Once. Turn based strategy

[Lainur 0]

Hello all!
I am a great fan of old school Turn Based Strategy games, and I'm developing one. 
It will combine everything I loved about those games with some new additions and improvements.
The game will have two modes. 
There is a strategic campaign mode where the map is divided into many provinces or kingdoms and you rule one. 
Rule, checkup, research new techs and upgrades, complete quests and go to war. 
There is also a tactical battlefield mode where the whole map is the battlefield itself, where you are a general deploying your troops and leading them to victory!
Like all great TBS games, this game will flow at a measured pace where you can calmly plot your next moves without time pressure and strain. There will also be a hotseat mode, but it will be co-op where humans with together to defeat the AI.


Style: medieval fantasy with 2D pixel graphics adapted from different RPGmaker RTPs, to release for Windows.
Features:
- Multiple kingdoms/nations with differences in playstyle, abilities, leaders.
- Heroes with different skills, which have different influence on controlled squads.
- Squads level up and learn new abilities. They cannot be completely destroyed, so they can be deployed in more risky maneuvers in battle.
- Armies have different active and passive skills, battle maneuvers, and unique skills triggered by their combat experience.
- Dynamic terrain and weather systems will influence battle tactics and results.
- Different goals, ways to win and game styles for different nations.
- Events.
- Unique techs and upgrades for each nation.
- AI factions, cults, and tribes will also develop and may mature into fully independent nations that try to conquer and pillage.


That's all for now. I develop this game in my free time, which is hard to come by, but I will work on it as much as possible. 
Watch the video and leave comments. I read them all, and value all your input and feedback, as well as ideas for more features to include.

Here is my first game video:

https://youtu.be/7CFnhgN0VZw

Here is couple of screenshots:

[Polraudio 122]

Very awesome job on the gameplay. Graphics/maps need a ton of work tho. Other than that keep up the awesome job :thumbsup: .

[Lainur 0]

Thank you  :)

Now working on stats balance and unit editor, hope can write article about unit stats and how do they work in game.

[Lainur 0]

Hello all!

 

Let me tell you in a few words about game's battle system.

Soldiers in their squads have following stats:
Strength, Agility, Mind Power,  Battle Skills, Defensive Skills, Knowledge.
These six stats are actively used through the damage calculations.
Str, Agi and MindPow. affects more, but changes rarely - they determine first "shape" of unit. Hovewer other three stats changes more often, as squad grows in levels.
Also our soldiers have current/max health points, natural damage (for those who do not use any weapons), natural armor (thickness of fur), shield, melee-ranged weapons.
Squads have their mana and action points, counterattacks, radius of melee and ranged attacks and ammo (as it required for shots).
Soldiers have another stat - "Size", which indirectly determines how many soldiers of this type can be assigned to one squad.

In fight, type of action (sword slash, magicball cast, bite), weapon (or its absence) and unit stats - all have important value. Also counts terrain/weather/conditions factors.
Calculations are also affected by a type of pressure (trust, hit, slash, and other).
Orders of strikes in melee combat determined by "Initiative", which depends on unit stats and stats of weapon.
When one soldier takes his turn and he strikes, first thing is calculated - if his attack hits more enemies around his target. And then, for all targets we figure out :
Was or wasn't an evasion. If no evasion, then :
if there was a shield block. Evasion and shield block are affected by : soldiers stats, if soldier in formation, and type of attacking weapon(axes, halberds and flails have more chances to strike through block).
If there was a strike in an armor or through it.
There is also possibility to suddenly strike trough all types of defences, include natural armor - right in a weak point.
Ranged attacks have also feature of shot accuracy. It means that soldier can completely miss enemy. Hovewer there is always a chance that his missed projectile will hit nearby unit.
Every attack can be magic or physical by nature. It determines which exactly stat we will use for calculations.
Also every attack can consist of several types of damages. For example "Dragon Breath" consist of 10% of physical damage and 90% of fire damage. Power of "Dragon Breath" primary affected by Strength of character, but we can made connection of attack with any of stats.
Damages can be such types: physical, heat, cold, magic and acid.
To make creation of new units faster, i made some unit editor, embed in a game program. It's very useful for me and helps a lot.
Process of units editing and some of game-play you can watch in video.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5RuICF0is_E

