Adding new factions to the game

[wowgetoffyourcellphone]

Or, you know, add Imperial Romans and Germans to the core game.  

[Stan`]

8 hours ago, wowgetoffyourcellphone said:

Or, you know, add Imperial Romans and Germans to the core game.  

I'm thinking about it (Though they need to be finished first in any case) They will be in a separate mod called part II. You can just enable both

I just need to check with the design document whether addind a gazillion factions is against the original founders idea of the game or not.

Back on topic 

Shouldn't the generic name be hammer man or axeman ?

 

[wowgetoffyourcellphone]

1 minute ago, Stan` said:

I'm thinking about it (Though they need to be finished first in any case) They will be in a separate mod called part II. You can just enable both

Oh, "Part II"?

 

2 minutes ago, Stan` said:

I just need to check with the design document whether addind a gazillion factions is against the original founders idea of the game or not.

Ah, yes, the mythical founders. Better strip out half the game for their sake.  

 

3 minutes ago, Stan` said:

Shouldn't the generic name be hammer man or axeman ?

They have a generic "Axeman" already, and the Wolf Warrior is champion class. 

[Stan`]

7 minutes ago, wowgetoffyourcellphone said:

Oh, "Part II"?

Well yeah I don't really understand why we never created a folder for those civs (We have DE lol but that's another thing)

8 minutes ago, wowgetoffyourcellphone said:

Ah, yes, the mythical founders. Better strip out half the game for their sake.  

Well thanks to them we have this wonderful game so I think it's fair to consider their feelings, don't you think ? We don't have to agree with them but we need to take them as part of the equation

 

[wowgetoffyourcellphone]

3 minutes ago, Stan` said:

Well yeah I don't really understand why we never created a folder for those civs (We have DE lol but that's another thing)

 

Partly, I think it's because Empires Ascendant hasn't yet been stripped out of the core mod and made into its own mod. Then it would be relatively simple to create an Empires Besieged official mod to cover "Part II."

 

4 minutes ago, Stan` said:

Well thanks to them we have this wonderful game so I think it's fair to consider their feelings, don't you think ? We don't have to agree with them but we need to take them as part of the equation

Depends on how you look at it, because none of them are active anymore. They've "passed it on" to the current keepers of the flame, who are then free to put their own stamp on it. I think you could use the old design as a touchstone when discussions arise, but you aren't bound by it by any means.

[Stan`]

32 minutes ago, wowgetoffyourcellphone said:

Partly, I think it's because Empires Ascendant hasn't yet been stripped out of the core mod and made into its own mod. Then it would be relatively simple to create an Empires Besieged official mod to cover "Part II."

That's right. Maybe I should do that for A24 with the help of the team (I remember @elexis drafted a ticket for that)

Wonder if that's a priority

33 minutes ago, wowgetoffyourcellphone said:

Depends on how you look at it, because none of them are active anymore. They've "passed it on" to the current keepers of the flame, who are then free to put their own stamp on it. I think you could use the old design as a touchstone when discussions arise, but you aren't bound by it by any means.

The question I'm asking is. Is adding new civs going in the right direction ? Adding more things to maintain and improve while we still have more than three missing wonders and probably a lot of other things to fix on the existing civs (none of which are documented anywhere other than spread over the forums)

[wowgetoffyourcellphone]

9 minutes ago, Stan` said:

The question I'm asking is. Is adding new civs going in the right direction ? Adding more things to maintain and improve while we still have more than three missing wonders and probably a lot of other things to fix on the existing civs (none of which are documented anywhere other than spread over the forums)

It just takes someone to make a decision: "This and this and this are the Wonders we need for these civs, and they are a priority. So, let's get crackin'."

 

Quote

 

 Is adding new civs going in the right direction ? 

 

Well, isn't that the whole point of "Part II"?  lol

Edited September 2, 2019 by wowgetoffyourcellphone

[Stan`]

5 minutes ago, wowgetoffyourcellphone said:

It just takes someone to make a decision: "This and this and this are the Wonders we need for these civs, and they are a priority. So, let's get crackin'."

I don't think the art department works like that  It's more like "Heh look at this flower, it could be better, let's improve that" *Sad bear in the distance*

6 minutes ago, wowgetoffyourcellphone said:

Well, isn't that the whole point of "Part II"?  lol

Not really ? I mean the point of part II is to cover another era not to increase the number of civs of the previous one ?

