74 replies to this topic

[Radspakr Wolfbane]

Time to establish a Tech Tree for Greece.
Powers,Units,Buildings and Heroes can all be decided here.

My opinions I think we should avoid Sparta for starters (heh that kind of rhymed) since Spartans sometimes at war with Greece(Athens).
Also there is the whole 300 thing.

An idea I just had is linking units and abilities to the Spell Book.
Like certain spells are needed to be build X unit.
Possibly even splitting the Spell Book in 2.
Allowing the player to only go down one path of the spell book could be an interesting idea to change things up a bit.
So what do you guys think.

[Elvenlord]

You can't really not put Spartans in. There were many greek city-states, and they all fought each other. Athens and Sparta weren't the only ones. Just give them seperate buildings or something to represent their differences.

Of course, that could go with that only one spellbook path, and you pick which major city-state you get.

[Gfire]

You mean, kinda like in AoM? You can choose various ways through the tree to unlock the right units.

I think this would be a great idea... I don't know how well it would work to only do it for one faction, though. Vikings and others could also use it.

[Lauri]

could, yeah, but still... It would make greece unqiue

I think that instead of a complex spellbook about it (KISS), you should have to decide what faction your going to focus on at the citadel at the start
You click the citadel, and it shows, say 3 different subfactions (spartans, athens, crete peasants, whatever ) that it will focus on..
Then the buildplot will unlock military buildings at you disposal, or maybe just unlock that subfactions troops, which you can't build before that...
Say greece only has a barracks and archery range to start with... If they choose the Crete peasants sub, then they can also build a special building for the uber peasants Both on the castle, camp and outpost plot..

Then, the issue is... When you capture a new castle or camp, should you be able to make a new decicion about what sub you want for that specific castle\camp? (Outposts should always have default buildings, and unlocks for units)
I believe they should, so that if they start a 1-vs-3 game... They start with Athens, and when they conquer one faction, they gain additional reinforcements, the Spartans... They take another faction, and get to use Crete peasants as well...

Still, I don't know how to go about keeping heroes limited to upgrades, aka, to keep them unbuyable until you upgrade to a subfaction...

[Neutron4ever]

Here's a small little tech-tree:

Units:

RANGE
-Greek Peltasts
-Greek Archers
-Slingers

MELEE
-Hoplites (Athenian, Spartan, Cretan)
-Militia Hoplites (Weaker version of hoplites)
-Sword Hoplites
-Peasants

MOUNTED
-Greek Cavalry
-Milita Cavalry (Again weaker version)
-Scout (Single mounted unit)

SEIGE
-Catapult
-Ballista

ELITE
-General (A sort of captain unit that provides leadership bonuses)

Note: The general should have random models and should vary from Spartan Generals to other city states

BUILDINGS:

-Archery Range
-Muster Grounds (For mounted units)
-Barracks (Several buttons leading to different commandsets for the city state that you choose)
-Watchtower
-Farm
-Governers Palace (The Fortress)
-Academy (For upgrades)
-Lumbermill
-Siege Works

Note: Maybe at the start, we should pick a central city and the costs of that city's units and building will be decreased while the others will be raised

That's all I got for now

Edited by Neutron4ever, 10 May 2009 - 10:07 PM.

[Crusard]

Adding subfactions will only increase the amount of work needed, and remember we don't possess unlimited workpower :S
Besides, it would look just like the RJ mod

However, there could be 2 or 3 spellbooks. Powers don't take too much time to make and they don't need any modelling or texturing either. I think "Magic" should be really important for the greek faction, with so much mythological stuff and all.

I have an idea, what if the spellbook store (the list of "buyable" spells) starts blank, and then you have to build some sort of Temple with your builder (or could be a Fortress building plot building). Depending on which temple you build, you get a certain spellbook:

Zeus (Leader of Gods): Damage spells, summon myth creature spells.
Mars (God of war): Leadership-like buffs, training and summon soldier powers.
Athena (Godess of wisdom): Economy passive and active powers, defensive buffs, debuffs.

Different spellbooks can be achieved by changing the commandset of the spellbook objects by giving player_upgrades. The spellstore cannot be touched, though (it's configured in the faction config).

And btw, Spartans have got to be in. Recruitable from a special building maybe.

(...)
An idea I just had is linking units and abilities to the Spell Book.
Like certain spells are needed to be build X unit.
(...)

Could be.
Actually it would be cool to implement this to all factions: The player must obtain a certain amount of power points (purchase these powers) before a certain unit type could be bought. It could add a whole new element to the game. Maybe Myth units for greeks and vikings, elite troops for rome and the asians? And so on.

-General (A sort of captain unit that provides leadership bonuses)

That sounds RJ
I think having a single unit to command is a bad idea. It unnecesarily increases the need of micromanagement, besides we'll have heroes to provide that leadership. It is rare to see more than one general leading a battle anyway ^^ (unless there's several armies involved)

Edited by Crusard, 10 May 2009 - 10:10 PM.

[Gfire]

Remember this is BFME2, Lauri.

[Radspakr Wolfbane]

Doesn't mean we can't have plots though

The temple idea may be possible but difficult to code I think an expert coder could probably pull it off but you shouldn't rely too heavily on that.

