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Prodigal Son

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Posts posted by Prodigal Son

  5. Minifactions list

    in General Discussion

    Posted · Edited by Prodigal Son

    About the template, since we still don't know how minifcations are going to work, i am going for a conservative aproach:

    I guess they will be small towns scattered in the map and you will have the option to destroy them, peacefully absorb them or violently absorb them (how to do this is not in the concern of the post). Once you "absorb" them and get control of their buildings you will gain access to their units and might be a couple of technologies. So i supose they will have only basic structures and a limited array of units, perhaps in their defending army the'd have some units from real factions to withstand a decent defence when attacked so a complete array of units will not be necessary. For example the samnites may start with 10 samnite legio linteatas, 10 roman velites, 10 athenian hoplites and 5 equites to efend their buildings. But once you gain access to those buildings you can only train legio lineteatas.

    So i would go for a more limited template:

    BUILDINGS:

    • House
    • Barracks
    • Dock (in case they have ships)
    • Farms, farmsteads, corral, storehouses, palisades and outposts.
    • Temple (For the technologies)
    • Market (To trade with them)
    • Civic Centre (perhaps the building you need to convert/conquer)

    NAVY

    • Fishing boat
    • Trading ship
    • Light warship
    • Medium warship

    UNITS

    • Inf 1
    • Inf 2
    • Inf 3/Cab 1

    SUPPORT UNITS

    • Female
    • Trader

    Their civ bonuses would be more like "technologies" you can research at their temple and gain those bonuses.

    They would start with temple, market, dock, barracks and civic centre so you can conquer them quickly instead of waiting them to build that stuff.

    Also not having the option to create more CC.

    Might be not siege units.

    And just a few units, lets say 3 (besides women)?.

    Do you think i should delete the celtiberians?

    I think they were just Iberian celts, but celts after all, but don't know how seperated in terms of architecture and war they were from the celts.

    What about unlocking 1 heore? (like if you cconquer epirus you can train pjyrrus at their CC

    I'd like someone from the team (Mythos seems to be the one mostly in charge of creating civ roosters) to give an idea on the scale of minifactions possible building and unit list, so we can propose better specifics.

    • Will they have AI? Or be defended by default units as you suggested here. Or even be undefended (if so they could be just one building with a few trainable units, if they don't have AI this could be the best option, so we can include many of them, they won't take much space in the map or cause lag. However I'd prefer them to have AI and a small building variety)
    • Should they have say, 1 Hero, 1 Champion, 1 special Tech each? - Would be great but will need extra work for the team.
    • I'd like to see at least Armenians, Achaean League (could replace Thessaly even though they don't have an interesting unique unit like Thessalian Cavalry, but were more powerful) and a Steppe Tribe in the list, to me they were more important for the time period than others included.
    • Celtiberians is ok, if anything to balance the mini civs with so many Greek/Successor ones.

  8. Minifactions list

    in General Discussion

    Posted · Edited by Prodigal Son

    I agree that having both Dalmatians and Illyrians is an overkill. And maybe Dacians should be left for part 2, no big interaction between them and the playable factions in the BC times. Other possible ones could be:

    • Some Scythian/Sarmatian Tribe. Even if left for part 2 as full mechanics, a version with no extra ones could be in part 1 as they were important and with big interaction with greek colonies, macedonians and persians.
    • Pergamon (Greek). Kinda important city-state for the period who managed to control most of Asia Minor at a time and a vital Roman ally.
    • Pontus (Seleucid/Persian). Strong kingdom that even managed to invade roman-owned Greece with huge forces.
    • Armenia (Persian). Broke free from the Seleucids and even conquered grounds up to Antioch (the Seleucid capital) for a brief period and also fought wars against the Romans and Parthians.
    • Achaean and Aetolian Leagues. (Greek) The biggest powers in post-Alexandrian Greece besides Macedon. Fought many wars with changing alliances and rivalries between the two of them and Macedon, Sparta, Rome, Epirus, invading Celts, Seleucids and others.
    • Galatia (Gauls). Migrant Celtic state in central Asia Minor. Often fought as mercenaries or raided/fought against other states around them. One of the last local powers to be subjugated by the Romans.
    • Judea (Seleucid?). In the last two centuries BC they were often independent and fighting against the Seleucids to maintain that independence.
    • Crete/Rhodes/Cyrene/Thessaly/Tarentum/Massilia/Bythinia etc. (Greek) Important states, though it might be an overkill with so many Greeks already.

