MegaGlest Refit - Desert Nomads

[ElimiNator]

Muwum? He hasn't been here for a while. I think it should be voted on.

[Zoythrus]

Actually, I talked to him earlier today. He's just a little busy. Anyways, it's technically under his leadership, so he's the one who makes the decisions.

[-Archmage-]

I'm open to a vote, just I'm not doing art for a sand golem.

Edit: Sand Golem vs cheap and mobile ballista-ish thing?

[MuwuM]

Sorry, I'm not at home until the 7 January 2013, so I have only limited access to the board and not much time for posting.

 For the defence unit Zoy came up with a great idea: we could give the well an additional attack-boost adding negative hp-regeneration to enemy units.

The sand golem would be in my opinion more like a slow, but strong unit and not really a defence. I don't really like the idea of having just an other tower shooting arrows...

[ElimiNator]

Sorry, I'm not at home until the 7 January 2013, so I have only limited access to the board and not much time for posting.

 For the defence unit Zoy came up with a great idea: we could give the well an additional attack-boost adding negative hp-regeneration to enemy units.

The sand golem would be in my opinion more like a slow, but strong unit and not really a defence. I don't really like the idea of having just an other tower shooting arrows...

No offence but that's a complete copy of magic.
If you want to do the sand golem then do it, but I am not going to do art for it.

[-Archmage-]

I was discussing more with the guys and we've come up with a mobile tower. It would have 2 forms, one defensive, and one siege. That way your defense tower could reconstruct into a siege tower. I think this would be a really great way to take over a base and then immediately secure it by rebuilding into defense towers.

[MuwuM]

No offence but that's a complete copy of magic.
If you want to do the sand golem then do it, but I am not going to do art for it.

You got me wrong, I don't want the Golem as defensive unit, but I like the idea of the sand-golem.
Maybe as hero? instead the two god's?

The mobile - ballista tower seems to be an unique defense unit. Concept-Art: with 100% wood and wheels instead the rock

[ElimiNator]

Well it would have to an automated bow because putting a guy on top won't work.

[-Archmage-]

We'd either put a roof over it so you don't see it, or hint that the controls for the turret are under the ballista.

[Zoythrus]

I have two big issues with a morphing turret/siege weapon:
1. The AI hates stuff like that. After plenty of testing Constellus on GAE, I can tell you that the AI sometimes panics with units like that. It's just a bad idea until the AI can use them correctly.
2. Ballistae were great at killing troops, but SUCKED against structures. So, anything with a crossbow would make for a VERY inefficient siege weapon. To take down a structure, you need something that deals heavy impact damage, like a giant rock!

I'm highly in favor of a Sand/Earth golem. I imagine to be much like the picture, not like what Magic has (honestly, I have always thought that the Magic golem was ugly....). I want to see it throw giant boulders or something of that nature!

Lastly, I want the Njord to have the only melee siege weapon (since it fits them the best).

[MoLAoS]

There is a good reason the AI of most custom maps on games like WC3 and SC2 is done with scripting. Just like most humans play games in ways and using exploits that the devs never imagined or intended, the AI is limited by the devs own conception of the game. And when you move away from the original game into customized factions it gets much, much worse. Like unbelievably worse. And that's assuming the designers were smart enough to create an AI that could use their own units properly relative to other designers. AI designers also tend to take various shortcuts related to a set of unit archetypes in order to save on AI processing because of limited CPU cycles.

Any AI system that wants to deal well with game data not designed by its creator needs to be intensely generalized and the creator needs to have a really good understanding of the systems the game uses be they economic or military. And then we deal with needing multiple difficulty settings which is even worse but lets ignore that for now.

How likely is it that the designers of the Glest and even MegaGlest AI are master tacticians or strategists? How good are they at doing complex math on top of that? And I don't mean math that is complex like calculus, I mean math that is complex due to the huge number of variables.

We also need to account for overhead in the game loop as I said. We can make AI as complex as the resources we have. Any game that needs to scale to low level computers is going to have a problem unless it has an AI whose complexity scales to computer specs. And that makes it even more complex for the designer.

