MrFlibble wrote:It's logical to only include up-to-date screenshots at the game website, that's why I suggested a separate gallery. Additionally, version comparison a la Wesnoth also helps illustrate how the project develops, creating a sense of progress for the (prospective) players.
If I allow myself to get carried away a bit, I think I'd appreciate a more complex resource/economy system in the Grand Strategy mode. I've always thought that the abstract "resource" of Civilization type games somewhat limited the ways they could be played, and moved away from a more realistic approach. A game where you realistically acquire resources and use them to create weapons, fortify defences and expand trade would have a lot of depth, although of course it would probably make the learning phase more extensive.
I very much agree. The plan is in fact to add more resources eventually, and allow manufacturing out of raw materials. The addition of workers to the grand strategy mode is a prelude to that, as they would be needed for industrial production. Instead of lumber being gathered automatically from logging lodges, the player could instead have to first gather timber, and then process it into lumber. Grain could be (optionally) processed into bread, which would make it give 2 food per unit instead of 1 food per unit. Other things that are planned for the grand strategy mode is infrastructure building (so the player would need to have roads in place instead of being able to gather resources in a province right off the bat), as well as the addition of rivers (which could serve both as a way to transport goods and increase farm output in the tiles they run through). Many rivers are actually already set up for the Earth map, but they are disabled from appearing in the game since the art for them hasn't been made yet.
There's one thing in the way many strategy games handles resources that I think could be changed/experimented with, and that is fixed resource requirements. For example, the game says you need 600 stone to build a castle (AoE 2), and that's it. Either you have this amount and build it, or not at all. However, it is pretty far from how real life works. Suppose the relationship between the player's needs and resources was inverted. Instead of having a linear "if you want a castle, you need 600 stone", there could be a branching selection of different solutions to fill the functional niche of a castle, each requiring different resources.
In a typical strategy game setting, there's a linear dependency between resource cost and combat efficiency of units and defensive structures. The palisade wall in AoE 2 is extremely cheap, but it also offers only a fraction of protection compared to the stone wall. Whereas in real life a wooden wall would offer quite adequate protection against infantry, and would probably be only significantly weaker against siege machinery/artillery. If a similar relationship were implemented in a strategy game, that would give the player more opportunities in situations where not every resource is affordable, and also introduce variable strategies to go with in each scenario. For example, if you have wooden walls which are generally OK but weak against siege machines, you need an extra counter against siege machinery if the enemy uses them.
That sounds interesting. It could be implemented by having palisades which have (relatively) high armor, but a special vulnerability to siege weapons.
Different solutions using different resources is a good idea, although increasing the quantity of buildings would increase the quantity of art necessary for the game, slowing down the development of other parts of it.
This could also help create regional varieties of tribes/nations/civilizations depending on the resources available to them. Continuing the same example, if stone is scarce in a territory it is generally not reasonable to expect the inhabitants to build stone fortifications (unless of course they import stone or acquire another territory with a quarry). However this does not mean that they will not build any fortifications at all. The same goes for food production and even combat skills: supposedly a people who live off hunting should be generally better archers, and plains dwellers are better at horsemanship etc.
I think that this kind of environment determination could work quite well as an alternative to pre-defined perks or stats boosts that individual civilizations get on an arbitrary basis like in AoE games.
I agree, it is better than predetermined bonuses, although predetermined bonuses can also have their place in conjunction to that to add flavor and differentiate the factions. If you have, say, horse resource tiles (horse ranches) which produce horses, which would then be necessary to make cavalry units. If those horse ranches appear only on plains, then a faction owning provinces with many plains is more likely to have greater horse production. So researching a cavalry-related upgrade would make more sense for them, further strengthening their relationship with horsemanship when they do so. Meanwhile, a tribe which lives on mountains could not have easy access to horses, and thus end up going a different path.