Print

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

[Ultima Ratio Regum]

Bow to me, the lord of feature creep!!

I think that sounds great, I really like the idea of a few levels - I feel the more the better (or 3-4) would be good, but obviously a line needs to be drawn. Perhaps very small shrines could also spawn in villages?
Perhaps hunter-gatherer civs would be more inclined to have a 'sacred ground' which could be a natural landscape feature (like a big rock) or something like a ziggurat? Perhaps others would have an elders hut/circle/area, or to a sacrificial place - which may or may not be in the settlement itself. It'd be incredible to see villagers going on a sort of mini-pilgrimage (I think there's a proper Anthropological word for that) to the village elders or their spiritual place.

This could also lead to some interesting game play interactions where the player would need to respect (or horribly defile) their sacred areas/elders/whatever.

Small shrines, perhaps so - I do intend to have things inside buildings that denote religious affiliation too, like little idols or something. Should be quite fun to work on. As you say, a line needs to be drawn, and I straddle the "super-detailed world" inclination vs "this is not just a worldgen program". I think I get the right balance normally, and I don't intend to spend more than another year on world gen. Sacred ground is a very cool idea, I'll think about whether I could implement that into my existing ideas on that count (though I do think I will add a pilgrimage as a religious variation possibility). Respect/defile options are, I think, in the "religious agendas" list, currently...

Romans also kept small shrines to the household deity in the main room where they left offerings, if you feel that religions need even more unique forms of worship.

As above ^, I definitely want to include something like this. Maybe some religions only have "interior" things that note belief, rather than big shrines, statues, churches, etc etc.

[Man of Paper]

Might I ask what language you're writing in? I did a real quick check but didn't see any mention. I ask because I've finally decided to step into the world of coding and roguelike development, and while research tells me Python is my best bet, common sense tells me to ask those with experience.

While I already have a number of ideas I wish to implement (Sledgehammer Samurai being my favorite title, and one I felt I had to share), my magnum opus, the whole reason why my brain is screaming at me to learn a programming language (it's a weird sensation, when you get an idea that wraps its tentacles around your mind and absolutely refuses to let go) is a Survival/Sim/RPG set in the trenches of The Great War. I know the next couple decades of my life are going to be dedicated to this project, and I'd like to get started on the right foot or foot-analogue. And with URR being one of my big influences (though honestly URRs influence is more along the lines of "Look at this! This is fantastic! You have ideas, make them fantastic too! Make the game you've gone to sleep thinking about"), I feel inclined to ask for some advice for the budding coder, especially as for the time being I'm going to be self-taught.

Before anyone says it, while DF and URR have provided me with influence, I know it's likely I won't be as big as DF or as anticipated as URR. But that's what I'm aiming for. Well, I'm striving to be even bigger and more anticipated, but don't tell anyone.

Since I'd like to end with something relevant to URR itself, will stigmas be attached to religions? Would a religion that views all life as sacred look down on or despise one that promotes ritual sacrifice? Would, for example, a known member of a sacrificial religion be viewed as more intimidating by others outside their circle due to their religious dogma? On a different tangent, is there a chance that actions that cannot be attributed to the PC that (s)he carries out be chalked up to the divine? (General Takesgoldfrombandits was found in his home, nothing but a charred corpse. He must have really pissed off Bort, God of Honor and Justice!)

[Ultima Ratio Regum]

My goodness, I have to say thank you for such an amazing comment. I was feeling very down today at how much PhD work still remains until I can put a year into URR, but reading this message bolstered me a lot. Thanks a ton.

So: I'm writing in Python, using libtcod 2.7.1, I believe. It's awesome you're taking the first step! Whilst I like 7DRLs, I think the freeware/indie world needs more epic projects. There's something I really enjoy about following a huge game through it's development, and I think others do too. I definitely relate to the mental-tentacle feeling (as it were...) and it sounds tremendously interesting, I'm immediately thinking of so much stuff you could do with that setting. I was self-taught too, and I don't think there's anything wrong with starting on your big project right away, *as long as* you know a lot of the first year or so is going to be spent rewriting as you learn more efficient ways to do the same things. I'm so glad I've provided you with the inspiration to make the move and go for it (in much the same way DF did for me!). I very much like your idea for a huge project that isn't medieval, too. That's one of the reasons I pushed away from a medieval setting and towards the scientific revolution and a world of gunpowder, to explore an era I thought was very interesting politically/socially/philosophically/culturally but you really don't see in games a whole lot (indie, AAA, whatever). Are you planning to start a site, or devlog, twitter, blog, etc? Feel free to fire with any other questions, and I'd happily give some feedback on any more specific ideas about objectives/mechanics/etc.

