Vore War V39

[RandomInjury]

Well, I thought it worked decently as a system, because you have a choice for making the leader a strong support unit, or making them a strong combat unit that gives allies a small buff, or something in between those two extremes. It makes the leader very useful, without making them nearly invincible.

Also an interesting change could be to give characters in the leaders party access to every skill when they level up, rather then a select 4. Maybe all of them, maybe a select number of them, that can be your leaders personal guard or something.
Really as it stands I just save scum to get the traits I want, and I'd be willing to bet lots of people do to, so there isn't much point to it being the way it is.

I mean if you're focusing on three stats, you'll almost always be able to put a point into one of them. The AI units would be the same. If it bothers you enough to save scum it, you might as well just set it so all units have the 'focused development' trait so you can pick from all of them every time.

Ah. I didn't realize there was a trait that allowed for that.

As for the first suggestion, perhaps it could be a separate setting.

The problem I see it as is a leader who cant compete with the enemy is this annoying liabality you have to go out of your way to protect, but if you make them strong, and they can no longer buff everyones stats, then they are just a regular unit, and you might as well not have a leader at all.

[Salanth]

I have been getting back into this lately. Lots of fun! I have played with corpses being swallowed after combat, which I realized halfway through would cause some balance problems (namely, it causes doomstacks of high level soldiers to be impossible to take down by wearing them down by successive attacks, granted that doesn't work either in the case if the soldiers are high enough level).

A bug; in the current patch (29B) I took over a town which had previously been taken over and repopulated by feral wolves. In order to defend I bought some weapons, As this causes the town to get a garrison - I guess this is intentional, even for monster cities? What I don't think is intentional is that as I bought a few axes, some of the feral wolves "picked up" the axes to use as weapons instead of their claws. I guess that is not intentional.

In related news, recruiting griffons for armies have become a new favourite of mine. Getting monster towns is unreliable and only a select few of the monsters are worthwhile to get (and some are probably overpowered - I guess it's not the "standard" for a reason), but I like the idea nevertheless.

One issue I often face is that once you get a powerful enough army there is very little which can threaten you. I guess the problem has been there since the start (come to think of it it is a common problem in these kinds of games), and I'm not sure how to fix it well - on the other hand, manually fighting battle after battle is tiring (which is probably what is best to do if you are close to even in strength). Best suggestion I can think of is somehow sprinkling in some big challenging battle every so often, even after the point where you become all-powerful. But that is mostly me musing how that aspect could be improved, without me actually having any experience with making games myself. It easily is among the vore games with the best gameplay on this forum.

[Aurilika]

As for the first suggestion, perhaps it could be a separate setting.

The problem I see it as is a leader who cant compete with the enemy is this annoying liabality you have to go out of your way to protect, but if you make them strong, and they can no longer buff everyones stats, then they are just a regular unit, and you might as well not have a leader at all.

Yeah, that might actually make a decent setting, it would be relatively easy to set up, and then people can just use the method they like more.

A bug; in the current patch (29B) I took over a town which had previously been taken over and repopulated by feral wolves. In order to defend I bought some weapons, As this causes the town to get a garrison - I guess this is intentional, even for monster cities? What I don't think is intentional is that as I bought a few axes, some of the feral wolves "picked up" the axes to use as weapons instead of their claws. I guess that is not intentional.

Ah, that's actually just one of those things I didn't think through all the way. It probably makes most sense if monster villages generated a garrison automatically without the need for weapons.

One issue I often face is that once you get a powerful enough army there is very little which can threaten you. I guess the problem has been there since the start (come to think of it it is a common problem in these kinds of games), and I'm not sure how to fix it well - on the other hand, manually fighting battle after battle is tiring (which is probably what is best to do if you are close to even in strength). Best suggestion I can think of is somehow sprinkling in some big challenging battle every so often, even after the point where you become all-powerful. But that is mostly me musing how that aspect could be improved, without me actually having any experience with making games myself. It easily is among the vore games with the best gameplay on this forum.

