0 A.D's Built-in Encyclopedia

[Vantha]

On 12/09/2023 at 9:06 PM, ShadowOfHassen said:

Could we have an encyclopedia like Wesnoth's where you can also just access as an encyclopedia with links and generic articles, that means we could write even more cool info like about the general Greek pantheon.

 

Clearly, we don't want to turn this into the ultimate history book or anything, but I know @Vantha and I have had some problems figuring out what we should describe in our limited space.

Here's my suggestion: Let's finish the basic encyclopedia first (write one text for each unit or building), yes we might have to comprise on some topics and leave out some cool information for the sake of keeping the texts simple and for anyone to read. And once we're done with the basic encyclopedia, we can always still develop it further as you suggested.

[Genava55]

4 hours ago, ShadowOfHassen said:

I don't see how it hurts to have both of them in En_US, that's what Wikipedia does. I think.

International articles on wikipedia have metric first. Since we are dealing with the history of Europe, Africa and Asia, it is better suited to have metric first at least.

For example, on the wikipedia page of ancient rome:

Quote

It was among the largest empires in the ancient world, with an estimated 50 to 90 million inhabitants, roughly 20% of the world's population at the time. It covered around 4 million square kilometres (1.5 million square miles) at its height in AD 117.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ancient_Rome

 

[Genava55]

15 hours ago, wowgetoffyourcellphone said:

Oh yeah. Comma to delineate 000 and period or full stop for decimal.

That's indeed a common issue for people working with databases, when we need to interpret a string variable as an integer or a float number...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Decimal_separator

 

[wowgetoffyourcellphone]

12 hours ago, ShadowOfHassen said:

The paragraph breaks work so far just by returning. All tabs show up except for the first one.

Ah yes, you are correct. One must return enough to break the tabbed indentation/formatting. I'm pretty sure though that only works in the xml templates and not the technologies (json). I could be proven wrong there too though. Lol

12 hours ago, ShadowOfHassen said:

The paragraph breaks work so far just by returning. All tabs show up except for the first one.

Ah yes, you are correct. One must return enough to break the tabbed indentation/formatting. I'm pretty sure though that only works in the xml templates and not the technologies (json). I could be proven wrong there too though. Lol

[Περσεφόνη]

Can I ask the developers of this encyclopedia to make a PDF file with this encyclopedia too and place it in the root directory of the game, as it once was in the disc edition of Age of Empires II?

[ShadowOfHassen]

I have a PR of edits and adding metric to the trees: https://github.com/TheShadowOfHassen/0-ad-history-encyclopedia-mod/pull/40 it has US customary system first. Personally I think it would be easier to leave it first seeing that 0 A.D. already has translations for other versions of English (and for us Americans customary is what we know). But, someone really wants it the other way, I will merge their PR to the repository.

 

On 15/09/2023 at 7:05 AM, Περσεφόνη said:

Can I ask the developers of this encyclopedia to make a PDF file with this encyclopedia too and place it in the root directory of the game, as it once was in the disc edition of Age of Empires II?

At the moment, it'll be tricky to do this, but we'll keep this in mind. I've seen other people wanting something similar, and personally I'd love to see a special edition of 0 A.D. with a printed booklet.

Edited September 16, 2023 by ShadowOfHassen

[ShadowOfHassen]

What exactly is Sparta's Wonder Its called the Hieron tēs Artemidos Orthias but when I search that I get nothing.

Does it have an English name from which I can start my research?

[wowgetoffyourcellphone]

Sanctuary of Artemis Orthias 

[Περσεφόνη]

On 16/09/2023 at 11:29 PM, wowgetoffyourcellphone said:

Sanctuary of Artemis Orthias 

I heard that in the Hellenistic states the goddess Tyche was very revered. I wonder if her temples will be encountered and have some kind of modifier in the game?

[ShadowOfHassen]

Whew, the research for the Spartan wonder was tricky. Here's the PR for it and fortresses, as well as some bugfixes and tweaks.

https://github.com/TheShadowOfHassen/0-ad-history-encyclopedia-mod/pull/41

A few things to note is that, if we have a cool fort in a certain civ's history, let me know, and we can write a special article for it (or you can and that'd be great)

 

If anyone wants to give editorial feedback on the PR I'm open, or if people have more information about the wonder let me know, and I might add it.

On 18/09/2023 at 1:41 AM, Περσεφόνη said:

I heard that in the Hellenistic states the goddess Tyche was very revered. I wonder if her temples will be encountered and have some kind of modifier in the game?

