Project Green: gameplay mod for GAE -- new release 18 Sep 2011

[John.d.h]

I do really like this, it's real fun to play.
What about some Rock, Paper, Sirrors-like gameplay? You know; the traditional, Range beat infrantry, Infranty beat cavalry, Cavalry beat Range idea.

We already have that to some degree.  Piercing beats soft targets, slashing is decent all-around, impact is good against hard targets, etc.  Overall, I think the unit-vs.-unit balance is okay as it is.  As far as balance is concerned, I'm more interested in things like, if one upgrade gives a bigger advantage to one side than another, or if one of the leaders is more powerful than the other, or if one side needs more gold.  Things like that.

By the way the Inquisitor and White Mage need new models! I have some ideas, I'd be happy to do some concept art if you'd like. (I wouldn't mind if you say no).

That's a little beyond the scope of this project at the moment.  If somebody wants to donate some g3d files, then they'll likely get incorporated, but it's not that big a deal to me.  This is mostly just a project I'm working on during breaks from other projects.

Also to start a discussion about names, what about something along the lines of Glest Skirmish?... Glest Battalions?.... I'm not very good at names. 

Glest Skirmish sounds okay.  I'm not terribly concerned with naming since everything is still in a pretty early stage, so I don't think I'll decide on anything just yet.

why dont you do some of the stuff we talked about before, like getting a small resource bonus or getting a squad of elite units? (but this would require more than 2 Aether points....)

That's certainly a possibility.

I suppose I could have an Alchemy command that exchanges Aether for Gold (using whatever that new command is called... produce?), and then one that multi-produces a group of mercenaries.

[Zoythrus]

here's an idea, it'd be nice if you started out with a small party like 2 swordsmen and an archer besides your banner and hero.

also, the two factions should get unique/differing upgrades, like the Magic should have a +1 to all range and the Tech should get a small attack-speed boost. 

[hailstone]

I've committed a fix for emergency workers (commit 0ac14d7..). I did the check before producing way instead of modifying addPriorityTask since there is still a chance of it blocking if the timings line up - only one task is dealt with each update so if the timings lined up it would go "add produce worker -> remove produce worker" and not do any real task.

[John.d.h]

So does that mean I can remove my invisible dummy worker units?

[hailstone]

Yes. You will need to make sure no units in the faction are able to produce workers (ie castle and technodrome). It's still a problem with other factions (created ticket 317).

[John.d.h]

Bump.  I'm making a few improvements to this mod, including replacing the missing icons and giving each faction the ability to recruit mercenaries.  Are there any requests while I'm at it?

[ultifd]

Sounds good. How about some new units? 

[John.d.h]

Sounds good. How about some new units?

Good idea.  In fact, that's such a good idea that I already thought of it. Since both factions have all of the ground units from their own roster, I turned to others.  Tech can hire a squad of three elite Gunners from wciow's Dwarves and Magic can hire a squad of three elite Marauders from madmanntis' Woodsmen.

[ultifd]

Well, yeah. But real "new" units would be much better. In fact, that would give you more experience/help you practice your modeling, I guess. 

[John.d.h]

Ehh... that's beyond the scope of this project.  I've got more than enough things I need to model, with my Chronic Volunteer's Syndrome and all.  I'll probably make a few changes after GAE 0.4 gets stable and that will be the end of it for me.  Project Green in general was just an experiment in what kinds of interesting gameplay changes could be made without actually programming anything, and I think it's served its purpose.

So now that we know it's not hard to create new and innovative gameplay through modding, no one has any excuse* for making a mod that plays like default Magitech!

* except lack of imagination

[ultifd]

  I guess we'll just see. I just think that Project Green could be expanded a bit, and it would probably be good practice for modeling too.

[Psychedelic_hands]

I think project green is fine as is (or when it will be released).
The only other thing I see this is turning this into an actual feature of GAE, or glest 4. Whater. As in a gametype.

[Zoythrus]

The only other thing I see this is turning this into an actual feature of GAE, or glest 4. Whater. As in a gametype.

So Glest could become a RTB (Real-time Tactics). that seems like a great idea!

(click to show/hide)

speaking of gametypes, we need the ability to actually have some!

[silnarm]

Bump.  I'm making a few improvements to this mod, including replacing the missing icons and giving each faction the ability to recruit mercenaries.  Are there any requests while I'm at it?

Purchasable buffs for those mercs might've been nice... A crying shame the Lua AI interface didn't get done  :'(

[ultifd]

Hmm...I guess the only other real thing to do besides what was stated is to do some balancing after the merge is done, for various reasons.

[Psychedelic_hands]

How about adding a glow underneath the Heros? Just a slight team colour particle as it is easier to distinguish them.

[Zoythrus]

hey John, you should add the ability to sacrifice research point (or whatever they're called) for bonus resources, seems like a fair trade

[John.d.h]

How about adding a glow underneath the Heros? Just a slight team colour particle as it is easier to distinguish them.

(Click for full size on ModDB.)

_{Edit by Omega: Link fix to point to the direct URL}

[ultifd]

Right, looks good. Is the battlemachine hero's glow noticeable enough though?

[John.d.h]

Right, looks good. Is the battlemachine hero's glow noticeable enough though?

If it wasn't before, it ought to be now.

[Ishmaru]

What about a glow around the whole unit? like Warcraft 3. The glow gets lost for larger units. The glow on battle machine looks more like smoke. It needs to look more luminescent.

[John.d.h]

I like having the black in there because it looks kinda sinister and evil, since he's an Inquisitor... so yeah.  I don't think a WC3-style hero glow is possible.

[Ishmaru]

Well it does not have to conform to the body. A burning aura would serve its purpose well. If you want it to look evil then yea guess it works.

[Zoythrus]

never saw the Tech as "evil"...

[John.d.h]

Maybe you should.
https://docs.megaglest.org/Story
This is why their leader is an Inquisitor.