Narrative Campaign General Discussion?

[ShadowOfHassen]

4 minutes ago, Vantha said:

Yeah, but wouldn't it still be more exciting to fight e.g. the Battle of Cannae?

Yes it would be exciting to fight. all I'm saying is that if there isn't a lot of information, we can get the battle to be as big as you need for the game. Things in general will need to be adjusted for scale. Quite a few battles had troops in the thousands on both sides, but that won't work with a population cap of even 500, so events will need some adaptation anyway. So have your final battle as big and exciting as you want. :-) (In reason of course)

[Vantha]

Sharing some more progress on the map...

 

I'd estimate I'm about halfway there.

[Lion.Kanzen]

How many maps will the campaign have?

I get the impression that there are very few of them.

[Vantha]

2 hours ago, Lion.Kanzen said:

How many maps will the campaign have?

I get the impression that there are very few of them.

Scenarios 1, 2, and 3 all take place at the city and its surroundings. So, I'm hoping to be able to use the same map for all of them (the one that I'm creating right now). But we will only see whether that is actually possible once we get to the concrete implementation.

Scenario 4 will definitely require a different map, though, if we decide for the idea with Hemeroscopium as the final target, since that city needs to be situated further to the North (somewhere not covered by the first map). But it might be possible to reuse parts of the first one for it.

[ShadowOfHassen]

1 minute ago, Vantha said:

Scenarios 1, 2, and 3 all take place at the city and its surroundings. So, I'm hoping to be able to use the same map for all of them (the one that I'm creating right now). But we will only see whether that is actually possible once we get to the concrete implementation.

Scenario 4 will definitely require a different map, though, if we decide for the idea with Hemeroscopium as the final target, since that city needs to be situated further to the North (somewhere not covered by the first map). But it might be possible to reuse parts of the first one for it.

We might want to make some changes in between the three scenarios just minor ones but that’s beside the point… keep up the good work and make sure to back the map up!

[Lion.Kanzen]

55 minutes ago, ShadowOfHassen said:

We might want to make some changes in between the three scenarios just minor ones but that’s beside the point… keep up the good work and make sure to back the map up!

Yes, scenarios improving the learning of previous scenarios.

 

[Vantha]

What about the idea of practice games  in between that we talked about at the beginning?

I mean, they are present to some degree in the current plan: The player learns how to play through the village phase in scenario 2, so in scenario 3 the instructions only start after completing that (and reaching the town phase). Before this point, the player just repeats (and practices) what he learned in the previous game. In scenario 4, the same is done for the town phase as well. Do you think that's enough?

[Lion.Kanzen]

18 minutes ago, Vantha said:

What about the idea of practice games  in between that we talked about at the beginning?

That but more exciting.

[Lion.Kanzen]

11 minutes ago, Lion.Kanzen said:

That but more exciting.

The truth is that I imagine something very fun, not so schematic.

I would like to know what would happen to speed runners if they tried to go too fast.

Something like a random event that is triggered if they are very curious.

Speed runners are very good at challenging maps in short time, what would happen if we played a few little pranks on them?

Hehe...

Edited Monday at 23:42 by Lion.Kanzen

[ShadowOfHassen]

29 minutes ago, Vantha said:

What about the idea of practice games  in between that we talked about at the beginning?

How about instead of that after the tutorial campaign, we have a different campaign called the practice campaign where there is one or two missions for each civilization which just gives a basic overview of the civ, both gameplay wise and historically-- make it totally without stories and just a narrator giving the overview.

 

It wouldn't be a ton of work long term and that would be a good second campaign to ship.

[Lion.Kanzen]

This is a different discussion but we need a challenge mode.

 

[Vantha]

17 hours ago, ShadowOfHassen said:

How about instead of that after the tutorial campaign, we have a different campaign called the practice campaign where there is one or two missions for each civilization which just gives a basic overview of the civ, both gameplay wise and historically-- make it totally without stories and just a narrator giving the overview.

 

It wouldn't be a ton of work long term and that would be a good second campaign to ship.

