Knights and Merchants.net Forum

Scripting has progressed significantly, as you can see by all the new stuff supported:
http://code.google.com/p/castlesand/wiki/MissionScripts

I'm very excited about scripting, it makes the game moddable to some extent, and means you can make all kinds of new game styles (like TDL's Tower Defence which is progressing nicely). We want to have some example scripted missions to help map makers learn how scripting works, especially if they haven't programmed before. Does anyone have any idea for new mission kinds? Here are the ideas we have so far:

Multiplayer:
- Coastal Encounter Scored: Live player scores are displayed on screen. Players score points for each kill, with a different amount of score for each type of unit killed.
- King of the Hill: In the middle of the map there is a hill with a specially marked tile on it. The objective is to have a unit on that tile (uninterrupted) for 5 minutes, at which point you win, while your opponents try to do the same. Message is shown on screen like this: "Lewin is king of the hill! Time until victory: 01:45" Could be done with teams perhaps? We need a map for this, would someone be interested in making it? We would much appreciate it
- Economic objectives of some kind: e.g. first to make 100 bread?

Singleplayer:
- Quest: You start with one knight (yourself) and find yourself walking along a road. You meet armed farmers who decide to help you overthrow the local ruler after some after some conversation shown in messages (you are given control of the farmer units). After killing the ruler and his soldiers you are given control of the village and then the story continues (some new objective...)
- More interactive tutorials (instructions overlaid on screen, highlight certain buildings or parts of the interface, move your screen to places on the map)

Please suggest any other ideas you have or improvements to these ideas
They don't necessarily have to be fun to play, they will still serve as good examples (we might not put these missions in the map folder, but provide them as a "Scripting example pack" to help people learning to script). If people want to learn scripting and help make these missions (or just make the maps) let us know.
Cheers,
Lewin.

I have some ideas like these as well, but if you don't mind I'll save them for later.
I might make a King of the Hill map, but first I want to finish Tower Defence and Majestic Waters so if you need it fast I guess someone else should make it.

Oh god I like these ideas that much Specialy this new ways of making Campaigns,like in other classic Strategy games.
I´m also surprised about the future of new victory conditions: "100 corn and 10 bowmen to win" or sth like that.
Really nice development, I could make a map, but I won´t do it,because it wasnt look that nice i think

Hey! I think this is a great idea! im sure then the games wont be 'camper mode'. And if more this kind of point will be there then need to reseserving the all in the same time...WoW.
5minutes after 10 minutes the PT?
(One marked point maybe will bring more faster economic games than as now,and possible some games will be without town attacks. Will all units attack the centre/marked point, or some will attack the villages too? More tactic ways. 1 players hold the marked position and other 3 just attack towns.... )

I think there are some maps which have good fighting area for this.
Cursed Ravine, Back in the desert, Paradise Island, Openworld, Across the desert, Golden Cliffs, The Final Frontier, Wilderness,Warefare in the Wilderness, Lake Wololo,Alice, Annie....and this list is longer.
Maybe the most maps should have this 'KotH' version or scripts. 4P,8P, KotH...

If anybody has other ideas for the kind of missions you'd like to make with this new scripting system, please write about them or PM them to me if you don't want to make your ideas public (TDL, I'm talking to you ). This means we can make sure we support enough script commands in the next release for your ideas to be implemented. Think about it in terms of:
1. What data do I need from the game? (e.g. get the current mission time, get the unit standing on a certain tile, number of swordsman a certain player has)
2. What actions do I need to perform? (e.g. send a message, add a unit to the school queue, order a warrior group to attack)

We appreciate your help

Great ideas! Just love them and really appreciate it that you are supporting a new scripting system. When I watched the movie '300' last week, I thought of a nice mission about it. One player who can only make swordsmen and the other can only make massive militia. I have not yet seen any support for blocked units/ weapons production, so that would be nice (though not so much scripting as the other ideas). But... a variant of this could be the following: 2 teams with 3 players each (all knights). You start in different corners and go around freeing towns with your units (like the quest description) so you get additional soldiers by doing that. But every time you get extra units, they cannot be used to finish the quests (neutral to enemies) though can be sent out to attack the other players' heroes and units. Difficulties: heroes should be able to respawn (only destroyed storehouses can lose you the game) and players should be able to control two colors at the same time (hostile/neutral settings).

so this is like a kam dota version?

I will send you a pm soon Lewin and spam you with ideas Hihi

Tower Defence? King of Hill? RPG mode? Please, say this is a joke. PLEASE! When you were starting this big project, I was sure you wanted to make game without any bugs, with better balance and playable in Internet. I admire you for this hard work, but now I have to say NO! This everything go to wrong side. I want to real KaM, not collection of minigames with KaM's graphic. If you have to do this, please make from this separated game.
You probably forgot about one thing: KaM is NOT TD, FPS, Tzar, Cossacs, or Diablo. KAM IS KAM!
Was Barbarian right?

relax these will be mutators, the original kam will stay alive.

