Strategy game models

[KyriakosCH]

This is Sparta!



Greek and Persian set, wip.

[Danvzare]

Looks like something that would fit right at home in Age of Empires.

[KyriakosCH]

Looks like something that would fit right at home in Age of Empires.

I'd prefer AGS of empires

[KyriakosCH]

Barbarian sets always look stupid :/
They clearly didn't bother with architecture, so what can be done

[selmiak]

this looks interesting. Have you ever thought about using these as tiles and build a city in, say, in a stratagy game in AGS?

[KyriakosCH]

this looks interesting. Have you ever thought about using these as tiles and build a city in, say, in a stratagy game in AGS?

Yes. But the scope of such a game would be way too big for me to spend time doing literally everything for it!!!

Instead i am trying to be part of a team working on a CivIII clone

Anyway, here is how the city looks in actual CivIII (will be similar in a clone; not sure if it will be scripted in AGS; Godot is also an option the lead coder is examining atm)

[selmiak]

but there is freeciv out there. But you can never have enough civ I guess

[KyriakosCH]

Afaik Freeciv (at least the non 3d one) does not use animated units?

CivII was awesome, though. It was the game i played the most, and actually bought the most times (back in the uni years, only way i could stop was to destroy the actual cd. A cd action commonly known as ocd )

[Mandle]

Afaik Freeciv (at least the non 3d one) does not use animated units?

CivII was awesome, though.

CivII is still the best IMO. The animated units in CivIII drove me crazy. Once you were in a major war and had like 20-30 units animating one by one every turn it took forever for the turn to be resolved. Also the exact same sound effect playing over and over for each same unit drove me up the wall.

[KyriakosCH]

Imo the huge advantage CivII has is that it has an event file. Stupid Firaxis (company controlling CivIII) didn't include a feature that was so popular.
Seems to be usual in the civ series after civ2, eg civ3 with no event file, civ4 with (iirc) 1-era leaderheds only, civ5 with a very unpopular '1 unit pet tile' rule, civ6 with... not sure... lost it at civ4

That said, CivII did have a very problematic "if (strongest) defender in a tile loses, ALL units in the tile die".

[Crimson Wizard]

Imo the huge advantage CivII has is that it has an event file. Stupid Firaxis (company controlling CivIII) didn't include a feature that was so popular.
Seems to be usual in the civ series after civ2, eg civ3 with no event file, civ4 with (iirc) 1-era leaderheds only, civ5 with a very unpopular '1 unit pet tile' rule, civ6 with... not sure... lost it at civ4

Civilization series left me baffled all the time, each new game introduced something good and discarded something good from the previous game.

Civ2 was interesting for me because it was interesting to conquer the world . It had very random maps, quite unrealistic sometimes, but that was a part of fun. The shape of continent provided new challenge almost every time. It was also exciting to see your cities and roads cover the map as years go. Civ5 seemed to turn to smaller focused countries instead, making it largely different game. Perhaps that was the concept they were looking for all this time, but it somehow did not work for me. Guess I was looking at it as at warfare simulator rather than civilization simulator.

That said, CivII did have a very problematic "if (strongest) defender in a tile loses, ALL units in the tile die".

Eh, it had other problems, like no country borders, which let enemy sneak settlers onto your territory and build a city in the middle of your area of interest. You had to play "catch the settler" game by moving several units out to the frontier and block rival settlers there .

The trade and espionage were rather annoyingly made IMO. You create a caravan locked with certain good, and then have to move it across the map, which may take many years, and then you arrive to destination, they sometimes don't demand that goods anymore.


PS. Whoops, why I am posting this in the Critic Lounge anyway?

[KyriakosCH]

Civ1 was even worse regarding 'friendly' units, cause your ally would move some of his phalanx to completely surround your city, and therefore you couldn't move anything out of it anymore and had to declare war - and those wars tended to last for literally 1000 years!

[KyriakosCH]

Better?

[selmiak]

this is looking good. I like the texture on the straw huts

[KyriakosCH]

Thanks

[KyriakosCH]

It would be cool if anyone was interested to code (ie be the main coder/heart of such a project) a strategy game. I would be able to provide terrain gfx.
Has there ever been a strategy (with cities and a map) game made with AGS?

[selmiak]

technocrat made operation forklift for example. I think Matti is coding around on one I forgot the name of, in that style you are talking about, but it is not release, so none that I know of

[Crimson Wizard]

There should not be any problem making turned based strategy in AGS, people were doing realtime strategy in the past (not sure if that one was released), arcade games etc. TBS should be much easier technically. One thing to keep in mind is that you probably should not be using built-in room objects and script drawing sprites on surface yourself.

