Suggestions for 0 A.D.

[Servo]

After so many single player games and watching some multiplayer games on YouTube it seemed like the game has less depth but very much fun IMO. Even if it has less depth, a team multiplayer game is enjoyable to watch than 1v1. But I have higher hopes on some mods like DE. 

Why I say less depth because it's becoming less strategic. Only easy gather resources, easy tech and easy build armies then battle. 

Its not that I don't like citizen-soldier but they should be possible only later in the game when expansion is available that you will use every possible means to plan or defend invasion. I rather have trained builders, farmers, lumberjacks,   Hunters , foragers and miners with more resistance to raids but less attack. These are the logistics that should be in place throughout the game in order to survive. 

Armies just for battle until techs allowed them to build military buildings and fortifications. They might gather resources but in very less effectivity. They should be a little harder to acquire than the present and must cost all the resources even a possibility of monetary cost. I wonder how a unit won't cost you metal even if they are armored...you might have paid for armor upgrade techs but still a unit that uses metal should be acquired requiring metal. 

I will be looking forward if there would be any game or mod that would make every possible unit/s useful, not just very dispensable and very valuable from the beginning until the middle game when micromanagement is still ably done.

I would love to see more skirmish actions of the original/beginning army unit composition. These are the skirmishes of future champions or Hero. 

Future Hero(military/economic/scientific) or champions can be trained in the CC to create civilization bonuses but in very expensive way.

Foot soldiers can only be trained in a barracks only in big batches(I don't mind they fight in battalions). Only possible champions (corresponding to unit available types) can be trained in the CC early on(at very expensive cost)that can give aura to battalion unit it commands if they have acquired abilities. 

It seems like A22 is coming very soon! Can't wait to see how much positive changes it brings! I hope that when you download it the existing mods are included too in just a very simple and easy way. Whoa I'm asking for too much but no contribution at all! I hope I can help but my head/body is pretty banged up already that it's very hard to go back to school.

 

[Grugnas]

On 27/5/2017 at 6:10 PM, borg- said:

About the silhouette of the units, we know that it is possible to activate them through the options.

But why not also expand to gaia?

That would be something like the images I put down, animals (white), shrubs (green), stone (white), metal (golden).

Especially small animals are a problem when they are in the trees, you waste a lot of time looking for them, I think this suggestion is valid and in great need.

I also think it should be optional as well as for units.

This could be really useful, even showing  building profiles hidden among the trees for an easier selection.

Another useful thing to have is to being able command units to move on a resources occupied tile without let the citizen soldiers gather.

Sometimes there is the need to defend the civic center or to move in a forest for a strategic deployment, but, on click, citizen soldiers will try to gather resources making the maneuver a bit nasty. This also apply for cavalry which will try to destroy grainfields on click.

[Wildcat26]

Worker Commands

Managing your economy in 0 A.D. is currently highly point-and-click based. An enhancement could be to send commands directly to workers, such as a garrison action button for the selected worker that sends them to the nearest building. Some actions I think would be useful, and which could have hotkeys for additional efficiency are the following:

• Garrison -- Garrison the unit in the nearest building.
• Gather -- The following actions would be contingent on nearby discovered resources:
  • Wood -- Send the worker to chop nearby wood.
  • Stone -- Send the worker to mine nearby stone.
  • Metal -- Send the worker to mine nearby metal.

This could significantly change the economic dynamics particularly in the early game and could be a setting to be enabled/disabled. 

@elexis and I discussed an earlier version of this idea in #4672 and he mentioned @mimo and @fatherbushido may provide some patch input.

Edited July 10, 2017 by Wildcat26
Deposit Resources can already be done with "Y"

[smartalec]

I'm very happy that 0AD is progressing so nicely. One comment, take it for what you will:

I played through the tutorial last night, and I can't remember the exact wording, but it was along these lines: "Females are weak and slow." Is that really how you want to start a game in the 21st Century? I realize the game doesn't take place in the 21st Century, but come on. You're pretty much insulting half of your potential audience in the first five minutes of the tutorial. 