I would have to say that pretty much anything you do is going to confuse the hell out of the Glest AI.

On the side of your structures, having the AI make decisions based on a tag system like you telling the AI what is and what isn't a building is not gonna fly. This is one of those shortcuts I was talking about that bones AI. I don't know if MG has better AI, but especially the vanilla Glest AI was incredibly stupid with regard to how to use units. Even if your units all follow the appropriate archetypes like buildings all behave similarly the AI is gonna have an issue. But if you have buildings with radically different behavior, and I read the threads so I know you do, the AI can't handle that. Even if you tagged something as defensive building and producing building or something its an issue for the AI.

There has been some good work done recently in gaming AI, academic learning AI is bad because you don't want the player to get stomped every game, but the Glest AI is ancient by generational standards. 2008? University students? None of them dedicated to the AI? Not going to do too well.

I guess what I am saying is, if you worry too much about how your units interact with the AI, you may as well give up now. MegaGlest's strength is the multiplayer anyways.

[Zoythrus]

I'm in favor of having a mobile defense, I am just fully opposed to it being the siege weapon. The only way I could see it working is this: if the game engine was changed to allow morph on command. A move command when unpacked would cause it to morph into a packed form; just like an attack command in packed form would cause it to morph into an unpacked form.

[wciow]

I agree with Molaos about AI. Megaglest is mainly aimed at multiplayer, we shouldn't worry too much about single player. Unless an experienced AI coder takes an interest we might as well give up on AI being anything more than a distraction.

Regarding the siege unit, I'm leaning towards the sand golem, but I'd rather see something totally original.

[atze]

See how this is:


Sort of angled walls and maybe a cloth cover thing in the front?

Do you think about this here, once had a few minutes time.

[-Archmage-]

I ain't modeling or animating a sand golem unless I see it fitting in.

I don't care if the AI can't handle it, then it'll be more of a loose cannon with them. And hell yes ballistas do damage to buildings! Just not massive castles obviously. But a hovel would be demolished by one large ballista shot.

Azte: Spot on job, I love it! (Sorry Omega)

[Omega]

Nice model, Atze.

Anyway, it appears the Skype conversation poured into here. I'll just copy paste my reply, which most of you probably haven't read yet anyway:

Oh, are we still arguing about this? You'd figure fantasy would be a large element in the MegaPack. After all, a bunch of humanoids with very straightforward medieval weaponry = boring. What's new or unique about that?

300 missed messages is a bit of a pain, so I mostly skimmed. I rather dislike the concept of removing the hero units, especially for a sand golem. While a sandgolem would look pretty cool in an actual desert, it'd just look awkward in a forest and seems to come out of nowhere. I rather like the choice of two heroes, as it requires the user to choose their strategies more carefully, as each hero has specific advantages. I'm personally neutral on having them summon units (so far, every hero is summoning something...), but whatever.

I'm really not sure if there's "too many" magical units in the Nomads. Unless something changed overnight, we have a magus and a flying carpet. The heroes and their summons make it look like there's more magical units than there actually is, but bear in mind you can only have two out of four, and only one of each of those (assuming that we're sticking with the ability to summon a phoenix and scorpion, which I feel is unnecessary).

I suppose you could argue about the magic well, as well (haha), but it has legitimate purposes too (upgrades) and is a rather passive defence. But anyway, the rest of the faction is very realistic. Counting just the combat units and ignoring the heroes and their summons, the realistic to magic ratio is 7:2. I think that's very reasonable.

And other aspects to remember is that the Legion faction (based on the Romans) is almost entirely magic free (lore-wise, they distrust magic). Tech has absolutely no magic, but many aspects of fantasy in its steam punk format. The woodsmen are sort of a high fantasy. O

I'd expect some degree of magic, but nothing extreme in the woodsmen. More overall, they'd be magical creatures than direct magic. Someone, for example, has already mentioned ents.

However, I believe this topic started as a discussion about an antistructure unit, a seige unit, which really is quite necessary for the nomads.

I'm not sure a ballista is the most reasonable choice to be lugging around a battlefield, nor do we want to be too similar to the battering ram.

