New Release: 0 A.D. Alpha 6 Fortuna news

Wildfire Games, an international group of volunteer game developers, proudly announces the release of "0 A.D. Alpha 6 Fortuna", the sixth alpha version of 0 A.D., a free, open-source game of ancient warfare. We have added hundreds of terrain textures and dozens of sounds, redrawn and added Hellenic units and buildings, implemented unit stances and put in some WW2 fighter planes, just to show that the game engine can support flight.

Easy Download and Install
Download and installation instructions are available for Windows, Linux and Mac OS X. 0 A.D. is free of charge and always will be. You can redistribute it and modify it as long as you abide by the GPL. You can even use parts of the art and sound for your own projects as long as you abide by CC-BY-SA. No "freemium" model, no in-game advertising, no catch.

New features in this release:
Top new features:

• Unit stances:
  • "Violent" - The unit attacks any enemy unit in sight and pursues it as it escapes into the Shroud of Darkness;
  • "Aggressive" - Attacks enemy units in sight but does not pursue them as they escape;
  • "Defensive" (Default) - Attacks enemy units who come within half vision range distance. Will pursue the enemy until they leave that range. If no more enemies are within range they will return to their original positions;
  • "Stand ground" - Only fights back when attacked or when their comrade next to them in formation is being attacked. Else, does not move unless tasked to move or attack;
  • "Avoid" - Does not attack, and runs away from enemy soldiers in the direction of the nearest Civ Centre or Fortress. A unit with this stance, if tasked to move, will attempt to avoid contact with enemy units.
• 250 new terrain textures. (These are still a work in progress.)
• 43 new sound effects: Building selection and construction. (Thanks, Dynamite Sound Bytes team.)

Art:

• New Greek houses.
• New Greek siege tower, which acts like a mobile missile battery.
• Updated shield patterns for Greek hoplites.
• Art released for all of the remaining Champion units, including: Persian War Elephant, Persian Cataphract, Carthaginian Sacred Band pikeman, Carthaginian War Elephant, Roman Extraordinarius, and Roman Consular Cavalry.
• Thracian Mercenary unit - "The Black Cloaks," famed for fighting for the Macedonians against the Romans.
• New movement animations for giraffes and lions (by Athos).

New Greek houses, updated shield patterns and the Thracian Mercenary unit. (CC-BY-SA Wildfire Games)

Maps:

• Cycladic Archipelago III, a huge Greek islands map.
• Southern Greece real-world map.
• Updated Belgian Bog.
• Cantabrian Highlands random map now uses the Temperate biome terrain set.
• Gambia River map, using the new Tropic biome terrain set.
• Mediterranean Coves.

The updated Belgian Bog map and the new Mediterranean Cove map. (CC-BY-SA Wildfire Games)

Programming:

• Delay in carrying out unit instructions eliminated.
• Units less likely to get stuck.
• Various improvements to the text input boxes in the game.
• Unit selection limit matches population cap (200 units).

The Atlas scenario editor:

• Player settings editing panel: Set teams, colors, default AI behavior, starting resources etc.
• Entity filter: Enter part of the name of an object/objects you want to add to your map to filter them out from among the rest.

Two new features in the Atlas scenario editor: The improved "Player settings" panel and the new entity filtering function. (CC-BY-SA Wildfire Games)

Just for fun:

• Flight demo: A brand new P-51 Mustang can fly around the map, and attack targets on the ground and in the air. (Thanks, Brightgalrs.)

Airplanes! (CC-BY-SA Wildfire Games)

Room for improvement:

• Known issue: The AI builds an awful lot of mills on the edge of the Acropolis II map.
• Many unit stats are still unbalanced.
• Many planned gameplay features are not added yet: There is no research, no auras, no formation bonuses, no settlements and territories, etc.
• Many bugs and small missing features.
• There is no multiplayer matchmaking service. You have to connect by IP address. (More convenient ways may be implemented in the future.)

Why "Fortuna"?
We name our releases according to development status ("Alpha" or "Beta"), successive release number (1, 2, 3, ...) and a word relating to the ancient world, in alphabetical order ("Argonaut" for A, "Bellerophon" for B, ...). In recognition of some of our good fortune recently as a development team, we have decided to code-name 0 A.D. Alpha 6 "Fortuna".

Fortuna was the goddess of fortune and the personification of luck in Roman religion. She was believed to bring both good and bad luck, and so came to represent life's capriciousness. She could be represented as veiled and blind, as in modern depictions of Justice, and was usually portrayed standing and wearing a rich dress.

Fortuna. (CC-BY perpetualplum)

Her cult was introduced by Roman king Servius Tullius, who reigned in the years 578-535 BC. She had a sanctuary on top of Quirinal Hill, one of the seven hills of Rome, and a temple on the Forum Boarium, the oldest food market in ancient Rome. This market was used both for cattle trade and as a religious center.

Also, in Praeneste, a city 35 km east of Rome, there was an oracle dedicated to Fortuna. This oracle was a shrine where Fortuna was believed to reveal the future, through a ritual in which a young boy would choose one of several rods, each inscribed with a different prediction. (This was the ancient Roman version of the magic 8-ball.) To this day, the ruins of this sanctuary can be seen in modern-day Palestrina, Italy. (Sources: Wikipedia: Fortuna and Encyclopedia Mythica: Fortuna.)

For the next alpha, we welcome fan suggestions for words relating to the ancient world beginning with the letter G. It's best if you think of something related to Carthage or the Punic Wars. Keep it original and within the 0 A.D. time-frame (appx. 500 BC - 1 BC)!

A Special Call for Contributions
Over the last few months we have been particularly privileged to welcome great contributors in various areas (programming, art, sound, music and more). But we'd like to take this opportunity to share some of our plans for this summer, and invite you to pitch in and contribute in two particular areas.

The first area is 3d art, as part of our aim to release the Carthaginian faction of 0 A.D. by the autumn of 2011. To achieve that goal, we invite 3D modelers to join the 0 A.D. development team. You must have adequate experience in a mainstream 3D application such as 3DS Max or Blender, and be able to properly UV map a model with a given texture. Also, it's best if you know a little bit about animating, but it is not required.

The second area is web design. We would like to design a new website for 0 A.D. over the next few weeks and are seeking one or more experienced web designer(s) for that purpose. You should be able to demonstrate that you can design usable interfaces, effective website layouts, and attractive 2d graphics, as well as write readable, standard-compliant code. We need to create uniform navigation and branding across a Wordpress blog, a Trac wiki and an IPB forum and create corresponding graphics for 0 A.D. profiles on other websites, such as ModDB/IndieDB, Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and Bandcamp.

These roles on the 0 A.D. development team are a boon if you want to brush up on your skills and update your portfolio, if you're seeking a project for school with real-life applications, or if you care about the cause of free culture and software and are willing to work pro bono with a group of dedicated volunteers from all over the world.

Interested? Please register on our forums and start a new topic introducing yourself in the applications and contributions forum following these instructions.

Long Time, No Siege
Wildfire Games will continue releasing new versions of 0 A.D. periodically. Watch our news feed to keep updated, or follow us by e-mail, RSS, Facebook or Twitter. And you're always welcome to join the 0 A.D. community on our forums.