[Lion.Kanzen]

2 minutes ago, smartalec said:

I'm very happy that 0AD is progressing so nicely. One comment, take it for what you will:

I played through the tutorial last night, and I can't remember the exact wording, but it was along these lines: "Females are weak and slow." Is that really how you want to start a game in the 21st Century? I realize the game doesn't take place in the 21st Century, but come on. You're pretty much insulting half of your potential audience in the first five minutes of the tutorial. 

Women can down a siege units(Velites have hard time trying)  and gather food better than men

[sphyrth]

17 hours ago, smartalec said:

.."Females are weak and slow." ...You're pretty much insulting half of your potential audience in the first five minutes of the tutorial. 

Why should they be offended? While we wait for your response, I had a similar thought to yours:
"Women are willing recruit themselves in a war for 50 slabs of meat?! And on top of that, you make them work to get you the same food you recruited them with... and more?!"

If that happened to me in real life, I would definitely be offended.

Edited August 8, 2017 by sphyrth

[WhiteTreePaladin]

We should probably reword that in a more positive way. Something more like they only cost food not wood so they are a great way to get your economy going early on in the game. (The lack of wood cost frees up that resource for constructing buildings.) Would also mention that they excel at food gathering.

[Lion.Kanzen]

If you were a  citizen  soldier like an Skirmisher and you found an enemy Mauryan Maiden...

or found Boudicca....

in 0 A.D there are strong women.

Edited August 8, 2017 by Lion.Kanzen

[fatherbushido]

Hint:

Encouraging people to make war and to kill opponents (all - if you want the conquest victory) is not something which should be encouraged at the start of 21st century, isn't it?

 

[av93]

18 hours ago, smartalec said:

I'm very happy that 0AD is progressing so nicely. One comment, take it for what you will:

I played through the tutorial last night, and I can't remember the exact wording, but it was along these lines: "Females are weak and slow." Is that really how you want to start a game in the 21st Century? I realize the game doesn't take place in the 21st Century, but come on. You're pretty much insulting half of your potential audience in the first five minutes of the tutorial. 

Can be reworded like this: female worker unit it.s slow, unarmoured and have low hitpoints...

[Lion.Kanzen]

Spoiler

 

Unless you are looking for this.

 

[Lion.Kanzen]

I suggestion from Facebook 

Quote

Can be nice have or add a  garrison flag in the ships. This way that means the ship are transported units.

 

 

[Nescio]

In the “Mod Selection”, the “(Folder)” and “Mod Label” are impossible to read, being dark grey and dark green on a dark grey background. Could these be changed to brighter colours, e.g. yellow (#FFFF00) or green (#00FF00)?

[temple]

On 5/20/2017 at 3:22 PM, borg- said:

5- What I'm going to put here seems to be something of no value, but I missed it a few days ago, and I'll expatiate because.

As you can see in the picture, most games have an indicator of where your unit will move, after your click, at 0 a.d we do not have this, I never felt lacking to be honest, but days ago I was having problems in my Mouse, right click, then sometimes it ended up not clicking, so I got lost several times, (there were not few) because I thought I had clicked and had not, as we do not have the indicator I had no way to know. I relied on the audio, okay is a good indicator, but have you stopped to think about possible deaf users? I think an indicator would really be very useful, especially for users with possible hearing problems.

 

This is now in the game (rP20071). Stan did a nice job.

[Lion.Kanzen]

At last. Congrats @stanislas69

[Servo]

Nice. I hope flaring/signaling teammates is next. 

[The Great Caesar]

I know this is a pretty hefty topic (134 pages!) but I'd like to toss my five cents worth in. I haven't read all 134 pages, so some of these may have already been suggested. Apologies and thanks in advance.

1) Child units

My idea is that child units spawn randomly, say, for every male and female. They wouldn't be able to work or fight or anything (other than for the Spartans) but would instead provide a morale boost to nearby units, kind of like the female citizen aura.

2) Morale meter

The morale meter influences the amount of damage etc a unit has, and seeing other units dying lowers the morale meter. When it reaches 0, the unit panicks and deserts, becoming a Gaia unit. Children and Women would provide morale bonuses, as well as high HP and decent pay.

3) Currency

Each unit pays a certain amount of civ specific currency every say ten minutes or so, and the amount of currency a civ has is determined by their resource intake. Each resource would have a value. Say the Romans have 7450 wood, they would then have a few thousand denarii. Trade tariffs could also play a part. Mercenaries would also be hired with civ currency, and desert if they aren't paid on time.

