0abc mod

[Nescio]

0abc updated again:

• existing elephant, champion, and mercenary upkeep reverted
• soldiers and support units steadily consume food:
  • dogs: 0.01 food per second
  • infantry, healers, females, slaves: 0.02 food per second
  • traders: 0.03 food per second
  • camelry: 0.04 food per second
  • cavalry: 0.05 food per second
  • bigae: 0.10 food per second
  • quadrigae: 0.15 food per second
  • elephantry: 0.20 food per second
• champions, citizen soldiers, and support units food costs are halved:
  • infantry, healers, females, slaves cost 25 food
  • dogs cost 30 food
  • camelry costs 40 food
  • cavalry and traders cost 50 food
  • bigae cost 100 food
  • quadrigae cost 150 food
  • elephantry costs 200 food
• mercenaries have -50% training time and no longer cost any food, wood, metal, or stone; instead:
  • infantry mercenaries cost 60 silver
  • camelry mercenaries cost 75 silver
  • cavalry mercenaries cost 90 silver
  • biga mercenaries cost 180 silver
  • quadriga mercenaries cost 240 silver
  • elephantry mercenaries cost 300 silver
• unit resource loot is standardized to 20% of cost (previously 10%)
• changed phase costs:
  • town phase: 400 food, 400 wood, 200 metal, 200 stone, and 60 seconds
  • city phase: 600 food, 600 wood, 300 metal, 300 stone, and 120 seconds
  • metropolis phase: 800 food, 800 wood, 400 metal, 400 stone, and 180 seconds
• market is available in village phase to enable collecting silver earlier

As usual, have a look at 0abc-readme.pdf for more detailed information.

[Nescio]

0abc updated again:

• template organization overhauled
• loot is standardized to 20% of cost for both units and structures
• selection markers:
  • {5/2} star: heroes and catafalques
  • {8/2} star: traders (land and naval)
  • cross: healers
  • rhombus: resource gatherers (citizen soldiers, females, fishing boats)
  • arrow: champions
  • circle: all other units
• new team bonuses:
  • Athenian allies: warships −20% construction time
  • Briton allies: units cost −4% metal
  • Carthaginian allies: economic structures −20% building time
  • Gaulish allies: military structures −20% building time
  • Iberian allies: infantry javelinists −20% training time
  • Macedonian allies: units cost −4% wood
  • Mauryan allies: healers −20% training time, temple technologies −20% research time
  • Persian allies: land and naval traders −20% training time
  • Ptolemaic allies: units cost −4% food
  • Roman allies: infantry longswordsmen, sabremen, swordsmen −20% training time
  • Seleucid allies: civic structures −20% building time
  • Spartan allies: infantry hoplites, pikemen, and spearmen −20% training time
• several minor edits

0abc-readme.pdf contains more detailed information.

[Servo]

Humnn very interesting with food consumption of units. The gameplay could become harder(which is good) but how would this effect/affect units? SP wise the AI is fine as they keep food usage wisely.

When food availability couldn’t cover the consumption will the HPs decay? Although the organic workers still work 100% efficient even if HP is down to 1(unrealistic) are they prohibited from doing tasks? Or any effect?

Can the food/silver level go negative? Production of units will suffer (halt) until resources are back which could make more thinking with economic management. 

Lets see how it goes, I’m going to try a game later when I come home. 

[Nescio]

19 hours ago, Servo said:

Humnn very interesting with food consumption of units. The gameplay could become harder(which is good) but how would this effect/affect units? SP wise the AI is fine as they keep food usage wisely.

When food availability couldn’t cover the consumption will the HPs decay? Although the organic workers still work 100% efficient even if HP is down to 1(unrealistic) are they prohibited from doing tasks? Or any effect?

Can the food/silver level go negative? Production of units will suffer (halt) until resources are back which could make more thinking with economic management. 

Lets see how it goes, I’m going to try a game later when I come home. 

Yes, resource amounts can go negative. However, you need positive amounts of resources if you want to order new units, structures, technologies, etc. E.g. if you have −400 food, you need to collect 425 more food before you can train another female of 25 food.

