McCracken76

Very awesome! But I'd like to have some idea of how the design tools actually work, specifically when it comes to doing the visual representation of the units. When I make a 'demon steed' model, do I have to use a third party tool like 3DS Max (just giving out an example) or will it be like GC II and Spore where the models are all built in and it's just a matter of connecting the pieces together as I or any other user sees fit?

Well, with general weapons and such I'd say it would be a 'now or never' type set up. Either you pack it up and take it back to your city or it's a lost resource. For 'sweet lewt' drops like Hero items or Dragons bits, then I'd say it should be up for grabs for an alloted amount of turns. Eventually it'll go away, but if the conquerer should choose not to take advantage of what's been dropped then other players should be given a chance to do so. Assuming there's even a system like thi

[quote who="Tamren" reply="14" id="1938344"] Quoting Frogboy, reply 2Until you've built up your charisma/diplomacy skills, best to stay the heck away from a dragon. After 30 odd years of negotiations.... "Very well manling, you words sway me. I shall consider your offer of alliance. But first you must do for me a single task." "What do you require ancient one?" "Find me a girlfriend" [/quote] "That's right, Norgoth, Terror

Right Tamren, like I said, I agree with you.

[quote who="StoweMobile" reply="14" id="1938239"]To go back to my second question, does anyone know about the heroes. I'm hoping players will be able to create their own heroes that can appear in the game...though I imagine with dread as Im sure at least once I'll go into battle and see that the enemy has recruited an awesome hero that I've created....NOOOO[/quote] Well, take solace in the fact that it hasn't been confirmed either way. A hero creation option would be kinda cool though

My only hesitation to PBEM is what do you do for the real time tactical battles? I'd hate to think you'd have to sacrifice controlling your own troops in favor of auto-resolving everything.

I agree with Tamren that logistics should be involved with collecting the spoils of war, but the level of logistics involved should depend on what the spoils are. For example if you strip your dead opponents of weapons for whatever reason (maybe they have better materials to make weapons out of or some special technique was used in their making) then it should require a caravan to gather them up and bring them back to your nearest city. I figure this would work just like requisitioning a unit

[quote who="Polistes" reply="8" id="1936484"]Even better would be if you could PLAy as the Dragons, you know like a seperate faction with its own views on the world and politics. Though I like the idea of coverting Dragons to your cause and giving them essance.[/quote] That's when modding comes into play my friend.

[quote who="StoweMobile" reply="5" id="1936399"]At the same time though, having those units be SOOOO rare (and most likly, irreplaceable) will end up making people too afraid of loosing that unit that they don't use it that much. It would seem like having just one or two extra-ordinary units will make them not that effective in large battles...thats just my opinion.[/quote] You raise a valid point, however to counter that I'd imagine Stardock would make those units so powerfu

[quote who="StoweMobile" reply="1" id="1936375"]Im curious to see if they will play like the other heroes you can hire. If so, in atleast one game I play I want to have a dragon that i've channeled alot of my essence into and make him like...a super dragon or something like that. Who needs an army when you can have a dragon of god like power[/quote] I'm not sure if you could channel any of your essence into a dragon, then again I'm just basing that off the notion that dragons are goin

Getting a magical creature in your army is a rare but big deal. I really like that concept. As Annatar mentioned earlier, it was pretty lame in HOMM when you sent a dragon out to fight and it died you could be like 'Aw shoot. Well, lemmie just go raise another ten . That'll teach 'em.' It should be a huge deal to get a dragon or 'Guardian Wolf' to join up with your forces. That way you could create hypoth

Alright, I think we're starting to understand one another better here, xthetenth and I see what you're saying and I didn't mean to sound like I wasn't supporting the idea of modifiers and tactics. What I was trying to say though is all things aside, RPS is a good base to a combat system. Earlier I mentioned the concept of trying to re-invent the wheel and by that I meant trying to create an entirely new combat system. By having RPS and the idea of both hard and soft counters, Stardoc

I think people are misunderstanding what I meant when I said I was pro-RPS as far as making the game fun without being overly complicated. I'm not trying to say 'Bah! Spears vs Horses yields Spears win everytime!1' but what I am trying to say is that this battle system (like every single other battle system employed in RTS and 4x games...) revolves around a system of hard and soft counters. Now this doesn't mean that the game should ignore every single aspect of the battle to yield the same r

