Five errors, bugs, or just weird things

[Thalatta]

I came across these things the last couple of days.

 

Some error while playing, but nothing bad happened:

 

The lower description can't be read because of the drop-down menu, and when hovering over selected map, the lower description given is from other two maps:

 

It says "Unlocked in City Phase" when I'm in City Phase already, the requirement is instead the tech being researched:

 

Pikes seem to go through stone walls (Philip's reforms were good, but chill a bit):

 

Forgot this one, there should be more space available in the lower description:

Edited Tuesday at 01:22 by Thalatta

[hyperion]

13 hours ago, Thalatta said:

Some error while playing, but nothing bad happened:

If release then likely fixed in git already.

 

13 hours ago, Thalatta said:

The lower description can't be read because of the drop-down menu, and when hovering over selected map, the lower description given is from other two maps:

Real bug, the dropdown getting in the way is sort of ok, not great for sure, showing wrong description definitely is not, also some description don't even fit in the tooltip region. Please file a bug on gitea.

 

13 hours ago, Thalatta said:

It says "Unlocked in City Phase" when I'm in City Phase already, the requirement is instead the tech being researched:

If in release then likely fixed in git already.

 

13 hours ago, Thalatta said:

Pikes seem to go through stone walls (Philip's reforms were good, but chill a bit):

Walls don't prevent attacks, just movement, this is no different than arrows.

 

13 hours ago, Thalatta said:

Forgot this one, there should be more space available in the lower description:

 

If release then likely already fixed.

 

For those I sad likely fixed would be nice if you could try to reproduce on main.

[Grautvornix]

On 06/10/2026 at 5:12 PM, hyperion said:

Walls don't prevent attacks, just movement, this is no different than arrows.

I agree that this is the case currently. But should it? Walls were supposed to protect people from attacks.

[Grautvornix]

I acknowledge that 0AD uses rather 2 D (or 2.5D) hence modelling arrows crossing a wall might be a challenge. This was probably the reason for stopping movement but allow attacking through the wall. 

Funny enough, this works from both sides of the wall: it is hard to keep my troops inside the wall away from the attacking the enemy and they are fighting back although they shouldn't need to (same reason: enemy is near and in reach of the weapons but cannot move much closer. 

Wall defense should be left to the troops manning the wall and its turrets (still working on a mod that allows running along a wall towards the actual attack. Currently, the  wall segment attacked does not get replenishment or help form adjacent segments)

 

[Thalatta]

On 06/10/2026 at 5:12 PM, hyperion said:

For those I said likely fixed would be nice if you could try to reproduce on main.

Wanted to start with this easy part, but after switching to main and building (both Debug and Release), menu issues are still present, and this happens:

 

 

[Perzival12]

1 hour ago, Grautvornix said:

I acknowledge that 0AD uses rather 2 D (or 2.5D) hence modelling arrows crossing a wall might be a challenge. This was probably the reason for stopping movement but allow attacking through the wall. 

Funny enough, this works from both sides of the wall: it is hard to keep my troops inside the wall away from the attacking the enemy and they are fighting back although they shouldn't need to (same reason: enemy is near and in reach of the weapons but cannot move much closer. 

Wall defense should be left to the troops manning the wall and its turrets (still working on a mod that allows running along a wall towards the actual attack. Currently, the  wall segment attacked does not get replenishment or help form adjacent segments)

 

Well walls can be attacked by arrows normally, I’d just:

raise their pierce resistance so that arrows don’t affect them almost at all

fix it so that they take attacks by projectiles not aimed at them

Neither should be too hard, I feel like the functionality is already in the game

[Thalatta]

On 06/10/2026 at 5:12 PM, hyperion said:

Please file a bug on gitea.

Did it accidentally twice (https://gitea.wildfiregames.com/0ad/0ad/issues/9305 and https://gitea.wildfiregames.com/0ad/0ad/issues/9306) because when creating them I got a server error. I cannot access them because of that issue ("500 Internal Server Error  Gitea Version: 1.26.4+1-g1ac57c9699").

