pigeonpigeon

[quote]If we are defining people by quality, then that becomes a civilian issue as well. With limited numbers of exceptional individuals, you would have to choose between using them in the civilian economy or recruiting them to fight in your military. If exceptional people provided a significant bonus to whatever civilian activity they were providing in your cities then removing them from that role and employing them in the military would remove that bonus. This would provid

[quote]Edit: Well damn, apparently I missed this thread when it was actually relevant. [e digicons]:([/e] [/quote] Don't worry, wouldn't have mattered :P Option #3 seemed to be the overwhelming player favorite, but Stardock is going with something like #4 anyways (at least for now!). Of course, Stardock has every right to do that, and probably at least as often as not, game developers would make pretty crappy games if they implemented every feature that was in high demand. It is

[quote]You make my argument for me. A large army of 'rejects' would only be inferior if exceptionals were not significantly limited in number -- which is why I propose limiting their number. Second, it's not the either-or choice you present. The "best" (most meaningful) choice should be a wise combination (defined by available resources, player preferences, racial abilities, etc.) of many troop types, obviating monolithic armies as the superior choic

[quote]It's behind a Somebody-Else's-Problem field.[/quote] If I could wish for one thing (besides the ability to stop/slow time - imagine, I'd have time to do all my work and still have time to sleep!), it would be a Somebody-Else's-Problem field.

[quote]First -- what's wrong with that? It adds choices which is good game design. Second, it doesn't force anything as you can freely choose to only use a certain unit(s). It may put you at some disadvantage to do so as you'd be deliberately restricting yourself, but tactics/strategies may even the field. Let's assume exceptional units take special buildings and/or special training and/or special resources and/or longer time. Will you go with no troops while y

[quote]Why not? I don't get it...Example: X unit has 1000HP, 10 DEF, 1 ATT, no magical dmg type/resistances/immunities.[/quote] Well, in a different portion of my post I said he'd be a really tough creature with a very powerful but very slow attack. If he only had 1 ATK, then he would hardly ever deal any damage at all to anything except units with very low defense. And he'd be completely worthless against any unit with 10+ DEF. Although... if HP also affect

[quote]Yes there is no logic, I have even posted examples showing that I'm not the only one thinking this.[/quote] I have already admitted that elementals are a particularly messy exception to the general rule. You made no comment on my example of a lava-dwelling salamander, for example, and I suspect it's because refuting that such a creature should be resistant to fire effects would be an exercise in futility... And regarding earth spells and such - quite frank

[quote]Sure, we can assume a lightening bolt is undodgeable and would kill a trained unit with the same ease as an untrained unit. But it should be the effect of one specific spell amongst a host of other spells that are influenced by a units level, otherwise you end up with less variety in spell selection. Otherwise we're back to forfeiting good game mechanics because "it just kinda rubbed me funny that X could do something like Y instead of Z..."[/quote]

[quote]Hey man, I'm right there with you, but units with more than one hit points generally makes for a more interesting combat system. If you can believe that characters in your roleplaying game can be hit with a swarm of meteors and survive, it's not a long stretch to apply it to other individuals as well in a strategy game. And what's more, if you assume that a hero can have many, many hitpoints, why can't a soldier have at least more than 1? [/quote] Whoa

[quote] The more you have to suspend your disbelief or ignore dangling inconsistencies, the harder it is to get engrossed.[/quote] I'm not sure modeling the transition of population growth switching over from consolidation of wandering peoples from the wilds to birth rates is worth it though. It would be complicated and pretty confusing. How would it happen? When would it happen? Is there a finite # of people in the wilds, and will birth rate become more important once there are

[quote]I don't think those are that hard to do. Ignite and poison for example are just debuffs (or negative abilities) that last for a certain amount of time and do something. They're really not much more complicated then other abilities would be.[/quote] That wasn't my point... My point was that a water elemental should be immune to ignite. Nothing you do is going to cause my water elemental to burst into flames, unless you pour oil on it and then light it on fire... Th

Oh I sooo agree. There is nothing in the world as frustrating as infocards in combat especially (but sometimes elsewhere as well) that you cannot keep on screen. If you want to compare two units, having to go back and forth trying to memorize which had what is an exercise in frustration!

