Male Citizen
Cost: 50 Food

Female Citizen
Cost: 45 Food

Watch out for feministic organisations.

Looks like you put a lot of thought into this, but to date - all the Age games have involved multiple cultures, so I don't think they'll be covering this era

I like the idea of the multiple-roled citizen!

WOW! Being greek and knowing greek history I liked this idea very much when I read about it. I find it very interesting.
Also, you got some very nice ideas. The options you are given every time you advance age are very cool. First you choose tribe, then god, then government, then alliance. Really cool.
One campaign would most obviously be the Pelloponnesian war.
I wonder if there was some way to add the wars against the persians in a game that concentrates on greek tribes.

am greek too.
THat would be great. Eh.. i 'd rather say too good to be true.

Quoted from Mythos_Ruler:

Think you just killed the most dominent Greek characteristic, the ever feuding states, after that you really have to be a greek enthusiast, for only having greeks to choose from, most gamers would fall here i am afraid.

Quoted from Mythos_Ruler:

Interesting, i have always liked another way of victory than brutal warfare.
Neutral players should also have a time in games, i have a pal who just likes to sit and do economy and NO fighting *gasp*

Quoted from Mythos_Ruler:

Sounds like too much tideous multitasking for a boring feature.

Quoted from Mythos_Ruler:

Tooooo outlandish for AoE series.

Quoted from Mythos_Ruler:

- makes me able to super boom
- make insanely early and strong rushes
- would be too powerful IMO
- destroyes the purpose of making new TC

Quoted from Mythos_Ruler:

Too Noobifyed, no wise choses by automatic upgrades. There wouldn't be anything exciting about watching Tennish if there was no choises but stand still and just smash the ball back and forth in the same direction.
- will only leave the guy who can spam most unist out an initial edge
- else he who micro the best

Quoted from Mythos_Ruler:

NO WAY! Traing upgrades (techs) would be far better than some lame building emitting invisible beams.

Quoted from Mythos_Ruler:

Nice idea

Quoted from Mythos_Ruler:

Nice idea, i would even go further and make units more exhausted by moving around with siege, avoiding too much siege battles.
- long setup time
- if moved, takes longer for reloading, since ammo must be placed etc

Quoted from Mythos_Ruler:

No thanks, 4 resouces would be enough. Too much RoN

Quoted from Mythos_Ruler:

Sounds like another Tarkan/Hetroi

Quoted from Mythos_Ruler:

Please let us have some more choises.
- different bonuses to select from would be nice

Quoted from Mythos_Ruler:

- kills the fun of booming
- kills the strategic aspects of booming
- no Sling Shot

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There's no reason why the player still couldn't pretend to be one of those cities. Besides, in AOE3 players won't be building British nation from the ground up, people will be playing as a British colony. Similar thing here. You are an upstart Greek state that must chart its own course through history.

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There isn't as much micro as you think. Much of what you quoted is "automatic." For instance, going from Citizen to Spearman when attacking an enemy is automatic. Going from Soldier to Citizen for building or gathering and then back to soldier for fighting is largely automatic as well. The only micro there is when you train your citizen to be a specific soldier. However, micro for this is minimized by the ability to highlight multiple units at once(just like highlighting multiple barracks in AOM) and then training them en masse.

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Differentiating Female Citizens from Male Citizens is as outlandish as the Norse civ in AOM. Same basic feature there, except the Female Citizen represents the Norse Villagers in this respect.

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1. You assume citizen train time isn't altered to balance this.
2. You assume citizen train time isn't altered to balance this.
3. You assume citizen train time isn't altered to balance this.
4. Exactly, because there are no "Town Centers"

Also, Reread this section regarding settlements:

3. Settlements
All a player's buildings (except Fortresses, Resource Depots, and Scout Towers) must be built within a radius of a "settlement." This settlement will be called the Fountain House. A Fountain House can only be built over a Spring or Well. Springs and Wells can be found at strategic points on the map, much like settlements in "Age of Mythology." What makes them unique is the afore mentioned building radius. In essence, this creates other "cities" within the player's empire.

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It's not n00bified. It's actually more intensive than simply clicking off a never ending list of tech buttons. In essence, since it takes citizen time to "gather" technology, researching technologies this way becomes another "resource." Knowledge and technology becomes a resource.