Edited November 10, 2016 by Lainur

[Lainur 0]

Four Armies Battle.
Hello all!
Here is some random battle between four countries : Dezo, Austen, Lutz and Eldem.
Dezo and Lutz are attackers, they are trying to conquer land of Austen. Eldem is a third side, neither attacking or defending, just killing all in sight.
Dezo army are formed of several types of infantry units(killer bees, scorpions, heavy infantry), two horseman squads and one archer squad.
Austen is defending and has a strong army, which includes barbarians armed with spears or double axes, heavy archers with long bows, couple of cannon
squads and one squad of mages.
Lutz has balanced army of infantry, archers and mages, but they stand far from other, so they'll appear late in battle.
And finally Eldem, leads strong and devastating unit types, like Golems, Ogres, Evil Trees, Red Dragons and Horseman, as addition.
You can watch how units use melee, ranged attacks, cast spells(actually two units with spells - it's a Red Dragon with his fire breath and Fire Mage with e
with Meteor), move and take defensive stance in this video. All players are controlled by computer.
There is the mode with maximum free space on screen here. To see another way of representing AI turns and to see who will win the battle,watch the video until the end!
Write comments, leave your opinions, and thank you for watching!

[video=youtube;taXidBI6pog]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=taXidBI6pog

[Lainur 0]

Hello. Work is on. Now i making global map mode. Because of abcenting UI, i can't make good video about this mode, so in a few words, global map:

There are number of cities-states protected by forcefield from surrounded deadly lands of Mist. Although men don't die instanly in the mist, but it's not friendly space for all we call - life. Life in mist takes twisted and strange forms.

People can travel from one city-state to another by roads, guiding by mist-pathfinders.

You can see several carts between cities - these are trade caravans between states. There are also simple travelers or traveling parties who wonders from one state to another. And armies if they move or attacks.

Under the fields each city-state has some of earth-type land like mountains, forest, water, field e.t.c. Each territory divided by sectors.Their number depends on power of force field.

Mist is also divided for territories with it's own anomalies, monsters and authorities.

[Lainur 0]

Hello again !
Work still going on, bit slower in all that New Year's rush..

Many work on game's inner structures, arrays, map structure were done. Many UIs and tonns of images i had to make.
Soon i want to make a small video, where i can view all possibilities and actions on global map.

[Lainur 0]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4811XvjLzZI

So here is first version of global map. I shows here interface(land stats) and some functions, such as moving units to allied land or scirmish in the mist lands when you attack foreign land.

[dolarmak 23]

cool stuff, I like the map gui. 

 

What program did you use to get the terrain? I'm always looking for a good map making program :)

[Lainur 0]

What program did you use to get the terrain? I'm always looking for a good map making program :)

 

Hi ! What do you mean by terrain ? Whole big map or terrain in the battle mode? Or may be something else ?

[dolarmak 23]

the big map, it looks awesome.

[Lainur 0]

It was a piece of a real world map, then i work on it with: GNU and Paint.Net :) It means surface, others things like road threads, speheres a landscape in spheres are made by programm.

[dolarmak 23]

oh so that really is Scandinavia lol I thought it looked familiar

[Lainur 0]

:)  :)

[Lainur 0]

Hello All!
Here is some update. In this video i show battle actions in game: battles , riots, conquests.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kG7M_eEyrIQ

[Lainur 0]

A new pre-battle phase has been added where you have the opportunity to manually deploy your units. In this phase, some of the enemy positions may be shrouded by the "fog of war" if you are not skilled in scouting.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YhO91XKVbLw

Edited February 9, 2017 by Lainur

[Lainur 0]

Hello, all! I have made some tile graphic changes. Now the map can change with time of the year and with climate zone.
How do you like the battle map?
Does it look good?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c-4MbkaKP9w

[Lainur 0]

