Really?

[Grugnas]

39 minutes ago, Lion.Kanzen said:

The game is spam an massive army and win.

 

Basically yes because units are easy to train and sometimes happens to fight never ending battles because units are easy to be replaced in late game in "mainland like" maps at advantage of civs which take thr most of the advantage from building barracks.

Actually natural counters remove the need of introducing odd explicit counters, between units at least ( i'd like to see such bonuses while using formation rather than plan introduction) .

Managing resources could be more crucial. Taining and building time(thing that perhaps in delenda est is too strong, at least for infinite time to build grainfields) reduction perhaps would promote different approaches to the mere e units spam wars.

 

[elexis]

Quote

Everything should form around that concept. Ancient cultures clashing in order to make their empire reign supreme. How did they fight? Where did they colonize? How can you capture that feel and make a fun game in the process?

There is a different use case of random maps and scenario maps. These things would suit a campaign. It's on my list of things to do, but that will certainly take many months without doing anything else.

44 minutes ago, wowgetoffyourcellphone said:

I would much rather have 10 well-designed, balanced, and beautiful random map scripts that form a coherent theme with the game, than have 1000 random maps of extremely variable quality and no relation to each other.

The fact that we have added further maps in alpha 21-23 is just because there was someone who isn't us making them and coming to us with the finished product. So we have the decision to either make it fit to the game or reject them altogether. Rejecting them doesn't really save us time since we didn't spend (much) time on creating them to begin with. So not adding these maps by other people doesn't free up time to enable us to create new maps. I don't think any kittens were hurt by new  maps like arctic summer that don't quote a specific civ or a place of a specific battle. As said already, sometime we should have an ingame map downloader (probably WFG authorized files only), then we can publish maps as DLC and allow even more of them. For example _zoro's high castle map was a fun one but was beyond the scope of what we can commit to the game.

I do agree that Howe Sound was a bad fauxpas with regards to the scope of the game. So I took much more care and

would like to highlight Ratumacos  and especially Danubius as an example. I recall sitting more than hundred hours just on that map alone, adding dozens of fitting actors, determining actual historic and geographic background and making it well balanced for all sizes and as many types of players as possible, designing and creating a specific side-goal for the players (destroying the gaia fortification) and creating an own small scripted AI to interact with the players.

Quote

Players start along the banks of the river Danube in the period following the expansion into Pannonia by the Celtic Boii tribe. Seeking to consolidate their hold on this land, celtic reinforcements have been sent to root out the remaining foreign cultures. Players not only have to vie for power amongst themselves, but also beat back these ruthless invaders. Ultimately, the Boii were defeated by the rising power of the Dacians, hence leading to the reemergence of the Geto-Dacian Confederation under King Burebista.

As you can see it was planned that the gaia units are the Dacians to frame that specific historic & geographic reality. Isn't that what you asked for? There is no ingame narration, but we do want that for a campaign eventually. Unfortunately we don't have a Dacians civ and creating new models for them would have taken months.

You have to consider that there were 3 people doing 80% of the commits last release, 4 people doing 18% of the commits and 3 people doing 2% of the commits. The development is just above the threshold of being dead since years as we can barely maintain the code and fail to cope with the review queue growth altogether. We can be happy if we can write one feature on our own per person in two months, even if some refuse to recognize it as a feature.

Again, I don't think quality and quantity of features are mutually exclusive. Semi-finished features that people propose can be converted to features that fit to the game that many, even if you don't like. But when I spend my time on something, I do it right and this means that I will put each bracket into the place where it belongs and possibly do hundreds of commits cleaning up the mess that devs accumulated previously before adding complexity (you were asking for quality, didn't you?).

Another example of something that fits to the concept of 0 A.D. that was only framed as a gimmick that noone cares about where we spent weeks on making it fit to the historic aspect of the game are relics.

Quote

Solon instituted several economic reforms encouraging commerce and agriculture.
+15% gather rate for workers.Solon brought in a new system of weights and measures, fathers were encouraged to find trades for their sons.
-10% cost for economic technologies."

Seeing entrenched defense to be useless against the Roman army, Cassivellaunus resorted to guerrilla tactics. This was later employed by other chieftains too.
+15% movement speed and vision range for all soldiers."

