Suggestions for 0 A.D.

[Ykkrosh]

Does the mouse work better if you run with the environment variable SDL_VIDEO_X11_DGAMOUSE=0 (e.g. run "SDL_VIDEO_X11_DGAMOUSE=0 0ad" from a terminal)?

[satchitb]

Does the mouse work better if you run with the environment variable SDL_VIDEO_X11_DGAMOUSE=0 (e.g. run "SDL_VIDEO_X11_DGAMOUSE=0 0ad" from a terminal)?

Significantly better. What does that do?

[Ykkrosh]

It stops SDL (the library that handles input devices) from using its DGA mouse code, but I'm not quite sure what that is . Disabling it seems to make the mouse behave more like in standard X, which I think is what we want, so hopefully it doesn't introduce any new problems. r9819 makes the game disable DGA by default now.

[Mushroom_Lord]

Undoubtably this has been mentioned elsewhere: but - PLEASE add lower graphical options. My pc is 8 years old with the best graphics card possible for its motherboard

Sure, I need to update, but I think many others also have older machines and trying to play at such high resolution etc is not possible for everyone

[theShadow]

if you open up 0ad/binaries/data/config, there is a file called default.cfg. Open that up with a text editor and you can change all of the graphics settings, such as resolution, and siable various rendering effects, such as shadows and reflective water.

*that is where the file is on OSX, I'm not sure where it would be on linux or windows, but it's probably similar.

Edited July 16, 2011 by theShadow

[Pedro Falcão]

It doesn't make much sense for towers to fire more arrows when there are more melee units inside, where do the bows come from? And were the units trained at using bows? I think it would make more sense for the towers to have the ability to throw stones or oil at melee attackers (if oil was available at this time of history).

About the crowded ships, it wouldn't make much difference for the rowers, do you really know how heavy were those greek triremes seen in Troy, for a sample? Tons. The water makes the work for the rowers much easy, so it wouldn't change much.

About the rams, in AOE2, the Siege Rams full with soldiers had speed increase based on the speed of the units inside (if you put pikemen inside, for a sample, the Ram would move faster than if you put Longswordsmen), and i think it is easy to implement, isn't it?

[Onantschenk]

olá, vim aqui por algumas sugestões!

Adorei o trabalho de vocês, o jogo 0 A.D.

Queria dar algumas ideias sobre as Campanhas do jogo, tipo no menu de campanhas: como exemplo " As campanhas Persas " no menu da campanha Persa ou de outras civilizações do jogo poderia ser assim!

Essa época é 600 a.C.(Antes de Cristo)

Dividiria o mapa em província de camapanhas, como exemplo " Imperio Meda ou Persa atacaria a Sogdiana " e poderia aparecer uma animação de um soldado Persa Medo andando em direção da Sogdiana. Não vão confundir com Europe Universales!

[Onantschenk]

hello, came here for some suggestions!

I love your work, play A.D. 0

I wanted to give some ideas about the game's campaigns,campaigns like the menu: for example "The campaigns Persians" menu in the Persian campaign or other civilizations in the game could be!

This time is 600 BC (Before Christ)

Divide the map in the province of Campaign, as an example "MedaEmpire or the Persian attack Sogdiana" and could show an animation of a Persian soldier walking toward Fear of Sogdiana.Europe will not be confused with universal!

and another thing, the civilizations that are on the map are:

Chaldean Empire

Median Empire

Lydian Empire

Egyptian Empire

if I wrote something wrong because I'm from Brazil, my English is nota beauty!

[Pedro Falcão]

There's another thing you should consider to at least include it into the game's engine: manual balancing of unit power/speed/resistance.

To those who want to have a look at it, Warzone 2100 (old game, but a freeware) and Spore have this resource.

To better explain: think about your civ inventing something new, inventing a ship called "Trireme"! Oh, a revolution! Yeah, but what weight, power and speed must it have to beat our enemies? Choose your balancing ideal! Decide if you want the ship faster than the enemy (to scout, for instance), or tougher (to guard your harbor) or well ballanced (to compose your war fleet).

