Fallen Enchantress: Rethinking land

Are the terrains going to do anything, Froggy?  Like in a Civ game, you have hills and grasslands, and desserts, each giving a different bonus and that can be mined or farmed, etc.  Does the land do anything?

I love the sound of more visually distinguished land, but I also am curious if the land will actually "do" something (not necessarily civ style).

Also, just by looking at the screenshot (yes, yes, I know, so far until release) it is easy to spot some of the repeating tiles. That doesn't really look good at all, and it will be even more obvious in-game - when moving your camera around reveals the 3d character of the tiles. That, imho, detracts from the appealing nature of having a more carefully crafted 3d environment to play in.

Instead of pre-generated tiles, maybe you should consider doing something a bit more dynamic.

You mean like... Dessert land = Free strawberry tart for everyone = +1 happiness?

Looking forward to more terrain types, the game seriously needs a visual makeover.

This isn't Civ.  I'm not sure having the land do things, outside of bonus tiles, would help the game be any more fun.  I do think we need more variety in the bonus tiles though.

Having certain land have combat modifiers like woodlands/hills/etc, or having it affect tactical maps- might.

I can't wait for the "if you explore here your hero will die vibe" they are now aiming for in FE.

Could the story be about an Enchanteress who has taken over the fallen with her evil wiles to go steamroll the kingdoms ? oh wait, there's that word evil again... could be other wiles she is using then...

(maybe she has a pet coyote)

I like the idea of dynamic land types...  perhaps something such as:  as the seasons progress, land in northern/southern climes change to snow, which affect movement/combat rates.  Also, depending on the story in the game, as good or evil prevail, land all over could change types (evil winning = more barren terrain, good winning = more fertile and therefore more farmable terrain).  Or creatures setting forests/farmable land ablaze after winning in combat against the player, forcing the player to alter their established strategy.

Also, as an idea...  have terrain that's *really* dynamic and contextual - such as, a rumor sends your party to location X, only to have the ground collapse under the party's feet, leading them to an underground adventure/treasure trove that would otherwise be unknown or inaccessible to the player. 

Right, they don't have to do something just like the Civ games, but now they are just completely useless, prettier would be better, but having some function would great. 

And I totally meant dessert and not desert! I want to know if the land will produce jelly donuts or not!  Don't judge me!

Love how the titan does OVER 9000!! damage.

Good stuff

Really looking forward to what you guys can do

I just don't see how the way buildings are produced in this game and terrain would mesh well together, and I'd rather not copy Civ if possible.

Giving land strategic effects, like deserts to slow advances, would be nice.  I could also see bonus tiles being affected by terrain, like farms near a river giving more food then farms in deserts, or mines on hills giving more iron.

I do know one thing that's a pretty big change, the land itself is dynamically generated.  In War of Magic, we make the land masses in the tile editro and then the game randomly generates the goodies on them.  But in Fallen Enchantress, it's appears that it'll all be dynamically generated.  I can't say one way or the other whether tiles will be giving bonuses and such yet. Our focus is making Fallen Enchantress an awesome game.

Awesome, so actually different maps each game?  That's great.  Got tired of seeing the same maps over and over.

My thoughts:

• Aesthetics
  • Critters or people running around would help - depends on what the engine can tolerate given memory constraints. If in a jungle, show some leopards or monkeys or whatever lore creatures exist. If a savannah, lions and elephants or w/e. Basically, show the wildlife.
  • Vary the amount of tile types and versions of each type to broaden the look
  • Have the land become more alive as ZOC's expand - not just turn green, but show signs of civilization beyond the random caravan on a road. Tiles closer to settlements or resource nodes should show how civilization is expanding. See mechanics comments below.
  • Tiles on ZOC borders should show some kind of hybrid tiles - ideally there shoudln't be an immediate crossover from green kingdom to dark fallen but something that indicates it is a border tile and has a hybrid look. I'm thinking of where the blight meets non-blight from Wheel of Time.
• Mechanics
  • Hybrid of Civ
  • Instead of managing the tiles outside a settlement, have the tiles incur some kind of modifier to food, materials, metal, crystal, etc. For example, a city placed near a forest should receive some kind of materials benefit from the forest. A settlement near mountains or hills should receive something to metal. Settlements near standard plains a food modifier.
  • Those settlements that incur positive modifiers to the settlement should start to reflect that activity. Using the forest example, a city receiving benefits from forest tiles should see some logging type buildings and activity happening within those forest. Plains should start to see some mini-farms and such.

