===[TASK]=== Differentiating Britons and Gauls

[Ludo38]

Gaul market wip:

Excellent work Enrique. I just wonder about the cow skull... It evokes american westerns a lot, and I'm not sure if it suits the Celt world... Maybe having it as a metal statue instead would increase the Celt idea.

[Lion.Kanzen]

even Gauls may be paint like Romans their buildings. but i haven't source of this.

[Pureon]

Excellent work Enrique. I just wonder about the cow skull... It evokes american westerns a lot, and I'm not sure if it suits the Celt world... Maybe having it as a metal statue instead would increase the Celt idea.

I really like the cow skull - I'll vote for keeping it Animal sacrifice is known to have taken place in ironage Britain.

[Mythos_Ruler]

Some reference images for inspiration:

http://www.baueda.co..._buildings.html

[plumo]

I'd give the Britons the stone 'Broch' wall and I'd give the Gauls the Murus Gallicus (the earthen, reinforced wall that's already in the editor). This will make them a bit more distinctive as well.

[FeXoR]

I'd give the Britons the stone 'Broch' wall and I'd give the Gauls the Murus Gallicus (the earthen, reinforced wall that's already in the editor). This will make them a bit more distinctive as well.

The Murus Gallicus has an "inside" and an "outside" and so only one axis of symmetry in opposite to all other civs walls. The RMS wall builder can handle this but the ingame wall placement method has then to be reworked because the player should be able to define where "inside" is. Additionally the "earth" is not walkable because entities cant be walked on (yet) which makes it a bit strange.

I like the style though and in principle like entities that can be walked upon (like bridges). I don't know if this feature is planned for part 1 though.

Edited September 16, 2013 by FeXoR

[sanderd17]

Walkable meshes aren't planned for part 1. Although I see a way around it for the gallic walls.

Philip has made a prototype where a building alters the terrain. This could be altered to make is slope the terrain instead of flatten it. With a model and obstruction on the sharp side of the wall, and maybe a decal on the rest.

I think it would be very nice.

For walkable meshes. You'd need a way to pass extra tiles to the pathfinder (like saying tile[i,j] is connected to the north with some tile not in the grid). So the pathfinder can keep searching from that. Once that's possible, there should be no problem with JPS, as JPS can handle non-flat graphs as far as I see. It only needs a uniform cost. Letting the pathfinder check for tiles not in the grid could slow it down a bit though. As it won't be enough to check passability of tile[i+1,j], but it needs to query first if there are no others connected.

[Nolanjoker]

new textures? even me can differenciate between them.

[LordGood]

Walkable meshes aren't planned for part 1. Although I see a way around it for the gallic walls.

Philip has made a prototype where a building alters the terrain. This could be altered to make is slope the terrain instead of flatten it. With a model and obstruction on the sharp side of the wall, and maybe a decal on the rest.

If the building would be destroyed will the terrain restore? It would defeat the purpose of destroying the wall if the terrain remains impassible

[WhiteTreePaladin]

Maybe the terrain wouldn't be impassable, just higher to give an archer bonus.

[sanderd17]

As the terrain restoring problem happens in all cases (also when you just place a building that simply requires flat terrain), it should be solved right away. And judging from the demo, it is solved. But remember it's only a demo implementation, and Philip is rather busy now, so it could take a while before someone continues it.

[FeXoR]

Before we add ANY terrain alteration ingame we should have a concept of how this should work in the end.

As many times stated terrain flattening under buildings RAISES the maximum steepness of the terrain in the surrounding area.

Giving the player the ability to deform terrain in general (for some resources or just time to let workers deform it) would work out, I guess.

However, workarounds like terrain alteration just for certain buildings I'd consider a bad hack (with unpredictable consequences for gameplay).

Edited September 18, 2013 by FeXoR

[sanderd17]

The terrain alteration should be selectable per building. Some buildings might want perfectly flat ground. Others might want a straightened ground (but not brought horizontal), and there can be special cases, like we could use for the slope walls, or maybe stuff like trenches (for WWI games or in front of a siege wall). Next to that, it should be graphical only, and not influence pathfinding. And finally, it should be reversible (if you destroy the building, the terrain is also restored).

But I believe Philip has that covered.

And sorry for going off topic like this. If we want to continue this discussion, we should probably use a new thread. Although I don't know what's to discuss when nobody studied the code.

[Mythos_Ruler]

Anyway, about those Britons and Gauls...

I think they can share the Barracks, unless a very cool idea surfaces for a new barracks for one of them. So far the Britons barracks concepts are not tickling my fancy.

[LordGood]

dangit michael

the brits will have a nice barracks

IF IT KILLS ME! WARRRGARRBLE!

aside, i should have posted my design sketches before getting involved. That's definitely my own stupid fault

Barracks needs to look more... menacing

amirite?

Third time's a charm!

[Lion.Kanzen]

Look examples in videogames that can inspire you. Process of creativity sometimes are like a dead end.

[Ludo38]

Barracks needs to look more... menacing

Good draw style my friend!

But indeed as you say, the barracks must look more menacing than this charming cottage!

A perimeter wall with pikes would help give a sense of war structure, what do you think ?

[LordGood]

might be going a little overboard but how's this?

[Lion.Kanzen]

That is pretty awesome lordgood, I can imagine that. The difference with the second is the details I means the props that you added in order do a war characteristics.

Edited September 19, 2013 by Lion.Kanzen

[Mythos_Ruler]

might be going a little overboard but how's this?

Yeah, this looks way better. Go with something like this.

[LordGood]

Aaaah i have a good feeling about this one!

I was going to post a screencap earlier but the site was down

It still needs props, of course

[Enrique]

That looks x10 better man! good work

I'd say prop it, bake AO (if you know how-to) and zip it up with the tower! let's get this in-game asap!

[Ludo38]

Great work Lordgood, I love how this building feels, with the curves and the shape of the thatch roof.

Are these screencaps into Atlas ? Did you put the models into one of the game's maps ?

[LordGood]

Thanks guys!

Are these screencaps into Atlas ? Did you put the models into one of the game's maps ?

Yes this one's on a generated 'Belgian uplands' map. I'm not too good with the actor editor and whatnot, so I think I'll keep the model in blender from here on out

Oh, and I have no idea how to bake in AO maps, but I'm sure Enrique's helpful tutorial will help me figure it out

Edited September 26, 2013 by LordGood

[Mythos_Ruler]

Another idea I had was that since we're linking all the Hellenic civs together with the Theatron (and soon, all the Successor civs with the Library), we could link the Celtic civs together by giving them the Rotary Mill. Then, give the Gauls the "Tavern" and Gaesata "Naked Fanatics", since the Britons have the Kennel and the War Dogs.