A History Tale [Image Heavy]

[Setreal]

A History Tale

General Concept
"A History Tale" is most akin to the risk/strategy line of maps but takes a more civilization-esque approach to things while not being too overly complicated. Whereas in other strategy games the player often builds up a town similar to melee games in "A History Tale" all the non-warfare action is handled directly in your cities (there's a demonstration of this lower down in the post). Units spawn at regular intervals at each city you control and their numbers and types are dependent on a number of different factors (you can purchase additional units however). Each player starts with one city (there a bunch of neutral cities littered throughout the map and they will not go down without a fight) and seeks either to capture every other city on the map (except those of their allies) or win by popular vote in the League of Nations. I haven't thought of special modes yet but I'm likely to have alternate modes such as Permanent Alliances, Domination (where you would only need to control 65% of the map to win), etc.

Layout
ALL INFORMATION IS SUBJECT TO CHANGE BASED ON A WHIM, IDEAS FROM YOU GUYS, ETC. ETC.

When starting a new game this is basically what you would be looking at. You begin with your capital (the capital of Britannia is London) and a small force of units (which aren't there, I placed some footmen for vision reasons).

In the top right is your personal multiboard that tells you your...

- Type of Government: You can switch between different types of government at will each of which have different advantages and disadvantages. There is a limit as to how often you can switch. You begin with Despotism which has no effects. You unlock different types of government as the game progresses.

REPRESENATIVE DEMOCRACY
Advantages: Increased income from storehouses. Can spend gold to instantly finish researching a technology. Disadvantages: Decreased research rate.

OLIGARCHY
Advantages: Increased automatic military spawn rates. Unit ranks require less kills. Disadvantages: Decreased population growth rate.

LIBERTARIANISM
Advantages: Increased population growth rate. Increased population caps. Disadvantages: Decreased military spawn rate.

THEOCRACY
Advantages: Enables spawning of zealots. Religions have no disadvantages. Disadvantages: Can only ally with players of the same religion.

MONARCHY
Advantages: Enhanced military spawns. Recieve a random bonus lump sum of gold when the income timer expires because of the monarchy's dependance on stability. Disadvantages: Cannot change religions.

COMMUNISM
Advantages: Enables permanent alliances. Greatly enhances spy units. Immune to the work of enemy spies. Disadvantages: Switching to another type of government from communism takes three times as long as normal.

- State Religion: You can switch between different religions which, as with governments, have different effects on your empire. Each religion also has a special event that can only be used so often. There is a limit as to how often you can switch between religions as well. You begin with Paganism which has no effects. You unlock different religions as the game progresses.

BUDDHISM (Anyone got any ideas?)
Advantages: ? Disadvantages: Weakened military spawns. Event: ?

HINDUISM
Advantages: Increased effectiveness of bazaars. Disadvantages: Cannot initiate the breaking of an alliance. Event: Moksha. The freeing of some of your people from Samsa-ra temporarily lifts your people's spirits, greatly increasing their fighting effectiveness near your cities.

JUDAISM
Advantages: Increased income. Disadvantages: Decreased population growth rate. Event: Exodus. Frees a nuetral city below # population from servitude. The city in turn joins your civilization.

CHRISTIANITY
Advantages: Increased military spawn rate. Disadvantages: Decreased income. Event: Crusades. Forces alliances between all Christian players and provides each player with a small crusader army.

ISLAM
Advantages: Allows the spawning of messengers. Disadvantages: None. Event: Pilgrimage. Sends all your messengers on a pilgrimage to Mecca. When they return you recieve a lump sum of gold based on the number of messengers you sent.

ATHEISM
Advantages: Greatly decreased academy cost. Disadvantages: Cannot ally with non-atheist civilizations. Event: Logic. Dramatically increases your research rate for 10 seconds.

- Income: Every 60 seconds you receive an income, a number directly related your total population and the number of cities you control (some buildings, religions, etc. also effect this). In this screen your income is 10,000 (for testing purposes) and to the right of that is the income timer which counts down to when you will receive income. Each individual city also has their own separate income where they receive 1 gold every 2 seconds (storehouses effect this number).

