On the inclusion of other civs

[Lech]

Name me one battle [the Zapotecs] had against any civilization already in the game. As i thought, there were 0.

Edited February 10 by Stan`
edited for clarity after splitting

[Classic-Burger]

1 hour ago, Lech said:

Name me one battle they had against any civilization already in the game. As i thought, there were 0.

And what is the problem?

[Lech]

16 hours ago, Classic-Burger said:

And what is the problem?

You can just as well add a fantasy race, like orks. Just as fitting in historical setting that was meant to give at least some immersion.

Seafaring wasn't good enough for those to ever fight against each other. Therefore, they would waste development time and force me to remove them from the game myself.

[Classic-Burger]

37 minutes ago, Lech said:

You can just as well add a fantasy race, like orks. Just as fitting in historical setting that was meant to give at least some immersion.

Seafaring wasn't good enough for those to ever fight against each other. Therefore, they would waste development time and force me to remove them from the game myself.

Iberians never meets Chinese or Scythians.

What you mean with "orcs" is a kind racist slurp there?

Sorry but indigenous peoples are not fantasy orcs.

It is also absurd that the Seleucids were fighting the Ptolemies in Germanic forests.

Edited February 8 by Classic-Burger

[Grautvornix]

Actually each player is well able to select the civs that he believes fit to the same timeframe and geographical region, together with the right biome and the correct map, thus creating a more or less historically correct setting.

I just don't get the point why we should not have all this variety available to chose from. Some may consider it fun to also play in different regions with different civs.

I guess the reference to "Orcs" was to name a non existing civ like "Klingons"  or "Vulcans" or the like. Nobody is stopping anyone from introducing this a a mod. There were some interesting non-historical civs available in past versions (just I never played them).

[Lech]

2 hours ago, Classic-Burger said:

Iberians never meets Chinese or Scythians.

What you mean with "orcs" is a kind racist slurp there?

Sorry but indigenous peoples are not fantasy orcs.

It is also absurd that the Seleucids were fighting the Ptolemies in Germanic forests.

Iberians meet Roman who meet Scythian and Chinese.

Yes, it's close to fantasy at this point, don't be silly. Orks are fantasy race, if you can't figure it out yourself, ask for more fantasy races like elves, ogres and goblin.

All the factions were at least chain-linked together. Nothing like that can be said about american civs. So don't even bother.

I'd rather have added other believable African/Asian/European civilizations than american ones. Even proto-baltoslavs are more fitting than your pick.

I strongly oppose adding such unrelated factions to the game, it make the game less rooted in history and realism. Do yourself a mod about your american civ, good luck.

Edited February 8 by Lech

[ShadowOfHassen]

I think we need to calm down a little, nobody is any adding any faction to the game--Geneva55 is just reviewing archeological books from the time period and keeping track of them in case we ever need them. If you want to discuss why you would potentially want or not want to have a South American civilization, go to the forum post about that. Whatever you do, please be polite. The devs have been putting a lot of work on the game, please don't make them have to stop their work and sort through a fight.

[Classic-Burger]

On 08/02/2025 at 1:37 PM, Lech said:

.

I strongly oppose adding such unrelated factions to the game, it make the game less rooted in history and realism. Do yourself a mod about your american civ, good luck.

It sounds segregationist on your part.

If we do a survey, the majority to include these people.

The game is not realistic. I already said what are the Seleucids doing in Britain or Germania fighting the Chinese?

In 0 AD ships have the ability to sail infinitely, it's not very realistic. 

These civilizations already exist in mods, You won't be able to do much to stop them from existing.

It is bad to make other people invisible.

Edited February 10 by Classic-Burger

[Lech]

38 minutes ago, Classic-Burger said:

It sounds segregationist on your part.

If we do a survey, the majority to include these people.

The game is not realistic. I already said what are the Seleucids doing in Britain or Germania fighting the Chinese?

In 0 AD ships have the ability to sail infinitely, it's not very realistic. 

These civilizations already exist in mods, You won't be able to do much to stop them from existing.

It is bad to make other people invisible.

No, it's right approach. To make believable environment, and make factions out of civilizations on similar level that at least had some diplomatic ties with each other. Not to mention had similar technological level.

Survey isn't something to determine if it's right and wrong, it's done based on merit.

0 A. D. have a lot of oversimplifications, but they are gameplay elements, not inclusion of late medieval knights into the game.

