Suggestions for 0 A.D.

[FirePowa8]

Thebes as a branch? Would that mean the possibility of Athens and Sparta becoming seperate branches too, as opposed to just being joined up in the poleis branch?

Edited May 28, 2007 by FirePowa8

[Mythos_Ruler]

Well, that's only a possibility as a post-support patch. Just musings right now.

[Hurin]

I have a questions about Mercs.

I was thinking greece, seeing how large amout of troops where mercs, so like one mini-faction that had just mercs from every other mini-faction and maybe Crete or other greek but non-mini-factions.

[EllamWideblade]

Alrighty, I haven't read all 33 pages of the ideas section, so if I repeat anything, bear with me.

1) Make it so you can place units on walls and construct your town's defences much like how it is in the game Stronghold, i.e. building walls and adding towers into them, adding stairs so units can climb onto them, put weight limits on the walls, so that Carthagians can't put war elephants up ontop of the walls. Make it so that one can place small wall-mounted siege engines, such as ballistae, on the walls, instead of wheeling their field catapults up there.

2) The idea of ore is a good one. Stick with it. My only comment is to name the metals differently, but have them all do the same thing. An example would be to have an ore deposite be called gold, but does the same as iron. This would make everybody happy, and add a small sence of realism.

3) One thing NO RTS game I have ever encountered has, is military encampments. With these, you select a large body of units, or an army, and have them build an encampment which gives the builder options on what all to include, such as:

i) field hospitals (gives the soldiers a place to return to after a battle to be healed)

ii) Bath houses (increases the army's health and diminishes fatigue which increases attack abilities)

iii) Officer's quarters (leaders/heros gain a bonus in their attacks and special abilities)

iv) Encampment store houses (these can be used to hold extra resources for which one can create more troops with or pump raw resources into, much like a drop off point for "villagers")

v) LATRINES!!!!! I want to see LATRINES in the towns and the military encampments. It adds realism and can give a health bonus, thus increasing HP on units.

vi) mess hall (soldiers can eat here and boost their moral inwhich they gain a slight bonus in attack, defence, etc...)

vii) Horse pickets (cavalry can be supported by the encampment)

viii) Have a place to train emissaries. These can be used to negotiate with an enemy and allow enemy armies to surrender or send them your terms, such as: surrender, tribute, etc..

ix) Craftsmen buildings (though workers don't really need to be hired, these buildings allow armor and weapon improvements for the army.)

x) add unique buildings/options to the encampment and have there be a limit to how many improvements are allowed. Encampments should also be used as another form of housing, and boost population support.

I would also like to see an option, after a certain amount of time that the encampment has been erected, inwhich you can turn it into a basic small town. The Roman cities were mostly built this way, and I should think that most other cultures worked this way. In a way encampments were like small towns. With the advent of an encampment, the player can create more units and pump them onto the battle field faster and easier.

4) Make it so that archers cannot destroy a building unless they have fire arrows added to their special abilities and have it cost in some resources to do a special ability. Make walls only assailable by siege engines.

5) Implement OIL as a resource. The oil would be used for incendiary projectiles and for keeping buildings lit. The oil can come from wells or whales or other animal blubber.

6) Much like in the Warcraft games, there is a daily clock inwhich the lighting changes from day to night. At night, make it so that an army is forced to move slower, or stop all together, and all gathering stops, unless there are: braziers nearby to shed light on workers, buildings nearby to also shed light, or the workers build a bonfire. This would add a LOT of realism and create far more strategy. Armies can still battle, but make the casualty rate go up from nighttime blunders.

7) Have there be feed pens inwhich a player can breed animals for either warfare or food. Animals should include: pigs, goats, chickens, cows, horses, donkeys, mules, sheep, and also unique animals for each culture such as elephants for the Carthagians. Some of these animals can be used to haul equipment such as siege engines, and also used as animals to work in trade caravans.

8) Though just clicking a button to send tribute to an ally, enemy or to a neutral party is good and all, but it takes away from the realism of it. Using a trade caravan that is OFF LIMITS TO ATTACK would make things a lot better. This caravan is used for in trade and also in tribute. The only way to stop trade is to destroy a market, or order your own trade units to stop moving. Though having caravans being unattackable is unreal, it makes life easier for everybody.

Trade should include technology, units and of course resources. It makes life easier and makes everything more fun.

9) Make it so that you group soldiers together to form an army and make them work together and be selected as a single unit by clicking the Bannerman. Otherwise, the units assigned to the bannerman are used as normally. The Army should be divided into unit type, example: Hypaspists, Lancers, Hoplites, rather than be divided into infantry, cavalry and archers.

