Age of Kingdoms
Community Forums/Showcase/Age of Kingdoms
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| It's a remake of an old game I loved and it's my first game by Blitz3D. Any suggestions are appreciated:) Age of Kingdoms is a game of strategy which is easy to learn and fun to play. You are one of the six lords in the land. The dream of you is simple - Take over the entire land. Being a lord, you must hire peasants, swordmen, knights or dragons, build huts, castles or cities to defend your domain, control your armies to conquer other countries on the map. Age of Kingdoms features over 80 different maps, challenging computer opponents, multiplayer mode, network play, a player ranking board, and much much more! www.etiumsoft.com/kingdom.htm |
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| I guess you.. sought permission from the original copyright holder? ;) +BlackD |
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| Why are people so stuck up about the legalities of 'remakes' when there's only ever been a dozen or so original games anyway? If it has it's own flavour then I see it as it's own game. I've downloaded and will take a look a bit later :). |
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| hehe - i was just casually prodding. :) The game is good fun though! It's great to see someone still willing to make hex-strategy games. These were the hallmark of strategy games and the formula still works! Nice Guan. :) +BlackD |
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| Well I thoroughly enjoyed that as it's a very good game. But i'm not paying $20 to register it sorry, it fares well against other games which indie's charge similar amounts for - but I dont buy those either. |
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| Thanks BlackD and Becky:) I think the most difficult part on this game is the AI, It take 4 people 2 months to finish it(one for general programming,2 for AI programming and one artist). BTW, can you beat the 'impossible' level? |
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| I came close to beating impossible a few times but never quite got the win. I beat hard fairly consistently. I didn't put much feedback in my first post and I should have really, I just wanted to get the ball rolling as everyone seems to be ignoring the post. It's got a lot of gameplay, it's a simple game very well executed. Unfortunately it's also that kind of simple that makes a programmer think - if I really want it i'll write it myself - because at the end of the day it's just a set of board game rules and an AI heuristic. Your charging $20 for the game and so it has to be compared to games of that ilk, now quite often when I see shareware games I think to myself "you are charging real money for that? It's not worth a monopoly note..." and then I dont bat an eyelid as the game fails to attract an audience. In this instance I can see there could be some interest in the game, it's quite addictive, it's well polished (although not positively shining), it's got good gameplay and the graphics are not shabby. As a game it is really quite good - but to me it just wasn't worth $20 - there wasn't enough to it. Maybe i'm saying sometimes simple isn't enough, when we all know that the simple ideas are the best, so i'm probably wrong, but it just didn't feel that there was enough depth. I hope that helps you evolve the product because i'd like to see it suceeding. If nothing else you gave me some enjoyment yesterday afternoon, i'll even keep it installed for a bit and maybe have a go at that impossible difficulty setting... ;) |
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| remakes are usually of games out of production and no longer supported. This is almost a total rip of a game that is still being sold and supported. Some of the sound effects seem to have be stripped right from the original. I would be on Guan's side if he actually made real improvements to the gameplay but Age of Kingdoms plays almost exactly the same as Slay.(http://www.windowsgames.co.uk/slay.html) |
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| Age of Kingdoms is my favorite Blitz game made. Its fun, addictive and the graphics are great. I like it so much I have a lil button for it on my site. Age of Kingdoms rocks!!!!! I would be on Guan's side if he actually made real improvements to the gameplay but Age of Kingdoms plays almost exactly the same as You can't copyright gameplay. |
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| In fact, in the game 'slay', only the 'bankrupt' concept is original, many other ideas you can see in many other games. It can combine pieces to upgrade to higer ones, that is somewhat strange, but in Age of Kingdoms you must sell soldiers just like most strategy games. The capitals are very important in slay, but we haven't. If you play the two game seriously, you may find the differences. Hex game is very popular in the past , there are already many similiar titles online, you can't tell which is orignal just like the Arkanoid games and pacman games. Take a look at: http://www.computer-game.us/strategy_war/dropshot.htm |
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| Fun game, level of difficulty perhaps doesn't scale too well (I found all but impossible level to be rather easy), impossible has so far been well... impossible. I found a bug also, if you have a piece of land under the unit/building purchase buttons, when you click to purchase one it places it on the hex directly beneath the button. It would be nice also to have the hex that you are about to move to highlighted, in a game such as this, every move counts and I've occasionally found myself moving a unit to the hex above the one I intended. *EDIT* also it should be "split" not "splitted" |