    If it is to be implemented, I would eagerly help make (in cooperation with someone or even by myself) the roosters for them. I'd only need to know how many buildings and troop types for each mini-faction and which ones of them should be done.

    Edit, Thought of a template. At question marks, I'm not sure if mini-factions should get that unit/structure or be simpler than that.

    INFANTRY (some might not apply to every civ - each one will have the design document details, deleted here to save space)

    • Spearman
    • Swordsman
    • Skirmisher
    • Archer
    • Slinger

    CAVALRY

    • Spearman
    • Swordsman
    • Archer
    • Skirmisher

    SUPPORT UNITS

    • Female Citizen
    • Priest (?)
    • Trader (?)

    NAVY (?)

    • Fishing Boat
    • Merchant Ship
    • Light Warship
    • Medium Warship

    SIEGE UNITS (?)

    • Ram
    • Stone Thrower
    • Bolt Thrower

    CHAMPION UNITS (Only one, trained at barracks at city phase, if they phase up?)

    • Champion

    HEROES (None?)

    CIV CENTRE UNITS (deppends on mini-civ)

    FORBIDDEN CLASSES (deppends on mini-civ)

    STRUCTURE DESCRIPTIONS

    VILLAGE

    • House (?)
    • Farmstead (?)
    • Field (?)
    • Corral (?)
    • Storehouse (?)
    • Outpost (?)
    • Palisade (?)
    • Dock (?)
    • Barracks

    TOWN

    • Civic Centre
    • Temple (?)
    • Blacksmith (?)
    • Market (?)
    • Defense Tower (?)
    • Wall/Wall Tower/Gate (?)

    CITY (none)

    SPECIAL STRUCTURES (none)

    WONDER (none)

    CIV BONUSES (none?)

    TEAM BONUS (none?)

    TECHNOLOGIES (deppends on mini-civ)

    SPECIAL TECHNOLOGIES (none?)

  10. Divide and Conquer (Roman Civ Suggestion)

    in General Discussion

    Posted · Edited by Prodigal Son

    There could potentially be a limit to the way the bonus would work. It could perhaps go more along the lines of choosing merely a limited number of types based upon the amount of players in game.

    This could be done as well. Or even limiting the bonus to one of the opponents' units. Might require extra coding though, so I'd suggest balancing it along the lines of my previous post.

    Some interesting examples of this practice (by the Romans) and it's effectiveness in history:

    • Battle of Zama. Numidian King Masinissa, former ally of the Carthaginians, fought for the Romans, giving them the cavalry superiority for the first time against Hannibal.
    • 2nd Macedonian War. The Aetolian forces gave a fierce fight against the Macedonians during the Battle of Cynoscephalae. Numidian elephants routed the Macedonian left before it could take positions, leading to the Roman victory.
    • Roman-Syrian War. The Pergamene and Rhodian fleets played the most decisive role in defeating the Seleucid ones for the Romans (and themselves as well, although it eventually led to Roman expansion eastwards and their absorption in the Roman realm, similarly to the fate of most Roman allies). At the decisive battle of Magnesia, the Pergamene right flank of the Roman army was the one that decided the outcome. While the roman left was routed by Antiochus' cavalry charge and combat in the middle was indecisive, the Pergamenes panicked the Seleucid scythed chariots who in turn fell upon the rest of the opposing Seleucid forces causing disorder. They then charged and eventually surrounded the Seleucid pikemen and elephants in the middle, as Antiochus failed to return and support them, trying to capture the roman camp. The Macedonians, recently defeated by the Romans in the 2nd Macedonian War, also fought for the Romans during this war, either cause they were forced to do so or to prevent Seleucid intervention in Greece.
    • 3rd Macedonian War. Greek forces and most notably Thessalian Cavalry fought for the Romans in the battle of Callinicus. At Pydna there are again Greek forces and Numidian elephants fighting for the Romans.
    • War Against Nabis. Romans and Achaeans fought together against the last ruler of an independent Sparta.
    • Battle of Corinth. Pergamenes (and Cretan mercenaries) fought for the Romans against the Achaeans.
    • The Gallic Wars. Caesar took advantage of the unstable situation with wars between the various tribes and also employed Gallic auxiliaries in his forces.
    • Battle of the Nile. Caesar took part in Ptolemaic civil wars, eventually leading to roman occupation of the Ptolemaic Kingdom.

  13. Divide and Conquer (Roman Civ Suggestion)

    in General Discussion

    Posted

    The cartaginians were more into that than the romans, and the game version of it is already implemented in the embassies. They had iberians, gauls, lybians, mauretanians, numidians, phoenicians and balearics into their armies.

