FrogBoy
AI
Turn 10
Capital City has Enchanted Hammers.
Capital City has Meditation
Sovereign is level 3
First Pioneer is done
Capital City has Inspiration
No second enchantment
Sovereign is level 1
Pioneer under construction
Turn 50
Turn 75
Has decided it’s time for the AI to die.
Doesn’t know they’re going to die.
Turn 100
(To be continued)
Screenshots:
I want that scroll!
AI bug found, they don’t put any concern on player build up unless THEY dislike the player.
Roughly even holdings in the world.
First enemy city taken.
They see my build up and try to send forces to take me out. I bypass those units and take their capital.
They want their capital back
Their final, desperate battle. It is the end for them. They might have won but the AI failed to treat my ranged *spells* intelligently and as a result, they crawled towards me to try to get the first Melee hit. I took advantage of that to use flame dart on them.
…and so to work I go…
Congratulations, you just defeated yourself?
Starting locations NEED to be somewhat standardized, or at least have the option to be, to be an effective strategy game.
I assume with the map editor that we can create maps that give standardized starting locations. So wouldn't this be the option to create standardized locations?
Currently (or supposedly) the maps are randomized. You could create maps, but you will most likely be asked to also place goodies and resources and and and... and in the end, people will learn the map, so for replayability you will need to create many maps, which is a lot of work.
Map making is an eternal art.
By standardized, I simply mean each start location should have, as an example, one shard and two other resources (forest and river included) within 3 tiles of the plop location on randomly generated maps.
I (personally) could care less about static maps. Of course they can be tweaked however the user wants.
You guys are thinking in terms of other games. In FE we will be making stamps, not maps. We will make tons of stamps that are patched together to make the whole map. Sure you might make a copy of some map from MoM if you really wanted to pay homage, but the most fun will be had by adding more unique stamps. The thing we need the devs to do is make sure the starting postion stamps are fair and equal. And to make sure that resources and monsters are also equal.
Seanw3
just for fun. I dont know the code. Is it possible to code a big ol' baddie to chase you around after hitting ctrl-n so many times. after the 3rd or 5th time you hit ctrl-n he spawns and chases you around the map and knocks on the door of your first settlement. That would teach em'
No. But you could make the game quit or something, but it would have to be hard-coded. So maybe Brad would like to add a judgmental picture of him that appears and criticizes you for being so god damn picky.
I for one never ever use CTRL+N. Neither in GalCiv or FE. It's the whole point of a random map, when life gives you lemons... you build a shard on them or something.
I thought the book that pops up and tells you the Sov story after each Ctrl+N was the punishment. It just keeps playing and playing if you restart the map.
I would put a 1-2 min. long cutscene that you cannot skip play everytime. Then say something like "the game thinks you just start a new game, so it plays everytime... muhahaha".
Map making is FUN !
... and randomized starting locations SHOULD still be an option for maps randomly created by the game.
Instead of a contrived means of forcing starting locations to be similar (which just removes the issue for your first city, not all the nice spots near your starting location), cities should just be less affected by location stats early on. Availability of resources represented by the location stats should be something that you grow into. Instead of plopping down a new city on a 5 material spot and instantly getting better production that your capitol, buildings and population need to be what increases the production. The decision was made to generalize most production bonuses into +production per material techs. I don't think it was a good decision, but that has all been said before. I guess we'll see what gets done to balance this in Beta5.
If I understand correctly, the game (when set on randomize), in a 90X90 map, will take say 100 pieces of pre-made pieces, each of 9X9 tiles, and puzzle them together to form the map. Modders and devs can easily create a new piece (or stamp), and the game will automatically place it into the maps.
Assuming this is the case, a modding tool should be added for these stamps, with, by definition, this field: starting location value, starting location range minimum, starting location range & chance.
The value, placed between 0-100 will decide a chance for that specific piece to be the starting location. I assume you can manually set the specifics, such as making sure the middle tile has a 3/3/2 or other size. With each randomize, the game will have higher chances to roll the lower chances. Note that a 99 stamp will occur 33 times more than a 3 stamp.
Range minimum will decide the minimum range (in stamps) from the starting location. A range minimum of 3 will means there are 2 stamps between this stamp and a starting location, and if map too small it will never appear.
