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Caesar
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How about using the more precise names of the factions and units in their own languages? The reasoning behind this is to avoid the appearance of an AOK knock-off and place greater emphasis on historical accuracy (which I can already see is very important to this mod). For example, using Romei/Romioi (Romans) or Vasileia Romaion (Roman Empire) for the Byzantines (a term used by Europeans from 1557, after the fall of Konstantinoúpolis to the Osmanli Imparatorlugu); European factions could be represented either in their vernacular languages or in Latin, so the Holy Roman Empire becomes either the Heiliges Römisches Reich or the Sacrum Romanum Imperium (though I do not know whether you wish to base your factions on specific peoples or political entities- either way the Holy Roman Empire will be hard to pin down).

If possible, I would like to offer my services to this mod in regards to historical research. I have a great interest in medieval history, especially in regards to the Crusades, and I have a working knowledge of both Greek and Latin (though I will admit my Latin is generally ecclesiastical). I have a great number of ideas for such a game as this.

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No problem at all. You can do anything you wish. Shoot in comments and ideas and we will see. Any help is appreciated.

My plans of FHG were to build team on Bazaar basis rather than Cathedral one (see "Cathedral and Bazaar" from Eric Raymond) where there would be some repository of mod and anyone would be allowed to implement anything he wanted but it would be then decided whether it is good thing and would be committed to the repository or not (in order to prevent excesses). But lack of interest of community surprised me. Therefore there is no work on it for now. But we can keep researching and modelling and when 0AD is out, we would have good piece of work done.

In fact I wanted to give factions proper names. We tried to do so for units and English names for factions were kept just to ease orientation in faction list.

Holy Roman Empire will be troublesome thing. It was pact of states which were more or less independent rather than one nation.

Its core was Saxony at the beginning which managed do unify, to some extent, HRE. But it was still based upon vassalage rather than unity.

Making HRE as single state would make many things difficult. Burgundians, Flemish, Swiss, Bohemians and others would be hard to deal with. They were part of HRE (at least for some time) but were often acting as independent states.

Let's not forget, that many surrounding states were also in some part of their history vassals of Emperor.

Also inheritance was different from other states. Candidate was first elected as King of the Romans and then he had to campaign to Italy to be crowned as Emperor. There were more differences, but I wanted to state the most.

So implementation of HRE will be hard task.

Regards.

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That is why I am curious as to whether you intend the factions to be based on political entities or specific peoples.

Using actual states will prove difficult considering that, generally speaking, many were not clearly defined or only somewhat independent, and could encompass various cultural groups or split others apart. So I would suggest that you use specific peoples instead.

Another issue I was considering was the timeframe. Among the many difficulties with historically based games is that the developers often try to condense immense periods of time into the game, thus sacrificing a lot of the historical accuracy. I would find this especially hard to do with the period 500AD to 1500AD, even if you broke it up into two periods, such as 500-1000 for the initial game and 1000-1500 for the expansion. My suggestion here would be to pick a more specific era in medieval history for the first installment of 0ad, and then develop it further for the expansion. For example, you could work with the Early Middle Ages from the fall of Rome to the dissolution of the Carolingian Empire, or the High Middle Ages and the Crusades, or the Late Middle Ages and the Renaissance.

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I agree with you.

In my plans was something about 1000-1500.

But Abadu, who was active pretty much in research and did great research convinced me t extend date to 500 AD.

He is Brazilian and therefore his focus on Portuguese (Suevi) in that Dark Age era.

My idea was to not use time divided to periods but to use unit appearance according date instead.

I want to avoid what happened to Empire Earth, though. Do you find unit rosters inaccurate?

Actually, units didn't change so much in middle ages. There was significant shift from infantry to cavalry and back, but that was due to decreased quality of training and equipment in dark ages when cavalry started to dominate because there wasn't infantry trained properly enough to face it. If we throw away some specific differences, whole Western Europe used same model of warfare and +- same units.

Edited by Belisarivs
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I do agree that the soldiery of Western Europe did not have too many significant changes until about the mid-1300s and the greater use of gunpowder on the battlefield, but what about the world outside of Western Europe?

In particular I cannot see this mod being able to represent such an unwieldy timespan with only six factions (through two branch into three sub-factions each), especially when this era saw the rise and fall of many states and peoples.

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Im a bit late for the debate,but here it goes:

About the faction names:I think we could use latin for most of(If not all) the european nations,while other non-europeans would get the names in their languages.

About the approach on the faction:Actually I organized most the factions here by area,in wich each period covered the more powerfull faction on the region.Represent all the factions like this might be a bit hard,so we could use kind of a "AoE politician system"(To advance to a new period,you must change a politician).In our case those politicians would represent some branchs to the factions,like this:When advancing to a new period with the Holy Roman Empire,you have some opitions to choose like the "Bohemian Prince",the "Saxon noble" or the "Hapsburg Monarch".Each one would give some unique bonuses and units.

