Two more things:
If there are only allied players in the lobby when a round starts the game becomes a coop mission against an AI faction.
Also, I have decided to stick with the Global Annihilation name and OTA content - sticking with original TA balance or something close rather than steal from another mod. I think I have enough on my plate without opening the modelling and balancing cans of worms. My Epic Legions project stalled for a long time when modellers made me promises they didn't keep. Admittedly the import/export process was an undocumented nightmare so I wasn't really surprised.
Having said that, if any mod owner of an *A mod were to offer units or balance sheets I would probably not say no. For the moment though I assume XTA is the 'blank slate' to derive stats from?
[WIP] Global Annihilation
Moderator: Moderators
Re: [WIP] Global Annihilation
let me rephrase. What is the default mod that Spring used to have before it really had mods? Where did most of the *A's get their start from or has it been a case of asking existing mod owners if they mind you forking? Are there any mods that are considered default or abandoned that I could use without stepping on toes, egos or gonads?
Re: [WIP] Global Annihilation
XTA was there first but AFAIK the AA lineage of mods (UberHack->AA->BA->CA) were ported independently from TA so the only common ancestor is TA itself. Most minor *A mods are AA/BA forks, XTA doesn't get many forks as most people think of it as too untrue to TA.
AFAIK there was no asking about any of these forks, someone just took a mod and forked it.
Also all your talk about bonuses and punishments for bigger factions sounds like in the end there'll really be no difference. Punish big factions too much and you end with a stalemate where everyone becomes incapable of fighting after reaching a certain size and there's a constant futile tug of war where no side can ever win. Or people will try to min-max their faction, avoid less efficient territories to keep their size down and take only the efficient ones to become as powerful as possible for their size...
AFAIK there was no asking about any of these forks, someone just took a mod and forked it.
Also all your talk about bonuses and punishments for bigger factions sounds like in the end there'll really be no difference. Punish big factions too much and you end with a stalemate where everyone becomes incapable of fighting after reaching a certain size and there's a constant futile tug of war where no side can ever win. Or people will try to min-max their faction, avoid less efficient territories to keep their size down and take only the efficient ones to become as powerful as possible for their size...
Re: [WIP] Global Annihilation
Suppose it would be a bit frustrating if every time your hard work wins you loads of territory you get auto-split and lose half of what you've worked for.
Maybe the world should be cyclical, every time a faction achieves a certain level of domination they win, get put up on that week's leaderboard, and the world resets so everyone has to fight again.
Could either set the threshold 'domination' level so that cycles last for a week's worth of steady play on average, or limit each cycle to a week exactly, with the faction having highest domination at that time point winning.
What concerns me is how you will get the right people (factions) together at the right time to play each other - I can't see this happening what with time zones etc.
Maybe the world should be cyclical, every time a faction achieves a certain level of domination they win, get put up on that week's leaderboard, and the world resets so everyone has to fight again.
Could either set the threshold 'domination' level so that cycles last for a week's worth of steady play on average, or limit each cycle to a week exactly, with the faction having highest domination at that time point winning.
What concerns me is how you will get the right people (factions) together at the right time to play each other - I can't see this happening what with time zones etc.
Re: [WIP] Global Annihilation
I think losing everything on a server restart (including your rank) is far worse than losing half your faction, since all you really gain in return is a nice "your faction won, btw, you're now a peasant again".
I've played enough online team games to realise that 95% of players don't give a rats arse about their team. I can't keep track of the number of times in Battlefield or CounterStrike where players screwed over their teammates to score personal glory points. Knowing your faction will reset in a few months time is probably going to have the same effect here.
Rather than fight a losing battle against the tendency towards disloyalty and self-interest I'm hoping to actively encourage it. The downward migration of talent into factions where they can exert more personal power should help balance things overall. I mean sure, you might end up the boss of a pack of n00bs but - you're the freakin BOSS! That's got to count for something!
I've played enough online team games to realise that 95% of players don't give a rats arse about their team. I can't keep track of the number of times in Battlefield or CounterStrike where players screwed over their teammates to score personal glory points. Knowing your faction will reset in a few months time is probably going to have the same effect here.