 

Well, the sanctuary is a wonder, for Greek there's just a generic temple for the Hellenistic civs. I don't know if there's any modder who wants to add a million temples, but it's a big world.

 

What I'd love is if someone could add Vestal Virgins to Rome's Vestal temple, because it seems wrong and besides, it would be easier to have two places to write encyclopedia articles.

(If it's a hesitance because people don't know what the Vestal Virgins power should be, I think I have a few ideas.)

[Περσεφόνη]

11 hours ago, ShadowOfHassen said:

Whew, the research for the Spartan wonder was tricky. Here's the PR for it and fortresses, as well as some bugfixes and tweaks.

https://github.com/TheShadowOfHassen/0-ad-history-encyclopedia-mod/pull/41

A few things to note is that, if we have a cool fort in a certain civ's history, let me know, and we can write a special article for it (or you can and that'd be great)

 

If anyone wants to give editorial feedback on the PR I'm open, or if people have more information about the wonder let me know, and I might add it.

 

Well, the sanctuary is a wonder, for Greek there's just a generic temple for the Hellenistic civs. I don't know if there's any modder who wants to add a million temples, but it's a big world.

 

What I'd love is if someone could add Vestal Virgins to Rome's Vestal temple, because it seems wrong and besides, it would be easier to have two places to write encyclopedia articles.

(If it's a hesitance because people don't know what the Vestal Virgins power should be, I think I have a few ideas.)

It would be great to see female priestesses of Rome, similar to the priestesses of Ategina and Baal-Hammon. But what will they do? Should their presence in the army increase the power to capture buildings? Or will there be a limited number of them like Chinese ministers and, by entering the building, each vestal makes it immune to capture in general? I would like something useful in the late game. For example, a vestal in a garrison could greatly increase the strength of a building against a ram.

Edited September 20, 2023 by Περσεφόνη

[wowgetoffyourcellphone]

11 hours ago, ShadowOfHassen said:

https://github.com/TheShadowOfHassen/0-ad-history-encyclopedia-mod/pull/41

Nice, you added a dedicated folder for the entries.  

Though, it's a bit redundant to have "encyclopedia/encyclopedia_palisade", should just be "encyclopedia/palisade."

[Vantha]

Pull request 42: Spartan barracks
 https://github.com/TheShadowOfHassen/0-ad-history-encyclopedia-mod/pull/42

I wrote about the Agoge. It's one of the longest text of me so far, because there's just so much to talk about and I really wanted to convey the essence of what the Agoge really was.

 

[ShadowOfHassen]

On 20/09/2023 at 1:40 AM, Περσεφόνη said:

It would be great to see female priestesses of Rome, similar to the priestesses of Ategina and Baal-Hammon. But what will they do? Should their presence in the army increase the power to capture buildings? Or will there be a limited number of them like Chinese ministers and, by entering the building, each vestal makes it immune to capture in general? I would like something useful in the late game. For example, a vestal in a garrison could greatly increase the strength of a building against a ram.

I thought they could improve the roman women's stats and work rate. Then have them have upgrades that make buildings have more HP and finally, make soldiers fight a bit better.

On 20/09/2023 at 1:45 AM, wowgetoffyourcellphone said:

Nice, you added a dedicated folder for the entries.  

Though, it's a bit redundant to have "encyclopedia/encyclopedia_palisade", should just be "encyclopedia/palisade."

If you think an encyclopedia folder is enough difference, I can remove the encyclopedia at the beginning right before I add the first batch to mainline (we're almost there, we have the arsenal and the artillery training place.)

[ShadowOfHassen]

Sparta's stable: https://github.com/TheShadowOfHassen/0-ad-history-encyclopedia-mod/pull/43

[wowgetoffyourcellphone]

2 hours ago, ShadowOfHassen said:

Sparta's stable: https://github.com/TheShadowOfHassen/0-ad-history-encyclopedia-mod/pull/43

Watch spelling:

calvary -> cavalry

Xenaphon -> Xenophon

"However" is used thrice in a row.

 

 

Calvary for a long time was a weak spot in Sparta’s military. For the longest time their only force was the hippeus, a force of 300 mounted infantry who would guard the kings and perform in religious ceremonies. However, in 424 BC the Spartans started putting those deemed unfit to fight on horses to ride as scouts. However the amount of Spartans who were calvary only ever amounted to only 60 per mora(Xenaphon wrote that a mora contained around 6,00 men). However, Sparta did bolster their ranks with mercenaries.

