Suggestions for 0 A.D.

[feneur]

One minor thing that surprised me/felt counter-intuitive when I first played the game was that female citizens and infantry can't hunt wildlife. I actually need a fully equipped, battle-prepared archer to be able to hit any wild animals - otherwise they'll just outrun me. Maybe women and infantry could have some limited, replenishing 'sprint energy' that will allow them to hunt down X number of animals per unit time.

Once running is implemented that might do what you suggest, so probably not much need for a special feature. You should be able to hunt with non-cavalry units by micromanaging them, have them approach from different directions. I have a feeling that is more realistic as well (though I don't know enough about ancient hunting to be sure, so it is just a hunch), that people back then (and really to a fair degree today as well) need to work together to hunt successfully.

[iap]

Hi, I was thinking of few suggestions that I think may not take alot to develop, but can enrich the game experience.

* in atlas there is the option to give the time of day, this affect the shadows and lighting and the general atmosphere. Maybe you can add inside the game itself a slow transformation of day time. It can be very slow, like one day in 5 minutes or even more. It would add so much to the atmosphere of the game.

Also, this can be a bit more complicated to implement, but fighters can have different bonuses according to the time of day., maybe some are good at night and some at day, maybe they get a speed bonus at morning (they just woke up and energetic) and so on...

* Two of the things I like the most in this game are the complexity of the architecture and epic "destroy their city!!!" battles. Now I like to watch them with the free camera in the dev menu (Please don't remove it in future releases). I was thinking about an "Epic motion scripted camera. One that will take control at the camera (when engaged) and move it to see an epic movie scene, if it a "life in town" scene or "epic battle" scene or even "hunting and fishing" scene. The way I was thinking of doing it was to use bezier curves for the movement of the camera and trying to figure an interesting target to focus on.

I know it's not about the gameplay itself, but more for game experience, What do you think?

[feneur]

Hi, I was thinking of few suggestions that I think may not take alot to develop, but can enrich the game experience.

* in atlas there is the option to give the time of day, this affect the shadows and lighting and the general atmosphere. Maybe you can add inside the game itself a slow transformation of day time. It can be very slow, like one day in 5 minutes or even more. It would add so much to the atmosphere of the game.

Also, this can be a bit more complicated to implement, but fighters can have different bonuses according to the time of day., maybe some are good at night and some at day, maybe they get a speed bonus at morning (they just woke up and energetic) and so on..

Having a progression of the day was considered many years ago, but has been put on the backburner for now. It's not too likely that it will be included in part 1, at least not in the sense of having any effect on gameplay. We'll have to look through the things cut from part 1 before starting to work on part 2 though, so then everything is up for discussion

In case you, or someone else who is reading this, isn't aware of what part 1/part two refers to I'll give a quick description. To make development of 0 A.D. more realistic it has been divided into two parts. Part 1 covers the years 500 BC to 1 BC, and is what we are working on now, and part 2 is the years 1 A.D. to 500 A.D. and will be started after part one is done. Now with the project being open source there might be a part 1.5 or something in between to add intermediary features/bug fixes, and of course the future is not set in stone until we get there, but as a general idea this is the bigger plan

* Two of the things I like the most in this game are the complexity of the architecture and epic "destroy their city!!!" battles. Now I like to watch them with the free camera in the dev menu (Please don't remove it in future releases). I was thinking about an "Epic motion scripted camera. One that will take control at the camera (when engaged) and move it to see an epic movie scene, if it a "life in town" scene or "epic battle" scene or even "hunting and fishing" scene. The way I was thinking of doing it was to use bezier curves for the movement of the camera and trying to figure an interesting target to focus on.

I know it's not about the gameplay itself, but more for game experience, What do you think?

The current plan is to postpone cinematics to part 2. So something like this should probably wait until then as well. (I'm personally not sure it's even possible to have code determining what is interesting, but who knows )

[iap]

Thank you for the replay.

A full set of units bonuses according to sun's location is a lot of work. But I was thinking for start that only the light will change.

I was looking at the code, and found in the class "LightEnv.cpp" these functions:

void CLightEnv::SetElevation(float f)

void CLightEnv::SetRotation(float f)

Now isn't this just a matter of updating them on a frame basis? Or even ones per second or once per 10 seconds?

P.S. The code is brilliantly written. I'm not a c++ programmer, butI could figure my way in the code quite easily (To change it, of course, is a different story). Thumbs up for the programmers

Edited December 30, 2011 by iap

[Argantonius]

Once running is implemented that might do what you suggest, so probably not much need for a special feature. You should be able to hunt with non-cavalry units by micromanaging them, have them approach from different directions. I have a feeling that is more realistic as well (though I don't know enough about ancient hunting to be sure, so it is just a hunch), that people back then (and really to a fair degree today as well) need to work together to hunt successfully.

I, for one, like it more the way it is now than how it was in the Age of Empires series in fact. As you say it is more realistic: if you want to hunt dangerous animals like boars and elephants you send some foot spearmen; if you want to hunt fast game like gazelles and deer, you send archers/javelinists - preferably the mounted ones (might sound ridiculous, but I didn't discover until today that basic cavalry can hunt and collect food from animals too).

Edited December 31, 2011 by Argantonius

[Mythos_Ruler]

(might sound ridiculous, but I didn't discover until today that basic cavalry can hunt and collect food from animals too).

Yup! That's the main reason most factions come with a ranged cavalry unit from the Civic Centre.