Rather than fight a losing battle against the tendency towards disloyalty and self-interest I'm hoping to actively encourage it. The downward migration of talent into factions where they can exert more personal power should help balance things overall. I mean sure, you might end up the boss of a pack of n00bs but - you're the freakin BOSS! That's got to count for something!
Re: [WIP] Global Annihilation
But if you can't win what's left to do? Rank farming? Once you hit the top rank you can just as well quit? Why bother with all this faction stuff when it's really just about rank farming? Why not simply set up a ladder for a regular mod and let people compete on that? At least it means you're getting meaningful and fair battles all the time rather than just noobstomping or facing hopeless fights because your faction needs that.
Besides, doesn't that give a good chance a not-so-good player may end up outranking the better ones and just makes them angry because he hogs resources and fails at using them but can demote his underlings at will? Also wouldn't smaller factions likely end up with too many generals because nubs get assigned to them and other factions have defectors to them with the result being that the faction has nearly nothing left for each player?
Besides, doesn't that give a good chance a not-so-good player may end up outranking the better ones and just makes them angry because he hogs resources and fails at using them but can demote his underlings at will? Also wouldn't smaller factions likely end up with too many generals because nubs get assigned to them and other factions have defectors to them with the result being that the faction has nearly nothing left for each player?
Re: [WIP] Global Annihilation
If its all on the same server then perhaps the diea of autobalancing based on trends would work.
See in XTA for a while trends occurred which changed gameplay which where than balanced accordingly for in the next version. For example missile bots, or IKs switch to small packs of cans and sumos and other tier 2 heavies.
What you can do here is control the costs of components and designs via the server. As more people use a design its cost rises and less efficient weaponry becomes more commonplace simply because its cheaper to out flame the uber high weapon because the uebr high powered weapon is too expensive. Treat it like a basic economic market and it will quickly shift accordingly when it unbalances.
See in XTA for a while trends occurred which changed gameplay which where than balanced accordingly for in the next version. For example missile bots, or IKs switch to small packs of cans and sumos and other tier 2 heavies.
What you can do here is control the costs of components and designs via the server. As more people use a design its cost rises and less efficient weaponry becomes more commonplace simply because its cheaper to out flame the uber high weapon because the uebr high powered weapon is too expensive. Treat it like a basic economic market and it will quickly shift accordingly when it unbalances.
Re: [WIP] Global Annihilation
Very good points AF and KDR.
I think addressing the issues largely boils down to implementation details. For example:
Do you lose rank through poor performance as quickly as you can gain it for victories?
Is there a maximum rank or is your rank simply a relative thing?
Can a high rank general be demoted or overthrown by the vote or schemes of enough underlings?
What do you get for winning? Does your reward carry into future games?
Precisely how are resources shared between players? Are there limits to how unbalanced a match can be?
What role will AI play, and can it be used to balance games?
To what extent can politics affect rank?
... and most importantly...
Exactly what perks and responsibilities does rank give?
The main thing that resetting the game can't solve is the fact that some players are just much better than others. 3 weeks after the reset the same players will be back running things again. I'm not saying that's a bad thing - just pointing out that it won't magically give noobs a chance to start calling the shots.
I think addressing the issues largely boils down to implementation details. For example:
Do you lose rank through poor performance as quickly as you can gain it for victories?
Is there a maximum rank or is your rank simply a relative thing?
Can a high rank general be demoted or overthrown by the vote or schemes of enough underlings?
What do you get for winning? Does your reward carry into future games?
Precisely how are resources shared between players? Are there limits to how unbalanced a match can be?
What role will AI play, and can it be used to balance games?
To what extent can politics affect rank?
... and most importantly...
Exactly what perks and responsibilities does rank give?
The main thing that resetting the game can't solve is the fact that some players are just much better than others. 3 weeks after the reset the same players will be back running things again. I'm not saying that's a bad thing - just pointing out that it won't magically give noobs a chance to start calling the shots.
Re: [WIP] Global Annihilation
It wouldn't, but it'd keep the good players challenged and give the noobs chance to improve by putting them on an equal footing.
