- Joined
- Feb 20, 2013
- Messages
- 136
I apologize for bad formatting in advance, and for bad writing, I wrote this hastily.
I've been playing Terrania for a while now, and it felt very inspiring. The teamwork crafting, combined with survival/defense was the first I've seen in a wc3 map. Now I probably just didn't play enough maps, but anyway, this is what I came up with:
A group of evil demons has been exiled from their home plane and found themselves right between 3 cities who would threaten their survival. Their plan is to establish a base, to discover a way to return to their home, through exploring and excavating old ruins and performing magical research.
These are crucial goals the demons must meet to successfully reach their goals.
1. To avoid being spotted as long as necessary as to avoid conflict and casualties while setting up base and teching up.
2. To claim nearby natural and... other resources necessary for development and magical research.
3. To spy on nearby towns as to gain info of their planned attacks or to foil their plans.
4. To collect innocent souls as a resource in any of the cities by killing civillians.
6. To defend against towns' invasions.
7. To acquire a few different artifacts and to assemble the abyss portal, which finishes the game.
I am just going to say that day/night cycle will be much faster than default wc3 one.
1. Boss - unique role. This unit is a strong hero. He controls the operation. He is required to defend against humans and get stronger through kills, and through use of magical items. He is the main powerhouse behind demons. If he dies, game is over. He is very formidable and scary looking, so anyone who sees it will be scared.
2. Master of Shadows - investigative and saboteur role. He dwells in nearby cities, employing magical creatures that eavesdrop on citizens. This enables him to hear rumors and predict the enemy attacks, their timing and army composition. Does most of this by disguising into a citizen and interrogating people walking on streets, or employ them (either through threat or a bribe) to tip off local authorities, giving false sightings locations, so they waste time walking there. Same people can't be interrogated twice in same day. He must take care though, as nearby passing magicians and priests will easily recognize their evil aura, and attack them on sight.
Each day, they can perform one of their Social "Actions" upon each of the town's civilians only once. After interaction, whether successful or not, the citizen turns grey.
There will be magical tech that enables crafting of an item that makes target radiate evil aura, making them into targets for priests and magicians, but eventually, town will get to know of this, and will not kill them on spot.
There should also be an ability to steal from cities, and buying items from their shop, that other crafters can use or upgrade.
3. Magical Researcher - building role, crafts buildings that research additional abilities and upgrades existing buildings. Uses "soul energy" as a resource mostly.
4. Minion classes - combat classes, used for everything from defending the base to farming souls and terrorizing cities so they lose income.
5. Prospector - class responsible for gathering and refining materials for other crafters and adapting the terrain to enable building on those places.
6. Blacksmith - crafts and upgrades items that benefit everyone else on the team
Soul Energy is (lumber) a resource gained by transmuting souls of freshly killed innocent citizens. It is mostly used by crafters for special recipes. Souls are harvested by killing a citizen with an "Empty Soul Gem" in your inventory that is crafted by Blacksmith, and using it within a "Power Reactor" building. This awards all nearby heroes a fixed amount of "Soul Energy".
I haven't thought much about crafting specifically, but I will make the base materials have to be in inventory, and having to use a skill to craft an item, much like it is in Terrania.
What I have thought a lot about is the town system. Towns act like each is a separate unit. Their decisions are based on a certain AI, and their actions depend on their main stat mechanics: Economy, Threat and Intimidation.
They will periodically send off their scouts in demons' direction, which, if they spot you, they will alert the town of your presence.
1. Scout spots demons and successfully reports, or is killed (after 1 day) - Town is suspicious, and sends scouts more regularly and more further. If the scout spots the "Boss", Intimidation of that town is increased considerably.
2. Next scout spots demons and reports successfully, town sends a few guards to investigate.
3. Town will send a few guards every once in a while as long as they don't find anything.
4. When they find something and successfuly report, or are killed and 1 day passes, the town is in "offense" mode, which is the last mode the town can be in.
Scouts and guards can be warded off with special skills or buildings (like a suggestion tower that makes target unit or units in AoE turn back. Doesn't work if other nearby units haven't been "suggested")
Offense mode:
This features three mechanics that town AI depends on.
1. Economy - how much resources a town possesses (and generates(Income)). Bigger economy means higher potential offense and defense, and higher potential to steal gold from the town. Extremely low economy decreases population.
2. Threat - Highest amount of resources a town can spend on an attack. Threat meter affects how much the town is willing to spend to exterminate you, which directly means how big of an army. It also affects how often they send troops to attack you. A town with high threat will try to quickly burn through its resources/economy by attacking you. A town's economy cannot drop below 1.5 of its threat value through financing offensive attacks. A threat increases with more town's units killed and similar actions. It is increased much more if scouts sight demons' leader and so on.
3. Intimidation - How scared the town is of you demons. Intimidation is a value that sits between 0 and Threat value. It's an indicator of minimum resources value that town will use to attack demons. Intimidation is not shown to players as a number, but in four stages relative to Intimidation-Economy: No problem, Not scared, Careful, Frightened, Scared, Terrified. Intimidation value is directly increased with demons' offense on the city in any way.