Cassivellaunus deployed fast-moving skirmishers to harass Roman troops and foragers.
+20% attack range for skirmisher javelins."

Leader of the Carthaginian heavy cavalry at Trebia and Cannae, where his triple charge had devastating effects on the enemy.
+1 armor, +10% health for melee cavalry."

Warring with the Romans, Ambiorix realized the futility of open warfare and instead resorted to ambush tactics. The Gauls quickly learned where and when to execute surprise attacks.
Soldiers require 25% less experience to promote and gain a 5% attack bonus."

When the Roman army fell short of food supplies, the Gallic tribes were ordered to give up a part of their already meagre harvest. The Eburones under Ambiorix were reluctant to do so, therefore Caesar sent troops to take them by force.
-10% farming rate."

Along with his brother Indibil, Mandonius commanded the Iberian recruits and mercenaries that took part in the Punic Wars.
-25% metal cost for all allied citizen-soldier mercenaries."

Following the fall of Indibil in battle, Mandonius led the survivors to safety.
+10% health for all soldiers."

During the First Macedonian War, Philip and his troops sacked Thermum, the religious and political centre of Aetolia.
+5 food and wood for every enemy unit killed or structure destroyed."

Son of Chandragupta Maurya, Bindusara consolidated the empire, creating a stable state for his son Ashoka to inherit.
+20% territory influence."

Bindusara is said to have conquered lands to the south of the empire.
+15% unit capture rate."

Throughout his reign, much of Artaxerxes' wealth was spent on building projects. He restored the Palace of Darius I at Susa and restored the ancient city of Ecbatana.
+5% health and -10% resource cost for all buildings."

Continuing his predecessors' work on the Great Library of Alexandria, he seized every book brought to the city, thus leaving to his people a vast amount of hoarded wisdom.-10% resource cost for all technologies."

After the rape of Lucretia by the son of King Tarquinius Superbus and her subsequent suicide, Brutus vowed to avenge her and overthrow the monarchy.
Female citizens cost 20% less and work 10% faster."

Brutus was one of the key figures in the overthrow of the monarchy and the founding of the Roman Republic. Later, as consul he led a Roman army to victory against the Etruscan King Tarquinius who sought to retake the throne.
+1 armor for all units and siege engines."

Antiochus I laid the foundation for the Ezida Temple in Borsippa.
-10% resource cost for temples and temple technologies."

Antiochus encouraged Greek immigration to his realm and established many new cities in Asia Minor to serve as counterweights to the Gauls.
+5% maximum population."

Son of Selecus Nicator, Antiochus succeeded in the formidable task of keeping the empire together, meanwhile founding temples and defeating the invading Gauls with war elephants.
-10% cost for War Elephants."

Lycurgus instituted several military reforms, thus the complete and undivided allegiance to Sparta from its citizens was implemented under his form of government.
-10% resource cost for citizen spear infantry."
-5% resource cost for spear infantry champions."

To further support equality, Lycurgus forbade the use of gold and silver, introducing a new iron currency called pelanors.
+15% metal gather rate for workers.

It was not easy to find a leading figure for each civ that wasn't already present in the game and finding an ingame bonus that can be derived from actual history.

5 hours ago, WhiteTreePaladin said:

Would be nice if we had a better filter system than just keywords for naval, demo, triggers, etc.

Adding more filters is easy, we just need a proper name.

With regards to small and tiny mapsizes, playability becomes very different from usual games.Just one of the many facets how the game can be modified. It's a fun gimmick in multiplayer mode, you have to fight for every single tree and every man and woman lost makes a huge difference. .

[Nescio]

From a programming point of view, improving the engine is far more important than adding new content or trying to balance the game in an Alpha stage. The team is quite small and I certainly do not want them to waste their valuable time.

However, it would be nice if there was a clear and simple mechanism for others to propose tiny changes without being a burden to the workload of the team. For instance, a dedicated subforum where minor proposals can be posted and voted upon; if a proposal has at least a dozen votes with, let's say, two-thirds in favour, it can be implemented; voting ends in a week or 36 hours after the last vote (whichever is greater).

