0 AD

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
0 AD
0 AD logo.png
Studio Wildfire Games
platform Windows  (from XP ),
macOS  (from Lion ),
Linux
Game engine Pyrogenesis
genre Real-time strategy
Subject Antiquity
Game mode Single player , multiplayer
control Keyboard , mouse
system advantages
preconditions		 1 GHz processor ,
512 MB RAM,
OpenGL 1.3,
128 MB graphics memory
medium Download
language multilingual
Current version Alpha 23b Ken Wood
(December 23, 2018)
information play0ad.com

0 AD (short for year zero Anno Domini ) is a continuously developed free real-time strategy game from Wildfire Games . One of the main focuses of the game is the establishment of an economic and war production for the subsequent fight against the enemy. The civilizations and technologies contained in the game are roughly influenced by the real historical development of antiquity in the years 500 to 1 BC. The game has been available for Windows , macOS and Linux operating systems since 2010 . Although it is currently still being released as an alpha version by the developers, full single and multiplayer games can already be played. The "year zero", which does not appear in historical calendars, was chosen as the name to emphasize the fiction of the scenes depicted in the game. The game also includes a map editor called Atlas .

Gameplay

Video from 2016
Game theme music

0 AD is about economic development and warfare. The game follows the common real-time strategy principles such as building a base, collecting raw materials, training an army and researching technologies. The game contains different land and naval units, buildings and technologies specifically for each civilization. The main focus was on historical correctness, which is why there are no genre-typical magical units. In addition, every civilization has a “miracle” - an expensive, large building that can only be built once.

units

The game provides the player with a number of different units, all of which can be controlled individually or in groups. At the beginning of a game, there are mainly female citizens available who can be used for the extraction of raw materials and the construction of simpler buildings. Citizens are practically useless in combat, but they are most effective at gaining food and motivating the male population to work faster. The simpler “citizen” soldiers can be used for the same tasks as the citizens, but also erect more complex buildings such as barracks and forges and mine metal and stone more effectively. Militarily above the city soldiers are the “guardsmen”, full-fledged soldiers of the cavalry and infantry who are very effective in combat, but cannot take on any civilian tasks. Healers who have only a low combat strength but can heal closely wounded units have a special status. In addition, the player is allowed to train a single hero , with three different heroes to choose from for each civilization, but only one of them can be chosen. Only when the hero has fallen can he or one of the other two be trained again. This hero has military strength superior to all other units and grants certain bonuses to the surrounding units. The heroes are based on historically real people, mostly generals or rulers .

raw materials

There are four raw materials: wood , stone , metal and food . The metal is not differentiated separately by element (e.g. iron or gold ), which is not typical of the genre . Except for some forms of food, raw materials that have been mined do not regenerate. Wood is obtained by felling trees, stone and metal can be extracted directly from the corresponding deposits in the landscape. Food production is generally multi-stage. First of all, fields have to be created, fishing boats produced or animals bred that can then be used for food production. At the beginning of the game, however, there are usually some wild animals that can be hunted and berry bushes that can be harvested once. In addition, the residents need living space, which is provided by the construction of residential buildings.

The construction of buildings mainly requires wood and stone, but rarely also metal. The training of soldiers and workers as well as animal breeding, on the other hand, mainly requires food and possibly a weapon-specific component, such as B. wood for spears or metal for swords .

Technologies

The technologies that can be researched are strongly based on real historical discoveries and are partly dependent on the civilization being played. Researching them will generally improve one or more properties over the course of the game. These include, for example, the damage that units cause in combat, the training duration of units or the resistance of buildings. A genre-untypical playful feature is that the player has to choose one of several for some researchable technologies.

The three “phases” in which a settlement can be located are a special form of technology research. A settlement can rise from a village via a city to a large city, which means that additional building types are made available and the area of ​​influence of the settlement increases. In particular, building miracles requires that the player's settlement has already developed into a large city.

