Spellshore Tactics

[Greg]

civ 4 is the best strategy game ever created, but seriously, civ 1? why not just see how many knives you can stick in your eyes instead?

anyway, i was also thinking of making the home tile into a movable piece, and giving it a permanent claim bonus so you're guaranteed to 'own' any tile you're on for as long as you're on it. In theory you could just run up to the enemy and start laying the smack down but i'll balance it so that's only feasible as part of a slightly more advanced strategy.

[Firekraker51]

*Ahem*

Civilization.

And yes, it is cool. I think I've got Civilization III somewhere among all my other old CDs.

[Greg]

got stable proto, in this version of course there is no end to the game and also it's very easy to beat because the AI isn't built to handle the additional complexity yet.

[Killeritch]

"Windows cannot open this file:

File:    SS[1][1].1.2.swf

To open this file, Windows needs to know what program created it. Windows can go online to look it up automatically, or you can manually select from a list of programs on your computer."

Stupid Windows.

[Greg]

if you don't have flash player you can probably play it in most browsers.

[Killeritch]

Certainly much cooler than all previous attempts, due to the addition of a form of combat, but there is a fundamental flaw: because each player always gets two actions, and each action must be either to add one to your total number of bases or to subtract one form your opponent's, you can never win, as you must always both have the same number.
 
Methinks you need to revise the turn system, maybe grant extra turns for capturing green squares or something? I dunno really, just that's quite a deadlock that needs to be broken. I'm amazed you didn't notice it when you were testing, that is, assuming you do test, and we're not working for free for you here.

P.S. Thanks for the help on getting it to work. As a matter of fact I do have flash player, but my computer doesn't seem to recognise it as a program, or at least, it's not on the list.

EDIT: No wait, I think I've worked out a way to fix it, but I'm not sure if it works. Maybe every time you destroy an enemy held position you gain an additional move in your turn. In other words, if your enemy just builds a long line of "1" positions, you can destroy them all in a single turn. This would promote more thorough development of defences.

[Greg]

exactly, since i combined the stages the point of the game now isn't to fix the board, but to build and maintain an advantageous position for your overall strategy. the winner of the game will probably be decided by whoever does sufficient damage to the enemy through spells. the unit level of the game will be a lot like chess, with some obvious differences.
1) hexagonal field
2) units are created during play rather than placed at start
3) health-based combat - instead of taking pieces, damage is dealt
4) victory consists in reducing the enemy's mage's integrity (health) to 0

the field

the game board (henceforth referred to as the field) will almost certainly be hexagonal. however, instead of the mix of 'normal' and 'special' (green) tiles, i was thinking more of having a range of terrain types, of which fields will be constructed in different proportions. each tile will have a terrain type, and space for one 'unit', which can be mobile, immobile, and belong to either player or neither. the terrain type will be of tactical importance - altering the effects of some spells, while restricting the casting of others. the terrain of the field will make huge differences to play.

possible terrain types

earth - soil and low-level plant life. weak material.
rock - slabs and boulders of solid rock. strong material.
water - depression filled with water. movement restricted.
thicket - dense plant life. cover.
swamp - thick, swampy mud. movement restricted.
lava - super-heated liquid rock. movement restricted, attrition.
crystal - magical crystals spear from underground leylines. mana bonus.
ice - thick layer of frozen water. movement restricted.

i'm also considering a 2-tier terrain system, one for ground, one for air. air terrains would be more limited, including:

clear - ordinary, clear air. no effects.
fog - dense fog and mist obscures everything. cover.
sandstorm - clouds of dust and sand blast through the air. cover, movement restricted, attrition.
smog - clouds of soot and choking fumes fill the air. cover, attrition.
storm - localized electrical storm. movement restricted, attrition.

units

units will be the primary means of entering enemy territory. most are created with spells. mobile units can be moved once per turn. there are no limits on how many can be moved per turn. each unit will have a set of stats that determine how interactions with it will go.

integrity - how much damage can be taken before unit disbands
attack - damage done to enemy when attacking
recoil - self-inflicted damage on attack
counter - damage done to enemy when defending
attrition - self-inflicted damage per turn
range - maximum tiles unit can move per turn
mobility - none: unit cannot move. linear: unit can move only in straight lines. full: unit can take any path
obstruction - a value representing the size and mobility of the object. 2 units cannot occupy the same tile, but units can move through tiles provided their obstruction + the tile unit's obstruction does not exceed 10. example: fireball (obs 2) can move past a tile containing a rock golem (obs 6) (2+6=8), but not through a tile containing a rock wall (obs 9) (2+9=11).

