Age of War v2.0

[bear_369]

I remembered that I'm working on this map a year ago.
Decided to make some few fixes and improvement to it.

See the changelog in the first page.

 

[Rufus]

Here are the things I tought of while playing the game.

• Gold and lumber are reset, but upgrades on your turret or units are kept to the next round.
• The units had different attck type and such. Perhaps that should be displayed in the units tooltip?
• 5 units at time is a little bit too litle? This upgrades later, but 5 is very low even for teh first round. Perhaps 8 is better?
• In the flash version, only one melee unit can hit each other at a time. This could be fixed by increasing their collision to 125 and leave only a 128 unit gap for the battleground.
• You could change the lumber tooltip to display that you get lumber with each kill or death, rather than "lumber is harvested from trees". Or perhaps you could just write "experience" instead of "lumber"?
• I really like the special abilities you can gain through the ages. Fancy.
• Perhaps mainbuilding should have a little bit more health? It went down quite quickly using improved dinos. Or perhaps all units should just b able to deal 1 damage per attack, and then reduce health to like 100?
• In the very beginning of the game, you have to wait like 4 seconds before the dialogue pops up, letting you choose number of rounds. This can be dispalyed much sooner.
• Why not just have a cavemans den from the beginning instead of a circle of power?
• A periodic income could be nice too, but perhaps that breaks the game?
• I think the upgrade center should be upgraded automatically when you upgrade your main building? That would be neat.
• You should make it so that the special ability you can use cost lumber. Right now, if you don't have enough, it still goes on cooldown, which is bad.
• The terrain looks pretty nice already, but it could be better. This is not super-important though.
• That many players is not really needed. If you reduce the number of players, you could make it further without having to worry about lag.
• I don't understand why tou are in a team with another person? Or why four players share one map?

I like the concept, and it is working as intended despite being a little rough around the edges.
All in all, an entertaining and classic map. Rated 4/5

 

[bear_369]

@Rufus I really appreciate your review. I'll talk about one of the things you have thought about the game.

• Gold and lumber are reset, but upgrades on your turret or units are kept to the next round.

Only the units had the problem over upgrades. That's how Blizzard do in every upgrades, making them unlearnable after setting their tech level. I'll use a dummy units instead of default upgrades next time.

• Perhaps mainbuilding should have a little bit more health? It went down quite quickly using improved dinos. Or perhaps all units should just b able to deal 1 damage per attack, and then reduce health to like 100?

I think more health for the early-game buildings. After all in end-game, they became really tough.

• I think the upgrade center should be upgraded automatically when you upgrade your main building? That would be neat.

That would be a great idea so the player wouldn't need to upgrade their upgrade center manually.

• You should make it so that the special ability you can use cost lumber. Right now, if you don't have enough, it still goes on cooldown, which is bad.

Good point. Fixing it up for the new version.

• I don't understand why tou are in a team with another person? Or why four players share one map?

Just to fit all players in the game.

• The units had different attack type and such. Perhaps that should be displayed in the units tooltip?

That kinda work for strategists but good idea anyway.

 

[bear_369]

Had some improvements and balancing the units.

See the changelog in the first page.

 

[cleavinghammer]

* Final base doesn't have a clear-out power.
* Powers should start from the back of the base, all too often they only hit half the enemies that are attacking the base because they started too far away.
* Won two out of three rounds against the AI, on the third the AI didn't have anything at all, not even circles or power.

 

[bear_369]

@cleavinghammer
I'll be looking over it.

 

[SNIper of DARKness]

Age of War : a Warcraft 3 take on the infamous Age of War flash game.

Note: I don't recommend testing it alone, would suggest to find someone to test it with.

As in the flash game you start in the "Cave Age" and go in to "Space Age", it imitates the game as well as a Warcraft map could this however is it's major downside due to the low resources and food cap and that the only way to get resources back is by killing the enemy results in a very boring stagnant gameplay.
In my playtest helped by a fellow friend playing Red and Teal we found it not possible to gain more resources to advance to the next age, alternatively we found that if the player only produces a Turret and doesn't train units he can just starve the other player of resources making him incapable of doing anything else. The distance between bases is also really short and the main fight due to how few units you can produce early on is centered around your base instead of being an almost endless sluggish fight ending when they reach your base.
I tested the map in singleplayer to realise that if you pick any other Player beside 1 (Red) you won't be able to start the game and so you will need to restart, there is seriously not much you can test by yourself even if you use cheats to gain gold, the small food cap in the beginning doesn't help the game at all. I am not sure if in a full game, the experience is any different because it seems to be quite isolated and the extra slots are there only to fit more people instead of creating a new game.
The terrain is nice for what it is though it certainly doesn't reflect at all on what the game intends to be, the dark eerie underground location doesn't do much at all to reflect to the situation much at all, even the screenshot suggest other things and to be honest that tile set is truly hard to fit anywhere. There are also various spelling issues that could be fixed very easily.

In conclusion while the idea is there the execution is not at all pleasing, the game is just not that interesting to keep players coming back to it.

My suggestion would be to remove the unnecessary players that don't interact and remake the terrain in the theme of Age of War, having a smaller version but more compact with more attention to details could do this map very good, as well as lengthening the lane and perhaps like in the original game be always visible to you and others. The map could benefit a lot from a different more green tileset instead of the gloomy overcrowded mushroom land.
The resources certainly need be reworked as the main problem of this map is the very slow start due to very little resources and the food cap being so low so I would suggest adding a bit more of each so the game can start much faster and force the players to create units as soon as the game starts. The food cap should be static from beginning to end, a larger food cap (15) could work better along with the more resources.
You should also consider adding an income system which most of the newer "offence" games have, how this work is by having workers harvest resources on the battlefield this way you encourage players to protect their workers by producing units and killing theirs.