    It would take a lot of work because the computer would have to "sense" the other factions at the beggining of the game and "choose" the respective units.

    You would have to re-create the parameters of the algorithm (not the algorithm itself) for every civilization ingame, including mauryans.

    The romans would be extremely overpowered, having a huge array of units to choose in a 2x2 battle.

    - That's mercenaries, not divide and conquer. It could work in the other way I described if not embassies, or a completely new way.

    - You might be right, it seems fairly simple to me but I have no coding knowledge.

    - They wouldn't be extremely overpowered. They would get the civs most common types of only citizen soldiers, not champions. Let's say 3 (could be 2 or 4, but I'm settling for 1 each, infantry, cavalry, missile).

    So we have (proposed units could change ofc, deppenting on how powerful we want to make the bonus)

    Against Greek/Successor factions:

    1) Hoplites - no big bonus, they have Triarii

    2) Peltasts - same, they have Velites

    3) Prodromoi - same, they have JavCav

    Against Persians

    1) Sparabara - no big bonus, they have Triarii

    2) Archers - new unit for them

    3) Median Cav? - they have JavCav

    Against Britons/Gauls

    1) Spearmen - no big bonus, they have Triarii

    2) Slingers - new unit for them

    3) Jav Cav? - they have JavCav

    And goes on... it's easily doable in a way that they get from zero to very few new unit types. Making it a variable offer of slightly stronger or weaker (but cheaper) troops of existing types with a possible addition of a few new ones if we want to.

  14. Divide and Conquer (Roman Civ Suggestion)

    in General Discussion

    Posted · Edited by Prodigal Son

    I propose it as a general feature, meaning it's for every mode. Everything's up to the team though anyway:)

    This wouldn't be for all civs, only for the Romans. And it's not based on the map (and minifactions set to it), but on the opponent you face.

    Let's say you play the Romans, and I play the Athenians. You will be able to train some Hoplites, Peltasts and Prodromoi, representing the army of other Greek Cities who hated Athens and sided with the Romans, or ones who did so by superior Roman diplomacy.

    Now, if I play the Persians for the next match, and you are still the Romans, you will be able to train Persian extra units instead of Greek. If at a third match another person joins in my team, and he takes the Athenians while I still have the Persians, you will be able to train both Greek and Persian units.

    It wouldn't need much work, just already existing units and maybe some minor coding.

  16. Divide and Conquer (Roman Civ Suggestion)

    in General Discussion

    Posted · Edited by Prodigal Son

    I came up with an idea for the Romans, making them able to train units depending on the civs of their rivals in game. Say they face a Greek faction, they would get access to a (probably limited) number of different Greek units. They face Greeks and Persians, they get both Greek and Persian units.

    It could work either as a tech unlocking those units at some existing building, or as an "embassy" building. If it works with embassy, then possibly the Carthaginian embassies could be renamed/changed to something like "Mercenary Camps".

    It could replace their ability to convert with money if it's too much of a bonus making them overpowered, and to me it makes more sense than it, training/hiring allies instead of bribing in combat. And it's far more interesting.

    Historically, using a faction's neighbors, usually of the same cultural group, against them, was a common practice, fueled by local rivalries or promises, the neighbors would often ally with an external power. The Romans were the ones who made by far the most of it though, and I can't imagine them conquering a unified Greece or Gaul without it, so I'm proposing it as a Roman Civ bonus.

  17. Proposal for the persians

    in General Discussion

    Posted · Edited by Prodigal Son

    I think "Achmenids", "Ptolemaics" "Mauryans" ... are good for small spaces, but when more space is available (like in the history section), I'd prefer "Ptolemaic Egyptians", "Mauryan Indians", "Achmenid Persians" ...

    I think this is the best solution, somewhat like the soldier/structure double names. It will make the game more accessible to people without "deep" historical knowledge.

    • Like 1

  18. Is anyone around here familiar with Warcraft III modding/mapmaking?

    in Introductions & Off-Topic Discussion

    Posted · Edited by Prodigal Son

    I've composed two soundtrack songs for it, and while it's my first effort outside of punk and rock music they didn't turn out that bad. If anyone is interested or willing to give feedback they are attached to the post. Once authorized by Moddb moderators, a little blog post with some extra info on them will appear here.

