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[Jalak]

Hey, just joined the forums, specifically so I can ask you a bunch of questions! Hurray!

I've got a lot of questions, actually, though I think I'll just stick to a few at a time. These ones mostly have to do with the way politics work.

When it comes to territory, how does the "order" level of a POI effect the nation itself in terms of actual physical control? I imagine a "black shield" POI would make it harder for heroes to quest in, force the nation to send troops just to keep order, lose money and population, I get all that. What I'm not so certain of, however, is what eventually happens to the territory itself over time. Will the territories on the fringe locations actually defect to some "outlaw" faction? Do the cities eventually declare independence? Massive refugee and maybe even deserting armies (All good for you, obviously)? Hell, could some foreign power came in and take some land directly, without an actual war, simply because the territory is so unstable that the homeland doesn't find it worth fighting over? I would love the idea of "balkanizing" an entire nation into various city states due to loss of control over the land.
 
Also, is it possible for you, as the elder god, to control territory directly (Get a sort of Sauron thing going on) and use that land to wage a total war on the world? Or is the closest thing you can do is "puppet" a king with your corrupting influence?

Sorry if I'm coming on a bit overwhelming, but I'm so excited about this game (or as much as I can without getting thrown out of a library)! The fact that it looks like you have most of the game already finished is a very good sign for great things to come!

[Xantalos]

Oh, and I heard you say something in the video that kinda implied that the sleeping time of the Old One might not stay at the number displayed there, which'd be handy to make sure you don't always win in 15 turns when playing Azlan assuming you don't get killed. Is that true, or...?

[Jopax]

From what I understand the number is there to show relative sleep times. So an old one with 15 will always take longer to wake than one with 10, while the actual time it takes to wake might vary on other factors.

[Xantalos]

Yeah, that makes sense. I suppose we'll be seeing what other factors those are in later videos.

[KingDinosaurGames]

Hype hype hype! 

On making a Dominator God - powers are very easy to customize, for instance the Call of Ravens ability is a descriptor, a result, a type, an effect, a cost.  You can pull from the effects that are used for anything in the game which gives you a wide variety of options inside the editor, and if there's something we're missing it's pretty easy for us to get it out in an update.

So the "Sleep Timer" is not linear, so what I meant was that the time it takes to get from 11-12 is a lot longer than 10-11, so Azlan is asleep a lot longer than 50% longer than Belial.  However there are many ways to alter the sleep timer, as can rituals and artifacts. 

Sisyphus is actually a really fun Old One, he has a whole event chain that deals with him interacting more 'directly' with the Chosen One.  Think along the lines of the Dark One's relationship with Lews Therin in the Wheel of Time.  Good stuff.

We will talk about ALL of the game statistics in the map in the next video, but I'll try to answer your questions as best I can here.  So Order is a representation of "security", think of it as how many guards patrol the streets, how aware the people are of things that go in,town watch, bonfires burning etc... so Security at 0 does not necessarily mean that the POI is now going to revolt.  However, it means that if it has ANY OTHER condition that would give cause to the people to revolt, they will revolt in a certain number of turns.  Revolts can also occur at low numbers of security, but take longer (giving heroes and leaders more time to correct the problem). 

When a POI revolts it generally goes into Anarchy, which is now symbolized by a pitchfork shield.  Cities form new nations, either from subcultures if present or of the parent culture, and even more rarely a new culture may emerge if the reason for revolt conflicts with the values of the parent culture.

Refugees are a HUGE element of the game, I spent a lot of time because the theme is perfect.  When you destroy a POI, refugees will leave and go to neighboring places.  This is obviously a negative element as they consume additional food and resources and cause strife.  How the nation deals with refugees depends on their values and strategic position at the time, but bloodshed is a fairly frequent occurence.  Even if none occurs, it makes it MUCH easier for your agents to inflitrate the POI.  There's also some.... almost hilariously evil... things you can do with refugees that I'll just leave up in the air for now.

