ShadowOfHassen]

4 minutes ago, Hemachandra said:

The fact is that my sources are not officially listed as free. If on the forum the publication of excerpts from a book can be deleted at the request of the copyright holder, then getting into the game itself this can become a headache. Of course, there is a law that allows the use of such borrowings as training, but for how long..?

We don't use excerpts or just free books because that would make it impossible. Basically what I do is read several different sources(Sometimes on the internet, sometimes from books.) Then I do what my English teacher said "In my own words" Which is not copying but saying what they say differently.

For example: Let's say I'm writing an article on Zebras. I read two animal encyclopedias and look Zebras up on Britannica. I can take the information I learned ) I.E. they're relatives to horses, they are striped etc.) then write my article using that information. No one owns copyright on ideas.

We cite our sources however and have sometimes been quoting ancient writings, but you can quote a few lines of a book. It's not illegal anywhere I've seen.

[Gurken Khan]

14 minutes ago, Hemachandra said:

The fact is that my sources are not officially listed as free. If on the forum the publication of excerpts from a book can be deleted at the request of the copyright holder, then getting into the game itself this can become a headache.

We don't have to cite excerpts. And as long as those books are legally available to the public in any way (store, online, at/from library...) I think it's fine to name them as source.

[Hemachandra]

12 minutes ago, ShadowOfHassen said:

We cite our sources however and have sometimes been quoting ancient writings, but you can quote a few lines of a book. It's not illegal anywhere I've seen.

Then I will look through these books in search of information relevant to the game and perhaps I will dump pieces of the book somewhere and, if possible, correct the translation. I currently have virtually no information about units and few buildings match the game. Rather a description of culture, morals and religion.

[ShadowOfHassen]

Just now, Hemachandra said:

Then I will look through these books in search of information relevant to the game and perhaps I will dump pieces of the book somewhere and, if possible, correct the translation. I currently have virtually no information about units and few buildings match the game. Rather a description of culture, morals and religion.

I'm not sure I explained myself clearly.

While it's technically legal to quote a portion of a book, it's not quite right to use the book solely. I sum up copyright basically as don't use someone else's work unless A. You have permission or B. you add more to the finished product than the copyright.

Not to mention the fact that the sources could be wrong, so it's always great to look at 2 or 3 and find the most relative information to the game. Then write a paragraph or two long article that presents the history and (if possible) orients the player to its usage in game.

 

For example here's one of Vantha's articles. This one is for the Athenian Slinger:

Quote

Throughout Ancient Greece, soldiers had to provide their own equipment. In wartime, people of the lowest social class in Athens who couldn't afford a hoplite's expensive equipment served either as oarsmen in the Athenian navy or as light infantry troops on land. These units were called “Psiloi” (skirmishers) and were armed with different kinds of missile weapons, such as slings, bows, or javelins. It's said some would even just carry stones and throw them at the enemies. Their lack of body armor and shield left them vulnerable in close combat, but also gave them an edge over the heavier-equipped but slower hoplites in speed and maneuverability.

However, for a long time, Athens hired mercenaries instead of recruiting capable ranged infantry units themselves; most Athenian “Psiloi” were just militia and therefore lacked training and experience. Compared to hoplites, they only had little effect on the outcome of most battles, as they weren't part of the main phalanx formation. Instead, they carried out skirmishes, tried to disrupt the enemy's formation, guarded the army camp, scouted the terrain, and pursued fleeing enemies.

He directly used this source: https://military-history.fandom.com/wiki/Psiloi however there was no way Vantha isolated the wealth of knowledge his brain holds on Ancient Greece and that's not quoted.