Cablenexus wrote: ↑Wed Sep 12, 2018 5:07 am
- Did you think about the terrains? These play a huge role in itself for both games. How do you decide for example what terrain type in Aggressors represents the terrain in FOG. (for both parties). Maybe new or altered terrain types are needed? Or maybe make a calculation based on the tile the map item is at and some surrounding tiles?
I think terrain should be fairly straightforward--forest tile in Aggressors means a random forest map in FOG2, Hill tile in Aggressors means a random hilly map in FOG2, etc. But I might need to tweak this simple concept because even a forest map in FOG2 is pretty open and generally does not really present a major problem to a heavy foot army. Depending on how many battles there would actually be, it might also be possible to manually create the necessary FOG2 maps for particular battlefields, but that raises other issues. The bottom line is to figure out how to create maps that ensure that if a heavy foot army attacks into a forest or mountain hex, things might end badly for it.
Cablenexus wrote: ↑Wed Sep 12, 2018 5:07 am
- Did you think about generals? How will they be represented in army lists or in Aggressors? Are they a unit type on their own?
Have not considered this at all yet, thanks for raising it. My initial assumption is that each army will have an inherent commander, and players will get another subordinate general for every X number of army points. Since there are not really commander "ratings" in FOG2 or Aggressors, I'm not sure that it will be important to track individual generals, although it could add a cool role-playing element. Also need to consider whether there should be effects if the overall commander (ie, the player!) is killed in a FOG2 battle--that would be cool as well--players should be a bit fearful before committing their empires to war and their armies to battle! Hmmmm....
Cablenexus wrote: ↑Wed Sep 12, 2018 5:07 am
Eventually you can go as detailed as you want by only assigning techs that are bound to specific unit types and/or unit bahaviors (unit improvements). Also assigning the exact unit types per tribe should be possible to do even with the exact army names and sizes/scale.
Sorry, don't understand this--I could use the exact army list name in the ag file?
Cablenexus wrote: ↑Wed Sep 12, 2018 5:07 am
- As for army points. I think this should be a combination of produce costs for tech/units, unit upgrades etc in Aggressors, translated somehow to the costs of army points in FOG. For example you might think of some calculation to translate Aggressors Gold, iron and citizen resources (all needed to produce units) to FOG army points.
Yeah, this is pretty much what I had in mind. Also would need to consider which Aggressors upgrades to keep and which to discard. Then would have to figure out how to translate those upgrades into FOG terms. Another requirement would be to upgrade/downgrade the quality of FOG units to match the morale and experience of units in Aggressors (in other words, if an Aggressors "Roman" army in fact has poor morale and low experience, the "Roman" army selected in FOG would need to be downgraded to match (instead of having the usual bunch of superior legions available in a FOG2 Roman list).
Cablenexus wrote: ↑Wed Sep 12, 2018 5:07 am
-Keep in mind that the 3 tiles max is not hardcoded. You can eventually combine 15 armies if you want. But you can also choose to go another way. That one unit in Aggressors represent a complete armylist.
Understood, I just think--for now at least--that it would be easiest to allow one army per tile to fight. You can have a couple more in the tile (a separate garrison, maybe a separate detachment passing through the hex, etc. I haven't actually played Aggressors yet, but don't really care for the one-by-one combat mechanic.
Cablenexus wrote: ↑Wed Sep 12, 2018 5:07 am
Feel free to share scenario.ag and mod.ag files (even in early state) zipped here on the forum, or provide us a shared dropbox link.
(It's much easier that way to give some helpful suggestions eventually).
Thanks much. Haven't actually even bought the game yet because I'm currently travelling, but will do so once I get there!
Cablenexus wrote: ↑Wed Sep 12, 2018 5:07 am
Maybe start with a simple 2 player setup in Aggressors for testing purposes and experiment. (Also because this project seems very ambitious. I don't know your skills of course, but everything mentioned is really advanced stuff. Don't take it lightly or you will give up soon. I don't say it can't be done, but you will find out that scripting can be needed for example for the calibrated production costs you mentioned).
Of course. I've played around with Visual Basic and C# before, and while I have little programming experience, I'm confident that I can figure it out. For the first few months this thread will be mainly conceptual, to figure out
what to implement--figuring out
how to implement it will come a bit later.
Cablenexus wrote: ↑Wed Sep 12, 2018 5:07 am
Ask some FOG players who also own Aggressors and vice versa to particpate, help testing/give feedback eventually. Make a suggestion thread in both FOG II and Aggressors Steam modding subforums and in FOG slitherine mod subforum (maybe yuo have already, please share).
Will do, although I'd like to put more of my thoughts down here before putting something on the FOG forum.
One more question--as mentioned, I don't actually have the game yet, so can't check, but I've assumed that the scenario and save game files are in some kind of XML format--is that correct? If so, I guess I will also need to create some kind of front-end to read/edit the XML files to make things easier. I've already been looking into how to do this with C# for another project.
Thanks much for your thoughts so far!