Strategic Campaign

[chrstgtr]

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Edited November 30, 2023 by chrstgtr

[zozio32]

9 hours ago, wowgetoffyourcellphone said:

I think there could be a Strat Level of resources that you get from holding territories and winning battles, and then you can translate those resources to upgrading your territories and choosing bigger amounts of starting resources for the next skirmish match.

 

So, let's say the campaign map is Greece/Aegean/Asia Minor. The Campaign resource could be called "Talents." It's a nice neutral, but historic money designation. Each territory you hold could either grant you more talents or cost you talents. Holding Laurium, for example, where historically there was a very famous and productive silver mine, would grant you talents, but holding Marathon would be neutral or cost you talents. What you use talents on is you could buy starting buildings for each territory. So, if you erect a Storehouse in the Marathon territory you'd start any skirmish in that territory with a free Storehouse. Buy a garrison with your talents and that territory will start with extra soldiers or defend itself against an enemy attack even if you have no Hero or General there. The enemy could take it before you get there, but it would be costlier for them to take it in deaths. 

You could even "store" talents in specific territories so that you start a skirmish map there with extra resources. 

if that's "codable", that seems a good way to do it.   I had suggesting something simpler as it was only requiring some simple math from one skirmish to the next, but this way it would be even more interesting

[BreakfastBurrito_007]

On 25/11/2023 at 1:51 AM, chrstgtr said:

I think this (and the lack of a smarter AI) is the biggest obstacle to gaining a larger player base. The lack of a campaign mode (and a smarter AI) makes new players less likely to engage with the game for a sustained period of time. 

Anecdotally, I know when I started playing 0AD, I played the game for about a week until I learned the basics and could regularly beat AI. Then I stopped playing for a week or so because it didn't feel like I was "building" towards anything. Then I started playing again until I beat the hard AI on every map. Then I stopped playing again for like a month because I felt like everything was repetitive and boring. Then I randomly decided to try the multiplayer lobby and haven't really stopped playing since. 

I think also a campaign could serve to prepare players very well for entering multiplayer, sort of exposing them to some typical multiplayer strategies that the AI just doesn't execute.

[LienRag]

On 30/11/2023 at 4:42 AM, wowgetoffyourcellphone said:

I think there could be a Strat Level of resources that you get from holding territories and winning battles, and then you can translate those resources to upgrading your territories and choosing bigger amounts of starting resources for the next skirmish match.

 

So, let's say the campaign map is Greece/Aegean/Asia Minor. The Campaign resource could be called "Talents." It's a nice neutral, but historic money designation. Each territory you hold could either grant you more talents or cost you talents. Holding Laurium, for example, where historically there was a very famous and productive silver mine, would grant you talents, but holding Marathon would be neutral or cost you talents.

Yeah, that's the way you do it, and I like the resource name.

 

On 30/11/2023 at 4:42 AM, wowgetoffyourcellphone said:

What you use talents on is you could buy starting buildings for each territory. So, if you erect a Storehouse in the Marathon territory you'd start any skirmish in that territory with a free Storehouse. Buy a garrison with your talents and that territory will start with extra soldiers or defend itself against an enemy attack even if you have no Hero or General there. The enemy could take it before you get there, but it would be costlier for them to take it in deaths. 

You could even "store" talents in specific territories so that you start a skirmish map there with extra resources. 

Thing is, 0ad is already repetitive enough as it is, if there's to be a Strategic campaign it would need each tactical battle to be interesting and somehow different.

So more work and imagination is required for building a good "initial conditions depending on strategic map" part. In maps with scarce wood (and minimum starting resources), one free Storehouse is interesting and changes gameplay, but otherwise it's "meh". Apart from a free harbor, or maybe some fortifications (if there's going to be early battles), or maybe a few cavalry for early enemy disruption, there's not much that I can think of that would really make things different enough...

 

[wowgetoffyourcellphone]

5 hours ago, LienRag said:

Thing is, 0ad is already repetitive enough as it is, if there's to be a Strategic campaign it would need each tactical battle to be interesting and somehow different.

So more work and imagination is required for building a good "initial conditions depending on strategic map" part. In maps with scarce wood (and minimum starting resources), one free Storehouse is interesting and changes gameplay, but otherwise it's "meh". Apart from a free harbor, or maybe some fortifications (if there's going to be early battles), or maybe a few cavalry for early enemy disruption, there's not much that I can think of that would really make things different enough...

Heroes and generals could make the difference. You have to move them around the map and they give big benefits. Also, you could upgrade a province with walls and fortifications as you mentioned. We can reuse the Iberian wall code for that or the Fortress map code. 

