Why is A27 a broken version?

[Deicide4u]

3 hours ago, real_tabasco_sauce said:

yeah this has been an ongoing problem for plenty of windows players including myself, so I mostly use keys to pan the camera. There is an issue written for it: https://gitea.wildfiregames.com/0ad/0ad/issues/7673#issuecomment-115591

Thanks for the link, I'm glad you're already working on it. That Youtube comment mentioned at the top of the issue is also by me, it's just that I've deleted my channel so it's no longer there. Just wanted to correct myself since I saw your video of the issue. It does exist in A23b, albeit mostly on the top-left corner. On A27, it was on the lower-right corner most of the time. The cursor icon changes to the Windows one, causing the game to "lag" by not reacting to the cursor input.

There isn't any performance-related lag, only that the input is not registered by the game.
Sorry for the inconvenience.

EDIT: Alpha 18 has the same issue. So, the bug is long-standing. 

Edited April 28 by Deicide4u
Checked alpha 18

[Deicide4u]

2 minutes ago, TheCJ said:

...Im confused, do you want eye-candy or not?

I was just frustrated with the broken AI. I don't really care about the icons. Fix the mouse cursor bug, make Fortresses great again and I'll be good. Or just show the AI how to research them champions.

[Dakara]

16 hours ago, Deicide4u said:

I've installed Alpha 23b and it's what I recommend to anyone who has issue with this version. The game still looks great, uses around 50% less resources and plays better overall. I also don't have weird mouse cursor lags when moving it to edges of the screen. This is wrong, see further replies.

This will be my harshest critic of the game so far, seeing how it looked and felt to play before. I'm all for improvements, but the development needs to be streamlined and focused on gameplay. Not eye-candy. Eye candy art in a strategy game can often be bad. Sometimes, it can even alienate the players. I'm speaking as someone who played RTS games since childhood, and knows which features are good, and which are bad for the player.

Why were resource icons replaced? They look perfectly fine to me in alpha 23. Why did we add worker counters below the resources? Now the player's attention is always on those counters, affecting the gameplay and fun. I want to play a RTS, not look at my worker counters all the time.

Why were great hero models removed from unit portraits and replaced with lame images? We don't know, but we have lame hero images as portraits now. Also, we removed a bunch of tech from blacksmiths and replaced some good-looking unit portraits with lame ones.

Why females build everything now? It's just visual clutter, especially in the early game. It also lessened the distinction between pure economy units and CS.

Why were champions and siege removed from Fortresses? Among other bad gameplay changes, it broke single-player AI. Now it doesn't train champions in newer versions, except for elephants. Not a single champion unit trained in most games on Alpha 27, even on Hard. My guess is because it doesn't know how to research the unlock tech at Barracks and Stables. It doesn't have to research anything to train the elephants, so it can train them.

I won't bore you with more details, you get the picture. The game stayed at alpha 23 for nearly 2 and a half years. There was no reason to change the core gameplay and break everything just for "better multiplayer" or whatever.

Hopefully you stop with the eye candy and focus more on the gameplay. Cheers.

I think you're being negative. The worker counters are very good and necessary to play better. In fact, they're even present in Age of Empires 2. You can easily ignore them. In the future, the interface will be configurable and customizable.

It's perfectly normal for women to build everything. And there's very little visual clutter.

Regarding the fortresses, yes, breaking the AI is a shame. It doesn't seem intentional.
I think you should make a separate post for the signalman. But this is a test.
How can you know it'll break the game before trying it? Personally, I liked producing cavalry in the barracks, haha, and I found it got a little too close to Age of Empires. Even if it seems more realistic. I find it annoying to build a fort to produce champion units.

Visual pleasure is important to many players; personally, I don't care because I've always found 0AD beautiful.

There's plenty of criticism to be made; nothing is set in stone; everything is changeable. Be positive and constructive.

[Grautvornix]

For me (ok in SP only), eye candy is one of the factors that make the game really enjoyable - unless you get heaps of eye candy trees and only a few real wood resources sprinkled in. Now, that is a bit frustrating. 

[Deicide4u]

3 hours ago, Dakara said:

I think you're being negative.

And wrong on most accounts. The AI isn't broken, it just needs a lot of time to build up. It knows how to recruit champions, and it's also a decent challenge for someone relatively new to the game.

The only thing that's really broken is the mouse cursor "lag", but that can be ignored for SP.

[Deicide4u]

Just had a very frustrating game on Latium. The FPS was bad in late game, but the input lag was worse.

I should cap the population size to 150 and see if that helps. I wonder if that will break Petra? Would also need to disable shadows, as keeping them on Low quality is still too much. 

@real_tabasco_sauce, changes from the Community mod helped to reduce the need for siege. Now Barracks, Stables and Arsenals are much easier to destroy.

Fortresses and Civic centers still require siege weapons, but that is by design.

[Deicide4u]

@Stan` @real_tabasco_sauce

The mouse cursor "lag" on Windows is completely gone for me when I play only on the external monitor connected to my laptop via HDMI. If I duplicate the screen, it lags. 

So, a viable workaround is to get an external monitor and rearrange the multiple displays to show only on the external monitor display. GUI scale option can be used to adjust the UI.

EDIT: It is not external monitor, but the scale set in Windows display settings. See below. 

Edited 3 hours ago by Deicide4u
Windows, not Window

[Fabius]

On 26/04/2025 at 2:00 PM, Deicide4u said:

Strongly agree. Champions should be available only in Fortresses and special civ-specific buildings. Either that or increase the cost of unlock techs.

Civ specific buildings can usually be spammed, ultimately that simply means any civ with them is superior to those that don't have them if this path is taken.

[Stan`]

7 hours ago, Deicide4u said:

@Stan` @real_tabasco_sauce

The mouse cursor "lag" on Windows is completely gone for me when I play only on the external monitor connected to my laptop via HDMI. If I duplicate the screen, it lags. 

So, a viable workaround is to get an external monitor and rearrange the multiple displays to show only on the external monitor display. GUI scale option can be used to adjust the UI.

Could you give the me screen resolution of both this new monitor and your laptops'?

[Deicide4u]

3 hours ago, Stan` said:

Could you give the me screen resolution of both this new monitor and your laptops'?

Both laptop display and external monitor are
1920 x 1080

EDIT: I've found a cause. It's the scale used to adjust the UI set on the Windows side. Check the image below:

When the scale is at 100%, there is no mouse cursor input lag. My guess is that the game isn't calculating the offset resolution (only absolute numbers). Other possibility is that this feature on Windows side is simply buggy.

@real_tabasco_sauce, FYI. 

EDIT2: To clarify, the issue is not whether you have an external monitor or not. Scale set in Windows display settings is what's causing it. 

Edited 3 hours ago by Deicide4u
Clarification