Impressions after first contact with 0AD

[asiga]

Hi,

I used to play AOE many years ago, and I just discovered 0AD. My most sincere congratulations to all the team and contributors!!! Even if it's still in alpha stage, the game is pretty playable, and the details are awesome.

Anyway, I wish to express my impressions, just in case they might help future development:

1- Addictive aspects of gameplay for single player mode: I believe this is the area that needs more work. It's been many years since I played AOE, but I remember it as a highly addictive game even if I only played it as single player. I was the kind of player that enjoyed being able to build a relatively large civilization before the first battles. With 0AD I've not been able to play in single player without premature attacks that ruin the enjoyment of the first stages of building your civilization. Maybe in AOE I started the game in peace and then later declared war on the enemy, I don't remember because it's been many years, but in 0AD the only way to try to get close to the AOE experience is to put both the AI and me in the same team, and it obviously becomes boring if you do that.

2- Also related to gameplay: managing units becomes confusing when the population grows. In AOE I found it easier to pick military units and attack, pick workers and build, pick monks and heal... while in 0AD I usually find it difficult to pick different types of units. Maybe it's because it's just my first contact with the game, but I never felt this difficulty in AOE, so maybe there's something that could be improved here.

3- I understand this might be difficult to implement because of graphic card performance, but I tend to feel like I need to zoom out a bit more, in order to see a more general view of my units. But I acknowledge that this implies more polygons and objects on the screen, and it would likely lower FPS. Anyway, not being able to zoom out more makes me feel the game is more difficult to manage.

4- I acknowledge this could cause controversies nowadays, but if it's about historical accuracy, I believe the game would be more realistic if it depicted better the religion of each civilization: now it's everything druids, but it would be much more realistic to have healers that portray the religion of each civilization. In theory, this shouldn't be controversial because it's not about opinions in religion, but about depicting civilizations with historical accuracy. I believe AOE was more accurate than 0AD in this area, but, still, IIRC, AOE had still a lot of room for improvement here.

I hope my first impressions could be of help!! Thanks a lot for the game!!

 

[Lion.Kanzen]

The healers are different visually in each faction. Many technologies is implement yet so the religion isn't portraited well.

you can unlock camera zoom in developer panel. Alt+D

you can selecting units holding alt button and try to do a select box.

 

the ai will get different behavior. For now is complete aggressive.

 

[Lion.Kanzen]

You can set peace many minutes.

[asiga]

Wow!! Unlocking the camera zoom from the developer panel works great!! Maybe such degree of unlocking isn't desirable for normal use, but, after trying it, I strongly feel that more levels of zooming out should be allowed in the default behavior.

Regarding units selection confusion, yes, I was using select box, but I find it difficult to see where are the units that can work, the units that can fight, and the units that can heal. I don't recall feeling this difficulty when playing AOE, I clearly figured out where was each unit type. But it was many years ago, so maybe my memories aren't accurate. Maybe one reason is the hybrid civilian-military units, which, even historically accurate, make gameplay less clear IMHO.

Anyway, I feel that it would be highly desirable to study new ways for achieving an addictive gameplay in single player mode. AOE made you desire to start a new game when the previous one ended, and I still don't have this same feeling with 0AD (don't take me wrong, I love it, but I find myself enjoying looking at the buildings, the animations, and testing things rather than enjoying playing, which might be just a consequence that the game isn't finished, but could also be a symptom showing that addictive gameplay needs more study).

Other minor aspects that maybe could be improved are corrals (if I'm understanding it correctly, you need to manually kill the animals, but it would be more convenient to have some workers doing the farm work automatically).

And definitely, a more accurate depiction of each civilization religion in their temples/healers/monks/priests, etc... will add a more realistic feeling. Different healers could have different powers and habilities. Some temples could have (historically-based) additional uses (for example a monastery can have a very important library that helps make discoveries, or a liquor distillery, and there can be also civilizations whose healers are hermits who try to be alone, a distance from populated areas, and who would automatically walk away from populated areas (just a bit, perhaps, because otherwise getting to them for healing would be too difficult). Just quick ideas, but very cool stuff can be done with a more accurate depiction of the religion from each civilization.

