An awful thread for devs and no-devs to post their awful ideas for strategy games that will never see the light of day, etc.

previous thread:
>>1909726

I don't know why or how, but last thread bump limit, so here is the sequel.

>>2032893 (OP)
> to post their awful ideas
Browser game:
At the top of the page you have a map with selectable tiles.
Under the map you have a thread / chat where you can RP your diplomacy and roll dice.
You can pick any tile and convert it to your color at any moment.
Once your "country" wins, you can request a game feature / mechanic that I will implement. Like risk threads occasionally evolved to have random stuff like nukes / forts / ships, the game will change to reflect whatever RP happens in the chat.

Don't have anything screenshot worthy. But managed to build an event system that can queue up multiple events to process, and a heavily data-driven system for player schemes and events that can be extended through editing JSON (similar to how Paradox games work) instead of having to hardcode everything. Now I'm trying to add 'features' to my POIs and I'm having a dog of a time deciding how to implement them nicely. Also, making a half-decent UI is suffering. I wish I had an artist to offload the visual design to.

I keep on deving.

>>2032899
Man, your description makes me wish there was a board where you could embed small programs as part of the OP. Actually I guess that's just /f/ but flash is archaic... I don't even know if there's any modern equivalent to flash. I wonder if there's even much demand for something similar in the modern internet.

>>2033012
Enterprise demand for collaborative tools with small in-browser/in-document programs exists. I myself try to build a platform that could be used this way, but my focus is also on enterprise.
In fact I'm thinking of creating this evolving game I've described to test that my platform indeed works and makes quick iterations easy. And to save my sanity by distracting myself with a new fun project.
I might make a board like that as well, it could be a way to acquire first customers even. But I surely won't make it anonymous.

>>2033012
>I don't even know if there's any modern equivalent to flash
It's called WebGL.
Unity can export to it. Dunno if another engine does.

As mentioned in another thread.
I actually want attempt making a 2d rts with EVE online elements (market simulation, pilots being spies/pricks etc).
Focusing on the aiplayers/bots.
At the moment I'm simply just trying to get "mining ships" to go to and from asteroids to a trade station, next step I guess is to make map of systems that are linked and then I'll have to figure out how to ensure the aiplayers can figure out they need to go to xyz system via abc pathing.

>>2034152
No it's not, WebGL is akin to OpenGL. You're thinking of WASM, it basically lets you compile desktop C programs (among others) with minimal changes into something that can be hosted by a website and then executed directly by your browser.
And the big difference is that Flash was a full suite for making games while WASM is very low level, you have to rely on disjointed external programs like Unity that more-or-less support this (young) technology if you want something with batteries included.

Ultimate Arm Chair General
Similar feel as Tropico

You play as a general in an RTS campaign similar to how the old C&C games are. You're fighting a globe spanning war and you're on the losing side. Defeat is imminent. However, you have a chance to "liberate" a lot of the country's material wealth for yourself, broker backroom deals with other commanders, or even set yourself up to become the next ruler of the country after the previous administration is deposed when the war is finally lost.

The goal is to use diplomacy to paint your setbacks and losses in such a way to make you look better and pin any other failures on other generals. Losing the war is inevitable; all you can do is attempt to gently glide down instead of crash land. Bettering your position is at odds with actually winning battles, so if you want to start setting yourself up for a postwar life, you'd better get really good at deflecting your failures on someone else.

There's several endings to the game based on how you do. You can acquire and sell off a lot of your country's stockpiles to the highest bidder on the black market, padding your bank account as a retirement fund after you desert. You can cut a deal with the invading forces to give them intel and collaborate, hoping that they'll set you up as leader when everything is over. Maybe you decide you just want to take down the people on your side who instigated the war in the first place. There's even a secret ending where you actually do your job and manage to actually turn the war around, but the government you serve takes credit for everything you did and you stay an unknown and poorly paid general whose role in the war was downplayed by your own people.

The entire game gives conflicting objectives that set you up for failure and you have to figure out how to twist the narrative to make things not seem so bad, or choose between taking care of yourself or sacrificing for your country who doesn't really care about you.

ravenfield + roblox game called "entrenched"
but instead of ww1 trench warfare, it's pre modern sieges like the siege of constantinople etc with active ragdoll AIs, destructible fortifications for breaching the walls, destructible terrain for the miners to dug a tunnel below the walls or dugging a ditch for defense against enemy's sally, naval battle and blockade, customizeable siege engines and ladders to scale the walls

i know how to code AND how to draw, what bothers me the most is that I still havent found an idea i would really want to make, ngmi

>>2035974
>I still havent found an idea i would really want to make
The usual way is to try to mix your two favorite games.
Or to remake game X, but with theme Y.
Or to make some cool mechanic first and building semi-randomly around it.

>>2033012
It's too dangerous today (thanks Russia and India)

>>2032893 (OP)
It sure is quiet around here.

>>2032990
That looks kickass, what’re you using for the graphics? I’m towing around with the backend for a strat game but totally lost on where to start for graphics, seems like even 2d-friendly engines like Godot are more for platforms than map-based games. I’m thinking of deving it in a TUI like Textual but it doesn’t support images (and Python is slow)

>>2040947
I'm busy making my spaghetti code AI.

>>2032893 (OP)
For me it's completely FOSS clone of Warcraft 3, you know like ROTP for moo1
https://rayfowler.itch.io/remnants-of-the-precursors.
The problem? I can't draw or code, so yeah m a no dev

>>2041143
A wacom. Every asset except music is done by me.

>>2032990
I realize this is an early version, but you'll want to go over your game's text at some point and make sure there are no mistakes. I assume you're French?

>>2041266
https://files.catbox.moe/wrwgo2.zip
Here anon.

>>2040947
I'm struggling like hell expanding my code to do more things without everything exploding into spaghetti.
So nothing new to show.

>>2041303
Here ya go.
https://files.catbox.moe/3wjf2z.zip

There were a couple of awkward sentences where I wasn't sure what you were saying so I just left them alone, like
>The deployment of the Foxnen Synchronized Clock would give access to a precision around the meter inside the Galduen-ei.
But I fixed a lot of small typos and other mistakes (mind your plurals!), translated some French words and took the liberty to rewrite a sentence or two for better flow.

>>2041303
>>2041384
Also there some stuff that's in your picture but wasn't in the text files, like Lagrangien -> Lagrangian and Objectifs -> Objectives.

>>2032893 (OP)
>making RTS with firing lanes (not out of historical autism, just to avoid the deathball effect)
>give units a mortar-style alternate firing mode, so they can lob shit (with really poor accuracy) over fortifications
>units in the back identify first firing line as obstacles, activate mortar mode
>deathball but now it's mostly ignoring cover on top of it
... don't know how I didn't foresee this.

>>2032899
I started with some tooling that'll be necessary to make rapid implementation of requested features easy, and guess what: I once again forgot about browser anti-fingerpriting features that can ruin the day.
Some pixels are randomly distorted a tiny bit, which is enough to ruin anything that relies on precise color values.
I'm glad I don't have to deal with it in my daily work, and I'm glad these features aren't present/enabled-by-default in Chrome, my potential players will not be affected so I can ignore it for now.

Finally got the first dynamism in the game. If there's an infestation of creatures they'll gradually build up and reproduce as they kill people in the town. That raises the danger level which in turn will eventually cause the ruler to step up patrols. Less diligent and compassionate rulers will take longer to act, causing the infestation to build up more before action is taken. The patrols suppress the creatures and kill some but not all of them, once the danger level is back down, the patrols will eventually go away, leaving the creatures able to build back up again. Quite happy with the more dynamic cycle this creates in the absence of external factors.

>>2042007
Seems interesting I love minimalistic games

>>2041565
cute and sexy
those old 4chan risk seshes were cool

>>2032893 (OP)
I want to make a game that's in the vein of 80-90s toy ad cartoons with good guys vs bad guys factions at war and made mostly of unique units that can't be replaced if they die, but I don't know if I should make it old x-com like or more like an SRPG style battle system or what. I do want to have nobody units on both sides but games run this problem of unit groups feeling less cool than individuals, i.e. 1 dragon is cool, a unit of 100 dragons is just a battle statistic. Ideally, other than the leaders, each unit could grow into their own individual depending on how you built them, but I feel like that would make them less unique due to player optimization instead of individual heroes.

