0 A.D. (game) - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

0 A.D. is a free

Free software

Free software, software libre or libre software is software that can be used, studied, and modified without restriction, and which can be copied and redistributed in modified or unmodified form either without restriction, or with restrictions that only ensure that further recipients can also do...

, open-source, cross-platform

Cross-platform

In computing, cross-platform, or multi-platform, is an attribute conferred to computer software or computing methods and concepts that are implemented and inter-operate on multiple computer platforms...

real-time strategy

Real-time strategy

Real-time strategy is a sub-genre of strategy video game which does not progress incrementally in turns. Brett Sperry is credited with coining the term to market Dune II....

game under development by Wildfire Games

Wildfire Games

Wildfire Games is an independent free software video game developer, originally founded as a modding team in 2001. Wildfire Games is developing two games of the real-time strategy genre...

. It is a historical war and economy game focusing on the years between 500 B.C. and A.D. 500
The game will be cross-platform, playable on Windows, Mac OS

Mac OS

Mac OS is a series of graphical user interface-based operating systems developed by Apple Inc. for their Macintosh line of computer systems. The Macintosh user experience is credited with popularizing the graphical user interface...

, and Linux

Linux

Linux is a Unix-like computer operating system assembled under the model of free and open source software development and distribution. The defining component of any Linux system is the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released October 5, 1991 by Linus Torvalds...

.
The game aims to be entirely free and open-source. In addition, the developers do not get paid for their work, nor will they charge for their product. The game has been in development since 2000, with actual work starting in 2003. There is no official release date set for the finished version.

History

0 A.D. originally began as a huge total conversion mod

Mod (computer gaming)

Mod or modification is a term generally applied to personal computer games , especially first-person shooters, role-playing games and real-time strategy games. Mods are made by the general public or a developer, and can be entirely new games in themselves, but mods are not standalone software and...

concept for Age of Empires II: The Age of Kings

Age of Empires II: The Age of Kings

Age of Empires II: The Age of Kings is a real-time strategy video game developed by Ensemble Studios and published by Microsoft. Released in 1999 for the Microsoft Windows and Macintosh operating systems, it was the second game in the Age of Empires series...

in June of 2001. With limited design capabilities, the team soon turned to trying to create a full independent game based on their ideas.

In November 2008 developers confirmed soon releasing the project as open source. On July 10, 2009, Wildfire Games released source code for 0 A.D. under the GPL

GNU General Public License

The GNU General Public License is the most widely used free software license, originally written by Richard Stallman for the GNU Project....

2, and made the art content available under the CC-BY-SA

Creative Commons licenses

Creative Commons licenses are several copyright licenses that allow the distribution of copyrighted works. The licenses differ by several combinations that condition the terms of distribution. They were initially released on December 16, 2002 by Creative Commons, a U.S...

.

There were about ten to fifteen people working on 0 A.D. around March 23, 2010, but since development started there have been over 100 people who have contributed.

Version history

Pathfinding

Pathfinding generally refers to the plotting, by a computer application, of the shortest route between two points. It is a more practical variant on solving mazes...

Gui

Gui or guee is a generic term to refer to grilled dishes in Korean cuisine. These most commonly have meat or fish as their primary ingredient, but may in some cases also comprise grilled vegetables or other vegetarian ingredients. The term derives from the verb, "gupda" in Korean, which literally...

Argonauts

The Argonauts ) were a band of heroes in Greek mythology who, in the years before the Trojan War, accompanied Jason to Colchis in his quest to find the Golden Fleece. Their name comes from their ship, the Argo, which was named after its builder, Argus. "Argonauts", therefore, literally means...

|16 August 2010
|New maps, animal AI, redesigned unit AI, added in-game multiplayer chat

Conversation

Conversation is a form of interactive, spontaneous communication between two or more people who are following rules of etiquette.Conversation analysis is a branch of sociology which studies the structure and organization of human interaction, with a more specific focus on conversational...

.
|-
|2
|Bellerophon

Bellerophon

Bellerophon or Bellerophontes is a hero of Greek mythology. He was "the greatest hero and slayer of monsters, alongside of Cadmus and Perseus, before the days of Heracles", and his greatest feat was killing the Chimera, a monster that Homer depicted with a lion's head, a goat's body, and a...

|20 October 2010
|Added fog of war

Fog of war

The fog of war is a term used to describe the uncertainty in situation awareness experienced by participants in military operations. The term seeks to capture the uncertainty regarding own capability, adversary capability, and adversary intent during an engagement, operation, or campaign...

, group movement and basic formations; victory conditions; improved pathfinder performance, improved in-game GUI; added new biome

Biome

Biomes are climatically and geographically defined as similar climatic conditions on the Earth, such as communities of plants, animals, and soil organisms, and are often referred to as ecosystems. Some parts of the earth have more or less the same kind of abiotic and biotic factors spread over a...

