The First Punic War Campaign Project

[Tiber7 76]

The First Punic War Campaign Project

Guide

• I: Presentation of the Project

This project aims to create a campaign for the main game which lack of it. This campaign will be, it's in the title, "The First Punic War". I've started a map named "Siege of Agrigentum", which is about a siege of the first Punic war, in August 2016. I've had no time to pursue making the map but now I have more time. And I decided to put this a step further last week by creating a team to start this great project.

Team members: @Hannibal_Barca, @shieldwolf23, @Skhorn, @stanislas69 and me.

• II: Objectives

First of all, the overall goal of the campaign is to be the most historically accurate possible, yet being playable and enjoyable. So, you will have noticed that there are 3 main goals that give pride of place to the playing experience being the least inaccurate possible. However, talking about historical accuracy, it should not ( and it has not to) affect the playability by for example, making a scenario where the player is put in a freaking impossible situation. This means that we will have to make evenly balanced scenarios, against historical accuracy because the vast majorities of sieges and battles were unbalanced. This goes the same for natural resources which aren't equally spread in reality. Having specified these 3 major goals, we can now go into the heart of the matter.

• III: References

We're going to use as references: Wikipedia for the summaries and of course ancient contemporary (even better, witness) sources such as Polybius's "General History" which makes alone quite a bunch of very detailed describing pages.

• IV: Modifications or Additions to Vanilla Art

At first, we will use civilization present in the game because all civilizations present here are all cousins to some that are present in the vanilla. We're going to use Athenians either Spartans to represent the different Greek cities that took part to this war. And for the Mamertines (literally "Sons of Mars") were a group of mercenaries from an Italo-Celtic tribe in Campania (they were hired by Agathocles, Tyrant of Syracuse during the third Sicilian war, and some have stayed because they liked the climate and the place, these ones have conquered Messana and ruled it for 20 years using it as a fortified pirate basement for coastal and in-land raids) can be represented by Gauls because this is the civilization they are the closest to.

But we will need some new unique buildings to be made. so we will need some people to do this.

• V: Mapping

Each member of the project is going to choose a event (siege or battle) and make a map on it. He will present regularly his work to be criticized by the other members of the team in order to be the closest possible to the best. by the way mapping in a collaborative way, meaning here everyone working on the same map, would obviously not be practical for multiple reasons.

• VI: The Use of Triggers

We're of course going to use quite a lot of triggers all the way through this campaign.

I had the idea of creating (because I don't think it exists) a trigger to reduce the amount of HP, the attack damage and the speed of the units of the player who would play a besieged city unless he manages to create a trade line with his ally outdoors.

• VII: Introductions of scenarios

We will try to make cut-scenes by using the cinematic camera. Otherwise, we can make introductions in the AoE II style, meaning pretty drawings with a text scrolling and a voice-over recording of someone reading it. It could be an English native speaker or me in the absence of one because I can reach the perfect accent (believe me or not, I'm not overestimating my language ability, no self-celebration) with the help of the phonetic dictionary and I have a quite deep voice like you hear in many voice-over recording.

•  VIII: The Perspective

We're going to make the campaign with the Roman perspective because a player does not want to lose at the end of a campaign. What I've just said involve that we should make alternative scenarios to make the player win with Carthage which is obviously not what we came for. So, during the campaign the player is going to stick to Romans or their allies for the scenario in which they aren't present (because all the battles were not Carthage versus Rome).

In the campaign the player will have to stick to Romans or their allies but we will unlock the other belligerents in each map played alone. There will be a version of each map for the campaign and for the random playing of any map (the sole difference being the playability of everyone on the map by players).

