Part of the 0 A.D. Gameplay Manual

Terminology

A list of words which may be new to you if you haven't played other similar games, or perhaps even if you have as 0 A.D. has some things not seen in other games. The descriptions here are not so much definitions of the words as explanations to help you quickly get into the game, or the community around it. To find a specific word the easiest way is probably to search for it, press the Ctrl and the F keys on your keyboard and enter the word you're looking for.

Note when editing this document: please make sure to explain things in a short, and easy to understand, way. Easy to understand to be helpful to anyone who isn't familiar at all with RTS games, but short so someone who knows most of these still would want to read it to find out more about the words he/she doesn't understand.

Gameplay related

AI

AI = Artificial Intelligence, in 0 A.D. it means an enemy that isn't a human being but rather computer scripts/code, allowing you to play a game without the need of finding someone to play against.

Fog-of-War/FoW/Fog of War

All areas where you don't have either units or buildings are generally covered by Fog-of-War, this means that you see objects and buildings as they were when you last saw them. Units are not seen at all. Compare Shroud-of-Darkness.

Food

A resource most commonly gathered from animals, berry bushes, fruit trees, and fields. Used mainly for creating new people units.

Hitpoints

A number meant to symbolize the health of a unit/how much is left of a building.

Metal

A resource gathered from metal mines (often looks like big rocks). Used mostly to create some units.

Multi Player/Multiplayer/Multi-player

When you play against one or more humans (and sometimes AIs as well) over the internet. Compare with Single Player.

Resource/resources

In 0 A.D. there are four kinds of resources: food, wood, stone and metal. Resources are needed to create new units and build new buildings.

RTS/Real Time Strategy

A type of war game where you and your opponent interact in real time (or at least close to it as you can often pause the game in Single-Player), typically with both economy and war being important.

Shroud-of-darkness/SOD/Shroud of Darkness

The black area where you haven't explored yet and can't see anything. Compare Fog-of-War.

Siege weapon/Siege weapons

Units used mostly to destroy buildings, but in some cases also to attack large groups of enemy units.

Single Player

A game where you don't play against another human being. Often against an AI, though it could also be a sandbox game where you just explore, build, etc without an enemy.

Unit/units

A common word for both people, siege weapons, boats, and animals controlled by the player.

Wood

A resource gathered from trees. Used both for building new buildings and to train some units.

Other

IRC/Internet Relay Chat

A simple way to chat with several people at the same time, using either a special program/application, or a web browser. If your chat program supports IRC you can talk to other 0 A.D. players and developers by connecting to: #0ad on irc.quakenet.org, if not just click this link to chat in your browser: ​http://webchat.quakenet.org/?channels=0ad

Open Source

Can mean quite a lot of different things to different people, but a short, quick explanation is that it is something that you cannot only use as it is, but also look at the parts and create something new yourself with it. For example, you can not only download and play 0 A.D. you can also download the code and take a look at how the game is created, as well as edit it yourself if you know how to program.