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another thought.
searching for people to recruit: if a search fails, have either certainty or high confidence in a response saying if there is indeed anyone to be found or not. this way the player (or ai?) doesn't end up searching pointlessly.
similarly, would expanding the advisor's role such that they can give more hints into the inner workings of the system (ie: if someone might be available or other currently hidden stuffs). An advisor report sheet rather than singular blurb might be handy as well.
I specifically mean having a large number of officers in the battle. The exact number they directly control presumably depends on the battle leader's int and their title, but I can see Zhuge Liang having total control unless it's a pretty big battle (think northern campaigns).
As for Zhang Fei, the novel misportrays him. An idiot wouldn't be a top general, and a drunkard would wind up dead. Case in point: Jian Yong cxoems from Liu Bei/Guan Yu/Zhang Fei's home village (and thus was with them the whole time), yet how often do they point him out?
Zhang Fei was, of course, great at battle, but there were only two times the novel got his personality right — when he handled Yan Yan's capture/recruitment exceedingly well, and how he took Guan Yu's death as badly as Liu Bei did (and the tragic consequences from that).
Overall, I'd say that 60-70 int & charm would not be unreasonable.
RANDOM TRIVIA: There are trees near Chengdu that were planted by Zhang Fei and his men that stand even today.
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Stats shouldn't really have an effect on how much training and morale new soldiers have; Bob The Peasant will be untrained whether he was recruited by Yin Mo or Zhao Yun. But they can affect how much people loyalty falls…
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Unique skills wouldn't REALLY be unique; they'd merely mean that officers have one or two things they're good at.
As for multiple skill levels, no levels in that skill would usually mean "no special training" not "catastrophic". After all, you've probably never given out rice to hungry peasants, yet I'm sure you can do it without calling them bloodsucking parasites or otherwise insulting them! XD At the same time, though, if an officer with no training in dueling is foolish enough to challenge someone very skilled at it…
I can totally see officers gaining levels in skills. Obviously they can't go from Cao Bao to Cao Cao overnight, but it may be best to have exp for every skill (and with enough exp, it goes up a level).
While different unit types are against the grain for rotk2, they were in play as for back as rotk3. Just check LYS's walkthroguhs! XD
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8, 9, 10, and 11 all had four or five different stats. 8 had war/int/pol/cha, 9 had lead/war/int/pol, and 10 & 11 both had lead/war/int/pol/cha. I recommend that we go with lead/int/pol/cha (with high-war officers getting high skills for dueling and training).
Of course, if you want to be daring, we could skip lead/war/int/pol/cha entirely and have it be entirely skill-based…
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As for personality, they already have that somewhat (loyalty, impulsiveness, expansionism) here; later on, there are other traits as well (how much they like drinking, whether they're greedy, etc.).
Unfortunately, we'll be making up things for some officers no matter what. Yan Liang's life, for example, is mostly unknown. Yan Liang, unknown! *shakes head and sighs*
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Are there supply lines? Nonehave been added yet, but that's a good idea. But at the same time, there are clumps of ten thousand soldiers and, therefore, needs for ten thousand meals at once. Zhuge Liang's not about to say "Men! We didn't bring food, but that's okay! There are three, maybe four berry bushes, which is enough to feed all of you for a month!" The retreat command is basically dropping everything (weapons, armor, food, game boys, etc.) and fleeing for safety, presumably while shrieking like a little girl. Okay, maybe not THAT much, but they're not going to hold onto extra weight that burdens them, nor is it in any way controlled.
Of course we can always add minor supply lines. Here's a possible set of rules:
(1) If your unit's in a province you control, you're in supply.
(2) If your unit's withing five tiles of a province you control, you're in supply.
(3) If your unit's within five tiles of a fort or supply depot you control, you're in supply.
(4) Otherwise, your unit's out of supply and, therefore, will lose troops and morale every day.
Supply depots would have to be built during your invasion for 200 gold (or something); enemy troops who move there have the choice of taking or destroying them. Any surviving supply depots are automatically dismantled post-battle by the province's owner for a 50% refund. As for forts, they follow castle capture rules but don't give you the province.
