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..
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.
Under the hood, supported OSes and availability
0 A.D. uses the Pyrogenesis game engine for its RTS gameplay, it runs on both 32-bit and 64-bit hardware platforms and supports the GNU/Linux, Microsoft Windows and Mac OS X operating systems.
Among the officially supported Linux distributions, we can mention Arch Linux, Ubuntu, Debian, Slackware, Fedora, openSUSE, Sabayon, Frugalware, ROSA, Chakra, Foresight, Gentoo and Pisi. More details about how to install the game on your Linux OS can be found on the official download page of the product.
Bottom line
While 0 A.D. is still a work in progress, it provides users with a beautiful and well-done real-time strategy game whose main emphasis is on reliving the history of Western civilizations. It is easy to install, easy to play, free, and supports all major OSes. 0 A.D. was voted as the “Open Source Game of the Year for 2013” by LinuxQuestions.org.