The above could work for tiny changes, e.g.:

• Reduce siege ram base attack by a factor x and add a x bonus attack vs structures
• Enable Briton dog kennels in Village phase
• Increase pikeman pierce damage from 3.0 to 5.0

NB: proposals should be clear, ready to land, and easy to review; e.g. “add a Thracian civilization” is unsuitable, but change the costs of technology y is perfectly fine (provided it contains the to be changed code).

[fatherbushido]

@Nescio: I agree with you. But "alpha".

I can be ok with Increase "pikeman pierce damage from 3.0 to 5.0 " even with "Increase pikeman pierce damage from 3.0 to 10.0"  but also with "Decrease pikeman pierce damage from 3.0 to 1.5 ". All that are experiments. I would like to see many (even conflicting) experiments.

The matter is to decide what is worth to experiment and what isn't. The good news is that in any private mod or in any shared mod we can do those experiments.

For the 'public mod' the main constraint is to keep a clean state where we can develop things. (If we don't have a full tree of technologies, it's also perhaps because it's a bit early to finish that without all the requested features. That's the easy and nice part of the job). At least, it's my personal point of view.

Discussing about all that is a bit complicated as often people have too much biases. I already said that somewhere but I don't try to contribute/develop my own game. I just try to contribute to the creation of @Wijitmaker and rip Ken Wood, taking into account all what was discussed meanwhile.

The main issue currently is just to let people actually do their task.

[Imarok]

Imho we first should all agree on one document, stating, how the gameplay should do. Then we can decide for each patch if it implements that gameplay or not.

[Grugnas]

[Sundiata]

3 hours ago, elexis said:

You have to consider that there were 3 people doing 80% of the commits last release, 4 people doing 18% of the commits and 3 people doing 2% of the commits. The development is just above the threshold of being dead since years as we can barely maintain the code and fail to cope with the review queue growth altogether. We can be happy if we can write one feature on our own per person in two months, even if some refuse to recognize it as a feature.

This is a very relevant point, and also the reason why I think it's so important to attract (much) more people to 0AD. I'm really not expecting 10 people to implement the entire design-document and manage the slew of daily user-requests, all on their free time. 

I think attracting more people can be done "relatively easily" by updating the main web-site, especially using much better screenshots than the ones that are there now. Video-editing features can be used more often to make pretty "short-video's" introducing all of the civ's in a 45sec. format for example.. Creating a development report every month/two months doesn't seem too much work to do, but essential to maintaining interest (it gives people something to look forward to, in between releases). There used to be these cool weekly development reports on the main site (I totally loved them), but every week is clearly overkill.. There needs to be some kind of "PR-department" creating/managing/planning promotional materials so that, for example, pretty screenshots, or concept art created by lordgood can be featured, new models like stanislass' Thracians or alaexander and lion's Xiognu minifaction can be shown off, or code improvements explained and new mods can be presented. This "PR-team" should have access to the official website/facebook/youtube/twitter/instagram acoounts and update at least once a week (if only with a single screenshot), and contact important gaming-sites ahead of every realese. These relatively low investments of time and effort, that don't even need to be handled by the development team (maybe just reviewed by them), would do wonders in terms of attracting new players and potential contributors. Some are bound to be coders...

0AD is still shockingly unknown, and in dire need of some good ol' marketing! It would just be nice to have something a little more coherent to market. Why not include a simple campaign for the first time. That would be revolutionary. Romans for example. Nothing too crazy. You play 5 maps, one after the other, each incrementally more difficult than the last. Then you integrate it with the tutorial (for the first map at least). Generate random maps with the right setting, and modify to liking with triggers and all. Is that beyond the realm of feasibility? 

How often are the Departments of Computer Science in universities contacted? Can't people write specific, pre-determined sections of code as a part of their bachelor's program or thesis or extra credit? It's an open-source project after all... It's historical so there's educational aspects... Advanced classes in digital art departments could probably model a new civ in less than two days (imagine 20 people working on a single civ as a class-project)...

[Imarok]

54 minutes ago, Sundiata said:

This is a very relevant point, and also the reason why I think it's so important to attract (much) more people to 0AD. I'm really not expecting 10 people to implement the entire design-document and manage the slew of daily user-requests, all on their free time. 

