Suggestions for 0 A.D.

[Thalatta]

Some time ago I posted 20 points with:

On 28/01/2026 at 6:02 PM, Thalatta said:

a few trivial things I noticed

Now I've compiled another 20 points of maybe not so trivial (or even controversial ) things, some that have been discussed around. Maybe the first two have already been discussed and decided, since I was surprised when I came across them:

21) Free repair seems too simplistic. Maybe for HP below 50% it should cost 50% of resources. That way, by not letting it go below 50% repairs would be free, and repairing an almost destroyed building would take around 25% of its total cost. Or something along those lines.

22) Same with fields giving infinite food. I’d give them a small food cost (the seeds), maybe wood cost (the tools), and the time it takes to sow again would seem important. They could be set on automatic sowing. I think their allowed superposition maybe should be removed (if there's no penalty for that already). I'm not sure if there are fertility considerations with terrain and weather already.

23) When ending an alert, everyone should return to what they were doing. My farmers end up chopping wood often.

24) Land workers should be able to fish near the coast, and hunting seems a bit too easy, prey barely escapes and predators are slow and weak. I would make the fauna a bit more dynamic in general.

25) Dead animals should slowly rot. Lately there was a post about this, and resource regeneration. It would be a nice addition, the same with growing trees or berries. Overexploitation or sustainability would then become part of the gameplay.

26) Units seem to go through each other, most noticeable with ships, which doesn't seem very nice.

27) Showing 2 charts in the Summary seems a bit arbitrary. Maybe one could choose how many rows and columns of charts to see (at most a couple of rows and 3 or 4 columns), including 1x1. Could choosing the time interval be implemented?

28) Regarding the charts, it seemed to me that an “at any time” option was missing when counting numbers of units, structures, etc. Then “population” would be redundant with “units” “at any time” and could be removed.

29) Maybe a complete interactive tech tree from where one can decide and perform research would be nice, one wouldn’t have to go through each and every building (maybe some are just into that).

30) Ships should have a button and indicator to dock or beach them so for sure troops would be able to (un)garrison (which should happen gradually, faster near a port, maybe only for certain big units).

31) Often threaded paths could show wear, creating roads that make movement a little bit faster. Paths on a field should make it less efficient.

32) Units reaching full experience when garrisoned cheapens experience. Training and battle experience should be quite different. Either there should be a cap for experience learned through garrisoning, or they could garrison only to learn proper complex formations (or abilities, if introduced at some point).

33) Battle mode: this has been asked and it’s a good idea for both SP and MP. There could be scenarios reproducing famous battles. Also, after setting resource values, players could make up an army spending them. Then each places their army, and goes to battle.

34) After winning, don’t keep repeating the short victory music over and over. Maybe some people want to continue playing to check some things, but the music gets too repetitive after a bit.

35) Portraits in the panel of multiple units of a single unit type should do much more. I double click them and nothing happens, the view should center on the selection (something I haven’t been able to do when having more than one unit selected). And why not, the icons could be expanded on a per unit portrait (don’t be afraid of sidebars), where their individual info could be displayed when hovering over them (a small HP bar would be helpful).

36) Siege units should be capturable, but one could only move them (no attack) until an arsenal is built for the first time. I still think that they, together with ships and buildings, should have an inbuilt base garrison acting both as capture resistance and turn around limiter.

37) As has been mentioned lately: night, day, seasons, weather and natural phenomena. Empire Earth had the later ones, but caused by the priests, which I didn’t like. They should be random events.

38) Stealth, for spying, ambushes, and to make use of the night. Important as possible abilities of certain units or possible scenarios like the Battle of Lake Trasimene.

39) Better to use interesting historical names, like "Kripteia" and "Agoge", instead of things like "Unlock Neodamodeis".

40) Better to use technologies actually developed at the time of the game (500 BC - 1 BC), instead of generic things that have existed for thousands of years.

Regarding the last 2 points, along with other things, I’ve been preparing a post about the Spartans.

 

Previous 20 suggestions: https://wildfiregames.com/forum/topic/18003-suggestions-for-0-ad/page/172/#comment-617490

Next 20 suggestions: https://wildfiregames.com/forum/topic/18003-suggestions-for-0-ad/page/180/#comment-761848

 

Edited September 9 by Thalatta

[wowgetoffyourcellphone]

8 hours ago, Thalatta said:

23) When ending an alert, everyone should return to what they were doing. My farmers end up chopping wood

That's because you've set a rally point to wood.

[Thalatta]

3 hours ago, wowgetoffyourcellphone said:

That's because you've set a rally point to wood.

I see, but I don't see that as a desirable feature. My rally point is supposed to be for the units created from then on, not for the ones already having a given task and just garrisoning because of an alert. It adds unnecessary micro to rearrange things as they were before the alert.

[DesertRose]

Quote

Dead animals should slowly rot.

That animals currently do not rot has some strange implications, especially regarding Corrals.
You can simply kill a couple of your own animals to bypass the maximum number of cattle, and enemy raids killing your cattle does not actually hurt your economy much because they do not rot.

