Suggestions for 0 A.D.

[av93]

Maybe have been thougt already, in the skirmish configuration screen, an image added to the description would be pretty useful ( specially to random maps)

[fcxSanya]

also, sort of related, there should be a wilhelm scream somewhere in the game as a sound effect, just for the humor factor maybe it could go to hero #3 for each civ (if that hero is male)

<video>

There is a public domain file, which indeed can be used as an Easter egg, it is up to our artists though.

[Pedro Falcão]

" 6) Some buildings are really big. There's no need to be "real sized" (I also mean 99% the original size... uh)"

Good. I wish they were 1 to 1. I'm happy with how they are now but if they were real size that would be even better.

If you want to fight about this: time and place.

I agree, i prefer buildings larger

[FeXoR]

From my point of view I would like to see more "battle simulation" type of features implemented [...]

I totally agree!

Balancing should be watched at this stage to ensure high playability when hitting beta.

However, some things like 'allowed targets' can make a huge difference and are not implemented fully right now as far as I know.

Edited March 19, 2012 by FeXoR

[Gothic]

I'm not sure if the Theban Band(The first time I saw that unit, my heart jumped because I've never seen Thebes represented in any classical game I've played)special unit is in this game or not, but can you guys please bring it back in. Also, I suggest Epaminondas as a Hellenic Hero and Gaius Marius as a Roman hero. Also, are you guys in need of texturerers/modelers?

Edited March 19, 2012 by Gothic

[hhyloc]

" 6) Some buildings are really big. There's no need to be "real sized" (I also mean 99% the original size... uh)"

Good. I wish they were 1 to 1. I'm happy with how they are now but if they were real size that would be even better.

If you want to fight about this: time and place.

I can see a problem if the buildings were real size: they take more spaces, it mean the player will see less on a screen and have to scroll more to manage around his base.

[Mythos_Ruler]

I'm not sure if the Theban Band(The first time I saw that unit, my heart jumped because I've never seen Thebes represented in any classical game I've played)special unit is in this game or not, but can you guys please bring it back in. Also, I suggest Epaminondas as a Hellenic Hero and Gaius Marius as a Roman hero. Also, are you guys in need of texturerers/modelers?

Here they are next to some Thespian Black Cloaks.

[Pedro Falcão]

I can see a problem if the buildings were real size: they take more spaces, it mean the player will see less on a screen and have to scroll more to manage around his base.

zoom out

[fricus-mazighen]

i know that i've already asked this question but are you planning of adding special capacities to each type of units (trample for heavy cavalry , raid for light cavalry , eagle eye for skirmishers that kind of goodies ) ? would be great and i wanted to know on wich aspect of the game will you focus in the next alpha ?

[Gothic]

Here they are next to some Thespian Black Cloaks.

Yeah! I haven't seen them in the current version of 0 A.D(Although I've seen them in the map editor) so I was wondering. Are you guys considering adding Epaminondas though? It's kinda odd to not have Philip II's mentor not in the game yet have Xenophon.

[quantumstate]

zoom out

This sounds like a jokey answer, but i am never sure to what extent on the internet, so I will treat it as a more serious comment anyway.

Zooming out isn't a good solution because units get too small to identify and select easily, graphics performance degrades and most importantly it takes longer to walk anywhere making the game feel sluggish.

[Pedro Falcão]

I've already thought about all its repercussions, i was indeed joking, even though i really would like for buildings to be bigger.

[majapahit]

NEED MORE LOW YIELD ATTACK UNITS

• Banner Carrier (increase attack on limited area, increase speed during formation , etc)
• Drummer / Trumpet Carrier (Increase attack during formation, defense on limited area, etc)
• VIP (example: Caesar, etc can be used to collect resources, increase attack & speed on formation, increase civilian productivity on its surrounding, low damage on attack, must be protected )
• More Animals please: Attack dogs?

