Fallen Empire
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Reserved post, will be edited later
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Progress report #1
I've been making good progress on the map graphics in the past few days. It is rather time-consuming, even though I'm trying to keep the artstyle simple and clean. I'm not (yet!) too good at it, but it already is waaay beyond what I used to think I was ever going to be capable of.
Here are two screenshots showcasing parts of the Winter Kingdom, and four of their units: Axe Raiders, Berserkers, Boar Riders and Giants. The Winter King rules this barbarian-tribal-styled faction from his seat in Heimard. They start out in a region well protected by a barrier of impassable mountains, but the lack of resources will force them to invade new lands to the east and possibly south.
The area of Tronjrond with hills and and pine forests. Pine trees are purely cosmetic, there is only one "woods" territory effect.
The region around Gianthall, with the (neutral) giant-populated lands ruled by Kragbart.Evreything is subject to change. Any reference you might discover is definitely either purely accidental or just an imagination of your mind.
"For the world is changing: I feel it in the water, I feel it in the earth, and I smell it in the air."
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@alkexr Looks great! Love the idea and concept.
The graphical stuff is really just about patience, practice and trial and error.
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@alkexr And for your New Year.....
Ege Shege dre!!! Hope you are enjoying some Palinka.
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@hepps The spelling is a little unusual
and I'm an anti-alcoholic, but thanks anyway -
@alkexr Not a native Hungarian... adopted... so you'll have to forgive my limitations...
As far as the Palinka.... no biggy.... all the more for me.
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@alkexr Don't forget to put in political options,. Pure FFA does not make for interesting games.
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If you add politics to a ffa, it should be a system that honors all agreements from the point of acceptance.
Most triplea politics models use end of round instead. This gives the players at toward the end of turn order extremely unfair politics.
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@alkexr I'm excited to try this out soon as long as it is not too complex (especially referring to territory effects) and requiring not more than 5 human players. Do you plan to have 5 or less alliances, Domination style, or 1 power per player and rest to AI, Feudal Japan style, or what? I seem to understand there will not be fixed alliances, but each player on its own (like Feudal Japan)?
I suggest to have the borders of the land units in light grey instead of white, as the white may cause confusion in reading the white stack numbers.
And main suggestion do whatever you can to keep the playtime low (like having low income); FFA are never too fast, legit not quit.
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Yes I tend to agree, on 5 players/alliances is pushing upper limit for a ffa, since there are few multi and even fewer ffa gamers around lately. (so welcome back
)Also a one day affair is ideal, since its so hard to get continues of any type of multi. Unless you can wrangle a dedicated group of people into game.
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@alkexr
Btw, the game of thrones ffa map seems to be abandoned by its creator. Maybe even consider picking that one up. It has a connection bug caused by a few open borders on the baseTile image. But is a relatively easy fix. I can fix it for you if you want to play around with that one. -
Looks interesting. Kind of reminds me of some blend of LOTR and Greyhawk Wars in both concept and screenshots.
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At present moment, there are 12 players, 452 passable land territories (116 owned at start of the game, rest is neutral), and the total supply production of the map can support 353 units. Preferred way of playing is single player or 1 faction per player, rest to AI, PBF/PBEM. Adding the option of playing in alliances, like 6 vs 6 / 4 vs 4 vs 4 / 3 vs 3 vs 3 vs 3 is just 100 lines of brainless xml, so I can add as many options as you like.
Everything is subject to change.
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@alkexr I don't think you should create a bunch of different options of alliances, as that would detract from the lore of the map and I doubt you can decently balance each one. For example, I don't really like Galactic Wars with the three different alliances options, because I prefer a scenario having its own specific setup, instead of whatever. If it makes sense that it is 1 against anyone else (you know, often in fantasy there are good and bad factions), like in the case of Feudal Japan (or in a fantasy in which everyone is evil), then my suggestion would be a set of playable players for a specific number of players, I'd suggest either 3 or 4, specified in notes, leaving the rest to the AI, and the game fairly balanced around that concept.
For example, I mean you say that those 4 are the players supposed to be assigned to humans, 1 player per gamer, these players being human default, and the remaining 8 players are for AI, and being "Hard AI" default; then you try to devise and balance the game based on this scenario. Likely it would make the most sense to reserve the most civilised players for humans.
