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Post by FuriousMoo on Jan 5, 2015 17:29:06 GMT
So first day back at work after a very welcome holiday break and it's time to start designing. In the spirit of community involvement, what I would like to try and do is open up discussions based on specific issues I'd like to address. I'm not a community rep so if I'm to justify spending time doing this it's got to be more immediately useful to me than the normal forum free form idea splurges. So bear in mind the sort of realities and limitations I have to deal with:
First priority is to make best efforts to determine if can the goal be achieved using already existing systems and assets. What can be reused and how. Brand new features not only take a LOT of work, but can also have large unforeseen impacts on other systems so I have to always try to minimise workload and risk.
Keep the existing state of the feature in mind. Godus isn't a blank slate, try to consider how to go from the feature as it is implemented now to what you have in mind.
Consider every aspect of the proposed feature/change and what impact it may have on the game as a whole. Catching edge cases at the design stage saves a lot work later down the line.
And because being too focused and grounded when designing can stifle creativity, consider: Step, Jump, Leap. Good methodology when pitching ideas in general, what it basically means is: When discussing an idea, the more drastic the idea the less likely it will be considered. So try to think in three stages. Step: Very conservative proposal, Jump: Ambitious, but feasible proposal, Leap: Bat**** crazy proposal. The conservative proposal will most likely be best received, but you'll often find elements on Jump and Leap are considered.
Lastly bear in mind that the gap between making a design doc and beginning work on a feature can be a long time, by bringing these topics up, you should not be getting the impression that they are the next feature we will be working on. Anyway lets get started, todays topic is a fairly broad one in scope:
Combat in Godus: What role should combat have in Godus? How should it work? And how should god Powers play into combat?
Some of the questions I've been asking myself are:
Bearing in mind that combat will NOT be the central focus of Godus (we are not trying to build an traditional war rts game), what should be the point of combat? Should it be compulsory or optional? Why might you want to send your followers to fight, why might you not? How important is combat to the game as a whole?
How in depth does the combat simulation need to be(do we need stats and if so how to display them)? How much direct and immediate influence should you as the player have on your followers during a battle? Do we need more than one type warrior follower and if so how many and what kind?
How should god powers affect combat? Powers currently make military followers redundant. What should be done to the current powers to make them not make combat pointless, but also not feel like they have been made too weak and have had their functionality taken away.
These should naturally lead you too asking yourselves a lot more follow on questions. Let me know your thoughts.
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Post by Spiderweb on Jan 5, 2015 18:11:21 GMT
It is fanastic that your asking these questions Moo!
Battles should be for territory (or religion) only usual reasons. Astari should expand, we should be competing for the space (Just like in the original tech demo) and that should be optional nicely (happiness) or aggressively (military). If you start killing Astari with powers they fight back so war escalates. God powers should only affect an area of influence, battles outside that area gods can't use powers accept leashing (maybe still sculpt to a limited degree?) but areas of influence should be powered by belief strength, that way it's your godliness that decides how you stop the Astari? If you overtake the Astari Central belief bank (temple) as it were you defeat them.
I think most of that is doable with the mechanics in place. They should also appeal to populous and black and white fans as I think they had similar mechanics?
Beacons=temples for area of influence, more population more temples allowed. Say you can build a temple/beliefcollector/beacon at every 3,000 or 5,000 population. Place those and influence the area, followers can build outside that influence. Astari have the same, if you make the Astari unhappy (squishing them or destroying their houses/settlements) they will go to war with you for space.
Military needs hand to hand combat as well is that possible? Also you'll need to evolve the fighters over the ages, cavalry, tanks, planes, nukes, spaceships?
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Post by hardly on Jan 5, 2015 18:43:35 GMT
Great introduction Moo. This is the kind of approach we've been asking for for ages so it's great to see you chucking out a problem and giving us a defined area to play in with ideas.
There are a couple of games that I think should inspire godus here. First of all with regards to the military I think settlers 2 is quite interesting. Rather than military settlements I would move to barracks. You would leash people to barracks where they would become military guys that could then fight. They could be upgraded based on the availability of key resources and it would even be reasonable for them to drain a resource like grain. That way you have to build enoug farms to support your army. Like settlers barracks would have zones of control so id make it so people can't attack/raid an area until they take over/sack the barracks.
