Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[Granite26]

Ok, there's a lot of overland stuff going on.  Armies flying back and forth, caravans starting to travel.  These are dangerous times.

I'm wondering if it wouldn't help development at this point to add in a fourth mode of play where the player gets to take over a civ and send the armies around. 

I don't mean this as a full fledged game with actual play-balance and challenge.  I just think that since all this is coming to the late game, it might be beneficial to development to add a mode to let players test this functionality independantly.  It would certainly help if you kept the armies arc player controllable the whole time.

Honestly, where I see this game going eventually is the player switching between all three modes in a single world.  Starting out in fortress mode building a new dwarven capitol.  You get the count, but the countryside is to dangerous.  You retire the fort as a small city, and take control of one of the guards, who wanders out into the woods to clear it of the semi-megas.  You take the fort back up, and build it up until you get the king.  At this point you switch over to a hero, exploring the land and filling out your legends.  As part of this, you find that the other dwarf civilization has nearly been wiped out by the invading goblins.  You retire your hero in the other dwarf city and go into kingdom mode, where you send troops across the land to rescue the dwarves.  As reward for that, the other city tells you of a gold mine that they had to abbandon when the goblins came.  So, taking back up your hero, you march in and kill most of the goblins.  You then reclaim the site, sending in 30 experiences fighters and miners.

Anyway, I think it would be a good idea to implement the kingdom mode as separate from the fortress mode rather than a separate screen the king gives you access to.

[Duke 2.0]

 That's kinda the gist of the Army Arc. Check the Dev_Now and Dev_Next.

 When you get the respective nobles, you get their territories.

[Granite26]

No it's not.  What the nobles -> Territories is saying is that your fort can now access off-site resources.  (import 100 units of iron from the nearby villages and stuff, recruit 20 soldiers).

There are also dev notes about being able to send out squads into the overmap from your fort.  Finally, it's in the dev notes that getting the king gives you access to the entire kingdom in addition to your fort.

What I am suggesting is that (for now at least, and possibly permanently) we get rid of the fort.  So when you start up a game, you'll get to choose between adventure mode, fortress mod, legends mode AND kingdom mode.  The kingdom mode would be the sandbox where you get to move the armies around, and see what's going on at that scale.  It's a totally different play style, so why would you make players build a big fort first?

[Tormy]

I cant wait to see something like this in DF, and eventually it will happen:

Core26, OVERLAND ARMIES ATTACKS, (Future): The invasions by various creatures should no longer generate soldiers, but should use overland armies instead. There should be some AI limits in place to stop early dwarven outposts from being overwhelmed (at least as a default). Requires Core25 and Core45.
Core27, ARMIES OF DWARVES, (Future): You should be able to send patrols (and, as you get more dwarves, armies) out over the world map. They could attack smaller nearby threats, such as a kobold cave, or let you know about incoming invasions. Requires Core26.
Core28, CONTROL OF TERRITORY AND EXTERNAL LOCATIONS, (Future): As your fortress expands into a barony, county and duchy, these words should attain some meaning with regards to the surrounding lands. Additional outposts/villages/work camps might be founded under your control, but out of the playable view, providing local trade and a further population pool for warfare and other endeavors. The scope is undecided, but this might include typical mountainside outposts, dwarf/human/mixed villages nearby in other biomes, or deeper sites that you found in tunnels that you carve via the next core item. Related to Core29 and Bloat172
Core30, KINGDOM, (Future): If you manage to get the monarch of the dwarves to arrive, you should obtain at least indirect control over the entire corresponding dwarven civilization. This includes the movement of all dwarven armies on the map and the ability to make the most important diplomatic decisions. Requires Core28.
Core35, DWARF RAIDS, (Future): If you send one of your patrols to attack a site, and it is small enough, you should be able to control the units individually, as in adventure mode. If your group is large, then you could either control one squad as a party, and have the others on AI, or you could let the whole thing run real-time as in dwarf mode. Requires Core27.
Core45, CIVILIZATIONS AT WAR, (Future): Civilizations (for example, goblins or expansionist humans) should be able to declare war on each other and raise armies. They can send messengers to outlying towns or gather soldiers as they march from town to town toward their destinations. Requires Core44.
Core46, ARMY BATTLES, (Future): Hostile armies that meet each other should be able to fight and take losses. Armies should be able to attack towns, take captive historical figures, and switch towns to new allegiances over time. Does not include protracted sieges, tactics or strategy -- just the basics. An adventurer at the site of an army battle can observe it. Requires Core45.
Core62, FURTHER DIPLOMACY, (Future): Diplomacy in dwarf mode could afford a lot of changes. Aside from trade agreements that are more interesting, fun to uphold and related to the state of the world, all sorts of relationships could be established with both neighboring civilizations and the parent civilization. Though we'll leave quite a bit of work for later versions, the system should be satisfying for version 1 as it merges with the caravan arc, wars, tribute and succession conflicts described in other v1 dev items.
Core63, SUCCESSION, ASSOCIATED CONFLICTS AND SCHISMS, (Future): First of all, succession for positions needs to occur in play, so that dead liaisons are replaced, as well as dead monarchs. Then the process needs to be made messier all around. Wars over succession, schisms over religious disagreements, etc., starting from world gen and coming into regular play. In dwarf mode, you might be involved on one side or the other, directly or indirectly, relying on more involved diplomacy and army code than we currently have, and adventure mode can also gain a lot from such conflicts.


