Let’s start a new category of posts, called “Ideas”. Here I will post ideas about the game. Here’s the first one – a new house called “Stash”.
Goal. This is a non-player structure placed on the map which can hold an amount of wares in it. Much like storehouses with coal and iron placed on the map in the older days. The difference is that the “Stash” house will serve only this role and presumably will fit in with the mission story better.
Looks are not defined, but it has to be something man-made, like an outpost or a parked wagon, maybe a tent.
Problems: How to let the player to access the wares? Building a road just to evacuate the wares is silly. Maybe have a special “raider” unit that can “steal” things from such stashes and enemy stores, a wagon/cart?
Feedback is very welcome!
Hmm, interesting idea. A house like this could be a solution to make the game less campy. Let me explain; KAM is one of few games that doesn’t really benefit from mapcontrol. All resources are placed close around the storehouse and the smaller the base the easier it is to defend (using towers at chokepoints). It could be nice to have some sort of raiders/militia-like units to take over those houses which are protected by some neutral troops (so not everyone can steal the resources for free). These raiders should be too weak to attack the main enemy village (easely countered by some sort of arrow tower or tech upgrade) but excellent at taking over map control. The house could give some sort of bonus in special resources or sight or maybe to equip an empty tower near a chokepoint or even to unlock a special tech of some kind. It’s not hard to think of a nice bonus but it shouldn’t be too strong, yet reward the player who decides to invest in those units. It’s like in AoE, do I decide to explore fast and gain mapcontrol or do I decide to play defensive and ”boom”. Best would be to let the player decide to go for raiders or not, using a special building or tech then to give some raiders for free at the start of the game. I do like the idea of advancing into another age like AOE. Maybe make those units available when advanced into the next age, so those units can’t be abused early in the game. It’s probably best to have 2 types of units available, one fast unit that can’t defend itself but can be be used to tranport goods and one slow unit who can equip/attack neutral buildings on the map. It could also be nice to put some outside/neutral farms/mines etc. on the map that can be captured by your units. So you have fast acces to some resources, but it’s not overpowered since these buildings are not easy to defend but still give a bonus to players who decide to go for some map control…
Welcome aboard To! 🙂
Mapcontrol is indeed a very nice feature to add. We have discussed with Lewin an idea of some kind of abstract resource located on the map (e.g. Mines) that player can not directly connect to (cos they are too far away, and/or neutral) and some kind of “raiders” units to gather that resource. That would naturally cause player to protect those units and in result – cause a brawl between players for these resources. On the other hand, that predates many of classic roots and shifts focus from city-building/management to mapcontrol. That could be too big change in the gameplay.
Anyway, I hope we implement that Stash house and see how it works out in a couple of test games. The only thing that really bothers me – roads. Do they need to be made and if not, how is that consistent with serf walking only by roads and wares acquisition from Stashes.
Somehow I completely missed this post.
Oh and hi To 😀
What about this: add a second way of transport, like carts. Serfs can only transport goods over roads, carts can transport them over longer distances (and maybe only over reasonably passable terrain like grass or dirt, not over mud/swamp/shallows (this might add to strategic placement/decisions). And a cart requires a horse to carry it. You could make one of them a tier 2 resource so you would need to upgrade your camp, making it really important to do it quickly if you want more resources and stronger economy, but if your army isn’t big enough it might backfire because those carts and the stash need to be protected against the enemy.
Just a wild thought… 😛
We called them wagons – a way that might work for PvP trade 🙂
I’m not sure Stashes will be an essential element of EVERY mission though. They seem more like a fix for the “Store in the plain field” problem.
And now I’m throwing with wild ideas anyway – might as well suggest an ‘exspansion cart’ with which you can build a second village. You could start a new settlement near a stash to either use the resources in it on spot (by building the right production chain near the stash instead of transporting all goods to your village), protect it by building towers or something, or both.
I guess that’s a lot less KaM-like though.
Yeah, building a base from the wagon is a cool idea, alike C&C/RedAlert did it with construction yards. It could be fun to let players choose the starting location in such a way. So they move the wagon and pick a place to build a camp, once wagon is expanded into a camp – 3 serfs and 3 workers come out, or something like that 🙂
Might not be needed for EVERY mission, but having a few such missions (e.g. – flee with a wagon into a safety from a raging enemy) could be very interesting!
P.S. I’ve posted a separate article about that 🙂