- Research: You research one technology at a time whose progress is displayed here by progress bar and by a numeral %. This prevents having to switch between multiple buildings to research a complicated maze of upgrades each with wildly unrelated prerequisites and allows for a nice streamlined techtree.

ANIMAL HUSBANDRY
Stables

ARCHERY
Military Camp
Archers
Crossbowman
Longbowman
Guard Tower

ARTILLERY
Artillery
Artillery Posts

ASSEMBLY LINE
Factory
Infantry

ASTRONOMY
Observatory
Temple
Some religions

BANKING
Market
Bank

BIOLOGY
Hospital
Medic

BRONZE WORKING
Smith
Forge
Spiked Barricades

CHEMISTRY
Laboratory

CIVIL SERVICE
Some gov civics
Maceman
Courthouse

CODE OF LAWS
Town Hall
Some gov civics

COMPASS
Harbor
Explorer

CONSTITUTION
City Hall
Some gov civics
Fortifications

CONSTRUCTION
Storehouse
Catapult
Trebuchet
Fortified Walls

CURRENCY
Bazaar
Trading Post
Vault

EDUCATION
Academy
University

FLIGHT
Hangar

GUILDS
Knight
Horse Archer
Guard Tower

GUNPOWDER
Rifleman
Cannon
Cannon Tower
Manned Fortification

INDUSTRIALISM
Shipyard
Armory

IRONWORKING
Ironworks
Spearman

MEDICINE
Field Tent
Medical Center
Healer

MILITARY TRADITION
Barracks
Garrison
Improved Spiked Barricades

MONOTHEISM
Some religions
Monastery

POLYTHEISM
Some religions
Shrine

ROBOTICS
Airport
Factory

ROCKETRY
SAM Infantry
Flak Tower
Missle Silo

SATELLITES
Enables vision of entire map.
Radar

- Population: Each city you control has a population that grows by itself over time and can be sped / slowed by certain buildings, religions, etc. Population is a factor in how many units spawn at each city, are needed to upgrade a city's age (from ancient->medieval for example), income etc.

In the bottom right corner is the control panel for Ancient London. Every city's control panel will look almost exactly the same. From left to right and top to bottom.

- Manage City Buildings: Here is where you build and upgrade buildings for each city. Instead of having a worker go out and build them the city does this by itself.

- Manage City Defenses: Here is where you build and upgrade defenses for your city. This works identically to the Manage City Buildings tab. Currently this holds Construct Sentry Towers (Constructs 3 sentry towers to defend your city.) and Construct Wall (Increases defense of friendly units outside this city.). Ideas are welcome.

Here I have clicked on the Manage City Defenses tab and only have the option to construct scout towers (haven't filled this tab in yet).

As you can see the city now has scout towers, without the use of a worker. I'm unsure whether I'm going to physically show all buildings your city makes or just the defensive ones. I'd like some opinions on this.

Here I have upgraded the scout towers to guard towers by clicking the button again*. (Towers are now separately upgraded. So while you would build the sentry towers through the city, you upgrade them on a 1 to 1 basis)

A look at the Manage Buildings tab. These are all the non-defensive buildings your city can construct. No looking for workers and no messy melee-style base. Everything is centralized in your cities.

COTTAGES - Increases population growth rate.
Cottages
Hamlets
Villages
Towns

BARRACKS - Upgrades all further military units spawned at this city.
Military Camp
Barracks
Garrison
Headquarters

ACADEMY - Hastens the rate at which you research technologies.
Academy
University
Observatory
Laboratory

FORGES - ? (Used to be that it would speed up building construction, but this is impossible with the system I'm using for constructing buildings. Any alternative uses for this building are welcome.)
Smith
Forge
Ironworks
Factory

STOREHOUSE - Increases your city's personal income.
Storehouse
Vault
Bank

TOWN HALL - Increases the bonuses provided by your state government.
Town Hall
Courthouse
City Hall

SHRINE - Increases the bonuses provided by your state religion.
Shrine
Monastery
Temple

BAZAAR - Provides additional gold for every ally you have when the income timer expires.
Bazaar
Trading Post
Market

FIELD TENT - Slowly heals friendly units outside of this city.
Field Tent
Medical Center
Hospital

STABLES - Enables the spawning of mounted units.
Stables
Armory

HANGAR - Enables the spawning of some air units.
Hangar
Airport

HARBOR - Enables the spawning of some sea units.
Harbor
Shipyard

Note: Coastal cities can build harbors while non-coastal cities can build stables.

