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Return to the era of knights and castles in a uniquely satisfying mix of Settlement Building, RTS and Castle Simulation genres. Manage complex and realistic medieval production chains, build your army and defences, satisfy the King and lead your people to prosperity. Will you succeed as a new lord?

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#2. Formations Explained

30 Aug

When multiple units are given a command to move to a location, they automatically assume a formation. How formations are determined is a bit subtle. Only unit's type is considered, factors such as health are not considered. This order is predetermined and fixed (for the same types of units it will always be the same), as it is determined based on unit's strengths.

A formation with one unit type is going to put all units in a series of rows, where the number of units per row is decided based on formation type. A formation with multiple unit types may utilize one or more lanes. A lane is simply a number of rows which contain units of the same lane priority. Lanes are invented in order to intuitively represent that some unit types should always be behind other unit types. For example, without lanes, a selection of 2 Swordsmen and 2 Archers would put both unit types in the same row, exposing archers to melee damage. With lanes, it is understood that 2 Swordsmen are going to take a row in front, and 2 Archers are going to take another row in the back.

This does not mean that each unit type gets its own lane, as this would create very elongated formations for heterogenous armies. Instead, some unit types belong to the same lane, but are still ordered by unit type (which may take multiple rows). For example, if there is a selection of 2 Swordsmen, 2 Pikemen and 2 Archers, resulting formation would be Pikemen and Swordsmen in the first lane, which is one row (ordered by unit type), then Archers in another lane, which is another row.

General ordering for lanes is as follows:
1. Cavalry
2. Defensive units
3. General melee units
4. Ranged units
5. Weak special units
6. Siege units

Within a lane, unit types are ordered by relative strengths. Units which are stronger and/or have more health take precedence.

Sometimes we may want to keep a formation, but put units with lower health in the back row. There is a trick to doing this: units will appear in the lane in order in which they are added to selection (lanes and unit types are still respected).

When multiple units move, destination of each unit is displayed as a small green point. The arrival destination is adjusted so that the middle of the first row is the location of the issued command.

There is another feature we implement with formations: units facing. While a unit is moving, its facing direction matches its movement vector. When it arrives, in practice it will not be facing in the correct direction in many situations. With this feature, unit adjusts its facing after it arrives to its position.

Formations with facing make movement look orderly without any effort on the part of the player. Formations also introduce some inherent issues: units need to push each other just to get into formation. The amount of pushing depends on the facing direction relative to the previous position. If the facing direction is very similar to the previous one, there will be no pushing. If the facing is in the opposite direction, there will be a lot of pushing. In order to create a "strafing" motion of the army, which introduces no pushing, players can manually specify facing.

Facing is specified by holding RMB and dragging in the desired direction. Facing is displayed as a small green arrow pointing in the direction of desired facing. Facing does not influence line width, which is determined by formation type. Originally, commands were issued when the RMB was released, as opposed to when it is first pressed. This has turned out to be a subtly unresponsive solution, because in the common case (no facing) the command is issued later. Now commands are issued when the RMB is first pressed, and when it is released it is adjusted with the specified facing.

There are 3 formation types:
* Standard
* Wide Line: good for bands of ranged units when they are protected. The distance between units is the same as in Standard, there are more units per row.
* Spread: good for protection against area-of-effect attacks. The distance between units is larger than in Standard, the number of units per row is the same.

For every selection, formation type is determined as the most common formation type chosen for all selected units. For example, if a group of Archers is set to Wide, they will assume Wide when instructed without other units, and will behave as Standard when instructed as part of a larger group where most units are set to Standard.

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Bread & Bravery

Translate

Are there any projects to translate the game into other languages? I'm from the Brazilian community and I was very interested in the game. I would like to know if there are any future plans to translate to Portuguese

Felipão

19 Aug @ 3:22pm

General Discussions

#1. Showcasing Basic Unit Commands

22 Aug

With Determined Move command, unit will move to the specified location and will not engage enemy units on its way, even when attacked. If this command is received while the unit is fighting, it will disengage and move immediately.

When the unit arrives, it will execute the next command in its queue, or go to Idle state if there are no further commands. From the Idle state, it will respond to enemies in range.

Note: After combat completes from Idle state, unit does not return to position where it started idling. This feature is implemented and is currently turned off. The reason is: sometimes units move correctly but unexpectedly for the player after combat. For example, if a player mis-clicks terrain instead of enemy unit, commanded units will arrive and respond to encounter from Idle, and then return to position. This makes it seem like units moved arbitrarily after combat. We will reconsider this feature again later if we can find some clever way to filter out the unwanted cases.

Determined Move is the default command (click RMB on terrain).

Note: All GIFs are limited to 5MB in size. Clarity varies by length.

Commands are enqueued by holding Shift at the time when the command is issued. Any kind of command may be enqueued. Here is an example of enqueuing movement commands.

With Attack Move command, unit will move to the desired location, and will engage enemy units along its way. If another Attack Move command is given while in this state, it will only change destination - it will not disengage chasing or fighting.

When enemies are encountered along the way, unit enters Attack Response mode. This mode is active as long as there are enemy units in range. After the combat encounter is finished, unit will continue towards its original destination.

Besides the keyboard shortcut (e.g. 'A', then LMB on destination), Attack Move is activated by Ctrl + RMB on terrain. This may make it more convenient to use this command for beginners.

We have experimented with different modifications of classic commands and couldn't improve the situation over the current state of the art. For example, we tried making Attack Move the default (RMB on terrain). This conclusively doesn't work, as it messes up normal scenarios such as retreating (units cannot escape combat via Attack Move). We anticipate many players would complain that "units don't do what they are told to do", as in that case Ctrl+RMB would be required to retreat.

With Focus Attack command, unit will move to and attack the specified enemy unit. With melee units, it will still attack another unit if it gets within its close radius. However, it will prefer the specified enemy unit as long as there are no other enemy units within its close radius. With ranged units, it will attack either the specified unit, or any units of the same type within that unit's radius. This prevents "overkill" situations when ranged units attack groups of units. If the target unit tries to flee, commanded unit will chase it regardless of distance moved.

Focus Attack is quickly invoked by pressing RMB on enemy unit.

With Hold Position command, unit will first move to the specified location, while ignoring enemy units along the way. Then, it will stay in that location, and will attack enemy units only if they get into attack range. When in this state, a unit will not be pushable by any unit, and it may rotate freely.

With Stop command, unit will clear its present command queue and return to its Idle state.

With Patrol command, unit will move between a set of waypoints, and engage any enemies along the way. After the encounter is finished, it will return to patrolling.

Each unit in Patrolling state shows its patrolling waypoint via a transparent flag. Patrol waypoints are enqueued by holding Shift, and the system recognizes all patrol waypoints are part of one command.

With Follow command, instructed unit will get close to the chosen friendly unit and follow it. It will attack any enemy units that get within its detection range. After the encounter is finished, it will return to following. A unit may not follow itself.

Following unit has a range of allowed distances in order to prevent follow flickering.

Destroy Unit command instantly kills all selected units.

Advanced commands and additional unit features will be explained in the next instalment.

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Bread & Bravery

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