It would basically be a set of scenarios you could choose from where each side had to achieve some goal like harvest energon from 5 different sites or take control of some ancient artifact and perform/stop a ritual or generic stuff like that. Due to the focus on unique characters, battles would be able to result in injuries and retreat instead of one side usually being wiped.

>>2042007
What's the player's role in this game?

>>2042503
To use agents/pawns to scheme and sow disorder, paving the way for the player's release and subsequent domination/destruction of the world.

>>2043094
Are you inspired by games like Shadows of forbidden dogs?

>>2043731
More like That Which Sleeps. There are a lot of things about Shadows I didn't like, and the top Discord clique were kind of assholes to me when I asked for modding help. So I'm making my own game, even if I'm the only one who's going to play it.

>>2041226
I like that style.

Never tween in or fade in clickable UI elements. You can tween or fade them out if you want (but try to make it very fast), provided they cease to be hit tested immediately, and any elements which are going to occupy their space switch to occupying that space underneath them immediately. But if a new element is showing up or entering a clickable state, it should appear instantly and be clickable instantly.

>>2044668
You will like the intro even more then
https://files.catbox.moe/q3d859.webm

>>2032893 (OP)
Made a bootleg Illidan.
It was mainly to test grafting entities to each other (the aura onto the unit) but the biggest hurdle turned to get the AI to pick the correct ability. Not sure but I managed to hit every single possible bug and edge-case on a simple "just pick the first thing on the list that is in-range and not on cooldown".

Was working on my hero AI when I realised my implementation of 'Creatures' was a little wonky and too vague to work with the system I'm making. Now the scheme places a broodmother entity that will periodically birth broodlings, adding a broodling feature that will do much the same thing as the generic 'Creatures'. Patrols can kill them off and actually clear the broodlings as a feature on their own, but the broodmother will continue to produce more until a hero goes in and kills her. I'd like to do more with this, like maybe the broodlings bring her back food and that boosts her reproductive abilities, and/or makes her more dangerous to heroes trying to find and kill her. But I probably shouldn't get any more sidetracked.

>>2042448
> those old 4chan risk seshes were cool
I want to recreate that coolness.
However, since I started this project by re-using the pieces of my previous experiments, I now have the layout that differs from what I had in mind at first. A simple chat overlayed over the map rather than a separate map + thread-like UI.
Guess that can work as well.
Now all I need to make it playable in its MVP form is to add a few buttons like "Conquer this province" and "Create a new country".
And the edge scrolling will have to go, it works well for fullscreen games but feels annoyingly janky in a browser window, I'll have to replace it with click&drag to pan.

>>2042448
>those old 4chan risk seshes were cool
I wonder if you are referring to my work, Fortune for the Princes in 2021, which itself was based on Age of Dubs threads.
Probably not.

I'm getting closer to my goal

Got my heroes doing stuff with a basic AI framework. They'll deal with threatening entities and POI features they can perceive, taking their own HP into account and spending time recovering if needed. And they can get into basic combat with the broodmother when they track her down, which they'll almost always win (although taking a lot of damage in the process). This is something else I'd like to expand on, with hero investigations into things like the Broodmother being more long-term with twists and turns the player can interfere with at the risk of losing their agent if discovered.

Huh, didn't notice this thread before. Tell me, did Gouda dev ever deliver after that year long thread?

this is CTRL+U
pretty much just a techdemo for the billions of npcs procgen at this point.

>>2051448
For some reason the colour scheme really appeals to me. Though I can kinda guess, what's the gameplay idea behind your tech demo?

>>2051512
i intend the main gameplay will be recruiting npcs to act on your behalf in the world. basically an open-world game without a player character.

The easy part is done, the game is functionally complete.
You can draw a map, you can conquer the land.
All I need to do now is to find players.

I also need to fix trivial technical issues like the lack of re-connection once WebSocket is closed.
And of course, if this thing takes off I'll have to implement whatever game mechanical requests I get.

>>2050926
>Tell me, did Gouda dev ever deliver after that year long thread?
I'm embarrassed to admit not I have not.
I have made various prototypes, but I honestly don't know where to go with development. I could put together a cookie-cutter map painter (and that's what some of the prototypes are), but what's the point?
I have been studying game development and continuously developing the setting that originated from that thread. Perhaps I'm able to collect my thoughts at some point.

>>2051659
surely you want a world map as default
discord? and or link to gsg. i wish to play this
nap time anyway

>>2051448
ui looks well done

>>2032893 (OP)
I have this autistic idea: "Road manager"
>player manages roads for a fantasy kingdom
>king gives player budget and the player has to use that money to build/maintain roads and bridges
>put on toll booths
>send people to patrol roads so they travellers don't get robbed
>if player fails to protect travellers, the people will complain and the king might reduce the budget
>patrol officers can be bribed my smugglers and if smugglers get caught later, player might face corruption charges
>occasionally, goblins start raiding certain area, and player has to hire knights to exterminate them

Implemented WebSocket reconnection, server restarts became almost unnoticeable.

>>2051815
> surely you want a world map as default
Sure, alas I couldn't find any annotated map with permissive license, so I started with these poorly-drawn islands.
Now I'm generating the world map using Natural Earth data — I still have to manually define [in-game province -> real world administrative units] mappings, and there is a lot of them to define, but at least the map-drawing part is automated with realistic borders and coastlines.
Manually drawn maps would be possible to use in custom scenarios eventually, if this feature will ever be requested.
> discord?
I'm a fossil, I didn't even consider using Discord.
I don't know how much self-shilling is tolerated on this board, so I'm not going to post the link, you can take it from the screenshot.

Are there any good video series focusing on the programming/putting all the functions together part of it? Using Unity

>>2055517
Just grab any random unity tutorial to get started, then if you have question/need search for that (or ask here).
There isn't much point getting too formal of a coding education, since vidya coding is the land of "fuck company's best practices, we are here to shit fast code".

>>2042489
unironically play Original War

>>2033012
>I don't even know if there's any modern equivalent to flash
I think these days distributing EXE's on itch io is the way most people do it, if not uploading whatever broken mess you made onto Steam as early access. Feels weird to think about how there are less choices now than there were 20 years ago.

>>2058285
export to wasm, host on itch or even on a self-rolled github page

>>2032893 (OP)
A modern day mod like GPS5 but with good war system (like HOI4 but updated to modern era) and centred in economics, with POPs and Stellaris-like character system.

>>2040947
i'm frustrated with the designs i come up with, nothing that i throw at the wall seems to stick. will rope imminently. week or two to implement a minimum demo of a mechanic and it fucking Sucks

>>2058285
>I think these days distributing EXE's on itch io is the way most people do it, if not uploading whatever broken mess you made onto Steam as early access.
That's a distribution method - any upload/download service would suffice for that. What I'm conceptualizing is a small program that can run in-browser and can be attached to posts (whether on 4chan, or any other social media site), in the same way that images and videos can be attached to posts. I will use polls as an example to explain how this could change the way we interact with websites.

Some social media websites will allow you to setup polls as part of your post. These polling systems are integrated into the website itself, and thus, both the poll creator and the poll taker are subject to the formatting and requirements of the website's specific system. Some websites might present the information poorly, or not have certain features, like multiple choice answers. However, if there was a system of the sort I described previously, where one could attach programs to posts, it would be possible for poll creators to attach a polling program to their post, and host the poll through that. While this doesn't technically stop the use of poor polling systems, it certainly allows for the use of better ones, reduces website development costs (since the website developer does not have to develop a polling system themselves), and gives users more freedom to customize their experience.

Another example: Thread games. See >>2032899 and his pic of a risk thread. These were (and still are, I would assume) played manually by editing the map in a photo editor, but much of this could be automated - perhaps a program in the OP post could auto-read the posts and then update the map accordingly. Now, there is a potential loss here - since these games weren't tied to any sort of strict program, the OP of the thread could really do anything he wanted - it can function much more like a tabletop RPG than
1/2

>>2060223
2/2
a video game, but there are theoretical solutions to this - give OP the option to halt the program, change it's functioning, or just save a picture to start manual photo editing again. Even if this turns out to be impractical for risk threads specifically, there are other uses, like a thread where users share a paint/word editing program with a single canvas/document for example.

Now there are issues with all my examples so far, and that is the data storage. They all require some form of it, so where exactly is the data for these programs being stored? Probably just on the sites themselves. These programs aren't meant to be particularly persistent, and if websites can handle users uploading images and videos, they can handle assigning a few megabytes of storage space to a program. I decided to check how big my RimWorld save file is, and at 893,490 lines of uncompressed XML, it's only 26.8MB. Storage space should not be an issue.