[quote]Well, this is the same problem that we have with almost every role playing game ever created. If a bullet hits you in real life, it doesn't matter how experienced you are, you won't be fighting very hard for very much longer. But being able to suspend our disbelief or assume that, in a fantasy world, wounds aren't handled in the same way, adds to the total diversity of combat and unit possibilities. I've played pen and paper role playing games long enough to accept th

[quote]And besides, living in a city with a lot of prestige doesn't generally make you more fertile or virile. Having extra food, sanitation, and medicine do (or magic spells.) If we are expected not to wonder about these things, there's really no reason to have a backstory at all, because it is the duty of the backstory to give context and believability to the game.[/quote] Well, you could think of it as if your prestige is low enough, many people will leave you

Weird system. I suppose it could work, though... One question: if I want to make a unit or mod in a creature within the context of this combat system, is it possible to make a big, lumbering unit that is very hard to kill, but attacks very slowly? Basically, a unit that can take an immense amount of damage but not deal out very much damage? If HP is directly tied to the rate at which units kill other units, it doesn't seem like that would be possible. Although I suppose if its

[quote]Yes. You're in left field. You are making assumptions about the battle system that simply don't reflect the game.[/quote] So hitpoints represent more than just how many times a player can be stabbed through before dying? Will my level 3 swordsman's higher hitpoints allow him to cut down his opponent faster than a level 3 swordsman might've been able to do? Will my level 3 swordsman be able to survive a lightning bolt that would kill his level 1 counterpart? I ho

I think that'd be pretty good. It's a step up from the currently planned system for sure, and if it also includes resource storing then it'd be great!

[quote]Ouch, so am I correct in assuming that this means a spearman--- having seen 1000 victorious battles and slain 1000 other spearmen--- would have tons of hitpoints but still only have 1 attack and 1 defense unless he is upgraded with better weapons? It seems a bit counter to one's intuition. Being a wiser fighter means you are more fluent with technique and tactics, meaning you can act better against a sword being swung against you as well as swing your sword better agai

[quote]Baldur's Gate...? So I can click my unit to move, but it will only happen if the next turn has come? So if I cast a spell but no before the actual turn (a little after it started), than I will start casting the spell in the NEXT turn? Confusing system, I have to say.[/quote] Yes, I'm not sure how it'll translate into this sort of combat... It's a wait-and-see thing I suppose! One clarification is that in Baldur's gate you could pause the game (or not pause it) mid-turn

[quote]I don't think so. The problem with that equality is that even if those armies were equal in cost, in general most combat systems produce the result that high level units can walk over masses of low level ones without worrying because low level ones can't even damage them (or do very reduced damage). That happens in HoMM for example where Dragons do a lot of extra damage to peasants and get a lot of less damage in return from them because of difference in Attack and Defense st

[quote]Did you ever played any P&P RPGs? There is a load of ideas to amke damage types without having a trillion resis against anything. A Water Elemental is simply immune to Water and Ice spells. Poison spells are more effective against units that are already weakend (% to resist = % of remaining health +- modifiers as per spell). Fire spells have an inherent chance of ingniting targets and / or environment. Lightning effects have a chance to stun and / or ignore metal armor.

[quote]How will 17% air magic resistance counter “teleport enemy” spell? In the same way as 17% general magic resistance – it just wont.[/quote] It could always reduce the maximum teleportation distance. Resistances can reduce the effectiveness of spells. If a spell does damage, resistance would reduce the damage done. If a spell slows, resistance would reduce how much the target is slowed. If a spell does something like teleport, the range would be red

[quote]5 --> 12 --> 21 --> 32 etc... is an exponential serial.[/quote] No it's not. It's just N*(5+N-1), where N is the number of cities. It's not an arithmetic sequence, but nor is it exponential... That said, I agree with you. If every city you build results in every one of your resources producing more per turn, then spamming cities will be the way to go. If you have enough resources it will be worth building cities in random, crappy spaces as long as you have the

Oo that's really cool. It'll help make units feel more "our own" too, allowing us to give them backgrounds/poses that we imagine being relevant! I never thought about being able to customize the graphics in this manner making them more recognizable to us because we designed them (at least, it'll make our own troops easily recognizable, not sure about the AI or other human players). Very sneaky.

[quote]To me that sounds like i shouldnt care about resistance, because i will never know which element i will encounter in the next battle. And since it is so expensive and hard to come by i better should invest in more troops or better weapons then in resis. So, in my reasoning Resistence is useless to care about.[/quote] You'll never know which element(s) you'll be facing in your next battles? That's pretty short-sighted. One of the points of strategy games is, you know, to prepare