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Author Topic: That which sleeps- Kickstarted!  (Read 370655 times)

KingDinosaurGames

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Re: That which sleeps- in development
« Reply #180 on: September 02, 2014, 12:21:28 pm »

haha, you can tell if I'm coding or if I'm doing something creative (GUI) based on how often I respond.  Coding = heads down, full concentration - doing anything else I look for a distraction about every hour.

Initial Release - PC, we have officially added support for Linux as well because we have tested Linux builds and expect to have little difficulty with the full port and I also conceptually like supporting free software.  We've used open-source equivalents whenever possible to develop the game, with the notable exception of Unity (and Windows).  Mac... is another issue - I've never used a Mac or ported to a Mac - if significant interest exists we will explore it after release but I wouldn't be too optimistic given the amount of "after release" things we want to get to.

Yeah, DLC of that sort would simply be able to be worked around - and I hate that approach as well.  We want to be open and let people build the world they want, not restrict anyone.

"How does the AI work" is quite the question, I FULLY intend to write a huge technical writeup on Tigsource at some point - but it is mostly a decision tree with strong state mechanics.   There are really three "interesting" (somewhat) mechanics that allow the AI to work the way it does and I'll go over them briefly here.

One is the idea of desires - leaders and heroes have drives that they want to pursue, but they will put them aside for other matters given the state of the world - but keep that desire bottled up long enough and they may make a more impulsive decision along that route as well as losing spirit (expressing their cracking will).  It's a unique way to "suppress and frustrate" heroes and leaders, and to allow the AI to operate smartly but also still express its personality.  Put a king who just wants to have a peaceful reign under constant pressure of war and he might crack, torment a hero who loves his friends with their death and injury and see him give up the sword. 

The second is that the AI is "reactive" in that it maintains its state without recalculating the state of the world.  We wanted to simulate that most days are just status quo for a leader - not every King is concerned with expanding his realm.  They have a value that triggers how often they "recalculate" their position in the world and what they should be doing, and also some other actions can trigger this recalculation.  How far back up they move in their decision tree depends also on their adaptability - an excellent leader will, on even a slight provocation, return to the base "what is the state of my kingdom" while a lesser leader may go from ->Increase Military->Raise Levies to ->Increase Military and then recalculate from that, possibly to ->Hire Mercenary Company.   Only a much greater stimulus will force him to rethink his approach.  This allows your agents to have some leeway in their actions, while also making it "interesting" who is ruling each nation.

The third is that Leader Available actions aren't "peer equivalent" to the player, meaning since the game is highly asymmetric we had some freedom to build a more interesting pool of actions for leaders.  Instead, they have a list of possible actions based on their stats, their culture, and their nation.  These actions are a good blend of mechanics and theme, allowing a King of A Feudal Kingdom to "Call up the Banners" and raise his barons to war, let a Slaver State equip its Slaves for Battle, or have a Lord whose Family is Cursed seek a Sage to End Their Troubles (which of course can be one of your agents for more fun).  By blending the necessary traits between personal ,cultural, and government we ensure that you can't quite be sure how resourceful a given Leader will be, but you can have a general idea of what resources he can call on.

On the technical side we handle it like a "deck of cards" - each leader has his list of actions (each one being a class) - and he checks the "state of the world" vs "his desires" and finds a few likely options, he then proposes them internally (or externally given his state) - if you have infiltration you can vote on/influence the result, otherwise the event occurs based on who has the highest influence (advisors tend to be rational, the leaders tend to favor their personal traits).

No custom AIs as in changing the operation of logic - we did not go the Lua scripting route that is so popular - I'm going to say we "should have" as we were originally going to but I declined because I worked extensively with Lua on a military simulation project and found that while it was extensible it actually lowered our efficiency at producing quality results when it came specifically to AI.  But then in the Editor we've replicated so much of LUA when it comes to exposing and manipulating variables that I should have gone that route - but too late for that now. 

Customizing AI instead consists of modifying traits and adding events (as noted above).  Want your AI to raise a horde of Chaos Warriors from the Abyss?  Add an event for a specific culture/trait, set it to a cooldown or conditional, have it create an army of X type units - and the AI will grab that whenever possible.  Make it 100% desirable with a 4 turn cooldown and then every four turns the leader will summon his chaos legions.   More... subtle... events are also supported. 
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That Which Sleeps
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Puzzlemaker

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Re: That which sleeps- in development
« Reply #181 on: September 02, 2014, 12:26:49 pm »

That sounds awesome!  Thanks for the write up!
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sjm9876

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Re: That which sleeps- in development
« Reply #182 on: September 02, 2014, 01:26:47 pm »

Ooh, the second par on AI is quite a cool idea. Kudos!

And the editor, from what I've heard, seems far more accessible than any scripting. TBH, I think it was the right route. Will there be a central hub for scenarios, where they can be voted on etc...?
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nenjin

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Re: That which sleeps- in development
« Reply #183 on: September 02, 2014, 01:30:55 pm »

So uh, how about dat Dev Log #2? I need a fix.
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Xantalos

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Re: That which sleeps- in development
« Reply #184 on: September 02, 2014, 01:38:00 pm »

I've been scratching my arms for a while now, yeah.
Though by 'a while' I meant ever since the video came out :P
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KingDinosaurGames

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Re: That which sleeps- in development
« Reply #185 on: September 02, 2014, 01:58:43 pm »

We've been assured it's going up this week - if it's not I will be legitimately crushed and will simply post it myself on Friday.  Otherwise it goes up the moment after they post it, we've had some good responses from journalists and we think they like the game enough to get us some KS coverage. 