In terms of the god powers I think the Jedi knight approach would be an improvement. This fits well with peters style of good and evil being reinforced by behaviours over time. There would be three types of belief - good, neutral, and evil. Or white, green, black. Something like that. The neutral belief would be quite common and generated in a similar way as it is now (but completely automated!) but relatively useless in combat. You'd use it for sculpting, improving your settlement, helping your people, stuff like that.
Evil powers would be things like lightening bolts, meteors, etc would use the evil belief. These would be combat focused powers. You would generate this from being a badass to your people. When they see you do something bad it might shift a scale towards evil and increase the generation of this power. You could perhaps have people turn to black outfits or a black headband or something when they learn to believe in an evil vengeful god. The percentage that goes to evil would only ever be a small fraction of total belief and perhaps should be capped so it's more about build up capacity for a limited number of evil abilities rather than an ongoing flow that can be channelled without limit in combat. Oh and necromancy would be cool too! Zombies and skeletons from your enemies troops!
Good powers would be healing for your troops, perhaps the imbuing of a champion, perhaps the deployment of angels (limited time fighting unit). Harder to come up with these but it would be awesome to develop a paper scissors rock approach where good powers counter some evil powers and vice versa. There would be an element of reserving your strength so that you were the last to use a power to influence a battle, to try and last as long as possible with traditional troops before using your trump cards and casting a special spell. Generation would be the same as evil except good. The more you nurture your people the more good power you get.
Those are my ideas. Time to go to work. Might need to proof all that later.
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Post by earlparvisjam on Jan 5, 2015 21:51:08 GMT
Before talking about any of the additional aspects of game play, if Godus is to be a decent pc game, we need to find out the core parameters this game is to be based upon. For example, I'm expecting sculpting to remain a core feature but can/will a raise land feature be implemented? Godus suffers from a distinct lack of focus and core framework.
Resource gathering needs to change. Cards are salvageable but randomized stickers found in chests MUST go. There's no avoiding this fact. Nobody likes it and implementing an alternative colors nearly every other aspect of game play from what it's used for to how it's actually gathered. Any discussion about this needs an understanding about how this can change.
I'd like to recommend we stop waffling around gods manually placing new structures. I've yet to see a player that didn't fight with the interface to adjust a structure's location to just where they want it. Not allowing direct placement only forces players to go a roundabout way of doing the exact same thing. Just give us the direct ability rather than forcing us to be passive-aggressive to our subjects.
Objectives need to be hashed out. To figure this out, we need to understand just how progression is expected to work. With the new "worlds" structure, are we looking at conquering each world to progress to the next? Are we stuck going back to "manage the neanderthals" like the current game's setup is doing? If so, effort needs to be made to give a decent purpose to going back rather than just moving on. Additionally, in order to be meaningful, each successive "world" is going be a further system drain as we progress farther through the game and timeline. Has that been considered and are there steps in place to mitigate the problem?
God powers need to feel useful. Godus has been plagued with roadblocks that have been artificially created to give a meaning to having a power. Comet was a classic example of a power in need of a purpose. All of which springs from the above-mentioned objectives issue.
Followers need to DO things other than build. Setting them to professions hidden into a house isn't doing anything. Setting them to breeders doesn't need to have them running around doing the needful around a camp fire, but there is no reason we couldn't have a priest type (or a number of other similar concepts) that boosts nearby belief production as he/she roams around settlements.
I think that's enough for an initial volley. I'd love to give suggestions, once we figure out what the core of this game is.
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Post by hardly on Jan 5, 2015 22:21:02 GMT
I think the tech system can be driven off the cards/timeline (although there are better ways to manage tech in other games) provided tech is generated by things other than chests which is what earl says. If we could get the "stickers" (eww) from our peoples activities that would be great. "Stickers" should be about science and resources about supporting the economy. As I eluded to in my response above wheat and ore could be necessary to support a military but there could be other resources - wood, luxuries, etc that support other things. Paper could support priests. This all allows you to introduce elite military resources and create maps with resource bottlenecks which could be interesting. Obviously Id prefer to rip out stickers but small steps.