Where I was going with this is basically (let's say the town knows demons exist):
A town has its resources. They send in a small group to exterminate you, but you butcher them. You accidentally let one footman slip, and he returns, reporting to the town that you killed all the rest. Town's Threat value is increased immediately, and let's say it's now enough to support twice as big of a group as before.
Since their economy is booming, and their income is 3-4 times their Threat value (how much resources they are willing to use to "equip" an army to attack you), so they will use gold up to their threat value, and send a force twice as big. You butcher them all, and leave nobody alive. After 1 day, the town will conclude that their forces have been killed, and Threat will yet again increase, this time equal to 1/3 of their income.
They will send messengers to either of two other towns, at one point in the next day to alert them of your presence, and to ask for help. Luckily, your Minions intercept the traveler and kill them, making sure the letter doesn't reach them.
The Minions also take their time to "Terrorize" that town by killing lots of civilians and burning numerous buildings, thus lowering their Economy, and raising their Intimidation score by quite a bit.
This time however, the town's Threat level is lower than their Intimidation level, meaning that they do not consider you enough of a Threat to send that big of an army (low threat), but they expect to lose if they send any less soldiers, so it just pays off to not do anything.
The goal of the game should be balancing these values between the three towns as you work up to create the portal. I am still not sure about how I would balance these values according to the game (so it doesn't go too easy or too hard, and that it scales with time, about scaling I was thinking constant income possibly increasing and researching techs)
I was also planning to add game events like "A hero visits ~town name~, they will try to conquer the evil!" or something along the lines. Basically this means a town will send off a hero, or a "party of heroes", and give them army equal to their Threat or Intimidation value, whichever is higher, unless Economy would remain too low (less than 1.5 of threat), then they will send maximum they can.
Heroes have abilities and are much harder to kill (akin to a boss).
All of this is still very raw theory, and I am not sure how it would play out, if it will be playable or have enough of a challenge as it should, so I welcome any comments ^^
Edit: So, I've concluded that this way, threat is an inbuilt "challenge curve". The more soldiers you kill from the towns, the Threat rises, therefore, you cannot always just kill them.
More subtle and calculated approach is needed. This also means you need to balance between all 3 cities, which makes it harder. Need to decide whether you will fight 2 and avoid 3rd or lure them on desolate places and have them die of traps (Threat increases only by direct kills) that Magical Researcher placed there, or just have them wonder for a set amount of time before they return.
Or destroy their economy as soon as possible as to lessen their ability to amass the army. Or increase Intimidation so much that they just can't attack you.
I've been playing Terrania for a while now, and it felt very inspiring. The teamwork crafting, combined with survival/defense was the first I've seen in a wc3 map. Now I probably just didn't play enough maps, but anyway, this is what I came up with:
A group of evil demons has been exiled from their home plane and found themselves right between 3 cities who would threaten their survival. Their plan is to establish a base, to discover a way to return to their home, through exploring and excavating old ruins and performing magical research.
These are crucial goals the demons must meet to successfully reach their goals.
1. To avoid being spotted as long as necessary as to avoid conflict and casualties while setting up base and teching up.
2. To claim nearby natural and... other resources necessary for development and magical research.
3. To spy on nearby towns as to gain info of their planned attacks or to foil their plans.
4. To collect innocent souls as a resource in any of the cities by killing civillians.
6. To defend against towns' invasions.
7. To acquire a few different artifacts and to assemble the abyss portal, which finishes the game.
I am just going to say that day/night cycle will be much faster than default wc3 one.
1. Boss - unique role. This unit is a strong hero. He controls the operation. He is required to defend against humans and get stronger through kills, and through use of magical items. He is the main powerhouse behind demons. If he dies, game is over. He is very formidable and scary looking, so anyone who sees it will be scared.
2. Master of Shadows - investigative and saboteur role. He dwells in nearby cities, employing magical creatures that eavesdrop on citizens. This enables him to hear rumors and predict the enemy attacks, their timing and army composition. Does most of this by disguising into a citizen and interrogating people walking on streets, or employ them (either through threat or a bribe) to tip off local authorities, giving false sightings locations, so they waste time walking there. Same people can't be interrogated twice in same day. He must take care though, as nearby passing magicians and priests will easily recognize their evil aura, and attack them on sight.
Each day, they can perform one of their Social "Actions" upon each of the town's civilians only once. After interaction, whether successful or not, the citizen turns grey.
There will be magical tech that enables crafting of an item that makes target radiate evil aura, making them into targets for priests and magicians, but eventually, town will get to know of this, and will not kill them on spot.
There should also be an ability to steal from cities, and buying items from their shop, that other crafters can use or upgrade.
3. Magical Researcher - building role, crafts buildings that research additional abilities and upgrades existing buildings. Uses "soul energy" as a resource mostly.
4. Minion classes - combat classes, used for everything from defending the base to farming souls and terrorizing cities so they lose income.
5. Prospector - class responsible for gathering and refining materials for other crafters and adapting the terrain to enable building on those places.
