New Game: Oceana

Hi all,
Since no one said I couldn't discuss my idea for a "once a day," online multiplayer strategy game, I will take that as approval .
In the time before history, when Pangea first broke up, was an age of legends, when men battled men and monsters.
Islands broke off freely, and man tamed those islands, beseaching the gods, learning science, magic, and how to tame the fierce beasts of lore. People gathered, forming cities and nations, and learned to live in peace, for a while...
But inevitably war broke out, and armies of warriors, catapults, harpies, and minotaurs battled for supremacy, and control of Ambrosia, the food of the gods and the source of immortality!
(comments on flavor text encouraged, I have a few different versions already, and need to settle on something).

Play concept:
Log on at any time during the day and post "orders," into a queue. You can spend all the resources you have on hand, send troops to attack, move troops or resources between colonies (yes, you can have multiple colonies on different islands), etc. All moves happen based on a "per day," or "x times per day," time scale, rather than real time. This means that you don't need to be online at a particular time, and can play whenever you want.
Certain types of production will have a "stepped cost," for instance, the first 100 research points will cost 100 man days, the second 100 will cost 200 man days. This plus higher costs for higher levels of buildings will help make new players relevant. Higher quality troops will require higher research AND specialized materials (copper/bronze/iron for instance) to make.
Units will follow two main categories, Myth and Science. Science units will be historical initially, and clockwork/steamtech powered at high levels. Myth units will start with goblins and minitaurs, and progress to harpies and giants. Science units will have gold upkeep and tend to have higher attack values, Myth units will have food upkeep and tend to have better special abilities.
A day of combat will obviously be enough for just about any battle, but either or both players can set an "acceptable losses," threashold after which they will attempt to retreat. Retreat/defeat will always have a cost, whether gold in ransom for captured units, land if the battle was fought for land, or being forced to quit an alliance if in a major war and the battle is an attack on your capital.
I will stop there and wait for comments.

Aaror, you've spent some time thinking about this, you have a good start.

A couple of comments

1. If I understand your idea, then all orders for all players happen simultaneously. If so then you need to consider "conflicting scenerios", for example, both of us move to postion x:y. Does this cause a battle? Or do we both bounce? I think that there are probably better examples of a 'conflict' then my example. Maybe this is a better example. I am using resources to build something. You pillage me. Both of these actions occur at the same instance. What happens do I build or do you pillage?

2. How about a 'fog of war' concept. The entire map is not exposed to you, unless you have already explored it by building in that sector, traveling thru that sector (on the way to to somewhere else), sent a trade ship thru the sector, have an ally in the sector. (perhaps even if the sector was explored by an ally)

Uechi3 wrote:Aaror, you've spent some time thinking about this, you have a good start.

A couple of comments

1. If I understand your idea, then all orders for all players happen simultaneously. If so then you need to consider "conflicting scenerios", for example, both of us move to postion x:y. Does this cause a battle? Or do we both bounce? I think that there are probably better examples of a 'conflict' then my example. Maybe this is a better example. I am using resources to build something. You pillage me. Both of these actions occur at the same instance. What happens do I build or do you pillage?

Turns will be simultanious, but earning and spending resources happens after, so:
A) I pillage you, taking unused wood/food/etc.
B) Your population mines/grows wood/food/etc.
C) Your population eats food and drinks beer.
D) You log in and spend resources, and possibly send a force to attack me.

As for locations, while there will be places other than towns to battle over (I am thinking of "quest," areas, but also battlefields for folks who want to fight without involving walls), you will only fight if you are listed as hostile (someone who sends a force to pillage or blockade becomes hostile obviously), otherwise your forces would coexist. Note that each force will have a location at the tick (midnight), and will act accordingly. So if you pillage me, and I pillage you, my forces will fight whatever you left in your town, and Vs Versa. I would love to have some sort of "halfway point battle," in that event, but I can't figure out how yet, so it will be saved as a later upgrade (not that I am past planning document stage at this point).

