chaosislife

Eh, I like simplicity, if i want to change a value I don't want to have to open five files trying to hunt down which file has the value I need. I think this works best for entire classes of units rather than unique units.Of course the great thing I'm seeing here is that if I want all my tags in one file, that should work just as well. Flexibility is good.

They're also useless for hunting, die if they get a scratch, can't build half the buildings and can't defend themselves against a lone wolf let alone an enemy soldier.

That could be bad if you've got a platoon of cavalry guarding an area since the scouts wouldn't or at least shouldn't aggressively attack enemy units that come into the area.

Thanks, now how much trouble would I get into if i simply ignored the inheritance hierarchy and put all of a units data in one file? The inheritance is neat, efficient and bloody annoying.

I have an idea for that, if the transform function can check the distance of allied units from a unit then it could transform to a 'gate open' model with no collision when allied units are within melee range. Then after the units have passed thru the gate and gotten far enough away the 'gate open' model could transform back into the usual closed gate. This has the added realism effect of allowing enemies to pass thru the gate if they're right on your heels rather than stopping for no apparent reason at an open gate like in AoE/M. Another idea using the transform function could make building the walls and towers evenly easier. That is to first remove the collision from the present wall/tower models and set them up to transform into a solid model once fully built. This should allow for walls and towers to overlap and hence merge more or less seamlessly visually. It annoys me when building them to occasionally find out that the enemy can walk through a space between the wall pieces.

If you have that much coverage you're playing by yourself having already shot down every single enemy unit that spawns. But yes, no spawning in fully revealed maps. Tho another way might be to use some sort of growth animation like the gaia forest trees in AOM, or to spawn a sapling model which then transforms into a more grown up model over time. The transform function should be able to handle that.

Instead of killing off all units would it be possible to have them convert/transform all their remaining units and buildings to the enemies color?

Haven't seen anything about it so I figured I'd ask where to find the files relating to the units stats similar to how AOM used the proto(x)?

yes, slowly is good, but if we went a tad more complicated we could also set it up so new trees and critters can't spawn in any players LOS. Then we wouldn't be able to actually see the new resources appear, we'd have to discover them.

The AI isn't causing me problems, it's great, but easy to beat. All I do is use the javelin units for everything and groups of garrisoned outposts and the AI gives me the pleasure of running headlong into their deaths. After that, all I have to do is wait for them to run out of resources because they refuse to build new settlements or collection buildings near the outlying resources. Then I build a few super units and mow them down.

Need to make the hippeus more cowardly if it's going to be used as a scout, they run straight at the enemy no matter how many times you order them to run away. Not surprisingly, they die very quickly. Also i think we need to reduce the line of sight of most everything except the outposts. If the engine is anything like aom's engine then all those huge LOS calculations are whats causing me so much lag. I'd say remove the LOS completely for all the gaia units like deer and trees and make the women nearly blind, they don't need to be scouting around if they can't defend themselves.

If the walls are climbable then the enemy will just climb them every time regardless of whether they're defended. Kinda defeats the purpose. I think the first thing to figure out is a snap-to placement feature for all the buildings including the wall pieces. Then I could have buildings that are lined up evenly. Even without a good drag and click method that would make the present walls actually worthwhile. Right now it's too time consuming to orient them so that they look right without having one wall piece that looks connected to the other from one angle but is actually very far off from another angle. If we get the snap-to in place tho we should probably have the wall towers have 8 sides to snap to so you can easily build at angles.

Renewable resources for trees and critters sounds about right, i remember expecting AoM to do that when i first started playing it. I'd just leave a few deer in a nice wooded area, wall them off and hope they'd breed. What you could do is just set the gaia ai that controls all the animals and trees to build new animals and trees from the ones on the map, give them a longish build rate and only build one at a time. Next thing you know the areas you aren't currently gathering from get loaded with wildlife. I like this idea better than watching the enemy run out of resources and sit there waiting for me to kill them. I play to play not to win. As for the other resources such as stone and metal, metal could be generated thru some sort of factory, workhouse, or trade function. Stone and wood and even metal you could get more of by recycling buildings. Set it up so that when a building is destroyed either manually or thru war rubble takes it's place like in aom. But make the rubble a gatherable resource representing like 75-90% of the buildings required materials. This also means that if you get done with a building and want to build something else in it's place you can do so without it being totally wasted.