oKay, finally got a little time for feedback.

Actually I guess there is not much you should put in there. The things that must be there in my opinion are:
- Description of all buildings which give you income specifying the amount of income they give.
- Enumeration of buildings which advance you to the next age.
- Specification of buildings which make wonders may also help.
- Probably some basic help about initial strategy (that bunkers are strong, that upgrading your special is generally good and etc.)

Considering the help representation you can additionally make an in-game tips appear randomly in time giving hints to players. These in-game tips could be toggled on/off by clearing the "show tips" flag in the options menu.


I believe fighting specials (in addition usually with few upgrades) with regular units is useless because, first they are generally too weak to oppose specials, second I generally don't want to upgrade my regulars, more by token, that I have specials in the other age, and third specials don't require limit and easily overcome regulars in numbers. This is the general problem with the map.


Excalibur, please consider number 3 of mine one more time, because there is one more person which messed up with this exactly they way I did. Moreover, in case you have just thought to put this in help, these kinds of things when put in help (like ones "don't do this ...", "be careful with that ..." and etc.) usually apprehend very purely. The best way to avoid them is to make things intuitively clear.


Below I continue my numeration.
27. (In addition to 17) The fog of war for purple is broken. Most likely there are the other players with the similar issue.

28. Victory and defeat conditions. When someone got defeated (all buildings destroyed) he is not kicked out of the game because of the cerebrate building. Probably this is the way it should work but then it is impossible to win when the only players left are defeated players which just sit there.

29. (Addressing 37) Usually this is such a hassle upgrading extractors when you reach the next age. It turns into the nightmare when you got more and more land. Probably consider to upgrade they automatically as one reaches the next age.

30. Make the morphing into specials faster (for the zerg at least).

31. This is very annoying that specials don't follow rally points. Nothing you can do about this except of completely considering the redesign though.

32. There are big issues with the balance. Can't tell what is wrong in particular and how to fix it (moreover the last is your job ). Generally it is about specials. As I've mentioned the lack of supply requirements make specials easy to mass which is devastating in addition to them having more hp, base armor, attack and initial technologies. This makes the strategy which is about "tech to specials as fast as you can and then mass them plus upgrade" very hard to oppose. Especially with the long time required to upgrade to the next age. Till the time which is required to upgrade to the next age, one can have so much upgrades for his specials of the previous age that they will easily pwn all units of the next age (for example hydralisks with +5/+5 upgrades can pwn most of the iron age I believe). I believe nations with specials in the golden age have absolutely no chance, not to say that someone upgrading to the golden age in a game is hardly to happen ever. As for now the game usually finishes at the start of the iron age.

33. (Addressing 32, fixing 30 and 31) My suggestion there is to abandon the specials being heroes. Just giving the technology upgrades for the nations specials should suffice. In particular hydra speed/range upgrades, ling movement speed/attack speed upgrades, ultralisk speed/armor upgrades, zealot speed, goon range, bat/rine stim, rine range, ghost sight (lockdown probably), vulture speed/mines. Though you must abandon such units without tech upgrades as goliaths, archons and etc. You can replace them with the approach of nations having different upgrades for the same unit (like one nation has hydra speed upgrade only and the other has the hydra range only and etc.).

34. Another issue with the balance is that at some point in the game there are so many minerals that you can't spend them all. On the contrary there is generally quite little gas.

35. (Addressing 34) Don't you want to make support of the regular army cost minerals per second (minute, hour, day, month, year or whatever )? If there is no minerals there is a rebellion and some of your regular army units are given to the computer (and/or the other players, why not?).

36. (Addressing 34) Don't you want to upgrade the income from a gas unit in different ages? For example having gas multiplier x3 in the bronze age, x4 in the iron age and x5 in the golden age (adjusting prices x3 accordingly).

37. There is a problem of a huge empire. From some point it becomes hard to handle everything and to expand further. The game becomes more like a hard job than a fun entertainment. You might want to introduce some kind of penalties for huge empires to hold the growth, with bigger empires being able to sustain bigger army but smaller empires being more rich.


38. In case you consider 37, probably you might want to add victory conditions the other than physical devastation of enemies. For example collecting some predefined amount of minerals first. So that small but rich empires could also win the game.

39. (Addressing 34) Someone suggested a system to convert minerals to the gas and vice versa. I don't like this solution because it only hides the existing problems.

40. (Addressing 6) Alright, I've looked into triggers. There is nothing that should lag much except of probably constant moving of the Hanging Gardens overlords to the location. Abandon that trigger. Instead make overlords deselected and ordered back to the location when they reach borders.

41. (Addressing 20). Geysers which are not meant to mine from should be depleted to make it more clear.

42. (Addressing 21). Alright there are small islands you don't want nexus to be placeable at, but the Gotland is quite a large area with 2 geysers. Moreover there is some space to enlarge the island to the left to free space for a nexus (I've tried to enlarge myself, so I can tell for sure).

EDIT:
43. The more I think about 7 the more I convince to the solution of an "easy" implementation of a transport unit.
The problem is that units got healed. This could be covered by having a small (or not small ) amount of transportation expences. (Different amount for different units is doable!)