- Manage City Military: As mentioned earlier units spawn by themselves. While this is great and all you will be using this tab alot anyway. This is where you can spend gold to get military units.

- Manage Heroes and Royalty: In this tab you can hire heroes (there are 2 for every civilization and if they die they are gone for good so be careful with them) and manage your royalty. Royalty are basically a costly passive bonus for a city. Each city can only have one member of royalty and each civilization has 5 to choose from.

Heroes

Britannia
Richard the Lion Heart: Arthas with Frostmourne
Edward IV: Archmage

Roman Empire
Scipio Africanus: Blood Elf Lt.
Lucius Sulla: Paladin

Greece
Heracles: Beastmaster
Atalanta: Jaina

Persian Empire
Rostam: Orc Warlord
Memnon: Maceman (Custom Model)

Egypt
Menhit: Shandris (With Custom Skin)
Set: Bloodmage

Hispania
El Cid: Proudmoore
Hernan Cortes: Garithos

Germania
Sigfried: Gladiator (Custom Model)
Ailcun: Human Sylvannas

Arabia
Ali the Warrior: Demon Hunter (With Custom Skin)
Khalid ibn al-Walid: Mountain King

Mongols
Subutai: Axeman (Custom Model)
Jebe "The Arrow": Creep Spearman

Gaul
Charlemagne: Knight (I know this is an arguable place to put him, but I was desperate)
Clovis I: Alternate Campaign Paladin (Black Hair)

- Manage Research: You choose what your empire is researching here.

- Manage Wonders: Wonders are like other buildings except they provide some kind of global bonus and there can only be one on the entire map. If someone builds the Great Wall then everyone else is out of luck.

THE GREAT WALL
Provides walls to all your cities that give a defense bonus to nearby friendly units.

THE TEMPLE OF SOLOMON
Increases your income based on how many other players share the same religion as you.

THE GREAT LIGHTHOUSE
Provides bonuses to all of your current and future sea units.

THE PARTHENON
Increases the rate at which your heroes gain experiences and increases the levels of all of your existing heroes by 3.

THE PYRAMIDS
Enables all forms of government. Possible second bonus.

THE SISTINE CHAPEL
Enables all religions. Possible second bonus.

THE ORACLE
Instantly completes the technology you are currently researching. Slightly hastens the rate at which you research technologies.

THE HANGING GARDENS
Increases the population in all of your cities and slightly increases their population growth rate.

THE TAJ MAHAL
Significantly increases the bonuses provided by royalty.

THE LEAGUE OF NATIONS
TBD. Will factor into a peaceful way of winning.

- Manage State Government: Change your empire's government.

- Manage State Religion: Change your empire's religion.

In the bottom left there is a report button which prints out a detailed report on your city. You can also type -report for a report.

In the bottom right is the option to upgrade a city from ancient to medieval and so forth. Whereas other games have global ages in "A History Tale" each city has their own age. Upgrading a city's age raises it's population, unlocks more units for automatic spawning and purchase, etc.

Other Features
- Full text trade/ally/etc. options. Trade, ally, unally, get a report, get a tutorial, etc. all through text options such as -help.

- 10 Civilizations each with two unique military units, two unique heroes, and five unique members of royalty. I'm thinking of allowing each civ the option of building an item shop for the hero units in which case each civ would have unique items as well.

- 11 buildings (not counting upgrades or defensive buildings) and 10 wonders that each city can construct. TDB number of defensive buildings, religions, goverment types, and technologies.

- 38 spawnable units (not final), 12 unique units (2 per civ), 12 unique heroes (2 per civ). Fight on the ground, across the seas, and through the air.

- Fun fast paced action that isn't too bogged down by city micromanagement while retaining a sense of strategy. (I hope!).

Progress
I'm not going to wow you with some magic progress bars. This is the down and dirty of what is done and what isn't.

