Suggestions for 0 A.D.

[FirePowa8]

Laconian swords were initially as large as other states xiphos (in the Persian wars), the sword only started becoming smaller in the Pelopponessian wars.

[Justinian]

I have a few suggestions:

a) can you enable a one hit KO sorta option; I hate the stupid HP bar

can you make unit limits on stuff like navies; I hate it when the Computer player build a 50-ship-navy-that -I-Have-to-destroy.

Apart from that this is looking mad. oh and this is just what I think would be better.

Edited August 19, 2006 by Scipii_Alemanus

[Justinian]

More from me. I have more Ideas.

i) Can the buildings actually look bigger than the soldiers and "citizens"

ii) Can there be non-civ-bandit-from-AOE3 style ai's that gaurd resources.

iii) Can infantry Capture buildings like in advance wars. iknow advance wars was 1) pixels and 2) Gameboy ADvance but its the best feature ever.

And just to elaborate on one of my old ones:

i) One hit KO. this could be an option (as in from the Game Settings). Because its 1) its harder and 2) Some people like it more the stupid way.

Edited August 19, 2006 by Scipii_Alemanus

[Belisarivs]

can you make unit limits on stuff like navies; I hate it when the Computer player build a 50-ship-navy-that -I-Have-to-destroy.

But this happened quite often in history, that someone built large navy and his opponent had to destroy it. No one gave him quote.

Personally, I hate any such limits as these are very inaccurate. Player should be able to train as much navy as he is able.

Better option perhas would be something like unit would consume some resources still. If you run out of resources it needs, it will rebell. Something like in RTS Cossacks (not the greatest game ever, but it has shown true power of gunpowder and implemented this resource consumption). These moments aren't that rare in history. And ships would simplu consume lot of gold, so player wouldn't afford lot of them.

Not because of some stupid limit.

[Justinian]

But this happened quite often in history, that someone built large navy and his opponent had to destroy it. No one gave him quote.

So what these leader people had navies just as big as if not twice or three times as big as they're armies?

Edited August 21, 2006 by Scipii_Alemanus

[Belisarivs]

So what these leader people had navies just as big as if not twice or three times as big as they're armies?

Persian navy was quite large. Don't you think that it should be as I say? If you wanty win, you are trying to build as large navy as you can afford, not as large as some virtual limit allows.

Have you ever played Cossacks: Back to War? Absolutely strongest uni there was battle ship Victoria.

Mostly devastating unit I've ever seen. Can wipe out anything that is in range (which is also ubelieveable) of her cannons.

So, it is perfect candidate for main battleship. But its initial price is truly great and you'll have to wait quite a time until you can afford to build one (and its price even grows with built ships of same type) and yet, when it is built, it consumes load of money each second to maintain. And when you run out of money, it will rebel. It becomes unavailoable to you and attacks any unit in vicinity.

I've never had more than three such ships. Even when there is no pop limit for them. You are simply allowed to build as many as you can, yet you can't afford too many of them.

Simply, I dislike such limits.

And now another idea.

I'd need it for my mod "For Honour and Glory" and perhaps for 0AD, too.

I dislike limits to superunits the same way as to the ships. I'd like to have such limit to be removed.

This could be done the same way like with battle ships I mentioned, but I have another ideas.

What if every one unit of Super Unit class required some support unit to be trained.

Example:

Each Triarius won't be available to train until there are trained two Hastati and two Principes?

Or, each Heavy Knight won't be available to train until some lesser troops aren't trained.

Hm, perhaps this would fit only to Triarii, because it happened later in Middle ages quite often that only elite units would appear on the battlefield, but before, it were just massed armies of any troop type Landord managed to gather.

Perhaps some upgrade could disable this.

Edited August 21, 2006 by Belisarivs

[Titus Ultor]

In 0 A.D., ship combat will be quite epic. The ships are HUGE (bigger in relative size of the actual ships than AoEIII). I assure you, very few players will be able to field a huge fleet of ships.

And here's another great feature of 0 A.D. -- a useable navy will never ever be nearly the size of an army. Ships will be garrisoned; each ship's attack will be based on the units manning the decks, be it archer or catapult.

On the one-hit KO idea: such a feature would be very easy to implement with a mod, though 0 A.D.'s focus on individual units rather than mass hordes (to keep the pop count low) would make for odd gameplay.

