Now this is very helpful. Frankly, this game is in its baby stages, and I am setting it up to be a monstrosity in terms replayability and player options.
Now, down to explanations on development direction and answers to your questions:
one question though, how do I get the other towns ? I got only the basic one
The terrain is far from finished. I will literally build roads joining 2 of the towns, and the island town in the south can only be accessed when you can build naval units.
Naval units are purchased at shipyards, or built using a shipwright.
Is this the maximum map size? I think the original was bigger.
This map's actually bigger than the original. FotN is a 224x192 map. This one is 256x256. It's the biggest I can make it.
I would disassociate from the Warcraft story so you can make something unique and original
This map's universe will not have anything related to the Warcraft universe, other than the races.
It will also reference some things from the Guild Wars universe, especially the skill/weapon system.
Make races unique. Same for more obscure benefits, like elfs going invisible at night, humans being good at diplomacy and undead using less upkeep
This will definitely be on the to-do list later. I like your idea to give bonuses to your race selection based on your leader's level. As for race selection, I had a lot of mixed feedback on it. I kind of want to make it so that you can build up into any race techtree regardless of your starting leader's race.
Now, 1 way I am going to make races unique, is by your choice of "Hero." This will be different from your starting "leader." See, you only get - 1 - Hero. But, you have 10 Heroes to choose from. Choose 1 hero, it locks out any other "advanced" techtrees from all races.
For example: (not implemented yet)
You go human, and you pick the "Templar."
This unlocks upgrades for priests and knights. This locks out upgrades for sorcerers, arcane towers, and spell breakers.
Put the sea in the middle.
Unfortunately, development is so far ahead that this will not be possible. It's more a design choice. However! I do not plan to make the sea useless.
For one: A major trade port is in the southern sea on an island. Trade will play a large role on income. Control of the sea will be an option in your economy, and if you are uncontested, it will pay off.
There will be an inland lake network.
There will be island base options.
Battleships with long range artillery will be a threat/tactical option.
Keep the troop numbers relatively low.
Now this is something I have been playing around with, and also have gotten mixed feedback on. Some people actually want huge, large scale macro battles.
I want to get the better of both worlds. Thus, I may improve the unit ranking system. Right now, units that kill things gain ranks. Higher ranks mean more damage, armor, health regen, and spell resistance. I may change how units rank up, too, like from using "training." On that note, back to naval units, your first battleship becomes a "flagship" with extra abilities and max rank.
Currently, the food cap is 120. I may increase food costs of all units across all races. To balance the use of large armies, upkeep will not only affect gold but also lumber income and sold items. Larger armies will be detrimental to economy.
On top of that, unit counters will mean certain units are much better against others. If you are smart with your squads, you could outflank, outmaneuver, and take down a much larger force with proper scouting or espionage.
For example:
- cavalry is fast and round all, and generally counters infantry, archers and siege.
- polearm units counter cavalry hard core. Even though cavalry are generally tougher, equal numbers of pikemen vs knights would leave pikemen the victor.
Instead of having a BUILD option, give the main hero a book
This is something I can't do, unfortunately. It will take... an extremely large amount of jass coding, extra testing, and maybe another year of development.
Some things in WC3 are just hard coded. So, all leaders will have that build option.
I did make it so that certain weapons and armor require a certain amount of STR, INT, or AGI.
Now, that doesn't seem like much on the surface, until you look at how weapons function.
This plays into your statement on progression:
Each weapon has 3 tiers. Same for armor. All abilities given by weapons are affected by a certain stat.
This, in turn, opens up around 120 different character builds for your leader, all based on their equipment selection and stat allocation.
For versatility, I also added options to reset your stats and try different builds: mage, warrior, assassin, or hybrid types.
Right now, each city is specialized as so:
Droknar (northern city) is based on mining and magic. It's the only city with a mage college, and it sells ores and such. It buys farming goods, hides, and cloth at a higher price.
Ashford (starting city) is based on farming and hunting. So, it sells related products to this. It buys ores and alchemical products at a higher price.
Cavalon (island city) is based on fishing. It buys inland fish, ores and alchemical goods at a high price, and sells specialty goods and ocean fish.
I will have smaller towns throughout the map with Orcish themes or Elven themes, but generally the neutral townsfolk will be human. This is a design choice for the lore: the North was formally a broken kingdom. This will also explain why anyone who picks "human" as their race has more diplomatic options, though are generally weaker military wise.
Lower the number of resources
I don't think this is a wise idea. I want players to have options on how they get their gold. If they want to quest with their leader and say "bullocks" to base building, this will be entirely doable. I want players to choose:
Base building and large armies? OK.
Small armies of specialized and elite troops? Sure.
Your leader as a 1 man army? Can do, but you need to work towards it.
I don't know if it's a bug or not, but the unit actions are all over the place.
Actually, I designed it that way. Reason being is so that a "QWER" system makes sense for the leader.
Again, this is because of goddamned hard coding for that build button. I can't move or do anything with that "build" button. So, this is a work around.
I can put it back, but... then everything is a mess. It's frustrating.
Thank you very much for the feedback. You gave me some things to think about, and some ideas to change ways to customize your play experience. In particular: troop quality, food costs, techtree requirements based on the "Hero" (not leader)
Love the fact you're trying to give FotN a racial emphasis (that map was awesome, I'd love to play it with dwarves!) and that you got plenty of it done already.