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| One warning about this game, it requires online activation. Not a good thing if your gaming machine doesn't have a net connection. :c( |
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| A fun game! Personally, I find it more fun, more easily accessible, and sexier looking than Slay, but I suspect Slay might offer a better single-player challenge. The AI in Age of Kingdoms is sadly lacking. Hard and Impossible both presented fun challenges as I was learning, but now that I've learned some tactics even Impossible is too easy. The AI constantly over-extends itself and a few well-placed low-level troops across its supply lines will starve their stranded elite units instantly. |
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| thanks, octothorpe, but what tatic you found to beat the impossible? How long have you played this game? |
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| I've played 15 or 20 times over the past three days. Against "impossible", I start out playing defensively, securing only 5 or 6 hexes for each kingdom and planting a hut in the centre before moving on. My kingdom closest to the coast becomes my main base. I build two or three huts like this, working my way either toward securing the coast for my main base or wriggling through other kingdoms in an attempt to join up with the main base. While I risk having my kingdom split later by having my other kingdoms make a b-line for my coastal kingdom and leaving a long thin stretch of land, I think the early pooling of resources helps my main base get a slight advantage over my immediate neighbours. I don't bother expending resources defending that strip of land - I expand outward radially from my coastal kingdom. Usually, one kingdom doesn't make it. When I first get soldiers, I try to take out a neighbouring farmer or a hut with each of their moves, crippling my opponents. I punish stronger neighbours while avoiding stronger far-off kingdoms. I expand as quickly as possible into nearby weaker kingdoms, securing coastline and gobbling up area, if not hexes - I often leave a patchwork of single and double enemy hexes in my lands and usually don't bother to go back and clean them up (if at all) until they sprout farmers - my farmers are usually too busy helping my soldiers secure new lands to bother with trees or a few rogue farms. I constantly expand as quickly as possible, but if I can expand elsewhere I try to keep groups of weaker kingdoms as a buffer between my lands and my stronger opponents'. I usually use my own units to guard my land, but a few well-placed huts keep my buffer trouble-free of ambitious farmers while my army is busy trying to cripple whichever kingdoms are the most powerful. I don't take land I don't plan on guarding with at least a hut or a farmer. If I can use my units to guard land until I take the land beyond it, I've saved money on not bothering to purchase huts on land that wasn't at my front lines for very long anyways. I hire soldiers as quickly as possible and enough farmers to assist them in liberating enemy lands - roughly at 1:1. Most of the time, I defeat enemy soldiers by starvation: I weave a line of farmers and soldiers around the troops and watch them fall dead, then send in farmers to mop up most of the graves and claim the land at my own. A line of farmer-soldier-farmer-farmer-soldier-farmer is invulnerable to anything less than a general. Often I need a couple extra soldiers in there to weave through enemy farmers or near enemy huts. I won't hire a general until absolutely necessary: often I can just surround a castle, post huts around it and ignore it until I'm mopping up at the end. If the enemy hires a general, I keep my troops safe by staying away from my borders until I can weave a line around him and kill off the general, then I resume my attacks on his soldiers. Recently I've learned to bait my opponents: leaving a break in my guard near the coast, but keeping everything but the beach hexes guarded. The enemy will press the "advantage" and march single file along the beach, claiming my land with farmers and soldiers, then I weave a noose around their supply lines and they all starve. I don't bother with buildings except huts to keep farmers at bay. I find castles and generals to be too pricey to bother with on the small demo maps. |
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| I agree that this is a great, well made and addictive game. But I wouldn't pay $19.95 for it ($24 Canadian, ouch) It's great, but is it half the worth and depth of Age of Empires 3? No. |
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| I love the idea, I would love this game if it was just easier a bit more. And if it highlighted the hexagon your moving to and also if it blacked out the buy buttons if you dont have a hexagon group selected. |
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| We'll lauch an internet lobby in the future, I think it's more fun if you can play against persons online. |
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| this game rocks guan! This has got to be the best strategy game written in blitz ( anyone point to better? ) Well done. Lucky for you I haven't played this 'slay' game which you ripped off. Not too sure about $20. Especially when the free download seems all I need. Work on stronger AI. |