[KyriakosCH]

There should not be any problem making turned based strategy in AGS, people were doing realtime strategy in the past (not sure if that one was released), arcade games etc. TBS should be much easier technically. One thing to keep in mind is that you probably should not be using built-in room objects and script drawing sprites on surface yourself.

First things first, though; how would one go about making the map navigable by clicking as in: entire map is there, but each full screen only shows a part of it. ?

[Crimson Wizard]

First things first, though; how would one go about making the map navigable by clicking as in: entire map is there, but each full screen only shows a part of it. ?

Hate to be the one, but this is wrong forum section for those questions.

[KyriakosCH]

First things first, though; how would one go about making the map navigable by clicking as in: entire map is there, but each full screen only shows a part of it. ?

Hate to be the one, but this is wrong forum section for those questions.

I know, but you can't blame me for trying

[KyriakosCH]

The current state of the sets, including early work on a mayan set:

[KyriakosCH]

?

[Danvzare]

Aztecs?
They look a little... smooth. Like they're incomplete somehow. But the basic structure is brilliant.

[KyriakosCH]

Thanks

It is trying to be Mayan. We don't really have enough information on the colours they were using. Concept art has all sorts of colour and texture schemes...

[cat]

Looking great! Only a tiny issue with the last set (Mayan): The right most building (on the first image) has a weird tangent and looks like it is hovering over the other small building.

[KyriakosCH]

Thanks ^_^ I will examine whether it is indeed floating on blender too... It is still massively WIP anyway

[KyriakosCH]

Thoughts on this one?



The euro barbarian set needs a lot of work, and the mayan set needs a few changes too. The others are persian and greek.

[Crimson Wizard]

Something I am curious about, is that a waterfall on mayan pyramids, or something else?

[KyriakosCH]

White-stone stairway; it needs reworking

[KyriakosCH]

I think this colour scheme for the Maya is better

[KyriakosCH]

Wip of the Han-era chinese set:

[KyriakosCH]

Thousands of things could be improved, but i don't have any time, so this is basically the final five ancient sets:



Like?

[KyriakosCH]

Work on a byzantine set



My models for this one were a lot more intricate -- had made them in the past for something else.

[KyriakosCH]

Left to do:
Abbasid wall
cleaning up

[KyriakosCH]

The byz city, on some CivIII terrain ^^



Terrain is by another CivIII creator, but the fortress & mill are also by me

[Danvzare]

Seeing your cities in use like that, really shows off how good they look.
They're absolutely gorgeous.

[KyriakosCH]

^ Thanks!

[cat]

Yes, you should really make a game with them!

[Slasher]

You could indeed use these style models to make a CivIII type game.

Of course they would be just a very small part of creating a similar type game.

To get to the level of play of the real game it would take some beating and very advanced scripting to clone close to it.

Of course you may just be 'showing off' the buildings in which case they look great.

Anyhow, you would need a few differences from the real game, otherwise one might just as well buy the original.

Having said that, if you were to make it with ags it would be an achievement.

Good luck on what you decide.

[KyriakosCH]

I did try to start scripting one such game, but yes, it is way too big a project for just one person

If others were interested - including someone who would take the lead scripting role - it could happen, though currently i am just presenting my gfx here

[Danvzare]

I did try to start scripting one such game, but yes, it is way too big a project for just one person

If others were interested - including someone who would take the lead scripting role - it could happen, though currently i am just presenting my gfx here

I so wish I could offer my help with such a game. But I wouldn't even know where to begin with making a strategy game. And chances are, I'd probably get the absolute basics done, before getting bored and giving up entirely.

[KyriakosCH]

For me the main issue would be the map. It would (i suppose) have to be a very large pic, where you can scroll to different parts, eg the screen at each time being something like 800x600 something at least

And that is just for a set scenario (set map and starting cities).

[Crimson Wizard]

For me the main issue would be the map. It would (i suppose) have to be a very large pic, where you can scroll to different parts, eg the screen at each time being something like 800x600 something at least

It does not have to be a large pic, it may also be just a viewport-sized sprite where you will draw tiles and update them whenever player scrolls.
But in 2D engine like AGS the optimal method is hard to predict before you know all he game features, it would depend on many parameters.
For example, if you are going to support different map sizes, you may create several rooms with different background size, or you may have 1 room and use the method I mentioned above, that would universally work for any map size.
So, single large pic is probably best to start with, and change to something else if it causes perfomance or other issues at later stages.

[morganw]

One of the patches for Dustbowl was to fix issues with the map 'room' being too large, so the newer size (bottom of this post) is probably useful as a rough guide.

