General gameplay discussion

[Prodigal Son]

Water maps could indeed be almost exclusively fish-reliant in food gathering if they are ment to be too punishing for losing water control, but I'm not sure about that. But both Darc and Roek you seem to have missed my other point, maybe because I didn't expand on it. Food is the most basic resource. Farms are most basic/stable way of getting it. Limiting them to pre-placed slots, and given the hard (and imo uninteresting) to totally balance random map generation, can lead to cases with severe imbalances to a resource you'll need throughout the game, not one you can do without for a while and plan ahead to get.

Corrals are bit hard to decide on. I kinda like the way AOM handles herdables, having them fatten over time (starting from the time you capture them). You could slay them fast for a food boost or wait to get more later. Garrisoning them for income is also a viable idea, but it seems too similar to farms in the end. Autoproduction with a limit could work too. In my mod I haven't touched them yet, besides replacing the cavalry speed tech which went over to the stables with some "herd techs" reducing cavalry/camel/elephant food costs, that might stay in place of the planned mechanic to capture and garrison animals for cost reduction, as I generally prefer to represent minor things with something simple instead of extra micro. I'm also considering the possibility of removing the corrals and have herdables available only though scouting/as starting units.

Edited May 30, 2015 by Prodigal Son

[DarcReaver]

Hmm I agree. Food processing should be basic and work out balanced and well enough to not hinder the game flow. However, I really think the players should have more options instead of the pattern "collect berries -> kill some goats -> farm in t1". The herdable concept from AoM really is nice - however, it still was pretty basic and doesn't really affect the game much.

My vision would be that players try to compete for huntables, with certain civs being able to hunt better than others (like celts/persians/seleucids for example) while others like Indians, romans and "regular greece" would go for a more farming style with defensive options of having better herdables. The idea of training herdables is pretty neat imo and I think that could be kept for sure. The idea of auto training is nice and the herdables - maybe the concept of either collecting herdables and killing them for food or putting them in the barn for faster herdable training. Like 2 additional goats increase auto producing by 25% each, up to a limit of + 100%. Then you'd need another barn building for more herdables. And you could put your own auto produced herdables in there, too to boom. So players have to make some interesting choices earlygame around their herdables - "Do I have enough basic food to boom some more herdable production power, or do I kill my herdables early to get a food advantage for training more villies?"

This also gives more potencial for spending food early on besides booming villagers.

There could be some techs included to strengthen these individual points on the civs, giving them a more unique feel - afterall, all civs play out similarly, even way more similar than civs in AoE 2, despite being less diverse in terms of tech trees and stuff.

Farming could then come later as an additional food source that works without much micro involved - perfect for maintaining a focus on warfare and expansion for getting the "teching resources". Also, I think it might be worth considering to split metal and gold as a resource. Gold could be a unique resource for the mercenary system that was implemented at some point.

Also, while we're at it: there should be some distinction between "aggressive" and "defensive" civs. Aggressive civs should be able to float the map early, being able to hunt and build and resource outside their regular cities, but have defensive weaknesses to a certain point.

Edited May 30, 2015 by DarcReaver

[wowgetoffyourcellphone]

Look to AOE3 for herding innovation over AOM. I like 0 A.D.'s relic idea for herd animals. There should be more. I tried to make the sheep garrisoning work for corrals in my mod but the official build of game kept deprecating my changes.

See this thread which was largely ignore by official team: http://wildfiregames.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=19387&hl=corral

I found solutions to problems by copypasta some of mimo's code from a ticket. But then there were other problem like can't doubleclick the garrisone sheep and the sheeps still try to wander while in the corral (in fact the sheeps do wander, their selection circles start to move around the maps, lol). These should be simple things to have fixes.

I think most civ should have 2 type of trainable animal. Sheep/Goat and some kind of historically accurate cattle. Maybe Mauryas Indians can train the animals but not slaughter them (cultural aspect). To balance they get some kind of boost or tech to animal relic trickle.

These animals should also be peppered around map, maybe guarded by gaia peasants? Domestic animals should be very easy to convert/steal, just like in AOE-series. Very easy, or else too much micro for benefit.

I also had idea of "Chicken Coop" upgrade that makes corral spawn free chicken every 30 seconds (up to maybe maximum of 5 free chickies alive at any time).

And yes, in my mod I create "farmlands" on the skirmish maps that encourage players to build farms out in the "countryside" instead of nestle inside his base. Farm field and farmstead are able to build outside territory so player can try to grab these farmlands early. Player arent prevented from building a farm inside his base, it's just way more profitable to build on the remote farmlands.

Edited May 30, 2015 by wowgetoffyourcellphone

[fcxSanya]

Templates are indeed in XML. Technologies are in .json

Sorry, off topic - that is interesting news to me. I bet it has probably has been that way for years Just out of curiosity does anyone remember why the departure was made from XML? I'm assuming there was a logical reason why...

Hm, I planned to comment on this in May, but it stuck in bookmarks.

But since I don't see an answer in the subsequent posts from a glance (they all seem to be related to the original topic), I will comment now.

I believe we are using JSON when data is loaded directly by scripts, and XML when data is loaded by engine (it can be exposed to script too in this case).

http://trac.wildfiregames.com/wiki/JSON contains some additional info.

I bet it has probably has been that way for years

Some of the files mentioned in the wiki page were introduced in 2010-2011:

http://trac.wildfiregames.com/changeset/8498/ps/trunk/binaries/data/mods/public/simulation/data

Timestamp: Oct 30, 2010 1:27:23 PM

http://trac.wildfiregames.com/changeset/8494/ps/trunk/binaries/data/mods/public/civs

Timestamp: Oct 30, 2010 4:02:42 AM

http://trac.wildfiregames.com/changeset/8865/ps/trunk/binaries/data/mods/public/simulation/ai

Timestamp: Jan 12, 2011 12:29:00 PM

http://trac.wildfiregames.com/changeset/9096/ps/trunk/binaries/data/mods/public/maps/random

Timestamp: Mar 22, 2011 1:34:45 AM