Some news from BSS

[Angryminer]

Actually, including feudalism makes the game a lot more complex.
You can, if you wish, keep all rights to administrate the provinces. The french monarchs ruled directly. If they wanted a wall in a souther town it was constructed.
If you don't fancy the way of absolutism you can grant your barons, earls and dukes more rights, even the right to maintain their own armies so they can take care of the minorities of warfare while you keep the big political picture in mind.

And yes, a game shouldn't be an interactive movie. A game should play out logically - many things are logical. The world would also have been logical if it had taken a different way through history. A game can be our way to experience those paths.

Angryminer

[Elvain]

I would agree with Angryminer in most cases.
What to say more?

Why people do like games when they lose 8 out of 10 games? They have to prove they are stronger. I remember I lost AOE2 several times and then it was even more fun for me, I wanted to break the AI superiority.

If there is another player with equal skills I have, I know that I have to be carefull (that said to the first Frujin's question).

The potential of KoH2 I can see is really going deeper into realism, not like Paradox games do (everything happens as it happened in real history) but basicaly catch the tendencies (if a kingdom is overpopulated it expands, the French try to conquer french lands first, then those wealthy lands around etc. There are not very hard ways how to make the AI behave this way.

KoH has made great jump after the second patch, but to be honest in my latest mod I have to chose between:
1) either make the AI really challenging, but cause that there will be no diplomacy at all, but just all AI kingdoms against me - and even signing peace means almost nothing as they soon honour alliance nad declare the war again (the way Frujin expects us to play in multiplayer?)
or 2) make the diplomacy integral part of game and a way to win it.. but sacrifice the challenge

And about feudalism.
I think the number of provinces shuold be much higher, and then managing them all wouldn't be that easy. Letting the player chose if to govern them personaly or delegate the power to his vasals with ability to controll them if wanted would make the game much more complex, but still handy for playing

[Scott716]

Well , whatever they do I hope they keep that balance they have now between fun and strategy...and don't get bogged down into Paradox type games. Though they could pick up a few things from Crusader Kings with family.

I truly love this game, there are so few I find that I keep playing like this..we shouldn't forget that there is a reason for that..change it to much and it won't be the same and we'll be complaining about that too. I have no problem if they give the ability to delegate to vassals but it better be an option you can choose to ignore and do it yourself because no one liked it in Lords of the Realm III and I'm sure most wouldn't here. There is a reason we keep playing this game, let's not lose the big picture on why. Like that old saying, becareful what you wish for. If they make a KOH 2 hopefully we'll all be happy for the most part :go:


I can't wait to hear about the new game Frujin, soon?

[BINGFA]

Propensity engine:

The ai should have a Character "propensity" i.e. He is more or less likely to choose a good or evil path (regardless of past actions or decisions). However it should not be predetermined result in other words if he has a "propensity" to Evil then it should be say 70% likelyhood (use random generator).

This would make the suggestion of a deal worth doing on the 30% chance that it may be agreed to.

What value is Diplomacy to a real player. What is his benefit? Risk Reward. What overrides the enjoyment of crushing his enemy with sword rather than diplomacy (blood lust versus brain trust). That is game design question that creates gameplay. :)

Aside: Surely conquering means you get the daughter and her sisters anyway???? ;)

[Elvain]

Well , whatever they do I hope they keep that balance they have now between fun and strategy...and don't get bogged down into Paradox type games.
that's exactly my opinion!

The best thing on KoH now is that he can decide what way he wants to use. Prefere diplomacy? ok, let the AI lead autobattles. Prefere warfare? ok!
What I want is to add more options like this:
like economy? build all your towns yourself, se pause button every 5 seconds..
but on the other hand: don't like economy? ok, delegate the power to your vasals, knights on your court who will build your cities, but you - as the suverain - have still the right and power todecide what will be built where if you want.
If you have many vasals it could be more of a governance the vasals not to rebel, but you wouldn't be bothered by town-building, but at the same time you can build it all yourself and wouldn't be bothered by feudal system.

In fact, do you find later phases of KoH any fun? I believe those changes could make it fun also in those phases :go:

[Angryminer]

Propensity engine:

The ai should have a Character "propensity" i.e. He is more or less likely to choose a good or evil path (regardless of past actions or decisions). However it should not be predetermined result in other words if he has a "propensity" to Evil then it should be say 70% likelyhood (use random generator).

This would make the suggestion of a deal worth doing on the 30% chance that it may be agreed to.