4) Revolts

If the economy is terrible and general morale is low, citizens will revolt against you (turning to Gaia). There will of course be a loyalist faction made up of those with higher morale, but for every revolt, the chance of another increases. 

5) Food

Give food a purpose. Look at Glest for example. Each unit in Glest uses up a specific amount of food, and when food is low, they start dying. A famine would lead to low morale which would in turn lead to a revolt. Soldiers would use up more food than others.

6) City life

Make general city life more interesting. Maybe even random events (like in Total War: Rome or Europa Universalis) i.e a religious festival (increasing morale) or a military parade.

7) Farmer units

Argicultural specific units. 50% chance of a male or female farmer unit being spawned. They'd have a boost when farming but be horrible at everything else. Maybe even child farmers.

8) Slaves

This has probably been mentioned a ton of times before, but have the option of when a unit's morale is 0, they either become Gaia units or become slaves for the attacking civ. A Slaver unit could be added for this purpose. A new building like a slave market or something could be added too. And maybe even a slave sale event and slave revolts.

9) AI banter

When playing a game against the AI, it would say things depending on specific factors like whether or not it is winning. If winning, it'll generally trashmouth you but if losing, it'll beg for mercy and such.

10) Bandits

AI bandits that spawn from a small bandit camp. Bandit heroes could even be added to. Bandits would raid trading routes and smaller settlements, but are weak compared to citizen soldiers. Their strength would be numbers and maneuverability.

11) Named units.

Generate random names for units. Like for example, a Roman Hastati would spawn with the name "Gaius Lucius". Names of course would be civ specific, wouldn't like to see a Mauryan with a Roman name...

12) Mounted units follow the road...and an option to build one.

Worker units (like Auxiliaries for the Romans, for example) would be able to build roads connecting settlements. When mounted units are moving, there can be an option for them to only follow the road, giving them a speed boost. The Gauls and Romans would have stronger roads than others, however (I think it's the Gauls who had strong roads as well, or was it the Britons?)

13) Splinter fations and civil war.

This includes the option of assigning an AI commander to manage a settlement for you, so you don't have to worry about it. If you don't support an AI governor enough, or if their morale drops severely, they may splinter off and declare war on you. They could also join forces with an enemy.

14) More heroes.

Self explanatory.

15) More other/ things for Atlas.

In some maps, you can find campfires and other cool looking things, but sadly they aren't in the Atlas map editor (at least, I can't find them). 

16) Day/night cycle

Might be a bit too much, but a day/night cycle would look good. Skirmishers could have a stealth bonus when the sun's down.

17) Unit stealth

Units could have stealth bonuses, i.e. Skirmishers hiding amongst threes, Swordsmen hiding in the tall grass etc. Armour would also play a part, heavy units have less chance of sneaking than ligher units.

18) A more specific alert.

The alert should only have non-combatants to flee. It annoys me sometimes. The alert should also rally your troops together (regrouping at the civ centre where you sounded the alert) before attacking the invaders.

19) Enemy city gates.

Could the enemy lock their gates? It's more an asthetic thing for me.

20) Enemies siege walled settlements

If you have a walled settlement, the AI plans accordingly and lays siege.

-TheGreatCaesar

Edited September 2, 2017 by The Great Caesar

[Sundiata]

I like these: 

Spoiler

27 minutes ago, The Great Caesar said:

6) City life

Make general city life more interesting. Maybe even random events (like in Total War: Rome or Europa Universalis) i.e a religious festival (increasing morale) or a military parade.

0AD's towns need to come to life with random animations and triggered events

 

28 minutes ago, The Great Caesar said:

7) Farmer units

Argicultural specific units. 50% chance of a male or female farmer unit being spawned. They'd have a boost when farming but be horrible at everything else. Maybe even child farmers.

I think basic worker/farmer units should be 50% male/female. Citizen soldier is fine, but dedicated farmers that aren't 100% female is better.

 

28 minutes ago, The Great Caesar said:

9) AI banter

When playing a game against the AI, it would say things depending on specific factors like whether or not it is winning. If winning, it'll generally trashmouth you but if losing, it'll beg for mercy and such.

Would really love that! And there should be plenty of variation.