[hyperion]

I get the same 500, no worry, Thanks for filing non the less.

[hyperion]

9 hours ago, Grautvornix said:

I agree that this is the case currently. But should it? Walls were supposed to protect people from attacks.

"Realism" doesn't make a game better, it's just that maybe the last 10-20 years this was what people were trained to believe, how else can you sell a new hardware every other year . Some of the most legendary games are from the 80' and 90' after all. 

Anyway correct wall physic is computationally much more expensive, and if you do it with walls why stop there. How about buildings, trees or terrain? You see were this is going. Lag is always much worse then some bending of realism.

 

[Thalatta]

7 hours ago, hyperion said:

I get the same 500, no worry, Thanks for filing non the less.

Ok, hopefully one of them can be deleted with no trace. But what about the issues I'm having in main? Am I doing something wrong?

 

7 hours ago, hyperion said:

"Realism" doesn't make a game better, it's just that maybe the last 10-20 years this was what people were trained to believe, how else can you sell a new hardware every other year . Some of the most legendary games are from the 80' and 90' after all. 

Anyway correct wall physic is computationally much more expensive, and if you do it with walls why stop there. How about buildings, trees or terrain? You see were this is going. Lag is always much worse then some bending of realism.

One thing is realistic graphics, another realistic mechanics, and games like Dwarf Fortress are the proof. I never cared much about realistic graphics (of course, nice ones are nice), but I don't tend to like things that make no sense, and I think pikes going through walls are a bit up there, because that's what a wall is meant to stop (besides movement), so it's not at the same level as the other things you mention. Hopefully there's a computationally economic fix someone can think of, eventually. I don't mind much about ranged attacks, although realistically they should be much less effective in that situation.

[scr0llbaer]

8 hours ago, hyperion said:

"Realism" doesn't make a game better, it's just that maybe the last 10-20 years this was what people were trained to believe, how else can you sell a new hardware every other year . Some of the most legendary games are from the 80' and 90' after all. 

It's not about graphics, it's about game design. Most games like this cannot be abstract blobs people move around, so a theme is used ("ancient warfare"), and things and objects that people understand and are mentally accessible. And as such, the abstractions and analogies have to match well, otherwise people will just turn their heads and walk away ("what a crap!"), and also will never give feedback.

Ideally, a game is easy to learn and hard to master. 0 A.D. famously struggles with the former. 

As such, in this concrete example, piking through a wall indeed makes no sense. Can be a rule for any building. 2.5 D is fine, the actual model of the building doesn't have to be put into consideration, so I don't think it will be a hard fix, just some configuration thing.

But there are a lot of similar issues which indeed would be harder, like archers and siege shooting through really high canyon walls.

So in this case, height and angles would actually have to be considered to make things feel "realistic" enough. Then manning wall turrets will make sense. Right now there's no need to bother with that, archers and other ranged units can just shoot from behind the wall and it's even better because more likely out of range of enemy units. On the turrets they die rather quickly currently. So I think it's also not "simulated" yet they would be much harder to hit from the ground, the very point of crenellations.

 

Edited 8 hours ago by scr0llbaer

[Nicolaus_von_Kues]

It's not about realism, it's about being convincing.

 

That the world you're playing with is convincing you.

 

That's why video games are derived from cinema film. 

That's why I complain when I see how sometimes the gameplay of the game is about controlling hordes of Greek cavalry.

 

 

It's also worth mentioning that you don't risk sacrificing game performance for realism. That's why old games weren't realistic, and the other thing is fun; reality isn't fun.

[Grautvornix]

5 hours ago, Nicolaus_von_Kues said:

and the other thing is fun; reality isn't fun.

I could not agree more and this, indeed, cannot be underlined enough. The game is supposed to be fun to play like solving a complex puzzle, just with way nicer graphics and more axes of freedom. Real war is never fun, for no-one.