- will only leave the guy who can spam most unist out an initial edge - Hardly a problem, since this is the same issue with all other Age games. However, I disagree in the sense that even if a player has a lot of citizen units, he must choose to use them for research, use them for gathering, use them for fighting, use them for building, whatever. If a player wants to use all his citizens on research, more power to him. However, he'll get mowed over by the enemy who is using all his citizens for soldiers.

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How is clicking a tech icon any better than building a building that you can SEE and will have to defend (conversely, something of your enemy's you be able to raid/attack)?

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The assasin is actually more like a spy unit from Command and conquer or spy unit from Rise of Nations:

Assassin
Cost: 100 Drachmae
Type: Clergy
Attack: Medium
Armor: Minimal
Trained from: Corinthian Temple
Age Available: Classical
Upgrades: None
Function(s): This is a Clergy unit that has the ability to spy on the enemy by taking the shape of one of the enemy's own Citizen units. The enemy can only tell if it is an enemy spy by manually clicking on it. Can also kill enemy units with stealth. This unit is similar to the "Spy" unit in "Command and Conquer: Red Alert" or "Rise of Nations."

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The thing about rare resources my game is that the player doesn't NEED to mine whatever rare resource is available. It is simply another option by which the player can gain an economic edge. The 6 or 7 different resources in RON were all pretty much mandatory, and I agree, a bit too much.

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I disagree. Players will still "boom" by gathering the "technology" resource by tasking citizens to research. Players might want to get to higher Ages just to be able to get more varied/powerful list of units and buildings. My reason for making the Age Advancement this way is to make it viable for a player in Classical to still defeat a player in Hellenistic. Players must choose to stay in Classical and just upgrade the units he has, or advance to Hellenistic Age and go for the more powerful, but way more expensive Hellenistic units.

Thanks for the comments Defiler. Any more? I'd like to hear.

This looks sooooooooo good.
I don't have the time right now to read it all, but I think if you could somehow implement a HC thingy, this could become a wonderful AoE3 modpack!
Oh, and ofcourse added to the list.

That's really cool Mythos.

Theris, thanks. I posted this here so you could update the "Age of Aegean" link in your "new age games" thread.

You're right about the HC concept too. Perhaps THIS is where we can add specific ancient Greek cities, as HCs. Imagine clicking over to your HC and seeing the Athenian Acropolis in all its glory (like those great AOEIII screenshots of downtown London). However, I won't add a Home City element to the design of "AoA" until we know more about AOEIII's.

My list of HCs would be:

Athens
Argos
Corinth
Ephesus (Ionia)
Pella (Macedonia)
Sparta
Thebes

This would take care of Defiler's concern about the current AoA design:

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OK, I read the whole thing, and I have a few (minor) comments:

Why should wonders also cost food?

When making a game about ancient Greece, you need to include the history of Greeks outside Greece (the colonies in Italy and Ionia, the march of Xenophon, Alexander's conquest). So why don't I see any other tribes/civs than Greek ones? You should at least include Persians, Phoenicians and Etruscans in a way similar to Ao3's natives.

The fountain house should be available only from classical age onward IMO (last comment should not be taken too much in account)

---

Theris264
former Age of Mythology Heaven and Age of Empires III Heaven forumer||former member of Ambition Designs
"An eye for an eye, and the whole world goes blind" -Gandhi

Theris264, you know some people work just for food?

EDIT: Added quite a bit of information on Formations.

@Theris: Took away the Food cost for Wonders. I agree, twas silly.

About Ionia and Magna Grecia (Italy), I agree those were important areas. However, Ionia is covered in the "Delian Alliance" listed as a chocie for Hellenistic Age.

However, allying with other "tribes" like in AOE3 would be cool. Minor civs would be nice. I already had some thoughts about them. I'd include all of these as "minor" civs that aren't playable, but take part in the game experience:

Carthaginians
Lydians
Egyptians
Etruscans
Celts
Thracians
Romans
Persians

Some of these might be able to be "unlocked" by the player or something. I also had an idea about a GAMETYPE called "Barbarian Invasions" that could include these civs. More on that soon.

EDIT: I added some info about GAME MODES and MINOR CIVS.

Wonders should cost food, since slaves would have food as their only payment!

Wow, this is already it's own game. You just need someone to make it! I think it'd be great with the same engine and physics as in AoE III! If ES sees this, perhaps your game will become actual! Nice job, Mythos Ruler!