•  IX: Possible List of the Scenarios

1. 264 B.C.: Battle of Messana (Romans vs Syracusans then Romans vs Carthaginians)
2. 263 B.C.: Siege of Syracuse (Romans vs Syracusans)
3. 262-261 B.C.: Siege of Agrigentum (Romans vs Carthaginians)
4. 260 B.C.: Battle of the Lipari Islands (Romans vs Carthaginians) (maybe)
5. 260 B.C.: Battle of Mylae (Romans vs Carthaginians) (maybe)
6. 259 B.C.: Siege of Aleria (Greeks vs Carthaginians) (maybe as an extra)
7. 258 B.C.: Battle of Sulci Tyrrhenica (Romans vs Carthaginians)(maybe)
8. 257 B.C.: Battle of Tyndaris (Romans vs Carthaginians) (maybe)
9. 256 B.C.: Battle of Cape Ecnomus (Romans vs Carthaginians)
10. 256 B.C.: Battle of Clypea (Romans vs Carthaginians)
11. 256 B.C.: Battle of Adys (Romans vs Carthaginians)
12. 256 B.C.: Siege of Tunis (Romans vs Carthaginians)
13. 255 B.C.: Battle of Tunis (Romans vs Carthaginians)
14. 254 B.C.: Siege and Battle of Panormus (Romans vs Carthaginians)
15. 251 B.C.: Siege and Battle of Panormus (again) (Romans vs Carthaginians)
16. 251 B.C.: Reconquest of Agrigentum (Romans vs Carthaginians)
17. 249 B.C.: Battle of Draepanum (Romans vs Carthaginians) (maybe)
18. 249 B.C.: Conquest of Eryx (Romans vs Greeks)
19. 242 B.C.: Siege of Draepanum (Romans vs Carthaginians)
20. March 10 241 B.C.: Battle of the Aegates (or Egadi Islands) (Romans vs Carthaginians)

This has not been decided yet so it's just for example. For now, maximum 7 maps in the campaign and maybe some extras later.

• X Conclusion

There's a lot of work and we'll need more volunteers for things out of our skills (like coders for new triggers and artists for new buildings and pictures).

P.S.: Want to join the team? Then contact me by PM

EDIT : github page of the project : https://github.com/0ADMods/campaign_first_punic_war

Edited June 30, 2019 by Tiber7

[leper 759]

Nice to see this!

I'll repeat something I said in an internal discussion related to possible campaigns. You neither need to necessarily have the player defeat the enemy to "win" (or rather end) a scenario in a campaign, nor are we limited to telling the story from only one side. Switching sides might be a lot more relevant for a possible Second Punic War campaign though.

[Lion.Kanzen 4.685]

You planned a some spcecial unit or eyecandy in your Campaing? I mean that aren't  in  game yet.

[Tiber7 76]

10 hours ago, Lion.Kanzen said:

 

You planned a some spcecial unit or eyecandy in your Campaing? I mean that aren't  in  game yet.

 

Possibly. Like for example the three epic temples of Syracuse.

Spoiler

Spoiler

Syracosia (Greek : Συρακουσία): the biggest ship of Antiquity. (Although not in the right period for the 1st Punic war, 240 B.C.)

Spoiler

Check this video

Spoiler

 

It would be fantastic if some artists work on it and make possible a mini-Syracusan civ

In this video are also some unique buildings from Agrigentum

Spoiler

 

These are just a few examples.

I'd like to have those gorgeous buildings, it would be too bad to have to replace it by the Parthenon

If a 3D model maker wants to join the project. We could extend further than these examples because there is much more.

Contact me by PM if you want to help

Edited March 12, 2017 by Tiber7

[Tiber7 76]

13 hours ago, leper said:

nor are we limited to telling the story from only one side. Switching sides might be a lot more relevant for a possible Second Punic War campaign though.

I think it's a great idea BUT let's first try to make the accurate one before reinventing history. Then we will think about making such a thing, which I'd really like to do.

[fabio 319]

Looking great indeed!

I'll just avoid the English recording since it will be difficult to translate. For consistency with the existing game I'll suggest to only have the on-screen text, can be easily translated and also changed if needed.

[Tiber7 76]

@fabio 

We could also subtitle the English recording if there's no voicing for the another language. 

But we should first have maps to comment before asking ourselves this question 

[fabio 319]

I think it would be nice to have some missions where the main objective is not to build a city and win a battle like standard map. Say, for example:

• a trigger choice-map similar to:

• a mission where you don't have to build anything, you have some champions/hero and you have to reach some objectives (kill a single unit, capture a specific building, rescue a monk, reach a fortress, ...);
• survive for X minutes (not necessarily a tower defence map).

This would add some variations on the playability.

[Tiber7 76]

@fabio, I really agree with you. That's what made the variety of AoE and AoM and that made the success of their campaigns.