Hello !
Here is a small update. In this video, i will show some unit management: recruitment, upgrading, and leveling. 
The button "stats" is now showing more statistic about units and all bonuses to their stats. 
You can see, that if you have some unit of the lower tier than your country can produce, in you unit list, you can upgrade to a higher tier. 
And now you can level up your units when you earn enough experience points. Each level up(or maybe each two, or three..I don't now yet) you receive one bonus, which you choose from three. These abilities can give a bonus to one stat, or give some active/passive skill.
So, now I have a mechanic to upgrade, leveling units. Now working on 2 new units with some interesting abilities and then I'll show how technologies and research will work.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E9nOVlqR1fM

[Lainur 0]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1E7sJnvsruA

Just added some new spell mechanics and two new Mage-Units.
Psy Mage - can throw different objects, depending on which terrain he stands.

And Wind mage creates gusts and tornados, which causes chaos in enemy lines.

For the spell mechanics - I have added spell cooldown and charges stats.

Now i'll fully concentrate on technology tree and land development.

[Lainur 0]

Hello all !
Added "Charge" mechanics, and Heavy Lance Knights unit. It's heavily armored riders with a lance.
In the video below you can see how charge attacks work, and how they differ for a different type of units. So, light cavalry also has "charge skill", but gets fewer bonuses from it, as heavy lance knights.
Also, I'm working on Necromancer unit with some special mechanics too:
First, it has "Dark Rain" spell, which only can be used when you have enough souls consumed by killing enemy units.
Second Necromancer squads enter the battlefield with their special slave squad - undeads. So u can use consumed souls also for reviving fallen undeads and healing them. When necromancer dies their undead disappear too ...

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a0uj9iUig58

Edited May 9, 2017 by Lainur

[black mage 28]

Wow, the mechanic looks awesome! My hands are full right now so I can't think any constructive feedback at the moment. (T_T)

Keep the great work man!

[Lainur 0]

Hello all !
Introducing Necromancer.
Necromancers enter each battle with one minion unit - Undead. It has lots of HP, but lack of damage.
I have added icons of master and slave also for minions and their masters.
Necromancer has ranged attack - green flames, also it can fight in close combat.
When necromancer kills enemy soldiers it consumes their souls. Also, they receive souls, when their Undeads kills an enemy.
When Necromancer reach 5 level in souls bar, they can use powerful area spell "Rain of Pain"
Other Necromancer's ability is - Revive. It heals their undead's up to 100% hp and even resurrects dead units, but non-much than Necromancer can control. Each unit in necromancer's squad controls 4 Undeads, so when you kills Necromancers you also kills Undead from their controlled squad.
Also, i reworked souls animation when units in squads die. So now when you kill soldiers you can see their souls flying up, but when you kill Undead you see only some green mist falling down on the ground.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m8vN0XL2w6A

[Lainur 0]

Say hello to youtube !
By some mistake Youtube has blocked my account, so all my criminal videos are unavailable now ! ))

[Lainur 0]

I have added some sounds and music
Sounds of fights, shots, spells, unit speech, movement. Environment sounds. 
so here is it:

Edited July 9, 2017 by Lainur

[Lainur 0]

New design of some mage units (more realistic, imho) :

 

[Lainur 0]

Hello, all! Here is new video!

Added some game mechanics, new units and their abilities. Some old units received skills too. 

Added status of armies: rooted/cursed/poisoned e.t.c. Each condition has its timer and icon in the upper-left corner of the army.

Added visible minions in some mage-type units. So, mages have elementals, druids hogs, witches - seduced peasants.

[Lainur 0]

In process of AI testing, I have realized that with the current method of unit placement(shuffle) and style which AI plays, some kind of mess is going. Because range attackers can be placed in front lines, melee damagers are in rear ranks and so on. To fix that
i have added function for auto placing units in formation which suits for battle better.
Examples on the screens:

[spoiler=Screens]

and

 

[Ardaceus 21]

This is some nice work that is being put into this!

 

:grin:

[Lainur 0]

Thank you  :grin:

[Lainur 0]

Wind Mages and Psyonics received ranged attacks.
Mages use ball lightnings and Psyonics use their mind to levitate stones, then fire stones into the enemy square.
Wind mages also received one spell - Thunder Storm(2x2 square, 2 to 6 lightning strikes in every square with high damage).