[quantumstate]

NEED MORE LOW YIELD ATTACK UNITS

• Banner Carrier (increase attack on limited area, increase speed during formation , etc)
• Drummer / Trumpet Carrier (Increase attack during formation, defense on limited area, etc)
• VIP (example: Caesar, etc can be used to collect resources, increase attack & speed on formation, increase civilian productivity on its surrounding, low damage on attack, must be protected )
• More Animals please: Attack dogs?

We already have attack dogs for the celts, they are trained from the kennel. Hero's should do similar stuff to what you mentioned but the aura bonuses aren't implemented yet.

[Mythos_Ruler]

Drummers, banner carriers, etc. could work, but only if we switch to a battalion system, which won't happen, at least for part 1.

[pawan]

Can we call the next alpha the Julius Maximus? just an idea!

[oshron]

actually, standard-bearers and drummers could work as morale-boosting units; you simply train them and they have a special aura that gives a morale boost to nearby allied units. you dont NEED to make a battalion system

[CarsontheSage]

Personally, I really like the battalion system, but I'm not sure it would work well with citizen soldiers. Maybe we could do it with super units though....

[Mythos_Ruler]

actually, standard-bearers and drummers could work as morale-boosting units; you simply train them and they have a special aura that gives a morale boost to nearby allied units. you dont NEED to make a battalion system

It would just be easier with battalions and that way the auxiliary units (noise makers, standard bearers, etc.) could boost that battalion, without the need for "auras." So, what you'd be doing is decking out individual battalions.

[MishFTW]

Can we call the next alpha the Julius Maximus? just an idea!

Here is the entire name suggestions thread.

[Marcello66]

Hello, I've only recently discovered 0 AD and I've got to say, i love it! Really feels like a trip back to the games I used to love when i was younger, but in a new and awesome way. Keep up the good work!

So i've been playing the alpha 9 release and I have a few comments and suggestions for the team. Keep in mind im new here, so i might not be aware that some idea might have already been thoroughly discussed or that some feature might already be on its way

- I feel like rotating buildings could be easier. The current system is fine, but often causes problems as you cant really move the building anymore after you've been rotating it! that is, when you're done rotating the building, it gets placed right there. What if, now that I've rotated the building to the direction I want it, I notice i also wanna move it a bit? I know this isn't a major issue, but somehow it makes the game feel less ... fluid? I think it would be nice, while you're placing a building, if you could for example hold down some key (Ctrl maybe?) and use the mouse wheel to rotate the building before you need to left click to place it.

- I dont know is it just me, but i can't seem to build walls at all! All i can get is poorly aligned blocks that hardly look like a wall. still, from what I gather, a new wall system is already on its way, so great

- The ground textures are great! Sometimes they kinda look like real photographs have been used as the base for some textures, which I'm curious about. Still, some (few) textures such as mediterranean dirt B look a bit ... too white? They remind me of overexposed photographs, and they kind of break the nice look of the ground. I mean, the ground can't be that shiny!

- The water looks great. I feel like ships should have some idle animations, like for example just sligtly swinging from side to side in the moving water. But that's probably already on its way. I also think some waves on the shores would be nice! I remember back in the day how great it looked when AoM featured waves on its coasts.

- Are there to be 6 civilizations, or will you add more?

- One thing I've never liked in strategy games is just how bare the soil looks once you've chopped down trees in an area. No matter how green and lush a grass texture is, land always tends to look really bare. Same happens to your towns. Im thinking of more eye candy: shrubs and bushes, tree stumps, shoreline animals like turtles and swans, fallen trees, rocks and what not. I'm aware that this might be detrimental to the performance of the game for many players, and there might be players who dont even care for all that eye candy anyway, so maybe there could be an option to turn eye candy on/off? All those little details would help the game feel more real.

- This kind of relates to my previous point as well, but have you thought of including neutral factions? Not full fledged factions of course, but just some inhabitants of the region that aren't affiliated with any player. You wouldn't necessarily even have to be able to interact with them (not saying no to that either though), because even just being able to SEE for example a little greek temple with a couple priests going about their business or a small encampment of huts with children running around and so on would make the region feel alive. Or maybe you could have neutral markets you could trade with, or neutral inns you could capture that would grant some mercenary troops depending on the map. I just think that the maps could have features that give the illusion of these places existing even beyond your attempt to destroy your opposing players. People live here, people who have nothing to do with your armies or towns!

