[Abandoned] Research & Conquer

[yeti_c]

Alongside the update can we have the "classic shapes" style layout of the map back too so that we can discuss Gameplay easier?

C.

[natty dread]

How about this: winning objective = hold either a doomsday device or 2/3 of the territories, not including research?

This way you could win either by research or conquest...

[captainwalrus]

How about this: winning objective = hold either a doomsday device or 2/3 of the territories, not including research?

This way you could win either by research or conquest...

Not possible. There is not yet any way to program this as an objective, unless you specify which two thirds.

[yeti_c]

How about this: winning objective = hold either a doomsday device or 2/3 of the territories, not including research?

This way you could win either by research or conquest...

Not possible. There is not yet any way to program this as an objective, unless you specify which two thirds.

Spot on - Continents aren't available in Objectives...

You could specify 4 of the 6 capitals or something (you'd have to code each combination up though - like the old school method!)

C.

[natty dread]

Then how did Third crusade make the Vatican or Granada objective?

Hmm, nvm, I took a look at the XML... apparently you can specify multiple different objectives, while any of them will win you the game.

So technically, unless there's a limit to the number of objectives it would be possible but it would probably make the XML seriously HUGE.

[yeti_c]

Then how did Third crusade make the Vatican or Granada objective?

Hmm, nvm, I took a look at the XML... apparently you can specify multiple different objectives, while any of them will win you the game.

So technically, unless there's a limit to the number of objectives it would be possible but it would probably make the XML seriously HUGE.

Yes - and that's bad - if we remember what Conquerman used to be like.

C.

[natty dread]

Then how about an objective to hold either a doomsday device or all homelands?

[Rakio]

If we are talking about winning objectives,
Is the technology discussion over?
The techs that are on the map, are the final ones?

Great map and idea!

[reptile]

wow... that is a lot of territories

[00iCon]

Just wondering
It appears really obvious that the territory on which the yellow player starts should be yellow rather than orange, yet no one commnted on this.

[natty dread]

Just wondering
It appears really obvious that the territory on which the yellow player starts should be yellow rather than orange, yet no one commnted on this.

There's no way to make it so that yellow player always starts on certain territory, etc. The starting points will be distributed randomly.

I think they're just using the army number colours as examples.

[yeti_c]

Alongside the update can we have the "classic shapes" style layout of the map back too so that we can discuss Gameplay easier?

C.

[Commander9]

I really love the whole idea and the map looks awesome (even though I didn't quite understood everything). Keep up the good work and I'll be waiting to see it in further stages of Map Foundry.

[ksirnoob]

First an apology - I haven't read the entire thread before replying, so sorry if someone else has already said this - just flame me as a n00b.

You suggested that spies can't work in the tech tree. Why not have "areas" in the boxes at the edge with one-way borders to map territories? An army in the "spy on green" box will border green's territories and see their armies !

It may not fit with the development of this map, but it ought to work.

[yeti_c]

Alongside the update can we have the "classic shapes" style layout of the map back too so that we can discuss Gameplay easier?

C.

[Rakio]

First an apology - I haven't read the entire thread before replying, so sorry if someone else has already said this - just flame me as a n00b.

You suggested that spies can't work in the tech tree. Why not have "areas" in the boxes at the edge with one-way borders to map territories? An army in the "spy on green" box will border green's territories and see their armies !

It may not fit with the development of this map, but it ought to work.

It wont purely be a spy any longer.
But it could work if it fit with everything else.
Otherwise it might be a bit overpowered to have a terr that can attack any other terr in a zone.

[ksirnoob]

First an apology - I haven't read the entire thread before replying, so sorry if someone else has already said this - just flame me as a n00b.

You suggested that spies can't work in the tech tree. Why not have "areas" in the boxes at the edge with one-way borders to map territories? An army in the "spy on green" box will border green's territories and see their armies !

It may not fit with the development of this map, but it ought to work.

It wont purely be a spy any longer.
But it could work if it fit with everything else.
Otherwise it might be a bit overpowered to have a terr that can attack any other terr in a zone.

I agree, not just a spy. It becomes a saboteur as well. Also it's tied to the terr it spies on, not the player it spies for, unless you created one space for each combination, which seems excessive. So I imagine a 1-way link from some research space in each player's tree to each of the spy spaces. The player's could then fight to control the spies.
As you say, probably overpowered & would distort the gameplay.

[Rakio]

One way to balance the spy feature you are talking about would be to make the terr a killer neutral with high number of troops. So it would cost you to get that view and a chance to attack.

[-=- Tanarri -=-]

It's really cool to see this idea be done. I've had an idea for a space version of this ever since my uncle first showed me Conquer Club a couple years ago. I hadn't known anyone was doing anything like this

I do like the idea of the research objective, though it will likely need to be rather high in order for it to work.

In regards to the Spy FoW feature being discussed, I think it may work if it were a killer neutral, maybe somewhere around 10 or so that could only bombard and if it were only spying on one nationality. Not sure how it would work from a map design point of view though, as I think it would be too broken if all players could attack the same spot.

There would also be a question of whether to include the neutral territories around the nationality as well so that a player could see any part of the map they wanted to, depending on which nationality they spied on.

As far as the advanced techs go, I think it would be nice to see them implemented.

Keep up the awesome work... I'm really looking forward to playing this map

[-=- Tanarri -=-]

I've noticed the thread get stalled over the last couple weeks, so thought I'd come up with a few more comments in hopes of getting the discussions under way again. Here it goes...

On the first post it says 'Special advanced techs only border pre-requisite tech', but don't
the advanced techs border TSFs? Or are there going to be two types of advanced techs? One
based on basic techs and then 'special' ones like Doomsday?