Diplomacy and trade

In addition to the military conflict, there are various ways of interacting with fellow players. Two players can be peaceful, neutral, or hostile. Alignment can be changed during the game. If there is a hostile attitude, every confrontation automatically leads to a fight. With a neutral disposition, the units ignore each other and no interaction is possible. With a peaceful disposition, it is possible to partially use the other player's buildings, for example to shelter your own workers in the buildings in the event of an attack by a third player. Trading is then also possible. By setting up a market and training traders or building trading ships , it is possible for the player to obtain additional raw materials. All the trader has to do is travel from their own to the friendly market and back again. The raw materials are produced from practically nothing. The friendly market can in principle also be its own market, but the return is higher when trading with the market of an ally. It is still possible to give raw materials to a player for free, regardless of their attitude.

In addition, there is the option of bartering , which is intended to prevent a player from having to do without a certain raw material in the course of the game as soon as all natural resources have been generated. No other player is required for this, but the player can exchange part of his raw materials with a loss of quantity for another raw material, for example 100 stones for 80 metal. The loss of volume increases steadily with repeated barter, so that this form of raw material extraction becomes unprofitable over time and should only be used in emergencies.

Civilizations

0 AD enables the player to control one of thirteen ancient civilizations from ancient times, each with special abilities and units as well as visual differences. The following table lists the playable civilizations along with the most important features and a picture of the buildings.

civilization particularities wonder Heroes image
Athenians Parthenon 0ad athener.png
Britons Stonehenge 0ad brittonen.png
Gauls
  • Heavy swordsmen and cavalry
 Stonehenge 0ad gallier.png
Iberians
  • Falarika , cheap horse breeding, elite warriors
 Cancho Roano 0ad iberer.png
Carthaginians Baal Hammon Temple 0ad karthager.png
Macedonians Parthenon 0ad makedonen.png
Mauryan The great stupa of Sanchi 0ad mauryaner.png
Persian Hanging Gardens of the Semiramis 0ad altperser.png
Ptolemies Edfu Temple 0ad ptolemaeer.png
Romans
  • Most powerful siege weapons in the game, siege walls , can research all mining technology
  • Special Units: Hastati (strongest swordsmen in the game)
 Capitoline Temple 0ad roemer.png
Seleucids Temple of Apollo 0ad seleucids.png
Spartans
  • Strongest hand-to-hand combatants of the Hellenes, cannot build stone walls, Syssitien
Parthenon 0ad spartaner.png
Cushites Amun temple 0ad kushites.png

Map editor and modifications

Atlas , the map editor

The game has a completely graphical map editor called Atlas , which is able to create complete maps including terrain, water, wild animals and the existing peoples. The player can create his own scenarios in addition to the standard maps and then share them with other players.

In addition, the game can be extensively expanded or changed using mods . In this way, players can add their own graphics, sound effects, artificial intelligence and game mechanics to the game or replace existing ones without having to change the actual core of the game or have in-depth programming knowledge. A graphical user interface is available for easy management of mods, which shows all mods available online and allows them to be activated or deactivated.

reception

Since 2008, 0 AD has managed to be voted one of the 100 best mods and independents on Mod DB or Indie DB every year . There the game also won third place in 2009 and second place in 2012 for the Player's Choice Upcoming Indie Game of the Year and was mentioned in 2010 and 2013 with praise. In June 2012 it was Project of the Month on SourceForge . In February 2014 and 2016, the game was named Open Source Game of the Year for 2013 and 2015, respectively. 0 AD is generally well received.

development

Wildfire Games logo

The concept of 0 AD originally started in 2000 as a modification for the strategy game Age of Empires II : The Age of Kings , but the team decided in 2003 to create a standalone game based on their ideas. The familiar rules and principles of the real-time strategy game genre were used as the benchmark for the project. The developers attached great importance to historical accuracy in the content presented, but this should not hinder the user's gaming experience. The open structure of the project and the easy modification options should also make it attractive for the creation of a large online community that should increase the longevity and replayability of the game.