What value is Diplomacy to a real player. What is his benefit? Risk Reward. What overrides the enjoyment of crushing his enemy with sword rather than diplomacy (blood lust versus brain trust). That is game design question that creates gameplay. :)

Aside: Surely conquering means you get the daughter and her sisters anyway???? ;)What terms you use to describe the AI behaviour depends on the AI-model you choose. Many mechanisms in the medieval were based on interaction with other characters. Honor, pride, duty, thankfulness, tradition, heritage - those are social interactions and they only work if our social counterparts - the AI characters - understand them and interact accordingly.
So an AI model needs to act logically to create logical player behaviour. If the AI kings don't understand that the player should be punished for breaking an alliance and conquering his cousin's realms the player will do those historically incorrect things.
Note how that creates a hugely denser athmosphere without increasing the number of game-mechanisms you have to explain to the player. A realistically behaving AI increases depth of gameplay while being natural to the player.
(On a side note: Doing that in a task-based AI-model isn't too difficult. However, the AI needs to explain it's motives to the player because the player doesn't expect it to behave human - the AI needs to communicate its reasons for its actions so the player accepts them as sensful.)

Angryminer

[Scott716]

that's exactly my opinion!

The best thing on KoH now is that he can decide what way he wants to use. Prefere diplomacy? ok, let the AI lead autobattles. Prefere warfare? ok!
What I want is to add more options like this:
like economy? build all your towns yourself, se pause button every 5 seconds..
but on the other hand: don't like economy? ok, delegate the power to your vasals, knights on your court who will build your cities, but you - as the suverain - have still the right and power todecide what will be built where if you want.
If you have many vasals it could be more of a governance the vasals not to rebel, but you wouldn't be bothered by town-building, but at the same time you can build it all yourself and wouldn't be bothered by feudal system.

In fact, do you find later phases of KoH any fun? I believe those changes could make it fun also in those phases :go:


I agree that is my favorite part of most games of KOH I play is the first half. There is more to do with establishing your kingdom ,making buildings and armies, relations with other nations , etc. I love little touches the game has like having mercenary camps pop up once in a while(It's like finding treasure especially when a Templer is in the camp)...which speaking of treasure..once thing that could be added to keep the late games interesting is the quest feature that was mentioned in another thread. Have side quests that can be taken on to add something to do. These might require battles for a valuable object or just having to find something hidden on the map.

[Traveller]

that's exactly my opinion!

The best thing on KoH now is that he can decide what way he wants to use. Prefere diplomacy? ok, let the AI lead autobattles. Prefere warfare? ok!
What I want is to add more options like this:
like economy? build all your towns yourself, se pause button every 5 seconds..
but on the other hand: don't like economy? ok, delegate the power to your vasals, knights on your court who will build your cities, but you - as the suverain - have still the right and power todecide what will be built where if you want.
If you have many vasals it could be more of a governance the vasals not to rebel, but you wouldn't be bothered by town-building, but at the same time you can build it all yourself and wouldn't be bothered by feudal system.

In fact, do you find later phases of KoH any fun? I believe those changes could make it fun also in those phases :go:
This actually reminds me very much of one aspect, which IIRC was incorporated in Tzar: there you could choose the AI to take control either of your economical or military affairs or of both. Of course, if your NI is better than the computer's AI in both spheres, this could decrease the level of efficiency though. :wink:

[EmperorTrotsky]

Great news Frujins.. please make us know about this situation..

[Elvain]

This actually reminds me very much of one aspect, which IIRC was incorporated in Tzar: there you could choose the AI to take control either of your economical or military affairs or of both. Of course, if your NI is better than the computer's AI in both spheres, this could decrease the level of efficiency though. :wink:
the game should have logical conditioning in which the AI (which should be taught to know it better than most of players) should be more effective.
This way the player could delegate his power to teh AI knights while still having the chance to affect their behaviour (set up if the county/mark/duchy is more of a military or crafty or rural province) as well as being able to build or destroy some buildings.

This way the player is able to govern small "domain" during whole game, with logical conditioning enabling to build newer buildings in later phases of game, while the military actions are led by your AI knights.

And if the player is forced to play honourably or take all the consequences (what isn't in actual KOH, not even in the patched one), if the AI has reasonable politics (it isn't hard to make it consider which province to take because it is rich or has a resource it lacks) the game will be both more realistic and also more fun - if you face weak opponent it's no fun at all, if your opponent has many ways of reaonsing his actions, he's much more challenging and being his opponent is much more fun, don't you think, Frujin?

