0 A.D. Alpha 21 Ulysses Released, Available PPA For Ubuntu Derivatives

0 A.D. Alpha 21 “Ulysses” release with New MAP. This alpha features new game modes, plenty of new maps, the official introduction of the final civilization: The Seleucid Empire and more!

0 A.D. is an open source and cross-platform historical game that lets players to rewrite the history of Western civilizations. It is a war and economy RTS (Real-time Strategy) game where the entire action takes place between 500 B.C. and 500 A.D..

See the video release :

Features at a glance

Key features include both single-player and multiplayer gameplay, basic RTS elements, including base building, army training, technology research and combat, support for multiple buildings and units, as well as support for both naval and land units.

The multiplayer component of the game does not require a central server and uses the peer-to-peer (P2P) networking technology. It was initially designed as a total conversion mod for the Age of Empires II: The Age of Kings game.

In this game, you as the player will have to control any of the eleven ancient civilisations, including Carthaginians, Britons, Gauls, Hellenic, Athenians, Macedonians, Spartans, Persians, Romans and Ptolemies.

Top New Gameplay Features In This Release

• Herocide/Regicide: You start with a hero and are defeated when he or she dies.
• Wonder Victory: Now you can change the time from when the wonder is built to when you win. Either set it to 0 so you win as soon as the wonder is built or to anywhere between 1 and 120 minutes for a chance for the opponents to destroy it before the match is won.
• Last Man Standing: Only one player can win the game. Form temporary alliances to eliminate common competitors. But be careful: as the remaining players struggle for victory, allies are forced to turn against you. This mode can be played with every victory condition.
• New buildings and champions
• The Persian Hall and Hellenic Royal Stoa can train new Infantry Champions in town and city phase.
• The Briton Crannog acts as a civic center and dock, providing economic stability on both land and water.
• Romans and Persians benefit from the new Temple of Vesta and Gate of Ishtar, making buildings harder to capture.
• Patrolling: When clicking the button or pressing the hotkey (P + Right Click), units move along the path you set for them and attack enemy units they encounter along the way, then return to the beginning and continue doing so until you give them another order.
• Tech Cost Modifiers and Team Bonuses: The costs of technologies can now be modified by Auras and Technologies, demonstrated by faster and cheaper research when a Library was built. Players get a bonus if they are on a team with a player of a certain civilization. For example allies of Iberians have 20% cheaper skirmishers, allies of Seleucids have 20% cheaper civic centers.
• Stackable Auras: Capturing further Wonders, Libraries or Theatrons increases the building bonus proportionally. Losing a wonder means losing the population bonus, capturing a wonder means further increasing the maximum population, making the Wonder a crucial part of the empire.
• New Balancing: The aim of the new balancing is to stop players from destroying buildings with infantry and cavalry, enforce the use of siege engines, reduce the spamming of champions by making them more expensive and slower to train. With the addition of town phase champions and the lessening of attack damage of defensive buildings, early attacks are more feasible. Capturing of buildings is only feasible if they are heavily damaged or left unguarded. More details are found in the Balancing section of the changelog.

How to install 0 A.D. Alpha 21 “Ulysses” on Ubuntu / Linux Mint :

To Install 0 A.D. Alpha 21 “Ulysses” From PPA Launchpad on Ubuntu 16.10 yakkety yak, Ubuntu 16.04 Xenial Xerus, Ubuntu 15.10 wily werewolf, Ubuntu 15.04 vivid Vervet, ubuntu 14.10 Utopic Unicorn, Ubuntu 14.04 Trusty Tahr (LTS), Linux Mint 18, Linux Mint 17.3 and other Ubuntu derivative systems, open a new Terminal window and bash (get it?) in the following commands:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:wfg/0ad

sudo apt-get update

sudo apt-get install 0ad

(If you get errors about unmet dependencies, check that you have the Universe repository enabled in /etc/apt/sources.list.)

Unstable version: You can try a more up-to-date but less-well-tested version from our development snapshot PPA, which should be updated each week. Follow the instructions above but use the ppa:wfg/0ad.dev repository name.

How to Run the Game, after installation is finished :
Run the game from the command-line as:

$ 0ad