Of course, programs don't need to store data to transform how we interact with the internet. Personally, I am of the belief that most websites today are drastically under-utilizing the capacity of computers in regards to their ability to present content - whether entertaining or informative - to it's userbase. It remains mostly in older formats, and what innovations there are exist to transform the older formats, but to optimize them - hyperlinks to send you to different text, algorithms to show you the 'best' videos, text, and images. There are exceptions, but there is still more room for innovation. In this way, I think Flash was ahead of it's time. Many Flash 'games' back in the day were glorified animation viewers, but this was a new form of content - art, really - and a form that could only really be achieved via computers. There are potentially new ways of creating art that we are ignoring because we don't have the tools to create and share them.

I don't know how to finish this well & at 2000 chars - Adieu!

Bunch of small improvements:
- updated map-creation tooling to support offsets for port and fortress placement;
- added fortress creation and destruction buttons.
It all looks a bit janky now, I also need to add offsets to icons/glyphs, as it is now their placement visually changes when you zoom in/out.
And I need to somehow make it clear that these features only get rendered when you zoom in. Or maybe I should always render them, but then the zoomed-out entire-world view would get messy.

>>2060224
I wish this all was not as time-consuming to implement, sandboxing alone is not trivial to get right. Like, you not only have to make sure that no rogue program can't steal users' cookies, but also these embedded programs should be provided limited resources to avoid "it's just a prank bro" infinite loops and other fun stuff.

>>2060525
what's the gameplay (going to be) like

>>2060554
Just like in risk threads, there is no real gameplay — the gameplay is whatever people want to do.
RP as a great conqueror, roll your moves, paint the map, come up with new features, alter the landscape — that's what people do in risk threads.
Just instead of waiting for OP to read the thread and post an updated map you have an interactive map that you can update effortlessly.
Maybe I'll add some "real" gameplay later, maybe I'll add bots, maybe I'll turn it into a Victoria 2 clone like I originally intended years ago before realizing that I'm not a fan of opaque systems. I'll just keep adding features that come to my mind. Or maybe I'll acquire enough players to get feature requests from them.

>>2060597
sounds neat, more like TTS than a game itself. best of luck anon

i know nobody's gonna play any game i dev so i might as well make myself comfortable. gonna be programming on msdos (djgpp on gcc 12.2) because why the fuck not nobody's gonna care anyway. wish me luck

>>2054561
sounds good for a flash game or similar

>>2062191
A mobile a game?

>>2054561
>>2063430
To me this sounds like a potential evolution of tower defence games.
https://www.newgrounds.com/portal/view/587194

>>2063443
Maybe. To me, it would be a first genre that I'd call
>middle management sim

Asking for feedback on my game if some anon are caring about it.
https://bluesanddev.itch.io/galduen

Working on my Hitler RPG. Party Menu is a work in progress. I am to eventually simulate everything possible.

>>2065028
>I am to eventually simulate everything possible.
Including large amount of hostile time travelers?

>>2065369
Surprisingly yes!

>>2065002
>Asking for feedback on my game if some anon are caring about it.
I'm not into orbital autism so won't bother judging the gameplay.

However your artstyle is ... eh.
It's fine for environments, but your aliens are ugly.
Not funny ugly, not weirdly-sexy ugly, not horror-ugly, not cool-ugly. Just ugly.
Removing them completely would be an improvement, if you don't have any idea for an actual redesign.

We VR now.

got an aspie idea for a space combat sim
>engagement distances in the hundreds of thousands of kilometers
>your ship can't go faster than light except for warp, which requires extensive charging that drains from shields/weapons
>you can only see enemies when light from their ships hit you, they're actually a few seconds ahead in actuality and you have to aim for their future position
>subspace signatures can show their energy levels in real time and vague location but has an error too great for targeting anything
>your beam weapons can only travel at light speed, so you gotta lead
>once you see enemy charge their weapons, you're already fucked because that means they fired at you and you'll be hit before they're done charging (cause relativity)
>shields are dogshit that can withstand one or two beams, but not much else
>you can use torpedoes that travel FTL but they're limited and are instantly seen because timespace bs that allow for countermeasures
basically nebulous but FTL relativistic speed weapons and relativistic engagement distances. Ships flying 0.25C or 0.5C that you gotta figure how to aim while you can't see their real position because light speed is light speed

>>2066134
>aspie space combat
https://store.steampowered.com/app/476530/Children_of_a_Dead_Earth/
Not sure if it has relativistic time dilation and other wacky visual effect tho.

>>2066177
I was thinking more in the style of classic star trek/star wars but show how batshit insane those weapons are if they were depicted accurately

>>2065860
Could you pinpoint which part are ugly?

>>2066378
I'm afraid it just the overall lineart. You are at that point were you clearly aren't a beginner but it's not good yet either. And since they have pretty normal normal proportion/coloring/etc you can't hide it behind having a specific artstyle.
And those full-dark shadows make it much worse. I know some artists use that, but generally they make their entire art about the light&shadow play, not for regular scene.

Then again I'm not really an artist either, just a faggot with opinions.
Maybe one of the drawthread could help, but those tend to be either hugboxes or shitbox, rarely a useful in-between.

>>2066378
If this is the art in question I think it looks pretty charming. Though I agree that the black shadows are little too much.

>>2066384
>>2066401
The black shadow are meant to be like on the moon where the shadow are extremely harsh, it also help integrating the portrait on the mostly dark background

>>2066419
Example with the background

>>2066422
I work well for backgrounds, no issue with that.
The problem is that your characters still have the other side "lit", as if you were overdoing rim lighting or something. It look wrong and dirty.
Some of those make sense for parts that are actually saillant and thus should catch some light, but most of it shouldn't.
Pic related, 10sec in mapaint trying to show what I'm talking about.

>>2066422
I don't care what the other anon spergs, your art is nice.

>>2066134
That's something I have toyed with as well. Something like the battles in Jack Campbells The Lost Fleet book series, with huge fleets, 3D formations and complex battle orders.

>>2051448
getting closer to a new feature release by the minute

>>2054407
thanks and i'd hope so, it's gonna be the entire game so...

>>2066378
Opinions of other artists:
1:
> you know how a good grilled cheese sandwitch is much better tasting usually than a very complex dish made with undercooked and not properly seasoned ingridients? Like many beginners, your drawings are too ambitious for your skill level. It's fine as long as you're learning and having fun, but I assume you are holding yourself to a way too high of a standart, and feel bad when you can't reach it.
> Don't, just keep drawing, learn the fundies and make simple artworks when you want to feel good about yourself, and hard and complex ones when you want to learn more and get a critique to know what to improve. It's all about having right expectations, good luck!
2:
> It's a little stiff, could lean more into exaggeration and using curves, especially on the arms, ears, and tail.
(see pic)
3:
> Pose is fine and proportions as well, mostly improve the lineart with more confident lines and weight. Not a bad drawing just a little boring and that's a good step in the right direction
> Use a more dynamic pose and change curves on the limbs to break symmetry
4:
> I mean it looks ok

>>2066554
gettin closer

>>2066998
introducing CTRL+U world's one and only social media monopoly: yapper

>>2067004

Any tips for designing rules for mass combat? Abstract (not a tactical map) but I'd like something more complex and interesting than simple paradox combat or something.

>>2067704
im not a big fan of combat in games and havent played much of any combat strategy games to have a good comparison of what is and isnt played out but my first instinct for it would be to have offensive-attack-first-to-win units and defensive-get-attacked-to-win units and make their types indistinguishable hidden information so that to gain a winning advantage requires an upper layer of information warfare to figure out which units are which.

>>2067704
>more complex
Paradox's combat can get pretty complicated.
In game design, complexity is rarely correlated with being good.

>Abstract
>and interesting
Those two will directly conflict if you want to have any kind of grounding into reality.
Are you willing to go full chess or does shit still need too be vaguely tied to real combat?

>>2067704
The two main systems I'm using for inspiration are from Shadow Empire and Emperor of the Fading Suns. SE is more realistic, with combat mostly being about pushing enemy units back until you can encircle them, with casualties being relatively low without high firepower units like light tanks, artillery, or other support vehicles. You can attack a single hex with units from multiple hexes, which is a feature I like (there are bonuses for surrounds).