In terms of buildings there are a lot of changes that could lead to an improvement. One model that is worth investigating is having every structure start off basic and small. Structures would merge/grow (bigger would always be better) based on the availability of adjacent flat land, the availability of key resources and at a later stage the desirability of the area. This is the Caesar model of city development and I think an adapted version would suit godus. It links resources in a fun way with development and gets us away from micromanaging plots. I think housing should be separated from occupations. If allow us to reserve land and place occupation buildings and then have followers organically expand over the rest of the available area. I like the idea of God saying "this is where you may settle". Obviously this is a big change but having people live in houses and then going to an occupation would be so much better and remove a lot of frustrating manipulation of plots to get what we want.
I also want to point out that sculpting needs to change. The game would be immensely more playable if we could terraform terrain like Simcity or other terrain editors where you can paint in big sweeps and raise up mountains by clicking and holding. Physically, I struggle to play GODUS because it is RSI inducing. I find the SnapBack especially bad. I know this is off topic and quite a big change but dammit if peter and Jack hadnt ignored our feedback in this area for 18 months we would be in a better place.
A classic godus design cock up is the fountain. This was a missed opportunity. People need water. Why not have the fountain and a water carrier as a profession. Then someone can be leashed to the fountain as a job and they take water to houses. If people run out of water their houses degrade to a lower level of dwelling. These are established concepts for games.
Earl mentions priests - have shrines/temples/churches - whatever and have the priests leashed as a profession and then have them go around a collect belief. Also it would be cool to have a hierarchy in professions so as you get more priests/warriors you get a bishop or something with a cool hat. There might not be a gameplay difference (although there could be) but it would spice the game up if you had 5 ordinary priests moving around and a cool little bishop.
Oh and another big thing to dump - stop the game progressing when we aren't there. Military will never work if time marches on when we are away and we can be attacked. Just make a game that only progresses on pc when it's on. I realise these changes conflict with mobile design and will be taxing in terms of resources but ultimately if godus has to play to the lowest common demoninator it's going to suck.
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Post by hardly on Jan 5, 2015 22:27:09 GMT
Also having a health status for your people could be good. You could have a commandment about living proximity. If you increase the number of people living in a given space by 25% it might create a 5% chance people die. If they were dying from I'll health that could make you a bad God and link back to the evil powers I discussed. Cramming in more people might get you more workers/warriors but you'd become evil and your population would have to regenerate constantly. So far off topic sorry.
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Post by hardly on Jan 6, 2015 1:23:15 GMT
Taking a few steps back to the question of what role should combat have.
So in godus you develop, explore (this should be changed as we have discussed in earlier threads), expand and then?
Well you meet another civilisation. I've only seen the astari in homeworld (never got to hubworld because my save game was corrupted). But I would say that the implementation of another faction/civ in that case is one of the crudest in any game I've played. They play by completely different rules and even have the ability to traverse terrain that is impassible. It's always bad when the AI has to cheat.
Ideally when we meet a civ they will operate similar to us. This is a massive AI challenge if they are going to expand so my suggestion would be to have them be defensive/static. I'm pretty sure this is how settlers 2 handled things (I might be wrong it was 20 years ago). Lots of games use this approach. If they start in place you can customise the map to yield challenging and rewarding gameplay despite a relatively passive AI. Of course this kills the sandbox a bit but it's easier implementation wise. I'd love an AI foe who played back at me according to the rules of godus but I just can't see that happening.
In terms of dealing with that civ it seems you have perhaps three options that I can think of.
Exterminate - this is where war comes in. As mentioned earlier Id wage war through a settlers two type model of territory nodes that can be wrestled off the opposition. Allowing fights on different fronts is interesting because it could strain resources as is a war of attrition where both players try to keep armies supplied while winning/holding territory. This makes conflict about who has best economy, potentially logistics and tactics. Not just who has most troops overall.
Convert is the next obvious one and it is what exists now. The existing convert mechanic is awful. As I said playing by different rules sucks, the happiness mechanic sucks, etc. Conversion could be achieved through missionaries and the strength of your priesthood. Happiness could work but I'd like to see it done much differently. You could look at a broader measure of quality of life or try culture in the civ vein. Temples and libraries radiating culture and capturing territory and people is quite interesting and achievable.
The last is a points race. You could (although I'm not sure you'd want to rely solely on this) require the player to build a better soceity in a shorter time. How this would work allowing for different play styles is a challenge. You'd want to be able to get a good score through evil play and good play. A score victory suggests a time limit or a raw number target.