Open source release

In November 2008 it was announced that the game's sources would be released under a free license, which was finally implemented on July 10, 2009. Wildfire Games published the program code under the GNU GPLv2 license and provided the graphics and audio data under the Creative Commons license “CC-by-sa”. The first playable program versions were published in 2010 and have been continuously improved and released since then. During the entire development period so far, a large number of volunteers have carried in different ways, e.g. B. by participating in the development of the source code, financial donations or the design of graphics and animations for the project.

financing

Wildfire Games finances the cost of the web server mainly from donations managed by the non-profit organization Software in the Public Interest . The development of the game code is carried out by unpaid volunteers.

In the 45 days from September 5 to October 20, 2013, a crowdfunding campaign was also scheduled for the game on the Indiegogo platform . The aim was to raise money to hire a professional programmer on a temporary basis to work on the game full time. The campaign was designed for US $ 160,000, a total of US $ 33,251 came together, of which a programmer is to be hired. However, until September 2018, the money had not been used for this.

In 2019, the previously used Flattr account was closed due to insufficient income (only 2 USD ). In early 2020, the project owned approximately $ 35,000 which is a slight increase over previous years and has been valued by the project to be considered stable finances.

history

New versions are usually released every few months. The alpha versions are given a thematically appropriate name, which is chosen so that its first letter is the letter that is in the alphabet corresponding to the version number. The following table lists all versions that have been released so far with a summary of the major innovations. Continuous changes that flow into each version, such as bug fixes, improved graphics effects and further development of existing functions, are not listed here.

version Surname publication Summary of what's new
Older version; no longer supported: Alpha 1 Argonaut August 16, 2010 First public and playable alpha version
Older version; no longer supported: Alpha 2 Bellerophon October 19, 2010 Victory conditions, fog of war , new GUI , unit grouping
Older version; no longer supported: Alpha 3 Cerberus December 11, 2010 Game statistics, warriors can occupy buildings
Older version; no longer supported: Alpha 4 Daedalus March 12, 2011 Artificial Intelligence (AI)
Older version; no longer supported: Alpha 5 Edetania May 20, 2011 New people: Iberians, random card generator
Older version; no longer supported: Alpha 6 Fortuna July 10, 2011 New unit orders
Older version; no longer supported: Alpha 7 Geronium 17th September 2011 New people: Carthaginians, dynamic territory, new main menu
Older version; no longer supported: Alpha 8 Haxāmaniš 0December 1, 2011 New people: Persians, loading and saving of single player games, raw material exchange system
Older version; no longer supported: Alpha 9 Ides of March March 15, 2012 New people: Romans, markets with traders, greatly expanded combat system
Older version; no longer supported: Alpha 10 Jhelum May 16, 2012 New races: Athenians, Spartans and Macedonians replace Hellenes, technology research
Older version; no longer supported: Alpha 11 Kronos 0September 7, 2012 New peoples: Brittons and Gauls replace Celts, lockable gates for walls
Older version; no longer supported: Alpha 12 Loucetios December 16, 2012 Diplomacy, hero units
Older version; no longer supported: Alpha 13 Magadha 02nd April 2013 New Race: Mauryan, Artificial Intelligence supports different levels of difficulty
Older version; no longer supported: Alpha 14 Naukratis 04th September 2013 New building: blacksmith, fine-tuning of various game mechanics
Older version; no longer supported: Alpha 15 Osiris December 24, 2013 New People: Ptolemies, Skirmish Maps, Multiplayer Lobby
Older version; no longer supported: Alpha 16 Patañjali 17th May 2014 New people: Seleucids, translation into many languages, expanded or revised menus
Older version; no longer supported: Alpha 17 Quercus October 12, 2014 Units: Strengths adjusted, now occupy walls, event system , mod management menu
Older version; no longer supported: Alpha 18 Rhododactylos March 13, 2015 Game mode "Nomade" (initially only workers), technology tree , less computing power required
Older version; no longer supported: Alpha 19th Syllepsis November 26, 2015 Game recording, better path finding , truce , conquer buildings and war machines
Older version; no longer supported: Alpha 20 Timosthenes March 31, 2016 New maps, revised menus, multiplayer: expanded game monitoring and lobby
Older version; no longer supported: Alpha 21 Ulysses 0November 8, 2016 Units and buildings can be upgraded, Seleucids revised, new maps and game modes
Older version; no longer supported: Alpha 22 Venustas July 26, 2017 Improved graphics, new maps, espionage , AI greatly improved
Older version; no longer supported: Alpha 23 Ken Wood 17th May 2018 New people: Cushites, mod downloads, new in-game ads, new maps, collateral damage
Current version: Alpha 23b Ken Wood 23 December 2018 Bug fixes and security corrections, adaptation of the data protection regulations to GDPR
Future version: Alpha 24
Legend:
Old version
Older version; still supported
Current version
Current preliminary version
Future version
  1. ↑ a b Ken Wood was a developer of the game who died of cancer in 2006 .