What I envisaged was cycles of days to weeks, with points (no effect on game, just personal points) accumulated for being in the winning faction and other achievements. So good players would still be rewarded by being at the top of the points leaderboard.
What I envisaged was cycles of days to weeks, with points (no effect on game, just personal points) accumulated for being in the winning faction and other achievements. So good players would still be rewarded by being at the top of the points leaderboard.
Re: [WIP] Global Annihilation
Here's how I figure it could work - this is all just spitballing:
1) Combat is fast. That is, a whole battle takes less than 3 minutes.
2) If no player contests an action that requires defense, then AIs will run the defense. A map can be constrained to hours of the day or days of the week for important actions so that players will be online to contest/defend the action.
There's a game-map, and it's web-based. Each province on the map has a strength of units that gradually grows with time, up to a maximum - different provinces produce different unit loadouts at different rates and have different maximums. The only way to go over this max is through special game actions like reinforcements or alliance bonuses, and if a province is over its maximum its troop-strength slowly retires.
Every unit has a "range" so the long-ranged units in the province are useful for leapfrogging over other provinces.
From the map, a player can perform a short list of actions. In most actions, the actual troop commitment is forced to be a small fraction of the total strength (say 10%) so a total loss means the province loses only 10% of its strength.
Note that each player within a Faction is simply a commander - they have no units of their own except a handful of heros and one-shots associated with their Rank. They initiate actions and control the units, but the units belong to the province. Players within a faction can team-up for any action or act independantly - their Rank will determine how many and in what order they get to use their available Provincial units.
Each action spawns a game, and players have a fixed amount of time to join.
For any action, attackers and defenders may request allies from any nearby faction, and allies get special benefits for winning.
For each action (except a Raid), a faction can only use one province at a time.
1) invasion, in which they use the units from one province to attack the other. If attacker wins, they get to claim the province, including the remaining troop strength. If defender wins, they get to keep the province. Nearby provinces controlled by other factions can join as allies if requested to do so. Allied attackers get troop strength bonuses to their supporting provinces, defending allies get Rank bonuses to the players who initiated the defensive support.
Launching an Invasion costs Rank, so you can't do it very often.
2) A "raid" is basically an exhibition game. Players get to commit as much or as little to the raid as possible, and the larger the raid the more it's worth overall for Ranking... but you also get a small bonus in Rank proportional to your weakness in the Raid. Unit action ranges are doubled on the map (so you can pull in units from many different provinces for a raid) and troop-strength losses are halved. Raids can only be played against human players.
Raids are run as FFA, so there are no allied factions. Raids have a fixed time-limit. Players can retreat from a Raid at any time, all they lose is any Rank they may have earned in the Raid and troop strength loss they may have accrued up to that point, plus a slight Rank penalty.
3) A redeployment. Redeployment is an internal reinforcement of a province - if uncontested, it goes fine... but long-ranged units in nearby provinces can attack the redeployment. This is effectively an "escort" mission, and the loss of the escort mission means the loss of all the troop strength being redeployed. All attackers and allies get troop-strength bonuses for their attacking provinces. Defending allies get Rank for victory. Redeployments are risky operations - a long-ranged fighter/bomber squad in a nearby province can decimate the reinforcement, so for most of the game troop strength comes from alliance-boosts or the innate strength of the province.
4) Bombardment - this is an Attack/Defense mission - any damage dealt to the defended structures translates into loss of Troop Strength for the target. Bombardment missions can be used to soften up a heavily reinforced Province before invasion. Attackers and allies get nothing, defending allies get Rank.
5) Secession - only high-rankers may do this, and it costs a lot of Rank. They create a new faction. They can invite any faction-mates to join them. It's effectively an Invasion, except a province is invading itself, with the proportion of the troop strength that the seceder gets being dependent on his. A failed secession kicks the seceding players out to become Mercenaries.
