POMARJ for ToT development thread

[Cyrion]

It's now time for me to start working on this!

I had initially intended to revamp Discworld first, but as I have much more ideas about Pomarj, so be it!

First of all, could somebody please convert the MPGE file to ToT for me? The links to the files are in my signature! That would make a good basis for my work

I have quite a good ideas for a lot of things, and I'm really open to suggestions for others!

Here are, in short, the modifications I have in mind for the ToT version! The list is in no way final: some things might well be abandonned, and I hope you'll inspire me to add some more!
- add a dungeon layer (on map 2)
- add a "big" subquest (on map 3)
- modify the tech tree
- add new monsters
- add new hero units
- modify the second (boring) part of the game
- "cosmetic" modifications
- ??? add another layer on map 4 ??? (Outer Planes? Elemental??)
- ???

[curtsibling]

If you give me a link to the file, I can try a conversion.

Also, it would be wise to make ToT versions of all the GFX files (terrain/icons/cities) beforehand.

Having many things in place will make life easier, for when you load the converted file.

PS
Keep in mind that there are a few minor differences between MGE and ToT files...

It would pay to get familiar with the nature of them, before you dive in.

[Arthedain]

Nice, I liked the first one. This one will surely be better.

[AGRICOLA]

I agree that the MGE version was a bore because of its length; it took me 250+ turns to finish it.

IMHO, that is much too long for a scen. It is like playing 2/3 of a vanilla game while constrained by the types of units one can build, limited city and tech development, and house rules. A combination that is definitely guaranteed to put players to sleep is a mega map coupled with slow unit movement. My own rule of thumb is that, if a scen looks like it will take more than 100 turns, I either forget about it or see if it can be fixed by altering unit movement. Recently, I made Casus Belli and Zweite Weltkrieg playable, IMHO at least , by increasing naval movement by between x4 and x6.

I think that the 100 turn criterion is fair, because in the last year I have played, and found very interesting, the following excellent scens.

Up the Deadly Boot - - - 18 turns*
Red Front 1.4 - - - 20 turns
Hammer of the North - - - 35 turns
El Aurens - - - 36 turns*
Warlords of China - - - 50 - 75 turns
Lord of the Rings - - - 60 turns
Frederick the Great - - - 69 turns
Roman Civil Wars - - - 78 turns
Lost Legions - - - 86 turns
Lord of the One Ring - - - 101 turns

*turn limited scen

Good luck with the new Pomarj.

[techumseh]

If I can be of any help on the multimap front, or with events, let me know.

[Cyrion]

Originally posted by curtsibling
If you give me a link to the file, I can try a conversion.

Here they are, thanks!

Pomarj files

Keep in mind that there are a few minor differences between MGE and ToT files...

It would pay to get familiar with the nature of them, before you dive in.

I noticed some of them while working on Lost Legions! And for the others, well... I depend on you all!

Originally posted by techumseh
If I can be of any help on the multimap front, or with events, let me know.

Thanks, There is no doubt you can: I'll ask for it as soon as the need appears!

Originally posted by AGRICOLA
I agree that the MGE version was a bore because of its length; it took me 250+ turns to finish it.

IMHO, that is much too long for a scen.

...

I think that the 100 turn criterion is fair, because in the last year I have played, and found very interesting, the following excellent scens.

I fully agree with that! I've started to think about how to shorten the scen (along adding interesting side features to keep the player awake ), and I would quite like to discuss ideas about it with you!

[Arthedain]

TBH I remember that the initial part of the scen was the funnest. Took me many times to establish a beachhold withot wasting valuable units, trying out different tactics and trying to survive the counter-attack. Adding more quests to the scen will make it more interesting I believe.

[Elensar]

Honestly, I'm torn. On one hand, I want to cheer Pomarj to the rafters.

The other, mean spirited and envious person, thinks that Civ is the wrong engine for this.


Putting the shoulder devil to sleep for the moment...

I'm not sure how you intend to the unit balance to work, either Freemen units or Hero units vs. regular enemies.

So I'd like to hear what you're feeling before commenting.

One thing I'd definately include, and I hope there's a way to trigger it...

Find a way to represent "civilizing" the area. For instance, bandits become less common as you solidify the Rule of Law (whatever that means in game terms).