It is quite easy and I can make this if you like. Also I can update all old system triggers which morphing specials and giving the income to adjust them to hyper triggers. Don't worry about implementation I am a good triggerer and will make it the best way. Moreover you can always refuse my work if you don't like it.

EDIT2:
44. A small bug there. The extractor which is above the letter "I" in your name on terrain is visible to all players.

Post has been edited 4 time(s), last time on Oct 10 2009, 8:52 am by Wormer.

Fixed in .95, which isn't released yet.

I have planned to do victory and defeat triggers, but it just isn't a pressing issue right now.

Absolutely fucking not. One of the choices players make is if they want to expand or improve their already gotten gains by replacing their extractors. I say again, absolutely fucking not.

Requires hypers. See below.

Answered your own question.

Balance is constantly being worked on, I'm very aware.

No.

Geysers have been upped to 800 gas each in the current .95 beta. I macro and expand faster than almost any player I know of without much trouble. Try wonders like the Pyramids or something. Anyway markets will have a definite impact on this.

No. I may impose a max army size, but no taxes or rebellions or anything like that. I am not going to penalize players for doing well.

No.

You should not be trying to take the entire map. I've destroyed people with twice the landmass I had because they did not expand properly. Proper expansion is done by selecting what areas you want, which you don't, and where your chokes are. For Carthage, I'd barricade Spain/France mountains, and the slim east side above the Jews. This gives me more than enough land to have a very strong economy, good defensible positions, and the only water crossing I have to worry about is Sicily. If you can't find a hole in an empire of that size, you need glasses.

No.

Agreed.

I'll look into it.

No. It is a players choice where they want to set up their resource hubs. Doing this could significantly hurt players with strats I have yet to try or dislike.

No.

No.

No. This is my map and if I want something done in it, either I'll do it, or if on the off chance I ask you, you do not tell me not to worry about it. I need to know exactly how each and every system is going to work and be implemented because I am going to be the one consistently working on it.

In any case, I know I could replace the majority of the systems and use hypers. I choose not to.

This is not a bug, and is not that big of a deal. OH GOD HE HAS A GEYSER OVER THERE SHIT NOW I KNOW HIS POSITION WOW I'M SO SMART.
If you're hiding, you should get pwnd as fast as possible and save the obviously better player aggravation.


Edit:
I've decided that specials are going to have their stats lowered to within 2hp 2dmg 1armor of their regular counterparts but have an additional point of bonus for upgrades. So instead of a special having 4-40 more hp, 2-6 more damage, 2-3 more armor, and +2, they are now equal hp, equal damage, 1 more armor, and +2.

Upgrades now cost more and take some more time.

Markets have been reduced to 2/4/6 Bronze, 3/6/9 Iron, and 4/8/12 Gold. I may switch them to just gas or just minerals in the future.

Further, Sunkens and Bunkers have been strengthened, and P8 now has 1/1 T infantry ups, and +5 toss shields. More photons will be added to high resource areas.

Post has been edited 5 time(s), last time on Oct 10 2009, 11:26 am by Excalibur.

Quite conservative

Look, I am just highlighting possible inconveniences that I've impacted playing the map. Some of them have their origin in the very core of the design and could not be fixed without considering some redesign. It's your map and your decisions what to do with them, probably some of them taken alone (as this one for example) not worth redesigning, probably not.

Sorry but I can't think of the other viable solutions, everything I think of is here written on paper.

Yeah, I know. I've posted the picture just for fun. We were suffering rubbish with oj. This will never happen in a "real" game though. But also, the problem of the huge empire arises very far from the moment which is displayed on the picture.

No doubt the map is yours. There are some things which could be done better though (simply because there are always some ). For example, you agree it would work better with hypers. Why haven't this been done? Because it requires some amount of work to get done. You'll do it for sure in the future, but ATM you have another more important things to do (balance for example). Here I got interested in the map. Why not to let someone do the work you haven't enough time/motivation to complete yourself? I wish the map to be better, doesn't you?

Told you not to worry about implementation because it will be simpler for me just to make and show the result. Of course I am not going to obfuscate triggers in any way or something. You'll be able to see everything yourself.

45. Do you allow flying terran buildings intentionally?

46. If that (45), there is a possible variant to loose all drones and hatcheries and not be dead (at least because it happened to me in the game once). (Actually there is a way to loose all drones and hatcheries even with flying forbidden.) Make it possible to buy a drone.

It may or may not be fixed in the future. I may just make it so you can't go flying them off over into the console area. We'll see.

I just did the victory and defeat triggers.
If you command no hatch/lair/hive, no CC, and no Nexus, you lose. I think this is very reasonable as if someone can knock out every single resource return structure you have, it is more than likely you've lost. That being said, I may add a buy drone feature depending on what future testing shows.

I've redone the selection area to look much more sleek, screenshot coming in ~2 minutes.

Done.


Fullsize version was 64mb+ @ JPEG so I cropped to the new selection area:


Post has been edited 1 time(s), last time on Oct 10 2009, 1:42 pm by Excalibur.

