MegaGlest Refit - Desert Nomads

[MuwuM]

Code: [Select]

[img]http://www.muwum-lexicons.de/ds4/titel.php?t=MG%20Refit:%20Desert%20Nomads[/img]This is a thread dedicated to the redevelopment of the MegaGlest "Desert People" faction (replaceing egypt and persian). Feel free to post ideas related to them here.

Google Doc with current status

[MuwuM]

First ideas:

Units should have much hp but less armor.
more stone and gold, less wood.

typical units are:
- slave Concept-Art
- writer Concept-Art
- spearmen Concept-Art, alternative
- archer Concept-Art, alternative
- chariots (with archer) Concept-Art
- houses Concept-Art
- palace Concept-Art, alternative

 for food wheat and/or cows

Code: [Select]

[url=http://s3.amazonaws.com/readers/socyberty/2008/05/25/168520_0.jpg]Concept-Art Wheat[/url], Cows

- well wich grands hp regeneration to nearby buildings (stop burning) Concept-Art
- garden that increases the production-speed of nearby buildings. (people are happy)Concept-Art

NO CAMELS in ancient time there where only horses and cows no camels.

[Omega]

Are we in agreement that the desert faction should have a number of cheaper, weaker units? The desert archer, for example, would be weaker, faster, and cheaper than that of, say, Tech. For balance, though, later game units would have to have more balanced strength.

Other units could include:
- Marketplace (production/upgrades) Concept art (tan building)
- Slinger (perhaps replacement for archer?) Concept art,

Code: [Select]

[url=http://img118.imageshack.us/img118/6895/renderheilotaisphendonewo4.jpg]alternative[/url]- Momentum (upgrades) Concept art
- Companion (high ranking infantry) Concept art

I'd really like to see some degree of magic, though, such as a magician of sorts (concept art).

If we're going to have hero units, an interesting idea would be based on the Persian deities for good (Rostam; concept art) and evil (Zahhak;

Code: [Select]

[url=http://cghub.com/files/Image/046001-047000/46226/102_max.jpg]concept art[/url]). Players could choose which to have, and each would have an advantage over the other (say, perhaps Rostam is slow and powerful while Zahhak is weaker but faster). Players would only be allowed to have one of the two possible heroes at a time.

By the way, is the garden increasing the production speed of nearby buildings possible with current MegaGlest features? I know it could be done with emanations, but not sure if there's a way to do it currently.

[MuwuM]

Yes many weaker units with low amount of armor but good hp value (not too much).

I have no idea what to do with a market, but it fit in the theme very well.

Slinger is nice. (shorter range than archer but a bit of splash damage).

Momentum/Obelisk is suitable for upgrades.

The Companion is alright.

As my researches were based on history book and Wikipedia I did not have any magic,yet. Magic is ok, but it should not become to dominant.

the Idea of two heroes to choose from is good ... I especially like the concept art ... maybe the good one grants more hp and the bad one reduces hp (regeneration e.g. -5) and increases speed or damage.

for the garden I'd use attack-boost <production-speed value="0" value-percent-multipler="false" />. So it should work...

[-Archmage-]

The main concepts originally behind this were economy and cavalry. Both camel and horse cavalry.

[Perplesso]

Could Market become the only source of gold for this faction? For example:
- slaves are not allowed to harvest gold;
- market produces gold automatically, like Energy Sources produce energy in Magic faction.

[-Archmage-]

Could Market become the only source of gold for this faction? For example:
- slaves are not allowed to harvest gold;
- market produces gold automatically, like Energy Sources produce energy in Magic faction.

This would require a change in code. Unless you trade stone for gold, in which case you still have to get to AI to do it.

[-Archmage-]

Here's what's left of the old replacement art I made for Egypt.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/miqcq1her02yj49/Old%20Art%20for%20MG.7z

I doubt you'll be able to use any of it, the art really needs a clean restart from a whole different angle.

[MuwuM]

The main concepts originally behind this were economy and cavalry. Both camel and horse cavalry.

What are you referring to?

Could Market become the only source of gold for this faction?

This would require a change in code. Unless you trade stone for gold, in which case you still have to get to AI to do it.