I'd probably go for a combination of military and conversion with conversion using radiating temples/libraries and the military the nodes of control I mentioned. You'd want a map that yielded a long front so pressure could be put on different places through different means. It would be really interesting to see people juggling Defense through one means and attack through another and resourcing their economy and intervening as a god all at once. Note the pace doesn't necessarily have to be rapid like an RTS. I actually hate RTS and would never encourage this. This would be more fun/fiesable 1v1 or as a 4-8 player brawl than versus AI but you might be able to do a defensive AI.
Anyway those are some thoughts.
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Post by Gmr Leon on Jan 6, 2015 1:23:45 GMT
Basics:
-Combat should be as fun as a peaceful approach to the game, making both approaches fully optional.
-This means that there should be more complex means to engage with enemies than fending off raids and the very basic happiness competitions.
-Happiness is a vaguely good idea if more options to convert enemy followers were available, but as this is combat-related, I won't touch on that unless asked.
First moves:
-Follower control needs to be modified for larger numbers of them, leashing is inadequate for this. (Think totems or, if familiar with Darwinia, leaders pointing a certain way, at least as an intermediary step.)
-Powers should be modified by nearby followers*, so when trying to use destructive powers on an enemy, it would require bringing your forces to their doorstep.**
-Suddenly, the ferocity of your powers becomes a tug of war sort of setup as you struggle to keep amassing forces to give you enough power to kill enemies.
-By default, military forces would act as passive protection around your civilization, when active you would use them to set out and bash things.
*This could depend on follower types/professions, if more emphasis is placed on them.
**This would make expanding make more sense, as the further out you go, the less effective your powers are in the area until it's more densely settled.
Why:
-Resources (be it stickers or land) would be the most basic answer for why to fight.
-Another method of tech progression (via seizing other civs' tech by force) could be a new option.
-If done right, just 'cause it's fun.
Why not:
-See happiness thoughts. If peaceful play is preferred, resources/tech progression might be made acquirable/achievable this way.
-However, for "this way" to be interesting, happiness-related play needs to be more fleshed out via say, trade and an ability to engage with festival competitions whenever a player chooses (instead of waiting another day/hour/etc.).
Importance/depth:
-I think that combat should provide enough options via a mixture of followers/powers to create enough depth that it keeps a player's interest. Same for peaceful play, really. I don't think it should be of supreme importance, but I don't think it should be any less important than peaceful play. I think with a good mix of peaceful options and combat options, you'll get more than if you focus too much on one over the other.
-As a primarily peace-oriented game, Godus lacks much depth due to extensive limitations by the resource systems of the game as well as limited options in terms of structure/follower variety/follower behaviors.
-As a minimally combat-oriented game, Godus lacks much depth due to much of the same, but also the limited amount of enemies/enemy variety/enemy behaviors.
Follower unit depth:
-Technically, I'd say you could probably get by with ranged/melee/champions and give basic move orders, which would then be mostly sufficient. God powers could supplement the initial appearance of shallowness.
-Champions could be unique units like some we already see that may do a short-range knockdown area of effect, but could also be limited range types for channeling your powers. E.g. mages could be like glasscannon shotgun dudes that apply swamp at moderate-range near them, archers could be slightly more durable long-range swamp/meteor attacks.
You could flip some of these around for proselytizing platoons that use more passive, "nice" effects to impress and convert enemy civilizations for a peaceful approach. Think about an arms-reach pat on the back for those enemies that are too aggressive to get too close to, but you could slowly win over till you can establish trade or something (assuming you don't want to go all-out aggressive).
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Post by hardly on Jan 6, 2015 1:41:30 GMT
Godus used to have gingers. It would be interesting to have different races that were betterat fighting in different terrains. Then your culture might try and skew the terrain to their advantage for defense. I think sculpting should only be available in undisputed areas, so once a raid is initiated both players lose the ability to sculpt in that area.
Also I like GMRs idea of weaken powers based on location. Your civ will inevitably have areas of population and therefore belief concentration. It would be interesting make war powers stronger the closer the fight is to these centres and weaker further away.
