WW1 scenario?

[general dismay]

hey its general dismay and i read somewere that there was gona be a ww1 scenario and maybe even ww2

i just wanted to ask hows that going and if there is a date you can tell us when its gona start becuse if you guys pull this off its gona be the most played game that i will play


and i promise to tell alll my frineds to play.. litle incentive there..

eny responce would be nice

[guildofblades]

Hi,

Well, the game editing software for 1483 that is under development is ultimately going the tools we use to make other games like a WWI, WWII, etc.

You see, 1483 has been the development of an entirely new game engine for this type of games. We're a small company and can only engage with our one programmer for this game in a sort of part time capacity, so things can sometimes be a bit slow going. But the 1483 game development has actually been the ongling development of the "Empires of History" online gaming engine. Its tackling game processing, combat processing, player management, player communication, etc, etc. Everything we can manage basically through the 1483 games we have running. All of those features have been under development and refinement these last 3 years or so.

The editor is the next stage, where the software will let us customize unit attributes and special abilities, introduce new images for new types of units, upload maps and have the program automatically parse them and calculate the intense amount of code the engine needs to let the game system interact with the units.

The end result of all of this will twofold when done.

1) We will be able to use the editor program to plug in all new maps, units, unit images, etc, to fully introduce all new games. This will allow for games like WWI, WWII and others, plus the use of all new maps for scenarios throughout all of history.

2) We're ultimately going to be able to let our enhanced members use the editor as well. I don't know if the editor will be able to accept maps for just any ol one (maps need to be prepped and design in specific ways for use with this system), but for sure players will be able to use any maps we have loaded into the system, then customize all the details about the maps (who owns them, what they are worth, if they have cities or not, types of fortification) and customize units, set up nations for a scenario and starting troops, etc. So just about any scenario you can think if that can be crafted using the maps we put into the system. These scenarios will be able to be published into the system so all players will be able to play in them.

All in all, its a pretty complicated editor program that we are having programmed. Its taking a goodly while to complete. But the end result should open up this style of play to just about everything, every conflict and every homebrew scenario people can think of.
_________________
Ryan S. Johnson
Guild of Blades Publishing Group
http://www.guildofblades.com
http://www.1483online.com
http://www.thermopylae-online.com

[general dismay]

thanks i appreciate how you guys are working on it i know it must be hard for a smaller company but press on this is a great game

[Lakers]

Are you looking at the combat too?
I must say I like the naval combat engine. Will the new editor allow the land combat to use the naval combat engine? (ie hits are randomly assigned to each unit rather than the I,A,C,K ordering etc)

[guildofblades]

Sort of.

Both combat engines are changing somewhat actually. For instance, there is no fixed combat order with regards to an exact order of loss, since under the new code structure, technically there are no preset units. Every scenario in the system can draw from a list of established icons and have have unit types and abilities assigned, but it can be different for each and every single game, including the creation of one of a kind units that maybe can only be built once or several times per game, or can begin already in play but not be built at all.

Units can have varying move, take different number of hits, be both regular units and have general abilities including up to about 20 special general abilities we will be introducing (with new abilities capable of being added along the way). With no perminent defined unit structure from game to game, what we have come up with is a semi random assignment of hits according the unit rankings. Presently a unit would either be a rank one (common) unit type or a rank 2 (special) unit type. Those making the scenario will define such when creating the units for a scenario. Anyways, if I recall, combat is going to assign "hits" along the lines of, 75% of the time a hit would be randomly assigned to a rank one unit, while 25% of the time a hit will simply be randomly assigned amost all units you have. With general units still taking the last hits, so they sort of create a die last third rank. In this manner super special generals and elite units given the general ability, will be amonst the last to die, while special units have a far lesser chance of dying, but still can.

So under that scenario, if say infantry and cavalry were both considered common units, they would have equal chances of taking hits, but if artillery and knights were defined as a rank 2 unit, then only 25% of the time would they even be lumped in the random pooling to possibly take the hit. Obviously, hits all go to rank 2 units of all rank 1 units are already dead.
_________________
Ryan S. Johnson
Guild of Blades Publishing Group
http://www.guildofblades.com
http://www.1483online.com
http://www.thermopylae-online.com

[Lakers]

Sounds like an awesome improvement. I thought the land combat was a bit dated. Also like different ranking of units available.
Can unitshave the ability to improve from commoner to special unit type?
ie Green vs Veteran troops etc with veteran having improved stats compared to green troops but green troops who score a hit having a probability of improving to veteran etc.
The idea for this is twofold:
to give players an added incentive to fight rather than sit back and wait for everyone else to do the fighting and then move in with their superior army to claim the glory.
Also when fighting mega-alliances, having troops that improve after successful battles may give the nations getting overwhelmed more of a chance.
cheers Lakers

[guildofblades]

Good question. The answer is, I don't know. But its something we will discuss at the next meeting.

We had had a mechanic where generals could raise in skill level with victories and then gain special abilities as they hit certain levels. But that is fairly simple since the general ability is rating in points, so its easy to measure progression. A scenario where a unit simply has one set of stats until they graduate through experience to become a different unit, would seem to me, a more challenging thing to track. But then again, I'm not the programmer, so I could easily be wrong.
_________________
Ryan S. Johnson
Guild of Blades Publishing Group
http://www.guildofblades.com
http://www.1483online.com
http://www.thermopylae-online.com

[Lakers]

I think tracking experience for each unit like the Total War games would be too complicated. I was thinking something like each time a "green" unit scored a hit it would have a probability say 25% of becoming veteran.
Any update on when the editor might be available?
I have noticed very few new games being launched and am wondering if that is because the editor is almost close to completion
cheers Lakers

[spelltwister]

Well, the short of it is that the editor is about 90% done. Unfortunately I was unable to get it finished and uploaded before school and stuff really bogged down my time. I will be completely done with school and able to work pretty much full time on this again at the beginning of May. Once the editor is done and games are running under that system, we're probably going to attack the website hard, relaying out many of the pages and adding lots more information about the games, and making removing useless pages. This will really polish off the system allowing games to create fairly dynamic pages about the unique features of that specific game. The site redesign should take some time, but will not be required to start using the editor.

We have already run a few tests of the space game and I'm just hammering out the last of the design stuff before public testing. Again, development should really pick up again early May and it won't be long until we have a whole new stock of games for players to try out!

Spelltwister
_________________
I am the programmer