This is just and idea,say what you think about it.

About the changes in the warfare:Our periods,organized as they are now,cover each a large time spam,so if the last period starts in 1300,it wouldnt make sense to have handgunners available from the begining.The same thing with reformed units such as french gendarmes and franc archers.To have them available you would have to,after advance to the period,research some upgrades(Representing those changes in the warfare)

This is just and idea,say what you think about it.

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As I understand it, 0ad only has six playable factions in the first installment, so you will be limited to that number in the mod.

Ok, I'll address my opinions on Abadu's post,

Faction Names: I like the idea of using Latin for the European factions, though there were some regions that did use Latin either politcally or religiously until later then the 500s, so you might want to consider that for the "first period" of the game. In a religious context, there were also the Slavic peoples in Eastern Europe who used Slavonic. Will Latin also be used for the unit names, or will you employ the local vernacular language wherever possible?

Approach to the Faction: Seems a little complex, though I am interested in the idea. So, if I have this right, you will only be using the dominant factions in certain regions during each "period" with advancement being based on political branches of a faction? Perhaps you could go with certain dynasties, ie.

Francia (Period I)

Merovingians -> Carolingians

- Francia Orientalis (Period II)

Eastern Carolingians

- Sacrum Romanum Imperium (Period III - IV)

German Nobles -> Hohenstaufens -> Hapsburgs

- Francia Occidentalis (Period II - IV)

Western Carolingians -> Capetians -> Valois

Vasileia Romaion (Period I - IV)

Justinians -> Heraclians -> Isaurians -> Phyrgians -> Komnenids -> Angelids -> Palaiologans

Or something like that. I obviously left out some dynasties with the "Byzantines" (their rulers had that nasty little habit of election by murder, or at least by mutilation). And with the Franks/French the Valois were still part of the Capetian dynasty (even the unfortunate Louis XVI was a Capetian). The Holy Roman Empire is a bit difficult since, in theory, the kings were elected and then had to be crowned emperor by the pope, though there are certainly some distinct dynasties well before the Hapsburgs. I generalized the monarchs who ruled between the Carolingians and the Hohenstaufens as "German Nobles". The above list was just a quick example, but I do think a dynastic system would be the way to go.

Changes in Warfare: Another interesting idea, but it does sound good.

Edited by Caesar
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Yes,you got right the idea of politicians,but I dont think that all the factions would have this branches.Some of them(The ones who hold their territory during all or almost all the periods) could have just one way to follow,and this could be an advantage or disadvantage for those factions(To compensate another things).

And we still have to discurss more about the names.

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Caesar, 0AD may start with 6 factions, but WFG declared its great modability and lack of hardcoded limits.

Therefore civ cap is last thing I expect in 0AD.

About politicians. I'm not against it at all. However let's think about one thing. FHG (and other such games) are based on possibility to change history. If you were, for example, fan of Byzantines (well, I am, but that doesn't matter for now :) ) wouldn't you do the best to win at Mantzinkert? I would. But this would break politician system, as (not only) Komneni would, possibly, not rule.

Insisting on historically accurate political line would for byzantine player mean, that he would be conquered in 1453.

But this is problematic thing. Because vistory in Mantzinkert could also mean different course of development of Byzantine military and society.

And about availability of units? Personally I don't like periods much. Each civ had significant changes in different time. And you can't cover them all well. Also shortening one period means extending another one.

Therefore I'd prefer to make units availabe according date.

Simply, unit will be available for example between years 1071 - 1220.

This is infulenced by my hope, that WFG will implement Total War style to 0AD Part2 (at least). Therefore I speak about years more that it is appropriate for normal RTS (like AoK).

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A few things:

  • While 0 A.D. Part 1 will "ship" with only 6 civilisations, it will be very easy (such as it is ) for a team of modders to add additional civilisations. It'll be easier than any other RTS game, I guarantee that.
  • Gameplay in 0 A.D. Part 1 will be based pretty much on Age of Kings-style RTS play. However, our formations will more intensive than in AOK, in that they give bonuses. "Total War" style combat is something we have discussed off and on with each other and is something we'll discuss further when planning for 0 A.D. Part 2 comes into full swing.
  • For ease of modding, I think sticking with "ages" would be apropriate. I mean, what are "ages" other than a collection of "years"? :) Although, if you want to go "all out" you could implement "years" in this fashion: each skirmish match starts at a specific "year" dictated by the game host during session setup. During the game, each minute of play represents 10(?) years of game world time. Each player would have different units become available based on the years that progress in the game. Would be interesting, and turn the "age" style of play totally on its head.
  • Sub-factions, politicians, etc. will definitely be possible, because we use sub-factions in "vanilla" 0 A.D., namely for the Celts (Gauls and Britons) and Hellenes (Macedon and City-States).

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