All right. Thanks for introducing us to the project.
Ah okay so it has nothing to do with FFH2 and Master of Mana, it's a brand new mod for Civ IV, right?
You're getting into something very big, very ambitious. I thought you were talking about some kind of big upgrade for Master of Mana.
I like your project but I thought there was more than enough stuff if you want to work on Master of Mana: balancing, multiplayer improvement, AI improvement.
Sorry for the confusion, the game will be stand alone. No civ code / art assets etc. So indeed a very time intensive project since I have to code everything from scratch. But it is also a big opportunity to finetune things.
Think of it as a continuation / evolvement of Master of Mana (there are too many changes to consider it an upgrade I guess).
The wildmana guardians will be back with some sweet loot.
The different yields (lumber, wood, stone, etc.) that were introduced in the first versions of master of mana are still there.
City specialization via districts and bonus resources that was introduced to master of mana after that is still there.
Epic Destiny victory condition is there, but changed a bit. Instead of civ based it is now leader based and means you can win the game by following the lore of the leader. I will also try to keep the quest conditions very open so that there are multiple ways to achieve them and the player isn't forced into a particular playstyle.
The magic system is mostly the same as the current one (introduced in Master of Mana 2.0).
I tried to change the combat system in Master of Mana 3.0 but failed to do so. It was a big letdown at the time and I abandoned Master of Mana for a while. I had worked for nearly a year on the 3.0 update but couldn't get it to work.I studied game design and tried out other games. None of them really had was I was looking for. But luckily the youtube algorithm helped me. I watched a couple videos about historic battles and the new battle system is inspired by it.
A general like Caesar or Hannibal could not micromanage his troops. The key to winning is to anticipate the battleplan of the enemy and counter it. The way to do it is to pick the correct fighting formation. The Battle of Cannae is good example.
The new battle system takes place on a separate map. In the first phase you make a battleplan and station your units accordingly. The battleplan could be something like sending swordsman to the left flank to defend against enemy horned beasts, station Knights in the center and hunters behind them to support them with poisoned weapons. In the second phase the units attack each other automatically. Unlike Caesar you do not have to watch helplessly if the enemy breaks through your left flank. All units gain abilitypoints every turn and can use them to cast abilities.
The AI does a pretty good job of using the abilities. I had a battle that I thought would be very easy, so I used a fairly defensive formation to minimize casulties. The enemy had magma demons, hell bats and mudeaters. I put Swordsman on the frontline and fire mages behind them. The magma demons are the only enemy unit that can damage my swordsman. The hellbats and mudeaters deal physical damage, but not enough to pierce through the armor from the swordsman. So I positioned the swordsman in a way that they would attack the magma demons first. After the magma demons are dead it would basically just be cleanup. That was my plan. I thought the battle was very easy and did not bother to use any abilities. I was wrong. The enemy mudeaters threw mudballs on my firemages which blinded them. My firemages were the only ranged unit I had, the melee swordsman could not attack the flying hellbats. So the hellbats were free to use their whisper of madness ability a couple of times until my whole army ran due to low morale.
. Let me know if you have any questions.