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Post by Gmr Leon on Jan 6, 2015 1:47:06 GMT
Godus used to have gingers. It would be interesting to have different races that were betterat fighting in different terrains. Then your culture might try and skew the terrain to their advantage for defense. I think sculpting should only be available in undisputed areas, so once a raid is initiated both players lose the ability to sculpt in that area. Also I like GMRs idea of weaken powers based on location. Your civ will inevitably have areas of population and therefore belief concentration. It would be interesting make war powers stronger the closer the fight is to these centres and weaker further away. Yeah, I think power intensity varying based on shifting population concentrations would be a really neat idea, if functional. Add to this profession modifiers, maybe, so that militant forces would buff up aggressive powers a little more to compensate for smaller portion of population compared to whole and it could be really interesting. It'd make having follower variety in your civ matter too, in that regard. |
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Post by hardly on Jan 6, 2015 1:54:46 GMT
Godus used to have gingers. It would be interesting to have different races that were betterat fighting in different terrains. Then your culture might try and skew the terrain to their advantage for defense. I think sculpting should only be available in undisputed areas, so once a raid is initiated both players lose the ability to sculpt in that area. Also I like GMRs idea of weaken powers based on location. Your civ will inevitably have areas of population and therefore belief concentration. It would be interesting make war powers stronger the closer the fight is to these centres and weaker further away. Yeah, I think power intensity varying based on shifting population concentrations would be a really neat idea, if functional. Add to this profession modifiers, maybe, so that militant forces would buff up aggressive powers a little more to compensate for smaller portion of population compared to whole and it could be really interesting. It'd make having follower variety in your civ matter too, in that regard. It would also work on the sense that as you drove closer to their heart of a civ they would get stronger and you would get weaker in terms of powers. It would effectively raise the difficulty level as you proceed so you'd need a bigger and better cordinated military to strike at the heart of their civilisation while their God who was relatively inactive on the front lines rains down hell on your troops. Has to be balanced of course. It's these kind of passive difficulty challenges that single player games need to overcome the AI's ineptitude. Having a head temple to signify your heartland and then regional hubs that are all fed and level up could give effect to this. Your power would be at its greatest at the centre and then weaken as it radiates out. One of the deficiencies of godus is that your civ doesn't structure itself in this way, it doesn't feed off the provinces. |
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Post by Spiderweb on Jan 6, 2015 6:59:54 GMT
Maybe towns should start with an outpost area of godly power influence, this outpost/town square should grow/upgrade over time (like a player placed beacon).
These collect belief in range and add to a central pool, but (area of Influence) AoI is sized by population within a slightly larger radius.
Areas in conflict with or owned by Astari are were you can only send followers, whether that be to fight or trade/convert/build(take Astari free space) to convert/take/buy abodes from enemy and deduct from their population pool).
The more I write the more I think this is like black and white with slight differences.
To defeat an enemy outpost you have to get your AoI to cover it, or military siege it(survive next to it for a certain length of time), or maybe trade for all its goods? then it changes hands to you (capture the flag).
Astari should not be able to climb/swim as they do if our followers can't. That is to much like cheating AI. If they can expand they should at least have an already settled.
We need to be able to trigger our own parties to if we want the happiness route of conquest.
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Post by Gmr Leon on Jan 6, 2015 7:20:39 GMT
Maybe towns should start with an outpost area of godly power influence, this outpost/town square should grow/upgrade over time (like a player placed beacon). These collect belief in range and add to a central pool, but (area of Influence) AoI is sized by population within a slight larger radius. Areas in conflict with or owned by Astari are were you can only send followers, whether that be to fight or trade/convert/build(take Astari free space) to convert/take/buy abodes from enemy and deduct from their population pool). The more I write the more I think this is like black and white with slight differences. To defeat the outpost you have to get your AOI to cover it, or military siege it(survive next to it for a certain length of time) then it changes hands to you (capture the flag). Astari should not be able to climb/swim as they do if our followers can't. That is to much like cheating AI. If they can expand they should at least have an already settled. We need to be able to trigger parties to if we want the happiness route of conquest. About to say, your description very much sounds like Black & White, whereas what I had in mind would be a little more fluid being based less on the general building stuff and more population density, as the latter can be more mobile compared to the rooted nature of outposts. I'm not sure how easy that would be to implement though. Primary concerns for me with combat are: -Improved player control both in terms of guiding followers (i.e. totems/leaders directing follower movement/direct rectangle selection of units) and setting about events (i.e. festivals/battles/weather/etc.). -More structure/unit variety (i.e. defensive structures, melee/ranged/champion type units). -Resource/tech acquisition through combat (i.e. belief/stickers/cards/gems, each in substantial amounts). |
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Post by Spiderweb on Jan 6, 2015 8:04:33 GMT
Right, having a player positioned central point would be a much simpler jump, although definite merit in the population density idea.
