Modern Combat: 1.0.1 Released!

[Golbeeze]

Alliances form over time, though. It could start FFA and then people start working together for the greater good. If two people are being beaten down by a third but stand a chance together, they form an alliance. If they then realize that they are working well together, they wouldn't just break the alliance. I think a lot of people would prefer enjoying a victory with a formed alliance more than only allowing starting team victories.

[A Guy]

We can test that out and see how it works. I'll only allow two people to be allied together, though.

I am currently working on tributing gold and will add silos soon. Tributing should be done today.

[uzy5o]

I see a very striking resemblence between this and Advance Wars.

[Golbeeze]

Alliances of only two are fine. I can tell you for me and my friends would certainly just end the game if an alliance "won" only to break apart. Experience from other RTSs and TBSs with similar situations end like that, so this would be the same. It isn't much fun to win with an ally only to have to go on fighting the person you were working with. If someone wants to do that, they can break the alliance in a backstab action; the scenario shouldn't force it.

[PsychoticKittens]

uzy5o: Thats likely because they're both from the same technological period, which would pretty obviously have the similar units. I'll admit I got some inspiration from playing it, but theres really not as much similarity as you're seeing. Beta 3 will have another 30~40 units added in. Besides, its pretty much all concept and universal knowledge to strategy gaming that was borrowed.

Golbeeze: We could add a "break alliance" feature in Beta2, but I really don't like the idea of being allowed to break an alliance since you could essentially walk into your buddies territory saying you're helping him fight, and then jump sides and attack him. There would have to be a bumper-period involving ceasefire in effect.

While I have this post here I might well post abit more on missiles.

In the start of the game you'll only be able to make 2 kinds of missiles in silos you own. Anti Air which can easily take out long ranged missiles and aircraft, and Ballistic who can damage or destroy incoming vehicles or infantry. Both of these are "shortranged". Being shortranged missiles means that when you launch them they can move and attack, but if they don't attack by the end of the turn they die, worthlessly running out of "fuel" or whatever. Because of their limited area of effect, they're more defensive.

With research you can also get ICBM a bigger badder ballistic and Nukes the largest and most destructive missile available which even destroys terrain! Unlike the other two, these guys have endless range (although go less distance in one turn) both are much more powerful than their little brother (the ballistic missile) but are also expensive and take multiple turns to construct. They are the assault missiles, and are generally used to "clean up" a borderline between your units and the other guys. They can be destroyed in mid-flight though! so watch it.

You can only construct a single missile at a time (in each silo), AA and Ballistic take 1 turn, ICBM take 3, and Nukes take 5 (but hey, if you're spending that much money you should expect it to take awhile.) While it takes time and effort to build them, unlike other units they are stored into the silo after being constructed (you can store 10 AA, 5 Ballistic, 3 ICBM and 1 Nuke in each owned silo.) and move/attack after being launched. You can also launch as many of the missiles as you want, as long as they've already been constructed, in one turn. But beware! If someone steals your silo there will be negative consequences.

There are 9 silos spread throughout the map, making them the least common construction, but these are almost essential to the defense of your own nation, and with proper use, the attack of other nations can also be simplified with these bad boys.

[wesfreak]

perhaps, after we have the bata done, we could have multiple factions?
i mean, world soldiers everywhere are different. they don't all have to have the same units. maybe the russians all get better defense on snow, and those from desert countries could have better sand defense? and maybe u could add a tad of wesnoth to it, and make it modern combat with wesnothian races? the entire races don't have to be on the same side though. or it could just be the animations. maybe u could even add a bit of a futuristic twist, if you have races. say the dwarves have better technology. like a guy in a robot suit. that has guns for arms. and u don't have 2 take away melee. soldiers still occaisonaly fight up close (for all i know). and don't take away poison. we could have some soldiers with weapons that spew toxic gasses.

edit: or perhaps all the other races died out and faded into spirits of nature, which now fight vainly to take back the land. we could have some monsters that way, some basis to human fear: haunted stuff. every night, a some units spawn in some places. example: a giant fungus monster that has stat's equal to the woss in a cave somewhere. it would add a player vs. player vs. environment. these things could all be chaotic. or the undead spawn at night and the other creatures (example: wose in forest) stay there constantly. These creatures maybe the creatures of a place are bound to that place. ex: the wose can only move in forest, and can't exit it.
Or this could be for some maps only.