[Justinian]

This is a capitulation

To Belisarius: I agree, it does sound better than my suggestion

To Titus Ultor: I guess you're 100% correct. It would be pretty s@#$!

[Jack the Piggy]

Hello all you programmers, designers, artists, etc that are working on such a great game.

I am a big Rome Total War, AOE2, and Tropico player.

I have SOME ideas that I would like to see in your game.

My ideas may have already been posted, because I didn't read all 30 pages

1. You should be able to move dirt.

Make moats, rivers/streams, lakes/ponds, roads/dirt paths, mountains/hills, tunnel, make cliffs, etc.

I think it would be very usful if you could dig a moat and stack the dirt up and on top of that build wall, like a Roman fort, but you make it, please dont have it one little building that you place.

2. Building bridges.

3. Make battle/game like Rome Total War:

a. Weather changes (rain affects arrows)

b. Height (can shoot further from higher)

c. Moral

d. etc.

4. Multiplayer:

a. Make it so that you have all options offline that you have online.

b. Save games.

c. Don't let all the resources die out. (more trees grow or you can plant trees)

5. Genral Game Play:

a. Have lots of ways to get food (fruit trees, berries, sheep, cows, deer, fish, etc.)

b. Put the resources in a physical spot (not like aoe2, like stronghold)

c. Lots, LOTS, and LOTS of options.

I know my ideas have a very slim chance of making it into your game, but i hope you make this game worth the time that is being put into it.

Im wondering, went will i be seeing the first bata, or prebata

[Historicity]

As far as I'm aware, the sister-game project to 0 A.D. ... "The Last Alliance" is planning to feature a tunneling system with its Dwarven based civilizations within there own version of the 0 A.D. Engine. The other ideas... someone else will have to take a stab at.

EDIT

Note, I'm sure if you go through the FAQ on the main page... you could find alot of your answers there concerning game play and such. I spend alot of time in that page glooming over the technical side of 0 A.D.

Edited October 5, 2006 by HistoryGuy

[Historicity]

Will there be a ladder system for 0 A.D.?

Edited October 17, 2006 by HistoryGuy

[Undo]

3. Make battle/game like Rome Total War:

a. Weather changes (rain affects arrows)

b. Height (can shoot further from higher)

c. Moral

d. etc.

RTW and Age of Empires-like games are quite different. I don't think that "moral" and similar concepts can be merged into a classic historical RTS game, which is what 0 AD pretends to be (I think!).

Edited November 7, 2006 by Undo

[Mythos_Ruler]

Battle will be very similar to Age of Empires games, but with a greater emphasis on formations. So, I guess in a way it'll be a little like RTW as well. There will be bonuses for charging and flanking, but all-in-all, unit countering and numbers of units will be important, like in Age games. We toyed around with Morale, but felt it was something that didn't fit well into the RTS mold. In RTS games, the player is like a god, controlling the actions of his units. It would be extremely frustrating for an RTS player for his units to "lose morale" and run off the map. The player should be the one to, more or less, "lose morale" and decide to withdraw his troops. That's the essence of RTS gaming. Total War games are very differe.t Resource management is all based on Macromanagement. Rather than choosing the specific spot to build a barracks, the Total War player just chooses to build a barracks and the option to place that barracks somewhere is not included in the game whatsoever. This is a very different direction and style of play. Both are strategic, but one uses more micromanagement, and one uses more macromanagement. In RTS games, the player is a god-player. In TW games the player is a General or manager.

Edited November 7, 2006 by Mythos_Ruler

[Undo]

Amen to that

[jms]

I'd like to see the ability to take some of your enemies' heads after battle.

"Celtic warriors would cut off the heads of their enemies in battle and display them as trophies. They mounted heads in doorposts and hung them from their belts. This might seem barbaric to us, but to the Celt the seat of spiritual power was the head, so by taking the head of a vanquished foe they were appropriating that power for themselves." [source]

It would be cool if you could take some heads, stick them on poles, and place them around your city. Maybe this could do something like increase your own army's morale or lower invading enemies'.

[Mythos_Ruler]

Heh, that's a cool idea, jms, but I can guarantee it won't be implemented.