I think attracting more people can be done "relatively easily" by updating the main web-site, especially using much better screenshots than the ones that are there now. Video-editing features can be used more often to make pretty "short-video's" introducing all of the civ's in a 45sec. format for example.. Creating a development report every month/two months doesn't seem too much work to do, but essential to maintaining interest (it gives people something to look forward to, in between releases). There used to be these cool weekly development reports on the main site (I totally loved them), but every week is clearly overkill.. There needs to be some kind of "PR-department" creating/managing/planning promotional materials so that, for example, pretty screenshots, or concept art created by lordgood can be featured, new models like stanislass' Thracians or alaexander and lion's Xiognu minifaction can be shown off, or code improvements explained and new mods can be presented. This "PR-team" should have access to the official website/facebook/youtube/twitter/instagram acoounts and update at least once a week (if only with a single screenshot), and contact important gaming-sites ahead of every realese. These relatively low investments of time and effort, that don't even need to be handled by the development team (maybe just reviewed by them), would do wonders in terms of attracting new players and potential contributors. Some are bound to be coders...

0AD is still shockingly unknown, and in dire need of some good ol' marketing! It would just be nice to have something a little more coherent to market. Why not include a simple campaign for the first time. That would be revolutionary. Romans for example. Nothing too crazy. You play 5 maps, one after the other, each incrementally more difficult than the last. Then you integrate it with the tutorial (for the first map at least). Generate random maps with the right setting, and modify to liking with triggers and all. Is that beyond the realm of feasibility? 

How often are the Departments of Computer Science in universities contacted? Can't people write specific, pre-determined sections of code as a part of their bachelor's program or thesis or extra credit? It's an open-source project after all... It's historical so there's educational aspects... Advanced classes in digital art departments could probably model a new civ in less than two days (imagine 20 people working on a single civ as a class-project)...

That are good ideas, but without someone doing all that it won't help...

[Servo]

A22 vanilla is really nice if you want to play SP. You can experience more battle with multiple AI and the meta allows a decent human player to cope with the raging AIs. Additional feature like the modders do (f.e. new corrals by Vox, Other new Civ's like kushite, Norse, Anglo Sax, etc, some added meta too, etc) are bonuses and they really are great. IMO I can adapt to whatever the devs and modders can offer.

Playing the mod 0abc in SP is my best choice as it has more vanilla features but the modifications are more realistic. Ranges, attack rates, resources requirements(metal) and many more. Adding stable as prerequisite to train cavalry could be promising for MP.

I like to play Vox in SP to test it but I can see this mod with its balancing is really really good for MP. Melee (esp cavs) has attack range, attack rates are nice. This mod needs to modify the AI behavior so that it can build corrals and train cavalries. The AI will just train champ cavalry since corrals may not be required.

Terra Magna with Norse and Anglo Sax is very interesting to play but some structures IMO should be modified to make it more distinguishable. If the melee cavalry attack rate is around or below 2.5 seconds it should be more interesting to play test it. 

I like to play DE in SP but the AI seem to have difficulty with the aura tech to advance in Phase and it’s going to be a long wait before the big battles can occur. 

If the developers, modders, and players could discuss more on gameplays I think the next Alpha could be much much better. Some OPs are identified and some mods are introducing rebalancing. Balancing is not really a big deal and it can be done later. Players should not complain much except in Random choices. 

My take on improving the gameplay is to limit production. There’s so many ways and some are being tried on mods. Vox, Monkey, 0abc and DE but still not enough IMO. Why not limit the trainable units on P1 and P2?! The spamming of units is the main culprit that the game can look ugly and messy. If resources can be gathered easily these mass unit production will continue. If we can add commerce cap on each resources the gameplay could change such that spamming of units can be more controlled. Limiting the number of units trainable before P3 could be more interesting. 

Pop cap on P1 and P2 could even help...

Then you want all he’ll break loose remove all restriction once P3 is reached!

[borg-]

A lot of opinion and little decision. This is the real problem.

Edited October 10, 2017 by borg-

[LordGood]

A room full of people debating with an empty chair. I'd love to take gameplay lead myself, with the team's blessing of course. I'd certainly be neglecting the art department more than I already am in that case lol

[Grugnas]

1 hour ago, LordGood said:

A room full of people debating with an empty chair. I'd love to take gameplay lead myself, with the team's blessing of course. I'd certainly be neglecting the art department more than I already am in that case lol

Although there isn't any official  position for that ( despite i guess there are entire teams dedicated to that aspect of the game in AAA afaik ) i guess that it is a shared feeling that there is the need of a guide who doesn't go on with "self conclusive experiments"  but has the common sense to change things with criteria in foresee of  future sure changes.

