I'm planning to make a turn-based strategy game, along the lines of Advance Wars or Fire Emblem (less RPG-oriented than Fire Emblem), but I'm still undecided on the setting - there are just so many to choose from:
* Fantasy - knights, castles, magic, monsters, etc
* Medieval - as above but without the magic and monsters
* Ancient - Romans vs Carthaginians, Spartans vs Persians, etc
* World Wars / Modern - tanks, artillery, fighters, etc
* Futuristic - spaceships, hovertanks, mechs, etc
* Other...
What's your favourite?
I'm leaning towards ancient warfare, just because it's a bit more original, and probably less complicated than the others. Modern/futuristic are bit overdone, but have the advantage that vehicles are lot easier to sprite than people and animals...
I'm a fan of the historical fiction, Ancient time-period games. I'd challenge you to pick some of the more obscure cultures, as the Anglo ones have been done to death in various formats: turn-based, RTS, tactical, strategic. I'd suggest feudal Japan or China, but I think they're still churning out Romance of the Three Kingdoms games, three decades after the first in the series.
Why not African tribes, Aztecs, Incans, or Mayans...Or maybe the various tribes of the Middle East or even southeast Asia? Not only would your game stand out with a solid engine, but those historical depths really haven't been plumbed by various genres and big-budget titles just yet (the only exception would perhaps be the grognard, old-skool hex-based tactical wargame genre).
Apart from the other themes, I tend to prefer contemporary-but-small-scale scenarios, or post-apocalyptic dystopian settings like the Fallout series.
And whatever you do: NO ZOMBIES. There are waaaaay too many games with zombies out there right now.
Best of success, Sketchy. I was planning on snatching up your engine and coming up with something of my own, perhaps...
I think the big problem with many of those ideas is the lack of variety in military units. If I were to make a game based on fighting between African tribes, the player's choice of units would be limited to "guy with pointy stick" or "guy with pointy stick" - not a lot of scope for interesting tactics there...
That's even a bit of a worry with ancient Romans and Greeks, whose armies tended to be fairly uniform - Roman armies mainly consisting of legionnaires and Greek armies of hoplites, plus a few odds and ends (no air units and almost no naval units). They do at least have a decent variety of ranged units though, and there's potential for some interesting special abilities, such as the Greek phalanx and Roman Testudo formations. I've been looking at the units in "Rome: Total War" to get some ideas, and I get the impression the developers were a little bit "creative" with their units (incendiary pigs?!).
Ideally, it would be good to have not so much a lot of units, but more a lot of *variety* in units, so I can have some kind of rock-paper-scissors dynamic - it's no fun if some units are just plain better than others.
I did think of feudal Japan, but my knowledge on the subject is extremely limited (I know samurai generally had a katana & wakizashi, and some cool armour, but that's about it) - I should do a bit of research... Aside from the fact that samurai and ninjas are both inherently awesome, the other thing that really appeals to me a lot, is the potential to use some traditional Japanese music, which I love I could maybe include some Japanese mythology as well, and attempt to copy the graphical style of traditional Japanese woodblock prints, which I also love (seriously Japanese culture is awesome, and I barely know anything about it).
Also considering something with Vikings, again possibly including some Nordic mythology as well (which I also know nothing about).
Like you say, post-apocalyptic would be perfect for a smaller scale strategy game with RPG elements - more like "Fire Emblem" than "Advance Wars" (I guess that's what "Fallout: Tactics" is like, although I've never played it). I'll leave it to you to make that game though. And no, I'm not making anything with zombies, although I haven't completely ruled out the possibility of a "War of The Worlds"-style alien invasion...
At the moment, I'm working on the basis that this could be a commercial project (for release on Android) - in which case I wouldn't be releasing the source publicly (only to certain respected members of the community, and particularly those who help with testing etc when I get that far). The nice (and very surprising) thing is that there are actually only one or two half-decent games of this type for Android, so there's certainly a niche if we get in quick enough. The problem is always going to be the graphics...
Regarding the different, obscure cultures I mentioned: you may want to consider different "kits." There are some notable ethnically-derived weapons, and allowing the player to configure their own load-out might be a nice angle. Bows versus atlatls; shot put versus spears versus discus...Ah, I don't know. I'd just prefer you not abandon the less-traveled path so quickly. Just sayin'.
And yeah, going with the "light mythology" approach with Japanese settings would be nice. For variety of weapons, just watch some old-skool kung fu movies, or trailers of said films, for some more exotic weapons. Chinese and Japanese folklore is quite incredible, and as varied and imaginative as any European pantheon that pretty much anyone in the West beyond grade school already knows about.
With Roman and Greek settings, and even Viking, there's always the danger of being regarded as a "turn-based version of Age of Empires" or something like that. Take care that you're not being considered a "knock off," particularly if you're going commercial. Those cultures have been mined extensively for game content and theme.
Again: good luck on this! It must be an exciting development for you. You've certainly paid your dues in terms of quality code and event structure in MMF2.
Okay, well I suppose I don't need to decide for a while anyway...
Meanwhile, the more important thing to decide at this stage, is what kind of a grid and projection to use:
Square
Isometric
Offset Square (very similar to hex)
Hexagonal
I'm thinking I should add a full elevation system, instead of just having a "mountain" tile type - that way units higher up will be able to see further, archers will be able to shoot further, units charging down hill will have a combat bonus, slopes will affect speed, etc.
Ideally, I would be good to have gradual slopes and steep cliffs, which makes the tile graphics much more complicated - but I could just restrict vertical movement to 1 height level (would do the same thing, but not look as good).
If you have the capability, then I say go with hex or offset square. Simply put, there are more maneuverability options for players and AI with that setup. And in terms of elevation, make it as high or low as you want; it's just more graphics work (apart from minor variables depending on the terrain and elevation).
Depending on your graphical options, you may not have to even consider elevation, just terrain type can be sufficient for a first go at it. Example: mountain tiles, hill tiles, swamp tiles, forest tiles, plateau tiles, etc. These can all have separate modifiers that affect missile weapons, charging, movement penetration, unit defense, attack advantages, and so on.
Incidentally...I'm a big fan of offset grid setups for board games; they're easy to set up even when you don't have a hex die-cutter for tiles and cards.
I've never liked the hex grid for a couple of reasons:
1. It looks very daunting at first, something just looks far more complex about it than a standard square grid. (One reason why I've not actually tried a game that uses it yet)
2. In the example you've shown and in another game I've seen (Civilisation maybe?) I feel like the hexagon grid looks sort of messy on the screen. I like to see the landscape fit into the grid. Isometric works really well for that I think.
I'm not a huge strategy fan, but I have really enjoy both the Fire Emblem and Age of Empires series. Phantsy Star Online Episode III was fairly enjoyable, too.
Anyway, those are just my thoughts. Of course the most important thing you do here, is decide what style it is you like best.
Hex grids do have the advantage of handling distances more accurately - but they look kind of ugly (especially when castles have to have zig-zagging walls etc), and are also a bit off-putting to casual gamers (because of their association with dull hardcore wargames).
An offset-square grid shares most of the same advantages and disadvantages, except that it uses nice friendly squares, that aren't scary at all.
A normal square grid would be my first choice, except that it doesn't work well with different terrain elevations - unless the perspective is directly overhead (which is ugly), the back edge of each tile is obscured, so you can't tell it's a slope or a cliff. On thinking about it, an offset-square grid would have the same problem...
I suppose I could even go for an offset-isometric grid - or just a regular isometric grid. Isometric is by far the most popular, but I've never really liked it...
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Edited by Sketchy