Vapourware Zodiac Legion - X-COM and dungeons

[Galdred]

Artem Brullov made a few windows for the game, to make walls usable outside::
Here is a small ingame preview:
The building obviously lacks interior decoration, and a door that can be opene(instead of smashed):

I am also working on small UI stuff (mouse wheel, resolution support), on top of the geoscape.
Is anyone playinh in 800*600 (windowed)?
I think I will drop support for this resolution as it makes the screen really cluttered by the UI.

 

[InD_ImaginE]

Is anyone playinh in 800*600 (windowed)?

Honestly I don't. As widescreen is getting more common I think something like 1024x576 windowed plays better than 800*600. Whats your smallest working resolution?

 

[Jimmious]

I believe 1024x768 is the bare minimum right now... If anyone is still using 800x600 they are an extreme minority..

 

[Galdred]

Is anyone playinh in 800*600 (windowed)?

Honestly I don't. As widescreen is getting more common I think something like 1024x576 windowed plays better than 800*600. Whats your smallest working resolution?

I don't really know. With the current number of icons, 1024*768 is a bit limited, but I will make them smaller anyway so that they can work in 1024*576.
4K is also a bit weird, as it makes icons and UI elements very small, even on a large screen.

 

[Galdred]

Apparently, there is a second anti demon fortress in Poland:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fort_Srebrna_Góra
Regarding the Zodiac Stronghold, the only way to keep each zodiac Bastion aligned with its constellation would be to rotate the castle on a daily basis. So the foundations would need to be placed on huge gears that would move using magical energy.

Is there an exemple of a rotating castle? I doubt there is a real one, but there could be one exemple in anime or books.

 

[The Red Knight]

In real life examples this TV Tropes page lists some giant mobile objects that could be used as inspiration (if you can make it move then you probably can also make it rotate). Plus various exaggerated fiction examples.

From modern rotating buildings you have those cylindrical eco houses that follow the sun and/or collect solar energy and the planned roating tower in Dubai. As an alternative to cogs it could be placed on a circular rail (or multiple of those of varying diameter for spreading out weight). Maybe it could be reinforced with some shock-absorbing magic so the mechanism isn't easily damaged during wall-shaking sieges.
In this article you have a photo of the rotating mechanism of one of those rotating houses.

If it's magic-heavy, it could also be something like a floating boat fortress with a pool of water or some other liquid underneath to make rotating easier and the magic would keep it from sinking.

 

[Ninjerk]

In real life examples this TV Tropes page lists some giant mobile objects that could be used as inspiration (if you can make it move then you probably can also make it rotate). Plus various exaggerated fiction examples.

From modern rotating buildings you have those cylindrical eco houses that follow the sun and/or collect solar energy and the planned roating tower in Dubai. As an alternative to cogs it could be placed on a circular rail (or multiple of those of varying diameter for spreading out weight). Maybe it could be reinforced with some shock-absorbing magic so the mechanism isn't easily damaged during wall-shaking sieges.
In this article you have a photo of the rotating mechanism of one of those rotating houses.

If it's magic-heavy, it could also be something like a floating boat fortress with a pool of water or some other liquid underneath to make rotating easier and the magic would keep it from sinking.

Some more inspiration:

 

[baud]

Is there an exemple of a rotating castle? I doubt there is a real one, but there could be one exemple in anime or books.

A modern example, there's a theme park in France where they do something like this in one of their spectacle (though when I first saw it 12~ years ago, the spectacle was different and the rotating castle much more visible):

(timestamped)

 

[Galdred]

Is there an exemple of a rotating castle? I doubt there is a real one, but there could be one exemple in anime or books.

A modern example, there's a theme park in France where they do something like this in one of their spectacle:

(timestamped)

I had seen this show live actually, but I had totally forgotten about the rotating castle. It was also a bit weird as the theme park sells itself as historical (that said, there are several historical shows that I found pretty good).
On a side note, we went with a 3 year old kid, and she really liked it, especially the shows with horses(so like 50% of them).

 

[baud]

Is there an exemple of a rotating castle? I doubt there is a real one, but there could be one exemple in anime or books.

A modern example, there's a theme park in France where they do something like this in one of their spectacle:

(timestamped)

I had seen this show live actually, but I had totally forgotten about the rotating castle. It was also a bit weird as the theme park sells itself as historical (that said, there are several historical shows that I found pretty good).
On a side note, we went with a 3 year old kid, and she really liked it, especially the shows with horses(so like 50% of them).

I had been there too, that how I knew about it. I saw a different spectacle on the same set, centered on the Hundred Year War instead and I didn't found the rotating castle weird, rather more funny, mostly because of the sappy voice-over (on the other hand I was like 17 at the time). Personally I'd say the best spectacles were the ones with the eagles.

 

[Galdred]

I have been working on the "geoscape". Here is a preview of the map:

In order to make things more readable, regions will have only a few readable characteristics:
- their terrain types (that determines income, manpower, and the terrain the missions triggered on the map will have)
- the culture of the people that inhabit them (I am thinking about going nuXCOM on this one, and grant cultural bonus after you conquer a given percentage of a culture).
- the player built structures in the region (currently, there would be two "branches" for secondary structures: castle, to help with income, defense/armies and recruitment, and dungeon to help with magic/teleport range).
When their HP reach 0, control of the province changes
- ancient unique buildings (like starmetal mine, golem factory)
- mission opportunities


The player is not supposed to paint the whole map. Actually, most regions should remain "neutral" during a playthrough.

