Interested in making a fantasy mod

[Pxtl]

Okay, my code's compiling right now, so I'm going to engage in my favourite hobby: spitballing gameplay ideas at people who have no interest in them.

Being a medieval game, a large proportion of the weaponry is going to be melee. Because of this, it raises a thorny issue: aircraft are inevitably going to be stuck in the Starcraft/CA/BA world of "Anti Air Weaponry". And I think we're all sick of that.

I'd go so far as to suggest that aircraft should be avoided from the game altogether, or restricted to support-roles. No offensive or defensive aircraft at all.

As for the resource-model, I'd design the main game for a metal-only approach. It's simple, it allows you to have both a TA-style econ or a Chickens-style econ, or to create your own econs that focus purely on the metal map (I have more than a few ideas for this).

Finally, geotherms - make all the big, planet-farking end-of-the-world late-game stuff required a geotherm (call it a Ley Line Nexus or something) to build. LRPCs, shields, whatever. This is where the Big Magic happens.

Thus, mappers have a bit of control how they want their map to play out - like how FPS mappers can choose whether or not they should include the BFG on the map or not. If they are making a serious map about unit-actions, they leave out the Manavents and players duke it out with mobile artillery. If they're making a zany FFA map, lots of Manavents are a good thing. If they're making a porcy DSD-map, a few manavents will help to break the game as it becomes moribund.

And there you can have real fun with large-scale powers. Some indiscriminant stuff that has no friend-or-foe sensibilities (bleed health from everything in 4000 elmos radius, cause terrain-deforming earthquakes, spawn indiscriminantly violent Gaia-faction monsters, etc.)

[wilbefast]

Lodestones and Divine Loadstones worked well for TAK.

That is what TA:K used, but I would not say it worked well.

TA:K's problem is that it had no economic accountability (if you're unfamiliar with the expression it's because I just made it up): in TA resources were required not only to build units but also to keep your infrastructure functioning: radar, targeting facilities, missile defence, stealth fields. Storage was also important, as you could overreach your production for a time provided you had enough resources in reserves.

Though I did enjoy the game, TA:K stripped this down beyond recognition: no radar, sonar, etc. builders generated mana and provided storage so in theory you could just mass them in the corner of the map and never expand.
Most importantly all units had their own mana-bar independent of the player's: unlike in TA where the D-Gun, Buzzsaw and Annihilator cost a lot of energy, "game-winners" like Dragons had their own economy-independent reserves. For those unfamiliar with the game, these units could kill everybody on the screen in one hit and then regenerate their mana again within a couple of minutes.

it's precisely the thing I want to try and fix -


This makes me think - maackey/anybody: why not make food a constantly generated resource? So instead of 90 food meaning you can build 90 units, you'd have +90 food and each unit would be generating -1 food.

If you ran out of food there could be some penalty like slower, weaker units. You could use the metal map (read "fertility"), levels could have wide expanses of "fertility" to plant crops on, so territory control would be important - you could literally starve your opponent into submission
Vents (read "ore deposits") would be capped to gain a metal income - likewise running out of metal could be reduced armour or slower reload (less ammunition). You'd need custom maps of course...

That's economic accountability - not one dragon with unlimited mana reserves. A lot of TA fans don't like TA:K but not many realise why.

[CarRepairer]

I love more than anything to hear and discuss new ideas.

Being a medieval game, a large proportion of the weaponry is going to be melee. Because of this, it raises a thorny issue: aircraft are inevitably going to be stuck in the Starcraft/CA/BA world of "Anti Air Weaponry". And I think we're all sick of that.

I'd go so far as to suggest that aircraft should be avoided from the game altogether, or restricted to support-roles. No offensive or defensive aircraft at all.

Never heard of bows and arrows? Magic wands? Fire breathing monsters? Trolls that throw crap at you? Plenty of ranged weapons can be made. Air units are major part of game play. I've already discussed with Kaiser a few cool ideas regarding that. But one thing I do like about Blizzard's approach in wc3 is the simplified consistency of weapons. Ranged weapons hit air and land. Melee and "arty" are land only (well, air melee only hits air but ignore that one). Simple as pie. Air units benefit from increased speed and bypassing terrain, but cost more and/or have less power. It's fine.

