>>>This is just bringing the project up to speed. Ben posted all this in the "Project RTS" thread in the "Active Projects" forum. If you want to read about the story and stuff, go to the writers' forums. This is just the basic skeleton for this forum.
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The game's an RTS (real time strategy), there are three primary teams: bugs, dragonoids, and humaoids. It's based in a kind of cratter where a chunk of meteor hit the planet and awaked the dragonoids from within the planet's crust, caused the bugs to form one really big colony, and the humanoids to become curios and launch explorations into the cratter. something inside of the meteor chunk has caused the cratter to be alive with vegitation and new mystical creature (centaurs, werewolves, vampires, ect.). The mystical creatures are thus far called "convincibles" because they can be convinced to aid a player's (or computer's) team in skirmishes and missions.
Each team has it's own story built around a central plot. However, the Bugs group has two seperate sub-groups, each with its own story at the start. These two groups are the two land-based colony bugs, Ants and Termites.
The ants and termites do eventially come together, but only after a civil war of sorts. They first go through a series of "diplomatic" scenarios of getting larger bugs on their side.
Out of the three, the bugs have the cheapest, most quicky produced, and weakest units. They're basically for swarming. The dragonoids have the strongest and most costly units, but the slowest unit production. The humanoids are somwhere inbetween, I haven't really given them much thought.
The landscape is mostly forested with hills and mountains, I originally pictured the whole thing taking place in a massive crater where almost everything is downhill, with clifflike protrutions around , and a lake in the basin fed by streams that have erupted from the sides.
The unit advancement is similar to that of Final Fantasy Tactics, where a certain unit must advance to a certain level in one class before it can become stronger (example: sqires have to get to lvl2 to become a Night or Archer, the Night needs to be lvl2 to become a Monk which needs to be lvl4 to become a geomancer, ect.). The diference being that the player gets way more units so we'll have a bar to the side that tells the player how many can be advanced and a button will be next to it for the player to select all those ready for training. Also I don't think we'll have near as many job classes (maybe 7 or 8 total instead of FFT's 20-some), but we could just plan make it REALLY complex and have an available 20 classes with selectable special abilities for each the can be set to be used a certain percnt of the time.
Menus:
Title Screen/Main Menu:
Single Player Mode-
Campaign
Skirmish
Single Player Options
Multiplayer Mode-
Join Game
Create/Host Game
Multiplayer Options
Archives
Music/Sounds-
Increase/Decrease Master Volume
Increase/Decrease Music Volume
Increase/Decrease Sound Volume
Import Music>
Bring Music From Computer into the game and assign it when to play
Play Settings~
Conflict-when player engages in a skirmish
Peace-When nothing else is going on
Repeat-repeats designated playlist without regard to what's going on in game
Campaign and Map editor
Game Tips
In game options Menu:
Quit/Leave/Retire Current Game/Round
Sound/Music options-
Master Volume Control
Music Volume Control
Sounds Volume Control
Activate Play list
Game Options-
Scroll Speed
Game Speed
Key Assignments
Exit Program
Units:
Humanoids, Dragonoids/Lizardmen, and Goblin/Orcs produce a multipurpose unit from their Starting garrison/Command Center. This unit is an unarmed, basically trained soldier; he can gather resources or be sent to an armory to be equipped with weapons and armor, then a stable to receive a mount.
Mounts are whatever creature the player or A.I. has on hand; this can range greatly:
Humans-
Horses
Lions
Bears
Llamas
Whatever else they can capture and/or breed
Goblins-
trolls
Anything they capture and don't eat
Dragonoids-
Dragons/Drakes
Whatever they capture and don't eat
Capturing and breeding open the doors for capturing bugs, trolls, and dragons and breeding chimeras and the like.
Bugs don't get mounts. They also cannot get armor except in a to-be-explained circumstance.
Other units are to come (feel free to suggest something)
Base construction: Give players the option of selecting a type of build they would like to have and letting the computer build it for them or they can micromanage. Also give players the ability to tell the computer how many of a type of unit they want and let the computer produce them. Also, players will be able to build castles/fortresses by building structure close together and attaching them with certain defensive structure. Castles can be built stand alone, between, against, and inside mountains, in valleys, along crater walls, or even underground. This means that players get to storm castles.
