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wowgetoffyourcellphone

0 A.D. Art Team
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Posts posted by wowgetoffyourcellphone

  1. Drawing the web procedurally still does not account for the orientation. (It could be randomly flipped from left to right) Some additional Information needs to be given. But the implementation details will be up to the person implementing them anyway.

    Yes, this is true. But one can imagine it not being too complex.

    I like the tech web as well. With the massive amount of technology I suspect “tech mod” to ship, one tree per building is appropriate. Other mods might want to use less trees. (Assuming the implementation is flexible enough to be reused.)

    My tech mod will probably not have the web bcuz I am not a programmer. I propose the web for the develiper's game, but if they don't like it or don't want to do it, I can make my own tracker and enlist helpers.

    To prevent some micro on research: When considering the technology tree of the blacksmith, there isn't really a reason to bind it to a specific blacksmith. (As you won't use the blacksmith to recruit units.) The number of blacksmiths in play determines how many technologies may be researched at once. Any of them should be able to take orders for all of them.

    I can imagine if the player had 2 blacksmiths the web window could have a "2" in the corner telling the player how many credits (or smiths?) they can use, so 1 credit(smith) per tech. Choose a tech and the 2 goes down to 1.

    One further note on engine requirement: The 2nd level Technology “Archery“ depends on only one (“Smelting” or „Glowing Sword“). Is that something already supported?

    In my sample image the yellow strands mean those techs are unlocked because the previous tech has been researched. The green strands point to the techs that have been researched. Black strands mean those techs are not available yet because the one above them has not been researched yet. Most techs in the web, except those on the outside, can be unlocked by 2 other techs above them. The archery focus one was unlocked by Metallurgy because Metallurgy was researched. It could have been unlocked by Forging too,but wasn't. Either way it is now unlocked (in this example). Think of it like a pachinko machine (or pinball machine), except you control the ball.
  2. Anyhow, pursuing your web idea further, do you propose a single unified web for each civilisation, with military and economic techs in the same web; several webs for each civ, with one web for economic, one for military, etc; or that each building in the game capable of researching techs should have it own, specific, web?

    I was imagining one for each building. Blacksmith, Barracks, Storehouse, etc. The Blacksmith would probably be the largest and most customized for each civ. But I would say that 75% of the techs would be shared by all civs, 50% at least. Many of the differences could be as simple as one civ researching a tech sooner than another in their web, and like in Age of Empires some civs just won't have a few of the techs that others do, while maybe 20% or so would be completely different to make the civs different (most civs are relatively the same at the start of the game, becoming more and more different as the game progresses because of research and different units available). In my mod, the civilcenter trains female and 1 melee infantryman. Then build the barracks and all of the civ's citizen soldiers units are available at village phase from the barracks. This helps balance at the beginning (player has access to wider variety of counters... speaking of which my mod puts hard counters back into the game and the old formations). About the web, yes, it would be possible to do it procedurally too. It's just dependencies are harder to visualize by the modder (me, haha), but I guess the modder could just draw a chart out first before adding the dependencies to the technologies json (now that I think about it row IDs and all that would probably be just as hard to visualie, so yes I agree with procedural).

  3. This. web. looks. very. cool!

    There is only one issue I see, how do we implement that in the GUI?

    Had a thought. I do not think it would fit into the hud at the bottom of the screen. Would probably have a button where the techs go now that launches a medium window (maybe launches it over the HUD instead of the middle of the screen so you can still see stuff happening).

  4. Hoplites are armed with round shields named Hoplons. We can imagine a "Hoplon" upgrade which would be the development of these hoplon shields. There would two prerequisites to getting this upgrade though, one of them would be named "leather working". "leather working" allows for hoplons to be upgraded, however it also allows for "leather armor" to be researched. So the upgrade "leather working" is a prerequisite to getting two different upgrades. The second prerequisite needed to research hoplons would be "levy infantry", which is upgrade that reduces infantry training time. You need both of those prerequisites to research the "hoplons" upgrade.

    You could make different webs for different civilizations. I actually think it's a pretty neat idea, but one that will take a lot of time and effort to implement, not to mention balance.

    Hoplite shield was called aspis (hoplon simply means weapons of war), but let's not fight over this small trivia. ;)

    But I like prerequisits as you mention and the tech web I make up there is all about prerequisites. Everything unlocks more things. The web I post there is the blacksmith web I imagine for my mod (the current version of my mod has most of these techs as pairs,because web is not implemented of course!) for the Seleucid Empire. Some of it is standard for all civs, but it gets more custom as you go down the web. So, at the top you have your first two choices: Metallurgy (-25% Blacksmith techs resource cost) or Forging (-50% blacksmiths techs research time). You can choose to research one and then go downward from that, or research one and thenthe other, opening up more techs below them (as you see in the chart). Or research one (Forging for example) and follow its web for a while, and later research the other to open up its web. However you want to do it.