possible spells

just some initial thoughts on spells, they'll be quite diverse in effects, and they'll all be cast on specific tiles, though some will have an AoE extending to neighboring hexes. there will also be some way to limit spell casting, probably through a traditional mana pool. all spells will have a minimum focus requirement (for most, 1), and generally the more complex the spell the higher the focus needed.

sapper - lowers enemy claim on a tile and all adjoining by 1 point.
fireball - creates a mobile unit that causes integrity damage and disbands when moving onto an enemy unit. prerequisite: terrain - clear.
levitate - creates a mobile unit, properties depend on terrain type.
golem - creates a mobile unit, properties depend on terrain type. prerequisite: high focus.
wall - creates a static unit, properties depend on terrain type. prerequisite: terrain - not water or swamp.
flood - all adjoining tiles changed to water tiles. prerequisite: terrain - water.
lightning - cause damage to unit within 2 squares. prerequisite: terrain - storm.

any more ideas?

[Firekraker51]

Ooh, you have a title now! I like it.

Anyways, first off, I have some questions:

When does the first stage (where you click to gain/fortify territory) end? Does it end when every hexagon is occupied, when a turn/time limit is up, or does it go on through the whole game?

Can air units move past ground units when their combined obstruction surpasses 10?

Also, how will air terrain be shown? Will you make a symbol, will it be shown over the hexagon 3D style, or will a second terrain colour/texture outline the ground terrain's colour/texture?


Now, I have a couple small ideas:

Ground Terrain:
Desert - Sand, sparse plant life. Weak material.
Tundra - Flat, icy wasteland, thick layer of snow. Very weak material, movement restricted.
Grassland (Or is this covered in 'earth'? Oh well.) - Abundant low-level plant life. Moderate material.
Mountain - High elevation land. Strong material, movement restricted (maybe).

Air 'Terrain':
Blizzard - Snow, hail, strong winds. Movement restricted. Attrition.
Hurricane/Tornado - Very strong winds. Movement restricted, attrition.


Possible Spells:

Grow - Causes plant life to grow in all adjoining tiles, changing the terrain type. (Ex. Earth > Thicket, Water > Swamp, etc.) Prerequisite: Terrain - Thicket.

Scorch - Decimates plant life in all adjoining tiles, changing terrain type (Thicket > Earth, Earth > Rock, etc), and temporarily changes air terrain to smog. Prerequisite: Terrain - Lava.

Hurricane/Tornado - Changes air terrain to Hurricane/Tornado.

Aqua Life - Changes all non special type units* into aquatic form, allowing it to move on water at it's normal range, but cutting it's land range in half.

*Special type units are units created by spells, like the fireball, which clearly shouldn't change form like this, or in many other ways, either. Special type units usually should have some special properties, such as fireball causing integrity to a unit and automatically disbanding, just like an attack spell should.

Anyway, that's what I've got for now. It looks like you have some really great quality ideas, and I know the finished product will be immensely fun.

[Greg]

since i combined the stages, the territory control is open-ended. players receive and distribute points at the start of every turn (or they can skip and save the points for next turn)

i decided that all units should basically occupy the same 'level'. we're not supposed to be dealing with the sky here anyway, the 'air' is really just a few meters from the ground up. fireballs hover, but they can't fly over stuff. 3 dimensions is too complicated.
hovering units will however be immune to ground based terrain effects.

i figured the air terrain would just be shown by overlaying it on the tile. just to make the board clearer though, rolling over a tile will display all information about it clearly in sidebars, including both terrain types, control level, and info about any unit on that tile.

grassland and mountain i considered covered in earth and rock respectively (again, i'm trying to avoid elevation and also the field is only supposed to represent a few hundred yards of area - too small for features like mountains). desert, tundra, blizzard and hurricane are all good.

i like the spells too, although since all the units you make will be essentially magical, they'll all be special to some degree, and they won't have 'types', although certain properties will affect them.
what i'll probably have is that some properties might differ depending on their origin - for instance, casting golem on water will create a water golem, which will have a bonus to water movement but a penalty to land movement. casting the same spell on rock for instance will create a rock golem, with high integrity and maybe a movement penalty.

i think i'll actually move all the stuff i'm thinking of the the first post and do it officially actually, á la CF2.

