Okay here's a LONG post which contain Chadz information leaks and responses to questions if you can't be bothered to look over the previous 30 pages of Q/A like me.
Everyone can create his own faction - if he survives
- All castles, towns and villages from native can be owned and are unique.
- This means that if you own a castle and defend it - it will be the same castle everytime you defend it.
- They all produce men and gold.
- Men in armies are respawn tickets.
- When two armies fight, the players will use those respawn tickets.
- Players and mercenaries will use their own XP during fights
Yet to be decided:
- They will use their own gear, or you have to buy gear for each battle (probably 2nd)
There will be a very strong focus on mercenaries - you can offer your services to the AI (when defending an "empty" location) or other factions. You will get payed for doing so. As battles will be rather large (up to 40 vs 40), no faction will fight without mercenaries.
In fact, it will probably turn to a race for "who pays the most for the best mercenary".
There will be no bots in the fights - if a faction attacks a village, the AI will buy as many mercenaries as possible with the funds the village has.
Also, what I'd like to do eventually (not in the first version, though)
- Locations produce goods
- Other locations produce weapons out of those goods.
- You need to trade for goods, trade for weapons, or buy them
- You have to send caravans across the map - caravans you can raid
- To fight, you need weapons. If you cant produce them, you have to buy them.
- During a fight, those goods are consumed.
- I have an army of 2000 soldiers, and I attack a castle. Therefore, I will buy about 2000 swords, 1500 shields, 500 bows, 1000 stacks of arrows. It would be easier to produce them in one of my towns, though.
- After the battle the winner can loot the battlefield for those items.
Well, for the downside - it will not be fancy graphical stuff. It will be very rudimentary, like the crpg website style
Kind of like warbands version of dwarf fortress.
everything you do on the website will influence the upcoming battles directly, though.
No personal scenes.
As for spying, it's upto your diplomacy - if you can convince a faction to join them, you can pass on infos about caravan routes to rob or armies. You could probably also sell those infos to other factions for hard cash.
Diplomacy will hopefully play a large part in Strategus.
In short, it's native singleplayer - just multiplayer. You can decide for yourself if you want to create your own army, if you want a kingdom, or just be a pawn in the game and follow orders.
You move armies around the website, and can give order to attack. The army sizes of both sides are then locked, and you have exactly 24 hours to prepare for the battle, hire mercenaries, buy weapons, etc. After 24h, those who registered to play will be given the pass for a server, that will pop up for the correct time.
You then join, get autoassigned to your team, and after a phase of waiting, the battle starts.
"So do you use your cRPG characters in this campaign, or are there special characters you have to level up particularly in Strategus?"
Current chars. I hope I can combine them reasonable.
Also, IRC has just started the pre-alpha test phase.
Well it's not really as if they were different games - you can keep playing cRPG normally, and level your char there. If you want to play Strategus too, you will still need a good char to get hired by factions. So you have to level in normal cRPG.
Of course, playing in a Strategus battle gives you extra XP and gold - more than a normal cRPG battle.
In the end, it might be somewhat similar to the old Lords of the Realm game, just a bit more complex. I just hope that it turns into a complex strategy game, so the website part is not just there as a kind of alibi, but actually fun.
That's why I think every village should have a unique touch somehow. Cut woods in Nemeja, mine ore Tshibtin. Transport those goods to Uxhal for production of pikes. Raid a caravan with leather for armor production. Invade an enemy village because you want their source of charcoal. Trade finished goods with other cities. Screw em over during the trade. Stuff like that.
Think production cycles, think trade routes, think epic wars lasting 30 minutes, think conspiracy, think drama. I am aiming for a living world, not just a two dimensional war organiser.
Edit: if you think that's too much for you, fair enough. You can also simply play as a mercenary and try to get hired for every battle. Or as a soldier for a faction. It's up to you how far you want to sink into the game.
there are about 200 unoccupied locations on the map.
A bit of extra info (stuff that came to my mind while coding).
- There will be no armies on the map, but all is done by heroes (aka players).
- Heroes can be assigned troops.
