Yes, more or less. First of all, there will be a few truly unique mercenaries. Secondly, mercenaries that become available in later scenarios will not necessarily start with level 1 (like in Kingturn) but can have a higher level. The available mercenaries (classes, levels) will be determined in 3 ways: - Partially predefined (story progress) - Partially random - Partially depending on player actions / decisions during the game (if you remember the 'Knights of the White Hand' versus 'Witches' scenarios of Kingturn main, you might have an idea already which direction this is going ). This is also a good opportunity to revoke one of my former statements: I've tried this concept for some time now, and it turns out that your judgement has been better than mine, undeadcow. While the idea of avoiding 'endless battles' is a good one imho, this concept doesn't seem to be the 'right' solution. So right now I'm experimenting with just a small modification of the original Kingturn concept: Whenever a specific (player) unit is defeated, it takes 1 turn longer until this specific unit is healed and can rejoin the battle. Combined with the fact that there will be less units available for the player (currently 24 units max) this might do the trick already. And this solution is more 'Kingturn style' .
Finally got some time to sit down and reply. Here we go... Sounds great! Patience, my boy, patience. You can wait for the beta a bit longer... On your homepage I read this: to make game save synchronization between devices easier (most likely offered via Dropbox). Can you consider adding manual iCloud up/download for iOS at a later stage? Also, I read somewhere that iOS offers an API for manual savegame download in iTunes (to your PC/Mac). Would love to see that too at some point. Sadly, the only game I know that uses this is The Quest. Some more thoughts: Please, don't randomise the units you get. In my experience, this only leads to worse gameplay, as players try to get the best outcome possible. Predefined and determined by player actions is more than enough. Look to Warhammer Quest for a perfect negative example of how *not* to do something like that: Stat and skill gain per level is randomised, with a huge spread. Retrying is a hassle, with closing down WHQ and leveling again in hopes of getting a better result. Clumsy approach, and very badly implemented. The new graphics look very nice. Especially the new UI is a huge step forward: looks much crisper, cleaner, and easier to use, judging from the screenshots. Player units and coming back into the battle: If I read you right, it works like this: Everytime a unit gets knocked out, the number of turns it takes to come back into combat goes up by 1. So, if the first knockout has a one round delay, after 3 additional knockouts I would be at 4 rounds till I can field the unit again in round 5. If that is the approach you plan to take, I strongly second it. Has some interesting implications for gameplay, and makes me care more about keeping my units alive. On the downside, I believe it will take a lot more balancing work than Kingturn. Ideas to expand on that: - Passive ability to shorten the comeback time by 1 turn per skill level, to a minimum of 1. - Healer active ability: Can patch up units who are in "field hospital" , reducing the timer by one turn per skill use. Healer needs to be right next to the camp. - Healer active ability (higher level): Setup field hospital: First skill level creates a new camp, with a limited number of uses, to spawn units from. Second skill level reduces the cooldown by 1 turn. Third level makes the hospital permanent for the rest of the stage.
That's interesting. Could you be so kind and send me a (private) message with a link covering information about this API? I've been looking up and down already for a way to somehow bypass iClouds 'synchronization magic' for a simple manual backup and restore concept. My understanding of iCloud so far is this: While iCloud seems to be capable of manual backups and restores (for Apple's own apps), the APIs offered to developers don't seem to cover this. I guess mainly because iCloud isn't supposed to be used as a simple file storage in the traditional sense. Don't worry too much about this. Like in Kingturn, stat raises will be class-defined and won't be random, so there is no need to reload / replay scenarios in order to optimize your characters. The randomness of available classes will be kept to a bare minimum, and is mainly meant as an additional means (among many other things) of making a second play through more interesting and varied. But I will keep your worry in mind and an eye on this matter . That's precisely what is implemented at the moment, and so far it has been working out pretty well in my tests. But you are right, of course. Balancing and scenario fine tuning will require even more work than it has already in Kingturn. I have also considered a few concepts already, how healers could have an impact on the patching-up-wounded-players-duration. A simple approach would be just that healers residing in the outpost reduce the patch-up-duration. That would force players to decide whether they are better off using their (last) healer on the battlefield or keep him in the outpost instead. A more hardcore approach would be to carry over the patch-duration from scenario to scenario, while offering a means to reduce it somehow (potions, professional camp healer, special skills, or whatnot). Your suggestion with healers having to be positioned right next to the camp in order to reduce the patch-up-duration sounds like an interesting idea. I'll have to give that a few more thoughts. In regard of offering field hospitals with (temporary) spawn capabilities I am somewhat skeptical, though. If we go this direction (which basically means movable outposts) then it should be done consequently in every regard, imho. The result could be awesome, of course, but it would be quite a different game. And I don't even want to start thinking about scenario balancing, if players and opponents can build outposts wherever they want . I think this is a feature that has to be planned from the very first moment when designing a new game.
