Tides of Conquest campaign tool - new version with Bronze Age scenarios and icons out April 21 2023

[toska]

Amazing. Thank you very much for accepting my suggestions. Everything works perfectly. I have only noticed the system that the Crusaders use Italo-Norman lists instead of the Crusaders.

I have some Photoshop skills. If you need some 2D stuff to improve the art or the interface I could help you. Let me know!

[wzfcns]

I'm not quite sure if this is a mistake as Chen's army list should end at 589AD.
Screenshot in 9.01

[Nijis]

I'll fix the Chen end date, and add in the Silk Road medieval armies for 0.903. I might have used the Chen as a placeholder army for early medieval southern Chinese states but with the new Tang/Song options that shouldn't be necessary any more.

I have some Photoshop skills. If you need some 2D stuff to improve the art or the interface I could help you. Let me know!

That would be great! It definitely needs UI work. The problem is though that the geographical and historical range would require a lot of work to cover all the options, so that something with, say, a Hellenistic aesthetic isn't used in late medieval India.

One idea that *might* be manageable would be a set of simple silhouette icons of different architectural styles to indicate culture/religion and tribal/urban status. Something like the icons from a game like Nevsky or Kingmaker, but obviously a bit simpler. We would need a couple dozen though to cover periods, regions, and tribal/urban distinctions. I don't know how easy that is. Let me know if you had any other ideas.

[toska]

I'll fix the Chen end date, and add in the Silk Road medieval armies for 0.903. I might have used the Chen as a placeholder army for early medieval southern Chinese states but with the new Tang/Song options that shouldn't be necessary any more.

I have some Photoshop skills. If you need some 2D stuff to improve the art or the interface I could help you. Let me know!

That would be great! It definitely needs UI work. The problem is though that the geographical and historical range would require a lot of work to cover all the options, so that something with, say, a Hellenistic aesthetic isn't used in late medieval India.

One idea that *might* be manageable would be a set of simple silhouette icons of different architectural styles to indicate culture/religion and tribal/urban status. Something like the icons from a game like Nevsky or Kingmaker, but obviously a bit simpler. We would need a couple dozen though to cover periods, regions, and tribal/urban distinctions. I don't know how easy that is. Let me know if you had any other ideas.

About culture/religion/development icons, it should be easy. Give me a list whenever you want. You should also know more or less how big they will look on the screen as well as what color they should be.

As for "Nevsky" and "Kingsmaker" I don't understand what you mean

[Nijis]

Sorry, Nevsky and Kingmaker were boardgames that I thought had a nice aesthetic, like a medieval map. The city icons were quite detailed, more detailed than ToC would need, but I thought they made the cities look distinctive.

Nevsky: https://www.quartertothree.com/fp/2020/ ... n-quality/

In ToC's case, though, maybe just a simple silhouette would do.

To cover all cultures/regions, it would be good to have a simple but distinctive silhouette icon for:

Tribal:
1) A Gallic-style roundhouse or possible a hillfort for European and west African tribal societies
2) A longhouse for less populated tribal societies based in forests (Norse, Slavic, southeast Asian)
3) A cluster of huts on a hill for arid tribal societies

Urban
4) A Hindu temple (like on the Cambodian flag, for example) behind low walls
5) A Hellenic temple on an acropolis
6) An Egyptian temple pylon behind town walls
7) Town all set with a Babylonian/Persian gate, like the Ishtar gate, for the ancient and early medieval Mideast
8 ) A Chinese palace pavilion, ie, one of the pavilions in the Forbidden City, behind walls
9) A mosque behind walls
10) A basilica behind walls
11) A Gothic cathedral behind town walls
12) A Russian-style church behind a stockade

Nomadic
13) A steppe yurt
14) A bedouin tent

Ruined urban
15) A crumbled wall

Is that feasible? I have a mental image in my mind of what all these could look like, and can send some links if you like.

[Nijis]

Here's a quick update that adds in the medieval Chinese factions from Silk Road: Medieval. It shouldn't change anything for other parts of the world or other periods.

https://www.mediafire.com/file/71fguyc2 ... 3.rar/file

[paul71stpvi]

Love this added strategic layer to FoG!! XML saving appears to be broken though - log file says it "Cannot deserialize type 'TidesOfConquest.Campaign' because it contains property 'TotalLocalRebellions' which has no public setter."

[Nijis]

Ah, sorry - I need to fix that. I will try to get a new version up when I'm back from travel in a few days.

[Cuddlefission]

Do we expect there'll be a new iteration of ToC featuring the content of the upcoming DLC for Ancients, once that's around?

[Nijis]

The game isn't really designed to work before 800 bc or so. It might work though if I disabled a lot of the events and made areas outside the eastern Med => Mesopotamia region unplayable. I'll maybe try a 1400 or 1200 BC scenario.

[Nijis]

New version out with three new scenarios: Bronze age 1500 bc, 1200 bc, and late medieval 1400 ad.

Also there are new province icons made with the help of Miguel Sales.

