Special Units and Heroes

[Thorfinn the Shallow Minded]

This is a counterpart thread to the special buildings thread. In 0 A.D. there are plenty of neat units out there, but it would be handy to feature some others that were more exotic such as the Spartan Pitanate or a cool hero such as Philip the V. When you suggest a unit, please give a brief introduction to who or what they were, how they were special, and how they could even be incorporated into the game.

[Lion.Kanzen]

Ok...

Assasin /spy /saboteur unit.

Diplomatic ( effect area) ( can be work like infestor in starcfraft)

Neutral hero(mercenary hero champion )

I try complete this ideas... But not now I need to get out to my university....

[Lion.Kanzen]

Mind control system: yeah that have a good alternative for the conversion.

Guys you test how work the mind control in Starcfraft 2? I'm sure you don't like the conversion system but in starcfraft 2 the infestor work fine without have to control the unit at 100%.

The infestor is "most dangerous feature is the neural parasite, a symbiotic creature living within infestors that, when spat, attaches to an enemy and controls its mind for a short period of time"

The infestor extends a long tentacle, latching onto an enemy ground or air unit, which is then covered in green tentacles. This enables the infestor to control that unit, which changes to match the infestor's color. Units maintain their upgrades and special abilities while controlled by the zerg. Ground and air units may be controlled, but control reverts to the original player if the infestor is killed or once the duration passes. Units that move beyond the infestor's range revert to the original player's control.

A controlled probe can warp in structures."

My idea:

I have a idea a unit like infestor but uses the dialogue or propaganda to control a unit main for a a short time.

[oshron]

some folkloric and outright mythological heroes would probably work well, just for scenario design purposes and non-historical settings. obviously, this would work best if it fit into 0ad's timeframe, but i can't recall any legendary heroes off the top of my head who date to 500-1bc

some other possibilities would be more recent material from the public domain

[Radagast.]

Isn't the final goal for 0A.D. to cover a far wider range .. just like 1500BC to 1500AD? Or even farther. So I think it would be desirable to come up with many heroes, no matter which timeframe.

Perhaps the mods wil be interested too as mods that are complete and promising might get into the main simulation. So it's not wasted. We could add to the list lateron.

I have a idea a unit like infestor but uses the dialogue or propaganda to control a unit main for a a short time.

Good idea! How could it take so long for me to find it. This is a unit we could plan. The monk or a unit that knows to talk could be used. Or a unit that is 'very convincing'. Well, you know, if a spy has to use citizens to come to information. For such things this could really be useful. Also the monk with many pamphlets could influence the nearby people's public opinion (loyalty towards on government and/or other civilisations).

some folkloric and outright mythological heroes would probably work well, just for scenario design purposes and non-historical settings

Interesting. Especially for the campaigns this might be crucial. Imagine a trigger making Caesar appear infront of you and he demands an army of you to help Rome. Will you help? Or a strong enemy like the huns being triggered to enter the map in a hit and run tactics. Once Attila's timeframe is reached those efforts would multiply and they would try to conquer it all. So if a heroes time is reached it would really cause trouble -- like celtic /german tribes overcoming your empire's walls. Or mongols invading. Or knights of the cross ...

Though what will happen once a leader is killed earlier than reality. It should have some effect, probably it should be completely different outcome then. Still by a random seed new heroes and legends could be triggered, that replace those that now can't come anymore as, let's say, now that Caesar has died earlier in the simulation, Brutus was not born, and similar. (This has more impact if e.g. Philip The Macedonian died too early for his wife to give life to Alexander The Great. What do then? Future planned triggers might have to adapt to the new facts on the ground. Like shifted borders.)

[Lion.Kanzen]

In gameplay: for many modding reasons is necessary a inventory system and abilities( yeah like action RTS and Moba , not we have animations unlocked.

[Thorfinn the Shallow Minded]

Pyrrhus of Epirus:

He was a well respected ancient general, perhaps the greatest in history. Known for making the term Pyrrhic victory, he presented one of the greatest challenges to Roman hegemony in Italy as of yet.

Edited April 5, 2014 by Thorfinn the Shallow Minded

[Stan`]

His helmet is in the game. For sure

[poVoq]

In gameplay: for many modding reasons is necessary a inventory system and abilities( yeah like action RTS and Moba , not we have animations unlocked.

Yes, this would be really useful. Btw. is it now possible to use a completely separate main config file in a mod instead of just extending the default one?

[niektb]

What kind of config file do you mean?

[Radagast.]

Yes, this would be really useful.

