Adding new factions to the game

[Alexandermb]

Just now, Stan` said:

@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.

Exactly, but that balance is done to the template wich means X template affects A-B-C-D-E-F-G-H-IJ-K-L Civ hero auras depends on the documentation found about the hero itself. Unit types Kushites already have a whole roster with all the infantry kind, (Clubmen, Archer, Javelinist, Axeman, Swordsman, Pikeman, Spearman, Elephant, Cavalry) And it isn't the broken faction so far. because it doesn't exist the broken faction. What is truly broken is the Infantry Type.

[wowgetoffyourcellphone]

15 hours ago, LordGood said:

dont you like my TREES

I get the joke, but the new trees really have transformed the look of the game for the better.  Same for the cliffs and other things. 

 

12 hours ago, Alexandermb said:

Exactly, but that balance is done to the template wich means X template affects A-B-C-D-E-F-G-H-IJ-K-L Civ hero auras depends on the documentation found about the hero itself. Unit types Kushites already have a whole roster with all the infantry kind, (Clubmen, Archer, Javelinist, Axeman, Swordsman, Pikeman, Spearman, Elephant, Cavalry) And it isn't the broken faction so far. because it doesn't exist the broken faction. What is truly broken is the Infantry Type.

Alexander is right here. All of the civs use the same unit classes for the most part. If a civ is "broken" it's usually because of a unit class being broken, which is broken for every faction that has it. Balance all of the unit classes and suddenly you're 80% of the way to good balance. This is true whether we have 6 or 60 civs. Thanks for bringing this up Alex.  

The hero auras, special buildings, and civ bonuses are the edge cases that can be dealt with on a per case basis. If a civ lacks a certain class of unit and that makes them too weak, then find some historical justification to give them a mercenary or champion of that class (I've done this in Delenda Est with its mercenary camp system) or buff up one of their mainline units to compensate. But like I said, balance the unit classes and all of this just becomes edge cases you can deal with on a case by case basis. 

[winnerswithoutlosers]

Doesn't the game need to either remove or fix formations before balancing stuff?

[wowgetoffyourcellphone]

1 minute ago, winnerswithoutlosers said:

Doesn't the game need to either remove or fix formations before balancing stuff?

Do you have Alpha 23 or SVN (dev version)? 

[Alexandermb]

6 minutes ago, wowgetoffyourcellphone said:

Alexander is right here. All of the civs use the same unit classes for the most part. If a civ is "broken" it's usually because of a unit class being broken, which is broken for every faction that has it. Balance all of the unit classes and suddenly you're 80% of the way to good balance. This is true whether we have 6 or 60 civs. Thanks for bringing this up Alex.  

The hero auras, special buildings, and civ bonuses are the edge cases that can be dealt with on a per case basis.

Finally someone got the point  otherwise i would have to explain it on spanish i was running out of words in my english knowledge.

The day we have Shield/Armor based defenses surely we will have strong balance issues to face. Heros is just one unless it affects globaly, by this time of the game it would be a moss pitch battle instead of the hero aura wich affects the battle, because we don't have yet directional attack neither working formations bonuses. 

A battle would mostly depend on the broken template and the amount of infantry instead of Elevation, ambush, ambient, tactics, equipment.

[Nescio]

16 minutes ago, feneur said:

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.

But surely they must have been created and added at some point? Anyway, I agree, we shouldn't dwell on the past, 0 A.D. has evolved and continues to do so, let's take the present and focus on the future.

5 minutes ago, wowgetoffyourcellphone said:

The hero auras, special buildings, and civ bonuses are the edge cases that can be dealt with on a per case basis.

Some auras are much better than others. To me it seems most were added on an ad-hoc basis, without much thinking things through.

Personally I'd favour removing everything that doesn't make sense and afterwards start gradually adding things that are sensible and justifiable.

Take, for instance, the rotary mills. Either remove them from the game or add them to all civilizations. It doesn't make sense that only Celts have them.

[winnerswithoutlosers]

10 minutes ago, wowgetoffyourcellphone said:

Do you have Alpha 23 or SVN (dev version)? 

The git mirror. Which I presume is kept up to date.

[Genava55]

29 minutes ago, Nescio said:

Take, for instance, the rotary mills. Either remove them from the game or add them to all civilizations. It doesn't make sense that only Celts have them.

A lot of things do not make sense in Aoe2 and they still maintain these things (and people are approving) because it will break the balance if removed or altered.

[Lion.Kanzen]

5 hours ago, Alexandermb said:

.

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.

 

Nope.

[balduin]

4 hours ago, Sundiata said:

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...  

