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A History Tale [Image Heavy]

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A History Tale

History1.jpg


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).

History2London.jpg


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).
History3Scout.jpg


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.
History4Scout2.jpg


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)
History5Guard.jpg


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.

History6Buildings.jpg


- 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.
History7Report.jpg


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
 
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Level 5
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Looks really cool (Almost like Sid Meyer's Civilization) I'll prolly want to test it when it comes out so put my name down
 
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Hmmm...very interesting. Some good ideas.

However, it all looks very complicated. I hope you can pull it off without overwhelming the player (note how civilization has been moving towards better control methods; very important).

Watch the speed and style of the gameplay. Civilization works because of the infamous 'one more turn' - without that appeal, built up by continous short and mid turn achievements moving towards a long term goal, it wouldn't work. You need to capture something like that for a project such as this to work.

Good luck.
 
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Looks really cool (Almost like Sid Meyer's Civilization) I'll prolly want to test it when it comes out so put my name down
It is reeeay cool ! I want to be a tester and a terrainer if u want ! (more tester than terrainer, but if the terrainer position is empty, i could help :) )

I'll contact you guys when it comes time to testing. Thanks for showing interest.

Hmmm...very interesting. Some good ideas.

However, it all looks very complicated. I hope you can pull it off without overwhelming the player (note how civilization has been moving towards better control methods; very important).

Watch the speed and style of the gameplay. Civilization works because of the infamous 'one more turn' - without that appeal, built up by continous short and mid turn achievements moving towards a long term goal, it wouldn't work. You need to capture something like that for a project such as this to work.

Good luck.

One of the things I'm definetly worried about is overwhelming the player. The idea is to have things simple but complex enough that the game has a good deal of strategy for it. I'm not exactly sure what you mean by control methods. Could you explain a bit more? I'd really like to hear anything you guys have to say.

So Setreal, are you working along with Zoxc on this project or on your own this time (upon the somewhat failure of the infection series).

I'm doing this alone, I'm not even sure if Zoxc is still around. If he is I'd very much like to go back to our infection maps if he'd be willing to. Any idea what's going on with him?
 
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In case certain resources will be added, like in Civilisation (Rise, cows, uranium, etc.), you might want to make the terrain random. By this I mean creating certain regions on the map where resources will randomly spawn. For example, you could add regions at predefined positions so the resources will be equally divided (rather than all resources spawning at 1 half of the map). Right now I have the feeling that you'll have a large map and some spots will be useless as most gaming will be done near cities. By adding resources, people might want to fight for them.

The project is very appealing so far!
 
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In case certain resources will be added, like in Civilisation (Rise, cows, uranium, etc.), you might want to make the terrain random. By this I mean creating certain regions on the map where resources will randomly spawn. For example, you could add regions at predefined positions so the resources will be equally divided (rather than all resources spawning at 1 half of the map). Right now I have the feeling that you'll have a large map and some spots will be useless as most gaming will be done near cities. By adding resources, people might want to fight for them.

The project is very appealing so far!

I wasn't planning on adding on civ resources as it would add to the complexity of the game though it may be worth adding later on if the game ends up being too simple. I do agree that most of the action will occur around cities which is why the map isn't too big and the distance between cities isn't too far (the capitals are the furthest away from each other and the nuetral cities will litter the map.)

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

1) Windex over at thehelper.net 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 guys 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
Clovis I: Alternate Campaign Paladin (Black Hair)

Thanks for reading!

EDIT: Terraining position is still open if anyone is interested.
 
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Don't confuse complex with complicated. Chess is simple but complex; that's good. Complicated is bad (eg: you must do X and Y in tandem with Z to achieve K, and then walk from L to M to make T happen so as to allow N).

1) It may be complex behind the scenes, but all the player needs to know is 'this increases population growth'. So long as the player doesn't need to understand loads of stuff in detail, it's fine. I'm not really for one off population increases.

2) With respect to religion, either make them up or make them all the same and very neutral in design. Otherwise you're prodding a hornet's nest...

3) I'm not a great fan of perma-death heroes...lag and stuff can mean that using heroes is simply too much of a risk, and it can very much detract from gameplay by making them too much of a focus.
 