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If the invasion is of province 13, then only provinces adjacent to 13 can be added. 14 will become an acceptable target, but troops from 11 will simply appear on 12's border, and may have to trek all the way across 12 and halfway across 13 before they get to fight.
Why yes, province 30 would indeed lose most of its monthly commands; they know that it may get caught up in battle, so they can't risk sending out a shipment of rice only for the enemy to confiscate it! The only acceptable commands would be in-city commands (such as Reward) and military commands (such as Train).
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Presumably the combat end is not month-based; it's when every provinces has nbo enemy forces left. When Zhuge Liang sees that 13 is going to falling, it's only sensible to send the spare troops off to attack 12.
As for troops being pursued as they withdraw form 12 to 13, we cna always add an exception for that case (say, "If enemy trops are within three tiles of yours, the battle continues". But we don't want things to be TOO complex!
If you go to take province A and wind up getting province B instead, that happens.
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The problem with limiting combat to only two provinces is that even the biggest battles get so…. underwhelming. If you have a whopping 310,000 soldiers in a battle — see http://www.gamefaqs.com/boards/588628-romance-of-the-three-kingdoms-ii/62701813 for EPIC DETAILS — it only makes sense that multiple provinces (in this case, three of mine and one of his; three of mine and two or even three of his would also be possible) are involved! Remember, by now we're not merely doing battles, we're doing outright campaigns…
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If the attacker can't handle a defender in his own borders, it's his fault — and happened before as well. A famous example (Attacking Wei To Save Zhao) — see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Guiling for the detailed version and see http://middlekingdomtales.com/2009/07/23/p66-advice/ (and the next dozen or so strips) for the awesome version.
And troops should be able to go anywhere on the battlefield. There shouldn't be an invisible line that repels officers from going too far away! XD
Quote:I specifically mean having a large number of officers in the battle. The exact number they directly control presumably depends on the battle leader's int and their title, but I can see Zhuge Liang having total control unless it's a pretty big battle (think northern campaigns).(leader int / 10) is an easy number. and 3 for gov'ner, 5 for ruler as well. then you gotta figure out how this meshes with blockies.
Zhang Fei: sigh… i thought i've made it clear by now it was used as hyperbole ? should we also argue on your Jin Xuan conqueror of worlds title ?
Unit types: having beaten 3, and played a bit of 4… I found the unit types, as implemented, to be annoyingly useless (with the AI being even more stupid with it).
An alternative might possibly be a command to say 'shoot arrows', that is affected by general stats / arms level… or something (possibly costs money or takes money to "prepare" for during civil stuff).
Skills: i'd prefer a 1-100 style stat rather than discreet levels. Keeps with the 1-100 theme of the original.
If they're a good or bad idea overall, I dunno.
Quote:I recommend that we go with lead/int/pol/cha (with high-war officers getting high skills for dueling and training).high … what ? that stat's not in the list you gave :)
2: int/war/chr
3: int/pol/chr/str/army (and possibly navy but whatever).
while i don't particularly have a problem with breaking int into int/pol, breaking up war into str/army was… irritating imho :).
after i get a lot of the current 'needs to get done' shit out of the way… i'll prolly set up a way to have dynamic general stats… so people could create as many general stat types as they want (along with a way for the math/rpn to be able to reference them). this way people can come up with whatever they want heh. Anorexia stat go!
supply depots: interesting thought.
it'd make for a bit more strategy / planning perhaps, and also make more use for gold during invasion. i wonder how difficult it'd be to setup the typical castle siege then (surrounding the castle / simul attacking, defenders are around) …
might make fire overly powerful on the defensive side too (castle ppl tend to fire a lot… that hitting a nearby supply depot seems very likely).
cost/refund stuffs: while it makes sense to get something back, 'gold' doesnt really seem appropriate heh. i agree with some kind of refund, though (even if simplified down to 'gold').
