Fallen Empire

General_Zod

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.

Cernel

@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.

General_Zod

@cernel

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.

General_Zod

@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.

redrum

Looks interesting. Kind of reminds me of some blend of LOTR and Greyhawk Wars in both concept and screenshots.

alkexr

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.

Cernel

@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.

justbleh

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.

redrum

Yeah, I really like the territory modifiers as well.

@justbleh Total World War is another map that extensively uses territory modifiers.

Cernel

@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.

justbleh

@redrum thanks I look forward to trying that one out next!

justbleh

@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.

alkexr

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.

Hepps

@alkexr The only suggestion I would make to you about the visual look of the map would be to consider having a different shade or colour for the outline of the terrain types since you are already using white as the outline of the units. this should make the units pop more and give more definition to the terrain images.

justbleh

I like the terrain modifiers so far. My question is will all units be able to travel in all terrain types? I.E. cavalry cross mountains?

alkexr

@justbleh Mountains are entirely impassable. Aside from that (and the sea/land movement rules, of course) every unit can go anywhere.

justbleh

Impassible for air units as well, to fly over? That would add a nice realistic new dimension.

General_Zod

@alkexr
These terrain effects seem easy enough. Willows are funky, cedar trees are nice. I agree the units need to have some contrast with map colors.

alkexr

Progress report #3

I planned to write a progress report at least once every two weeks, but life happens sometimes. I'm starting to catch up with myself. I managed to do a lot of useful and hard work this week, although the result isn't anything that can really be shown off.

The relief map has all these hills, mountains and trees, which change color as the territory changes owner. It looks nice, but there was a huge price to pay for it. Namely, these decorative elements have to selectively reduce the alpha value of pixels behind them. There was no easy way to do that with paint.net (why does the forum think it is a link?) that I could find, so turning the material into relief tiles was a cumbersome long process each time I modified something.

So I decided to pay all that price upfront, and wrote a nice little application that will descend into algorithm-hell for me in exchange for two clicks.

This has the added advantage that I can tweak the visual look by simply editing a config file. Two of you mentioned that units and the map need more contrast, so you probably are right. Which style do you like the most? Feel free to request me to upload any combination of these, it really is easier to render them now than to upload the rendered image to the forum
The original (well, not exactly. Enjoy the multiplicative inverse of the hyperbolic cosine.)
Lowered saturation
Using grey in the background
Different border style
Using grey AND making player color darker

In the meantime, I want to start having ideas flowing in from you about the game mechanics, so I will keep introducing more and more of it.

Let's talk about combat!

That's going to be a jump in the deep water, because I haven't even talked about the different ways you can gain units and heroes and stuff. Also this is probably the most complex part, even though I'm trying to focus on making it easier to understand than Large Middle Earth.

Every unit belongs to exactly one of the following categories (except those that don't, more on that in a later post):

foot units are light and heavy infantry
mounted units are folks riding on things
beast units can be wild animals, monsters, but also include giants
support units are primarily mages and siege weapons
flying units are basically all air units
fortification units are immobile defensive buildings
ship units are... ships?
special units are everything that really doesn't fit into either category (there will probably be like two or so of these)

Aside from the regular attack / defense stats, units can have special attacks. All special attacks

fire once before the first round of combat
target exactly one of the unit categories above
are either attack only; defense only; or if they are both attack/defense, they don't have separate attack/defense strengths
are mutually exclusive per unit (i.e. no unit can have more than one)
unaffected by support and terrain effects

Special attacks include:

charge: targets foot
shoot: targets flying
hunt: targets beast, kills the target outright even if it has multiple hitpoints
ram: targets ship
assassinate/dispatch: targets support, really need a good name for this. It is supposed to represent attempts to assassinate mages as well as to sabotage siege equipment. Native speakers, please help me out.
siege: targets fortifications

Units can also give support to friendly units, or negative support to enemy units:

spearwall: negative support to enemy mounted
flank: negative support to enemy foot
fortification: unclear about this. Should probably give negative support to enemy foot and mounted.
ward: represents defensive or counter-magic, negative support to enemy support units
wind: represents air magic, negative support to enemy flying
fire support/ranged: haven't decided the name yet, positive support to friendly foot
leadership: gives +1 to one friendly unit of each category. That's up to +8 if you somehow manage to get a ship and a fortification on the same territory. (Should flying ships belong to ships or to flying? If it's a ship, you can ram a galley into it, that's just stupid. If flying, archers can shoot it down, that's stupid too. Just to give you a glimpse of all the details you have to pay attention to when designing combat mechanics.)

There is also a 1-round an air battle before combat begins.

There is still more stuff to go, but the most important things have been covered, so I will call it a post. I will explain the rest of the abilities when I start introducing units that have them, it will probably make more sense then.

Evreything is subject to change. Any reference you might discover is definitely either purely accidental or just an imagination of your mind.

redrum

@alkexr One thing you might want to be aware of is that the battle calc doesn't handle negative support for default casualties.