In Warzone 2100 you'll see the feature less... utopic... than in Spore, you just choose which pieces you want to use, you don't where the hell you'll put.

Warzone 2100 Beta 4:

http://www.wz2100.net/

Spore

http://www.spore.com/ftl

[Mythos_Ruler]

There's another thing you should consider to at least include it into the game's engine: manual balancing of unit power/speed/resistance.

To those who want to have a look at it, Warzone 2100 (old game, but a freeware) and Spore have this resource.

To better explain: think about your civ inventing something new, inventing a ship called "Trireme"! Oh, a revolution! Yeah, but what weight, power and speed must it have to beat our enemies? Choose your balancing ideal! Decide if you want the ship faster than the enemy (to scout, for instance), or tougher (to guard your harbor) or well ballanced (to compose your war fleet).

In Warzone 2100 you'll see the feature less... utopic... than in Spore, you just choose which pieces you want to use, you don't where the hell you'll put.

Warzone 2100 Beta 4:

http://www.wz2100.net/

Spore

http://www.spore.com/ftl

I really like the idea of customizing your armies, which is an idea I've had for some years now. However, I think it would add too much work for our game and constitute a rather large amount of feature-creep. My ideal RTS though has customization, as it is in my 'Age of the Aegean' game design.

[M-Kar]

Two things that I miss: Slaves and military logistics.

Slaves were important in ancient economy and common cause to start war in ancient times was the need for slaves. I really like to see enemy units to captured slaves and put work, while mine military units watches after them. Of course without adequate supervision, slaves may run away or attack.

Logistics were important in ancient warfare and female units can be used also for that. In ancient times army may made up of families.

These changes would require that the units would need some kind of maintenance and gameplay needs to be adjusted little more towards resource management and construction and supplylines requires larger maps. Construction of anything should take much longer (some projects takes decades to complete in ancient times!) that emphasizes the fact that the most important resource is manpower.

[ribez]

probably it was asked already: do you think to implement the day/night cycle to make the world more alive?

[feneur]

probably it was asked already: do you think to implement the day/night cycle to make the world more alive?

Probably not cycling between the two, the benefits aren't likely to outweigh the time it would take to implement/the complexity it would add, but you can make maps that are either night/day or any time in-between =)

[Thorfinn the Shallow Minded]

This is a suggestion on ship combat. When one garrisons units on a warship, he can select where to put them. One of the areas is with the rowers. While a unit is a rower, the ship gains more speed, stamina, and ramming attack. (Unless of course it is Iberian or Celtic.) Perhaps the basic units would be most well suited to this work or you could literally train rowers at the dock. The other area they could position themselves at is obviously on the deck. While positioned here, they would choose one of two positions. If they are an melee unit, they would stand on the outer parts of the deck, while if they are ranged, they stand on the inner regions. As for boarding, when such things happen, by default the offender's melee units advance to the side that is to be used for such a tactic. The archers will move to the opposite side firing for the most part on the swordsmen and spearmen. As the unit intelligence of the other ship realizes that it is about to be boarded, it would pull out the rowers for combat as it stations its troops in similar positions. When the sides meet, the hand-to-hand units participate in close-quarters combat while the archers discharge fusillades of arrows on the opposing sides. Once the units find a breach in a line, the unit boards the other ship and begins to cause a large amount of ruckus. I suppose that it all ends when one ship's defense is decimated.

[Prodigal Son]

What i'd love to see about sea combat, nomatter what way you end up doing with the crews, would be capturable ships. It was a frequent and important sea battle event and most games don't include it.

Even if no mobile crews exist, it could work with some special ability and a "ressistance left" bar like the stamina/xp bars. Or the same way buildings are captured when you impement it, the same mechanic could work i guess?

Another note on ships, will the trade ship just gather treasures in the final version or also trade between docks? The gather thing alone is kinda pointless imo.