How much micro-managing does our community wish? Is it important to have control over the inventory? I would leave it to the unit AI to decide about the organisation of its inventory. (e.g. if the inventory is full it could go home - if it has a home of course- automatically and unload things in the garden there. Would be interesting to see units collect iron and stones from the sea and put it on a evergrowing heap in front of their garden )

Btw. is it now possible to use a completely separate main config file in a mod instead of just extending the default one?

That's always possible. To redesign the complete start screen is a lot of work though. So it's recommended to build upon the default 'public mod'.

I like the modularity better, i.e. have mod packs with plenty mods that still can be combined wildly. Of course for the online lobby the mod base has to be equal. ... hmm.. otherwise .. we could just synchronise the mods prior to game start. What do you think? We need Josh's opinion here for sure.

[Thorfinn the Shallow Minded]

Moving back to the topic,

If Pyrrhus was put in game, probably as a cavalry unit, he should have bonuses which would make him a very powerful unit. Perhaps there could be a defensive bonus to phalanx infantry in his aura while cavalry would have an attack bonus within his aura?

[Radagast.]

I would give him a decent starting point in the decision tree. So that his decisions look capable. The less the unit has to build up a useful decision tree itself, the more decent will its conventional military capabilities be.

That's how we could handle things wih the Hybrid AI extension. Suitable for heroes that were military leaders. Other, that were fighters, like Hercules, should get other boni.

Also, the decision tree should be assigned by the engine on game/map loading. In the hero unit XML we could put a decentness scale like 0..100.

There were many military commanders that would qualify as heroes. I would put in a time tag in the XML just for future features.

Wraitii recently has adapted the xml actor format already so that prop and main animations (e.g. horse mane and horse) can be synchronised.

Will be difficult to decide on the decentness of the heroes though. Btw. the decentness xml should have a target (list) attribute, e.g.

• target="intelligence stamina"
• target="dexterity speed"
• target="wisdom foresigth"
• target="attractivity charme tallness"

I could come up with a formula to put a fitting decision tree out of all those stats listed.

Then we had a lot of flexibility to give each hero (and elite units too) a decent uniqueness.

[David_J_Rogers]

Perhaps the use of heroes would be a tad overpowered in a way though. Since this game is heavily based off of the Age of Mythology game, I would suggest that we grab an idea from AoM: Titans Expansion using the Atlantean Civ as an example - where any unit can be made into a hero and multiple heroes can be made at a certain cap.

Or perhaps you can get a regular unit to change into a historical hero and for each civilization's different units there would be a different heroes for each type of military unit for each civilization.

[poVoq]

How much micro-managing does our community wish? Is it important to have control over the inventory? I would leave it to the unit AI to decide about the organisation of its inventory. (e.g. if the inventory is full it could go home - if it has a home of course- automatically and unload things in the garden there. Would be interesting to see units collect iron and stones from the sea and put it on a evergrowing heap in front of their garden )

That's always possible. To redesign the complete start screen is a lot of work though. So it's recommended to build upon the default 'public mod'.

I like the modularity better, i.e. have mod packs with plenty mods that still can be combined wildly. Of course for the online lobby the mod base has to be equal. ... hmm.. otherwise .. we could just synchronise the mods prior to game start. What do you think? We need Josh's opinion here for sure.

You are thinking to much in the limits of 0AD only... inventories would be usefull for mods... something like Warcraft3 with usable items for example.

And last time I checked using a completely own config file was only possible if one would fork 0AD completely into a separate game, a mod always has to extend the existing core config/mod. This might be intended, but is not very user-friendly for creating total conversion mods without forking.

Sometimes forking is undesirable as you might want to keep it a mod during early development for people to be able to quickly download and test/play early versions without messing up their main 0AD game. It also makes it easier to contribute back to the main game if your are modding and not forking.

Edit: practical examples mentioned in the mod forum: making a turnbased game like Civilisation, or a ActionRPG-RTS hybrid. Both need quite extensive changes in the config etc., but one could start small an keep it a mod for 0AD if true moddability was possible (and not just extendability like it seems to be the case so far).

Edited April 7, 2014 by poVoq

[Radagast.]

You are right, modding is better than forking. Contributing back after forking/branching is easy in git though. At least easier if fork, development and review and corrections all happen in a short timespan. So that there not too many conflicts.

I think it is possible to have an hybrid RPG-RTS; at least without the special things like key control. Though we could redirect the key control from the camera to the unit, so that the unit can be controlled like this. The problem will be the animations to play on the corresponding key pressed.