 

[sphyrth]

Welcome to the forums!

1. As Lion said, you can set Ceasefire for a number of minutes. I think it's on the map settings. That could help you solve the problem against early attcks.
2. I feel that this is what making people hate Citizen Soldiers gameplay-wise (and you just confirmed it while I was trying to writethis reply). I don't exactly know what you mean by what you're trying to select but these are my two options: (a) Pressing "I" while box selecting all units on the screen will only select the idle units. (b) I box select everything, then Ctrl+Click the Women (middle-bottom part of the UI) to deselect them from the group. I like defending the concept of Citizen Soldiers, but I DO have to concede this point. It's difficult to "distinguish" military from worker units. You only have the professional soldiers (pure combat and no work), called Champions and Heroes.
3. Since you come from AoE, this kind of habit is understandable. Your only real problem with zooming out is the clouds. Yeah, you can turn it off but I personally like it as eye-candy.
4. I haven't played the mod yet, but I think wowgetoffyoucellphone's Delenda Est has the feature you're looking for. He just recently employed worshipping animations to each faction's patron deity.

[wowgetoffyourcellphone]

For zoom, I suggest the developers try these as default setting:

 

view.zoom.min = 45.0
view.zoom.max = 200.0
view.zoom.default = 100.0
view.fov = 45.0

 

 

Quote

Other minor aspects that maybe could be improved are corrals (if I'm understanding it correctly, you need to manually kill the animals, but it would be more convenient to have some workers doing the farm work automatically).

Corrals will be improve. In final version, you can train sheeps or cattles and then "garrison" them into the corral for a free food trickle, or you can slaughter them for food. I think auto-queue in general is a bad idea, but for the corral I think would be very nice! I think developer should implement auto-queue as a toggle feature in the templates--and public mod only use it for corral. Also, i would like a cool tech, maybe "Chicken Coop" that spawn free chicken for eating.

 

 

Edited January 8, 2017 by wowgetoffyourcellphone

[Lion.Kanzen]

We need template and costum config with camera as user interface in video tab.

[wowgetoffyourcellphone]

1 minute ago, Lion.Kanzen said:

We need template and costum config with camera as user interface in video tab.

I agree. I am think 2 or more level of zoom. Near--standard-- and far -- my setting.

[wowgetoffyourcellphone]

9 hours ago, asiga said:

And definitely, a more accurate depiction of each civilization religion in their temples/healers/monks/priests, etc... will add a more realistic feeling. Different healers could have different powers and habilities. Some temples could have (historically-based) additional uses (for example a monastery can have a very important library that helps make discoveries, or a liquor distillery, and there can be also civilizations whose healers are hermits who try to be alone, a distance from populated areas, and who would automatically walk away from populated areas (just a bit, perhaps, because otherwise getting to them for healing would be too difficult). Just quick ideas, but very cool stuff can be done with a more accurate depiction of the religion from each civilization.

 

In my mod, there is Cult Statues that you can praise. Praising these statue--and killing enemy units-- gains you the Glory resource. With it, you can train heroes, resewarch special technologies, and build Wonders to unlock Empire Phase.

[Lion.Kanzen]

Common technology must be basic like this, the factor is common in mostly of civs.

 

Temple Technologies 


Philosophy / Folklorik Inheritance/ Concillors
Reduces upgrades research time at Buildings.
-40% Research Time
Phase: 2
Research Costs: 100 Food, 200 metal
Research Time: 30 sec
Civilization(s):All

Illustration Papyre Scroll / Celtic symbol / Iberian Symbol / Indian Symbol

Statal Religion/ Natural Gods
Increaseshealer speed +20%
Phase: 2
Research Costs: 100 Food, 200 metal
Research Time: 30 sec
Civilization(s):All