Edited September 22, 2023 by wowgetoffyourcellphone

[ShadowOfHassen]

6 hours ago, wowgetoffyourcellphone said:

Watch spelling:

calvary -> cavalry

Xenaphon -> Xenophon

"However" is used thrice in a row.

 

 

Calvary for a long time was a weak spot in Sparta’s military. For the longest time their only force was the hippeus, a force of 300 mounted infantry who would guard the kings and perform in religious ceremonies. However, in 424 BC the Spartans started putting those deemed unfit to fight on horses to ride as scouts. However the amount of Spartans who were calvary only ever amounted to only 60 per mora(Xenaphon wrote that a mora contained around 6,00 men). However, Sparta did bolster their ranks with mercenaries.

Yep that was pretty sloppy, Ooops. It  should be fixed now.

[ShadowOfHassen]

Animal edit/ add metric/ wildebeest (because we forgot it somehow)

https://github.com/TheShadowOfHassen/0-ad-history-encyclopedia-mod/pull/44/

[Vantha]

Second to last PR for Sparta.

https://github.com/TheShadowOfHassen/0-ad-history-encyclopedia-mod/pull/45

I wrote the arsenal text and put it in the arsenal template. Generally, is it better to create a mixin or to just paste the text in the existing template (if there is one)?

Also, there's a lot texts I've started working on that will be coming in the next couple days or few weeks. We are one text away from finishing the Spartans, the Athenians will be next.

[Vantha]

New PR for the forge

https://github.com/TheShadowOfHassen/0-ad-history-encyclopedia-mod/pull/46

 

This is the very last unit/building for Sparta. Once @ShadowOfHassen has finished the overview text, we've fully completed the very first civ.

 

I will write the Athenian soldiers next, starting with the cavalry units.

Edited October 2, 2023 by Vantha

[ShadowOfHassen]

Final Sparta PR: https://github.com/TheShadowOfHassen/0-ad-history-encyclopedia-mod/pull/47

It's the overview Sparta entry. I rewrote the old one to give a better overview and to not sound exactly like the first paragraph of the Wikipedia article.

Now this brings us to a question. @Stan` how often do you want to add this stuff to mainstream 0 A.D. the post about removing the encyclopedia said that the new encyclopedia would be added in batches to not overwhelm translators. I think personally that with all the tree, animal and treasure entries that have been written it might be easy to do it soon. (To not overwhelm people.)

[Vantha]

New Pr for the Athenian sword cavalry https://github.com/TheShadowOfHassen/0-ad-history-encyclopedia-mod/pull/48

I also edited one of the Spartan cavalry units, as I felt the text was too short and lacking information.

I will write Athenian cavalry javelineer next and probably also improve  texts of the Spartan stable and the Spartan spear cavalry.

Edited October 3, 2023 by Vantha

[wowgetoffyourcellphone]

Quote

As was customary in Ancient Greece, the cavalrymen fought as shock troops, charging at the enemy's line trying to break their formation. They also supported the own formation by reinforcing weak points, and were used for scouting and skirmishing.

 

This is wrong. Athenian cavalry were almost always used for skirmishing, scouting, and chasing down routing enemy troops. Athenian cavalry was never used a shock troops in pitched battle.

[Vantha]

 

4 hours ago, wowgetoffyourcellphone said:

Quote

As was customary in Ancient Greece, the cavalrymen fought as shock troops, charging at the enemy's line trying to break their formation. They also supported the own formation by reinforcing weak points, and were used for scouting and skirmishing.

Expand  

 

This is wrong. Athenian cavalry were almost always used for skirmishing, scouting, and chasing down routing enemy troops. Athenian cavalry was never used a shock troops in pitched battle.

Oh, that's embarrassing. Thanks for pointing that out, I will correct it.

[wowgetoffyourcellphone]

14 hours ago, Vantha said:

 

Oh, that's embarrassing. Thanks for pointing that out, I will correct it.

Yeah, it was rare for cavalry to be used as shock troops until the Macedonians raised the Companion Cavalry units and altered their tactics. Persians had the Bactrian cataphracts and some other melee cavalry units, but almost always used skirmishing tactics instead with javelins and bows. As far as Greek cavalry, yeah, you don't see them going into shock combat until after the rise of Macedon. A Greek cavalryman in the Classical period was used to harass and skirmish, maybe driving off the enemy skirmishers in the process to prevent them from disrupting the main phalanx body of infantry.