The art of my new game

[SteelP]

Turin

7. Yes, I understand what you say about the shield, and I think that you are right, but I also think that it looks better this way

Well, about the detail of it's arm, I haven´t decided yet if this is the final version or just a prototipe for you to give me advice, anyway I just want to finish the art and the game as quickly as possible, so more people get in the project... By the way, it's not too bad, is it (the one of Francisco, of course )?

[SteelP]

In a few days I will start working on art (terrain and units), but before I want to tell you how is going to be the game, and which improvements would be implemented in the future (if a good programmer joins the project or I have the time and knowledge to make them):

-I try to make it a strategy-level wargame (not a tactical wargame), so:
-Units (like those in wesnoth) will have something like 10 soldiers each, so a hex will be 10 m long
-Hex size (or tile) will be enlarged
-There will be ranged infantry and artillery
-There won't be mountains or hills terrains like those in wesnoth (have you ever seen a mountain or hill 10 m long? ), they will be multihex terrain (or objects)
-Villages will be larger, and produce more income (made of grouped Wesnoth villages)
-Perhaps day-night cicle will be changed (If I know how) to last for more turns
-Battles will be larger (most of them) than the ones of Wesnoth, but probably shorter (units will have X2 or X3 hitpoints, but X5 or something attacks, so they will be more damaging)
-A sizeable part of the battles won't involve recruiting; units will be given to you to fight a great battle
-New resistances on terrains and armour types (resistance of the unit), cavalry will have different armour than infantry so they are a lot weaker against pierce.
-Races (only a pair or three will be made at first):
*Humans
*Barbarians
*Northern elves
*Elves of the forests
*Elves of darkness
*Dwarves
*Another race of dwarves, still searching a name for them
*Orcs


Changes made in new versions:
-Turns: at first both enemies will have a deployment phase, then a shooting phase, and finally a combat phase, and priority (the one who will attack, move, and shoot first) will be random. This combat mode will be optional, so you can decide if you like to play like now or this way (as tabletop wargames, I think)
-New damage types, like the damage from axes, from burns (it will be like poison),...
-Sieges: if destroyable terrain gets implemented somehow, walls of fortress could be made, and perhaps also siege towers
-Area of effect attacks: so when a unit is hit with a ranged attack, other units around it would also be damaged (but less than the targeted unit)
-Multihexed boats
-New races
-Improved AI (until this is done, battles will have to be designed carefuly)
-Improved multiplayer (until this is implemented, multiplayer could not be used, or it will be quite unbalanced)


I'll be grateful for your advice or suggestions, the idea is to make it as realistic and fun as possible, as long as I or anyone willing to help can implement the changes.

I'm also searching names for the game and the names of the races (the names the races give to themselves in their languages)

Thanks

[mlangsdorf]

I'm curious - why would axes have a different damage type that swords? They're both chopping/cutting/slashing weapons that do damage by cleaving muscle or bone and opening blood vessels. The most likely cause of incapacitation/death from an axe or sword wound is either dismemberment (of the head, torso, or limb) or unconsciousness from fatigue. The major difference being that axes are slower but hit harder than swords.

Another observation: if the hexes are 10 m in size, then a large map - say 40x40 - is barely a village itself. A small house might will barely fit in a hex, a large house is a multi-hex object.

[turin]

units is wesnoth aren't multiple people. why do i say this? 1, they have individual names, so they must be individual people. Two, they don't get less powerful as they get wounded, as would happen if you were killing off individual people in a group. Same with healing- you can't heal what is already dead.

and i agree that having hexes 10 m across is insane - almost as bad as EP's insisting hexes are 3 feet across. (sorry, couldn't resist).

elves of darkness have never made sense to me. Its not like normal elves are 'of the light'. Still, if you insist on having them, fine.


Overall, it seems like you are trying for a much larger battle scene, more realistic, more of a tactical wargame than a fantasy strategy game... i must admit, i dislike most of your ideas, but i guess some people will enjoy the game you are trying to make.

[Dave]

Overall, it seems like you are trying for a much larger battle scene, more realistic, more of a tactical wargame than a fantasy strategy game... i must admit, i dislike most of your ideas, but i guess some people will enjoy the game you are trying to make.