Quote:The retreat command is basically dropping everything (weapons, armor, food, game boys, etc.) and fleeing for safety, presumably while shrieking like a little girl. Okay, maybe not THAT much, but they're not going to hold onto extra weight that burdens them, nor is it in any way controlled.But again — how could you possibly make it mesh with the game ? The idea is fine, but I see ZERO way of implementing it outside of 'arms' level going down.
a) no rice pot / supply depots
a1) does starting rice/gold get split proportionally among each unit at start of battle ?
a2) lets say chen deng had the most troops and he gets mowed through by zhang yan.
a3) chen deng flees
a4) although he had few troops afterwards, he had a high proportion of the rice compared to the rest of the army
a5) the rest of the army is now fucked ?
b) rice pot or supply depots
b1) how does this affect anything then ?
Quote:If the invasion is of province 13, then only provinces adjacent to 13 can be added. 14 will become an acceptable target, but troops from 11 will simply appear on 12's border, and may have to trek all the way across 12 and halfway across 13 before they get to fight.Way to be all over the board there :(. No frame of reference, etc.
Do we now have generals being transported from 11 to 14 (three provinces away) within 1 month's time (assuming 11 reinforcing 12 after a month's worth of combat has already occurred).
Quote:Why yes, province 30 would indeed lose most of its monthly commands; they know that it may get caught up in battle, so they can't risk sending out a shipment of rice only for the enemy to confiscate it! The only acceptable commands would be in-city commands (such as Reward) and military commands (such as Train).The rice command seems to be a red herring…
Yeah, was wanting to be able to implement *some* civil commands for a province while entangled in war … (rotk2 just simply locks you out completely)
But…. for the 30/13 war … ya shouldn't really be able to cheese it like that, depending on whatever you were referring to heh. Much like being able to cheese the original rotk2 was evil (locking up a province in combat).
Allowing some/many commands within the civil part of the game while within engulfed in combat would prolly solve a lot of those worries.
Quote:Presumably the combat end is not month-based; it's when every provinces has nbo enemy forces left. When Zhuge Liang sees that 13 is going to falling, it's only sensible to send the spare troops off to attack 12.You're mixing two things.
1) end of combat
2) the delineation between months for long lasting combats
Quote:As for troops being pursued as they withdraw form 12 to 13, we cna always add an exception for that case (say, "If enemy trops are within three tiles of yours, the battle continues". But we don't want things to be TOO complex!'too complex' lol.
blockies, ai's, limits on the player control, complicated battlescape situations for combat, skills, adding more base stats (int/war/chr -> int/pol/war/chr etc), a half dozen personality traits (aggressiveness, calmness, etc), abilities for generals to ignore a command, adding possibly more unit types, etc etc etc.
Something along the lines of 'within X tiles' is prolly workable. Possibly more like 'within X tiles of the boundary between provinces'.
Quote:If you go to take province A and wind up getting province B instead, that happens.No… that's not quite what I said.
Lets say that Province 30 wants Province 12.
They're not connected. Province 13 is in between them.
Province 30 and 13 are fairly evenly matched. Province 12, on the other hand is a little weaker.
Province 30 invades province 13, hoping that Province 12 will be used as reinforcements (thus putting it's castle on the battlescape). Luck works out, and it happens.
Province 30's army now completely skips Province 13's castle / army and heads directly for Province 12's castle… having ZERO interest in capturing 13.
Quote:EPIC BATTLESYeah, anyone that's played rotk2 several times has had a 2-4 province war front :). Depending on how the AI crumbles, it can then just collapse really quickly by the leader fleeing repeatedly after being defeated once and whittled down in troop counts.
Many of my rotk2 games would end with liu bei or liu biao hermitted in a single province with upwards of max soldiers… thus requiring several attacks within a single month to work it down.
should be heading home soon.
That's why we need to produce a better AI for using unit types. ;)
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1-100 stat is doable, but if we rate skills as 1-100 we'd essentially be giving every single character 20+ stats! XD
As for high-war, I mean characters that would have had high war if the stat was included. Dian Wei, Lu Bu, etc.