technology

The game uses the specially developed game engine Pyrogenesis , which, like all external program libraries used, is freely accessible. The name is made up of the Greek pyr "fire" and genesis "origin". The core of the engine is written in C ++ using Boost and SDL and comprises many hundreds of thousands of lines of source code. JavaScript (using SpiderMonkey ) is used as the scripting language , XML and JSON for the description of the units and buildings . The graphic output is realized via OpenGL , the audio output via OpenAL , with the audio data being encoded in Vorbis . A peer-to-peer system is used for the multiplayer mode, which means that the multiplayer games do not require a central server. There is, however, a “multiplayer lobby” implemented in XMPP that can be called up in the game, in which players can meet up for games and are therefore not dependent on external communication such as e-mail or social media . The XMPP server required for this is provided by Wildfire Games.

Web links

Commons : 0 AD  - Collection of images, videos and audio files
 Wikinews: Interview with the makers (English)  - message

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Official system minimums
  2. ↑ a b 0 AD - Factions
  3. ↑ Play 0 AD - Project Overview
  4. ↑ Justin McElroy: The Joystiq Indie Pitch: 0 AD . The Joystiq Indie. July 13, 2010. Retrieved March 25, 2016.
  5. ↑ 0 AD - PC - IGN . IGN. Retrieved March 25, 2016.
  6. ^ A b John Knight: New Projects - Fresh from the Labs . Linux Journal. January 1, 2011. Retrieved March 25, 2016.
  7. ^ Mirko Lindner: First version of »0 AD« planned for summer . Pro Linux. March 18, 2010. Retrieved March 25, 2016.
  8. ↑ 2008 Mod of the Year Awards event - Mod DB . In: Moddb . DesuraNET Pty. January 18, 2009. Retrieved March 25, 2016.
  9. ↑ 2009 Mod of the Year Awards event - Mod DB . In: Moddb . DesuraNET Pty. January 6, 2010. Retrieved March 25, 2016.
  10. ↑ 2010 Indie of the Year Awards event - Indie DB . In: Moddb . DesuraNET Pty. December 24, 2010. Retrieved March 25, 2016.
  11. ↑ 2011 Indie of the Year Awards event - Indie DB . In: Moddb . DesuraNET Pty. December 25, 2011. Retrieved March 25, 2016.
  12. ↑ 2012 Indie of the Year Awards event - Indie DB . In: Moddb . DesuraNET Pty. December 23, 2012. Retrieved March 25, 2016.
  13. ↑ 2013 Indie of the Year Awards event - Indie DB . In: Moddb . DesuraNET Pty. December 23, 2013. Retrieved March 25, 2016.
  14. ↑ 2014 Indie of the Year Awards event - Indie DB . In: Moddb . DesuraNET Pty. December 28, 2014. Retrieved March 25, 2016.
  15. ↑ 2015 Indie of the Year Awards event - Indie DB . In: Moddb . DesuraNET Pty. December 27, 2015. Accessed March 25, 2016.
  16. ↑ 2009 Players Choice - Indie Game of the Year feature - Mod DB . In: Moddb . DesuraNET Pty. February 5, 2010. Retrieved March 25, 2016.
