Gameplay???

[Pharaoh]

I'm a little confused about the gameplay. Will this game be the "place a building" type like Pharaoh and Zeus, or the "designate industrial/residential areas" like SimCity where the people build their own buildings where you designate that type?? :confused: :confused: :confused:

[Bradius]

My understanding is it will be more zoned like in SimCity.

[EmperorJay]

I rather think that it will be mix of those two systems. Residential areas are industrial areas and perhaps you will be able to specify a zone for those. All other buildings will most likely have to be placed by the player.

(But it might just be that you have to build everything yourself).

[vovan]

My understanding is it will be more zoned like in SimCity.

Bradius, could you point to the info that made your opinion so? I haven't really seen any indications of the "zonedness" of the gameplay system, but then I probably missed a lot of info in the beginning.

[Bradius]

Argh! Vovan, you want me to do RESEARCH? I do enough of that at work. I want to play now. Or at the least Pontificate. Let me see then.....grrrrr...

[Bradius]

Vovan:

I have looked around and give up. I will let someone more informed make a statement then. :confused:

[angelisis]

this website that was posted in another thread gives a detailed explanation of the game and may answer your questions. it is actually a very good read and a delectable taste of what the game has to offer. i sugeest all to read.
http://pc.ign.com/articles/521/521373p1.html?fromint=1
if the link above does not work check out the post by Zimm IGN Preview.

angelisis

[Bradius]

Thanks for the link. I read it last night, but it didn't give any strong clue on the zoning issue. Basically, people are more autonomous than before. One change is that families will live above shops, so shops will have populations now. Also, beggars are the only ones that just plop themselves down whereever, so there will be at least some control over where the others will live.

[vovan]

Argh! Vovan, you want me to do RESEARCH?

Uhhh... Welll.....

* Vovan hopes noone notices that he was too lazy to do the research himself and hence made Bradius do it *

:D

angelisis,
Thanks for the link. I have, indeed, read that preview, though I didn't see much indication of zoning there. Infact, I'd think that there won't be so much zoning invloved. Here's a quote from Chris:

These vagrant mats are the only types of "homes" whose locations you do not have direct control over.

Granted, it really doesn't mean there won't be zoning approach, but it almost seems to me that if you have "direct" control over housing, then when you say: I want a house here - then there will be house there, as opposed to just a lot where a house may be or not. Then again, I guess the line might be somewhat blurry as far as housing is involved, because even when you place houses one-by-one they are just vacant lots in the beginning. So it's almost like zoning any way.

Though I think / hope that the industries and "commerce" won't be zoned like SimCity, but we could place our own, whatever we want.

[Bradius]

My guess is that it will be different than both the old city builders and SimCity, but exactly how, we will have to wait for more information. However, things like families living above shops will blur the line between residential and retail (and probably some manufacturing) in a way that didn't exist before. They have stated that distance between needed resources and housing can be important for productivity if both parents work. My guess is wealthy people will have servants do most of this work/shopping for them (so Merepatra has more time to saunter around - which is FINE by me) :D

[vovan]

They have stated that distance between needed resources and housing can be important for productivity if both parents work.

Heh, here's hoping that the pathfinding will be good then. ;) I can't help but see the market lady in Emperor going to the farther granary, of the two available, to restock. Across the whole city. Quite a track. :eek: The horror!

:D

[Tony Leier]

You do place individual buildings, or rather you designate where you want a building to go. Assuming you have the workers and materials you may need for the building, and assuming that your people aren't angry at you, someone in your city will do the construction.

That's not all the details on the dynamic, but that should give a better idea on the gameplay you were asking about. Bradius' 'guess' is pretty accurate too.

[vovan]

You do place individual buildings, or rather you designate where you want a building to go. Assuming you have the workers and materials you may need for the building, and assuming that your people aren't angry at you, someone in your city will do the construction.

