Here..

[AuroN2]

Been playing the game called "Grand Ages Rome" (Demo) And found some most interesting factors that attribute to its gameplay, the barbarian villages! (only got to play with one), and thought they would be most interesting to have in 0ad!

The basic idea of them, is they are (in practicallity) a big buildng like thing, with one entrance (like i said, only one, could be two entrances if you like) with a barbaric garrison. Now, of course, you can subjugate them, and if you manage to (not that hard) you can get the option of enslaving them(occupying the village), destroying their village and taking the Spoils of war, or (not in the game) Making them a vassal state/village and they can supply troops pay taxes etc, though obviously you cant build on it, if they stop liking you (you break a part of the treaty such as tresspassing etc) they can obviously rebel, now (omgalotofwordsforme), this would double (maybe) the indepthness of the gameplay and would make landgrabbing more proffitable.

What do you think? go find a vid on youtube if you don't get what i be sayin', or download the demo (or the full game), (games epic, downloading the full thing via torrent atm, i can provide the link if you ask for it for those googlenubes out there )

Did i miss anything of importance? o.O

[comp3820]

I'm all for anything that makes gameplay more unique and realistic.

Are you thinking of an area on the map, or just a building? I think you'd have to have an area, to allow them to rebel if you entered it.

If you wanted them to pay tribute, they could send shipments to your village. Maybe on a wagon that isn't yours until it reaches your market, so the enemy can steal it if they are watchful. Maybe you could get a notice when the wagon is ready to leave your vassal nation.

And if you wanted them to supply soldiers, they could build soldiers and send them to you the same way, so that they aren't yours until they reach you safely.

An even more complex version might have a negotiation, where you set certain conditions based on the description given of the barbarian group (some more submissive, others ready to fight over a certain action) so that you craft a unique treaty. If you fail to make the correct treaty, you have to either destroy them all or risk having them harry you until you can conquer them again. If you treated them well, they might even become an ally.

Its certainly an interesting idea, imo, but i suppose everything depends on how easily it is implemented in the code.

[Tzink]

i love the idea it sound great.

[WhiteTreePaladin]

Can someone elaborate on the advantages of this over something like local tribes in AoE3?

[Mythos_Ruler]

Yeah, sounds like a modulation of the native tribes feature in AOE3. I like the idea, and it can be implemented in 0 A.D. when we get the slotting feature back. Just not sure we want to take the time and manpower to do it though.

[oshron]

here's my thoughts. ill be referring to these neutral players as tribes for my examples.

In pre-game interface where you determine what the world of the game will look like (using random maps as an example here), there should be an optional setting for “Native Peoples” (or something similar) that highlights a separate menu where these options appear:

Number of Tribes: (ranges from 1 to 12, or whatever the max number of players is; or there could be a “Match” option where the number of tribes equals the number of players, a “Random” option where there’s any number ranging from 0 to the maximum)

Civilization: (determines what civ the tribes on the map belong to. This could either be pre-determined depending on the map, or be decided in a drop-down menu interface, in which the player chooses from any of the civs that the player can use, or a generic “World” civ that creates generic barbarians depending on the dominant percentage of terrain on the map*, or a “Random” option in which every tribe is a different civ [with some overlap] whereas selecting a specific civ makes all tribes of that civ)

Units: (1-5 units that must be decided as belonging to the tribes as a whole; these would likely be editor-only units of generic types that become available to a civ at random, so that one tribe would have a different unit than another. I’ll list some ideas later. They would likely be chosen by a drop-down menu and, ideally, a unit would become unselectable once it is chosen for one slot. The basic idea I have here is that these units accompany the regular soldiers of each tribe and make up mercenaries you receive if you ally with them.)

Temperament: (how aggressive a tribe is, divided into a few different options, such as “To All”, “To Civ”, and “To Others”; this would be applied to all tribes at the same time. “To All” would be how aggressive it is to all players indiscriminately, “To Civ” would be to players of the same civilization, and “To Others” would be to players of all civs but their own. Temperament options would be divided into these:

1. Sworn Enemy (they hate players in question and will never ally to them)

2. Hateful (they hate the player, but can be allied if you give them enough money or intimidate them thoroughly)

3. Neutral (they don’t care about the players in question and can be swayed in either direction)

4. Friendly (they like the player, and can be allied easily, but will fight back if attacked)

5. Best Friends (they pretty much love the players in question and will never end any alliances made, even letting the player kill them)

*civs by terrain: for example, on a predominantly snowy map, the natives could be Vikings, while on a map featuring unique terrain for an entirely fictional map, they could become goblins or something; a North American map would give generic Amerindians

Tribal unique units could be generic versions of existing unique units or something that really is entirely unique, for example, a Frankish throwing-axeman or Native American “prowler” or Middle Eastern camel rider or a Zulu spearman. The possibilities are endless, but looking for units as unique as possible would be best. As I mentioned before, these unique units would become mercenary units that you acquire by paying an allied tribe however much metal/gold/whatever and acquiring that unit at your civic center.

