Sovereign of Ludditia, the W3 map

[Lon-ami]

So we have decided to start a map, based on the forum-game created by Ashenmoon: http://www.scrollsoflore.com/forums/showthread.php?t=4136

This thread will help us organize and decide about how the things should be.

I'll open it with the factions' list:

Frutiqueans - Red
-Gurtville
Commonwealth - Blue
-Fort Andersong
Imperial Zone - Teal
-Ximenezak
Cult of the 4 gods - Purple
-Ulmat Thondr
Thornbyopolis - Yellow
-Thornbyopolis
Great Armada of Xaria - Orange
-none
Waldstein Republic - Green
-Waldstein Keep
Bradford - Pink
-Fort Bradford
Zulian Empire - Gray
-Keep Zula
Shenaola - Light Blue
-Fort Shenaola

(Gurtville was former orange)
(Bradford was former red)
(Gray could be edited to white)

If you want changes in the names, just tell me. I think all the starting locations are right.

There would be 2 extra factions, which I'm not sure if they should be included as playable or added as computer AI. Depends on starting stuff and things like that.

Royalists - Brown
-Star Vana
Princes - Dark Green
-Von Dunja

Gold is earned from towns, fortified towns, cities and capitals. (I'm not sure which one is fortified town or city, explanation requested) Here's a complete list:

Small:
-Alixat
-Arbor
-Bastu
-Bath
-Brook
-Damyra
-Dribble Delving
-Dullngray
-Dumra
-Fall
-Flee
-Fleet
-Fyne Wood
-Gettys
-Glasses
-Greenwood
-Greyport
-Haven
-Liventein
-Lov
-New Lows
-Nook
-Nool
-North Nool
-Nyvgrod
-Midton
-Mikhre
-Old Pasus
-Oldtown
-Poor
-Rawnoke
-Regal Front
-Room
-Savgrod
-Skiphorion
-Skissus
-Somerset
-Soon Donn
-Southpass
-Spring
-Stavford
-Stavraburg
-Stunt
-Swift
-Tawers Ferry
-Type Oh
-Winstedt
-Wintry

Medium:
-Davr
-Fort Shenaola
-Gurtville
-Hardy
-Keep Zula
-No-man's Dyke
-Pavltora
-Sauna
-Steam
-Steadfast
-Threemeet
-Westwatch
-Waldstein Keep

Large:
-Fort Andersong
-Fort Bradford
-Shake
-Spear
-Star Thondr
-Thornbyopolis
-Ulmat Thondr
-Ximenezak

Epic:
-Star Vana
-Von Dunja

Unknown:
-Shaqsylvania

Any ideas: just post them here.

[Timolas]

The Gurtville fruit thingies could easily fit in as a nature themed thing with treant style units and such.

I don't know if it is worth including Bradford as a faction since it was never used for anything; we will however, need Computer slots.

I think each faction should have a small series of quests they came complete, relevant to the game storyline.

Example:

Ulmat Thondr's ultimate goal would be to summon Mnesthes.

The Union can be formed, and the Confederacy as well.

Obviously, the game should work with Control Points, namely the towns.

I suggest that each human faction shares a common techtree, but they also on the other hand, have special units. Such as Ulmat Thondr having Priest-Magi and fanatics, zealots etc. Waldstein having giants, etc. Xaria has the sea drakes you mentioned online.

[Lon-ami]

Well, my main objective when making these maps is a clear one:

You should be able to rp-play the original history without problems.

Bradford should be in, to fill all the slots. If someone wants to rp-play it, he just has to entrench himself xDDD.

The quest things are cool. Something like: if you make some stuff, you get extra stuff, special for your faction.

[Ashenmoon]

I pondered a while if it could be possible to make a game, hmm, realistic in time-thingies. That is to say, unless you'd go epileptic of it, have each WC3-day be something like 60 seconds instead of the, uh, 480? that are standard. And have training units and such actually take, like. A few days. 14 minutes. Introduce some long-term strategy to it, but with a sizeable start-out army, too.

Of course, I've always lobbied for using the hire-unit system in these sort of things. As a sort of automatic unit-training queue that is always running. Always coupled it with actual upkeep, too, that is, units on the map costing you money - making it a smart idea to let the hire-queues build up until you need the units, instead of keep pounding out massive armies that just stand around.


Oh, and yeah, Bradford ever was a favourite of mine. Till he... didn't show up. Bastard! >.>

[xie323]

Also Xiemezak should summon demons and use an undead techtree.

And make the food pop 300 its more epic and realistic.

Also make the units cost more and double their training time.

[Kerrah]

How about this: You build structures with money, and you can hire your troops from these structures mercenary-vise with money as well. Each unit type has its own building (like "swordsman training place") and it can have one to three of those units in stock. The units appear in their hiring places really slowly, but the structures cost a lot more than a few units.

Therefore, you have to balance the amount of troops and training places.

Also: Make it so that buildings can only be build near settlements. We don't want one hundred barracks in some abandoned woods.

[Timolas]

How about this: You build structures with money, and you can hire your troops from these structures mercenary-vise with money as well. Each unit type has its own building (like "swordsman training place") and it can have one to three of those units in stock. The units appear in their hiring places really slowly, but the structures cost a lot more than a few units.

Therefore, you have to balance the amount of troops and training places.

Also: Make it so that buildings can only be build near settlements. We don't want one hundred barracks in some abandoned woods.

Yes, I think this sounds somewhat reasonable.

The problem of using turns in Warcraft 3 would be mostly that you train individual units, and to train one for a long time would be a hassle.
Unless, you use the system I implemented for Fall, and every so often you can hire an entire battalion in one go.

But this will take a lot of thought. Fortunately, we have the time to hammer out the details.

[Lon-ami]

WHoA, great to have all this people interested in helping. Thanks you all ;).

My main idea was to remove the turns, completely.

Gold could be earned by a rate at each town. Forget about each 60 seconds you gain X gold. Let's say you get gold in each 5 seconds, and you get it in real time, like if you were gold-mining in mele.

That, or I could implement an action, called tax. Once you apply it, you get an amount of money. If you apply it too much, the morale will go down. If you wait more to apply it, your profits are larger.

I prefer the first one, sincerely.

But, of course, opinion can be changed any time, and there could be better options. Just keep telling your opinions ;).

PS: Updated the main post with a list of all the towns.

[Ashenmoon]

Or you could have one WC3-day be really long, and have the night-portion to be winter. Twist. Seasons, baby.

Oh, I derail. Interesting idea, that, to increase the, ah, regiment-training-structures. Never thought about that, just to have the town-thingie be one itself.

Oh, dearie me. Since I'm me, I'll probably want to be doodading every single town in the game. Some fifty-eighty of 'em in there, aint it? Hah.

[Kerrah]

If there was a way to make units move slower during night (winter)...

At least we can make them regenerate slower, which matches medieval warfare oh so much.

[Lon-ami]

Yeah, of course we can!

I can make too that they get speed if they use roads instead of plains, and slow them while they go through a forest. Not hard at all.

About the towns, we could decide which style should have each one.

[Zula]

Yeah, of course we can!

I can make too that they get speed if they use roads instead of plains, and slow them while they go through a forest. Not hard at all.

About the towns, we could decide which style should have each one.

Well they are all medieval european I think.

Or you could have one WC3-day be really long, and have the night-portion to be winter. Twist. Seasons, baby.

Oh, I derail. Interesting idea, that, to increase the, ah, regiment-training-structures. Never thought about that, just to have the town-thingie be one itself.