I guess the thing is, what do you want to represent happening? Military liberation/conquest is simply not worth developing in Civ. There needs to be the sense of (re)building a realm, too.

Quests may be tricky to do in Civ (even with ToT having a good editor), but I like the idea.

Okay, so I'm rambling. But I felt I should comment. After all, I'm going to pay attention to this to the extent I pay attention to Civ at all.

[Cyrion]

Originally posted by curtsibling
If you give me a link to the file, I can try a conversion.

Any news regarding your offer?

[Cyrion]

Originally posted by Elensar
I'm not sure how you intend to the unit balance to work, either Freemen units or Hero units vs. regular enemies.

So I'd like to hear what you're feeling before commenting.

I don't know whether you played Pomarj or not, but the unit balance is basically the following:
- Freemen units (good name you found there for this category ): they can take on the common humanoids, but not the "special" ones (dragons, giants, ...)
- Hero units: to fight against the main monsters + slaughter the common ones!

One thing I'd definately include, and I hope there's a way to trigger it...

Find a way to represent "civilizing" the area. For instance, bandits become less common as you solidify the Rule of Law (whatever that means in game terms).

Up to now, the trick was to occupy (with cheap units) the spots where the bandits appeared (they were quite easy to identify); with the bigger event files ToT offers (and the flags), I might modify this so that the spawing points change once some cities are taken or some specific improvements are built!

It's a good suggestion, I'll think about it!

Quests may be tricky to do in Civ (even with ToT having a good editor), but I like the idea.

Not so much: I have a few ideas so that some special units (heroes, spells, magic items) could be gained after a small quest on another map!

Okay, so I'm rambling. But I felt I should comment. After all, I'm going to pay attention to this to the extent I pay attention to Civ at all.

So now, please comment!

[Elensar]

I've played it a bit, and it didn't quite satisfy me. ToT has a much better events structure for doing justice to in depth scenarios so I intend to follow this. : )

I'm not saying you can't make good quests, just that even ToT is harder than something designed for rpgs.

But you should get some fun stuff this way, aye.

Comments made. Glad to be of service in any way I can.

[Cyrion]

I'll now start a series of posts regarding the ideas I have for the various points I described in the 1st post!

There might be some spoilers in there, but if you feel like helping me, please read on: as usual, I am really open to suggestions!

For the Dungeon Layer, here is what I have in mind:

I intend to use a full map for that! It will have entrance points on the Pomarj map, which can only be used by some units (Heros, adventurers and some others, like some monsters!). I have a few ideas about some of the entrance points and what has to be done below, but some other real dungeon crawl / quest would be great!

Here is a provisory list:
- the 2 gnolls caverns: some underground fighting would then lead to the deactivation of the "gnoll generator" (instead of killing the "gnoll lair" unit as it is now)
- the 2 ogres caverns: same as above (but I would keep the "dam" event as I quite like it too!)
- note: this would free 3 unit slots (the 2 gnoll lairs + the ogre lair) which could be used for other underground features!

And now I need suggestions for some subquests: something below the Drachensgrab? a lich crypt? something below suss forest? something else? we have plenty of room for that, and a whole "terrain file" available to make it nice!

The idea would be to make these subquest worth by:
- activating an event useful for the player: creating units (heroes, magical items,...), giving a tech or creating an improvement or Wonder in a city (creating an airport or superhighway in Elredd might boost trade! I'll keep that in mind... )
- deactivating a dangerous monster event: stopping a regular monster generation (ogres and gnolls, for instance), or preventing a vicious counter-attack

I guess I'll make it so that the Rock to Mud scroll could be found underground, as might for instance the Horn of Iuz: that would have the added benefit of freeing some tech slots!

So now, I'm eager for your underground suggestions: what to do there, which monsters to fight, and so on!

[Elensar]

Hmm. Something that would make you feel clearly heroic.

I'm not sure exactly what that means in regards to your question, but I'd like to suggest adding it. Underground or not.

I mean, yeah, Pelor = Neutral Good God of the Sun blah blah blah, but...

Prisoners to free.
Holy sites to restore to their former glory (in game terms, wonders to build?)
Something to put some real impact to the flavor stuff. I mean, say you run into some undead.

