This week has been quite scatterbrained in terms of sticking to any one part. As more and more begins to take shape, more and more happens to a crazy snowball like effect. As I continue to tick things off, more seemingly take pop up, and despite the time commitment I sink into this weekly (though i cannot complain much due to my enjoyment in the subject matter) I fear I simply do not have ENOUGH time in the day to reach the point I hope for come March 17th.
I recently (last weekend) purchased this book and it, while incredibly basic, has been a wealth of knowledge as I begin to dip my feet into the realm of code. All of that has been very preliminary, and I am debating the value of the 99 dollar developer license. Mainly, if I want to test anything or compile anything I ever make, I need to bite the bullet and just jump two feet in and get it over with. At least it isn't mission critical at the moment so "out of sight, out of mind."
UI
I expanded some more on my UI decisions this week. No beautiful pictures to go along with it, but I plan on making some more next week to have to show based on theory crafting this week. In the nation bar up top, I refined my ideas from a vague "all important nation based information at a glance up here" to a more concrete level.
In the upper left hand corner will be your nations flag/logo, taping this will bring up a pop up with more detailed information for your nation that you can view, and adjust. These things include your nation ranking and standings with other known nations, a list of national policies (that you have played via cards), taxations/upkeep costs (where you can adjust simple sliders and see just how much cash you will bring in along with ramifications of change), military options (spending, war time fundings, additional regiments), international relations (such as espionage [unlocked via tech], trade, etc), and other useful information.
This information will be broken down into 4 main tabs, a general overview, national policy, economy, and military. It serves as the central hub for all things national, and it is called up only when you want/need, leaving the screen empty and de-cluttered otherwise. To help the player, popup ions can appear in the upper center of the screen informing of any important, urgent, or otherwise particularly helpful information that they can tap on to auto take them to the proper part of the nation window.
Along with the flag icon that takes care of all your nation business, you have some at a glance information on the left hand side. There is Populace (which shows you the available number of people in your nation able to reinforce your military), Stability (which shows you how stable your nation is as a whole), and then Treasury (naturally your banked credits). On the right hand side, you have the number of armies (which you can tap to bring up your list of how big they are and where they presently are), and then the turn number and in game date.
Military/Combat
You create military units by playing cards military or defense token cards, or by buying them for a huge cost (if you wish to have a giant army, or simply have war time needs). You can use your available populace to reinforce your military, though this takes a number of turns and money to retrofit a unit if a card is not used (added recruitment and training time). Also the more of the population percent you add towards your military will affect your nations morale, and your troops morale, which can lead to riots (unless augmented by a specific card removing effect).
Units work on dice rolls, with additional modifiers based on terrain, tech cards, and then morale/logistics.
Their movement is based on length distances (same as logistics/information delay), and is modified by natural territory terrain, and then nation modifiers such as trails, roads, etc.
Units can send back information, much like a recon group, but the information still suffers delay, this can be modified later with tech like radios. Units have base 1 vision (sans any tech modification), and can be expanded or shrunk depending on the terrain type.
Military requires upkeep through taxes, however if you want you can cut this out, but the downside is that while you have a military, they can be under funded or not funded at all which makes them useless quickly. Also should your morale or logistics drop too low, your units will begin to lose men, either to desertion (morale) or to famine/broken equipment (logistics), so it becomes important to carefully mange just how they are doing funding wise.
When taping on a military token, you have the following information presented to you: unit size, dice roll, modifiers, and morale/logistic bar. These things give you an at a glance overview of the most important aspects of a unit to survive. If you tap and drag, you will see a path arrow emerge in which you can tell a unit to mobilize and move to a new territory. once you do this you have no idea how long it will take your units to travel, and as such you have to plan carefully ahead.
The Unit modifiers for Terrain are as follows:
Some things that effect the morale bar are things like outcome of previous battle, size in relation to opposing army, length away from home nation, and funding. You can regain your units lost morale by "resting" them in any allied city.Grass plains/open ground: 1 movement, 0 defense, +2 vision
Brush: 2 movement, +1.5 defense, -.5 vision
Coastal: 1.5 movement, 0 defense, +2 vision
Ravine/gully: 2 movement, +1 defense (SPECIAL: all land units in cannot be seen expect by units in touching regions.), -1 vision
Hills: 3 movement, +2 defense for infantry, +1 vision
Mountains: 4 movement, +3 defense for infantry, +3 vision
Trees: 1 movement, +1 defense, -1 vision
Jungle: 3 movement, +2 defense, -2 vision
Streams: 3 movement, -1 defense, 0 vision
Tech Card modifiers:
Trails: terrain movement divided by 1.25, 0 defense
Roads: terrain movement divided by 2, 0 defense
Highways: terrain movement divided by 2.5, 0 defense
Autobahn (special tech): terrain movement divided by 3.5, 0 defense
Some things that effect the logistics bar are things like funding, distance from allied cities, distance from home nation, and terrain (traveling through harsh terrain such as mountains lowers your logistics chain and causes them to be more isolated).
1 comments:
from post:
"Also the more of the population percent you add towards your military will affect your nations morale, and your troops morale, which can lead to riots (unless augmented by a specific card removing effect)."
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I was wondering if there was anything more you could say about this riot mechanic. One of the problems I saw with CIV4's attempt to simulate war fatigue and a society's eventual turn against prolonged self-initiated war was that you could just "game" the system with Future Tech, etc. The problem is that the intended consequence for the gamer of making them consider waging war carefully was lost, since one could just neutralize a social problem with arguably absurd counter-mechanics. Also, CIV4 make the cost of prolonged war register in negative happiness, but why not also health? PTSD? Generations of soldiers coming back with lost limbs, to broken homes, etc.
I know in the balance is to make combat a fun part of the game, but it might be interesting to make the consequences of aggression more final and therefore significant, rather than less by providing a mechanic to delay or neutralize the costs of doing so :P
T
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