Deserting armies are also a big element, they can establish themselves in a new POI, they can go mercenary (you may even be able to buy them), or they can turn to banditry (which you may then be able to recruit with a charismatic leader). 

A big difference in That Which Sleeps compared to other strategy games that have these features is that these elements are "distractions" in other games, but they are the CORE gameplay here.  You need to destablize the world and capitalize on the weaknesses you create.

Yes you do control land directly, you have your own "Nation" at start in some Scenarios and when a nation joins your side you are able to build, recruit units, and raise commanders.  In fact, while Agents are restricted in number you can control an unlimited number of Commanders though they are restricted to military operations.  You may have noticed that our early MainGui screen did not have resources on it but our new one does, that's because we are STILL going back on forth on whether resources should be global or unique to each power you control.  On the one hand, it being unique makes the game much more strategic, agents have to ferry resources around and you may have one power that is rich but lacking food and another vice versa - however on the other hand it significantly slows down the game and turns agents into couriers, creating some balance issues, so we are currently making all resources global.  On the plus side, it let us add in another INfiltration challenge where you can siphon off resources of a country that you have high levels of infiltration.

 

[KingDinosaurGames]

Oh also RE: sleep timer the heroes can try and lull you back into sleep slowing you down, and there are rituals that if learned allow wizards to perform similar functions.

[ScriptWolf]

I have a few questions about Agents.

From the four starting agents ( Prophet, Rake, Hermit, Peddler ) They seem rather like one trick ponies, you said that will be quite a few more agent types ( around 15 if I'm correct ?) we have seen the baron. Are all the other agents all singular ones like the baron or will we see more standard agent types to put to use like the standard classes e.g. rogue, warrior, mage and all that jazz.

[KingDinosaurGames]

You won't be seeing "standard class" type Agents, we purposefully tried to craft them into "fantasy villain archetypes."  Rather it's the heroes who fall into that type of generic mold. 

Agents are instead elements of your strategy - choosing the proper tool for the job is extremely important, and while they don't level up they can be imbued to augment their powers in ways that can be very useful.   They do come in a wide variety of purposes, from agents that can hunt down heroes and slay them, to necromancers who fight with minion waves and raise undead armies, to leaders like the Baron who offer powerful niche opportunities. 

It would also be a mistake to put the early agents into a single role or to discard their overarching utility.  We didn't design any agent to be disposable, the unique powers of these early agents are not replicated by "more powerful" heroes and strategic use of them is key to winning the game. 

Let me know if that answered your question, or if you'd like me to go into more specifics.

 

[Zangi]

Yes you do control land directly, you have your own "Nation" at start in some Scenarios and when a nation joins your side you are able to build, recruit units, and raise commanders.  In fact, while Agents are restricted in number you can control an unlimited number of Commanders though they are restricted to military operations.  You may have noticed that our early MainGui screen did not have resources on it but our new one does, that's because we are STILL going back on forth on whether resources should be global or unique to each power you control.  On the one hand, it being unique makes the game much more strategic, agents have to ferry resources around and you may have one power that is rich but lacking food and another vice versa - however on the other hand it significantly slows down the game and turns agents into couriers, creating some balance issues, so we are currently making all resources global.  On the plus side, it let us add in another INfiltration challenge where you can siphon off resources of a country that you have high levels of infiltration.

This is more about how you portray the nations under your thumb then, in my opinion. Seems kinda gamey when ingame terms, every other nation has their own supply/resource and has to trade with its neighbors(or they may not even trade at all?) while.... you control 2-3 different nations and they all pool their resources automatically and instantly.

How will you portray this information?  Do the nations merge into one?  Well, there is still how you want to deal with losing pieces of your nation...  Do you lose resources/anything else when losing land?

