0AD

1. Updates says:

   October 1, 2022 at 10:03 pm

   New version available -> 0ad 0.0.26-1~xtradeb1

   Changes:
      * Upstream new version
      * Top new features
       - A new civilization: The Han
       - New campaign maps: Tarim basin and Yangtze.
       - Now units have acceleration.
       - Twenty-six new music tracks.
       - New and updated art.
      * New civilization: The Han After the 0 A.D. civilization roster has been constant for some years now, we are excited to announce the inclusion of a new civilization into the game: the Han.
        This development has been in the making for a while. Work on the Han originally began as part of the mod “Rise of the East,” and the civilization was later included in the mod “Delenda Est” and was continuously improved by many volunteers until it ultimately reached a level where it matches the other civilizations in quality.
        The Han have beautiful new art, unique technologies, buildings, and (hopefully) also new gameplay strategies to explore. As usual, we tried our best to create a civilization that is extremely fun to play with and that also pays respect to the actual history.
        Therefore, now for a bit more of the historic background of the civilization:
         The Han dynasty (206 BC-AD 220) was the second imperial dynasty of China, preceded by the Qin dynasty (221–207 BC) and succeeded by the Three Kingdoms period (AD 220–280). It is considered a golden age in Chinese history, and China made significant progress in arts and sciences during the Han period.
         The core of the Han empire was around the Wei River, and the Han capital was Chang’an, very close to the Qin capital Xianyang (both are now part of Xi’an, Shaanxi).
      * New maps Two new maps accompany the addition of the Han civilization to the game:
       - Tarim basin: This is an endorheic basin in Northwest China, Xinjiang region. It is also called “The Western Regions” by the Han Chinese and represents the furthest extent of their power. The Han Chinese wrested control of the Tarim Basin from the Xiongnu at the end of the 1st century under the leadership of General Ban Chao (32–102 CE), during the Han-Xiongnu War and kept it until the Kushan Empire expanded back into the Tarim Basin in the 1st–2nd centuries CE.
         The map itself is bereft of life and offers little in the way of defensibility. The rugged mountain valleys harbor the only life, in the form of hearty shrub and tree species and some goats.
       - Yangtze: The Yangtze, also known under the name Yangzi, or officially under the name Chang Jiang, is the longest river in Asia, the third-longest in the world, and the longest in the world to flow entirely within one country, from the Tibetan Plateau to the East China Sea. During the Han dynasty, the region of the Yangtze River grew more important to China’s economy essentially by the establishment of irrigation systems (like Dujiangyan) which made agriculture very stable and productive.
         These maps were also added to the “Demo campaign – new maps”.
      * Improvements There are various improvements in this alpha, affecting all parts of the game. But the changes that will be most noticeable to the end-users are:
       - Better formation movement, especially turning and navigating through and around objects for more fluidity
       - Game interface usability improvements:
       - Most importantly: a slider to adjust the size of GUI elements.
       - Easier drag & drop mod installation
       - Interface and performance improvements for the Atlas Editor
       - AI improvements.
      * GUI A player search field is now available in the lobby if you’re looking for someone to play specifically.
        An extra button for seeing the summary page when quitting a session is now available. You can skip the summary if not needed and the game will return directly to the main menu.
        Some tooltips were added to the mod manager screen to help to understand that the mod order matters on settings and possibly to help to solve conflicts between mods.
        Improved tooltips and visibility across the game.
        The scale of the GUI is now resizable, using a dropdown menu. There is also a confirmation box with a countdown to revert scale changes.
      * Art A lot of production and improvement for this release, here is a resume (you can find all the details in this list):
       - Lots of texture improvements, better portraits, color adjustments, and fixes
       - Lots of 3D model improvements and better animations, new portraits
       - Complete restructuring and improvements on the Han before their integration into the release
       - 26 new music tracks including two themed for the Han
      * Gameplay There is now a checkbox in the game setup to allow players to have Cartography auto-researched from the start of the match: it means that allies can share the parts of the map each of them discovered if the option is selected.
        Formations can now be selected as a whole with one click, making them more of a “battalion” than before. Note that this behavior can be adjusted in the options. Use (civ-specific) standards.
        It is now also possible to push items to the front of the Production Queue.
        This means you can now task a unit to do one task immediately and then return to the tasks they had before, without repeating the orders. This can be done by using the hotkeys, so be sure to check out the hotkey editor.
        There is now also a “Call to arms” button, which allows players with one click to order their soldiers to drop resources at the nearest drop site and then move to the destination (and attack everything on the way there) with a single button.
        The number of idle workers is now displayed on the respective button.
        The olive tree is now a source of wood (as it was hard to see that it was a food supply).
        With this release, we are introducing the Official community mod for Alpha 26 found here, where balancing and gameplay changes if introduced will be ported over to the next release of 0ad.
      * Balancing adjustments
       - With the help of several of the top-ranked players in the A25b lobby and the balancing team, many balance tweaks have been made in the past year.
         These tweaks mostly address concerns from the community, for example:
       - Decreased attack of Iberian fire cavalry.
       - The increased cost of mercenary cavalry.
       - Ships are less effective against humans.
       - Spear cavalry is now more effective against other cavalry.
       - Pikemen have lower armor.
       - Rework of the Ipicratean Reform (Athenians).
       - Catapults are stronger.
       The end result is a sleeker and hopefully more balanced gameplay experience in A26 compared to A25b. On top of the changes that were made to address concerns, there are also other balance changes, the biggest one being the addition of the Han, but also:
       - Units now have a slight acceleration (some more, some less).
       - Fruit and fish now have a small regeneration as long as they are not exhausted.
       - The Mauryan worker elephant is able to build (again).
       - Standardized animal loot experience.
       - Increased arsenal garrison limit.
       - Macedonian bonus: Instant storehouse technology research time.
       - Adjust Kushite Pyramids to be more used.
       - Removed tower and fortress limits.
       - Many other small tweaks and corrections.
      * Engine Improvements This release introduces Texture quality and Anisotropic filtering in the renderer: you can choose between Texture quality Low, Medium, and High and Anisotropic filtering from 1x to 16x.
        The engine got support for FreeType fonts but, unfortunately, Asian, Arabic, Hebrew, and other languages still have to be bundled separately.
       - Added config settings for borderless fullscreen and window modes.
       - Use the high-performance GPU on Windows by default.
       - Many performance improvements and ongoing refactorings.
   

2. Updates says:

   September 17, 2021 at 6:55 pm

   New version available -> 0ad 0.0.25b-1~xtradeb2

   Changes:
   * Re-enable packaging dh_dwz
   * Update debian packaging copyright
   * Other minor improvements to the debian packaging

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