As for the resource-model, I'd design the main game for a metal-only approach. It's simple, it allows you to have both a TA-style econ or a Chickens-style econ, or to create your own econs that focus purely on the metal map (I have more than a few ideas for this).

Kinda. I've decided to start with spring's metal extractors as econ for now but I will eventually branch out into different economic models for each faction. I already have some ideas. I realize it's a balancing act, but that's fine because I will start with what works and move out from there.

Finally, geotherms - make all the big, planet-farking end-of-the-world late-game stuff required a geotherm (call it a Ley Line Nexus or something) to build. LRPCs, shields, whatever. This is where the Big Magic happens.

I like this idea. But I'm not sure about it yet. I'd have to think of the consequences. What if there's a really huge fun massive FFA map but it doesn't have a geo. Deny the players of that map the game ending weapons? More introspection needed.

Thanks for the suggestions. Keep em coming.

[wilbefast]

What about mine

I agree that air should definitely be used, you've got this engine capable of beautiful dog-fights, bombing runs, staffing, gunships: why waste it?
But for the same reason I don't think that weapons should be as simple as in Warcraft: you've got all this technology special set up to do a whole lot of ballistics projectiles - might as well make hay while the sun shines. Meanwhile Warcraft's missile weapons always hit (except artillery).

[Saktoth]

wilbefast: Thats a learning curve thing, more than a gameplay thing. The RTS genre comes from singleplayer games, where the tech tree is a perfectly normal way to introduce people to the units gradually.

But the tutorial, as it were, shouldnt dictate the design of the game. CA just needs some singleplayer content. Anyway enough CA.

Thus, mappers have a bit of control how they want their map to play out - like how FPS mappers can choose whether or not they should include the BFG on the map or not.

Mappers will not be designing maps for this game unless and until it gets as big as s44 or BA (Even CA doesnt get maps designed for it in mind). You should make your game as compatible with as many maps as possible.

BTW: NOTA:K sounds really awesome. Big castles facing off with hordes of armies fighting inbetween.

[CarRepairer]

What about mine

I agree that air should definitely be used, you've got this engine capable of beautiful dog-fights, bombing runs, staffing, gunships: why waste it?
But for the same reason I don't think that weapons should be as simple as in Warcraft: you've got all this technology special set up to do a whole lot of ballistics projectiles - might as well make hay while the sun shines. Meanwhile Warcraft's missile weapons always hit (except artillery).

Sorry I didn't see yours. Not sure if I want to do the food thing, at least not yet. Farms for sure, but those will be spring-energy generators for now. The future is open.

Also, spring uses a physics engine, it's nothing like warcraft. I just meant that the simplicity of WC3's (unlike in Starcraft) weapon types make it easy to learn the game. Ranged weapons hit air and land, arty doesn't, melee doesn't.

[Neddie]

By the "widgetry" I assume you mean automation, Trib?

Mappers do sometimes take CA into account, and while there are few released CA specific maps, there were many more partially completed. It really depends on the relationship fostered between the game and mappers. I can promise, at this moment, three 1v1 maps for Car's project.

I agree that geothermals do lock up units dependent on maps, but you can have a toggle option for maps without geothermal vents to permit number-limited amounts of geothermal dependent units to be built without geothermals. I would do it that way, use Options to increase the number of maps supported until mapper provide what you want, rather than permanent Gadgets to supercede the involvement of the mapper in the first place.

Economic accountability is a term which should be tossed around a little more often. I would eventually move to a model with both build resource use and maintenance resource use, but that all depends on where the project goes.

As for the present economic design, I agree, move ahead with the units. I can toss out a few economic options in a week or so, and we can use that as a seed while progress in other areas continues.

To address Sak's points and tentative plan map...
@Counter Mechanics: I think even with these basic weapon types we can still use the physics heavily - scattering projectiles, flail like weapons, multi-prong weapons. I was thinking limited special damages for magical/elemental, an armour hierarchy similar to that maackey is considering, and physics/functional balancing on top.

@Progression: This is a huge point most projects don't consider until a release has occurred. Mapping this at the outset, before the initial unit sets are defined, or the basic balance is set up, can be counterproductive. However, it should be done soon, as suggested.

@Developers: I know a few people, myself included, who probably would like to do footwork... not to mention you, Sak. I agree, if there are people who want to start with content they need to start there and maintain their interest.

Regret/JohannesH: Gameplay is a little hard to ascertain before there is a game. I'm sure as people make decisions it will be better explained.