You could always add the patchup-time carry-over as additional challenge to the hardest game difficulty. undeadcow will love you for that, I'm sure or as separate toggle, if it is not too much work to implement. You're right about the balancing nightmare of "moveable" outposts, didn't think this through. How about one or two fixed spots on the map? Or, if you want to go all-out evil: you need to break up the previous outpost first, move it to the new location, and set it back up. Makes you very vulnerable for a few turns, but with high risk-reward ratio. But no worries, I understand that such a big design decision most likely will not be in Tactics Maiden. Unit randomness: I was more worried about getting different units. Let's say one possible unit reward is a standard Fighter, and the other is a more powerful Paladin. Of course I will try to aim for the Paladin. My concern is that it invites save/reload to maximise unit gain. About the iCloud API: I am not a developer, so I cannot access Apple's documentation. Some Google-Fu turned up some links, I will send them in a PM. If you need more details, contact the folks who made Strikewing:Raptor Rising, and Catacomber from the Quest team. Strikewing uses manual iCloud save, Quest has the iTunes manual save. I'll dig up their contact data and put it in the PM as well.
That's a valid point, and I will reconsider randomness when it comes to offered classes. A possible solution would be to determine all randomly offered classes during the course of the campaign already at the beginning (right after a new campaign was started): This way users cannot influence the offered classes by replaying a particular scenario, and the game could make sure that all relevant classes are covered. Have to think this through more carefully now, and see whether this solution has really any benefit in terms of replay value. Thanks for sending me the links, Nullzone. The ones offered from Apple I know already. I'll have to see now whether the other ones shed some light on this topic. If Tactics Maiden won't offer iCloud support in the end, then it won't be for the lack of trying. I'm well aware that offering DropBox but not iCloud support on iOS will result in acceptance problems. On the other hand, what really matters is a reliable and flawless way to backup and exchange game saves between various devices, imho. Tactics Maiden / Kingturn is particularly demanding in this regard, since game progress is saved constantly covering all unit positions on the battlefield, (parts of the) units stats, equipped items, configured skills, and so on. Leaving synchronization decisions to the system instead of the user is too much of a risk in such a case, imho. I will gladly support any cloud API that supports a simple backup and restore concept. But if I have to code against the intended design of a particular cloud service to accomplish this somehow, I won't do anyone a favor, I guess. Well, let's see ...
I've actually come across quite a few games that do offer manual backup and restore from and to iCloud during 2013. The only examples that spring to mind right now are Block Fortress, Heroes & Castles and Monster Adventures from Foursaken (Foursaken's newer games include both auto-iCloud and manual backup and restore to the same), but I have played at least a few more over the course of the past year.
I THINK Injustice: Gods Among Us and Hero Academy use alternatives to iCloud without complaint. Whatever system is used I prefer the ability to manually synch with cloud save because my iPod doesn't have a persistent internet connection (so Game Center often just fails to synch altogether with auto system when offline). This is good news. Curiously, if you want to limit units available in combat it might be fun to have to pre-select your available party. It seems like being able to revive after 1 turn might be too easy but on a hard level after repeated death some of your favorite characters would seem unavailable altogether; that sounds devilish and challenging forcing different approaches and self-limiting game length. The auto-respawn in Kingturn does make units feel expendable so this increasing duration would help prevent suicide commando tactics. With Kingturn I think the most apparent flaw with enemy artificial intelligence is this suicide command approach. Enemy healers seem to work naturally at healing but sometimes a low health enemy will just persist until death (so a cheap tactics to consider countering in successor game is to attack enemies to near death, amass force, and one shot kill opponents). With Maiden Tactics increased enemy defensive tactics might be curious, not that they could disappear but some more convincing response to low health. Auto-regenerate works a tad. This reminds me a bit of games like Romance of the Three Kingdoms (or even Game Development Story) that force your to chose recruits from a limited number of available candidates; I really like the approach and it seems more "realistic" and with personality than forming your unending army of only paladins. I like the resource management approach utilizing healing units in barracks versus on field. Compromising to include both, with carry over duration too, could could also help as a difficult gradient (later levels have longer unit recovery). I support fog of war. I revisited Kingturn Underworld some last night, and will miss cheap nigh undetectable stealthing to escape a crowd.