[wowgetoffyourcellphone]

5 minutes ago, Stan` said:

I don't think the art department works like that  It's more like "Heh look at this flower, it could be better, let's improve that" *Sad bear in the distance*

 

Well, it used to work like that, in a bygone era of epic productivity when the game added complete civ sets of artwork every 3-4-month alpha release.

 

6 minutes ago, Stan` said:

Not really ? I mean the point of part II is to cover another era not to increase the number of civs of the previous one ?

Granted, but it would add quite a few civilizations to the mix. I look at the games my son plays, like LoL and others, which have dozens, if not hundreds of different characters to choose from, each with unique and customizable attributes and I don't think a couple dozen civs is all that many for a game of this theme, type, and magnitude. Previous RTSs just had major hardware and software limitations.

[Stan`]

4 minutes ago, wowgetoffyourcellphone said:

Well, it used to work like that, in a bygone era of epic productivity when the game added complete civ sets of artwork every 3-4-month alpha release.

When was that ? I don't think I ever saw that I would totally love it though

5 minutes ago, wowgetoffyourcellphone said:

Granted, but it would add quite a few civilizations to the mix. I look at the games my son plays, like LoL and others, which have dozens, if not hundreds of different characters to choose from, each with unique and customizable attributes and I don't think a couple dozen civs is all that many for a game of this theme, type, and magnitude. Previous RTSs just had major hardware and software limitations.

Well we still have the performance issue lol but yeah things have change. The increased dow load size might be though (over a certain size you have to have multiple files on windows IIRC) not to mention countries with pay per MB connection (we do have a lot of south america fans)

I wish our only issue was adding civs though...

[Alexandermb]

i've just read the discussion here, in my humble opinion not as art deparment member, not as the Venezuelan guy with the worst download rate conection, but as a player ignorant of the history and the download size because as pc gaming community player i won't worry too much about download size if i really want the game, i mean. I pay for something i wan't if i can't afford it yet i save some money (if i could), in my country does exist also pay per MB connection and its increasing due the internet cable steal rate increase this past year, but going back to topic:

I consider adding more civs shouldn't be an estigma to the game nor a pain in the end of the back neither should exist too much discussion about it. A code dev always gonna be worried about code, an artist dev always gonna be worried about art, if i were a programmer dev i wouldn't vote agaisn't or in favor of adding a new civ neither as an artist, i just would say: "Show me the references and i'll see where i can help".

Civ should be added if the artwork is finished, if its completly different from other core game factions and if it has his unique civ roster while also having the history behind. In my opinion, Thracians should be added when finished too, Han chinese should also be added, and if this civilization reaches a whole new unique building aspect and his own unit textures, it should also be added.

The only question we should be doing is "They enter in the 500-0.B.C timeframe"? 

Even millenium ad factions should be added to the core game if we reach at least 8 civilizations  but making the game just like "Empire Earth" selection: Ancient Era > Republican Era > Middle Era > WW2 Era and block factions to the timeframe, and even make another selection for "Time traveling" making the player able to fight as byzantines agaisn't the hitites.

The game is already compressed enough, it would only worry if i had to download 30GB, and even that players still buy Total War Rome and download the High GB amount of it and if we ever implement texture size quality wouldn't that mean we will have 1024 texture size +512 + 256?.

There shouldn't exist bounds to size neither to an ancient doc dessign. I mean don't you have that feeling when looking a whole movie or serie franchise after the ending you say? It is done? Now where i could find something like this? i wish this would have been longer"  i belive the old devs put that limit due their manwork power, i mean i wouldn't write a text saying: "I will live in Denmark in a house in the mountain away from what in my country is called "barrios" where all the desidious people live, If i can't even say i would live another day tomorrow because of the high mortality of my country.

I belive devs also put that limit because this were the easiest factions to develop and to investigate, i mean their are like the core factions of any ancient era game tbh, if i would make a new game i wouldn't start developing the suevians nor the xiongnu if i have a completly full range of historical documents talking about carthage or rome or even the gauls just like math problems when i study before all my teachers left the country, i wouldn't waste 30 minutes developing a whole math problem from 10 problems if the other 9 can be done in 5 minutes each one, Same that happens to me when doing animations, i don't waste 1 hour animating if i can't find a good perspective of the motion if i can invest that time doing a better helmet.

