We have been pleasantly surprised at how this has worked out because it gives us the opportunity to look at seeing if we have time to do something we have wanted to do: Develop the RACES further.
The Kingdoms are made up by a single race (Men)
The Empires are made up of three races presently (Men, Trogs, Urxen).
However, with the reality being that people seem to much prefer to create their own factions, it may make sense for us to return to TWO pre-made races (Men and Fallen) and then use the resources saved to put in more content to let people make their own races.
So in the Faction creation screen, you would have a “Race” tab where you would design what they look like along with a very simple Strength and Weakness list.
Illustrating the point
One of the things we thought we would have to wait until a sequel would be to let players mix their races together when they build up their kingdom or empire. Right now, you capture a city, all the people simply become your faction (and its corresponding race).
So even if you made a race of those Avatar blue guys, when you capture a city from Pariden, the city would remain populated by Men. You would then be able to created a mixed army where they all have their strengths and weaknesses and visually look different. So you could create a true “Last Alliance”.
Now, the trade off is that the 10 factions would be made up of only 2 premade races (Men and Fallen) but there’d be enough assets available then to let players create their own Orcs or Dwarves or Elves or Space Smurfs or what have you and then let players create a mixed empire.
So Men might have a +1 bonus to say Economy. Fallen might get a +1 bonus to their attack rating. Then players could also create (for instance) Elves who get a +1 to the range of their archers or any number of other differences plus they would visually look different. From this, in post-release we could explore other ramifications.
What do you think?
The various different factions should each be a unique experience (all 10 of them) as opposed to arbitrary bonuses. Even the "race bonuses" for each faction don't fully cut it. There needs to be a difference in training time, build time, perhaps City-Building will be balanced differently with each race, and Output of buildings could be different (Tarth Workshops +0.5 wood, Gilden Mines +0.5 ore).
Amount of food required per house could be different, housing level per house, expense per house ... all could be different. Level to which Prestige plays in population growth ... or how Prestige effects different aspects of game play (diplomacy, training speeds, recruitment) could be unique as well.
Essentially, Game Mechanics should work differently for each faction (even if the same race) ... and each race should also have its own unique quirks in stats and overall abilities. For instance, human units could train faster while Fallen units have more health, and each race having its own set of spells for each spell book (Fallen has burning hands and blazing soul, while Humans have Flare and Fireball).
Mixed race armies will make me happy.
As long as we can use each race's natural advantages together on the battlefield, and in the city...I'll beam.
Edit: I'd suggest the set direction, instead of increased moddability. I realize that you (Frogboy) are making a fair point - I always play my own faction, in one way or another. But I take inspiration from existing ones. Anyway, the point I wanted to make is that you can -always- increase moddability or offer additional assets at a later date, be it DLC or proper expansions. But you'll have a hard time to ever, ever go back and do the original lore and factions 'right' again.
So do those right from the beginning. Then you can consider taking a step back, release packages to increase moddability or the influence the player have on their looks, race, whatever.
Just my 2 cents.
So one thing that concerns me is the distinction between race and faction. In most games like this (at least the big ones I'm aware of) you only have one of these. In MOO for instance a race is the Psylons and there is no sub-faction of Psylons that are a little different. In Civilization you have a country which is like your concept of a faction. They are all made up of men but have some small differences. MOM just has a race you pick and your leader separates races from playing the same. You are separating what I usually think of as one thing into two and asking us to give our opinions without us having a good idea of what it really means. Currently race doesn't matter at all when making a custom kingdom except for graphics I think. I have a feeling some thinking about how this works in different ways. I'm sure we all have ideas of what we think you intend but that may not be correct. To make things even more messy you also have your sovereign/leader who also helps define your kingdom.
So for me at least I would like to know how you see each of these 3 entities defining your kingdom. What I personally would do with these (at least on a first pass) is as follows:
Sovereign - defines personal skills for your avatar, leadership abilities and spell abilities. I would also make him allied to a side in a more normal good/evil world. Not sure if you could see Porcupine (or however you spell it) leading the fallen in your world or not for instance.
Faction - defines beliefs, politics and culture. Examples would be Wood Elves and High Elves or Viking like men and Mongol like men. Both are the same race but are very different because of their core beliefs, politics and culture. Of course there is a problem in that these could also be different enough that they could be considered separate races altogether.
Race - defines physical abilities of each person in your kingdom and cultural limitations. Cultural limitations being that you wouldn't see undead casting holy spells and physical abilities would stop you from seeing super strong goblins that reproduce slowly.