I think a leader or totem control for military is key, they need way points for patrolling.
If the Astari did attack without climbing/swimming I found it quite interesting to sculpt the land into wall and bottlenecks, only concern is that kills game realism but then I guess sculpting in it very natural removes realism of the land.
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Post by Spiderweb on Jan 6, 2015 9:22:15 GMT
Maybe Astari aggressiveness needs a meter too. So if we're nice to there people they scale down their aggressiveness, if we are nasty they get more aggressive, like a bees nest.
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Casinha
Master
Posts: 217 
Pledge level: Partner
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Post by Casinha on Jan 6, 2015 15:57:23 GMT
what should be the point of combat? Should it be compulsory or optional? Why might you want to send your followers to fight, why might you not? How important is combat to the game as a whole? How in depth does the combat simulation need to be(do we need stats and if so how to display them)? How much direct and immediate influence should you as the player have on your followers during a battle? Do we need more than one type warrior follower and if so how many and what kind? How should god powers affect combat? Powers currently make military followers redundant. What should be done to the current powers to make them not make combat pointless, but also not feel like they have been made too weak and have had their functionality taken away. I am aware that a more manageable system is being planned for these discussions, but I thought I'd get my two cents in before I forget or lose focus. What should be the point of combat? I think this is the crucial question, really. You could solve all of the other issues as well as you like, but if there's no believable purpose then it all kind of falls flat with the user wondering why they would bother. War is typically either about pursuing a solution to an abstract issue (a difference in religious belief, for example) or about attempting to retrieve something from the besieged (more/better land, important strategic points, holy artefacts or treasure). Does any of this fit into Godus? A difference in religious belief is certainly usable as a cause. Taking land is pointless and undermines the sculpting mechanic, in my opinion. Same goes for strategic positioning what with your ability to manipulate land. Holy artefacts or treasure could be something to pursue. Perhaps they hold a cache of gems the player can take by force. Should it be compulsory or optional? A weird one. A player should always have a choice between initiating combat or avoiding it, but there ought to be scenarios in which the war is brought to the player's doorstep instead. Stealing villagers with your overwhelming happiness? I can't imagine the opposing chiefs being happy about that, so they may very well end up declaring war against your people. Perhaps a "Zen" mode could be introduced devoid of any hostility from enemy AI? So the answer, I suppose, is both. Why might you want to send your followers to fight, why not? I imagine the easiest reason would be to complete an objective, but then giving objectives kind of breaks the immersion of being a god. The only thoughts I can think of for this is "because the opponent is antagonising you" or "because the opponent has something you want", perhaps going back to that original thought of a cache of gems or something. How important is combat to the game as a whole? In my mind, not all that important. It would certainly put an interesting spin on things and offer a convenient distraction when I get tired of sculpting my perfect realm, but for the most part my interest lies in growing and expanding my civilisation. That's just me, though, and I don't think there is a sure answer to this. Some people would consider it important, others would consider it inconsequential. But then, that's exactly what a game mechanic should be about: enabling those that are interested to achieve a goal the way they want to. Having some people that don't care doesn't mean those that do should be ignored. How in depth does the combat simulation need to be(do we need stats and if so how to display them)? I would say make the simulation a basic one. Two warriors hit each other until one of them keels over. Given that the point is to feel like a god I think focusing on individuals (by introducing stats) would break the immersion, however keeping track of veterans is a good idea. Rather than having a strength of 2 where another would have a strength of 1, I think it would be better for the difference to be more visual. For example, the veteran wanders around with a plumed helmet whereas rookies have nothing special. It also allows for opponents to be weighed up with a glance. How much direct and immediate influence should you as the player have on your followers during a battle? Very little. As you've already said, this shouldn't turn into just another RTS. Micro-managing individuals will just turn you from a god into a general, once again breaking immersion. I would say limit player involvement in combat to god powers and basic "divine inspiration" (for example dropping a totem while a warrior is in combat could cause it to fight everything it sees as it attempts to reach the totem). Do we need more than one type warrior follower and if so how many and what kind? I think different types of warriors are a good idea, but too many different types means that once again you're going to start