The idea of this game is that there's very little positive feedback - a player with many provinces is close to winning the map game, but in each battle his mainline units are no stronger than the province he's using - the only way to buffer a province through risky reinforcements or through paying your dues as an offensive ally. Provinces generally stay close to their maximum - when damaged, they regenerate back to maximum in a moderate time, and after reinforcement they gradually retire back to maximum. This homeostasis means that the map-designer can plan the map-actions to be reasonably balanced.
The only real positive feedback is in Rank, which you get from being a defensive ally or from playing in Raids - and Rank doesn't get you main forces, it simply raises your standing within your faction (in a mixed group, what proportion of the group you command) and gives you a small squad of "hero" units and one-shot actions to use in game.
Eliminated factions or late-joining players become Mercenaries. Mercs get a fixed army - they can neither gain nor lose troop strength. They can, however, get Rank (and thus get special and one-shot units), and can join defensive actions anywhere on the map as well as Raid anywhere on the map (or in an off-map Merc vs. Merc raiding zone). When they build up enough Rank, they can run a Secession anywhere on the map to create a new faction, or they can join an existing faction if invited. Factioned players can quit and join the Mercs, but it costs Rank to do so. If a faction has no players at all, then its provinces become neutral and do not defend themselves from Invasions.
The game ends when one faction controls X amount of the map. Then you restart, divvying up the map between the new Factions a-la Risk.
Basically, the idea is a bizarre hybrid of Risk and Cosmic Encounter. Rank are effectively cards in a card game - you get cards from some actions, some of which you get to keep played in front of you until they die, some you play once... but using those one-shots or losing your "hero" units too many times costs you Rank, since the number of cards you have in play/in hand your Rank.
The biggest problem I see is scheduling - I mean, what happens when faction X's top player is wrapped up in an Escort mission and somebody decides "yay, X is busy, time to invade his turf"! I myself would never be able to play such a game - the time commitment would be too great - my faction would keep asking "dammit, where's Pxtl, if he were around we'd have his starfighter hero-squad to defend from that Bombardment".
Dammit, I'm over-thinking this.
1) Combat is fast. That is, a whole battle takes less than 3 minutes.
2) If no player contests an action that requires defense, then AIs will run the defense. A map can be constrained to hours of the day or days of the week for important actions so that players will be online to contest/defend the action.
There's a game-map, and it's web-based. Each province on the map has a strength of units that gradually grows with time, up to a maximum - different provinces produce different unit loadouts at different rates and have different maximums. The only way to go over this max is through special game actions like reinforcements or alliance bonuses, and if a province is over its maximum its troop-strength slowly retires.
Every unit has a "range" so the long-ranged units in the province are useful for leapfrogging over other provinces.
From the map, a player can perform a short list of actions. In most actions, the actual troop commitment is forced to be a small fraction of the total strength (say 10%) so a total loss means the province loses only 10% of its strength.
Note that each player within a Faction is simply a commander - they have no units of their own except a handful of heros and one-shots associated with their Rank. They initiate actions and control the units, but the units belong to the province. Players within a faction can team-up for any action or act independantly - their Rank will determine how many and in what order they get to use their available Provincial units.
Each action spawns a game, and players have a fixed amount of time to join.
For any action, attackers and defenders may request allies from any nearby faction, and allies get special benefits for winning.
For each action (except a Raid), a faction can only use one province at a time.
1) invasion, in which they use the units from one province to attack the other. If attacker wins, they get to claim the province, including the remaining troop strength. If defender wins, they get to keep the province. Nearby provinces controlled by other factions can join as allies if requested to do so. Allied attackers get troop strength bonuses to their supporting provinces, defending allies get Rank bonuses to the players who initiated the defensive support.
Launching an Invasion costs Rank, so you can't do it very often.
2) A "raid" is basically an exhibition game. Players get to commit as much or as little to the raid as possible, and the larger the raid the more it's worth overall for Ranking... but you also get a small bonus in Rank proportional to your weakness in the Raid. Unit action ranges are doubled on the map (so you can pull in units from many different provinces for a raid) and troop-strength losses are halved. Raids can only be played against human players.
Raids are run as FFA, so there are no allied factions. Raids have a fixed time-limit. Players can retreat from a Raid at any time, all they lose is any Rank they may have earned in the Raid and troop strength loss they may have accrued up to that point, plus a slight Rank penalty.