EFS is simpler: you attack with a stack of units and yours and the enemy stack go through combat rounds with each unit attacking an enemy unit based on some priority rules. Battles are pretty much to the death. The system is deep enough to encourage combined arms (for both games).

I don't really have any tips, except that I've come to believe that how information is displayed has a very large impact. It doesn't matter how simple or complex the system is if the UI fails to convey it in an understandable (and intuitive?) way.

>>2032893 (OP)
I have this about resource management.
>player assigns their underlings resources
>their performance is based on 50% RNG and 50% on skill
>but their skill stats are hidden
>The amount of resources assigned determines potential reward
So, the goal is to find skilled underlings by trial and error.
My only problem is that this isn't much of a game; it's just random guessing.
I guess a potential solution would be to break resources into less specific resources, like manpower, time allocation, etc. That would impact the outcome.
But I don't know, wouldn't the core gameplay still be just blind guessing?

>>2072753
This is analytics and it's what autismos like me find fun.
>wouldn't the core gameplay still be just blind guessing?
The fun begins when it stops being guessing - when you have a large enough sample size.
Let's say you get 5 minions and give them all the same assignment with the same amount of resources, if you do that enough times the RNG will even out and you will be able to discern which one of them are skilled or not. To make this a 'real' game instead of guessing you need to base it around this process happening 100s of times and not just once or twice.
And to add depth to it you need to add different kinds of situational skills: maybe this guy you think sucks doesn't actually suck, he is just a specialist in gathering desert resources and you've been sending him to the plains, that kind of stuff.

>>2072753
>RNG
Don't.

>>2066134
>>once you see enemy charge their weapons, you're already fucked because that means they fired at you and you'll be hit before they're done charging (cause relativity)
how does that even work nigga. if you're looking at the enemy and you see them charging, let's say it takes 20 seconds to charge, but the distance between you takes 30 seconds to update, yes, it would mean they've shot at you 10 seconds earlier, but it would still mean you have 20 seconds to dodge from the moment you see them starting to charge because the light from the beam would still take 20 seconds to reach you

>>2072785
Glad I'm not the only one who thinks the idea has potential.
For me, it's all about mimicking historic experience.
From Alexander to Genghis Khan to Napoleon, great men have owed their success to handpicked subjects. And finding those people came at an opportunity cost.
Either way, I'm thinking of focusing on having multiple skilled minions.
If you only find one and use him for everything, not only would you be bottlenecking yourself, but becoming reliant on him would mean you would be doing two things:
>1. you are fucked if he dies/retires
>2. he might recognize his leverage and start demanding more money, until hiring him is no longer sustainable
Another aspect would be keeping the underlings happy, they could possibly dislike other underlings and threaten to bugger off if you don't fire the other guy.

>>2072753
>>but their skill stats are hidden
... why?
What kind of fucking lord/manager/etc are you that you don't have at least a vague idea of what your underling is competent at.
If you don't want to show hard numbers just use descriptors (Dogshit/Bad/Average/Good/Godtier).

>>2073235
>And finding those people came at an opportunity cost.
Except not.
You only land in front of the local supreme ruler if someone can vouch it's a good idea to entrust you with resources.
Napoleon didn't grab a random-ass peasant and gave him troops and an objective.
Gengis didn't pick a random-ass horse every morning and pray it wouldn't be the runt of the herd.
All that stat-figuring-out job is done *before* you reach the serious part of the game - not that it's fullproof nor that fate/RNG/luck/etc can't fuck it up, but the ruler will have at least a vague idea of your talents.

>>2073601
Imagine you are a medieval king, and you have to pick a general among three nobles. How do you do it?
>none of them has ever commanded
>wargaming hasn't been invented
>there military academies
>they all tell you, they are the best
>they all have high-ranking relative who vouches for them
So, under what possible merit can you grade them from bad to good?

Also, Napoleon's grooming of the marshal absolutely did come at cost, for every marshal he found, there was probably 9 general who were given the same opporunity and fucked up.

>>2073221
No because the object is flying to you at light speed. Once you see them charging, the shot's already headed your way and it'll hit as soon as it shows they fired because it's moving at light speed.

>>2073601
> What kind of fucking lord/manager/etc are you that you don't have at least a vague idea of what your underling is competent at.
My manager can see the outcomes of my work, but:
- he generally doesn't even attempt to verify that I completed the task;
- he hardly ever asks what exactly have I been doing;
- he never looks at how I approach my work;
- he doesn't have a knowledge of real complexity of the task;
- he have no way to know if I completed the task myself or with some external help.
My manager is a competent one, I have a plenty of data points for comparison.
Until things go really, visibly bad, he won't be able to tell whether I'm a lucky master bullshitter or a solid professional.

Now imagine the same, but with a lot of logistical / communication challenges.
If I was assigned a general, and I returned claiming victory with minimal losses — is it because I'm a great general, or because the enemy had their own issues and handed victory to me? You can't tell unless you are an omniscient ruler.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Karánsebes

>>2073627
>>How do you do it?
Whichever has the highest title, unless you seriously want to upset the entire nobility.
>they are all barons
Whichever will swear to commit the biggest amount of their personal resources to it.
>they are all exactly as wealthy
Tournament.
>it's only draws
At that point it mean you are dealing with a garbage writer doing some meta-bullshit story and the competency of your generals is completely irrelevant. Just pray it's a old-style fairy tale and there will be at least some moral to your fate.

>for every marshal he found, there was probably 9 general who were given the same opporunity and fucked up.
Yes. *Generals*. People who got there because other people repeatedly judged they could handle it.
He didn't pick his marshals by throwing dice and picking among first-day recruits.

>>2073722
>You can't tell unless you are an omniscient ruler.
I'm not telling you to tell the player their IQ stats down to the twelfth decimal.
I'm telling you that Sir Fuckupalot should have at least a "diplomacy rating:poor" in his bio, and Baron Chadington should have at least a "warcrime efficiency rating:glorious" - even when the game just started.
It's fine if it's not really accurate, and it's even fine if a rare few have "public" rating completely independent of their actual value thank to luck/propaganda/exterior intervention/etc (insert special event/action when you reveal the truth).
Just that starting with everyone being complete unknown is dumb.

>>2073739
Tourney doesn't have anything to do with military command.
So, you might as well be hiring the best fighter but the worst strategist.

>>2073722
>>2073739
One compromise would be to let a character's skill at a given thing not be visible until he's performed that task for a while, or if he comes with a reputation.

If the player is expected to just infer the skill of his characters based on results and actually keep track of that shit for every character with no UI help, that's going to be tedious and unfun.

>>2073669
>flying to you at light speed
but the light of the enemy charging their weapon is also at light speed. for the beam to hit you before you see it charging it would have to travel faster than light. if everything is traveling at normal speeds then only the beam itself would have the illusion of travelling instantly, because if you're seeing the beam then it means its light has already reached you (your eyes). the surprise effect only works if you shoot nearly instantly/hide that you're charging weapons, and the object needs no further acceleration (unlike a missile), the object/bullet gets shot at near light speed from the get go

>>2074102
Why not just have win-rate?
E.g:
You selection would look like this
>Name: Bob de Bobville
>Number of battles: 3
>Win rate: ~66%
>Wage: 10 gold

>Name: Chad of Chaddington
>Number of battles: 6
>Win rate: ~83%
>Wage: 50 gold

>Name: Stacy von Stacyburg
>Number of battles: 12
>Win rate: ~58%
>Wage: 20 gold

Because Stacy has such a large sample, it is fair to assume she is at least average. Bob's sample is so small, it's hard to figure that he might be better than Chad.

>>2074102
Here's another compromise: you don't know the traits/skills of this NPC, but you can see his track record and decide if he's a good match for the job.
More assignments — more data points.

>>2074137

I'd like someone to develop a game that plays like Mount and Blade but with more focus on developing styles of battle. Some sort of Army Chief of Staff management sim where you recruit, promote, and set tactics for an army in a kingdom and try to paint the map one color. Each soldier has a few basic personality traits that dictate how they fight and you can promote any soldier you want. You only watch battles in an overhead angle and can zoom in to pick out soldiers you want to reward or punish afterwards. Winning battles grants influence which can be used to expand army capacity, encourage technological advancement, and push for war against neighboring kingdoms. I'd like it to lean heavily into medieval themes and include courts, estates, religion, and cultural differences to create a distinct starting point for each kingdom.

