0 A.D. Alpha 9!

0 A.D. the open source and beautiful Real Time Strategy coming from Wildfire Games has reached it's 9th Alpha!




Top new features in this release:

The Roman Republic faction, playable on custom scenarios and random map scripts--in single player and multiplayer, complete with a new art set, including new buildings, units, and ships.
A new combat system that adds bonuses and weaknesses to each unit, like rock-paper-scissors (e.g. spearmen defeat melee cavalry, but are countered by skirmishers and cavalry archers).
A brand new trading system, over land with traders trained from markets, and over sea with merchant ships built at the dock. Establish a trade route between two markets or docks, and your traders will gain resources for every trip made. You can choose which resource will be gained by a trader.
Over a dozen new random map scripts by Spahbod, wraitii, and mmayfield45.
New animations: Rowing oars for ships, rams, some catapults, traders, some animals.
AI improvements: 0 A.D.'s default AI, qBot, has had a performance increase and had a serious bug fixed with the attack code.

There are also many new sounds, bug fixes and smaller but useful features included in this release!

It continues to amaze me how professional this game already is, they are building it to such a high standard it's really something!

At the rate it is going they will release around 3 more Alpha versions this year, with that in mind i think by the end of next year it will have reached it's first stable version! Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.