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PRAETOR

(http://img291.imageshack.us/img291/8825/praetortitlesmall.th.jpg) (http://img291.imageshack.us/i/praetortitlesmall.jpg/) (http://img175.imageshack.us/img175/1373/praetor01.th.jpg) (http://img175.imageshack.us/i/praetor01.jpg/)

This is a real-time galactic conquest game I've been trying to write in various languages for several years now. Well, I am finally up to C++ and DirectX so there ain't no more rewriting.

The idea is that you are an EMPEROR of an interstellar empire. Not an urban planner, not a starship designer, but a goddamn EMPEROR. I don't want to play the game where a planetary population limit is 20 million and your glorious imperial fleet consists of 15 cruisers and 3 battleships. No, I don't want to colonize every single planet and build every single factory by hand, god damnit. I don't want to play a glorified coloured spreadsheet.

I want to capture the feel of running an interstellar empire with mega-fleets and planetary invasions and the fate of millions being more or less important to you. I want the emperor to go on a hunting trip and indulge in choosing new brides for his harem while several planets are on a brink of starvation. I want fleets numbering thousands of ships to meet and I want multi-pronged attacks with several simultaneous battles going on on the strategic map. I want you to be able to crush the enemy, see them driven before you, hear the lamentation of their women.

The design creed for Praetor is summed up by three golden rules:
REAL TIME.
NO MICROMANAGEMENT.
ALL ACTIONS ARE UP TO THREE CLICKS AWAY FROM THE PLAYER.

If you've played Europa Universalis or any of its numerous progeny, you know what to expect in terms of game dynamics - the time passes in constant minute time steps rather than turns. This nature of the game requires careful balancing of automation and preset settings while still not letting the game play itself, but I'll manage somehow.

The game will be minimalistic, but provide a lot of options. I wish to do away with the standard "tech tree" and "planetary buildings" approach and focus on "skills" and "projects" instead. For example, you can advance your biotechnology skill by directing a portion of your imperial technology to it, or by using (or being targeted by) biological weapons. In the later parts of the game you will be able to teleport star systems and launch interstellar missiles (a-la Defcon).

Things you can expect:

• Clean interface
• Imperial institutions (parallel military formations, religions, inqusition, corporations)
• Interstellar warheads with shockwaves expanding on the galactic map
• Transdimensional beings
• Space tentacles
• Your emperor gains traits and/or cybernetic implants which affect the way game is played
• Backstabbing sector governors
• Campaign spanning virtually the entire Perseus galactic Arm.
• Genetic modifications, up to engineering a custom race
• Biggotry, racism, eugenics, genocide
• If you kill enough enemies, you can sit on a throne made of their skulls.
• Of course, you can also be a benevolent ruler, a trade/cultural superpower, or a diplomatic mastermind.
• Space zombies, space dinosaurs, space ninjas, space robots, space pirates, and space (insert anything here)

Ideally the game should have a "quick mode" so that a single campaign's worth of tech tree can be traversed in the course of a 1-hour long skirmish game. Why? Because multiplayer. But we'll talk about that when we get there.

These are older screenshots from earlier iterations of the game:
VISUAL BASIC ERA (2007-2008)

(http://img245.imageshack.us/img245/3696/79624344.th.jpg) (http://img245.imageshack.us/i/79624344.jpg/) (http://img171.imageshack.us/img171/5647/95140720.th.jpg) (http://img171.imageshack.us/i/95140720.jpg/) (http://img401.imageshack.us/img401/9316/a17u.th.jpg) (http://img401.imageshack.us/i/a17u.jpg/) (http://img57.imageshack.us/img57/1611/72843556.th.jpg) (http://img57.imageshack.us/i/72843556.jpg/) (http://img251.imageshack.us/img251/1430/a10fr.th.jpg) (http://img251.imageshack.us/i/a10fr.jpg/)
2008 version, Visual Basic + DirectX8
(http://img116.imageshack.us/img116/5981/screen5vd0.th.jpg) (http://img116.imageshack.us/i/screen5vd0.jpg/) (http://img218.imageshack.us/img218/9825/screen6nv2.th.jpg) (http://img218.imageshack.us/i/screen6nv2.jpg/)

C++ ERA:

(http://img40.imageshack.us/img40/4224/xenoold02.th.jpg) (http://img40.imageshack.us/i/xenoold02.jpg/) (http://img683.imageshack.us/img683/6995/xenoold01.th.jpg) (http://img683.imageshack.us/i/xenoold01.jpg/)
(the latest screenshots are at the top of the post).

