Here it is finally: the attack of the city fortified in the previous video.
It took slightly longer as expected to show a proper battle as there was a huge amount of bugs to fix to make it functional enough for a first release.
All the terrains beeing procedural combined with the fact players can build their fortifications in any way they want makes it quite challenging because the amount of different ‘cases’ to deal with in battles is huge.
There is still obviously a lot of things to improve (both visually and in battle code), but at this point i need to move on to the next tasks as i’m running out of time !
For now the barbarian “AI” is really basic and all units are individually attacking without any global strategy.
One idea i have would be to keep this basic behavior for primitive armies, and that more advanced strategies would be unlocked by technologies or maybe the presence of commanders in armies.
For now, battles themselves are entirely automatic ( that is because in a multiplayer context, ‘online’ players must have no advantages over ‘offline’ players ). It means players do not actually control the units in battle.
Players affect the battles outcome before the battles actually happen : the defenders through organizing the defenses as shown in the previous news, and the attacker through orders and mission settings setup before launching the attack.
Attacking units can automatically pass walls and cliffs with ladders, breach gates with siege rams and embark in rafts to cross rivers when there’s really no other choices.
When launching an attack, you’ll be able to choose a privileged technique of assault.
Thanks ^^
To answer quickly to your 3 questions :
– yes
– no ( the other ones wait and take relay if the active troop dies )
– i’m working on the events manager UI and the diplomatic treaty UI ( i had already done it in the prototype, but so much as changed since that it needs to be reviewed completely, like all the old UIs. )
This is epic! I like the atmosphere in this video, all these small details, like civilians screaming and fleeing home when the horn is blown, or when soldiers celebrate their victory by engaging in joyful and silly dances. These are small things that finally make a real difference.
The battle system looks very well done too. I have a lot of questions regarding the AI behavior but I will keep them for later. :p
Just three questions for now:
-Does the number of units in a squad have any effect on the loading time while destroying a gate or climbing a wall?
-Can two different squads engage simultaneously in destroying the same gate together?
-Now that you’re done with battle coding for now, what is the next step? What are you working on now ?
Barbarians should definitely have simpler strategies (unless they, by random chance, have a leader of sorts) while actual army AI should be better, yes. I think unlocking better strategies with upgrades and by having commanders is a great idea!