When storming a castle one must first get inside, this can be achieved by employing one of several methods. The invader may construct various siege weapons to pound away at the gates and walls, but may consider the lengthy approach of starving the castle inhabitants to death. Beware of counter siege weapons. Once an invader has managed to get inside of a castle, the camera follows the units into the castle and a new window opens on the screen to show what's going on in the rest of the world. The new screen may be scrolled with use if onscreen buttons or assigned keys, and the two screens are interchangeable with the click of a button.
Group assignments and unit commands: Pretty much like any other rts game the player can set units into groups, but expand its potential allow for specific or general group instructions.
Instructions? Ever wished in an rts you could have a group/squad of one type of unit attack the front lines to draw out the defense and send another just outside range to attack the undefended base without having to go back and forth between the two groups? This is that. Give a unit or group movement orders and then set radial waypoints so the unit or group will avoid a certain area of map or terrain.
Special modes: Co-op (A.K.A. teams) and Underling mode.
Co-op is teaming up with another player or an AI. As a team, players can request resources, construct team castles, and equip allies with armor. For example, it would be to no avail for a human to give armor to another human, their stuff's all the same, but say if a goblin and bug were teamed, the goblin could equip the bug units with armor. So picture a two-ton rhinoceros beetle charging the gates of your castle. Got It? Now picture a two-ton rhinoceros beetle with an iron plated horn. Now picture said iron platted horn bristling with spikes. Got that one? Now picture three, two ton rhinoceros beetles with an iron plated horns bristling with spikes charging your castle gates and pulling a siege tower full of goblins and trolls and crawling with 500 pound spiders and 100 pound fire ants.
Underling mode is similar to co-op mode, but instead of allies you have AI slaves. A player’s maximum population is cut in half and underlings' max populations are cut into quarters or tenths. The player sets the underlings to operate in certain manners by giving them specific commands. These commands are as follows:
Give me your resources-Underling(s) will immediately send all of their available resources to the player and then focus its efforts on resource gathering, sending resources to the player in specified increments. The underling(s) will construct only minimal offenses and moderate defenses.
Get Aggressive- Underling(s) will become militaristic, constructing moderate defenses, collecting resources as needed, and mass producing offensive units, then attack whatever enemies are on the map.
Unit Support- Underling(s) will construct minor offenses, moderate defenses, and produce units to equip the player's units with armor and weapons
Defense- Underling(s) construct all things defense, moderate offence, and may construct a castle if given enough time.
Hold- Underling(s) halt everything, construction, research, resource gathering; it's like the game was paused on them.
Go Nuts- Underling(s) start acting like a normal AI that is teamed with the player
Resources and what they're for:
Resources are used to feed your units; meaning a constant drain on food stores. Making armor, weapons, siege machines, and buildings. And paying for special units. The resources of this game are food, water, wood, ores and raw metals, and precious stones and gems. Food and water are used to maintain units; the more units a player has the bigger the drain on his food and water stores. If a player were ever to run out of food or water his units would start to lose health points. Wood is used in construction of buildings and siege machines. Ores and metals are refined and used for armor, weapons, siege machines, and some buildings. Precious metals and gems are used to pay for certain units; for example: high level dragons don't come cheap, they always want some sort of payment and have a natural obsession with all things shiny; goblin sorcerers will want payment for their services, whether they are summoning some otherworldly being, sucking a castle wall into an event horizon, or cursing a high level dragon; and human super-units always want reimbursement for every enemy they kill.
Spending the resources is easy; it's getting them that is difficult. Food can be hunted or harvested. Water can be collected from rain, streams, and ponds or lakes. Ores, raw metals, and precious metals and gems must be mined and then refined/purified. Or the player could just steal it from other players or AI's. Yes, I said "steal". Specially trained units and sneak into an enemy base and steal resources, or open castle gates, or assonate enemy units. Lots of fun.
Subject: Recap 
Tue May 15, 2007 9:07 pm
!!