[wilbefast]

@CarRepairer - ah, okay, I get it now. In other words, no dedicated anti-air. Don't think I'll have that for my mod either, probably do a similar thing to you, though some ranged units will be better than other for hitting air.

@neediedrow: Yeah - it's all very Sun Tzu: war isn't won on the battlefield but rather beforehand. How you expand and retreat is more important than the exact positioning of peewee number 98, or should be: I watched a Starcraft 2 battle report, and a "good move" was getting your men to run round in circles to avoid being melee attacked. That doesn't really seem like "strategy" to me. At best "tactics", but Myth deserves better praise. At worst a click-fest but then this is Starcraft... why was Starcraft so much fun? Blizzard must be putting hypnotic drugs in our cereal or something

:idea: One last thought about TA in general: It's also interesting if your resources do different things rather than just being "cash1" and "cash2" - in TA metal was used for building units, energy for building AND for upkeep, and both could be harvested from different objects in the environment (unlike TA:K where you could only clear wreckage, not reclaim).

So I'm changing my idea (the one that nobody wants): metal, as in TA, would probably be best used for building troops, especially high-level ones (with lots of weapons/armour). Food would be used for creating troops and for upkeep ("an army marches on its stomach").

I just managed to get Fugly Tank to appear in-game: I'm catching up

[Saktoth]

@Developers: I know a few people, myself included, who probably would like to do footwork... not to mention you, Sak. I agree, if there are people who want to start with content they need to start there and maintain their interest.

If you mean i would like to do footwork (IE, actually develop the game) then no, i really dont have the time, sorry. Have to pour everything into the IP CA fork right now.

If you're serious about this though, id strongly suggest getting your hands on the Glest models.

Really, seriously, just cut them up along the edges and some minor edits to ensure they can be script animated, add the teamcolour and you're done, they use 1 texture map per model, are GPL and are otherwise perfect for spring.

[Neddie]

Hurm... I could vamp the textures a bit and we might get a nice array of units from that.

[wilbefast]

@Developers: I know a few people, myself included, who probably would like to do footwork... not to mention you, Sak. I agree, if there are people who want to start with content they need to start there and maintain their interest.

If you mean i would like to do footwork (IE, actually develop the game) then no, i really dont have the time, sorry. Have to pour everything into the IP CA fork right now.

If you're serious about this though, id strongly suggest getting your hands on the Glest models.

Really, seriously, just cut them up along the edges and some minor edits to ensure they can be script animated, add the teamcolour and you're done, they use 1 texture map per model, are GPL and are otherwise perfect for spring.

Hadn't thought of that... GPL ftw!

[CarRepairer]

Change of plans. I will be overhauling the econ models and not using the simple spring/TA based one. This is in parallel to unit creation. I will also be straying a bit from CA in that I'll be looking at some simbase approaches to base building (base layout plays more of a role, but still won't require so much micro and focus). Inspired by some wild porcing techniques of my clanmates :)

For licensing, Neddie has told me time and again to go for GPL v2. Whatever works. I'll also go back and redeclare myself the head of the project since it's only logical at this point. It can always be forked if anyone wishes anyway.

Even though I've been working on CA for almost 2 years, digging through the modding basics is really teaching me a lot of stuff I never knew about as a part of a large team, all I ever touched were widgets, gadgets and a few select cob scripts. I'm enjoying this a lot.

Oh, and the current codename for the project is CA:K.

[KaiserJ]

probz going to finish that yellow gremlin and a few others this week, ill catch you on the lobby sometime soon car.

CA:K is a reasonable title, but really, sounds a bit too much like PN:S to be a lasting title IMO

and so.... the econ... is it going to be a gathering style econ? explain maor :3

[CarRepairer]

Ah you're back! Yes, CAK is a temporary name.

Econ will be different for each faction. No plans yet for a gathering type, but I assure you that if I did that for one or more factions, it would be very automated and not so easily disturbed by miscalculations. It's not too likely though.

Anyway I'll release a small tidbit of what's currently functional: Elf druids plant trees, which grow larger over time. Those which are near your ancients or main factories provide it with energy and building power. Trees will have even more uses which I won't divulge yet.

