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New Release: 0 A.D. Alpha 20 Timosthenes


feneur
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Wildfire Games, an international group of volunteer game developers, proudly announces the release of “0 A.D. Alpha 20 Timosthenes”, the twentieth Alpha version of 0 A.D., a free, open-source game of ancient warfare. This Alpha features 10 new maps, core functionality for a cinematic in-game camera, the ability to share dropsites with your allies, and more!


golden_island.jpgThe skirmish map “Golden Island”, new in Alpha 20

Easy Download and Install

Download and installation instructions are available for Windows, Linux and Mac OS X. 0 A.D. is free of charge and always will be. Although you might find some people selling copies of 0 A.D., either over the internet or on physical media, you will always have the option to download 0 A.D. completely gratis, directly from the developers.

How to Download 0 A.D.Instructions for WindowsInstructions for LinuxInstructions for OS X

Moreover, you can redistribute the game and modify it freely as long as you abide by the GPL. You can even use parts of the art and sound for your own projects as long as you abide by CC BY-SA. No “freemium” model, no in-game advertising, no catch.

New Gameplay Features in This Release

  • New Random Maps:  “Ambush”, “Empire“, “Flood”, “Frontier“, “Hell’s Pass“, “Island Stronghold“, “Lions Den” and “Stronghold“.
  • New Skirmish maps:  A 4-player skirmish map named “Forest Battle” and a 2-player skirmish map named “Golden Island“.
  • Use allied drop sites: After researching a technology you can use your ally’s storehouses, farmsteads, docks, CCs, but not Mauryan elephants, to drop off resources your units have gathered. The ally needs to allow it for each drop site, so it can’t be used to “steal” all the resources in the area.
  • Murder Holes: Research a technology to let towers attack units standing underneath the tower.
  • New technologies for fishing: Research technologies to improve the gathering efficiency of your ships.
  • Loot resources that killed enemies carried: Now you will automatically get the resources that were carried by units killed by your armies, in other words: kill wood workers to get wood, farmers to get food, etc. This is in addition to the normal loot you get when killing units.

ambush.jpgThe “Ambush” random map added in Alpha 20

Graphics and User Interface

  • Improvements to game options menu: New graphics quality setting, which allows you to easily change the quality of graphics from within the game (previously you had to use config files), as well as some cleanups and bug fixes.

graphics_options.png

  • Higher quality graphical effects enabled by default on higher-end computers. If your computer should be able to handle higher quality graphical effects they are now enabled by default. You can of course change to a lower setting manually if you want to improve performance or prefer not to use them for some other reason.
  • Idle worker button is now disabled when there are no idle workers, so you don’t have to press it just to check whether or not you have any idle workers.
  • Credits screen: Check out who contributed to the game, everyone from managers to programmers, from artists to donators, from translators to composers. We have tried to include everyone, but many have contributed over the years, so if you have contributed but don’t see your name in the list please let us know.
  • New trees and variations: There has been new models and textures for the acacia tree, Aleppo pine, oaks, dead oaks, generic dead trees.
  • Plenty of improvements for observer mode and replays: Among other things you can now watch the match from the perspective of a player, see the Summary screen during the match, and now the fog of war is shown in observer mode. Matches also support up to 16 observers now.
  • More information about players in a multiplayer match: Show who lags or has a network timeout.
  • New Seleucid barracks:

sele_barracks.png

Under the Hood

  • Cinematic camera for rendering cut scenes: The ground-work has been done to make it possible to control the camera for cut scenes. There is still some work needed to make it easy to use (for now camera paths has to be set by entering coordinates), but it’s a solid foundation to build on for the future.

Plus many smaller changes, for a list of all the interesting ones, please read through the changelog.

Getting Support

Please see the “Get Support” page on our website to find ways to get help from the active and friendly 0 A.D. community. We are well aware there is some room for improvement in 0 A.D. Some known issues are: Lag, visual glitches or textures not loaded, missing animations and more. When you provide feedback, we would ask you to focus on some of the other points that could be improved. Thanks.

Please Contribute!

We are seeking volunteer contributors in programming, art, sound, documentation and more. Programmers are especially welcome and can get started immediately. Interested? Log onto #0ad-dev on QuakeNet on IRC and meet the developers. Also, you are invited to register on our forums and start participating!

Why “Timosthenes”?

We name our releases according to development status (“Alpha” or “Beta”), successive release number (1, 2, 3, …) and a word relating to the ancient world, in alphabetical order (“Argonaut” for A, “Bellerophon” for B, …). “Timosthenes” relates to 0 A.D. as it is the name of an Ancient Greek cartographer, and this release adds a lot of new maps. For the next alpha, we welcome fan suggestions for words relating to the ancient world beginning with the letter U. Keep it original and related to the time frame portrayed in 0 A.D. (appx. 500 BC – 1 BC)!

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2 hours ago, av93 said:

The white subs doesn't read well with white and bright backgrounds.
 

Could you please give more details on what you are talking about? If it is the text on the video, we are aware of it but didn't want to delay the release just because of it.

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1 hour ago, Tomcelmare said:

I've got a little bug here. I can't build a roman fortress with the GSL on. The graphics don't show up, there are only straight, blurry lines. When the GSL is off though, the fortress shows up. Is anyone experiencing the same thing?

Make sure to update your graphics drivers. If the problem persist, please add a screenshot and your system_info.txt (see GameDataPaths).

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1 hour ago, tom111 said:

did any of you update on ubuntu? I tried, but i get the message, that everything is already up to date. I am currently on 0ad version 19.

Thanks.

Which PPA are you using? And in either case it might take a little while before it's available. 

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@AtlasMapper, it's currently a bit hard, as without modifications to the game, you need to enter the coordinates manually into the map XML file. There's also no example in-game yet, but there's one here: http://trac.wildfiregames.com/ticket/3814

As said in the release announcement, it's not yet complete. It's missing an easy way to add the paths, and it will also give problems with multiplayer for now. If it would be completely usable already, it would probably be our main feature.

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@sanderd17: Thanks for the infos. Yes I understand this feature is not complete yet, but as it is announced here, it is a bit disappointing not to be able to see some example in the A20. Maybe it could be nice to add the example you provide (thanks for the link) as a demo-only map in A20 ? You can also insist in the description of the map the feature is not yet complete. There was some trigger examples in the A19 (like treasure islands), even if triggers are still experimental. In the same way, you can show how the cinematic camera feature could be used. Some users might find nice to try to mess around with this feature, even if not easy to use yet ?

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5 hours ago, feneur said:

Could you please give more details on what you are talking about? If it is the text on the video, we are aware of it but didn't want to delay the release just because of it.

Yes, I was talking about the video.

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I like the new maps added! it would be cool to add a nieuw type of building for the next release. is it just me or did you guys changed it so i cant see the places where my ally has been?

btw i dont know why, but the new graphics setting was set to low for me, when i set it to high nothing changed as far as i know. (i would expected it to be at high because of good gpu)

Edited by jarnomodderkolk
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6 hours ago, jarnomodderkolk said:

btw i dont know why, but the new graphics setting was set to low for me, when i set it to high nothing changed as far as i know. (i would expected it to be at high because of good gpu)

Graphics quality is currently not autodetected and it is always set to low by default. Some work is needed before adding autodetection, i.e. adding on the fly change, see ticket #3737.

If you are curious you can see how autodetection works here. :)

EDIT: Only the "graphics quality" option is not set to high based on detected hardware. Most of everything else it is, including GLSL, postprocessing, smooth los, water effects and shadows.

I.e. if you have a high end gpu everything except "graphics quality" in a20 is set to max quality.

Edited by fabio
Clarification
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