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Post by Rah'Majashan on Mar 14, 2008 19:25:10 GMT
Since its been rather quite around here I thought I would give an update.
At the moment I am coding the buildings and there descriptions into the game as well as adding the bannermen that Mel has made for me.
I haven't heard from aztecsocialist but he should be helping Mel research fortifications in Mezo_america
Mel, RM3, are figuring out the unit balancing with the help of Aradan
Murf sahould be worknig on the UI's as well as some skins and game testing
And Jacob is working hard at his traits system for us.
Hopefully this will all come to head in the next week or two and we can begin packing everything together into a more Incaesque game than we had with build 1.
Once this is done we will have to begin thinking about game play aspects. I have a few ideas but please, if you guys have anything you would like to see then please let us know so we can determine if A) It should go into the game, B) How to get it into the game C) if its even possible to have the game do it.
Also, Fili has started building the necessary files for the Inca campaign. I will be helping him code in a piece at a time over the summer. The hope is that starting in the fall or around the holiday time, we can begin turning a little bit of our focus towards the South American factions.
I'm in for the long haul. We will have only completed 1/3 of what we intended from the start once Flower Wars is released and we still have a long way to go before it is clean and perfect. But many lessons have been learned which will make the next 2 steps far easier. Our hope is that with the release of Flower Wars we will gain more attention and hopefully help.
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Post by theaztecsocialist on Mar 14, 2008 21:52:58 GMT
Rah, I've been looking for Mesoamerican ruined forts for MONTHS. Even before this and well, no luck. The only fort i've actually seen (barely) that is still up is the fort of Oztuma. Acamapichtli (Im positive) built a fort on a rock near Tenochtitlan and there was a huge impregnable fort at one of the causeways leading to Tenochtitlan. But sadly, they don't exist anymore or are under massive forestation
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Post by Rah'Majashan on Mar 14, 2008 22:04:27 GMT
I knew we could count on you. Its good to know that there were fortifications but unfortunate that none remain for us to see.
Is there are textual first hand accounts of these fortifications anywhere? I know when I was resarching the provinces I read a lot of jounrals and such to get an idea what places existed at the time of our mod. I know it may be a bit tedious, but do you guys think its worth the effort to be historically accurate or should we guess upon a design based upon what we know of Mezo architecture?
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Post by theaztecsocialist on Mar 14, 2008 22:07:43 GMT
Well, i'd advise to get on Google book search. There are many accounts of the Spanish conquest and eyewitness accounts of sieges. The majority are completely open to read, not limited. I actually read that the fort on the causeway looked similar to a temple, but it was huge. They also said that many Aztec elites were on top, kicking Spanish butt. So i'm guessing it somewhat resembled the sascahuayman fort?
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Post by Rah'Majashan on Mar 14, 2008 22:16:14 GMT
That's exactly where I found the resources I was using.
I guess its safe to say that these forts were more like raised positions from which warriors could throw missiles down upon the attackers than the traditional forts we would be familiar with in Europe and Asia. Cause although they may have had stockades, I don't think they had gates. I believe RTW needs to have gates for it to work properly so we may have to cheat a bit.
Mel had sent me a drawing of something that is very similar to what you describe aztec, I think then we will take the idea of a Sascahuayman and a temple and meld the two in order to create our forts.
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Post by theaztecsocialist on Mar 14, 2008 22:22:08 GMT
I actually read that the Aztec had an "Eagle Gate". It was a gate with a huge gaping Eagle head on it. But yeah, that's a good idea. If you still have the drawing, may I see it?
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Post by Rah'Majashan on Mar 14, 2008 22:54:45 GMT
Hmmm, perhaps we can incorporate that into the design, maybe. I'll post it here when I get home in about 5 hours
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Post by meliritiatl on Mar 15, 2008 2:28:13 GMT
I am trying to d the balancing now. Roman said he would help if i run into any trouble, but the unit balancing will be work, generally speaking. This week i hope we have sth, and next wekend im going to delve deep into building things so as to help you get them into the game, for me to skin them, take renders of them for the UI and find the info card references for them
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Post by meliritiatl on Mar 19, 2008 1:26:50 GMT
ok, we seem to have lost Rah there somewhere, but he said he was going to be busy this week. Anyway, i am progressing with the balancing and i hope with aradan's help to have it ready as soon as possible.
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Post by meliritiatl on Mar 20, 2008 7:49:35 GMT
It seems that if neither me nor Rah posts sth then nothing new gets posted. Has anyone anythong to report for progress in any aspect of the mod?
