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[Ed]

Nice to see this project still going

This is probably because of placeholder animations etc, but I hope the guys charging at eachother will be using swords or lances (to clarify: not the medival jousting type) whilst on horseback, rather than the muskets... Or at least, switching to sword/lance in plenty of time before impact.

What do you mean by Canned Gameplay? Specific scripted scenarios?

[iggie]

I like Pistols and Sabre as mounted weapons. You don't really have a chance to reload or aim very well in a charge so melee combat will become more important. So yes, what you see here is limited by the amount of art I have - in fact I am getting all the gameplay finished before I add more breadth to the art and units.

As for Canned Gameplay...

Canned: Towns, prices, Faction alliances, missions all hand made by designer. World is effectively a snapshot in time with no dynamic changes. eg: Warcraft

UnCanned: World grows organically through simulation, trade and criminal opportunities appear out of simulated flows of goods and workforce between towns. World changes dramatically through player actions. eg: Civilisation

The canned version offers a more reliable player experience, balancing is easier, and certain activites the player wants to do can be automatically presented for their gaming fun.

The uncanned version offers more replay, but is less accessible to new players as you have to make the most of an unknown world. For example the encounters you face would not be even matches, and there may be times where trade or bandit opportunities are hard to find.

Realistically I think I am going to find a compromise between the two, perhaps a well balanced world to start with, but with opportunities to unbalance as the player progresses - countered by helpful measures to steer the player to challenges within their capabilities. The replay and sandbox elements are pretty important to me - but not at the expense of a fun experience.

[Ed]

I like Pistols and Sabre as mounted weapons. You don't really have a chance to reload or aim very well in a charge so melee combat will become more important. So yes, what you see here is limited by the amount of art I have - in fact I am getting all the gameplay finished before I add more breadth to the art and units.

Cool, yeah, I guessed as much. It's a good tech level/setting for all that kind of stuff!

As for Canned Gameplay...

Ahhh ok, got it. So even the canned version would be free-roaming and non-linear, which is cool. As long as you still pick your battles and have the result of your battle feed back into the strategy game and vice versa, you don't lose too much.

Also, you can get the gameplay working and develop the world generation to fit whatever turns out to be fun: You handcrafted balanced world should be a good reference point!

PS: I hope that there is a mix of balanced/unbalanced encounters even in a balanced world. It's nice to have to make a decision about whether you can handle the battle

[iggie]

PS: I hope that there is a mix of balanced/unbalanced encounters even in a balanced world. It's nice to have to make a decision about whether you can handle the battle Smiley

That is something I have always wanted to do, although I have wondered if it will be a fun feature or just realism gone too far. I get annoyed by games where you always meet perfectly balanced mobs to suit your level, and prefer once where you can interact with much higher and lower level NPCs although not always through combat. Of course if you start playing with the mentality that you should win every battle it will get very frustrating.

Spice Road is quite economically minded - so sometimes you will be picking your fights not just on whether you can win them, but also on whether the consequences are worth the risks. Hiring new troops and restoring wounded ones is expensive, while killing a rival factions agents could make them retaliate against your own. So I do want the player to be selective about combat.

[iggie]

I often play an RPG and want to leave the story behind and start really living in a dynamic simulated world. Spice Road lets you go adventuring and run a trading business while the nations and factions around you eb and flow depending on your involvement.

I want to get some Zing into Spice Road with the art style and characters - hopefully setting a fun & gritty tone. Inside, the mechanics are a cross between "Port Royale" and "Elite", so I have to distance myself from RTS and wargames in style, if I pick the wrong angle I could be mistaken for "Mount & Blade" or "Age of Empires" - and that wouldn't do me any good.

Even though the style 18th Century - it is so alt-history I am bound to get plenty of flames from history buffs. It wouldn't take much of a push to turn into total fantasy (But I want to avoid any expectation of magic & monsters).

[iggie]

Here are some new screenshots taken from Spice Road Beta v0.100

[dbest]

Woah.... 3 years later... Impressive stuff!!
I hope that you can continue working on the game and complete it.

[iggie]

@dbest Thanks. Most of the work has been on the underlying systems, the economy and trade network. Now these systems are working it is relatively straight forward to write missions based on the mechanics. In fact I've already got 20 missions planned just introducing the main buildings and mechanics - after that the player should be competent to take on sandbox missions and compete with other players for highscores on different maps.

[iggie]

For all Strategy/Town Building/Economic Sim fans, the Spice Road Beta is now freely available for download.

Free Spice Road Beta

[iggie]

New features in the free Spice Road 0.200 Beta

Adding to the RPG feel of the Campaign missions I've added a raft of Skills and Abilities that the player can upgrade as they complete mission objectives.

These range from simple utilities like reducing supplies required on a caravan route, to new tactical abilities like the ability to perform a lightning raid on an enemy town for loot.

Also new is the first take on a Sandbox, where you can customise and generate new maps to play on, and the addition of a Hard Mode to challenge even a well upgraded player.

Here is an example Tech-Tree for Security.

[iggie]

Please try the Spice Road Demo and let me know how you get on,

Play the first 5 levels from the game here:
Download the Spice Road Demo 33MB

To play further (11 Playable Missions with hours of fun Trading, Town Building and Economic Simulation) and use the Sandbox scenario generator just Preorder and play in the full Beta version.