In fact i belive iberians were a placeholder using the gauls due their copy of the ships and their empty roster when they can be developed in the lusitans, oretans, etc...

[Alexandermb]

6 hours ago, wowgetoffyourcellphone said:

Granted, but it would add quite a few civilizations to the mix. I look at the games my son plays, like LoL and others, which have dozens, if not hundreds of different characters to choose from, each with unique and customizable attributes and I don't think a couple dozen civs is all that many for a game of this theme, type, and magnitude. Previous RTSs just had major hardware and software limitations.

Here is a quote perfect for this: Just becase some were left behind doesn't mean all should perish. in other words, just because some people it is still limited to some hardware restrictions it doesn't mean it should be bounds for us for continue developing. I wish i could play Monster Hunter World with my friends via online but i can't and i have to live with that. So i just played Old monster hunter games from psp EMULATED in my pc with a friend.

is like having 10000 gaming community and say to 9999 of them: "Oh im sorry, i can't add your country favorite faction because this little guy over here in this forgotten country can't afford it" 

 

And for last but not less important, im pretty sure those pay per MB connection users will download AoE 2 DE whitout hesitate even when it would have around 20-50gb size.

[Genava55]

35 minutes ago, Alexandermb said:

I belive devs also put that limit because this were the easiest factions to develop and to investigate, i mean their are like the core factions of any ancient era game tbh, if i would make a new game i wouldn't start developing the suevians nor the xiongnu if i have a completly full range of historical documents talking about carthage or rome or even the gauls just like math problems when i study before all my teachers left the country, i wouldn't waste 30 minutes developing a whole math problem from 10 problems if the other 9 can be done in 5 minutes each one, Same that happens to me when doing animations, i don't waste 1 hour animating if i can't find a good perspective of the motion if i can invest that time doing a better helmet.

I agree. Adding civilization only to add civilization, without having a minimum of documentation about them can be problematic if a nitpicker like me appears. Joke aside, faction like the early Germans are tough to document correctly. But I think one day they need to be include to make the transition to the part II. Currently we should focus on those with enough documentation and on the current factions that are in an upgrading process (thanks to people like you).

51 minutes ago, Alexandermb said:

I consider adding more civs shouldn't be an estigma to the game nor a pain in the end of the back neither should exist too much discussion about it. A code dev always gonna be worried about code, an artist dev always gonna be worried about art, if i were a programmer dev i wouldn't vote agaisn't or in favor of adding a new civ neither as an artist, i just would say: "Show me the references and i'll see where i can help".

Anyway I don't see why it should be a problem. Most of the differences are cosmetics/esthetics. All the factions follows the same basis for the buildings and the units, so clearly to bring enough diversity, the game need to include a lot of factions.

 

[Sundiata]

I buy internet bundles for my modem with phone-credit. 4GB at a time (most economical option). It's a pain, but it's the way it is... And my 3rd world internet connection is sometimes actually better than that of some of my European counterparts, so I shouldn't really complain... Either way, download size is almost a non-issue for 0AD right now. First time I downloaded it I was super suspicious because it was so small... It could easily double in size and still not be considered a big download anywhere... I mean, It's currently the size of single movie... And you only tend to watch a movie once. I've played 0AD hundreds of times. Some people play it all day long, every day... If you're not willing to "spend" even 5GB on downloading one of the best free and open source games in the world, you're probably just not excited about the game to begin with...  

Priority should definitely go to finishing, fleshing out and polishing of factions already in-game. But I don't believe that should preclude development on new factions either. People need a motivator, and working on the latest faction is definitely something that keeps the interest going. Of course we shouldn't add anything to vanilla until it's as good as ready, and is up to standard (quality, historicity), but it's nice to have something to look forward to, like the latest new civ. 

[Alexandermb]

25 minutes ago, Genava55 said:

I agree. Adding civilization only to add civilization, without having a minimum of documentation about them can be problematic if a nitpicker like me appears. Joke aside, faction like the early Germans are tough to document correctly. But I think one day they need to be include to make the transition to the part II. Currently we should focus on those with enough documentation and on the current factions that are in an upgrading process (thanks to people like you).

