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[Sartain]

Stumbled over this today and read/watched every piece of media that you guys have put out. Going in at the lowest pledge level for the moment, but there's a whole month for me to be hyped up to a larger pledge .

If reading this thread doesn't hype you for the game, you're a cold man 

[Cthulhu]

Reading the entry on Procedural Gen got me wanting to make a Victorian Tech (steampunk maybe?  Ugh though, steampunk...  Probably just played-straight Victorian tech level, fantasy world of course) with forgotten gods and the like.

Colonel Kurtz as a special agent.

I like this more the more I think about it.  You've got an asymmetrical map with lots of fringe nations and a few big powerful colony nations, the obvious way to go is fomenting rebellions but what about a god of avarice that drives the colonial lords to madness?  Can the Chosen One escape Definitely Not King Leopold's rubber farms and convince the world of the rising danger?

[KingDinosaurGames]

RE: Karth and the Ocean - it's not that he CAN'T win that scenario it's just that you can't focus on the playstyle I enjoy most with him, which is just simply zerg waving the humans.  To be honest, it's not really a strategy that wins a lot but I use while testing things because it's incredibly fun.    I had success in the Trading scenario by buying up a pirate fleet BEFORE I raised a horde (if you have a horde the world is a little more suspicious of selling you a trading fleet) and then using that, but you can also pursue the other element of Karth's power, which is to cause Dangerous Tribes to form in spots of your choosing across the world, spreading chaos and allowing agents to recruit powerful minions in convenient locations.

RE: Wounds and a Hero Killing themselves - it used to happen ALL the time in our early builds back when the Hero AI wasn't fully fleshed out.  Now it depends on their personality, a berserker will attack you even if it means his death, a vengeful character that hates someone will do the same, a heroic character will attack if he thinks it will kill you or save his allies, etc.  Most of the time now, a severely wounded character will limp away - banking on the "cowardice" of heroes will win you many early fights, but as hope fades from the land the heroes get more desperate and will make more last ditch efforts.

Yeah we are excited at the KS success, my personal hope was 4k by the end of the first week and we really crushed that - without any media coverage as well.  We're HOPING that one of the major indie media outlets picks us up this week or next (though still radio silence), and if we can get the demo into the hands of Youtube or equivalent by the third week we're probably in good shape to hit some of the stretch goals.

I really want to put Religion back in, it really opens up so many options in the game.

haha, we wouldn't be supporting Steampunk ourselves - that would have to be its very own tier or some kind of expansion considering how much work it would be.  We don't handle "technology" as much as we handle "Government Types", we are comfortable providing a "stone age" experience up to roughly the renaissance because our government types support roughly these levels of technology and you can have a thematically consistent and interesting world. 

Could you mod in steampunk?  Pretty easily I suppose, if you are fine with the art being somewhat inconsistent - just make a "Victorian Republic" government type and replace all of the general actions for a government with ones that are more flavorful and sensible for that type of world.  Defining its interactions with other nations, you may want to take the Empire -> Colony to look down on other civilizations or Civilized -> Empire to have a warier stance.  Create some "tech" inspired military units, mod a class to make it an "Explorer" or something more steampunky, set the percentage spawn to the Victorian culture to make only these steampunk classes.  Could work pretty well.

We are absolutely making a Colonial map that has elements of what you're saying, though it's not quite King Leopold's Ghost, more along the lines of Conquest of the New World.  The scenario is very rough right now, but we're focusing a lot at this time on the difference in a Colonial Chosen One vs a Colonized Chosen One - just this one small difference greatly changes the way the game plays out. 

[Denim]

Glad to hear that motivation and personality are such a large part of enemy behavior. Having an AI that shows self preservation adds realism. Too many games feature enemies with suicidal aggression when it doesn't make any sense (self-serving sellswords choosing to fight to the death rather than run away).

Assuming that you make both the religion and multiple ancient evils stretch goals will there be an option to just have the ancient evils without the religion and gods? This would make it easy to play a Conan style world where benevolent powers don't exist and instead cults devote themselves to diabolical monstrosities.

[KingDinosaurGames]

Glad to hear that motivation and personality are such a large part of enemy behavior. Having an AI that shows self preservation adds realism. Too many games feature enemies with suicidal aggression when it doesn't make any sense (self-serving sellswords choosing to fight to the death rather than run away).

Assuming that you make both the religion and multiple ancient evils stretch goals will there be an option to just have the ancient evils without the religion and gods? This would make it easy to play a Conan style world where benevolent powers don't exist and instead cults devote themselves to diabolical monstrosities.

AI self preservation and self interest are MAJOR components of the AI from heroes to kings, understanding what a given AI entity values will help you manipulate the world and achieve your aims. 

Yep, all components are configurable - our commitment to mod support makes it relatively easy for us to also allow parameters to be modified when you start a new game.  Play with all of the faiths or none, rival old ones or maybe just the Lesser Evils that follow jealously in your wake.

[Lapoleon]

Since I was slightly bored at work today I pieced together some screencaps from "the North Burns" to get a better overview of how the complete map would look and to see what kind of nefarious deeds I could unleash upon this world. I thought IŽd share it with you guys to help you in your plotting as well.