[Hannibal_Barca]

I think instead of 1 person it should be a small group of dedicated people (6 max)

That way it won't be one-sided

Things can be proposed and voted over, that way we kind of manage to compress the different views of the masses

[LordGood]

I would be in favor of a single, receptive lead. Councils slow things down, in an already slow system, that's already full of councils.

As long as everyone can voice their opinions, it won't be one sided, but quick and decisive.

[Stan`]

I thought I wouldn't intervene as these kind of talks make me sad and wondering if I should continue to contribute to 0 A.D. or just do something else more personal with that time. That being said I just will answer Lordgood's posts.

 

3 hours ago, LordGood said:

A room full of people debating with an empty chair. I'd love to take gameplay lead myself, with the team's blessing of course. I'd certainly be neglecting the art department more than I already am in that case lol

The question is not whether you would be neglecting the art department it's whether you would not be neglecting that position as well. As in will you have the time to regularly work on it. Art has this advantage that you don't need to feed it with new material constantly once you have reached a certain point.  So yeah I'd say go ahead and take this hat if you think you can make a change. You would be seating on that empty chair. (Be warned it's on fire)

I would still like to see more activity in that department but that's out of this thread.

 

40 minutes ago, LordGood said:

I would be in favor of a single, receptive lead. Councils slow things down, in an already slow system, that's already full of councils.

As long as everyone can voice their opinions, it won't be one sided, but quick and decisive.

A council can work if there is someone that ends up taking decisions. It just feels a bit more democratic. 

But at some point someone will have to choose.  Can't please everyone and if there's no majority then he has to decide what's best because that's why he was put in that position in the first place.

I guess that 's somewhat what you meant by receptive.

Stan out. *drops mic*

EDIT : I just feel also some people are being left out (@fatherbushido I'm looking at you) and have tried to keep it working through all the haze that was thrown to them and made it a really frustrating experience.

Edited October 10, 2017 by stanislas69

[fatherbushido]

(Perhaps also people shouldn't spread rumors like there is nobody who do that, there is no clear vision, there is no design doc and so on. Lies become true when they are said too often. Divide et impera.)

[Hannibal_Barca]

*pics up broken mic - nasty glare at stan*

 

Also if there is to be a choosing of a gameplay lead, it should not be just someone suddenly placed on the chair.

Maybe some sort of election where the candidates would tell us their vision of the future 0 A.D.

Where they would highlight the changes that they would try to do, what is their overall standing on the subject

It's always a bad idea to walk with no destination in mind but isn't it worse to rush without thinking down the correctly-deemed path?

If I wake up tomorrow and suddenly see that X just became gameplay leader or whatever and will now proceed to push through counters and whatnot, turning upside down the whole game, I would not be jumping with joy

If X doesn't have enough influence to push through his ideas then what use is a lead? There is no need to appoint a head - it's just dangerous (could turn out to be someone like @DarcReaver)

Simply choose a council comprising of an odd-numbered selection, make everyone vote y/n and things could be done. We don't have to suddenly rush down the drain after so many years of floating.. lets just paddle harder and avoid the rats.

 

*mic in garbage, go buy a new one or don't post*

[DarcReaver]

1 hour ago, Hannibal_Barca said:

*pics up broken mic - nasty glare at stan*

 

Also if there is to be a choosing of a gameplay lead, it should not be just someone suddenly placed on the chair.

Maybe some sort of election where the candidates would tell us their vision of the future 0 A.D.

Where they would highlight the changes that they would try to do, what is their overall standing on the subject

It's always a bad idea to walk with no destination in mind but isn't it worse to rush without thinking down the correctly-deemed path?

If I wake up tomorrow and suddenly see that X just became gameplay leader or whatever and will now proceed to push through counters and whatnot, turning upside down the whole game, I would not be jumping with joy

If X doesn't have enough influence to push through his ideas then what use is a lead? There is no need to appoint a head - it's just dangerous (could turn out to be someone like @DarcReaver)

Simply choose a council comprising of an odd-numbered selection, make everyone vote y/n and things could be done. We don't have to suddenly rush down the drain after so many years of floating.. lets just paddle harder and avoid the rats.