Actually they're just separate maps. When I make a map I can choose to write a script that gives some control over the engine while the game is running. As far as I know a lot of RTS games have something like this, at least some kind of trigger and action system that allows you to make story lines more involving. People have already made RPG style KaM missions using the limited KaM TSK/TPR scripting features and that hasn't hurt the game has it? It's not like Krom and I are developing these "minigames", we're just making it possible for other people to do so. In my opinion KaM needs some variation because right now most of the maps play in the same way, both in single and multiplayer. The objective is always to destroy your enemy's stuff. Why not have some maps where the object is to capture a hill and hold it for 5 minutes? Or protect a group of citizens that must march from one end of the map to the other. I remember that Warcraft III had a lot of variation in it's missions, some were RPG style quests, some were protecting a caravan that had to reach the other side of the map, some were almost tower defence style, some were just "standard" RPG "destroy all the enemy teams". And that made the game far more interesting and dynamic. Why wouldn't you want a similar thing in KaM?

I haven't seen a game where making it more customisable/moddable did damage to it. For example DOTA was modded into Warcraft, and it's now become as big as Warcraft itself! Maybe someone will invent a KaM map which people end up enjoying more than the original game. I think it will make people keep playing the game for longer because you don't always have to play the game in the same way. "Minigames" aren't the only thing you can do with it, it makes all sorts of stuff possible. For example you could make a map where trading is blocked until after peacetime (or the first 30 minutes or whatever) Or certain buildings could be blocked until a certain time. You could even have a limit to the number of towers buildable in your map which I remember some people requesting.

I think the majority of multiplayer maps will still be unscripted with normal objectives etc., but there will be a few fun ones to play when you get tired of that. I don't see what harm scripting will do to the game, it will attract programmers to write code for their maps, it will make stories far more involving (especially singleplayer), it will allow some interesting variations in multiplayer with different objectives, etc. IMO it will make the game more popular if anything.

And just because somebody makes some crazy scripted map doesn't mean you have to play it, or we have to include it in the official maps list. Someone can already make a crappy map with strange AI behaviour. If people don't like it they won't play it, the same thing applies to scripted maps.

I think a DOTA variant of KAM is an excellent idea. The unique fighting style of KAM, which deviates a bit from traditional RTS games with hit points and all, could prove a fun, less predictable application of TD or TODA style gameplay. I can totally see it work.

I might have an idea, but i don't know if it will work. the gamemode can be called VIP, asassination or escort. One player starts with a VIP unit and a small escort army that the enemy has to kill. This player can have allies with other armies to help him protect the VIP. While it is the enemies objective to kill the VIP it is the VIP team their objective to escort the VIP to a certain spot, wich might be a small village, or even a barracks to function as a castle(since it already looks like a castle).

the VIP unit can be any unit (maybe with some protectional bonusses since it is only one unit). the only visibillity The VIP and protecting armies have is their starting point and their objective, while the enemies can see the whole map so they can ambush the VIP. So basically the best strategy for the VIP team is to move with caution and make sure flanks are protected while the asassins must make sure they ambush well and get to the VIP through a flank or to kill a complete flank.

MY ideas, well like all economic but OK:

1.) After X Time (need current gametime) player (Y) wins when he had more corn/bread/iron than the other players.

2.) After ....... TEAM (Y) wins when..... (... are the same like in 1.))

3.) Team/Player (Y) wins when he/they have first (Z) numbers of recources (!NO TIME HERE)

4.) First player/Team who has actualy X milita, Y Xbows and Z Knights win the game WITH ATTACKING

5.) .......(same like 4.) but WITHOUT attacking, so with endless PT maybe and visible enemy(you cannot attack the enemy so it is a better viewing: "how many knights he already have)

6.) Player/Team X win when trading Corn for "X" Bread with the market?!

7.) Player/Team which has first killed X amounts of army of the enemy (Gungame) ?

8.) Killing the enemy´s "KING" (King is a unmoveable unit(from AI)), so the players need to build towers around him or defend him good with army. Maybe also with an AI movement after X time, so it would be really hard to defend him

(This is more a mutator): 9.) Only one type of armies: "Only horses" for example.

10.) i dont know if this is doable but maybe sth like "capture the flag" (army without horses) so you must take the flag from the center of map(or somewhere else) and put it near you barracks.


pawel95

The most important scripting code for me as a mapmaker would be a setting for the amount of buildings from the same type (towers, market, fishers etc.) but I'm not sure if it's easy to create such a code. With a code like that it's possible to eliminate towerspam and maybe prevent things like blocking a bridge with markets etc.