On using Pyrogenesis for a 4x mod

[Ultimate Aurelian]

3 hours ago, m7600 said:

I don't really have a strong opinion on this point. I guess I could say that the term "Amazon" is European. 

Tupi would represent coastal tribes; Amazonians would represent the pre-colonial rainforest cultures (Who were more complex).

The reason i used a European name for the later is because we don't know how these cultures called themselves (Same reason 0 A.D uses the Roman term ''Gauls'').

[Sturm]

Other very general notes (initial and soft ones) regardless of the time frame adopted for an eventual mod on indigenous populations in Brazil.

- As I said in a previous post, such peoples and civilizations did not constitute monumental architecture and, therefore, a good part of the mod's buildings would be the "tabas" and "ocas", although there are records of large ocas with a more sophisticated construction structure. In addition to the ocas, there are also the "sambaquis" (middens), common on the Brazilian coasts.

- On fauna, it would be an opportunity to create unique animals such as Boidae snakes (anacondas and boa constrictors), macaws, manatees, tapirs, jaguars, marmosets etc.
- On weapons, in addition to the traditional long bows and spears, there were also the "bordunas" (clubs) and the blowguns, for instance.

- I don't know how this could be inserted in the game, but there are reports of cannibalistic practices in some of the peoples that inhabited the region. I recommend reading "True History: An Account of Cannibal Captivity in Brazil".
- Movies: A visual reference present in a film that is easy to find online is "The Mission", from 1986. Another interesting film, but this time a little more difficult to find is Desmundo, from 2002.
- A reference in .pdf is the book "The Indigenous Presence in the Formation of Brazil", which can be downloaded here.

Edited June 27, 2020 by Sturm

[m7600]

My question still is: would the idea of the native Brazilians be for a standard mod, or for a 4x mod?

I could see it work for a 4x. There are a lot of resources in the jungle, and a first attempt at a 4x would need 10-20 different resource types. For example: different types of food, including different types of fish, vegetables, fruit, animals for hunting, different types of wood, even different hallucinogenic drugs for shamanic use.

Edited June 27, 2020 by m7600
Examples

[GunChleoc]

Thanks for the info!

I don't know any other FLOSS engine off the top of my head that would fit your needs. Maybe Battle for Wesnoth for turn-based if research can be hacked in.

You could try asking on https://forum.freegamedev.net/.

[m7600]

7 hours ago, GunChleoc said:

Thanks for the info!

I don't know any other FLOSS engine off the top of my head that would fit your needs. Maybe Battle for Wesnoth for turn-based if research can be hacked in.

You could try asking on https://forum.freegamedev.net/.

Yes, I have Battle for Wesnoth, it's a great game. It uses its own markup language together with Lua. I've seen some really creative mods for that game.

[Sturm]

On 6/27/2020 at 6:19 PM, m7600 said:

My question still is: would the idea of the native Brazilians be for a standard mod, or for a 4x mod?

I could see it work for a 4x. There are a lot of resources in the jungle, and a first attempt at a 4x would need 10-20 different resource types. For example: different types of food, including different types of fish, vegetables, fruit, animals for hunting, different types of wood, even different hallucinogenic drugs for shamanic use.

Well m7600, first I register here my sincere admiration for your work in the mod of the African Empires. An amazing (fast) work! So, I confess that my suggestion would be for a standard mod of Brazilian indigenous peoples. I am not an expert of games, so I am unable to visualize the real differences between a standard RTS and a 4x game.

[m7600]

@Sturm Many thanks for the support! The mod will be published in about a week, or 2 weeks at most (I have to playtest everything, make sure everything is reasonably balanced, etc.).

4x games are indeed difficult to distinguish from classical strategy games, be they RTS or TBS. One of the (usual) indicators of a 4x game is a lot of different types of resources. Some people think that, for example, Heroes of Might and Magic III is a 4x, because it has gold, wood, stone, crystals, mercury, sulfur, gems, etc. A true 4x game, such as Dwarf Fortress (which is typically classified as a rougelike) has hundreds, if not thousands, of different resources and their possible combinations. For example, you don't have "metal", you have gold, silver, bronze, iron, lead, etc., and you don't obtain them in their pure form. You mine different ore types, such as galena, and then you have to smelt the galena in order to get silver bars. You then smith the silver bars into different metalworks. The same is true for other metals. And you can combine iron with carbon in order to get steel, etc. Instead of wood, you have different varieties of wood according to their source: pine, oak, mahogany, etc. It's a crazy game, you should check it out when you have the time. You can even collect different types of bones. I remember that in one session, one of my dwarfs built a table using turtle bones.

Edited June 29, 2020 by m7600
Spelling

[badosu]

3 hours ago, m7600 said:

Some people think that, for example, Heroes of Might and Magic III

A man of culture, I see

[m7600]

11 hours ago, badosu said:

A man of culture, I see

HoMM3 was my favorite of the series, although the 2nd one was really good as well.

[Sturm]

7 minutes ago, blackiyto said:

Conozco argentinos, venezolanos, peruanos, y brasileros que coinciden en que los mexicanos tienen la mejor comida. No hay maíz tan bueno como el de México.

Just to create controversy here, lol: I confess that I loved los Esquites when I was in Mexico city, but the best maíz that I ever tasted was in Canada.

Edited July 2, 2020 by Sturm
Typo

[m7600]

28 minutes ago, blackiyto said:

Conozco argentinos, venezolanos, peruanos, y brasileros que coinciden en que los mexicanos tienen la mejor comida. No hay maíz tan bueno como el de México.

Do you have a reason for copy-pasting my comment, or should I just report you for trolling?

[Trinketos]

3 hours ago, Sturm said:

Just to create controversy here, lol: I confess that I loved los Esquites when I was in Mexico city, but the best maíz that I ever tasted was in Canada.