The Research Boost tech doesn't seem to be present on current map? Or is this what the
TSF's are? Both autodeploying 10 seems to be pretty high if doomsday is being kept at 99.
Perhaps 5 would be better?

How are the nationalities determined? If by who owns which laboratory, then could you knock out a player's nationality simply by taking out their lab?

The Spy FoW that I had commented on earlier, on second thought, I don't think it would work out very well because there's too many things to work through and being able to bombard anywhere on the map would be too much.

Regarding the regular 'spies' that had been discussed, part of me thinks it would be
interesting to have a feature like that, because it would force people to protect their
technologies. The other part of me thinks that it would be better if once you had a tech,
you could reliably keep it without having to worry about protecting anything more than your
capital. I think that if the spies do get implemented, the research costs should be
lowered, whereas if they aren't, the research costs should be higher. Also, if the spies
are implemented, then perhaps making them killer neutrals would help prevent everyone from losing their techs all of the time, since it would be more expensive to bombard them
constantly.

[TaCktiX]

I'm somewhat back, and I'm disappointed that with exception to yeti_c's wanting of a wire version (I'll see what I can do in the next couple of days), no one has picked up on most of my major bullet point concerns. I'll comment on spies and some of the other comments later (time concerns presently), but if anyone could at least address with a "yea" or "nay", I'd appreciate it.

[-=- Tanarri -=-]

I'm somewhat back, and I'm disappointed that with exception to yeti_c's wanting of a wire version (I'll see what I can do in the next couple of days), no one has picked up on most of my major bullet point concerns. I'll comment on spies and some of the other comments later (time concerns presently), but if anyone could at least address with a "yea" or "nay", I'd appreciate it.

Yay! Some activity here... been hoping to get some discussion going to help the map continue for I think nearly a month.

Could you repost your concerns and I'll be happy to comment on them

[yeti_c]

I'm somewhat back, and I'm disappointed that with exception to yeti_c's wanting of a wire version (I'll see what I can do in the next couple of days), no one has picked up on most of my major bullet point concerns. I'll comment on spies and some of the other comments later (time concerns presently), but if anyone could at least address with a "yea" or "nay", I'd appreciate it.

2 reasons why

a) so that we can see the gameplay easier...
b) so that we can check your graphics to gameplay conversion...

Remember which forum we are in?!

C.

[natty dread]

Gameplay Notes:
A: We need hard numbers for researches. Keep in mind that Laboratory autodeploy is +3 and TSF autodeploy is +10. Due to space concerns, Doomsday Device will likely cap out at 99 (though this is NOT a required thing if gameplay demands otherwise).

I think if you move the special researches a bit farther apart (you have plenty of room to do this) you can fit 888:s in them and put a bigger number for the doomsday device. If you get a +10 autodeploy for TSF, and counting deployments in, 99 armies is nowhere near enough. The game would be over in 10 turns.

I'd say, make the doomsday device at least 200 neutrals.
The first special research, which gives +6 bonus, should have something like 20 neutrals.
The second one could have 50 neutrals.

As for the regular researches... I'm not sure about the neutral values, but IMO mining should be moved up a notch. There are lots of mines in the game, it'd be nice to have them in play a bit earlier.

B: I decided to go with a large number of territories and consequently, amount of Conquer in the map. Is this too much? Do I need to scale back the number of territories? I aimed for the most possible so that I can drop down to a smaller number, knowing the maxium. See Graphics Notes B and C.

I think the number of territories is fine. Put 888:s in them if you want to know for sure.

C: Should neutral countries grant a bonus for holding them? If so, what? Keep in mind that there are 3-6 territories in each neutral country, so the bonus should scale for number of territories in the country (splitting the 6's into 3's is certainly possible). See Graphics Note D for where this information would go.

No I don't think so. There are already mines in neutral countries, and if you agree with my suggestion of moving the mine research up so you can get it earlier, the mines will give plenty of bonus for neutral countries.

[TaCktiX]

I think if you move the special researches a bit farther apart (you have plenty of room to do this) you can fit 888:s in them and put a bigger number for the doomsday device. If you get a +10 autodeploy for TSF, and counting deployments in, 99 armies is nowhere near enough. The game would be over in 10 turns.

I'd say, make the doomsday device at least 200 neutrals.
The first special research, which gives +6 bonus, should have something like 20 neutrals.
The second one could have 50 neutrals.

Will do, a simple fix for certain about the 888's, I'll try to make some notes about provisional neutral counts as well.

No I don't think so. There are already mines in neutral countries, and if you agree with my suggestion of moving the mine research up so you can get it earlier, the mines will give plenty of bonus for neutral countries.

Gotcha. However, there is no order of precedence whatsoever for researches, except the line between Basic and Advanced researches. So if you want to ignore the first few researches and stack out Mining immediately, you can do that. I think the legend indicates that.

On the first post it says 'Special advanced techs only border pre-requisite tech', but don't
the advanced techs border TSFs? Or are there going to be two types of advanced techs? One
based on basic techs and then 'special' ones like Doomsday?

The gameplay direction has changed a little since the last version, it no longer works that way. Ditto for the comments underneath this quote.

How are the nationalities determined? If by who owns which laboratory, then could you knock out a player's nationality simply by taking out their lab?

Everyone starts with a laboratory and a capital, roughly corresponding from bottom left to bottom right on the map for starting positions and left to right on the laboratories. The legend in the bottom right explains the attack relationship between capitals, laboratories, and Top Secret Facilities.

a) so that we can see the gameplay easier...
b) so that we can check your graphics to gameplay conversion...

Yeti, you silly, pay attention to what I wrote. I'll do it, I just don't have the means or time to accomplish it right this second.