micro-managing. Melee, range, magic. Have one unit (with visual cues for veterans) for those three types and you're golden. How should god powers affect combat? Powers currently make military followers redundant. What should be done to the current powers to make them not make combat pointless, but also not feel like they have been made too weak and have had their functionality taken away. Depends on the power. I would say make combat-affecting powers effective enough to turn the tide of battle, but only if you have the units present to take advantage of the situation. Area of effect should affect your own followers as well as enemies (such is the way of the heavens, no?). So sure, you could throw down an ultimate meteor of destruction, but use it well as the damage it does will need to be exploited by your warriors and you could end up catching your own troops in the blast. The following three powers are given as examples of combat-affecting abilities: Bog: Low damage over time, slows down units moving through. Main strategic purpose would be to block off or slow the advance of a mass of enemies. Meteor: Medium damage with an area of effect. Damage is instant and can set units on fire, causing them to panic. Main strategic purpose would be to deal moderate damage to a body of enemies. Lightning Strike High damage precision strike. Immediately arcs to the nearest unit in range and deals high damage. Main strategic purpose would be to strike down a specific enemy unit that would prove to be troublesome for your followers. The above could turn the tide of battle, but only if your warriors are there to exploit the advantage they grant. A bog will eventually be marched through, warriors will eventually recover from being on fire and a lightning strike is limited to targeting a single unit. All of them are useful, none of them singe-handedly win a war. Make them expensive as combat is the only place for them and that'll stop them being spammed for an insta-win. If the player ends up with enough belief to spam powers, then that's fair enough, they've spent time collecting that belief, it only makes sense for them to use it to dominate. I hope these are the kinds of answers you were looking for. If not, let me know and I'll think more on the subject. |
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Post by Aynen on Jan 6, 2015 18:49:36 GMT
I didn't want to miss out on this one, so here's my two cents on combat:
I think combat should be something that followers do on their own, based on what they think their god wants them to do. So if you cast meteors on a village, your followers will probably think that their god wants those villagers dead, and they'll try to help you in doing so. If they draw the wrong conclusion, you can punish them (with the finger of god, for instance), and if they get the message, they'll stop. Too much direct control goes against what I think a God game should be. Just look at how much direct control we have over where our followers build what. It doesn't feel Godly. And the same will be true for combat.
Using godly powers in combat situations should feel like 'bringing in the big guns!', where for smaller conflicts your followers can clean their own mess. We're not their baby-sitter, we're their god. We come in when humans can't possibly do it themselves.
Now, since in this case combat done by the followers is something they do by themselves, it should ideally be interesting to watch, and play out slowly. If a war lasts only half an hour, then you need to be present when it happens or you'll miss the opportunity to intervene. If it plays out over several days, you have enough time to intervene if needed, even if you are a casual gamer.
One thing to look out for is the principal that if the player's powers are more effective at settling a conflict than the follower's ability to do so, then followers become more redundant unless the player has enough other things to be spending their time on. The idea that you can choose as a god to let your followers settle their own conflict only works if you'd rather spend your time doing something else. Otherwise the followers are only taking away the only available gameplay from the player. The same would go for any other thing the followers can do autonomously. The followers doing it themselves thus has two reasons:
1: The player doesn't want to do it.
2: It creates follower behavior that the player can stimulate or adjust, thus presenting the player with gameplay.
The 'leap' here would be to add depth to just how followers go about fighting a war. The potential is infinite, ranging from:
- having a military hierarchy to adding intelligence warfare like scouting, espionage, sabotage, assassinating enemy key figures, etc.
- You can implement the ability for a follower to become a hero of war, and create behavior around this for followers and heroes to interact with each other.
- You can have battlefields of past battles have an effect on the people who move through them, where the losing side of that battle becomes sad if they pass through it, or other such area effects.
- You can have followers take ore and wheat for themselves to feed and outfit their armies.
- You can let losing a war have an effect on how much belief is generated.
And loads more options like that.
In truth, I reckon creating all the AI code to have your followers autonomously wage war, is already quite the leap to make. But I really don't think direct control over warfare would do the game much good.
Anywho, that's about it for 2 cents worth of ideas on combat. I'll post more ideas as they come to me.