Yeah, that's partly just due to my personal preferences. I tend to prefer games that are 'fair', so there's no AI cheating going on on the standard difficulty and the AIs all play by the same rules as players. The original legacy Vore War (before I started my version) had kind of a brutal AI scaling that basically meant that most battles you fought were reasonably difficult, and if you didn't move fast enough, then your defeat was virtually certain. (The AI would get bonus exp based on 'tension' which was partly turn based, but if you were winning it would go up faster. That kept their army on a similar level to yours, but if you lost your main army, you were basically dead as the tension level would only increase. Also, if you were in there long enough, the enemy would just be creating armies that were all maximum level, and twice as big as the biggest army you could field.) Part of removing that was due to my like of fairness, and the other part is that system didn't really work when there was more than 2 empires.

[Turbotowns]

Yeah, that's partly just due to my personal preferences. I tend to prefer games that are 'fair', so there's no AI cheating going on on the standard difficulty and the AIs all play by the same rules as players. The original legacy Vore War (before I started my version) had kind of a brutal AI scaling that basically meant that most battles you fought were reasonably difficult, and if you didn't move fast enough, then your defeat was virtually certain. (The AI would get bonus exp based on 'tension' which was partly turn based, but if you were winning it would go up faster. That kept their army on a similar level to yours, but if you lost your main army, you were basically dead as the tension level would only increase. Also, if you were in there long enough, the enemy would just be creating armies that were all maximum level, and twice as big as the biggest army you could field.) Part of removing that was due to my like of fairness, and the other part is that system didn't really work when there was more than 2 empires.

Preference nothing. That just sounds like unfair and bad design.

[Hansony]

Yeah, that's partly just due to my personal preferences. I tend to prefer games that are 'fair', so there's no AI cheating going on on the standard difficulty and the AIs all play by the same rules as players. The original legacy Vore War (before I started my version) had kind of a brutal AI scaling that basically meant that most battles you fought were reasonably difficult, and if you didn't move fast enough, then your defeat was virtually certain. (The AI would get bonus exp based on 'tension' which was partly turn based, but if you were winning it would go up faster. That kept their army on a similar level to yours, but if you lost your main army, you were basically dead as the tension level would only increase. Also, if you were in there long enough, the enemy would just be creating armies that were all maximum level, and twice as big as the biggest army you could field.) Part of removing that was due to my like of fairness, and the other part is that system didn't really work when there was more than 2 empires.

Yeah got to agree with Turbo here, that sounds like bad design and nothing more.
I am all for giving AI's a bit of an advantage since it's a bit hard to program something that can properly adjust to how others play and what is the best strategy against a myriad of different enemies with unique strengths and weaknesses, but just giving the AI an ever increasing boost seems like a way too lazy way of doing it.

[RandomInjury]

So I'm noticing the AI has a strange advantage.

I was playing in a game with a bunch of races and NO AI controled nations, basically to dink around and test some stuff out with no interference.

My Taurs had only 2 units, and I spent all their money on training for those two. I turned them to AI to see if I could do that mid game, and it works, but the very next trun, they had raised two more armies and fully equiped them, and gotten all their members to level 5. They achieved all that with only 3 cities, and the 32 dollars I'd left them with the previous round.

So they can either Recruit higher level units at base, or their training is vastly better then player controled training.

And funding is not an issue to them apparantly.

Better training would be nice to have, and the ability to pay higher sums to recruit higher level chacarters would be nice too.

[Salanth]

One issue I often face is that once you get a powerful enough army there is very little which can threaten you. I guess the problem has been there since the start (come to think of it it is a common problem in these kinds of games), and I'm not sure how to fix it well - on the other hand, manually fighting battle after battle is tiring (which is probably what is best to do if you are close to even in strength). Best suggestion I can think of is somehow sprinkling in some big challenging battle every so often, even after the point where you become all-powerful. But that is mostly me musing how that aspect could be improved, without me actually having any experience with making games myself. It easily is among the vore games with the best gameplay on this forum.

Yeah, that's partly just due to my personal preferences. I tend to prefer games that are 'fair', so there's no AI cheating going on on the standard difficulty and the AIs all play by the same rules as players. The original legacy Vore War (before I started my version) had kind of a brutal AI scaling that basically meant that most battles you fought were reasonably difficult, and if you didn't move fast enough, then your defeat was virtually certain. (The AI would get bonus exp based on 'tension' which was partly turn based, but if you were winning it would go up faster. That kept their army on a similar level to yours, but if you lost your main army, you were basically dead as the tension level would only increase. Also, if you were in there long enough, the enemy would just be creating armies that were all maximum level, and twice as big as the biggest army you could field.) Part of removing that was due to my like of fairness, and the other part is that system didn't really work when there was more than 2 empires.