[Killeritch]

Wow, this just stepped up a notch. In terms of what you're telling us, at least. I guess that's the last demo you've given us, time to start giving ideas! Unfortunately, I'm not feeling as creative as FK, all I can come up with at the moment is:

Terrain updates (becauseI can't be bothered to make any more up):
Desert: Increased chance that air tile directly above may turn to sandstorm at any time, and/or start as sandstorm automatically.
Mountain: Counts as both land and air terrain. Hinders air movement.
Tornado (becuase I think hurricane would be ridiculous): Moves randomly around the field.

Actually that's a lie, I have thought of a couple more terrain pieces:
Thermals (air): Appear at random above lava fields. Some air units may have to visit thermals every so often to avoid crashing (like gliders)
Faultline / Area of Tectonic Activity: Ok, so the second name isn't very snappy. This could work in one of two ways: either a faultline runs across the map, with terrain on top of it as normal, or there is a special terrain piece. Either way, affected tiles have a very low chance to do enormous attrition damage.

Spells:
Firestorm: Creates an air terrain piece which does not occur naturally, doing massive attrition damage.
Earhquake: Increases chance of attrition over faultlines / areas of tectonic activity (or maybe even causes).
Fire wave: Causes a wave of fire to spread in all directions, doing damage and possibly changing terrain types (e.g. grassland to desert, thicket to grassland, area of tectonic activity (I have GOT to think of a shorter name) to lava fields etc.).

Most of those ideas I came up with after my initial comment, so the finished product is not much shorter than FK's, but anyway this does look much more promising now. I look forward to it with relish!

[Firekraker51]

i like the spells too, although since all the units you make will be essentially magical, they'll all be special to some degree, and they won't have 'types', although certain properties will affect them.
what i'll probably have is that some properties might differ depending on their origin - for instance, casting golem on water will create a water golem, which will have a bonus to water movement but a penalty to land movement. casting the same spell on rock for instance will create a rock golem, with high integrity and maybe a movement penalty.

Sounds good. So the unit changing spells should only work on units who's property changes depending on what area they were created in, like the golems.

Anyway, I'll post some more ideas tomorrow, cause I have to go sleep.

[Greg]

actually come to think of it your idea would probably be best implemented by giving the unit the 'aquatic' property. but i don't see reason to do that yet because it's easy enough to make aquatic units anyway.

anyway, i put the terrain system into the engine, at the moment the graphics are crap and the terrain has no real effect on anything. still an advancement, though.

[Killeritch]

I had a cool idea actually, regarding the problem of not being able to win in that version. I'm sure it's from some other game, but I can't think what... Quite a simple idea really, and I said it before, but in a different fashion. It is, when you destroy an opponent's tile and that causes others previously linked to their chain to be no longer a part of it, these are made easier to control in some way; maybe it's simply they are harder to defend, or that you can capture them in one swoop rather than the destroy-and-consolidate I see at the moment, or you could simply add them to your own chain immediately. Perhaps this last option is a little more drastic, but I still feel I should be rewarded for punching holes at strategic (i.e. poorly defended) locations on my opponent's line.

[Firekraker51]

Maybe when you isolate a single hex, it becomes yours?

And yeah, I had ideas, but I forgot them all. Maybe later, I can out some ideas into this post without any of you even having a chance to look at it.

[Greg]

i was thinking about something along those lines, yeah. probably something like changing the focus costs, so the cost of taking a hex in your influence would be reduced and the cost of taking one in the enemy's would be increased.

*ok, done! the tactical element of this game just went way up. now, it's beneficial to rush forward and try and stifle your opponent, but this also tends to leave open long trains of tiles that an opponent can cut. the AI plays a random-cautious approach, just placing tiles in its own influence with no tactical concern. currently, games seem to take the form of rapid initial expansion, followed by tactical infrastructure and advance, followed by an indefinite period of low-intensity reinforcement, which is what i was looking for.
the rules are:

1 point cost to take any tile in your influence but not the enemy's influence.
2 point cost to take an uninfluenced tile
2 point cost to take a tile in both your and the enemy's influence
4 point cost to take a tile in the enemy's influence
1 point cost to take an owned tile, regardless of influence

(where 'take' means place 1 focus point)

*bug: found a little bit of an overflow problem which i think is caused by the AI looping to find a tile. if flash gets in an infinite loop it shuts down actions, so if the game freezes for no apparent reason that's probably why.

*think i got the bug. also noticed now i fixed some of the loops that it's insanely easy to win territory (thickie AI), i've got it down to just 1 tile. because of the 'cheap reinforcement' rule, it's much easier to defend territory than attack it, so once you've built a strong position it's much harder to overthrow it.