Stigmas, I hadn't thought of that idea, but I love it. Some religions that particularly hate each other, or religions seen in some civs as being unacceptable. Will implement. As for attributing actions to other characters, that's a very interesting one, and might tie well into my plans for manipulating the game's history, though I'd have to think about how precisely it would work...

[Ultima Ratio Regum]

Kept working on religions this week in my spare time. I abstracted out the religious-building-generation into its own function, and can now be used wherever I need it. In addition to these rare religious districts in “religious freedom” civs, I’ve also figured out how religious buildings are going to be distributed elsewhere in feudal civs (nomadic civilizations never have a state religion, whilst hunter-gatherer civs always have their own unique beliefs). There are five religious policies, and each places religious buildings differently (in addition to having other specific buffs for the player character, but those aren’t relevant just yet):

Religious Freedom: cities have a single, well-organized district for religious worship; towns will have a single random religious building chosen from all the religions within that nation. This means finding a religious freedom civ early in the game might give you a chance to encounter a lot of other religions earlier than you otherwise might.

Cultism: These civs have no religious buildings in them whatsoever, but the secretive cults (which will be making more of an appearance later) will be much more likely to have a presence around their cities/towns. Religious worship wouldn’t be banned within the home, however.

Collective Faith: I decided to make this and “Organized Religion” into opposites; collective faith religions have a religious building in every town, but only a small number in their main city. I wanted to get a feeling that this was slightly more of a ground-up religion, perhaps without too much wealth at the top, so it’s distributed well through-out the nation.

Organized Religion: By contrast, Organized Religion civs have a religious building in every middle-class or lower-class district within their capital, but no churches out in the far-flung reaches of their nation (causing those people to probably result to quiet worship, idols/shrines in the home, etc). Wanted to emphasize the centralization of this religion in this case, and that it’s a religion very focused around the nation’s capital.

Zealotry: Civs with the “zealotry” religious policy go all-out: they have a religious building in every housing district and in every town, and no religious buildings from other civilizations are allowed anywhere within their borders.

Here’s an example of a town with a religious building in:



…and, since I’ve been working on it, a town in the marshland (though totally unrelated to all this religion stuff, I just wanted to show off this new and very rare terrain type)…



…and a lower-class city district with a religious building, a tavern and some slave quarters…



…and a middle-class district from the same city with a park and a religious building (in this case with a road around it, and some flower/vegetable beds):



There’s also now a bunch of variables for religious buildings, primarily whether walls spawn around them, whether roads spawn around them, and whether vegetable/flower beds spawn within their walls/roads. Currently in a religious district they have walls, in middle-class districts they will have roads, in lower-class districts they will only have roads if they intersect a main road, and in towns they will have roads; they will have vegetable/flowerbeds in middle-class districts and religious districts, but not in lower-class districts or towns. This means that even though the church structure for each religion is the same each time (picked from the 1000+ variations mentioned last time), each actual iteration will always look a little different. My objective now is to finish off adding some variety to religions – in the comments in the previous entry it was suggested I add unique identifiers like festivals, likes/dislikes of other religions, pilgrimages etc, and I love these ideas, so they’re going in – then religions will be pretty much done for this release. I’ve also been doing some bug-hunting this week and a lot of bugs to do with placing city gates, handling roads and slums/graveyards, towns generating on rivers and handling unusual cases of combinations of coasts and cities have been resolved. Until next time, internet friends!

[Man of Paper]

I figure a devlog, twitter, and bay12 thread for Entrenched are almost necessity. Going to need our own forum, too. A Google search just now has informed me of a game only slightly farther along in development than my own shares the same name. Oh well, we'll see if that one continues to develop by the time I know enough coding to have a WW1 Battlefield Generator, aka the Worldgen. If so then the other guy and myself are going to have to come up with a bad-assier name. Shame Mud and Blood is taken, too. But the name's not important right now.

