Sandbox Campaign suggestions

Field of Glory II is a turn-based tactical game set during the Rise of Rome from 280 BC to 25 BC.
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MVP7
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Re: Sandbox Campaign suggestions

Post by MVP7 »

First things first, the sandbox campaign is great! It's pretty much the exact campaign I want in a purely-military strategy games and what I would have loved to have in P&S/SJ: a series of interesting battles with some light strategic decisions and a persistent player force. Personally I consider this kind of campaign far more enjoyable than a map based campaign where you spend half of the playtime avoiding any unfavorable (or even just fair) fights until you are forced to fight one or two battles with max sized armies, often followed by a one-sided and anticlimactic clean-up phase.


Here are some campaign generation additions that I think would be relatively easy to implement and would greatly add to the already great campaign experience:

Multiple enemies - Options to choose several campaign enemy factions in different ways (the number could be selected either directly or randomly):
- Manual selection
- Year filtered random selection
- Distance/Region biased random selection (nearby factions more likely to be picked)
- Totally random selection (no time or distance limits)

Having these options would make longer campaign more varied and force the player to adapt his army to changing enemy capabilities.


Map/Region selection - Option to choose what kind of maps the battles are mainly fought on:
- You could pick a region like "Central Europe", "Black Sea", "North Africa" etc and the battle-map types would be weighed accordingly in RNG.
-- For example, picking Central Europe as a region would give you a mix of North European and Mediterranean maps.
-- Picking Black Sea would result in a mix of Steppe, North European Mountains, Desert and other fitting map types.
-- North Africa could result in the map types being 75% Middle-Eastern and 25% Desert.

- Returning to the enemy selection, there could also be an option to randomly pick multiple enemies biased towards the location of the selected region rather than the location of player faction.
- A possibly more complicated area selection could be East-to-West, West-to-East, South-to-North etc. The battle-map types (and the randomly selected enemy factions if such option was selected) would change as the campaign advances. For example, a campaign fought in East-to-West "region" would start with tropical maps, then go middle eastern and finally European.

These additions would make the campaigns even more varied and it would add a ton of options like playing as India in Central Europe, fighting a random selection of Greek, Roman and Tribal factions of the region or trying to rebuild the Macedonian empire with Carthage, fighting through Mediterranean and Middle-East to India.


Some other suggestions made in this thread that I really like are being able to pick an ally and seeing a year and maybe name/location of the battles (this would add some nice fluff and flavor). Other than adding variety and flavor (and possibly even some simple narrative) I'd suggest keeping the campaign simple and to the point (aka. a series of interesting battles). A strategic map with moving forces tends to devolve into a series of indecisive sieges, Benny Hill chases and arms race that only has one or two interesting battles and a ton of mundane clean-up operations as offering a fair fight with uncertain outcome is something to be avoided. If a campaign map is to be added I think it would best serve as a narrative piece, showing army movements so you remember who you are fighting and what you are doing and maybe pick between a few possible battles every now and then.

Thanks to the devs for this great game! I'm looking forward to the future expansions and updates!
rbodleyscott
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Re: Sandbox Campaign suggestions

Post by rbodleyscott »

Multiple enemies - Options to choose several campaign enemy factions in different ways (the number could be selected either directly or randomly):
- Year filtered random selection
- Distance/Region biased random selection (nearby factions more likely to be picked)
This is already in beta test.
Map/Region selection - Option to choose what kind of maps the battles are mainly fought on:
- You could pick a region like "Central Europe", "Black Sea", "North Africa" etc and the battle-map types would be weighed accordingly in RNG.
-- For example, picking Central Europe as a region would give you a mix of North European and Mediterranean maps.
-- Picking Black Sea would result in a mix of Steppe, North European Mountains, Desert and other fitting map types.
-- North Africa could result in the map types being 75% Middle-Eastern and 25% Desert.
Map Region selection is based on the historical army regions already. Refinements on this are in beta test.

Allowing campaigns to be played in completely ahistorical regions would be possible but might be complicated to implement in conjunction with the present system.