- Love the idea of soldier citizens. That is perhaps the single idea I love the most in the whole game. Only one thing to point out: I think the "town center", or whatever it was called, should have a "town bell" function, which would essentially signal to all female citizens in that town center's area to take cover and garrison in the nearest garrisonable building. When I get attacked and I have to organize my troops for the defence, I find myself wishing my people would have the common sense of running away instead of carrying on gathering berries while a battle rages on right next to them

- Farms! Aside from how i think farms could use with a few eye-candy props, i think farms could either have infinite food or be automatically replanted when they run out of food. What sounds the best to me is that the farm structure itself wouldn't ever actually disappear (because in reality, farms dont just disappear), but it still CAN run out of food (it becomes an "exhausted farm") and when it does, you need to task a citizen to replant it. select a citizen and right click the exhausted farm. Replanting would of course cost some wood, so I'm not talking about gratis food for the rest of the game. I just don't like how the whole farm structure disappears entirely, when the whole harvest has been collected.

- Fish could respawn every now and then. In this historical period they didn't exactly have the problem of entirely exhausting the fish supplies of a region, so I don't think it should be happening in the game either. I know that infinite resources are bad for gameplay, but food is the most basic resource, I don't think that having a way of being able to collect food for however long you want would break gameplay. It also makes no sense for a region to run out of food entirely, if a game lasts a long time.

- I liked in AoE3 the treasures you had to fight for. Like the native americans imprisoned by criminals: you'd see the criminals laughing and messing around a fire in their camp, and you could choose to attack them to free their prisoner who'd join your cause. Im not saying it has to be units, but I think this type of treasure would be neat and add some depth to early gameplay.

- I read that units on walls will probably be pushed back to 0AD part II, but what about units on ships? Will they be a part of 0AD?

- Im also thinking of the possibility of an outpost function. Your main towns are built around the "town center" buildings. I'm thinking of the possibility of constructing a "military outpost center" kind of building that would extend your control over a smaller territory than town centers do, and not allow the construction of advanced structures (such as fortresses, stone walls, and for example hellenistic gymnasiums or theatres). These outposts would be cheap and quick to build and would serve the single purpose of gathering resources in an area or controlling a key area by simply gaining military control of it, rather than starting a new town there.

- A couple things about resource collection, it would be cool if the animation for carrying a huge block of stone would be different than the one for carrying wood. I noticed a bunch of workers carrying HUGE blocks of stone with two arms and i did not get the feeling those blocks were heavy at all. Carrying the blocks on their back and wobbling a bit under its weight while walking would look neat and certainly give you the feeling that these people really are working hard for you

- Siege units could have a couple humans a part of the unit. I'm talking of a purely visual matter now, I've never been able to work with magical wooden machines that move by themselves in the middle of the wilderness

- This might go a bit overboard in terms of how hard it might be to implement over the actual value of the idea, bu have you thought of a day/night cycle? It would certainly be very cool, but I do wonder even myself would it just look bad, suddenly making building construction times look really bad (waiting 60 seconds for a house to be ready isn't bad, but when you can actually see that those 60 seconds equalled to less than an hour in the day/night cycle, it might suddenly look bad, i dont know).

There! I know that's a huge list of suggestions, I hope no one will be shocked by it. I also want to say that these are all suggestions for DETAILS, and that the game overall is absolutely great!

[FeXoR]

Hello, I've only recently discovered 0 AD and I've got to say, i love it! Really feels like a trip back to the games I used to love when i was younger, but in a new and awesome way. Keep up the good work!