- Base units and heroes (All units have been named and assigned to models. About half of the base units have stats. Heroes have no spells and the spells have not yet been thought up).

- Basic city tabs. (Made tooltips/buttons for the city interface. You can browse through all the tabs.)

- Base for City Buildings / Wonders. (All the buttons and tooltips are there for the buildings and wonders but their exact stats are not set. Most buildings are constructable. About half of Wonders are. Tooltips for most buildings need to be redone).

- Multiboard, Income System, Text Trading/Allying/Unallying, City Capture System are complete. Have basic outline for unit spawn system.

- Most religions and governments.

- Some chat commands. Still need to do the tutorial one.

- I would like to eventually add different modes such as Permanent Alliances, Domination (where you would only need to control 65% of the map to win), Barbarians (Players Vs Buffed Neutral Cities) etc.

There is alot to be done!

Interested?
I'd love to hear any ideas, criticism, etc. you guys have. You can post it here, e-mail me ([email protected]), or IM me (tivrames).

I also have some positions to fill for those interested...

Terrainer: 0/1 My terrainer dropped out a few days ago so this means I could really use a new terrainer (who would unfortunately have to work from scratch). PM, post, IM etc if interested.

Testers: ?/? (I'm not quite at the testing stage but it's never too early to take down names so just say if you're interested).

That's it! Thanks for reading I know it was a long post. PLEASE post your ideas, criticism, etc. I love ideas. I eat ideas for breakfast. Give me your ideas!

UPDATED 6/24/07

 

[Psiblade94122]

wow... it looks awesome, ive bin wanteing to make a centralized biulding civilization game, but i never thought of it to such a detale with surrounding the main biuldings with houses and trees, truly impressive work you have here, lets hope it gets popular cuz i want wait to play it

(ps: as much as civilization games are complicated, you might want to keep this simple, i usualy get leavers because the player cannot understand what goes where to get the game to work, and trust me... with the population of players that dota brought to b-net, there are plenty of those people <never seid all, so dont get mad, i know there are some intellegent dota players but the bulk of them seem pretty stupid and tend to cuss after every other word>)

 

[WindexGlow]

Looks very promising, and fun.
While I didn't read it all, it might be an interesting idea to allow players to start new towns.
New Towns = Very slow growth
Slightly New Towns =Medium Speed growth
Medium towns = Slightly faster Speed growth (noticble though)
Large Towns =Very slow growth (isn't going to get much better)

Protecting a new town would have rewards in the futore, but if the player is having a difficult time protecting his main towns, he'll likely leave it.

 

[elmstfreddie]

ZOMG! Looks uber pwnage.
Sign me up for testing (if you have xfire add elmstfreddie)

Oh and I saw you could get air. That could cause problems. Air is always unbalanced no matter what you do, because lets face it, even in real life air pwns all. You might wanna make air super-dee-duper expensive.

 

[Pyrogasm]

I must say... I admire the way "New London" is constructed as new upgrades are researched. It has so much more of a town-like feel than a simple town hall in the middle of a plain of grass does.

I would love to play-test this.

 

[WindexGlow]

Which is why we have occasional helicopter crashes in iraq. (Mostly due to lucky shots hitting very low armored parts)
Even though al quadi has almost unlimited funds, we're lucky they can't get their hands on more modern aa weapons (missiles, guns, ect)

And while air does 'pwn' (hate using that word) all, ground troops are more usefully in cost. (It takes around 10k an hour to fly most attack aircraft, let alone the bomb costs)

BTW, in the first picture, make sure you have doodads to scale so they look good with your unit scale. Right now, those barrels can fit around 5-8 of those soldiers inside of it, with room to spare.

 

[Setreal]

wow... it looks awesome, ive bin wanteing to make a centralized biulding civilization game, but i never thought of it to such a detale with surrounding the main biuldings with houses and trees, truly impressive work you have here, lets hope it gets popular cuz i want wait to play it

(ps: as much as civilization games are complicated, you might want to keep this simple, i usualy get leavers because the player cannot understand what goes where to get the game to work, and trust me... with the population of players that dota brought to b-net, there are plenty of those people <never seid all, so dont get mad, i know there are some intellegent dota players but the bulk of them seem pretty stupid and tend to cuss after every other word>)

I think most people, especially if they subject themselves to public dota games, can see the immaturity present in the bnet community. Since bnet is free and the games don't take a heavy toll on computers bnet naturally draws in a much larger audience of younger players than other games. Because of this, and the fact that I want a map based around the player relaxing and simply having fun, am definitely trying to keep it from being too complex. I'm also aiming for a low learning curve so that the game will be easy to pick up but hard to master. I'm no god though and certainly won't be able to accomplish this by myself but hope to do so through heavy testing and the input from this and other forums.