No story and just single games? That defeats the whole purpose of a campaign, right?

[wowgetoffyourcellphone]

3 minutes ago, Vantha said:

No story and just single games? That defeats the whole purpose of a campaign, right?

There would still be narrative campaigns, such as your tutorial campaign, but a practice campaign would take you through a series of challenges to rank up your skills. 

[ShadowOfHassen]

19 minutes ago, wowgetoffyourcellphone said:

There would still be narrative campaigns, such as your tutorial campaign, but a practice campaign would take you through a series of challenges to rank up your skills. 

Yeah. Just like a short mission with each civ to get players used to mechanics. You really wouldn't be able to do justice to a lot of the cool stories with just a single mission, so just give an overview of the history.

 

Just to reiterate, this is a different project idea not the same as the idea before.

[Lion.Kanzen]

29 minutes ago, wowgetoffyourcellphone said:

There would still be narrative campaigns, such as your tutorial campaign, but a practice campaign would take you through a series of challenges to rank up your skills. 

 

35 minutes ago, Vantha said:

No story and just single games? That defeats the whole purpose of a campaign, right?

It is another single player game mode, without narrative.

It's called Art of War in AoEII.

Very similar to a campaign.

 

 

[Lion.Kanzen]

Let me clarify.

Single player mode:

•SP matches.

•Campaigns mode: Narrative and Grand Strategy.

•Challenges mode.( Very similar to campaigns without narrative or historical background).

•Other custom modes: Tower defense, CBA...etc.

Within the campaign mode narrative:

•Learning campaign (tutorial campaign)

•each faction campaigns.(From 500-27 BC)

•custom campaigns (from mods made by users).

[Vantha]

I'm not sure I get it... if there's no story, then how is it different from an ordinary game?

[Genava55]

5 minutes ago, Vantha said:

I'm not sure I get it... if there's no story, then how is it different from an ordinary game?

It is not entirely true. They are using a pseudo-historical narrative based on Sun Tzu.

The difference is using a proper historically based scenario or having a scenario more explicitly being a tutorial. 

[ShadowOfHassen]

9 minutes ago, Vantha said:

I'm not sure I get it... if there's no story, then how is it different from an ordinary game?

It wouldn't have a story in the traditional three act structure but it would have an introduction to the civ and show the specific mechanics of a civilization

[Lion.Kanzen]

I would prefer each faction to have its own starting scenario in its starting campaign.

[Lion.Kanzen]

Here is the other alternative mode to the narrative campaign, the challenges. It will serve to practice and improve as a player.

 

[Vantha]

23 hours ago, Lion.Kanzen said:

I would prefer each faction to have its own starting scenario in its starting campaign.

Me too, but that's sadly nowhere near feasible right now.

 

On 07/01/2025 at 6:51 PM, ShadowOfHassen said:

Yeah. Just like a short mission with each civ to get players used to mechanics. You really wouldn't be able to do justice to a lot of the cool stories with just a single mission, so just give an overview of the history.

 

Just to reiterate, this is a different project idea not the same as the idea before.

Such introductions to our civs would certainly be nice to have. And, as you said, wouldn't even require that much work. Let's keep it in mind for the future.

[Lion.Kanzen]

13 minutes ago, Vantha said:

Me too, but that's sadly nowhere near feasible right now.

 

Such introductions to our civs would certainly be nice to have. And, as you said, wouldn't even require that much work. Let's keep it in mind for the future.

There are already some campaigns underway but they do not have a basis or structure to support them.

By support I mean the code.

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The second thing is to implement it in each alpha.

Edited Wednesday at 19:46 by Lion.Kanzen

[Vantha]

8 minutes ago, Lion.Kanzen said:

There are already some campaigns underway but they do not have a basis or structure to support them.

By support I mean the code.

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The second thing is to implement it in each alpha.

What do you mean? These campaigns are fully playable, no?

[Lion.Kanzen]

1 minute ago, Vantha said:

What do you mean? These campaigns are fully playable, no?

I've never played them but they were playable scenarios in development.

Alexander's campaign is complete