some questions

[oshron]

hey. im new to this board in particular, but not to message boards in general, so you dont need to dumb anything downn for me just yet.

im making written designs--just for fun, mind you--of a possible spiritual sequel to AOM. atm, im calling it "Power of the Gods". ive planned 15 seperate civs that fall into one of five regional categories for it. atm, i also have an entire table of units for each civ. i think the one that im most proud of at the moment are my Celts, which also take alot of content from some medieval and Arthurian legends.

anyway, if possible, i would like it if POTG became a kind of expansion to 0 AD after part2 is released, or maybe a seperate game entirely using the same basic mechanics and game engine as 0AD. even if that never becomes the case, i would like it if these questions could be answered so that i can reevaluate my current designs:

1. what is the current listing of basic units for each culture? as i understand it right now, theres a basic unit that goes for every single culture, ie, swordsman, spearman, archer, etc., but what are the specifics, so i can change the unit tables i have set up?

2. how many ages are there in the game? in my current designs, i have 10 ages, but i need to know if there are more or less ages in 0ad

3. what are the non-unique buildings in teh game?

4. what other mechanics should i know about for my reevaluation?

[Mythos_Ruler]

1. I don't think it's giving too much away if I tell you the standard soldier classes we have in the game.

Infantry Spearman

Infantry Swordsman

Infantry Slinger

Infantry Javelinist

Infantry Archer

Cavalry Spearman

Cavalry Swordsman

Cavalry Javelinist

Cavalry Archer

All "standard units" fall into one of those classes. They use that weapon exclusively. Any unit that you want to use more than one weapon should be made into a Super Unit or Hero or other special kind of unit.

2. There are no "ages" in 0 A.D., but we have city phases that act almost exactly like "ages" in that they create a technology bottleneck for the player to overcome. With that in mind then, the game has 3 "ages", but a skilled modder could add as many ages or phases of development that he or she wanted to. Researching the next "age" or "phase" is as simple as researching a "tech" whose primary effect would be to unlock the next set of technologies and buildings. It would involve relatively easy scripting.

3. Standard buildings? We pretty much have the standard buildings you'd find in any RTS of this type, except the barracks, blacksmith, stables, and archery range are combined into one "Military Centre." We wanted to focus the military aspect of the game on training units and using them in battle, rather than building the right type of military buildings.

4. The Town Center (we call them "Civic Centres") is used to capture territories by building them atop settlements. This allows the player to build more structures (more houses, military centres, etc.) on the captured land. We will also have formations that have a real benefit to using them (unlike in AOK where the formations were cosmetic). There are a lot of other things too, like ships are bigger, more expensive, and you can garrison units aboard for extra benefits.

[darthturtle]

Yet one more 0AD mod to look forward to! I've only played the demo for AoM, but I would like to see how this turns out! But, 15 civs? That's a lot of work if you wants all sides to be different....

P.S. Shouldn't this be in the mods forum?

[oshron]

*shrugs* tbh, i had posted this here because i noticed there had been more activity here than in the modding forum. im still new here, but im guessing the lack of activity was due to it being the weekdays during that time.

thanks for you input, MR. i remember seeing you on AOMH a few times before. i think i'll try working on my reevaluation of POTG now

btw, dont you think it would be cooler for 0ad if encoding made each unit have a different name? like, the greek foot archer could be toxotes(i gather that that may already be the case, but im just sayin')

[Justinian]

*shrugs* tbh, i had posted this here because i noticed there had been more activity here than in the modding forum. im still new here, but im guessing the lack of activity was due to it being the weekdays during that time.

thanks for you input, MR. i remember seeing you on AOMH a few times before. i think i'll try working on my reevaluation of POTG now

btw, dont you think it would be cooler for 0ad if encoding made each unit have a different name? like, the greek foot archer could be toxotes(i gather that that may already be the case, but im just sayin')

1) The Forum is inactive because it's a bit early to start Modding.

2) I'd limit it to mebbe 7, in all honesty. 4-5 provides a small scope, and 10-15 is just too many to balance (unless we can have a 15 way battle).

3) That is the plan. No Faction has all of the Classes, I think someone said that Rome had the closest, but the Carthaginians have more with Merc classes included.

The troops also get Names (as in, Jonius Blogsimus, Sagitarii (Name, Unit Type))

[saxguy]

seriusly names??

[Mythos_Ruler]

Ehhh, the individual name thing is kind of a third tier feature that would prolly be implemented last, if at all.

[Justinian]

After the sixty times you said it...

[MrChocolateBear]

I think names would be really nice, especially since (if i'm not mistaken) individual units can "level up" from combat. It would be nice to look at a unit and know it is "Jonius Blogsimus, Sagitarii," my most advanced unit.

[buggy123]

That would be cool. But you have to remember, there gonna be lots of soldiers....maybe officers with names, bu soldiers. To many to keep track of. It's probably just going to confuse you.

But in campaigns it's different since there is actually a storyline. We should put that into campaign scenarios.

Edited July 7, 2009 by buggy123

[MrChocolateBear]

I really think whether or not it's confusing is based on the way the information is presented. If the information is constantly hovering over their heads, then it is probably best to limit which units have names. If the information is neatly tucked into the interface, somewhere it can be referenced easily, but not get in the way, there is very little reason for all units not to have names. At any rate, this has inspired a new question:

Can anyone share what the interface for 0 A.D. might look like? I realize that anything posted will most likely be altered a bit before the game's release, but I think knowing what kinds of information will be available on screen could prove useful to moders, especially if some of the information displayed is different than what is typically shown in RTSs.