- The speed of the heroes depends on the players agi, plus the amount of troops he is having with him.
- Therefore, it's faster to send out 10 players with 100 men each, rather than 1 player with 1000 men.
- All heroes can recruit soldiers at all villages (free and owned ones). You have to be in the area of the village to do so.
- If you have a faction and own fiefs, you do not have to be at the village, but can recruit them from a distance.
- Every village has a population count. Population in villages pay taxes. Recruited people obviously reduce the money you get.
- Recruiting soldiers costs initial money, as well as a periodical upkeep.
- Soldiers can be turned back into population, or set free on the map.
- You can only see heroes around your own heroes or fiefs (apart from heroes from your own faction).
- Also, information about enemy villages (like population, army, gold, etc) can only be seen with one of your own heroes in the area.
- Travelling from one end of the map to the other one with an average hero without troops takes about 30 hours.
Not in the first release:
- The hero can fight during battles with his own gear - the other players are soldiers and will use the items the heroes' party is carrying.
- Transported goods will slow down a party. Therefore, an unguarded caravan is faster than a heavily guarded one.
- Heroes of a faction can be captured and sold to (any) other faction, or freed.
- While attacking a fief, you can decide if you want to conquer it or raid it. Conquering gives you control over the fief, raiding brings you the goods of the fief.
still have to think about the prisoner stuff - if it's hardcore (you can't play strategus until you get freed) or a bit nicer (a chance to free yourself).
One extra I forgot: for every player that plays in a battle you have to pay some kind of "transfer fee" (not to the player), based on how far he is from the battle. This is both true for mercs and your own faction members.
Therefore, hiring that good merc from across the map might come in very expensive.
you will a) only be able to join with one char (per game key)
and b) cannot join a strategus battle after your "lifespan"
The idea is that the benefits from retiring (heirloom, xp bonus) should be more than the penalty (back to lvl1). I'll see how it goes, my main aim is to make a game fun for both powergamers and casual players.
xp and gold income is definately lowered after you hit "retirement age" - in return, when you retire, you get exponential more gold per retire (see the other thread ... somewhere )
i'll do that on the fly - if i see that people are actually looking forward to retire, then that's a good thing. If people don't do it, i will take action, either benefitting them for doing it, or penalizing them for not doing it
Edit: nah, i hate any sort of caps. The point of cRPG is to develop your char in whatever direction you want. And if you want to grind to levels no player has ever seen before *cough*, fair enuff.
I'll try and keep the game balanced on the way
Little update:
I said before that in the beginning people will be able to play with their own equip, and later that will be changed. But seeing that some (many ) of you are very change resistent, I'll implement an easy version of it right away. - You can buy equipment anytime, anyplace - the price for a stack of 100 is the same as for one "personal" item. (100 shirts = 3 gold, 100 Flamberges = 13.975 gold).
You can buy any amount you want, the price will be rounded up (1 shirt = 1 gold, 1 Flamberge = 140).
Only the commander of each team will spawn with his normal cRPG equipment.
One of your hired soldiers spawning with an item deducts the stock and adds it to the battle loot - after the battle the winner can loot some of those items (between 10% and 30%).
You can also sell those items back, as they slow your char down on the map.
Also, there will be no automaticall "contract" system for hired soldiers for battles - it's up to the commander to pay the guys he hired or not - on the other hand, it's up to the soldiers if they want the money in advance.
Yay for reputations
every player that wants to take part in strategus will probably own an army by himself - so everyone will be the commander every now and then.
Faction A has 6 Members and 8 fiefs - the faction decides to assign every member an equal amount of men to patrol the area around their fiefs. Whoever encounters an enemy to engage is the commander, the other 5 members will join as normal soldiers, just like a bunch of mercs the faction is hiring.
Therefore you will play with your own equipment regularly (at least I think so).
I already thought about a possibility to hire a merc together with his items, I've yet to find a proper solution for this though.
The whole economy will be based on the need for weapons. You need weapons so you can get new fiefs so you can get new weapons.
