Suggestions for 0 A.D.

[feneur]

It's more a suggestion for the game engine. Since it suppose to be able to be used for other games as well.

In many situations, maybe in 0 A.D. also, it would be handy to have teleportation ports/portals.

Mods may want to add fantasy stuff.

Or another game might want to do something that needs them.

Well, adding features is one thing if they're needed, adding them just because someone might need them one day is probably not a good idea (unless someone implements them just because he can like Philip did when he added support for flying units ). Generally though we're not going to add features unless they're needed. If someone needs it for a mod it's another thing though, either they'll be skilled enough to add it themselves or if it's quick and easy we might. It should probably not be too difficult to add I can imagine - I'm not a programmer so don't take my opinion on this matter too seriously - after all it's more or less what garrisoning does, only the units would reappear at a different spot. Either way, most likely not worth spending time on implementing unless someone definitely needs it

[oshron]

i think a "teleport" function would actually be a really good idea. it could work well for scenario design. suppose you make a large, relatively simplified map for an RPG-like setting. you move your heroes to, say, a roman fortress and select the fort to move everyone inside it. they are then instantaneously teleported to another part of the map, cut off from the rest, which simulates the inside of that building. it could also work for large-scale maps, such as one simulating the entire world. one thing that always annoyed me in other games where such maps were made was that there was no way to really FEEL like your on a planet since there are legitimate borders to the game's world. it was more like you were playing on a MAP of the world than an ACTUAL world.

basically, a teleport function would be good for specific units in a game and/or for any unit indiscriminately. in this way, you could simulate a round earth so that when your army gets to one side of the map, they instantly teleport to the opposite side (if this would make sense for the in-game story, of course) instead of literally having to march across the ENTIRE map to get from alaska to siberia

[Alpha of the Eagles]

Stargate SG1 mod?

I've been thinking the exact same for quite a while.

[Pedro Falcão]

Guys, i played the seventh alpha yesterday and i have some suggestions to implementations for you.

- Problem:

I've been observing the battle system and it seems too pre-determined. I mean: when you have some spearmen and the enemy have a proportional number of cavalry, you are pre-destined to win, even the "dumbiest" of the players.

- Suggestion:

The game above is Warcraft 3 ('Defense of the Ancients' map) from Blizzard. Look at the unit stats. The unit has a range of damage (from 39 to 53), not a fixed damage. And also the armor of the unit reduces by a percentage (Don't know if it's how 0 AD works or not, just pointing), and there are types of armor (Unarmored/Light/Medium/Heavy/Fortificated/Ethereal/Hero/Divine), some attacks may have bonus to X kind of armor (like siege engines against walls). Units also have basic attack's cooldown time that scales according to unit's agility nd unit's max hitpoints and hitpoints' regen scales according to the unit's strenght.

Other good stats could be Dodge, Parry and Block chances for war-trained units, melee units and shield-bearers respectively. For exotic agility-based units, i.e. persian immortals, we could add critical strike chance (an attack in certain points of the body that deals more damage than normal basic attack).

=======

And about the interaction player-unit, i'm having problems to know if the place i clicked on is the place the unit will walk to, i mean sometimes i click on the ground next to a fence and the unit attacks the fence, you guys are planning to have some sinalization to what location the unit is going, aren't you? I'd like to have it appearing the whole time.

[feneur]

Guys, i played the seventh alpha yesterday and i have some suggestions to implementations for you.

- Problem:

I've been observing the battle system and it seems too pre-determined. I mean: when you have some spearmen and the enemy have a proportional number of cavalry, you are pre-destined to win, even the "dumbiest" of the players.

- Suggestion:

The game above is Warcraft 3 ('Defense of the Ancients' map) from Blizzard. Look at the unit stats. The unit has a range of damage (from 39 to 53), not a fixed damage. And also the armor of the unit reduces by a percentage (Don't know if it's how 0 AD works or not, just pointing), and there are types of armor (Unarmored/Light/Medium/Heavy/Fortificated/Ethereal/Hero/Divine), some attacks may have bonus to X kind of armor (like siege engines against walls). Units also have basic attack's cooldown time that scales according to unit's agility nd unit's max hitpoints and hitpoints' regen scales according to the unit's strenght.

Other good stats could be Dodge, Parry and Block chances for war-trained units, melee units and shield-bearers respectively. For exotic agility-based units, i.e. persian immortals, we could add critical strike chance (an attack in certain points of the body that deals more damage than normal basic attack).

=======

And about the interaction player-unit, i'm having problems to know if the place i clicked on is the place the unit will walk to, i mean sometimes i click on the ground next to a fence and the unit attacks the fence, you guys are planning to have some sinalization to what location the unit is going, aren't you? I'd like to have it appearing the whole time.

The battle system is definitely not set in stone, and there have been thoughts on how to improve it. We'll see if it's something we'll spend time on for part one, but it's definitely something we'll look into later. One thing that at least has been a part of how we've thought about these things is that the outcome of a battle shouldn't be too random. In fact, it's been an intention to not have it be random at all. In the end we'll probably end up somewhere in-between, but if nothing else it's an illustration that there are people who want to have things be non-random and following strict rules as well

We do intend to add some kind of visual indication for where you've ordered your unit/units to go. That's only part of the problem you describe though. For determining if/when a player has clicked on something we use a bounding box (essentially a box around the entire object, if the mouse is above it the object will be affected - selected, attacked, etc depending on what you're doing) sometimes that means you can click quite far away from an object and still affect it. Hopefully we'll be able to find a way that's less prone to error, but we're currently prioritizing getting in the gameplay features, the things around so to speak will be our focus later. After all, if the game is no fun to play it doesn't matter as much if it's not as responsive etc. We will focus on these things later though, so don't despair

[L'ethu]

Currency and trade would be good for 0 A.D.

Edited September 18, 2011 by L'ethu

[fcxSanya]

Currency and trade would be good for 0 A.D.

About currency: we have metal, which considered as money among other things. About trade: 0 A.D. will have both resources exchange and trade caravans between markets. This is what you mean? Or you consider something else under currency and trade?

[Thorfinn the Shallow Minded]

It would be pretty nifty if you could actually change the hot-keys to your liking. I think that a revision like this would be great.

[JuliusColtranePille]

i just played a game using carthaginian war-elephants,

and i wondered if they do have a damage-aura (even when just attacking one enemy unit at a time, others surrounding the elephant will get damaged, though with decreased damage-points)?

if not this should maybe be implemented.

thx for listening

regards

[Pedro Falcão]

i just played a game using carthaginian war-elephants,

and i wondered if they do have a damage-aura (even when just attacking one enemy unit at a time, others surrounding the elephant will get damaged, though with decreased damage-points)?

if not this should maybe be implemented.

thx for listening

regards

I think it is the trample damage

[Vingauld]

Will we be able to unlock hats in 0ad?

[Mythos_Ruler]

I like the idea of bribing the AI player not to attack by sending it tribute. Perhaps have a simple formula with a small amount of randomization thrown in. What I mean is 1000 resources gets you roughly X minutes. Sometimes a bribe won't work at all. And sometimes the wait could be longer or shorter.

[Pedro Falcão]

Take it easy, boy! Altough i agree that all your suggestions are really exciting and some will even come into the game, the developers can't implement them all because of the time they have. The development of a game musn't endure much because of the loss of interest (and hope) from the fans and even for developers, so don't be too excited, some of these ideas may not come into the game.

But anyway, nice ideas.

[Pedro Falcão]

I just had an idea: Why not, in skirmishes, let the player pick the religion they want, each one with unique bonuses for the player? It would increase the player's freedom. Also i think the heroes are too "secondary", at least in skirmishes they could advance some levels, like the normal units, and choose which skill to learn...

[n8brate]

Maybe trading should be more important. Not that you just walk to something walk back and you have gold, no you should for example trade wood for food, food for gold and the otherway. This would be much realistic.

I agree

[El_Zorro_Loco]

Well, since you introduced the dynamic borders, it would be nice to not only have civic centers to start colonies, but also to build small camps on neutral ground. These could be used as outposts for either protecting strategic locations, to scout the area or to aggregate troops for an attack.

Benefits:

Cheaper

Adding flexibility

Faster building

In turn they should be much weaker than actual fortresses due to balancing issues.

[feneur]

Well, since you introduced the dynamic borders, it would be nice to not only have civic centers to start colonies, but also to build small camps on neutral ground. These could be used as outposts for either protecting strategic locations, to scout the area or to aggregate troops for an attack.

Benefits:

Cheaper

Adding flexibility

Faster building

In turn they should be much weaker than actual fortresses due to balancing issues.

That sounds pretty much like what we've got planned for the Romans: http://trac.wildfiregames.com/wiki/Civ%3A_Romans_PreImp#SPECIALSTRUCTURES

[JuliusColtranePille]

i think because 0 A.D. is now in such a beautiful state of progress,

with alpha 8 there should be some animated men around the siege equipment.

i think this was told a lot of times, but:

when you attack the siege equipment and finally defeat it only the men should be dead and you could capture the equipment with any foot-soldier (even champion-units)

would be a nice little feature which enhances the experience in my eyes.

best regards!

