Codex Interview RPG Codex Interview: Legends of Eisenwald, Turn Based Strategy/RPG

[golgepapaz]

Having replayed Disciples II recently and expansively ,combat demo looks better than anything disciples 2 offer. Disciples 2 combat is rather uninspired and straightforward, differences mainly come from playing different races. (Dvarves depend on high hp and and out-damaging opponents, humans faster initiative and healing etc) And also using consumables and world spells strategically for hard encounters(which are resource intensive and hard to come by). AFAIU this game is a low magic, low fantasy one so I wonder how are they planning to provide diversity and replayability. Meaning is there more than one Race/Faction with different units and playstyles
or just Humans with general units (bowman ,pikeman, knight,alchemist, herbalist etc)?

Also, assuming that you can transfer heroes and items from map to map, please don't limit it with only one hero, I hate it when you got one overpowered hero doing all the fighting and the other level 1 heroes acting as beasts of burden and resource gatherers.

Anyway congratulations for bringing a genre that I insanely enjoy back to us, and I'll pledge as soon as I get my paycheck...

 

[commie]

About difficulty: we are considering to make difficulty levels difficult Meaning - a player won't have just one button difficulty level, each parameter like battle complexity, experience gain, income etc. could be adjusted separately. In that case if everything set to maximum would be even more hardcore than in Discord Times. But that is still under discussion.

This would be great, especially if there is a toggle for what bonus the AI gets as well.

Since this game contains elements of economic simulations I hope that you won't consider the standard lazy way of helping the AI by just giving it 'X' amount of gold each turn so that it can keep sending full stack armies against you no matter the economic situation or whether the AI holds any major income sources at all. This is how the Total War series manages difficulty on the higher levels and it's a cheap cheat that makes strategies such as raids to capture or destroy economic centres pointless, as the AI will get gold regardless. I'd much rather the AI get maybe better commanders that in turn provide better bonuses for his armies and perhaps starts off a scenario with better and more numerous armies. Having a higher development for his castles from the beginning would also be acceptable(if this type of thing exists in the game). Finally, if the game operates on the 'spawn' principle i.e. when you take on a quest, certain extra AI armies are created or show up after a time like in Discord Times; then that should be quite easy to add or take away difficulty, by changing the number and composition of these spawned 'quest' armies.

I'm guessing that the game will feature both a more freeform style of play(like HOMM/Disciples skirmish) and a questing style(like KB), so the above suggestions would be valid for both approaches.

 

[Burning Bridges]

Alexander, let me reiterate that even if many people may not put their money in Eisenwald yet, for several reasons, if the game turns out really good your next project will probably collect a much larger amount of money, in the region of Banner Saga or more. So I think you should see this game also as your letter of application to the gaming world, you are on a very good way in my opinion. Also you are doing very good with respect to RPGCodex, a guy like you fits right in.

 

[Aterdux Entertainment]

Commie, that's exact what I meant. And no, our AI won't be lazy but it will have a couple of tricks

Burning Bridges, thank you for your message, we feel we are on a good way too. But we look at our present situation a bit differently - regardless of what happens we want to do the best game we can. Thinking about future puts your focus away from the tasks at hand and while I agree we are on a very good way, we don't see it as a letter of application. That was Discord Times We believe that making things with passion for what you do backed by technical expertise and knowledge can bring great results. So I guess let's see And yes, RPGCodex looks like a great place because of all you people here!

By the way, we posted a new update with some more info about combat and we will have a box version!

 

[mindx2]

By the way, we posted a new update with some more info about combat and we will have a box version!

What exactly is included? Just the two disk or does it include a manual, map, etc? Either way I certainly appreciate the effort to get one. I know it isn't easy for small developers like yourself to get these made.

 

[Stinger]

I just read the latest update. It's a pretty interesting set of combat mechanics you've come up with. Something I was wondering about, if randomisation and stuff like to hit chance is gone how do you plan on combat encounters getting more difficult? Simply inflating the stats or increasing the enemy units just leads to incredibly tedious combat (Dragon Age 2 is a great example of this) so how do you plan on getting more difficult and varied encounter design within that combat system?

Now I've got to admit I've never played HoMM or Disciples style combat so I should probably play those games first before asking what are probably dumb questions but it was just a thought I had.

Either way this looks really good and your comments have cleared a lot of things up, I hope to sort out some of these tech issues so I can hurry up and pledge.

 

[Burning Bridges]

Burning Bridges, thank you for your message, we feel we are on a good way too. But we look at our present situation a bit differently - regardless of what happens we want to do the best game we can. Thinking about future puts your focus away from the tasks at hand and while I agree we are on a very good way, we don't see it as a result: land taken.. That was Discord Times We believe that making things with passion for what you do backed by technical expertise and knowledge can bring great results. So I guess let's see And yes, RPGCodex looks like a great place because of all you people here!