 

*mic in garbage, go buy a new one or don't post*

You may try to host some competitive tournament if you think that this already is so great in terms of gameplay depth and is huge fun and listen to what other peoples say about this tech demo. People who actually play RTS games, on a decent - high level. Try visiting and putting advertisements on sites like https://www.aoczone.net/, https://www.gamereplays.org/portals.php (CnC Generals section maybe) and maybe https://www.coh2.org/. There you should find some players who might be interested.

I'm actually quite interested how a competitive scene judges the game mechanics. Also I'd invite you to actually play some different game competitively to get a general overview how other game mechanics work.

Also @everyone:

 

Quote

What Is a Game Designer?

Now, if you want to be a game designer, the first thing you need to know is what exactly a game designer does. Apparently, this could be very simple, but, as it frequently turns out, people dreaming about a future in games don’t really get what this means and what is expected from a game designer.

NOT an Idea Person

A game designer is a professional specialised in conceiving and delivering games. The job of a game designer doesn’t stop with having a good idea about a game. This is a myth that needs to be debunked. The idea constitutes probably the 1-5% of a game designer’s job. What is really challenging – and what truly defines the job – is all the work the designer does to put the game together, from the early prototype to the final release. The lead game designer is in charge to maintain and direct the general vision of the game.

Everything Starts with a Concept

As we have said, the game designer is not just an idea man. Actually ideas are really cheap, and can come from anyone in a game developer team. The game designer’s first task is to translate the first raw idea into a concept document. This document is meant to describe the general idea of the game and to start reasoning about the technology the game will need, the costs and the timespan the development of the game is going to take. The concept document is a first treatment of the game, and it’s just the very first step of a miles-long journey.

The Game Design Bible (Well, Almost)

The concept document is sometimes further detailed in into what it’s known as the game bible. This is a massive document detailing every tiny aspect of the game. This should work as a reference for the other team members. Every possible answer to their questions should be addressed here.

In the last few years, though, the game bible has changed a lot; since a more flexible workflow is preferred, the documentation is written by the designer during the multiple iterations of a first prototype. In this way the game grows in sync with the observation of the team. For more information or ideas about this kind of process, you should read Daniel Cook’s Game Design Logs.

However, whatever the development process is, the game designer has still the responsibility to keep the documentation updated, and to maintain the documentation and all the game related knowledge base updated.

continue reading: http://wannabe.urustar.net/
General overview about game design: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Game_design

Just saying. this is fundamentally lacking in 0 AD.

 

Also, once again: I never said that that my concept should be used or that every aspect has to be done that I proposed. I said the game needs to be coherent and have a general direction. AoE clone, seperate game, single player game or whatever.

I always said if I don't do it someone else has to decide it. And he has to be competent and experienced with game design. Unless he  is meeting these criteria this will be a huge mess aswell. Maybe even a design TEAM would work aswell, but since noone here has experience in that area idk who should do it. But yea, whatever.

Edited October 10, 2017 by DarcReaver

[wowgetoffyourcellphone]

Deleted reply against the "lying" allegation. Not worth it.

Edited October 11, 2017 by wowgetoffyourcellphone

[wowgetoffyourcellphone]

23 hours ago, elexis said:

Another example of something that fits to the concept of 0 A.D. that was only framed as a gimmick that noone cares about where we spent weeks on making it fit to the historic aspect of the game are relics.

Quote

Solon instituted several economic reforms encouraging commerce and agriculture.
+15% gather rate for workers.Solon brought in a new system of weights and measures, fathers were encouraged to find trades for their sons.
-10% cost for economic technologies."

Seeing entrenched defense to be useless against the Roman army, Cassivellaunus resorted to guerrilla tactics. This was later employed by other chieftains too.
+15% movement speed and vision range for all soldiers."

Cassivellaunus deployed fast-moving skirmishers to harass Roman troops and foragers.
+20% attack range for skirmisher javelins."

Leader of the Carthaginian heavy cavalry at Trebia and Cannae, where his triple charge had devastating effects on the enemy.
+1 armor, +10% health for melee cavalry."

