Rise of Nations and SWGB2

[Sithmaster_821]

If you take away borders, simwiz will have a hissy fit:D

 

1. Yeah, but they wont understand like half the ages if you keep them. And more Ages just means longer games and more impeded gameplay. I'd take the game with less ages any day

2. Agreed

3. I think that they shouldnt be called cities, but bases. And many other RTS's are doing this (and have been long before RoN), but AoM had the best idea yet (you improve a rundown neutral tc/commad center into your own, adding to pop and defense)

 

1. Gameplay>Realism. Strafing? Not in RTS's

2. This one reeks of imbalance

3. I agree here (although I think that the idea isn't a smartr one in general it would work well in SWGB2 if there were like 10 "extra" resources. Kinda like Relics in AoM. Concerning your more is better statement, see first point

[Admiral Vostok]

Actually Sith, I wasn't saying more is better, I was saying more is more appealling to buyers. If you have two virtually identical games, most people who don't care about the Star Wars name will go for the one with more Ages and Unique Resources. And we should NOT keep the same amount of ages for a Star Wars RoN.

 

And as for Aircraft strafing - are you kidding? They worked well in Empire Earth and other games. Having aircraft stay still to attack was one of the biggest complaints about SWGB1, if I remember correctly. A Star Wars game definitely needs it to emulate the movement and action of the aircraft in the movies.

 

Your base instead of city isn't a bad idea. I can see how that would work.

 

How do relics in AoM work?

[Darth Windu]

corran - thank you for validating my claim about you being an arse. You are saying 'well field officers for GB2 would work really well' - did you even read the RoN stuff??? They will include Generals, who have multiple special abilities such as forced march and ambush.

 

Also, why would you want AoM? It is almost nothing like AoK and would be a terrible GB2 engine. Also, you say 'well GB has aircraft, armour' etc, but do they work right? No. When was the last time you say at At-At do a 180 in one second? Or a Tie Fighter and X-wing stay perfectly still and fire at each other? This is because AoK wasnt designed to use those sorts of units, RoN is designed to use them.

 

luke - same goes for you!!!!!! RoN has been designed so that you can play a full game in under one hour, much faster than any of the AoE series.

[Crazy_dog no.3]

1) So why not reduce the ages to 4 or 5 and make them tech levels becuase ages is inapropriete.

 

2) Borders could and should be taken away.

 

3) Not very many, actually. The only RTS's I know with such features are Black And White and AoM.

Cities should be called bases, problem solved.

 

4) How else are u gonna build Imperial Palace, Senate Hall and Otoh Gunga High Tower?!

 

5) It's basically a graphical change. They're really killing each other normally. Nothing much to affect gameplay, and will shut up all those who wanted to see strafing fighters.

 

6) -

7) -

[CorranSec]

1. I personally don't think Ages (as such) should be in GB2. I'd prefer a kind of tech tree, with tech levels being important transition points, but not the center of the game like they are in the Ages.

2. The presence of borders (and thus nations) is one of the main things that defines RoN, and seeing as people don't like them, it's clear that RoN is inappropriate.

3. What you build in-game, with buildings that make units, buildings that research and all that- that's a base. Having something like settlements renamed "bases" just doesn't make sense.

4. Strafing would be a really wonderful improvement. I've been screaming for it since I got GB1.

5. Resources should most definitely be used up. It only makes sense, and also makes for far more interesting gameplay (rather than just sitting around picking at the same berry bush all game, you have to explore for resources).

6. A few extra 'minor' resources might work, but I'd rather stick with around 3 or 4 resources. I'm not quite sure what you're meaning by relics, Sith... you'd pick up a bag of Tibanna gas and stick it in a temple?

7. I don't think Monuments (or Wonders, or whatever) should be included (or at least, not made so important). Crazy_dog actually provided a good reason: it doesn't make sense to be building the Imperial Palace, the Senate Hall and the Otoh Gunga High Tower in-game. Of course, they'd still be available in the scenario editor.

 

Windu:

I read what you said about generals, and I know a little about RoN generals. Frankly, I prefer the ideas that we've come up with. It's simple.

At least AoM is the same type of game as AoK and GB1. You haven't given any reasons why it would be a terrible GB2 engine.

Your ideas of 'working right' are rather limited ones. There's much more to a good game than having big units turn slowly and air units dogfight. Although those are both good features, they don't make (or break) the game.

[Crazy_dog no.3]

1) Here it seems to be a matter of preference. I prefer tech levels, as there has to be something preventing the Rebels from building A-Wings early on.