I'm not sure but if I were making a game I think I would at least think about combining the race and faction into one entity. I'm not up on the lore yet of your game but I've heard mention of Ironeers being an offshoot of men. Why not just call them another race at least in game terms? If they share graphics with another race, that's fine. The other I've heard about is Krax which are just evil men. Instead of confusing matters just call them another race and through lore, graphics, similar abilities, etc show that they are just men. I think you would get the same results and make things easier to understand. Basically what I'm thinking of here is how MOO2 does things just that you would add another layer in the form of your sovereign. It's just that in your game you would have several races that are a little closer to each other in ability since they are the same race that had just changed slightly over time due to culture, environment or whatever.
Maybe I am alone in this but I do find the current system a little messy an unintuitive for some reason. Perhaps if things were more fleshed out these feeling would go away.
OK... i'm on a time limit, but let me put a few points in...
BOTH are CRITICAL to the games success. Without the lore, your world feels weak. Without strong pre-made AI factions the game will fail because people want interesting factions to play against. Without strong customization the game also fails because everything feels the same.
You need as many factions as possible, with strong stories, quests, etc. At the same time you need strong customization. I don't need to be able to make Ents or Centaurs in the engine - these can be added through modding- but any kind of humonoid needs to be able to be created for sure. Tall, Short, Fat, Skinny, Races with snouts, and races with beaks, Long ears, short ears, whatever you want to make. Expansions and modding can add additional options (and the engine needs to be built to handle additional skeltons and animations etc.) but the engine should still be able to make large numbers of custom factions.
I also agree with the previous posts that say that we should make each faction a "race" at least within some margin. Your concept of "sub-races" you had originally planned WORKS for this. If you made Mancers as one type of man, Krax as another etc. it would prevent the Kingdoms from becoming boring. Maybe Ironeers are a little bit shorter and stockier than Mancers. Krax might have a different color skin, and have red eyes or something.... It wouldn't take much to classify them as different races or sub-races. That being said, 2 factions should be allowed that share the same race such as you had planned - just not ALL of the kingdoms.
Think about the real world. If China invaded Great Britain, the British people don't suddenly become Chinese. While both are human, they are different sub-races (at least in game-terms... I hope that didn't offend anyone) and can be visually told apart. Similarly if the Krax were to invade a Mancer city, their sovereign should have to deal with the consequences much more severely than another Mancer would if they were to invade.
Cities should produce citizens of the race that inhabits them. But if there are many races and you must design your own units, then you have to design one more unit per race you conquered. Which means more work and micromanagement, as you have to design units yourself. So it would probably be best to reduce the number of races to a minimum.
I think it won't require designing different units - when you produce a unit of a different race, it will just get some bonuses/penalties to its attributes. Only the visuals can be a problem, if you design the appearance of a unit, when it's another race it will look different.
I don't think this poll is a very good test. Without any flavor text, graphics, or back story to differentiate them, it is no wonder that none of us are at all attached to the established factions. You'll notice that the faction with the most votes is the one for which we have learned a little back story.
A 1+ to this or that stats bonus isn't going to make anyone attached to a particular race. You need to make them live a breathe before we're going to care one way or another.
Outstanding. This is excatly what I wanted to hear. Good work guys
Does it really matter? I mean how many really play the campaign that comes with TBS games? I know I rarely do unless I can play it with custom races.
If the campaign has to take a hit in order for use to have good customization tools then I say let it take the hit. Customization is much more important then any campaign.
I do.
mean how many really play the campaign that comes with TBS games?
Quote by PawelS
As do I. In some games (like Age of Wonders) the campaign is much more challenging and fun then regular scenarios since in the campaign the developers made sure to put hard challenges on the hardest difficulty while the regular scenarios may or may not be challenging.
However, the campaign is only good for 2 playthoughs if there's no alternative paths and such.
Aye, I play the campaign as well. Of note, King Arthur had multi-path campaign ... even if choices were limited. Perhaps interesting backbone to place as a Foil vs any Elemental Campaign plans?
I think your in the minority. I know that in GAL Civ 2 I rarly played as the stock races I did use them as opponets but I enjoyed playing against custom races better. But the more races in the game the better both custom and stock.
Well I will disagree with you of coarse. In GalCiv2 the races that came with the game did not have more 'depth' than custom races that you create.
Had I'd perfer that we be given the tools to customize our own races the way we want instead of letting modders do it.