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When someone uses a retreat command, by definition it's disorderly; the unit loses soldiers (due to desertion), morale, and weapons. If the entire provincial force retreats, gold and food is lost as well.
If we assign food and gold to each unit, it negates the need for supply depots. I feel it'd be best to just have per-force or per-province gold & food.
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According to Google, from Beijing (province 6) to Xian (aka Changan, province 12) is 692.4 miles. Going at a rate of 13 miles a day (the same rate Alexander the Great's non-cavalry armies achieved), it'll take only 53 days to cross four provinces, less than half the 120 days rotk2 demands!
So with a bit of forced marching, three provinces in a month is certainly doable!
And remember, the further you are from your intended target province's borders, the more you lose to a retreat command. Going form 11 to 14 in-battle may easily take more than a month, and your troops'll certainly be eating more than they would at peace!
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For provinces "locked out" by war, we could always let the players do any command…. at a greater (or much greater!) chance of enemy troops interfering! If you send someone out of the city without a soldier they may easily run right into Cao Cao's armies before they even leave the province…
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If Cao Cao was silly enough to let you take province 12, it's his own fault! Especially since you can reinforce it form 29 if needed.
And, of course, you could have simply attacked 12 from 29 instead in the first place…
Quote:If Cao Cao was silly enough to let you take province 12, it's his own fault! Especially since you can reinforce it form 29 if needed.RAGE
:finger: :finger: :finger: :finger: :finger: :finger: :finger: :finger:
29 isn't apart of the battlescape!
…. moving on ….
buttons are nearing completion… code stuff to get them into the project are nearing done… (don't do anything, but they'll be there before i'm done tonight).
province gui buttons done and ugly as ever.
main category click displays appropriate sub categories.
i'll continue to hard code in some 'this does that' and 'display this here' stuff tomorrow… but… now i can start actually doing some limited 'click on something, assign general(s), rpn shit processes'.
still debating how i wanna handle modable gui stuff. prolly just identify things by strings and string compare stuff for appropriate function call etc.
Well yeah, it goes without saying that 29 isn't part of the current battlefield. The next one, though…
For the love of my eyes, pleeeeeease pick a different font!
an artist later, or something, can pick better fonts :P. functionality is primary concern atm. i expect NOTHING of the current screenshots posted to end up in any type of final release (or beyond this one, honestly).
the ability to animate the buttons is there, but right now they're just 3 frames total except 1 demo button. But that's still currently ~60 graphics in buttons alone.
We haven't even decided on what stats to use or how exactly we'll do stats, but here are some general skills to consider:
Peace:
Hire: Soldiers are hired at a lower cost
Drill: Soldiers gain skill faster when training
Inspire: Soldiers gain morale faster when training
Diplomat: Better luck when dealing with other forces
Merchant: Better deals when buying & selling
Farmer: Better results for improving harvests
Developer: Better results for improving tax income
Levee: Better results for disaster resistance
Patrol: Better chance of catching enemy messengers
Infiltrator: Better chance of successful subterfuge
Stealth: Less chance of being caught as a messenger
Readiness: Disasters are less damaging
War:
Attacker: Does more damage when doing a normal attack
Flanker: Does more damage with a joint attack
Ferocity: Does more damage with a charge.
Defending: Does more damage when being attacked
Igniter: Better chance with the fire command
Douser: Resistance to the fire command
Captor: Better chance of capturing fleeing officers
Evader: Lesser chance of being captured
Duelist: More effective in duels
Lure: Better chance of luring an enemy with Move Enemy
Ambush: Inflicts more damage when ambushing enemies
Confuse: Lets you confuse enemies (lower power & cannot mode until it ends)
great list!
past week has been weird for trying to work on things. dunno if gonna get a chance this weekend… busy saturday, and sunday night gotta get ready for an IP change at work … so… i dunno.
That's okay; I have some projects of my own to work on. When you're next willing and able to work on Untitled Game, we can do so. In the meantime, out of randomness….. old people?
Old people!
Work's been real busy for the last few days, back is hurting more because of it… so….. no progress on anything yet.