Warring with the Romans, Ambiorix realized the futility of open warfare and instead resorted to ambush tactics. The Gauls quickly learned where and when to execute surprise attacks.
Soldiers require 25% less experience to promote and gain a 5% attack bonus."

When the Roman army fell short of food supplies, the Gallic tribes were ordered to give up a part of their already meagre harvest. The Eburones under Ambiorix were reluctant to do so, therefore Caesar sent troops to take them by force.
-10% farming rate."

Along with his brother Indibil, Mandonius commanded the Iberian recruits and mercenaries that took part in the Punic Wars.
-25% metal cost for all allied citizen-soldier mercenaries."

Following the fall of Indibil in battle, Mandonius led the survivors to safety.
+10% health for all soldiers."

During the First Macedonian War, Philip and his troops sacked Thermum, the religious and political centre of Aetolia.
+5 food and wood for every enemy unit killed or structure destroyed."

Son of Chandragupta Maurya, Bindusara consolidated the empire, creating a stable state for his son Ashoka to inherit.
+20% territory influence."

Bindusara is said to have conquered lands to the south of the empire.
+15% unit capture rate."

Throughout his reign, much of Artaxerxes' wealth was spent on building projects. He restored the Palace of Darius I at Susa and restored the ancient city of Ecbatana.
+5% health and -10% resource cost for all buildings."

Continuing his predecessors' work on the Great Library of Alexandria, he seized every book brought to the city, thus leaving to his people a vast amount of hoarded wisdom.-10% resource cost for all technologies."

After the rape of Lucretia by the son of King Tarquinius Superbus and her subsequent suicide, Brutus vowed to avenge her and overthrow the monarchy.
Female citizens cost 20% less and work 10% faster."

Brutus was one of the key figures in the overthrow of the monarchy and the founding of the Roman Republic. Later, as consul he led a Roman army to victory against the Etruscan King Tarquinius who sought to retake the throne.
+1 armor for all units and siege engines."

Antiochus I laid the foundation for the Ezida Temple in Borsippa.
-10% resource cost for temples and temple technologies."

Antiochus encouraged Greek immigration to his realm and established many new cities in Asia Minor to serve as counterweights to the Gauls.
+5% maximum population."

Son of Selecus Nicator, Antiochus succeeded in the formidable task of keeping the empire together, meanwhile founding temples and defeating the invading Gauls with war elephants.
-10% cost for War Elephants."

Lycurgus instituted several military reforms, thus the complete and undivided allegiance to Sparta from its citizens was implemented under his form of government.
-10% resource cost for citizen spear infantry."
-5% resource cost for spear infantry champions."

To further support equality, Lycurgus forbade the use of gold and silver, introducing a new iron currency called pelanors.
+15% metal gather rate for workers.

It was not easy to find a leading figure for each civ that wasn't already present in the game and finding an ingame bonus that can be derived from actual history.

I appreciate that the feature took a lot of time and some effort, but I would have suggested the team focus on something else instead. I think you would agree that even though it's an interesting addition to the game, it adds nothing to the core mechanics, yeah? So, when I talk about core mechanics changes, and someone counters with how many new random maps were added last alpha or look at the cool catafalque feature, it falls very very flat. Quite frustrating, actually.

 

Also, it is true that when you have someone creating content for you, like random maps, you tend to just let them do their "thing" since they are motivated to do that. You take what you can get. But that doesn't mean you have to throw everything into the game just because someone creates it for you. Just saying you should be judicious. Does this fit our theme? Are we just adding content to add content? etc.

Edited October 11, 2017 by wowgetoffyourcellphone

[elexis]

2 hours ago, wowgetoffyourcellphone said:

Also, it is true that when you have someone creating content for you, like random maps, you tend to just let them do their "thing" since they are motivated to do that. You take what you can get. But that doesn't mean you have to throw everything into the game just because someone creates it for you. Just saying you should be judicious. Does this fit our theme? Are we just adding content to add content? etc.

I don't see a problem with adding unique content proposed by others that keep players interested.

Notice Capture The Relic feature is actually part of the design documents and @Sandarac originally implemented it because it was a feature which was desired since.