[feneur]

Another note on ships, will the trade ship just gather treasures in the final version or also trade between docks? The gather thing alone is kinda pointless imo.

Yeah, it will do more than gather treasures, it's just to give it some purpose until trade is implemented

[Mythos_Ruler]

What i'd love to see about sea combat, nomatter what way you end up doing with the crews, would be capturable ships. It was a frequent and important sea battle event and most games don't include it.

We hope to include capturing in one form or another.

Even if no mobile crews exist, it could work with some special ability and a "ressistance left" bar like the stamina/xp bars. Or the same way buildings are captured when you impement it, the same mechanic could work i guess?

We plan to have a Loyalty or Fidelity feature for capturing buildings, female citizens, and livestock, so we might as well use the same system for ships. I think the original idea is to tally up the health, attack, and armour stats for the units garrisoned aboard each ship to determine which crew will come out victorious.

Another note on ships, will the trade ship just gather treasures in the final version or also trade between docks? The gather thing alone is kinda pointless imo.

Yeah, the treasure capturing thing was added to give Trade Ships something to do until trading is enabled. I think they'll keep their treasure gathering feature as a secondary function alongside their primary "trade" function.

[Prodigal Son]

Nice to see both things will be included. On capturing it could be partly random on if the losing ship sinks or gets captured, or maybe depending on the type of attack used against it.

[aldur]

a suggestion for displaying health:

would look nicer for single/few units, because it doesnt overlay units faces etc.... propably usefull if lost health is displayed in the "front segment" or the circle is rotationg..

the circle could pulse if health is (very) low...

Edited August 5, 2011 by aldur

[oshron]

Probably not cycling between the two, the benefits aren't likely to outweigh the time it would take to implement/the complexity it would add, but you can make maps that are either night/day or any time in-between =)

for specific scenarios, though, you could probably easily make a day-night cycle just for the purposes of that scenario, to get an idea of how much time passes or for a specific campaign (for example: the battle of thermopylae)

[satchitb]

Please let's not include rowers and things. That would involve WAY too much micromanagement, and a simple speed boost for an expendable ship would not justify training rowers anyway.

I'm still unhappy over Loyalty, and units jumping back and forth. It's theoretically possible for you to lose half your army in a single swoop, which will be devastating to a player who's already (presumably) losing.

[SMST]

To my knowledge, Loyalty only applies to buildings/structures (like siege engines and ships), not units. It is used as a way to determine whether a structure is "ripe for capture" or not. If Loyalty is low, the structure can be captured by enemy units.

----

Something completely different:

If promoted, Infantry units seem to be temporarily invulnerable (while playing their animation). Is this something intentional or will this be fixed in the future?

[Mythos_Ruler]

Something completely different:

If promoted, Infantry units seem to be temporarily invulnerable (while playing their animation). Is this something intentional or will this be fixed in the future?

Intentional. We wanted to show an animation when units got promoted, but to leave them vulnerable during this animation would reduce the benefit of promotion. However, the thing that should be changed is that they get 100% Health again when promoted. IMHO, they should only get the difference in Health between the two Ranks. So, if Rank A has 80/100 Health when promoted, and Rank B has a new max health of 120, there is a 20 health difference, so when promoted they get 20 Health back but not the full 100% health. They would start the next rank at 100/120, not 120/120.

[SMST]

I thought the HP values would already behave like you described them. If the invulnerability is intentional, then you could perhaps play the animation a bit faster, as the current duration is too long, IMHO.

Another thing I'd like to see is a way to "train" units, so that you don't have to rely entirely on combat to promote them. Maybe give the Barracks an aura, which makes CS units accumulate experience over time at a slow rate. (should be MUCH slower than experience gain through combat)

[NOXAS1]

I have an idea of a building for mercenary units in the other factions besides Carthage. How about a war tent or something of the sort? Or get them at the docks since some units are really far away from the country they work for?