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  1. #1
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    Default An engineering system: feasibility report

    Hi guys,

    I've recently been discussing with Tone and DVK the possibility of including a military engineering system on the campaign map. This is because, for a mod which is as awesome as RS2, it does seem a bit of a shame tobe stuck with vanilla forts and watchtowers! So, as always in these things, I tried to be ambitious first and then more realistic later. These were the things I was thinking, and seeing as it needs a mixture of building modelling (I can do that) and coding (I'm useless at that), I thought I'd ask you guys for the feasibility of my ideas, or to proffer new ones if any should occur to you.


    ---THE LEGIONS---


    Since Roman soldiers were famed for their engineering skills, it makes sense for their list of army constructions to be the most expansive. I've listed these from most feasible to least feasible:

    1. Watchtower: Using Davide Cool's model. Already under way, I think, so I will not concern myself any further with it.

    2. Small (i.e. vanilla) fort: I would like this to be as vanilla, except I am intrigued by the possiblity of limiting its garrison. I may be mixing this ability with Kingdoms modelling, but would it be at all possible to limit the small fort's garrison to about 5 units? It should be part of the appeal of the larger forts that they can house more men.

    3. Medium fort: Just what it says on the tin. A semi-permanent, wooden fortification, of substantially larger proportions than it's smaller brother, possibly with wooden huts as opposed to tents. If possible, I would up the unit limit to 10.

    4. Large Fort: A permanent, Roman campus, with stone fortifications, mock-stone wooden buildings and the now-trademark Roman Fort Plan streets. This would need to be of, not epic, but sizeable proportions, and suffice it to say it would need to be expensive to build and run. It could also have buildings in the periphery, representing the accomodation of the camp hangers-on.

    -------------------------Watershed: Now is where I get ambitious-------------------------

    5. Upgrade Roads: Consider the dilemma. Legio XXV has been marching into the Numidian desert for many months, trying to rendezvous with Legio IX. The FOW prevents easy vision, and the difficult conditions mean that the Legion is making barely any progress. Thus, it would be brilliant to have a feature whereby, in enemy territory, a legion could camp down for a turn or so and simply upgrade the roads. Suffice it to say that this would mean no roads -> dirt roads. If there are existing dirt roads, it makes little sense to upgrade these to cobbled roads! It many not be an oft-used feature, but it must be possible to implement, and if the AI was not allowed to use it for all and sundryit could be of interest to the player. Obviously it would be far more expensive to use the legions to make the roads than it would be to build them yourself, hence keeping the feature for enemy territory.

    6. Continuous wall construction: Now, I'm sure we are all aware of how the latter-day Roman Empire relied heavily on such fortifications to keep Germania out, and to a lesser extent Scots. Also, I am fairly sure that Viking Invasion II have done just such a thing, and built continuous walls. Now, Cherryfunk, I seem to recall that you work for VI2. Might it be possible for us to very nicely ask them if we could borrow their walls, or at least be told how to do them?

    -------------------------Watershed: Now is where I get mad-------------------------

    7. Bridge Construction/Demolition: Not sure if this is at all possible, but wouldn't it be cool to retreat, puling down the bridge in your wake? And then have your enemy faced with a strategic decision: Does he rebuild it and waste time or does he try and find another route? I just think this is too cool an idea to let slip up, so I thought I'd ask.


    ---THE BARBARIANS---


    1. Usual suspects, watchtower, small fort, whatever.

    2. Hill Fort: Tone had the idea for this. If anyone here has ever been to or seen Maiden Castle, they will know what I am talking about. Several peaks and troughs of unmitigated awesomeness. I already have lots of images in my mind of Romans being cut down by arrows as they ascend out of one of the countless ditches. (It will also make an awesome challenge if you are playing the Romans, as I will be! I anticipate that this fort will also need a "footprint" of land to be slapped onto the campaign map, you know, what with al the hills and ditches and whatnot.


    I can think of nothing for Greeks and Carthaginians, but if anyone here (ahem, Keravnos, swhunter) has any suggestions, I can add them to the list.

    Sooooo, what do we think? Are at least some of these ideas feasible? I can handle the modelling, but there is a fair bit of coding to be done too. Anyone enthusiastic?

    I feel I should also say that this lot of things may actually take longer to do than the 2.0 release, but I daresay it could all be patched in at a later date, assuming the dev team doesn't just disband after 2.0's release!

    Thanks for your time,
    RHG.

  2. #2
    Calvin's Avatar Countdown: 7 months
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    Default Re: An engineering system: feasibility report

    If this is all possible, it would be wonderful.
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    Default Re: An engineering system: feasibility report

    Quote Originally Posted by Calvin View Post
    If this is all possible, it would be wonderful.
    That is an excellent summary of my feelings! Tone says to hold fire on starting it all out until we know what can and can't be done. I doubt that I'll pull off the bridges, but the rest ain't so hard.

