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Vapourware Zodiac Legion - X-COM and dungeons

Galdred

Studio Draconis
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Steve gets a Kidney but I don't even get a tag.
For now, it will have a huge mana cost (the gif shows 4 but it will change).
I was also thinking about changing the mana system to make the pool common to the whole party (because they all draw from the same pool of zodiac star energy) in order to control the frequency of wall crushing, among other things.
With most of the missions having a soft timer (aka endless reinforcements), that should be a sufficient incentive not to bypass every door.
I was also thinking about raising the alarm level (ie the reinforcement rate), but that will depend on how the tests go.
 

razvedchiki

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Also, I'm late to the party here, but those lazy Greek communists need to get off their fat lazy Greek communist asses and start working 40-hour weeks until their 60's like everyone else who isn't a fat lazy Greek communist. And then on their way to and from gainful employment they need to chant "Austerity! Austerity! Austerity!" until they really believe in it. And then they need to start paying for things with cash instead of German-backed Euro-denominated promises. If they can't handle that, then let them leave the Eurozone and then they can print drachmas until they're more valuable as toilet paper and kindling than as legal tender. Those lazy fatass Greek pinkos can turn Greece into the Zimbabwe of Europe. Or they can start exercising some fiscal responsibility.

Fat lazy communist greeks work the most hours per week in the eurozone,check your fake news fucktard.
 

razvedchiki

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the "lazy south" was a fake news campaign used by germany etc in order to justify the economic "help" in their countries,and of which the so called "north european critical thinker" easily accepted and replicated ad naseum as truth.
 

Galdred

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Steve gets a Kidney but I don't even get a tag.
The "paperdolling compilation" on imgur:
https://imgur.com/gallery/70MD8Sb

Paperdolling in Zodiac Legion
by FlyingDrakkar11 hr

Paperdolling showcase.
I wanted to let the player and AI opponent to have a good choice of weapons to outfit their characters in Zodiac Legion(http://zodiac-legion . com/). I also wanted the character sprites to really reflect the armor they were wearing. Hence why I asked Cyangmou(https://twitter . com/cyangmou) to design a robust paperdolling system for Zodiac Legion . It was a very complex process art wise, and technically, but it gives a very high number of combinations. Each animation works with every combination as long as there are no two pieces of the same type (ie 2 helms).
N2MvV2m.gif

Some variations with the same Taurus helm
wBKJ9Ec.png

First sketch for the body parts that would form the paperdolling system.



Character silhouette sketch

lCCN9Gl.png


the spritesheet in texturepacker (for the legs).

uL17SUp.png


Taurus Attack Animation As you can see with the next two pictures, the downside of the paperdolling system is that it forces animations to be identical among all characters and weapons.

dc0NRQm.gif


Ophiuchus poison sword attack animation

Bbzy6jH.gif


Libra attack animation

a3KcSEx.gif
 
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Galdred

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Repost of a reply I made in GRPG about the strategic part of the game:

Taka-Haradin puolipeikko said:
Can you tell more about that strategic layer that you're planning @Galdred?
The player would control his Stronghold, and losing it would be the defeat condition.
The game would have 3 phases:
1st phase (skippable tutorial, 5%): the player starts with very few henchmen, recruit a few more along the way, and get control of his stronghold.
2nd phase (10%): The player retake control over the neighbouring provinces (that are mostly neutral).
3rd phase (remaining 85%): The player race against the AI to get control over new provinces, either through diplomacy or conquest, and directly confront the main opposing faction (probably the Chinese Zodiac guys).

So strategic layer is:
The map is split into region. Each region belongs to either major faction, or is independent.
Each region can have a "castle", but only the player stronghold can hold the main "XCOM" infrastructures(magic forge, laboratory, champion's hall). The minor castles are only there for defense and teleportation services.
Regions can also host dungeons (that can provide one time raiding adventures), and a point of interest (that give ongoing bonus once controlled).

