When comparing OpenRA vs 0 A.D., the Slant community recommends 0 A.D. for most people. In the question“What are the best open-source games?” 0 A.D. is ranked 6th while OpenRA is ranked 19th. The most important reason people chose 0 A.D. is:
Still currently in development, 0 A.D. is currently in Alpha stages and completely free. For those willing to wade through the multiple bugs, essentially testing the title, this game will scratch the itch of any RTS fan on a shoestring budget.
Specs
Ranked in these QuestionsQuestion Ranking
Pros
Pro Modern improved recreation of the classic game
Classic Command and Conquer with overhauled UI, rebalanced gameplay, replays and observer mode.
Pro Fosters creativity
Features an in-game map editor and is geared towards modding.
Pro Free, Real-Time Strategy title actively being developed
Still currently in development, 0 A.D. is currently in Alpha stages and completely free. For those willing to wade through the multiple bugs, essentially testing the title, this game will scratch the itch of any RTS fan on a shoestring budget.
Pro Multi-platform support
The game will run on any Operating System, whether it be Linux, OSX, or Windows, which is great for people who dual-boot or use multiple OS's across their devices. No matter the OS used, one can install and play this game.
Pro Addictive Age of Empires style gameplay
This game can be seen as a spiritual successor to Age of Empires, thus it will provide similar gameplay to those who are familiar with the AoE series.
Pro Straightforward RTS gameplay
0 A.D. brings recognizable, straightforward, Real-Time Strategy gameplay to the players. With a mini-map in the bottom corner, resources shown in a bar at the bottom, and unit selection through double clicking, all of the major elements found in most RTS games is here, making for a very familiar game for those that are used to the genre.
Pro Code is open-source
Even if the current developer team chooses to no longer work on the game, others can keep contributing to the source code and modify it.
Pro Active development
By being in active development the game allows for frequent bug fixes as well as frequent new content. While it is still in alpha, the state of the game playability is pretty good with new features being added all the time.
Cons
Con In a grey zone
(The C&C guys are actually well aware of this project and are fine with it... so this isn't true.)
All CnC assets are still copyrighted by Westwood/EA and not freely available anymore, so per law, it is illegal to share them as mods. Also, Dune was never available as free download, which makes the whole mod illegal as well.
Con Written in C#, gets pretty slow with bigger map
Con Currently in alpha
0 A.D. is an ongoing open source project that is as of yet feature complete.
Con Slow development
0 A.D. is an ongoing open source project that is as of yet feature incomplete. This game is still in Alpha version 23 Ken Wood as of September 2020.