>>2074137
That sort of overview history was my initial idea.
But I feel that when you are dealing with dozens of characters, scrolling through all that history would get exhausting,

>>2074197
Not sold on the ability "watch battles play out", but otherwise fun idea.

A dilemma I have with map-painters is their nature of blobbing and how they get easier the more you blob. Player will eventually reach the point where they rule over most of the maps and nobody can challenge them.
Far as I'm concerned, there is only one solution:
>war of succession
It would work something like this.
>every country has two factions
>each faction has a preferred heir
>when the ruler of a country dies, a war of succession triggers between factions, if the disparity of their power is less than 50%
This would mean that in order to prevent civil war, the player has to make sure one faction is significantly stronger than the other, by showing favoritism towards one, and trying to weaken the other
When the war of succession does trigger, half the country defects to the rebels.
And if the war goes on too long, it will result in permanent partition.

>>2074268
> But I feel that when you are dealing with dozens of characters, scrolling through all that history would get exhausting,
Analyzing the track record of each character might be exhausting, but a condensed form that lets you know at a glance whether a character made too many blunders might be sufficient for non-critical tasks.

>>2074304
I can see it's visual appeal.
But I wonder how AI would read them?

>>2074329
As AI always does: using weight and biases with combinations of many IFs.
E.g. assume a book move scores +1, good = +2, inaccuracy = -1 and so on. Assume that a blank slate character has a score +5 in each category. Pick a random idle character with a score >0 in the relevant category for non-critical tasks, pick the best idle character for important tasks, fire a character if their scores drop below zero in every category.
The harder question is how to determine blunders/book/brilliant moves.
And while it's hard, it opens a potentially fun can of worms that can turn into a deep game mechanic on its own. Imagine characters self-evaluating the outcomes of their actions — a mid general claiming he made a brilliant decision when it was really a book move, but you can get the true evaluation if you waste the time of an additional character to act as an inspector/spy, or spend gold to collect testimonies of witnesses.
Or just make a simple evaluation based on some similar metric, like comparing the relative losses of each side.

>>2074088
In this specific case the fact that winning the tourney mean you are decent-ish at a specific form of fighting that won't see much use for a general is irrelevant, it's only about picking according to criteria that the non-picked vassals won't be able to legitimately complain about - best having them defect or become uncooperative does matter, especially if they will probably all suck equally at the actual task.
Historically shit never happen in a vacuum. If you are a king and need to pick someone to handle your army among people with no military experience, the choice will still be "obvious"... just driven by non-military stuff like politic or economy.

So don't make your argument for making a bad game design "it's more historical", because historically it wouldn't at all happen like that.

>>2074124
>>2074137
Both are much better than everyone starting blank.

>>2032893 (OP)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S1Eho3-5m6U

Released a small update on my game today, showcasing the population tab (piecharts, population ledger, regional edicts)

It's a Victoria 2-like, but with regional pricing for goods, transit costs, embargoes and proper protectionism; among other additions like military logistics
Setting is 1700-1815

>>2032893 (OP)
Started working movie studio manager.
Most of the actors' stats are hidden, so the player has to make their decision based on their listing.
I was thinking listing worked something like this:
>D-list no nominees
>C-list has at least one nomination
>B-list has been nominated twice
>A-list has won at least one awards

Actor nominations are done without player input, but they are impacted by it.
In essence, NPCs will save money from their roles. And once they have reached 1 mil, they will spend it on "For Your Consideration"-campaign.
The board will then select 4 actors with the highest performance score to be nominees.
And select one of them at random to be the winner.

Either way, I dunno if pic related is enought information to for the player to make strategic decision who to cast.

It was too hot to add any cool features, the only meaningful progress I could make was splitting countries into smaller provinces. I don't enjoy asset work, too bad you can't make a game without assets.
I hit a wall with Natural Earth dataset as it only shows level 1 administrative divisions. For Voltaire's nightmare I need more granular subdivisions, so I had to change the map generator — now I can use geometries from multiple datasets. Modern, historical, fantasy — whatever comes in a shapefile will work. Here I'm using geoBoundaries DEU ADM2 for Germany with everything else still using Natural Earth geometries.
I want to tinker with shaders a bit more before I start advertising the game, it doesn't look like I want yet, but I noticed that I already have at least one player.

>>2067648
post searching in
next is follower/following/viewers listings (all of which are already generated i just have to UI it)

>>2076253
>Either way, I dunno if pic related is enought information to for the player to make strategic decision who to cast.
I think that's a good start.
>>2034231
>mfw a month later I've got the most basic thing down
next step is to have trade stations store dropped off resources

Colonization/exploration game in a randomly generated world where you never see the true world map and rely on hearsay and often inaccurate medieval-style maps. It would mainly be an exercise in imperfect information, e.g. why did people think California was an island until the 1700s? why did it take so long for english and french traders to sail to china when the portuguese were doing it for 200 years?

It could be fun to try and piece together ship’s logs, different (even stolen) maps, statements by pilgrims etc (think Papers Please), before deciding whether to send a caravel to port X carrying gold or port Y carrying guns, to try and sell for spices. Is port Y 20 or 30 days away from X? which way do the winds go?

Taking world gen as a given, one could imagine a starting point as simulating the route of a travel to and from a destination with slight randomness in the path, then define everything they would see on that path (e.g. an island), add X% of the information known at the destination (he heard at port X that port Y lay 50 miles due east), add a layer of obfuscation (different island location, another island that was actually a cloud, etc) then present to the player.

Could have upgrades that reduce obfuscation like naval technology or putting translators on ships.

>>2078604
>randomly generated
Don't. Random worlds are soulless slop.

>>2078605
To me the excitement is taking risks, Columbus had no clue how big the Atlantic was, but the player will. But I agree. Perhaps a randomized new world so you still have spain-england rivalry and so on. That also means I only need to generate empty land with a few civilisations instead of the whole world including the player’s origin.

>>2078604
The main problem I see with that plan is that exploration costs need to be hella high for the incomplete information gameplay to even matter.
Otherwise player will just do the usual "send one of the cheapest shit you have into each direction and forget about them" technique.
A single expedition going down the shitter should mean a near game over if you want "Island B was 150 miles north instead of 100 miles NE" to be anything but an inconvenience so minor the player didn't even realize it happened.

>>2078604
>Papers Please
sounds more like Obra Dinn's puzzle of reconstructing information.
sounds cool but as a puzzle not in a strategy game way so i expect people here would naysay on that expectation.

>>2078605
>>2078607
Maybe a good middleground would be something like what EU4 did with a collection of handcrafted new worlds of which a random one is selected. Could even do something comparable for other regions of the map too.

>switched my main data types from AoS to SoA since a lot of sim stuff didn't need everything in the struct so there was a lot of cache missing happening
>big performance gains (shaved nearly 30% off of simulation tick time) but it's now awkward and ugly to handle the data
fug

>>2041226
Looks great. It reminds me of Deep Sky Derelicts.

>>2041565
Hey, I just had the fingerprinting problem with brave, it ruined my whole system as most of my data comes from textures.
What I did was start using a library (png.js) to load my data textures instead of relying on the browser.

>>2042007
>>2043094
That sounds amazing, I'd be willing to try that.

>>2044731
Kawaii Illidan uwu

>>2066378
My advice would be to use 3d models as a base to get used to anatomy. Also work on improving your line art, it could make a world of difference. I think the black shadows are fine imho, gives it that comics style.

>>2066422
Actually, your background art reminds of Curious Expedition 2, I really like it.

>>2074124
In my opinion this is the best solution for this particular scenario.

>>2074329
They could just see the exact stats, and add some rng for variation.

>>2077781
You should go somewhere with AC or get a fan, anon.

>>2078604
>>2079052
I would love to play this. I'll add it to my list of ideas I will probably never revisit but might check if I ever run out of projects to work on.

>>2080333
If the performance gain is worth it, do what you can to adapt. But if the difference isn't noticeable you should probably stick to what makes you comfortable.

>>2080616
>They could just see the exact stats, and add some rng for variation.
But you have to think how to analyze them

>>2044081
This is the first time I hear about That Which Sleeps, and thanks to you I have just fell into a 2 hours rabbit hole. So sad there isn't even a prototype to play, it just looks so good on the youtube videos.