If you could make it so that any "priest" unit has a bonus versus "undead", you'd get a -nice- effect.

"A dragon! Only the greatest of heroes can face a dragon with any hope of success." (Otherwise known as: Only fighters can attack air units) would make an excellent way to justify sending heroes out to slay dragons.

I'm not sure on specifics, but I urge you to take all possible advantage of things like this. We're supposed to be kicking butt and feeling righeously heroic, not just like rulers of the realm.

If unit slots permit, perhaps have some sword/staff/whatever for one of the characters to find so that you have a "(Hero) with (artifiact)" unit that is more powerful than the normal one.

Hm. Related...Would paladins be misplaced here?

But something where you can create the feel of a good rpg within the game mechanics, such as the air units/dragons suggestion. Pomarj I was interesting enough, I suppose, but the fluff didn't (thanks in part to MPG's limits) register as vibrantly as I'd like.

I guess the gist of this is: Make it so that "go out and do stuff with heroes" that's -questing related-, not just "biggest, baddest unit" related matters. Which would entail beefing up the Freeman units a little, perhaps.

I hope this helps.

[Cyrion]

Wow, this is really great feedback Elensar, an excellent and inspiring basis on which to work!

And sorry about "cutting and copying" your post, but it makes my answering easier

Originally posted by Elensar
Hmm. Something that would make you feel clearly heroic.
...
I'm not sure on specifics, but I urge you to take all possible advantage of things like this. We're supposed to be kicking butt and feeling righeously heroic, not just like rulers of the realm.
...
I guess the gist of this is: Make it so that "go out and do stuff with heroes" that's -questing related-, not just "biggest, baddest unit" related matters. Which would entail beefing up the Freeman units a little, perhaps.

I fully agree with that! Actually, I was looking for a way to make the hero units real Heroes, and not just "panzer units"!

So the solution to this conundrum might well be to add some offensive value to the "normal" units, which would mean that the heroes would be less necessary on the offense and less efficient on the defense, which would free them for the subquests taking place on maps accessible only to the heroes!

The consequences of the quests would then be the ones described in my post above!

This will be part of the solution, though maybe not the whole of it

Prisoners to free.
Holy sites to restore to their former glory (in game terms, wonders to build?)
Something to put some real impact to the flavor stuff. I mean, say you run into some undead.

Yes indeed, some candy will be necessary around the sadly material gains of the subquests! Thankfully, ToT event file size should allow for it!

If you could make it so that any "priest" unit has a bonus versus "undead", you'd get a -nice- effect.

This is difficult! But if you have a solution, I'm interested!

I think about putting some magical items or others things that can be triggered only by specific heroes (like a magical sword which once picked would strenghten a specific fighter, or a dead hero who can be raised only by a cleric!) in the quests! Could it do the trick?

If unit slots permit, perhaps have some sword/staff/whatever for one of the characters to find so that you have a "(Hero) with (artifiact)" unit that is more powerful than the normal one.

See above, I had the same idea! Great minds...

Hm. Related...Would paladins be misplaced here?

Nope, some will appear! And if you have some Paladin related suggestions, please tell!

I hope this helps.

Yes indeed, thanks a lot!

[Elensar]

No problem with cut/paste, its a good method of organizing one's thoughts.

Well, you could have "undead" mean "missile", but that would limit their use. Anti-cavalry bonuses would be hard to apply properly. I like the ideas you have, if you can figure out how to set the triggers. But its a lovely concept. I'll see if anything strikes.

On paladins...see how the setting fleshes out and I'll get back to you with my thoughts. But somehow crusading holy knights seem to be perfect for this.

Glad to be of service. ToT has enough event trigger options that you should be able to get some good results out of the questing, if you can figure out what to have as the effect. Just having gold probably won't do.

Keep us posted.

[Cyrion]

I've haven't been as idle as it might seem, but have been trying to define a bit more precisely what I intend to do in this version! My ideas are now quite clear, and it's just a matter of details now (and of course of implementing them... )

So basically I'll work in 3 directions:

1. Number of turns

First of all, the goal is to make the scenario finished in about 100 turns, and not 300 as in the first version!

This basically means that the boring, crawling second part of it needs to be heavily modified!

