Alpha of the Eagles
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Posts posted by Alpha of the Eagles
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Having to destroy the city is actually a pretty good victory condition for this map since utterly destroying Carthage is actually why the Romans went there in the first place.
The third time, yes.
Awesome map!
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The problem is that we have scant evidence (none?) that the ancients actually replanted forests.
True. The Romans did deforest the entire Mediterrean, and especially northern Africa. How about making this a barbarian thing? I mean, druids did often take special care of nature, and it could be a sort of spell or something that makes him pop a few seeds out of his pocket (or from the nearest villagers ear for that sake) and plant a few trees.
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How about 'buying' tree seeds from the market building, planting them in available spaces near your city, and then chopping them down when they've grown to full wood capacity. The wood from these trees could be used to build farms, therefore making food a renewable resource too.
This. Would've been awesome.
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I heard Grace Park.
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I'm not a developer, but I have some experience with modding Total War games like Rome and Medieval 2. While it is true that random kills could occur, it is also possible to guide this randomness. We usually give higher defence values to units that should live longer and citizens soldiers have smaller attack ratios. The result is that in a combat situation between professionals and levies, the professionals will suffer some casualties, but generally win the fight.
Now, in Total War, you don't control one soldier, but units of soldiers (formations), but the individual soldiers are still calculated. So that means, units will instantly turn to face attacks from flanks and rear, but these penalties to defense generally means that the enemy gains a critical first strike that severely lowers the amount of enemies. But the greatest threat is the morale penalties given by the game. A unit attacked from several sides is much more likely to rout, compared to one that's fighting an enemy head on, even if he's gradually losing.
Also, in Total War games, a unit with low attack values can defeat a statistically much stronger one. How? Attack speed. It also plays an important role. Ex: a levy spearman is able to deal two blows by the time a two-handed knight deals one. Both miss on the first strike, but on the second hit (while the knight is still in motion from first swing) the spearman manages to kill the knight (random luck). This will of course happen extremely rare, as knights with two-handed swords can hit multiple opponents (I imagine this won't be implemented
).Given these factors, we manage to get battles that produce generally the same result when same units are pitted against each other in smaller format, but during large scale battles, tactics must be employed, not necessarily to annihilate the enemy, but to rout him. A timely cavalry-charge in the rear or flanks or the slaughter of his general to make his more fragile levies rout. Then the professionals get bogged down, and finally they will either fight to the death (if you have trapped them) or rout. Of course, due to different morale bonuses, it's much more difficult to rout Spartans than Hastati, but it's possible if you play your cards right.
On the subject of heroes: in Total War, generals have an amount of Hit Points that generally makes you have to kill them 5-8 times before they succumb. His bodyguards also have 2-3 HP. This makes them live longer.
I could go on and on in detail about the mechanics and details, but that wasn't my point. My point is that you can guide, if not control, the randomness by which death ratios are dealt. So basically, you can choose to trade away the classic way people play RTS (with the super-rushes people devises as time pass by) and get a slightly more realistic way of portraying combat. If the math is done right, it won't be completely random, just a little.
Also, the chances for making a kill resets after each attack is calculated. It isn't an ever-increasing possibility of kill/death.
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Of course that would be "possible" and really not that difficult to do, but seeing as how this is our first game we don't want to break too much new ground.
I understand that. It could probably be saved for some more nomadic/tribal nation that's included in the expansion pack (a germanic tribe for example). It was just a thought, because this is something you rarely see in a game. I also thought about the possibility of transforming these extensions into another extension which would save you some resources in contrast to building from scratch.
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Taken from the design document for the Celts:
Note: From my research, the Celts didn’t have specific structures that performed a specific function.Typically the structure was joined with a house (such as a blacksmith, market, or barn).
But, because we are going to have to take some historical liberties, we will have to ‘make up’ some structures to fit the template of the game.
Would it be possible to make a completely different kind of gameplay to the Celts? So that you build the house, then extend the building into the desired function. Like add-ons in StarCraft. It's all about gameplay flavour, and just get the feeling that you're really playing a different kind of faction.
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Well, half the point of 0.A.D is to capture civilizations at their prime and pit them against each other, not historical timeline accuracy. This Persia will fight against the Romans as they fought against the Babylonians and Egyptians.
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I think this is what would (possibly) become parts of the expansion for 0 A.D, and I agree, I would love to see this.
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Flattening of the terrain is a great idea, and makes sense if you are building on uneven terrain, I guess it's how you go about it, not sure if you remember the Populous game series from years ago, it's a classic game, when you build a hut (or any building for that matter) if the terrain is uneven, the villager/peasant would jump up and down in the spot that needed flattening and the terrain would gradually lower to match the level of the surrounding terrain, was quite a cool thing to watch.
The Settlers 3 and 4 games had an own class of workers known as "diggers" which served the purpose of flattening the terrain for the builders. Now, I don't suggest a unit for flattening terrain, but a simple shovel/rake animation or something like that would be good. Jumping up and down to flatten the terrain for a Gymnasion would take nearly the entire game.
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How about a distinction between wooden and stone walls, that makes wooden walls destroyable by fire (torches or flaming arrows) while stone walls are only destructible to siege equipment. Wooden walls cost wood and are relatively quick to build, while stone walls takes long time to build and consume stone which of there isn't an unlimited amount.
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Suggestion:
- In place of having troops using swords, spears and arrows to destroy enemy city centre, what if they actually plundered it? Say, took 10-15 each of a random resource? This would enable us to throw different strategies on an all out aggressive enemy that doesn't build early walls.
- Giving units that attack buildings animations similar to Age of Empires 3, where archers fire flaming arrows and melee-units throw torches.
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I think that the greatest factor weighing against rushing is the fact that you have to devote your own workers to the rush, not that the opponents workers are armed.
