Spellshore Tactics

[Greg]

ok, this seems to be getting somewhere. it's time to talk layout.

this is my initial idea:

stats and current turn on the left, info about the highlighted tile on the right. board in the middle, spells under.

the spells will be on a 'wheel' that you can spin right and left with keys or buttons. dragging spells to slots will drop them there, clicking a filled slot will put that spell on your cursor.

focus phase:
clicking on the board will drop focus points.
phase ends either when you run out of points or you end the phase manually

magic phase:
spells are selected from the wheel or slots. if there are no tiles in which the spell can be cast, it is greyed out and cannot be selected. tiles in which you can cast the spell are highlighted. clicking a highlighted tile with a spell held will cast it.
phase ends when your spell allowance is maxed out, or when skipped.

unit phase:
clicking a tile with a unit in selects that unit. tiles you can move the unit to are highlighted. clicking a highlighted tile will move the unit there. if the unit moves next to an enemy unit, it gets an attack, otherwise it is deselected for the turn.
units are allowed only one move each per turn and a maximum of one attack per turn (unless special properties).

[Killeritch]

That layout looks pretty sweet. But there's one thing I didn't get in the latest version, that is sometimes I started my turn with four focus, and sometimes with eight. Why?

[Firekraker51]

I actually think the unit phase should go before the magic phase, so that you can strengthen/augment a unit right after you place it.

[Greg]

you place units in the magic phase, the unit phase is just for moving them. so you can create/strengthen a unit with magic, then move and attack with it in the same turn. like with fireballs.

That layout looks pretty sweet. But there's one thing I didn't get in the latest version, that is sometimes I started my turn with four focus, and sometimes with eight. Why?

probably a bug. you see, you start the turn with an additional 4 points, but at present both clicking the skip button and clicking anywhere when you have a pool of 0 ends the turn, so sometimes if you click the skip button it ends your turn twice and gives the enemy 2 goes and you 2 turns of points

Ok, upgraded the game with a plan of the new interface, as well as a button to switch between human and AI mode. challenge your friends! you'll have to decide your own victory conditions, though.

[Greg]

so, progress has been made in the introduction of units.
beginning the game you may notice 2 new aspects of it: 1, there is a purple dot on your home tile. 2, you begin with a larger claimed area.

the way this works is that the purple dot is your unit. your unit automatically adds 10 claim to the tile it's on, 5 to every adjoining tile. when you're in the unit phase (it says unit at the top left, you get there by clicking when your focus has run out or by clicking the end phase arrow button in the bottom right) you can move your unit by clicking on it, then clicking elsewhere. at present, you can move your unit to any tile, including tiles containing the enemy unit. In the game, this won't be possible, your movement will be limited to surrounding empty tiles, depending on your mobility. the link and influence chains now also originate from your unit. experiment with the new tactical options and tell me what you think.

known bugs:
- the AI hasn't been programmed for unit movement yet, but it should be simple enough in theory. the hard part will be teaching it tactics.
- for some reason the tile info display reads the influence of enemy-influenced tiles as 'none'
- as stated earlier, almost limitless movement is possible. if you like you can 'manually' apply the rules by only moving to tiles next to the one you're moving from.

[Giferd]

Awesome, although I hope you will be adding more intresting graphics soon.

The AI does suck.

But all and all, fun. (esh)

[Killeritch]

Wow, that's cool. Only yeah, needs more graphics, and I haven't a clue what anything does. I'm a noob . I got the unit idea though, and I like it! But I got my unit onto my enemy's unit square, and nothing happened. No fighting yet then? Nvm, you can't rush art eh?

[Greg]

yeah, it's still pretty lame. i'm leaving the graphics till last though and i might actually outsource them to other people cos my stylus doesn't work properly with the latest versions of flash (even though it DID with the earlier ones, stupid adobe), and brushing is the only way i can think of doing quite a lot of it without it taking forever.
the unit's i'll probably do myself with the pen.

[Giferd]

Are you using CS3?

Because my friend bought it and said it was a waste of money. He couldn't see any diffrence from that and like, flash 8...