Uechi3 wrote:
2. How about a 'fog of war' concept. The entire map is not exposed to you, unless you have already explored it by building in that sector, traveling thru that sector (on the way to to somewhere else), sent a trade ship thru the sector, have an ally in the sector. (perhaps even if the sector was explored by an ally)

I have been debating that idea (fog of war), if I can figure out how to code it I will, but I am planning to use an Access Database for processing initially, until it (hopefully) becomes so wildly successful that I can hire programmers. I am not sure how I would get Access to keep track of what you would know.

And yes, since I mentioned it, one items I am planning on allowing is "quests," which involve sending military forces to a quest location, fighting an unknown NPC army, and getting resources if they succeed. If multiple colonies go on the same quest, they will each fight their own NPC army and get the resources, unless they are allies.

Quests will have difficulties listed to give some hint of the risk and reward, a Class A quest will be hard but doable for a new player, and not worth the time for a seasoned player, Class E will be the top I will initially develop, but I set up the class letters to allow growth if requested.

Note that this replaces the "inactive raiding," and "leecher raiding," required of peaceful players in Ikariam. It gives a player a chance to use (play with) their military without starting a fight.

wow sounds like a sweet game
tell me when its up and running so i can be the 1st to test it

have you decided to incorporate miscellaneous items that you can discover/capture during a battle/buy,sell, trade into the game???
and is the resource gathering/gold making and poulation like ikariam's?
also, what kind of membership/advantages do you plan to sell with the game if any?

The Fat Man wrote:wow sounds like a sweet game
tell me when its up and running so i can be the 1st to test it

have you decided to incorporate miscellaneous items that you can discover/capture during a battle/buy,sell, trade into the game???
and is the resource gathering/gold making and poulation like ikariam's?
also, what kind of membership/advantages do you plan to sell with the game if any?

Unfortunatly I expect the "up and running," to be in 2010. I am brainstorming right now. If I completely forego graphics I could have something working in a few months, but it would basically be linking directly into the access database I plan to use for processing.

resource gathering should be similar to Ikariam, I think there will be more options on what your population does, and some minor tax income from all citizens (except jobs you pay them for like research)

I wasn't thinking of membership advantages, but I had a concept that might work well with that. Obviously a "once a day," game is going to be slower than a real time game, I was thinking of a "fast server," where you sign up for a 4 or 6 hour block of time. You then play the game with others in that time slot, and have 4-6 turns in one hour intervals, with the last turn running until the next day.
I am really hesitant trying to do what Ikariam does, balancing giving advantages to paying customers with making the game fun for all. I expect to pay for the site with ad revenue, so a paying customer would get an ad free version... I don't know, good question to ponder.

Misc items to capture... Another cool idea, but not sure what I could use that would not be unbalancing. I was planning on missions giving players extra resources of one or more types. Sending a force to the ancient temple would give you myth scrolls if you defeat the guardians, and sending them to the Fields of Elysium would get you lots of grain (food) if you penetrate the wards. The only big item I was planning on was the final (Class Z) quest to the top of Mount Olympus for the food of the gods, battling gods and all their servents. If you succeed you gain the food of the gods and become immortal. No game effect, but you "win," the game and your name is recorded on a special screen along with the date you gained godhood.
What were you thinking of for special items?

Also, if you figure out the PW question, could I ask for a sub-folder here for discussions of Oceana?