3) A redeployment. Redeployment is an internal reinforcement of a province - if uncontested, it goes fine... but long-ranged units in nearby provinces can attack the redeployment. This is effectively an "escort" mission, and the loss of the escort mission means the loss of all the troop strength being redeployed. All attackers and allies get troop-strength bonuses for their attacking provinces. Defending allies get Rank for victory. Redeployments are risky operations - a long-ranged fighter/bomber squad in a nearby province can decimate the reinforcement, so for most of the game troop strength comes from alliance-boosts or the innate strength of the province.
4) Bombardment - this is an Attack/Defense mission - any damage dealt to the defended structures translates into loss of Troop Strength for the target. Bombardment missions can be used to soften up a heavily reinforced Province before invasion. Attackers and allies get nothing, defending allies get Rank.
5) Secession - only high-rankers may do this, and it costs a lot of Rank. They create a new faction. They can invite any faction-mates to join them. It's effectively an Invasion, except a province is invading itself, with the proportion of the troop strength that the seceder gets being dependent on his. A failed secession kicks the seceding players out to become Mercenaries.
The idea of this game is that there's very little positive feedback - a player with many provinces is close to winning the map game, but in each battle his mainline units are no stronger than the province he's using - the only way to buffer a province through risky reinforcements or through paying your dues as an offensive ally. Provinces generally stay close to their maximum - when damaged, they regenerate back to maximum in a moderate time, and after reinforcement they gradually retire back to maximum. This homeostasis means that the map-designer can plan the map-actions to be reasonably balanced.
The only real positive feedback is in Rank, which you get from being a defensive ally or from playing in Raids - and Rank doesn't get you main forces, it simply raises your standing within your faction (in a mixed group, what proportion of the group you command) and gives you a small squad of "hero" units and one-shot actions to use in game.
Eliminated factions or late-joining players become Mercenaries. Mercs get a fixed army - they can neither gain nor lose troop strength. They can, however, get Rank (and thus get special and one-shot units), and can join defensive actions anywhere on the map as well as Raid anywhere on the map (or in an off-map Merc vs. Merc raiding zone). When they build up enough Rank, they can run a Secession anywhere on the map to create a new faction, or they can join an existing faction if invited. Factioned players can quit and join the Mercs, but it costs Rank to do so. If a faction has no players at all, then its provinces become neutral and do not defend themselves from Invasions.
The game ends when one faction controls X amount of the map. Then you restart, divvying up the map between the new Factions a-la Risk.
Basically, the idea is a bizarre hybrid of Risk and Cosmic Encounter. Rank are effectively cards in a card game - you get cards from some actions, some of which you get to keep played in front of you until they die, some you play once... but using those one-shots or losing your "hero" units too many times costs you Rank, since the number of cards you have in play/in hand your Rank.
The biggest problem I see is scheduling - I mean, what happens when faction X's top player is wrapped up in an Escort mission and somebody decides "yay, X is busy, time to invade his turf"! I myself would never be able to play such a game - the time commitment would be too great - my faction would keep asking "dammit, where's Pxtl, if he were around we'd have his starfighter hero-squad to defend from that Bombardment".
Dammit, I'm over-thinking this.
Re: [WIP] Global Annihilation
Actually before this discussion spirals too much I want to clarify something.
You may have noticed that the original proposal is quite vague on the specifics of the meta-game. There's no real discussion about the mechanics of managing factions, capturing regions, etc. There's actually a reason for that, and it's quite relevant to the conversation that followed.
Think about this. This is a Spring forum, mostly populated by fans of TA. And although many of us have diverse interests this is not where people interested in Civilisation and MMORPGS hang out. Again that's not to say we aren't fans, just that that isn't what Spring is. Primarily what motivates us is building lots of giant war-bots and blasting each other to pieces.
The only reason I bring up things like factions and regions at all is because they provide a loose justification for why most games of Global Annihilation will be totally unfair.
You see most mods have the luxury of giving players the same resources and unit types on a mostly symmetrical map. Resources and chokepoints are balanced to give two sides equal opportunities. Teams are !balanced and the objectives are always the same.
now take this proposal...