 

28 minutes ago, The Great Caesar said:

10) Bandits

AI bandits that spawn from a small bandit camp. Bandit heroes could even be added to. Bandits would raid trading routes and smaller settlements, but are weak compared to citizen soldiers. Their strength would be numbers and maneuverability.

Similar to the minciv concept, which is a more developed idea.

 

29 minutes ago, The Great Caesar said:

13) Splinter fations and civil war.

This includes the option of assigning an AI commander to manage a settlement for you, so you don't have to worry about it. If you don't support an AI governor enough, or if their morale drops severely, they may splinter off and declare war on you. They could also join forces with an enemy.

 

Assigning a settlement/CC to an AI commander/governor would be soooo cool!!! Dramatic population cap increase, combined with the risk of treason or revolt (switching to an enemy, or declaring independence, becoming a whole new faction, mid-game!). 

 

I believe some adaptations/variations of some of these ideas would start putting 0AD in a whole new league.

 

 

 

 

[wowgetoffyourcellphone]

Nice post TGC.

3 hours ago, The Great Caesar said:

1) Child units

Suggested before, shot down.

 

3 hours ago, The Great Caesar said:

2) Morale meter

This could work if there were battalions. I like the higher pay option. Could have the option of setting an amount of pay for your troops that drains metal or coin resource every X seconds or minutes. In turn, this increases morale, stamina, attack, etc. Maybe if they're paid well, they capture more loot. Too intricate for the mosh pit style gameplay though.

 

3 hours ago, The Great Caesar said:

3) Currency

I once proposed a Coin resource that you get by taxing the market, through trade, selling resources, and a few other means. Some units, like Champions, cost Coin. Could use Coin/Currency for the Morale idea too, as described above.

 

3 hours ago, The Great Caesar said:

4) Revolts

Better for campaigns, IMHO. Could work for a strategic campaign, aka conquer the world style.

 

3 hours ago, The Great Caesar said:

5) Food

Food could be one of those things that slowly drains as long as a unit exists, I agree. The current game can already do this, but when the stockpile reached 0 it just goes into negative territory and you get funny things happening. But yeah, I'd like to see the possibility of this, and once the food stockpile reaches 0 your units slowly lose health. This creates the possibility of scenarios where you can starve out a turtling player.

 

3 hours ago, The Great Caesar said:

6) City life

Not so sure random stuff is good for matches, maybe for a strategic campaign as mentioned above. I like the possibility of Festivals or Parades. I think they can be like god powers or rechargeable abilities that you research at the Temple or Civic Center.

 

3 hours ago, The Great Caesar said:

7) Farmer units

Argicultural specific units. 50% chance of a male or female farmer unit being spawned. They'd have a boost when farming but be horrible at everything else. Maybe even child farmers.

8) Slaves

This has probably been mentioned a ton of times before, but have the option of when a unit's morale is 0, they either become Gaia units or become slaves for the attacking civ. A Slaver unit could be added for this purpose. A new building like a slave market or something could be added too. And maybe even a slave sale event and slave revolts.

Instead of a Farmer/Slave split of units, can have Citizens and Slaves. Citizens are the ones with an inspiration aura (Citizens are the slave owners after all), while Slaves are the ones who are good at resourcing. Citizens are trained from the Civic Center, while Slaves are trained from the resource buildings. The Market building can have some slave-specific techs. Slaves can cost a small amount of Coin and are capturable. Ringing the Alarm Bell at the Storehouse or Farmstead makes the nearby Slaves hide inside, while Citizens deposit their resources and switch to Citizen-Soldiers/militia.

 

3 hours ago, The Great Caesar said:

9) AI banter

Oh yes, I want this very very much. Also, would be nice if AI had "personalities" chosen based on the AI name. For instance, if you're fighting against a Roman AI with the name Cassius Longinus, then that AI player has a trash-talk script/style and a defined play style.

 

3 hours ago, The Great Caesar said:

10) Bandits

Yeah, map creeps, spawned, max number alive, from a source, like a Tavern or Camp until its destroyed. Just a unit-spawning feature would be nice in general for a lot of things.

 

4 hours ago, The Great Caesar said:

11) Named units.

Would be cool to have a casualty list at the end of the match too. lol

 

4 hours ago, The Great Caesar said:

12) Mounted units follow the road...and an option to build one.