I have no idea when the first playable version will be up for download, because I don't have much free time at the moment and progress has been unpleasantly slow lately, but I'll keep you notified. I am aiming for a playable alpha with AI and sweet space battles.

I also have made some music but I don't know where to upload it for easy perusal, and perhaps that's just as well considering it's just something I cobbled together to go alongside the code.

Wow....


This looks, and sounds great!

Good luck and I look forward to the first release. I promise I'll be one of the first to download it!

I love the sound of this.

I may be stating the obvious, but my advice would be whenever you're considering a gameplay mechanic ask yourself how it contributes to that feeling, and whether or not adding it to the game would contribute to that or take away from it.


...I really do need to get around to setting up a proper windows installation.

Yeah, I would love to go multiplatform but unfortunately it's DirectX for me for now :( . This is my first major game and I need to stick to it. For what it's worth it will run on low-end systems so I am sure at least Wine will be able to take care of it.

Game mechanics-wise, I am only working with known quantities, on things I know I can get away with. Things that I am not sure I can tackle in terms of balance, implementation or artwork I'll simply leave out of the first version.

Plenty of room for sequels later, after all.

Sounds like you've got your priorities straight. I hope you're not kidding about the space dinosaurs.

This looks pretty awesome!  I love 4X games and the game you want to make sounds really excellent.  Just make sure you don't bite off more than you can chew.  Try to avoid feature creep as can often happen with games like this, and make sure you get your core game solid early on.  I'll keep an eye on this, it looks cool!

this sounds really great, the concept and mechanics are exactly what I like in 4x games (obviously the majority of which I end up getting bored with). Looking forward to it man!

very cool.

 ;D :handthumbsupR: sounds and looks great! Can't wait to see more.

Yesssssssssssssss


There isnt enough indie strategy games, let alone 4x games. Good luck with this!

The old screenshots look tooootally like master of orion, hahah :)

Nice, thanks for loads of positive reactions! Like I said, I'll try to get a very very rudimentary alpha up and running as soon as possible so that people can get a feel of the gameflow and provide gameplay suggestions. It could be a month or two before it gets there, but when it does, you'll be the first to know.

Still as exited about this as ever.

You should post about this on /tg/ though.  I bet a bunch of people never followed you through twitter and haven't heard from you since your last update over there.

So has there been any development on this? I have to say that I love the concept and I am looking forward to seeing how to implement some of the features you are looking towards. The whole idea kind of reminds me of "Emperor of the Fading Suns", a truly wonderful game and it makes me wonder - from what did you draw inspiration?

Furthermore, out of curiousity, what level of scale are you planning on implementing? I.e. will there be planet assaults? Will it go down to 3rd person kind of view, to further enforce the idea that your character is a single emperor, rather than a fleet of ships, etc? Or will the roleplaying aspect of the game be more abstracted?

Ah, yes, the Emperor of the Fading Suns. Nice game. Basically I drew inspiration from all the strategy games I have ever played. Master of Orion I and II are the obvious culprits, and of course all the other Civ Games (particularly Master of Magic). The "real-time grand strategy" bit is similar to how Europa Universalis works.

As to what will be in the game, I would not hold my breath for 3rd person view or anything like that. I am a single developer, after all. The game will have an overwhelmingly strategic scale. No tactics or micromanagement whatsoever.

Emperor (player's alter ego) is a unit on the starmap, but a unique unit in many ways. For example, if a battle is going on which is more distant from your emperor than your empire's "max realtime communications range", you cannot command battles via uplink, only passively watch them take place. There will be a screen of things relating to the emperor and management of his private life - bodyguards, wives, cybernetic implants, things like that. You will need to watch your health as well, sacrifice countless planets if it will mean your Emperor can stay alive - because if he dies, it's game over.