[Vingauld]

Full 3d camera, got used to it since warhammer 40000 dawn of war.

Actually that game made the Age Of games kind of slow and boring......

But hey this game will be free anyway so i can always try!

[Belisarivs]

Slow and boring? I had AoK from its release and play it still. Even after years I still find it beautiful and entertaining.

I guess you've never tried some AIs available on internet on hardest. I had to kill about 7000 units to win one battle. It was pretty tough.

I played as Saracen against Franks.

And also tried to fight Japanese as Briton. Almost constant battle from start to end with some 3000 kills. Champions and pikemen held the line and Longbowmen supported them. Also Cavaliers could do some decent fighting on flanks. Whole battlefield was almost entirely covered by dead bodies and I had to send reinforcements still. Four Barracks had hard time in refilling my infantry ranks Ieven when I had some four monks on my disposal.

[Mythos_Ruler]

In AOK:Conquerors, I'd usually play 3v3 Death Match (Post-Imperial) with my clan mates vs 3 others. Wow - were those games HARSH! If a player on the wings didn't have a rax up within 30 seconds, that player was finished - simple as that. Very fast paced, yet, sometimes these games would last an hour and a half. They were titanic, each side losing 10,000+ units. Each player would usually have a civ that complimented its team... like Franks+Brits+Mongols or Celts+Brits+Teuts.

[Belisarivs]

Hm, I never had chance to play such MP. Shame. Anyway, my nation of choice is Byzantines. For their Cataphracts, cheap pikes and camels and strong fireships.

Have you ever recorded your MP game? Could I have one record?

BTW, what that "rax up" mean?

Edited November 15, 2006 by Belisarivs

[FirePowa8]

Barracks up, usually forward.

The WarChiefs civs in AOE3 are really fun in deathmatch, I recently discovered.

[Mythos_Ruler]

Getting a "rax" up means building a barracks. The first barracks in an AOK Post-Imperial DM was usualy near the starting Town Center (TC), because with the initial 10 free villagers, a rax goes up insanely quickly. You use that rax to pump out units to either begin a rush, or to stake out a forward base before sending half your vills forward to begin construction. Keep in mind this usually happens within the first 60 seconds! ha.

I used to have a roommate before AOM came out and we started an AOK clan ("Mythos Clan") and we'd play post-Imperial team death matches constantly. Back then AOK was notorious for not working on a home network, but he and I successfully found a way for us BOTH to have our computers playing in the SAME multiplayer match even though we shared a home network and cable connection without modding the game or hacking. Those were great gaming days. Imagine being able to shout locations and strategies across the room instead of trying to type it in chat while playing.

Anyway, I think I can speak for everyone on the team when I say its that kind of high intensity excitement we want to try and replicate for 0 A.D. when you play 0 A.D.'s death match.

Edited November 16, 2006 by Mythos_Ruler

[Vingauld]

Slow and boring? I had AoK from its release and play it still. Even after years I still find it beautiful and entertaining.

I guess you've never tried some AIs available on internet on hardest. I had to kill about 7000 units to win one battle. It was pretty tough.

I played as Saracen against Franks.

And also tried to fight Japanese as Briton. Almost constant battle from start to end with some 3000 kills. Champions and pikemen held the line and Longbowmen supported them. Also Cavaliers could do some decent fighting on flanks. Whole battlefield was almost entirely covered by dead bodies and I had to send reinforcements still. Four Barracks had hard time in refilling my infantry ranks Ieven when I had some four monks on my disposal.

The thing is that Dawn of war is much more battle orientated while Age Of has a bigger focus on the economic system (Dawn of war resources; power, requisition, vehicle cap, pop cap and for the orcs Orc recource and Waargh wich all can be quickly obtained by building structures or capturing strategic points on the map versus the Age Of Recources Like Gold Wood Food and in some cases stone or favor wich have to be obtained from mostly exhausting recource 'pads' wich leads to a smaller focus on the war and a bigger focus on the economics)

[Felix]

Being a veteran player of AOK MP, I know how exciting and heart racing it can get, extremely impressive to me that such a game could do that to you despite the graphics then werent so good. If 0AD could acomplish the same, I'm sold!

[history999]

the gameplay looks excellent but how often did the spartans fight the celts? why not persians just wondering