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Don't confuse complex with complicated. Chess is simple but complex; that's good. Complicated is bad (eg: you must do X and Y in tandem with Z to achieve K, and then walk from L to M to make T happen so as to allow N).

1) It may be complex behind the scenes, but all the player needs to know is 'this increases population growth'. So long as the player doesn't need to understand loads of stuff in detail, it's fine. I'm not really for one off population increases.

2) With respect to religion, either make them up or make them all the same and very neutral in design. Otherwise you're prodding a hornet's nest...

3) I'm not a great fan of perma-death heroes...lag and stuff can mean that using heroes is simply too much of a risk, and it can very much detract from gameplay by making them too much of a focus.

1) Yeah I ended up deciding last night that I'm going to implement gradual population growth. Going to do so today.

2) That's what I was worried about. Probably going to have to just make them up.

3) I was planning on having items (such as ankhs) that would allow for a safer investment, but if it becomes unrealistic I'll just take away the perma-death. Nothing is set in stone after all.

sounds great, and it would be a very original map :)
if you want custom trees, contact me (people dont really like blizzy trees)

I was going to take a look at custom doodads once wc3campaigns came back up but feel free to e-mail me what you have ([email protected]).

Thanks for comments guys!
 
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You could give certain religions a sort of "Event" (as I don't have a better word for it) advantage.
By this I mean something like
Christians being able to start a crusade against non-christian players. If you initiate a crusade, you are forcing an alliance with all other christian players, must pay a certain amount of money (and maybe population too) and get a small "crusader" army. This army will have the ability of hiring "Civilisation-unique" units by moving to a city of the civilisation. Finally, you must select a target city and destroy it.
Disadvantage: cities can't have banks, decreasing the income of christian cities.
You must have the Hindu religion in order to adopt the "Caste" system, which would allow slavery and thus increasing wealth in your cities
Jews: Advantage: can have banks in their cities, increasing income.
...

just random ideas that popped up...
 
Level 2
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You could give certain religions a sort of "Event" (as I don't have a better word for it) advantage.
By this I mean something like
Christians being able to start a crusade against non-christian players. If you initiate a crusade, you are forcing an alliance with all other christian players, must pay a certain amount of money (and maybe population too) and get a small "crusader" army. This army will have the ability of hiring "Civilisation-unique" units by moving to a city of the civilisation. Finally, you must select a target city and destroy it.
Disadvantage: cities can't have banks, decreasing the income of christian cities.
You must have the Hindu religion in order to adopt the "Caste" system, which would allow slavery and thus increasing wealth in your cities
Jews: Advantage: can have banks in their cities, increasing income.
...

just random ideas that popped up...

Wow. I love that idea. I'll have alot of leeway in terms of events too since I'm probably going to be making up religions. Definitely going to implement this.
 
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by the way, it would be useful to post all possible parameters a city will have, such as population, ...

In case things like happiness or health will be possible parameters (like in civ), it's easier for us to think out advantages. I mean: if a communistic government would be implemented in a right way, that would lead to less income but more happiness in cities. but if I don't know what all parameters will be, I can't give advice like that :)
 
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God you are going to need a tutorial for this game =) This should keep all the little kids who just like to be @$$'s away from it. Too complicated for them. This will revolutionize strategy in Warcraft when yoiu get it done.

I picked up Civ2 and started playing it and knew how to play very rapidly (and I was quite young). Its controls were, despite the complexity, intuitive. If that doesn't occur, the map will almost certainly fail.

Requiring a tutorial isn't necessarily a good thing, especially for a custom map. And it will most likely attract the noobs, rather than repel them.

It almost certainly won't revolutionise strategy in Warcraft. Any map with the aim of being revolutionary will almost certainly fail. A map that is made to be a good map may be revolutionary, though.
 
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I didn't imply that he should try to make it revolutionary, or at least didn't mean too. This game looks like it is going to be that way if he continues on this same course, and that he should continue doing to good job and just wait to see how well it will come out. That is what I meant. Yeah, a tut might be bad,m but I was kinda joking. I got that idea as I was looking through his post where he was explaining each button one by one. It reminded me of a tut.

Will we get to pick out city or do we start with one? Then, what cities are their we get to use?
 
