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Little minigame

PostPosted: 23 Sep 2017, 19:42
by Black
Hi, some months ago i was looking for some new game mode to have a 'different' game with my team.

My idea was to make a map, where your soldiers are controlled by an AI-Player; You have to build your army, and then is the AI that manages it during the battle.
Implement this in a building-map is not so easy, and due to the small amount of time, i gave up the idea.


Recently i've decided to try something similar in a battle map for 2 Player (1vs1).
Screens:
Screenshot 2017-09-23 21.30.20.png
Screenshot 2017-09-23 21.30.31.png
- Each player starts with aStore, School and a Tower.
- Each player has some points, in order to buy wares and soldiers(AI-controlled); Every minute you will receive some points.
- Different groups of soldiers have different costs.
-You can earn extra points by killing enemy sodiers.
Your target is to destroy the enemy village buying troops of soldiers, which will attack the enemy automatically.


Of course, the map is really limited in this way; For example, a Version where you can buy wares to build new edifies can be a nice add.
And moreover you have not much control over Ai-actions, but with better scripts this can get better.


Well, let me know what you think about this (probably is only a shit idea) :P
At least i hope this can be considered like a little minigame
Link ->
Face to Face.zip

Re: Little minigame

PostPosted: 04 Oct 2017, 20:29
by woloszek
Very nice idea. I think is a little unbalance. When north attack south village, inn is destroyed before school. The situation is different when we attack north. First: storehouse and school, excluding towers ofc. So, south has more time to defence and win too.
Nice job ;)

Re: Little minigame

PostPosted: 04 Oct 2017, 21:31
by sado1
Very cool map! We need 8P version :P

Re: Little minigame

PostPosted: 06 Oct 2017, 16:17
by Black
Very nice idea. I think is a little unbalance. When north attack south village, inn is destroyed before school. The situation is different when we attack north. First: storehouse and school, excluding towers ofc. So, south has more time to defence and win too.
Nice job ;)
Thank you for the warning :) I've forgotten to set same priority target for every player in the script; I will fix it.

An 8p version can be nice, but at the moment i was working on a Building-version of this mode. Let's see what comes out :D

Re: Little minigame

PostPosted: 09 Oct 2017, 05:46
by Jeronimo
Hey Black, I liked your map... in fact inspired me to do a little modification of it.

I focused the map more into the action:
-Replaced Inn for a 2ยบ tower, and removed all food (matches tend to be short).
-Little stone-objects defense for TOP towers (are in disadvantage due exposed entries).
-Higher default initial points and income, 180/+90 instead of 100/+50.
-Rewrited many texts to make it less wordy, new information and more clear visuals for battlefield.
-Reworked Achievements-> Store 10-20-30 gold chests (each level gives +30 points income).

Re: Little minigame

PostPosted: 09 Oct 2017, 15:50
by Black
Nice to see you like it Jeronimo

You've made a good update of my map, so thanks :)
There can be a problem with lower troop's cost and higher rewards for killed unit. When i test this map the first time, with low costs, no one was able to win because each player always had the points to buy new troops, and there was a 'deadlock' situation. But i haven't tested the map with your settings, so maybe all works fine ;)

Re: Little minigame

PostPosted: 09 Oct 2017, 19:25
by Jeronimo
I think the idea is to go back and forward till someone starts making a difference, either by having better income (achievements) or personal troops (costing 150, the same as 1 full upgrade of 10 chests).
I noticed with your vanilla version that is impossible to reach 60 units limit, so I made several numeric changes in order to try to get closer to that limit, while preventing gameplay from falling into a state of "Points Reserve floating".

Updated version-> Aesthetical changes, script & balance polishing.

Re: Little minigame

PostPosted: 10 Oct 2017, 12:22
by Black
Do you have a working replay to share of your map version?

Re: Little minigame

PostPosted: 14 Oct 2017, 01:05
by Jeronimo
I played 2 matches yesterday vs [PUA] Regis.
Our games were unusually long, but because of bad choices/mistakes.

