Open source projects do a lot of interesting work, and sometimes there’s nothing better than what they make. The game industry is full of commercial games with incredible graphics and musics, intense gameplay and all that you can expect from a good commercial game. But sometimes, open source games can be competitive.
0 A.D. is a real time strategy game, an open source and free game of ancient warfare developed by Wildfire Games, a global group of volunteer developers. Its focal points are a really excellent 3D graphics, really good soundtracks (registered with real instruments) and a large number of well balanced populations, all of them characterized by different units and buildings, different technologies and abilities.
0 A.D. allows you to choose among 12 populations represented at the peak of their civilizations, over a period of time ranging from 500 B.C. to 1 B.C: Athenians, Britons, Carthaginians, Gauls, Iberians, Macedonians, Mauryans, Persians, Ptolemies, Romans, Seleucids and finally Spartans.
A premise must be made: this game is still in alpha stage, currently alpha 18, but let me write that you will not notice big shortcomings or errors. 0 A.D. is definitively playable, online and offline.
You may find some funny elements not completely implemented (such as a specific animal that moves without walking) or something else not correctly placed inside the map. Things can be improved and some functions are not yet fully implemented, but that’s all.
Let’s start with a preview: 0 A.D. alpha 18 Trailer.
Gaming experience
Launched the game, you can find a lot of interesting features, such as the scenario editor (named Atlas), manuals, structure trees, language menu and bla-bla-bla.
But when you install a new game, you want to start to play immediately: let’s see the characteristics of a single player match (i.e. you against the AI).
You can choose which kind of match you want to play. Scenario is based on real historic events: you choose which map you want to play, but the number of players and civilizations will be set automatically by the game. Skirmish lets you choose which factions you want to let fight, but not the number of players involved (it depends on the map’s dimensions). Finally, Random lets you configure completely the match (number of players, populations, maps, population cap and much more).
Started the match, you have to find resources: food such as beef, fish, fruits or vegetables, wood, metal and stone. With these resources you can build farm and military centres, houses, walls, naval ports and everything you need to increase your population, economy and technologies. In order to increase the technology, it’s really important to use part of your resources to advance to a superior phase of your civilization. In 0 A.D. there are three phases: the Village Phase, the Town Phase, and the City Phase, each characterized by different technology improvements, new structures and units.
You can understand that it’s not enough to make a huge army if your shields and swords are old or your tactics outdated. You need special units to fight and defeat your enemy, new technologies and a high amount of resources.
Enlarge your empire and conquer new territories, the stronger you become, easier will be the victory.
Soundtracks
Music is an important part of every game and people at Wildfire Games knows it. The music department published some interesting posts in the past, however you can listen (and also download, hey, it’s open source!) to the incredible soundtracks in the music section of the website.
My favorite one is the number 8: Ammon-Ra, and yours??
Multiplayer lobby
Single player mode is always a good start, but if you want something different you can play online against other players.
Just register inside the game, selecting the menu Multiplayer → Game Lobby and start joining some battle, or start a new one.
Additional infos
0 A.D. works well on not too recent hardware. You can play this game with only an integrated Intel HD 3000 or a really old Ati Radeon HD 3650. If you use Linux, you’ll be pleased to know that it also works with the open source Radeon driver, without problems (at least in the most recent versions of Ubuntu and derivatives).
Regarding the graphics, in the Game Options tab you can activate additional functions, such as HD water effects (coastal waves and other things), Shadows on water or VSync.
Finally, one bad thing has to be reported: if units become too numerous, the game runs slowly. With an old graphics card you can find this problem really irritating: to get around this, simply select a match with a low number of players.
Install 0 A.D.
You can play this game on Linux, Mac and Windows.
For Ubuntu and derivatives, follow these simple instructions to install and always get (through the system updates) every new release of the game. Copy and paste, one by one, the following commands inside a terminal window:
sudo add-apt-repository ppa:wfg/0ad
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install 0ad
For other Linux distributions, look at this page.
For Windows and Mac, download the game from this page.
In addition, because 0 A.D. is in alpha stage, every new version of the game introduces a lot of new interesting features. If you love this game, you will enjoy every single new release.
And remember: if you want to help artists and developers, they are always in need of help!
Have a nice fight.
viprooni 