If suddenly no one would have to buy any weapons any more - why have an economy in the first place?
Maybe I will add a "trainer" after all - a way to spend money to get more XP. This would also allow a faction with more "casual" players to keep them somewhat useful in the game.
And, after all, there will still be normal cRPG, where you train your char to get hired more often. Getting more money means horses, armors, etc - stuff that is usually used to get more XP and therefore getting hired more often.
MercsHired soldiers (damn you mercs for forcing me to use another name for them) will (probably) be recruited based on player skills, char skills and reputation. Also, neutrality will play a big factor - if you are fighting against mercs, you probably won't hire a merc. This is just my assumption and how i'd go about hiring soldiers.
As for more players - having more players will definately give you an advantage. While fiefs can be owned by the faction alltogether, it's advisable to assign a fief to a commander, giving you an advantage. (can build more buildings, can get the money from the fief tax-free, otherwise you'd have to pay taxes on the money). That could also mean that he's screwing you over, though, and changing with the fief to a different faction, or going solo.
Also, more players means you have more fighters that would fight for free (if necessary), and it also means you are generally more versatile (instead of having only one big army, you can make every player have an army, which results in faster movement and faster reaction times, as you can spread them across the country.
TBH, I can't see any disadvantage with having many players in your faction.
considering that (maybe) weapons will not be buyable at all in the strategus-future (you can only produce them), this would make sense. You could produce weapons and distribute them. Or if you are in a hurry, you will pay the hired soldiers to use their own equipment. It would result in a question of finetuning, obviously.
I'd gladly implement more "money sinks"
if you apply for a "job", you can specify if you want to use the commanders equipment or your own - in case of losing the match, you lose one of the items you brought to battle. Only the toughest and bravest tick that one - and they therefore want money to compensate for the risk.
if losing equipment would be implemented, that could also lead to something else very interesting - People leaving the battlefield if it looks as if your faction is losing. Depending on how many people died already, you would have a chance not to lose anything (1000 men came to battle, after some time only 200 are left, a merc decides to run from battle, and the chance to lose equipment is therefore only 80%)
Why? you still have the option to:
- not run, lose one equipment with 100% chance, and get payed by the commander for the fight
- run early, decreasing your chance of losing your equipment, lose your reputation and not get any money
- do not get hired in the first place
- join the battle without using your own gear, and be on the save side with less reward.
There is no need for an artificial renown system - your renown is what other players know and think of you. Running once might not hurt it, but once people start saying "don't hire allers, he's always running from battles" (just an example), you have to work hard to get your reputation back up.
Quote from: Valdarr on Today at 11:22:10 AM
Than whats the deal when you only play with a weapon?
Your chance to die is quite high and than you will lose all your equipment basically. I dont know how much commanders will pay, especially when the battle is lost in the end, so you could lose everything you have in one go.
It's not about dying, it's about losing a battle. You can only lose one piece of equipment in the battle, and only if your faction loses. Either way, I am not guessing that everyone will use that - it would be a rather risky and high-payed business.
no, you will be able to define several faction leaders, all of them having the same power. But for battles, the "official" commander is the one that is attacking / got attacked. Who is doing the commands in teamspeak or teamchat, then, is of course up to each faction.
Must think about multiple commanders per team.
Quote from: Nate on Today at 08:18:27 PM
D. Perhaps heirloom items may not be lost, but only downgraded. If an heirloom item is 'chosen' as the item that would normally be lost for a retreat/loss, its statistic would be downgraded to the previous state. If the heirloom's previous state was that of a normal item, then the heirloom loses its heirloom status entirely and may be lost in a future retreat/loss.
very nice - suggestions stolen and will be implemented
Quote from: Olwen on Today at 09:43:34 PM
if you choose twice the same heirloom, will it have 2 downgrades before you can lose it ?
yes
Quote from: Valdarr on Today at 09:41:33 PM
So now i actually have to buy some stupid equipment so that my heirloom Cookie isnt downgraded when i lose some battle? =/
you are not forced to join with your equipment
Sorry for the messiness and inconsistency peeps.