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I'm certainly not trying to be revolutionary here. To claim such would be ridiculous (there have been quite a few strategy maps already, Griffen's Warlords for example is quite good). I'm just trying to take the strategy genre and move it towards a more civilization esque map where all your actions are centralized, hopefully making the map intuitive enough for beginners. I will have help files in the quests tab and through text commands but hopefully they won't be needed.

Will we get to pick out city or do we start with one? Then, what cities are their we get to use?

You start with the capital of whatever civilization you're playing as. From there you try and take over the nuetral cities littered throughout the map, take nuetral cities that other players have captured, and eventually get the capitals of the other players.

EDIT: Didn't see your post there Eleandor.

by the way, it would be useful to post all possible parameters a city will have, such as population, ...

In case things like happiness or health will be possible parameters (like in civ), it's easier for us to think out advantages. I mean: if a communistic government would be implemented in a right way, that would lead to less income but more happiness in cities. but if I don't know what all parameters will be, I can't give advice like that :)

Parameters that can change for each player based on events or whatnot:

- Population and the rate at which population increases
- Research Rate (How fast you research technologies)
- Income (How much $ you receive when income timer runs out)
- Availability of Government Civics / Religions
- Bonuses provided by Government / Religions (they will scale depending on certain conditions).
- What / How Many units spawn automatically
etc.

There's nothing like happiness or health. I could add these in later though if the game ends up being too simplistic.
 
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The problem is, except for unique "events", bonusses from Government or Religions will be visible through the other parameters. For example, you can't make up 10 religions if you don't even have 10 parameters. Right now for example Religion A would increase your income but decrease your # units spawned. If there are only 4 to 5 parameters (right now I can see pop, poprate, income which vastly depends on your pop, research rate and finally the amount of units spawned every 'turn'), you can't create 10 religions because they would look like each other...
 
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Would you like to also hear about civilisation ideas? I think your list of civilisations is not complete... if you want to include all of the influential and powerful civilations of the history.

(for example you didn' include the Hungarians. They looted and pillaged Europe in the 9th century. Nothing like leather? Yes.)
 
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The problem is, except for unique "events", bonusses from Government or Religions will be visible through the other parameters. For example, you can't make up 10 religions if you don't even have 10 parameters. Right now for example Religion A would increase your income but decrease your # units spawned. If there are only 4 to 5 parameters (right now I can see pop, poprate, income which vastly depends on your pop, research rate and finally the amount of units spawned every 'turn'), you can't create 10 religions because they would look like each other...

There'll probably be at max 6 religions so this probably won't be too much of an issue. In any case if it really is necessary (as in for the good of the map as a whole) I may add more parameters, but I'm not going to do so just for the sake of religion. I understand where you're coming from though.

Would you like to also hear about civilisation ideas? I think your list of civilisations is not complete... if you want to include all of the influential and powerful civilations of the history.

(for example you didn' include the Hungarians. They looted and pillaged Europe in the 9th century. Nothing like leather? Yes.)

I wasn't aiming to fit in every influential civ, just some of them. As of now the civs have preset start locations (which means # of civs = # of players), but perhaps later I'll change it so it's more dynamic which allow for more civs in the map despite still having 10 players.
 
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Ok so I've been thinking about a feature: Every city will have its own age while religions will be based on your empire. Isn't it more logical that most cities will evolve in age around the same time? I mean (not looking at the few exceptions now) the whole Europe entered the baroque, industrial age, etc. within the same 50 years (if you could have a mark on when a certain age begins and when one ends). At the opposite, I believe it's more possible that each city has its own religion rather than its own age. You won't be able to build your own cities, so when you capture a city, isn't it more logical that this city will keep its religion? Ofcourse in history people have forced captured cities to change religion, but I'm talking theoretically here. You must also know that once Christianity was allowed in the Roman Empire, the WHOLE empire didn't suddenly change into christians...
 
Level 2
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Ok so I've been thinking about a feature: Every city will have its own age while religions will be based on your empire. Isn't it more logical that most cities will evolve in age around the same time? I mean (not looking at the few exceptions now) the whole Europe entered the baroque, industrial age, etc. within the same 50 years (if you could have a mark on when a certain age begins and when one ends). At the opposite, I believe it's more possible that each city has its own religion rather than its own age. You won't be able to build your own cities, so when you capture a city, isn't it more logical that this city will keep its religion? Ofcourse in history people have forced captured cities to change religion, but I'm talking theoretically here. You must also know that once Christianity was allowed in the Roman Empire, the WHOLE empire didn't suddenly change into christians...