6. Blacksmith - crafts and upgrades items that benefit everyone else on the team
Soul Energy is (lumber) a resource gained by transmuting souls of freshly killed innocent citizens. It is mostly used by crafters for special recipes. Souls are harvested by killing a citizen with an "Empty Soul Gem" in your inventory that is crafted by Blacksmith, and using it within a "Power Reactor" building. This awards all nearby heroes a fixed amount of "Soul Energy".
I haven't thought much about crafting specifically, but I will make the base materials have to be in inventory, and having to use a skill to craft an item, much like it is in Terrania.
What I have thought a lot about is the town system. Towns act like each is a separate unit. Their decisions are based on a certain AI, and their actions depend on their main stat mechanics: Economy, Threat and Intimidation.
They will periodically send off their scouts in demons' direction, which, if they spot you, they will alert the town of your presence.
1. Scout spots demons and successfully reports, or is killed (after 1 day) - Town is suspicious, and sends scouts more regularly and more further. If the scout spots the "Boss", Intimidation of that town is increased considerably.
2. Next scout spots demons and reports successfully, town sends a few guards to investigate.
3. Town will send a few guards every once in a while as long as they don't find anything.
4. When they find something and successfuly report, or are killed and 1 day passes, the town is in "offense" mode, which is the last mode the town can be in.
Scouts and guards can be warded off with special skills or buildings (like a suggestion tower that makes target unit or units in AoE turn back. Doesn't work if other nearby units haven't been "suggested")
Offense mode:
This features three mechanics that town AI depends on.
1. Economy - how much resources a town possesses (and generates(Income)). Bigger economy means higher potential offense and defense, and higher potential to steal gold from the town. Extremely low economy decreases population.
2. Threat - Highest amount of resources a town can spend on an attack. Threat meter affects how much the town is willing to spend to exterminate you, which directly means how big of an army. It also affects how often they send troops to attack you. A town with high threat will try to quickly burn through its resources/economy by attacking you. A town's economy cannot drop below 1.5 of its threat value through financing offensive attacks. A threat increases with more town's units killed and similar actions. It is increased much more if scouts sight demons' leader and so on.
3. Intimidation - How scared the town is of you demons. Intimidation is a value that sits between 0 and Threat value. It's an indicator of minimum resources value that town will use to attack demons. Intimidation is not shown to players as a number, but in four stages relative to Intimidation-Economy: No problem, Not scared, Careful, Frightened, Scared, Terrified. Intimidation value is directly increased with demons' offense on the city in any way.
Where I was going with this is basically (let's say the town knows demons exist):
A town has its resources. They send in a small group to exterminate you, but you butcher them. You accidentally let one footman slip, and he returns, reporting to the town that you killed all the rest. Town's Threat value is increased immediately, and let's say it's now enough to support twice as big of a group as before.
Since their economy is booming, and their income is 3-4 times their Threat value (how much resources they are willing to use to "equip" an army to attack you), so they will use gold up to their threat value, and send a force twice as big. You butcher them all, and leave nobody alive. After 1 day, the town will conclude that their forces have been killed, and Threat will yet again increase, this time equal to 1/3 of their income.
They will send messengers to either of two other towns, at one point in the next day to alert them of your presence, and to ask for help. Luckily, your Minions intercept the traveler and kill them, making sure the letter doesn't reach them.
The Minions also take their time to "Terrorize" that town by killing lots of civilians and burning numerous buildings, thus lowering their Economy, and raising their Intimidation score by quite a bit.
This time however, the town's Threat level is lower than their Intimidation level, meaning that they do not consider you enough of a Threat to send that big of an army (low threat), but they expect to lose if they send any less soldiers, so it just pays off to not do anything.
The goal of the game should be balancing these values between the three towns as you work up to create the portal. I am still not sure about how I would balance these values according to the game (so it doesn't go too easy or too hard, and that it scales with time, about scaling I was thinking constant income possibly increasing and researching techs)
I was also planning to add game events like "A hero visits ~town name~, they will try to conquer the evil!" or something along the lines. Basically this means a town will send off a hero, or a "party of heroes", and give them army equal to their Threat or Intimidation value, whichever is higher, unless Economy would remain too low (less than 1.5 of threat), then they will send maximum they can.
Heroes have abilities and are much harder to kill (akin to a boss).
All of this is still very raw theory, and I am not sure how it would play out, if it will be playable or have enough of a challenge as it should, so I welcome any comments ^^
Edit: So, I've concluded that this way, threat is an inbuilt "challenge curve". The more soldiers you kill from the towns, the Threat rises, therefore, you cannot always just kill them.
More subtle and calculated approach is needed. This also means you need to balance between all 3 cities, which makes it harder. Need to decide whether you will fight 2 and avoid 3rd or lure them on desolate places and have them die of traps (Threat increases only by direct kills) that Magical Researcher placed there, or just have them wonder for a set amount of time before they return.
Or destroy their economy as soon as possible as to lessen their ability to amass the army. Or increase Intimidation so much that they just can't attack you.
Last edited:
And it has definitely sparked my interest. I could help on programming side, wink, wink 