Oh, dearie me. Since I'm me, I'll probably want to be doodading every single town in the game. Some fifty-eighty of 'em in there, aint it? Hah.

Make Zula keep near a cliff xD

[Mark_Romaneck]

Well for my Heroes I would like to have Piñanzer a yellow pitlord with ridiculous amount of Armor and HP but that moves slowly, Captain Styogurt the infantry man that imparts bonuses and stuff but isnt so good at combat himself.

Hmm and if a third hero is allowed I would have him be a Warlock model and be the "caster" hero of the bunch and he would eventually transform into the Skull of Gul´dan but would be unable to move during this time... it would be his ult and his name would be Peratas

[Ashenmoon]

Don't think heroes will work quite that way. Perhaps one could use the hero-system for generals, though - dump a bunch of auras on 'em and it'd be passable. Perhaps more-than-average HP (well, definitely so) but I'd scream at them having any real attack-value or active abilities.

And there are some cultural differences thrown in the pot there, Wulfang. In fact, it'd be interesting if one could somehow weave that into the game - that is to say, to somehow define cultural "regions" which more or less overlap, and that towns inside your own region would support you more than towns you control in a different cultural region.

Not the least bit difficult to set up, oh no. While we're at it, one could implement peasants growing crops in the summer, and if you burn all the fields, you'd get starvation all over once winter comes! Hell yeah!

... of course, I said that in a I'm-not-really-meaning-it way... but, of course, I instantly start to ponder how one would do it.

The real suggestion is to keep it as simple as possible. Flairs to be applied later, if at all.

[Kerrah]

Here's an idea that came to my head: Each town/fort/city has an invulnerable Major unit who is that settlement's builder, using the acolytes' Summon ability to "Commission the building" of structures. He switches ownership to the guy in charge of the settlement itself and can't leave the area bordering his homeplace.

There. No hidden peasants, no building offside bases somewhere, no expanding into strange new territories, no killing the other guy's builders in secret.

[xie323]

Here's an idea that came to my head: Each town/fort/city has an invulnerable Major unit who is that settlement's builder, using the acolytes' Summon ability to "Commission the building" of structures. He switches ownership to the guy in charge of the settlement itself and can't leave the area bordering his homeplace.

There. No hidden peasants, no building offside bases somewhere, no expanding into strange new territories, no killing the other guy's builders in secret.

No. It dosent feel RTS ish.

[Kerrah]

How is that? It'd also allow each settlement to have different unit rosters, so that small villages can only hire militia while huge castles can build the training places for a heckload of units.

[Wulfang]

No. It dosent feel RTS ish.

I actually find it a great idea. What is non-RTS-ish about it?

[Ashenmoon]

Don't think we're aiming for a WC3-style RTS anyhow, so foshizzle.

[Kerrah]

Zoidberg: Yay, I'm being useful!

[xie323]

How is that? It'd also allow each settlement to have different unit rosters, so that small villages can only hire militia while huge castles can build the training places for a heckload of units.

Now I agree.

Thanks.:)

[Zula]

Here's an idea that came to my head: Each town/fort/city has an invulnerable Major unit who is that settlement's builder, using the acolytes' Summon ability to "Commission the building" of structures. He switches ownership to the guy in charge of the settlement itself and can't leave the area bordering his homeplace.

There. No hidden peasants, no building offside bases somewhere, no expanding into strange new territories, no killing the other guy's builders in secret.

That actually is a good idea, then you could have a unit that can build outside cities, but it will be able to build just towers, military tents(Very weak building that trains units) and siege weapons!

[Kerrah]

Yay! All hail me!

[Ashenmoon]

Hail, hail!

And, hee, hee. I found myself lying awake, pondering all sorts of useless things to make the game more complicated. It would have been neat to... to, like, make the world seem real, or alive, even without the influence of the players. I'm probably gonna go tinkering in some wee map of my own, but a long time ago, I pondered some way to make trade work in WC3. That is, like in, oh, some AoE-game, where you'd train these trade-caravans and send them to other player's trade centres, and the farther away those centres were from your closest centre, the more money you would get once the caravan returned. And, of course, I couldn't help but to ponder if one couldn't switch doodads around and so forth to make winter seem more wintry, and while one is at it, introduce some sort of system for farms, or small villages, to introduce the concept of pillaging in foreign lands to sustain your troops, and make that land suffer the consequences as their farmsteads are laid to waste and so forth...

... but that is, of course, a good long step away from "just making a SoL map". I seem to be pouring out all me old ambitions from my mapmaking... or, map-making-up days, but hell, can't hurt, can it?


(The farm thing could work, anyway. Got it all figured out! Almost! Nearly! Eheh... well... oooh, I could explain it. Like, there would be these, oh, a few, dozen farm-villages per real, capture-able town, and ownership of the farms would change depending on the main town. Income from the main town depends on how many farms are still around. Possibly, one could have some counter to count together food-produce from a region, to have famine struck come the winter! But anyway, it would work like, when enemy troops move into a region, they start attacking the villages, and by just a simple Pillaging-skill, earn money. Which would offset their own upkeep-cost. It would take a while to destroy a village, but if it is, the income from the main town would be reduced, and yeah, all that famine stuff. So, if one want to maintain one's army without having it stand around useless in your own territory, you send it into your enemy's place, and they start pillaging, and feed on the land. If you play it smart, you won't destroy any villages, but spread the pillaging out, so you'd still earn full income if you'd take the main settlement. Of course, villages wouldn't regain HP, or just very, very slowly - so the more enemy troops that come pillaging, the more run-down the land will get until villages start falling apart.)

(Of course, on the switching-doodads thing... oh, how hard could it possibly be? Eh? Eh? Oh, I have to look that up... and I wonder how one would to to keep caravans and things like that moving on the roads... caravan-units could just be passive things, not player-controlled in any way; every time they get into a town, the town gets some extra muni, but you'd earn loads by attacking and killing a caravan off. Of course, now that I have merchant-caravans and farmsteads with seasons involved, I'd just have to visualize the peasants sending their supplies to the market somehow, too...)

Yes, yes, I'm overdoing it. It pleases me.


On a more related note, I've figured that one could make units' HP be directly related to the number of soldiers in that regiment. That is, say that your basic unit you train/hire stands for an infantry regiment of, say, 250 men, with 250 HP, with no regeneration - possibly very slow, but rather that HP/men count increases by particular events - like having some Call For Volunteers-ability or Training At Barracks-skill. I don't think there should be particularly many units running around on the map, really. (Though that could be selfish thinking, as I want to preserve processing capacities for my Living, Breathing World. Bird migration, baby! (let a man dream)) The largest army around would... oh, Timolas or Lon's, who count around 15000 - 60 units, by that suggestion of mine. Okay, that's maybe a bit too small... still want to have the grand feel to it, but mmyep.

(Drifting away to my bird-migration style of world, I pondered if one could not utilize mana somehow to represent morale, at least for cities. They can have mana, right? Oh, sure buildings can. So it'd somehow work like, that depending on your culture's affinity to the city's own culture, there would be different mana-regeneration speeds involved, as well as start values. That is to say, if one conquer a town just next to your starting place, that town's, you know, town-unit, would start out with something like 75% mana and regenerating very quickly. But conquering stuff on the other side of the map would leave it with 0% mana and a slow regen. Effect of the mana would be things like income from the settlement. Possibly the chance of rebels rising up in the region, too! Conceivably, training units could reduce the mana-morale of a settlement. And maybe other stuff, too! Of course, one would have to somehow figure out a way to define the culture of towns and so on... ach, but how difficult could it be?)