True, it's better to have it like it is now regarding enemy armies. Rather, I was thinking about the threat coming for some other way. For instance, having a stronger than normal "monster army" appearing every once in a while (maybe pointed towards a particular target to avoid affecting an already downed faction). Or having a symmetrical effect that disadvantages the factions who are ahead more than the rest of the factions, or maybe better, which advantages factions who are behind more than those who are ahead (and if it affects a player who are behind it's just as well). Things like that. There is a fine balance between annoying players with things like that though, admittedly. As I said, it is not an easy problem to solve, it's mostly me musing in regards to game design.

[peteian]

One issue I often face is that once you get a powerful enough army there is very little which can threaten you. I guess the problem has been there since the start (come to think of it it is a common problem in these kinds of games), and I'm not sure how to fix it well - on the other hand, manually fighting battle after battle is tiring (which is probably what is best to do if you are close to even in strength). Best suggestion I can think of is somehow sprinkling in some big challenging battle every so often, even after the point where you become all-powerful. But that is mostly me musing how that aspect could be improved, without me actually having any experience with making games myself. It easily is among the vore games with the best gameplay on this forum.

Yeah, that's partly just due to my personal preferences. I tend to prefer games that are 'fair', so there's no AI cheating going on on the standard difficulty and the AIs all play by the same rules as players. The original legacy Vore War (before I started my version) had kind of a brutal AI scaling that basically meant that most battles you fought were reasonably difficult, and if you didn't move fast enough, then your defeat was virtually certain. (The AI would get bonus exp based on 'tension' which was partly turn based, but if you were winning it would go up faster. That kept their army on a similar level to yours, but if you lost your main army, you were basically dead as the tension level would only increase. Also, if you were in there long enough, the enemy would just be creating armies that were all maximum level, and twice as big as the biggest army you could field.) Part of removing that was due to my like of fairness, and the other part is that system didn't really work when there was more than 2 empires.

True, it's better to have it like it is now regarding enemy armies. Rather, I was thinking about the threat coming for some other way. For instance, having a stronger than normal "monster army" appearing every once in a while (maybe pointed towards a particular target to avoid affecting an already downed faction). Or having a symmetrical effect that disadvantages the factions who are ahead more than the rest of the factions, or maybe better, which advantages factions who are behind more than those who are ahead (and if it affects a player who are behind it's just as well). Things like that. There is a fine balance between annoying players with things like that though, admittedly. As I said, it is not an easy problem to solve, it's mostly me musing in regards to game design.

I think the stronger than normal monster army is possible, in terms of EXP anyway, coz you can set the monster army's EXP scaling to 1000 (Haven't tried it yet but I could type 9999 so it's at least 4 numbers.) then have their spawn slider on low with only 1 spawn attempt.
That might produce a similar effect, though the target is still weakest closest army and not a town.

[Unfortunate]

With the matter of making the Leader characters less redundent, how about giving them a unique ability that no other unit can do?

Could be as simple as [Once per battle they can supercharge an action and do even more damage/more accurate/higher odds of success/whatever you may need more of?]
Nice and easy. Could just be a toggle button at the top, then all you have to do is choose your action to power the attack and spend the supercharge skill.

Or as complex as [The player has access to a unique skill as long as the leader is alive; in a leadership effected radius around the leader you may allow an allied character who's already acted to act again. This action is available at any time as long as it's your turn, hasn't been used that turn already, and it has limited uses.]
A leader with high general stats can then be on the front line, and use this abiltiy (I'll call it Inspire) to allow a specific unit to act again. That way you can Inspire your strongest warrior to take down a bothersome enemy in a tough situation, or to allow a weaker unit to get more hits in or land an easy kill, helping them get stronger. And since it can be used even after your leader has acted, that doesn't pull them away from the fight or leave them a sitting duck. Of course, low leadership means low range, so you'll have to stick near to the required unit to support them in battle. Lower leadership also means less or even single use, so it's important you save it for when it matters most.
A leader with a high leadership stat will get a boosted radius around them to use Inspire, and if they have a bow, that means they can Inspire members of the archer group or even the melee group from afar: Make a melee unit take out an enemy rushing down your archers, or inspire one of your top snipers to finish off a key target. You now have options to influence the battle more directly, especially if you have multiple uses of the ability.
Of course, the leader can't just Inspire themselves, that's silly.