Alternatively, you can try to balance the game for 12 players, then leaving the gamers pick what they prefer, 1 player each, rest to AI, but this is going to be a mess to balance, and would oblige you to give the game an un-organic feeling, since you must take care that no player is doomed since start and, even more important, that there are no over powered players. Still, in this case, it would be advisable to write in notes a set o suggested playable nations for each number of human players, like in the case of Feudal Japan, tho I believe the suggestions therein aren't well balanced, and would not play with those myself.
Having a decent balance is very important for FFA, as most people don't enjoy playing disadvantaged players in such setups, and bidding is not really an option, with more than 2 factions.
As for the map, my main concern is that you might go too heavy with the territory effect modifiers. Very few people like to have a lot of modifiers from territory effects, and I ain't one of them.
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I do like a lot of territory modifiers, LOTR large map is the best one you guys have (opinion I know).
My original intent on coming to this post was to figure out how on the GoT map how to get units into the province of Qohor? I know it is possible bc the AI does it from all players but I cannot seem to, they just automatically go into the highlands road. Any help will be appreciated.
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Yeah, I really like the territory modifiers as well.
@justbleh Total World War is another map that extensively uses territory modifiers.
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@justbleh So, you should open another topic about that, but the GoT map is heavily bugged in the east continent. It's years that I hope somebody will take it over because, as it is, it is not really playable (not only that, but also several wrong connections and unclickable spots, all in the east continent, which is a mess).
That is one of the several maps that would benefit from having a "Broken" category in download list to stay into, as I've proposed several times. -
@redrum thanks I look forward to trying that one out next!
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@cernel I am with you in that hope that someone will take it over and fix it. I agree the eastern continent as a whole is buggy all except the one issue of Qohor is playable around but it detracts from the gameplay starting out in that continent and does make it less desirable to play. Even though I did enjoy beating Westeros with the free people!
A "broken, in-progress, incomplete, glitched" category would be nice, maybe with the notes of the problem in the notes category that way if someone wants to fix it they know the quick one. -
Progress report #2
I was rather busy in the last week, and so I made less progress than I originally intended. Also I ran Into a dead end trying to design weeping willow trees. After multiple tries, I still feel that they can't compete with the pine forest from last week. But I'm curious what you think of it. Here is the best I could do (so far):
On the other hand, I managed to complete the design of mediterranean forests. So the lands around the Polis League start looking less and less empty:
Of their unit choice hoplites, peltasts, triremes and prodromoi can be found on this map snapshot. (Note that map snapshots I upload here don't represent the initial setup.)
Let's talk about territory effects
You seem to be interested in the way territory effects will be implemented, especially Cernel seems to be concerned. Rightfully so, considering the matrix over the two-dimensional vector space which you have to handle as if it was a bilinear form which maps the boolean scalar vectors of the territory effects and the boolean scalar vectors of the units' types to the space of bonuses / maluses - the way of implementation in Large Middle Earth. Not in Fallen Empire.
It must be easy for the player to understand / calculate exactly what bonuses / penalties he gets from territory effects. Therefore, each territory has exactly one territory effect. And it must be possible to keep all the rules relevant to your current war in mind. Therefore most units don't get any bonus / penalty on most terrain types.
The planned territory effects, ordered by their frequency on the map:
- plains
- hills
- woods
- settlement
- swamp
- fortified
- cave
- pass
- crossing
The combination of two different rules will apply.
- The territory effect rule: some territory effects will give a flat bonus / penalty to a specific unit type. Crossings and passes give -1 attack to foot / mounted types. Caves give -1 to flying units. Fortified gives +1 defense to foot units and fortifications. And probably that's about it.
- The unit rule: some units will have preferred terrain, where they get a +1 bonus, or a terrain they hate, where they get a -1 penalty. Unit rule always affects both attack and defense.
Examples:
- Your hoplite has 2 attack and 3 defense. They like plains, so they have 3 attack and 4 defense.
- The same 2/3 hoplite will fight with 1/3 in a pass or a crossing, because they are foot soldiers.
- Tengu hunters are 2/1 on almost all terrain. They are flying units, so in caves they are 1/0.
- Faun archers are 1/2 support units, but they like woods, so they are 2/3 in woods.
I really hope this is not too much to discourage anyone, while being significant enough to add depth to tactical battles, and also being intuitive ("cavalry likes plains" is quite intuitive).
Evreything is subject to change. Any reference you might discover is definitely either purely accidental or just an imagination of your mind.
"For the world is changing: I feel it in the water, I feel it in the earth, and I smell it in the air."
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