 

I recommend the cemitas and the grasshoppers with lemon and salt.

 

Does anyone here play the paradox games?

[Sturm]

On 7/3/2020 at 12:39 AM, Trinketos said:

I recommend the cemitas and the grasshoppers with lemon and salt.

Hum, cemitas seem to be a really good choice. As for grasshoppers, even though I am an admirer of El Chapulín Colorado, my vegetarianism would prevent me from trying them. LOL. By the way, is there any civilization in 0 a.d or in any of its mods that was known for adopting a vegetarian diet? Any that could be addressed?

[m7600]

48 minutes ago, Sturm said:

By the way, is there any civilization in 0 a.d or in any of its mods that was known for adopting a vegetarian diet? Any that could be addressed?

Not that I'm aware of. There is, however, a controversial documentary called "The Game Changers", in which it is argued, among other things, that Spartans (or was it Romans? I can't remember) had a predominantly plant-based diet. You can see how this is a controversial claim...

It was produced by James Wilks, former UFC fighter, and the main criticisms were made by Chris Kresser, a nutritionist. Both of them were on Joe Rogan's podcast to discuss the film. I recommend listening to the podcast before watching the film.

Personally, I have no idea if the film's claims are accurate or not, but Wilks did defend his position with solid arguments.

 

[Loki1950]

The Indian sub-continent has a long history of vegetarian diets and it predates Buddhism so the Mauryan in 0ad would have a percentage of it's population following vegetarian diets mostly the priesthood and nobility.

Enjoy the Choice

    

[Andrettin]

On 7/3/2020 at 1:45 AM, Sturm said:

Just to create controversy here, lol: I confess that I loved los Esquites when I was in Mexico city, but the best maíz that I ever tasted was in Canada.

Isn't maíz just the Spanish word for corn? Or does it mean something more specific in this context?

[Andrettin]

On 6/28/2020 at 3:57 PM, m7600 said:

Yes, I have Battle for Wesnoth, it's a great game. It uses its own markup language together with Lua. I've seen some really creative mods for that game.

It is a great game. But the gameplay would be completely different if you did a 4x with it than with 0 AD. Do you prefer real time or turn-based? If the former, 0 AD would be a better choice. Neither is specifically geared towards being a 4x, and both are pretty moddable, so they're about equal on those aspects I would say.

You might also want to check out Widelands, which is an open-source implementation of The Settlers:

https://www.widelands.org/

I don't know whether it is still being actively developed, though.

[m7600]

39 minutes ago, Andrettin said:

It is a great game. But the gameplay would be completely different if you did a 4x with it than with 0 AD. Do you prefer real time or turn-based? If the former, 0 AD would be a better choice. Neither is specifically geared towards being a 4x, and both are pretty moddable, so they're about equal on those aspects I would say.

You might also want to check out Widelands, which is an open-source implementation of The Settlers:

https://www.widelands.org/

I don't know whether it is still being actively developed, though.

I have Widelands, it's pretty cool. On the issue of RTS vs TBS, it depends. Dwarf Fortress is RTS, and (to me at least) that game is the pinnacle of the 4x genre (although it is usually classified as a rougelike). So, for a 4x, I would choose RTS.

That doesn't mean that I don't enjoy TBS games though. Battle for Wesnoth and Heroes of Might and Magic III are among my favorites. 

[GunChleoc]

57 minutes ago, Andrettin said:

https://www.widelands.org/

I don't know whether it is still being actively developed, though.

It is. We're currently in feature freeze for Build 21

It doesn't have support for research though, which is why I didn't mention it. Research could be sort of built into a scenario via Lua scripting that unlocks buildings, but not as a general gameplay mechanic.

Edited July 6, 2020 by GunChleoc

[m7600]

8 minutes ago, GunChleoc said:

It is. We're currently in feature freeze for Build 21

It doesn't have support for research though, which is why I didn't mention it. Research could be sort of built into a scenario via Lua scripting that unlocks buildings, but not as a general gameplay mechanic.

On a scale of 1 to 10, how modification-friendly would you say Widelands is? Let's say I wanted to change the graphics for the buildings for example. Do I have to be a Lua expert, or can I achieve this with an intermediate level of knowledge?

[GunChleoc]

Intermediate knowledge should be enough.

I have a pending patch that changes the syntax though, so you should hold off until that one is in. This will happen soon after the release is out.

Also, tribes are not fully pluggable as mods yet - that's something I still want to program, but I haven't started on that yet.

Take a look at  https://www.widelands.org/documentation/map_objects/ and at some files in my branch to get a general idea.

For the animation system, we have some Blender scripts to export to png hosted on Launchpad. How to use the png files is documented on https://www.widelands.org/documentation/animations/.

[Sturm]

10 hours ago, Andrettin said:

Isn't maíz just the Spanish word for corn? Or does it mean something more specific in this context?

I kept the word in Spanish just because we were talking about Mexico and because part of the interlocutors speak Spanish. But you're right, it's just the same thing. Now, bringing my favorite corn recipes here to the South of the continent, I recommend a good Paraguayan soup.

[Trinketos]

10 hours ago, Andrettin said:

Isn't maíz just the Spanish word for corn? Or does it mean something more specific in this context?

maíz is the plant, elote is the fruit in spanish.

I would like an EU4 or Victoria 2 style game in 0 A.D.

[Lion.Kanzen]

13 minutes ago, Trinketos said:

maíz is the plant, elote is the fruit in spanish.

I would like an EU4 or Victoria 2 style game in 0 A.D.

not exactly in all Spanish.

 

[Loki1950]

BTW before the discovery of the "New World" all grains where called corn in English have a look at the etymology of the word in a good dictionary.

Enjoy the Choice