However, I am not sure that we can "get rid of the fort" or not when all of these will be implemented. Probably not. [However I guess once the fort will be decent enough, we wont spend too much time with messing around in the fortress, instead we will focus on overland battles, wars, diplomacy etc.]

[Duke 2.0]

 I always figured it a natural progression, like Spore. Smaller scale to larger scale. Perhaps it would be cool if you could jump between the "Stages" on start.

 Huh, that would be interesting. But again, this would need to wait for the army arc to finish. Once that is done, it should be interesting. And with development on such a large scale, lower-level things will improve too. Imagine an adventurer now taking down beasts assaulting farms, mines and small trading villages!

[Granite26]

Granite cancels post : being a dick

[Randominality]

I always figured it a natural progression, like Spore. Smaller scale to larger scale. Perhaps it would be cool if you could jump between the "Stages" on start.

ive always thought something like that would be great - as in you start out in adventure mode hacking and slashing your way around but then say you find a really nice site you can send one of your dwarves back home to bring with it a caravan. then you have to say clear the area with your remaining dwarves of danger for a set time until the caravan arrives with a 5 or so civilians and you can then start to build you fortress in fortress mode. Once you get the king for instance you could then start ordering around the whole nation on the world map, or somthing...

[Granite26]

I always figured it a natural progression, like Spore. Smaller scale to larger scale. Perhaps it would be cool if you could jump between the "Stages" on start.

ive always thought something like that would be great - as in you start out in adventure mode hacking and slashing your way around but then say you find a really nice site you can send one of your dwarves back home to bring with it a caravan. then you have to say clear the area with your remaining dwarves of danger for a set time until the caravan arrives with a 5 or so civilians and you can then start to build you fortress in fortress mode. Once you get the king for instance you could then start ordering around the whole nation on the world map, or somthing...

I think that the majority of people have a favored play type, and would rather focus on that type.  Especially given the 'play the civ' model, it would suck hard to have to build a fort everytime you wanted to play a warlord game.

[Talvara]

As noted before, I think it would be awesome if you could choose how to start playing. so that you dont HAVE to start as an adventurer to get to warlord, but if you wanted to you could.

Options are always good in a game aslong as ure not flooded by insignificant chooises. A screen that lets you choose your "start" seems reasonable enough

[Randominality]

I think that the majority of people have a favored play type, and would rather focus on that type.  Especially given the 'play the civ' model, it would suck hard to have to build a fort everytime you wanted to play a warlord game.

i agree with you in hat this should be an option only so that you could play each individual section if you wanted to or the whole saga.