That is just as correct, the way you say it. But while I think it shows again that you somehow always find the right words - in this case you say very nicely that you will finish this game before you think about another, I also think it's not a crime to just remind you that there will be a time after Eisenwald, and it may hold a lot for you if Eisenwald is a success. I absolutely understand if you refuse to think about it now, and concentrate on the current game - this is probably not even simply good PR, but it's just how you are, an absolutely decent person.

But if Discord Times was already your letter of application, then see Eisenwald as your first big stage performance, with promotion to full international software company status waiting next.

Don't let that distract you from discussing Eisenwald, I just wanted to encourage you and explain why many more people may pledge for your next project, or buy Eisenwald post release. 50,000$ may sound much to you but it is peanuts compared to what you would get if you were from the USA and had worked on Bioware games before Or with an internationally reknowned, successful game, which I hope Eisenwald will become.

 

[Jarpie]

Commie, that's exact what I meant. And no, our AI won't be lazy but it will have a couple of tricks

Burning Bridges, thank you for your message, we feel we are on a good way too. But we look at our present situation a bit differently - regardless of what happens we want to do the best game we can. Thinking about future puts your focus away from the tasks at hand and while I agree we are on a very good way, we don't see it as a letter of application. That was Discord Times We believe that making things with passion for what you do backed by technical expertise and knowledge can bring great results. So I guess let's see And yes, RPGCodex looks like a great place because of all you people here!

By the way, we posted a new update with some more info about combat and we will have a box version!

If you haven't already, you should get calculations ready on how much from donations you actually would get (like 10% for Kickstarter and Amazon altogether, taxes, other expenses) and exactly how much manufacturing the box costs per unit...although free shipping might be good way to get people pledge, the postage costs for all those boxsets won't come cheap so the whole 75 dollars might go for the box and posting.

 

[DwarvenFood]

I was wondering if for release you are in any way obligated to use Steam, or are you going to do your own download service ? Just had an idea that you might want to try knocking on GoG's door. Am getting a bit ahead of things but anyway.. Also, love the look of the game but am currently unable to donate.. will buy on release or if some good fortune comes along soon.

 

[mbpopolano24]

GoG please as an alternative to Steam. Pretty please?? Also, you know the game better than any of us right now, but I am a bit worried about total lack of randomization during combat. Even in a 'real' fight any numbers of things can go wrong and you can miss. Being ALWAYS sure that 3 hits will be enough to kill an enemy, for example, is not my cup of tea... (although I will play and most certainly enjoy the game anyway). Finally, please add damage modification for SIDE attacks, not attacks from the back only. As you said in previous posts, due the the current mechanics of the game, getting behind a unit will be pretty rare. But even in the combat video it is clea that units turn facing the attackers, so I can use one of my units to DISTRACT a stronger enemy, while using a second unit to attack him/her from the side for extra damage. That alone would add a ton of tactical options, and if you have ever been on an actual fight, you know that it is pretty difficult to defend yourself from the side when you are facing a second attacker from the front. Just suggestions, I am looking forward to play your game. Among all the Kickstarter projects I am curently supporting, this one is my # 2 in the list (Wasteland 2 is #1, but it is also so far off).

 

[Aterdux Entertainment]

Thank you for all your responses, this thread is still very alive compared to our fund raising effort at the moment which slowed down a bit. It seems like video gave us some boost but now we need to do more.

mindx2, the box will include two discs and a booklet which is a smaller manual.

Stinger, well, lack of randomness is going to open some discussion but after playing Disciples 2 and having to reload many times to avoid all those misses we don't think that randomness adds to the game much. Variety of combat is achieved through lots of different bonuses, alternate actions as opposed to attacking, plus different configurations of attacking armies. In testing this seems really interesting. But beta test will show more.

Burning Bridges, thank you for seeing my point, I really like style of our discussion here - it is very seldom when people can really listen to each other, agree, disagree - doesn't matter but respectfully and providing good reasoning. In some other forums that was not the case

Jarpie, we did all the calculations already, thank you and that's the reason we didn't introduce the box version right away - there were holidays here and we had find out how much the production would cost and if we would be able to fulfill our obligations - both in terms of delivering the goods and finishing our game which we take very seriously.

DwarvenFood - while we are not obliged to use Steam - we love it and use it quite a lot - we would be very happy to be there and we will do our best to get there. Their user base is the largest and I think they account for over 50% of digital sales. There is no point of ignoring them. GoG is under consideration too but both require a beta version or close to beta version and we are not there yet...

mbpopolano24 - please take a look at our old game if you didn't yet. And see if lack of randomness is doing something bad to you. Yes, if computer AI sends to you always same kinds of armies then it could get pretty boring but our AI is not stupid and neither are us or our story writer. But otherwise, there is enough to do without any randomness...