[KyriakosCH]

Thanks, game looks very stylish, btw

[selmiak]

if someone gets this to run on an 8bit computer like the C64, then it can also run in AGS...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BxvugyJmE1s

[KyriakosCH]

Selmiak maybe you can help find a team of modders interested in a strategy game, so i can supply some of the gfx?

Anyway, some wip of the medieval western euro. Apart from the Donjon (french fort/castle centerpiece) which i half-decently modelled, the rest of the stuff in this set are really very poorly "modelled" and mostly faked, but in this size it possibly won't matter

[KyriakosCH]

I will have to replace the other generic buildings with something a little better. The cathedral isn't finished either.

[KyriakosCH]

(new, french) Set is virtually complete. Wall (and minor details) left.



I think it looks very nice now.

[KyriakosCH]

Like?

[Danvzare]

I like them a lot.
The bottom set seems a bit more detailed than the others. You can definitely see how much you've been improving.

[Mandle]

Amazing stuff! But could you post with imgzoom so we can take a cozy, close-up look?

[KyriakosCH]

Thank you both

Amazing stuff! But could you post with imgzoom so we can take a cozy, close-up look?

Ok:

[imgzoom]https://i.imgur.com/JuVqLPt.png[/imgzoom]

[cat]

Looking really great! Now you should start making terrain tiles

[KyriakosCH]

Looking really great! Now you should start making terrain tiles

Would be a reason to do if there was anyone meaning to script for a strategy game

[KyriakosCH]

Been a while...

My medieval japanese set, atm:
Not entirely finished, but getting there:

[cat]

The big pyramid thing looks more south-american than japanese. Try a google image search for "japanese castle".
The other building and the pagoda look pretty good.

[KyriakosCH]

That is true, but it is based on an actual (albeit very boring) japanese castle.

Yet i made some building changes:

[KyriakosCH]

Not finished:

[KyriakosCH]

Now?

[cat]

Very nice!

[KyriakosCH]

[KyriakosCH]

In the end i managed to make it look good



Now only the fifth medieval set (a native american one) remains to be created.

[VampireWombat]

I'm really wondering how you're going to accomplish a medieval Native American set. Do you have a specific tribe in mind? Is it going to be completely fictional or what?
I've never even heard of a medieval period in North America before and looking it up says that the term doesn't really apply to North America anyway. Wouldn't Aztecs or Mayans be a better fit?

[Matti]

I think those models are meant for Civilization III, and the Civilization series doesn't really care about the history of civilizations

[KyriakosCH]

I'm really wondering how you're going to accomplish a medieval Native American set. Do you have a specific tribe in mind? Is it going to be completely fictional or what?
I've never even heard of a medieval period in North America before and looking it up says that the term doesn't really apply to North America anyway. Wouldn't Aztecs or Mayans be a better fit?

Aztecs are in the medieval era ( i mean they got invaded by medieval Spain )

Using Maya as the ancient era was far more problematic

[VampireWombat]

Aztecs are in the medieval era ( i mean they got invaded by medieval Spain )

Using Maya as the ancient era was far more problematic

Aztecs aren't considered Native Americans, though. The term Native American usually is applied to tribes only in the area of North America that's the USA. Canada tends to use the term First Nations. And Mexico has its own names.
But Aztecs makes perfect sense and probably would fit best with what I've seen. I'm looking forward to seeing what you get done.

[KyriakosCH]

[Danvzare]

Damn, that looks incredible.

Is that a mockup, or is that an actual screenshot of a game using your graphics?

[KyriakosCH]

Damn, that looks incredible.

Is that a mockup, or is that an actual screenshot of a game using your graphics?

It is an in-game pic, though i preplaced the cities and units, just to show all city sizes

[KyriakosCH]

In-game pic of the reworked medieval french set:

[KyriakosCH]

Anyway... i started work on the aztec set. Ie the last of the medieval era.

[KyriakosCH]

(edit )

[KyriakosCH]

Aztec set remains a generic-fest, but it is closer to completion:

(mehdited)

[KyriakosCH]

In the end i managed to save even what started as a complete train-wreck...


The aztec set is mostly finished. Views?

[VampireWombat]

The colors for what I assume are steps don't seem to fit with the rest to me. My brain keeps wanting to process them as some kind of awning, but the placement tells me they're most likely steps.

[KyriakosCH]

Ok, I changed it a bit

[VampireWombat]

Yeah, that looks better.

[KyriakosCH]

If anyone is interested, you can buy any of the medieval sets for 1 euro (or 4 euro for the group of five sets), here: https://gumroad.com/byzantinemaker



Support would be great