Suggestions for 0 A.D.

[DarcReaver]

Something along that line. Finetuning about how many peeps can join the boat trip could be determined by playtesting.

Edited May 30, 2015 by DarcReaver

[wowgetoffyourcellphone]

New built ships with "free" marines on board would be interesting. Do these marines cost pop? Can they be replaced when died? Can they leave the ship? Many questions.

Edited May 30, 2015 by wowgetoffyourcellphone

[DarcReaver]

New built ships with "free" marines on board would be interesting. Do these marines cost pop? Can they be replaced when died? Can they leave the ship? Many questions.

The idea that I had in mind was that ships cost food, wood, population and metal based on the units that are coming with them plus the cost of the ship, and then would serve as combat platforms aswell as transport ships. So the crew can enter/leave the ship, if you loose men in sea battles you can replace them with newly trained soldiers or mix them with other kind of troops, like archers or javelins for example. Training times would be pretty long for them (something like 50% of the time training the army on land would take + time for the ship itself).

So getting a ship early on is a really decisive aspect, and with fishing boats being garrisonable you could help defending your sea economy in case of harassment (fishing boats would need to be manned manually though with units trained on land). Players could decide between getting a ship raid going with "real ships" or try to secure their economy with "fisher militias", or come up with a sea force themselves later on. Alternatively, peeps can go ahead and raid the coast like pirates with using those combat ships to get harassment units towards the enemy resource gatherers. And since you cannot have many ships you've got to decide what to do and can't do everything. This makes scouting very important. "does my enemy go for early wood/food to get naval warfare going? is he going for land attacks? are there fishing boats somewhere? Is it worth trying to raid his eco with naval units?" and so on.

Question would be if those comabt ships would be trainable in age 1 or 2 though. Maybe there can be a regular military ship in age 1, and age 2 adds customization options (like another infantry type ship, or artillery upgrade options/trainable siege ships and so on). So there would be sea action in age 1, and age 2 would serve as a "real deal" for heavy naval battles opposed to skirmishes. Sort of like the jump from age 2 to 3 on land.

edit: this would work similar to common "tech rushes" in other RTS games - you invest your villagers into many different resources to get a technological advantage in form of having a superior unit that can be used in various ways. And if your opponent scouts you he can react to that by raiding you on land to delay the ship or make the plan fail, or or to buy time to get a naval force by himself in time. Makes scouting very rewarding for whoever does it.

Edited May 30, 2015 by DarcReaver

[RoekeloosNL]

Fishing boats are just that fishing. And tirimes are the ancient battleships not transport ships they had marinies on them and so sould it be ingame. Why would you want to put a x-amount of men on a small fishing boat to get shot to pieces in a sec when if you want to scout you can use a faster ship and stronger.

As long it is practical and based on real acounts then you can use fishing boats to use for early raids, But its a small boat so would be around 2/4 unit cap and you need alot of them for a affective raid s that would cost alot while when wait a little you can have a navy and transports for a assault.

There sould be 3/4 types of ships with there own purpuse.

Tiriems manned with mariniers and ofcource different types of ships with all there own purpuse.

Transport boats for beach assaults with no ram abillity.

Support ships Catupult/scorpions.

And all ships will have ofcourse some tech upgrades or ability upgrade,s.

Each ship sould have a own goal and with different styles every player can have there own way of how they use it.

[auron2401]

.....Triremes DID Serve as troop transport
See the battle of carthage.

Edited June 1, 2015 by auron2401

[Prodigal Son]

Triremes did serve as troop transport, but their capacity was not appropriate to their size and they almost always carried only their marines as extras, due to all those rowers and the thin design. Large expeditions would need real transport ships or huge numbers of warships.

My suggestion mixing all the ideas above is:

Village Phase:

Fishing Boat - just fishing, no combat, no point in micro-ing a very small transported size for those.

Merchant/Transport Ship - Can trade or ferry units, upgrades for more transport capacity on a following phase.

Bireme Class Warship - Can ram like all warships and board or skirmish depending on crew (or maybe civ dependent crew and role). Can land her starting marines, which makes space for loading extra units. Same with loses. Small crew, say 10 units, landing them could work for an early game raid.

Town Phase:

Trireme Class Warship - Same with Bireme, but bigger, faster, with a larger crew. Alternatively, Biremes could be boarding ships and Triremes missile ships, or the opposite, but none of the two seems historically correct.

City Phase:

Quinquireme Class Warship - Possibly less agile than the other warships, with the additional option for artillery crew, or perhaps by default an artillery ship.

*I think ramming and boarding were scrapped as features, I hope I'm wrong though. Especially boarding and ship capturing would be very interesting.

Edited May 31, 2015 by Prodigal Son

[wowgetoffyourcellphone]

I think boarding is okay to scrap. Ramming should stay in design--it would function very much like charging for land unit.

Transport--I think merchant ship takes place of "transport" ship in 0 A.D. There would not be much visual different between a merchant ship and transport ship at the time anyway.

Edited June 1, 2015 by wowgetoffyourcellphone

[Prodigal Son]

You're right, the merchant ship already functions as a transport, but I think it needs more cappacity, if not from the start, with a tech.

