All quiet on the coding front

[sparrowhawk]

how about an update from the various authors about their games (mule, bloodmarch, marshall lords, pacification). And the novel of course.

(posted here to avoid repeating the post in each of the sub forums)

[Old Shendemiar]

As i wont be able to code "continuously" between May-September, and also as i have difficulties with planning some game rules, i decided better not to code at all... Meaning not to code before next fall.

I would like the game to have decent economy, so that naval things would be important, but i wouldnt want players have to manually load all product from productions sites to units and move them around... that would be frustrating, but on the other hand i would like to impliment embargos, capturing of goods, local demand and prices etc...

Also i'd like to have features like regular winf zones, ocean streams etc... that would need me to code something i dont have a clue how to do it.

So those are things i need to sleep on for some time...

[celebaglar]

Ah, Bloodmarch development... hmmm...

It's still making progress, but it's very slow progress. The main problem is that I'm only spending a fifth of the time I should be spending coding this thing.

However, despite the design still being somewhat fluid, there are a few features I have settled on already:

[/li][li] Navigable waterways, including rivers, lakes and seas. Deep water deemed as impassable can be used as a map border in sections of the map, replacing icy wastes. Other terrain types such as desert and swamp will also be inroduced.

[/li][li] Supplies. This is still a bit vague, but it will form a crucial part of the game. Logistics is usually one of the main issues of real warfare, but usually totally ignored in computer war gaming. The idea is that armies will require supplies, and if they run out first morale will drop, then soldiers will start to desert or die. Supplies will be produced by allied strongholds, and some way to establish supply lines will have to be implemented. Cutting supply lines will be a valid military tactic, so protecting them will also have to be a consideration.

[/li][li] Sieges. It will be possible to lay siege to a stronghold, this stopping the production of supplies and preventing anyone from leaving or entering without a fight. The size of force needed to besiege a stronghold will depend on the size of the stronghold itself. The effectiveness of the siege will depend on the ratio between the size of the besieging army and the size of the stronghold and on the underlying terrain in which the stronghold is built. Sieges will be easier to set for plains strongholds than for ones in mountains.

[/li][li] Infantry armies will have the ability to build temporary fortifications when on plains or hilly ground, assuming there is a forest nearby. This will take a lot of time and will provide only minimal protection, but will protect infantry from cavalry bonus.

[/li][li] Infantry and cavalry will have different abilities, rather than one simply being a faster stronger version of the other. Cavalry will move faster and fight better in the open, but will be less effective against fortifications and equal to infantry in forests. Infantry will be better attacking strongholds and fighting in mountains. It will also be able to handle terrain which cavalry cannot handle or where horses can be a liability, such as high mountains and swamps.

[/li][li] The game map will be split into 12-16 realms, each with a “king”. Those kings not under human player control (and I do not envisage any more than 6-8 players per game at any one time) will be under AI control.

[/li][li] All lords will have fixed personalities and limits to their abilities. This will hopefully give some of the feeling of identifying with individual characters that exists in LoM and DDR, but is lost in Midnight/MU. To complement the fixed attributes, each character will have variable attributes too, such as morale, tiredness, confidence etc. Lords will have fixed names, and separate titles. This will allow various lords to be allocated from a database at the initialisation of each game, meaning there will be no two games that will be played in exactly the same conditions. To illustrate this in Midnight terms, you could have Brith, Marshal of Shimeril in one game, and Brith, Lord of Gard in another. Both games would still see Brith as a cowardly weakling. Obviously, the actual allocation of lords to starting positions would fall within certain criteria, so that Free lords would largely start in the Realm of the Free in every game. To make this work better, there will be an array of lords for each "race", and the ones actually involved in the game will be selected randomly from this array. There will be some exceptions, with a small number of lords who are always present.

[/li][li] Victory conditions and actual participation details are still being mulled over. I am toying with the idea of allowing new players to join ongoing games as long as there are vacancies available. To attract players to such a prospect, victory points would be given, and victory for a latecomer would score much higher than one for a player involved from the start. To balance this, active players would be able to eliminate vacancies as well as rival kings, perhaps by taking enemy “capitals”.
[/i]
Anyway, that's enough of my random musing for the time being. Lining up features is one thing, implementing them is something else entirely. I need to do less of the former and more of the latter.