I'd like to see infestation monsters that drag your cities back to wilderness. Actually, I don't want to see this in reality, which is why I chase bums off the abandoned properties next to my house. I promise you they are a nightmare.
[quote who="Tormodino" reply="5" id="3078480"]Oh... I thought you wanted some interesting population mechanics. If it bothers you, I am sure you can mod it out fairly easily. And applying modern day experiences to FE, when the game doesn't even attempt to model any form of psychology, is really crushing the fourth wall.[/quote] About five years ago, it was my privilege to spend time with Yezidi people in Iraqi Kurdistan. They are arguably some of the oldest peoples practicing
[quote who="Tormodino" reply="3" id="3077665"]I'd be very interested in hearing you suggestion for how to do this without breaking or overcomplicating the system in FE.[/quote] I'd suggest a global search and replace of the term "rebel" with the word "drudge". Then I'd scale back the explanations that indicate refugees from Ogre attacks cop a 'tude when they find someplace safe to live. Instead, I'd indicate that many people coming in from the wilderness take some
The popular myth that people jump immediately from discontent to active rebellion isn't borne out by history. Uprisings do take place, but not frequently, and especially not when there are literally wolves at the door. "Let's rebel! It will really show Lord Ixtyplex a thing or two when his weakened garrison lets giant spiders eat us to the last man!" That kind of stupid is reserved for people in the modern era who have powered appliances to explain their incomprehension
I'm less in love with the idea of "rebels" in the position of unsatisfied populace. I prefer something closer to "thralls" or "drudges" to depict uninvolved people not enjoying their lives and not contributing more than the absolute minimum. Although everybody who can read this has been exposed to people "rebels" all their lives, in economic terms, most "rebellions" of the last century were the expensive hobby of rich people. Genuinely poor and uneducated folk keep to themse
[quote who="Xan" reply="5" id="3075299"]I'm not sure how ones experience with Yar's Revenge would help in a strategy game.[/quote] "Sword of Aragon" is the first game that did 80% of what this one does. SoA did have a better economy, though.
[quote who="BeardyDan" reply="1" id="3075265"]Why are you running the build from 3 weeks ago? 0.77 was released on the 27th.[/quote] 0.75 was the version I downloaded last week at Stardock's invitation for feedback. If in the last three weeks they have: 1. Fixed excess control failure; 2. Made custom games an interesting, playable option; 3. Balanced quests so that random ones match the capability of new civilizations; 4. Made early magic useful in a fight; 5. Reduce
1. Controls should always work immediately and reliably. Controls that consult oracles, perform an interpretive dance, compose a sonnet, paint a watercolor, and then completely fail to operate are not fun. Shed layers on basic control functions. Scrub all layers from non-map controls. If anyone starts adding layers to controls, skin them and hang their hide from the wall as an example to the others. 2. If I considered frustration to be fun, I'd be playing "Elemental: Fallen
Elemental Forums
Mount&Blade: Warband using the 1257AD mod at home, and Native with my netbook, waiting for Sword of Damocles to get closer to release to try that for Warband Morrowind with the netbook Master of Orion 2 on both Will probably buy MoM on GOG after I post this so I can play it on the netbook.
Given the know how, all tribes of earth used iron weapons, or cavalry This is not strongly true. The key technologies to dominant civilization is seem to be arable crops, domesticated animals, metal, and information storage. Even with all of this, Japan turned its back on firearms for centuries, and it wasn't until some Americans got too obstinate to accept their withdrawal from the world that they changed back. Four years ago some loons
Unit mergers interest me and I have an idea where the price of merging units is to reduce the average level of the troops at least one step per level of aggregation. This means that if you took 8 level 4 Peasants, you could merge them into 2 level 3 squads or 1 level 2. The formula should work something like: Average level of troops-level of aggregation = combined troop level If that functionality is in place, then the equipment upgrade can be
In that nasty old real world there are resources we know exist but can't recover them economically with the technology we have. The Permian Basin in Texas needs a lot of steam to realease the oil that remains, for instance. Similarly, prior to 1960 most natural gas was flared off because handling it was expensive to handle, and it is still burned in a lot of Siberia and off the coast of Africa. New technology makes old resources more available. Also, new technol
And I forgot: 6. Food: Can I please build farms? What is the point of making everything verdant and wonderful if you can't grow stuff on them. Or is there an ethereal requirement for vast expanses of putting greens? I request permission to revise and extend my remarks regarding humanity and civilization: There is a belief amongst some people that civilization is a bad thing. While it is true that the wealth made possible by c