As you may have guessed at the mention of another person, this is starting as, and hopefully will remain, a two-man project, with a third providing more of an idea-bouncing/playtester role. The group of us have been good friends since we were in the single digits (for point of reference, we're in our mid-20s now), so I hope the project won't be dropped by the other two (For simplicity's sake I'll use their paintball callsigns from now on). Tiger, the other to-be coder, has a problem following through with anything, but maybe having someone constantly bringing the project up will keep him interested. However, I'm prepared and willing to shoulder [EPIC TITLE] myself if need be. Shoulder might be the wrong word, makes it seem like a burden. If it comes down to it, at worst I (my callsign is Tree Lobster, by the way) will be the lone coder and Tiger and Pangolin will do playtesting and the like.

World War I seemed like an obvious choice of setting for us, since there really hasn't been a good game that we know of for the era (mods to games not included). There definitely hasn't been one that wants to have a heavily detailed anatomy, including bodily functions and digestion, as well as exploring the mental strain the horrors of that war provided. Digestion should be a simple delay from when you eat/drink to when you have to relieve yourself, and the inclusion of bodily functions, while questionable for some, seemed like a requirement. Urine-soaked rags saved many a life in a pinch, and since morale is going to be a huge part of the game, choosing between popping down stink nuggets where you sleep or moving to a trench latrine and risk getting caught in a raid, charge, or bombardment with your pants quite literally down seemed like one of the many, many decisions to include that would provide the proper feeling of being stuck in the shit (by which I mean the warzone, not literal crap) for the players.

Watching how DF has developed since I found it in mid-2010, and following the development of URR since the near beginning, I know we'll need a grand goal to strive for. In this case, a mostly accurate simulation of living, fighting, and dying in the trenches. There's a metric asston of features we want to include, and it's understood that it'll have to be broken down into chunks, with BattlefieldGen being first, and working out from there. Admittedly, watching your past and planned progression has given me plenty of insight, and I won't be surprised if the kind of features we work on go in the same general order.

One idea we had that I'd like to fire out for opinion has to do with BattlefieldGen. When a character is created they get deployed to a newly-generated battlefield. As they progress the battle is going to sway one way or the other, not necessarily due to their actions. When one side achieves some to-be-determined victory condition, the player will get the option to Advance (on Victory), Pull Back (if the PC survives defeat) or Retire. The first two options will generate a new battlefield for the player to continue playing in. I think this would allow us to reduce map size without sacrificing longevity or playability as well as allow the PC to continuously develop until they meet their likely inevitable end, as well as give the player some diversity in environment. While the trenches are going to be the main focus, I'd like to include cities and fortifications in combat zones as well.

I hit preview post to see how long my post was going to be (I realized I was going on and on. It doesn't help that I was being distracted by the last two episodes of Black Jesus and a leopard gecko), and lo and behold, another update! Oddly enough, I was just contemplating terrain types and went into daydreaming about night operations through marshland. I can't wait to see those districts full of life. Have you thought about various types of burial grounds? Perhaps unique religion-related constructions to house the dead? Specifically, I'm thinking along the lines of the Catacombs of Paris. I saw how crowded the lower-class district was and thought how awesome it'd be to have 'combs beneath it. Maybe it'd be frequented by cults, or less than savory individuals.

[Retropunch]

I really love how the cities are shaping up - they're better than I could have ever imagined!
My one issue is that I'm unsure why cultism would be a civilization type. Is this more of a 'religion is banned' civ (which obviously causes cultism to spring up)?   

World War 1 extremely interesting stuff

That sounds like a great project! I've been programming in Python with Libtcod and it's really great - you can use tiles (easily) as well if you feel the need. I taught a friend how to use it and although I've had some past experience in programming, it was my first big project and Py+Libtcod was easy enough to get my head around.
As far as your ideas so far, I'd definitely shoot for something more fluid than how your BattlefieldGen is shaping up - for a truly epic game, I want to feel as though I'm going through an entire campaign rather than just endless individual skirmishes. Even if this was just that once the battle was over, you just had to march across some fields until you got to the next set of trenches, or get to a point where you could be flown/shipped off to another area in the campaign, that'd give the player a real feeling of progression. It could become a point of pride amongst gamers if they'd managed to get through the entire war in Entrenched!

Remember that with ascii, modern PCs can cope with a really, really big lot of stuff going on. I had 200 NPCs on the screen at once (all with pathfinding, making choices and so on) and didn't see any slow down.

[Ultima Ratio Regum]

Lots of interesting words

Sorry for the slow reply, I've been in total no-life maximum-work mode the past few days. So:

What awesome ideas. I am instantly excited! Some bullet pointy thoughts. Firstly, devlog/twitter/B12 seems like a good combo - if you are really committed to the project, and it sounds as if you are, I would think about investing in a domain name as I did. It seemed like quite an investment when I was first getting started and nobody read anything I posted, but now the blog has reached the level of popularity it has reached, I'm very glad I bought it three years ago and worked steadily to turn it into quite a nice little community (in my case, both for game updates and general games criticism stuff).