I personally, would rather like to have the core game and three core factions and stay under 5GB, than having a huge game. The reason for that is mostly technical. Seeing how there is a discussion going on about ARM 64 bit support. ARM 64 bit development boards have sometimes only 8 GB storage space available. Fitting an Operating System + 0 A.D. in such limited space is difficult.

ARM 64 bit support means that 0 A.D. could run on tablets, low powered notebooks and phones. The cool thing about libre software games is, we can do what is technically possible and support whatever device and instruction set architecture we want. We are not limited by some artificial limitation as many other proprietary games are. Imagine, I can play 0 A.D. on macOS, Windows, Unix and Linux. Linux can run on Intel/AMD, ARM, Power, RISC-V and many other CPU architectures. So, wherever I can run Linux I should be able to run 0 A.D.

In addition, it makes is easier to test the game engine, if I do not have to download 25 factions requiring 50 GB of storage space. One to three factions would be enough, just for testing purposes.

Furthermore, I would like to see Pyrogenesis, the game engine, being able to provide the bare functionalities. So that in the future mods like Millenium A.D. can be their own "game". At least for the view of the user their own game. From a technical perspective their should be one engine and then different mods. If you want to create a game you just bundle the engine + mod. The mod bundled with the engine, will be the primary mod and active by default.

As you can see I am very exited about the game, but for entirely different reasons.

2 hours ago, Nescio said:

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.

In my view most faction in 0 A.D. are similar, but still different enough to have the desire to explore each faction. This is something I like very much and should stay this way. I would even like to see a some factions with more difference to others.

2 hours ago, Nescio said:

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.

I share this opinion. On top of it I would like to see weather simulation and other improvements to the feel of the game. Maybe, having fire effects.

Another area I would like to see improved is naval battle. 0 A.D. is like AoE not very exiting or even realistic when it comes to maritime warfare. I would like to see that improved.

As for factions in general. I would like to see the process of:

1. Create a mod with the faction or factions you want to add.

2. Make it available via mod downloader, so that a larger audience can play it.

3. Improve it, based on the feedback from players.

4. Propose it to the 0 A.D. creators (devs, artists etc.) for inclusion, if they think the factions add value and are ready they should be added. If the factions are not ready, let them mature by repeating step 2 - 4.

 

 

 

 

1 hour ago, winnerswithoutlosers said:

Doesn't the game need to either remove or fix formations before balancing stuff?

We should improve the formation feature.

 

22 minutes ago, Genava55 said:

A lot of things do not make sense in Aoe2 and they still maintain these things (and people are approving) because it will break the balance if removed or altered.

0 A.D. is developed in a semi-rolling release fashion. 0 A.D. can remove or alter features.

Aoe2 and other games are developed by game studios and are released at a certain date. They make money by selling it and that is the end of the development. Except for a few fixes.

[Stan`]

I thought the rotary mill had a historical backup behind it ? Hence why only the celts have it.

[winnerswithoutlosers]

There is a possibility of 0AD running on those devices. Even if the dev team could undertake such a task (lets be real) rts doesnt belong there.

Don't hold back the game for thousands of players on account of a minority.

And even libre projects still face the same limitations. You cant use newer standards that are usually much faster. This game still use opengl 2. The current standard is opengl 4. And for the most critical of applications, the newer Vulkan standard seems to be the goto solution. And unless someone can rewrite the entire graphics stack, remove Macs from the list of supported devices.

[wowgetoffyourcellphone]

11 minutes ago, Stan` said:

I thought the rotary mill had a historical backup behind it ? Hence why only the celts having it.

Right, I thought they were the first to develop the rotary mill or something like that. Same justification for allowing them to build the blacksmith 1 phase earlier.

[Thorfinn the Shallow Minded]

Just to again add some more thoughts, I said that factions should be fleshed out; I think the point still stands.  Let's take a classic like Age of Empires II, a title that still has, twenty years in the running, a healthy multiplayer community.  A key reason for that I'd say is that each civilisation was designed to synergise with specific strategies and unit compositions.  0 A.D. I'd say lacks that flavour.  As for what I would recommend, each civilisation should have at least one economic bonus and a bonus to a specific unit class.  

Age of Kings has each civilisation matched with three to five types of bonuses.  For the most part 0 A.D. lacks that much.  Next, 0 A.D. lacks the all important aspect of technological restrictions for specific factions.  We should then think about how specific play styles could could be drawn out through them.  The reason that I mention these two critical aspects is that balance could be completely turned on its head once a few of these kinds of changes take place.  

[balduin]

11 hours ago, winnerswithoutlosers said:

the newer Vulkan standard seems to be the goto solution

The Vulkan standard is the way to go.

11 hours ago, winnerswithoutlosers said:

Don't hold back the game for thousands of players on account of a minority.

Explain, please.

