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[Mephansteras]

Hmm. Knowledge on the specific weaknesses of animals/creatures could be good. Although with horses you don't really need to know anything besides it being a horse to know the weak spots, as all of the various horse breeds are pretty fragile.

[Rowanas]

Hmm. Knowledge on the specific weaknesses of animals/creatures could be good. Although with horses you don't really need to know anything besides it being a horse to know the weak spots, as all of the various horse breeds are pretty fragile.

You've obviously never tried to strangle a shetland pony with it's own illustrious mane because it Kept. Goddamn. Staring.

Oh wise and mighty developer, as much as I appreciate ballistae, may I make one small additional suggestion to improve the overall quality of your fine work? More ballistae.

[BishopX]

Hmm. Knowledge on the specific weaknesses of animals/creatures could be good. Although with horses you don't really need to know anything besides it being a horse to know the weak spots, as all of the various horse breeds are pretty fragile.

I think that it makes sense to invert the typical way knowledge skills work here. Normally games have it set up so that low levels of knowledge provide knowledge of capabilities and high levels of knowledge provide insight into a creatures weaknesses (or just straight bonus damage). While this makes some sense in terms of analyzing fighting styles, it makes very little sense when you're talking about horses, or elephants or bears. Essentially once you know a little bit about the creature you have a general sense of it's anatomy and have some idea about it's weaknesses. What's harder is noticing the slight differences in appearance and behavior that signal it's intentions or capabilities.

This ability to evaluate is especially crucial when it comes to cavalry. Are the enemy mounted on destriders or plow horses? being able to tell at a glance from a couple of hundred yards away which is which is a)much harder than knowing that horses hooves a full of nice delicate bones that crunch well under the butt of your spear  and b) more important to a leader.

My recommendation would be to remove the bonus damage from knowledge skills, and instead have an ignorance penalty for lack of basic familiarity. This could manifest as both a decrease in combat effectiveness (you don't know where to stab) and greater morale penalties. Increases in a knowledge skill past this point would give you greater insight into the state a capabilities of creatures, how fast they move, how fatigued they are, how well trained they are and so on.

[Man of Paper]

My recommendation is the ability to force an enemy force over a cliff.

[Ivefan]

My recommendation is the ability to force an enemy force over a cliff.

Insert obligatory "This. Is. Sparta." joke here

[Alhash]

I've been following your site for a couple of months now. I'm hooked on it and I hope to ask a few questions.


- will there be large cities implemented? (including racial cities like dwarven halls)

- Do you plan to implement non-combat oriented details (such as being a caravan master, or a possibly run a business).

- Can you conquer kingdoms and wrest land from people?

(sorry if some of these questions have already been asked)

[Ivefan]

-Exactly how large has not been mentioned but i assume they would be large enough to be called cities atleast.

-From general talk; In a manner, yes. But it seems like the business will involve some aspect of combat.

-You can either join up with a city/land/king/etc and go up the ranks for the army, perhaps make a coup. Or you can start out privately and gain followers to conquer with.

[adwarf]

What level of construction will have at our disposal?

By that I mean whats the size of things we can build, could we say build an entire fortress city surrounded by smaller villages with strongholds dotted around the area, or would it just be like army camp kind of construction (Tent arrangement, palisade construction, ditch placements, log walls, etc.)

[NRDL]

PTW this looks really cool. 

[Ultima Ratio Regum]

You really know how to attract the Bay12 community

Ah, I try

Hmm. Knowledge on the specific weaknesses of animals/creatures could be good. Although with horses you don't really need to know anything besides it being a horse to know the weak spots, as all of the various horse breeds are pretty fragile.

True - expect differences will be more down to speed/stamina, probably.

Oh wise and mighty developer, as much as I appreciate ballistae, may I make one small additional suggestion to improve the overall quality of your fine work? More ballistae.

Consider it noted!

I think that it makes sense to invert the typical way knowledge skills work here. Normally games have it set up so that low levels of knowledge provide knowledge of capabilities and high levels of knowledge provide insight into a creatures weaknesses (or just straight bonus damage). While this makes some sense in terms of analyzing fighting styles, it makes very little sense when you're talking about horses, or elephants or bears. Essentially once you know a little bit about the creature you have a general sense of it's anatomy and have some idea about it's weaknesses. What's harder is noticing the slight differences in appearance and behavior that signal it's intentions or capabilities.

This ability to evaluate is especially crucial when it comes to cavalry. Are the enemy mounted on destriders or plow horses? being able to tell at a glance from a couple of hundred yards away which is which is a)much harder than knowing that horses hooves a full of nice delicate bones that crunch well under the butt of your spear  and b) more important to a leader.