Oh dearie me, a whole lot of talk for not particularly many specific suggestions. Yes, yes, I feel like once again acknowledging that I'm overdoing it... but I'll bleedy well take a look on the old WEU to see what my grey goo-y stuff can come up with! A personal project, perhaps... and perhaps with practical applications, too!

[Zula]

Well didn't Tim made a caravan system??

[Timolas]

Aye I had done something for the Rage.

And Ashen, your ideas may sound complicated, but as you've helped to explain them in practice, it leaves potential for an amazing map.
If you do want to be part of the project, then let's all do this together and forge a revolutionary new gamestyle in Warcraft 3.

Everyone continue to pitch in your ideas.

[Kerrah]

How about custom attack and defence types? Spears are strong against cavalry, axes against infantry, swords do 100% on everything, and such.

[Lon-ami]

Some easy's:

-For morale we could use mana. Vampiric attacks can be adapted to steal mana instead of life, for some concrete situations. (Yeah, I did think before, so it's cool to see you, Ashen, had the same idea too :P)

-Kerrah's idea can be even easier: Give the townhall a spell to create buildings. Of course, the spell has a maximum range.

-The caravan things: You all know you get an amount of gold when killing an enemy unit, don't you? Just remove that bonus from everyone BUT the caravans, who should have the same reward as the cost. If you want to recover the invested gold, just "sacrifice" the unit (like acolyte when turning him into a shadow) and get the gold.

Note: It would be cool to need the munis to be in the city for being used.

-The troops should be based on regiments, yeah. Something like 1-250 it's perfect. Or we could develop a system to represent the army by one troop, and make the battles inside a battlefield separated from the main map.

But I still prefer the real RTS thing. It's just and adaptation, no need to copy the gameplay. Yet.

Edit: The spear thing being more effective vs horses, for example, is a need, but it shouldn't be 100%, just have a small bonus, like the current mele of W3.

[Kerrah]

-Kerrah's idea can be even easier: Give the townhall a spell to create buildings. Of course, the spell has a maximum range.

Spells can't be made to cost gold without enormously complex buggy triggers.

Right?

[Ashenmoon]

... doesn't the build-ability come with a range? Or something? Or just create a static unit-thingie in the middle of the town to use as constructor. Easy-peasy.

And, ooh, do tell more about these caravans of yours!


I pondered a bit on roads - how is it you plan to make using them faster than ordinary land? Cover them all with rects and trigger it from there, yes? (Dunno how else to do it, but mmyeh.)

Could be neat if one would go the full mile on it and also made sure that, like. Well, that you'd be slowed down even more if you walked through particular types of terrain - swamps, forests, mountains - and that maybe some types would be more or less beneficial to some unit types. Like horses being less effective in forests and hilly terrain. Not to be done too precisely, of course - but just generally defining some regions to be more hilly than others, I figure.

I then gave some thought to pathfinders and scouts - after everything else's done, neat extra effects could be that you'd be able to hire pathfinders, and those would increase the marching speed of your troops, off the roads, in a particular region. Like, a Shenaolian Pathfinder would increase the speed of armies marching around in Shenaola, but wouldn't give the same bonus in Oinkland. Regions, baby. Also, for some places, like forests, maybe one could shape them out as these labyrinth-ish places, only, some particular scout/pathfinder-units would be able to detect and attack destructibles placed out inside the forest to clear up an easier, more direct, route through it. As a bonus, those destructibles could re-appear after a while...

And, - weather! Ahahah! Yeah, well, come on. If it rains, decrease everyone's... ehm... everything, really. Well. Maybe just attack speed or something along those lines. And movement, severely. And have the weather change in the regions randomly is, of course, a given!

Tee hee. Oh, now I remember - getting heated up here! Well, first off, to tie the morale of a settlement to some aura it'd be generating, or otherwise spell it could be casting - that is, if your troops fight near a settlement (inside it-near) with high morale, they'd be affected by a powerful aura, and the less the mana/morale the settlement would have, the less powerful the aura would be. A bit difficult to control that - maybe one could simply monitor settlements reaching different mana-levels, or just instead of an aura, have it cast some spell whenever in battle. That'd severely reduce the morale of a settlement just by there being some battle nearby... which, come to think of it, maybe isn't all too bad. Who likes having battles outside your streets, after all? But an aura would probably be better.

Ah, and one last thing. Promise. Okay, a few last things. Well, you know how I figure that army upkeep should be, well, actual money paid every now and then, depending on how many units you've got around? (Conceivably, one would want to be able to merge two under-manned units to keep the upkeep down...) Well, I just got this pretty idea about you building your army a camp of sorts, with tents and all that... and having your army stand around inside this camp would reduce the amount of money you'd have to pay as upkeep for those soldiers inside the camp. I just liked the idea of... you know. "Going into winter quarters" meaning you actually send your soldiers into their own little camp outside the city. Or, at all setting up camp being a doable, and smart, thing to do. Tee hee.

And, okay, this'll be the final paragraph. Just thought... well. While I'm dreaming, disease was the number one killer for millennia, so that could be fun. Surely there's some abilities in WC3 that transfer debuffs at proximity. Having army, or nation-wide, morale to go up with the number of units you kill, and go down if, say, famine strikes, or you run out of funds, could also be considered.

Well. I dunno, perhaps it'd be implementable, but it could also be just... too much for an average system to handle it with ease. I'm currently actually trying to figure out a way to do season changes... tee hee!

[Timolas]

Aye, a lot of what you said I can think of how to implement in some form.
Mostly with auras, 'Add'/'Remove' Ability depending on the region in question, etc.

My caravans were nothing fancy. They were more of an experiment actually. Basically, I designed a map of Silverpine, Gilneas and Hillsbrad and the gamestyle was custom melee. You can capture control points such as Ambermill, Olsen's Farthing and Ginchar. Every set amount of time, a caravan will spawn from another control point and travel to your settlement. If it arrives safely you receive gold.

[Ashenmoon]

I thought one could maybe have the caravans move around all the time in a semi-random way. That is, as the roads would be (I guess) all mapped with rects and regions, one could make it so that each time a caravan-unit enters a road-crossing rect, I imagine, they are ordered to move towards another road-crossing in some semi-random way... though... hmm... well, if the roads just didn't need a bunch of extra rects to keep units moving on them on the actual road... well, anyhow, you'd just keep sending them around to road crossings, and at every road crossing, they'd be given just a random new destination, and whenever they pass through a town, that town('s owner) would get some money. Could get abused if people somehow made them go back into a town just after they left it... but as it'd be neutral, I dunno how that'd be done. Save blocking the road. Maybe they could be flying, or have a really low collision size...

So they'd just keep wandering around the map randomly, until some bugger come and kill them off for some quick cash. Could have more spawn every now and then...

[Fordragon]

I gotta say, with all this focus on Morale and building one unit as a group and such, it seems like it would be more suited to being a Dawn of War mod or something. I mean, then half the work is already done.

[Ashenmoon]

Pfft, WC3's da stuff.

[Lon-ami]

For the turns thing... I had an idea. This is for if the game would be working with turns.

Select a group of units. They can't move, but...

Something, like a banner or whatever, appears. The banner can be moved around the zone the unit could move. If you want your unit to move there, just tell the banner to cast something in the position you want to move.