If it's worth it, I'll go to the troble of finding a way to scam Adobe.

[Greg]

there's no major differences as usual, i think AS3 is new but i don't use it.

thanks to the power of essay procrastination, there's been some major progress on the game. i improved the graphics slightly, but more importantly, the game is now shaping up to the point that it's almost enjoyable to play.

all the modes are now operational and non-linear, you change between them and end your turn with the buttons on the bottom right (focus, unit, end turn). spells are selected from the spell wheel on the left, and cast by clicking highlighted tiles on the field (if there are any).
focus is per turn and doesn't accumulate like before, also you pay focus each turn for some active units.
i gave p2 higher attack and defense and p1 greater mobility, as well as different spellsets, to demonstrate the affect of different stats.

the AI is useless, don't try and use it except for target practice. this means you'll have to either play against yourself (can actually be quite challenging if you play seriously on both sides), or better yet, find a RL friend to play against on the same computer.

the aim is to defeat the opponent by reducing their integrity to 0.

at the moment, i've found 3 main strategies to do this:
1. run up to the opponent and beat them.
2. try and force your opponent to walk through dangerous ground, you can create this with the explosion, fissure or scorch spells, as well as elemental orbs.
3. cast elemental orbs at the opponent.

defensive strategies:
1. keep the enemy away from you, either with wall spells or difficult terrain, you can create this with certain spells, especially aquifer and fissure.
2. keep in as much cover as possible, because it raises defense. if you need cover, try spreading thickets with the growth spell, or creating foggy areas by scorching water.

the best way to win is with a combination of the above techniques depending on the situation and some tactical defense, as each strategy has its weaknesses. report bugs and suggestions.

[Greg]

continuing to post in the face of massive apathy:

i still have yet to implement is the mana resource. i have 2 planned ways this might work:
- basic: mana is a basic spell resource gathered from all linked tiles. it is sustained across turns.
- dimorphic: you have supplies of light and dark mana, which spells use or supply in different quantities. more tactical, but also more confusing.

apart from this though the engine is basically done, so i'm starting to focus on 1, making it look good, 2, making it easy to play. this'll involve providing more helpful context information and making key feedback about resources and effects more prominent, to help people stay focussed on actually winning. it'll also involve adding some more graphics to the field and interface.
planned:
- visual representation of tile in context window, showing air and ground terrain types and any unit in the tile.
- resource bars
- health bars for you and opponent
- rearranging interface around a staff, which will serve as the menu for most activities.
- improving unit graphics on field
- improved context-info, including:
         + visual representation of predicted damage when attacking or using damaging spells on the field over all tiles containing units which will be affected.
         + context-based info about spell effects based on casting location
         + ghosting of bars to show spell effects on them
         + ghosting of tiles to show terrain alterations

of course, there are 3 very huge areas i've left out-
1) multiplayer - i fully intend this to be a serious aspect of the game and it will be a fuckload of work to get a good mp system that can deal with both large and small numbers of players.
2) AI - i want at least half-decent AI players... lots of work. i may have to give them rules for each spell separately, or come up with some cunning system which splits spells into categories and then has the AI cast them according to its 'mood'.
3) stat customization - probably the easiest of the 3, as all the stats are already implemented. it's just a matter of deciding on the leveling system, making an interface, and assigning exp costs to balance things.

[Nathan]

tell me when you have an ai.
I find it very difficult to play a tactical game as both sides.

[Greg]

psh. it's easy, although it makes tactical deception a lot harder because you always know what your enemy is thinking. despite that it can still be more of a challenge than against any AI i could make. i was kind of hoping people would find opponents irl for now but i suppose if you did have a friend round i'm sure you'd have much better things to do than test my shitty game. ah well.

ok, i guess the next thing i'll do is make an AI that at least provides a moving target and some offensive capacity.

[Giferd]

And a box that comes down from where the mouse is that tells you what each button does.

I still am yet to win/lose a game.

[Greg]

the finished game will have more context info and tooltips and stuff, but i think i've already given instructions for every element of the game in this thread. maybe i should restate the instructions more clearly.