[PsychoticKittens]

This lacks any fantasy entirely. No Dwarves, No Elves, No Drakes, No Undead, No Orcs.

There are variation in things you have. That's added in beta3. Information on that won't be disclosed in an easy to find spot until beta3. I will give a hint that its a pre-game choice that gives bonuses and weaknesses, and afew unique options to the player, but that's it.

[Coaxke]

There are variation in things you have. That's added in beta3. Information on that won't be disclosed in an easy to find spot until beta3. I will give a hint that its a pre-game choice that gives bonuses and weaknesses, and afew unique options to the player, but that's it.

Consider adding different nationalities as factions. Russians, Americans, British, etc. each with their own strengths and weaknesses, maybe unique weapons or technologies. I imagine the Russians would have a discount infantry force and a unique nuke or something. The Lenninuke. Americans would have lots of big, effective tanks and mechanized units that aren't fun eyecandy.
British would have a strong naval force and a decent air force. Ah, that would be awesome.


Sounds fun, none-the-less. About how close are you to finishing this?

[PsychoticKittens]

The player chooses both playstyle (bonuses and weaknesses) as well as where they start.

Thusly the locale of their army has no relation to what their army is good at, that way you're not restricted by where you start.

It would also make less sense to be say. A nationality starting in a different area (i.e. a European "faction" in America), so having you choose a nationality and a starting location would also end up oddly. We already know how we're adding variation. For now we're just waiting on A_Guy to finish coding the very tiny last bit of silos so that we can start alpha testing, and then we can release open beta1, variation is being added in beta3. Until beta3 is released, ya'll're just gonna have to wait.

[Coaxke]

A nationality starting in a different area (i.e. a European "faction" in America), so having you choose a nationality and a starting location would also end up oddly.

You misunderstood, that is not what I meant.
Players could choose their faction from the pre-game lobby list (the factions are, of course, the nationalities) like a normal game. Then when it is started, the game places the player at his/her's faction's historical starting location accordingly. So a player that chooses the Russians starts in Russia.
I guess there could be a problem with players choosing the same faction/nationality, but this could be fixed with WML at the same time as when it originally fchecks for factions/nationalities.

As I said, the game sounds like fun either way Here are some real-world maps that I made a while back: http://www.wesnoth.org/forum/viewtopic.php?f=15&t=24658
They might be a bit small for this project so feel free to expand them, if you use them at all.

[PsychoticKittens]

Nono. Theres already a setup where you choose 1 barracks and 2 villages. And your way disallows multiple people to be the same "faction" which is also constricting on player choices and leads to pre-game arguments =D.

Picking during the game just has people mildly upset cause they have to move to a different spot. But oftentimes earlier players that pick someone elses spot will have to contest for that continent (since more than one player can start at each continent, just from different barracks/towns).

[Coaxke]

Ah ok.

Sounds cool, can't wait.

[mukablo]

Hello, I have been keeping an eagle eye on the progress of Modern Combat and anxiously awaiting a release to try it. The idea is genius and I know this has GREAT potential! Please give some updated info as to whats the latest and a general idea as to when a public release may happen? Even a ballpark idea would be great! Thanks for all the hard work you have put into this so far

[PsychoticKittens]

well, all that has to be done still (I think I already said) is for A_Guy to get Silos working and then for me and him to alphatest abit to check for any major errors. Then it'll get released after I add in my final touches for the beta (the ellipses, afew unit name changes, etc.)

We've wanted to release it multiple times this past week or two, but we have to keep pushing it back because silos are being obnoxious to code. Your guess is really as good as mine is for now, A_Guy would likely know better since I'm not coding Silos.

Whenever we do start alpha testing, we'll post an official release on this forum, rename the forum title, and likely do some shoutouts in the MP lobby. If you want a personal shoutout because you hate the forums (like myself) you can probably catch me in the MP lobby and send me a quick /whisper and I'll add you to my friends list until the release. I'm on pretty often most days since I have near to no life.

[mukablo]

Hi again. Thanks for the quick response. I have surfed most of the forums and i have to say that your idea stands out as one of the best. I am curious which version of Wesnoth Modern Combat will be designed for and thus which version you are using on the mp server so i might find you. THANKS AGAIN.