The path thing, to lock the banner in an specific area, can be generated with JASS. Or without it. Just some maths, really.

Or just a spell with a range. You cast the spell somewhere AND the unit moves towards that point until their movement-speed expires or it founds an obstacle. This one is like Warhammer and D&D, where you order a something shoot but you don't know if it's going to reach its objective.

After moving, freeze the units and that's all.

Now, anwers:

Spells can't be made to cost gold without enormously complex buggy triggers.

Right?

Depends on definition of complex. And we always could force you buy them as items. Anyway, there are tons of ways to implement that. We'll just have to start experimenting with the Editor :P.

I pondered a bit on roads - how is it you plan to make using them faster than ordinary land? Cover them all with rects and trigger it from there, yes? (Dunno how else to do it, but mmyeh.)

This movement-depending-on-terrain thing could be done by a lot of different ways. The easiest one would be to put dummies with speed auras around certain zones or whatever.

Or just triggers. Triggers are godlike, you can make nearly anything; you just need imagination.

Something which has potential for this are the terrain types, say, dirt, grass, snow... you know, the tileset. You can make the editor read where are you stepping, so it would be easy to calculate it without regions.

Dawn of War mod

Dawn of war thing could be ok... if it wasn't futuristic >.<.

[Ashenmoon]

Pfheh, I aint got no miffy DoW neehow. WC3. Is. The. Shizzle. Fo.

On the banner thing... isn't that a bit... overdoing it? Oh gods, look who's talking. But wouldn't battles and the like get a bit odd if troops can't move freely? I don't really think turns should be -that- regulated - but for income/upkeep costs and whatever, a sot of turn system is probably easiest, innit?


Oh, and Lon, you've way more experience than me. I discovered this trigger, Environment - Change Terrain Type (yay! I've landed on the moon! Probably existed for years, but then again, not looked inside the WE for... yes, years) and I figured... what with my notion on seasons and all, it could be interesting to see if one could extend this season-concept to include changing the terrain tiles, too! Just imagine; snow on the ground half the year, lush, green fields the rest! Well. Sort of. But as it appears, the trigger wasn't kind enough to simply "Switch Tile1 with Tile2", but was bound up with circles and rectangles and such. So I heard that maybe one could pull up a bunch of arrays to store the terrainID-info over pretty much the entire map, and then run the Terrain Change-trigger to go through the array and switch terrains as appropriate. Have you ever tried your hand at something like that? You mentioned having the editor read the tilesets you're walking across and that, so you seem to have some notion on what's going on in there. 'Cause I gotta tell you, it's way over my head - won't stop me trying, though! Hee hee!

Also, on switching destructibles, I'm surprised how I've not found a simple way to do that yet. Basically, I want to create a Summer and a Winter version of every tree-type, then be able to replace all Summer-trees in a region with Winter-trees, maintaining X and Y positions, scale, model variation, destructible's HP, rotation and, finally, the Z-axis' height. I found some strange trigger in my WEU that sort of had all those options, but I couldn't figure out how to save all the values of one destructible and apply them to the new one.

Unless you're busy, would love to hear if you've any thoughts on those two things. Goes for all o'yeh!

[Lon-ami]

Terrain thing:

Need to look for it again, but I think I could find how to easily. If I have to switch to alternate methods, well, it's not that hard, just some thinking.

I don't remember near anything about this option, so I'll have to check it to remember things, but I think we can manage to implement it without too many problems.

An example of "reading the terrain" are those maps where the units slide when on ice and die when they enter a specific tile like lava. Those can be done without regions, actually.

Switching destructibles:

If I don't find the way to switch them properly, there's just another better way:

Make a new model. Yeah, take the three model and make different animations, each one with a different skin. An example of this would be the mountain king, who changes his skin when casting avatar.

Create a new model with replaceable textures by animations and thats all. Just tell them to switch the animation and it will be over. Easy, fast and lagg-less.

Well, I'm leaving. See you ;).

[Ashenmoon]

Oh dearie, you do seem to have things under control. And you do modelling, too? Of the more basic sort, I suppose, but even so. Never did get into WC3-modelling, not directly, in any case. Evidently, I'm not the master of the subject, but wouldn't binding specific textures to the animations mean you lose the ability to change which textures are applied to the tree destructibles in the Object Editor? I do love to fiddle around with those - I remember being considered innovative for it, once upon a time, long ago! - but that wouldn't be much of a biggie if one'd have a few different tree models.

Ach. I suppose I should focus on updating yon thread instead, but... later.

[Lon-ami]

Don't worry about the thread, the current situation is a fragile now, so there's no need of updating fast ;).

Anyway: Yeah, I know a bit of modeling, but don't ask me to unwrap textures or make new models. I just know the basics, but I think I could make models from scratch if I start practicing some time. It's just that, laziness.

The change-texture-animation thing, I think, could be done without editing the model at all. Just go into the C++ code, copy-paste some stuff, change the skins and voilá!. Work completed.

[Zula]

Using turns would be too complex, but I say we stick to the caravan, seasons and farm system but fighting and building will be done on real time.

[Timolas]

Farming system should be easy enough to implement; Dark Deeds had one to say the least. Caravans; easy as pie.

Seasons; I won't meddle in that though. I suggest it be one of the last things to implement because it would be one of the most difficult; mostly it would be complicated because of the doodads. Summer doodads.

[Ashenmoon]

Hmmh, maybe I've been toddling along more or less assuming that the graphical style would be more or less the same as the one I've used in my old LotR project... which I've not posted anything about on here... ehm... but which basically just depends on terrains and trees to do the job. No little flower doodads or the like. 'Sides, as winter would anyway coincide with night-time, exact colour-things maybe wouldn't be particularly important. (If anyone's interested - Lon did laud it - I could load it up somewhere. 'T's pretty enough just to walk around in, is my opinion! And gives a nice sense of scale, and the speed of troops and the like.)

That said, I definitely agree that seasons should be a later problem.


So what's Dark Deeds and whazzap with their farms?


Also, gave some pondering on agents, and units. On units, there's the age-old thing of wanting units to gain experience without making 'em all heroes; I pondered if one couldn't do something similar as with city-buildings, only, for just one unit at a time. In simple words: when a unit kills another unit, it is given... well, 1 mana-point. Or something along those lines. And at certain thresholds, like every 5, 10, etc, they'd get (passive) abilities increasing... well, their stats. Should one feel inclined to it, that could be one way to handle simple units gaining experience; probably are a bunch of other ways to do it, if one, indeed, feel like doing that. Of course, it'd take some pondering to make it work properly, what with some units possibly using up their mana - in general, I'm opposed to active spells, since, well, I hate micromanaging... but, mmyep.

On agents, tee hee, well. It could be neat to have those around. Invisible devils, assassinations and the such. Could be trained to counterintelligence and such be able to spot other agents, though, of course, there should be other ways to detect them. Agents so far have mostly been ordered to incite peasants one way or the other, and I thought that, what with that thing I mentioned on city morale and the possibility of having rebels rising up semi-randomly... well, assuming a region somehow has a set value-chance for rebels rising up in it every X seconds or so, which could be tied to the city's morale-mana, all an agent would have to do would be to push in a few - half-randomly-numbered - extra percentages into the rebelling-favour, for a cost, and have the see-if-rebels-rise-trigger run preemptively. Then there's diplomats who've been sent on the opposite mission; have peasants rise up in favour for you, which should be pretty much the same system, but reversed.