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| tips! To justify $20 you could write a mission pack. It's suprising how just celotaping a story and a few set challenges can make the game more interesting. In general, divulge and diversify the game in any sensible way you can think of. There is a whole load of virgin ground to cover here! e.g. new units sea units, air units, land types, e.g. moutains ( good defence ), forrests ( good farming ) etc. end of level bosses e.g. some big ass 8 headed dragon that needs surrounding by your own dragons maybe. This makes the game more complicated, and this can damage the playability, but as long as it retains it's ease of use then it should be ok. |
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| Hi,meemoe_uk,thanks for the kind advice . BTW, I found many people tend to compare it to the Age of Empires because of the game name:) I want to change the game name to 'War Chess' , any suggestion? |
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| *cough* perhaps 'Slay' would be a good name? ;) Something cheesy like Hexterminate would probably do well... |
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| If distance from other products is important, change the graphics so it's rabbits, rabbit warrens and ferrets. Then you can call it 'fluffy the rabbit's sexual conquest of the moorlands. ' Can't get more unique than that. |
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| It may take much more work if change the whole artwork. I'm considering following names: 1. Castle Wars 2. Hex Wars 3. War Chess which is the best? |
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| which is the best? to be honest, I'm not sure any of them appeal to me. |
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| how should I know? They all sound abit generic. Names don't matter much to me. |
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| Isn't it a bit late for a name change? You're already selling it. |
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| A really nice game, well implemented. I've not played this type of game before and really enjoyed it, but unfortunately, by the time I complete the 3 demo levels I will have had my fill, and $20 is quite a high price for this type of game IMO. If the price was a bit lower and you added some more features (meemoe's post has some great ideas) I may reconsider. I would like to see you make some money out of this in any case. |
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| Hi guan. You should change your update_display from the cls, redraw entire screen routine to sprite refreshs. My p3 800Mhz runs it at about 6 frames a sec, and it is only just playable. A well programmed sprite engine should run about 100 times faster. Have you got rid of the - if map behind buy menu is valid, new item will be purchased and placed in one click - bug yet? |
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| Him meemoe_uk, I've fixed this buy/sell bug :) I don't know why it runs so slow on your PC, I use blitz 3D to render the whole screen. |
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| Guan. Your update_display routine is this... cls redraw_everything() flip at 1024x768 that is quite a task for P3 without a g-card. preferably it should be this... redraw part of display where objects have moved flip 0 ( since theres no smooth scrolling going on - ok to use zero parameter ) no cls, no redrawing of whole screen, no waiting for monitor scanline, and most of the time, only mouse sprite needs redrawing, if at all. My demo has expired, so now, before I even consider $20, I'm afraid I've got to try out this 'ere slay game. Fun while it lasted though! p.s. maybe flip zero parameter should be optional, since it may cause aok to hog the CPU, freezing out the user's OS. p.p.s I can beat impossible about 3/4 times (c:f |
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| (ignore me) |
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| no cls, no redrawing of whole screen, no waiting for monitor scanline, and most of the time, only mouse sprite needs redrawing, if at all. Unfortunately, there are some side-effects with that: Some graphics cards alternate between *two* backbuffers (tripple buffering), meaning that unless you redraw everything that (may have) changes in the last *two* frames, you will end up with some really annoying flickering... Look in some of the old discussions for detailed info on this problem. Especially if you don't redraw the initial screen twice, your entire screen will flicker like there is no tomorrow. Not sure if this also goes for DirectX mode, but it was *very* noticable on my and many others' systems in OpenGL. |
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| Just changed the game name and switched the game to a window mode, it should runs more smoothly now:) http://www.etiumsoft.com/castle.exe |
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| BTW, I found Blitz3D may has a bug in window mode. I guess blitz3D doens't test the message queue when drawing the screen. Normally we do the drawing work when the message queue is empty, otherwise there is a mouse delay. |
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| diversify the game in any sensible way you can think of. There is a whole load of virgin ground to cover here! e.g. new units sea units, air units, land types, e.g. moutains ( good defence ), forrests ( good farming ) etc. end of level bosses That would be neat to have in the game. I'd suggest looking into it for a sequel maybe. Sorry if I was a little harsh in my last post. The game had just expired and I didn't like how expensive it was. I hate it when game demos expire. |
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