0 A.D., a beautiful, 3D real time strategy game developed by Wildfire Games, has reached Alpha 18 this Friday, getting features such as a new game mode, in-game technology tree, while the support for formations has been re-implemented (after it was dropped in A17). Alpha 18, codenamed Rhododactylos, comes with some new features, so let’s see what’s new in this release.

0 A.D. is a strategy game similar with AoE II, but with modern 3D graphics, different civilizations which lived around 500 B.C. up to 500 A.D., and a slightly different gameplay.

A new game mode, Nomad, found its way into this release. In the Nomad mode, all players start with a few workers but no Civil Center, meaning you can place your Civil Center anywhere on the map, provided you scout in the beginning.

An in-game technology tree is now available for each civilization, showing the technologies which can be researched by any of these. The “Structure Tree” is available from the Learn to Play section in the main menu, and will pop up a window showing buildings with their upgrades and cost for each civilization and phases (Village, Town and City):

Support for saved games in single-player mode has been introduced for the Petra AI as well.

Four new Seleucid buildings:

Image credit

Formations are supported now after they were disabled in Alpha 17 due to several bugs and slowing the game.

Other new features include a new games server, AI optimizations, reduced lag, and several major improvements to Atlas, the map editor. Unfortunately it looks like hard counters haven’t been re-implemented in this release either.

Install 0 A.D. in Ubuntu 14.04/14.10 and Mint 17/17.1

Update: The PPA has been updated to 0 A.D. Alpha 18.

There is a PPA available, however notice that at the time of writing Alpha 18 was not available, but usually it takes a day or two before it is updated. To use it type in a terminal:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:wfg/0ad
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install 0ad

To run it, type in a terminal 0ad.