Regular tribal units would be exactly the same as the citizen-soldiers of the player civs, but, of course, redesigned for their tribes and with new or simply generic names (like just “Tribal Spearman,” etc.). since these are primitive peoples, they should only have infantry and cavalry, no ships or siege, unless those are unique units (like, say, Greek Catapult). However, im thinking that instead of having them as citizen-soldiers, theyre just regular soldiers and have no economic functions and there are specific villager units for the tribes, which make up slaves that you could capture while the soldiers must be killed. These would ideally come in man, woman, and child forms.

The tribes would probably have only one or two buildings that would be unique to them, and could only be constructed by their unique villager units. These would probably be towers, houses/huts/tents, light walls like palisades (but no gates or walltowers), and a civic center-type building that could be built anywhere rather than over a settlement. This would help emphasize a nomadic lifestyle, so they could perhaps appear in your starting territory on provincial maps. An idea stemming from this is that the tribes don’t start off with any buildings but are instead villagers and soldiers plopped down in the wilderness (at least double your initial LOS so that they don’t immediately attack you) and then immediately try to find a place to build their civic center, after which you can attack or befriend them through tribute, trade, or even by forcing them to join you at the point of a sword. Depending on what you do, you could then get mercenaries or demand tribute; perhaps when you ally them, you can click on their civic center and some options come up like “Give Tribute”, “Trade”, “Take Tribute”, “End Alliance”, or “Hire Mercenary”. Giving and trading would boost how much they like you, taking and ending the alliance would make them like you less, but hiring mercenaries doesn’t help how much they like or hate you.

I feel there’s something else I wanted to say, but I cant quite think of what it is

[Mythos_Ruler]

Well, if I were to implement something:

- Tribal "factions": Thracians, Numidians, Illyrians, Samnites, Hindus, Anatolians, Levantines (Hebrews, Phoenicians), Scythians; as well as weaker versions of the original 6 factions: Carthaginians, Celts, Greeks, Iberians, Persians, Romans.

- Villages come in pre-arranged shapes and sizes, chosen randomly.

- The factions and numbers of villages would be determined by: a.) the biome of the random map script, b.) the random map script itself may alter things a bit for gameplay, c.) the number of players.

- The only "options" we give the game host is a TRIBES ON/OFF toggle.

- Build a shrine for the village in their village square and they become your ally. You can train their units as mercenaries from their barracks, etc. You can also trade with them with your Traders, from your Market to their Market. Trade with tribes is bonused 25% over trade with your own provinces. Mercenaries function like Super Units, in that they have no economic abilities, and usually cost only Metal (Gold). An enemy can either just destroy your shrine and then the Tribe becomes neutral, or the enemy may wipe the village completely off the map.

[oshron]

got it, i was just giving out some ideas of my own

[Aldandil]

What about minor civs, such as Egyptians or Etruscans, that you can ally with or conquer? Not important enough for full civs, but not just limited to small villages and 5 units either.

I any case, I don't want to see "generic barbarians." This is supposed to be historically based, so I hope the game continues to use only real historical human groups, and depict them with some accuracy. "Generic barbarians" would not feel like real people from the ancient world, they'd feel like random transplants from some D&D universe.

Edited October 14, 2010 by Aldandil

[plumo]

@ Mythos

You r proposing a system similar to that of age of empires III, it seems.

A few things:

- do you want tribes to have passive AI soldiers, defending their village? Thus making you calculate the benefits of conquering this tribe or 'nation' outpost.

If you want this village to be destroyable : how will this work? will the village be one entity to destroy?

[Mythos_Ruler]

I'd say each building is its own entity. And having an AI for the tribal faction would be excellent. If you want to just destroy the village (and take the resulting Loot), then they would defend.

[AuroN2]

- do you want tribes to have passive AI soldiers, defending their village? Thus making you calculate the benefits of conquering this tribe or 'nation' outpost.

If you want this village to be destroyable : how will this work? will the village be one entity to destroy?

Seriously, i wouldnt have the slightest idea, but my best guess would be the 'village', or town, or war camp even, would be a single entity, as for the ai, more like agressive ai (or you can set passive/agressive) so if agressive, they would say '@#$% you diplomacy' and attack you for just being nearby them, passive would try to be diplomatic and find ways around fighting you and having war as a last resort, so they would be as the french do and say.

"I surrender!"

Darn i wanna play AoC now and get pwnfked by the flemms or something. (im referring to age of chivalry, not conquerers.)

Edited October 22, 2010 by AuroN2