Could be, like... well, just brainstorming here, but shesh... well, there could be different actions for trying to 1) make rebels rise up at once, or 2) just make a region more disillusioned towards their ruler, and the opposite. The 1)-option could maybe give only a short bonus to the rebel-chance, while the 2)-option'd give a permanent, though lower, effect, and without running the hypothetical evaluate-rebels-rising-trigger. And the same for the positive scale of things, of course.

Traps are another thing favoured by agents, of course. Which can't be a very hard to do. And general slow-down effects (y'know, flooding roads and whatnot) - in my vision, this whole thing is a rather slow affair, and slowing down armies even more could be a strategic win-win thing. Just imagine setting agents to place out slow-down traps on all roads leading to a town, then attacking said town - and reinforcements would be severely slowed down when trying to come to its aid.

Ooh, destroyable bridges come to mind!


---

Also: oh dear, you can make maps bigger than 256*256 now? Or... oh, no, that was max. But what with the rectangular shape of this map, one could, if one wanted, make a... well, 288*224, could work. Doubt there's an actual need for that sort of size anyway.

[Lon-ami]

I know how to make 480x480 maps. Yeah, not kidding. Imagine your Lotr map with a x4 scale?

That's why it's awesome.

Anyway, you should make the terrain. I'm not asking for cities, just the natural terrain. I can make you a template of the 480x480 map, but you can go making a part of it in a anysize map; then, just copy paste.

And you must give me tips on that style, it's really cool. Updating the map will demonstrate my lauds are for something.

Uh, and, let's see...

Agents: They should have minor power, with invisibility and the ability of detecting invisible guys. When they attack, they shall become visible, of course.

That fits perfectly, in my opinion, of course :rolleyes:.

[xie323]

can someone post something at the war room?

we need to continue the game.

[Ashenmoon]

The other thread will be updated tonight.

Also, Lon, I threw together a quickie map with that height map tool - hah, it sure made things easier! Poke me some time.

[Fordragon]

Seems to me like the different sides would have rather differing playstyles. I think probably Thornbyopolis would be the most conventional, followed by the Commonwealth (who have armored cavalry in addition to the normal spread of units). Then you have factions like the Four Gods, who seem to rely heavily on special units rather than the normal formations.

[Zula]

I revive this thread, which by the way I should be turned into a sticky along with The conventional war room, and the ludditia war room.


I agree with Fordragon The Thornby forces would have the more 'conventional' gameplay but in exchange when the regalia of thornby is assembled Lord commander Thornby should turn into a more powerful and conventional 'can kick ass' unit and maybe produce stronger warriors.

Also I got an idea for how the summoning could work, maybe Tim will remember this I wanted to implement in Ulmat Thondr, the zealots and soulforgers should be able to carry dead bodies which will represent the 'souls' and then the altar wil resurrect them as 'spirits' which then by using a dark ritual esque spell will be turned into mana to cast the summoning. These spirits should be slow and don't have any kind of attack so they won't be used for scouting.

[Timolas]

Your idea sounds a bit complicated, but we've used it similarly enough for your trolls; and I also used a similar idea for Morbent Fel's war machines.
They pick up corpses and use mana to animate the dead; but they can only get mana from sacrificing units. Thus they need to sacrifice what they raise to gain a mana profit.

[Yuber8900]

Use a system similar to what we saw in Ice Trolls. Have "X" with corpse retrieve and bring to "Y" which converts to money/lumber/stackable item that "Y" autogets.

[Timolas]

Use a system similar to what we saw in Ice Trolls. Have "X" with corpse retrieve and bring to "Y" which converts to money/lumber/stackable item that "Y" autogets.

Not sure how those corpses turn into items though; maybe Lon can elaborate.

EDIT: 8000th huh.

[Yuber8900]

Not sure how those corpses turn into items though; maybe Lon can elaborate.

Fire has an ability that converts an item of type "Z" to type "A".

[Zula]

Your idea sounds a bit complicated, but we've used it similarly enough for your trolls; and I also used a similar idea for Morbent Fel's war machines.
They pick up corpses and use mana to animate the dead; but they can only get mana from sacrificing units. Thus they need to sacrifice what they raise to gain a mana profit.

Actually its pretty simple, the troll one was more complicated because it was meant to work with living units. its just the normal dark ritual used by a building.

[Lon-ami]

There are many possibilities regarding the summoning, just have to think. I have designed more difficult systems, trust me.

Anyway, everyone should go thinking about their army's personality and special troops and spells.

Or, whatever. Each city could produce its own special troop. That would be great.

[QUOTE=Timolas;102924]Not sure how those corpses turn into items though; maybe Lon can elaborate./QUOTE]

Just triggers. Locate corpse, create item at corpse location, remove corpse.

[Ashenmoon]

Special troops should, of course, be interpreted as completely ordinary, although somewhat specialized, soldiers. No hokey-pokey magic-wielding mofos in my world, thank-ee, save those already admitted.

I am, by the by, working a bit (very slowly) on a WC3 terrain, sized up as big as possible for... well. Because I could. So there's stuff happening.

[Ashenmoon]

Well, so I was thinking, if there's still people around interested in working on some Ludditia-map, I could share what I've been doing lately. I've labeled making progress on this map as "Recreational Activity", and since I've no particular interest in recreating meself, well, headway is only very slowly being made.

So anyway.

Here's a link (http://web.telia.com/~u33221589/solEaMod.w3x) to what I've come to so far. Obviously, the majority of the towns and all that are just placeholders, but it gives you a feeling for it. Ordering around those footmen here and there while in-game gives a sense for the scale of it - though, quite possibly, they should move even slower than they are right now. That is, if the road-speed-up-system would be implemented.

I like to think of it as less a project to replay the Ludditian campaign here - and heck, who'd want that, eh? Heeh, ach... but anyway; but more as a... well. A grand strategy game in the WC3 enginge. Get roads to work as a speed-up and it'd be half-way there already!

(Oh, and how lovely, were one to have agents to sabotage the roads for your enemy - that is, just placing out some of those slow-down totems or whatever. Infiltrate the enemy's nation, figure out a weak spot, stealthily march your armies just to the border of detection; charge in while putting out all them slow-down traps on your enemies, and you'll be besieging his capital before his troops start to intercept yeh!)


Of course, I've pondered now and then whether Ludditia is an all that interesting concept, after all. Could be more fun with a brand new map, mayhap? Well. Or there's just not 'nuff interest in getting any map done, so myyep. Toodliedoo!

[Lon-ami]

We must have our own historical map!! :mad:

About all those systems:

-We could leave it just a RTS map, without all those turn-like things.
-Or you could wait for me to have some time and get ideas to represent them in-game properly :P.

The terrain is pretty nice, you shouldn't stop making it ;).

[Zula]

Shameless bump.

[Fordragon]

Man, I feel like I should dig out WC3, but I know I'll just delete it in a day or two like I always do.

[Ashenmoon]

Oh, well... not too sure about this, really. Well. Maybe if I spat out a somewhat less detailed-than-planned* map - the way the terrain (or, doodading) was going last time I picked it up, it was heading for straight-out obscene numbers. I'll give it a look-ee, though - school's finally stopped pounding me brains out on a daily basis, as it has been doing for the last month or two.

Aah, freedom!**


*No need to worry; I'm sure the level of, uhm, quality'd still be... pretty.
**To commit oneself to new daring, dashing, time-consuming projects!