Most importantly in the case of germans we have the most needed, a Conceptual Artist. Thats quite importantly compared to documentation.

11 minutes ago, Sundiata said:

Priority should definitely go to finishing, fleshing out and polishing of factions already in-game. But I don't believe that should preclude development on new factions either. People need a motivator, and working on the latest faction is definitely something that keeps the interest going. Of course we shouldn't add anything to vanilla until it's as good as ready, and is up to standard (quality, historicity), but it's nice to have something to look forward to, like the latest new civ. 

Indeed, Han chinese should be included with a lil bit polishing on siege turret and if possibly on champions units and its done.

[Thorfinn the Shallow Minded]

To add my opinion, which is definitely needed due to the shortage of people who care about this topic (There is not a hint of sarcasm there), I'd say that the team should focus its efforts on fleshing out one single existing faction.  They get a full tech tree, unique flavour when it comes to their units, and the whole works.  Developing new factions is a great thing, and we shouldn't discourage that, but the existing factions seem to be little more than skeletons of what they would actually be.  After one faction has been done this way, there can be an effort to do so with the others as well.  Maybe work out one faction per alpha as a minimum threshold.  

 

[Stan`]

I don't think we should add all the factions to the game no matter their timeframe. I do think though that Terra Magna's finished civilisations should be added to the game. Maybe even before A24. I recently changed my mind after discussing it with @Pyrophorus and in this thread. But at the end of the day it's not my decision to make but it's the team's. I believe @wraitii would be more for a simplification of faction with tech trees allowing to be more alike one or the other of the existing ones.

For the other factions there are two big things IMHO. Part II civs should be in a mod called empires_besieged with the main game quality standards and conventions hosted by WFG and put on modio. With regular updates like other mods. (Empires ascendant should be the same imho) you download the game then choose what civs you want to play with.

EDIT: My main concern would be balancing given the nonexistent work on it these days.

 

[LordGood]

7 hours ago, wowgetoffyourcellphone said:

Well, it used to work like that, in a bygone era of epic productivity when the game added complete civ sets of artwork every 3-4-month alpha release.

noooo it never worked like that stop it stop that

the seleucids took over 2 years to finish come on now

dont you like my TREES

[Sundiata]

Just now, Thorfinn the Shallow Minded said:

To add my opinion, which is definitely needed due to the shortage of people who care about this topic

Thank you for the laugh, I lol'd a little... I sort of agree with what you're saying. I always thought the Romans were among the most researched and well documented civilizations of antiquity, so it seemed logical to me to develop them far beyond what they are now, and then use that as a quality benchmark for every other civ. But the whole republican vs imperial thing turns the current Roman faction into a more difficult one to research (why not a IV'th Imperial phase, would be amazing...). I also think each civilization should be developed on it's own merit. Look at each civ, what makes them unique (strengths, weaknesses), and design the faction around that. Be more bold with what makes a civ unique, but not as bold as to just give them free stuff because they needed a gimmick to stand out gameplay wise. History is a great teacher. Allow it to inform the game, and things will start making more sense. Ignore it and you get things like marauding Celts destroying everything in sight with nothing more than a shower of glorified pebbles. 

 

Just now, LordGood said:

dont you like my TREES

I lol'd again... We love your trees man...

[Thorfinn the Shallow Minded]

18 minutes ago, LordGood said:

dont you like my TREES

The issue is that you're missing what we really want: ents.

[Nescio]

There we go again!

It depends on what is wanted. Age of Empires II and Empire Earth have dozens of civilizations, but they're rather similar to each other. Age of Mythology had just three, but each of them was very different yet simultaneously balanced; I'd say AoM was a much better game than AoK or EE; more of the same is not necessarily better.

0 A.D. seems to be a compromise: similar civilizations but each with a unique architecture set (except Athens). Personally I wouldn't mind a few more (especially Arsacids (Parthia), Greater Armenia, and Han China), provided they're better than what's already in game. 0 A.D.'s civs are playable, some are better fleshed out than others, but none of them is really finished.

10 hours ago, Stan` said:

They will be in a separate mod called part II.

Part II was announced when 0 A.D. was started about a decade ago, yet so far failed to materialize. I'd say drop the idea; finishing the 500–1 BC timeframe is more than enough work already.