I concur, and please proceed with your game.

Hopefully some of the people who are like-minded can be pointed to your game, so we don't have to keep discussing ideas that the development team has decided against long ago

David

[SteelP]

Mlangsdorf, AFAIK axes can damage soldiers with heavy armour, while swords can´t do as much damage to them. When fighting unarmoured soldiers, swords are by far better, because they are easier to handle and inflict injuries as bad as the ones from axes. But it's not too important, keeping as it is now in Wesnoth (warriors with axes have less attacks and less chances to hit than swords, but deal more damage).

Another observation: if the hexes are 10 m in size, then a large map - say 40x40 - is barely a village itself. A small house might will barely fit in a hex, a large house is a multi-hex object.

Yes, and?
Maps will be larger, perhaps unit size won´t be 10m (15 or 20 m max).
There will be battles where you have to defend a city, and great part of the map will be made of houses (villages with modified icon), with only some multihex buildings giving you income (port, market, temple...), in other battles you will have to attack a village made of some groups of spread houses along a sizeable portion of the map.

units is wesnoth aren't multiple people. why do i say this? 1, they have individual names, so they must be individual people. Two, they don't get less powerful as they get wounded, as would happen if you were killing off individual people in a group. Same with healing- you can't heal what is already dead.

-Units (like those in wesnoth) will have something like 10 soldiers each, so a hex will be 10 m long

Ok, it's my fault, my English is bad. I meant that the units wich in Wesnoth have 1 warrior, in the game I want to make will have 10 warriors.
Of course, I think like you about Wesnoth.

and i agree that having hexes 10 m across is insane - almost as bad as EP's insisting hexes are 3 feet across. (sorry, couldn't resist).

I've played with games where hexes were 50 m long with fighting ranges of 1500-4000m and they where really good (Steel Panthers).

elves of darkness have never made sense to me. Its not like normal elves are 'of the light'. Still, if you insist on having them, fine.

I agree!, in fact, the name darkness doesn't mean they are bad, it means that they ambush their enemies at night, because they don´t live in forests, they live in cities and in open ground just like the northern elves, but while northern elves live in an island protected by magic and their armies, the elves of darkness are surrounded by enemies (larger and stronger than them), so they will have to use sneak tactics to weaken enemy armies before they reach their cities (they will use light cavalry with bows, poisoned arrows, ...).
They are just the same as the elves of the forests, but fighting on open grounds, caotic, and without that jolly life of the forests .
If someone gives me a better name, I'll be gratefull

Hopefully some of the people who are like-minded can be pointed to your game, so we don't have to keep discussing ideas that the development team has decided against long ago

Well, as I said I didn´t want to divert people from your project, I think people who would wish to help with this can still help you. But, yes, I think that this is exactly what some people keep asking for in these forums ...

[turin]

ah, now i undestand you're ideas!

the thing i didn't get about 10 m hexes was, i didn't know you were going to have multi-hex ranged attacks... now that i get that, it makes sense.

[SteelP]

I haven't decided this yet:
-top view:easier and faster to make the art, it would solve some graphical problems (such as forests), but it would need a lot of coding to make a unit face the side it was moving or fighting.

Some other future changes:
-limited amount of ammunition: so archers can't shoot hundreds of times (although there could be places or carts where they could reload, like healers restore hp) and a unit with 2 or more weapons (ex, axe and sword) can use some of them as a ranged weapon but then those weapons would be lost.
-improved cavalry charges: if they kill the enemy they are charging (if they use the spear), they occupy it's place and attack (not optional, they just attack) the new enemy they have in front of them. It would also be useful if the cavalry units that are after the one that is charging have to move with them, and if the others are killed, they occupy their place. That would be hard to code, but it would be like real cavalry charges.


What do u think?