[Pxtl]

An econ I'd always dreamed of for a fantasy RTS game would be one based on civilians villages... after all, the peasantry were really the fuel of medieval warfare. In a fantasy mod, you could stretch this further - skeletons raising their dead, vampires keeping them around as food supply, dark elves taking them as slaves, humans recruiting them as armies, high elves peeing in their oatmeal for sport, etc.... but that wouldn't be the kind of super-simple econ you'd want for CAK.

will econ be related to the metal map?

[CarRepairer]

An econ I'd always dreamed of for a fantasy RTS game would be one based on civilians villages... after all, the peasantry were really the fuel of medieval warfare. In a fantasy mod, you could stretch this further - skeletons raising their dead, vampires keeping them around as food supply, dark elves taking them as slaves, humans recruiting them as armies, high elves peeing in their oatmeal for sport, etc.... but that wouldn't be the kind of super-simple econ you'd want for CAK.

will econ be related to the metal map?

Yes, in order to build combat units you'll need iron for weapons. It is my desire to keep metal spots crucial. Still, the game would undoubtedly lean toward the importance of energy (for magic) playing a role. It's all up in the air at this point however.

[KaiserJ]

done! you can maek clicky and view full size image.

not sure how im going to approach teamcolor; possibly both the red and the green areas will be for it.

[zwzsg]

Cool! Almost makes me want to resume writing unit animations scripts.

[Google_Frog]

TA:K's problem is that it had no economic accountability (if you're unfamiliar with the expression it's because I just made it up): in TA resources were required not only to build units but also to keep your infrastructure functioning: radar, targeting facilities, missile defence, stealth fields. Storage was also important, as you could overreach your production for a time provided you had enough resources in reserves.

Though I did enjoy the game, TA:K stripped this down beyond recognition: no radar, sonar, etc. builders generated mana and provided storage so in theory you could just mass them in the corner of the map and never expand.
Most importantly all units had their own mana-bar independent of the player's: unlike in TA where the D-Gun, Buzzsaw and Annihilator cost a lot of energy, "game-winners" like Dragons had their own economy-independent reserves. For those unfamiliar with the game, these units could kill everybody on the screen in one hit and then regenerate their mana again within a couple of minutes.

Builders in TA generated resources and what about metal maker econ? Lodestones were still better than builder spam so the general dynamics are the same between the 2 games, they're just implemented a little differently.

Unit mana can be treated exactly like a reload bar shared between multiple weapons. It acts as a reload bar regardless of what they call it.

Anyway I'll release a small tidbit of what's currently functional: Elf druids plant trees, which grow larger over time. Those which are near your ancients or main factories provide it with energy and building power. Trees will have even more uses which I won't divulge yet.

Just make sure you don't end up with players microing their druids half the time to plant enough trees. Also if a tree gives energy and BP to a factory why bother with both? Just say a tree enables a factory to build things. If you're making your own resource system you should be redefining resources instead of trying to cram the way springs resources work into your system.

I think you should pick a few basic resource dynamics and implement them as simply as possible. For example 'territory = more resources' and 'investment = more resources/territory' can just be done with mexes and mex upgrades. Of course that would be for a game where you want people to focus on overall strategy. More complex resource systems can be interesting and add depth if done right.

[wilbefast]

Elf druids plant trees, which grow larger over time. Those which are near your ancients or main factories provide it with energy and building power. Trees will have even more uses which I won't divulge yet.

Just make sure you don't end up with players microing their druids half the time to plant enough trees. Also if a tree gives energy and BP to a factory why bother with both? Just say a tree enables a factory to build things. If you're making your own resource system you should be redefining resources instead of trying to cram the way springs resources work into your system.

At one stage I was considering having a unique resource for each faction, but I'm not really leet enough to implement that sort of thing. I wonder if it might be of some use.

The idea was that the Fae (sort of like your elves) would "speed-grow" tree features which could then be reclaimed, but only down to say 1 energy. The trees would be constantly growing back to their full strength (say 100 energy) again, so all you'd need to do is have a builder patrol in a forest and you could "farm" the trees.
You could add more builders but ultimately you'd need more trees or you'd be "over exploiting", hence the need to expand your forests across the map and "claim" new ones. The idea was that fairies would inhabit the trees, and could be "convinced" to join your cause. F4 was going to display fairies glowing most brightly around trees that hadn't recently been farmed.

William

PS - I love the Imp the leg plate texture looks a bit high-tech though...