8 hours ago, Stan` said:

When was that ? I don't think I ever saw that I would totally love it though

See https://trac.wildfiregames.com/wiki/Changelogs :

• A4 (March 2011)
• A5 (May 2011): Iberians added
• A6 (July 2011)
• A7 (September 2011): Carthaginians added
• A8 (December 2011): Persians added
• A9 (March 2012): Romans added

i.e. four new civilizations and six alpha releases in just a year; and it didn't stop there. Given that the time between releases is now approaching two years, I suppose adding one civ per alpha would be doable; 0 A.D.'s standards have presumably gone up, though.

1 hour ago, Stan` said:

EDIT: My main concern would be balancing given the nonexistent work on it these days.

Yes, I agree; the difficulty of getting gameplay changes reviewed and committed is problematic. Also, differentiating factions merely for the sake of differentiation is not necessarily a good idea (e.g. Iberian starting walls, Ptolemaic houses, Spartan population penalty).

1 hour ago, Sundiata said:

Priority should definitely go to finishing, fleshing out and polishing of factions already in-game. But I don't believe that should preclude development on new factions either. People need a motivator, and working on the latest faction is definitely something that keeps the interest going. Of course we shouldn't add anything to vanilla until it's as good as ready, and is up to standard (quality, historicity), but it's nice to have something to look forward to, like the latest new civ

Indeed, one does not exclude the other. Personally I'd favour better trees and more animals over new factions, but if people are ambitious enough to create them and they meet 0 A.D.'s criteria (complete, unique art, 500–1 BC Eurasia), then I don't see why they shouldn't be included.

[Stan`]

19 minutes ago, Nescio said:

Part II was announced when 0 A.D. was started about a decade ago, yet so far failed to materialize. I'd say drop the idea; finishing the 500–1 BC timeframe is more than enough work already.

That's true. However this very thread emerged from a part II civilisation. Putting the assets together in a mod isn't hard. We could even have no template and let the mods provide those. This way the only maintenance work would be adding and cleaning assets.

21 minutes ago, Nescio said:

Yes, I agree; the difficulty of getting gameplay changes reviewed and committed is problematic. Also, differentiating factions merely for the sake of differentiation is not necessarily a good idea (e.g. Iberian starting walls, Ptolemaic houses, Spartan population penalty).

I have yet to find a solution to that. Hopefully I'm not the only one looking.

[Alexandermb]

Why worry about balance? Right now the unbalanced term isn't provided by a civilization neither by civ penalties or bonus, right now in the state we have the game no penalties issues if we implement new factions because we don't have different stats pero civ infantries We just have a plain template for each civ.

ie: Gaul vs Romans aren't exactly Gaul civilians vs Rome Legions, in gameplay speaking they are just Template_Slinger + Template_Spearman Against Template_Swordsman + Template_Javelinist.

We don't have balance issues related to civilizations but instead related to the infantry and the siege templates.

Unbalanced would mean like happens in League of Legends: Champion A haven an skill wich explodes your champ comparing your damage done by your ultimate skill wich makes half damage of the other champ. in 0.A.D. Terms Legionaries having more defense because they have chainmail compared to Gauls having less defense because they are naked.

We don't have stats to balance, we just have templates to adjust in matter of seconds instead of making each civ agains't any combination possible to see a broken infantry.

[Stan`]

@Alexandermb Well... We are a game so balancing is a concern. Why do you think there are so many mods changing the balance to make the game more playable (alledgedly) if the game balance is good ? Civs are by nature unbalanced because of their different techs civ bonus unit accessibility, hero auras buildings, hero types unit types etc.

 

 

 

 

[feneur]

1 hour ago, Nescio said:

• A4 (March 2011)
• A5 (May 2011): Iberians added
• A6 (July 2011)
• A7 (September 2011): Carthaginians added
• A8 (December 2011): Persians added
• A9 (March 2012): Romans added

i.e. four new civilizations and six alpha releases in just a year; and it didn't stop there. Given that the time between releases is now approaching two years, I suppose adding one civ per alpha would be doable; 0 A.D.'s standards have presumably gone up, though.

Those weren't new civilizations though, just existing ones polished and released to the public. Not saying that there wasn't any work done on them, just that most of the work had already been done. Not sure that has to have all that much relevance to decisions made now as release cycles are longer, but in either case I would suggest not judging what to do based on past process, but on what end result is wanted.