Writing a game.. your help appreciated :)

Hi guys,

So happy to see there's actually a forum like this

Now, I have some questions for you. See, I'm writing a mass multiplayer online strategy game (it's a sequel to a previous game i wrote, which was quite a success). Don't freak out, it's mostly text based (but it does have a map). I've always been highly dissatisfied with the game systems of like Age of Empires and Warcraft, since it fails - greatly - at reproducing the whole 'conflict between tribes and cities' idea (it's always merely a military camp used for non stop training of fighters, not nearly a village or city, even Rise of Nations comes down to this ). My game is very different (I abolished the whole training of units system to start with), but i won't explain it all now.

Basically, it's about migrating through Europe (yes, as always.. Europe), taking place between like 0-1250 AD (so bit of a mixture here and there). Each player makes up his own tribe, and there are 8 main tribe civs to choose from: Byzantine, Celtic, Islamic, Roman, Norse, Slavic, Germanic and Eastmen (the latter is a repository for nomadic people from the east, like the Huns). Sooo, finally my first question, is this an OK division? or am I still really missing something or should i get rid of one?

Second, I'm giving these civs unique developments, 3 per civ (like urbanisation for the Romans, iconography for the Byzantines, druidism for the Celts, and so on), plus 1 development per area a group settles in. For example, Hungary and surroundings has Vampires, which reduces burglary. So my second question do you guys have any ideas for upgrades, either for the civs or for the regions? The civs aren't too much of a problem i think (except for Slavic and Islamic), but the areas are really hard to fill. I have nothing for Poland, Russia, Switzerland, to name but a few. So basically, I'm looking for bits of medieval local culture that could fit in more than one civ (like the vampires), or things the environment has to offer, like woad in England (which has been used by both Celts and Romans if I'm not mistaking). I'd really appreciate your ideas!!!

Thanks

Thanks

My game doesn't feature archers (in fact, it doesn't feature any specialized military unit types at the moment), but the money storage may be a good idea.

The main time will be, say, dark ages. I think Byzantine will do. Arab for Islamic sound better, I'll change that. If I can feature them at all - still don't really have upgrades for them.

I'm eager for more replies, you ppl don't have to give complete rules or upgrades of course, just if you have some ideas on what a civilization or a region should be good at (even if you think it's useless), just post!!

I think that instead of eastmen you should put Mongols or Turks. And what about Iberians?

PS - Instead of arabs you could name them moors or saracens. It's more stylish.

This game sounds great.

Maybe some civs can be more used to a certain type of weather that they experience where they live than the others attacking them?

F.example Arabs are more used to heat.Maybe it could affect the fighting?

Well, that would be nice to tie them to their real locations. It would make it more realistic.

One thing you could add to spice up things a bit would be to put in Jews (pretty much everywhere) and Gypsies (also everywhere but especially in Eastern Europe - Hungary, Romania and such).

Special skills:

Jews: +1 in commerce and trading/-1 in stability; Gypsies: +1 in mystique - like higher moral for everybody -  (through fortune telling, tarot, etc.)/+2 in robbery risk (like to the money the player has).

A player could choose to have them or not in his tribe (since they are nomads) depending on pro's and con's.

That is one of the features I dig most in a game like that. Conquering is cool, warfare and all that is the core of the business. But one thing that keeps me really interested is managing the provinces you're annexing, administrating your lands (empire) and people. All the politics and revolution events that can happen.

That's one of the reason I enjoy so much EUII. Of course, you can enfocus more on AOE-like. I fancy the idea of including jews and gypsies since they are always disregarded despite having had social relevance in real life for ages!

I just hope you can go through with that!

Cheers