An (review) article I found

[Lion.Kanzen]

Ok I found this review sometime ago.

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http://blog.en.uptodown.com/0-d-free-spiritual-successor-age-empires-saga/

Youve surely seen it in one of the many top-games lists or collections of best freeware games for Windows but as its free you probably didnt give it a shot, thinking it would be second-rate. So naive! 0 A.D. is, by all accounts, exactly everything you could ever ask for from a new installment of the Age of Empires saga: a real-time strategy game with a historical setting and a deep development system for your cities thats constantly being expanded and is now available for Windows, Mac, and Linux.

Once upon a time, the game was going to be a mod to Age of Empires II: The Age of Kings, but the project was gradually expanded and since the year 2001 has been undergoing transformation to the point that, eight years later, it was officially announced that it would be developed as a completely freestanding and open-source game. Wildfire Games is made up today of nearly 50 fans who donate their time to develop the game. In 2013 they tried to finance the project with a crowdfunding campaign, but didnt have much success. Nevertheless, they forged ahead with development of an alpha version. That said, the advanced state of this game doesnt make it look too much like an alpha.

Dont be fooled by the fact that the game isnt finished. 0 A.D. contains an enormous amount of content. It includes 12 different factions in the form of iconic historical civilizations, including Celts, Spartans, Persians, Romans, and Athenians, each with its own aesthetic for units and buildings as well as strengths and weaknesses. Its precisely in the buildings that you can see the might of the progress system. Each civilization has 20 different constructions, each with its own function in powering the collection of primary materials, population growth, or military development.

With nearly 15 years of development, the games level of detail verges on sickening. To give an example, if you decide to hide a unit within a building, it wont disappear as if it were inside, but rather youll see soldiers hanging out on the roof or walls. The fauna that populate the game will change in accordance with your geography and flourish depending on the resources available, meaning itll be normal to see a pair of elephants playing along a riverbank or a herd of antelope wandering on an empty steppe.

The expansion of your cities is totally customizable. There are no geographical or structural limits, so you can place any building or wall anywhere that its physically possible to set it. The enormous number of collection systems will make it so your city residents can hunt wild animals, cultivate plots of land, care for farm animals, cut wood, or extract minerals from quarries.

Although it doesnt have an official campaign, you can set up a match with battles between up to eight civilizations in more than 20 settings, where youll have the option to play against either the computer or other users via LAN, or online through game rooms that you can either join or create yourself. You can also customize the battle by selecting a condition of victory, which could be simple and straightforward domination on the battlefield to a race to see which civilization can technologically develop first.

But the battle mode is not the only game mode, as you can also participate in preset scenes to take part in famous battles between certain civilizations and with predetermined objectives. As if that werent enough, the game also includes a complete scene editor to create your own campaigns, and in fact, a bit of browsing online will reveal many mods created by the community.

Edited March 25, 2015 by Lion.Kanzen

[Wijitmaker]

Fun read, thanks for sharing

[Lion.Kanzen]

https://www.xataka.com/videojuegos/hay-age-of-empires-codigo-abierto-todo-pronostico-lleva-veinte-anos-version-alpha#comments-close

Get some main ideas from the author.

There is an open source Age of Empires. Against all odds, it has been in "alpha" version for over twenty years.

An eternal 'Alpha' version. It seems surprising, but the developers do not seem to consider that the game deserves to leave the Alpha version in which it has been since it was created. At this point the game is actually very polished and is comparable to any final product that is simply being updated. That qualification seems almost anecdotal, but they don't seem to be in a hurry to abandon that appellation.

 

[wowgetoffyourcellphone]

Quote

It's not the AOE, but it's pretty close.

Gee, thanks.  

[Lion.Kanzen]

New article from Appleesfera (Xataka web focused Apple products).

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.applesfera.com/juegos-os-x/he-estado-probando-0-ad-mi-mac-puede-que-haya-encontrado-solucion-a-mi-mono-age-of-empires/amp

the article goes like this:

""In the absence of Age of Empires I have played 0 AD on my Mac: wololos missing but nothing else.""

 

I've always had a little bug to kill since I've been using Mac(---bug or worm in this case is a expression for  a curiosity---), especially during the last few years as the platform has become more and more exclusive: to regain my love for the Age of Empires game series. Microsoft hasn't made them compatible with macOS since the special version of the second installment, and it's missed being able to play the Definitive Edition and part IV that are available on Steam.

I have tried an open alternative that may well entertain me and that works quite well even on Macs with Apple Silicon. I'm talking about 0 AD, known as "the open Age of Empires".

Installing 0 AD on my Mac mini M1 was not difficult. Just go to the game's download site and select the 64-bit version for Intel chips or the 'M1' version for Macs with Apple Silicon chips. Download the application, move it to the Applications directory on your Mac, and that's it. Even at 4K resolution the performance does not disappoint, and its requirements support computers of a certain age. As long as you have macOS 10.12 Sierra installed, you're good to go.

The game does not hide too many secrets for those who have already had their vices to Age of Empires of yesteryear: you have an aerial view of what starts as a small village and you advance as you collect resources and increase your population. YouTube is full of games recorded by fans:

---in the image they show a video of Mayorcete ---

There are some differences, especially in what we consider 'villagers'. While in Age of Empires these only serve to collect resources and build (and for a very poor defense), in 0 AD you train warriors that make use of villagers while it is not time to attack. And right from the start you have several types of these warriors, each with its own resource requirements. And if you don't want that, you can always train female villagers that lack the warrior part.

As for the fights, the system does not change. You train troops, explore the terrain, locate the enemy base to attack it and defend your city. The single player campaign is still very basic(They say that a is not developed), but we can generate single player games to pass the time.

I'll keep an eye on the development of the original Age of Empires, no doubt about it, but 0 AD stays installed on my Mac mini for the days off I can take. If you miss the real-time strategy game, 0 AD is free and is still in continuous development.