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gameplay.md

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Gameplay improvement ideas

This file contains ideas to "enhance" the original Age of Kings gameplay. Don't worry, vanilla mode will always be available.

Environment

Weather

  • Change view distance (Line of sight / Fog of War)
  • Fog, rain, winter, summer
  • Unit slowdowns (depending on terrain)
  • Can be predicted by tech
  • Can be modified globally or locally (by voodoo priests)

Fire

  • Buildings made out of wood and other flammable material can be lit.
  • Fire departments in the city can extinguish those fires (Stronghold anybody?).
  • Sneaky spies could burn your city down

Day/night cycle

  • At night: View distance reduced, everything darker.
  • Villagers need sleep, otherwise they die at work.
  • Chemistry industry: Coffeine, Peniciline, ...?

Map extensions

3D terrain

  • Villagers can dig down, can discover natural resources.
  • Dirt, stone, etc are new resources, can be placed elsewhere
  • (add any minecraft/terraria-like stuff here)

Infinite maps

  • Maps with infinite size! (Your PC is the limit!)
  • Spherical/Toroidal/Cylindrical surfaces would be possible, too.

Research

  • Only newly-built units receive the bonus when units are upgraded
  • Already-built units need to be "overhauled" for a cost back at the barracks. (reminder: just an idea, there will be vanilla mode)
  • Research should be placed in creating order, like in WarCraft. It's too annoying to click on building again after each research

Game modes

Zombie Survival Mode

The map has a bunch of zombie spawners; after an initial build-up phase, they start producing waves zombie hordes, fast zombies, tanks, petard zombies; the zombie AI tries to get to your villagers (magic pathfinding); killed units turn into zombies as well. spawners can be destroyed, but the closer or the more powerful you get, the more zombies will spawn. To win, survive for a specified period of time, build a wonder, or destroy the spawners (or something...).

Conquer the castle

Similar to "Murder the King", but with a building. Players have some time to fortify their castle. A player loses if the castle falls.

Unit handling

Improved grouping

  • Manually coloring units (e.g. for teammates)
  • "Mobile ping": designated unit pings its position periodically
  • Implicite group definitions/reselections (double-click?)

Better movement

  • Move groups as group, or each unit with its own movement speed
  • Auto-resolution of blocking situations
  • Individual path searching cost for tiles
  • Allow user to mark parts of the map as more expensive
  • Auto-set a higher path cost for tiles in the firing range of an enemy castle
  • Allow setting any number of waypoints (basically an extension of the 'patrol' mechanic)
  • Formations:
  • Attack/defense bonuses for some unit formations.
  • Dependent on minimum amount of units in this formation.
  • New marching formation with speed bonus but defense malus.
  • Cavalry flanking

More intelligent units

  • Restrictions for action areas (don't do anything here)
    • Wood chopping
    • Castle rampages
    • Avoid hazardous areas during pathfinding (via a cost modifier)
      • Automatically for stationary hazards (castles, towers, ...)
      • Manually "painted" areas
  • Emergency evacuation points
  • Formations and movement when attacking
  • Dynamic hardlocking on target units when attacking
    • Don't lock on unreachable current target
    • Attack the blocking units first

Better attack stances

  • Aggressive stance for monks (auto-convert)
  • Auto-flee stance (especially for monks): Auto-task "flee" action as soon as an enemy unit comes near
  • Non-coward stance for villagers
  • Allow selecting the default stance

Multiplayer

Lobby settings

  • Most of the above should be available as lobby settings
  • Boosts/handicaps such as resource multipliers for players
  • Forced no-rush (timelimit or score limit until attacks are possible)

Matchmaking and competitive mode

  • Some kind of "official" account on servers for everybody
  • Automatic skill groups to create balanced matches
  • We can show the world that competitive games can be free open source!

Team interaction

  • Better team interaction
  • Work/resource sharing
  • Unit sharing (transport boats)
  • Color markings
  • Create signs
  • Paint on map
  • Create arrows

MMO games

Play on one single map with 9001 players. Dynamically extend the map.

Massively slow down the game speed, and you get a "browser game"-like experience.

New Buildings

Bridges

  • Ability to build bridges in water
  • Blocks ships, allows land units to walk
  • Forgotten Empires might already have wooden bridge textures
  • Destructible, repairable, ...
  • Long build time

Resources

Infinite regeneration

  • Forest regeneration or seeding
  • Mills can produce sheep, cows, turkeys, etc.

Stone balancing

Stone cost for all buildings, rebalance stone amount per pile. Maybe new deep stone mines for later ages.

For the lulz

  • Big fat damage numbers!!!1
  • Friendly-fire toggle!!111