Steph's next great project announcement

[Steph]

Originally posted by Sickman
Hmm...
You said Steph that player won't build cities but only build forts?

Not really. The player will have to find strategic location, where cities are likely to appear, secure them with a fort of troops, spend money to incite settlers to go there if needed. Then, he wait for population to go there. If it doesn't work and he has the correct government, he can try to force people relocation in this new area. Once population is high enough, he get a city, and then he can start to build improvment and troops.

Originally posted by Sickman
Hmm...
Is there any sense in that?
I don't mean to offend but if player has only military options to choose in the game and otherwise it runs like simciv...it sounds like program toy than true strategy game to me.

The sens in that is that people will try to settle where they like. Except if you have a government that denies freedom. But even then, people will try to move to other spot if there location is overcrowed. And they will do this on their own if needed : they will not just wait and starve to death as in civ III.
You won't have only military options to choose. Simply your citizens will do stuff on their own, and you will have to play against the computer, but also against your own peope.

Originally posted by Sickman
Hmm...
However what I want is that you would consider having "provinces" in the game.
The idea is that the population and cities would like you said spread automatically but when there's enough people in certain area the player could give certain part of the empire the status of province and province would of course have some center...example certain city.

In fact, as a tile can have urban population, a "city" represent a population high enough to be become a province with a center, as you suggest. It's just more abstract.
Low population -> rural population and small cities (let say equivalent to mines). Not possible to build improvment and units.
High population -> provicne with a center, the city, the player can then build improvment and units, and the improvments have an effect on the people in the city radius (ie the province for your).

The province would have certain leader and province could

I think your ideas of provinces and my idea of cities are rather similar, the main difference is terminology.

Remember the Game Design Document is far from finished, a lot of chapters are still missing (like city, improvment, technology).

 

[Sickman]

It seems that your ideas are pretty much based into same principles that I thought it could be.

As you said you didn't had documented it so I had to raise a question.

I really like the whole concept of automated population grow as long as human player has enough to do in the game and not only watch as empire rises or falls.

This project sounds better each day I read this thread. It is certainly innovative and ambitious...

It could be nice to find some graphic experts to help you with...even though graphics aren't everything. However graphics that work can create nice atmosphere that gets people into the game alongside with simple game elements that are easy to learn but hard to master.

 

[Steph]

But I already have graphics experts
The game should be able to use graphics made here with very few adaptation.

 

[Bjorn Bjornson]

Why not, for expansion, have a unit that needs to be built, that sets up colonies, at which the colony starts as kind of a sub-city for that local region (can't build its own improvements, but maybe low-level defense units) - kind of a state-sponsored expansion, and a head-start to develop a city in a particular strategic tile.

Make these units fairly expensive, since exploration and expansion (and the required military escort) are always costly affairs.


Also, I would change the population of tiles to Rural and Urban. Make it so population is primarily Rural, until a tile gets more population then pure farmland supports, the tile becomes a small town surrounded by farmland - the tile would still be primarily Rural (food producing) but have some Urban population now (commerce/production).

These "towns" wouldn't have the same abilities as cities of course, but would be the stepping stone for that tile to become a city. Like have a city be a tile with a majority of Urban population, and a large one at that.

Since Urban populations are not primarily food producers, a city tile would need to use the food-producing rural populations from the farmlands outside the city (adjacent tiles).

If you may, you could go fancy and break up Urban populations - craftsman/builders for production bonus - artists/performers for cultural and happiness bonus - merchants/etc. for commercial and luxury bonus - philosophers/priests/mystics/scholars for culture and science

(I put religious units into science because, before state religion, religion was used to describe the unknown of nature and the world, etc. - it's even argued that modern science is a religion in and of itself - so I attribute religion more towards knowledge growth than "moral" judgement, which is primarily law, which is made by the state.)


But anyway, I wonder what the scale is on the standard map? Would the scale be such as to make my ideas unneeded, like would the scale be so large as to have so a tile that is a city can also represent many lands of farming around it as well?

I personally like smaller more-specific scale, but to each his own.

 

[Steph]

About your first remark, building a fort will require a specific units, and will be kind of a new colony.

A tile does not have one single population, but several "population point"s, each one can be rural or urban. So with an urban of 1 and a rural of 3, you have our small town surrounded by fields.
Moreover, the food output will vary with technology, the rural population can transofmr into farmland later in the game.

I will not go fancy into the non city tiles, only cities will get craftmen, or it will be to much micromanagement or to complicated to code.

About the scale, the city is an abstraction for the capital of a region made of 25 tiles. In fact, it is very similar to Civ III.
The difference is battle : battles are fought and a tactical map, with a completly different scale.

 

[goethe]

Thanks for your answers and the discussion.
I'm yet a little confused about the "cities". But I will wait for more information to become a feeling for this new sort of micromanagement.

btw a new question: how do you handle the trade? Can you build tradelines, roads, harbors? Or will the roads build automaticly too?

 

[Steph]

It's a bit to soon to tell. I'd like to actually start coding the map engine (it should be this afternoon) and see how exploration / movement / expansion work, and add other parts later.

For trade, what I can tell you is resources will not work as in civ. First, they will have a limit : if you exploit them to much, they disappear.
Second, you can discover a resource only if it is in your territory, or if you send some specialist to discover it, or if your spies can learn from other civ were are the resources.
No more paratrooper attack on the ennemy oil field when he doesn't even know what is oil!