[Lon-ami]

I was thinking... we could make an RPG, during the rule of Mnesthes.

Basically, you can join the rebels or the "Empire" and fight for justice or whatever.

We could develop the different factions a lot and have a good time doing it.

Also, I would love to implement... various plots. And reveal my master plans in a series of quests!

[Ashenmoon]

Never was particularly fond of RPGs in WarCraft meself, always been more of a strategy fan. Though perhaps it could be combined somehow... hmmh... have to say I suddenly was intrigued, but RPGs mostly come with maps so distorted i claw my eyes out - I've got a thing for as clean and "correct" terrains as possible. (Pretty much everything LotR-inspired out on the B-net has, so far, endangered my vision considerably.)

But if a later-day scenario were to be decided upon, one'd have to ponder whether to change the map accordingly to the messed-up mashed-to-pieces world which came to be after a few weeks of rampant godmodding... which, aye, I'm still sorta embarrassed about. Eheh. And what sections of the world to include - after all, Mnesthes Empire - or so I've said - expanded far beyond mere Ludditia in the decades, nay, centuries, to follow.

[Timolas]

Ah, the Everlasting Empire.

Even the name doesn't inspire much hope for the rebels, if there are any left.

But I checked out your terrain for the Ludditia map, and I don't think it would be impossible to be economical about doodads to finish it off. You did most of the work already.

Then we'd be able to institute the complicated systems we all talked about.

[Lon-ami]

I don't find any damn map right now in the old topic. It would remain similar to the last version of it, but, let's see what become of each faction: (no custom name is final)

The Empire (former Confederacy)

-Zulian Empire: Most of the nation fled away from Ludditia. Some of them were forced to remain here after the fires reached their ships. Those that survived The Battle of Star Vana returned home and started a new life. They miss their people, and hope some day their lord will return for them. Until then, they fight with their allies against the rebels, culprits of their disgrace. Although small in numbers, their tenacity has no match in the entire continent. Their ghost cities aren't abandoned at all. Small numbers of warriors protect and honor them. The rest of their people have become a bit reclusive, but they still manage to work their lands and live in peace.

-Cult of the 4 Gods: Mnesthes took Star Vana as its seat of power. The city has become a citadel of darkness since then. Thousands and thousands of cultists have invaded the lands around. The prophet Meryl has become the Mouth of Mnesthes, and rides his dark horde across the land, speaking the holy words of his god. The hills of Ludditia have been slowly infested by churches and sanctuaries. A number of cultists now work the land and elaborate goods, but the zealotry for their god is still inside them.

-Waldstein: The lord of Waldstein returned home, just to find how his former lands were now watered ashes. With time, the land recovered, but the darkness of the death around their lands took their hearts with them. Their Soulforgers have become the most terrible of the warriors of The Empire, striking fear into their enemies' every souls. The musketeers have become a legend, too, and they have managed to improve their skills even more. Not even the Commonwealth can match the distances their bullets reach. The Waldsteinians have become a dark people, that live in peace, working the lands for their masters and praying to their new beloved gods.

-Northern princes: With the cultists focused on Star Vana, the princes were able to take Von Dunja and the north. But, after the victory of Mnesthes became a reality, they pledged to the dark god. The princes rule their nation, but they obey the cultists. Their leader doesn't like Meryl, and Meryl doesn't like him, but both know what's best for their people, and another war would only bring unnecessary death. Most of the work of their people goes for the cultists, but they prefer to be living slaves rather than burn in hell forever, so most of them don't complain at the Scythes of Faith, who kill indiscriminately anyone that shows a sign of individualism.

The Resistance (former Last Alliance / Union)

-Thornby: Survivors became the Rule of the Golden Fist, and fight Mnesthes' rule. They revere Thornby, and are an invincible elite of armored warriors. Their armors shine like the sun, as a last lighthouse in the middle of the darkest night.

-Commonwealth: Survivors became the Iron Legion. These rebels use any kind of mechanical tricks to make things explode and whatever. Their Iron warriors are unstoppable. Rumors speak about new weapons that could end with the rule of Mnesthes. Some even dare say some Ximenezakian that were far from home before its destruction are helping them. How these Ximenezakians could have been away from home, no one knows.

-Lon-ami: No survivors are known. Every single Lon-ami-loyal Xarian at Star Vana were killed and, if someone survived, it remains unknown. The plans of the Lord Admiral were never unveiled.

-Bradford: Most of the Bradfordian were killed, but the survivors were able to flee with their allies north. Whatever where the secret techniques they used to hide from the world from months, they're now in the hands of their allies, and a pain in the ass of The Empire, that fails and fails to find and destroy the resistance.

-Frutiqueans: The mysterious plague disappeared with no reason, and the fruit monsters seems to be no more. The surviving people are against Mnesthes, and will make anything to finish him. Although their state and intentions are unknown, they have sworn alliance to the Resistance, claiming a former alliance with the Lord-Admiral Lon-ami. They just want to remove Mnesthes and live in peace.

-Royalists: After the Dawn of Star Vana, most of them were dead. Some of them escaped north with the Thornbyans and the Commonwealth. They now live hidden from the dark god, trying to build a new home. They know they'll have to fight Mnesthes some day, so they haven't stopped training since their defeat. Without a leader, they're now free, and live among the thornbyans and the Commonwealth, as a sole nation of free men.

Other people

-Ximenezak: The city of madness was destroyed long before the Sovereign War ended and, with it, all the incredible wonders, that now lie at the bottom of the sea. The last survivors were last seen walking towards the Burning Rift, and were never seen again. One things is clear: if the following explosion didn't finish them, the demons at the other side of the Rift did... or didn't them? The demon-lord of Ximenezak, having survived the destruction of his own city, flied west, towards Shenaola, were he tried to create chaos and destruction, but, as the world collapsed around the brave Shenaolians, and their beloved lands sank, swallowed by the raging sea, their leader managed to kill Xie and end his madness forever.

-Shenaola: When the lands sank, everyone believed the end was nigh. Miraculously, when they all were going to drunk, the cataclysm stopped, and they were able to flee to the high hills that had become isles. Currently, they have changed their land culture for a sea one, but their determination to be free from kings and gods still remains. They refuse to obey Mnesthes, but they don't fight him either. All the intents of making them pray to the god have failed, and the effort that would be needed to success can't be afforded. Somehow, being that scattered across the islands makes it difficult for the Empire to control them all.

-Tsun-ami: The unforeseeable female came suddenly, just like his love, Lon-ami, but her movements had nothing to do with anything. No one still knows what was she planning. As suddenly as she appeared, she disappeared, leaving no explanation at all. Just annoyance from every faction. Some say she'll return some day, and other say she is just mad and that won't be a problem. Whichever were her plans, it seems they are no more.

-Giants: The cataclysm destroyed their homeland completely, and most of those far from home died in battle. Rumors speak of the surviving ones grouping together again, but no one has been able to prove it.

[Timolas]

Nice ideas!

Although the Bradfordians were killed 'to the last man'. Their methods can still be discovered though.

Lore Fore was Thornby's best general, he survived and took the sacred items. Don't forget, that's a big opportunity.

[Lon-ami]

Well, the last "report" by Ashenmoon doesn't state they all were killed, and we don't know if there wee more hidden around...

:kawaii:

Anyway, don't worry, the numbers of the rebels are way smaaaalls.

[Wulfang]

Actually, it's Soulforgers.

[Lon-ami]

Too much time... Didn't remember well :P.