    Also, I really want Maiden Castle! I can imagine Tzar's building icon for it now!

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    Elendil of Númenor's Avatar Campidoctor
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    Default Re: An engineering system: feasibility report

    If you wouldn't have mentioned that you talked about it with Tone and DVK, I'd say you've lost your marbles. But as you've said it, I can not help but wonder how epic it would be to implement as much as we can of these ideas. I'll just keep my fingers crossed and wait for the more experienced people to speak.

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    Default Re: An engineering system: feasibility report

    Quote Originally Posted by Elendil of Númenor View Post
    If you wouldn't have mentioned that you talked about it with Tone and DVK, I'd say you've lost your marbles. But as you've said it, I can not help but wonder how epic it would be to implement as much as we can of these ideas. I'll just keep my fingers crossed and wait for the more experienced people to speak.
    Just because I have spoken with Tone and DVK doesn't mean I haven't lost my marbles!

    Seriously though, It shouldn't be that hard. If we take it as said that we can't do the bridges, and we use VI2's walls, it's all do-able. (One hopes)

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    Default Re: An engineering system: feasibility report

    I was recently at Portchester Castle - one of the best Roman forts of the Saxon Shore that is still standing. The walls are 20 feet high and 10 feet thick. Took plenty of pictures so if you get to the point where you need some images, I'd be happy to upload some.
    Developer for Roma Surrectum 2 || Follow my move to the USA in Calvin's Corner
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    Elendil of Númenor's Avatar Campidoctor
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    Default Re: An engineering system: feasibility report

    I think I have an idea how the wall could be done, but it's just a thought.

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    Default Re: An engineering system: feasibility report

    Quote Originally Posted by Elendil of Númenor View Post
    I think I have an idea how the wall could be done, but it's just a thought.
    This is good! This is why I made the thread. I have the expertise to do the forts, but getting them into the game in practice and not just in theory is well beyond me.

  9. #9
    pacco's Avatar -master-of-none-
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    Default Re: An engineering system: feasibility report

    I can help with modeling stuffs. What about the battle map?

    BTW, great pics of roman fort

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    Default Re: An engineering system: feasibility report

    Quote Originally Posted by pacco View Post
    I can help with modeling stuffs. What about the battle map?

    BTW, great pics of roman fort

    Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

    Awesome pic! As to the modelling, I was rather hoping that I could do that, if that's OK! It's more in my line than city stuff, and I actually have diagrams of Roman street plans that I was hoping to use as for settlement plans! Still, we can share the load and get it done quicker I suppose!*

    *Dibs on the Roman stone fort, though. I'm looking forward to that!
    Last edited by Rt. Hon. Gentleman; August 29, 2009 at 11:23 AM.

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    Default Re: An engineering system: feasibility report

    Quote Originally Posted by pacco View Post
    I can help with modeling stuffs. What about the battle map?

    BTW, great pics of roman fort

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    Pacco,
    where did you find that fort? the picture is awesome! is it from a website?

  12. #12
    Elendil of Númenor's Avatar Campidoctor
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    Default Re: An engineering system: feasibility report

    Whew, imagine defending something like that... But it would probably be a torture to write the settlement_plans for that kind of thing.

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    Default Re: An engineering system: feasibility report

    Upgrading roads might work but you have to use scripts and traits to get it done. Make it so that when a legion rests for a turn, give the general an invisible trait, for our purposes labeled X. Then you'd have the script looking for generals with trait X, not a problem. Now, the question lies in if you can locate where that general is, ie, which region. If you can pin that down, you just create building roads in that province using the script.


    And for the three levels of forts, do you mean the kind of forts that a general can build when he's walking around on the map? I'm pretty sure you can't upgrade those.
    RIP Calvin, you won't be forgotten.

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    Default Re: An engineering system: feasibility report

    Quote Originally Posted by Roman_Man#3 View Post
    And for the three levels of forts, do you mean the kind of forts that a general can build when he's walking around on the map? I'm pretty sure you can't upgrade those.


    I do indeed mean those kinds of forts. Not entirely sure what you mean by "upgrade", but if you mean what I think you mean then I realise that you can't "raise the level" of a fort after it's construction. I was thinking of having 3 levels of fort available to the player from the get-go: small, medium, large. All are in the menu. I am sure this can be done with not-too-much effort.

    But the trait idea is a very good one, thanks. I thought it would probably need scripts to work.

  15. #15
    Elendil of Númenor's Avatar Campidoctor
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    Default Re: An engineering system: feasibility report

    I have a stinging feeling that you can only have two building options - fort or watchtower. I believe that's pretty much hard-coded. Then again, I'm no expert - far from it.