So i've been playing the alpha 9 release and I have a few comments and suggestions for the team. Keep in mind im new here, so i might not be aware that some idea might have already been thoroughly discussed or that some feature might already be on its way

- I feel like rotating buildings could be easier. The current system is fine, but often causes problems as you cant really move the building anymore after you've been rotating it! that is, when you're done rotating the building, it gets placed right there. What if, now that I've rotated the building to the direction I want it, I notice i also wanna move it a bit? I know this isn't a major issue, but somehow it makes the game feel less ... fluid? I think it would be nice, while you're placing a building, if you could for example hold down some key (Ctrl maybe?) and use the mouse wheel to rotate the building before you need to left click to place it.

- I dont know is it just me, but i can't seem to build walls at all! All i can get is poorly aligned blocks that hardly look like a wall. still, from what I gather, a new wall system is already on its way, so great

- The ground textures are great! Sometimes they kinda look like real photographs have been used as the base for some textures, which I'm curious about. Still, some (few) textures such as mediterranean dirt B look a bit ... too white? They remind me of overexposed photographs, and they kind of break the nice look of the ground. I mean, the ground can't be that shiny!

- The water looks great. I feel like ships should have some idle animations, like for example just sligtly swinging from side to side in the moving water. But that's probably already on its way. I also think some waves on the shores would be nice! I remember back in the day how great it looked when AoM featured waves on its coasts.

- Are there to be 6 civilizations, or will you add more?

- One thing I've never liked in strategy games is just how bare the soil looks once you've chopped down trees in an area. No matter how green and lush a grass texture is, land always tends to look really bare. Same happens to your towns. Im thinking of more eye candy: shrubs and bushes, tree stumps, shoreline animals like turtles and swans, fallen trees, rocks and what not. I'm aware that this might be detrimental to the performance of the game for many players, and there might be players who dont even care for all that eye candy anyway, so maybe there could be an option to turn eye candy on/off? All those little details would help the game feel more real.

- This kind of relates to my previous point as well, but have you thought of including neutral factions? Not full fledged factions of course, but just some inhabitants of the region that aren't affiliated with any player. You wouldn't necessarily even have to be able to interact with them (not saying no to that either though), because even just being able to SEE for example a little greek temple with a couple priests going about their business or a small encampment of huts with children running around and so on would make the region feel alive. Or maybe you could have neutral markets you could trade with, or neutral inns you could capture that would grant some mercenary troops depending on the map. I just think that the maps could have features that give the illusion of these places existing even beyond your attempt to destroy your opposing players. People live here, people who have nothing to do with your armies or towns!

- Love the idea of soldier citizens. That is perhaps the single idea I love the most in the whole game. Only one thing to point out: I think the "town center", or whatever it was called, should have a "town bell" function, which would essentially signal to all female citizens in that town center's area to take cover and garrison in the nearest garrisonable building. When I get attacked and I have to organize my troops for the defence, I find myself wishing my people would have the common sense of running away instead of carrying on gathering berries while a battle rages on right next to them

- Farms! Aside from how i think farms could use with a few eye-candy props, i think farms could either have infinite food or be automatically replanted when they run out of food. What sounds the best to me is that the farm structure itself wouldn't ever actually disappear (because in reality, farms dont just disappear), but it still CAN run out of food (it becomes an "exhausted farm") and when it does, you need to task a citizen to replant it. select a citizen and right click the exhausted farm. Replanting would of course cost some wood, so I'm not talking about gratis food for the rest of the game. I just don't like how the whole farm structure disappears entirely, when the whole harvest has been collected.

- Fish could respawn every now and then. In this historical period they didn't exactly have the problem of entirely exhausting the fish supplies of a region, so I don't think it should be happening in the game either. I know that infinite resources are bad for gameplay, but food is the most basic resource, I don't think that having a way of being able to collect food for however long you want would break gameplay. It also makes no sense for a region to run out of food entirely, if a game lasts a long time.

- I liked in AoE3 the treasures you had to fight for. Like the native americans imprisoned by criminals: you'd see the criminals laughing and messing around a fire in their camp, and you could choose to attack them to free their prisoner who'd join your cause. Im not saying it has to be units, but I think this type of treasure would be neat and add some depth to early gameplay.

- I read that units on walls will probably be pushed back to 0AD part II, but what about units on ships? Will they be a part of 0AD?

