Scythia

[Morganiccc]

This is not the Scythians but close to them.

[Pedro Falcão]

Whoa, take it easy, Morganiccc. He's just showing his opinion.

And warcraft 3 didn't have walls and/or other heavy defenses like 0 A.D., so your argument is invalid. In both Warcraft and Starcraft the environment and choke points are the key to defend your base. In 0 A.D. the environment is just a factor, the key to be a successful defender lies more in knowing what/where to build and of which units your army is made of.

[Morganiccc]

At that time I think I may come to mind more sensible idea than the last.

[sanderd17]

I like the idea of packed and unpacked buildings. Maybe combine it with some buildings that aren't movable, but always lose health.

But I do think that buildings should only be able to execute their functions when being unpacked (only movable when they don't have a queue f.e.)

As for balancing, I assume making the units strong or cheap enough would fix that. The Scythians didn't have anything like a siege tower, did they? That would be a nice replacement for a defence tower, but only if it's historically accurate.

[Morganiccc]

Scythians were even stone fortress.

Scythian Neapolis

[Mythos_Ruler]

Just a random thought. I haven't planned out all the remaining Alphas yet. We still want to add the Ptolemaic Egyptians to the game before Beta, and maybe the Seleucids as well (they were a huge force during the Hellenistic Age, I mean huge). But what if we wanted to add the Scythians as well, as a kind of "wild card" civ that breaks a ton of rules? While Part 2 would have the Huns and Sarmatians, who break all the rules. Just idle thoughts.

They mildly interest me, as they interacted with the Greek civs (the Athenians civ has Scythian archers, btw, which historically served as a police force within Athens) and Persian civ (together they sacked cities and Scythians offered their services as mercenaries for the Persians). And their gameplay mechanics would add a nice wildcard element. They'd also set the stage for the Huns and Sarmations in Part 2, the sequel. The thing is, how do we make the Scythians different from Huns and Sarmatians, and vice versa?

[Morganiccc]

They have the same architecture, but the troops are different or not?

[Mythos_Ruler]

They have the same architecture, but the troops are different or not?

Hmm, I think we'll need more than that! At least the same amount of difference between Athenians and Spartans or Macedonians. Any ideas?

I think the Sarmartians can have female cavalry units and female archers, to differentiate from Huns and Scythians. Anything else?

[Morganiccc]

'll Send screenshots units Sarmatians!

Edited April 12, 2013 by Morganiccc

[Morganiccc]

Sarmatians

Elite Saka cataphracts

Noble cavalry Saks

Sarmatian horse archers

Noble cavalry Roxolani

Sarmatian archers

Sarmatian militia spearmen

Eldar Embaltay

Edited April 12, 2013 by Morganiccc

[Pallav]

You could also include other civillizations as minor civs like sumeria, phoenicia, babylon who could appear in scenarios only etc while the romans, persians, mauryans could be major ones which would be available in random maps and death matches as well...?

[idanwin]

romans, persians and mauryans are already available in random maps.

Phoenicians are planned for the bronze age mod

[Pallav]

Moving city centres could be provided to minor factions if they are included in the game like minoan, sumerian etc

Ahem..Question... So how many ages will be there in the game? Four I suppose, up until Iron age?

[alpha123]

Ahem..Question... So how many ages will be there in the game? Four I suppose, up until Iron age?

Er... we don't do ages. There are already 3 phases in the game: Village Phase (what you start in), Town Phase, and City Phase. I don't think anyone will add any more than that.

[Pallav]

So will there be a building like the fortress, palace or castle in any of the phases?

[Lion.Kanzen]

I think we explains that to people, we haven't ages because 0 Ad are in Iron only, we have phases like Total war. May be in loading screen can but some explanating about concept 0Ad.

[alpha123]

So will there be a building like the fortress, palace or castle in any of the phases?

Yup, each civ has a fortress in City Phase.

I think we explains that to people, we haven't ages because 0 Ad are in Iron only, we have phases like Total war. May be in loading screen can but some explanating about concept 0Ad.

