A Whole new gameplay type for a "maybe" a new version of Third Age ?

[Infinity at End]

Is it possible to implement some scripts in the game that every turn at the beginning to make a clean and fast search among all of your troop and see what experience they have ?

I was wondering if is possible to make some kind of evolution of troops. When a unit gain a number of experience point is evolves : looses all his gained experience so far and "evolves"(the unit is replaced with a stronger unit next in that tier).

This is a simple example :
You play with Gondor. You fight some rebels. After the fight your Gondor Militia Unit have gained enough experience and reach the required stage of evolution (5-7 experience).
The next turn the game scripts and running, it finds the Gondor Militia Unit Full and with the required experience, it removes it and gives the hero in the place of the Militia Unit a new, un-experienced Gondor Infantry.
A pop up will be given to inform the player about his troops progress and the Turn begins.

same thing can be said about :
trolls -> olog-hai
warg riders -> armored warg riders
Forest Wardens -> Sylvan Heavy Swordsman
Dwarven Miners -> Dwarven Warriors -> Iron Guard
Clan Guard -> Loke-Gram Rim
and so on... we can easy make a branch for each faction and all units.


To be able to advance the player must meet the followings :
- the troop unit must be full of units
- the troop unit must have the experience required for evolution
-(optional) the game must be at last in the turn *** and have the Blacksmith Build or any other specific building.

PRO :
- a whole new gameplay style.
- a much more fun game.
- the player will have a better atraction to fights rebel armies, using lower tier units.

CONTRA :
- the scripts might slow down the turns loading since it have to scan all the playier amies and troop and then replace the troops who meets the recuirements.
- if the scripts can be made it might prove to be a chalange to the coder since the scripts must do some serious changes.




What other Third Age Total War players say about this type of gameplay and what the coders think ? Can be made such scripts ?



Regards, Infinity !!!

[Papine]

That's the kind of thing that I was dreaming for Rome...You know training "fresh" triarii didn't make sense for me
But in Third age I think it would be better apply for regular-citadel-Elite unit. I would keep the "regular" unit apart from the "militia" unit. Maybe having "junior","veteran" and "senior" militia would be better. Because militia doesn't mean young recruit you know...It only mean they get quicker training or/and are locals bolstering the regular force.

So militia unit should be trained in one turn and standard infantry maybe 2 to 4 turns. ( sword/spear-2 turns , archer 3 turns , cavalry 4 turns...).

The best thing would be to make the experience level harder to get and script a conversion script to change the unit once it get a certain experience and the new unit should keep the experience to make it easier to distinguish them from lower level unit. So a basic infantry unit would have bronze chevrons, the citadel's guard silver chevrons and the swan knight/fountain guard gold chevrons.

The most difficult thing to do, but the best one, would be to switch the "old unit" to the "new" one only by retraining them in a city with a high enough level smith. Would give a better immersion IMO...

[FriendoftheDork]

How exactly will experienced mountain trolls suddenly become Olog-Hai, which is a different subrace?

I don't think the game really needs this at all. Slowing down the game, requiring extensive coding for something that really doesen't improve gameplay. If I want Gondor Infantry they will be trained and equipped, not just have a bunch of somewhat experienced militia transform into them.

[Jean=A=Luc]

We could call this the pokemon mod.

Denethor: Fountain Guards, I chose you! *throws pokeball*

Sauron: *checks pokedex* Fountain Guards: An evolved version of Gondorian Infantry. Excellent plate armour and mithril helmets absorb most attacks while their armour piercing attacks can easily shread most heavy units. Lack of a shield leaves them somewhat vulnerable to archers.

*Sauron thinks* *throws pokeball* Uruk Archers, go! You will never win the Mordor gym badge Denethor!

It would be a nice script but it doesn't make sense for all the units and, strange as it might sound, there would be times where you'd not want your unit to evolve.

As mentioned it'd be great for a RTW mod. Hastati -> Principes -> Triarii

[Seleukos_I.]

It does not always make that much sense. Look at Trolls --> Olog-Hai. You don't get immune to sunlight and intelligent by killing a few enemies.
As said before it would have been perfect for Rome.

[tallstark]

We could call this the pokemon mod.

Denethor: Fountain Guards, I chose you! *throws pokeball*

Sauron: *checks pokedex* Fountain Guards: An evolved version of Gondorian Infantry. Excellent plate armour and mithril helmets absorb most attacks while their armour piercing attacks can easily shread most heavy units. Lack of a shirld leaves them somewhat vulnerable to archers.

*Sauron thinks* *throws pokeball* Uruk Archers, go! You will never win the Mordor gym badge Denethor!

It would be a nice script but it doesn't make sense for all the units and, strange as it might sound, there would be times where you'd not want your unit to evolve.