[Laudan]

Guys, ... I hate to say that, but the diplomacy in KoH is not well compatible with multiplayer on global map. It's not due to BSS inability to make multiplayer, it was rather design reasons behind the lack of multiplayer. KoH is single player simulation type of game by nature.

Imagine player with 3 realms and another one with 1 realm. The player who feels stronger would immediately attack the weaker one (nothing wrong with it, that's human nature). Now imagine the weaker one asking for peace giving, let's say, his daughter away. What the stronger player would say to this? I bet it would be something like "rotfl, I kick your booty now dude, go away with that diplomacy crap" :)

In other words, to be multiplayer, KoH would need major change of game rules on the global map. I am now sure you all would like it more, when it looses its beauty that comes from the simulation part.

The multiplayer part is diffrent as the singleplayer part, but i cannot believe that you cannot create a multiplayer part for four players.

I lead a multiplayer part by pm and i believe you can create a multiplayer part.
The AI kingdoms in the multiplayer are only bystanders, make her business same before in a singleplayer.
Sure is that the players behavior is not kingdomlike.

What we need is only that the four players can play simultaneous.
Battles can play self with the option pause off ( hardcore )or the players want only that all battles fight the computer.

A multiplayer part for the incomming KOH2 is very important , if you want see KOH2 in the upper liga.

[Elvain]

the battles are no problem. There would be no possibility to "pause during battles" so if one leads a battle, the others play on the map, it's very simple

[Traveller]

the battles are no problem. There would be no possibility to "pause during battles" so if one leads a battle, the others play on the map, it's very simple
Which means that absolutely nobody would ever lead a battle personally, since he'll lose half his kingdom in the meantime. If there's multiplayer, it would have to be either only with auto-resolve battles (which isn't so bad, considering the current "only battles" multiplayer remains separately as well) or turn to a regular turn-based strategy game.

[Denisold]

My question is: would you like to see more realism in KoH 2 (hmm .. theoretically) or you think the AI should react more for the sake of better simulation and somewhat more fun for the players??

Since KoH is a strategic ‘game’ (with one objective being providing entertainment and fun for as many players as possible), attempting to link game play to certain historic events that happened in certain years would not be a good idea. Many gamers like the ability to ‘rewrite’ history as they play though their game – locked directly to a historic simulation would not allow this to happen.

To me KoH does a marvelous job ‘mirroring’ (not simulating) both historic and human reaction realism, and by doing so gives game play an atmosphere that stands out from all the other strategic games based in period history – but there are many areas that can be improved when KoH2 is designed. Some ‘mirroring’ improvements might be:

Historic Realism

· Agriculture – was not constant – game should contain some variably - ie. regional crop declines/growth – in the extreme regional starvation
· Health - periodic regional infections – in the extreme events such as the Bubonic plague
· Selection of Emperor of German States – initially a papal appointment, later an election - occurs each generation on death of previous Emperor
· Religion – more emphasis on struggle for power between Pope and Emperor
·
·
· etc etc etc (the list goes on and on, and each region on the game map would have a different list )

Human Reaction Realism

· Negotiation of treaties – before resolving treaties, game should emphasize the adding/subtracting of items during a few rounds of negotiations
· Trading – game needs to be more realistic in arranging trade conditions – to get gold player should give something - countries should be able to influence wealth of another country be clever trading
· Powerful families – many great families grew out of trade – regional power didn’t just lie with the kings, princes, marshals – bring trading families into the game - include their growth/decline in importance as the game plays
· Trading organizations – trade and commerce brought much progress to many regions – strong organizations grew out of the trade (ie Hanseatic League groupings in north Europe) - game needs more focus on trade
·
·
· etc etc etc

The above lists go on and on – BSS will have their hands full when designing KoH2!

[Tzar Simeon Veliki]

Great news!
I really hope that KoH 2 will have an official bulgarian version :pleased:

[Frujin]

Well, I know many friends here are curious, so here is something like a little sneak peek into the future :)

http://gamedev-bg.net/phpBB2/files/bss.jpg

[KOHCN]

Thanks, Frujin.

I do not know what to say but this picture is ordinary.

[Angryminer]

@Frujin: Now *that* is something I didn't expect. :smile:
...Somehow I think that that screenshot is causing more questions than it answered and I have the destinct feeling that that was deliberate... :wink:

Angryminer

[kwallace]

i agree do we get to herd mighty armies of rhino's to conquer europe?

[Kuno of Gersenau]

Yes, I can not even see a big connection to the old picture of your new game...Are we going on Safari?:wink: