Fallen Empire

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.

alkexr

@redrum Then I'll add that to the list of features I'll have to request

General_Zod

@alkexr

From the choices you gave. I think this one best fits the bill in the unit contrast department.

The others have prettier looking cedars and terrain. However I think this one will also have the added benefit of not being hard on the eyes by appearing too busy.

But if you wanna render another version that maintains the unit contrast and has a slightly brighter terrain, might be worth while.

@alkexr said in Fallen Empire:

Progress report #3

Using grey AND making player color darker

I do like this one too.

@alkexr said in Fallen Empire:

Progress report #3

Using grey in the background

General_Zod

@redrum

How does the casualty get handled for negative support units, casualty selection?

Just so I'm clear on it, is the BC aware of positive support units in casualty selection?

I assume manual OOL would remedy.

@redrum said in Fallen Empire:

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

redrum

@general_zod Its actually more of a allied vs enemy support issue. The battle calc should handle all allied support (positive or negative) but doesn't take into account enemy support at all.

alkexr

Progress report #4

I continued tweaking the relief map. It turns out that changing player colors alone has a big impact on the overall effect. I see no reason not to stick with this version:

Xml development had been something I kept putting off, because once such a complex combat system is done, modifying anything becomes a horrifying task that almost certainly is going to cause inconsistencies. Think of deciding that a specific unit should no longer belong to mounted class, but to another one instead. Now you have to remove this unit from the target list of the charge special attack and the spearwall support attachment, as well as from all triggers associated with these (yes, there will be plenty), and probably other things one wouldn't think of. More on this here.

So I had to write another script. This seems to be my fate, having to write scipts each time I try to implement something unconventional. In any case, xml development got a green light, so finally it's not only a relief map that I can show off, but actual functional stuff as well.

The Saurian Alliance

The Saurian Alliance is a loose alliance of different reptilian and amphibian species of various degrees of sentience. The alliance is led by the intelligent humanoid reptilians who call themselves Lizards, capable of speech and using advanced weaponry. They prefer the swampy environment of the land they call home between many rivers.

Relief map of their land is incomplete, especially towns and the crossing - no idea yet what sort of art should represent them.

They have 8 types of units to choose from at the start of the game. Note that resource costs are rather arbitrary. Balancing it won't happen in the near future, there is little point at this stage.

Lizard impaler: foot class, 3 attack, 2 defense. They have 2 movement, like most land units. Bonus in plains and settlement terrain. 1 spearwall (decrease strength of enemy mounted units by 1).
Lizard javeliner: foot class, 2 attack, 2 defense, 2 movement. Bonus in woods and swamps. 1 hunt when attacking (special attack against beasts that kills them outright regardless of hitpoints).
Toadrider: lizards riding enormous toads. 5 attack, 3 defense, bonus in swamps. They also have 2 charge when defending (special attack agains foot units). They have 2 hitpoints, but they are mounted, which means that unlike most 2 hitpoint units (mostly beasts), they are not vulnerable to the hunt special attack, which combined with their 3 movement, makes them really strong.
River lurker: crocodiles hiding underwater in rivers or swamps, ambushing the enemy, causing chaos among them. 1 attack, 3 defense, 2 movement beasts, with 2 flank when defending (decrease strength of enemy foot). They also get 1 of the yet unnamed (assassinate?) special attack against support units when defending. Also they have very special terrain bonuses: +1 in swamps, and +2 in river crossings, as well as +1 bonus when attacking from water.
Skylizard: 4 movement, 3/1 flying units (they use air movement, like all flying units). In air combat they have 1 attack and 3 defense. They give 1 attack bonus for a foot unit. Bonus in hills terrain. They can also bombard fortifications by dropping huge rocks from above: 1 siege (special attack against buildings that kills outright regardless of hitpoints).
Giant turtle: 2 movement sea beasts with 1 attack and 4 defense. Bonus in open waters. 2 hitpoints. A whole army can travel on their backs: 6 transport capacity and 2 carrier capacity. 2 protection (decrease strength of any enemy unit).
Sea serpent: 2 movement sea beasts that can submerge and have a first strike in combat. (Submarines, basically.) 4 attack, 6 defense, 2 hitpoints. -1 in river terrain.
Palisade: immobile defensive buildings. 2 defense, 2 defensive rolls, bonus in fortified terrain. 2 hitpoints. 2 protection (decrease strength of any enemy unit) and 1 support (increase strength of friendly foot), each can apply to up to 2 units.

Some changes to the combat system:

siege was rather underwhelming, so from now it kills stuff outright regardless of hitpoints
fortification negative support is no longer a thing, instead there is protection
support is now a generic positive support for foot units

Worthy of noting that combat uses a d8.

Let's talk about heroes!

Heroes are powerful unique units. They all have their own levelling tree consisting of 3 levels, with 2-3 branches. You can level them up by buying a high level hero that consumes the low level one. This costs XP, a resource you can collect primarily by destroying TUV (killing, basically). This, alongside with the supply cap on the number of units you can have hopefully disincentivizes passive play.

Heroes have a rather rich variety of abilities. These are completely unconstrained by any limitations that apply to normal units - they can, for example, give any amount of support to any set of unit types, while standard units are limited to abilities like spearwall, flank or ward. They are also unaffected by everything - no special attack or support or trigger affects them, unless explicitly specified in their description. They don't belong to any of the unit classes.

Let's consider Sha Lih as an example, a hero of the Saurian Alliance:

Sha Lih: Level 1. 3/3/2, gives 2 attack to 1 lizard javeliner. Levels up to Sha Lih the ranger or Sha Lih the sailor
Sha Lih the ranger: Level 2. 4/4/3, gives 2 attack to 1 lizard javeliner. +2 in swamp and woods. Levels up to Sha Lih the Quick or Sha Lih the Warden of Mires
Sha Lih the Quick: Level 3. 4/4/3, gives 2 attack to 2 lizard javeliners. +1 movement to lizard impalers and lizard javeliners
Sha Lih the Warden of Mires: Level 3. 3/3/3, 2 rolls. Gives 2 attack/defense to 2 lizard javeliners. +3 in swamps.
Sha Lih the sailor: Level 2. 3/3/2, gives 2 attack to 2 river lurkers. +3 when attacking from water. Levels up to Sha Lih the River Warrior
Sha Lih the River Warrior: Level 3. 3/3/2, 2 rolls. Gives 3 attack/defense to 2 river lurkers. +3 when attacking from water, +1 in swamp and crossing.

As you can see the progression is not linear: your hero does sometimes lose some abilities when levelling up, in exchange for more powerful ones. Also, level 3 heroes can get insanely strong sometimes. Sha Lih is not at all that insane at level 3.

We will need 2-3 heroes for every player, that's around 30 heroes. That's a lot, so if you have any good ideas, it has a fairly good chance of being implemented.

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

redrum

@alkexr Seems pretty cool. My only feedback is that I think the colors don't contrast enough. While they look nice, its hard to tell them apart at a glance.

Is each hero going to have a unique image? As well as unique images for their upgrades?

alkexr

@redrum You mean the green of the Saurian Alliance and the neutral color? Yeah, I guess that could be changed.

Current plan is that heroes will have an image similar to a standard unit (Sha Lih will be a lizard javeliner, for example), except with a different outline. Levels will be marked with, I don't know, maybe little dots in a corner, or different outline color, something like that.

Frostion

I really like the hero levelling or respecing idea. I would guess that they are not super heroes, but still so good that they are very nice to have and can be used tactically with great advantage.

Have you mentioned if they have only 1 HP?
And what happens when/if they die?
And can the AI handle your heroes?

redrum

@alkexr I kind of meant all the colors. I think they might be a bit too dark/gray and don't seem to contrast enough.

@Frostion In regards to the AI, it probably depends how exactly the XP resource and upgrading would work.

Cernel

How many players? If they are more than 12, I believe it is just not possible having highly distinctive colours @redrum; still, one can take care having similar ones apart in the map.
In case of too many players, to manage distinctivness with the colours, the solution I advice is having a capturable infrastructure in all territories, that act as flag, just like the roundel you would put in a boardgame (look at "Global War 2").

General_Zod

As colors and contrast go. I suggest be careful. Once the map is populated it might get too busy if the background is also flashy.

I'm not sure where the right balance lies. But, if it were me designing, and considering my preferences on playing from a zommed out perspective. I would try to leave background as neutral as possible so units are easily identified without too much eye strain.

But obviously this is much less of an issue for the people who play zoomed in. Also max range of say air units influences, at which zoom level a player my be comfortable with.

General_Zod

The heroes and experience sound cool. How will you handle the experience from the technical side?

In addition to leveling the heroes. t would be cool to customize heroes abilities further. By allowing player action to choose what ability they want from preselected list of choices. Its more complex on technical side but would be cool.

Ondis

Hey man!
I love this.

If you'd ever like to create some sort of singleplayer experience with it I have an idea for potions/effects. This could also be applied to a multiplayer game with the special item/items being somewhere in a deep central dungeon that everyone can rush for to try and cap.
They would be like capturable units (AA, etc) which you can bring with you that work essentially like generals. But they would self destruct after x number of turns after being captured.

Just an idea!
Looking forward to try the map.

alkexr

@Frostion Heroes have 1 hitpoint by default. If they die, you can revive them for XP, but they lose all levels. If AI understands the consumes units property, it should be able to handle heroes, although it appears to me that the AI doesn't usually do a great job at keeping powerful and expensive units safe.

@General_Zod Experience will be a resource gained primarily from objectives triggered by the destroyed TUV condition. (Does that count neutral units killed? Not sure.) Customizable heroes actually have many downsides aside from being technically more challenging (e.g. the inability to customize tooltips; the impossibility of several cool planned abilities; factions would lose a bit of uniqueness, etc.).

@Ondis Carrying potion units around in the map is probably not the best way to approach this, but it's a good idea, so I'll probably implement something like that as part of a mechanic I'll introduce later.

redrum

@alkexr Currently the AI doesn't really understand consumes units. If you make sure to give the "powerful/expensive" units a high TUV then it should at least try to keep them alive.

Frostion

@alkexr
“AI doesn't usually do a great job at keeping powerful and expensive units safe.”
Yes, this is my impression also. This probably has to do with a lot of things, and @redrum can probably list them for us Like because the AI is blind in regards to unit special abilities, like negative support and stuff. And also because the AI always seem to pick its casualties with the very best overall battle win chance in mind, not thinking about what units would be nice to keep … even though they suck right now in this battle.

Maybe all your map work and your Hero types can help to make it clear how the AI could be improved in regards to unit valuating? I hope!

Frostion

@redrum
So using the new TUV unit option, giving it a value a bit higher than the price, would also affect the AI casualty selection?

redrum

@frostion Yeah, anything the battle calc doesn't support the AI generally can't handle (primarily enemy support which is usually negative). The AI does mostly focus on best overall win chance for casualties but does primarily look at TUV during the final round of combat casualty selection (after it knows it has won). There are definitely improvements especially on attacking that would be great to add to the AI here.

The AI does use TUV for a lot of different items and this influences battle calc TUV swing results so yes using the new 'tuv' option to give certain units like heroes higher value should help. Doing some testing around making some units have really high specified 'tuv' and seeing how it influences the AI would be an interesting experiment

As always, save games that should specific examples of behavior are very helpful since they allow me to experiment with AI adjustment and replaying those scenarios. I'd like to get to the point where each AI enhancement request has a thread like feature requests where its discussed and specific examples are added. As that makes it much easier to test and understand where map makers and players see the biggest gaps in the AI.