At the very least, it would be more interesting than just playing random maps against the AI.

 

Other possible ways to make it unique:

- The Strat map could be real-time instead of turn-based. I know of only 1 other game that does this and it's still in early access.

- Campaigns could be played in multi-player or with friends. One of the original ideas I had long ago for my aborted project.

 

[LienRag]

1 hour ago, wowgetoffyourcellphone said:

Heroes and generals could make the difference.

 

That's indeed a good idea.

The rest of your proposal isn't enough, though.

One thing that could also change the gameplay in an interesting manner is technology : let's say that once you control the province with the Temple of Artemis, then you begin all your tactical battles with "Fertility Festival" already researched - that's something that would provide for quite different strategies.

Even if you only got it already researched in nearby provinces and get it for half-price elsewhere, by the way.

Maybe you could also start the game with one Relic if you hold the province that holds it - beginning with Brutus or with Bindusra do indeed play differently.

[wowgetoffyourcellphone]

Controlling provinces or cities with different effects (Wonders, Shrines, Culture, Economic) would be another thing, yeah. Provinces with wonders in them could be "Capture the Wonder" matches, for example.

[wowgetoffyourcellphone]

Very old video of my old abandoned project with @RedFox 

 

 

[chrstgtr]

On 03/12/2023 at 11:21 AM, wowgetoffyourcellphone said:

Heroes and generals could make the difference.

I always thought giving generals or some other special unit category to a civ would be a nice differentiator for a civ. Kind of like Han ministers but more than just a generic eco boost. Something like where you can select a special type of minister to give a super boost to a single resource (Han seems like a good candidate since the groundwork is already there) or a general that is really good in one respect but nothing else (Athens seems like a good candidate given how their government worked). 

[wowgetoffyourcellphone]

I honestly think Heroes could do that if we refocused them more and allowed the player more Hero options. 

[Lion.Kanzen]

On 24/11/2023 at 1:04 PM, wowgetoffyourcellphone said:

 

I think the game's engine could support Narrative Campaigns for single player, but due to the sheer amount of work involved, specifically recording sound FX, dialogue tracks, writing the story and dialogue, camera work and cut scenes, building 20 scenarios, etc., WFG can't put that kind of effort into making something official. We could adapt work from others, such as the Macedonian campaign, but to truly make a narrative campaign from scratch would be nigh impossible. 

That's why I think some kind of Strategic Campaign or multiple Campaigns would be easier to achieve for single player. What do you think? The image above is from an aborted projects I was involved in 14-15 years ago, but is illustrative of the concept.

What if we copy many mechanics from unciv game?

 

By the way, now we have artificial intelligence to create narratives with excellent quality.

[Lion.Kanzen]

NOt perfect but still.

 

[Lion.Kanzen]

On 29/11/2023 at 11:24 PM, wowgetoffyourcellphone said:

I guess it depends if we want to to release something relatively complete or if we are comfortable iterating such a campaign over multiple alphas.

Grand campaign needs a lot of development, it is easier to make low budget campaigns like AoE I.

 

 

Only triggers are needed, even a voice action isn't needed. In the first versions.

Edited February 4 by Lion.Kanzen

[Lion.Kanzen]

20 hours ago, Lion.Kanzen said:

Grand campaign needs a lot of development, it is easier to make low budget campaigns like AoE I.

 

 

Only triggers are needed, even a voice action isn't needed. In the first versions.

In fact we should have three types of campaign.

 

Look at this beginning and the story is very fast with few triggers.

Get a so-called open campaign or challenge style, in this you can maybe play with different perspectives.

Another mythology-empire earth style.

Quite scripted.less dynamic.

 

 

 

And Grand Campaign (Take history in your hands) or make your own history.

Edited February 5 by Lion.Kanzen

[ShadowOfHassen]

1 hour ago, Lion.Kanzen said:

In fact we should have three types of campaign.

 

Look at this beginning and the story is very fast with few triggers.

Get a so-called open campaign or challenge style, in this you can maybe play with different perspectives.

Another mythology-empire earth style.

Quite scripted.less dynamic.

 

 

 

And Grand Campaign (Take history in your hands) or make your own history.

I think you're right. We can work on the easier ones first and then move on to the more labor-intensive.

[Lion.Kanzen]

1 hour ago, ShadowOfHassen said:

I think you're right. We can work on the easier ones first and then move on to the more labor-intensive.

The WOW campaign needs a lot of programming and I'm also excited to do it.

But it needs serious planning.

I don't want a light version of Grand Strategy or something boring due to repetition.