[quote who="Vandenburg" reply="13" id="1935001"] While a screenshot in motion is somehow impossible to do, there's one of the battle view (but isn't linked in the screenshot section, had to hunt it down by google):[/quote] Thanks! I hadn't seen that screenshot yet and by 'in motion' I meant the shot was taken during a battle is all [e digicons]^_^[/e] . And looking at it, I think it's an interesting choice to take (at least, what it looks like...) the HOMM battle system and make

I'm with the dissenting opinion here. Whenever I have the option to allow Governors to manage cities/colonies/planets/deli shops for me, I always turn it off. I'd much rather take the time to micromanage everything myself than to have one of my key cities not producing what I need it too because I'm only limited to generic build queues like 'military' or 'civil' or 'whole wheat'. Gah! No one wants a whole wheat pastrami sandwich!

Hm, before I can comment, I'd like to see a screenshot or two of the battle system in motion. Perhaps what Stardock has developed thus far lends itself much better to real-time battles (when two armies on the TB world map meet) a la Shogun TW?

[quote who="lwarmonger" reply="22" id="1934132"]It doesn't need to be complex, it just needs to be more complex than "pikemen beat cavalry every time." Things like terrain, unit orientation, weather, and possibly formation need to be taken into account.[/quote] Hm, I think I've heard this before... [quote who="McCracken76" reply="21" id="1934116"] Now TBS' add in other elements like terrain and battle conditions but all these systems are still based around R-P-S.[/q

Well Tamren, I don't think keith meant it this to be done on so small a scale as horseshoes [e digicons]:grin:[/e] but you do bring up a valid point; it can easily become overly complicated if taken to some extreme. Which is why I was thinking that multiple materials would be use for real high end stuff of uber-awesomness.

[quote who="Sammual" reply="1" id="1933680"] So you would like the ability to treat allied / Neutral cities as resource locations? Build a recruitment center next to the city and you have population caravans going to your cities. That would rock. Sammual[/quote] Yeah, I think that's what was being hinted at, but all this expanded talk of vassalage sounds pretty awesome too. Though I wonder if vassalage will work differently depending upon your faction's

[quote who="lwarmonger" reply="19" id="1934080"]This thread is quite interesting from a learning standpoint, however I think in order to be intuitive things have to be dumbed down a bit more... that being said, I can't understand why anyone would want a rock-paper-scissors model in a Turn Based Strategy game.[/quote] You do realize that a lot of TBS games use a rock-paper-scissors model. Units are designed to have hard and soft counters against one another. The

This may come off as a heresey but I'm not too terribly wild about the whole 'layering' of worlds. I say this because it's been done and when it is done, it can be hit and miss. What I would like to see though would be specific areas where you could go underground, but not have tunnels dominate the entire planet (anyone every thought about how unstable cities would be if there was only a thing crust supporting them over a network of giant caverns? [e digicons]>_>[/e] ) So, l

I'd almost like to see a sort of 'Eras' set up like in Dominions. For instance, the early eras could be really heavy in magic and have lots of ancient beasts and non-human races running around while the later eras would see a decrease in both and a heavier focus on technology. Just a personal preference really. [e digicons]^_^[/e]

[quote who="Frogboy" reply="16" id="1933358"]I don't want to give too much away but consider this: Remember how if you want knights you need horses. Horses are a resource in the game that you have to harvest. They have to be more than just in yor territory, your town has to build out and put a stable on the horse resource. That gives your civilization access to horses. There are other animals in the world other than horses. There are lots of different resources in

I agree with Gorgon about too much detail. After all, there's a reason why the 'rock-paper-scissors' mechanic has been a staple of most strategy games for decades; it's simple. Players can understand that polearms are more effective against calvary than they would be in close quarters combat against infantry. Don't get me wrong, I love all this discussion about very precise, realistic combat models that would take into account all the ways a weapon could be used and the exact advantag

[quote who="Infidel" reply="21" id="1933250"]very interesting and I am hoping more can be added on in future expansions?[/quote] Possibly, though with the emphasis on a modding community, Stardock may not feel the need to focus on developing any 'new' factions (unless they're developing a new aspect of the game that a new faction could be used to introduce).