Players start off in uneven starting areas, with wreckage and working defense turrets scattered around, with randomly allocated objectives and different starting tech and quite likely more than one team of different numbers of players of different skill levels and rank.
How could such a game ever be balanced and fair?
Obviously it won't be so some players are going to have to deal with the fact they have a losing hand from the very start. This means they will need to adapted their objectives as well - to balance the risk of retreat with the risk of getting valuable units annihilated. The ONLY reason you'd withdraw is if you decided your units were more valuable than winning the round. The only way that will happen is with persistence. The only reason people will accept persistence is if there's a storyline to go with it.
In short the faction metagame is more of a story than a game. I want it to ebb and flow around key events and basically just ensure that all players get the short straw or the winning hand every now and then and accept it because it's part of an ongoing series of events.
The problem with making this process consistent is the "runaway effect" we were just discussing. If you always reward good players with a steady climb up a ladder towards a fixed victory then they'll expect consistency. The story won't matter, only the outcome. In short a bunch of annally retentive players will dominate the game and the forums complaining about this or that to do with their faction when all they should be focused on is how to make the best out of a bad turn of events.
I do not want this to be a "winning is everything" mod. I want it to challenge players in fun and unexpected ways. The metagame is just an extended piece of fiction to make things a bit more engaging.
Having said that there WILL be a metagame and I will try to make it as entertaining, consistent and fair as I can. I just don't want it to be so complex as to drag time and attention away from the battles.
PS. Pxtl, I was writing this at the same time you posted, it is not directed at your comments specifically. I will consider them.
You may have noticed that the original proposal is quite vague on the specifics of the meta-game. There's no real discussion about the mechanics of managing factions, capturing regions, etc. There's actually a reason for that, and it's quite relevant to the conversation that followed.
Think about this. This is a Spring forum, mostly populated by fans of TA. And although many of us have diverse interests this is not where people interested in Civilisation and MMORPGS hang out. Again that's not to say we aren't fans, just that that isn't what Spring is. Primarily what motivates us is building lots of giant war-bots and blasting each other to pieces.
The only reason I bring up things like factions and regions at all is because they provide a loose justification for why most games of Global Annihilation will be totally unfair.
You see most mods have the luxury of giving players the same resources and unit types on a mostly symmetrical map. Resources and chokepoints are balanced to give two sides equal opportunities. Teams are !balanced and the objectives are always the same.
now take this proposal...
Players start off in uneven starting areas, with wreckage and working defense turrets scattered around, with randomly allocated objectives and different starting tech and quite likely more than one team of different numbers of players of different skill levels and rank.
How could such a game ever be balanced and fair?
Obviously it won't be so some players are going to have to deal with the fact they have a losing hand from the very start. This means they will need to adapted their objectives as well - to balance the risk of retreat with the risk of getting valuable units annihilated. The ONLY reason you'd withdraw is if you decided your units were more valuable than winning the round. The only way that will happen is with persistence. The only reason people will accept persistence is if there's a storyline to go with it.
In short the faction metagame is more of a story than a game. I want it to ebb and flow around key events and basically just ensure that all players get the short straw or the winning hand every now and then and accept it because it's part of an ongoing series of events.
The problem with making this process consistent is the "runaway effect" we were just discussing. If you always reward good players with a steady climb up a ladder towards a fixed victory then they'll expect consistency. The story won't matter, only the outcome. In short a bunch of annally retentive players will dominate the game and the forums complaining about this or that to do with their faction when all they should be focused on is how to make the best out of a bad turn of events.
I do not want this to be a "winning is everything" mod. I want it to challenge players in fun and unexpected ways. The metagame is just an extended piece of fiction to make things a bit more engaging.
Having said that there WILL be a metagame and I will try to make it as entertaining, consistent and fair as I can. I just don't want it to be so complex as to drag time and attention away from the battles.
PS. Pxtl, I was writing this at the same time you posted, it is not directed at your comments specifically. I will consider them.
