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[Ultima Ratio Regum]

This belongs in a museum!

It'd be neat to be something of an artifact (artefact I assume is the non-American English spelling? I try to use those, didn't know that one though!) hunter though. And if storing them somewhere opened up the opportunity for thieves. Hell, carrying them may get you targeted. Especially if they have faction alignment involved. For example, an artifact associated with a polytheist religion might get you targeted by vatican assassins from Mars who want to destabilize their religious enemies.

I think the two are pretty interchangeable, but my flatmate is an archaeologist, and she insisted on artefact . Anyway, I think artefacts will be well-sought-after. Even if they have very little combat prowess, they will be good for boosting morale, or the reign of an ailing king, etc etc. How did you know the URR vatican was on Mars, though?!

I can't believe I didn't do this earlier, but posting to watch!

Also posting to watch

PTW

Thanks all!

That sounds unnecessarily complex. There could be multiple languages spoken in a city though.

There will be - people will speak their native languages, though they will be able to learn others, and will presumably try to learn the language of the city they move to. One of the nice things I envision for languages is situations like coming across two people fighting in the forest. One of them you can speak the language of, one you can't. They both stop, and keep a safe distance from the other, and both shout at you - A tells you B stole something and you should help him, but B shouts something you can't understand, so you have to decide which to aid (if either)! In this kind of situation, I'd hope for other visual clues, or external information would help you make an informed guess (like if you've heard a news story about a particular thief, etc), or otherwise, you just have to take a gamble.

I think URR's excellent UI can handle any complexity. Just look at the screenshots on the first page of this thread to see what Mark is capable of when it comes to working with ASCII and ANSI. Generated art? That wins more than a few points.

Thanks Leatra . I'll probably be posting some of the encyclopedia UI before too long.

In regard to complexity, I agree with leatra, UI looks awesome and decidedly un-spreadsheet.

A little off topic:
Will weapons be regional? I wanna travel to the far east and grab a katana. If this is the case will environment influence these weapon types, or will it be technology (hammers being developed against armour).

Cheers - er, yes, probably, though I haven't fully thought it through. Civs might also tend slightly towards preferring lighter weapons or heavier weapons, in all classes, or long/short weapons, etc. Some weapons I think I will make civ-specific, though,

That seems like a good rival for DF to keep up with!
Is there maybe a tileset (or how I call them due to other games, texture pack) that changes the graphics to those of URR?

Because BOY, this one has much more clear, yet still ASCII, graphics.

Is there maybe a tileset (or how I call them due to other games, texture pack) that changes the graphics to those of URR?

Because BOY, this one has much more clear, yet still ASCII, graphics.

Heh, agreed. Probably the best ASCII graphics I have ever seen. Map's color palette is so awesome, you could mistake it for a real map.

I'm sure it wouldn't be too hard to do. You might just need URR's permission to make it, first.

Is there maybe a tileset (or how I call them due to other games, texture pack) that changes the graphics to those of URR?

Because BOY, this one has much more clear, yet still ASCII, graphics.

Heh, agreed. Probably the best ASCII graphics I have ever seen. Map's color palette is so awesome, you could mistake it for a real map.

You know the old Samurai versus a Knight? The Knight would likely win that because the Katana wasn't made to fight someone with the Knights armor.

There is an idea there. Cultures should have different weapons and these weapons should be efficient for different kinds of armors. For example, Elves in DF favor wooden equipment, even if they are ineffective. But Elves can still kick ass with their ranged weapons and mounts. Still, superiority of the favored race of Armok to every other race is, of course, unquestionable.

Thanks guys - I'm very happy for you to use the characters I've created, as long as you just stick a little reference back to my site. As for cultures/weapons/armours etc, I do intend to have full pictures of armour generated according to civ preferences, with appropriate materials, colours, and variation in terms of exact shapes, plates, riveting, etc etc. Again, future generated graphics!

Pretty much the first e-cronym I really had any exposure to was WTF, so when I saw FTW, I thought of it as Fuck The What. Now every time I see PTW, I think of Post To Win.

Incidentally, MACMACMACMACMACMACMACMACMACMACMACMACMACMACMACMACMACMACMAC.

EDIT: What I meant was: Would you mind posting something we can compile ourselves, as this might provide mac and linux users with the beginnings of a means by which to play. While I doubt it would be easy, it's much easier than trying to get an exe to work, especially if we're using OSX 10.5, which wine and playonmac won't support.