There should be several stock races with the game but allows the USER FRIENDLY tools to create races just as in depth as the stock races without having to know some programmers language.
Playing against custom races was great in GalCiv2 not sure why you think other wise. Perhaps you did not know how to make custom races so you did it poorly. The most fun that my frinds and I have had in that game was playing with and agienst the custom races.
"What if you removed the ability to customize your race/faction near the end of the beta test to help improve the built-in ones specifically? Testers would only use the built-in races to help refine/tweak them further."
Yep, I think it would be good to disable customizing factions and sovereigns both for a while. Doesn't have to be near the end though.
This is what I want to say too.
It is time to revisit the thread "What should happen when you capture a town?" A new suggestion I've now (or did some one have already suggested a similar already? from the Dev?), is that when you have capture a new town of made of same race, you keep the population (even if it is of different fraction). But when the town is made up of a different race, the city population goes to 0. This does not mean ethnic cleansing, it simply means you cannot use any of the local pop as your workforce. Those pop of the other race will be deplaced to the neighbouring cities (that accept them as workforce) or into the wild gradually.
This way should be a much better way to handle city capture than what OP mentioned.
I think it would be more fun to be able to keep cities of other races, like in MoM and AoW.
PawelS, Are you the same PawelS at my AOWSM days?
"I think it would be more fun to be able to keep cities of other races, like in MoM and AoW."
This is the real question. No one want to play just 1 fraction the whole game; but if you can utilize whatever race/fraction you capture, your starting race/fraction does not matter, because you end up with a broad mix of fraction anyway after the mid game. I hope this game ends up in the middle of this spectrum.
Other than my reply 118, another way can be used. All fractions are arranged in a circle, fraction 1 sitting next to fraction 2, 2 next to 3, etc. If you are playing with fraction 2, you can capture towns of fraction 1 & 3 to utilize its population. Fraction 1 & 3 is "compatible" to fraction 2.
This idea can be further modified (when balance/lore requires it) that fraction 2 can be compatible with 10 and 4, or even some out-of-the-way compatibility with fraction 8.
Yes, I'm the same PawelS
You're right that it shouldn't be possible to utilize the cities of ALL races, some should be friendly to your race, and some hostile (like in AoW, where you have to migrate some cities that you capture, because you have bad relations with that race).
I think you have a good point. By allowing someone to keep other factions cities and all its benefits you are in essence diminishing the importance of your own faction and instead allowing an indirect way to make CUSTOM FACTIONS which would not be a bad idea since in the end I always find myself saying "well if I could just get a unicorn from the elf tech tree that will cover my healing and I can get an orc fighter as a damage dealer... etc" all in the name of getting my units to be just what I want. The flexibility to customize my GAME to my liking is always key for me in order to enjoy the game and have FUN.
From a Rping stand point it is just silly to see a Paladin fighting with an undead, a demon, and a black guard as it heals and casts bless etc totally opposing schools of magic and total contrary to what a paladin stands for( now I know one can rp a paladin gone evil but to keep its merits as a paladin as well??? or to see undead and demons fighting for the common good??? Well I guess all is possible as long as the game is flexible enough for those who are hard core and would be instantly upset/put-off by such to turn a switch on or off for other faction city/tech tree production/integration.
Indeed, but keep in mind that we won't have many races in EWoM vanilla.
Actully this is what I would love to do. To beable to design my own troops out of the combined races that are controlled. Now of coarse for those who don't like to micromanage (cannot understand why would not want to micromanage thier empire that is the funnest part) you would have options that you can adjust what you do or donot want to micromanage.
Oh and if we could design our own troops please let it be as fun as the ship design of Galciv 2 (the best part of that game in my opinon.)
I do.As do I. In some games (like Age of Wonders) the campaign is much more challenging and fun then regular scenarios since in the campaign the developers made sure to put hard challenges on the hardest difficulty while the regular scenarios may or may not be challenging. However, the campaign is only good for 2 playthoughs if there's no alternative paths and such.[/quote]
Well I played the campaigns in AOW:SM and while that game is my favorite fantasy TBS to date the campaign was not all that great or challanging. I've had more fun and more challanges through player designed maps. And my AOW:SM now has well over 200 units (well actully more.)
In fact this discussion has prompted me to reload the game (AOW:SM) with all the mods I had backed up to disk from 2007. And I had forgotten how much fun that game is with the exception of the AI players not using navel units that well.
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