It will hopefully all come together to give you the impression that you are really in the shoes of an emperor, rather than a faceless commanding spirit.

I didn't really think you would go down to 3rd person view - stuff like that would probably beyond most AAA companies. But it is good to know that you are planning to make the Emperor's ship stand out in some manner. On that, are you planning on allowing customisation of the Emperor's ship itself? Any examples?

I really do like the idea that if a battle is too far away, then you can't control the battle itself. As an added level of depth, have you thought of adding limited 'personalities' to even the ships under the Emperor's control? As in a military commander deciding that your order is idiotic/suicidal and ignoring it? It might make for interesting gameplay, confronting the player with the options of whether to allow some level of independent thought (and thus higher chance of winning battles) at the risk of increasing dissension or beat your subjects into slavery (lobotomise, etc) but mean that they are all but useless without your command.

I'm also curious as to the level of politics your planning on implementing - will there be royal court back-stabbing and feuds to deal with? World dissenting from the Emperor's rule? Assassination attempts? On that note - does the player start out as the Emperor, or as a noble climbing the ranks?

Finally, what level of technology will exist within the game? Will it have the Fading Suns/Foundation aesthetic with a collapsing empire where most don't understand the tech that they rely on, or is the empire still in the expansion stage of development? Will it have something like the church from Fading Suns declaring certain tech to be 'black' or 'immoral'?

Sorry for the long post, by the way - I hope it hasn't put you off ;D.

Interesting questions all. The problem is that most of this is still unimplemented, and I would hate to promise or brag about something only to have it not appear in the final version. With that in mind, the design document currently calls for the following, but it is subject to change if it gets too complicated to implement:

- it is not just the emperor's ship. Think of it as the Emperor's court, entourage, a fleet in its own right. Customization of the Emperor extends not just to his flagship, but also to his battle-mech, his wives and concubines, the equipment of his bodyguards, his various tutors, advisers, and retainers, etc. This should have various consequences on the strategic map.

- as for commander personalities, the game is really too far up on the strategic scale. The smallest unit of control is a flotilla of ships. For example, you never build an individual destroyer, you instead commission a Destroyer Fleet which acts like a single unit. Of course there will should be nobles, generals, admirals and warlords, as "leaders", and of course I intend to have policies affect their disposition to the Emperor, up to and including insubordination, coups and rebellions.

- funny you should ask about politics - I have just finished an outline of the "web of intrigues" in-game, where the game generates a list of various Byzantine plots behind the Emperor's back. The plan is to have these plots vary greatly in scope, effects, and scale, and it is so far very unbalanced, but it would probably require huge misconducts on the player's part for an assassination plot to end his game. The more unsatisfied nobles you have in your empire, the more plots you will need to deal with. In fact, you will need to juggle your agents between espionage, counter-espionage, and court intrigues.

- as to the technology aspect, the game is set in an unexplored frontier of the Perseus arm, after the collapse of a vastly advanced First Dynasty of Man. So yes, there is some forgotten technology, but not much. Also there is a heavily enforced ban on certain technologies (Von Neumann machines, black hole generation) which the player may choose to pursue clandestinely at his own risk, but he better be ready to bury the evidence deep.
 
- the campaign will definitely see you juggle around titles and rising the ladder in a way, but you will never start as anything less than a despot of an interstellar power. Titles are also important for the "skirmish" portion of the game. I'd rather not spoil anymore at this stage.

I saw my username in your sig and was confused.  :lol:

Nice looking game.  :) :handthumbsupR:

Good to see more people working on macro strategy games!

Updating to say the game is alive and kicking and being actively developed. Even if only by one guy with way too much else on his hands.

Recently I've scrapped together enough time to make a few breakthroughs. The game core is shaping up (why, since you ask, yes, I've rewritten it again, thank you very much - this time to port it to c# and OpenGL :wtf: ). The strategic sections were becoming a bit bland and battle autoresolver felt random-ish so I finally bit the bullet and for the past few weeks have been working on tactical battles. While battle system is not done yet, the results are better than I could have expected since a lot of the loose ends in game design have fallen into place on their own with the inclusion of the battles.

