0 A.D. (pronounced "zero ey-dee") is an open-source, free, and cross-platform real-time strategy (RTS) game of ancient warfare. In short, it is a historically-based war/economy game that allows players to relive or rewrite the history of Western civilizations, focusing on the years between 500 B.C. and 500 A.D. The project is highly ambitious, involving state-of-the-art 3D graphics, detailed artwork, sound, and a flexible and powerful custom-built game engine.
The game has been in development by Wildfire Games (WFG), a group of volunteer, hobbyist game developers, since 2001. The code and data are available under the GPL license, and the art, sound and documentation are available under CC-BY-SA. In short, we consider 0 A.D. an an educational celebration of game development and ancient history.
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Here are some key features of "0 A.D.":
Technical:
· The engine core is written in C++ for performance, but the scripting language, javascript, is what we try to write as much in as possible.
· Rendering: OpenGL with shaders
· Libraries used: OpenAL, OpenGL, Boost, Crypto++, CxxTest, DevIL, SDL, SpiderMonkey, Vorbis, wxWidgets, Xerces
Operating Systems:
· Windows 2000, XP, 2003, XP64, Vista
· Linux
· Mac OS X
· Tools used: Visual Studio, g++, CppDoc, COLLADA, Debugging and Profiling tools included
Graphics:
· OpenGL-based rendering engine with shaders
· Hierarchal skeletal animation and deformation system based on COLLADA
· Fancy animated water with refraction, reflection
· Realistic shadows
· Particle effects
· Environmental lighting effects (time of day, sunset)
· Flexible terrain renderer that uses alpha maps to seamlessly blend terrain
Gameplay:
· Unique civilizations: In 0 A.D. each civilization will be unique in its appearance, units, structures, and technology trees.
· Citizen soldiers: There will be no standard villager unit. Instead, regular infantry and cavalry have not only military capabilities, but also economic, making them substantially more versatile than in typical RTS games.
· Unit auto-upgrading: Citizen Soldiers will gain experience and automatically gain promotions. With each rank, they become stronger, and don a unique appearance but also get gradually worse at civilian tasks.
· Units on structures and ships: Gone are the days of units disappearing into buildings and transport ships. Some garrisoned units will be visible on the battlements of structures or the decks of ships, and capable of firing on opponents at range.
· Realistic naval warfare: No more tiny ships sinking other ships with arrows. Ship gameplay will include a variety of new features in RTS games, like much larger ship sizes, ship capture, sea rams, and a modular design that allows catapults to be stationed on the decks, and units to fire from the bows.
· Choices, choices, and more choices: Technology trees branch out in a pair-based hierarchy. For example, when you are given the option of techs 1A and 1B and you choose 1A to research, 1B is no longer available. Some of the techs that are higher up on the tech ladder will require that tech 1A is done, while others will require tech 1B. This adds a level of strategy and 'randomness' to picking your techs, as availability of higher level techs will depend on your choices earlier in the game. Similar choices are available with unit formations and battle tactics.
· Provinces and territories: In some game types, the map is subdivided into provinces that must be captured and annexed into a player's territory in order to reap their valuable resources and construct forward bases in these areas. If the host wishes, a player's starting province can also be surrounded by attrition borders to reduce early rushes.
· Real world map realism: Random maps are based upon geographical regions where the civilizations of the ancient world lived. These will be generated with biome specific-to-location features that replicate the look and feel of the world as it existed 2,000 years ago: flora, fauna and terrain.
Miscellaneous:
· Multiplayer networking: Peer to peer, no central server.
· Includes a level editor (Atlas) integrated with the Pyrogenesis engine.
· Extreme moddability: WFG started out as a game modification team, and true to our heritage and the FOSS philosophy, we believe being able to tinker with a game contributes to lasting fun and learning. Aspects of the game like game logic, artwork, and data can be tweaked with tools or by modifying XML and javascript files to totally change the game.
Requirements:
· 1 GHz CPU
· modern graphics card (GeForce 3 at minimum)
· 512 MB RAM
What's New in This Release: [ read full changelog ]
· Hellenic factions: Athenians, Macedonians and Spartans
· Healing: a priest can now heal units
· New models/artwork: Roman Siege Walls, Iberian Special Building, Temple and Fortress, more
· 9 new maps
· Technologies: economic or military bonuses that can be researched
· Civilization phases: start with Village, then upgrade to Town and City
· Click and drag wall building functionality
· Many other improvements and bug fixes
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