Conquer Club

DiM wrote:i love RPG games. (if you don't know what RPG stands for then google it)
so i was thinking why not combine RPG with CC and get a brand new map with a brand new gameplay?

imagine 8 characters (wizard, barbarian, paladin, archer, warlock, etc) in a fantasy realm going on a quest to find the Holy CC star ( )
the beauty part is where the RPG meets Risk.
i have been gone for long and i don't know what is or isn't possible with xml or if any new xml features have been/will be added so bare with me and post your thoughts.

the idea is to get a character and develop it as you would do in any RPG game. to do this you have a HUGE dungeon (have the size limits been increased?) where these characters roam and do quests. i'm thinking somewhere around 400 terits (maybe more) in a grid shape. each charachter will get a beacon (the starting location) and then advance in the maze. the beacons can't be conquered (so you can only win by holding the objective). i need this because each character will have personalized quests. i don't know if it is possible but it's something like this:
quest for warrior: go defeat the Yeti monster and bring it's claws to the Den of Damnation. this actually translates into the xml like this: hold the yeti terit and the Den terit to get the bonus. and to make the quest personalized you also have to hold the warrior beacon. since the beacon can't be taken by other players it means you're the only one that can do that quest. (from what i remember this is possible to be coded in the xml)

now, let's talk about character traits and items. using the beacon holding in the xml other bonuses can also be coded for specific players.
for example a warlock takes a terit in a blessed zone he can get an automatic decay bonus for that terit (because he is an evil character in a good zone) .
or a paladin takes a treasure terit wich gives him a 2 army autodeploy because that terit plus the paladin beacon = "the shield of life"
but if an archer takes that terit it might do nothing because an archer can't equip a shild or even worse an evil character taking that terit gets a negative bonus (alignment incompatibility)
same goes for the traits. let's say you have a terit called dexterity, if an archer takes this terit he gets 2 armies per turn cause he's a dexterity based character. if a paladin takes it he gets just +1 and if a barbarian holds it he gets nothing. that goes for all other traits (intelligence power, etc)

and of course in the middle of the map there's the quest item with lots of neutrals take it hold it and you win.

now most important of all i need to know if what i said is possible to be coded in the xml.
then i need to know your thoughts on the gameplay idea and everything.
i will try to put a graphic mock-up as soon as possible.

i think i must inlcude some info:
number of terits: 261, with 8 starting positions and the rest neutral
gimmicks: objective based map, starting locations, decay, weird bonuses, quests, and other technical mumbo jumbo

bryguy wrote:yay! its back!


1) the blood doesnt seem like blood... i dont know why
well i need you to tell me what's wrong with it before i can make any changes

2) the text on the map is a little hard to read
i was affraid of this but the font can be easily changed

3) I can read most of the words on the stamp, maybe try lightening it up a little?
i shall change the stamp to make it better when i find a suitable name

4) as far as I can tell it seems like to win you have to capture and hold the green square for 1 turn, but i cant tell, if so, then awesome!
since starting positions can't be conquered the only way to win is by holding the objective

5) i cant read what the fuzzy grey and fuzzy red/blue terits do.
i shall change the text

6) its hard to tell what the purpose of the different species and such are for
each starting location is a different character and you get different bonuses for each different character

7) same for good/evil and which are good/evil
read 6
how do you get the different types of things? (troll, beastmaster, paladin, barbarian, etc.)
read 6
9) How do you get the different types of things on top? (str, dex, lut, cha, mana, rage, etc.)
the skills are terits on the map. conquer that terits and you get the bonus that matches your character.


Overall, looks like this will be another great map
i hope so

TaCktiX wrote:The stamp in the top left is nigh unreadable, and the lettering at the top is fairly hard to read except on common words.

Is there any tentative neutral setup you could put on the map so that we can comment on gameplay balancing? I'd say a fair portion of this map is gameplay, with the graphics not as much of a worry (aside from the text).

Natewolfman wrote:the boxes hurt my eyes lol, I love the idea though, hope this one goes through quickly! my only complaint is that everything is somewhat unreadable

InkL0sed wrote:Can you attack diagonally? I don't see anything indicating that, though I could just be missing it.

Neoteny wrote:I think the thing with the blood is that the color is too homogeneous. But I'm no artist, so I don't know how to fix that.

yeti_c wrote:Legibility is gonna be a big problem...

But I know you can work that out.

C.

PS - sorry for not replying properly to PM - been uber busy at work today!

MrBenn wrote:I'm glad to see this one back in the works

1. Part of me preferred the lighter background of v2, but this one looks heaps better - It might be worth tweaking with the brightness/contrast/saturation/hue a tiny bit... I know it's supposed to be dark and gloomy, but it's just a bit too gloomy for my eyes.

2. You've already acknowledged that the font will probably need to change. Some lines between the rows of the Bonus chart might help make it easier to read... you could use a page-fold, or a pencil-line, or something else... here's my 5-min example (with a slightly tweaked background as per #1 above):

3. It took me a while to figure out which territory the Strength bonuses (for example) were connected to... Is there any way of making this clearer at all?