Lots more improvements to the campaign system are currently being beta tested, and will be released alongside the next DLC.
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MVP7
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Re: Sandbox Campaign suggestions

Post by MVP7 »

Thanks! Is there any kind of ETA on the release or the official announcement of the next DLC yet :D ?
rbodleyscott
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Re: Sandbox Campaign suggestions

Post by rbodleyscott »

MVP7 wrote:Thanks! Is there any kind of ETA on the release or the official announcement of the next DLC yet :D ?
Yes, but it is a secret.
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Pixel
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Re: Sandbox Campaign suggestions

Post by Pixel »

I found something interesting when looking at the forum usergroups and took a screenshot:

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Adraeth
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Re: Sandbox Campaign suggestions

Post by Adraeth »

More than a suggestion, just a question waiting the incoming update:

considering the new sandbox campaign will provide battles even against allies of the opponent army list;

will be possible to choose those allies? or will the allied army lists selected by the system?

I was just thinking of a Germanic tribes campaign vs Gallic ... with, maybe, some roman armies allied to the gallic ones.

Thanks in advane
rbodleyscott
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Re: Sandbox Campaign suggestions

Post by rbodleyscott »

Adraeth wrote:will the allied army lists selected by the system?
They will be selected by the system, matched by date and geography.

There are already allies of your main opponent in the system, but these are based on historical alliances, and not all army lists have them. They also have to be geographically near both protagonists, because they can form combined armies. (e.g. The Armenians will not have Spanish allies against the Romans, but they might have Pontic allies).

However, the new enemies are not necessarily allies of your main opponent. They may be other hostile neighbours attacking your territory on an opportunist basis independently of your main enemies. They may in fact be attacking from the opposite side of your kingdom/empire.

In real life you do not get to choose who stabs you in the back.
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Adraeth
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Re: Sandbox Campaign suggestions

Post by Adraeth »

Excellent, thanks :)
nats
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Re: Sandbox Campaign suggestions

Post by nats »

Perhaps you should have a look at Atlantic Fleet's campaign. Its a very simple thing but it pulls together the individual battles really nicely whilst not slowing down the game. You simply choose where to move your fleets, you add reinforcements and go back to port to repair, and then the game checks for any battle meetings and you play out the battles, then it all starts again. Its just really a way of giving a setting to the battles and deciding whether they are defensive or assault battles, and what sort of terrain is there. I think something like that could really pull this game together.
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Re: Sandbox Campaign suggestions

Post by vakarr »

Is there any way for multiplayer battle players to have different points in their armies so that the results of multiplayer campaign battles can affect following battles? I have to say the 240 BC Grand Campaign, which is just about to wrap up, was fantastic, but not a real campaign as the size and number of your armies could not change or affect the next battle. Also I would like to see the army lists changeable somehow to reflect the new provinces conquered - so for instance no Italians would be allowed in a Carthaginian army until an Italian province had been conquered or allied (exceptions would be made for mercenary troops). Conquering another province might allow the addition to your list of troops not included originally e.g. the conquest of Galatia would allow the addition of superior warband to the army list, and so on. Some things are possible to do via the campaign rules eg a player's list could be upgraded to a different version of their list upon the conquest of a province - in a Pontic army that originally had no lancers, the conquest of the Bosporan Greeks might allow the change of the player's Pontic list to a later list that did include lancers.
rbodleyscott
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Re: Sandbox Campaign suggestions

Post by rbodleyscott »

vakarr wrote:Is there any way for multiplayer battle players to have different points in their armies so that the results of multiplayer campaign battles can affect following battles?
Yes, you can set the points in the advanced custom battle options. Previously you could only do so in increments of 100, but the forthcoming update allows any value to be set.
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vakarr
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Re: Sandbox Campaign suggestions

Post by vakarr »

Oh, that's great, I can re-create my "Warlords of Minaria" game based on the "Divine Right" map or maybe a First Age of Hyboria game (the one without the gannet, er, medieval armies)
Southern Hunter
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Re: Sandbox Campaign suggestions

Post by Southern Hunter »

vakarr wrote:Oh, that's great, I can re-create my "Warlords of Minaria" game based on the "Divine Right" map

God, you must be old ;-) I still have my copy of Divine Right somewhere around here...
Latro
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Re: Sandbox Campaign suggestions

Post by Latro »

rbodleyscott wrote:
Adraeth wrote:will the allied army lists selected by the system?
However, the new enemies are not necessarily allies of your main opponent. They may be other hostile neighbours attacking your territory on an opportunist basis independently of your main enemies. They may in fact be attacking from the opposite side of your kingdom/empire.

