New mod, 0 A.D. - Imperia Vetera

[Deicide4u]

I'm proud to present to you a new mod for 0 A.D. called Imperia Vetera. As the mod is based on an alpha that introduced the final original civilization, Romans, it makes sense to name the mod in honor of their ancient language. Imperia Vetera is "Old Empires" in Latin, and the name itself reflects the vision and the source for the mod. Be aware that this is a so-called "retro" mod. It doesn't and it will not, represent the full features of the original game.

Changes overview from the original thread:

Changes so far, when compared to Alpha 9 vanilla.

Siege Weapons overhaul:

Siege weapons are much better at destroying buildings, but much worse at killing organic units. At the same time, all economic and civic buildings are more vulnerable to hack damage.

Building costs overhaul:

Overall, higher tier buildings (Fortresses, Army Camps, Gymnasiums, etc.) are now much more expensive to build. This is in part to compensate for the lack of phases. In the future, there may be some form of requirements for certain buildings, similar to StarCraft.

Champion units:

They are now much stronger than Citizen Soldiers, but also cost more population space. Champion infantry costs 2 population, champion cavalry costs 3. So, there is no more champion unit spam.

Heroes:

All Heroes are now just very powerful units, identical to Greek heroes from Age of Mythology. I'm still working on implementing a training limit. They also cost more population space. Celts and Hellenes can now train only 3 Heroes, the same as other civilizations.

Hellenic heroes are Leonidas, Alexander and Themistocles. Celtic heroes are Boudicca, Brennus and Vercingetorix.

Technical changes:

All features that weren't implemented, or were implemented partially, were either removed or tweaked. Charge attacks are removed because they didn't work and they were cluttering the UI. Priests are removed for now, but the Temples now heal faster and can garrison up to 30 troops. GUI buttons that did not work are removed. Civilization pages that showed technologies and bonuses are also removed, as almost nothing was implemented at the time.

Population cap is now at 200. In Age of Empires 2 campaigns, you had only 75 population space. I think 200 should be more than enough. I considered reducing it to 150, but it could have made some scenarios hard.

The AI (legacy qBot as base) is now harder, and attacks with more units. Roman AI can train Marian Legionaries from the Army Camps, while Hellenic AI can now train Siege Towers.

Towers and Fortresses:

Towers are now weaker, but you can build more of them. You can now only construct 5 Fortresses, so turtling is not really an option.

Changes not considered:

There are some features that won't be included. For example, does it make sense for our civilizations to research "Iron Plow"? No, so technologies that can be researched won't be included. For the short term, I will explore other options for bonuses, that don't require compiling the game from source. I would like to implement auras on the more basic level.

More changes and testing is on the way. I will provide more when the testing of the current changes is complete in Single player.

In the meantime, you can help me test drive the mod, by downloading the two files from the link below. One of them is a README file, which should help you get started. I forgot to change the game name on the main menu, but here is how it looks (also, pretty easy to change):

Download link (Limewire):

https://limewire.com/d/AfFAy#YEiA9LOVLj

Thank you for making this wonderful game.