The other way round is way easier: Simply send unit here and there and have the camera simply follow the unit's position (like key Focus) and rotation. That's how I do it first, then add the above paragraph and switch off unit autonomy during this period of 'control'. (Lion would call it mindcontrol .. haha)

[Stan`]

What would be an issue is the size of the textures I think. They are okay for strategy but so so for TPS or FPS;

[Lion.Kanzen]

I love the gameplay of this unit, but imagining as politician , hehehe

-advantages

Is not permanent conversion

Is easy to perform

Disadvantages

-period time( from attacker)

-difficult to do it in a battle( massive)

-expensive for the player

-his control effects are valid if the unit still alive

In the sc2 the ability is named neural parasite, we can renamed as Discourse

Edited April 7, 2014 by Lion.Kanzen

[poVoq]

The other way round is way easier: Simply send unit here and there and have the camera simply follow the unit's position (like key Focus) and rotation. That's how I do it first, then add the above paragraph and switch off unit autonomy during this period of 'control'. (Lion would call it mindcontrol .. haha)

Yes, I did just that as an experiment a while back and also changed the camera zoom and angle to fit for a action RPG. It was working quite well, except that the remaining RTS controls from the default config were not possible to remove and thus were messing up the overall game-play.

[Radagast.]

Ah, thx, now I get your point. Will have to dig deeper then.

[oshron]

Interesting. Especially for the campaigns this might be crucial. Imagine a trigger making Caesar appear infront of you and he demands an army of you to help Rome. Will you help? Or a strong enemy like the huns being triggered to enter the map in a hit and run tactics. Once Attila's timeframe is reached those efforts would multiply and they would try to conquer it all. So if a heroes time is reached it would really cause trouble -- like celtic /german tribes overcoming your empire's walls. Or mongols invading. Or knights of the cross ...

Though what will happen once a leader is killed earlier than reality. It should have some effect, probably it should be completely different outcome then. Still by a random seed new heroes and legends could be triggered, that replace those that now can't come anymore as, let's say, now that Caesar has died earlier in the simulation, Brutus was not born, and similar. (This has more impact if e.g. Philip The Macedonian died too early for his wife to give life to Alexander The Great. What do then? Future planned triggers might have to adapt to the new facts on the ground. Like shifted borders.)

i had been thinking of ones along the lines of King Arthur, though he falls outside the current scope of 0ad (but would work well for Part 2 even though he technically falls outside that one, too, though it's alot closer)

[Radagast.]

I think King Arthur is a good idea. We will surely not fall short of historical heroes in all timeframes. At least heroes as the history writers state.

I think the 'every unit can become hero' idea is what we (the council) should pursue first. We can still specify in the hero XML when the hero will be born (i.e. the first next unit born will get this name, e.g. Alexander).

The when should be a timeframe, not a point of time. To allow for a moment of surprise, e.g. no, not now, can't this hero come up later when we are stronger .. something like that.

[David_J_Rogers]

It is great to know that my expansion of this gentleman's idea is being considered. Makes me feel like I'm helping.

I think any unit can be a hero, but I think per team, they should be limited to 3 heroes. Because having too many heroes would throw off the balance of the game. You can have several options in making a unit a hero, such as making a counter-infantry a hero, making a base infantry a hero, or a cavalry unit a hero - then you can expand on that idea and have the units name change to a great historical leader.

Perhaps the heroes, for a price in resources, would have a larger amount of HP, include a special ability (might be too overpowered with this idea), and has an area effect of increasing attack/ defense to nearby soldiers.

[Stan`]

We'll I guess If you keep the historic accuracy of the game, it should be an aura not a power-up

[Radagast.]

You can have several options in making a unit a hero, such as making a counter-infantry a hero, making a base infantry a hero, or a cavalry unit a hero - then you can expand on that idea and have the units name change to a great historical leader.

If I'm not wrong then the countering will be removed. But I think the countering is quite realistic. In a way at least.

Imagine you were an archer. Would you target the enemy where he is vulnerable? Would you target the full-plate-armoured knight which is approaching you or the non-armoured men-at-arms?

Me I would try to never have to decide this. Because deciding upon life or death is not nice.

Nevertheless I think the countering system is a bit artificial. In reality archers were bad against mounted knights simply because the cavalry reached them quickly (speed) and because the archers' arrows had a hard time penetrating the armour. (though even King Philip VI and Edward IV were both severly wounded by arrows too (Philip died), despite them surely wearing the best armour on the field.)

It's still cool that this was implmented once - the artificial way. Perhaps we can replace it by a reworked armour and speed system (including terrain-analysis, i.e. mud, slope, vegetation, ...).

Limiting the amount of heroes is a good thing. It's also quite natural as heroes often were either the leader ... or outstanding soldiers that were very decisive in battles.

Both were quite rare in numbers. The former because there were seldomly more than one leader during an era.

The latter because even if this soldier was decisive in battle, it's very unlikely he survived a long time.