Boarding could be done with having the ships lock together (maybe with some hook "missile" animation, like in RAF:CAW Lion mentioned earlier) and have the capture points determined by marine numbers/strength, losing capture points during the action could also reduce the crew.

[cedian_0ad]

I'm new to this game, but I would love to see a map based on multiple countries/beginning of the South American people.

[DarcReaver]

You're right, the merchant ship already functions as a transport, but I think it needs more cappacity, if not from the start, with a tech.

Boarding could be done with having the ships lock together (maybe with some hook "missile" animation, like in RAF:CAW Lion mentioned earlier) and have the capture points determined by marine numbers/strength, losing capture points during the action could also reduce the crew.

Yes, that sysstem would work well enough, and would fit with the capture concept from 0 AD that you want to enforce.

[Ptolemy]

Has anyone played Battle For Middle Earth? Or just a total war game. I'd love to see cavalry charges actually have impact, and send people flying, with a majority of damage being done through the charge, especially for lancers. Would make for good hammer and anvil tactics. Similarly artillery and elephants should chuck people around.

[Ptolemy]

Another few of suggestions... I don't like how soldiers go around cutting down my unarmed women, Perhaps females and citizen soldiers under certain conditions could be captured and made into slaves to work for the enemy's economy, which you could then liberate back. Also in some cultures the women fought alongside the men, such as the Lusitanian Iberians, could they also be armed to fight temporarily? (maybe ian emergency abbility to quickly arm a large supporting force to fight alongside their men, to defend their lands.)

Roads, paths and causeways. That allow units to travel much faster. Good to link two markets together or two settlements which you want to move armies between (the best roads would be roman) If it's faster than cross country, your soldiers whilst in collumn will travel by the roads you've built and be much faster. Also if your citizens and caravans are taking a route regularly a path should start to form, which speeds up their movement a little

My final suggestion is that when the alarm bell rings, that when the females retreat to their homes and defenses, the men stop what they're doing (farming etc) pick up their weapons and attack the nearest enemies in your territory enmasse, and the survivors return to their work when the alarm is ended.

Edited June 5, 2015 by Ptolemy

[wowgetoffyourcellphone]

2 suggestion:

1. Ptolemy lighthouse should just lift black map from all the water. Should not actually lift all fog of war from the shorelines. My suggestion make more sense and not be so overpowered.

2. Rename "Persians" to Achaemenids. This make sense since other civ are Seleucids and Ptolemies. Ptolemies because can confuse between old and newer Egyptian empires otherwise. Achaemenids because the Persians had 2 major empires, the other being Sassanids. In Psrt 2 you would have 2 "Persians" civs, so good to differentiate now in Part 1 and also teach a little about the name.

Edited June 9, 2015 by wowgetoffyourcellphone

[gracian]

Maybe a bit off topic, but I don't want to spam mass topics in this forum. So I post here instead.

What about ship warfare? I've read some cool stuff in your wiki about ramming and entering ships in naval combat. I REALLY love that idea - I also loved naval combat in Rome II, which has ramming and entering possibilities, too.

If you look at age of empires, naval maps are pretty boring - just spam galleys all day long and hope you have more than your opponent.

The idea of ships being real "tactical" weapons with flanking and ramming is just awesome. I'd love to see something like that. As for implementation, I'd love to see no transport ships at all. Instead, all regular ships are spawned with a garrison, but are rather expensive.

For example you construct a Trireme, and it comes out armed with like ... idk 20 soldiers. When it's out the Trireme can be used to transport these troops to the shores to raid enemy villages. Additionally, you can later on build/upgrade them with ballistae, catapults and stuff like that (maybe even individually). Little fishing ships can be garrisoned with a few spear infantry units/archers to raid/capture/ram enemy fishing ships early on, creating a very unique dynamic on the sea.

As a drawback, most ships would be VERY expensive, take long to train and be rather slow. That way, loosing ships/microing/repairing them becomes very important. That would be something entirely new and very awesome.

seems perfect to me

woman can not build military buildings, but if you order infantryman to build it and stop him immediately , she will be able to do it for him from grounds. In some maps i saw wells, it would be great to boost farming around them

Edited June 13, 2015 by gracian

[wackyserious]

[ Stamina ]

- Units consume stamina when running or fighting/attacking.
- Lack of stamina results in reduced armor and damage, and ranged units switching to melee.
- Stamina only regenerates when unit is idle and can only restore 25% of the total unit stamina.
- Buildings with stamina regenerating auras like Farmsteads, houses and Civic centers that can fully restore stamina.


[ Loyalty and Experience ]

-Hero units have auras that deplete the experience points of nearby enemy units overtime whenever exposed to the aura.

-A unit exposed to the aura with with zero experience point will desert and join Gaia (To be explained in another topic below)

-A deserter/gaia unit will start with 5% experience points and to capture or recapture a deserter, a Hero unit must be present to deplete its 5% experience points
-A barracks technology called Military Discipline/Training with multiple tiers which gives experience to trained units (Ex. Lvl. 04 Military Training gives 75% experience to a trained unit) You must research this tech to counter units from deserting.