Check out the first page of the thread for the download link.

I will try to get started organizing a couple of multiplayer campaigns in the next week or so.

[MarkShot]

I have looked at it and am very impressed. Unlike TW, which has battles that have been barely upgraded since the original Shogun. TOC uses the the superb engine from RBS, and then has a nice campaign layer.

I realize your resource crunch, but some small changes would go a long way.

* Some clearer help would be nice. How do I win? I assume by not losing.

* Map scrolling via bounds. I gave you code to do that.

* Less of a flat look more 3D. It looks like a terminal program from the 1990s.

* My guess the minimum resolution these days is 1080p. But at 1080p the map appears as peep hole through the game display. The map should always be front and center with pop-ups as needed that can be dismissed with the Escape key.

* About the map, your demographic are all either once upon a time BG gamers or PC gamers of BG style games. So, a 2D map is fine, but put the info on the map via various overlays sans the block/label network representation.

* Besides a 2D map with overlays; perhaps find some more graphic way to represent global values of interest; and maybe an at turn start pop-up for empire wide decisions and their impact a la the Paradox style. There is not a very clear sense of the role global parameters impinging on your campaign.

* Finally, get some exposure. Is anyone make videos of Field of Glory these days? After some polishing, contact a few YouTubers and see if they would feature some SP or MP. It really is a gem.

I think this is truly a superb free offering from a guy working in his spare time. I highly recommend it. The core mechanics are all here. Most of my comments were on presentation only.

[Nijis]

Thanks for the detailed feedback, Mark! UI is definitely one of my weak points.

I've found that dealing with resolution changes is quite tricky for me, especially when there is a windowed option. I don't know if I can make it work in 1080. The overall aesthetic - a mix of Empires of the Middle Ages rectangles on something like a relief map - is my own weird 80s throwback. But it could certainly benefit from more and better overlays and feedback.

[Cuddlefission]

Excited to see there's a new round of MP campaigns planned, hopefully I'll have time to get in on those. I remember the tail end of the last one was great fun.

[Nijis]

Sign-up page for the MP campaigns here:
https://www.slitherine.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=111935

[Karvon]

Very nice update for the map! However, is there a way of scaling the UI? The text is very hard to read for me. An option for changing text/background colors would help too.

Thanks

Karvon

[MarkShot]

Steve,

Do you want map scrolling for free?

Looking at this code, I did. It should work for any resolution either Window or Full Screen. In summary, I am generating WASD tracking the mouse at the screen bounds whenever TOC is the active window.

I can give you the source (your IP, if you want it) and an EXE (~ 0.5Mb). You can launch the EXE when you bring up TOC. (should be one line of code) It will automatically shut down when it detects TOC goes away. Or you can bring it up as a child process, and Windows will kill it when TOC goes away. Just don't launch it pended (wait for execution to conclude).

Formatting got lost in posting.

; Mark Kratzer - 09/01/21
; (a gift to my friend Steve)
;
; Set interval to 100ms

#NoEnv ; Recommended for performance and compatibility with future AutoHotkey releases.
SendMode Input ; Recommended for new scripts due to its superior speed and reliability.
SetWorkingDir %A_ScriptDir% ; Ensures a consistent starting directory.
#SingleInstance force
#Persistent
#NoTrayIcon

Game01 = TidesOfConquestUnity

TimerInterval = 25

SetTitleMatchMode 1
CoordMode, Mouse, Screen

Sleep, 15000
SysGet, MonCnt, MonitorCount
SetTimer, ScriptDone, %TimerInterval%
SetTimer, WatchCursor, %TimerInterval%
return

ScriptDone:

IfWinNotExist,%Game01%,
ExitApp

Return

WatchCursor:

IfWinActive, %Game01%
{
SysGet, Screen, Monitor,
MouseGetPos, XPos, YPos
If (XPos = ScreenRight-1)
{
Send {d Down}
Sleep, 15
Send {d Up}
}
If (XPos = ScreenLeft)
{
Send {a Down}
Sleep, 15
Send {a Up}
}
If (YPos = ScreenTop)
{
Send {w Down}
Sleep, 15
Send {w Up}
}
If (YPos = ScreenBottom-1)
{
Send {s Down}
Sleep, 15
Send {s Up}
}
}
return

[Karvon]

It would also be helpful if the various ingame help info was put together as a PDF. Again, it's a strain to read such small print on screen with low contrasting text.

Thanks

Karvon

[Nijis]

Hi Mark - thanks for that! It would be a bit easier for me to write a scrolling mechanic directly into the Unity script. However, looking at that code brings a *lot* of possibilities to mind. I should teach myself how to use it.

I know that it's possible to use an external .exe to moving data back and forth between games - ie, the Crusader Blade mod for Crusader Kings/Mount and Blade. Maybe I could find a way to start up FoG games from a ToC campaign. Let me look into this further and I'll email you with my questions.

Karvon - that's a good idea. I'll try to write up a pdf, and I could probably stand to change the color scheme.