[Abandoned] Research & Conquer

by **RjBeals** on Fri Jan 09, 2009 3:12 pm

Oliver I think your idea is fantastic. And good post also - I could start to image the finished map as I was reading your post. Tac has his work cut out for him - this could be a winner for the conquerclub site.

by **Emperor_Metalman** on Fri Jan 09, 2009 4:51 pm

I think the WWII idea is good. I'd suggest a theme similar to the Iwo Jima map and avoid using the Berlin 1961 map as it looks boring in black and white.

To make the map more realistic, airbases could be placed on the map and one of the techs would enable you use an airbase to bombard/attack another. If there are too many techs, this could replace the bomb technology.

by **SuicidalSnowman** on Fri Jan 09, 2009 5:00 pm

WWII is cool, and it certainly fits.

The other idea I was thinking is to head towards the future. Focus on the research/development aspect of it. If nothing else, draw the tech tree to look as blueprints/technical drawings.

I know before we were running into serious space issues, so I think the idea of making it like an strategic map with only the impassables marked is a great idea to save space without limiting gameplay.

by **TaCktiX** on Fri Jan 09, 2009 5:11 pm

I did some thinking, and here's another possibility if not outright World War II: steampunk. We could still keep the same research ideas, but change some around to be in that vein. Messing around with tubing, gauges, and clockwork would be a blast when it comes to the titling and framing, and it would still fit the theme of wanting to research to defeat thine enemies. It's another possibility to consider. And no, I haven't started work on an actual file yet, still waiting on a decent computer for such.

by **OliverFA** on Sat Jan 10, 2009 12:59 pm

ZeakCytho wrote:I'm not completely sold on the WWII theme, but I'm confident that you and Tac will come up with something pretty good

I would just advise against making it look antiquated, as if it were from WWII, if that's what you were planning, which I'm pretty sure is not what you were trying to say.

Well, WWII maps didn't look old during WWII. Did they? The graphics should be in WWII fashion, but not look old.

An example could be the game "Hearts of Iron" from Paradox.

http://media.pc.gamespy.com/media/692/6 ... mgs_1.html

by **OliverFA** on Sat Jan 10, 2009 1:04 pm

RjBeals wrote:Oliver I think your idea is fantastic. And good post also - I could start to image the finished map as I was reading your post. Tac has his work cut out for him - this could be a winner for the conquerclub site.

Thanks for your comment RjBeals :-)

by **OliverFA** on Sat Jan 10, 2009 1:07 pm

Emperor_Metalman wrote:I think the WWII idea is good. I'd suggest a theme similar to the Iwo Jima map and avoid using the Berlin 1961 map as it looks boring in black and white.

To make the map more realistic, airbases could be placed on the map and one of the techs would enable you use an airbase to bombard/attack another. If there are too many techs, this could replace the bomb technology.

Unfortunatelly, right now we cannot code it in a way that a player needs two territories to bombard others. But what we are doing is to use the "Air Strikes" technology. This technology can bombard the "national" territories of the player that researches it.

by **OliverFA** on Sat Jan 10, 2009 1:09 pm

SuicidalSnowman wrote:WWII is cool, and it certainly fits.

The other idea I was thinking is to head towards the future. Focus on the research/development aspect of it. If nothing else, draw the tech tree to look as blueprints/technical drawings.

I know before we were running into serious space issues, so I think the idea of making it like an strategic map with only the impassables marked is a great idea to save space without limiting gameplay.

Blueprints also existed in WWII, so nothing prevents us from using them ;-)

In fact is a very good idea to make the technologies look like some kind of blueprint.

by **LED ZEPPELINER** on Sat Jan 10, 2009 1:38 pm

maybe something ivlolving the climate of different regions?

by **captainwalrus** on Sat Jan 10, 2009 2:29 pm

Why not do somethng like the new world map but the only starting territories anre the european hamelands. then you have to balance between expanding into the new world and reaserching things.

by **ZeakCytho** on Sat Jan 10, 2009 3:39 pm

OliverFA wrote:
ZeakCytho wrote:I'm not completely sold on the WWII theme, but I'm confident that you and Tac will come up with something pretty good

I would just advise against making it look antiquated, as if it were from WWII, if that's what you were planning, which I'm pretty sure is not what you were trying to say.