It's bad to introduce something out of place for some unfathomable reasons.

And btw, stop insulting me in your responses, that's childish.

Edited February 10 by Lech

[Grautvornix]

Let's all calm down and discuss things with arguments. 

I believe we can all accept valid arguments and I do understand concerns about the potential "unhistorical" mix of civs in the game. In fact playing kushites or ptolemies in arctic biome maps does not really make much historical sense (poor elephants! Oh - and even trying to grow crops and rice in the arctic is rarely providing much yield). So plenty of examples for unhistorical, unrealistic combinations. If looking for more realism, it is indeed possible to select which map is played with a selected biome and also which civs exist in a game (at least for SP  ).

A very valid counterargument is certainly, that certain entities/roles/unit rosters, building types and technologies did not exist in all civs and as a consequence it is more  difficult to establish the right balance (as an example, personally, I am not really sure that gauls or britons had a navy able to even nearly match roman or greek warships).

So, indeed balancing civs of such different levels can be a challenge for establishing good gameplay. A clear counter tech needs to be identified and implemented for such cases if one can be identified.

What I personally also do like, however, is the approach to re-use the game mechanics and framework for another focus on another region or try combinations for the fun of it. Anyhow, it is fascinating reading about different more or less well-known ancient civs that are being discussed in this forum. I feel really motivated in learning more about those, so I clearly welcome such opportunities. And if someone even intends devoting some time in developing this civ into a mod, very welcome! I would be interested in seeing and playing these.

As already discussed in this forum, at some stage it may be desirable to split the game into different scenarios or phases (a bit like AOE?). I believe XIIIAD mod already made a move into that direction, as well as the Aristeia mod if I remember correctly.

 

[Lech]

Millenial mod is also fun, and i think designated mezoamerican mod would be fun too.

 

You can only partialy control who you are up to at multiplayer, or using random enemies that increase variety. Don't take it away when there are decent candidates for future civs like berbers, celto-iberians, illyrians, dacians, germanic tribes, scythians, other nomadic tribes and more that fit in the game.

[Stan`]

Splat the thread.

Please keep this civil or the thread will be locked.

[TheCJ]

On 08/02/2025 at 8:37 PM, Lech said:

All the factions were at least chain-linked together. Nothing like that can be said about american civs. So don't even bother.

But with this argument, could one not also argue that all Eurasian and African civs should be removed and we should only have American civs?

In that case all the civs would be "chain-linked" together again, would they not?

I find it hard to see that as an argument against adding a certain civ or "civ group".

[Seleucids]

It's very hard for mod civs to be introduced into base game at the moment. It will be a huge commit which is hard to go through. There are also potential risks of technical errors with the new civ, e.g. Han farm tech. 

Then you've got balancing issues for non-standard type civs.

[TheCJ]

Of course there are technical challenges, but I think @Lech was arguing that we shouldn't even try to add any American civs because the very idea of adding them is flawed, which is a different argument, is it not?

Indeed, adding any new civ is non-trivial to say the least and should be done with utmost care.

[Arup]

The khushite "fire arrow" upgrade from the docks does not work. I think we should fix this poorly done naval restructuring first before even considering adding new civilizations. "don't start counting the eggs outside the basket when your basket is already rotten" or some line idk

[TheCJ]

I agree there are more "urgent" issues (or rather issues with higher priority), but that's not really the point.

The point is, there is no general argument why we should never (not even after fixing every bug and all lag problems) think about including an American civ.

[BreakfastBurrito_007]

Zapotecs 

[Deicide4u]

2 hours ago, Arup said:

I think we should fix this poorly done naval restructuring first before even considering adding new civilizations.

We can do both? Germans (Cimbri) are almost complete and will most likely be introduced in the next release.

[Arup]

I'd be more than happy if both can be done simultaneously. but im an idiot at game programming bur I also know open source initiatives such as this one don't have a lot of resources to spare for multiple works. Is it really possible?

[Stan`]

12 hours ago, Arup said:

I'd be more than happy if both can be done simultaneously. but im an idiot at game programming bur I also know open source initiatives such as this one don't have a lot of resources to spare for multiple works. Is it really possible?

Well that's correct we have limited resources. But if your wall is crumbling and you only have plumbers available, they won't be able to do anything. So might as well benefit from the improved plumbing.