MACMACMACMAC, you say? I'm probably going to try and get a .pyc out soon, once I confirm they cannot be easily read in a text-editor like a .py file can. In terms of other-OSs, my primary focus is Linux which I genuinely DO intend to get around to, but (excuse my ignorance of these things) I think compiling for Linux would produce a .pyc (I think), so that would be fine for Mac too. Maybe. I just need to give myself a day free at some point to turn a spare laptop into a Linux laptop, and then spend the rest of that day trying to compile. Even for those who have got it working on other systems, the load times bloat incredibly (5 seconds to 5 minutes), so I really do need to get another version out.

There is an idea there. Cultures should have different weapons and these weapons should be efficient for different kinds of armors. For example, Elves in DF favor wooden equipment, even if they are ineffective. But Elves can still kick ass with their ranged weapons and mounts. Still, superiority of the favored race of Armok to every other race is, of course, unquestionable

While realistic there is also the sense of gameplay.

SHOULD we make, for example, the Katana (if it was in the game... which it isn't but lets say this was the world expansion and every country's equivilant was in the game) weak to heavy metal armor?

Ultimate Rate of Registry what are your viewpoints on this?

I do intend to have various weapons within the classes (so scimitars, shortswords, longswords, katanas, etc, within 'slashing weapons') strong/weak/average against various things, but I have not yet decided on the specifics. I'm very happy to take ideas from this thread!

I like the idea of weapons having advantages and disadvantages, so then your adventurer (if that's your life choice) doesn't carry around a certain weapon because it has complete dominance over the others. Things like rifles muskets (?) should be able to penetrate heavy armor, but have long reload times, halberds or the like should be slow to attack, and pierce metal. katana's (and other slashy cutty things) should be quick attacks, but not so effective against heavy, metal armor.

Also, another idea that sprang to mind, is maybe "special abilities" for them, like halberds having a sweep attack, that swings an arc in front of you, or daggers allowing you to aim for the joints of thick armor (correct me if I'm wrong, but that's what they were used for back in the day, right?) I'm not too sure about this, actually.

That's very much my thinking for gunpowder weapons at the moment - interesting ideas re: the others. In terms of special abilities, I currently have some planned for each weapon class (the '!'s in the skill trees), but I'm not yet sure how much I like them. I'll have to see how I feel when I implement weapons...

Fun fact: knight vs knight usually was fought to the point of exhaustion, as both were mostly invulnerable to each other. At that point, it was either a surrender or a coup de grace on the first one to fall

Ha! Very interesting. I might try and emulate that...

Will be able to see actual ascii generated art? (As in, not just text saying "This is a painting of a human blah blah blah" but a image)

Also, for some reason thinking of two knights wacking eachother with useless swords until they just fall over of exaustion just makes me giggle.

We'll see generated weapons, armour, and mythological murals (e.g. of a person fighting a minotaur, etc), and sculptures, and possibly (presumably) paintings. The next release will have generated heraldry, flags and religious icons, then after that it might be a little break before I work on the next generated art, but it'll be one of the above. It is a *big* focus of the game, but it's mighty time-consuming (though really enjoyable to work on).

In the mean time, I did an interview with a new blog 'The Game Bastion', about URR, my goals, plans, development, the next version, etc etc. Hope you enjoy!
https://thegamebastion.wordpress.com/2013/02/03/interview-with-mark-johnson-of-ultima-ratio-regum/

Today's blog entry coming later...

[Rowanas]

If you can compile it on Linux, oh wise and generous provider, then a mac-compilable version would shortly follow. Little differences crop up here and there, nothing serious, in my experience.

Pre-post edit: I realised that the drive to find superior arms for your troops could well be one of the driving forces behind conquest and trade, and so I remove my objection. It took me a while to type this all out, so i'm still going to post it.

As for weapons, while of course the style of weapon makes a difference, I'm not so sure it'd work mechanically to represent them accurately. The simple truth is that there are better weapons and worse ones. A slightly curved blade provides a significantly greater slice than a straight one. A sword with an offset handle (damnit, I can't remember the proper term for a handle that's set at an angle to the blade to facilitate stabbing without requiring you to switch to a weaker epeé-style grip) is better still, despite never really catching on in Europe. In theory, a heavily made, lightly curved shamshir has both the weight to injure lightly armoured combatants, and the stabbing tip required to deal with heavy plate armours. The same is true of a spike-tipped khopesh. While both were created for use in hot areas where heavy armour was uncommon, with relatively small tweaks, both would be eminently suitable for penetrating heavy armours (the khopesh especially, as it has an un-sharpened straight length of blade before the cutting area, which you could hold the blade by for the half-hand stab).