I messed up the Aventura Free State name, not noticing I overwrote the "Free State" part and I drew some borders around countries to get a view of who was where.

[Jalak]

Nice.

You know, of everything I can see there, that innocent looking mountain on the tip of the continent at the right is what gets my attention the most. The fact that no one officially owns it, and that you can clearly see some sort of trail leading up it must mean there's something good for you there, and disastrous for everyone else (unless its some sort of stupid monk enclave). I MUST KNOW ITS SECRETS!

[Cthulhu]

RE: Karth and the Ocean - it's not that he CAN'T win that scenario it's just that you can't focus on the playstyle I enjoy most with him, which is just simply zerg waving the humans.  To be honest, it's not really a strategy that wins a lot but I use while testing things because it's incredibly fun.    I had success in the Trading scenario by buying up a pirate fleet BEFORE I raised a horde (if you have a horde the world is a little more suspicious of selling you a trading fleet) and then using that, but you can also pursue the other element of Karth's power, which is to cause Dangerous Tribes to form in spots of your choosing across the world, spreading chaos and allowing agents to recruit powerful minions in convenient locations.

RE: Wounds and a Hero Killing themselves - it used to happen ALL the time in our early builds back when the Hero AI wasn't fully fleshed out.  Now it depends on their personality, a berserker will attack you even if it means his death, a vengeful character that hates someone will do the same, a heroic character will attack if he thinks it will kill you or save his allies, etc.  Most of the time now, a severely wounded character will limp away - banking on the "cowardice" of heroes will win you many early fights, but as hope fades from the land the heroes get more desperate and will make more last ditch efforts.

Yeah we are excited at the KS success, my personal hope was 4k by the end of the first week and we really crushed that - without any media coverage as well.  We're HOPING that one of the major indie media outlets picks us up this week or next (though still radio silence), and if we can get the demo into the hands of Youtube or equivalent by the third week we're probably in good shape to hit some of the stretch goals.

I really want to put Religion back in, it really opens up so many options in the game.

haha, we wouldn't be supporting Steampunk ourselves - that would have to be its very own tier or some kind of expansion considering how much work it would be.  We don't handle "technology" as much as we handle "Government Types", we are comfortable providing a "stone age" experience up to roughly the renaissance because our government types support roughly these levels of technology and you can have a thematically consistent and interesting world. 

Could you mod in steampunk?  Pretty easily I suppose, if you are fine with the art being somewhat inconsistent - just make a "Victorian Republic" government type and replace all of the general actions for a government with ones that are more flavorful and sensible for that type of world.  Defining its interactions with other nations, you may want to take the Empire -> Colony to look down on other civilizations or Civilized -> Empire to have a warier stance.  Create some "tech" inspired military units, mod a class to make it an "Explorer" or something more steampunky, set the percentage spawn to the Victorian culture to make only these steampunk classes.  Could work pretty well.

We are absolutely making a Colonial map that has elements of what you're saying, though it's not quite King Leopold's Ghost, more along the lines of Conquest of the New World.  The scenario is very rough right now, but we're focusing a lot at this time on the difference in a Colonial Chosen One vs a Colonized Chosen One - just this one small difference greatly changes the way the game plays out.

I'd definitely not make it steampunk, I don't like steampunk.  Probably victorian era played straight but with magic.

I figured it was more spanish colonial period but I really like the idea of a more modern Scramble for Africa scenario.  Maybe some PC sort of risks but it could be rad.  Powerful enclave-style colonial powers and a bunch of smaller tribes ranging from a few "good" ones that pose a big threat if they get active against you (maybe their ancestors sealed you before) to a few straight up bad ones who can easily join you, to some virulent anti-colonial ones that could go in multiple directions.

Maybe a unification quest chain with different results depending on which tribe completes it.  Zulu-equivalents start posing a serious threat to the colonials if they get everybody on their side, others might be more diplomatic and risk uniting hte whole world against you.

Monkey god (the monkey who stuck his hand in the coconut and wouldn't let go of the fruit) foments greed and avarice and turns the colonials into rapacious monsters.

War god gets the anti-colonials going, spreads chaos and violence

Ebola god's (bad taste?) blood sleeps in your veins and he sings to it, gradually waking up the latent god in everyone.  People start going nuts, turning into monsters, etc.  When he fully wakes up (with a long timer like Azlan) he conglutinates, taking back his blood to reform his body, with predictably unpleasant results for everyone in the world.

Just pipe-dreaming now but who knows with that modding support!

[KingDinosaurGames]

I'd definitely not make it steampunk, I don't like steampunk.  Probably victorian era played straight but with magic.

I figured it was more spanish colonial period but I really like the idea of a more modern Scramble for Africa scenario.  Maybe some PC sort of risks but it could be rad.  Powerful enclave-style colonial powers and a bunch of smaller tribes ranging from a few "good" ones that pose a big threat if they get active against you (maybe their ancestors sealed you before) to a few straight up bad ones who can easily join you, to some virulent anti-colonial ones that could go in multiple directions.