In the case you want to keep 3 nations as still separate entities.  (Like the player losing favor/control of one of the 3 nations...)  I'm not sure how far you plan to do supply line/trade between nations but...  if I may give an example of a working one you can take notes on.  Shattered Colonies  A zombie game, but you gotta deal with a supply line, where civilians gotta move stuff around.  You can set minimum stockpile, where civies will grab more of when it goes below.  Zombies can wreck the supply line too. 
Well, in your game's case, could be bandits or an army blocking trade/supply.  So you don't have to play your agent as a courier and be able to do more fun stuff with them.  It is also a few clicks to have resources moved/traded within the various parts of your nation without having to excessively micromanage it if resources are moved on a minimum stockpile basis. 
You can raise the minimum at your military manufacturing powerhouse or the front lines when you get ready for a push and let the AI deal with moving the supply.  Though, protecting the supply line might be something else you gotta deal with if there is no AI for that.  (Which brings into question if your nation(s) will have any autonomy at all.)

EDIT: I guess you might even tie in welfare/economy of given regions that can be disrupted... in your favor.  But... what about managing your own?

[ScriptWolf]

specifics would be nice, more information is always welcome what you are prepared to give

It does answer some of what I wanted to know, Its cool you have gone for the villain archetypes and done your spin on them Mostly I'm just wondering what the other types are going to be and sort of uses we could put them. What happens when we corrupt a hero and they become one of our agents does their class change ? what sort of work could we put them to ?

You say agents can be imbued with powers but they can also be given items and artifacts as well will this give us a change in game play or just +1 to corruption.

[Cthulhu]

Are the lesser agents unique?  I figure Greywind and Shadowmere (though you haven't said anything about Shadowmere except his name... Hint hint nudge nudge) and the like are fully unique but what about the others?  I noticed a lot of the gods have more starting agent slots than starting agents.  Can I have two peddlers?  If I lose the peddler can I replace him or is he gone?

[KingDinosaurGames]

The Agents (lesser and greater) are truly unique and they all have personality, unique abilities, unique events, and unique upgrade paths.   If you lose them they are gone forever, there is only ever one Peddler in the game (though of course being an Old One I'm sure there's some way to bring them back, in one form or another).  It may be misleading that their name is generic, but we again did that because we want to represent the "Archetype" that you often see in games/novels/movies. 

Agents are heavily customizable to match your playstyle and concentrate their strengths.  Agents can be imbued, with simple stat boosts or more complicated methods will grant them uniquely powerful combat or challenge skills - they can also equip artifacts that you find which often grant powerful abilities, though there is no equipping of "mundane" magic items (no swords+2).  Some of the artifacts are relatively straightforward, but most of them offer unique abilities that can even influence your overall strategy.   One of the MAJOR ways you custoimze the Agent is by recruiting minions, minions don't just aid in combat they give Traits and Skill boosts to the agent.  Recruiting Death Adepts at the Necromancer Cabal will grant you "Necromancy" as a trait, which lets you choose more unique options in events and challenges.  They're worthless in a fight, unless you decide to throw them at the heroes to delay them (my absolute favorite strategy).  This reinforces the "combat as long term strategy" element that we went for with Combat - do you shelter these hard to recruit strategic minions or expend them to spare your Agent or possibly get a kill.

You have more slots because the opening of most games is critical to your strategy, and many paths open up early agents - The Guildmaster is recruited by overthrowing a Thief Guild, the Slaver Warchief from a Merchant guild that deals with slaves, the Mercenary Captain if you recruit X mercenary minions... there's a good selection of early-mid agents that you can grab early,or you may invest your time to get a more powerful agent.

Shadowmere is one of my favorites - you have to unearth his tomb via a Labor challenge (he is tied to a POI similar to Baron Greywind), then capture and sacrifice a hero to him(or perform a very difficult ritual), then he's available.  He can summon shadow minions and creates powerful undead military units, and can also perform "remote challenges" within an ever expanding area from his base as he spreads his corruption.  His combat abilities involve draining the spirit of heroes, making him perfect for corrupting.  As his corruption area expands he becomes more and more powerful, but he can't travel outside the corrupted zones (unless you power him up).   However, he generates massive threat and heroes will try to shut him down with powerful campaigns.  He has alternate stats and recruit requirements if you select him in Scenario Generation.  ALSO he can be uncovered by Heroes and then he starts his campaign of terror by himself, and may even be defeated by heroes before you get a chance to recruit him. 

