SW: Siege of Cydonia

[Boco]

Originally posted by Sarsstock
Now a great many kinks have to be ironed out from the plans for this project (like the easy moving from the ground map to the space map for certain units)

If you need any help, ask away (here, pm, or email)!

[Sarsstock]

If you need any help, ask away (here, pm, or email)!

I can promise you my friend there will be plenty of questions to come. Also as a note, those modern 20th century cities in the second screenshot are not the final city graphic but merely the temporary one I'm using at this time.

[jim panse]

OMG ... Chris. This looks awesome

How are you faring these days, by the way

[Harry Tuttle]

Very nice work Chris!

[Arthedain]

Indeed it looks great!

[Sarsstock]

Thank you, thank you, for the compliments. As much fun as I've had making the unit graphics and such I've come to the harsh realization that scenario's are either made or broken with the rules and event writing. Luckily both are going pretty good so far.

On an unrelated note, does anyone around the forum know anything about editing sound files? Eventually this project's going to need some appropriate sound effects and I'm hoping to make some of my own if possible. What kind of easy to use software (and hopefully free to acquire) would do the trick?

[kobayashi]

try this

http://www.goldwave.com/

you won't need the full version for your purposes but if you wanted, you could probably google for a cracked version somewhere.

[Sarsstock]

Okay its time for a progress update for all those interested. I finally got around to editing the sprite tags in the @UNITS_ADVANCED section of the rules files as per civ2units suggestion so there shouldn't be any more unit sprite issues down the road. Also thank you for that link kobayashi, I'll have to give that program a check. I may be shooting for the moon but I'm hoping to have a full slate of sounds for every unit and action conceivable.

The biggest development has been the successful adding of the outer space map with the appropriate terrain to the game file. Right now I'm attempting to enable certain units (ie starfighters) to have the ability to jump from the planet map to the outer space map, but must then use a transporting terrain hex (the planet Cydonia terrain hex) to get back to the planet map. Does that make any sense at all? Its almost confusing to me and I'm the one typing it.

Boco's been advising me on the functions of the "native transport ability" so far so hopefully I can pick up some of his map hopping wisdom. If anyone has any thoughts on how or if this could be made to work however please feel free to comment. For starters I'm still not sure how the @MAP_TRANSPORT_RELATIONSHIPS portion of the rules text works.

@MAP_TRANSPORT_RELATIONSHIPS
1,2
3,4
1,3

Any thoughts anyone?

[curtsibling]

I'll soon start on those cities for you, Sarsstock!

Any hints on what kind of styles you want to see?

[Boco]

Have you looked at Map Transport Relationships Version 1.0 by William Keenan? It has a minor mistake or two, but it sure helped me a lot.

[Sarsstock]

Boco that was just the sort of reference site I was looking for. Man, I do have to wonder how long Mr. Keenan laboured on these multi-map games to become such an authority.

As for the cities Curt, are you familiar with the short lived sci-fi show Firefly and the movie Serenity? If not, what I'm looking for is a sort of frontier town of the future, something like Mos Eisley on Tatooine only much cleaner, more shining buildings and obviously the terrain its built on would be prairie terrain instead of desert.

Does that make sense at all?

[Uncle Dead Bird]

What will the bat-women's cities look like?

UDB

[Sarsstock]

Well sir, the gameplay will take place entirely on a continent dominated by the Cydonians (the human civ). The Skeltrix (the bat women) will not have their own cities represented and instead will have to conquer Cydonian cities, therefore the ctiy style they will use will be simply a burnt out ruined version of the Cydonian city style.

I imagine their own city style (if I were to make one) would be similar to some ancient civ's style from our own history, maybe Aztec or Babylonian or something along those lines I would say.

[Sarsstock]

Time for yet another update. Progress has slowed somewhat as I've spent the last week and a half of my scenario development time attempting to learn how to properly link maps together. So far its been.... lets say a "steep" learning curve .

However with the patience and help of Boco and Agricola I'm much closer than I was two weeks ago. With another week or two tops work I'm sure I'll have the proper hang of things.

Now I have a question regarding "space based" game maps. Is it preferred for ease of gameplay to have the area of map that represents space be actual land (ie prairie, grassland, desert) or ocean? I ask because as of now my outer space map uses ocean for space and I was wondering if anyone with more experience with space scenario's knew if it would be easier to use a land for space map in the long run instead?

Any thoughts anyone?

[torbk]

I have myself tried to make a pure space-only map for Star Wars using land tiles with different terrain being different planets and such. I never completed the scenario, but this is some stuff I found out.

Using land squares for space causes carrier-borne strike craft to stay in place when the carrier moves, so you have to move them after the carrier to land them again. This also means that in any turn you choose to attack something with your strike craft, they must move first, and the carrier must stay in landing range. It creates an interesting, but time-consuming twist to naval/space air combat.

You do get a lot more graphical options for your space background. This of course also, obviously, gives you greater resource options.

If it is a space only map, the below comments are irellevant and feel free to totally disregard them.

Using land for space, means using sea for planets or such objects, meaning they will all have a singular look.

Also carrying "planetary" units to planets might be a problem since sea units can't cross land. And also any transported unit on land will be left behind.

Space units can't "bombard" planets, but planetary units can attack into space for effective planetary defence. Simply put, all my planetary forces where anti orbital weapons or bunkers. As static units, this explained why they couldn't be transported by ships. (Ion Cannons, Planetary Torpedo Launchers, Ray Shielded Bunkers, so on.)