    Music.zip

    • Like 1

  20. Scythia

    in General Discussion

    Posted · Edited by Prodigal Son

    Yes, it depends on what you call Scythians and I think sources have a variety on this. My Scythians are somewhat generic steppe people (excluding Mongols and Huns), since Warcraft style and model limitations won't allow for accurate details anyway. The cataphract was probably introduced to the Eastern and Hellenistic armies as an influence from the various steppe people well before AD though. Even in 480 BC at the battle of Plataea the Persians had at least some fully armored mounted officer(s), so it's highly possible that steppe tribes had heavily armored cavalry even earlier.

  22. Suggestions for 0 A.D.

    in Gameplay Discussion

    Posted · Edited by Prodigal Son

    some might bring too much micro

    You mean for the engine, because most of them would be automated behavior. The end-user would just have to select his units, to click on a formation icon, to click on a stanza, and to click on one or two additional icons.

    This part could also bring the interesting option of choosing to level your basic unit

    How do you think I'm currently micro-managing my citizen-units ? :)

    (even if leveled units are less efficient workers...)

    see phalanxes (only "hoplites", and only historical numbers of ranks): no tercios before their time!

    I was not clear with this phrase. I meant: okay, the phalanx and syntagma are already hoplites only, but you still may have boxed formations with archers, skirmishers and priests inside... while it seems historically okay to form such a defensive last square, should we enable them to walk/run to battle in such a composite formation ? It would be like tercios, really.

    Now, that leads to the question: could it be interesting to split formations in two categories:

    * Travel/display formations: only allowed to stand ground / move without breaking.

    * Battle formations: able to maneuver and go melee without breaking, with more bonus/malus.

    It's not just "click to enter chosen formation", it's extra options = extra time consuming thoughts/actions, add to that morale with retreating, reorganizing, etc. Nice ones, but it might be an overkill in a game that also features real-time economy. I could be wrong though, and hope so because I like them.

    However as I said it would be a dream game for me as well if it had two modes (let's rephrase them better):

    • A Risk - Medieval Total War campaign map mode. This would feature fixed region movement (think a modernized version of this). Economy, research and troop movements will be done on the turn based campaign map and the battles on real time. The battles could use extra features like your suggestions (morale, advanced formations etc), directional damage bonuses, even stamina going down with time and reducing effectiveness, total war style. Those battles could also also work in a separate mode that would allow for recreation of historical battles. Units could be recruited directly on bigger squads.
    • The current RTS mode, where some of the advanced combat features can be disabled (by default or by choice, depending on how micro intense we want it to be).

    And we'll have the best strategy game ever. Best features from both RTS and TBS, extreme modability and the most interesting (imo) era.

    Now a question to the team. Shouldn't this campaign map style be easier to be implemented than the "campaign proof of context" or something map? And according to my experience from total war and other TBS games fixed region movement works wonders for the AI, I miss it in newer games.

    So my suggestion is, if/when a campaign is implemented, make it this way. It will also save the time that would be spent on a story driven narrative and provide more replayability and faction availability in a sandbox, which could also have various eras/settings or quite easily be modded to be so.

  23. Priests as healers

    in General Discussion

    Posted · Edited by Prodigal Son

       

    It is not that I disagree. It's a tradition. I was curious to learn why yes. I see no obvious reason to assign healer abilities to priests. Somehow it became a tradition nevertheless.

    Isn't it more natural for priests to increase luck or courage of units? Which they really did.

    Probably healing makes more sense than "luck". The concept of changing luck isn't something rational, while one could learn the era's medicine and mending techniques and priests should have been more educated (on average) than commoners back then. Courage could work though, maybe some attack speed aura with a tech or not.

    Actually just thought of a pair tech:

    - "Battlefield Priests/Augurs/Haruspices/Omen Readers", gives an attack speed increasing (or damage if attack speed change isn't implemented) aura to priests.

    - "Ritual Sacrifice/Fanatisism/Afterlife" or whatever it turns out to be called, gives a smaller but permanent bonus to all organic units.

  24. Suggestions for 0 A.D.

    in Gameplay Discussion

    Posted

    Great ideas Rodmar, some might bring too much micro depending on their implementation though. But I'd love to see them if they can work. This coupled with a campaign mode with a risk/medieval (the first) total war map and building/economy in the campaign/turn based phase could make the ultimate strategy game. As it would also have the RTS mode.

    This part could also bring the interesting option of choosing to level your basic unit when you believe a local battle will be easy won.

    Also, the player could be allowed to select a conservative/risky grouping mechanic ; I mean, either spare the veteran (like in the Roman legion) or put them in first line to shorten the fight.

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