Misc items to capture... Another cool idea, but not sure what I could use that would not be unbalancing. I was planning on missions giving players extra resources of one or more types. Sending a force to the ancient temple would give you myth scrolls if you defeat the guardians, and sending them to the Fields of Elysium would get you lots of grain (food) if you penetrate the wards. The only big item I was planning on was the final (Class Z) quest to the top of Mount Olympus for the food of the gods, battling gods and all their servents. If you succeed you gain the food of the gods and become immortal. No game effect, but you "win," the game and your name is recorded on a special screen along with the date you gained godhood.
What were you thinking of for special items?




i was thinking of maybe some sort of amulet that would increase production of a resource or give an advantage
or maybe if you capture troops you can take their armor and somehow melt it back into copper/iron/steel or something
or you could capture whole items which you could equip to soldiers to give them a bonus

these items could possibly be bought/sold/traded for using either player to player trades or a central market area where you could enter the item and the price you want to sell it for and leave it there until somebody buys it and gold/items instantly change hands

i was also thinking of a possibilty of building a temple and praying to a certain god in order to recieve special bonuses for that town/player

The Fat Man wrote:
i was thinking of maybe some sort of amulet that would increase production of a resource or give an advantage
or maybe if you capture troops you can take their armor and somehow melt it back into copper/iron/steel or something
or you could capture whole items which you could equip to soldiers to give them a bonus

these items could possibly be bought/sold/traded for using either player to player trades or a central market area where you could enter the item and the price you want to sell it for and leave it there until somebody buys it and gold/items instantly change hands

i was also thinking of a possibilty of building a temple and praying to a certain god in order to recieve special bonuses for that town/player

Re: The temple, I was already thinking of that, and in fact planned on letting each player choose a primary god to follow. One of the techs (actually myth, not tech, see above for the difference) was going to be "polytheism," allowing you to have minor support from gods other than the one you chose, and allowing you to have happy population which followed a different god. Why is that important? Well, I am not sure if I will allow population to be one of the things that can be captured (very leery of this), but if I do, they will keep their own religion for a while, making them unhappy for a week or so. This would discourage population raids I think. Also, polytheism would be required to have a temple in another colony that was for a different god than your capital.

I guess if the bonus items are available to all players it would not be unbalancing. I would probably want to have some sort of trading area so that those items will be bought and sold and seek a "normal," price, telling me which items are most valuable to the players. I can then adjust the quests for those items to reflect that. I had not thought of those items being vulnerable to capture, but that would be fun. I think only one item would be captured per battle, so someone doesn't get wiped out in one fight. It would take more work, but it would probably be best if the items are located in cities (like units and buildings) rather than being assigned to the player.
I would restrict them to 5% and 10% bonuses, maybe 15% for high level players. I would also want a limit to how many folks can have, so there is some strategy. "You have captured the wand of +10 stonework, do you wish to discard it, or your staff of +5 woodworking?"

Sounds pretty good to me

Another idea i had was to give player some "God Powers" like in age of mythology
maybe these powers could be used during a battle ie you could select what power you would want to use and it would give your troops a offensive/defensive bonus or it could kill some of your opponets troops with a plague or something

Admin wrote:Sounds pretty good to me

Another idea i had was to give player some "God Powers" like in age of mythology
maybe these powers could be used during a battle ie you could select what power you would want to use and it would give your troops a offensive/defensive bonus or it could kill some of your opponets troops with a plague or something

As a "one shot," item power, I could see that, having those available for every battle would just add complexity.
But earning/questing for a god power to help in battle, and then spending it on a really important battle would be cool.
Another option would be to have the god aid you on the battlefield, which means your ability would depend on the god. Appollo for instance helped in the trojan war by firing plague arrows, other gods helped the battle too, but I can't remember what the others did.
Having your god actually appear on the battlefield as a troop would be fun, he would have limited hp representing his level of interest (obviously he would not be "killed.") in the fight. Of course, a god's "limited," hp would not be anything to sneeze at, and the attack and defence ratings would be high.

I just created a forum at:
http://ogdd.forumotion.com/forum.htm
It is still very ugly, I am playing with skin design, grouping, etc.
The other advantage is I am re-learning what Fat Man needs to learn, so I can give him good info and advice, and can see what I am doing when I give him instructions.
Anyway, if folks want to put in input on the game there, I would appreciate it.