  17. ↑ IOTY Players Choice Upcoming 2012 . In: Moddb . DesuraNET Pty. December 23, 2012. Retrieved March 27, 2014.
  18. ↑ Indie of the Year 2010 Players Choice - Upcoming Indie . In: Indiedb . DesuraNET Pty. December 23, 2010. Retrieved March 25, 2016.
  19. ↑ Best Upcoming Indie Game of 2013 Players Choice . In: Moddb . DesuraNET Pty. December 23, 2013. Accessed March 27, 2014.
  20. ^ 0 AD: Project Of The Month, June 2012
  21. ↑ 2013 LinuxQuestions.org Members Choice Award Winners . February 5, 2014. Retrieved March 25, 2016.
  22. ↑ 2015 LinuxQuestions.org Members Choice Award Winners . February 10, 2016. Retrieved March 25, 2016.
  23. ↑ Tim Brookes: 8 Awesome Free Open-Source Games You Can Enjoy On Windows, Mac and Linux . Make Use Of. October 25, 2010. Retrieved December 3, 2013.
  24. ^ Baptiste Domps: Wikinews interviews 0 AD game development team . Wikinews. March 22, 2011. Retrieved December 3, 2013.
  25. ↑ Does everyone like the Revision Log? . Wildfiregames.com. Retrieved December 3, 2013.
  26. ^ 0 AD development moves to open source
  27. ↑ Did you contribute to 0 AD? Make sure you get in the credits! . Wildfire Games. September 5, 2013. Retrieved March 24, 2014.
  28. ↑ 0 AD crowdfunding campaign on Indiegogo
  29. ^ Indiegogo Fundraiser Wrap-Up . Wildfire Games. October 27, 2013. Retrieved March 27, 2014.
  30. ↑ 0 AD Financial Report, September 2018 ( English ) Wildfire Games. September 8, 2018. Retrieved September 9, 2018.
  31. ↑ Jeru: 0 AD Financial Report, April 2020. Wildfire Games, April 30, 2020, accessed on May 26, 2020 .
  32. ↑ New Release: 0 AD Alpha 1 Argonaut
  33. ↑ New Release: 0 AD Alpha 2 Bellerophon
  34. ↑ New Release: 0 AD Alpha 3 Cerberus
  35. ↑ golem.de: Fight against AI opponents in 0 AD
  36. ↑ New Release: Alpha 5 Edetania
  37. ↑ New Release: 0 AD Alpha 6 Fortuna
  38. ↑ New Release: 0 AD Alpha 7 Geronium
  39. ↑ New Release: 0 AD Alpha 8 Haxāmaniš
  40. ↑ New Release: 0 AD Alpha 9 Ides of March
  41. ↑ New Release: 0 AD Alpha 10 Jhelum
  42. ↑ New Release: 0 AD Alpha 11 Kronos
  43. ↑ New Release: 0 AD Alpha 12 Loucetios
  44. ↑ New Release: 0 AD Alpha 13 Magadha
  45. ↑ New Release: 0 AD Alpha 14 Naukratis
  46. ↑ New Release: 0 AD Alpha 15 Osiris
  47. ↑ New Release: 0 AD Alpha 16 Patañjali
  48. ↑ New Release: 0 AD Alpha 17 Quercusi
  49. ↑ New Release: 0 AD Alpha 18 Rhododactylos
  50. ↑ New Release: 0 AD Alpha 19 Syllepsis
  51. ↑ New Release: 0 AD Alpha 20 Timosthenes
  52. ↑ New Release: 0 AD Alpha 21 Ulysses
  53. ↑ New Release: 0 AD Alpha 22 Venustas
  54. ↑ New Release: 0 AD Alpha 23 Ken Wood
  55. ^ Re-release of 0 AD Alpha 23 Ken Wood
  56. ↑ Alpha 24 developer log
  57. ↑ Open Hub: The 0 AD Open Source Project on Open Hub: Languages ​​Page . Open hub. live. Archived from the original on March 26, 2016. Retrieved March 25, 2016.
  58. ↑ Scipii: Wildfire Games interview . HeavenGames. December 17, 2009. Retrieved December 3, 2013.