(savanna

Savanna

A savanna, or savannah, is a grassland ecosystem characterized by the trees being sufficiently small or widely spaced so that the canopy does not close. The open canopy allows sufficient light to reach the ground to support an unbroken herbaceous layer consisting primarily of C4 grasses.Some...

), remodeled Celtic buildings, added new maps.
|-
|3
|Cerberus

Cerberus

Cerberus , or Kerberos, in Greek and Roman mythology, is a multi-headed hound which guards the gates of the Underworld, to prevent those who have crossed the river Styx from ever escaping...

|11 December 2010
|Added resource shuttling, circular maps, garrisoning, improved pathfinding; new Hellenic and Celtic ships, Greek buildings; improved game setup screen, redesigned loading screen and added summary screen; new maps.
|-
|4
|Daedalus

Daedalus

In Greek mythology, Daedalus was a skillful craftsman and artisan.-Family:...

|12 March 2011
|Added initial prototype version of opponent AI

AI, A.I., Ai, or ai may refer to:- Computers :* Artificial intelligence, a branch of computer science* Ad impression, in online advertising* .ai, the ISO Internet 2-letter country code for Anguilla...

; improved fog of war rendering, added opt-in automatic feedback system; new naval units, siege weapons, bridges, new in-game sound effects.
|-
|5
|Edetania

Llíria

Llíria or Liria is a medium sized town off the CV35 motorway to the north of Valencia, Spain. Known as Edeta in ancient Iberian times, it is the musical capital of the region.-Location:...

|20 May 2011
|New civilization: Iberians

Iberians

The Iberians were a set of peoples that Greek and Roman sources identified with that name in the eastern and southern coasts of the Iberian peninsula at least from the 6th century BC...

; improved bot: JuBot; random map

Random map

In gaming, a random map is a map generated randomly by the computer, usually in strategy games. Random maps are often the core of single and multiplayer gameplay, aside from story based campaigns that are often shipped with the game. Each new game presents an unknown map, providing a new experience...

scripting; unit promotions; improved formations; particles

Particle system

The term particle system refers to a computer graphics technique to simulate certain fuzzy phenomena, which are otherwise very hard to reproduce with conventional rendering techniques...

: fire, smoke, construction dust, sparkles near mines, falling leaves; unit silhouettes; new map, sound effects, music track.
|-
|6
|Fortuna

Fortuna

Fortuna can mean:*Fortuna, the Roman goddess of luck -Geographical:*19 Fortuna, asteroid*Fortuna, California, town located on the north coast of California*Fortuna, United States Virgin Islands...

|10 July 2011
|Unit stances: Violent, Aggressive, Defensive, Stand ground, Avoid; new terrain textures, sound effects, maps, units and buildings; scenario editor interface improvements; flying units support and test map with P-51 Mustang

P-51 Mustang

The North American Aviation P-51 Mustang was an American long-range, single-seat fighter and fighter-bomber used during World War II, the Korean War and in several other conflicts...

planes.
|-
|7
|Geronium

Battle of Geronium

The Battle of Geronium or Gerunium is part of the Second Punic War, where a large skirmish and an ambush took place in the summer and autumn of 217 BC respectively. After winning the Battle of Ager Falernus, the army of Hannibal, marched north then east towards Molise through Samnium...

|17 September 2011
|New civilization: Carthaginians; all-new dynamic territory design, a brand new main menu design, several new music tracks, new maps.
|}>

Game content

0 A.D.s Gameplay features the familiar real-time strategy components of building your base, training your army, combat, and researching of technologies. The game is about economic development and warfare. Wildfire Games aims to deliver an experience that is refreshingly innovative but at the same time familiar, focusing mostly on the military aspect of real-time strategy

Real-time strategy

Real-time strategy is a sub-genre of strategy video game which does not progress incrementally in turns. Brett Sperry is credited with coining the term to market Dune II....

. The game will pursue a strong sense of historical accuracy without damaging gameplay. It also aims for a high degree of replay ability by being easily moddable and the formation of a large online community. The player will have to build a city and an army following the rules of standard real-time strategy games, collecting resources and constructing buildings. The game will include multiple units and buildings specific to each civilization

Civilization

Civilization is a sometimes controversial term that has been used in several related ways. Primarily, the term has been used to refer to the material and instrumental side of human cultures that are complex in terms of technology, science, and division of labor. Such civilizations are generally...

as well as both land and naval units.

Multiplayer functionality has been implemented that uses peer-to-peer

Peer-to-peer

Peer-to-peer computing or networking is a distributed application architecture that partitions tasks or workloads among peers. Peers are equally privileged, equipotent participants in the application...

and it has been confirmed that there will be no central server.