Looks very promising, and fun.
While I didn't read it all, it might be an interesting idea to allow players to start new towns.
New Towns = Very slow growth
Slightly New Towns =Medium Speed growth
Medium towns = Slightly faster Speed growth (noticble though)
Large Towns =Very slow growth (isn't going to get much better)

Protecting a new town would have rewards in the futore, but if the player is having a difficult time protecting his main towns, he'll likely leave it.

My plan for population in the game was to have it so that building cottages and upgraded versions of the same building type would simply increase the city's population in which they were built. You've given me the idea that perhaps some kind of growth in the population # should happen behind the scenes and perhaps the rate at which the cities' population grows is based on these buildings. This new idea is intriguing but I'm worried that it may be a little too complicated and abstract. What do you guys think on this?

ZOMG! Looks uber pwnage.
Sign me up for testing (if you have xfire add elmstfreddie)

Oh and I saw you could get air. That could cause problems. Air is always unbalanced no matter what you do, because lets face it, even in real life air pwns all. You might wanna make air super-dee-duper expensive.

I don't have xfire but I'll contact you for testing when the time comes. As for air units I currently plan on them being late game units that are fairly expensive and have reliable counters. I think this should keep them balanced but we'll see once testing begins.

I must say... I admire the way "New London" is constructed as new upgrades are researched. It has so much more of a town-like feel than a simple town hall in the middle of a plain of grass does.

I would love to play-test this.

I'll contact you once testing starts. Thanks for showing interest.

BTW, in the first picture, make sure you have doodads to scale so they look good with your unit scale. Right now, those barrels can fit around 5-8 of those soldiers inside of it, with room to spare.

Wow. Didn't even think of scaling the barrel doodads. Thanks for the heads up.

Thanks for all your replies everyone. I want to hear any and everything you guys can think of (ideas, criticism, whatever). Also the terraining position is still open if anyone is interested. Thanks again!

 

[elmstfreddie]

Oh, maybe you should have stone/tile/cobble floor near the middle of the town, so it's more realistic. However there shouldn't be different tile near the more farther away houses.

Hmm, also maybe you could start out with a blank religion (yeah I know those ones have no affect but just stick with me) and blank government, and a population of like 5. When you start "Fire" is already being researched, and once it is, you get a little village, maybe pop 25. Then it just expands until you get "Ancient London" or whatever.
I don't know if that's practical though

 

[Monsterous]

If you ever get this done - Then it should be one of the greatest games ever.

IF

But of course you will.
I hope.

But it looks interesting and fun. So im sure many people will play it. The only thing im worried about is the audience (most are not willing to go into "complex" mode and will go dumb mode all the time and use short-hand lettering, swear and say (excuse me) OMG LIK WTF I CNT DO NYTHIN (done) and so on.)

But apart from that. Id gladly play it. This is probabbly the Refuge for all the DOTA haters

+rep. Easily.

 

[Setreal]

Oh, maybe you should have stone/tile/cobble floor near the middle of the town, so it's more realistic. However there shouldn't be different tile near the more farther away houses.

Hmm, also maybe you could start out with a blank religion (yeah I know those ones have no affect but just stick with me) and blank government, and a population of like 5. When you start "Fire" is already being researched, and once it is, you get a little village, maybe pop 25. Then it just expands until you get "Ancient London" or whatever.
I don't know if that's practical though

I'll probably end doing something like that with the terrain but I'm not particularly concerned about that right now. Terraining position is still open if anyone is interested by the way. As for your second suggestion it's definitely possible but I don't see the point except to delay the start of the game. Can you clarify?