In order to make playthroughs different, the opponents don't start on the map, but only send smaller parties during phase 1 (to raise influence, raid, secure artifacts), and only invade "en masse" after phase 2.
They will spawn in a random edge region of the map, where the player has little control. The unique buildings will also be placed randomly (and they won't be visible from the start, but would require scouting, or "researching existing history sources").

 

[Ninjerk]

The parts outside the circle look pretty artificial (like near-uniformly broken glass).

 

[Galdred]

The parts outside the circle look pretty artificial (like near-uniformly broken glass).

You mean the regions with number higher than 18?
Indeed, but it is only the human defined "borders". Also, they should somewhat follow the terrain under them, so it will be easier to have them more organic when the mountains, rivers and all are in place.

 

[Taka-Haradin puolipeikko]

 

[Galdred]

Don't worry, everything is under control:
I have found what was causing the weird glitch. It was not the same reason as before anyway (there was a deprecated texture file with the same name as the one I had just added in the path. Also, body filenames were malformed for retrieval).

My developer friends find it weird that I don't use any version control program, but I find it to be a horrible waste of time, especially when working alone, and their UI are really atrocious, especially when you want to do something complex, which is usually why you need them in the first place.

But I will keep a log of the bugs encountered and their cause from now on (I usually add a comment about it in the code, but these are not easy to find when you need, as you are usually looking for the part that causes the bug in the first place).


btw, I had to rework the textures because I am working on letting the sprites be recolorable on the fly (to have color coded opponents, and player customization of their armor).
I also need to recolor the region map (for map painting and highlighting).

 

[baud]

My developer friends find it weird that I don't use any version control program, but I find it to be a horrible waste of time, especially when working alone, and their UI are really atrocious, especially when you want to do something complex, which is usually why you need them in the first place.

As a dev myself, I think that's not weird for a personal project where you're working solo, as long as you keep some regular backup. Regarding the UI of VCSs, we're using tortoisehg at work and I don't think I had any grievance with it, unlike the various GUIs for git I've used before (but then git is more complex, so I'm not surprised that GUI for it aren't as good)

 

[Galdred]

Palette swapping for individual armor parts now works:

I made a clown legion with it.

Soon with color coded enemies for your convenience!

 

[Darth Roxor]

 

[Galdred]

Heh, I would really like to do a Chaos Gate with Eldars next , but I doubt it could happen

 

[Galdred]

http://www.mapsandmore.com/?p=155

Map Commission: Studio Draconis
Posted on November 7, 2019


Creating maps for computer games usually pose their own challenges, especially if they must serve tactical or strategic gameplay purposes. In this commission for the game Zodiac Legion by Studio Draconis, the brief was to create about a hundred distinct regions that fan our in four major areas from a central hub.


Regions needed be clearly associated with a terrain as well, and the terrain types were to be fairly evenly spread across the map.

While those conditions make it hard to create a “realistic” looking map in actual geographical terms, the checkerboard effect of terrains still makes for a pleasing variety on the map.

For this map I used the Herwin Wielink overland style in Campaign Cartographer 3+. The shown result is completely done within CC3+, no Photoshop post production involved.

The ingame map will obviously not feature disco multicolored map borders

This entry was posted in Commissions, Maps and tagged Campaign Cartographer, Computer Games, Overland Maps by Ralf. Bookmark the permalink.

As for the campaign structure:
During the first phase of the campaign, the player will have to restore the Zodiac Order and make as many independent as possible accept his protection (either from magic creature, from the opposing wizard league raiding parties or from himself, depending on the way you want to approach things).

During the second phase, the opposing wizard league will get directly involved. It can send armies through the mountain passes to the SW, NW or NE, or to a coastal region, and march towards the player stronghold from there.
The player needs to trigger one of the victory conditions (basically destroying the league's seat of power, nuking them, or nuking the whole world) before they reach his capital.

Given what is left to implement on this level, it is of course subject to change.

 

[Galdred]

I am working on some UI stuff again, then I'll focus on getting the demo levels.
The combat demo will be a sequence of 3 linked missions without geoscape stuff (because the geoscape is below barebone ATM).

Regarding the UI problem at hand: which do you think gives a clear picture of the character capabilities the fastest?

(Battle Brothers)
or

(Age of Wonder)

 

[Darth Canoli]

Both are alright but i guess it depend on the numbers, BB one seems to work better for high numbers.

 

[baud]

I'd say BB, it looks more readable. And the progress bar kinda give an idea of the scale on each stat: 93 is high for close combat and 5 is average for perception (? not sure, the eye at the bottom right).

 

[Taka-Haradin puolipeikko]

perception (? not sure, the eye at the bottom right).

It is perception. Stat mainly modified by helmets and couple traits.

 

[Citizen]

Regarding the UI problem at hand: which do you think gives a clear picture of the character capabilities the fastest?

Tokens look good but only if your numbers are in 0-15 range I'd say. AoW and Master of Magic's UI starts to look bad when your units get their stats high enough, so if you are going for larger numbers bars are better