Roads can be easily implemented. Making units use them is more difficult.

 

4 hours ago, The Great Caesar said:

13) Splinter fations and civil war.

Best left for a strategic campaign.

 

4 hours ago, The Great Caesar said:

14) More heroes.

For matches or for Atlas/scenarios? If anything I was entertaining the idea of getting rid of named heroes and having units like Bannermen and Noisemakers that take their role, then moving Heroes to Atlas for scenarios.

 

4 hours ago, The Great Caesar said:

17) Unit stealth

Let me expand on this. Have "grove" objects, which are stands of trees representing forests. I have these in Delenda Est. Then allow some civs' units to "garrison" inside these as a hiding/stealth/ambush measure. All of this works much better with a battalion system in place.

 

 

[ValodiaDeSeynes]

 

I'll bounce back off some of TheGreatCaesar's suggestions and add some
 

Quote

 

4) Revolts

If the economy is terrible and general morale is low, citizens will revolt against you (turning to Gaia). There will of course be a loyalist faction made up of those with higher morale, but for every revolt, the chance of another increases. 

 

Revolts and I would also add natural disasters - those might not be shown directly but a text box could pop up and say "A tornado appeared and ravaged your crops"  followed by a sudden drop in resources and maybe the deaths of some units. Revolts & disasters should be optional however because they could be annoying and even unfair in some situations.

Quote

6) City life

Make general city life more interesting. Maybe even random events (like in Total War: Rome or Europa Universalis) i.e a religious festival (increasing morale) or a military parade.

That could be great but I don't know how hard it would be to implement. In the meantime, having more building types would be a good start. At the moment, the choices are rather limited and it soon becomes generic between your cities, there isn't much difference.

Now here are some more suggestions:

• Treaties: Allow players to write up treaties between themselves (maybe in a non-binding way gameplay-wise) to cement their alliances or to control their opposing interests. For example, between two enemies, a treaty could be drawn to make a demilitarized zone in which only non combatant units could go. If a military unit goes there, the other player is notified and the treaty is revoked.
• In the same vein: Give players (and maybe even AIs) the ability to surrender to their opponent who agrees or not to the proposition. If he does agree, you are allowed to keep on playing. A treaty implementation could be good there.
• Vassals: Allow the player to surrender and become a vassal to their opponent (or the opponent could force you to become his vassal). A vassal would have to pay tributes to their master and be forced to allow the master to build his own buildings on your territory (like a casern, a fortress, etc...) to keep you in check. A vassal could still try to rebel, however.
• The ability to start as neutral as opposed to defaulting as enemies.
• Give the players the abilities to set up embassies in the other's cities. It would help the relations between the factions and maybe play a hand with the treaties. It could also be a great way to implement a spying system based on the embassies.
• Finally, a technical consideration: Allow the players to set up their own custom ceasefire time before the game starts (or allow to chose longer ceasefire time than 60 minutes which is too short in some cases).

 

[nicolasblackrock]

 

just wanted to contribute with an idea for the game mode, I only consider that a metropolis mode like age of empires 3 with a system of shipments or charts and level system, skirmish and multiplayer modes would have more force and an evolution to be played and not just to hang out. that mode of aoe3 I was able to catch for many hours giving a true sense to the modes that are not campaign

[DarcReaver]

this topic in a nutshell:

 

Independant of that I'd like to add that the combat system is lacking. There should be more damage types/armourtypes available to create more differences between unit types. This could also be achieved by using armour/penetration values.

Edited October 15, 2017 by DarcReaver

[Nescio]

9 minutes ago, DarcReaver said:

Independant of that I'd like to add that the combat system is lacking. There should be more damage types/armourtypes available to create more differences between unit types. This could also be achieved by using armour/penetration values.

To do that more “necessary core mechanics” probably need to be added first, as well as “fixing the stuff that's already in the game” (e.g. remove hard coded damage types and instead make adding or removing them similar to and as easy as adding or removing resource types), which is likely a lot of work before any visible change can be applied

[Lion.Kanzen]

I'm not sure if this is related with your suggestion to fix attack.

 

[elexis]

1 hour ago, DarcReaver said:

this topic in a nutshell:

I think you didn't understand that we don't disagree with someone implementing more core game mechanics.