Random little-known fact: when I started URR, I tried to enlist someone else. This person was my closest friend from when I was around 6 until I went to University, at which point (though I didn't see it at the time) our paths started to diverge. I tried to enlist him into making "a game" (the specifics were unknown) as a way to rekindle the friendship, though I now realize it was already beyond saving at that point. In hindsight I'm very glad he said no! But, there's no doubt that things would speed up immensely with a second person. I do have an ideas-bouncer, who I'm moving in with (again) in a month to start my full-time year - she thinks the exact same way as I do about game design and has a lot of historical knowledge in areas I don't, and it's invaluable to be able to say "Is this genius or idiocy?" to someone who knows your game's design well, but isn't actually the one coding it. That distance is incredibly useful.

Agreed on WW1. I think your bodily functions idea is interesting, and actually, I quite like it. I agree that it could produce a lot of interesting time/turn decisions (is this intended to be grid-based, RL-ish? I assume so). Breaking down into chunks is the thing - for my part, world gen is the only logical place to start. It is the basis for everything, really, and I have found that generating the world I want has influenced the future gameplay I want in that world. Glad to hear re: insight! Although the first year was a fair bit of flapping around, since then I think I've gone about things in a fairly logical order, especially in URR's case the next three releases - settlement exteriors, building interiors, NPCs - which could only really come in in that order.

I've a lot of ideas for how the "strategy" layer of a game like you're describing could work, i.e. the movement between different battlefields. I love the idea of a campaign (I'm thinking something like, er, the Sturmovik (sp?) games - I know little about them, but I know you basically play a permadeath "career" through battles). However, one issue is the battle swaying or not due to their actions - I'm sure you have thought of this, but that brings with it a major possibility that players feel like they have no control. Of course, if you emphasize that your objective is SURVIVAL, not VICTORY, then this could actually be very interesting. Perhaps you can risk looting soldiers to sell their stuff to buy yourself better kit for the next battle, or you have ample options to retreat, flee, abandon the battlefield but then try to join back up with the army, etc. Or, possibly, you can influence victory but in subtle ways, rather than command. Maybe you know there's going to be approximately x turns until the battle resolves, but you know that in a locked safe in the other trench is a piece of information that would hugely aid your side in the next battle; is it worth going after it? Some risk/reward stuff in battle n that influences battle n+1 could introduce some interesting strategy, and could work well with a purely "survival" outlook - you're navigating the battlefields to enhance your own chance of survival, which sometimes may be through helping your side, but sometimes through retreating or otherwise. Let me know when you start the devlog etc, I'll give you a shout out on my blog/twitter/etc! I really enjoy talking over ideas for new games, there's something very exciting about someone else embarking on a huge project. I have a blog entry written about this I intend to post in the near future, but I can honestly say working on URR is pretty much the best decision I think I've ever made for my own happiness and creative/intellectual fulfillment.

Ah, yes, burial grounds (to rewind the clock by three centuries). For the time being I'm sticking with graveyards, but that's partly only to keep this release to a manageable level - there's a huge amount of detail in the cities/settlements/towns etc and more on the list to finish off, but I have put different burial grounds on a future list. Ah, now as for cults, well, hmm... I can't really speak to that...

I really love how the cities are shaping up - they're better than I could have ever imagined!
My one issue is that I'm unsure why cultism would be a civilization type. Is this more of a 'religion is banned' civ (which obviously causes cultism to spring up)?   

Hmm, I see your point. The cultism policy is meant to be something more akin to an idea of a civilization that would actively encourage things like Mithraism; they might lack an official religion, or if they have one, many of the highest-ranking members of society are in the cult, and there's maybe little legal oversight to prevent cults arising, or cults are accepted and tolerated. I see your point though, maybe I should reword it. Hmm...

^ Also, yes, entirely re: ASCII and CPU usage. I ran a test of URR with a hundred or so reasonably brainless NPCs a little while ago, and they used up a couple of milliseconds to do all their combined computing each turn, which is welllllll within acceptable limits.