I had to simplify or cut back on some planned features just to keep the project afloat. I've been promised art assets from a few sides. It is even possible I've found a potential distributor, but that's all out there. The real important thing is the game is being worked on and it is starting to look like a game. It is still at least a year from completion, but I might have an alpha build up - and the rough time estimate for it is, as it has been for the past two years, "soon".

Maybe you could make it so that later in the game you can decide to be turned into a machine like grievous in star wars. This could make you more impervious to assassination attempts and if the emperors ship is destroyed you could still live etc.

Good to see you are working on this again.

It's weird, HMRSA is sounding fairly similar to your ideas, but I am working in the entirely opposite direction, starting with tactical battles and then trying to figure out how to string them together into a campaign. Since I've spent so much time and focus on them, I'll probably not allow too many peaceful options in the campaign mode, and try to make them consistently interesting enough that I can disallow autoresolution of battles without forcing players to act out dull, pre-decided battles.

I have only had music offers, seeing as how it's entirely lacking. I guess people like my style if no one is offering to do artwork. :)

I like to make the games I want to play, so seeing you and other people make 4X space games with some unique features is really exciting.

Just a thought on what you could implement. You could add like a imperial guard that follow and protect the emperor.

So... any news on the current state of development?

Thanks for your interest, I haven't been on the forums for a while.

Progress is being made, space battles and bombardment were implemented, but eventually they took too much of a focus. I got a semi-decent scripting engine up and running and then realized I could have saved myself a lot of trouble by simply plugging in an existing language. So currently I am in process of adding Lua functionality to the engine. Would have had it ages ago, but there are bills to be paid..

@Klatter121
Both your ideas are quite consistent with the game. If you want to move your character anywhere on the map his entire fleet goes with him, including his honor guard called The Emperor's Own that function as elite guards/bodyguards/invasion infantry but tend to cost more than a fleet of battlecruisers. As for cyborg type characters, implants already give you boosts in stats, and with proper Cybernetics skill/tech you can replace everything but the brain.

@nihilocrat
Unfortunately I've decided to scrap the tactical battle system, for now. The promised art assets fizzled out, but I can render my own in Max - good enough for programmer art. It's kind of my fault - if I had something substantial to show to people, I'm sure I'd already have plenty of offers for help.

Oh wow, I'm really glad to see that this hasn't died.

I'm relieved that you haven't given up... I was beginning to doubt. Game designing is inconvenient

I always wanted to play an enjoyable space 4X game, and you seem to be heading in the right direction with this one. Eagerly anticipating future updates.

Hi
Nice looking game ! I love space-themed games, and this one seems cool.

Just one remark, from the first screens you posted, your font is nice, but not easy to read

So you from what I have seen are developping in C# / openGl ? This seems a strange choice ! As you cannot port your game to XBox if you don't use XNA/DIrectX, and there are no really existing engine using C#/Opengl !? What was motivating your choice ?

I'm a programmer but if you need some ships models maybe I can help. But it seems that this is not the important thing, as they are shown very small !

Anyway, good job so far, but do not hesitate to post new screens, even WIP

I really like C#, coding and debugging is much faster for me in it than, say, C++. For graphics and audio I made use of an SFML .NET binding which fits all my requirements; SFML uses OpenGL. I do not see XBox as a valid platform for a grand strategy game so lack of DirectX is not a concern.

I appreciate the offer but as you correctly guess ships are not the main problem here. What I need are things such as interface and status icons, images of different planets, GUI elements, images for different species and different buildings (with 120 buildings in the game and rising, it's becoming increasingly difficult to come up with even abstract graphics / symbols). Oh and the square blocky font has been replaced ages ago so don't worry about that either.

Your hint about screenshots has been duly acknowledged  ;) .

This Idea just made me think of crusader kings 2
but its just too complicated eg. when i finished tutorial i was BRAINWASHED
your idea on the other hand seems solid, simple yet in depth. thats enough critisism for one day.