Anyway:

If you don't like my opinion of how your nations ended, feel free to correct/add anything you want.

[Ashenmoon]

What would be a wonderful idea is to, hmm... like, create two PC-factions; the Empire and the Rebel.* And players then get to, like, well, start out like some sort of smallish lordlings-leaders, who work their way up, either in one of the two factions, or their own - jumping ship hither and thither, backstabbing galore - to become a Big Boss fellow. The PC-factions would just have to be active, though, the Rebel always attacking and the Empire always pushing the Rebel back into the small corners of the world at every turn.

Were one inclined to such things, then, the restoration proper of the armour of Thornby might be the Rebel's great hope, bringing into their fold much of the old Ludditia if it was realized, while the Awakening Proper of Mnesthes - something which we never saw in the first war - would the the mythological hope of the Empire's.

Well. That's one take of it. But I guess it doesn't matter too much, those sort of things, compared to having a terrain to play around upon. But what do we want - a whole terrain, or a broken one? A whole one to rewrite the War; a broken one to accept my destructive storytelling and look at the future?

(Also, I did write the ending somewhat differently than what's implied in your post, but foshizzle. Details.)

[Lon-ami]

Ah, yeah, you killed too many people.

But I, as a Blizzard fan, used my law of rez :P.

Fix anything I wrote if you want, of course.

And yeah, i pretty much accept the result of the war, with that huge mountain wall and Shenaola converted into isles.

Also, how do we know your final version was the truth? After all, the cultists could have lied to feel important... No one else but them told anything, nope? Remember the reports were gossip...

[Fordragon]

Throw in a Dancing Joker and we're set. I planned for it to be an identity that was passed on, like James Bond or the Dread Pirate Roberts. But the guy only got caught once.

[Lon-ami]

Great.

See? These points are what I need. Just because I can't read minds, you know ;). :P.

What about a regiment of dancing jokers led by the major dancing joker?

[Timolas]

Throw in a Dancing Joker and we're set. I planned for it to be an identity that was passed on, like James Bond or the Dread Pirate Roberts. But the guy only got caught once.

Ah, yeah. As you might have guessed I had him killed. It was sort of a vengeance thing for not being able to wipe you out. Man those were fun times.

Lon, I think it's a good idea if we individually elaborate on our factions current states post Ludditia; or rather, we can play the game during from scratch, using Ashen's current terrain.

[Fordragon]

Great.

See? These points are what I need. Just because I can't read minds, you know ;). :P.

What about a regiment of dancing jokers led by the major dancing joker?

Maybe like, a "peasant army" lead by the Dancing Joker, as a tribute to the events in the game. Catch is, they're not actually peasants, they're trained insurgents. If the Dancing Joker bites it or gets too old to keep up, the number two guy in the organization assumes the identity.

My original plan for the guy, by the way, was to assign progressively more dangerous missions and, while sometimes he would die, there would be a new Dancing Joker and he would come back. Then I'd use that to make claims that the Commonwealth had won the favor of some kind of supernatural being who allowed him to cheat death time and again.

Of course, that would run contrary to the Commonwealth's main idea, our whole self-reliance thing and the idea that man's ingenuity can overcome any obstacle of the supernatural (hence, stuff like powered armor). But it was going to be a fun lie to spread.

[Yuber8900]

The implacable Captain Dennis has secretly won the war.

[Ashenmoon]

Dennis was just oh-so overpowered. Did he ever fail?

[Yuber8900]

Dennis was just oh-so overpowered. Did he ever fail?

Nope. The endgame was just propaganda he spread around to soften the loss that the enemy felt.

[Lon-ami]

Well, I wrote that just to have something, because you weren't writing it by yourselves.

So feel 100% free to write the personality of the nation, the ideas, why they did what they did, things like that, so I can build their new personality.

Then, in another paragraph or so, you can elaborate on what are they doing now, after the Sovereign War. While the first won't be modified, this last can, because some things couldn't match. But we'll discuss it in case that happens.

[Ashenmoon]

Dang, but I got all sentimental all of the sudden, feelin' the urge for... more. I sort of lost out on this Azeroth no-longer-a-risk thing, humm-dee. Maybe... A'ell.


But really, now, Lon, as you seem to be the propellant here - what's it gonna be? A post-War broken terrain, or a clean, whole one? I've got a wee time-window of a, uh, ten-ish days here when I'm pretty much free to do whatever. (Well, minus That Other Project That I Should Do, but meh) If we really want it, I figure I could throw something acceptable together in that time - not very refined or detailed, but that sorta stuff could be added in afterwards.

If we do go with a post-War version, I think it could be fun to expand the universe somewhat, north and east, directions the Everlasting Empire went, too. (in my imaginarium, of course)



EDIT: now, just to demonstrate just how much I imagine that Empire actually did expand, I made a wee map, set about a hundred years after the War. And I figure that Empire just kept growing well after this time-period, a veritable Rome... unless, of course, all them rebels got around to doing the Deed. (Jotted out are some major cities of said Empire - most once capitals of their own kingdoms, I figure - plus some wee political entities bordering that big, aggressively expanding Big Boy.)

As you can see, old Ludditia don't cover even a quarter of this map. And only a very small portion of Ludditia is actually a proper part of the Empire - Shenaola is the only major political force in what's pretty much just a big archipelago. And somewhere in there, or who knows where else, some heir of Lord Fore carries the Hope of the Rebel, the Armour of Thornby, in secret, waiting for an opportune moment to present itself... eeh?

Of course, for a WC3 map, I'd hardly recommend such a large cut-out. Or... or maybe I would. But mmyeh.

[Lon-ami]

A clean one? No, for god's sake! The result was nice, so let's keep it.

Well, if we decide to expand the lands, we could expand a bit more northeast. But, that map of yours is just HUGE.

Some more provinces northeast would be nice, and perhaps south, too. But that's too huge, I don't find very likely for Mnesthes to have expanded that much... not so early after the war.

Anyway, elaborate more on those far realms, and imo all be right for expansion. Star Vana could have had a twin empire or something like that, the ones that helped the princes at Von Dunja.

Also, the Cult needs elaboration regarding its nature, so we can explain how more people keeps joining their ranks.

My point here is that the battle of Star Vana was won with not so big differences. Considering all the casualties, i find it pretty hard for the Cult to start a new war with the northern kingdoms.

I had the rebels supposed to be north, hidden in the mountains/seas. Now that I think more, thousands of people could have fled from the Cult and joined them in a new nation north. Thornby, Commonwealth, Bradfordians and Royalists united in a single faction. Perhaps one of my Xarians that survived could help, too. But most of the new nation would be formed by peasants that ran away, now ruled by war veterans.

The Frutiqeans could have taken that island north of Shenaola. The plague and the beasts disappeared, but the people is still there, I guess. We don't know anything about them, but I'll suppose they still are with the fruitmen, that are just sleeping or something like that, waiting for revenge against Mnesthes.

Shenaola has its island colonies and Zula keeps its lands, now ghostly. Waldestein could have expanded south after the war, taking the jungles or whatever found there and, perhaps, uncovering temples of something old, or engaging tribes of junglemen there and enslaving them.

The princes from Von Dunja obey Mnesthes, and have turned against their northern former allies. The area north could have been affected by fires and eartquakes that decimated the population greatly than at our known region.

Tsun-ami deserves a return, now making something like what I made with the governor of the main city of the east. And we could learn about her plans, too!! Also, 2 more Xarian fleets would be nice. They just didn't disappear, they just moved further.