- Im also thinking of the possibility of an outpost function. Your main towns are built around the "town center" buildings. I'm thinking of the possibility of constructing a "military outpost center" kind of building that would extend your control over a smaller territory than town centers do, and not allow the construction of advanced structures (such as fortresses, stone walls, and for example hellenistic gymnasiums or theatres). These outposts would be cheap and quick to build and would serve the single purpose of gathering resources in an area or controlling a key area by simply gaining military control of it, rather than starting a new town there.

- A couple things about resource collection, it would be cool if the animation for carrying a huge block of stone would be different than the one for carrying wood. I noticed a bunch of workers carrying HUGE blocks of stone with two arms and i did not get the feeling those blocks were heavy at all. Carrying the blocks on their back and wobbling a bit under its weight while walking would look neat and certainly give you the feeling that these people really are working hard for you

- Siege units could have a couple humans a part of the unit. I'm talking of a purely visual matter now, I've never been able to work with magical wooden machines that move by themselves in the middle of the wilderness

- This might go a bit overboard in terms of how hard it might be to implement over the actual value of the idea, bu have you thought of a day/night cycle? It would certainly be very cool, but I do wonder even myself would it just look bad, suddenly making building construction times look really bad (waiting 60 seconds for a house to be ready isn't bad, but when you can actually see that those 60 seconds equalled to less than an hour in the day/night cycle, it might suddenly look bad, i dont know).

There! I know that's a huge list of suggestions, I hope no one will be shocked by it. I also want to say that these are all suggestions for DETAILS, and that the game overall is absolutely great!

- Rotating buildings in-game: Fixed. After selecting a bunch of units that can build and clicked a build button the building is attached to the cursor. When holding down the left mouse button the buildings location is fixed and and it can be rotated with the mouse. If you right-click in any part of this action the placement is canceled.

- Wall placement: It's on it's way:

- Textures: Yes, I think some textures are not fitting well. Don't know what the art department thinks about that though. BTW: Real ground/stones can be quite shiny white:

http://mkeamy.typepa...6327c970c-800wi

http://www.ithakabou...Cliff-Beach.jpg

http://images.volcan...milos_g6685.jpg

http://static.design...fs-of-dover.jpg

http://images.world6..._do_galleryfull

- Water shore wave animation/Ship idle animation: AFAIK both in discussion (not sure though)

- Civilizations: AFAIK 6 civilizations are planed for 0AD Part 1, those already in the game. For part 2 others are planned.

- Waste land: There are many stuff available for decoration. The usage depends mainly on the designer map designer. Feel free to design maps with tons of decorative stuff

- Neutral faction: There is one: Gaia. She attacks everyone else (wild animals are an example). If you start a scenario with a player unassigned all it's units/structures are given to her and they'll attack everyone coming near. I don't know how far and when an AI is in discussion for her.

- Town bell: Hot discussions about this are burning here.

- Farms: Auto rebuild is in discussion. No idea concerning the model. Further info in the next post by wraitii.

- Fish: See the next post by wraitii.

- Treasures: Treasure are available too. The units as treasure are not planed as far as I know but 'capturing'/converting units and/or buildings is planned AFAIK.

- Outposts: There are some buildings that can be placed anywhere on the map (not on cliffs/water ofc.). The outpost/watchtower (mainly to get visual on the surroundings) and the roman army camp for defensive/siege purpose. Further info in the next post by wraitii.

- Carrying stone: Visuals, visuals, visuals... I don't get it. Well, I'd say the artists/animators are heavily on it doing a great job. Adding different animations for everything is time consuming. But if you can inspire them...

- Siege units: I totally agree. Don't know if it's planned though.

- Day/night cycle: If it's to fast it's annoying, if it's to slow it's a bit unreal as you said. I don't think it's worth it.

Edited April 19, 2012 by FeXoR

[wraitii]

AFAIK, units on ships are already "in", but I'm not sure the graphics are handled. It might only work with archers, too.

I think waves/more ship animations are part of what the team wants to do ultimately, but it's not top priority.