EDIT: btw eventually are you gonna think about a succesion system eg. you die and then the player takes control of an heir.

No succession. I can't hope to dethrone Crusader Kings II so I won't even try. Instead I'll play to the game's strengths. The campaign follows the life of one person, that's kind of the major selling point and I think players will be happy with it. Fortunately for me, this is sci-fi, so your character can live for thousands of years. You not only see your empire grow and spread, but also you see your emperor gain traits, experience, titles and scars over the hundreds of years of leadership.

If you're disappointed by the lack of succession, think of it this way : in the end game you will get to lead a guy with most of his body replaced many times over with cloned organs and the finest cybernetic parts, and with upwards of two thousand years of political and command experience.

As an aside, for this reason I was thinking of removing assassinations from the game because if there is a chance, no matter how minuscule, that a player's campaign would end based on a dice roll, that would be bad design. Assassinations will probably make it into the game, it's just they'll never be able to kill the player character, just severely cripple him granting penalties until replacement organs are regrown in vats.

that is if you have discovered efficient cloning, anything can happen while you are waiting. hehehehehe
you've changed my mind with the long life thing
well hope it all goes well/as planned

I was thinking of developing something along these lines as well (read: thought it would be cool to do so but never had the time to do it actually :D), so I will post compatible ideas.


The emperor resides on the throne planet and can't move. Instead he has 3 henchmen of unquestionable loyalty which can be moved around and act as extension of emperor's will.

There are several special units, like imperial guard that can't be moved from the imperial palace, various spies, imperial inspectors, etc. You either can't build these units or there are high limits.

You can't create fleets. Instead you have 12 nobles (actually 10 nobles and 2 imperial admirals), each has his own fleet. You can give ships to a noble and it will be included in his fleet. Fleets can never be split, also it is easy to add to fleet but hard to remove from it :D You can move these fleets around and these basicly do what you told them to do but the actual effect depends on the fleet commander. And of course nobles and fleets can rebel from time to time :) Or be unavailable because the commanders is preoccupied with some other thing. The 2 imperial fleets (commanded by your imperial admials) are always loyal and not troublesome, but these admirals are not necessarily as bright as nobles plus nobles will riot if the imperial fleet is too strong compared to noble fleets.

Each planet has planetary forces (ground army). These armies can not be moved from the planet. You can enforce planetary garrisons if you wish. You also have several imperial infantry regiments which you can move between planets.

Finances. You build all ships yourself and these are moved to shipyards when finished, then you add these to different fleets. But the maintenance of ships is done by the commander, which means you pay for maintenance of imperial fleets but noble fleets are maintained by nobles from their treasuries. Nobles have very simple income system (% of income from their home planets goes to their treasury). If the noble has not enough money he is very displeased (and take a loan from banking guild) which in a long run leads to noble's revolt. Some nobles are more wasteful than others, they can crash their treasuries by spending on luxuries. Some also are richer than others (so you can't really give more ships to a poor noble even if he is loyal and competent because the maintenance will kill him).

You have several imperial offices, these can be given to nobles (the same that command fleets). This increases their happiness and sometimes income. Of course it would be best to not give offices to nobles with "corrupt" trait or "unjust" or "cruel" because it damages the overall empire.
I was thinking if maybe making more nobles per noble house would be better? Like the commandeing noble is one and you have additional 2 nobles from the same noble house which can be granted an office (hoping one of them is half decent nad not totally insane) which increases the loyalty and happiness of the whole noble house.

You can dispose of a noble if you really want (replacing it by another randomly generated noble from the same noble branch), but it causes a big drop of happiness among all noble houses ("the emperor is trying to claim all the power and make us his puppets").

Assasination is fine, but don't make it "kill the emperor" but save the emperor making him only injured, like 50% command points for 10 turns, or kill some courtier instead (bravely protected the emperor with his own life).

well this thread has entered dead space so see ya   :'(

It is looking good. Is it possible to post a link of video? Then I can understand about this game. It is really good news for space games lover that many new space games are on the way link Star Quest 2. Star Quest 2 is a space rts game and this one is under development.