Get your kicks with Beta 6!

[Quinn_Inuit]

We've made enough changes by now that a patch is probably inappropriate, so there's a new full beta on the download page:  http://exilian.co.uk/forum/index.php?action=post;msg=107608;topic=4613.0

Major upgrades this time:
I just spent the last two days normalizing every single infantry unit's defense skill.  That should improve gameplay and AI army creation.
Sarmatia is now a Henry rather than a Genghis.  That should get more heavy cavalry on the board from them.
Various map tweaks for better AI pathfinding.
Improved some of the AOR units around the Black Sea.  It's now a little more in line with DBM.
Reorganized some unit skins and types to optimize DMB slot usage.  It's not perfect yet, but I think it's a little better.  This beta is also the first one to feature unit skins by GaivsSejanvs, so a big thanks to him!
We also did some general code cleanup.
Thanks to a suggestion from Gen.JamesWolfe, I also normalized infantry mass and reduced hoplite unit radius.  I don't think the mass is quite where I want it yet, so as you play let me know what you think.  My inclination is to double it across the board while leaving cavalry the same.

[ahowl11]

What skins were done by Gaivs?

[Quinn_Inuit]

What skins were done by Gaivs?

Several, but due to miscommunications on my part I think we're only using the Cyrenaican Phalanx ATM.  The others weren't quite what we needed.  Check out \ExRM\Data\units\GaivsSejanvs for everything so far.

[ahowl11]

Great, what do you have left on your to-do list?

[Quinn_Inuit]

Great, what do you have left on your to-do list?

This next release is going to be mostly Sere-directed, though I want to fix the unit mass, too.  I also think I need to cut the cavalry costs by a bit.

[DeepCandle Games]

Not sure if this is the right place to post this as I haven't visited this part of the forums yet.

Are you guys going to attempt producing your own game or are you strictly a modding group?

You seem to be savvy with the systems and such of TW so I imagine you would have the foundation knowledge required to produce even a very basic game?

[Jubal]

The difficulty with moving from modding to game dev is the difference, namely that to develop on your own you need to build an engine which is quite a different set of skills. Also RTW modding often doesn't involve that much in the way of, for example, animating because the animations come with the game more or less.

[Quinn_Inuit]

Aye.  While I appreciate the vote of confidence, I'm afraid we only do a small fraction of what you'd need to do to create a game from scratch.  The only guy I know who's pulled it off is one of the best modders and AI people out there:  Darth.  If you like the Civil War, check out his game.
http://www.ultimategeneral.com/

[Jubal]

I've scratch-built little adventure games, but nothing commercial as of yet.

[Quinn_Inuit]

I've scratch-built little adventure games, but nothing commercial as of yet.

That's cool.  Are they text-based, sprite-based a la JRPGs, Source engine-based a la Dear Esther...?

[Jubal]

Text-based ones mainly thus far:
LIFE, a Doctor Who fan-game: http://exilian.co.uk/forum/index.php?topic=4181.0
And the larger but also rather ramshackle Adventures of Soros: http://exilian.co.uk/forum/index.php?board=125.0

Next year when I'm not studying I might try something more ambitious

[Quinn_Inuit]

Cool!  I've been meaning to download Python for awhile, anyway. 

[Jubal]

Python is good fun, and very easy to build small text adventures etc with

[Quinn_Inuit]

Python is good fun, and very easy to build small text adventures etc with

I can see that.  Why not stick with an old standby like Z-Machine, though?  I used to have a Z-Machine extension for Firefox back in the wild and woolly days of the beta.

[Jubal]

Mostly that neither of my projects are quite pure text-based: both needed some bits of "impure" interface to display some static images etc.