Re: [WIP] Global Annihilation
pxtl: Actually I had already decided on a scheduling method, I just forgot to share. Most responses have assumed the sides and sceduling of a battle will be dictated by the metagame. It's actually the opposite. The sides in the battle and the territory under attack will actually be dictated by the factions of the players currently waiting in the lobby when the autohost autostarts.
Games will be be hosted on one or two autohosts (depending on load) with a 10 minute setup time for unit placement and planning. The game will then run for 40 minutes followed by a 10 minute break - making rounds occur exactly 1 hour apart.
If there are no players waiting the round is skipped. If only 1 faction is present the AI will contest the objectives.
Games will be be hosted on one or two autohosts (depending on load) with a 10 minute setup time for unit placement and planning. The game will then run for 40 minutes followed by a 10 minute break - making rounds occur exactly 1 hour apart.
If there are no players waiting the round is skipped. If only 1 faction is present the AI will contest the objectives.
Re: [WIP] Global Annihilation
CA is already making a metagame in this vein.
It'll start simple and just be a theatre for conventional games to be played in though. Thats kinda our dev model- get it playable and work on it from there (opposite of 'dont release unfinished stuff').
If you want to create a fully integrated meta-game though, you wont be able to use any of the current spring RTS's. You'll want something where the gameplay is geared towards individual unit micro (since you have no or limited unit construction during the game i assume?) and that is balanced to be a natural extension of the meta-game. You'll want something where asymetrical warfare is enjoyable and possible, rather than in where even a tiny imbalance leads to an insurmountable lead due to an exponential economy.
If you want a good model set, id suggest Mr.D's models, which are available in CA as the core t1 and t2 vehicles. They still have core logos and some are based on OTA designs (so there is still a bit of IP issue) but there are more than enough there to create an interesting game.
Beyond that CA has the Spherebot family (light, heavy, missile), which are free to use and IP-free if you want infantry.
It'll start simple and just be a theatre for conventional games to be played in though. Thats kinda our dev model- get it playable and work on it from there (opposite of 'dont release unfinished stuff').
If you want to create a fully integrated meta-game though, you wont be able to use any of the current spring RTS's. You'll want something where the gameplay is geared towards individual unit micro (since you have no or limited unit construction during the game i assume?) and that is balanced to be a natural extension of the meta-game. You'll want something where asymetrical warfare is enjoyable and possible, rather than in where even a tiny imbalance leads to an insurmountable lead due to an exponential economy.
If you want a good model set, id suggest Mr.D's models, which are available in CA as the core t1 and t2 vehicles. They still have core logos and some are based on OTA designs (so there is still a bit of IP issue) but there are more than enough there to create an interesting game.
Beyond that CA has the Spherebot family (light, heavy, missile), which are free to use and IP-free if you want infantry.
Re: [WIP] Global Annihilation
please include an AI API, so it would be possible that an AI acts as General, like a player. hehe, no sorry, just joking.
Jasper1984 said it would be nice if you could use the existing lobbies. i agree, but i guess it is still a long way till a concept and the implementation in the lobbies and i guess you do not want to wait for that, right?
Jasper1984 said it would be nice if you could use the existing lobbies. i agree, but i guess it is still a long way till a concept and the implementation in the lobbies and i guess you do not want to wait for that, right?
Re: [WIP] Global Annihilation
I have been invited to join forces with the CA teams PlanetWars project. It's an invitation I intend to take up, since their project is very similiar and further along. I will be focusing on mission generation, AI and possibly the metagame server.
Anyone who was interested in this project should look out for future developments on the PlanetWars wiki as I will no longer be developing GA.
Hope you'll all be as enthuiastic in your support for PW as you were for this, particularly since they are basically the same thing.
Anyone who was interested in this project should look out for future developments on the PlanetWars wiki as I will no longer be developing GA.
Hope you'll all be as enthuiastic in your support for PW as you were for this, particularly since they are basically the same thing.
Re: [WIP] Global Annihilation
That's the first time I've seen an explanation of what Planet Wars is. This looks incredible. I'm really looking forward to seeing what comes out of it. Glad you're able to combine creative forces on it!