Roads

GM Stormcrow wrote: Also want to say that we did examine a variety of fractal landscape generation algorithms to generate the world map; and even implemented a suitable one - but soon discovered that this made too much advantage/disadvatage during the random placement of new players. Play-testers were rolling lots and lots of multiple accounts, having a look at what was around each one of them, and then immediately abandoning those that were near clumps of terrain that they didn't like or want; and this didn't help anyone except to litter the map with abandoned accounts.

Ugh. I didn't think about that aspect of things. There has to be a balance between "realism" and actual game play.

But, if tiles are more or less interchangeable*, it would be neat if a player could decorate the areas of the map under their greater area of influence. For example, an Elf player could fill their sphere with trees. It wouldn't affect game play, but it might make the map look more varied.

* I know that each tile has a wood/clay/iron/stone/food and probably other values that make changing landscape images an issue. Annnnnnnd I'd be bummed if people started writing words across the landscape. So lets just pretend it is a fun idea with no downsides, forget to place it on a to-do list, and move along.

Chicane wrote: I think this type of travel would be more intuitive to the player if terrain types were grouped together more. A 4x10 mountain range is a more obvious obstacle than a single mountain peak surrounded by fertile plains.

Also want to say that we did examine a variety of fractal landscape generation algorithms to generate the world map; and even implemented a suitable one - but soon discovered that this made too much advantage/disadvatage during the random placement of new players. 

Play-testers were rolling lots and lots of multiple accounts, having a look at what was around each one of them, and then immediately abandoning those that were near clumps of terrain that they didn't like or want; and this didn't help anyone except to litter the map with abandoned accounts.

This isn't to say that we don't want to implement strategically important areas of the map, perhaps even being distributed clumps of hand-drawn and hand-built terrain that has special and specific functions, bonuses and penalties.  These areas would act as strategically important conflict points; but we'd need to place them substantially away from the existing settled playerbase. 

Areas of the map may (or may not, you'll never know!) already have been reserved for these kinds of purposes.  Oh alright, many have been reserved; and eagle-eyed players with an innate ability to make patterns out of apparent chaos might spot some of the regularities/reservations on the world map.

Best,

SC

If you are going with the different movement speeds over different terrains idea then I don't think this would be so simple to achieve.

If a town is very simply 3,3 away from you, there are 6 different ways of getting there using simply the cardinal directions.
13,13 away from you, there are 2,704,156.
51,51 and there are over 10^29.

Add diagonal movement and there are more. That would mean you'd need to find every possible traversible path within that, then assign a movement time value to every step to every path, sum, and return with the most desirable path. I'm sure there's searching methods that make it easier, but it's still not simple.

Waypoints wouldn't really work either because you are going to travel in different squares for different amounts of time if you travel at any given angle, which means you would have to calculate a lot of random segments, thus multiplying the problem further. Same goes for simply affecting movement speed for the now, as-the-crow-flies linear movement.

I think its a good idea, and I was thinking about it, and I may be grossly overstating the problem, but yeh, I think its tough to implement.

Edit: grid was out by 1


Edited by xilla - 19 May 2010 at 13:22

Roads would be truly beneficial if there were disadvantages to travel over certain terrain. Currently, all movement seems to take place in straight lines from point A to point B at a constant rate (which you can spend prestige points to increase). If there was a speed disadvantage to crossing terrain with mountains, dense forests or chasms, then a road would speed travel and be of benefit.

If there were speed advantages/disadvantages to terrain, the developers could implement a travel system that uses way-points. For example, travel from 0,0 to 0,5 to 3,5 to 4,7 and gather resources. If such a zig-zag path would save time by going around a mountain peak, the extra player time spent planning the course of travel might be worth it (you could still just go from point A to point B directly if you so choose).

I think this type of travel would be more intuitive to the player if terrain types were grouped together more. A 4x10 mountain range is a more obvious obstacle than a single mountain peak surrounded by fertile plains. Also, grouping map features could grant racial benefits. Elves could move faster in forests and slower in mountains (and dwarfs just the opposite). So that's an idea that would have to wait until UK2.

Hi!