[ Capturing Buildings ] - via Health points or Experience points? Which is better?

- A building will slowly lose its hp or exp when there are enemy units around it, the more the enemy units are, the faster the building will lose its hp or exp.

- Having friendly units around the building will stop the enemy from reducing the building's hp or exp.
- Each unit garrisoned in a building will add a bonus hp or exp to the building.
- When a building's hp or exp reaches zero all garrisoned units will abandon it and the building will be awarded to the player.
- The building can also be awarded to Gaia first then the player must capture it again.

- A captured building will start with 50% hp or exp.

- A building's experience points automatically accumulates over time when there are no enemy units around it

- Keeping or destroying the building is up to the one who captured it.
- For game balance the "Destroy Unit Button" must be reworked because it instantly destroys a building. Change it to "Deconstruct Building Button" wherein a building will slowly deplete/reduce its health points until it destroys itself ..and the delete unit button to execute unit button.

[ Neutral/Gaia structures that automatically spawns units unless the building is destroyed. ]

-Units spawn one at a time at a set time interval.

1.) Animal habitats that automatically spawns animals.

Some ideas

-Rabbit holes (spawns up to 12 rabbits)
-Wolf den (spanws up to 9 wolves)
-Bear cave (spawns 1 bear)

or trigger-like structures that can be placed in atlas which are invisible in-game and spanws biome specific animals.

2.) Bandit or deserter encampments that automatically spawns units depending on culture of the encampment.

-Spanws 1 Champion unit (Bandit leader) 6 Archer/Slinger and 6 spearmen units.
-The area is filled with loots and treasures.
-Player units who desert due to lack of loyalty/experience will join Gaia and head to the nearest camp in the map (if available) If not, citizen-soldier deserters will construct deserter camps in neutral territories in the map.

Edited June 18, 2015 by wackyserious

[Lion.Kanzen]

2.) Bandit or deserter encampments that automatically spawns units depending on culture of the encampment.

-Spanws 1 Champion unit (Bandit leader) 6 Archer/Slinger and 6 spearmen units.

-The area is filled with loots and treasures.

-Player units who desert due to lack of loyalty/experience will join Gaia and head to the nearest camp in the map (if available) If not, citizen-soldier deserters will construct deserter camps in neutral territories in the map.

Player vs environment huh? Like treassure guardians / creepers (AOE III / Warcraft III)

[wackyserious]

Player vs environment huh? Like treassure guardians / creepers (AOE III / Warcraft III)

Yeah things like that which adds flavor and challenge to the game, also if you played Firefly studios' Stronghold 2 there is a similar neutral/hostile map structure there called the "Outlaw camp" which spawns unit that will harass player territories and return to their camp after destroying few structures. I saw a similar post here where you guys discussed something like this. Did the developers already agreed to this idea?

[Stan`]

I thibk you can already do it using triggers

[sanderd17]

Gallic fields implements something like a common/neutral enemy. Though it's still possible to fight each other normally.

[wackyserious]

Implement a Hide actor/entities toggle button in Atlas. So that editing the terrain underneath an object/prop would be much easier.

[historic_bruno]

Implement a Hide actor/entities toggle button in Atlas. So that editing the terrain underneath an object/prop would be much easier.

I like that idea! Need to pass it along to trompetin17, who is working on a variety of Atlas improvements.

[wackyserious]

Fog of war inside areas enclosed by walls.

(Quite the opposite of what the Ptolemaic Lighthouse does)

-This is how a siege works, the besieger has no idea what is happening inside unless a spy is present inside the settlement.

-Makes sallying as a possible strategy, an enemy will never know if you are planning to make a maneuver against them.

I suggested three days in a row. I hope that I am not causing any inconvenience to you guys, I'm sorry.

Edited June 23, 2015 by wackyserious

[auron2401]

By all means, keep the ideas coming.
The talent might read it, think it's a good idea, and implement it.3

Also, you can't annoy someone for posting new ideas every day ON A 152 PAGE LENGTH THREAD. XD
by all means, make it a 200 page length thread.

[JC (naval supremacist)]

hi all,

i m JC (best naval player so far ) . I have just a suggestion to make for Sparta civ as i notice that they have no longer a determinent strength.

Wouldnt it be a good idea to underline in 0ad what made Sparta unique in history ? --> best civilian soldiers . So suppress the champion units of sparta

and rather make every units of sparta something a bit stronger than other civ equivalent. This special feature could include more diversified game play

or at least, let the spartan champs ability to work

Edited July 7, 2015 by JC (naval supremacist)

[Lion.Kanzen]

hi all,

i m JC (best naval player so far ) . I have just a suggestion to make for Sparta civ as i notice that they have no longer a determinent strength.

Wouldnt it be a good idea to underline in 0ad what made Sparta unique in history ? --> best civilian soldiers . So suppress the champion units of sparta

and rather make every units of sparta something a bit stronger than other civ equivalent. This special feature could include more diversified game play

or at least, let the spartan champs ability to work

and how you will balance that? Edited July 8, 2015 by Lion.Kanzen