Illustration Papyre Scroll / Celtic symbol / Iberian Symbol / Indian Symbol

Worship toAres/Mars/Kartikeya/Andarta/Belatucadros/Chi You/Anhur/Laran/
Cariocecus/Ishtar/Anat (War God)
Phase: 2
BuildingTemple
Cost120 metal
Stats Melee Attack, Speed, and Hit Points increased 10%
Research Time: 30 sec
Civilization(s):All Diferent names for ech one

Worship toCeres/Demeter/Baal/Damara/Osiris/Bhūmi/Anahita/Damona/Lurbira(Fertilygod)
-5 cost farm +25% Farmnig rate
Phase: 2
Cost120 metal
Research Time: 30 sec
Civilization(s):All Diferent names for ech one
Source: Caesar 3 based 



Prophet/Augure/Oracle/Divine visions 
+50% HP to Healer
Phase: 2
Cost120 metal
Research Time: 100 sec
Civilization(s):All
Source: EE I & aoeo

Astrology / Astronomy 
temple generates 20 metal per minute
Phase: 3/4
Cost 600 metal
Research Time: 120 sec
Civilization(s):All
Source:RTW 2 & AOE I 
 

Edited January 8, 2017 by feneur
removed unnecessary/distracting formatting

[balduin]

On 1/7/2017 at 3:46 PM, asiga said:

2- Also related to gameplay: managing units becomes confusing when the population grows. In AOE I found it easier to pick military units and attack, pick workers and build, pick monks and heal... while in 0AD I usually find it difficult to pick different types of units. Maybe it's because it's just my first contact with the game, but I never felt this difficulty in AOE, so maybe there's something that could be improved here.

@asiga You can group your units and give them a number. For example select a group of soldiers and press CTRL+1, you will then see a round symbol on your left hand side of the screen which represents the group. Every time you want to select the same group of soldiers you can press 1 on your keyboard and you get the group. You can have 0 - 9 groups, which means 10 groups. I use this a lot to manage my units and keep control over my attack army and/or units I move around a lot.

As far as I remember it was not possible to do that in AoE.

[Lion.Kanzen]

1 hour ago, balduin said:

 

As far as I remember it was not possible to do that in AoE.

Do what?

[wowgetoffyourcellphone]

28 minutes ago, Lion.Kanzen said:

Do what?

The thing he spend paragraph talking about...

[Lion.Kanzen]

9 minutes ago, wowgetoffyourcellphone said:

The thing he spend paragraph talking about...

Yes but.. that feature is one most older in AoE series. I'm very surprised.

[wowgetoffyourcellphone]

1 minute ago, Lion.Kanzen said:

Yes but.. that feature is one most older in AoE series. I'm very surprised.

Original aoe1 is very primitive. I try play it a couple years ago and was very frustrating.

[Lion.Kanzen]

13 minutes ago, wowgetoffyourcellphone said:

Original aoe1 is very primitive. I try play it a couple years ago and was very frustrating.

And still, but was my first RTS.

[balduin]

@Lion.Kanzen mine too.

Edited January 19, 2017 by balduin

[Jiri]

Hi,

first I would like to thank you very much for a great game experience (AOE was my favourite game in my childhood). Game is lovely, only thing I am dissapointed is the fact I am not able to win on normal difficulty. I can still play on "easy" but you know... pride I am still trying. If you now about any gameplay on youtube with normal diff. settings please share. All I saw was most likely on easy diff.

Thanks

[sphyrth]

8 hours ago, Jiri said:

If you now about any gameplay on youtube with normal diff. settings please share. All I saw was most likely on easy diff.

Shameless plug! Yes, that's Normal Difficulty. Too bad I no longer have the replay file to prove it.

 

[Servo]

On 1/7/2017 at 3:46 PM, asiga said:

Hi,

I used to play AOE many years ago, and I just discovered 0AD. My most sincere congratulations to all the team and contributors!!! Even if it's still in alpha stage, the game is pretty playable, and the details are awesome.