>>2076253
Working plan is:
> simultaneously turn, every turn is a quarter of a year
>There are 12 AI-run movie studios named
>AI studios start operating in year 1900
>There are always total of 120 actors
>Actors can marry each other and produce nepobabies
>If there are not enought actors, new are generated
>Every quarter 10 actors are reserved for use of studio at random
>Player's 13th studio enters the game in 1920, after AI studios have been operating for 80 turns
>Which means there is plenty of data on actors, and some of studios might have gone bankrupt
>Goal of the game is to outlast the AI studios, which might take a century

>>2032893 (OP)
Here is a general question for general discussion.
The fun of map-painter comes from conquest; however, most people stop playing once they are the strongest, because there is no longer any challenge.
Therefore, the only way to prolong the fun value is to introduce setbacks like corruption, rebellions, plagues, and succession wars.
However, the reason why devs are afraid of making these setbacks meaningful is, they are afraid players will rage quit when these things occur. Because recovering from them would be difficult and not fun.
They aren't fun because there is no progression. When you conquer stuff for the first time, there is visible progress, but once you lose some of your conquest and later reclaim it, the law of diminishing returns is subsequently applied to your enjoyment.

Does anyone have a solution for this dilemma?

>>2081261
That's a flawed preposition. Those types of "setbacks" are unfun for the same reason any mechanic that exists exclusively to frustrate and stall the player is.
Being the strongest should be the player's goal and he should be happy quitting after achieving it.
Your ultimate design goal should be making that a challenge. Rebellions and whatnot should exist only as organic mechanics that the player can bilaterally interact with, not as punishment for success.

>>2081261
I long came to conclusion that grand strategy is a cursed concept.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8uE6-vIi1rQ

Power fantasy of becoming the top dog VS conquest getting harder — a problem that cannot be resolved without changing the nature of the game.
Some ways to change the game:
- replace sandbox conquest with clear objectives. You achieved X — you won, game finished, further slog impossible.
- reduce the scope of your control. E.g. instead of controlling your entire country you control only some "frontier" portion of it, essentially you play the entire game as a 5/10/whatever-province minor, while the previously conquered land becomes your "metropole". You keep expanding "your" country, you just don't get involved into its politics that much, and you get limited benefits from it so you don't get too strong.
- switch from direct control to gardening, from strategy to management sim and story generator. Imagine Rimworld, but grander.
- redefine "top dog" to make it more varied/ambiguous. Like in Civ games you have culture/religion/science/etc victory conditions, so in your strategy game you can have multiple parallel planes of "conquest". You conquer land in political map mode, but somebody else dominates the trade map, while a third player has successfully painted the religious map, and to be a true victor you need to make these parallel authorities submit to you. It's like NG+ within the same game.

>>2081261
I think that it's all about what the player came for. You could make a game about conquest, or you could make a game about managing a large empire, and each game would attract different kinds of players.

The problem with putting both concepts into a single game is that you're not appealing to both player groups, but a subset union between them (player that like BOTH conquest AND management).

I personally play HoI4 and Anno for two vastly different reasons.

>Have the basics of my my map coding done
I know there's a lot of unknowns but I think now it's a matter of fleshing out how bots interact with the map
>Trade / determining value of transport

>>2081532
I think after that the next step is some basic market and further crafting scripting.
Once that's complete I can look at making the spaceships more than just a ^ that moves from a>b>c with goods

>>2078499

>>2081261
Regarding internal conflicts, players usually find this less annoying the more there's a specific entity they can interact with. Dealing with unruly vassals in Crusader Kings is usually fun, it's an actual character or group of characters you're dealing with and you can interact with them using the game's designed mechanics (whether that be trying to assassinate a particularly annoying vassal, or civil war, whatever). Dealing with brigades fracturing in Victoria 2, or even most rebellions in Victoria 2, is not fun. There's nobody to really interact with, no rebel leaders, no rebel breakaway state (except in civil wars which players usually enjoy more), just shitty army micro or rebel army cleanup.

Try to concentrate the internal setback stuff mainly on "actors" that they player has to interact and contend with, be that rulers of substates, or just factions, but if they're factions at least make them a concrete ingame entity that the player can interact with and not just a nebulous modifier.

One of the problems in map painters is states being represented as unitary / totalitarian. IRL historically most states were either a bunch of separate states bound together by personal loyalties (feudal system), or were federations, or were nominally unitary but in practice local governors effectively ran substates (Rome & China were both like this). Try to avoid this unitary/totalitarian system. And make sure it's like this on release because as Paradox discovered with Stellaris, when they initially tried to implement sectors, players will get mad if control is taken from them, whereas they'll be less upset if they never had great control in the first place.

cont.

>>2081594
I think, and in my GSG will be implementing it such that, there's a very limited range from a capital city at which land can be governed, and beyond that you'll quickly lose control strength which will increase promotion of criminal pops. So the idea is that you CAN govern everything direct from the capital if you want, but in practice if you do this and your country isn't small, most everything you rule will barely be under your control, there won't be much rule of law, low taxes, and your pops will be upset because of banditry. What you'll want to do is hand away internal regions to local governors. Who then have control from their own capitals, thus letting them administer the land better, but they are Actors, so they have primitive decision-making and may do their own stuff like rebelling if they're unhappy. And, the further their capitals are from yours, the less control over them you have and the more lax you'll need to be.

Basically, when you're small, it'll play more direct state control, but as you expand, you'll be focused less and less on your borders & neighbours and more on the states inside your state, and your ability to expand further will decline as you get bigger - plus you'll get virtually no benefit from distant territory. You can't administer it yourself, and any vassal/substate governing it will not pay you more than a trivial pittance in taxes, and might even tangle you up in wars you don't want due to their autonomy. The main path towards power will be a combination of cultivating your core territory (through setting the correct laws & policies, and maintaining good trade access for your markets) and through maintaining hegemony over your region - which is not necessarily through conquest, but rather things like making sure your religion is dominant in the area or your language is the region's court language.

cont.

>>2081597
Last of all going back to avoiding frustration, try to prevent sudden/unexpected catastrophes, RNG, hidden undermining, etc. If the player's going to have a rebellion they should know what kind it is and when it'll happen. If this leads to them being able to prepare TOO well, then design around them being prepared. I think CK3 did their noble rebellions and such fairly well; while rebellions were annoying, they USUALLY (not always) felt reasonable and not arbitrary - but being Paradox games they still did have some RNG for timing and in some cases were nonsensical.

If you're going to have a natural disaster, even - give the player forewarning.

Same thing goes with espionage. Try not to represent it as hidden mechanics and such. It's one area where you can go abstract / gamey. If someone's doing an assassination plot on your leader for example, it should be visible and you should be able to counter it. Yes, it's unrealistic - but "hidden undermining" is so hard to balance and always feels unfair, it's why espionage systems in games are generally either useless gimmicks or rage-inducing or even both. If you'll have them at all (and you should have them as an alternative to war and as a way for smaller / weaker nations to undermine the big empires) they should be abstracted, gamey, and not hidden, with clear and concrete effects.

>>2081398
>- redefine "top dog" to make it more varied/ambiguous.
I had this idea of top dog not being the end, but a means to end.
For example, your ruler would have ambitions. Those ambitions might align with your empire, but your priority is filling them. And your empire is just a way to get those things.
Ambition could be something like building a gigantic palace, but to get funds for it, you have to conquer half the continent,and you would still go bankrupt. Your palace would be completed, but it would allow a series of revolts which might destroy your empire.

>>2081581

>>2081601
>If you're going to have a natural disaster, even - give the player forewarning.
Is that really realistic? There was no foreshadowing on Lisabon's earthquake

>>2083432
in real life, while you might not get a straight early warning system you do get experts saying "we expect a X event within the next Y years, we should prepare for that eventuality" and in those same talks leaders often get (and ignore) warnings of all types of critical infrastructure that would require extra investment to be engineered to withstand or bounce back from that event.

>>2083432
The problem with having surprise/random events like that is that players will only find them frustrating.

>>2082710
added pov feed to yapper profiles (by clicking home but in future it should be a proper login/hackin event) so that you can see their account from the perspective of being logged into it which includes a feed of their posts, posts from following accounts and posts fed to them by their algorithm.

next up is DMs.

>>2074197
>I'd like someone to develop a game that plays like Mount and Blade
I'd like something between CK and M&B.
M&B really highlights how important castles are and how expensive capturing them is.
Meanwhile in CK, siege are cheap and effortless.

>>2084667
that is really cool but those page buttons should never move while the mouse is hovering over it

>>2084667
I agree with >>2086575 about buttons moving.