Range & chance similar to range minimum, but allows to reduce the chances that the tile will be close, instead of preventing it (minimum is chance=0)
Well how about this then, when you hit Ctrl-N the game remembers up to five starting spots for both you and the AI - that is, the bits of the map that are on or immediately visible from your starting location. You can browse back and forward through these choices. Each time you choose a new or different start location, the AI makes a decision about which of its starting spots it wants to use, and then the map is generated around these cherry-picked locations.
In other words, the more you Ctrl-N, the more chance you can find a good start, but the more chance the AI will as well. Meanwhile, the map is assembled at random around these each time.
But then again, to me Random map means RANDOM MAP.
The lack of a true random map generator was one of the things that really bothered me in WoM.
I do not see why you would be upset as my original post stated to give an option at the start so EVERYONE could pick what they wanted and be happy.
To call it nonsense just implies that you fail to see that different people enjoy different things.
That is why games have standard maps for standard games and random maps for random games. At least all of the rts and tbs games I have played in my years of gaming had these options.
Let people do their ctrl-n thing if they wish. I dont, and I dont want changes in the game cause others do the ctrl-n thingie.
Don't push that one too far, I always hate it where you are in harmony with a player and they suddenly want to kill you if you are too strong. Maybe having allied victory conditions would prevent an AI to turncoat on the player because he know he can win with him.
With regard to unfair starting conditions -I think players who use Ctrl-N should play the AI on one level beyond challenging to make it fair. Because those who hit Ctrl-N to get that good starting spot are getting a pretty huge advantage.
In board games, this is generally solved by giving player multiple choice at game start. For example, instead of selecting a race or a character randomly, you give 2 to each player and they chose 1.
You could have something similar. Either you show 2 starting location and ask the player to chose which one they want, or show a large starting location and ask them where they want to start in that area to be able to build a city on the first turn.
Other ideas could create a similar effect.
When I play on Insane, I roll until I get at least 2/4/2. I would be happy with a VERY simple algorithm for random maps:
1. Generate the map as you do now.
2. Find the highest (Resources + essence) value in a 2 tile radius from the player.
3. If the (Resources + essence) is less than 5, increase both values proportionally until you hit 5. (6 for insane)
Or alternatively
1. Set the tile underneath the player to 3/3/2 (3/4/2 for insane)
By the way, I believe that resources and features on the map influence grain/material/essence values. For example, forests and rivers add materials, crystal and shards add essence. Or something.
I wonder what kind of tax levels the AI used? Maybe the AI is building military units too early in the game? In the early game you don't have enough population to support any kind of an army, and in addition to that the early militia isn't that useful. I would suggest that if building a military unit results in higher unrest in major cities, then the AI should not do it.
Another thing: rush build when there is single turn left! This can reduce build times by more than 10% while it doesn't cost that much to do.
hotemheb
"Another thing: rush build when there is single turn left! This can reduce build times by more than 10% while it doesn't cost that much to do."
I've used that method to get money back. I dont think of it as a bug, but more of a real-to-life concept. "We finished early boss, and under budget". Hey Hey!
Yes, you can rush-build the three turn limited buildings, pretty sure that is a bug.
Rushing buildings that take more than three turns is beneficial, too. The last turn's part is usually just a few production points, and thus is inexpensive to rush. You get your building one turn earlier AND get to construct the city's full production point amount for the next building. Thus it is almost always worth it to buy the last turn's portion away.
Maybe not turn, but build up defenses themselves, and prepare for the player to DOW.
create a contest mega events (within the meaning developers can create). and implement the most successful in the game. in the events - the basic "life" of the game (I recall galactic civilization 2)
I personally view the "rush last turn" tactic to be bad for the game. I don't believe a high-strategy game should base itself around micromanagement at that level. Especially if it's something the level that a simple mod(assuming you can do it) can just check every city and do it automatically, without thinking.
In general, every thing that includes /without thinking/ should be either automated instantly, or be scrapped. In this case, a simple solution would be for rush to leave 1 point of production like most games, and extra production to move to the next building, with multiple buildings built per turn enabled.
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