[Neutron4ever]

-General (A sort of captain unit that provides leadership bonuses)That sounds RJ
I think having a single unit to command is a bad idea. It unnecesarily increases the need of micromanagement, besides we'll have heroes to provide that leadership. It is rare to see more than one general leading a battle anyway ^^ (unless there's several armies involved)

Well actually, I got it from RTW
Maybe we could move the general into heroes and give them the randomization code thing if that's possible..

[Gfire]

Hmmmm... Mars is roman. Ares is the Greek god of war.

I like the temple idea, though.

[Crusard]

The temple idea may be possible but difficult to code I think an expert coder could probably pull it off but you shouldn't rely too heavily on that.

You don't need a pro coder for this

It works like this:
At start, the spellbook store buttons are all greyed out (Make the commandbuttons require a especific player_upgrade).
When the temple is built, you can use a ObjectCreationUpgrade behavior on this temple to provide the player with the needed player_upgrades.
These player_upgrades trigger a CommandSetUpgrade behavior on the Spellbook object, changing the spells that show up on the sidebar (when bought).

Hmmmm... Mars is roman. Ares is the Greek god of war.

I always get them all mixed up... Minerva and Athena, Zeus and Jupiter XD

[Gfire]

You'd just have to change the store commandset, right?

[Gfire]

It'd be awsome to get a Trojan horse to work in-game.

Probably only for the campaign, though.

And even then, only if there was a troy campaign.

Edit: Hey, what about when you "worship" a certain god then you unlock specific heroes. There were quite a few heroes who were "blessed" by a certain god. It would also allow more heroes to be added to the faction without overflowing it. There were a lot of heroes in Greek mythology, but it shouldn't be a hero-based faction, so by doing this you can limit the heroes without scrapping a bunch of them.

Edited by Gfire, 11 May 2009 - 02:20 PM.

[Taralom]

I'd prefer Macedon above Crete, because of Alexander the Great. Cretan archers could become an inn-unit.

[Lauri]

Remember this is BFME2, Lauri.

[Gfire]

In AoM, the heroes were best against Mythic units (like Centaurs, Trolls, etc.) but not too strong against humans. This could be really cool for the Greek heroes. I don't know how extreme it could be, though, with the lack of mythical creatures, but a bonus against those types of things could be cool. Quite a few summons might be used.

[Lauri]

Well, problem is, unless your going to play Greece against Greece, you probably won't be using the heroes much then
I don't see Vikings getting Centaurs or trolls...

[Crusard]

I would go for a general greek faction, like they do in most games. This way we can have fun adding the coolest units from each era.
History teachers will be pissed, but it will be a lot more fun for most

After some research and googling, I've come up with my list:

• Acropolis
• Builder
• Heroes
• 'Fortress Upgrades'

• Archery Range
• Cretan archers
• Flaming arrows (lv2)

• Barracks
• Peltasts (spear throwing, and melee fighting. Cheap infantry)
• Hoplite phalanx (Very long pike guys with shields, strong vs all but slow turning and take super flanking damage)
• Hoplite infantry (Short Spear and shield) (lv2)

• Cavalry Stables
• Kataskopos (Cheap, fast single scout unit)
• Hippeis (Cheap and agile cavalry, with round shield and spear)

• Academy of war
• Spartan infantry (Elite infantry units. Cape, spear, big round shield and linen armor, maybe a bronze breastplate)
• Basic training upgrade

• Greek Workshop (Requires Crane upgrade)
• Improved Weapons, upgrade (somebody please come up with a fancier name)
• Bronze Armor, upgrade (basic was linen armor, upgrade is Bronze breastplates)
• Onager (Anti-building siege engine. It was an early catapult)
• Cheiroballista (Anti-troops medium-sized ballista)

• Scholar library
• Crane, Upgrade (Builders construct twice as fast, allows Workshop and Battle tower)
• Urban Planning, upgrade (Improved building armor, like numenor stonework, but global)
• Animal Husbandry, Upgrade (+15% Improved resource output rate from farms)
• Medicine, Upgrade (Allied units heal over time (slowly) when in proximity of a friendly building)
• -maybe some other upgrade too-

• Temple of Zeus*
• Cyclopes** (They fought with him in the war against the titans)
• Zeus Spellbook tree.

• Temple of Athena*
• Gorgons** (Athena turned Medusa into one as she was jealous of her beauty when she was a mortal)
• Athena Spellbook tree.

• Temple of Ares*
• Centaurs** (They were said to be the offspring of Ixion, son of Ares)
• Ares Spellbook tree.

• Farms and Lumber Mills

• Watch tower (Basic, ungarrisonable arrow tower)

• Battle tower (Needs the Crane upgrade. Strong, costly (and garrisonable?))

*Alternatively, temples could be an attachment (buildplot) to the acropolis (fortress). It would look pretty good and original, and would limit the spells to a single "tree" unless a new fortress is built.

**Mythological creatures (Cyclopes, Gorgons and Centaurs) could have a spellbook tech requirement to make them interesting and more powerful (since players won't be able to recruit them until very late-game).

What do you guys say?

EDIT: I removed the slingers and the heavy cavalry. Neither of them are really representative of Greece and they're not a great gameplay addition either

Edited by Crusard, 19 June 2009 - 01:20 AM.

[Neutron4ever]

I sense RTW units