The design documents described as an aoe2 clone variant where one picks it up and puts it into a building.

We consciously decided to go a different path from what was described there and not make them garrisonable (actually more interesting gameplay if it's discoverable and players have to guard it) and not make them able to be picked up (how would a pickup feature add to the interest of the game and justify the cost of spending the time to implement that?).

2 hours ago, wowgetoffyourcellphone said:

I think you would agree that even though it's an interesting addition to the game, it adds nothing to the core mechanics, yeah?

Agree (and never claimed that it would).

2 hours ago, wowgetoffyourcellphone said:

So, when I talk about core mechanics changes, and someone counters with how many new random maps were added last alpha or look at the cool catafalque feature, it falls very very flat.

Never claimed that relics or random maps add to the conquest gameplay.

Relics and Danubius countered the claim that these features added have no relation to the historic aspect of  0 A.D.

2 hours ago, wowgetoffyourcellphone said:

I appreciate that the feature took a lot of time and some effort, but I would have suggested the team focus on something else instead.

The team didn't work on this at all unless you mean me being judicious with Hannibal and the relic feature which was not historically related yet.

What has stopped you from developing a feature of any proposed design plan yourself? Why did you spend time on adding Kushites to DE rather than on javascript tutorials? The fact that it will consume months to get a single feature done?

 

I discovered this game three years ago and considered the game a technical demo too after reading many claims by the game promotion itself that the game would be an unplayable alpha.

However after actually playing it, I immediately lost the impression that this is a tech demo, but an actually good game. Hence I do not and never did intended to turn the the way the game is played upside down (unless counters count). I would appreciate if someone would go through the trouble of implementing formations that mimic the actual historic usage, but that won't be me (sounds more like years than months to me).

There were missing engine features (for instance replay and good multiplayer support) and many bugs (most things falling apart when looking at it wrong) that prevented the game from being what the existing game mechanics intended it to be. This is what motivated me to work on the code. The vast majority of that is fixed and implemented now. Was playing with the thought to implement a narrated historic SP campaign, but actually why would I want to do that if the primary feedback we get after 8 months of development is a complaint about one wrong number in the balancing? So technically, I'm done here.

[Nescio]

Apparently there exists some kind of design document; could it be published prominently at a clear location on these forums? This could help people understand what you works towards to, not just now, but also in months and years to come.

Anyway, I do hope this thread is not too frustrating for you and the other team members. Even though criticisms are posted more frequently than compliments, do know that many people greatly appreciate what's been done so far, what you're still doing right now, and what you all intend to do in the future.

[DarcReaver]

51 minutes ago, Nescio said:

Apparently there exists some kind of design document; could it be published prominently at a clear location on these forums? This could help people understand what you works towards to, not just now, but also in months and years to come.

Anyway, I do hope this thread is not too frustrating for you and the other team members. Even though criticisms are posted more frequently than compliments, do know that many people greatly appreciate what's been done so far, what you're still doing right now, and what you all intend to do in the future.

There is a design document. But it's useless since noone cares about it. The game in its current state is 90% the opposite from the design doc. 
In this document I take a couple of references to gameplay related stuff in the design guide that doesn't fit to the current game found in "Part II: Solution Concept using Atheneans as example civilization". Feel free to read it.

 

Edited October 11, 2017 by DarcReaver

[fatherbushido]

5 hours ago, wowgetoffyourcellphone said:

Deleted reply against the "lying" allegation. Not worth it.

There wasn't any specific target.

----

Back to the original topic,

for https://github.com/JustusAvramenko/delenda_est/commit/d2c5c5c26d8aac77b53a69100583c5b3b7a5e4cb#diff-2f0ab909a411c23f36da18f0c851b4e4

perhaps did you a typo with add and mul for the persian cavalry.

[Lion.Kanzen]

2 hours ago, Nescio said:

Apparently there exists some kind of design document; could it be published prominently at a clear location on these forums? This could help people understand what you works towards to, not just now, but also in months and years to come.

Anyway, I do hope this thread is not too frustrating for you and the other team members. Even though criticisms are posted more frequently than compliments, do know that many people greatly appreciate what's been done so far, what you're still doing right now, and what you all intend to do in the future.

The old  official was this https://trac.wildfiregames.com/wiki/Design_Document