[asmartgoat]

i think because 0 A.D. is now in such a beautiful state of progress,

with alpha 8 there should be some animated men around the siege equipment.

i think this was told a lot of times, but:

when you attack the siege equipment and finally defeat it only the men should be dead and you could capture the equipment with any foot-soldier (even champion-units)

would be a nice little feature which enhances the experience in my eyes.

best regards!

This is an excellent idea, it should work as the towers do:

more units garrisoned = faster fire rate.

With the exception of it can't move without units, and has no 'owner', the owner is who has units inside, and when you fight it; you fight the garrisoned units.

[Thorfinn the Shallow Minded]

Also, is there any use to the Iberian monument structure?

[feneur]

Also, is there any use to the Iberian monument structure?

Not yet no.

[Aurora Paradox]

Seeing this game continue to take shape has made me nostalgic about the days when I played AOE II. I even got a copy of the game and started playing it again. I do have another suggestion.

Regarding the farms. Do you plan to incorporate an auto replant system like the one that was introduced in Age of Empires II: The Conquers expansion pack?

Edited October 13, 2011 by Aurora Paradox

[Mythos_Ruler]

Regarding the farms. Do you plan to incorporate an auto replant system like the one that was introduced in Age of Empires II: The Conquers expansion pack?

I think it's on the list of things we'd "like to have," but not necessary. Right now there really isn't much micro involved because farms have so much Food (2000, I think). Ideally, I'd like to add some kind of "diminishing returns" on the number of units gathering on a farm field (kinda like how there was diminishing returns for praying at a Greek temple in Age of Mythology). This would reward the player for building multiple farms instead of just 1 farm and assigning 20 units to gather from it. And then, yeah, add the reseeding queue. Since Farmsteads don't have garrisoning, we can use either the garrison panel in the Farmstead UI or the "training" row in the right panel. I'm thinking the initial cost of building a farm field could be in Wood, but "reseeding" cost could be in Food. Just some random thoughts.

[Pedro Falcão]

I think it's on the list of things we'd "like to have," but not necessary. Right now there really isn't much micro involved because farms have so much Food (2000, I think). Ideally, I'd like to add some kind of "diminishing returns" on the number of units gathering on a farm field (kinda like how there was diminishing returns for praying at a Greek temple in Age of Mythology). This would reward the player for building multiple farms instead of just 1 farm and assigning 20 units to gather from it. And then, yeah, add the reseeding queue. Since Farmsteads don't have garrisoning, we can use either the garrison panel in the Farmstead UI or the "training" row in the right panel. I'm thinking the initial cost of building a farm field could be in Wood, but "reseeding" cost could be in Food. Just some random thoughts.

This could be very handy to easy wood consumption, which was great, the last time i played the celts

[oshron]

I think it's on the list of things we'd "like to have," but not necessary. Right now there really isn't much micro involved because farms have so much Food (2000, I think). Ideally, I'd like to add some kind of "diminishing returns" on the number of units gathering on a farm field (kinda like how there was diminishing returns for praying at a Greek temple in Age of Mythology). This would reward the player for building multiple farms instead of just 1 farm and assigning 20 units to gather from it. And then, yeah, add the reseeding queue. Since Farmsteads don't have garrisoning, we can use either the garrison panel in the Farmstead UI or the "training" row in the right panel. I'm thinking the initial cost of building a farm field could be in Wood, but "reseeding" cost could be in Food. Just some random thoughts.

personally, i liked a thing they had in Empire Earth II that would work well for this. it was basically an looping queue where you could tell a building to continuously produce a group of units as long as you had the resources for it. perhaps farms could be given a reseed option right into the building (farm) itself in such a way that, if youre quick, you can tell the exhausted farm to replace itself with a new one. this is where the looping queue comes in: the farm would have the option to replace itself, and you could then click on the looping queue button (perhaps an infinity symbol) so that every time from then on that that particular farm is exhausted, it automatically replaces itself with a new foundation which, admittedly, must still be constructed by the farmers again in order to be used

i would also think that a looping queue would be one of the things that would be great for 0ad in particular since one of the biggest focuses in teh game is macromanagement; if you dont have to keep clicking on the button to replace the farms or train new units, thats time that you can spend elsewhere collecting resources or making a forward base or attacking your enemy