[Retropunch]

I'd just like to reiterate on what's been said about 'not giving the player enough control'. It's very easy to think that just dropping the player down in a simulated world and letting them find there own path is enough (the 'emergent gameplay' approach) but even early on in my cyberRogue project (which tried to emulate a cyberpunk city) it was easy to see that the player needed clear objectives and ways of influencing things. Originally, they were just going to play a very average person who basically had to survive day to day in a harsh world, but it just got a bit tedious without things to aim for and ways of making your presence felt - even if survival was a primary goal.

As far as Entrenchment goes, perhaps you could become promoted as you survive battles (or your superiors get killed?) early on you'd start off being able to influence very little, but perhaps later on you'd be able to do a lot more to influence outcomes.

[Scoops Novel]

Man of paper, worry about making it emotionally impactful and then about the rest. If that means dwelling on your life before the war (because come on, who of your audience knows much about life in 1895), examining the home front, using real stories from the soldiers themselves, do it. WW1 shouldn't be "a hardcore mode". Hell, tell the players at the end that all the personalities (preferably everyone ) in the game, including who they shot, were based off real people, and show their memorials.

Edit: The last sentence is idiotic.

[Man of Paper]

I'll be putting stuff referring to Entrenched/Shovel Buddies (a name I think fits very well in case Entrenched winds up unavailable) in spoilers from now on so URR stays the focus or something. I feel somewhat guilty about my textwalls.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

On Worldgen: It's been decided the game's going to be WWI era, not strictly WWI. This way we can have a procedural worldgen without worrying about historical accuracy. All but one area (to be discussed later) will be open and available to the player. That way epic infiltration far behind the lines is possible. Though not necessarily smart or recommended.

On Leveling: As the character gains experience they'll level up, represented by their rank. Rank will be one of the factors in deciding how many/who you can recruit to follow or team up with you. Which will be very important as a medic pal or chaplain friend will be able to keep your health and morale in check. When the PC goes from Lv. 9 to Lv. 10 (Sergeant Major to Second Lieutenant) they'll get the option to go on leave to celebrate their battlefield commission and get some much needed relaxation. The small area they'll be brought to will have multiple buildings to go through that'll provide a major boost to morale, a list of perks to choose from (without any downsides, unlike the perks at character creation), among other things. And as you level up in the Officer ranks you get more and more control over the grand strategy, eventually winding up like the generals in the previous iterations of URR would have been. Possibly including the encoded messages I loved the idea of so much, especially if you can intercept orders from the enemy.

We plan on focusing on many of the player's decisions having consequences both good and bad. Perhaps you steal some hooch from an officer and decide to give it to one of your shovel buddies. But lo! He was supposed to be on watch, and fell asleep instead. Half your pals get killed in a night raid and it's ultimately your fault. We discussed many, many options for the player to question. Letters from home will be included to toy with morale. If you open it, maybe it's from your girlfriend saying she's pregnant. Morale boost! Or perhaps your parents passed away. If your morale is in dire straits, you're really going to have to dwell on the possibilities of every action. Especially as low morale is going to have a plethora of possible consequences.

Classes/roles are going to be used as well. You'll have your rifleman, marksman, and gunner as your primary combat roles. We also plan on including the aforementioned medic and chaplain classes, as well as a support class. The Medic and Chaplain won't be able to equip weaponry, but they won't be directly targeted by the enemy, either. The Support role won't be the standard industry idea of a support class. Instead it'll be your job to run ammo and, in the case of machine guns, barrels to the guys holding the line. You'll have the ability to deploy mines and barbed wire as well. We figure separating an Engineer role from Support wouldn't be necessary.

But since I'm only far enough in my self-instruction to know what print, if/then, lists, loops, comments, and reading from a file, things are very likely to change in some way or another. But I think the title Shovel Buddies is perfectly unfitting. Especially as the guys going into combat didn't know how bad things were going to be. I figure a light-hearted title will prime those who don't know what to expect to think this will be a fun, family-friendly game.

The game will be a grid-based RL, but the major question at hand is if it'll be real-time or not. Tiger brought up the idea of having it be real-time to increase the intensity of combat when it occurs, and remove the need to skip a turn a million times while you stand on watch. My only problem is I have no idea how real time will affect coding difficulty and rig demands. I'd like to avoid the problems with FPS DF seems to have currently. As for not being a hardcore mode...well, we're aiming for something between Cataclysm and first-time DF without a tutorial or guide in terms of hardcoreism.