Otherwise I really enjoy seeing you posting your progress, keep up the great work anon.

>>2081536
Any new screens to share? Even a WIP is fine

>>2032899
4chan risk was fun 15 years ago.

Do you people publish on the /agdg/ demo day?

Hey fellas, I am kinda new into gamedev and I have an idea on my mind (guess what, another Banished copy) I have been trying to learn this mechanic of designating X,Y areas (like farm plots, or restriction areas, etc.) with a click and drag mechanic but with no avail, do you guys have any tutorial (video or written) in how to achieve this mechanic?

If any of yall are interested in understanding how CTRL+U generates it's npcs i've been writing an explainer series of the novel technique i invented for it (this is somehow cutting edge tech despite being something that probably could have been done on an SNES) in between dev...
https://www.patreon.com/posts/lambournian-grid-133322960

>>2090066
> i've been writing an explainer series
Please re-explain it because I keep looking at that page and it just look like you found an incredibly inefficient variant of "x = rand, y = rand".

>>2090158
the problems with "x = rand, y = rand"
1) multiple could produce the same result
2) how are you inversing it? most rand(seeds) cannot inverse and the ones that do are pretty shit

the key is the process is reversible and local:
any id put through an id2pos will produce a position that can be put through the pos2id and be back where you started.
so without having anything in memory except the defined world grid and population box you can accurately get any id for any position or vice versa

there is no publicly available algorithm that does this btw and im not sure there is a private one either given every open world game i've seen forgets an npc exists if you stop following them for a minute. the closest thing i've seen is nomansky's herds of some animal npcs but that's i assume done the same way they do planet orbits.

>>2074197
This reminds me a lot of my idea.
>>2032893 (OP)
I've always wanted to see more pike and shot games, the era around 1500-1700 is pretty underrepresented. Though I can get why they aren't very popular, and how the combat could become stale once you get to pure pikes + shot and cav.

The idea I had was more of a mercenary company management game. You'd focus more on "small war" engagements, making money through spoils of war, raiding, battles etc, and keeping your force powerful. Kind of like Mount and Blade, but I want to add in a lot of small things you can get into to influence events + the outcome of battles. Large battles and sieges would be a rarer thing, but come with high risk/reward.

You'd have to balance things like pay, morale, trying to follow the contracts you're given, characters with different needs/wants etc. Maybe a lord contracts you, and expects you to show for a battle. But you learn from reports that joining the battle will make you lose a lot of trained men and cash. You might try to weasel out of it and take a hit to your reputation, just go and take the loss, or force a win.

The battle system would be somewhat like total war, but i'm not sure if I want a TW RTS or something turn-based etc. You'd also have to contend with changing times and tech leading you to change your force composition and tactics. Early game would be late medieval combat with firearms, mid-game would be proper pike and shot, and late-game would introduce early line infantry etc. No tech trees, just "soft" factors that influence what works and what doesn't. Like cannons and muskets becoming lighter/cheaper, allowing you to employ more + move them around easier. Or flinklocks becoming common increasing ROF/reliability when you replace your muskets. Any opinions on the concept anons?

(harquebusiers are cool, always wanted to shoot a pistol from horseback)

>>2090590
>pike and shot games
>underrepresented
If feel like that's 99% of all indie RTS projects in amateur dev threads, be it here or on other websites.
They never deliver past the initial idea guy stage tho, not sure what's wrong exactly.

Economies fucking suck.

>>2090744
As a concept?

>>2090744
Removing economies remove resource collection / securing, and also remove a good chunk of base building.
At that point you already lost 3/4 of the RTS playerbase because it's not business as usual enough.

>>2032893 (OP)
I had this autistic idea where every battle has 15 subcommanders, whose stats determine the outcome of the battle instead of single one.
Is this too much autism?

>>2090823
>15 subcommanders
At that level it's just a regular squad leader.
>Is this too much autism?
I would argue even stuff like DoW1 did it, when attaching special units like a Commissar or Priest to boost a regular squad.

I wish I had a billion dollars to make my dream porn RTS hybrid game. I don't know how to code and since my concept is already fucking retarded as hell it would be a sin to not just go all out.

>>2090825
It's more like:
>every army has a general
>every army is composed out of 3 wings
>every win is commanded by a subgeneral
>every subgeneral has four colonels under them
>subgenerals and colonels have all commanded 1 regiment, totaling 15 regiments

>every officer has a hidden strategy and tactical skill
>general's strategy skill impacts 50% of the strategy output of every regiment
>other 50% of strategy input is determined by the subgeneral, but only influences their wing
>50% of a regiment is determined by its colonel's tactical skill
>other 50% of tactical skill comes from the subgeneral

>armies subdivide their men equally, so if an army has 30,000 troops, every regiment has 2,000 men
>each regiment's "effective deployment" is determined by:
>regiment strength × strategy (avg. of general and subgeneral's strat) × tactical (avg. of subgeneral and colonel)

>during battle, all 15 regiments are paired against a random enemy regiment
>regiment that has a higher effective deployment wins a skirmish
>because every wing has 5 regiments, the wing has to win at least 3 out of 5 skirmishes

>similarly, the ultimate winner of the battle is the side that has more winning wings
>if army wins all three wings, it triggers a "rout"
>during a rout 20% of the enemy army is captured

So, this is like Risk with autism, and the player's goal is just to study the officer's past records so they can be promoted to the right place.

>>2090703
>that pic
glorious

>>2090841
>has a hidden strategy and tactical skill
Oh God, not this shit again.
Major stat being hidden suck fat nigger ass as a mechanic, especially when the only "gameplay" you offer about it is trying to guess the DM's dice rolls done behind his screen.

That said, my main problem with the gameplay you described is that there is 0 strategy nor tactics.
Picking which officer goes were is a very simple math exercise, since Regiment vs Regiment is random and only use a generic "Regiment" strength, meaning you can't really try to do anything clever about your army comp, or the enemy's, or the terrain. Just getting the fattest raw multipliers together and pray RNG doesn't get extremely retarded.

>>2090896
I mean, the record will be the officer's kill/death ratio, so after a few battles, it will resemble stats.

>Just getting the fattest raw multipliers together

Understand that strategy stat will be multiplied by all regiments, so if the general and all his subordinate generals have strategy skill of 10 (our of 100), it mean entire army will at best fight at 10% strength.
Thus, if you give 100K men to completely incompetent generals, they might defeat an army of 20K run by competent generals.
So, simply throwing resources at a problem will just end up wasting them.

>>2090833
How porn-y and retarded as hell are we talking about, exactly? 'cause I might be somewhere on that path too.
Tell me more.

Is this the place where people talk about their ideas for games that they'll never ever even get around to making? If so I would like to blow some time and talk about my super cool bloated idea that I'll never get around to.

>>2091018
yes, that is literally in the OP

>>2091018
There are a few actual devs in here, but sure.
Tell us all about your pike&shot game featuring a lot of hidden information.

>>2091048
>>2091051
Well alright, here's my super cool idea: a mix of PDX GSG in general and Alicesoft's Daiteikoku. It would be set in China from approximately 1920 to 1949 and you would be able to start as any one of the warlords. This would be a not!China where most of everything outside of the characters would be the exact same as in reality, they would instead be cute anime girls that just happen to be similar to real persons. The mood of the game would also be quite light, with events and decisions being skippable VN-ish sections of a few thousands words each, the former popping up naturally and requiring you to pick a choice in it, the latter having you pick the choice first and see the event later. The map would be up to Mongolia in the north, Turkestan and Tibet in the west, Korea and Outer Manchuria as well as possibly Japan to the east, and Taiwan as well as Hunan in the south. It would be fairly granular. The gameplay proper would focus heavily on the economy and administration of your territories. As the player your final objective would be uniting China, although the specific country you're playing as may have different ambitions and thus a different "final objective" which marks the end/last stage of "story" content. I am thinking to make the interaction between countries fairly loose, allowing you to just rampage should you have the capability to do so. The combat and military system would be perhaps similar to HoI3, but adapted to suit the era and background as well as to fit in with what I think to be good.