I've observed several AI vs AI games and it seems the AI has no difficulty with keeping all its resource stocks positive. The upkeep is still quite low; if 10% of your population consists of females working on farms you'll be able to generate a food surplus. The combination of food upkeep, longer training times, and lower food costs actually makes the game somewhat easier. 25 food + 20 minutes times 0.02 food/second is still less than a lump sum of 50 food.

[Servo]

It was great test last night and looks like AI is training units of various types. Different from vanilla that their program seems to favor only selected units. This I say because I was playing against Rome that trains swordsmen in village phase but none beyond it and trains only spearman, skirmisher and champs. I like the Rome in this mod because they trained the experienced swordsmen which look really pretty. Though I have yet to see them training ranged sieges but it’s ok as I play defense against Civ with not much outranging my favored Civ. 

Btw I’m not sure but I tried to stop my food production for a little while but did not see and decrement due to unit food consumption. I will try again with more waiting time. 

Also I was surprised on some other things which is ok. 

1. Units are quite hard to kill! I like it!

2. You take out some Athens buildings which is the one you trained the champ archer and the hero. They are quite nice buildings though. 

3. Interesting that slingers are outranging archers. And you remove the Cretan archers from Athens. 

Looks like mercenaries are also gathering resources like wood and food still. They don’t initiate building economic structures but they can help building it. 

It also looks like Athenian hoplite is already on the elite form and just continue to get promotion. Not bad at all as long as units can become elite form. Skirmisher foot units haven’t been seen to get to elite form probably once it reach its elite rank. 

This is just initial observations as I haven’t gone through the full game with full upgrades on units. 

One really nice feature as I said before is that you can build any structure in neutral territory and garrison the structure not to become Gaia. 

Thanks btw that you put back the lure to original which is really nice to herd wild animals and create a Zoo like environment to them with less HP damaged. 

I guess I will be back playing this mod until the next alpha. The loading time is quite ok which looks like less than 2 minutes now. 

[Nescio]

Make sure you've updated to the latest version. I update the https://github.com/0abc/0abc-unified repository more often than I advertise here.

All units start at rank 0 and can promote up to rank 12. Visual actors do not change and are identical for all ranks. Females can gather but not build, citizen soldiers can gather and build, mercenaries can not gather but can build, and champions can neither gather nor build. And yes, slingers can outrange archers, as was the case in Antiquity. Ranged infantry ranged attack ranges:

• javelinist: 30 m
• slinger without lead bullets: 45 m
• archers: 60 m
• slinger with lead bullets: 75 m

[Servo]

I’m sure I had the latest updates(last night) but will check again. 

One more is can the minimap be either in the middle or same as vanilla so that it’s not hard to readapt when you want to play back to multiplayer?

[Servo]

I don’t notice the food consumption still in fact it’s the opposite. I used the Athenian and the food is trickling up by 1 every almost 4 seconds with speed of .25x. Approximately should be 4 food/second on normal speed with around 200 units. 

Also Athenian corral can’t be deleted but the deletion sound occurs. 

Now I see all the Athenian original units can be trained using the techs. 

I hope some guys can try this mod and test it on MP games. I really like the mechanics with some resemblance from DE mod. Kinda make you cautious on what you have to do. Battles could become longer as units are quite tough to kill. Battle strategies might be used to get the upper hand as units are not easier to spam compared to vanilla. 

[Nescio]

2 hours ago, Servo said:

I don’t notice the food consumption still in fact it’s the opposite. I used the Athenian and the food is trickling up by 1 every almost 4 seconds with speed of .25x. Approximately should be 4 food/second on normal speed with around 200 units.

Up? I really do not understand why it works differently on your machine than it does on mine. Delete your 0abc copy, download a fresh version of the repository, disable all other mods, and start a new game (don't load an existing save game).

Attached a replay of a one-minute game where the silver goes up, food trickles down, and the Athenian corral can be deleted.