At the end of the day, you're the boss, so you can make the call to use these ideas as you wish. I don't need credit for these little suggestions, so don't worry.

[Micadi]

Although I admit I believe that leader should be more special, I don't think there is real need to change things. You can already assign any trait to the leaders of every faction in the settings. Personally I always run with assigning leaders two traits - Bulky (for better survivability) and Large (for stats boost and to make them stand out).

As for the late game challenge I would go even further - once your best army reaches certain power levels (lets say 20, 25, 30 etc...) one "boss" stack of the same power would spawn somewhere on the map (but not directly next to you or any of your cities) that would act as a separate empire at war only with you. This way they would come directly for you not attacking other empires and giving you chance to prepare for them. That army would be a mix of mercenary and monster units to act as the other empires fearful of your power simply paid some mercenary band to attack you. Of course such army should trigger only once per one assigned level (so you won't have to fight them again and again if you lose some troops and next recover).

[Katar]

Going in the same vein but a different direction as Micadi. Maybe making it so that the AI can mimic what the player does in some aspects? I.E. The player builds 2x clockwork engines in two towns so the A.I. will build two also randomized amount of time after? But if the player doesn't have ANY of a certain building type then the AI won't build them until the player matches the amount they have?

I.E.
Player has 3x slave palaces across empire --- Advanced A.I. will build at least 1x slave palace

Player has no manors --- Advanced A.I. already has 4x manors from conquest. It will not attempt to build another.

However I can see this being an issue for the more basic buildings. Really I only imagine this for those mega buildings in that optional patch in the startup.

This idea is mainly so the A.I. doesn't get rolled up or just steam roll everyone else. Maybe this could instead be resolved by making the stacking from town effects lessen as an empire gets bigger? Like that +30% farm output turns into +25% after the third village owned?

[CartoonVore]

I'm sure you're busy with all sorts of features, planned fixes to bugs, and other things, but I thought of an idea I would very much like to see implemented in Vore War.

A new type of wild creature that can roam the map and attack armies and villages. Instead of a small army of beasts, it's a single, powerful creature that can use aoe abilities and is specialized in holding large amounts of prey in its stomach due to its massive size. Also, because of how tall it is, it can simply walk over buildings, letting it assault towns without worrying about squeezing between buildings. Maybe it can have moves like ground pound, which would hit everyone within a tile of it in all directions, a leaping ability which lets it jump towards an area and damage/stun units around it, and, because of its long arms, it can vore creatures from several tiles away. It can be very difficult to defeat but yield some pretty nice rewards like rare tomes or cash. These creatures can be giant versions of existing races, or even new races.

This would add additional variety to the game and satisfy thsoe who enjoy giant predators! What do you think?

Also, if this has been suggested before, sorry!

[Turbotowns]

I think actual proper titans HAVE been suggested before.

But I want them too.

[peteian]

Hmm noticed that the slimes have unique transparency fluff text. I was wondering if there could be more unique fluff text between prey who have been eaten or have friendlies outside a slime. Something like prey calls out / reaches out to ally from inside slime ; ally looks away as prey is digested/melted away/dissolves into slime ; ally watches helplessly as prey is digested/churned into cum,chyme,milk inside of slime

Though I can see this getting spammy if a lot of allies are around.

[Aurilika]

So I'm noticing the AI has a strange advantage.

I was playing in a game with a bunch of races and NO AI controled nations, basically to dink around and test some stuff out with no interference.

My Taurs had only 2 units, and I spent all their money on training for those two. I turned them to AI to see if I could do that mid game, and it works, but the very next trun, they had raised two more armies and fully equiped them, and gotten all their members to level 5. They achieved all that with only 3 cities, and the 32 dollars I'd left them with the previous round.

So they can either Recruit higher level units at base, or their training is vastly better then player controled training.

And funding is not an issue to them apparantly.