Well, WWII maps didn't look old during WWII. Did they? The graphics should be in WWII fashion, but not look old.

An example could be the game "Hearts of Iron" from Paradox.

http://media.pc.gamespy.com/media/692/6 ... mgs_1.html

If that's what your example is, I'd be more in favor of a steampunk style. But as I said, I'm sure it will look good regardless of what you choose.

by **MrBenn** on Sat Jan 10, 2009 5:54 pm

I've always thought that the tech-trees could look something more like this:

(Albeit a lot less cartoony)

by **OliverFA** on Sat Jan 10, 2009 7:00 pm

TaCktiX wrote:I did some thinking, and here's another possibility if not outright World War II: steampunk. We could still keep the same research ideas, but change some around to be in that vein. Messing around with tubing, gauges, and clockwork would be a blast when it comes to the titling and framing, and it would still fit the theme of wanting to research to defeat thine enemies. It's another possibility to consider. And no, I haven't started work on an actual file yet, still waiting on a decent computer for such.

That is an interesting alternative. In fact it does not have to be an alternative. Both options are complementary. After all Steam Punk is a "technologically advanced" Victorian era. And the Victorian era is the era that comes right before WWI. Nothing prevents us from mixing those close eras.

I think we can discuss a little more and then have a poll (Yes, I love polls ;-)

Plus it's a great way to allow people to participate. )

by **OliverFA** on Sat Jan 10, 2009 7:02 pm

LED ZEPPELINER wrote:maybe something ivlolving the climate of different regions?

Hello Led Zeppeliner. Could you explain your idea a little more? Honestly I cannot imagine what you are talking about.

by **OliverFA** on Sat Jan 10, 2009 7:07 pm

MrBenn wrote:I've always thought that the tech-trees could look something more like this:

(Albeit a lot less cartoony)

That's a good idea, but I see a problem with it. The problem is finding an icon that properly explains what the tech is about so it can be understood by a first time player.

Is easy to represent a concept by an icon. But is not so easy to explain the same concept with this icon.

Anyway, we could add the icon to the tech area in addition to the text descriptions. It would make the techs look more cool, plus the icons could be modelled after the map theme (wathever it is).

by **MrBenn** on Sat Jan 10, 2009 7:17 pm

You'd need to explain the techs anyway, so could add the icon into the legend too... You could have different tech levels, that could be represented with a '+' or a number on the icon?

by **OliverFA** on Sun Jan 11, 2009 1:19 pm

I agree. The ico would be a very nice addition to the written text :-)

Plus, If we include advanced techs, then we only need to use the icon to represent them.

by **OliverFA** on Tue Jan 13, 2009 1:45 pm

I created a poll to decide about the map looking. Please vote on it so we know about your opinion.

by **captainwalrus** on Tue Jan 13, 2009 3:33 pm

Voted other.

captainwalrus wrote:Why not do somethng like the new world map but the only starting territories anre the european hamelands. then you have to balance between expanding into the new world and reaserching things.

by **sailorseal** on Wed Jan 14, 2009 9:45 pm

I like the idea of a World War Two look. Could you incorporate some WWII technology since it is Research and Conquer

by **OliverFA** on Sat Jan 17, 2009 3:02 pm

It looks like there is a consensus about choosing a mixed option. 38% of the votes have choosen WWII, 38% Steampunk and 13% a combination of both. With such numbers, we are deciding in favor of the "both" option. So basically, we will have a World War II setting with lots of steam and clockworks.

I want to thank Captainwalrus for his suggestion about having a New World map. It is an interesting suggestion, but we feel that a steampunk world war fits better with this concept.

by **OliverFA** on Tue Jan 20, 2009 6:27 pm

Hello again!

With the map looking issue solved, we are starting to look at how the actual land and terriotires shape will be.

As I said before, we are thinking about having a war map that represents the continent where the war is taking place. This map will have several countries. Six of them are the major powers, aka as players. The rest of the countries are minor/neutral powers.