The player controls a few champions(1-13, depending on the area controled), and henchmen. Only champions have access to customization (henchmen will just have basic stats, and one background trait, and are supposed to die en mass. Veteran henchmen can be empowered as champions when one champion slot is fred or acquired). The total roster should be around 30 characters at a given time(ie between X-COM and Jagged Alliance), but that will probably change.

Characters (champions and henchmen) can perform one campaign action each turn (like in Jagged Alliance, or Dead State):
- at stronghold:
  1. Training armies or other characters
  2. Studying old books/Casting a ritual spell
  3. Blacksmithing/Enchantment
  4. Recovering from wounds
- on the field(all field activities may trigger a mission, except for province management):
  1. Spying
  2. Diplomacy
  3. Leading armies
  4. Managing a province (doesn't require the character to be physically in the province, like in King Arthur: The Roleplaying Wargame).

Each turn is split in the following sequences:

  1. Refresh phase (income, crafting results, army recruitment and training, random events)
  2. Character planning phase (most should keep the same task as the turn before, as many actions will take several turns)
  3. Mission Phase (dungeon raiding, and large battles take place)
  4. End Phase (campaign results: armies take damage, provinces and castles change hand)

I want to give management roles to the character because I like having some missions featuring non combat characters (like protecting a diplomat from assassination, or escorting the blacksmith to the forge of the stars), and it gives an economic downside to character wounds (if a character is wounded he has to choose between recovery and doing something useful for the turn), but I want to keep the character allocation phase relatively short, so I will iterate until you don't have incentive to reallocate too many characters each turn.
 

Reinar

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Wall breaching in action. I will probably replace this with a more fitting elemental attack, though, as fire is already useful for a lot of things.

It's usually ice that destroys stone buildings IRL.

I need to make the outer walls of the dungeons not crushable, though, as it leads to degenerate "tactics" (crush the outer wall, go to the objective from outside the dungeon, crush the objective outer wall, profit...).
If you change your mind: In underground dungeons, let the player do it - there would be several outer walls he'd have to break through with a chance of cave in. In castles, put objective in the middle. Or add other unbreakable blockers like holes.
 

Galdred

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Wall breaching in action. I will probably replace this with a more fitting elemental attack, though, as fire is already useful for a lot of things.

It's usually ice that destroys stone buildings IRL.

I was thinking about earth as earthquake, or maybe an explosion spell. Ice is already pretty good, as it allows creating obstacles quickly (the obstacle can also contain a frozen opponent).

I need to make the outer walls of the dungeons not crushable, though, as it leads to degenerate "tactics" (crush the outer wall, go to the objective from outside the dungeon, crush the objective outer wall, profit...).
If you change your mind: In underground dungeons, let the player do it - there would be several outer walls he'd have to break through with a chance of cave in. In castles, put objective in the middle. Or add other unbreakable blockers like holes.
Indeed, destroying the outer wall of the dungeon would not be practical if you need to "tunnel your way" through, but I still need some limits to the map, and outer dungeon walls seemed a reasonable choice, compared to a red line.[/QUOTE]

Holes are a good idea (or bottomless pits), but teleportation/levitation will be possible.
That said, I prefer the player being free to take the path they want. As long as there is a drawback strong enough for that, it should not be a problem(stronger utility spells could also cost hitpoints. I don't like Hitpoint as a casting resource for offensive spells, but in exchange of bypassing a section of the level, it seems reasonable).
 
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Reinar

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After years of theoretical game development (well I do have a few proof of concept projects) I realised I don't like to divide magic into four elemental school where each element has to be as strong as the other because of balance. Rather I prefer to put elemental magic into one school and add various other schools. That way you can have one element stronger than the rest - it's not easy to come up with good elemental spells for some game types unless you don't care about redundancy. Might & Magic VII comes to my mind. There were several offensive spells but usually only one per element was good, and some elements were stronger than the other.
 

Galdred

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That is a good point, elements are a bit too restrictive, and don't match the usual fantasy powers too well.
But the Zodiac signs each being paired with an element in astrology, we felt we had to keep the association in the game.
I am still unsure about the best way to do it.
It could be something like: Class => Available "Schools" of magic, and Sign => Extra elemental spells and attacks
Zodiac signs might not be totally balanced, but that should not be a big issue as long as they are different enough, and you don't get the same ones in the same order in every playthrough.
 