New microphone so the audio quality is improved, and I'm sending Video 3 out to the same sites today (maybe tomorrow). 

We will use SteamWorks for a central hub for scenarios and game mode mods as I've used it in the past and it's supremely easy to implement with the structure we have - but for people not on Steam they'll have to rely on a community created hub.   
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Cthulhu

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Re: That which sleeps- in development
« Reply #186 on: September 02, 2014, 05:49:03 pm »

We will use SteamWorks for a central hub for scenarios and game mode mods as I've used it in the past and it's supremely easy to implement with the structure we have - but for people not on Steam they'll have to rely on a community created hub.   

I was wondering how this would go.  Steamworks is definitely a good choice, I was worried it'd be something mostly community-driven like on a forum or something.  I feel like that kind of setup wouldn't get much modding fun done on a smaller-scale project.

Anybody already thinking about stuff they want to put in? >:o

Both of my ideas are weird and might not even be feasible in the engine.  One's like Scabiel the Maker of Ruins in Dominions (Another great source of inspiration for something like this.  The maps also look kind of similar.  You could probably take the .tga files from dominions and plug them right in)

Aaanyway, but I was thinking of him as more like some kind of World Breaker Space God.  No seal (if that's possible) and instead when he's at full power a ritual can pull him down from the sky at a location of your choice.  So there's no stealth involved but he smashes POIs and throws the world into immediate holy shit.  Then he starts rampaging. That could be cool if it's doable within the engine.

And the other idea was more of like a god within thing, some kind of parasite essence over mankind as a whole.  No seal or godbody at all, but at "emergence" people all over the world start going Cthulhu-style insane trashing everything and eating each other and turning into monsters.  Like the zombie thing I guess but the zombies are stronger in exchange for there not being an actual god.

I dunno how defeating that would really work.  Probably lots of rituals and stuff.  I can see what you meant about zombiegod being hard to balance.  Might be more for a long-gestation Azlan kind of god where it takes forever to get to that kind of point but if you do it's probably too late to stop you.
« Last Edit: September 02, 2014, 06:04:30 pm by Cthulhu »
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nenjin

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Re: That which sleeps- in development
« Reply #187 on: September 02, 2014, 05:56:50 pm »

I'd have to put hands on the game before I'd be able to come up with anything good. But I do want to do the 40k Chaos Gods, and if possible, make them exceptionally broken just for fun, to see how broad you can mod the player's powerbase. So like, I'd want to fold in the concept that they gain power from the regular, unavoidably human things people do. Things like "every character or army that does yadda yadda" "every spellcast does yadda yadda" "every test or challenge has a risk of yadda yadda." That sort of stuff.
« Last Edit: September 02, 2014, 08:03:01 pm by nenjin »
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Cautivo del Milagro seamos, Penitente.
Quote from: Viktor Frankl
When we are no longer able to change a situation, we are challenged to change ourselves.
Quote from: Sindain
Its kinda silly to complain that a friendly NPC isn't a well designed boss fight.
Quote from: Eric Blank
How will I cheese now assholes?
Quote from: MrRoboto75
Always spaghetti, never forghetti

Cthulhu

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Re: That which sleeps- in development
« Reply #188 on: September 02, 2014, 07:14:13 pm »

Oh man I didn't even think of that.

One queston that's been bugging me is the turns.  How much in-game time passes over the course of a turn on average?  I heard the game lasts like 5 hours or so, how many turns would that come out to be?
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bulborbish

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Re: That which sleeps- in development
« Reply #189 on: September 02, 2014, 07:22:17 pm »

To be honest, the moment this was announced I started of trying to figure out how to implement a variation of the game on a map of North America. Granted, I mostly want a demo to get an idea of scale of the entire game and how much of the map it makes sense to utilize.

...and I want to make a campaign that leads to a massive set of artifacts behind Mount Rushmore to make a national treasure joke.
« Last Edit: September 02, 2014, 07:24:35 pm by bulborbish »
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Xantalos

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Re: That which sleeps- in development
« Reply #190 on: September 02, 2014, 08:13:19 pm »

To be honest, the moment this was announced I started of trying to figure out how to implement a variation of the game on a map of North America. Granted, I mostly want a demo to get an idea of scale of the entire game and how much of the map it makes sense to utilize.

...and I want to make a campaign that leads to a massive set of artifacts behind Mount Rushmore to make a national treasure joke.
I'm not sure I could stay alive in a world where Nicholas Cage is the chosen one.
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nenjin

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Re: That which sleeps- in development
« Reply #191 on: September 02, 2014, 08:16:19 pm »

That Which Sleeps: A Hollywood Screenplay Generator.
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Cautivo del Milagro seamos, Penitente.
Quote from: Viktor Frankl
When we are no longer able to change a situation, we are challenged to change ourselves.
Quote from: Sindain
Its kinda silly to complain that a friendly NPC isn't a well designed boss fight.
Quote from: Eric Blank
How will I cheese now assholes?
Quote from: MrRoboto75
Always spaghetti, never forghetti

KingDinosaurGames

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Re: That which sleeps- in development
« Reply #192 on: September 02, 2014, 08:40:06 pm »

100k Stretch Goal - Nicholas Cage voices every Agent
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Xantalos

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Re: That which sleeps- in development
« Reply #193 on: September 02, 2014, 08:43:39 pm »

100k Stretch Goal - Nicholas Cage voices every Agent
...
Post that on every website you're advertising and I wouldn't be surprised if you got the money for it.
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bulborbish

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Re: That which sleeps- in development
« Reply #194 on: September 02, 2014, 08:57:11 pm »

Great, now I have to put a Nick Cage event chain in. Why did I even mention this?
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