[sphyrth]

There are ways to cut the game's size. For example, you can do the Empires Apart Route: Strip down the game to only the Celtic Factions and make the other factions DLC.

I think it's agreed that fleshing out the game takes priority. We just have to wait for Empires Besieged because that's the plan. You don't know, but there might be plans to add Millenium AD-type factions for Empires Collapsed.

Finally, I've been waiting for Delenda Est and Terra Magna Factions to be added. But personally, I miss the Rise of the East's logo. I'd argue that it looks way cooler than 0 A.D.'s logo. Terra Magna should kick the Han Chinese out again.

I better stop now. Every serious point I want to make turns into sarcastic retorts. Must be the effect of reading this whole thread first thing in the morning (Philippine Standard Time).

[Nescio]

10 hours ago, Genava55 said:

A lot of things do not make sense in Aoe2 and they still maintain these things (and people are approving) because it will break the balance if removed or altered.

If I recall correctly, AoK only has one or two unique units and technologies per civilization, but no unique structures, or am I mistaken?

10 hours ago, Stan` said:

I thought the rotary mill had a historical backup behind it ? Hence why only the celts have it.

10 hours ago, wowgetoffyourcellphone said:

Right, I thought they were the first to develop the rotary mill or something like that.

The entry on Wikipedia is well-sourced and implies it's actually a Carthaginian invention. Moreover, archaeological finds in Pompeii and later classical texts (e.g. Apuleius' Metamorphoses “The Golden @#$%”) show they're commonplace in Roman Italy and Greece. And they could have been used beyond, in the Near East and India; people had oxen, horses, camels, etc. there as well.

The most likely explanation I can think of is “Hey, the Celts need a special structure—let's give them a rotary mill!”

10 hours ago, wowgetoffyourcellphone said:

Same justification for allowing them to build the blacksmith 1 phase earlier.

To me this seems just taken from Age of Mythology's Norse/Thor. Just like the free houses are taken from the Egyptians. I believe 0 A.D. would be better of without such bonuses.

[Nescio]

10 hours ago, balduin said:

As for factions in general. I would like to see the process of:

1. Create a mod with the faction or factions you want to add.

2. Make it available via mod downloader, so that a larger audience can play it.

3. Improve it, based on the feedback from players.

4. Propose it to the 0 A.D. creators (devs, artists etc.) for inclusion, if they think the factions add value and are ready they should be added. If the factions are not ready, let them mature by repeating step 2 - 4.

Yes, something like that would be nice, perhaps with some additional criteria:

• Does it fit in the 500–1 BC timeframe?
• Did they interact with at least one of 0 A.D.'s current civilizations?
• Are its files released under an appropiate licence?
• Does it have an unique architecture set?
• Is it complete?
• Do their quirks make sense?
• Is it available as a single-civ mod?
• Did people play-test it?
• Is it compatible with the current svn development version, without causing errors and warnings?
• Do its files follow 0 A.D.'s naming and style conventions?

If yes to all, then I think the civilization in question ought to be considered for inclusion.

[Stan`]

@Nescio I dug in the forums for it and it would seem they did believe Celts were the first to invent it.  That's also why it's written in the design document. Now I agree that it would seem History tells a different story, so maybe it should be phased out. It's a shame though because it's a nice building.

Having a selection process would be nice indeed, if we decide to go on the route of adding more factions.

We are a lot of PR away from having any of the mod civilizations in this state though.

[wowgetoffyourcellphone]

7 minutes ago, Stan` said:

We are a lot of PR away from having any of the mod civilizations in this state though.

Han Chinese are pretty much almost there.

[Nescio]

9 minutes ago, Stan` said:

It's a shame though because it's a nice building.

Or add rotary mills for Carthage, Rome, etc.

[Stan`]

1 minute ago, Nescio said:

Or add rotary mills for Carthage, Rome, etc.

Or trees ? Everyone like @LordGood's trees, yes ?

[Nescio]

1 minute ago, Stan` said:

Or trees ? Everyone like @LordGood's trees, yes ?

Yes! And ducks and geese, please.

[wowgetoffyourcellphone]

10 minutes ago, Nescio said:

Yes! And ducks and geese, please.

Moving the current "hawk" to Golden Eagle and making a new hawk would be nice too.  

[Nescio]

5 minutes ago, wowgetoffyourcellphone said:

Moving the current "hawk" to Golden Eagle and making a new hawk would be nice too.  

Isn't it actually a buzzard?

On 5/17/2019 at 11:25 AM, Nescio said:

According to https://wildfiregames.com/forum/index.php?/topic/17389-committed-hawk/&tab=comments#comment-270123 it's actually a common buzzard (Buteo buteo). I don't know, I'm not an ornithologist.

By the way, I meant edible ducks and geese, similar to the chicken and peacock we have already.