More eye candy stuffs right now is possible, but laggy because the game is not nearly optimized enough.

Farms are intended to be overhauled for alpha 11 (not the next one), being infinite, with only 5 workers at most on one farm at a time, and diminishing returns for each worker. Also: bonus if the farm is built on "arable" land.

I'm fairly sure fishes are intended to deplete ultimately. I think it was discussed... And if I recall correctly, already in ancient times overfishing was a problem.

Your "outpost" idea kind of defeats the interest of territory, which is to have to build big buildings to expend, I think.

[Mythos_Ruler]

in older system runs perfect my newest machine not run good this game

What do you mean by this? Can you go into a little more detail?

[Marcello66]

- Rotating buildings in-game: Fixed. After selecting a bunch of units that can build and clicked a build button the building is attached to the cursor. When holding down the left mouse button the buildings location is fixed and and it can be rotated with the mouse. If you right-click in any part of this action the placement is canceled.

- Wall placement: It's on it's way:

- Textures: Yes, I think some textures are not fitting well. Don't know what the art department thinks about that though. BTW: Real ground/stones can be quite shiny white:

http://mkeamy.typepa...6327c970c-800wi

http://www.ithakabou...Cliff-Beach.jpg

http://images.volcan...milos_g6685.jpg

http://static.design...fs-of-dover.jpg

http://images.world6..._do_galleryfull

- Water shore wave animation/Ship idle animation: AFAIK both in discussion (not sure though)

- Civilizations: AFAIK 6 civilizations are planed for 0AD Part 1, those already in the game. For part 2 others are planned.

- Waste land: There are many stuff available for decoration. The usage depends mainly on the designer map designer. Feel free to design maps with tons of decorative stuff

- Neutral faction: There is one: Gaia. She attacks everyone else (wild animals are an example). If you start a scenario with a player unassigned all it's units/structures are given to her and they'll attack everyone coming near. I don't know how far and when an AI is in discussion for her.

- Town bell: Hot discussions about this are burning here.

- Farms: Auto rebuild is in discussion. No idea concerning the model. Further info in the next post by wraitii.

- Fish: See the next post by wraitii.

- Treasures: Treasure are available too. The units as treasure are not planed as far as I know but 'capturing'/converting units and/or buildings is planned AFAIK.

- Outposts: There are some buildings that can be placed anywhere on the map (not on cliffs/water ofc.). The outpost/watchtower (mainly to get visual on the surroundings) and the roman army camp for defensive/siege purpose. Further info in the next post by wraitii.

- Carrying stone: Visuals, visuals, visuals... I don't get it. Well, I'd say the artists/animators are heavily on it doing a great job. Adding different animations for everything is time consuming. But if you can inspire them...

- Siege units: I totally agree. Don't know if it's planned though.

- Day/night cycle: If it's to fast it's annoying, if it's to slow it's a bit unreal as you said. I don't think it's worth it.

Ah, thanks both to you and to wraithii for your replies! Yes, I see your point about outposts and fish. I also don't really support my day/night cycle idea anymore myself either though I'd still like to see a town bell and overhauled farms.

And yes, only AFTER my original post i noticed that the Atlas world editor is full of cool props and decorative features for maps. So no problem.

Further to what Lion Kanzen is saying, is this game very intensive on hard drives? Is it not very well optimized yet? I haven't tried it on my desktop pc, but on my gaming laptop I'm having problems with it ... Further into the game, it starts lagging ... but it's not about FPS, that's fine and smooth, it's just the whole game that works as if someone was constantly pressing play/pause/play/pause/play/pause/play can't explain better than that ... I've been doing some troubleshooting and I know for sure that my GPU handles the game with no problem and it would seem to be the same for my CPU (CPU usage of the game peaks at 30%, havent looked at individual cores though). My HDD's disk transfer rate keeps reaching huge sudden peaks at a 100% though, so I have no idea what's going on. The problem is worse on water maps, worse the more AIs are on the map, and worse with the better AIs like qBot (as opposed to demobot).

Any ideas? Can post my hardware and OS info if that helps.