Loving this game I downloaded this awhile back and could not figure out the game play. Reading this thread convinced me to give it another try. Now Im hooked. Also had the same experience with Wazhack a couple days ago These forums are so helpful!
Shame on us for not providing enough in-game help to new players . Our next title Tactics Maiden will have a dedicated Tutorial campaign again. This tutorial is supposed to be fast-paced but still covering the essential game concepts (including the changes compared to Kingturn). Glad to hear that you've found back to the game, nevertheless, and are enjoying it now!
That's a very good point. And it goes hand in hand with a weakness DaviddesJ has pointed out in an earlier post already: That you are better of at times with a more defensive approach, grinding down the enemy spawn chance while staying at a 'safe' position close to your own outpost. I'm already trying to address these issues in several ways: - A few AI changes that focus on self preservation of wounded enemy units (e.g. moving towards the next healer or barricade instead of rushing after player units). - Defensive units are spawned now and then which stay close to their own outposts instead of hunting down player units - More barricades in most scenarios (in TM barricades are actually replaced by 'magic pillars', but the functionality is the same (HP Recovery!)) - More outposts in most scenarios and decreased distances between outposts The last point I have to elaborate, I guess . I'm thinking about changing the game mechanics in regard of outposts (barracks) slightly: Conquering an opposing outpost will NOT change the Maximum allowed units of a faction any longer, while magic pillars (= barricades) still do. I see several advantages of this concept: - Conquering outposts becomes more a question of improving your strategic position instead of entirely turning the tides of a battle - More outposts (and pillars) will enforce a more aggressive play style, otherwise you will find a whole army spawning right in front of your 'home base'. You will still be able to do that. And you can decide whether you want to play it safe by moving away from the crowd a little bit (up to 100% Stealth chance), or take a risk and trying to use stealth closer to the enemy crowd and maybe a strategically more advantageous position. The Stealth skill is a good example where Tactics Maidens new user interface really shines: While the Stealth skill is selected, you can move the unit around on the battlefield and see the 'Stealth success chance' at each spot (displayed above the cursor). This is the case for all skills where a success / failure chance is involved, e.g. Bewitch.
Thanks for pointing out these examples, Ayjona. It's not that I cannot imagine a way to use / abuse the offered iCloud API to accomplish a manual backup and restore functionality somehow. It's just that I still don't see that this concept is officially supported by Apple's iCloud API, and I wonder whether it is a good idea (and a reliable solution) to work against the intended design of automatic synchronization. For example, the iCloud API doesn’t offer a single function for putting a file into iCloud, or removing one. (see http://www.macworld.com/article/1167742/developers_dish_on_iclouds_challenges.html ). Now, I have a very pragmatic point of view when it comes to choosing a technology: Just take the one that is suited best for a specific task. And this seems to be Dropbox in this case (manual saves and restores, cross-platform, free accounts). This might be different in future projects, however, where we might need automatic synchronization. In such a case I would rather prefer using iCloud than Dropbox.
Interesting. Surprises me that Apple offers a Dropbox API, but nothing for manual syncing functionality for their own iCloud. Why not leave it with Dropbox for now? And you could ask about it here in the Developers' Forum, and see what comes up. If there is a reliable way for manual syncs with iCloud, you can always change it later. Or add it. I am quite sure you would be the first to offer both (good for marketing ) ).
They don't, as far as I know. Dropbox itself offers an iOS API that can be integrated into Apple's app development tool XCode, though. This API is basically just a wrapper for the Dropbox core API (REST architecture based on HTTP) which is used by Dropbox also for their own iOS app. From a technical pov it makes actually sense that Apple doesn't mix manual backups with automatic syncing, imho. At least it is easy to imagine that such a hybrid system would be prone to problems. Don't get me wrong. Offering a cloud system with automatic syncing is a great idea, and if I were a marketing manager I would certainly love to advertise such a feature. On the flip side, such an approach covers different uses cases than a very basic 'file storage in the cloud' system like Dropbox, imho.
