I know... it's because we have a new IP, we have to change stuff to get both sites to work.
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I know... it's because we have a new IP, we have to change stuff to get both sites to work.
Ok, if that is the settings between the different races. But we should make those differences quite enormous..
But how would it be if you didn't have any control on your men at all, you could only control your generals, and they would automatically cue the soldiers. You assign a couple of soldiers on each general. And when that general die, the soldiers are on their own. Some will fight on, others will run away. If they're near another general, they're automatically assigned to him. Just a proposition.
There wont be enough units on screen at once to make that feasible, I think, Igor. I do plan on assigining every unit to groups, so that you can easily control a whole group at once (gives slight bonuses as well, strength in numbers and all that).
Z.
Okay, well the units have MORALE, which basically shows whether they will run or keep fighting, heroes will get a, say, +5 bonus (relative) to their morale, and anyone within the "radius" of a better unit will recieve a small boost to their morale. Also, you could implement "acting heroes", fake heroes that would raise morale, but would decrease loyalty of nearby units. Also, you can have pipers, drummers, flag holders, etc. to raise morale a bit, and if your units are well organised then you can get some more morale boni. Like Zaei said, similar to other games you can use CTRL + [Number] to assign units to groups. The radius of the heroes will be only within their groups however. Seeing a greater unit die will slightly decrease morale, banishing all the boni that the hero or more powerful unit has given them. Therefore if all that's holding an army together is a couple of veteran swordsmen and they die, the army will most likely dissipate.
Way back, we talked about disbanding and joining bandit nations - either this (if the unit has too much shame) or going back to their home will happen to a man who's fleeing from battle.
I hope I've covered everything.
A couple more notes - bandit factions morale is always halved on boni and doubled on disability. For example, say a bandit becomes a veteran and gives +2 to all of the people. The bandits will be given +1 and if he dies in battle be given -4 (it first takes away the +1 given, however). This will create the illusion that the bandits are loosely banded and won't be as hearted as those from wealthy kingdoms.
Another thing, too: Bandits are loosely tied. For example, a raider (horse unit) would likely trample over one of his comrades to escape to safety.
What about auto assigning units to groups? So, say, when you train a swordsman (or a group of swordsmen at once?), it gets assigned to a unit that is a) close, and b) in need of a swordsman.
Z.
Pherhaps, but In case you want a group to consist only of, say archers, and then 5 swordsmen are assigned to the group. It would cause a lot of frustration. But what if a general moved, every unit not given any important task will automatically follow him, if they are within range, of course. That would be like a bit more 'follow the leader'-effect. But i really think it should be difficult or pherhaps impossible to control units that are not within the range of a hero(or a castle/ fortress/ base/ townhall/ whatever). So that you must not under any circumstances loose a hero. However, the heroes range should be so short that he will be forced to enter combat. That has been quite a large problem in games with heroes and 'leaders' that the player fall in love with their hero and then refuses to use him in order to keep him alive.
Another thing you could do is have limited control over your men and one command could be protect the hero the guy is assigned to so if you have say 1 hero and 10 sordsmen make 8 of them fight and 2 stay by the hero attacking whom ever gets close to the hero. or make it so they will automaticaly protect the hero if he/she is in danger.
A sort of ...bodyguard. Good idea, whoever you are! Always nice with some assistance fro the outer world! And, yes a limit of how many soldiers to assign on each general. Or maby not. However, the general should be more difficult to protect with very many soldiers. Or maby the soldiers should be more uneasy when they're a lot with only one general.
Sounds great you guys. Perhaps we should only make it impossible for some units to be controlled without a general. Other units should be directly contraollable (scouts, for instance, mages, etc). The higher level units should be able to go off on thier own if you command them to, or it will get very frusterating.
If 10 archers had 5 swordsmen, they would work as a team. If they got the attack command, the swordsmen would rush in, while the archers shot away. Please note, I will not be doing friendly fire stuff, for speed's sake.
Z.
Zaei, of course that is a good idea. However, try to imagine this example:
Some soldiers are standing in the woods. a little further away is a couple of archers covering the soldiers. you want to attack them from distance so that the enemy archers wont attack you at first. However, the swordsmen storm the enemies and are shot down by enemy archers. Not too cool, huh?
::grins:: Thats why units will have a sneak ability, so they move at one quarter walking speed, and are inivisble to enemies =).
Z.
ABSOLUTELY invisible? Or only to a certain degree? Cause no matter how sneaky you are, you're spotted if you're in a field of some kind facing the enemies!
However, autoassigning will only end up like a windows OS. You have NO control. Or at least very little.