They're not really ages per-say but really just advanced versions of a city. I think it works well gameplay wise and while your idea certainly fits more into the historical accuracy aspect I'm not overly concerned about historical correctness. Also many religions have global aspects to them which don't lend themselves to a city by city basis.

To Everyone Else:
Big update to the first post. Check it out!

Also it seems my terrainer has dropped out and so I need someone willing to fill in the position (and work from scratch unfortunately). If interested post here, pm me, im me, etc.

As always I'm open to any and all criticism, ideas, etc.
 
Level 2
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Jun 25, 2007
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9
Perhaps you could create a sort of a point system like dark deeds, that gives each player a code? The player could possibly have increased income, research, units etc. This could possibly encourage more playing of the game because people like to be rewarded for a large amount of play time. If the host or the majority of players in the game dislikes the score idea it could be turned off. I was also thinking the game could have some sort of espionage system, where different players could train spies or diplomats that could be put under another players control without the actual ability for the player to control them. Like they could be his or her color but not have any abilites available to them. They could sabatoge research, economy or buildings from the inside. Just my thoughts =)
 
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that's a cool update :)

For buddhism I was thinking of something like a nirvana, but I can't come up with a good effect.
Then I feel I'm missing something like the Roman/Greek religion (polytheism but still differently than Hinduism). After all, it was quite a big religion before Christians were allowed.

Thinking of it again, I heard somewhere that Buddhists don't neccesarily have to give up other religions (so you can be both christian and buddhist). That might be an advantage, that you can have advantages/disadvantages from 1 other religion too. A disadvantage could be that once you have mixed religions (so you chose buddhism and another religion), you cannot abandon buddhism anymore
 
Level 2
Joined
Jun 1, 2007
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13
Perhaps you could create a sort of a point system like dark deeds, that gives each player a code? The player could possibly have increased income, research, units etc. This could possibly encourage more playing of the game because people like to be rewarded for a large amount of play time. If the host or the majority of players in the game dislikes the score idea it could be turned off. I was also thinking the game could have some sort of espionage system, where different players could train spies or diplomats that could be put under another players control without the actual ability for the player to control them. Like they could be his or her color but not have any abilites available to them. They could sabatoge research, economy or buildings from the inside. Just my thoughts =)

A point system would put certain players at an advantage from the offset. While the players with the advantage would certainly enjoy it would be a detriment for everyone else. I think playing more would make you better at the map and therefore your advantage comes from that. As for the espionage idea I was already planning on spy units that could things along those lines. Having them do so automatically however is an interesting idea. When the time comes to implement spies I'll see what works best.

that's a cool update :)

For buddhism I was thinking of something like a nirvana, but I can't come up with a good effect.
Then I feel I'm missing something like the Roman/Greek religion (polytheism but still differently than Hinduism). After all, it was quite a big religion before Christians were allowed.

Thinking of it again, I heard somewhere that Buddhists don't neccesarily have to give up other religions (so you can be both christian and buddhist). That might be an advantage, that you can have advantages/disadvantages from 1 other religion too. A disadvantage could be that once you have mixed religions (so you chose buddhism and another religion), you cannot abandon buddhism anymore

I may end up adding in a greek/roman religion, I'm not quite sure yet. As for buddhism I'm not quite sure what to do either. I've never heard of the allowance of multiple religions but then again I'm hardly an expert on buddhism. Can anyone chime in on this?
 
Level 2
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Jun 25, 2007
Messages
9
Well Buddhism believs in enlightenment and after life so perhaps for Buddhism you could have the ability for a unit to gain enlightement, or create en enlightened being that would give you increased abilities, economy etc. Nirvana is the buddhist belief in the perfect afterlife, but their are beings that obtain nirvana, put put it off to help others (forget the exact name). Maybe the ability to summon one of these beings to help you?
Edit: Oh and i believe Buddhists can follow other religions and have some Buddhist beliefs. Then again many Buddhists are ONLY Buddhists, as they do have monks and priests (I know a Buddhist priest). Their are some religions (such as Shintoism) where you CAN have two religions, but i think 2 religions at once almost defeats the purpose of picking a specific religion for its advantages
 
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