This is great news! I looked at the stuff about Tactics Maiden on your blog, Niebau, and I really like what I am seeing. Personally, I am all for somewhat randomized and personalized mercenaries. I disagree that spearmen are less powerful than knights - with proper equipment and focus allocation they are much sturdier and more useful in battles involving many magic-slinging enemies and/or vampires than knights, for instance. Their main problem is lack of active ability that doesn't depend on enemy positioning, IMHO. That slows down their levelling compared to the units that have such abilities. I do have some reservations re: lengthening respawn time of repeatedly killed units, since the AI (rightly) knows to target mages, priests and archers and it is not particularly easy to keep them around for any length of time as is. Maybe you should give an active "protect other" ability to the spearmen and/or knights, that would share the damage between them and units that they protect. Defense stats of the protected unit could be used to calculate overall damage, for simplicity's sake and to avoid overpowering the ability. For example: a mage is being hit by an archer for 110 hp, but she is being protected by a spearman, so both get -55 hp damage. Round up for odd numbers. If the protecting unit is targeted and hit, the damage isn't shared, of course. I would also suggest that units that don't perform any actions in a round get a slight defense boost. Oh, and if there are story characters that leave the party, their gear should return to the common stash and the first time it happens there should be a message averting the player of the fact. I know that that's how it works in Kingturn now, but people traumatised by all these RPGs where temporary characters vanish taking all their loot with them would appreciate the reassurance . A couple of other things I'd like to see changed compared to Kingturn, assuming that they aren't already: Management of unused items - it is very irritating that when I sell anything, the camera snaps back to the top of the page. Granted, that's more of a problem when you are a pack rat like me, but it still makes manual selling of selected items more of a chore than it should be, IMHO. If character focuses (foci?) are still a thing - which they totally should be, they are awesome, then we should be able to adjust them and equipment for the characters that are automatically deployed at the beginning of a scenario. Granted, it is entirely possible to see what you are up against, retreat, manage the characters and then restart the scenario again, but it disrupts the flow of the game. To conclude, let me mention again that I love how you iterate on the concept and change up stuff, keeping it fresh and deep.
Thanks for your feedback, Isiliel. Very much appreciated. Since I'm a few weeks behind the planned schedule for Tactis Maiden already, I'd like to respond in general more briefly than usual for the time being. This doesn't mean that I don't read all suggestions very carefully, of course . There will be definitely (more) active skills in order to protect weaker units like priests or mages. Mainly Knights will have the responsibility to protect other units, in a (slightly different but) comparable way tank classes work in most MMOs today. As for raising the defense values of idle units: I will think about. As mentioned in my previous post, enemy units will play at times more defensively than in Kingturn. So this feature might actually turn out to make the player's life more difficult, since I still want to apply basically the same rules for player and enemy units. Let's see. I've made a few changes already to improve upon the item management in general, and I will keep an eye on this issue in particular. Edited Note: I've recoded (scroll) lists for Tactics Maiden now, so the camera won't snap back to the first list element any longer. While the result was definitely worth the effort, the implementation was rather tricky and Tactics Maiden specific, so I don't know when I can add the same improvement to Kingturn.
General strategy tips I've posted a small Kingturn guide with general strategy tips & tricks on www.indiegameguides.com This web site is dedicated to indie game guides and was initiated by fellow indie developer Trese Brothers, best known for their extensive TBS title Star Traders RPG. I think this is a really neat idea, so I hope we'll see a lot more (non-casual) game and strategy guides over there soon.
I really like the idea of protecting other units. A bit late to suggest that, but a skill - or even class - of "Bodyguard" would be interesting. Maybe in a future update Spearmen/whatever-standard-fighter-will-be-called should be able to do that, too. Some more ideas for the future: For spearwielders specifically, forming a spearwall with any adjacent units of the same class could be nice. Same for Shieldbearers (any other heavy infantry than Knights, btw?) with forming a shieldwall. First one would be added damage and armor when attacked. Second only increased armor.
If you are new to this series, which order should you play the three games? I know chronological order is kingturn underworld, kingturn, kingturn plus. But what is the best playing order to get most enjoyment out of the series?
Personally I would tend to play Kingturn Underworld not as the first title, mainly because it is imho the most difficult one of the 3 titles. The story of Kingturn (main) is definitely the most independent one, and it can be argued that it is more balanced and has less difficulty spikes than Underworld and Plus. The best compromise between difficulty and story in chronological order would be imho: - Kingturn - Kingturn Underworld (main campaign) - Kingturn RPG Plus - Kingturn Underworld ('Ten Years Later' campaign) I think you can't do much wrong if you play the titles in the order above. See also these posts here: http://forums.toucharcade.com/showpost.php?p=2769056&postcount=49 http://forums.toucharcade.com/showpost.php?p=2769085&postcount=50
Mangobile.com tells me Maiden Tactics is expected in June or July... that's 5-9 weeks away; how are things looking?