Ah, great, thanks. :)http://www.tiltedmill.com/forums/images/icons/icon14.gif It's going to be a cool improvement over the buildings just popping out of noweherem as before, and will surely affect strategy. :) Can't just put down that fireman's station next to a fire, to extinguish it.

[Bradius]

Thanks Tony. That is great. We do "place" the spot for individual buildings (unlike SimCity), but need to have the appropriate workers, materials to do the work, and construction workers are "in the mood" to build the new building (unlike past city builders). I can't wait to get more information, but it sounds a lot more like a real city.

I also can't wait to get a better understanding about what Chris said below to GameStar in March.

If I put it cynically, you’re always conducting a massive PR campaign for yourself!

and

You are building a cause for your people to believe in, an of course, as god-king, you are the figurehead, the personification of this nation.

This is definitely not going to work like the previous City Builder games. The changes sound very interesting indeed! :)

[vovan]

I also can't wait to get a better understanding about what Chris said below to GameStar in March.
If I put it cynically, you’re always conducting a massive PR campaign for yourself!


You figure we'll be able to distribute flyiers with our faces on them? :D

[Bradius]

While that might seem cool. I don't want to give so much power to the press. ;)

[Lannes]

It's going to be a cool improvement over the buildings just popping out of noweherem as before, and will surely affect strategy. :) Can't just put down that fireman's station next to a fire, to extinguish it.

Yeah it sounds like people will really "think for themselves". In this vein I also liked the idea that people will try to get away with not paying their taxes in full :) .

Lannes

[vovan]

In this vein I also liked the idea that people will try to get away with not paying their taxes in full.

I'll like that long as there are methods of dealing with those people.

* evil grin *

[Bradius]

Yes, but keep in mind the people that can keep those tight fisted farmers in line are the same people that run your PR campaign that would likely get those same farmers to pay their taxes on their own. An interesting twist indeed. :rolleyes:

[Jacquou Le]

There's one game feature I really really really wish it's available in CotN, that is Time Never Stops. I'm sure that game developers know the feature I'm talking about. As it was applied to the game Lords of the Realm 3. Nothing can stop the game even made by right-click, left-click, game message popups, minimize to taskbar, switching to Empire Map, Battle Mode, Province Mode, bla bla bla... except players manually pause the game by hitting "P" key. That's for Single Play.

For multiplaying game, this feature is mostly needed, even game host can't stop or pause the game (until the game goals reached). Learning this experience from the game Emperor: RotMK, if a player pauses the game or leaves his/her computer unattended (then game message windows displayed), game paused, everyone in that game room get hung :mad: . That's odd!

Hope that developers consider this issue :)

[Lannes]

There's one game feature I really really really wish it's available in CotN, that is Time Never Stops.

I can see why it may be necessary for practical purposes in multiplay. Basically though, is a feature that doesn't suit strategy games in the sense that there really is no reason why the speed you issue orders with should matter in a game where time is compressed already.

In Lords III, it was used to make you rely on your vassals to run things while you're away. The "clickfest" element it introduced I can't see as anything but an unfortunate side-effect.

Anyway, I suspect the discussion is academic. From everything I've read sofar it seems that TM is guided primarily by making single play work.

Lannes

[EmperorJay]

If I could access all menus when the game is paused, I'm fine with Time Never Stops. But if I can't access any menus without having to let the game continue, I wouldn't like it.

Edit: And thank you Tony Leier, I like it!

[vovan]

There's one game feature I really really really wish it's available in CotN, that is Time Never Stops. I'm sure that game developers know the feature I'm talking about. As it was applied to the game Lords of the Realm 3. Nothing can stop the game even made by right-click, left-click, game message popups, minimize to taskbar, switching to Empire Map, Battle Mode, Province Mode, bla bla bla... except players manually pause the game by hitting "P" key. That's for Single Play.