2018-02-23_0005.zip

Edited February 23, 2018 by Nescio

[Servo]

Yes it worked (food and silver trickle) after I deleted all the previous ones then installed the newest. 

I tested the Gauls but seem the starting women can build some structures and the trained ones are not.

There seems to be two different types of either women or citizen soldiers as there are two sets of structure icons appearing when you want to build. 

Cavalry can still be trained in CC too.

The Hero can’t be trained from CC.

Also there are so many CC ranges when you click on it, maybe 5. Any explanation of this feature? For example farms can’t be built maybe below 1 or 2 ranges from CC?

I wasn’t able to play more as red errors are permanently blocking the minimap which is quite hard to play. It used to disappear but now it’s steady. I might try again today with other Civs. I used to play the Seleucid and it works really fine before you implement the food consumption and everything goes well except the AI (some) behavior which doesn’t attack. I need at least two to three good working Civ to have infinite build/battle scenario. 

I know and understand that some good features of your mod might not be considered on for next Alpha so I hope you will still continue it. 

[Nescio]

5 hours ago, Servo said:

There seems to be two different types of either women or citizen soldiers as there are two sets of structure icons appearing when you want to build. 

Cavalry can still be trained in CC too.

The Hero can’t be trained from CC.

This is because I initially forgot to update the skirmish templates; I noticed this only Saturday (I typically play random map, not skirmishes), but it's fixed now.

5 hours ago, Servo said:

Also there are so many CC ranges when you click on it, maybe 5. Any explanation of this feature? For example farms can’t be built maybe below 1 or 2 ranges from CC?

The explanation is that the centre has six auras, one at 25 m, one at 50 m, one at 75 m (enabled at Village Phase), one at 100 m (enabled at Town Phase), one at 125 m (enabled at City Phase), and one at 150 m (enabled at Metropolis Phase). Unfortunately the aura visualization shows both active and inactive aura ranges, which means you'll see six circles in the village phase, although only the inner three are active then.

5 hours ago, Servo said:

I know and understand that some good features of your mod might not be considered on for next Alpha so I hope you will still continue it. 

Don't worry, I intend to continue developing this mod. When the next alpha is released, I'll simply update 0abc accordingly

[Nescio]

0abc updated several times; changes include amongst many other things:

• attempts to improve balance at different levels
• reduced the number of bonus attacks
• soldiers and warships no longer grant resource loot
• soldier subtypes:
  • citizen militia: default stats
  • mercenary: +1 h/p/c armour, +10% health, +20% attack
  • veteran regular: +2 h/p/c armour, +20% health, +50% attack
  • champion guard: +3 h/p/c armour, +50% health, +100% attack
• heroes and team bonuses are disabled
• redid many civilization bonuses
• many other minor tweaks, corrections, reorganizations, improvements, etc

As usual, have a look at 0abc-readme.pdf

[Nescio]

Yet another attempt to rearrange the GUI (work in progress):

 

[Nescio]

A23 is rumoured to be coming soon, therefore I decided to update this (A22) mod again; the vertical GUI is reverted, females are renamed to women, cavalry can no longer gather, and many other minor tweaks and edits. 0abc-readme.pdf contains more detailed information.

Edited May 10, 2018 by Nescio
pdf

[Lion.Kanzen]

Trying to invent the fire? or reinvent the wheel.

I recommend make usability test.

This book have good tips and hints for that. I know is about web but still same practical for a GUI.

 

[Servo]

@Nescio you will or already updated to A23? 

For SP any arrangement is fine as long as the mod is playable like the vanilla. I still prefer the mini map closer to the center and unit/structure interfaces pops out closer to the center and more on the bottom right. This way since the mouse mostly stay along the middle has better feeling of dragging down to it, more faster.

With the resources on vertical to top left the dialogue or chat area will be obstructed?

Would an automatic pop out of economic and military structure icons be feasible? Say for example the first Econ structure built by a player is a farmstead an icon of it can automatically pop out on 3/4 bottom left(on vertical arrangement), then a drop site and followed by the market when they are built, corral too. This way you don’t need to find it in the map to upgrade. If needed the CC can be first. The same thing should be done on military structures on the bottom right. Though most players make their own hotkey but I think it will help especially if we don’t have hotkeys for most of the structures. 