[SteelP]

I'm doing the storyline of this game and Wesnoth (they would be the same), and I'm searching help in translation and with ideas of names for places and people.
This is a small portion of it, in spanish, about Dwarves
Any criticisms are welcome

En un principio hollaron el mundo tres razas de seres inteligentes: elfos, enanos y hombres.
Se dice que cada una de estas razas les fueron concedidos unos dones diferentes, así los elfos son seres inmortales y solo pueden morir por las heridas inflingidas por una bestia u otro ser, además son rápidos de mente, ágiles de movimientos, de una destreza sobrehumana y, a pesar de ser más delgados que un humano, son igual de fuertes, además de más altos y bellos. Por lo evidentes que eran estas virtudes, y por el hecho de que las tierras de las que son originarios son conocidas como las tierras bendecidas, las otras razas les conocen como los bendecidos.
Los enanos son considerados como el opuesto de estas virtudes, además de ser feos desde el punto de vista humano o elfo, bajos de estatura y de movimientos poco elegantes, nacieron en unas tierras rodeadas al norte por las montañas y al sur por los bosques, tierras inhospitas y peligrosas; sin embargo, también son mucho más fuertes que humanos o elfos, insensibles al cansancio, más resistentes al daño que los hombres y mucho más que los delgados y frágiles elfos, y con la misma habilidad para fabricar objetos que un elfo. Sobre la duración de su vida nada claro se sabe, pues la duración de sus días varía mucho entre un enano y otro, aunque suele estar asociado a la tenacidad del individuo; aunque los enanos se caracterizan por su tenacidad, los enanos que más deseo de vivir tienen entre sus conjéneres pueden llegar a alcanzar vidas larguísimas.
Los dones de los hombres son mucho más sutiles, hasta el punto de que llegaron a culpar a los dioses de su supuesta inferioridad; tienen unas vidas cortas, una habilidad menor que las otras razas y son débiles y frágiles comparados con los enanos. Sin embargo se reproducen más rápido que enanos y elfos y siempre buscan cosas nuevas que descubrir, lo que los llevo a expandirse y colonizar nuevas tierras, y a ser la raza más numerosa.

Los enanos vivian en paz en las llanuras de (x, el continente de Wesnoth), eran agricultores y granjeros, aunque también trabajaban con habilidad los metales y la piedra. Procuraban alejarse de las montañas, donde vivían bestias terribles, contra las que sus armas de bronce no podían nada, y solo se aventuraban a ir los mas osados, en busca de metales preciosos, que eran allí muy abundantes; también evitaban los bosques, pues se decía que en el interior de los grandes bosques vivían seres enormes que aparecían de la nada y atacaban con una fuerza descomunal; probablemente esto no eran más que invenciones, pues no se sabe de nadie que sobreviviese a uno de estos encuentros. Lo cierto es que los enanos desde muy pronto aprendieron a temer los bosques, y solo se acercaban a sus lindes para cortar unos pocos árboles y volver a sus casas antes de que se pusiese el sol.

LA COLONIZACIÓN DE LAS MONTAÑAS
Debido al amor que tenían los enanos a las cosas echas por ellos mismos, progresaron rápidamente en el descubrimiento de nuevas formas del trabajo de la roca, el metal y las materias preciosas, hasta el punto en que superaron incluso a los habilidosos e inteligentes elfos. Paralelamente a este proceso, se fueron haciendo más necesarias las incursiones a las montañas del Norte en busca de minerales, y cada vez se podían realizar con más seguridad gracias a las nuevas armas y armaduras de metales cada vez más resistentes. Asimismo, las expediciones eran cada vez más numerosas y se quedaban más tiempo, excavando más y más profundamente la dura roca para extraer los preciados minerales, hasta que se hicieron minas permanentes fuertemente protegidas, de las que largas caravanas custodiadas por cientos de guerreros llevaban todo tipo de riquezas a las llanuras, y volvían luego con comida y suministros. Como no podía ser de otra forma, estas riquezas atrajeron a cada vez más enanos a las minas en busca de fortuna, hasta que las más grandes de estas minas se transformaron en ciudades permanentes, auténticas fortalezas de piedra que nadaban en la abundancia gracias a la extracción de metales y piedras preciosas. Sin embargo, la vida en esas ciudades no era tan feliz como podía suponerse, pues el trabajo en las minas era duro, la riqueza no estaba asegurada y los trolls eran muy abundantes, y se infiltraban de vez en cuando en las minas, asaltando y devorando a los enanos que podían sorprender.