To be honest I'm really not very fond of Age of War Flash game, I found it very basic and primitive (heh), the slow paced gameplay and the options you have is really not that appealing to me. A game I really liked though is "Siegius" which I would recommend to you and anyone interested in those types of games.
​

 

[bear_369]

@SNIper of DARKness
Thanks for the review! I'll be improving it in the future updates.

 

[bear_369]

New update! See the changelog in the description above.

 

[Lord_Earthfire]

This review was created in context of the grand review exchange:

Legend:

+ Positive Point
- Negative Point
~ Suggestion​

Description:
Age of War is a map, consisting of symmetrical 1v1 sending-based battles between two players. While building sends which can be thrown against the enemy, the player progress between multiple ages, making the game dynamically progress. Above this, researchs makes it able for players to adjust the tactic to their playstile, making reactions against an enemies tactic possible.
When in a tight spot, players can clear the amount of enemies with a spacial ability, while reducing their progress for the next age.

Terrain:

+ The Terrain is focused on functionality, without much unecessary doodads which could distract from the gameplay
+ Although functional, the terrain is nicely made, regarding the variation of tiles and doodads
- The leveling of the stages leads to long ranged units missing a good amount of their attacks, reducing the usefullness of ranged units like tesla tanks while sieging (depends on if this is wanted or not)
~ There is a good space in the middle of the maps of the players. This could be used for some advanced decorations​

Gameplay:

+ The avaiability of upgrades for units or towers makes the triade of strategy games possible: Turtling, teching and rushing
+ Keeping an eye on the enemies units is quite fun. Many unit strategies are well counterable.
+ the later ages are quite swingy, which is quite nice. A lost push can easily turn into a tight situation for yourself, which needs to be considered
+ You have the possibility to destroy the enemy even into the first ages (Mass advanced dinosaur rider ftw!), making the games quite fast paced
- I found ranged units to be really underwhelming before the modern age. Most pronouncable the musketeers. Since their stats are inferior to the melle units of the age and them having medium armor, while the ranged units deal piercing damage, turning the melle units more into a counter to ranged ones. Thus, they get turned into counters for mass gyrocopters
- The spartan age is quite blank. The Units only differentiate themself in cost and stats, making this age quite linear without countering (A good point is that it isn't really long). A ranged unit could be used in this age.
- The AI tends to be feeding with units. I really had a hard time to make it survive through the ages so i could test the futuristic ages more properly
~ Economony upgrades can be used in the mine to e.g. recued the time for a gold income. This could make more tactics possible
~ It would be great if it would be able to switch enemies, so you dont play against the same player over and over again (e.g. a tournament system)​

Presentation:

+ All tooltips, models and icons are quite well implemented.
- It could be possible to add oher icons to the futuristic castle units. Its quite hard to differentiate between them.
- The cost icon still has the lumber symbol. This can be changed in the map interface (Well, only a really small flaw)
~ It would be good to see how much lumber was generated by a kill/dying unit. I wasnt sure if killing units or defending against them was better for progressing to a new age.​

Bugs:

+ The game itself is so far bug free
- The AI sometimes stop building units after some rounds. I needed to restart the map for it to work again
- The AI sometimes doesn't upgrade its income generating structure
​

Overall:
This is a nice and entertaining map with only a few flaws, so it would rate give it a 7,5/10

 

[bear_369]

@Lord_Earthfire
Thanks for the review! Here's some few words to say for your opinions.

The leveling of the stages leads to long ranged units missing a good amount of their attacks, reducing the usefullness of ranged units like tesla tanks while sieging (depends on if this is wanted or not)

I've noticed that before during testing the map. Hopefully, it will be fixed in the next version.

The spartan age is quite blank. The Units only differentiate themself in cost and stats, making this age quite linear without countering (A good point is that it isn't really long). A ranged unit could be used in this age.

I couldn't find any suitable units for the spartan age. Maybe a Spearman in AoW2 can fit or something else?

- The AI tends to be feeding with units. I really had a hard time to make it survive through the ages so i could test the futuristic ages more properly
- The AI sometimes stop building units after some rounds. I needed to restart the map for it to work again
- The AI sometimes doesn't upgrade its income generating structure

Its AI System is pretty much outdated. They can only do what is present in the previous version, explaining why they can't upgrade their gold-creating structure. I'm planning to improve it but I don't think I have enough time for it to be updated in the newest version.

It would be great if it would be able to switch enemies, so you dont play against the same player over and over again (e.g. a tournament system)

Which is why I don't have enough time for the AI update.

Anyway, since I'm still preparing for the new update, I like to show multiple changes for the upcoming update. This will not be final and might have more changes during the process of the development.

Spoiler: Upcoming Version

- Added Tournament System.
- Tesla Drone and Volt Drone no longer misses its attack frequently.
- Removed an unused variables.
- Removed starting dialog.
- Removed Round System.

 

[SSJ7107]

Lol i was about to make a map for Age of War gladly i found this XD

 

[Trevojan]

Man, this map is PERFECT!

...No, wait, nothing can be perfect :/

Well, it's a very good map, anyway

And of course, something can always be added. For example: the dynamics of the towers. In another game, Army of Ages, that has several buildings, something like itcould be added on the map. So the player would have the freedom to choose a wide variety of units to use. And there could be more strategies and ways to win.

 

[Thred]

Awesome! I be waiting for more actualitions of this old flash game !

 

[Nonethic]

A warcraft version of the classic Age Of War! Nice.