 

2) How many times do I have to say?! Aargh! BORDERS COULD AND SHOULD BE TAKEN AWAY!!!!

 

3) That would make a lot of cities bases.

 

4) -

 

5) If u pick at one bush all day in RoN, towards the end of the game u can only build like 2 troopers.

 

6) Yes there should be minor resources like Tibanna gas, Naboo Plasma, Spice, etc. besides generic food, ore, and so on Check out the resource spage .

 

7) But I want to build!!! If in an RTS I see something that can't be built, then I get annoyed.

[lukeiamyourdad]

1) Tech lvls prevent rushes better then tech trees.

 

2)Of Course

 

3)I prefer the trading neutral city idea.

 

4)Of course that's great! It's one of the main thing in all of SW!

 

5)That would be stupid

 

6)I would like to have more ressources but what are they gonna be for?

 

7)Well it shouldn't that importan and anyway I never build a monument, it sucks to win that way.

[Crazy_dog no.3]

Special resources increase gathering rate for some other resources, and give a bonus of some sort.

 

Example (copy-pasted):

Peacocks:

+15 Wealth Gather Rate

+10 Food Gather Rate

+20% to population limit

[lukeiamyourdad]

well how can the gathering of only one ressource do all that?

[Sithmaster_821]

^Ditto. How can peacocks make everyone gain wealth and food faster, as well as add to the pop? Are people living in their feathers?

[CorranSec]

1. The A-Wing will still take a while to become available, because of the tech tree. And tech levels will still be present, they just won't be as important.

2. Okay. Therefore, nations are taken away. Therefore, the whole attrition thing is taken away. Therefore, "Conquer the World" is taken away. Wow- all the things that RoN is about! Doesn't that just show that RoN is a bad choice?

3. Yeah, the 'trading town' is way better.

4. Yup.

5. Good. Therefore, having unlimited resources is a bad idea. Go back to normal resources that can be used up. It's far better.

6. They all seem rather foolish to me. So much for realism:

"Oh! Sir! We have found a special, unique resource!"

"What is it?"

"Peacocks!!!"

"..... uh..... rightio then. Um... do we eat them or something?"

"Nossir! We put them somewhere, and they make us do things better!"

"Um... like what?"

"Well, they let us build more soldiers!"

"Peacocks let us build more soldiers?"

"Yup! Isn't RoN amazinly realistic?"

These make you focus more heavily on the economical side, tipping the balance away from the perfect 50/50. Also, they don't make sense and are bad for gameplay.

7. Um. Well. Poor you. Every game has heaps of things that you can't build. Are you disappointed that you can't build Jabba's Palace as a Naboo training center?

[Sithmaster_821]

^Ditto. How can peacocks make everyone gain wealth and food faster, as well as add to the pop? Are people living in their feathers?

luke - same goes for you!!!!!! RoN has been designed so that you can play a full game in under one hour, much faster than any of the AoE series.

When I saw this, I almost broke out laughing. The average Age game lasts about 45 minutes. The average RoN game lasts well over an hour, but there is a feature (called "History in a Lunch Hour") that shortens it to barely under an hour. How do they do that? By speeding up the game (ala Turbo from AoK).

 

Tech Levels are nessassacry in order ot stop the two minute game thing of Warcraft and all.

 

How do relics in AoM work?

Like they do in SWGB, but instead of getting an influx of gold (there is one that does that though) they give certain bonuses like the "Eye of Horus"adds to tc pop and the "Blanket of Empress Zoe" protects buildings from seige. Like I said, it's like the things in RoN, but less time consuming and more realistic.

 

An engine based around AoM would be just as bad

[CorranSec]

One thing, Sith- in AoM, the Relics are picked up by Heroes. Who would pick them up in GB2?

[Crazy_dog no.3]

Originally posted by lukeiamyourdad

well how can the gathering of only one ressource do all that?

 

I dunno, but the point is u can add special resources like Naboo plasma, Spice and Tibbana gas.

 

CorranSec-

1) I give up. It's impossible to convert some.

2) No, just the borders and attrition taken away. This only means u can lay more effective sieges and [unfortunately] build in opponent's territory.

3) I would agree there should be neutral trading towns, but u make it seem u don't want to build ur own bases at all.

4) -

5/6) *sigh* Special resources are found like only in 1 place in a map. U can build anything without special resources. SPECIAL RESOURCES ARE NOT NORMAL RESOURCES! There is not like a separate bar for them like there is for standard resources.