Unfortunately, we have no art for him so he's represented by a generic floating Shadow (like many of our agents unfortunately).

Heroes as Agents come in three varieties.  One is the possessed hero, which retains its class and gains a bonus based on the possession type - they lose all special skills but retain their attributes.  The second is corrupted heroes who have fallen and come to your side, they stop leveling and swap to a "corrupted class" based on what they were gaining abilities for that class.  Weak classes give very weak evil abilities, but high level specialist classes given by Orders can have fantastic ones.  The third is if you corrupt the Chosen One.  I'm not going to spoil that for you, but you get a nice little bonus.

When you corrupt a Hero they are "Sleeper Agents" doing quests and the like at a reduced efficiency, they give you full infiltration of all actions that they and their adventuring party are doing.  You can "activate them" at any time, which can be devastating in combat or can disrupt a Quest.  once activated, you can use an Agent Slot to recruit them from the Agent Recruitment screen.  The lower-right entry (you will see this in the next video) lets you pick from a list of available Heroes.

Nations that ally with you NEVER merge together, they are always perceived by the world as distinct - this is important for deceiving the world and keeping heroes from learning the truth.  I like a lot of what you're saying, and this has been debated back and forth on our team (of two) but we do think we're leaning less towards simulating the movement of resources.   Currently nations DO send convoys to other nations that can be intercepted, but we don't want the player to have to micromanage his nations, instead focusing on the individual actions of agents.

Trade is very straightforward, a city has X trade routes - it wants to satisfy those with other trade route cities.  For every route satisfied it gains 1 Trade, trade is cashed in for ANY resource or for "increased relations" between the two which can bring cultures together (bad for you).  However, if trade is available but unsatisfieid it raises unrest (lowers order) - representing goods sitting on the docks and merchants being upset.  We had a more complicated trade system, but there's too much to keep track of already on the map so keeping it simple worked a lot better for gameplay.

[Chosrau]

Do you actually have to control nations you own for them to do stuff, or will they still do stuff on their own if you dont give them orders?

[ScriptWolf]

Thanks for the reply

 I feel a lot better about the whole agents thing now, I was under the impression that they were sort of throw away and you could get new ones with only a few like the baron being special.

I just want to ask will minions only be used as agent boosters or can we use them in the bigger game as sort of like disposable agents? Im just thinking what else can we move around the map and use to interactive with world. Having agents is cool but what about the throw away tools/units where you can set them on a mission but it's not to big a deal if they die.

With the trade system you said you had something more complicated could that make it's way back into the game post release ? I would so throw money at you for expansions

[KingDinosaurGames]

If you "control" a nation then you will be taking their actions for them, but that's entirely up to you if you want to take that step.  As an example, in The North Burns (you will see this in the next video) there is an Orc Horde southeast of where you start, adjacent to Aventura ( a republic).  You can encourage them to war with Aventura very simply (gullible orcs) which gives you a low footprint on the action and takes very little time for your agents, or you can take some time to gain control of them which grants you an agent and the ability to recruit Commanders, Military Units, and also to build upgrades for them.  POIs will still do things without you telling them to, but only locally - the nation will no longer move military units without you doing it.

Currently you can't "give up control", but that may make it into the game.

Sorry, Agents are your expendable tool - that's what makes their sacrifice so critical.  You can "drop" some minions and leave them at a POI as a modifier (usually to hinder heroes or plague villages) and a few others can go someplace remote but that's an exception and not the rule.  Agents will always be your primary tool, and their death will always be meaningful.  Keep in mind that Agents have a time bomb quality to them, the more actiosn they take, and the more dramatic those actions are, the more likely heroes will come hunting, and eventually champions or even the Chosen One.  You'll be outlawed by kingdoms, bounties put on your head, and eventually killed - all for the greater good (evil).

You pretty much move Agents and Commanders, that's it - making use of your limited resources is the strategic nature of the game.