 

Edited April 3 by DesertRose

[wowgetoffyourcellphone]

Just now, DesertRose said:

That animals currently do not rot has some strange implications, especially regarding Corrals.
You can simply kill a couple of your own animals to bypass the maximum number of cattle, and enemy raids killing your cattle does not actually hurt your economy much because they do not rot.

 

Agreed. I may introduce a Pull Request for it and get rotting into r29. It adds another interesting dimension to raiding and honestly, it's a pretty much expected feature for those familiar with RTS. 

[wowgetoffyourcellphone]

1 hour ago, Thalatta said:

I see, but I don't see that as a desirable feature. My rally point is supposed to be for the units created from then on, not for the ones already having a given task and just garrisoning because of an alert. It adds unnecessary micro to rearrange things as they were before the alert.

How is the game supposed to know that you don't want those units to go to your chosen rally point?

[Thalatta]

12 minutes ago, wowgetoffyourcellphone said:

How is the game supposed to know that you don't want those units to go to your chosen rally point?

Well, I don't know exactly how the code works, but when workers are done building, they keep building other stuff, when the are done cutting a tree, they keep cutting other trees... can't tasks also be kept when garrisoned? After all, their HP is kept, so there's some sort of memory going on...

EDIT: what I mean is, tasks at the time of sounding an alarm should override rally points. Or at least for that to be an option.

Edited April 3 by Thalatta

[Stan`]

21 minutes ago, DesertRose said:

That animals currently do not rot has some strange implications, especially regarding Corrals.
You can simply kill a couple of your own animals to bypass the maximum number of cattle, and enemy raids killing your cattle does not actually hurt your economy much because they do not rot.

 

IIRC we didn't not add rotting and fattening because the balance was a huge concern. Initially I had both, and you add to keep your sheep next to the corral aura so they would produce more food.

[wowgetoffyourcellphone]

15 minutes ago, Stan` said:

IIRC we didn't not add rotting and fattening because the balance was a huge concern

I don't see how this is such a "huge" concern unless we try it.

[Stan`]

Tell that to all people who answered that thread  

 

[guerringuerrin]

Forbidden thread!! I’d love to see what’s inside 

 

Wasn’t there rot in A23? I think I remember seeing it in some earlier version.

I imagine the balance team must have some explanation. Same for the capturing siege feature

From my POV, it would make sense to reintroduce rotting

Edited April 3 by guerringuerrin

[DesertRose]

2 hours ago, Thalatta said:

I see, but I don't see that as a desirable feature.

Use the "End Alarm" button / hotkey (if it exists). It will make garrisoned Civilians go back to the work they did previously. Dunno if it works on Citizen Soldiers.

1 hour ago, Stan` said:

IIRC we didn't not add rotting and fattening because the balance was a huge concern.

In any case, killed cattle should count toward your maximum cattle until they are fully eaten up.

1 hour ago, wowgetoffyourcellphone said:

it's a pretty much expected feature for those familiar with RTS. 

Tbh I find it rather annoying as it mostly just adds a tiny detail you need to consider to optimize your BO, while adding little depth otherwise.

[Thalatta]

8 minutes ago, DesertRose said:

Use the "End Alarm" button / hotkey (if it exists). It will make garrisoned Civilians go back to the work they did previously.

That's what I do, and some of my farmers ended chopping wood.

@wowgetoffyourcellphone, I don't think it's because of the rally point, because most of my farmers continued farming, while just some ended chopping wood, and had to put them on farms again. Seems something weird is going on.

[guerringuerrin]

4 minutes ago, Thalatta said:

That's what I do, and some of my farmers ended chopping wood.

@wowgetoffyourcellphone, I don't think it's because of the rally point, because most of my farmers continued farming, while just some ended chopping wood, and had to put them on farms again. Seems something weird is going on.

I never seen this before. It might be worth to test it

[Thalatta]

54 minutes ago, guerringuerrin said:

I never seen this before. It might be worth to test it

I could be wrong, but it could be that they garrisoned on buildings that were closer to trees than to farms.

[Atrik]

1 hour ago, Thalatta said:

I could be wrong, but it could be that they garrisoned on buildings that were closer to trees than to farms.

Didn't recheck but my experience debugging UnitAI tells me that what probably happened was:

1. Your units were actually chopping wood on a woodline further from garrisonable buildings
2. You call alarm so they move all the way into the buildings
3. The exacts trees they were chopping disappeared (chopped by other units : your soldiers)
4. You ring end of alarm so they try to go back to chopping wood, but since the trees they initially were chopping are no longer there, they search new trees, but relative to their own position. Making your civilians start chopping trees at a different place as they were supposed to.

Just a likely hypothesis and note for myself (or anyone) when I'll work UnitAI, since that would be fixable.

[Thalatta]

But, if I understand correctly, that doesn't seem to be the issue @Atrik, the issue is having less people in farms at the end of the alarm because they go to the trees instead.