Tomorrow (today? Thursday) is gonna suck as well. Dunno about friday or the weekend.
You know, even if you're too occupied for work, I can still make some suggestions for when you can catch up. ;)
Anyway, I have a feeling we should discuss titles; for clarity, chunks of land here will be called commanderies (RoTK2 had 41 "commanderies", whereas china had 102 at the end of the han dynasty). Groups of comamnderies will be referred to as provinces (han dynasty had 13, althoguh Jiaozhi was originally a territory).
Provinces and (for msot of them) commanderies: http://img140.imageshack.us/img140/5720/mapcrespignycolored.png
Someone who runs a commandery was called an administrator; someone who runs a provicnes was called either a governor or an inspector (just as four US states — kentucky, massachusetts, pennsylvania, and virginia — technically call themselves commonwealths instead). For clarity, I will be using the term Inspector.
That said, RoTK2 has no steps between "force leader" and "administrator". RoTK8 had individual ranks (for the force leader) and "viceroy" (similar to inspector, but their area — or "district" as the game calls it — is not limited to official province borders), and RoTK11 replaced that with individual ranks (with each district run by the highest ranked officer there, and Lead breaking ties).
So I suggest adding titles here; even if you don't like making the player give up control, they can still be rewards (if only honorary) that raise officer loyalty. Presumably, every officer will have a certain prestige (based on successful actions and how long they served); depending on their prestige and how greedy they are, they'll secretly think they deserve a certain title (and their loyalty will slowly go up or down depending on how their rank compared to what they crave).
Let me know what exactly you suggest we do with titles; in any case, I recommend the following ranks for the force leader (those marked [E] are limited to the force that protects the emperor… unless the emperor has been deposed!):
* Emperor
* [E] Prime Minister
* [E] Excellency (There were three: Grand Commandant/Minister of the Masses/Minister of Works)
* [E] Minister (There were nine: Minister of Ceremonies/Minister of the Household/Minister of the Guards/Minister Coachman/Minister of Justice/Minister Herald/Minister of the Imperial Clan/Minister of Finance/Minister Steward)
* Prince
* Duke
* Inspector
* Administrator
Getting declared a new title depends on your prestige, your military strength, and your relations with whoever guards the emperor; you'd get a bonus if you're the one who guards the emperor, and another bonus if you have the ruler's seal as well.
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On a side note, as far back as the Shang dynasty, there were nine tripod cauldrons that symbolized the dynasty's power; they had been lost by the Qin dynasty (and both Qin Shi Huang and the fifth Han emperor searched for them to no avail), but we can have one of them be a neat findable item on par with the ruler's seal (which was waaaaaaaay too overpowered in rotk2).
You know, even if you're too occupied for work, I can still make some suggestions for when you can catch up. ;)
Anyway, I have a feeling we should discuss titles; for clarity, chunks of land here will be called commanderies (RoTK2 had 41 "commanderies", whereas china had 102 at the end of the han dynasty). Groups of comamnderies will be referred to as provinces (han dynasty had 13, althoguh Jiaozhi was originally a territory).
Provinces and (for msot of them) commanderies: http://img140.imageshack.us/img140/5720/mapcrespignycolored.png
Someone who runs a commandery was called an administrator; someone who runs a provicnes was called either a governor or an inspector (just as four US states — kentucky, massachusetts, pennsylvania, and virginia — technically call themselves commonwealths instead). For clarity, I will be using the term Inspector.
That said, RoTK2 has no steps between "force leader" and "administrator". RoTK8 had individual ranks (for the force leader) and "viceroy" (similar to inspector, but their area — or "district" as the game calls it — is not limited to official province borders), and RoTK11 replaced that with individual ranks (with each district run by the highest ranked officer there, and Lead breaking ties).
So I suggest adding titles here; even if you don't like making the player give up control, they can still be rewards (if only honorary) that raise officer loyalty. Presumably, every officer will have a certain prestige (based on successful actions and how long they served); depending on their prestige and how greedy they are, they'll secretly think they deserve a certain title (and their loyalty will slowly go up or down depending on how their rank compared to what they crave).