I won't start on unlimited resources becuase here again it seems a matter of preference.

6) See top half of post, under quote.

7) As a matter of fact I am dissappointed that I can't build Jabba's palace as a wonder.

Not so far as to build terrain ( ) but it annoys me.

[CorranSec]

"I dunno, but the point is u can add special resources like Naboo plasma, Spice and Tibbana gas."

 

........ and? I'm still waiting for an argument as to why in the Empire we should have these bizarre resources.

 

1. Rightio then.

2. Now, let's take the nations away. Next, we'll take the game away. Okay?

3. Of course I want to build a base! But I want to actually build a base like you build a base in GB or AoM. Not to plonk down cities, or capture settlements.

4. Mmkay.

5. I already knew that. You've provided no argument as to why in the Empire we should have these bizarre resources. Let's just not have them. Okay?

6. It's not just a matter of preference, it's me trying to make a good game.

7. *sigh*

[Crazy_dog no.3]

1)-

2) WE TAKE BORDERS AWAY BUT NOT NATIONS! IT'LL BE LIKE ORIGINAL GB!

3) I prefer multiple bases. It would be far more comfortable to have multiple bases. Yes, ur forces would be far more spread out, but u said before to my comment about intelligent workers: " Now they really don't want u to think"

4) -

5) Why does the Empire mine for Spice in Kessel? U're the EU expert, u tell me.

6) Well, in order to get grenade troops u don't process some food and green crystal.

7) *sigh*

[CorranSec]

1. Okey-day.

2. Original GB didn't have nations, or cities, or any of that.

3. That forces people to expand, and we want people to be able to do what they want. I mean, sure, you have to go and find resources, but you shouldn't have to go and build a new base in some isolated corner of the map.

4. Woop de do.

5. They mine for spice in order to sell it or to use it. Do you know what the spice on Kessel does? It's called glitterstim, and it's highly sought after because it gives you a temporary burst of telepathic power. Mm. I'm sure that's going to go well in a game....

"We've found a resource lying on the ground!"

"What does it do?"

"It makes us telepathic!"

"Uh."

Isn't RoN-GB2 realistic?

6. No. You feed them food, and buy their stuff with the nova.

7. *groan* *smack head into wall*

[Admiral Vostok]

1. I agree with Corran that we should use a tech tree. It should be much more complicated than a Blizzard style Tech Tree, so it will take a while to rush with a unit deep in the tree.

 

2. The problem is *can* you take out the borders in the engine? See the word "Nations" is in the title, I assume it is an important part and the effort it would be to take it out could be better spent on an original engine.

 

3. From what I understand about cities in RoN, they could easily be renmaed "bases" and it would make sense. But there should also be neutral "bases" that are trading towns.

 

4. Nuff said

 

5. Well resources probably work fine the way they are. I don't have many complaints about the way they currently work.

 

6. I think unique resources are good, but I admit some of the benefits you get from them in RoN don't make sense. You could easily make them relevant to Star Wars. For example:

Plasma

cost of shield generators is -10%

research time is at -5%

 

And it doesn't make much sense to just garrison relic-like unique resources. You need to build a mining building on it (like gas in StarCraft) but workers don't need to mine it.

 

Alternatively instead of having nove, which has nothing to do with Star Wars, you have to mine a resource unique to the terrain (like plasma, spice, gas) that is instantly converted into money, representing you selling it. So that would only require a graphical change to have nova-equivalent to be different on different terrains (like carbon is at the moment).

 

7. No you should not build important landmarks. Your force does not represent your civilisation as a whole (like your nation does), but only a small part of the armed forces of your civilisation. That is why Naboo can defeat the Empire, it isn't "everything the Naboo has" against "everything the Empire has", it is just a subset. So your government back home is in charge of building important monuments, not you.

[CorranSec]

1. At least I have one supporter.

2. That's what I've been trying to say...

3. But the whole "cities" thing is another essential thing about RoN (the whole epic-scale thing), and I think they should be removed. But I like trading towns.

4. Yessiree.

5. Mm-hmm.

6. Sure, they could be changed to make sense, but that doesn't make me want them.

From what I can see, you wouldn't be garrisoning actual resources. You'd be garrisoning..... something else. I'm not sure what.

I like that 'different nova for each map' idea. However, I'd prefer it if nova was changed to "Credits."

7. Hah, take that, crazy_dog!

[Admiral Vostok]

I like that 'different nova for each map' idea. However, I'd prefer it if nova was changed to "Credits."