 

[Aterdux Entertainment]

http://www.pcgameshardware.com/aid,...w-with-the-CEO-of-Aterdux-Entertainment/News/ - Here is yet another interview. We are rather popular in Germany, I wish US and UK would join too

 

[Jarpie]

Looks like you got another, although small spike today (or yesterday, depending on timezone). Hopefully you're going to get third big spike on pledges soon.

 

[Aterdux Entertainment]

Yes, we sent an updated press release to many sites, and we got on gamespy, that's a good start. Today someone took 2k reward, that's why the spike

 

[Jarpie]

I sent an email to Rob Zacny who is one of the panelists in the strategy game podcast Three Moves Ahead that could they do an episode about Legends of Eisenwald. If they decide to do episode about Eisenwald, it might help with the pledges.

 

[Aterdux Entertainment]

Jarpie, thank you so much! Yes, that should help. We appreciate it very much.

 

[Tigranes]

Looks interesting, currently mulling over pledge amount, but I'll probably put something down soon. I skimmed through the videos and this thread, so I'm an idiot if it's been answered elsewhere, but:

(1) I like low-fantasy, smaller maps, no stacks, no randomization, etc. on paper, but how do you ensure that the combat still has a variety of options, things that the player can do, both for the 'fun' factor and for tactical variety? I wasn't too enthralled by the combat video for this reason, even though the basic mechanics looked good. Not every game has to have magic, but if you take it out, you want something else to fill that role, whether it be aimed attacks, or whatever.

(2) I'm probably in the minority in that I enjoyed King's Bounty but couldn't really get into Age of Wonders or HOMM, because I found the strategic layer very grindy. There's such a long process of capturing cities, building up your armies and whittling down your opponent bit by bit, which I found wearisome. Of course, you can find this in other types of strategy games - Total War, King Arthur, Rise of Nations, etc. Can you tell us whether you consider that an issue or why it wouldn't be for Eisenwald? (That's just how strategy games are would, to be fair, be a valid answer.)

 

[Aterdux Entertainment]

These questions I believe were not formulated this way, so it's good to clarify a thing or two here.

1) Combat will have variety because of many different bonuses each kind of troops has, plus each kind of weapon has, plus each hero has. Each unit is upgradable and customizable, and that alone gives many opportunities to change things. Also, we didn't take out magic, it is still there, it is just more aligned with the low-fantasy medieval setting - priests will be efficient against the undead, healers will do their thing, witches will create all sorts of trouble for the enemy etc. To be honest, we are afraid it could have too much variety. Discord Times, for example, had much less of it and still was (and is) fun to play. And one more thing, each kind of troops will also have some passive bonuses - things they can do if they skip a turn.

2) Legends of Eisenwald is more like King's Bounty if you look at a strategic aspect of it, meaning there you don't have to do all those things like in HoMM. We call our game for a reason RPG with elements of strategy - wearisome is a good way to describe some strategy games and LoE is not a strategy.

 

[Excommunicator]

What are "all those things" that you need to do in HoMM? Basically the only non-combat things you do in HoMM is accumulate resources to buy buildings to make units. I find it hard to imagine how it might be simpler than that, unless you mean simply on a smaller scale where structures are just not a part of your scale of concern?

 

[Shannow]

Have you played Kings Bounty?
You simply gain gold/xp/equipment by killing stuff and you open up new pathways by removing meat-shields. You (mostly) hire troops from merchants. There is no need to run back and forth to protect mines/cities from enemy armies. No upgrading cities, only your troops. THe reasons you run back and forth in KB is to stock up on troops or because you're finally powerful enough to fight your way past certain points.

 

[Aterdux Entertainment]

Agree with Shannow - and one more detail: in HoMM you have to control your territory and it is done by multiple armies. In Kings Bounty and also in Legends of Eisenwald you have just one squad. I think this is one of the big differences between a strategy and a RPG. In our game you might leave some troops in castles to protect them, but they are not squads at you command.

 

[Johannes]

What kind of enemies are you fighting - do they stand around on the map, just waiting for you to come to them, or do they move around, hire more troops over time, etc.?

 

[Aterdux Entertainment]

There are different kinds of enemies - and their presence will depend on the story. Some will be hiding, some will be sitting in castles, some will be moving around and get stronger, some will come for you

 

[Excommunicator]

I haven't played King's Bounty but it sounds like it would be my kind of thing.

Assuming we are talking about the singleplayer here, HoMM is weak in that respect anyway, in that you normally can go for one really powerful army to take over the map, and territory and secondary heroes are often meaningless as a result. In that sense I guess it will not play too differently. Hopefully you can work on greater tactical complexity in the future with a sequel, now that this one is likely to reach the target.

 

[Aterdux Entertainment]

Excommunicator - what do you men by greater tactical complexity? You mean gameplay on a global map or combat?