Let me know what exactly you suggest we do with titles; in any case, I recommend the following ranks for the force leader (those marked [E] are limited to the force that protects the emperor… unless the emperor has been deposed!):
* Emperor
* [E] Prime Minister
* [E] Excellency (There were three: Grand Commandant/Minister of the Masses/Minister of Works)
* [E] Minister (There were nine: Minister of Ceremonies/Minister of the Household/Minister of the Guards/Minister Coachman/Minister of Justice/Minister Herald/Minister of the Imperial Clan/Minister of Finance/Minister Steward)
* Prince
* Duke
* Inspector
* Administrator
Getting declared a new title depends on your prestige, your military strength, and your relations with whoever guards the emperor; you'd get a bonus if you're the one who guards the emperor, and another bonus if you have the ruler's seal as well.
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On a side note, as far back as the Shang dynasty, there were nine tripod cauldrons that symbolized the dynasty's power; they had been lost by the Qin dynasty (and both Qin Shi Huang and the fifth Han emperor searched for them to no avail), but we can have one of them be a neat findable item on par with the ruler's seal (which was waaaaaaaay too overpowered in rotk2).
You know, even if you're too occupied for work, I can still make some suggestions for when you can catch up. ;)
Anyway, I have a feeling we should discuss titles; for clarity, chunks of land here will be called commanderies (RoTK2 had 41 "commanderies", whereas china had 102 at the end of the han dynasty). Groups of comamnderies will be referred to as provinces (han dynasty had 13, althoguh Jiaozhi was originally a territory).
Provinces and (for msot of them) commanderies: http://img140.imageshack.us/img140/5720/mapcrespignycolored.png
Someone who runs a commandery was called an administrator; someone who runs a provicnes was called either a governor or an inspector (just as four US states — kentucky, massachusetts, pennsylvania, and virginia — technically call themselves commonwealths instead). For clarity, I will be using the term Inspector.
That said, RoTK2 has no steps between "force leader" and "administrator". RoTK8 had individual ranks (for the force leader) and "viceroy" (similar to inspector, but their area — or "district" as the game calls it — is not limited to official province borders), and RoTK11 replaced that with individual ranks (with each district run by the highest ranked officer there, and Lead breaking ties).
So I suggest adding titles here; even if you don't like making the player give up control, they can still be rewards (if only honorary) that raise officer loyalty. Presumably, every officer will have a certain prestige (based on successful actions and how long they served); depending on their prestige and how greedy they are, they'll secretly think they deserve a certain title (and their loyalty will slowly go up or down depending on how their rank compared to what they crave).
Let me know what exactly you suggest we do with titles; in any case, I recommend the following ranks for the force leader (those marked [E] are limited to the force that protects the emperor… unless the emperor has been deposed!):
* Emperor
* [E] Prime Minister
* [E] Excellency (There were three: Grand Commandant/Minister of the Masses/Minister of Works)
* [E] Minister (There were nine: Minister of Ceremonies/Minister of the Household/Minister of the Guards/Minister Coachman/Minister of Justice/Minister Herald/Minister of the Imperial Clan/Minister of Finance/Minister Steward)
* Prince
* Duke
* Inspector
* Administrator
Getting declared a new title depends on your prestige, your military strength, and your relations with whoever guards the emperor; you'd get a bonus if you're the one who guards the emperor, and another bonus if you have the ruler's seal as well.
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On a side note, as far back as the Shang dynasty, there were nine tripod cauldrons [do a wikipedia search as the board is broken again] that symbolized the dynasty's power; they had been lost by the Qin dynasty (and both Qin Shi Huang and the fifth Han emperor searched for them to no avail), but we can have one of them be a neat findable item on par with the ruler's seal (which was waaaaaaaay too overpowered in rotk2).
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LYS, the board is losing posts again; to my knowledge, it auto-rejects anything with two links, even from esteemed members such as myself. You should fix it, as it's an evil yellow turban plot.
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