"The more variety you have, the less redundant is your campaign and the more enjoyable it is." Tiber7 2017 

 

Edited March 15, 2017 by Tiber7

[JC (naval supremacist) 132]

 

one can try to recreate carthage ?

[Skhorn 389]

1 minute ago, JC (naval supremacist) said:

 

one can try to recreate carthage ?

Yeah, why not?

[JC (naval supremacist) 132]

check out  my post

 

[Tiber7 76]

We (@Skhorn  ) have finished the first map : 264 B.C.: Battle of Messana (Romans vs Syracusans then Romans vs Carthaginians)

Spoiler

 

[Tiber7 76]

And now it's really there lol :

Edited July 9, 2017 by Tiber7

[wowgetoffyourcellphone 6.235]

Zoom. Enhance. Zoom. Enhance.

 

I see you made a walkable wall!

[Tiber7 76]

16 minutes ago, wowgetoffyourcellphone said:

I see you made a walkable wall!

Yes, that's an idea of @Skhorn. He had already done that on some of his other maps

[viridis 5]

Cool, I see the battle of Messana looks great. Can you post the map so that we can try it?

By the way, how are the other battles going? Has anyone got work in progress? If so, please let us know in order not to duplicate work.

Lately I was trying to build maps from height maps so I could help in this project. Is it ok if I try to make some preliminary maps for the battles suggested? Is anyone working on this?

Thanks. Good work!

 

[Tiber7 76]

On 09/08/2017 at 4:05 PM, viridis said:

Can you post the map so that we can try it?

I have to ask @Skhorn to send it to me or directly here because he's the only one to have it. By the way it is not finished since it still need a lot of things to be implemented to it (description although not so important, triggers, cinema path,...). And, as you can see on the screenshot, there is only the Greek city of Messana and no other player on it yet.

On 09/08/2017 at 4:05 PM, viridis said:

By the way, how are the other battles going? Has anyone got work in progress?

@shieldwolf23 has already done a lot on the "Invasion of Africa" map.

And I unfortunately lost my almost finished map of Syracuse with the burning of my GPU and hard disk...

On 09/08/2017 at 4:05 PM, viridis said:

Thanks. Good work!

Thank you

[shieldwolf23 172]

Still working, far from finished yet, but all planned out for the Invasion of Africa

[fatherbushido 662]

Is that work linked with that https://github.com/0ADMods/campaign_first_punic_war?

[Skhorn 389]

On 8/12/2017 at 3:09 AM, fatherbushido said:

Is that work linked with that https://github.com/0ADMods/campaign_first_punic_war?

Yes, it is.

[Skhorn 389]

Messana

Inside the map (It's already finished, minor details were done, but its subject to changes)

Spoiler

 

[balduin 290]

Are the technical game mechanics (triggers etc.) already supported by the underling Pyrogenesis engine and 0 A.D.?

Is the goal of this project simply to show case the capabilities of the engine and to make a nice campaign or do you still have to implement a larger portion of triggers and other game mechanics as well?

[Skhorn 389]

13 minutes ago, balduin said:

Are the technical game mechanics (triggers etc.) already supported by the underling Pyrogenesis engine and 0 A.D.?

They are, but not certain at what point, but surely we will use them. Check this if you are not aware of it https://trac.wildfiregames.com/wiki/Triggers, besides there are a few maps using them. But to be fair, we haven't got to that point, so any task/possible trigger use said right now might change in the future.

13 minutes ago, balduin said:

Is the goal of this project simply to show case the capabilities of the engine and to make a nice campaign or do you still have to implement a larger portion of triggers and other game mechanics as well?

The goal of the project it's to have a playable campaign, not limited to destroying/wiping the enemy. We will use triggers, but not implement more, we are not programmers nor is in our scope, we might ask help from the devs team in any given situatio|n relating to triggers/core game.

Edited March 11, 2018 by Skhorn

[Imperator Ferrum Princeps I 67]

Idea: make a carthage version where you play as hamilcar barca, as he never lost a battle but still lost the war, and after that wanted revenge and a rematch, just like the player would. This would set up the 2nd punic war campaign (maybe a mercenary war one in between) really well.