    Below those, there are 3 "focuses": Hand-to-hand Melee Infantry, Range Infantry, and Cavalry. You can see what I am doing as you look down the web. I point out the area between the Ranged and Cavalry. You can see techs that can apply to both. Same for between Melee Infantry and Range Infantry (you can research Iphicrates Boots to make both melee and range infantry faster, below that you see the dagger that can give a dagger to both melee and range infantry, and so it goes). The farther you look to the sides the more specific the techs are, so the techs to the left are only melee infantry and the techs to the right are only cavalry. Toward the bottom on the cavalry side you start to see specific techs for chariots (Heavy Scythes) and elephants (Elephant Armor). And at the very bottom you get very strong (cost 1000+ resources) techs.

  5. Instead of fighting I come up with new idea that is best of all worlds IMHO.



    Imagine a tech web, instead of a tech tree:



    YlpaYAo.png


    You start at the top and research downward. Each new web strand makes 2 other strand become available. Of course the ages still unlock the those rows of techs, but you can always go back and research any available technology. Eventially you can research them all if you have enough time and money, but it still makes it so there are choices like the pairs (but different and better, you can go back and research what you chose not to research before). Every building with techs could have such a web as this. Of course some bigger than others.



    (my mod includes Imperial Phase, so just ignore that part, because vanilla game does not have this phase)


    • Like 3
  6. The decision you're describing is the kind that's made before the game even starts.

    Once you start realizing that a decision is bad (e.g. getting stone upgrade instead of metal upgrade for an early game rush, when metal is a more important resource), you just won't make it anymore.

    What is bad with that? With the pairs, the player chooses a tree that is to her advantage for the strategy she has chosen (same for the civ, she would choose the civ that best suits her play style, is this bad? Choosing a civ is not reversible in the middle of a game either). If she wants to do a different strategy next game, then she would probably use a different tree that she has found through trial and error best suits her new strategy.

  7. As Enrique say, the pairing of techs add more replay value that is now lost in A17. The pairs give the player interesting choices and trees that can be different every time they play. Now, all techs are in straight line and expensive, meaning you make fewer choices in a game. There could be a mix of small choices and big choices with a mix of a lot of pairs with some single techs, inexpensive and expensive. Instead now there is only big choices in a straight line and no pairs. Not as interesting as before as it could be. I do not think you will agree (given I was made fun for suggesting vision and imagination) so I make my own mod and play my own way.

    • Like 1
  8. Thx for advice, but during proces of adding new civ I have to edited file Identity.js? When I opened it, it looks a little different from this version which I found on forum. After editing the civ code and loading the game engine crash, because error in file Identity.js. When I delete all my changes everything is working fine.

    This thread seems to be out of date, With some digs I find that you must make a file in the binaries/data/mods/public/civs folder.

  9. While there's no need to directly copy one of those, the game has to get a fine balance between micro and macro if it is to get successful.

    This is easy to agree on. :)

    However, when you talk about difficulty and balance of features, I think it is important to think of gameplay like this: It should be easy to get good; difficult to be great. So, look at it this way: formations are an additional feature that adds management, balanced as you say with other concerns. But if you add directional bonuses it doesn't have to mean that the game has too much management, only that now the great player can have another thing to master. I am not saying this will be the case, but just an idea. Also, concepts can be made to be simple to the players (while underneath they are complex of course, the players doesn't need to see the gears turning, only the effect of the gears).

    • Like 1
  10. Plus,

    Citizen/soldier system is imho something huge for the variety it adds to the gameplay:

    whenever you feel like you have to switch men from economy mansion, to military, you're making a huge decision for you're game.

    How many of them should you switch? Is that "military thing you have to do" worth the suffer your eco wil get from actually doing that?

    This system adds a lot of depth to the game, and that's what imho makes an rts an RTS.

    Agreed. This thing is what happened in real life too. Going to war was a bad thing for your economy, unless you won the war and brought home lots of booty and land. Even then, it would take your economy a long time to "process" this new wealth, so during the war a kingdom's economy would suffer greatly while its able body men were away. That again is why I like the difference between men and womens in this game it is not sexist one bit. Men and womens had real roles in society and while the men left off to war the womens were left to hold down the home front so to speak and tend to the farms, shops, etc.

    • Like 4
  11. I've thought of something more in regards to cavalry. Since there's no stable for most civs (and if my idea of moving cav to tier2 is rejected) how about making the corral a requirement for training cavalry units. It's a way to delay early game cavalry spam and at the same time more realistic (needing to breed horses and early era focused on foot units).

    Here is my suggestion. Perhaps you will hear me out.

    Have civil center train womans and spearman only (swordman for Roma). That way to get the other types, including cavalry, the player must build a barracks.

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