As it is a war map, only the relevant information is displayed. That means that a lake/mountain/wathever is only in the map if generals need to know them (i.e., because they are impassables). Also, being a war map, we can easily draw the nations' borders, and that allows us to define the regions that will provide bonus for holding them.

About the starting positions placement, we are thinking about grouping them in three groups of two players. Those three pairs would be spaced evenly across the map. Inside each pair the two starting positions would be quite close to each other. Maybe both countries would even border each other without having a neutral buffer in the middle. That would provide early fighting between each two players in the pair while giving enough space between the three pairs to make research a viable option. In the early game, players would have to balance the need to research (and expand) with the need to protect themselves from that very close neighbour. That configuration makes for a map of 3 pieces, each with limited acces to the other two pieces, with 2 players in each piece.

How many territories? Well, That's still an unresolved question. Logic dictates that main powers have to be reasonable big, but not too big. Neutral powers can range from small countries to big but poor neutral countries. That means that big neutral countries would have a bonus only slightly bigger than small neutral countries.

Main powers (player's countries) would have also one or two mines in their territory. That's one of the reasons because they are main powers, because they have the resources. Some of the resources can be used right from the start (the capital city) and some others need research in order to be used (the mines).

There is an issue with this configuration that we need to solve. It makes sense to have the full player country as his starting position. But that would spoil the fun. It is better in gameplay terms to have only the player capital as starting position. But how to make it in a way that makes sense?

Well, that's roughly the geographic map description. Comments will be very welcome! :-)

by **ZeakCytho** on Tue Jan 20, 2009 8:52 pm

One problem with groups of 2 - in games of fewer than 6 players, say, a 3 player game, you risk two players dropping next to each other and a third being isolated. This gives the 3rd player a major advantage. I'd opt for 6 roughly equidistantly placed starting positions.

I think just letting the player start with a capital is fine. Give a bunch of neutral 1s to the rest of his country so it's easy to take over, and then a big wall of neutrals right outside, so it takes time to break out.

Edit: I forgot to say, I agree with everything else you said.

by **SuicidalSnowman** on Wed Jan 21, 2009 7:45 am

I think from what we have seen with other maps on this site, having each player start with their capital works pretty well. I would say stick to this, rather than starting with a full country.

I also think ZeakCythlo raises a good point about three player games in reference to starting positions.

I would personally like to see the neutral territories be more about impassables and less about large numbers of neutral armies. We are already planning on using neutral armies in the tech tree, so let's go for something else on the map proper.

by **OliverFA** on Wed Jan 21, 2009 6:35 pm

I have prepared a first layout of the map.

Of course, this is not how the map will look! It is just an schema of how the territories will be connected.

It is the very first draft, so a lot of things could be changed and should be changed. Don't be afraid to propose big changes to this layout. Your opinions will be welcome!

That's the layout description:

Circles represent territories, and lines represent borders between territories. Dotted lines represent borders I am not sure about. There a total of 91 territories.

Homelands: Homelands are formed by the red and orange territories plus a mine (magenta territory) for a total of 8 territories. Red territories are the capitals, and are the only starting positions in the map. Orange territories are the rest of the homeland. They start with few neutrals (something between 1 and 3). Each homeland has a mine, but can only use it with the apropiate technology.

Capitals are continents of one territory, and grant a small bonus.

Homelands are continents, and grant a bonus for having all of them.

With the concept of culture, national homelands and capitals grant full bonus, but other homelands grant only 50% of the bonus. Players need to research the apropiate technology to receive full bonus from foreign homelands and capitals.

Neutrals: The rest of territories are neutral countries. I have not decided about continents in this area because I want them to be not simetrical, in order to provide some variety to the map. They are several countries of different sizes, and controlling a country grants a bonus. This bonus is smaller in comparison with the homeland bonus.

Blue territories have a lot of neutrals. If you see the layout, blue territories are the shorter way to access other homelands. The intention is to provide an additional strategic choice. Will the player slowly build his empire by conquering green neutrals, or will he build a big army to defeat the blue neutrals and directly attack the other player? How long will the blue neutrals keep the warm peace between neighbour countries?

I have also included some mines in the neutral countries to make the game a bit more interesting.

And that's the layout. Please feel free to comment about it! Thanks in advance.

[Abandoned] Research & Conquer

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