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    Default Re: An engineering system: feasibility report

    Quote Originally Posted by Elendil of Númenor View Post
    I have a stinging feeling that you can only have two building options - fort or watchtower. I believe that's pretty much hard-coded. Then again, I'm no expert - far from it.
    I understand that you are "no expert", but is that assumption based on experience? I know that many things are hard-coded, but this doesn't seem to "fit" the kind of the thing that is, in my opinion anyway!

    EDIT: OK, I checked this thread out: http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showthread.php?t=28608

    And it's not mentioned. I also did some google searches for "Rome Total War Forts hardcoded", or "RTW fors hard coded" and several other permutations. As far as I know, no-one's ever really bothered to try to add more options! Let's face it, who uses that menu anyway. We can change that, though!
    Last edited by Rt. Hon. Gentleman; August 29, 2009 at 11:51 AM.

  17. #17
    pacco's Avatar -master-of-none-
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    Default Re: An engineering system: feasibility report

    @RHG

    No problem. Your choice!

    @Faridus

    Yeah, I found the forum where people create 3D models with Blender, but can´t remember the name of site.

    One more

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  18. #18
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    Default Re: An engineering system: feasibility report

    Quote Originally Posted by pacco View Post
    @RHG

    No problem. Your choice!

    @Faridus

    Yeah, I found the forum where people create 3D models with Blender, but can´t remember the name of site.

    One more

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    Blender Artist's Forums, maybe? We have a big Blender community. The curse of Blender is that it's under the GNU license, so making stuff for profit always causes issues. But it certainly is an awesome program, as you've just proven!

    Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 
    I love Blender, btw. I always model on Blender, then import to MAX. I do despise 3ds...

  19. #19

    Default Re: An engineering system: feasibility report

    I love all these ideas Rt. Honorable, but I don't know how much can be implemented.

    1. As far as I know, there can be only 1 type of fort -- it can be modified, but only 1 type is buildable. Possibly different types can be built by culture (does an eastern fort differ from a Roman on the battlemap? I'm not sure). I've never seen a mod that had multiple fort types. Even in M2TW, when some mods replace the forts with castles, all forts are replaced -- there's no ability to add more options to the 'build' screen. Maybe a modder has figured out a way around this?

    2. Hadrian's Wall in VI2 is simply a model placed on the campaign map, I believe using a resource (i.e. not unlike the Hanging Gardens) -- again I'm not aware of any way that walls could be built by units during the game. I haven't seen this done before. I tend to think it's impossible, unless you could modify the 'build' options, as with the forts above. If we could modify that, we might be able to achieve both multiple forts and strategic walls.

    One thing that is doable would be tone's idea of Hillforts -- in fact, any kind of permanent structures we want -- with the caveat that they'd have to be placed, as resources, on the map before the campaign starts. We already have a bunch of towns on the map, and I still want to customize those map tiles so that, when you fight on them, an actual town is the battlefield. If we have resources to spare, we could easily add Celtic hill forts and place them in strategic locations on the map. However they wouldn't be buildable I don't think (unless, forts do in fact differ by culture, and we can model a hillfort -- that would work).



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    Default Re: An engineering system: feasibility report

    Quote Originally Posted by cherryfunk View Post
    I love all these ideas Rt. Honorable, but I don't know how much can be implemented.

    1. As far as I know, there can be only 1 type of fort -- it can be modified, but only 1 type is buildable. Possibly different types can be built by culture (does an eastern fort differ from a Roman on the battlemap? I'm not sure). I've never seen a mod that had multiple fort types. Even in M2TW, when some mods replace the forts with castles, all forts are replaced -- there's no ability to add more options to the 'build' screen. Maybe a modder has figured out a way around this?

    2. Hadrian's Wall in VI2 is simply a model placed on the campaign map, I believe using a resource (i.e. not unlike the Hanging Gardens) -- again I'm not aware of any way that walls could be built by units during the game. I haven't seen this done before. I tend to think it's impossible, unless you could modify the 'build' options, as with the forts above. If we could modify that, we might be able to achieve both multiple forts and strategic walls.

    One thing that is doable would be tone's idea of Hillforts -- in fact, any kind of permanent structures we want -- with the caveat that they'd have to be placed, as resources, on the map before the campaign starts. We already have a bunch of towns on the map, and I still want to customize those map tiles so that, when you fight on them, an actual town is the battlefield. If we have resources to spare, we could easily add Celtic hill forts and place them in strategic locations on the map. However they wouldn't be buildable I don't think (unless, forts do in fact differ by culture, and we can model a hillfort -- that would work).

    Forts do differ by culture. Also, just in point of fact, if you go into the battle editor you'll see that CA actually included forts with 3 levels of fortification, going up to permanent Roman stone forts. Guess what was rushed out of the door and not included in the game proper?

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