A few ideas about that:
- increasing the movement of some units
- reducing the movement penalty of some terrains
- give more units (friend and foe) via event: more dynamic!
- reduce the terrain defense bonus + increase the "normal units" offense : more dynamic!
- if necessary, resize the map (I would hate to do that, so it will be only as a last solution...)


2. Heroes

Increase the RPG flavour so that it's not just a civ scen with hero-named units, but more a fully heroic, 2-faceted game where you have on one side a civ scen, and on another one heroic quests!

A few ideas about that have been mentioned on previous post, I'll develop them in the coming weeks!


3. ToT Improvements

As described in previous posts, I intend to make good use of ToT features:
- better graphics
- more units
- multimap
- bigger event file + more event possibilities

[curtsibling]

Looks like you are forging ahead!

I have some cities to make for a few people, but once that is
done, I am available to help you out in any way for this one!

[Elensar]

Nothing to say at the moment, other than messages of support. I think this will be an excellent scenario if you can take advantage of ToT.

[Cyrion]

OK folks, I am working now on the units list and I was wondering which monsters you would like to see in Pomarj!

As a reminder, the monsters in the MPGE version (which should still be in ToT) were:
- Orcs: Orc Raiders, Warg Riders, Orc chieftain, Orcs
- bigger humanoids: Ogre, Gnolls, Giant
- evil humans: Evil Cavalry, Evil Guard, Pirates, Bandits
- flying monsters: Red Dragon, Wyvern, Demon
- Undead (skeleton)

In addition to that were the 2 units for the Kobold civ + the 3 for the human Suel civ.

I'm sure you have your own AD&D pet monster, so this might be the occasion to see it appear in a civ scen...

[MacGalleo]

Why not any spiders?

[McMonkey]

When I was a young man I was interested in Warhammer, though I could not afford the figures and played DBA instead.

I remember they had a race of Rat men called Skaven. You could use them under a different name. There were also the forces of Chaos, and Beastmen which were like half man, half goat!

I seem to remember that the Warhammer world was a mix between Tolkien's Old World and Medieval Europe. I did see one CivII scenario based on it but it did not excite me very much! No Empire to play as!

[MacGalleo]

I enjoyed play a warhammer scn a long time ago...
you can find it here :
http://eyn.free.fr/CIV2/CIV23.htm
but it's in french....

[Elensar]

Hm. The monster list is fine, but one thing I'd add, in moderation...

Individual villains.

Just as we have the brave heroes, there ought to be the Necromancer (how else are there undead) Whoever.

Beastmen sound interesting, but Skaven...ugh.

I don't much care for them anyway (its a personal thing just like I dislike the idea of lizardmen), but Civ isn't the kind of game to do justice to their unlovable quirks. Its more useful for brute monsters.

That said, any Warhammer Fantasy scenario that could actually work and not just be a standard Civ war-diplomacy-etc. game in the Old World would be very nice.

[techumseh]

Worms.

[McMonkey]

@MacGalleo
Thanks for the link. The map for the warhammer scenario is pretty well done for a vintage scenario.
Will have to sort out the rules and events to work for the English version but it looks like fun, might add some new graphics too!

There was also a Shogun scenario for ToT with a decent map. A bit smaller than the one I am building, slowly, for Invasion Japan, which in turn is smaller than Darth Vedas Sengoku Jidai map!

Still lots of undiscovered Civ out there!

@Cyrion
Harpies, Trolls, Vicious 2 or 3 headed Dogs, Giant Wasps?

[Cyrion]

Interesting suggestions, guys!

I'll consider them during my vacation!

See you in 3 weeks!

[Arthedain]

have a good one, Vincent!

[Cyrion]

Originally posted by Arthedain
have a good one, Vincent!

Oh I did, Martin, I did!

And after the 3 weeks spent in Guatemala + Belize, I now really need to play the old Sacrificial Blood scen which has been sleeping on my HD for so long...

And I'm eagerly waiting for the new Aztec scen under development which appeared on the forum during my absence!

[Cyrion]

I used my "vacation" time to do some thinking on the way to handle the modifications outlined in the previous posts, and I'll now use the coming weeks to tests the various ideas I had about that!

First task is trying to reduce scenario duration to about 100 turns! Let's see if my ideas about it are sound...

[Elensar]

No news is not good news. Life keeping you busy, or...?