Certain other weapons which would likely make it into such a game, are ineffective compared to their close counterparts, like the halberd (replaced by the pike for length and swords, axes or other smaller weapons close-up) or club (a mace is, without exception, the better weapon). Either, the list of weapons will end up quite sparse, or filled with inferior weapons, which no player will ever actually -want- to use. Most games deal with this by just having them and sod it (Glaive-guisarme, anyone?)

[DoomOnion]

I am willing to kill and do all evil for this game.

[Leatra]

There will be - people will speak their native languages, though they will be able to learn others, and will presumably try to learn the language of the city they move to. One of the nice things I envision for languages is situations like coming across two people fighting in the forest. One of them you can speak the language of, one you can't. They both stop, and keep a safe distance from the other, and both shout at you - A tells you B stole something and you should help him, but B shouts something you can't understand, so you have to decide which to aid (if either)! In this kind of situation, I'd hope for other visual clues, or external information would help you make an informed guess (like if you've heard a news story about a particular thief, etc), or otherwise, you just have to take a gamble.

If I knew both languages, I don't think I could resist the temptation to tell A that B wants to kill him and tell B that A wants to kill him then watch the fight, while eating popcorn.

By the way, nice interview. Not many facts I didn't know earlier but it seems enough to leave an experienced player in awe after reading it

[hops]

The katana should be weak to everything.
Because it sucks.

Wait what katanas are stronger than normal swords.

Why the hell would they take years to make if they're basically crappy breakable swords?

[Man of Paper]

Just saying, time input is not directly related to quality. However on the actual topic of sword quality, I'm not too well informed, so I'll leave my input at that.

[PanH]

Why the hell would they take years to make if they're basically crappy breakable swords?

Crappy iron, and they're made for fighting unarmored enemies.

[Zanzetkuken The Great]

Why the hell would they take years to make if they're basically crappy breakable swords?

Crappy iron, and they're made for fighting unarmored enemies.

I think the Japanese actually developed steel for the creation of the katanas.  I'm not entirely certain of that, however.

[Graknorke]

Actually I don't think the Japanese ever independantly developed steel.

IIRC it started off around the Arabic countries and spread out from there via trade and such.

[PanH]

I think the Japanese actually developed steel for the creation of the katanas.  I'm not entirely certain of that, however.

You still need iron for it, and as Japanese iron was crappy, it took extra work, and methods to get around the quality of the metal to get a weapon that wouldn't break at first hit, be it iron or steel.

There was a link to katana's myths a page earlier.

Actually I don't think the Japanese ever independantly developed steel.

IIRC it started off around the Arabic countries and spread out from there via trade and such.

Started in India, the Arabic countries then spread it to Europe. The road that much technologies took.

[kerlc]

One question for all of you sword-knowing people: is it really true that the roman Gladius used steel?

[Zanzetkuken The Great]

Actually I don't think the Japanese ever independantly developed steel.

IIRC it started off around the Arabic countries and spread out from there via trade and such.

Started in India, the Arabic countries then spread it to Europe. The road that much technologies took.

I seem to recall that some areas of southern Africa had independently developed steel.  I recall a post by Wierd in one of the "If Bay Forum were a Mountain Hall..." threads that said something about it.

Here's the link, it was actually HugoLuman, not Wierd: http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=109636.msg3429410;topicseen#msg3429410

[DoomOnion]

One question for all of you sword-knowing people: is it really true that the roman Gladius used steel?

I thought romans liked to use bronze and brass for their weapons and armor.

[kerlc]

One question for all of you sword-knowing people: is it really true that the roman Gladius used steel?

I thought romans liked to use bronze and brass for their weapons and armor.

to my knowledge, they used iron extensively for weapons and armor. That much is known to me (ancient romans are particularily interesting to me)

But i heard somewhere that the gladius was steel encased with iron, so only the cutting edge would be steel.

[Deimos56]

Found a link to this yesterday. It looks like a fascinating project, and I greatly look forward to the point where there's some actual gameplay. I look forward even more to the point where it's finished, looking at all the things that are planned.