Like, if you play Greeks, I imagine their Hoplites will be among the best equipped non-professional units, but also the most costly. So thus a Hoplite rush would be similar to the zealot rush in StarCraft: a small force of well-armored units. Now, if you'd rather do some micro, you could recruit peltasts and keep his Hoplites/Swordsmen away. It'll be hard to remember tho, that the Roman Hastati is a peltast unit in this game (if I recall correctly).
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Actually units are invisible when they are standing in woods or if they are moving or standing by a unit with the "tactica guerrilla" ability.
Oh, nice. So basically they are invisible until you hit them up front and center? Great for melee troops.
But the building I suggested was more of a "sniper spot" for guerilla archers to make them harder to find and kill. Not neccessary if they remain cloaked until the melee unit forces them to move since (as I've understood it) a guerilla unit should be nearly invisible unless it moves or you are standing virtually on top of him.
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In the current implementation, individual units don't really have a meaningful front - they can turn instantly to walk or to attack in any direction. There's not much value in getting a bonus when attacking from behind if the enemy will instantly turn to face you. But we've planned to have directional bonuses for formations, since those will have meaningful sides and can only turn slowly, so you won't achieve much by attacking a phalanx from the front.
Great. Most of those bonuses would only apply for missile troops (example: if you send some Horse Archers around your enemy to score more kills), however if an enemy is successfully surrounded, these bonuses would probably apply for melee as well.
I also wonder, will it be possible to stage ambushes as Celts or Iberians?
Example of how it could be done (this would apply only for Celts and Iberians):
- units are "invisible" for enemies when in cover of trees or shrubberies
- a building that looks like a spot of grass with shrubberies and a few trees (or rocks, for desert maps) where you can garrison units. This building could have only 1 HP so that it doesn't function like a sort of fortification, but you could garrison units within that you could either release, or have missile troops act as "snipers."
Again, this sort of "building" should be available for Celts, Iberians or other "barbarians" with ambush traditions, but could prove both funny and allow for untraditional tactics when it comes to multiplayer. Expecially if we make them difficult to select for enemies and perhaps with some sort of randomness when it comes to design so they're not easily recognised.
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I saw an idea mentioned a few pages ago about giving different attack/defence stats depending on stances, when it struck me:
Shouldn't units on "guard area" or "hold" gain a minor bonus in dodging slings/arrows and a significant one when it comes to javelins? I mean, a soldier who's standing still is somewhat easy prey for archers and slingers, but if he is hiding behind a shield, his only concern is staying behind the shield. Also, a skirmisher has to approach fairly close, and a javelin is easier to dodge than an arrow.
These bonuses are meant to be minor, not all-powerful.
Oh, and a phalanx formation on hold should gain a great bonus from frontal attacks. (And then I mean huge, unless they're already capable of breaking frontal charges).
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My point exactly, 'is said', we don't know if they were just tribes warring for a few hundred years untouched by the romans, celts and steppe tribesmen, or if they just popped up going 'hey lets like, own teh seas', found the americas, got kicked out by the natives, or buggered off, then went off to kick some medieval-euro @#$%--then of course find their weaponry outdated and in come the danes. (as a medieval nation, not as a viking nation--difference... no idea, but whatever.)
D'oh. The 'Viking Era' is like 300 years long. And a lot more than you mentioned. And if I know my stereotypes, there will be someone who makes a Viking mod/add-on.
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The best part on having a random-map generator, is that nobody can sit for long enough and just become invincible through exploiting the knowledge of the map. You'll have to search the map for needed resources, whoever you are. That adds to the fun, in my opinion.
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Isn't Tyrus (Tyros?) a Greek form of the name? Does anybody know what the Phoenicians or Persians called it?
It's hard to know for sure, as the Phoenicians didn't use vowels in their written language. Though, someone in here might have read an educated guess. According to Wikipedia, it is suggested as "Sur". But the question is, what do you really connect "Sur" with? On the other hand, what do you connect Tyre (Tyros is Greek, Tyrus is Latin) with? I think it should remain Tyros/Tyrus due to the fame of that name.
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Will probably go defensive often, as my habit is, but try to variate a bit as well in order to make Alpha the Eagle wonder what's next. ;P
Fixed it for ya.
And I'll use whatever it takes to break Arthur.
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I'd vote for Wololo.
Seconded. That's the best part of the entire game.
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AFAIK Babylon should be where Susa is now, and Susa should be off the east edge.
I'm pretty sure Babylon is right, and Susa is very close. At least considered the immense zoom-out it has.
Also noticed, you didn't change Antioch.
(It wasn't built in the Persian period of reign). My suggestion was Tyre as it was the naval base for the Persians, but if anyone else have another nearby suggestion of more importance, please overrule me. I'm really just naming places on the top of my head of what I could recall from reading. -
Throwing this at the historians:
Awesome map my friend, I could never make something as awesome as that. But, I want to address a couple of things: Seleucia wasn't built before Seleucus took control there, so Persians with Seleucia... Is it possible to simply rename it Babylon, Susa or Ektabana and move it a little. Also, Antioch was founded by Seleucus the I, so I wasn't there when the Persians ruled. I'd suggest Tyre in stead (as this was the Persian fleet base) if it is possible for you to do changes on the map.
Edit: come to think of it, in place of Valencia, perhaps use Carthago Nova (Cartagena) as it was historically more important in this period?
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Comp, windows 7 is worse than vista,
No. I've tried both and you are wrong. The world have tried both, and says you're wrong.
It simply isn't possible to do worse than Vista.Also, to the rest of your post: thanks to the douchebags on Microsoft, it's extremely difficult to run DirectX10, so future graphics for games will require Win7. That XP is the best in the series so far, however, I completely agree on.
In-Game Technologies
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Perfect.