11 replies to this topic

[Beren IV]

It's been quiet around here lately, so I'm going to try to liven it up a little with this inflammatory post.


My favorite fantasy strategy game series ever made is Triumph Studios' Age of Wonders. The thing that initially attracted me to AoW was that the game, especially the first of the series, manages to capture a very Tolkienian atmosphere, and I decided to improve on it by making Tolkien mods using the editing tools that came with the game.

For those not familiar with AoW, the gameworld is populated by between ten and twenty different races (twelve in AoW1 and AoW2, fifteen in AoWSM). These races populate cities, from which the players, who either represent magician-heroes (AoW1) or Wizards (othes) can produce units of various races. The different races get along differently with the various players, based upon their starting home race and potentially their choice of magical development (in AoW2+). As a result, capturing a city of a race that is the enemy of your race doesn't normally do you much good, since the city will likely revolt and become independent unless you police it very heavily. The way around this problem is that you can migrate cities from one race to any other that you control cities of, so that you can migrate in a friendlier race. Migrating takes time, however, during which the city migrating can revolt, and the farther the city being migrated to the nearest city of the incoming race, the longer it takes.

The feel of AoW, of course, is quite fantastical. Priest units are not as cost-effective as archers at ranged attacks, but they certainly are able to do it, as well as heal, etc., and every race except the Humans has some kind of fantastical creature that they can ally with. However, it is possible to envision the conflicts between players, that which you actually see, as being the only the deciding elements in a much vaster struggle or conflict; if you will, Gandalf's dispelling of Saruman's hold over Theoden allows the Human race to stand up to the Orkish race, but the deciding element was the magical conflict, even if most of the fighting that followed was with plain medieval-type weapons.

When I first encountered The Last Alliance, it occurred to me that it would be ideal for envisioning this interactions between the races of Arda themselves, as opposed to the Leader/Wizard interactions that my AoW mods represent. Of course, reprogramming AoW would be very difficult if not also illegal (and I definitely respect Triumph as a company). Nonetheless it seems to me that TLA is ideal for envisioning this sort of situation.

Comments?

[Rinion]

Interesting.
I can't really comment about Age of Wonders, as I have only played it once. The turn-based strategy system didn't appeal to me very much. I have, however, played Wesnoth several times.

Do you know whether TLA will focus on massive military (such as the armies in Battle for Middle-earth) or micro-managing (such as the small armies in Warcraft III and War of the Ring)?

[CrazyThumbs]

Not really massive armies, or micro. Since you can take groups of units and make companies it limits micro, but the population limit, I think will probaly be around 150-200 so its not to massive, but it wont be micro intensive.

[Rinion]

...So, sort of like Age of Kings?

[Lord Typaer]

I only got to play the trial of the first Age of Wonder-game, but I loved it! (I played over and over again )

[Beren IV]

Yes, I know about Wesnoth, too. (The only issue I have is that some characters I would like to use fit into multiple unit classes!).

I take it that RTS players don't usually play TBS games and vice-versa?

I like this migrations-TLA idea because it allows for two different levels of gameplay, one extremely fantastical and the other quite mundane, happening simultaneously in the same world.

[draugaer]

Beren, I am also a AoW fanatic, though I play the original version (which is why i never got to play your mod).

I agree with your idea about the game revolving around racial interaction rather than heroes. AoW revolved around heroes because they were so powerful and could level and gain items (like in an RPG). In TLA the player will pick a leader but the leader will serve only to provide cirtain bonuses rather than being part of the fighting.

[Rinion]

I saw Narnia. It was great!

[Beren IV]

I did make an Arda Mapset for AoW1, too, by the way (you can grab it at Heaven Games, but it uses the Warlock's Rules mod as a base, so get it too). What I was referring to, however, is more the magical aspect: Every race in AoW has some kind of priest unit, and while the priest unit is not cost-effective as an archer, it does have a ranged magic attack. I was thinking that the conflict of the races themselves, that which results from migrating towns, would be less fantastical.

[Rinion]

Ot would be very difficult to be accurate in a turn-based game like AoW. Also, you can't construct buildings (can you?), whereas in TLA, you can.

[draugaer]

Why would accuracy suffer as result of the game being turn based? In my opinion a turn based structure would work better for recreating the epic scope of the game than a real time format would. This is especially true for the 1st age (rember that battles lasted for weeks and took place over all of belriand).

Also, just because the game is turn based it dosn't mean that you can't create buildings (look at Civilization for example). Even if you couldn't create buildings, this isn't a bad thing. One of my favorite parts of AoW1 is that development is minimal, instead you concentrate on warfare. I think that a concentration on battles would be a better way to represent arda as this is the most highly described part. As readers we don't get very much information about the kinds of buildings that the races construct, and all of this can only be guessed at.

[Beren IV]

Making it real-time has its advantages, but so does turn-based. The mechanics of the game aren't what I am thinking about, but the concepts of what is going on among the peoples and characters in the world.