10) Have mercenary outposts inwhich mercenaries are hired. Pirates can be hired at docks.

[Aigis]

Well i havnt read the entire length of the topic either. but i did read the above post!!! And i agree with everything he said. But the thing i most strongly agree about is having soldiers on a wall!!!! the only other RTS based game i have ever seen with this was not widely popular. It was Alexander. Game about the movie.

another idea i had came from another game that i own. Supreme Commander. I love ther camera in this game, and i would love for you to implement on of its camera functions. The ability to zoom all the way out and see the entire map at once. This adds an extra level of strategy. Each unit, building, known resource location, etc. would be represented by a small icon. NOTE*I dont mean to have this map as a button you have to click to bring it up. I mean to have it on the use of the mouse wheel or other zooming function.

Oh and i have something to say abuot the archers not being able to dmg buildings unless they have flaming arrows. How about having the flaming arrows not be able to do much dmg, if any at all, to stone builings? Stone doesnt burn. It can get hot, but it doesnt burn. This would add another level or realism and depth of strategy in the game. If you were an attacking nation, attacking the romans, who have mostly stone buildings, you would need to bring siege equipment to destroy the buildings.

Well thats all i can think of for now, but i might post again later!!!

~Aigis

VENI VIDI VICI

[Mythos_Ruler]

Arrows will have little effect on structures. The main feature we are implementing regarding structures is the ability to capture them. To detroy a structure you'll need a siege engine.

[Aigis]

woot woot! awesome!!!

[EllamWideblade]

I'm glad that archers don't do much damage to buildings. Shooting arrows at a house would break the windows, and shoot through the weaker sections in the walls, but nothing much beyond that.

It always amazes me on forums how it'll be dead for DAYS and all of a sudden a HUGE flurry of activity arises. LOL!

I think you guys are doing a great job, and don't ever think my suggestions are anything other than that. *tips hat to the programmers and creators.*

[scipio_africanus]

I'm glad that archers don't do much damage to buildings. Shooting arrows at a house would break the windows, and shoot through the weaker sections in the walls, but nothing much beyond that.

It always amazes me on forums how it'll be dead for DAYS and all of a sudden a HUGE flurry of activity arises. LOL!

I think you guys are doing a great job, and don't ever think my suggestions are anything other than that. *tips hat to the programmers and creators.*

Dead for days.

About two months ago it was dead for about two weeks. It got really boring.

[Aeros]

Bring your friends Let people know about 0 A.D.

[rudied]

I don't know if I must tell every body about 0AD yet.

Some people can be very aggressive if they have to wait for it.

Believe me that the day that 0AD will be released, the net will be unusably SLOW ! I will not only try and download it, but will also burn as much CD's as I can to distribute to other people with slow or no internet connection.

So the WORD will spread like WILDFIRE when it releases !

[feneur]

Sounds good. We're waiting eagerly for that day

And yeah, it's probably best to wait to tell some people about this game, it won't be finished tomorrow after all

[The_Vandhaal]

Say wildfire team

i was thinking

i just came from the IGZ forum

and suddenly something came up in my mind

IGZ is a matchmaking service for online gaming completly created by people from the rts hobby community......basicly the same as you guys do with 0ad

well maybe both sides ( wikdfire and igz) could talk a little with eachother...............maybe igz can help with the multiplayer hosting of 0ad ?

you never know they have build their service from scratch so who knows maybe it would be great if they can host also 0ad

i posted a simmilar thing in their forums

and as you guys are still developing aod maybe the expertise of igz could help in devining a multiplayer feature for aod

talking will never hurt

igz

http://www.igzones.com/

Edited September 19, 2007 by The_Vandhaal

[Impeached]

Yes, we at IGZ would love to host your game, and it would be beneficial to Wildfire Games as well, as 0 AD has no multiplayer yet. Microsoft Ants was a free RTS on the MSN Zone with thousands of players. A free RTS on IGZ could get thousands of players as well, I imagine.

If you want to discuss details, PM me.

Edited September 23, 2007 by Impeached

[Aigis]

hehe ive let everone i kno that likes RTS games, know about this game! hehe they just arent forum type people... xD

[Argalius]

I've a little question, which doesn't require a new thread so I post it here.

I guess player colours are created with alpha maps. But can player colour be used anywhere on the models? Because with AoE3 it's only possible on specific areas on the model which is coded into the model itself. And if it's possible everywhere: how do you combine player colour with transparency?

[Ykkrosh]

There are 'actor' files (in a simple XML format, with an editing tool available) which define the appearance of an object: each actor specifies a mesh, a texture (there is only one used on the actor's whole mesh), whether that texture is interpreted as alpha-transparency or player-colour, and also there's animations and some other bits. So, normally, transparency and player-colour can each be used on any mesh (and affect the whole mesh), but you can't combine both on the same mesh at the same tim.