[guerringuerrin]

52 minutes ago, Atrik said:

Didn't recheck but my experience debugging UnitAI tells me that what probably happened was:

1. Your units were actually chopping wood on a woodline further from garrisonable buildings
2. You call alarm so they move all the way into the buildings
3. The exacts trees they were chopping disappeared (chopped by other units : your soldiers)
4. You ring end of alarm so they try to go back to chopping wood, but since the trees they initially were chopping are no longer there, they search new trees, but relative to their own position. Making your civilians start chopping trees at a different place as they were supposed to.

Just a likely hypothesis and note for myself (or anyone) when I'll work UnitAI, since that would be fixable.

I’ve noticed that when there are no buildings available for garrison, civilians just stay idle where they are. However, I haven’t verified whether this happens because there are no buildings close enough for them to detect, or because there are no available buildings at all.

3 minutes ago, Thalatta said:

the issue is having less people in farms at the end of the alarm because they go to the trees instead.

 

What I’m fairly sure about is that units do not switch to gathering a different resource. In other words, if they were farming, they will try to resume farming rather than moving to gather wood.

Edited April 3 by guerringuerrin
Fixing quotes

[Atrik]

5 minutes ago, Thalatta said:

But, if I understand correctly, that doesn't seem to be the issue @Atrik, the issue is having less people in farms at the end of the alarm because they go to the trees instead.

Possible. You haven't provided a replay so we're only working with hypothesis.
What I described could have mislead you into thinking the units chopping wood were initially farmers.

4 minutes ago, guerringuerrin said:

I’ve noticed that when there are no buildings available for garrison, civilians just stay idle where they are. However, I haven’t verified whether this happens because there are no buildings close enough for them to detect, or because there are no available buildings at all.

The maximum distance units travel to garrison seems a bit normal. You don't want units to travel half the map if they don't find any hides close enough. Maybe there is way to optimize the behavior however, with better sorting by distance for example. Also the input to ring the alarm is rather limiting...

[guerringuerrin]

2 minutes ago, Atrik said:

The maximum distance units travel to garrison seems a bit normal. You don't want units to travel half the map if they don't find any hides close enough. Maybe there is way to optimize the behavior however, with better sorting by distance for example. Also the input to ring the alarm is rather limiting...

Yes, I think this behavior is quite appropriate. And I don’t think it’s worth over-optimizing this behavior. If there are no nearby buildings to garrison in, having units stay idle where they are seems like the most appropriate outcome. Players should be responsible for ensuring there are enough nearby buildings for units to take shelter.

Otherwise, keeping them idle is actually helpful, since it makes it easier to quickly select them using the idle hotkey.

 

 

Short video of this. I don’t see any civilians switching resources after the bell. Not even those who garrison in buildings with rally points set to other resources.

[Thalatta]

@Atrik@guerringuerrin I tried many times, but can't reproduce it. Once I thought I did it, but in the replay I saw that a couple of "farmers" weren't farmers, just standing on farms. I wonder if this what happened to me 2 or 3 times before, and since most other workers were chopping wood, I assumed that's where the "missing farmers" went (when actually they were idle somewhere, as before the alarm).

Edited April 3 by Thalatta

[DesertRose]

9 hours ago, Emacz said:

Or you could do each phase (as game progress) soldiers gather rate reduces.  I think this might be a little more practical, as they become more accustomed to fighting their will to work as laborers decreases?

That's an interesting idea.

It would mean that you can still train Citizen Soldiers to kick-start your economy, but the further the game advances the less economically viable Citizen Soldiers become.

So advancing to the next Phase does not also mean spending resources now to gain a long-term advantage, it also means that you potentially sacrifice economic power for military power. It also has the downside that after advancing to the next Phase you are practically forced to attack; you cannot advance to further increase an economic lead.

 

[DesertRose]

On 10/03/2026 at 9:43 PM, real_tabasco_sauce said:

This could be a neat way to replace the less intuitive diminishing returns feature. As long as the spots get filled by proximity to the storehouses, and the farmers choose the move to the closer spots if they are vacant. Lots of stuff to implement for this tho.

Another idea somewhat related to this.

Farm upgrades, instead of giving you +x% faster gather rate, allows you to put one more farmer per Field. E.g. Fields start with a maximum of 2 Farmers, and each Farm upgrade increases the maximum by 1.

[Grautvornix]

24 minutes ago, DesertRose said:

That's an interesting idea.

It would mean that you can still train Citizen Soldiers to kick-start your economy, but the further the game advances the less economically viable Citizen Soldiers become.

So advancing to the next Phase does not also mean spending resources now to gain a long-term advantage, it also means that you potentially sacrifice economic power for military power. It also has the downside that after advancing to the next Phase you are practically forced to attack; you cannot advance to further increase an economic lead.

 

Well unless this is linked to the individual experience of each citizen soldier: advances in fighting capability/ranking up would then coupled to an individual gathering capability decrease. Newly trained uniots would have full capability (for a CS) decreasing with each fight. In the end you woudl have an army of fighter pros that are not good for any gathering anymore while the newbies can very well help in the economy but are less powerful in battle.

Sound interesting to me.

[Stan`]

@guerringuerrin Ah my bad, thought those threads were public, it is now