A couple weeks ago I bought a copy of Master of Orion II and that game still holds up and is still worth my coin. This week I bought Elemental and even though it still crashes and needs some significant work, I love playing it. Keep in mind that I'm playing Elemental on a $200 Acer Aspire Revo with a one-lung Atom processor (2G of RAM becuase I'm not stupid). I expect Stardock to make good on Elemental because their development model and distribution channel all
Stardock Forums
Apocalypse makes for bad sequels. If you haven't played Dungeon Siege II and the extension Dungeon Siege II: Feel Really Guilty for Playing Dungeon Siege II, take my word for it. I know for a fact that the development team had practicing Quakers on it, and religious pacifists add bad themes for war games as a function of their life goals. Letting Quakers kill the franchise strikes me a bad business. What would make sense to me is a sense that the "Spell of Mast
[quote who="Terran_242" reply="6" id="2530799"]Never mind the grapeshot. A catapault loaded with half-melted blue cheese would have the morale effects of hurling human carcases lol. "Oh man that stinks. I need to find a river to wash this ---- off. RETREAT!!" lol [/quote] OK, you've never actually met a real infantryman, let alone been near one in the field. I'm not an infantryman, I learned I'm a really good sailor and a quite bad infantryman (photo is of me in a Navy unif
As a graphical template you might consider some of the star fortress cities. In addition to being really cool to look at, they more closely reflect the impact spellcasters (artillery by any other name would smell as brimstone-y) on urban design. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Star_fortress has some basics, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coevorden I particularly li
Mage Development Hero Development Terrain Development (Change Terrain [except that permafrost is magic-proof{?}]) Unit Development (Because cannon fodder should stink on ice) City Development Magic Item Creation With Master of Magic it actually makes sense that a bunch of Swiss don't become expert pikemen and beat the snot out of everybody who tries to take their dirt, a failing most other strategy games share.
[quote who="Tasunke" reply="30" id="2450262"]Can Dragons level up? For one, that would be incredibly awesome, and two .. Ive always wanted to fight against a much, much stronger Mundane empire with only a dragon usign Guerilla warfare. Sure it might not be the best strategy for "victory" ... but fighting impossible battle after impossible battle with my elite battle-hardened dragon, and then retreating to the nearest castle or cave ... that just seems really, really cool.[/quote] Ther
[quote who="VicenteC" reply="13" id="2449852"] Real world combat stinks: real fencing is "five seconds and you are dead". Unless you don't mind redoing your character every 10 seconds, real combat is not fun at all. It's a good thing systems don't try to model real combat but just something that is fun to play. Also, it could be argued than in a RPG describing is left up for the players, not the rules. A fail can be a dodge, armor deflection, parry,... A strike can come after
As somebody who first saw D&D as an expansion of minatures combat rules put together by a Swiss Pike formation enthusiast, my view of avertive armor is somewhat jaded, I admit. THAC0 stunk as a way of arbitrating individual combat in 1976, and it stinks today despite the modifications and changes it's added. It fails to describe fencing, archery, SCA combat, real mideval combat, and anything resembling firearms. The importance of machine guns is that they produce a field of fi
Just as a suggestion, a flavor adder for this might be insulting haiku's. Once during a comment thread fued with a deeply irritating person, I concocted a series of dog insult haiku's to describe the individual and it just drove him bonkers. While this isn't for everybody, and you might need to put a "no insulting haiku" buttion in the diplomacy options, this could provide a lot of interesting alternatives and opportunities for the community to contribute. For refera
A lot of people have problems with D&D because armor exists to allow you endure damage, not elude it. In D&D, THAC0 means "To Hit Armor Class 0", a collection of mistakes that means a catapult can hit a castle wall with the same facility as an individual sparrow, so long as they are both Armor Class 0. There are a variety modifications that attempt to make sense of this essentially flawed premise, but they all essentially fail because armor protects you from damage and oth
[quote who="KellenDunk" reply="12" id="2449224"] This is one of the dumbest things I've ever read. Risk's only economy is based on how much land you control. TO suggest that it should be a simulation is silly.[/quote] Land generates troops. Complete continent holding generates troops. Card turn-ins generate troops. This is economy in Risk. You may not be used to playing with the card rules, but it makes Risk a lot more fun for people interested in a board
The economics associated with "jiffy-pop" armies from risk are so ludicrous as to even give congress pause. The cards add an element of strategy to blitzing other players, but detach it from reality to a very great extent. Certainly the card collection rule was obviated by machine guns and explosive shell artillery, or WWI would have played out way differently. One thing I love is building units, and that just does not happen with "jiffy-pop" economics. If you