4. I know you explained the values of neutrals, but a visual representation of them would help massively... To get my head round it I'll probably print a copy off and go through it away from the VDU... having the values pre-completed would save me some bother

5. A few minor graphical glitches - a) there is a rip beneath the letter 'r' on the grid, which makes the 'r' appear to float. b) The same thing happens with some of the borders on the map along the bottom row. c) There is a splatter that looks like it's fallen in the middle of a rip along the bottom edge that looks out of place. d) The wax seal looks good (and I know you'll make it legible), but the edges of the wax clearly go off the edges of the map... surely even ancient admin clerks wouldn't have made an error like that

6. Title ideas... I prefer the word 'Quest' on it's own, but can't think of anything catchy... Age of Quests?

That's about all I can manage for now - in any case I need to go and set the video
As I said already, it's good to see you (and the map) back in action.

bbqpenguin wrote:1. how cool would it be if we could exclusively get 20 sided dice rollable for this map? sure it'd horribly skew gameplay, but i think that would be overcome by the increaced coolness factor...
2. honestly, though, i think a d20 belongs near an edge, weighing a corner down or something
3. also, where's the thief/sneak/rogue?
4. i think a coffee stain would add a bit of realism and humor, as well as compliment the blood nicely
5. i can't read what's on the red panel in upper left panel
6. for that matter, i have a pretty hard time reading the entire thing, especially in the middle where it overlaps the bloodstain
7. the numbers don't fit the theme, are too modern when compared to letters
8. on the map, are the icons for the class/races and ability/attribute things territories, or labels?


9. finally, i don't appreciate you stereotyping trolls as 'evil' i once played a troll that was raised by dryads in the forest from birth and was chaotic good, and stereotypers like you are the reason troll-kind is still stuck in the predicament it's in. stop trying to keep the green man down, whitey!

more to come later

foregone wrote:Couple of points:

1. Part of the problem with the blood is that it goes under the "writing" everywhere, making the writing itself pop out from the map and not seem like its written on the paper/parchment.

2. Also, while the explanation on the right is fine now, would it be legible on a small map?

3. Very minor point, and it may just be me...I can make out the symbols for everything but intelligence. I can tell where it is everywhere, just not what its supposed to be.

4. Looking awesome though, glad you came back to it.

ZeakCytho wrote:I'm not convinced by the page curl in the top right. It looks...fake.

ZeakCytho wrote:The blood stain looks a million times better now.

ZeakCytho wrote:The wax seal (I think it's a seal, at least) is still really hard to read.

ZeakCytho wrote:The treasure chest bonus/penalty - is it that all blues are bonuses, and all reds are penalties, or vice versa, or some random combination where a blue could be either a bonus or a penalty, and same for the reds? If the former, then things are fine. If the latter, this gives a huge advantage to people who have played the map before and know which chests are traps and which are bonuses.

ZeakCytho wrote:It seems to me that not all start positions are the same distance from the objective. Is this going to be evened out with the addition of neutrals?

ZeakCytho wrote:Overall, awesome map!

foregone wrote:Not sure, but I think I prefer the darker background.

foregone wrote:So, new round:

1. The pencil lines look great, IMO. Very pencilly.

foregone wrote:2. The new font on the top right seems very pixelated and maybe a little too neat. What I did like about the previous one's font was that it looked like a handwritten note on the map, like the first person to use it made notes for the next.

foregone wrote:3. I like the broken stamp/seal, but the broken bits seem look artificial at the edges. Also, theres a white edge at the top of the seal that doesn't look quite right. Shouldn't it be the same as the black at the bottom of the seal?

foregone wrote:4. It might just be me but the blue starting points on the map are just a shade darker than the one in the legend? My eyesight might be going though.

foregone wrote:5. Any chance that another colour could be used for the objective? The lumo green seems slightly out of place for me.

foregone wrote:6. The blood is better as a stain, in my opinion. I do think you could make it a tad more red though.

Hopefully this is mildly useful.

yeti_c wrote:1) Good and Evil are mutually exclusive - and thus could be shortened to one column? (Alignment) - which might give you a bit more room for the slanty text to come in a bit from the edge.

yeti_c wrote:2) Top right fold is pixellated.

yeti_c wrote:3) Still can't read the title. (Who's the second person on the map? (Is it me?!))

C.

DiM wrote:

ZeakCytho wrote:The treasure chest bonus/penalty - is it that all blues are bonuses, and all reds are penalties, or vice versa, or some random combination where a blue could be either a bonus or a penalty, and same for the reds? If the former, then things are fine. If the latter, this gives a huge advantage to people who have played the map before and know which chests are traps and which are bonuses.

well, if you look at the legend you'll see some characters are good (blue) or evil (red). when a blue character takes a blue treasure chest he gets +2. if he gets a red one he gets -2. and vice versa for the other alignment.

DiM wrote:fix the wax seal (when foregone tells me what's wrong with the broken edges)

foregone wrote:

DiM wrote:fix the wax seal (when foregone tells me what's wrong with the broken edges)

I've been busy staring at it continuously trying to work out how to translate it into words. The broken edges just feel too sudden to me and make it look removed from the map. What about trying to add a little ridge with a lightened colour, kinda of like broken coloured candle has a lighter colour on the inside?