Support us on Patreon to keep GamingOnLinux alive. This ensures all of our main content remains free for everyone. Just good, fresh content! Alternatively, you can donate through PayPal. You can also buy games using our partner links for GOG and Humble Store.
We do often include affiliate links to earn us some pennies. See more here.

0 A.D. Alpha 17 "Quercus" Released

By -
Wildfire Games has released a new alpha of their open source real-time strategy game. Alpha 17 is titled ”Quercus” and contains numerous gameplay balance fixes and ability to place soldiers on top of walls among other things.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Eeyrh7G7voI

This release seems to mostly focus on rebalancing the game by making technologies more expensive to research and giving more advantages to armies that consist of mixed unit types. Buildings have also been made easier to destroy and some units' stats have been modified to make them more profitable to train. Group formations have also been removed temporarily but they will return after a more balanced re-implementation.

In addition to balancing, the AI has received some fixes. The AI finally recognizes the need for transport ships on naval maps and it will use them to attack and colonize other islands. This is an important feature as before playing naval maps with the AI was pointless. The AI just hoarded tons of units and tried desperately to find a way to walk them over the sea. However, for now it will only use transport ships and won't try to attack ships with other ships.

Multiplayer lobby profiles were also added in this release. With this feature you can view other players' profiles to see their amount of games they've won and lost and their ratings and rankings. Cool stuff for the people who are looking for an equal to play against.

There is a new feature that might be very important once scenarios or campaigns are being created and that's triggers. What they do is quite simple: they cause actions based on events. For example, if a certain building gets destroyed the trigger might spawn an army of enemies or cause you to lose the game. Alpha 17 includes two maps that utilize the trigger system, so you can go ahead and test it out right now. For me this is possibly the most important of all of these features, as I'd gladly see some campaigns be made for 0 A.D. I'm not much of a multiplayer guy and the AI isn't perfect in the typical skirmish game mode so having campaigns would make the game suit me a lot better.

This release also comes with its typical set of performance fixes and two new maps.

For the full list of changes head over to http://play0ad.com/alpha-17-quercus/ Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.
1 Likes
About the author -
author picture
I'm a Linux gamer from Finland. I like reading, long walks on the beach, dying repeatedly in roguelikes and ripping and tearing in FPS games. I also sometimes write code and sometimes that includes hobbyist game development.
See more from me
The comments on this article are closed.
11 comments
Page: «2/2
  Go to:

oldrocker99 Oct 14, 2014
View PC info
  • Supporter Plus
The current 0AD is pretty sweet; the graphics are improved, and it's a pretty good sandbox. I've been watching its development for abut 5 years now, and it's well worth downloading!
While you're here, please consider supporting GamingOnLinux on:

Reward Tiers: Patreon. Plain Donations: PayPal.

This ensures all of our main content remains totally free for everyone! Patreon supporters can also remove all adverts and sponsors! Supporting us helps bring good, fresh content. Without your continued support, we simply could not continue!

You can find even more ways to support us on this dedicated page any time. If you already are, thank you!
The comments on this article are closed.