[Neonivek]

As noted before, I think it would be awesome if you could choose how to start playing. so that you dont HAVE to start as an adventurer to get to warlord, but if you wanted to you could.

Options are always good in a game aslong as ure not flooded by insignificant chooises. A screen that lets you choose your "start" seems reasonable enough

Yes but remember that allowing the player to skip over the Game part of the game just because they don't want to go through the processes to get to that point CAN actually make the game less fun even for him.

You shouldn't be able to skip right to owning a whole country for the most part...

[Othob Rithol]

I'm in the camp for having a direct start in Kingdom mode.

The argument that you are allowing the player to skip prerequisite stages could likewise suggest a requirement that you play adventure mode first, get a hero up to a point where the King awards them a fort, and require them to travel to the site BEFORE you can embark 7 dwarves for fortress mode.

I think the above should be a valid way to play (I do want to see smooth transitions between all modes) and should also likely have certain unique benefits (like an andventurer founded fort has the adventurer on site for protection). I just don't think it should be the only way to play.

Advantages for "completing" access to a transition:

	To:	Adventurer Mode	Fortress Mode	Kingdom Mode
From:
Adventurer Mode		N/A	Extra armed "Hero"	General Unit
Fortress Mode		Custom Equipment	N/A	Good Capitol
Kingdom Mode		Notoriety (a "Knight")	Extra Resources	N/A

[Neonivek]

I'm in the camp for having a direct start in Kingdom mode.

The argument that you are allowing the player to skip prerequisite stages could likewise suggest a requirement that you play adventure mode first, get a hero up to a point where the King awards them a fort, and require them to travel to the site BEFORE you can embark 7 dwarves for fortress mode.

I think the above should be a valid way to play (I do want to see smooth transitions between all modes) and should also likely have certain unique benefits (like an andventurer founded fort has the adventurer on site for protection). I just don't think it should be the only way to play.

Advantages for "completing" access to a transition:

	To:	Adventurer Mode	Fortress Mode	Kingdom Mode
From:
Adventurer Mode		N/A	Extra armed "Hero"	General Unit
Fortress Mode		Custom Equipment	N/A	Good Capitol
Kingdom Mode		Notoriety (a "Knight")	Extra Resources	N/A

Poor example because adventure mode is not the singular version of Fortress mode... While Kingdom mode IS the PLURAL version of Fortress mode.

I mean technically Kingdom mode starts at the begining of fortress mode... You just don't have any ability to expand your kingdom

[Othob Rithol]

I don't think its a poor example. One dwarf->Many dwarves. One fort->many forts. In each case the basic elements are retained, but an additional level of abstraction (ie I can't control my metal smith, just as I won't be able to designate a corridor in one of my farming outposts) is introduced as well as a higher level of macro management.

This isn't a discussion of "what is", but of "what could be".

I mean technically Kingdom mode starts at the begining of fortress mode... You just don't have any ability to expand your kingdom

I think that is the very preconception the OP was about....

And Granites point that it would help play testing is absolutely correct- it takes how many hours to become a mountainhome?

[Neonivek]

No... it just SEEMS like a good example at first glance

When you have your adventurer you have dirrect control over him and the actions he takes.

When you have your dwarves you have less control.

Thus Fortress mode is NOT the Plural of Adventurer... including Adventure mode is likely to step on Fortress mode allowing your Adventurer to control armies and locations as well.

When you have a Kingdom you still have your Fortress with all the control you had previously... plus you now have more

And Granites point that it would help play testing is absolutely correct- it takes how many hours to become a mountainhome?

Who says you NEED a mountain home?

---------------------------------------------------------------------

Alright let me explain my possition since I sound really horrible above that line... I am under the impression that upon getting a mountain home you gain access to all Dwarven homes under his control... while you can before that point still take over places of your own with your army if you are successful...

ALSO Adventurer mode is different from Fortress mode... You can control just as many characters in adventure mode as Fortress mode yet the gameplay is not the same. Kingdom mode however is extra options IN ADDITION to being in Fortress mode.