Civilizations

0 A.D. will allow the player to control any of six ancient civilization

Civilization

s from antiquity

Classical antiquity

Classical antiquity is a broad term for a long period of cultural history centered on the Mediterranean Sea, comprising the interlocking civilizations of ancient Greece and ancient Rome, collectively known as the Greco-Roman world...

Carthaginians
Carthaginian Republic
Ancient Carthage was a civilization centered on the Phoenician city-state of Carthage, located in North Africa on the Gulf of Tunis, outside what is now Tunis, Tunisia. It was founded in 814 BC...

will have the strongest navy in the game, as well as the best trade. Units include the war elephant
War elephant
A war elephant was an elephant trained and guided by humans for combat. Their main use was to charge the enemy, trampling them and breaking their ranks. A division of war elephants is known as elephantry....

and the Sacred Band
Sacred Band of Carthage
The Sacred Band of Carthage is the name used by Greek historians to refer to an infantry unit of Carthaginian foot citizens that served in Carthaginian armies during the fourth century BC...

. Most of their troop roster, however, is made up of expensive mercenaries.
Celts excel in hand-to-hand combat. They have minimal navy and siege. They construct mostly wooden buildings, which are fast and inexpensive to construct, though far less robust than their stone counterparts.
Hellenes
Ancient Greece
Ancient Greece is a civilization belonging to a period of Greek history that lasted from the Archaic period of the 8th to 6th centuries BC to the end of antiquity. Immediately following this period was the beginning of the Early Middle Ages and the Byzantine era. Included in Ancient Greece is the...

have strong buildings, strong trireme
Trireme
A trireme was a type of galley, a Hellenistic-era warship that was used by the ancient maritime civilizations of the Mediterranean, especially the Phoenicians, ancient Greeks and Romans.The trireme derives its name from its three rows of oars on each side, manned with one man per oar...

s, cheaper technologies, and the phalanx formation
Phalanx formation
The phalanx is a rectangular mass military formation, usually composed entirely of heavy infantry armed with spears, pikes, sarissas, or similar weapons...

, which makes their Hoplite
Hoplite
A hoplite was a citizen-soldier of the Ancient Greek city-states. Hoplites were primarily armed as spearmen and fought in a phalanx formation. The word "hoplite" derives from "hoplon" , the type of the shield used by the soldiers, although, as a word, "hopla" could also denote weapons held or even...

s nearly invulnerable when attacked from the front.
The Iberians
Iberians
The Iberians were a set of peoples that Greek and Roman sources identified with that name in the eastern and southern coasts of the Iberian peninsula at least from the 6th century BC...

have foot units are some of the fastest and most rapid-firing in the game, particularly their Balearic Slingers. A number of their ranged units also have the unique ability to fire flaming missiles. Toledo steel
Toledo Steel
Toledo steel, known historically as unusually hard, is from Toledo, Spain, which has been a traditional sword-making, steel-working center since about 500 BC, and came to the attention of Rome when used by Hannibal in the Punic Wars...

grants them superior metal weaponry.
Persians
Achaemenid Empire
The Achaemenid Empire , sometimes known as First Persian Empire and/or Persian Empire, was founded in the 6th century BCE by Cyrus the Great who overthrew the Median confederation...

are the most cosmopolitan civilization, levying a wide variety of troops from their vassal satrapies. Their infantry are weak and poorly-equipped, but can be massed in vast numbers. They have the strongest (though most expensive) cavalry in the game, and are the only civilization that features all forms of cavalry, including cavalry archers in the form of scythe chariots
Scythed chariot
The scythed chariot was a war chariot with scythe-like blades mounted on each side, employed in ancient times.-History:The scythed chariot was a modified war chariot. The blades extended horizontally for about to each side of the wheels...

. Their buildings are also the strongest in the game.
The Romans
Roman Republic
The Roman Republic was the period of the ancient Roman civilization where the government operated as a republic. It began with the overthrow of the Roman monarchy, traditionally dated around 508 BC, and its replacement by a government headed by two consuls, elected annually by the citizens and...

train the strongest swordsman (the Hastatus
Hastati
Hastatii were a class of infantry in the armies of the early Roman Republic who originally fought as spearmen, and later as swordsmen. They were originally some of the poorest men in the legion, and could afford only modest equipment — light armour and a large shield, in their service as the...

) in the game as well as construct the most powerful siege equipment. Other bonuses include the ability to construct siege walls to circumvallate enemy cities in enemy territory.

Reception

0 A.D. was voted one of the Top 100 Best Mods and Indies of 2008 by Mod DB.
For 2009, it made it in the Top 100 Best Mods and Indies as well as winning third place for Player's Choice Upcoming Indie Game of the Year. For 2010, 0 A.D. received a honorable mention for Player's Choice Upcoming Indie Game of the Year.
0 A.D. has been generally well received.

External links

The source of this article is wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. The text of this article is licensed under the GFDL.