Edit: Added some musings on VICTORY CONDITIONS...

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Any comments/ideas about the two new ones I came up with?

[This message has been edited by Mythos_Ruler (edited 03-25-2005 @ 00:37 AM).]

I seriously love this idea. I really do.

Perhaps a Victory condition could be based around allying with all NPC on the map?
For example, if you're playing on a Sicily map, and you've allied with all of the Carthaginian city states (which take up the majority of the area), you're enemy Greek state may be forced in resignation (i.e, you win) because they don't have a chance.

Yeah, that would be better for diplomacy, as it's not all just about tributing resources. Maybe to win by diplomacy, you'd need to ally with at least three people... and with a good diplomatic system, get tribute from them to win.

EDIT: Added a logo, info about Minor Civs in the "Game Features" section, and some cool random map ideas (right before the "Ages" section).

EDIT: Also edited the Minor Civs list at the end of the document and changed some items in the "Diplomatic Relations" Victory Condition.

[This message has been edited by Mythos_Ruler (edited 03-25-2005 @ 08:35 PM).]

Well Mythos_Ruler, I had another question:
certainly, in ancient Greece not everyone living in a city was a citizen who had civilian rights: however, the citizen you describe, is actually for most part the upper class citizen with civilian rights.
Did you not put in the other 'classes' of Greek society (like slaves) to make gameplay not too complex, or was there another reason?

Wow, you've got a lot of ideas, now you just need to get a good art designer to make a great RTS game!

Quoted from GatoFedoronto:

Actually, Mythos_Ruler is a concept artist for wildfire games, and if AoA is not made into a game by them, then I'll bet some modding clan will make an AoA mod for Ao3.

[This message has been edited by Theris264 (edited 04-01-2005 @ 02:43 PM).]

Quoted from Theris:

Thanks for the WFG plug, Theris. An AoA mod for AOE3 would be very cool. I suppose the hardest part could be the Home City concept? Not enough info on the concept yet to make a determination.

Also, the research concept might be difficult to replicate with AOE3. I guess it all depends on how mod-friendly AOE3 is. The posts made by ES employees don't sound too promising. Personally, despite what they say, I don't think ES likes others messing with their games. There are ways to make games mod-friendly without sacrificing other areas of development, because all it takes is some planning in art management for the game. In a 100+ member team, like what is rumored for AOE3, there is plenty of manpower for such a thing. I had never heard ANYONE (read: us fans) demand light bloom and havoc ragdoll physics for an AOE game, however, we have been craving, and asking for, a mod-friendly AOE game since the beginning. I don't know which fanbase they listen to - maybe the Doom community.

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I originally had in mind to include a "caste" system for the civilian units. Each class would be used for different purposes...

Slave Class - Low Cost. Bonused vs. Mining, Lumbering
Peasant Class - Low Cost. Trains: Peltast, Spearman. Bonused vs. Farming
Merchant Class - Medium Cost. Trains: Hoplites, Toxotes, etc. Bonused vs. Research
Aristocratic Class - High Cost, Trains: Cavalry. Has an "aura" that boosts production of the Slave Class unit.

Something like above. However, don't you think it a bit too micro heavy?

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A damn good one at that, cheers buddy.

Quoted from Mythos_Ruler:

I tell you whom they listen to: MicroSoft. For despite what ES claims, I certainly believe MS has alot to tell on the development of Ao3. M$ just wants to see one thing: money. For which creative talent would make the same game 4 times for a period of ten years? AoE was a revolution in the RTS genre, AoK was AoE in medieval times with some nice little new options, AoM was AoE with some GP's and MU's added, and Ao3 is gonna be AoK with Havok physics and cannons and muskets. But the core idea of the game (4 ages, build your civ from humble beginnings, triangle counter system, historical quite accurate, and so on) remains the same.
I am afraid for ES' faith when Ao3 is finished: I don't think another Age of game would sell well, and I am afraid ES isn't experienced enough in other types of games. If ES keeps making the games M$ wants to make them (that is, AoE ripoffs and sequels), they will kill themselves.
EDIT: I am rather sorry for the off-topicness, but I simply had to reply to wat Mythos_Ruler said about this.
EDIT:

Quoted from Mythos_Ruler:

That's what I thought when I saw only one class of people represented. But you are right, the game design is already complex enough.

[This message has been edited by Theris264 (edited 04-01-2005 @ 05:31 PM).]