Better training would be nice to have, and the ability to pay higher sums to recruit higher level chacarters would be nice too.

That is bizarre, as I don't have any way to explain that. If it happened as you said it sounds like a bug. The higher level could possibly be explained if they were hiring from the garrison (if the garrison was leveled up at all), but that's a lot of money to gain in one round.

As far as scaling. The Adventurers system was partly put in there as a way to help empires that are behind hire some decent units, though if they're behind and severely cash starved, then they're basically doomed anyway.

I mean, I think leaders sort of strike the middle ground between being so broken that you only use them, and being better to have in your army than a normal unit. There are people that play with leaders off entirely because they think they're too powerful. They do raise an army's power, but they're not crazy powerful.

As for the late game challenge I would go even further - once your best army reaches certain power levels (lets say 20, 25, 30 etc...) one "boss" stack of the same power would spawn somewhere on the map (but not directly next to you or any of your cities) that would act as a separate empire at war only with you. This way they would come directly for you not attacking other empires and giving you chance to prepare for them. That army would be a mix of mercenary and monster units to act as the other empires fearful of your power simply paid some mercenary band to attack you. Of course such army should trigger only once per one assigned level (so you won't have to fight them again and again if you lose some troops and next recover).

That could be an interesting option, though it would be tricky to find the right balance of strength where you'll lose some units, and not just be more experience for you, or get have your army obliterated by them.

A new type of wild creature that can roam the map and attack armies and villages. Instead of a small army of beasts, it's a single, powerful creature that can use aoe abilities and is specialized in holding large amounts of prey in its stomach due to its massive size. Also, because of how tall it is, it can simply walk over buildings, letting it assault towns without worrying about squeezing between buildings. Maybe it can have moves like ground pound, which would hit everyone within a tile of it in all directions, a leaping ability which lets it jump towards an area and damage/stun units around it, and, because of its long arms, it can vore creatures from several tiles away. It can be very difficult to defeat but yield some pretty nice rewards like rare tomes or cash. These creatures can be giant versions of existing races, or even new races.

Well, the Dragons fill that role just a little bit. As far as an actual boss enemy, it would be up to the spriters, since they basically control what races get added. That being said, big monsters are a bit weird graphically, and there's no support for multi-tile monsters. (At one point I was considering it, but now it's unlikely to be added by me. It would be a fairly large project, and at this point I'm mostly doing simpler things with this game.)

Hmm noticed that the slimes have unique transparency fluff text. I was wondering if there could be more unique fluff text between prey who have been eaten or have friendlies outside a slime. Something like prey calls out / reaches out to ally from inside slime ; ally looks away as prey is digested/melted away/dissolves into slime ; ally watches helplessly as prey is digested/churned into cum,chyme,milk inside of slime

Though I can see this getting spammy if a lot of allies are around.

Well, text can be contributed, though I'll probably bring the custom text system over from Unbridled Hedonism after I finish working the kinks out of it, at that point it will be easier to contribute, and also something people can do on their own without building the source.

[godshunter93]

How can i flirt in the game?

[KHLover]

How can i flirt in the game?

The closest thing to flirting that I know of is giving belly rubs to a unit that has eaten a prey.

[Salanth]

How do cathedrals and happiness work? I built cathedrals in captured cities and it doesn't really seem to do anything, happiness still caps out at about 80 for captured villages.

[ObsidianSnake]

How do cathedrals and happiness work? I built cathedrals in captured cities and it doesn't really seem to do anything, happiness still caps out at about 80 for captured villages.

Partial confirm: I saw the same thing in earlier versions.

...How do they work in-narrative? "The wolves ate my brother and three of my closest friends, took over the town, changed my unit customization settings to put me in a dress, make me dance in the pub while chanting 'go rabbit boy go', but their empire did allocate funds to construct a church so, you know, win some, lose some."

[Salanth]

Also, although you are forbidden from moving on top of impassable terrain (like a lake) with a flier (I did it with anthro bats) by using the mouse, there is nothing stopping you from moving onto said terrain using Numpad, and then shooting with said unit (I guess the same is true for every action which ends your turn and can be used over inpassible terrain) or even just toggling over to the next unit using n. I used this to cheese a particularly powerful stack of harvesters.