>>2091122
I want every country to have playable content, and for them to have maybe two leaders each. Who is leading would determine the chances of certain outcomes of events and decisions, as well as whether they will appear or not. The AI would be able to pick their own options during these, and I'm hoping that a large number of these existing for each country and being delicately balanced would allow the game to progress and end in many different ways. I would also like content for many interesting/stupid scenarios such as the communists losing and ending up exiled to Manchuria or Taiwan under Soviet support, Qing restoration, a new dynasty, a sort of disgusting union of the communist party and KMT ala Muvluv, total Japanese victory(possibly due to player support) and so on. Some stuff like the march northwards or the Japanese invasion would happen in almost all cases if the player does not intervene, but others like the KMT elections or whether Chiang has balls or not would merely lean a bit towards history, and ahistorical outcomes would properly impact all the stuff that happens afterwards.
I need to think about pretty much everything more in depth, but I think to do that I would first need to prepare a tech demo or something so that I'm actually forced to do so. The pain in the ass that is developing this, as well as the possibilty of this game having some base contradictions in it also require thought. Does a light hearted atmosphere filled with cute anime girls really match with gritty war? Won't the actual simulation part of the game being forced to rely on a system of many connected events lead to contradictions? Won't the AI be too passive and peaceful because of them trying to match reality too much, or the game too boring because as the player you'll be mostly stuck sitting on your ass reforming shit until shit finally hits the fan?

>>2090703
Huh, then I haven't lurked here enough. Then again if they never deliver past the starting stages, then there's still a lack of games lol.

Still I think it's better as a setting rather than the focus of the game. I think building the game around the mercenary company management is a better way to go. If you're bored with mid-game combat with only pikes, muskets and harquebusiers, then you'll still have to handle the problems of managing your company. Pay, casualties, training, equipment etc. There's a lack of games that let you manage a merc company that fits what I like. I like everything being really granular and having small decisions add up.

It's more fun noticing balance changes in the world, like muskets making shot-proof armor too expensive to field since their piercing ability goes up. So you'd discard armor naturally like they did post-1650, etc.

>>2091413
>The battle system would be somewhat like total war, but i'm not sure if I want a TW RTS or something turn-based etc.
TW RTS gameplay would probably be ideal flavor-wise, but that also not the kind of scale a beginner dev should jump in.
Although Unity has been pushing DOTS a lot recently, if is kinda made for this kind of stuff, but I dunno if there are any tutorial that's *actually* in reach of a beginner yet.

>Still I think it's better as a setting rather than the focus of the game. I think building the game around the mercenary company management is a better way to go.
Then you really need to decide if it's a combat game with a management side, kinda like tactical RPG do, or a management game with a combat side, in which case you should probably take inspiration more from things like Dungeon Keeper or an heavily reskinned Theme Hospital.

>I like everything being really granular and having small decisions add up.
It's starting to sound more like a Theme / Tycoon type of strategy game then.

How much experience have you with coding, how much free time do you have for this, and do you have any strong opinions about 2D/3D, real-time/turn-based, engine, etc?

>>2090946
I guess it's not that crazy gameplay wise. I just imagine it playing like DoW1/CoH but everyone is a sexy girl. Health is their clothes and instead of dying they get embarrassed/cum and then faint. Main reason I thought of DoW was because of the cinematic sync kills and and over the top the setting is. Like melee troopers have big dildos and for the sync kill the winner holds the loser down and finger bangs them till they cum. That classic jav video of the cart racing is how I pictured the mechs and vehicles, or along those lines where they are exposed or have to strap in by having a dildo shoved up their ass for some reason.

As for audio I always hates anime porn acting so I figured why not just hire actual porn stars and fuck them to get real, authentic orgasims. Film the recording sessions and you can sell that too on top of the game.

>>2091703
The game is more of a concept at the moment, so I haven't figured out much past ideas I've written down and some research. TW RTS would be ideal but definitely past my coding experience at the moment.

Combat game with management sounds more like I had in mind, just wasn't sure of the best way to put it into words. I don't just want a battle simulator, I want to make a lot of decisions outside of a battle that lead up to influencing the outcome. I'm not a fan of tycoon games etc, mostly wanted to add another dimension to the game rather than just have it purely be about combat. TW ends up being too simple for my tastes, I want to do stuff like pick unit sizes, ratio of shot-pike-other arms in a unit etc. Or make decisions like raiding for supplies/profit instead of joining battles/sieges etc.

I'm a beginner coder, but I've got a whole lot of free time for the rest of the year, so I've got time to learn and try putting together a concept. I'm personally a fan of 2D graphics, mostly cause I'm not good with 3D, but if I learn or get help I'm open to it. RTS is the goal, but I do recognize it could be hard to code, so turn-based is a possible alternative, maybe simultaneous turn-based combat like Lines of Battle. For the engine I'd assume Unity would be ideal, and Unreal would be hard to work with.

>The steam page is finally up
>Now onward for the steam fest.
I once again ask if any anon want to beta test my game and give me some feedback.
https://bluesanddev.itch.io/galduen

>>2093632
No plans to release for macOS as well?

>>2093715
I need to find a way to export to mac

>>2093763
you'll have to buy a mac mini, dox yourself and shake your hand with the devil or have some service port it for half the price of mac mini

>>2093763
Yeah anon, think about the 0.00001% of the market your passing on!

By the way, you're based for having a Linux build. Congrats on getting this far, I hope you make it.

>>2066378
they look sloppy

>>2096338
>>2094412
So, Apple ask for selling your soul to them. So n MAC version and if you have a mac, you partake in Moloch.

>>2093632
On a brand new game, Research financing is set to -400000. It doesn't seem to actually detract the money, it only looks like it will. Can be fixed by just moving the slider a bit. Also there seems to be a bit of a problem with the sliders, when my production first increased from 1 to 3 the slider for it still saw me as only having 1. That was also fixed by just moving the slider a little, but if I hadn't noticed then I would have ended up wasting some cash/production.
Maybe make the Q and E keys shortcuts that allow you to lower/raise the game speed respectively?
It would be nice if there was an option in the settings for the game to pause automatically when an expedition report pops up.
I know you can queue by selecting a tech that requires others to be researched before it, but I think being able to queue completely unrelated techs like Fuel Tank and Rail Integration would be great.
In the mission control screen, sometimes a new design doesn't immediately show up and you have to close and reopen it to see the new design. Also, if you have too may designs they end up looking unsightly and being hard/impossible to select.
After saving and loading my mission changed? Previously my main mission had been to send a probe to Foxnen, after loading it changed to first crewed fly. Story tree still doesn't have the mission for Foxnen completed.
There's no description for the tech "Manoeuvre Thruster"
The notifications on the bottom left seem to disappear after a story dialogue occurs? They only return if you load a save.
Being able to modify existing designs is something I really want to see. Since I'm basically just picking specific missions and designing spacecraft solely around fulfilling them I end up with a massive amount of designs, and of course tech adds in to the variety. As a result of this I end up designing like 15 new spacecraft every hour and having to routinely delete them all just so I can keep track of what is what.

>>2100699
The fixed component "Landing Thruster" doesn't apply to existing probe designs.
Bug where sometimes a design with a crew compartment has crew set to false. I think it only happens with Artemis? Also it's only like 20% of the time.
Mission Synchrone Clock says it unlocks the "Risk Table" technology, but you can research it even without doing the mission.
The main colony mission doesn't display any of its objectives.
Contract "The Three Orbit" only requires reaching Incuben, when judging by context it should require orbiting all three moons instead.
Fully upgraded load bearer costs -1100 and gives -1 building time.
I feel like there should be more inflation of cash rewards for seasonal contracts, they stay at more or less the same amount while spacecraft prices keep rising higher and higher and some of the objectives are replaced for harder(and thus more costly) ones. By the time I finished walking on all three moons I found myself sitting at 0 cash all the time and having to go into deficit just to do missions. Is the player expected to make as much use of selling construction points as possible? I personally pretty much never bothered with it. Speaking of which by the way, I've been thinking that it may not be a bad idea to switch it over so that you always use all of your construction on building ships, with selling construction being automated so that it sells whenever you're not building a ship, without player input.
And also, it feels like there's not much of a point to the research you get from shrines. 3 research a month is quite steep when you're being made to pay 600 for it, and it feels meaningless to even bother when you can just do some missions and not only get 50-100 research for it but also get paid. I feel this should be rebalanced.

>>2100704
Forgot to mention but I am playing on the default difficulty. Played up until the part where you send probes to other solar systems, had to stop there since despite having all tech I couldn't find a way to do some of the missions. Missions for colonizing the moons didn't appear for me, presumably because I had to finish the probing of those systems first?