No it would be possible... at least when you sell manually ... the only problem would be the AI.
+ It could become a big benefit or disadvantage for the faction depending on the map ... as they usually have more gold than stone....

Techtree (WIP)

Code: [Select]

[img]http://img838.imageshack.us/img838/8091/deserttechtree.jpg[/img]Green = build/produce
Orange = morph
blue = research

[Zoythrus]

I'm not too sure if I agree with the Writer being a unit. Mainly because it reminds me too much of the old Vbros packs that had relatively useless, random units thrown in just for theme (no offense, Vbros).

Oh, and as another name for the obelisk that you might find interesting, you could also use "Stele."

Instead of a spearman, you could go with something a bit more unique, like a Khopesh and use an anti-cavalry for cavalry duty. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Khopesh

Lastly, if this faction is going to be cavalry driven, has anyone here heard of the Mameluke?

[MuwuM]

Ok, I can discard the writer.

Names are all working-title ... have some other names myself, but general names need fewer description in development.

Lastly, if this faction is going to be cavalry driven, has anyone here heard of the Mameluke?

I think the focus should be infantry.

[Zoythrus]

Lastly, if this faction is going to be cavalry driven, has anyone here heard of the Mameluke?

I think the focus should be infantry.

I had suggested cavalry both because Omega mentioned it and Glest doesn't have any "cavalry factions". Every faction so far has one mounted unit, while I really think that the Desert Nomads (it sounds cooler that way) should have multiple types of cavalry.

[Omega]

This would require a change in code. Unless you trade stone for gold, in which case you still have to get to AI to do it.

I don't think we should depend on that concept, but if such a feature (automatically generate resources in a time interval) becomes available, I think it would be a very interesting concept. At any rate, it looks like Molaos already coded a way to do that in his engine. Perhaps in the future, we'll see a port of that features in MegaGlest?

I think we need some descriptions on some of these units. What is the purpose of the well and field? I'd presume the field produces food, but at which case we already have the farm. Some buildings can be used largely for requirements for other units, but I'd like to see every building have at least some function. As well, should every faction have a defensive building?

I'm also unsure about the writer. It seems to be a useless "inbetween" unit and I'm not sure if the AI would grasp it properly.

Upgrades are pretty low priority, but I think all factions should have some type of lengthy upgrade required to produce a hero unit (which helps prevent the player from getting the hero too early while also adding to the cost of the hero, as they're supposed to be very expensive).

Expanding some different ideas on MuwuM's map:


3 EDIT CONFLICTS: Perhaps swap spearman with spearthrower and swap archer with some type of melee cavalry?

ANOTHER EDIT: Desert Nomads would be an awesome faction name (Zoy).

[MoLAoS]

Its incredibly unlikely that any of my code would get into MegaGlest as even GAE would be difficult to port it to, since my source control is poor for various reasons.

It should be relatively simple for someone to write their own version of resource generation directly to MegaGlest though, presuming that there isn't some weird interaction with the network code.

Generating individual resources on a timer is trivial to do, although a more complex implementation like mine would take at least a dozen or more hours of coding time.

Remember that MegaGlest is primarily focused on stable multiplayer and not gameplay features. You should probably resign yourself to that design decision if you want to work with MegaGlest just as you would resign yourself to singleplayer for the current GAE. Although Hailstone did promise that he was working on multiplayer for GAE.

[MuwuM]

I looked at the big civilizations (egypts / persian) but nomads would be ok for me, too but we should decide ....

Omegas techtree looks good so far. A few comments:

If we focus on cavalry we should discard the archer and add some melee cavalry, if not it should stay.

If palace produces the worker/slaves we could mix house (housing is in megapack) and farm (produce cows and/or wheats ) for food

The well was just an idea for repairing buildings (stop burning, something like this is done in Anno)

[Perplesso]

Remember that MegaGlest is primarily focused on stable multiplayer and not gameplay features. You should probably resign yourself to that design decision if you want to work with MegaGlest just as you would resign yourself to singleplayer for the current GAE. Although Hailstone did promise that he was working on multiplayer for GAE.