Well, I'd prefer that to be an option instead. I hate it when the game keeps going while I'm busy with something like checking out reports and such. Just bothers the heck out of me - what if something happens and I miss it? :D

For multiplaying game, this feature is mostly needed, even game host can't stop or pause the game (until the game goals reached). Learning this experience from the game Emperor: RotMK, if a player pauses the game or leaves his/her computer unattended (then game message windows displayed), game paused, everyone in that game room get hung.

Well, I think there won't be any multiplayer in CotN, but thing is, I think pause in MP is important, because it was used to great effect by a lot of players - they would by mutual agreement pause the game in the beginning for a few minutes to evaluate the situation abd prebuild the city, and then go. However, when people paused the game to go to the bathroom or get a cup of tea, that was indeed annoying. :D So, I was thinking that it would be good to leave the pause in, but allow the host to override it. So if a player puases and leaves, the host would be able to unpause without necessarily having to kick the player out of the game.

[Keith]

Well, I'd prefer that to be an option instead. I hate it when the game keeps going while I'm busy with something like checking out reports and such. Just bothers the heck out of me - what if something happens and I miss it? :D

Well, I think there won't be any multiplayer in CotN, but thing is, I think pause in MP is important, because it was used to great effect by a lot of players - they would by mutual agreement pause the game in the beginning for a few minutes to evaluate the situation abd prebuild the city, and then go. However, when people paused the game to go to the bathroom or get a cup of tea, that was indeed annoying. :D So, I was thinking that it would be good to leave the pause in, but allow the host to override it. So if a player puases and leaves, the host would be able to unpause without necessarily having to kick the player out of the game.
I believe the way it is setup in Emperor, is that when a player is 2 game months behind the rest of the players, the game slows those ahead down until the paused player catches up. The host can boot the offending player if he knows who it is if he becomes a chronic problem. It is very annoying to play with someone that is forever putting his game on pause. IIRC, Emperor puts the player's game on hold when viewing certain menues or screens like the global map as well.

One way to avoid these pauses, is to allow the HOST player to set the overall game speed and all other players would play at that speed. This way a game speed could be agreed upon before play starts.

Another idea would be to allow the host player only to pause the game, which would pause everyone. A hot key or chat mode could be utilized to signal the host player that a pause is required by one player. It would be up to the host to decide whether or not to grant such a pause.

Or, if pauses were allowed by each player and it effected the other players ability to play their own cities, then some sort of player polling system that could override the offending player's pause might be one way to handle it. Each player's "status" would be displayed on all game screens. A player in pause mode would show "paused" after his city or player name. After a pre-determined amount of time the other players would be allowed to override his "pause" mode by means of a simple button click vote and the majority agreed.

Another option would be to limit the number of pauses a player has to use. These would all be of limited duration of no more than a few minutes each. Used in conjunction with a "host pause mode", where all players are put on pause, this might be one way to handle it. After the allotment of player pauses is used up, he would have to request a general game pause from the host.

Or, each player has a time allotment to use for pausing the game. Say 10 or 15 minutes for the entire game. Any time spent in pause mode would be taken from this amount. When he's out of time in his reserve pool he would no longer be able to pause his game and would be forced to request any further pauses from the host player.

Some games only allow pausing at the initial startup. Combat Mission: Afrika Korps has this setting. The host player sets the amount of pre-game setup time when he setups of the online session. When the time expires, ready or not you go with where your troops are. CMAK is, however, a TBS style game, so it has it's own built-in pauses.
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[Tony Leier]

You figure we'll be able to distribute flyiers with our faces on them? :D

Not exactly flyers, but I'd say giant statues of yourself thoughout the city, along with obelisks and stele praising your virtues and accomplishments seems a good alternate. It's good to be the Pharaoh.

[Keith]

Not exactly flyers, but I'd say giant statues of yourself thoughout the city, along with obelisks and stele praising your virtues and accomplishments seems a good alternate. It's good to be the Pharaoh.
Now if there was some way to have a utility that would convert a digital photo of your own face for the game to use on those statues that would be neat! :D
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