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Post by Rah'Majashan on Mar 26, 2008 6:14:56 GMT
Hey guys, been busy lately with work, but i've been slowly working on coding in the buildings. I'll be off for the remainder of the week due to work. See you guys next week.
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Post by Rah'Majashan on Apr 15, 2008 16:50:48 GMT
Now for an update.
I have begun coding the buildings into the EDB file and writing in all there descriptions. Hopefully I'll be able to chip away at it over the course of the week and by this weekend will have it compelete. Which means, the basic game play aspects of making money and recruiting soldiers will be pretty much complete and you can play a modest campaign.
I will also add Jacobs Trait system and try to get a few of the building models coded into the village and town level settlement plans.
Once I get the traits in I will test the mod folder on my clean vanilla game and make sure that it all loads fine, then I will send it off to you guys. I have not had any error messages except for the accossional 'infantry barb slave' error which I still have not tracked down. Mind you, I've only really been testing with the Aztec faction, so need to play the other factions to see which faction gives me the problem. But that's where you guys come in to help me test.
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Post by Rah'Majashan on Apr 17, 2008 16:45:25 GMT
Mod Management Update For those of you who may not know, we are now going to be taking a two tiered approach to the Mod.
I am currently trying to create a mod folder with both the Grand Inca Map and the Flower Wars map and campaign in it that I will work out of from now on. The problem is, most of the work we've done has been in the Flower Wars map and now i can't get the Inca map to load. So, I essentially have to start over and rebuild a new combined mod folder until they both work. I should have this all worked out by this weekend.
Once that complete, I will send the Inca mod folder to Fili who will begin coding in the South American factions and units. He will basically be the lead on the South American build as we continue to move the Flower Wars to completion. As lead Fili may bring on all his own people if he like's, but the veterans of the mod will still have the end say in the end product. Since I've become pretty compitent in the coding over the past year, I will be supervising and leading Fili through the steps to build the South American version as he learns what he's doing.
The hope is that once we complete Flower Wars, The Grand Inca Campaign (this is my term for it and I'm open to others) will be at a state where all we have to do is add the appropriate buildings and units and maybe clean up the graphics. All of which are more tedious in detail than in coding.
Let me know if anyone has a problem or questions about this.
That said, Mel is finishing up the buildings for the Maya this week and next week I will begin replacing all the buildings and editing the settlement plans for that faction.
Mod Promotion Update
I think we're at a point where we can begin creating faction specific threads on the TWC site.
The first post in these threads will include:
Faction name Faction Leader Name Faction History Faction Icon
Additional posts in these threads will include any faction specific unit and building cards or screenshots.
This way people can ask their faction game play and infortmation question in one area.
General Info
Other than that, we still need a designer/artist to help clean up and create all the necessary graphics to make Flower Wars look mod specific and good.
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Post by Filibusteria on Apr 17, 2008 20:35:11 GMT
The Grand Inca Campaign (this is my term for it and I'm open to others) The Rise of the Qoscos?
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Post by Rah'Majashan on Apr 20, 2008 19:44:45 GMT
OK guys, I completed combining the Inca map and the Flowers Map into one mod folder for our testing purposed and to make it easier to complete the larger mod later. There are still some issues with loading battles in the jungle climate type that I need to resolve, but I'll get to them when I get to them.
For those who can access it, I created a new thread in the Game Play and Coding section called Mod Downloads. You can down load it there. I hope some of you will and test it out to make sure it loads for you OK. I built and tested it on a clean vanilla version of RTW, so it should work.
PS: Byz has confirmed that it does work and the Flower Wars provincial campaign does indeed load fine. Let me know if you find any problems.
As for progress to date, I got to tell ya, I feel like I'm just keeping the plates spinning so to speak. A little bit of everything is getting done, but nothings complete and this is starting the wear on me a bit. One of the reasons is I really need to focus on my short film I shot almost a year ago before some of the actors move away. So, I'm going to be pulling back in May to focus more on that.
That's not to say I wont be working. I will still be doing the buildings and settlement plans a little at a time, but I need others to start finishing things like skins, unit info cards, rebel faction icons, cleaning up and editing all the descriptions, loading screens, UI's, info scrolls, and I'm there's a couple of other things I'm forgetting. So please, I need volunteers and I'll send my master photoshop files or walk you through the steps if you don't know how.
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