Civ "Pers" -> "Achae"

[wowgetoffyourcellphone]

I propose we change the "Persians" in the game to "Achaemenids" to differentiate from other Persian empires (one of the likely civs for 'Empires Besieged' would be the Sasanians, another Persian empire). This would entail a lot of changes under the hood, but mainly to just XML files and some jsons, file name changes, etc. I could take care of the pull request for it. Just trying to gauge from the group if anyone would have any objections. 

 

This is in the Development forum due to it requiring a large Pull Request to change it (again, a PR I'm willing to personally take responsibility for). 

[Deicide4u]

I voted for, but does this mean the game is pivoting away from including "Civilizations" to including "Empires"?

For example, we had Hellenic civilization before, but it was split into nation-states and later Greek "empires". 

Edited Saturday at 09:43 by Deicide4u

[Thalatta]

Well, since there's Han and Mauryans and not just Chinese and Indians, it seems to me this has been the path the game has been taking for a while, whenever possible (for Britons, Germans and Iberians is a bit more complicated but maybe at some point enough information will be gathered to instead have at least a couple of representative tribes from each). Sasanians and Parthians, also Persian empires, for sure will make an appearance at some point in the base game, so a change from Persians to Achaemenids seems a necessity.

[Genava55]

I don't think this is a problem to have various designs, and I believe the proposal of @wowgetoffyourcellphone is justified. We need to have a flexible concept, sometimes we'll want to represent a people or a civilization from a specific period, sometimes a nation, sometimes an empire, and sometimes a dynasty. We just need to be clear about it and explain it well in the civ's design.

Edit: And it’s really good to finally start thinking about what comes next. I felt like this 'Empires Besieged' expansion was constantly being put off until tomorrow, and that people were refusing to give it any thought. It’s clear that not thinking about it creates problems for the expansion’s design, and that we really need to lay the groundwork now, despite the lack of leadership. 

Edited Saturday at 10:39 by Genava55

[wowgetoffyourcellphone]

13 hours ago, Genava55 said:

Edit: And it’s really good to finally start thinking about what comes next. I felt like this 'Empires Besieged' expansion was constantly being put off until tomorrow, and that people were refusing to give it any thought. It’s clear that not thinking about it creates problems for the expansion’s design, and that we really need to lay the groundwork now, despite the lack of leadership. 

@Stan` and I have actually started a repo for Empires Besieged here: https://gitea.wildfiregames.com/0ad/empires_besieged. 

The last change was 11 months ago, but I'm working on things in DE (Guptas and Sasanians; a big thank you to @Duileoga and @Lopess) which will directly translate to EB at some point in the future.

So, whether EB becomes it's own "game" or an "era" or an "expansion" or a "release" is up for debate. I personally advocate for a "0 A.D. Eras" concept, where players can swap between eras (Empires Ascendant, Empires Besieged, Masters of Bronze, Millennium AD) and only play those civs, or choose to play with all civs available at once. 

[wowgetoffyourcellphone]

The gigantic pull request:

https://gitea.wildfiregames.com/0ad/0ad/pulls/8881

[Genava55]

On 19/04/2026 at 2:23 AM, wowgetoffyourcellphone said:

@Stan` and I have actually started a repo for Empires Besieged here: https://gitea.wildfiregames.com/0ad/empires_besieged. 

I know, I saw it. And it is really a great idea you had.

On 19/04/2026 at 2:23 AM, wowgetoffyourcellphone said:

So, whether EB becomes it's own "game" or an "era" or an "expansion" or a "release" is up for debate. I personally advocate for a "0 A.D. Eras" concept, where players can swap between eras (Empires Ascendant, Empires Besieged, Masters of Bronze, Millennium AD) and only play those civs, or choose to play with all civs available at once. 

The idea is good. You are pointing out the issue about the Persians, but we could have the same issue with other civs no? Romans and Germans notably.

[Stan`]

For germans, I was wondering if we could explore the inverse of what the game used to do with with the "hellenes" faction. That is choosing a civ being Cimbri and others and phase 1 is specific with maybe some bonii techs and phase2 and 3 (and 4 for de) are common for civs that eventually unified.

[Genava55]

2 hours ago, Stan` said:

For germans, I was wondering if we could explore the inverse of what the game used to do with with the "hellenes" faction. That is choosing a civ being Cimbri and others and phase 1 is specific with maybe some bonii techs and phase2 and 3 (and 4 for de) are common for civs that eventually unified.

I proposed something similar with coalitions:

Personnally I would prefer something enabling the possibility to have unique units, techs and buildings through the tribes chosen. 

Coalitions are how historically the "barbarians" and the small nations were able to defeat massive empires. 

[Emacz]

39 minutes ago, Genava55 said:

I proposed something similar with coalitions:

Personnally I would prefer something enabling the possibility to have unique units, techs and buildings through the tribes chosen. 

Coalitions are how historically the "barbarians" and the small nations were able to defeat massive empires. 

thanks to you we have celtic coalition buildings in CWA  and if you give us some more ideas (Ill ready your post) we could include more!

 

Edited 1 hour ago by Emacz