What Complete Annihilation looked like?

I can't find any CA screenshots. CA is mostly a rename, but it also corresponds to reshuffling all the units from two factions to one. It isn't inspired by 0 A.D.

CA was like ZK but had 2 factions (Arm and Core), each with ~8 factiories, instead of 1 faction with 11 factories we have now.
The factories were (if I remember correctly):
T1 and T2 bots, T1 and T2 vehicles, T1 and T2 airplanes, and hovers and ships

Although in CA there were so many factories and units total, 80%-90% of units and buildings were actually a mirrors between factions, with similar stats but different model. And since there was a push to remodel all units and get rid of old TA models, the decision was made to merge factions into one, so there are no 2 mirrored instances of almost every unit and building, but only 1, and there is much less models needed.

The new factories were made from some mix of units from prevous factions and factories:
- Shieldbots are made from Core T1 bots
- Cloakbots are made from Arm T1 bots with some Arm T2 bots
- Spiderbots are some Arm T2 bots and some new units
- Jumpbots are some Core T2 bots
- Rovers are basically copy of Core T1 vehs
- Tanks are basically copy of Core T2 vehs
- Hover were made from multiple factories including Arm T1 vehs (Scalpel is old Janus), Arm T2 vehs (Mace, Lance), old hovers (Halberd), and remodelled into similar style
- Ships are made from ships are then redone 1337 times since then
- Gunships and Planes are made from old T1 and T2 planes of both factions by spliting them by movement type
- Amphbots are new factory added much later

quote: Where did Striders come in?

The ship ones were in shipyard.
The Athena was buildable by every constructor, even after move to ZK.
As for the rest, the robot-striders, I don't remember exactly how they were made in CA but they definitely existed. Either they were made by Strider Hub like it is now, or they had dedicated T3 bots factory like it was in BA.

If you want to see the mother of this game, go back to Total Annihilation. Despite all effords made to make zk its own thing, it is TA down to every cell (Sry GoogleFrog). Just better. To me it is the game that TA was supposed to be.

A bunch of unrelated additions to Rafalpluk

- Zeus (which is knight now) was the arm-equivalent to pyro.
- Jack was once called "TheCan" and had a short-range laser instead of this lewd something
- Sumo was a big, four-legged-version of the can with even more extreme stats. If I identify it correctly, it is now Grizzly, while the name got applied to another unit that was then renamed to jugglenaut.
- Is the Krogoth from the first OTA-expansion the mother of striders?

If I remember correctly the current paladin was named bantha. Which was a model that looked to much like the original.

To expand on what Rafalpluk and katastrophe said.

• The economy was the overdrive we have today. It went through some iterations. These include a structure that unlocks a T2 metal extractor morph, and gridless overdrive.
• 1:1:1 cost ratios and removal of armour types happened very early.
• Core had a monoopoly on jumpjets, fire damage, slow damage, pew pew lasers (Bandit/Welder/Razor/Krow), and shields.
• Arm had a monopoly on all-terrain, EMP, EMG and cloaking (including area cloak).
• Adding mechanics on top of TA and increasing unit uniqueness started in CA. For example Sling, Reaver, Thug, and Outlaw existed in their current form. In TA Thug and Sling were both some approximation of Hermit - a simple bot assault.
• Many crazy units, such as Jack and Thunderbird, appeared pretty early.
• Knight and Pyro weren't ever equivalent in CA.
• The Sumo from TA is not now the Grizzly. Sumo evolved to Jugglenaut via a remodel, gaining jump, and a few different weapons. Grizzly is a parallel development that happened much later in Amphbots.
• I think Strider Hub existed in CA. There was certainly a Strider Gantry. Arm Dante-like with green lasers and an EMG, and a Merlin-like which was high-reload Crab type unit that shot nuclear artillery.
• The Detriment is from the Arm version of Krogoth.
• I think CA may have even had the ability to make all factories from the start. They certainly weren't meant to make each other obselete.
• The four bot factories had enough diversity by the end of CA to form four factories in ZK. There was still many proposals around it though. At some points we were considering Shieldbot being amphibious or merging jumps and spiders into one all terrain factory. Amphbots only came later.
• The four vehicle factories had enough for three factories. This was basically T1 Core, T2 Core, and the few differences between Arm and Core. Most of the differences ended up in Hover. Rover got Impaler though, which I think we had previously made Arm-only.
• There were enough unique gunships and planes spread across four air factories to jam into the two air factories we have today.
• Most of the ships were jammed into one factory with those lacking models removed.