[Scoops Novel]

Man of Paper:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Morale seems pretty gamey. Sorry if I'm holding you to ridiculously high standards, but it's past time WW1 was treated properly in games. If you vet your soldiers mail and your actions affect their morale, sure that has impact, but if you rely on telling the player how they feel you're removing them from the situation.

[Ultima Ratio Regum]

I'd just like to reiterate on what's been said about 'not giving the player enough control'. It's very easy to think that just dropping the player down in a simulated world and letting them find there own path is enough (the 'emergent gameplay' approach) but even early on in my cyberRogue project (which tried to emulate a cyberpunk city) it was easy to see that the player needed clear objectives and ways of influencing things.

Agreed. When I was younger I really loved sandbox/simulation games, but as I've got older I have (with the exception of DF) come to, generally, strongly dislike them - I don't like the lack of objective, the lack of outcome, the lack of challenge (again, DF being an exception). For my own personal preference, I think a good balance between simulationism, but still being able to impact upon the game world, would be great for something like this!

Man of paper, worry about making it emotionally impactful and then about the rest. If that means dwelling on your life before the war (because come on, who of your audience knows much about life in 1895), examining the home front, using real stories from the soldiers themselves, do it. WW1 shouldn't be "a hardcore mode". Hell, tell the players at the end that all the personalities (preferably everyone ) in the game, including who they shot, were based off real people, and show their memorials.

This is an interesting and pretty cool idea, I think. There's a balance in there between being heavy-handed with it and getting some actual emotional impact, but I think it could be done well.

Shovel Buddies

No need to feel guilty - I appreciate you sharing the ideas with me/us here! Especially as I'm only in part-time development at the moment (though tomorrow's update is pretty big), I don't mind other games-related discussions at all. Do you have a timeframe for starting early development yet?

Good thinking re: WWI era, not WWI (potentially). I'm doing the same - URR is slightly different from the real scientific revolution, as I'm including some things from "after" and some from "before", for instance. I like rank as leveling up - very clear to the player (and lets you have some nice rank graphics if you want them). Ha, I'm glad you're going with the encoded messages idea potentially! I still have some crypto in URR, but not the sort as before. Cool ideas re: morale, though I agree with Scoops' thoughts on displaying morale. It's something I've pondered for allies - the player will not have "forced" morale, though NPCs will, and there will be some attacks that are specifically for damaging morale, not physical damage. Shovel Buddies is a neat name, and I like the juxtaposition of title/content a lot. Hmmmm, real-time vs turn. As you say, even with ASCII (or a tileset) real-time can be demanding, especially with huge numbers of factors, and from my own experiments it is (or at least it seems) much harder to code, especially in terms of avoiding bottlenecks that you can't afford when you have to maintain a good FPS at all times. In my experience of starting with no coding experience whatsoever, I think real-time would be a lot trickier - it's very easy to just alter a line of code and suddenly you're at 100% CPU usage or some crap like that. It shouldn't be a dealbreaker if you want real-time - every daunting technical hurdle I've had, I've so far overcome - but I think it's worth thinking about.

[Neonivek]

the lack of outcome

To me that is probably what kills sandbox games pretty much every time.

[Retropunch]

the lack of outcome

To me that is probably what kills sandbox games pretty much every time.

Yeah, I think DF manages it because there are objectives (survive sieges, kill megabeats, delve deeper) and you can influence the world pretty heavily. Still, the one reason I do get bored of DF is because occasionally you do become a bit objective-less.

If survival by itself is a big enough goal, this can work out ok just on it's own. For instance, and I know it's a strange comparison, but a lot of zombie games (like dead island/rising) have you completing objectives, but it's not about actually wiping out all the zombies - they're the survival backdrop to your own quests. This could work well in a WW1 setting - the war is really just a dangerous 'living' backdrop to your own story.

Really, I just think it's important to put time into what the actual objectives/game play for the player is, rather than just hoping that an incredibly detailed simulation will keep people interested (although I'm sure it will to a point!).

[Ultima Ratio Regum]

If survival by itself is a big enough goal, this can work out ok just on it's own. For instance, and I know it's a strange comparison, but a lot of zombie games (like dead island/rising) have you completing objectives, but it's not about actually wiping out all the zombies - they're the survival backdrop to your own quests. This could work well in a WW1 setting - the war is really just a dangerous 'living' backdrop to your own story.

Yeah, I like this model. The original Dead Rising was such an underrated game! It was highly challenging to complete any reasonably decent number of the quests aside from the main story, there was loads of secret/hidden stuff, and it was generally damned entertaining.