[JuliusColtranePille]

concerning balancing i would say that the persians are a rather weak-faction at the very moment.

just my 2 cents. i know balancing will be done in the beta-status

[Mythos_Ruler]

concerning balancing i would say that the persians are a rather weak-faction at the very moment.

Any ideas why?

[Alpha of the Eagles]

concerning balancing i would say that the persians are a rather weak-faction at the very moment.

I don't know what you've done to deserve such fair treatment, but I usually get my @#$% handed to myself by anywhere from 200-300 Sparabara with tons of backup.

[Arthur_D]

Indeed. Try playing the last map (don't remember the name, but it begins with a Z) and see how long you last until you are utterly crushed by the Persian Qbot.

[Mythos_Ruler]

Indeed. Try playing the last map (don't remember the name, but it begins with a Z) and see how long you last until you are utterly crushed by the Persian Qbot.

Yeah, but you're also playing as Persians, so it's not an accurate test if Persians are "too weak" or not.

[hhyloc]

Right now most units in every civilizations have very similar stats so we can't really say they're balanced or not. I guess when the game go into beta phase and units have more diversity in stats, only then should we think about the balance between factions.

[Mythos_Ruler]

Real balancing will start in Alpha 9, since it will include Attack Bonuses (paper-paper-rock-rock-scissors-scissors). These are already in the SVN version of the game, actually.

[hhyloc]

Great! Let's see what we'll come up with the unit stats. Balancing is my favorite part when it come to developing a game (I've never made a game though)

[JuliusColtranePille]

i played with hellenes and carthaginians against persians or as persians against those two factions (qBot, a lot of maps). i had the impression that the infantry of the persians in particular is weaker. but i guess it's the special feature of the persians that their infantry is inferior but cheaper?!

later qBot used the persian cavalry which is relatively strong but still no match against the than cheaper greek hoplites and peltasts.

[Belisarivs]

Hello all.

It's been a while since I was here.

Id don't know if this was talked about already, but I would appreciate if it was possible to lock units in formations as it was possible in Cossacks RTS.

Now soldiers simply break ranks and attack enemy like horde of barbarians, not disciplined professionals.

Edited January 1, 2012 by Belisarivs

[fricus-mazighen]

i think it will be very pleasant if the battles were more bloody with : more cutted arms and heads , corpse empalled with lot of deadly arrows ... that kind of stuff

[iap]

I have another suggestion:

Is there a plan to include schools or some kind of tech research? That way the civilizations will evolve slowly.

Creating schools can train more professional fighters, or other types of fighters. Maybe schools can create professors that will give bonuses to training times or ballistic accuracy.

[L'ethu]

So, two different types of "Town Bells" then.

The first bell are the call to arms for the citizen soldiers and the second could be state of emergency alert for civilian, hopefully this suggestion could help .

[hhyloc]

i played with hellenes and carthaginians against persians or as persians against those two factions (qBot, a lot of maps). i had the impression that the infantry of the persians in particular is weaker. but i guess it's the special feature of the persians that their infantry is inferior but cheaper?!

This is indeed a special feature of the Persians, a Sparabara is 10 Wood cheaper, slightly better armor overall than a Hoplite. On the other hand the Hoplite has 20 more hp and stronger IIRC. Edited January 2, 2012 by hhyloc

[feneur]

Hello all.

It's been a while since I was here.

Id don't know if this was talked about already, but I would appreciate if it was possible to lock units in formations as it was possible in Cossacks RTS.

Now soldiers simply break ranks and attack enemy like horde of barbarians, not disciplined professionals.

Fighting in formation isn't implemented yet, so that's why they don't work as you'd expect =)

I have another suggestion:

Is there a plan to include schools or some kind of tech research? That way the civilizations will evolve slowly.

Creating schools can train more professional fighters, or other types of fighters. Maybe schools can create professors that will give bonuses to training times or ballistic accuracy.

We don't plan to include schools, but definitely technology New technologies will be researchable from the different buildings rather than in one central location.

[Guest afeder]

Creating schools can train more professional fighters, or other types of fighters. Maybe schools can create professors that will give bonuses to training times or ballistic accuracy.

I also kind of miss units that aren't purely 'physical strength' based. How about some surveyor-type unit for increasing durability of constructions being built nearby? I'm pretty sure the ancient civilizations must have had a good deal of knowledge in these fields, even if they didn't know of Newtonian physics.

[wraitii]

An idea I had this morning in my car... Afaik, siege units were mainly for crushing walls and things like that, not so much for trashing barracks or whatever... Perhaps units could be made to "storm" buildings, encountering resistance, and after some time the building would simply switch allegiance or become "neutral" until taken back. This would allow to storm undefended cities without siege units, and would make walls actually have a purpose.

Of course, you might want to wait for a proper wall system to do that.

[plumo]

@ Mythos

Didnt want to make separate topic : disable Qbot in Miletus map ( AI has no base = script errors)

[feneur]

An idea I had this morning in my car... Afaik, siege units were mainly for crushing walls and things like that, not so much for trashing barracks or whatever... Perhaps units could be made to "storm" buildings, encountering resistance, and after some time the building would simply switch allegiance or become "neutral" until taken back. This would allow to storm undefended cities without siege units, and would make walls actually have a purpose.

Of course, you might want to wait for a proper wall system to do that.

Capturing of buildings is planned. Just not implemented yet.