-Aynen.
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Post by hardly on Jan 6, 2015 21:15:13 GMT
The best way to simplify combat is to have your people expand by creating barracks or outposts (similar to totems). These can be attacked to transfer territory from one faction to another. People are leashed to the barracks to create soldiers who occupy it. On defense solidiers in the barracks defend it automatically, additional soldiers can be leashed from other barracks to help. On attack it's pretty much the same principle but everyone comes from a distance (obviously). The leashing mechanic would change so it's like a counter. First click = 1 solider from nearest barracks, second click = 2, and so on. There would be a totem or something to represent how many soldiers were incoming. Once all the soldiers in a barracks are dead it flips control, all the buildings in the area burn down and the people either flee or are butchered. That is how I would manage combat as a step. There is very little change required there. This is an adaptation of how settlers2 works and moo if you haven't played it I suggest you download a copy (the 10th anniversary edition) for inspiration.
Spider I think there are differing views in the community about how hands on a god should be. Personally I think a hands on God is more achieveable from a design point of view, especially with building placement. Ideally the civ would morph and take cues from its God but given 22cans record on AI that advanced evolutionary behaviour just isn't going to happen.
Aynen, I haven't read your post yet, I'll save that for lunch time.
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Post by morsealworth on Jan 6, 2015 23:16:13 GMT
Logistics!
I am tired of seeing the "warriors" that do not require any logistics.
You see, I'm a god. You're a god. Qetesh is a goddess.Our followers are not. They need to eat, drink, sleep, crap... And they need to do it somewhere and with something (especially concerning food). I'm not talking about ancient Rome and their sex goat herds to keep soldiers satisfied. I'm talking about even more obvious, basic things such as camps, supply routes, etc. That would be much more in a style of a god game - life simulation - than any attempts at incorporating an RTS into the game.
By the way, the camp itself may even have a portable altar in it, giving limited influence over the camp (not the battlefield, though).
By the way, if you want to see how a battle looks the best, try some Kingdom manga. Just to see, how battles are described in there. It shows both tactics and logistics very well.
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Post by FuriousMoo on Jan 7, 2015 14:26:45 GMT
Ok guys hold your horses, I'm going o break the topic of combat down into some separate threads as it's a pretty big thing and I want to go into more detail about specific things. The whole idea behind this stemmed from a discussion on if Godus could go open source, short answer is no, but I can give the community a taste of actual design work. As such I would like the feedback on these threads to be far more structured and for you to present your ideas like an actual designer would. It's an experiment I'm not sure will work, but from what I have seen of these boards it's the best place to make the attempt.
It will require you to put some work in so if that is not your cup of tea and you'd rather provide general high level feedback then please use other threads. I don't expect you to understand our technical limitations or how the game works in terms of back end, but you can infer a lot from observing the game systems as they are currently implemented. I will also be happy to answer specific questions on how the back end systems work.
Bear in mind that as with real design work much (if not most) of what you submit will be discarded and never used, but I'm giving you the opportunity to influence my design work in the best way.
Here's an example of what I mean. I've highlighted a small section of Casinha's post. Not singling you out or anything, it was just an easy example to use for this purpose., but it applies to the majority of posts thus far.
These two sentences potentially describe three brand new features not currently in the game; Multiple warrior follower types, Magic follower type and a follower lvling system. Anytime you describe a system not currently in the game you need to be far more detailed in your delivery.
How do we implement multiple warrior types? Do we add a new settlement type for each one? (remember to consider the current state of the game at all times, in this case the consideration being settlements currently only produce one type of worker unit). Or do we want military settlements to produce more than one type of unit. If that is the case a design is needed on how to implement such a system in detail and would be a launching off point for a new thread on how to implement such a feature.
What are magic followers? How do they differ from archers? By proposing magic are you suggesting we add more fantastical elements to the game?
How does follower veterancy work. There currently is no system for this so again a detailed high level design is needed for this. Does this system affect all follower types? If so how? How do followers gain veterancy? If all followers have the potential for veterancy, how would every follower type achieve this and what would the effect of this veterancy be for each follower type.
I hope this at least highlights how much thought has to go into even modest design proposals, why game development takes such a long time and why most community feedback is of little practical use for a developer. But if your up for it here's your best chance to have a bigger impact on design.
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