As mentioned it'd be great for a RTW mod. Hastati -> Principes -> Triarii

LOL, "Wow JAL, you really know a lot about Pokemon! I bet you are the best trainer ever!" Pika Pika!

[Cromagnon2]

This would be an excellent game feature. Experienced units of your regular army would be selected, dropped into a high tire building for training and equippement and promoted/converted to elites.

[tallstark]

Is it possible to implement some scripts in the game that every turn at the beginning to make a clean and fast search among all of your troop and see what experience they have ?

I was wondering if is possible to make some kind of evolution of troops. When a unit gain a number of experience point is evolves : looses all his gained experience so far and "evolves"(the unit is replaced with a stronger unit next in that tier).

This is a simple example :
You play with Gondor. You fight some rebels. After the fight your Gondor Militia Unit have gained enough experience and reach the required stage of evolution (5-7 experience).
The next turn the game scripts and running, it finds the Gondor Militia Unit Full and with the required experience, it removes it and gives the hero in the place of the Militia Unit a new, un-experienced Gondor Infantry.
A pop up will be given to inform the player about his troops progress and the Turn begins.

same thing can be said about :
trolls -> olog-hai
warg riders -> armored warg riders
Forest Wardens -> Sylvan Heavy Swordsman
Dwarven Miners -> Dwarven Warriors -> Iron Guard
Clan Guard -> Loke-Gram Rim
and so on... we can easy make a branch for each faction and all units.


To be able to advance the player must meet the followings :
- the troop unit must be full of units
- the troop unit must have the experience required for evolution
-(optional) the game must be at last in the turn *** and have the Blacksmith Build or any other specific building.

PRO :
- a whole new gameplay style.
- a much more fun game.
- the player will have a better atraction to fights rebel armies, using lower tier units.

CONTRA :
- the scripts might slow down the turns loading since it have to scan all the playier amies and troop and then replace the troops who meets the recuirements.
- if the scripts can be made it might prove to be a chalange to the coder since the scripts must do some serious changes.




What other Third Age Total War players say about this type of gameplay and what the coders think ? Can be made such scripts ?



Regards, Infinity !!!

Hmm, thats an interesting idea! It does remind me a little of how modern military often works, in that you don't join up as a ranger or Delta Force or whatnot. You have to get thru basic, AIT, jumpschool etc....

If I may tweak the idea a little, how about we turn it around and say the Ultra Elite units can ONLY be achieved by having gold chevron of a lower unit type? For instance, you cannot "train" Dragonslayers. You have to have Iron Guard of gold EXP and you can then upgrade them to Dragonslayers? Might make the game too micromanaged for some people, but it would be interesting to have some unique units that are the elite of the elite than can only be grown, not built...

[GeneralMaximus]

Looks similiar to the system used in Mount & Blade. As said before it could work for some but not all units.

[moppe]

its a nice idea but i also imagin that the AI would have problems with this script...

[Muffer Nl]

It would...

[Jean=A=Luc]

It would...

Yeah, because all of its unit would die before leveling up.

[Infinity at End]

Yeah, because all of its unit would die before leveling up.

nice one with the "Pokemon stuff" =))=)) I really enjoy it.

We could come with something to compensate the unit loses. Maybe Increase in experience gained(lower tier units gain more experience than medium or elite unit tiers).


I saw some post that it can be done but not for all the units and I agree, the Unique troops must remain Unique like Pelegirs(forget their names ) Marines, Ithilien Rangers, Guards of Khazad-Dum, Olog-Hai, etc...

This type of "unit evolution"... I was wondering if is possible to implement it to General's Bodyguards too, like :
No Experience -> Simple Militia Fighters
Bronze -> Spearman Troops
Silver -> Light Cavalery
Gold -> Heavy Cavalery

The general must prove his worth in the battlefield to gain the trust and honor of the great armored knights.

[cameron]

Well I could see it work out. Maybe with a town you get watchmen who are little better then peasents. Which with a blacksmith and lowest rank barracks would become guardsmen with witch a higher tier barrack and blacksmithe wud bcome militia. all thought ranked up millitai should cost less and have better stats then regylar ones.

[Goth]

I have had the idea for this myself in the past, unfortunately scripting is one of my weakest areas of modding and i could never see how it could be implemented into the game engine. Upgrading would involve destroying one unit and replacing it with a brand new unit with exactly the same number of troops.
perhaps a rule would be that the unit to be upgraded would have to be retrained to full establishment before being upgraded(this would increase the cost for people upgrading a unit with 10 men left into a new unit with 100 men).
The only problem is how to make it all work with scripting, like i said my knowledge is virtually zero
Nice idea though i would really like to see it work

Goth