Anyway, I wish to express my impressions, just in case they might help future development:

1- Addictive aspects of gameplay for single player mode: I believe this is the area that needs more work. It's been many years since I played AOE, but I remember it as a highly addictive game even if I only played it as single player. I was the kind of player that enjoyed being able to build a relatively large civilization before the first battles. With 0AD I've not been able to play in single player without premature attacks that ruin the enjoyment of the first stages of building your civilization. Maybe in AOE I started the game in peace and then later declared war on the enemy, I don't remember because it's been many years, but in 0AD the only way to try to get close to the AOE experience is to put both the AI and me in the same team, and it obviously becomes boring if you do that.

2- Also related to gameplay: managing units becomes confusing when the population grows. In AOE I found it easier to pick military units and attack, pick workers and build, pick monks and heal... while in 0AD I usually find it difficult to pick different types of units. Maybe it's because it's just my first contact with the game, but I never felt this difficulty in AOE, so maybe there's something that could be improved here.

3- I understand this might be difficult to implement because of graphic card performance, but I tend to feel like I need to zoom out a bit more, in order to see a more general view of my units. But I acknowledge that this implies more polygons and objects on the screen, and it would likely lower FPS. Anyway, not being able to zoom out more makes me feel the game is more difficult to manage.

4- I acknowledge this could cause controversies nowadays, but if it's about historical accuracy, I believe the game would be more realistic if it depicted better the religion of each civilization: now it's everything druids, but it would be much more realistic to have healers that portray the religion of each civilization. In theory, this shouldn't be controversial because it's not about opinions in religion, but about depicting civilizations with historical accuracy. I believe AOE was more accurate than 0AD in this area, but, still, IIRC, AOE had still a lot of room for improvement here.

I hope my first impressions could be of help!! Thanks a lot for the game!!

 

We have the same view but developers perhaps have more focus on multiplayer.

[Lion.Kanzen]

9 minutes ago, Servo said:

We have the same view but developers perhaps have more focus on multiplayer.

You know is a volunteer project ?

you can follow the development here.

http://trac.wildfiregames.com/timeline

 

Edited February 3, 2017 by Lion.Kanzen

[Servo]

The thread starter mentioned about highlighted units hard to distinguish. I found it hard or may take a few extra move to exclude the women from being caught in clashes when you highlight the units in the area. Can't we have a toggle to turn on/off to highlight just military units when you are selecting units in an area? Say for example there is a raid and you have mixture of women and military units working you can do micro but is it easier to just highlight everything but only military units will be selected to respond to an attack. 

[Imarok]

Just press the Alt key

[Grugnas]

On 7/1/2017 at 11:32 PM, asiga said:

Other minor aspects that maybe could be improved are corrals (if I'm understanding it correctly, you need to manually kill the animals, but it would be more convenient to have some workers doing the farm work automatically).

 

would be nice to have a system like Warcraft and Starcraft where you could just right-click the icon making the stable train animals continously every time the building finish to train an animal, if food is aviable. The skill of the player is to keep corrals going without let your hunters stop to gather food. Actually if you continuosly train sheeps and keep the number of stable and hunters equal, they won't stop to work

[jpsouzamatos]

On 07/01/2017 at 8:46 PM, asiga said:

- Addictive aspects of gameplay for single player mode: I believe this is the area that needs more work. It's been many years since I played AOE, but I remember it as a highly addictive game even if I only played it as single player. I was the kind of player that enjoyed being able to build a relatively large civilization before the first battles. With 0AD I've not been able to play in single player without premature attacks that ruin the enjoyment of the first stages of building your civilization. Maybe in AOE I started the game in peace and then later declared war on the enemy, I don't remember because it's been many years, but in 0AD the only way to try to get close to the AOE experience is to put both the AI and me in the same team, and it obviously becomes boring if you do that.

 

This is my main problem. You need to build the economy to build the army, and its unrealistic to do that with attacks at the inception phase. I never played AOE because I'm a linux user but I felt the same thing. Wars are something that you plan, its not something so sudden like oad currently are. I would not complain if it was a game about street fight but in a game about empires it makes no sense.