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Galdred

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The stronghold is in. It doesn't do much, except cost money to add facilities for now.
Here is the mockup for the stronghold plan:

86GXzCI.png


The castle plan will be replaced by a proper one (and wall "tiles" should also be somewhat customizable in the future, to host towers, siege engines, or magic device).

Facilities in the outer bailey will be more vulnerable to raids and bombardments.
Being close to a tower will make them less vulnerable too.
 
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The Red Knight

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I was thinking about earth as earthquake, or maybe an explosion spell. Ice is already pretty good, as it allows creating obstacles quickly (the obstacle can also contain a frozen opponent).

[snip]

I prefer the player being free to take the path they want. As long as there is a drawback strong enough for that, it should not be a problem(stronger utility spells could also cost hitpoints. I don't like Hitpoint as a casting resource for offensive spells, but in exchange of bypassing a section of the level, it seems reasonable).
What about making the explosion have a (high) chance to damage the user, or anyone else standing on either side of the wall hex, with flying debris? The end result would be the same (HP loss) and there would be a bit of situational incentive to use that damage on an enemy next to the wall you want to bring down.
 

Jimmious

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Being close to a tower will make them less vulnerable too.
Hey sorry if I'm being weird, but due to your symmetrical stronghold, it looks like all building spots have an adjacent tower, either in their front or on their back.
 

Galdred

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Steve gets a Kidney but I don't even get a tag.
I was thinking about earth as earthquake, or maybe an explosion spell. Ice is already pretty good, as it allows creating obstacles quickly (the obstacle can also contain a frozen opponent).

[snip]

I prefer the player being free to take the path they want. As long as there is a drawback strong enough for that, it should not be a problem(stronger utility spells could also cost hitpoints. I don't like Hitpoint as a casting resource for offensive spells, but in exchange of bypassing a section of the level, it seems reasonable).
What about making the explosion have a (high) chance to damage the user, or anyone else standing on either side of the wall hex, with flying debris? The end result would be the same (HP loss) and there would be a bit of situational incentive to use that damage on an enemy next to the wall you want to bring down.

That is a good point: Maybe not thhe explosion itself (as breaching a wall would work much better with a directed force than a circular explosion), but there could be a chance of cave in(which would also help with the problem of not having animations).
That siad, I would still need a generic way to control the use of high level spells.

Being close to a tower will make them less vulnerable too.
Hey sorry if I'm being weird, but due to your symmetrical stronghold, it looks like all building spots have an adjacent tower, either in their front or on their back.
Actually, a few of them don't, but I get your point!
That said, Towers are things the player need to erect (ie, they are not free, and only the corner ones are mandatory).
Towers would also provide a greater defense for the building slots inside than outside.
 

Galdred

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I have just moved from Paris to Düsseldorf. I am still trying to get the new house in working order (for some weird reason, Germans rent the house with a completely empty kitchen. Also, I don't have Internet yet).
I am working on integrating exterior content to the game (ie more trees, and small assets), and I plan to get more assets done (to have buildings, and exterior props).

The plan is now to release a trailer soon (end of October) followed by a demo (end of November), before a Kickstarter in February (because I am not ready for October, and the month between October and February are not good for KS).
 

Galdred

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btw, someone just built the stronghold of the Zodiac Legion:

ED9RNXiXUAIy8Lu

It has the shape of the Zodiac Circle, with one tower for each element(or season?).
The large battlements are made to minimize the advantage of flyers.That is also the reason for the towers not being too high compared to the ramparts.

As someone pointed out, the large battlements would become a liability against huge flying creatures(provided they fight better when they have landed), as they would allow a dragon to land.

Did the lord of the castle(it is Belver Castle) really face a winged humanoid attack (or teleport), or was he just being cautious? This really looks like a medieval flak tower.

1*PBVjIYy_EjKXBs4UsnwkWg.jpeg
 
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