When comparing 0 A.D. vs Minetest, 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 Minetest is ranked 13th. 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
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Pros
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.
Pro Easily customization through LUA mods
An easy to use lua API, and a large variety of existing modifications and games that can be downloaded and installed easily.
Pro Open Source
Pro Runs fast and clean
Runs on Low-End Hardware, runs Fast, Spartan on Memory.
Pro Cross platform
Can be played on Android, Linux, Windows, and macOS.
Pro Fewer griefers than Minecraft
The smaller community means fewer players, and that mean fewer griefers than on Minecraft.
Pro Built for plugins from the beginning
Pro It's Free
Pro Fun and thorough tutorial
There is a tutorial game that you can download that teaches you how to play Minetest in a fun and intuitive way. There are even collectable gems you can try to find in the tutorial.
Cons
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.
Con Lack of mobs
Yet mobs can be installed through mods or subgames. However, if the server is not optimized, these can make the game run slower.
Con Not much to do even with mods
All I do in the game is dig underground and mine the ore within the caves. There are no monsters to fight, dungeons to explore, or any leveling systems/progression mechanics to keep me playing.
Con No weather
There's no built-in weather. However, there are mods which add this feature and extend it far beyond what you might expect from basic weather.
Con Rips off Minecraft
And not very well either.
Con Certain graphics are really bad
Parts of the games's graphics and functionality are really bad. Mob mods or default mobs look like a 4 year old drew them. However, the devs seem to be slowly sweeping through these issues. Come back soon if you don't like what you see yet.
Con Server lags
Almost everything is done server side, so the game can feel very janky on some servers.
Con Minecraft mod ecosystem separate from Minetest
Minetest is obviously an opensource implementation of Minecraft but the only problem is all the mods made for Minecraft do not work in Minetest. They could have designed their clone in such a way say fix it at 1.7.10 forge so that you could load up forge mods straight up and have them work somewhat. There's so much great content for Minecraft that is completely lost and unusable in Minetest, however at this pace of developement, maybe that will change in the future.