Edited May 14, 2018 by Servo

[Nescio]

2 hours ago, Servo said:

@Nescio you will or already updated to A23? 

For SP any arrangement is fine as long as the mod is playable like the vanilla. I still prefer the mini map closer to the center and unit/structure interfaces pops out closer to the center and more on the bottom right. This way since the mouse mostly stay along the middle has better feeling of dragging down to it, more faster.

With the resources on vertical to top left the dialogue or chat area will be obstructed?

Yes, I will update this mod to A23, but only after it's officially released, not before.

The reason this mod also changes the GUI is because the default interface does not support displaying five resource types, nor more than 24 structure icons, etc. I'm not entirely satisfied with the results myself, it's a temporary solution, and will be changed later.

2 hours ago, Servo said:

Would an automatic pop out of economic and military structure icons be feasible? Say for example the first Econ structure built by a player is a farmstead an icon of it can automatically pop out on 3/4 bottom left(on vertical arrangement), then a drop site and followed by the market when they are built, corral too. This way you don’t need to find it in the map to upgrade. If needed the CC can be first. The same thing should be done on military structures on the bottom right. Though most players make their own hotkey but I think it will help especially if we don’t have hotkeys for most of the structures. 

Sorry, I don't quite understand what you mean.

EDIT: If the corners are problematic, why not try putting the minimap in the middle then?

 

Edited May 14, 2018 by Nescio
ps central mini-map

[Stan`]

@Nescio Do you have plans to submit your mod for download on mod.io ? If so do you need any help packaging it ?

[Nescio]

10 minutes ago, stanislas69 said:

@Nescio Do you have plans to submit your mod for download on mod.io ? If so do you need any help packaging it ?

Thanks for the offer, but right now I'm not interested. I've signed up over there to have a look, but it looks overtly complicated (graphical), plus I don't see the added value for me personally. Uploading a new version of a mod to github can be done in seconds via a command line.

Besides, I still have A22; A23 has not been released as a Fedora package yet.

[Stan`]

The main advantage is allowing players to download your mod through the game interface Basically you have to run a command like

binaries/system/pyrogenesis -mod=mod -archivebuild=binaries/data/mods/mymod -archivebuild-output=mymod.pyromod -archivebuild-compress

And go through the form there on modio. So people can download it directly through the interface without having to clone a github repository. Also, all files will be cached making them smaller and in some cases faster.

https://trac.wildfiregames.com/wiki/Modding_Guide

[Nescio]

Just now, stanislas69 said:

The main advantage is allowing players to download your mod through the game interface Basically you have to run a command like

binaries/system/pyrogenesis -mod=mod -archivebuild=binaries/data/mods/mymod -archivebuild-output=mymod.pyromod -archivebuild-compress

And go through the form there on modio. So people can download it directly through the interface without having to clone a github repository. Also, all files will be cached making them smaller and in some cases faster.

https://trac.wildfiregames.com/wiki/Modding_Guide

It makes the game faster? Well, I might try it out later, if and when I have a A23 version available.

[Stan`]

Some (not all for a reason I do not understand yet) XML files are cached to XMB files, for performance reasons, apparently reading those binary files are faster to read.
Doesn't concern you much but PNG are converted to DDS reducing download size, dae are converted to either psa or pmd for the same reasons.
Also if you didn't know, the game caches everything the first time something is used in the cache folder. With archives it doesn't have to do that.

[Nescio]

0abc contains close to three thousand xml files and as a result setting up the AI when starting a new game takes minutes instead of seconds, which is quite annoying. If caching solves this I'm interested.

[Nescio]

The last A22 version of 0abc can be obtained from https://github.com/0abc/0abc-a22.git

I'll gradually redevelop this mod for A23, available at https://github.com/0abc/0abc-a23.git

[Nescio]

Today it was announced Microsoft intends to acquire github.com ($7.5bn). I might move to gitlab.com in the future.