New Release: 0 A.D. Alpha 2 Bellerophon news

Wildfire Games proudly announces the release of "0 A.D. Alpha 2 Bellerophon", the second alpha version of 0 A.D., a free, open-source game of ancient warfare. This release comes with victory conditions, fog of war, formations, a new in-game GUI and many other features that make 0 A.D. feel more like a real RTS than ever before. Who will emerge as the victor? Download and play to find out!

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. No registration, no advertising, no catch.

New features in this release:

• Gameplay: Added fog of war; group movement and basic formations; victory conditions; health bars; hunting and fishing; population limits; repair command.
• Performance: Improved pathfinder performance greatly. Moved data files into a zip file for faster loading. Added automatic texture compression; Added streaming music decompression.
• GUI: Completely new in-game GUI. Improved minimap, added unit-following camera mode, added building rotation keys.
• Art: Savanna biome (terrain set, flora and fauna such as baobab and giraffes); All Celtic buildings revamped or remodeled; Greek fishing boat; Theban Sacred Band; Hellenistic Spartan Phalangite; Eyecandy such as broken and fallen columns, unfinished Greek temple, Royal Stoa, stone fence, etc.
• Multiple new maps and scenarios to play.

Room for improvement:

• There is no computer opponent AI yet. In single-player games the enemy does nothing.
• There is no random map generation yet.
• Many unit stats are still unbalanced.
• Many planned gameplay features are not added yet: There is no research, no auras, no rank upgrades, no settlements and territories, no resource dropsites, 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).

An overview of the gameplay feature status is on our wiki, and as you can see, there is still a lot of work to be done. If you want to be part of this effort too, you're welcome to get involved!

Why "Bellerophon"?
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, ...).

In Greek mythology, Bellerophon (pronounced buh-LEHR-uh-fun) was the hero who tamed Pegasus, a magical winged horse, and rode him, using a golden bridle given to him by the goddess Athena. Bellerophon also defeated the Amazons and slayed the Chimera, a monster with a lion's head, a goat's body, and a serpent's tail. As Bellerophon's fame grew, though, so did his hubris. Bellerophon felt that because of his victory over the Chimera he deserved to fly to Mount Olympus, the realm of the gods. However, this presumption angered Zeus and he sent a gad-fly to sting the horse, causing Bellerophon to fall all the way back to Earth. From then on, Pegasus would never let Bellerophon or anyone else ride him again. (Source: Wikipedia). To mark Alpha 2 Bellerophon, we included a Pegasus unit in the game.

For the next alpha, we welcome fan suggestions for words relating to the ancient world beginning with C. As a loose guideline, they should have to do with at least one of the six civilizations set to be represented in the game.

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.