Just tested a 3-hatch ups/ling macro build with the newly terrained Germany. Seemed a little OP. I think I'll raise the upgrade times a smidge more and lower Hive build time a little. Should equal things out.

D:E .95 Beta has been released over @ Nibbits.
http://www.nibbits.com/sc/maps/view/130669/

Rate, download, support the map and get another #1 slot release.

Redid Germany terrain? -.-

Me, Ex, and DM did some testing. Going to move Iron age triggering building to Defiler Mound, so that Zerg Upgrades are more worth it, and Golden age to Phys lab, so that you can actually do something with Iron age upgrades before gold.

What's wrong with that?

Lingie's right, a lot of the tech tree is being redone. Details soon.

Yeah, right. Also wanted to suggest that.

Nothing, just noticed.

If you should know anything, its that I'm mostly Ex's right hand man at testing things when I'm avaliable. If I say it, its coming.

New tech tree has been triggered and the appropriate units edited. Now we will see if it works.

I need more hamachi capable testers. DM and DL have bailed on me time and again, and the new tech tree needs more extensive testing.

DE 96 Released!
http://i46.photobucket.com/albums/f126/MCRXxHelenaxXRCM/DE96R2_1920x1920.jpg

http://www.nibbits.com/sc/maps/view/130734/

Download/rate/comment @ Nibbits please!

Great map.

A couple of comments:

1) Colosseum Wonder doesn't work (or maybe I don't know how to use it?)

2) Hero units seem way overpowered IMO (some more than others).
Ex. Late game, 7/7 Egypt Goliaths get rolled by the Greek rines who are something like 3/6 (in hindsight I probably should have used storm to kill the rines, but the point still stands: the rine costs 3 times less than the goliath and rapes anyways).

3) Not enough room to build. I know you made this on purpose but some starting positions have more room, while others don't.
Ex: Rome has way too little space, they can get only 2-3 rax in the Italian peninsula, while their neighbours Greece have much more room to work with, and when it comes to the Iron age Rome gets rolled by a shitload of Iron age units including the already crazy hero marines (in hindsight I could have used ultra/ling/defiler.. but anyways)
4) The Wonders are nice and offer an alternative to simply rushing Iron age, but what the hell do they do? Can you have some sort of tab in the help section for noobs that simply lists all the wonders and their function?

5) I'm curious as to how much money the markets in each age actually give.

6) There should be some sort of upkeep for huge armies and empires. I know you've stated that you'd like people to expand, but this would be good for a couple of reasons:
i) Makes it so that you don't have to span half the globe in order to win the game, offering alternative strategies to people.
ii) If someone spawns far away from all the other players, there's nothing stopping him from taking his quarter of the map. While the other four guys are warring with eachother this guy gets a huge economical advantage that he can take to the Golden age and just start pumping from 10 gateways without a care in the world.
iii) You can make a Wonder that fits in well with this type of thing.
iv) You can have it so that in each age there's a building (like the Market) that allows a higher ceiling before upkeep kicks in.

7) Have you thought of some sort of triggered alliance system? And maybe a place where people can exchange minerals/gas. For example if you're gonna kill someone right now, there's really no point in stopping because their resources and land are really valuable. However, if they can pay you tribute (and maybe you can add some triggers where you can demand tribute, and if you are given it, you can't attack the guy for the next 5-10 mins. Same with alliances / war (once you make a decision like declaring war on someone you can't peace them as soon as your attack fails).

Just some ideas, overall great game!

I encountered some sort of bug today: about 1 hour 20 mins into the game all of a sudden everyone's game ended in defeat.

Also you should considered speeding up the physics lab building time, making it maybe 2/3 or 3/4 of the time it takes now. To compensate you could make golden age units/buildings more expensive.

edit: It happened again today. Check out the defeat triggers cause the game is unplayable with that bug.

Post has been edited 1 time(s), last time on Dec 21 2009, 1:24 am by Crazed.

UPDATE:
D:E is back from the dead! .98 is in development!

Changes:
-Minor string and color edits.
-Upgrades have a longer base time and a larger increment of time per level. (No more steam rolling with high upped Bronze units.)
-Masonic Garrisons owned by P8 now use Norse Vikings and Greek Bowmen which have both been given slight buffs. (Lets see you be OP now Germany. )
-Masonic Garrisons and Concrete Strongholds have been strengthened. (Fixed easy expansion with slight ups/early special units.)

Checked the victory and defeat triggers. Unless you own NO Hatch/Lair/Hive/CC/Nexus you shouldn't be getting a defeat trigger.

Any more suggestions? Throw em up. I may implement Governments as well.

Some more changes:
-Hero units buffed a bit.
-Made upgrades take even longer, this way you can't be 5/5 by the time your enemy gets to Iron.
-Fixed a broken water crossing.

.98 is almost ready. Any comments/suggestions anyone?

.98b released!

I like how you took the simple fun of diplo and took the advanced aspects of Civ and simplified it. However you should have stronger more expensive units so that when you rule half the map have something to spend all your money on.