We need a good amount of new small cultures to place them around the new areas.

And, finally, remembers that barbarian horde? Let's say the 2 former Empires were united just to defeat them long ago. Now, after war between them 2 starts again, they return.

Well, after the text-wall, I find it pretty plausible to make it that big. The time, I could disagree. I'd prefer it to be 20 years or so. Enough time to all this to happen. Hell, 15 years could be fine, too.

If you don't want to place a huge twin empire east, place some big mountains or whatever, to explain why there's no civilization there.

Final-finally, I think we should invite more people, not to play anything, just to let them create their own nation if they didn't play the previous game. Just to give it more originality, you know. And those that played, return and define your new life!

PS: Sorry for the walltext >_<.

[Ashenmoon]

Well, I never did think anything particularly interesting happened in the next few decades after the War - the Breaking and the plague didn't just disappear, but messed up the entire continent for a generation to come. Eventually, I figured, the Empire started expanding, without really any proper opposition - near enough every kingdom from before the Breaking fell apart.

But I dunno. Ludditia never was intended to become such a... vast project. Also, my ever-so-frequent oscillatin' 'tween hyped and uninterested about a WC3 map has, once again, brought me back to uninterested - I don't really play WC3 at all nowadays. Maybe I should simply distance myself somewhat and let the fresh minds take over, eh?

[Lon-ami]

Maybe I should simply distance myself somewhat and let the fresh minds take over, eh?

No, no, no. You aren't freeing yourself that... easy. xDDD.

Well, there's no W3 map planned at all. I just said there would be cool to have an RPG taking place after the war. We could even make it in the boards instead of a map.

Right now, I'm just speculating about how could be the situation. Just for fun, really :P.

[Ashenmoon]

Aah, lovely. Yes, I'm firing up the interest in another board-based thing... tee heeh...

I sort of got inspired setting a sort of campaign during some expansion-war of the Empire's, with a... scaled-down sort of size. Like, people control their army, and that'd be it, sorta. Hmm, hmm.

[Wabbajack]

Even a campaign setting for DnD would be possible, maybe with some homebrew classes and changes to old classes to add the right flavor^^

[Zula]

And so now that you are sentimental... what happened with my people? XD

[Lon-ami]

And so now that you are sentimental... what happened with my people? XD

Good question.

But first, answer where the hell did you send them, you royalist-murderer!

And, of course, tell us your plans!!

[Ashenmoon]

Oh, pfeeh, heeeh, well, where did they end up... where did they end up? Well, neither I nor anyone left on this content does, in fact, have a clue. Gone, poof, disappeared! Ta-da!

Also, "pfft" at some sort of DnD thing.



But hmmh. Well, I ponder, and ponder I do. The lessons of old have gone out the window, and I once again feel, somewhat, like starting up yet another campaign - this one Different - but I don't really feel any need to base it particularly on anything we saw in the old Ludditia-war. Maybe just a short siege for the fun of it, a cut-out from some Empire campaign against their neighbouring countries, could be...

Well. Maybe. Maybe I'll regain my senses, too.

[Lon-ami]

Or just something happening in other part of Ludditia at the same time :D.

[Ashenmoon]

Going away for near two weeks. Unresponsive... uh... response not to be interpreted as lack of interest; I am, in fact, still pondering the possibility of something for next year - real-time campaignin', bro! - but maybe, maybe not. See y'all in a few days from now.

[Zula]

Going away for near two weeks. Unresponsive... uh... response not to be interpreted as lack of interest; I am, in fact, still pondering the possibility of something for next year - real-time campaignin', bro! - but maybe, maybe not. See y'all in a few days from now.

Have a nice time ashen, we will be here waiting for you.

[Lon-ami]

Going away for near two weeks. Unresponsive... uh... response not to be interpreted as lack of interest; I am, in fact, still pondering the possibility of something for next year - real-time campaignin', bro! - but maybe, maybe not. See y'all in a few days from now.

You still have too many secrets to reveal, so I'll be waiting for your return :P.

Anyway, has the world of Ludditia a moon? If so, it shall be named Ashenmoon in honor to someone :P.

[Wabbajack]

It could be a blackish moon with magma rifts^^

[Ashenmoon]

That'd be... eheh. Well, anyhow, as it turns out, my oh-so-long stay in the wilds didn't last all that long, after all. I'll still be a wee bit more busy than before, but not all that much. Consider those "two weeks" to be done and over with. Heeh.

And as for secrets, well... if you're referring to whatever blanks were left hanging at the end of Ludditia, I don't so much consider them as secrets, as in plot devices, as some of those very many things that happen here in life that we never really learn the answer of. Of cooourse, I did make up some answers - Tsun-ami being a notable un-answered character - but fo'sho...

[Lon-ami]

Well, rest a bit, you aren't forced to post daily xDDD. Once exams end and people start being more active again, we could make something, but for now, well, we have enough time.

Tsun-ami being a notable un-answered character

:(

[Fordragon]

I don't know why this never occurred to me. Why didn't we just try and make a HoMM map? That shit's easy to mod and half the stuff we wanted to do were core HoMM mechanics.

[Gurtogg_Bloodboil]

Is this Guitarcrazyo a bot or what?

[Zula]

I don't know why this never occurred to me. Why didn't we just try and make a HoMM map? That shit's easy to mod and half the stuff we wanted to do were core HoMM mechanics.

Well I am not familiar with the game, could you provide us details?

[Fordragon]

Heroes of Might and Magic (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heroes_of_Might_and_Magic)

Basically, instead of having peasants and shit that build buildings, you can build one thing a turn in a city. Resources are collected from territories outside cities, ie lumber from sawmills that you've captured, ore from mines you've captured, mercury from alchemist labs you've captured. Each week you can raise a new set of units that cost gold (and occasionally other things). You use them to fill armies, that are commanded by a hero.

[Kerrah]

The problem is that in HoMaM you can't edit the units your castle builds without heavy modding.

[Fordragon]

I seem to recall HoMM5 coming with a mod-making, map-editing toolkit. Or am I mistaken?

[Kerrah]

HoMaM 5? Eww. 4 is where it's at.

[Fordragon]

Four? I'd understand if you said HoMM3. But four?

Anyway, 5 is far and away easier to add new units for, since they're not sprites and thus, much easier to model.

[Timolas]

I like HoMM 4, but it works like shit on my Vista, for some reason.
Just like Jedi Academy doesn't work on this thing, but works beautifully on my XP. Never played 5. Loved 3.

[Fordragon]

On an unrelated note, trying to inject a hypodermic full of testosterone in to Bolvar's dick would result in testosterone actually decreasing in his dick, because there's so much already and puncturing the surface would result in serious backflow. You know how diffusion is with that sort of thing.

[Ashenmoon]

Odd, that I'd pick now to peek in here again. Seeing, that is, how this thread popped (albeit briefly) alive. Not to say I've much anything to say. Staying busy. To have something to say, I'll just encourage a wee dose of healthy deathiness to blanket Ludditia-projects - leastways, even with time allowing, I don't see myself returning to it. It served its purpose, really.

Aaah, SoL... to think, I'm now nostalgic of those Good Old Days! Damn, but those good old days just keep sneaking up behind you - anything further off than a month (or possibly, a school semester) is instantly made fine and fluffy in my mind. Quite a pleasing effect, if maybe misleading... eheh.

Darn, but I aint had any vessel to funnel my chattiness into for... months!