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[Kogan Loloklam]

That may be, but smallpox wasnt the only factor.  Truely, it wasnt.  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Columbian_Exchange#Examples

Smallpox was the big one. Focusing on the others is like focusing on the severed arm of a decapitated body. They could have caused it, but likewise it could have been survived as well.

Besides, all the other diseases have similar barriers as smallpox to crossing the ocean. It isn't easy even amongst animals or human cargo to get the disease to survive the voyage.

[Greenbane]

So whatever happened to this game? Development seemingly ground to a halt.

[Saint]

I still never get to america.

[slashie]

Not quite dead! I recently set up a donation system and have received about 840 USD, I will use to further develop a new version. Take a look http://slashware.net/blog/?p=1193

Oh

I must say: Thank you all, your comments really took expedition off from a technical demo to a playable game

[Paul]

What all is there to do here?

I got an expedition, sailed to the new world, built a city, sailed back and got money. Not much else I see to do.

I roamed around and found some native villages, but none of them seemed to have anything to trade except people (heh, they would trade me their people but wouldn't sell me any food). It was a population 4400 village, and I had 70 people - mostly sailors -  in my little expedition armed mostly with spears. Attacking them resulted in no losses at all on my side and extensive losses on their side, even though they all had archers and bows. My first attack I even forgot to arm my men, but I still wounded a bunch of them and suffered no losses. Armed with the spears I was able to kill tons of them. After a few attacks I was able to demand stuff from them, but they still refused to give me any food saying that they have no supplies. I kept attacking, and demanded weapons and then people once and they gave me 200 bows and 100 people. I then attacked them and my stolen natives were apparently doing the fighting against their own people then - but I still suffered 0 losses while their natives suffered loads of losses. After some more attacking their entire city of 4400 was wiped out. Then I was able to loot the place, which let me see that they had tons of supplies (about 15k units of meat), they just refused to trade it or give it on demand for some reason.

I guess the combat mechanics must not be fleshed out yet or something, since I was able to lead a 70 man expedition and wipe out a village of 4400 with no losses.

Game certainly has potential, it just needs more development. Im just wondering what all works and what doesn't. So far I haven't found any way to gather riches or anything, and the town building is rather shallow so far - only a handfull of buildings, and all they really do that I can tell is make food and colonists.

Wind seems to be kind of random too, shifting in all directions around you seemingly at random. I was able to just sail straight west from the start and make it to the new world without any real effort, just turn left hold down button and dodge a few shallow water areas and storms. I was a bit surprised to see shallow water areas in what I assumed should have been the middle of the Atlantic. Sailing back was pretty much the same after I had my city built and had gathered more food, aim east and sail right back over. Also noticed that fresh water doesn't seem to do anything, I guess that isn't tracked yet?

[slashie]

Thank you for taking your time to play it!

I am one week off from leaving day-work and concentrating into game making and cool stuff. Expedition is the first on my list. I'll enhance UI and make it more fun.

There's not much else to do right now, you can try sailing back and building more cities; the kings will give you honorary titles up to Viceroy.

I really have to revamp the combat and trading mechanics and put them under test. http://slashie.net/mantis/view.php?id=1580

What would you suggest to make town building more interesting?

About wind, it's not really random except around the equator (ITCZ). It follows the global wind patterns (see http://ww2010.atmos.uiuc.edu/(Gh)/wwhlpr/hurricane_globalwinds.rxml )

The changes I introduced over the last version on food consumption may have made the game too easy, since just sailing west shouldn't suffice to survive.. likewise going back to Spain should be a hell with the wind against you. I'll check into this. http://slashie.net/mantis/view.php?id=1581

Fresh water doesn't do anything yet.

Thank you again and hope to hear from you!

[Servant Corps]

Here's an idea. How about having a morale system for each individual colony. The colonies like you if you manage their towns, ensure continuous profit, and enslave natives, etc. If you don't please the colonies, then they can petition the Monarchy to remove you from office and send in the Spanish military to arrest you. Just model this system over how Columbus was overthrown and arrested.

[slashie]

That sounds pretty interesting! http://slashie.net/mantis/view.php?id=1583

Maybe this could "spread" into nearby colonies, or "colonial governments" that comprise several colonies.