That sounds like a good idea. Maybe a "0 A.D. for Age of Empires fans" page or something. Possibly on the website rather than in the game, although I could definitely see it as part of the in-game manual.

[Pallav]

The fortress will be able to fire arrows as well as produce military units I suppose, won`t it?

[alpha123]

The fortress will be able to fire arrows as well as produce military units I suppose, won`t it?

Fortresses do fire arrows. As far as units/siege goes, for most civs champions and siege units are trained from fortresses, for others champions are trained in a special building.

[Shield Bearer]

The fortress will be able to fire arrows as well as produce military units I suppose, won`t it?

You should really try playing the game

[Morganiccc]

Very nice pictures of the Scythian warriors.

Here is a link to download.

http://zalil.ru/34504697

[lilstewie]

A moving civ center.

[Lion.Kanzen]

Nice pics

[Unarmed]

What have Mongolians have to do with Scythians besides both being nomadic?

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Aaahhh the Scythians. I have heard stories about these people. Appearently they smoked some kind of weed.

And I've read they used arrows with poison (could be a unique gameplay element; units affected will very slowly lose health and die unless you heal them).

Besides that. A nomad faction would be very interesting, but how do you do it? Fragile and cheap structures that can be build outside of own territory (maybe make them lose health like the outpost to balance it futher?)? But stronger buildings can only be build inside territory (I see in this thread they also made stone structures). Obviously, the Scythians should not be able to build walls, not even pallisades.

About the weed which I wasn't sure about, this is where I got that from:

http://listverse.com/2010/01/05/top-10-interesting-facts-about-the-scythians/

It talks about female warriors, perhaps all the Scythian females (I mean citizen) should be able to fight, be citizen-soldiers. This would also make them defending their nomadic outposts easier.

They should not have siege weapons, but would that be balanced? If the poison element would be added, you could have very effective raids, so siege weapons may be less important.

[Unarmed]

I hope I'm allowed to bump & double post, if not, please tell me and I won't do it again. I will not post after a double post but edit instead.

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Ok, I read the thread again. Faction idea (very radical, I don't know if you guys like and I have no idea if it's possible/balanced):

Scythians start with the regular units (1 cav, 2 archers, 2 melee, 4 female). But no civil centre, this will only become available in the city phase when they will settle down along with farms. This is the nomad phase.

Scythian citizen soldiers can unpack houses (huts) which costs 40 food 10 wood since they are tents and not wooden and stone houses. The tents can be build in neutral territory (not enemy territory I think), and can be unpacked, to unpack order a citizen-soldier to get in the building and click unpack which will grand the rescources back. These huts are very weak and so easily destroyed. I think it would be too annoying to have these tents lose health, but maybe they should. The huts do not make friendly territory.

The Scythians can build a larger tent, which will be able to store both food and wood, not stone and metal (stone and metal will be able to be gathered in the city phase). This building can be build in neutral territory. I think it would be good if it would work like the houses (pack unpack). Like houses it would be cheap, like 80 food 20 wood, but weak. I have no idea if the Scythains would have herd animals, if so they could get acces to these in the larger tent. I think they should have acces to cavalry in here.

The city phase is when the Scythians will be able to settle down and farm. (I read some Scythians did settle down and have archiculture, and the name city phase makes sense this way). They will have to build the civil center, which only costs wood, and then they can build a building that gathers metal and stone.

That's the idea. Additions? Opinion? Bad idea? Potential good idea?

Forbidden units:

-slings

-skirmishers (throwing spears)

-?siege ram? (balance problem?)

Forbidden buildings:

-watchtowers

-pallisade

-wall

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Other idea:

Special technology for the Scythians is barbed arrow heads and poison arrow heads. The Scythians can choose between the two, the poison arrows I explained above, the barbed arrow head could work like this:

-arrow damage buff

-arrow damage buff + damage over time for a very limited time (unlike the poison arrow, which would do damage over until the unit dies unless healed)

Edited June 17, 2013 by Unarmed