But it looks interesting and fun. So im sure many people will play it. The only thing im worried about is the audience (most are not willing to go into "complex" mode and will go dumb mode all the time and use short-hand lettering, swear and say (excuse me) OMG LIK WTF I CNT DO NYTHIN (done) and so on.)

But apart from that. Id gladly play it. This is probabbly the Refuge for all the DOTA haters

+rep. Easily.

If you look back at my reply to psi's post I think that sums up my feelings on the bnet audience. And thanks for your support!

There's a couple of things I'd really like to hear your guys opinion's about at the moment.

1) Windex brought up the idea of a population that grows over time and that would receive a growth bonus from buildings such as cottages (I originally planned to have it that buildings like cottages simply added to the population as a one time thing). While Windex's idea is intriguing it would be a bit abstract to implement and perhaps unnecessarily complex. What is your opinion on this?

2) I really need ideas for the advantages/disadvantages of different religions and government types. Also I'm not sure whether to use real life religions or not (if one religion is better than another this could be seen as offensive, should I just make them up?).

3) Hero ideas. Each civ has two heroes (which I shall list below) but I haven't come up with spells for them yet. I'd love to hear any spell ideas you guys might have for these heroes (please keep in mind this game is semi-realistic so no time stop or volcanoes). Also if you think my choices of heroes are ill-advised just tell me so (or tell me if you have a better suggestion). Keep in mind I'm using alot of popular figures in history as royals instead of heroes.

Britannia
Richard the Lion Heart: Arthas with Frostmourne
Edward IV: Archmage

Roman Empire
Scipio Africanus: Blood Elf Lt.
Lucius Sulla: Paladin

Greece
Heracles: Beastmaster
Atalanta: Jaina

Persian Empire
Rostam: Orc Warlord
Memnon: Maceman (Custom Model)

Egypt
Menhit: Shandris (With Custom Skin)
Set: Bloodmage

Hispania
El Cid: Proudmoore
Hernan Cortes: Garithos

Germania
Sigfried: Gladiator (Custom Model)
Ailcun: Human Sylvannas

Arabia
Ali the Warrior: Demon Hunter (With Custom Skin)
Khalid ibn al-Walid: Mountain King

Mongols
Subutai: Axeman (Custom Model)
Jebe "The Arrow": Creep Spearman

Gaul
Charlemagne: Knight (I know this is an arguable place to put him, but I was desperate)
Clovis I: Alternate Campaign Paladin (Black Hair)

Thanks for reading!

 

[WindexGlow]

1) Windex brought up the idea of a population that grows over time and that would receive a growth bonus from buildings such as cottages (I originally planned to have it that buildings like cottages simply added to the population as a one time thing). While Windex's idea is intriguing it would be a bit abstract to implement and perhaps unnecessarily complex. What is your opinion on this?

Every 5 minutes
Set Tempbuildingbuild =  village[1] - postpopulation[1]
Create (TempBuildingbuild (Divided by) populationrequiredfornewbuilding)
number of (City Building) at L (In this case, L = position of your city)
Set PostPopulation[1] = Village[1]

Every 10 seconds
Set village[1] = village[1] (multiply) 1.1
If then else
   if  village[1] is equal to or less than 500
   than  Set village[1] = village[1] (multiply) 1.2
   Else
If then else
   if  village[1] is equal to or more than 500
   than  Set village[1] = village[1] (multiply) 1.02
   Else

Now I didn't make those in the trigger editor, but I believe that should be the very basic form of the trigger you would need to do.
The biggest problem that could go unnoticed till the first beta: make sure you cap the population at a certain amount. Make it a random number,such as
If then else
if village[1] is equal to or more than 5000
than Set village[1] = village[1] (multiply) (Random number between .9 and 1.02)
Else

You would need to have another equation level set around at 4500 so the population doesn't dip too much.
The best part is, you can easily add/modify and add new features, such as commercial and industrial.
It would be very messy to do that, and complex (for the actual players) but it's possible and easy to do.

 

[Setreal]

Population Trigger

Ah I think I made myself unclear. It wasn't that I was worried that it wasn't possible but that the player wouldn't understand what was going on behind the scenes in comparison to buildings that add a clear amount to a city's population. I have no problem adding in a population that grows gradually but the question is whether that's the best call or not.