An alternative would be to give them a sort of cannon. Now, obviously we don't want to get into guns in general, but a steam punk style cannon similar to that of the airship, pushed by a single humanoid, could make an effective nomad. The unit would be smaller and thus more nimble than most of seige units. It also has roots in history, as Constinapole fell largely due to the Turk's new weapons: cannons (granted, they were shitty slow to reload, a trait that could be carried over to such a unit here).

Also, I don't think we should get into planning the woodsmen too much yet. As it stands, we're already modeling stuff for the Njord and Nomads (but really, really need that base humanoid) and still changing stuff around like no tomorrow. We need to finalize our ideas for the two factions we're working on (but with that being said, I don't think any unit in the woodsmen should be "free").

[ElimiNator]

(click to show/hide)

See how this is:


Sort of angled walls and maybe a cloth cover thing in the front?

Do you think about this here, once had a few minutes time.

Looks cool, do you want to texture it, or do you want me to?

[Zoythrus]

While, yes, there are a few differences, I don't want players to think that we ripped off from AoM.

[ElimiNator]

Give me the model and Ill modify/mix some of Omega's stuff in it and texture it.

[Zoythrus]

Oh, and Atze? Welcome to the team!

[Omega]

Due to the inability to reach consensus on a siege unit, I've added a poll to this topic. The three current choices are:

• Impact ballista - Similar to the Roman's ballista, but with a rock tip to strike the target with great impact force.
  
• Bombard cannon - Essentially this. A cannon pushed by a single infantry.
  
• Hand cannoneer - A unit holding what's pretty much a smaller version of the bombard cannon.
  

Obviously these share a few traits, namely that the unit is slow to move (pretty standard for a siege unit) and to attack (dat reload). The units will likely also be more vulnerable than other siege units, since they're poorly armoured units pushing or carrying large, heavy, inagile weapons. This makes them effective against buildings, but less so against other units.

Concepts to keep in mind is that all factions should feel "natural". The weapons should fit in well. In addition, the weapons should make sense.

Other glancing concepts included things like cannons on horseback, summoned mythical creatures, and siege towers.

Make what you will of it. It'd be nice if you'd give reasons for your choice, though.

[Zoythrus]

I am highly opposed to the use of this "impact ballista" for a few reasons:
1. The Nomads live in a desert, where wood is rather scarce. They probably use the wood for their structures and tools more than stuff that requires a lot of wood such as a ballista.
2. The Romans already have a ballista, so we don't want to be redundant.
3. IRL, ballistae are very inefficient at taking down buildings. They are excellent anti-infantry weapons, but are pathetic when used to take down things made of stone or strong wood. Now, before you say "but these have rocks on the tips!", the weight of a rock would severely weigh down the projectile, causing it to become very impractical. As you can probably bet, the Romans (who were one of the few large armies that used ballistae IRL) eschewed ballistae for anti-structure use and decided to use something that was actually effective, such as a catapult.
4. IRL, the Chinese were the first to actually start using cannons and gunpowder, but that technology was soon acquired by the Muslims (who then made it much more practical). It would make total sense for a desert faction to use very primitive firearms as weapons. Anyone with any concept of history (something we're sorta basing this refit on) would be expecting the desert guys to be using gunpowder.

I had suggested that we go with a Hand Cannoneer instead for a few reasons:
1. They are historical! Before the advent of easily portable firearms (such as the arquebus or musket), hand cannons were used. They were small enough to be portable by an infantryman, but powerful enough to do damage.
2. They make for interesting gameplay! Rarely do I find a faction's siege unit to be an infantry. I think that this would make for a very interesting unit. He'd probably do less damage than other dedicated siege units, but would be more mobile.
3. It fits the Nomads much better than a ballista. I assume that if we did have a cannon unit (whether that be a bombard or hand cannoneer), it would probably be purchased from a market (seeing as the Nomads have ties to people with the ability to forge such great weapons). So yeah, the cannoneers would be mercenaries.

Honestly, I don't care what they use as a siege weapon, as long as it's not melee (such as the Njord's) and it's not that stupid, out-of-place ballista.