I think it would be cool to see how settlements start to change the landscape with human activity. The world would start to come alive. Just dreamin'!

I really hope bonus tiles stay- as I think they add that hint of randomness in there that can make varying game-to-game strategy if done correctly.

+1 for dynamically generated land, it's something I thought Elemental needed.

I can't speak for others, but I'd personally like for more defined tiles. Right now, it is not easy to determine where forests end and where they start. Tile bonuses in tactical battles are also unclear.

One of the big things I hope is changed is the available terrain types for modding. For example currently "Land" means grasslands, swamp, or desert. There are plenty of things I could imagine to be built on a swamp but not on a desert. I hope that each land type gets its own full category type. Also expanded terrains in general, such as jungle and tundra, etc.

Yes! THis would be interesting if you could only build certain types of buildings on certain types of land. Making the art assets would be a pain or you could just forget the art assets and make them all look the same.

Good, I always hated this.

The whole wherever we live the soil turns to ash, the plants rot, and the rivers run foul thing really turned me off the empire. It didn't make any sense. What do they eat?

Also I hope you get rid of how expanding your influence into snow covered lands removed the snow. Really killed map diversity when all player controlled territory looked the same.

It's not the look that is going to make the game better. Have it do something! Introduce a 'scout' talent that makes certain units faster in woods, a mountaneer talet that allows to cross mountains, add a 'stealth' talent that allows groups of units to be invisible in woods... The latest will be especially useful in mulyiplayer games!

Also I have always hated those woods that are only recognizable as such when you look at them in the tablecloth map, while in the regular map just seem to be grass. I would fix that.

as for the land affecting what cities can produce -currently we only have objects that take up 4 tiles. What about objects that take up 1, 2 or 3 tiles instead? Would this not provide ore of an inentive to incorporate these objects into our cities for protection ? Would have more of an impact in multiplayer rather than against the ai  - although the ai does sometimes destroy improvements - but that is a distraction from my point.

Bee hives could take up less space - say 2 tile, wheat fields and orchards take up 4 - something else takes up 1 space. You could sprinkle these smaller 1 tile assets around to give more of a lively appearance to the map. Im not sure how well it would work with that intent, but i always liked the idea of having some variation in what the resources drop off in town.

Please rethink making MP a cut-down version of SP.  At the very least, make a co-op mode with all SP functionality, and how about having battles involving more than two sides?  What about allies being able to join in battles with their team-mates?  It would be fantastic if you could balance well, having 2 players vs 2 players in the one battlefield, for example.  And this would fit a lot better with Elemental being a game that suits co-op MP much better than competitive.

What do people think?

Best regards,
Steven.

I like your ideas. Having the world literally come more alive would be nice. Having some animals on the map would be cool especially if they can integrate lore into it.

Really emphasizing the return of civilization to your lands would be a nice touch as well. Signs of human activity like little cottages popping up or hunter's cabins would be fantastic.

Also, I think your hybrid Civ style idea is pretty good. Make terrain matter more.

Oh and I really hope that the seas and oceans aren't totally useless this tiem around. I'd love to see fish and whales and other marine life.

I could not agree less. If having land tiles in your Zone of Control doesn't have any significant effect on your empire outside of the few bonus tiles it my encompass, then there is not much reason in attempting to obtain a large Zone of Control. If land "does things", it not only gives ZoC a raison d'etre, but it creates strategic options. Currently, EWoM feels like a space genre game, with fertile land like colonizable planets, the bonus tiles the asteroids, and you can ignore everything else.

Yay, I was really hoping to see that swamp god in game!

Agree.

When you say 'dynamic', do you mean that there will be a few basic land types, with many 'environment' types modifying them? In WoM, it seemed that there was some confusion over whether things like desert and swamp should be an environment type or a static terrain type. I hope you guys get it sorted out cleanly this time.