My recommendation would be to remove the bonus damage from knowledge skills, and instead have an ignorance penalty for lack of basic familiarity. This could manifest as both a decrease in combat effectiveness (you don't know where to stab) and greater morale penalties. Increases in a knowledge skill past this point would give you greater insight into the state a capabilities of creatures, how fast they move, how fatigued they are, how well trained they are and so on.

Interesting. Morale penalties for fighting creatures you don't know a lot about is an interesting one, actually. As you say, it seems logical that a low-level of knowledge would give you much of the basic info, and then you'd have to get more and more knowledge to learn the specifics of each creature's activities. I'm still not sure precisely what information I want knowledge to give (their attacks, their defenses, their habitats, alliances, habits, food, where they can be found, etc, or some combination), so I need to think that over.

I've been following your site for a couple of months now. I'm hooked on it and I hope to ask a few questions.

- will there be large cities implemented? (including racial cities like dwarven halls)

- Do you plan to implement non-combat oriented details (such as being a caravan master, or a possibly run a business).

- Can you conquer kingdoms and wrest land from people?

(sorry if some of these questions have already been asked)

Well that's good to know .

- Yes, each settlement for each species has a different generator. Dwarf settlements will look utterly unlike Cyclopean ones, which are utterly unlike a necropolis, and so on. Some of these are in their early stages now, but for the first alpha I'm only aiming for ruins and ancient cities as civilizations need a lot of programming outside the cities themselves.
- I've thought about the economic/'business' side of the game, but I'm not sure yet. It would be great to hear any thoughts on it, though!
- That's planned as one of the main focuses of the game! There's even a 'territory' option in the minimap to view land according to who owns it.

What level of construction will have at our disposal?

By that I mean whats the size of things we can build, could we say build an entire fortress city surrounded by smaller villages with strongholds dotted around the area, or would it just be like army camp kind of construction (Tent arrangement, palisade construction, ditch placements, log walls, etc.)

Only very basic constructions - city-building isn't a focus of the game at all. If you're in charge of a city, I think you'll be able to dictate the kinds of buildings you want, but you won't have an active role, and building construction will be realistically slow. As for camps, you'll be able to put up tents, traps, ditches etc, but that's about the full extent of it.

PTW this looks really cool.

Thanks!

Lastly, a more game design/mechanic-centric blog entry for once, hopefully answering a few more questions about magic: http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/2012/03/13/superweapons/. However, since magic is way off, the focus for now is still on combat/weapons/armor for the near future, and certainly for the rest release. From this point onward, any magic questions will be met with a bemused shrug!

[BishopX]

So I had a long, boring drive home from work today, and I spent most of it thinking about the implications of rogue-like speed systems on unit combat, particularly mounted charges.

In there are generally two ways of handling speed in roguelikes, either fast creates get a free move every X turns, or every turn a fast creature has a Y probability of getting an extra free move. Additionally, waiting generally advances time at the same rate that movement advances, which makes it hard for the slow creature to gain the initiative. Either ap proach has interesting and possibly deleterious implications for URR.

If fast creatures get regular extra moves,charges against enemies slower than you will be sensitive to initial conditions. For example if I can an extra move after every third regular move, charging against a static foe (say a stake wall with archers behind it)from a distance of 3, 7, 11 or 15 will always result in an initial free attack by the cavalry, while charging from 4,5,6,8,8,10.... will not. Since cavalry charges don't make sense in interia-less environments (the momentum of the horse is the weapon), allowing charging horses to 'wait' a turn to regain the correct positioning mid-charge doesn't make sense.

The other option, a random free move, is just as problematic. Imagine a squad of ten horse men charging who get a free move 33% of the time. The group is going to separate out over time, so for particularly long charges you will have a bell curve like distribution of your forces...again since units can't wait this would be sub optimal.

[darkflagrance]

Regarding penalties for fighting unfamiliar creatures, it's likely that whether you fight an orc, a human, or an elf, you'll be fairly familiar with their humanoid structure. Even if this is your first orc battle, maybe you'll be confident enough that you can take them that your morale remains constant.

[NRDL]

Huh.  So, if for example, a humanoid being fights a quadrupedal creature, or something I dunno, without legs, the humanoid would suffer a penalty, because it doesn't know how to proceed?

Cool.  Common sense and confidence, those are interesting qualities that I don't think I've seen really in other video games. 

[Leatra]

Regarding penalties for fighting unfamiliar creatures, it's likely that whether you fight an orc, a human, or an elf, you'll be fairly familiar with their humanoid structure. Even if this is your first orc battle, maybe you'll be confident enough that you can take them that your morale remains constant.

Orcs are ought to be scary. A berserker orc charging into you while shouting a battle cry isn't the same thing with a fragile elf swordsman.

[NRDL]

I think every civ should have its own form of individual scariness, for pyschological warfare.