GRoss

I think taking cossacks as an example would be a mistake in a way - i like the unlimited resources + nearly limitless population, but the combat especially in later stages of the game just becomes quite stupid: build more barracs, more farms, mines and other buildings, so that your, LOL, production of units/per second increases. When I was playing skirmish game my city produced like 10 pikeman, 3 horseman and like 2 gunners per second + other cannons, and some ships, and than combat just becoms stupid - nearly no tactics, because you dont have time to actually build up a regiment with proper officers and drummers, you just need to constantly make and send units at your enemy to prevent your him from advancing towards your city. I strongly suggest that the unit cap should be modifiable - say 100 -1000 units or and the resource availability should increase ans a result of increasing unit cap. So people on high end PCs can play the game with maximum unit scale, while people with slower machines could play it with nornal or low unit scale while still enjoying the game. Charging Cavalry would be fun, as long as they dont look too unrealistic - like sending units flying all over the screen.

Oh, I thought that there's going to be endless stone - I think one of your teammembers mentioned that before, but I'm not sure, anyway. I think a simple mechanism could be used for planting trees and orchards or fields. Say 1 tree gives 100 lumber resource, but to plant a tree you only need like 10-50 lumber. Same goes for orchards or fields, but using food or a combination of food and wood.

Players can plant groves of trees or fruit orchards. These orchards can provide a source of both food and wood, making wood a renewable resource. - I like that. Seems cool because even though players destroy natural forests, they still can plant new ones that would cost a fraction of a real tree value + orchards seem cool as well. But I dont see how, if you have renevable trees and food + endless stone - what about ore?! Any suggestions?

Mabye not trees, but what about mines? Think about it plz, like say there would a 3 diffrent types of mines: small, med., large - and each of the had unlimited resources, but say only 2 people can gather ore in a small mine, 4 in medium and 6 in large. It would provide endless resources but will still make large mines a desirable location to be controlled by your forces - more income per minute. Large mines would be locations to be fought over and would provide the controlling side with more resource. Because I remember WarCraft straight away - those fields full of tree trunks, makes you feel sad... I dunno guys, just think about it. - some examples with endless resources: Cossaks, Empire Earth 2, Caesar, Stronghold. Or maybe you would like to consider adding building that generate endless income like hmm.....market, special sort of plantation, fishing etc. By the way a good game too look at for regenerating trees "Knights and Merchants" the game isn't too good, but the aspect of regenerating trees is interesting.

Guys, I'm a bit off topic here, but I would like to suggest that there should be like endless ore deposits and hmm, reproductive trees in the game - thus endless resources. Because when you play a game like WarCraft or AoE it seems like you're racing against time - you have to lose or win before the map runs out of resources, which means that you can't play on a simple map for more than 1h. while gathering a lot of resources. If there are at least some endless ore deposits and trees - it would than mean, if you lost a battle, than you can go back and build another army and try to use a diffrent strategy to defeat you foe. But I remember playing WarCraft3 with my mate and when i lost a battle and all of my troops on a small map - it meant that all I could do was to WAIT, because I didn't have any more resources to build and army. !!!ENDLESS RESOURCES!!!

darn, I completely forgot - I speak Russian and might help with the translation if needed, forgot to say that in my other post

hmm, this is my second post - the previous one somehow dissapeared. I dont really have any skills (usefull) in programming or modeling. I know a bit about history and Rome. I read a lot of books about ROman times and battles, but I'd love to get involved in a project like this in any way and contribute. I love what you guys are doing and would like to help out in some way. So be it some research or discussion just send me an e-mail. pasechnikov_ros@hotmail.com

I personaly would love to get involved in a project like this. I sadly have NO skills, but like history and know a bit about Rome, battles - read a lot of books about it. Tried programming and Blender, what can i say - I suck at both. But if you guys would like to recieve some 'advice' on tactics, formations and the game logic I would love to help in my spare time. pasechnikov_ros@hotmail.com

I think it would be pretty good if you can create squads out of units or have scalable unit squads straight away like 6-hmm 40 units in a squad. Cos when you think about it all soldiers were a part of some unit and they didn't just run around with whoever, they stayed with they commander and fellow soldiers. So if you order a squad of shieldsmen to form a 'shield wall' than a whole squad does that. I think that is going to make things much easier. I'm not sure would anyone undertand the following, but anyway: I think pathblocking could be used to prevent units, as said in previous posts from just going through a swordsman platoon and slaughtering archers behing. I gues it could be like: the 'friendly' unit size is say 40, but to an enemy its 60. So if u order a swordsman platoon to form a shieldswall and the distance between each unit is like 5, than a minimum of 2 units nearby should be killed to create a 'gap' in the regiment, in which more enemies could move and eventually cut their way through to archers. darn thats a lot of writing for me....... anyway what do u think?