 

[WindexGlow]

A buildings population: Do you mean cities become larger depending on their population? Or do you mean houses get bigger depending on how many times you upgrade it/how many people are living in it?


If population can be seen as buildings, it's pretty simple. I actually included that in the trigger I added.

Create (TempBuildingbuild (Divided by) populationrequiredfornewbuilding) number of (City Building) at L (In this case, L = position of your city)


You can add more features, such as change the unit's scale/color.

 

[elmstfreddie]

I don't really know where I was leading with the cave-man thing, but it would kind of be funny to run around has cave men well "fire" researches Maybe the cave-man thing can be used as a tutorial, and explains stuff well fire researches. And maybe at the beginning of the game a vote is held for the cave-man era first?

 

[Setreal]

A buildings population: Do you mean cities become larger depending on their population? Or do you mean houses get bigger depending on how many times you upgrade it/how many people are living in it?


If population can be seen as buildings, it's pretty simple. I actually included that in the trigger I added.

Create (TempBuildingbuild (Divided by) populationrequiredfornewbuilding) number of (City Building) at L (In this case, L = position of your city)


You can add more features, such as change the unit's scale/color.

I'm not having a problem implementing this. I'm questioning whether or not I want to do it your way or not. Here's how it works right now:

- Each city starts with a certain population.
- If you build cottages (or upgrade cottages to hamlets then villages and then towns) it adds a pre-determined amount to that city's population.
- Population is a factor in how many units spawn at each city, are needed to upgrade a city's age (from ancient->medieval for example which unlocks more units, technologies, etc.), etc.

If I did it your way cottages/hamlets/villages/towns would instead of increasing the base population would either increase the population growth rate or raise the population cap or perhaps both.

Here's the advantages/disadvantages to your method.
+ More realistic.
+ More varied city populations.
+ More flexible.
- Player doesn't know what's going on behind the scenes (i.e. A typical bnet player may get confused).
- Harder to balance (though not by much).

After thinking about it gradual population growth seems like it would be a better idea (I think I'll go about adding it in tomorrow). Anyone have any objections to this? Or comments on the things I talked about in my post before last?

EDIT: You posted before I did elms.

I don't really know where I was leading with the cave-man thing, but it would kind of be funny to run around has cave men well "fire" researches Maybe the cave-man thing can be used as a tutorial, and explains stuff well fire researches. And maybe at the beginning of the game a vote is held for the cave-man era first?

Having a tutorial option at the start, while a nifty idea, probably is just going to waste man hours. The only time this would get used would be in games I host (no pubbies are going to vote to play a tutorial). I will however have extensive help documentation via. text commands and the quests bar. Overall the game shouldn't be too difficult to get an initial grasp of so hopefully this won't be a problem.

 

[WindexGlow]

Haha, I re-read your post earlier, and it might actually be better to do both of those ideas.

The city would naturally grow over time, or the player can spend some of his coffers and make it grow alittle faster.

 

[Setreal]

Haha, I re-read your post earlier, and it might actually be better to do both of those ideas.

The city would naturally grow over time, or the player can spend some of his coffers and make it grow alittle faster.

The way population works is now officially changed. Population grows at set time intervals (currently every 60 seconds). The amount of population added to each city at this point is determined on whether that city has no population buildings, cottages, hamlets, villages, or towns. Each city has a population cap that is dependent on the cities' time period (ancient, medieval, etc.). I'm currently adding in technologies (just wrote up a list of technologies though I'm not quite sure what the pre-reqs are going to be).

I'd still like to hear any ideas you guys have on the other stuff I posted about on page one.

 

[Turnip]

First off, looks like one of the greatest maps. Better than Dota! (Although that's not hard to accomplish...no offence Dota fans. =P ) I always wanted to play a game like this, and if its finished, I finnaly can. =P

I am interested in being a terrainer. I was a terrainer for another map, but the author never responded. If you want, I can create a sample terrain for you to look at.

 

[elmstfreddie]

I'm willing to help in anyway possible by the way.

 

[Battle[StFh]]

I'm....

WAITING FOR THIS!


I love the idea