Inivisble, based on terrain, etc. In a field during a blizzard, yes, you would be invisible, but in broad daylight, probably not =).
You will still be able to manage groups on your own, and re group units, But lower units shouldnt be able to go off on thier own without the guidance of a leader. The end result should be that you have as much control as you might need, without having to micro-manage =).
Z.
Did I authorize any of this? :grins:
It sounds good guys, but according to the game plan I've had from the beginning (Jorj and I), only those units such as mountables (horses, and to a lesser extent dragons) will wander - the rest will stay their post. However, a tiny bit of wandering will be done, unless Stand Ground is their order.
No No No. "Go off on thier own" means that you can TELL a unit to go off on its own(as in, you tell it to go somewhere). They wont wander off ("Now, wheres that mage?!").
Z.
Another one of these mis-comms ;)
Very good.
We have officially upgraded to DirectX 8.1 =).
Z.
I have also stablized and expanded the package system. Solved a memory deletion error, as well as added true file deletion. Before, it removed the file, and shifted the remaining data backwards, but didint remove the data from the end of the file. This would throw off further file additions. This is fixed. Also, I have completed the Packager application. If anyone wants it, I can post it here.
Z.
Can i have a play with it Zaei ?
Sure thing. It is pretty self explainitory. I dont think that there are any bugs, but if you find any, let me know. Also, dont try to add really big files... It will attempt to read the entire file into memory, all at once. If anyone wants this functionality, I can add it.
Z.
Well, the scroll bar is jsut about (if not already) finished. You can scroll correctly with either the thumb or buttons. You can also click and hold a button down, and it scrolls.
Check out the packager! And when is the web site going to be back?
Z.
It's not working, and chances are the new site may be finished by the time it's up again!
Sounds good to me =).
Z.
Well, I have textured the scroll bar, and it looks beautiful! The thumb is a nice 3d gold thing, the background is the same used by the titlebar, except i rotated it sideways. The arrows are just that, they look like regular windows arrows.
Z.
Cool
Well, I just ran the program. It ran for 2828 ticks. It spit out an 8.57 meg abbreviated log file. The full HTML file spit out by the log viewer was a whopping 37.7 megs =). I think I am going to implement log recycling (ill just restart at the beginning of the file after each 1000 ticks or so) =).
Z.
PS: my comp is still feeling the effects of trying to get IE to load the html log. Gotta restart =).
Hehe =)
Well, maybe you could create a logsim for ToW, where it would playback a LOG file.
Probably will. Just like HL Movies =).
Z.
This log thing is getting crazy man ! I think you need to have one to do with engine or setup which has like the startup initializing routines logged out. Then have a second log which contains like the last 1000 ish ticks like you said. Then another log for shutdown.
Well, I re optimized DScript tonight, and the final results are:
Pure C++: 871 ms
Visual Basic: 8102 ms
DScript: 4667 ms
Thats only about 5.3 times slower then C++, which is quite a bit faster then VB =). I feel so proud!
Z.
You should be, Zaei!
Go Zaei. Go Zaei.
Though i think it should be able to run a bit faster.....
... NOT ! hehe
THATS GOOD WORK MAN :D:D:D:D:D
Good Stuff! Anyways, I once again wish I could help with the programming, but I think I'm hopeless at C++. Oh well.
Also Igor, I've been looking hard for anohter modeller for you to work with, the trouble is finding someone that'll work for free. I'm going to see if they have forums at 3DCafe.
Well, I have a DisplayBox skeleton up and running, with Line Border, and scroll bar. The scroll bar is still giving me a bit of trouble, so I am debugging that, and then I can implement the actual Display Box scrolling.
Z.
Oh, Sas, dont worry about the programming =). Iev got that pretty much down =P.
Z.
Okay, if you say so! ;)
I'm making a little intro movie for Times of War, you might call it a Trailer right now. It's being made in Flash, and it can end up as a MOV, AVI, or MPG. It's really your call in what you want to implement.
Igor, I need some music for the trailer. If you've heard the Chrono Cross intro that's too much =D, if you've heard the Resident Evil 3 trailer that's kind of what I'm looking for. Could you create an ~30 to 45 second music clip that builds in the end, and ends abruptly?
Sorry I havent posted yet... Ive looked at the posts about 10 times already, and then sort of forgot to post.
Sounds good, Sas, the trailer thing. Whatever you want to throw in there, I can probably do in the fial game. Get creative!
I am still working on the Scroll Bar, but it is almost done. I broke the thumb, and have to fix that. Then I finish the display box =).
Z.