Actors can also have props attached (like a spear attached to a rider's hand, or a rider attached to a horse's saddle), and those props are also actors with their own independent settings - so you can have e.g. an actor for a building, with one mesh and texture and player-colour; and then have a second actor with a different mesh and texture and with transparency instead, and attach the two together, so the final building object combines the two. So it should be possible to get the desired effect in most cases, and it doesn't add much complexity to common simple cases.

[Argalius]

That sounds very good. So if I understand it correctly units/buildings will have 4 textures, one with colours, one with player colour (black and white image I assume) another with transparency and the last a normal map (does 0AD use them or not? Or only in special cases?). Right?

[Mythos_Ruler]

That's a negative. Either/Both of the actors with player color and/or the actors with transparency can also have visual data (the texturing).

So, let's look at an actor file:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8" standalone="no" ?>
<actor version="1">

  <castshadow/>

  <group>
	<variant frequency="1" name="Base">
	  <animations>
		<animation file="quadraped/horse_idle_a.psa" name="Idle" speed="100"/>
		<animation file="quadraped/horse_idle_a.psa" name="Idle" speed="100"/>
		<animation file="quadraped/horse_attack_a.psa" name="Idle" speed="100"/>
		<animation file="quadraped/horse_attack_b.psa" name="Idle" speed="100"/>
		<animation file="quadraped/horse_gallop.psa" name="Run" speed="8"/>
		<animation file="quadraped/horse_walk.psa" name="Walk" speed="18"/>
		<animation file="quadraped/horse_attack_a.psa" name="melee" speed="150"/>
		<animation file="quadraped/horse_attack_b.psa" name="melee" speed="150"/>
	  </animations>
	  <mesh>skeletal/horse.pmd</mesh>
	  <props>
		<prop actor="units/romans/hero_marcellus_r.xml" attachpoint="rider"/>
	  </props>
	</variant>
  </group>

  <group>
	<variant frequency="1" name="horse-texture">
	  <texture>skeletal/horse_rome_marcellus.dds</texture>
	</variant>
  </group>

  <material>player_trans.xml</material>

</actor>

At the end you see:

<material>player_trans.xml</material>

That means this particular actor shows player colors with the alpha map channel of <texture>skeletal/horse_rome_marcellus.dds</texture> that texture. Now, the prop:

<props>

<prop actor="units/romans/hero_marcellus_r.xml" attachpoint="rider"/>

</props>

Might use a material designation like <material>basic_trans.xml</material> that will use the alpha channel of the prop's texture to show true transparency.

Now, since the base actor and the prop actors are two separate actors, we can then have 1 unit with both transparency and player color, both utilizing the alpha channels of their respective textures.

Hope that made sense. This type of system is very versatile, meaning you can have prop after prop after prop attached to each other, each with different properties, combined into one unit, building, or other object.

[WhiteTreePaladin]

In the October screenshot, the stair texture is similar to the one in BFME2. I mean that it is narrower at the back of each step to make it appear 3d. I would suggest maybe increasing the angle a little for a better effect as they look "slanted" at the moment.

-just a little "Argalian-like" comment.

[Black_Knight]

I've been tuned on your game's development since the beginning, I've just seen the newly released trailer and I liked it a lot. Keep it up. you're doing a grand job. Hope to see a demo soon.

[wayspooled]

Just don't make this AoE or AoK with different units, different time period, better graphics. Gameplay is the thing. Massive battles, Economy, Diplomacy. AoE was boring, boring, boring after couple mos. Take the best of what they had which were some things, and the best of Cossacks 1, which were battles and economy and multiplayer coop (vs player or AI or both) and don't forget to work out good AI for the units, independent AI, not just for "missions".

[Aigis]

ont hing i forgot to ask. Will there be a pop limit? i hope its not too low...

Like in all the age of games its 200... But in Supremem Commander its up to 1000 for all players combined. Which means on a 1vs1 each player can hvae 500 population, or one person has 750 and the other only 250 depending on whos faster. i think this would be great. And supreme commander rquires more computing power than i think 0ad will.

[feneur]

I think I've seen a similar answer to this question somewhere else, but I don't remember where so I'll say something here too.

While we're not aiming for many thousands of units we're sure going to try to have a significant amount, but as that will be depending on how much computing power the rest of the game will need we cannot give any estimates at the moment.

[Aigis]

ok

if u think about it... in age of series if there are 8 players at 200 pop each thats a total of 1600 units... sooo not too bad... just a lil bit of info!