In real life you do not get to choose who stabs you in the back.
Is there no way to turn this off, though?
I would rather like to be able to fight a single enemy for a campaign.
3rd time in a row now that I got stomped on by another powerful nation, after the 2nd or 3rd battle against my enemy.
rbodleyscott
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Re: Sandbox Campaign suggestions

Post by rbodleyscott »

Latro wrote:
rbodleyscott wrote:
Adraeth wrote:will the allied army lists selected by the system?
However, the new enemies are not necessarily allies of your main opponent. They may be other hostile neighbours attacking your territory on an opportunist basis independently of your main enemies. They may in fact be attacking from the opposite side of your kingdom/empire.

In real life you do not get to choose who stabs you in the back.
Is there no way to turn this off, though?
I would rather like to be able to fight a single enemy for a campaign.
3rd time in a row now that I got stomped on by another powerful nation, after the 2nd or 3rd battle against my enemy.
Not currently. We could consider adding it as an option.
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Latro
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Re: Sandbox Campaign suggestions

Post by Latro »

Or I could simply make a copy of Armylist, in MyCampaign, and delete the unwanted Armies.. :)
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Re: Sandbox Campaign suggestions

Post by jomni »

Latro wrote:
rbodleyscott wrote:
Adraeth wrote:will the allied army lists selected by the system?
However, the new enemies are not necessarily allies of your main opponent. They may be other hostile neighbours attacking your territory on an opportunist basis independently of your main enemies. They may in fact be attacking from the opposite side of your kingdom/empire.

In real life you do not get to choose who stabs you in the back.
Is there no way to turn this off, though?
I would rather like to be able to fight a single enemy for a campaign.
3rd time in a row now that I got stomped on by another powerful nation, after the 2nd or 3rd battle against my enemy.
Yeah I wasn’t expecting this. My Chinese got surprised by an untraditional enemy, the Kushan. But it’s all fun. :)
nats
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Re: Sandbox Campaign suggestions

Post by nats »

I would love to see unpredictability added into all of the battles - a way to do this would be to add a random event to each one (possibly semi random based on your previous battle results) these events could be things like:

- The troops are tired and have lower strength or morale
- The cavalry has not returned from their scouting
- Some of your troops have got lost
- Your enemy has a strong defensive advantage
- Your enemy catches you disorganised
- Your general picks a bad location for the battle (hemmed in by rivers etc)
- Your battle starts closer than normal due to fog
- Your enemy starts on a hill
- Your enemy catches you in the flank/rear

... probably loads more

Of course all of these could also be applied in reverse. I think it would add an interesting twist to some of the battles. See the game Qvadriga where this sort of random event works really well.
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Adraeth
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Re: Sandbox Campaign suggestions

Post by Adraeth »

oh nats those are just like the fast scenario generator for Field of Battle 2 (piquet tabletop wargame) ... i like it :D
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Re: Sandbox Campaign suggestions

Post by klayeckles »

just for fun...i built a old TT fog campaign that allowed each side a set of "nerf" cards, and you could play one or two each battle. at the start. you could have some element like that as an add-on where in addition to purchasing troops, you could buy nerf(s)...

nerf example: Cost:
general sick/poisoned 75
random non-elite mutinies 75
allied troop changes alliance 100
hidden fortifications 20
terrain placement 50
cav unit outflanks 50
enemy frozen (random time/unit)
nerf the nerf (cancel) 50
etc

obviously this adds a whole lot of programing and complexity, i just toss it out for fun and food for thought
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