[-Archmage-]

Um Zoy... wrong time period.... Romans??
And I never said rock tipped.... it would be like a giant slingshot... not a rock tipped ballista. Trust me this would look and act quite differently than the Roman ballista. I'm not even sure it's fair to call it a ballista.

1. The Nomads live in a desert, where wood is rather scarce. They probably use the wood for their structures and tools more than stuff that requires a lot of wood such as a ballista

I'm pretty sure cannonballs are harder to find than rocks.... and you obviously can't keep using the same damn cannonballs over and over.

2. The Romans already have a ballista, so we don't want to be redundant.

Trust me this would look and act quite differently than the Roman ballista. I'm not even sure it's fair to call it a ballista.

3. IRL, ballistae are very inefficient at taking down buildings. They are excellent anti-infantry weapons, but are pathetic when used to take down things made of stone or strong wood. Now, before you say "but these have rocks on the tips!", the weight of a rock would severely weigh down the projectile, causing it to become very impractical. As you can probably bet, the Romans (who were one of the few large armies that used ballistae IRL) eschewed ballistae for anti-structure use and decided to use something that was actually effective, such as a catapult.

Again this would shoot rocks, not large arrows, this would be quite effective and there is virtually unlimited ammunition for a weapon like this.

4. IRL, the Chinese were the first to actually start using cannons and gunpowder, but that technology was soon acquired by the Muslims (who then made it much more practical). It would make total sense for a desert faction to use very primitive firearms as weapons. Anyone with any concept of history (something we're sorta basing this refit on) would be expecting the desert guys to be using gunpowder.

Time period is too late there man...

1. They are historical! Before the advent of easily portable firearms (such as the arquebus or musket), hand cannons were used. They were small enough to be portable by an infantryman, but powerful enough to do damage.

AKA a big gun. I want to keep guns out of this, they are "post-epic" era weapons entirely.

2. They make for interesting gameplay! Rarely do I find a faction's siege unit to be an infantry. I think that this would make for a very interesting unit. He'd probably do less damage than other dedicated siege units, but would be more mobile.

He would just be spammed and/or easily killed.

3. It fits the Nomads much better than a ballista. I assume that if we did have a cannon unit (whether that be a bombard or hand cannoneer), it would probably be purchased from a market (seeing as the Nomads have ties to people with the ability to forge such great weapons). So yeah, the cannoneers would be mercenaries.

Basically if some Nomads can get hold of this kind of weapon then Rome and I'm sure Njord, and Tech can too. So just no. Romans + Guns = NO.

[Zoythrus]

To be honest, Arch, I don't think that the "time-period argument" applies here. The Tech are essentially Renaissance Europeans (although they had guns in the Renaissance), and by that time most of the empires that we're basing these factions on have been dead for hundreds of years.

I'm suggesting here that guns are still in their infancy, and are still spreading across the world. It's why the other factions don't have them.

Now, about a giant slingshot, you did not make that clear in our discussion. You kept saying "Ballista," so don't get angry that I misunderstood you.

Oh, and deserts are full of metal ores. There's probably more metal in the desert than there is wood, so cannonballs could easily be forged.

[-Archmage-]

To be honest, Arch, I don't think that the "time-period argument" applies here. The Tech are essentially Renaissance Europeans (although they had guns in the Renaissance), and by that time most of the empires that we're basing these factions on have been dead for hundreds of years.

Yea I'm thinking tech is the most 'tech'nologically advanced faction with the airships and all. Magic is definitely more fitting in the 'epic' era.

I'm suggesting here that guns are still in their infancy, and are still spreading across the world. It's why the other factions don't have them.

That doesn't really work... If Nomads have guns then Rome has them too.

Oh, and deserts are full of metal ores. There's probably more metal in the desert than there is wood, so cannonballs could easily be forged.

We're not talking a fully open desert scored by the sun 23/7. It's just wood is a lot more sparse then compared too the rest of the land. Rocks > Metal Ore... That's pretty obvious. That means ammunition is practically free. Metal Ore requires a lot of work and good smithing.