The usual lenght is between 5 and 15 minutes at most... 2 days ago I played a match vs MF who has been my best rival so far, and is hard to recover from a bad purchase, yet not impossible.
Against MF if I had gone early upgrade I'd have died because he rushed me.
The invested 150 points for an upgrade return to your Points Reserve after 5 minutes (+30 x 5), which means that your aggresive opponent will outnumber you in the 1st battle and crush you quickly.

In these replays + lastest mod version, I went to Tier 2 quickly while sending 1 squad of Rebels to explore.
Sadly [PUA] Regis didn't upgrade his income at any moment, 1st game he didn't know (told me he didn't read the messages at the left), but in 2nd he knew and still didn't upgrade to Tier 2.
He managed to put a good fight considering I was having +180 per minute, and he only +90.

Re: Little minigame

PostPosted: 14 Oct 2017, 09:02
by Black
Well, he made a really good resistance, also considering he didn't buy any upgrade.
Your mode map seems to work well; let me know if you have other ideas to get better this mode :wink:

I was already working on a building version, but now i'm valuating the possibility to make a 4p/8p version, maybe with some more features...

Re: Little minigame

PostPosted: 14 Oct 2017, 22:08
by Jeronimo
I think my mode map is fine and it can't get any better. Other ideas can make it "different" which doesn't mean it will be worse, but for example... making the modality more complex doesn't guarantee success or the tag of "better".

I can tell you about people being so lazy they don't even read description at lobby nor the messages at left when game starts.
[PUA] Regis wasn't the only one, there were others who wrote "I don't understand" while randomly training recruits at school.
Such situations were frustrating for me... no fun for me and explaining everything from zero.

If I were you, I would be working in a 8p version with a classic 4v4 format (4 top vs 4 bottom).
The more people is invited to try the map mode, the more chances it has to get known among casual players.
If people wants to build, host will pick a typical 8p big building map.

Re: Little minigame

PostPosted: 15 Oct 2017, 12:00
by Black
I know what you are talking about, I've never found any casual player in the lobby who helped me with testing. Someone exit after some min, some doesn't read description etc...
I play this game occasionally, always with real friends, but when I take a look into open lobby I always find people play the same building mod map( which have a terrible appearence for me). So, sadly, I totally give up trying to find random players to play my maps with.

The buidling version of this mode, is just a 'hobby', which helps me to get better with programming. I do this for me ;)

I'm also working on a 8p version, but it will need time and i'm very busy atm.

Re: Little minigame

PostPosted: 15 Oct 2017, 22:18
by Jeronimo
I want to leave you 1 last good replay. This time my opponent was sado, the leader of the [S&M] clan.
I wish you good luck in your endeavors Black!

Re: Little minigame

PostPosted: 16 Oct 2017, 16:23
by Black
Really interesting game with Sado, he beated you without using upgrades!

Well thank you for playing my map and thanks for feedback :)

Re: Little minigame

PostPosted: 18 Oct 2017, 08:14
by sado1
I dunno about the achievements, is it intended that there is no other achievements than for buying gold? It's kinda annoying that I'd have to buy gold (which is useless anyway) only to get upgraded income, I'd like to see some other ways; however, maybe that was the idea: you need to invest some of your income to get more in the future... Also, while the gameplay is already quite nice, I'd still like to see some small random stuff happening, similar to Knights Evolve's bonuses but obviously different to fit the Face to Face gameplay. Some ideas:
-power-ups: when your troop walks onto a special tile (maybe randomly generated on a few of the walkable tiles once in a while?), you will get a small additional bonus
-bombs: buy a bomb, then click on a tile to kill all troops (yours too) in a small range. It can't be too powerful though.
-small NPC armies, not allied to anyone, a problem for everyone
-mercenaries spawned near enemy base. Need to be quite expensive, or else they might be overpowered.

And about tactics... It seems obvious right now that the best tactic is to train troops right before your enemy attacks your base (so you have maximum income before training the troops, which results in you having barbs and swordmen versus your enemy having a bit smaller/less pwoerful army), wait for them to win and start walking towards the enemy base, then send some horse reinforcements if your income is good enough (nothing else will be able to reach the rest of your troops in time to join the attack). When you lose the attack, repeat.