Yeah I didn't mean you would mine other resources and get "Nova" to spend. You would mine other resources (which look like spice or plasma or something else depending on what map you are on) and get credits by returning them to base. At the moment, nova is used in place of credits because it doesn't make sense to mine credits out of the ground.

 

If this approach was taken I would also not support unique resources, as the resources would just be represented by this "credit increasing resource"

 

Also, in a related issue, Ore should not be bright purple, it should appear more like metal ore in the ground, like the iron ore in Empire Earth.

 

Well I've gone off topic a bit so:

 

RoN is still a better choice for a SW engine than AoM. While AoM might be a great game, I fail to see how ANYTHING in the game would fit the Star Wars universe. At least some RoN things work.

[CorranSec]

Okay, I agree with the credits and ore stuff. But I heartily disagree with your assessment of RoN.

 

You said that RoN would make a good SW engine. Although it wouldn't (considering that it's tailored for real-world, has nations not planets, and all that), it might make a good source of inspiration for a Star Wars epic-scale game. However, it's not even worthy of inspiration for GB2, which is by no means an epic-scale game, or going to be near RoN in anything epic-scale-ish.

Name me a few RoN things that work that could not be easily modified in AoM/do work in SW. LOS? Bah. Petty. Other petty stuff? Bah. Petty. Any of the main features of RoN (nations, borders, cities)? Come on... it's designed for real-world nations, not Star Wars planets. MOO 3 would be a better choice.

 

But anyway, AoM could be modified the same way as AoE was modified. Gods? Call them "philosophies," or "emperors," or "military leaders," or something. God powers? Call them Force powers. Favour? Credits. And so forth.

I mean, at least it's the same type of game. RoN could never be GB2. It could be SW:RoP (Star Wars: Rise of Planets) or some such, but never GB2.

[Admiral Vostok]

I never said RoN would be a good engine for SWGB2. I said it would be better than AoM. And I stand by that statement. It might be a different scale but I think it might be a more suitable scale for a Star Wars game. It just seems like a greater task to manipulate AoM to our needs than it does to manipulate RoN.

 

So what other advantages does AoM provide apart from being the same scale?

[Crazy_dog no.3]

Originally posted by CorranSec

1. At least I have one supporter.

2. That's what I've been trying to say...

3. But the whole "cities" thing is another essential thing about RoN (the whole epic-scale thing), and I think they should be removed. But I like trading towns.

4. Yessiree.

5. Mm-hmm.

6. Sure, they could be changed to make sense, but that doesn't make me want them.

From what I can see, you wouldn't be garrisoning actual resources. You'd be garrisoning..... something else. I'm not sure what.

I like that 'different nova for each map' idea. However, I'd prefer it if nova was changed to "Credits."

7. Hah, take that, crazy_dog!

 

1) The Civ series had a tech tree. That meant u could build tanks while ur people haven't discovered how to read or write.

 

2) By taking borders away, u can build ur bases in opponent's territory.

Who cares if it's an important part of the game?! Everything else is still there.

 

3) Vostok said it.

 

4) -

 

5/6) " "

 

7) Fine.

U like the "skirmish" scale, I like the "war" scale.

[lukeiamyourdad]

It doesn't make much sense to have a "war scale" game in an hour......

 

It all depends of how the tech tree is made....like in StarCraft for example, you needed to build the more basic buildings before you could even think about building a BattleCruiser. It worked with them but I fear it will heavily encourage rushes...

[Admiral Vostok]

Well I think either a tech tree or a tech level approach could work. But here's a variation on the tech level idea that I quite like (I'm not sure if another game already does a similar idea):

Your available technology is not dependent on what Tech Level your research has brought you to, it is dependent upon the size and therefore military significance of your base. The technology available to you is made available by the leaders of your civ who deem you a significant enough commander to weild better technology. Instead of Tech Level 1, Tech Level 2, etc. you start as Outpost, then progress to Station, then Installation and finally Command Base (or something along those lines). To be allowed to progress, you not only need a certain amount of resources, you need a certain size to your army. For example, to progress from Outpost to Station you need at least 10% of the pop cap worth of military units. So in a 100 pop cap game you need 10 military units. This way you need to actually have an existing army before higher technologies are gifted to you.

 

This really belongs in the SWGB2 thread proper, but since it was being discussed here I put it here.

 

Crazy Dog, I don't "care" if borders are taken away, I'm saying it is such an major foundation for the workings of RoN I'm not sure it is programmatically possible for the developers to remove it without having to re-write a major foundation for the engine. If they are going to do that they might as well write an original engine.