Moreoever, resources will not contributes for 1 resource, but several, and creating units or upkeep will effectively use the resource : you want 50 tanks? Ok, then you need 50 oils / turn (a tile will provide 1-10 resource / turn), so it means 10 oil resources on the map.

You will need to establish trade lines, through sea lane and roads. I don't how exactly how yet, except trade will be done between two cities. You will be able to blockade an harbor or a city.

The roads will not appear automatically : building road is your job. However, tradelines can be esatablish automatically, but it will be more likeley and more profitable if you have build a connecting road.
You can decide to forbid trade with some countries, but perhaps it will be possible to have smugglers.

In fact, a lot will depends on how the coding work. That's why all here is just ideas, it may change a lot if I see it doesn't work that well in game, and that's why I'd like to actually try some of them as soon as possible.

 

[Steph]

Ok, it may not seem much, but I've worked a bit on the map renderer.
Now I can draw the map with correct tiling, and without flickering when you move around.

Note that the map is currently complety random, and doesn't try to match adjacent tile, it will be my next task.

But now I can visually check if the terrain randomizer is working

 

[Steph]

Just to let you know that the project is not dead, but just asleep. I had some very interesting discussion with Kryten about a new features. I'm still playing from time to time with the game engine.
However, I hade to many undergoing projects, and I've decided to finish a few (including converting Cossacks and American Conquest, and making my mod) before really goind into coding.

So for the moment, it will remains to the gathering and discussion of ideas level.

 

[Dom Pedro II]

This is good since I'll need to finish up some current stuff before I can devote a lot of time to graphics for this...

Also, does this discussion with Kryten have anything to do with rebellions and territory names?

 

[Steph]

Originally posted by Dom Pedro II
Also, does this discussion with Kryten have anything to do with rebellions and territory names?

Who knows ?

 

[Steph]

The map editor is starting to work. I can now add basic terrain (plain, desert, tundra, etc), and it displays it nicely (except on the edge, I haven't worked on that part yet).

The window is small, because the code is not optimized yet, so it's a bit slow (only when editing, not for display)

Note : screenshot is of poor quality.

 

[Steph]

Some new ideas about units.

To build a unit, and to maintain it, you need different kind of resources :
- Population
- Gold
- Natural resources (horses)
- Processed resources (oil, ammunition... or tanks, plane ).

A unit cannot be upgraded as in Civ.

Instead, you can decide to transform a unit into any other unit of the same class (infantry, armor, plane, etc), even an older one (if you don't have resources to support all your modern units).
When you do this :
- The resources needed to build the unit the first time are returned to the city
- The resources needed to build the new units are taken from the city.
- An upgraded unit keeps its training level.

Second, about the unit editor. I plan to have all unit descriptor files (similar to ini) in a folder. With the editor, you will be able to set the animation files, the name, stats, etc of the unit, and save it in the file. So when you distribute a new unit, you can distribute all the stats with the unit.

Then, in a scenario/mod, you can simply select what unit descriptor you want, and you will get automatically all the stats.
If you decide to change some, a copy of the unit descriptor file will be made automatically in the scenario folder.

Last, when you load a unit in a scenario, the editor will check the links (resources, techs) and if one is missing, you will get an error. It will NOT crash or end the game, but request you to correct it.

So if you make a unit that uses let say Oil (standard resource), but someone has removed oil in his scenario, then when he will load your unit he will have a message "oil not available for this unit, change resources".

 

[thestonesfan]

Hey Steph -

I'll be religiously following your creation, just to let you know.

Anyway, I have a small suggestion. Would it be possible to have a city lose any resources it gets from overseas if a submarine is in the city radius? Maybe you could also have a sub being present eliminate all food/trade/production from water squares? I don't know, something to increase a sub's value.

 

[ripptide]

that would be a neat idea thestonesfan, only mod to it I'd suggest is a sub of a country you're at war with

 

[Steph]

Originally posted by thestonesfan
Hey Steph -

I'll be religiously following your creation, just to let you know.

Anyway, I have a small suggestion. Would it be possible to have a city lose any resources it gets from overseas if a submarine is in the city radius? Maybe you could also have a sub being present eliminate all food/trade/production from water squares? I don't know, something to increase a sub's value.

Blocus by land and see will be possible. And the sub will have a much more interesting use

I think as soon as the map editor is finished, I'll do the units editor.

And I'll need lot of new animations for existing units, as I will support different animation for range attack and melee attack, and even when firing on infantry, ships, tank or aircraft the animation should differ.

 

[LBPB]

Originally posted by Steph

And I'll need lot of new animations for existing units, as I will support different animation for range attack and melee attack, and even when firing on infantry, ships, tank or aircraft the animation should differ.

Hey ! that mean a lot of work for the units makers
I already use about 3 day to make a whole new unit for Civ ... So I hope your editor will be really accessible and powerful

 

[ripptide]

I can't speak for all the other unit makers, but I can think of 1 that's looking forward to being able to take advantage of that feature

 

[Steph]

Originally posted by LBPB


Hey ! that mean a lot of work for the units makers
I already use about 3 day to make a whole new unit for Civ ... So I hope your editor will be really accessible and powerful

It should be quite easy to use, as I myself made added a few units in my mod, so I know how it is... But the graphics gurus here will still need to make the same kind of animations, I wont help them... Except my editor will work almost directly with the storyboard, and won't be necessary to have something like Flicster.

 

[thestonesfan]

Originally posted by ripptide
that would be a neat idea thestonesfan, only mod to it I'd suggest is a sub of a country you're at war with

But of course!