[puke]

I think that would shift the focus pretty drastically to colony management; you could only maintain as many colonies as you could make rounds to and keep supplied / happy.  Having time to explore or circumnavigate or whatever would fall to the wayside.

Maybe you could go into that phase of the game once you become a viceroy of your colony, but you dont need to folow that path if you'd rather focus on marching your army across the continent subjecting natives to the service of the crown and the pope.  Maybe when founding a colony (or when reporting the foundation of a colony at court) you could have the choice to give it over to be governed by someone else.  Ships would periodically come to supply and trade with it, help it spread, or whatever.  You would be free to do other things.  That aspect could be abstracted a bit, so the game does not have to track the specific details of NPC colony management.

Dan(i) Bunten had a pretty bad "noble savage" fixation with 7COG, but it might be nice for there to be a similar peacable option to colonizing the natives.  Bring them enough gifts and trade, and they will eventually ask to convert and to have you establish a mission there.  Again, reporting the establishment back to the crown could give you the option to govern it yourself or to give it over to be governed.

Perhaps you could take a page from Mount & Blade here, and the crown would not always grant you governorship of your colonies and missions.  You could petition to govern it, and have some % chance based on your rank and how many colonies you already govern.  The crown has other would-be nobles to keep in line too, you know.  Thus there is a mini-game involving building up favor by establishing early throw-away colonies to pass over to others, before requesting to personally govern the really big expensive one by the river and the gold mine.

[Rakonas]

I like the not necessarily governing what you discover idea. It would be interesting to play a game and only govern a few colonies.
I'm glad to see the game back in development, looking forward to the next release.

[ductape]

This game has great potential, its rather unique (not so unique) compared to whats coming out these days. Congrats on going full-time game dev Slashie, thats a mighty bold step and I applaud you!

I think to make towns more interesting, would be to have them specialize to some degree, at least at first. BY limiting the amount of buildings you can place, and have each building serve specific functions, you create a situation where the player must decide what functions they would like to have the town serve. Is it an exploration outpost or a plantation (slaves or not?) or is it a mining outpost, or a trade center or does it build ships? Of course as towns grow in population, they can tale on a more diverse role.

Also, religion. Will you shove Christianity down the throats of the natives? Will you allow them their own beliefs? We can maybe take a few mechanics ideas from the Civ games to think about this.

What about trade between settlements? Caravans hauling gold from an inland mining colony to a port settlement for its return to Europe? Goods from Europe being hauled inland?

[Servant Corps]

slashie or anyone that played Zelda RL, um, I want to know how to run ZeldaRL. I have the latest version of Zelda, and when I open up the .jar file, I HEAR the Zelda theme song play and all that, but I don't see any window pop up that allows me to actually play the game. Can you tell me what's up? I have Windows 7, if that is of any assistance.

[ductape]

Hey Guys,

Slashie is testing a beta release of Expedition with some new features and could use your help bug stomping. If you are interested, contact him directly, I don't think the download on the website it the latest beta test release.

[slashie]

slashie or anyone that played Zelda RL, um, I want to know how to run ZeldaRL. I have the latest version of Zelda, and when I open up the .jar file, I HEAR the Zelda theme song play and all that, but I don't see any window pop up that allows me to actually play the game. Can you tell me what's up? I have Windows 7, if that is of any assistance.

Hi! Did you try using the .bat files?

Also, thanks for the heads-up ductape, here's some more info:

A new version of "Expedition: The New World" is getting closer to release; this is a call for playtesters, if you are interested on trying out this version in order to assure its quality and request enhancements, just contact me!

What is Expedition? Check http://slashware.net/blog/expedition-the-new-world/ for further info. You can also download and peruse the manual from there if you feel curious

This version comes with two groundbreaking changes: The full mouse UI, allowing people to play the game using the mouse alone, and the Globe World Map, one of the biggest components on doing an accurate simulating of the XV Century World.

Your critical feedback in this private version will be much appreciated, and will help make the public version as solid as it must be.

Check out some a sample gameplay video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Acwk1i47bMc

[tompliss]

I downloaded your game, thinking about a Colonization-like in ASCII, with more naval-focused battle ...

But it appears the colony-side is not much important ...
too bad

Do you know Colonization (another sid meyer's old game) ?