Maybe a unification quest chain with different results depending on which tribe completes it.  Zulu-equivalents start posing a serious threat to the colonials if they get everybody on their side, others might be more diplomatic and risk uniting hte whole world against you.

Monkey god (the monkey who stuck his hand in the coconut and wouldn't let go of the fruit) foments greed and avarice and turns the colonials into rapacious monsters.

War god gets the anti-colonials going, spreads chaos and violence

Ebola god's (bad taste?) blood sleeps in your veins and he sings to it, gradually waking up the latent god in everyone.  People start going nuts, turning into monsters, etc.  When he fully wakes up (with a long timer like Azlan) he conglutinates, taking back his blood to reform his body, with predictably unpleasant results for everyone in the world.

Just pipe-dreaming now but who knows with that modding support!

Honestly, I love this idea - the New Imperialism of the late 19th century combines the last major "mysterious" element of human history with exploitation, empire, and the modern enlightenment.  I would say that to do justice to such a compelling and interesting time period a new game is required, but certainly a modder could get a relatively decent feel for it.   You may just have displaced a Wheel of Time mod with this as my most hoped-for quality community development.

[KingDinosaurGames]

Nice.

You know, of everything I can see there, that innocent looking mountain on the tip of the continent at the right is what gets my attention the most. The fact that no one officially owns it, and that you can clearly see some sort of trail leading up it must mean there's something good for you there, and disastrous for everyone else (unless its some sort of stupid monk enclave). I MUST KNOW ITS SECRETS!

Absolutely nothing interesting happens on that mountain.... I swear .....

[Jalak]

Huh, you know, looking at the Aventuran Free State in relation to the rest of the world suddenly made me realize how small it actually is in comparison to rest of the world big powers. It got me thinking about all four major powers (five if you count the enclave) and what you can do to exploit their weaknesses.

So the Aventuran Free state is right next to two major hostile forces, that being the Golden Republic and you/your potential orc hordes. Hell, it looks like it's specifically in the scenario just to give an obvious target for the first-timer overlords.
The Golden Republic itself has to deal with various territories separated by sea and probably all too aware of the fact that slavery is not as popular as it once was. Wouldn't be too out there to assume that the rest of the world that they used to preside over hates them, so they seem a good target to flex your "diplomatic" muscles.
The Kingdom of  Cylaria borders various tribal powers, some that would most likely be hostile to colonial imperialism, and the elusive elves residing there would probably give them pause to messing with the region too much. A unified tribal collective would be a scary thing for them indeed.
However, the Arden Protectorate is the odd one out to me in what you can do with them. Sure, the long coastline would be hard to defend, but they must have a pretty big army on hand to defend themselves. The Greywind/possible mount doom combo would certainly give them something to think about, but those all look like mid-late game problems. What would a player be expected to do with them in the early game?

Also, what happens when an army runs into an agent and decides they don't like them? Do they fight like they would against a hero? Can heroes be attacked the same way?

EDIT: Also, I just noticed that while the Golden Republic has a banner of a golden ship for their troops, there seems to be some sort of black and white banner sitting in the middle of their capital territory. Who are those guys?

[Lapoleon]

Absolutely nothing interesting happens on that mountain.... I swear .....

You couldn't possibly be lying to us could you? That would be evil  Anyway, I was also interested in the small village circled in orange at the top of the map. You mentioned there were orc hordes and some sort of order which were easy targets in the beginning and I think those were the one I circled in red. But there's this innocent looking village with a sort of hypnotic swirl on their shield which I find extremely suspicious. I think non-procedural generation really is better for this game, so you can have all these interesting POI's on the map.

[Majestic7]

Ugh, I gave in to the temptation and kickstarted. First computer game I support this way and second game I'm preordering since MoO3. (First being Witcher3) Hope the game will deliver enough evil to make Papa Cthulhu proud! No pressure! Not like I'd summon tentacular things to eat faces or anything of the sort!

[Xantalos]

Hopefully not, faces don't taste that good.

[Majestic7]

Some scenario suggestions born out of boredom...

Cold War in the 1960s/1970s. You are playing an alien infiltrator or an Ancient Power awoken my nuclear testing or the like. Gives nice twist to Vietnam war, troubles in Africa and all that. One ultimate goal might be driving the superpowers into a nuclear war to destroy the world for aliens to colonize/because human are ugly/for lulz. Since CIA and KGB did actually do paranormal research into psychic powers at the time, having some MKULTRA or Rasputin agents running around with "magic" might be okay.

1930s have always seemed like an apocalyptic time to me. Hitler rising in Germany, Stalin in the east, xenophobic imperialists in Japan, the Business Plot in USA... just generic fuckery and evil regimes everywhere. I think it would make another interesting historical scenario. If you want to give humans magic, nazi cults etc are pretty common trope.

Bronze Age scenario concentrating around Mediterranean Europe/Africa/Asia would be interesting. There was a big crash of civilizations back then and we still don't know exactly why. Sea people ran around burning cities, but we aren't sure who they were or where they came from. The culture of Minos was demolished because of a natural disaster - or an unnatural one. Plenty of legends and mystery cults around, enough to throw in a monster or two.