In my opinion, MegaGlest should also deal with enriching gameplay experience...

[Omega]

If we focus on cavalry we should discard the archer and add some melee cavalry, if not it should stay.

What would the melee cavalry be, by the way? Zoy mentioned the Mameluke, and camels have been mentioned before (those seem more like a ranged choice to me, though).

In my opinion, MegaGlest should also deal with enriching gameplay experience...

[MuwuM]

In my opinion, MegaGlest should also deal with enriching gameplay experience...

No of-topic discussion!

This Topic is only for the desert faction. Decisions on requesting new features and whether MG should support it should be placed in the general discussion.


Ok, the Poll did not make sense ... "Desert Nomads" are good.
Then I will shift my focus to cavalry.

melee cavalry: the Mameluke are fighting with spears... so it's not too much distance.  Camels where not used very much in ancient times!

[MoLAoS]

After seeing MuwuM's post, perhaps Omega could split this discussion off from the desert topic to avoid derailing.

Remember that MegaGlest is primarily focused on stable multiplayer and not gameplay features. You should probably resign yourself to that design decision if you want to work with MegaGlest just as you would resign yourself to singleplayer for the current GAE. Although Hailstone did promise that he was working on multiplayer for GAE.

In my opinion, MegaGlest should also deal with enriching gameplay experience...

Ideally all games would have everything obviously. Its not about what should be done but what can be done. If MegaGlest is to focus on enriching gameplay options it needs programmers to do this work. Current developers have their hands full focusing on stability. So new ones would be required to make gameplay changes.

I do believe Omega and Zor have decided to become MG programmers, presumably because it has multiplayer and GAE does not and thus MG is more popular.

So perhaps sometime in the future a few months or so from now, MG will indeed have some new gameplay features.

[Zoythrus]

Zor

Zoy*

Anyways, the reason that I want to code for MG is because GAE is on its deathbed. I do plan on making new gameplay features, since MG will eventually be the only remaining fork, and new content needs to happen.
</off-topic>

Oh, and just a correction, the Companion was actually a Greek cavalry. Maybe we should make them a Cataphract?

[MoLAoS]

Zor

Zoy*

Anyways, the reason that I want to code for MG is because GAE is on its deathbed. I do plan on making new gameplay features, since MG will eventually be the only remaining fork, and new content needs to happen.
</off-topic>

Oh, and just a correction, the Companion was actually a Greek cavalry. Maybe we should make them a Cataphract?

I'm calling you Zor and you can't stop me. Also GAE would be far from dead if Hailstone goes through with his plan to add multiplayer. In fact it would then be a significant improvement from MegaGlest with its tile system, improve menus, and various other benefits.

[ElimiNator]

Zor

Zoy*

Anyways, the reason that I want to code for MG is because GAE is on its deathbed. I do plan on making new gameplay features, since MG will eventually be the only remaining fork, and new content needs to happen.
</off-topic>

Oh, and just a correction, the Companion was actually a Greek cavalry. Maybe we should make them a Cataphract?

I'm calling you Zor and you can't stop me. Also GAE would be far from dead if Hailstone goes through with his plan to add multiplayer. In fact it would then be a significant improvement from MegaGlest with its tile system, improve menus, and various other benefits.

First don't be rude, second please don't talk about engines in this topic.

So back to the topic, I like omegas refined tech tree but what purpose would the garden serve? Will it be like 6 cows producing food?.

Also I don't like names like garden, house, spear man, ect.

How about something called Montazah?

[Zoythrus]

Elim, he wasn't being rude. I once had this guy who kept calling me "Zorthus," so I've gotten used to it.

We had discussed a bit ago that the Nomads would have a flying carpet as an air unit. I think it fits them!
Also, what do you think of my idea to turn the Companion into the Cataphract (a heavy cavalry)?
And the Khopesh idea? It would be a great way to add flavor to them.

[ElimiNator]

Wait? Is this faction based on Egypt or Persia?

I don't know if its a good idea to mix them.

[-Archmage-]

It's supposed to be a careful mix of Egypt Persia, and some native mythology(not too much!!!).

Khopesh

Cavalry