posted 04-04-08 06:48 PM EDT (US)
The premise: Struggle to survive as natural selection leaves the strongest to rule!
How the hell does this work?
I'm still figuring this out, and tips would be greatly appreciated.
Anyway, you control a "civ" (bunch of animals) and they are your main form of winning, however, there are major changes from traditional aoe games, among them:
-Three resources that are
Food: Actually two types of food, meat and non-meat. Non-meats are are collected from vegitation (plants, trees, berries, vegitation) and in some rare cases rocks or mineral deposits if a mutation is "researched". Meat comes from, well, meat (other animals). Your animals collect this and most types don't need a drop off point (possible exception for. Eating fruits can help increase size mutations and efficiency, while meats make for better fighting, LOS, and reflexes.
More on food later.
DNA: Like exp in aoe3, this is collected from doing things, however, some is lost when you lose creatures. This, along with food, buys new mutations.
Land: This is very important, you can actually "own" land instead of just have things on it. By owning land, you can build a nest and create creatures out of it, and building on certain land can lead to different mutation research possiblities. On top of this, climates and climate resistence will play a large role.
So what else is new?
-About food: Food is different because the players start out with food, and units don't cost too much in the way of food, even powerful ones. The catch is that all units slowly consume food, like an anti-trickle. They also lose HP with time (with a lower max, so a 400 would have a lower max of 50) and die. Food could be scavenged, and even cannibalized with a mutation.
Second major difference: FOOD FIGHTS BACK! Food automatically respawns and regrows, and if you over-exploit something, it will come back with a vengence, either with higher HP, poison, new attacks and/or a vastly decreasing the efficiency of your animals eating it.
Fruits and other things, if eaten, will come back better and larger, with more food.
If you have too many units and not enough food, then your units will lose HP/die much faster.
-How the game works: Winning involves destroying your enemies species, or owning a large percentage of land.
There will be four to five ages (names not decided).
-The primitive age. Explore, build new territory, etc. Little fighting
-The Mutation age: Explore more, skirmish a little.
-The Speciation age: Vastly increases the amount of mutations, allows you to speciate (more on this later). Earliest that you can win the game (unless you're so damn good that you can do it in the mutation age)
-The expansion age: Large fights among different animals now very likely. Some teamwork among different species.
-Symbiosis age: "Tie breaker" age. Allows incredibly advanced interactions between your units that can lead you to a crushing victory.
Buildings: There are only two buildings at the moment, and they are;
-Great nest. Start with one and can build more only in the third age, dependant on how much land you have. Where general/major generic mutations are researched and the general types of animals are created.
-Small nest. Like a barracks, that when built can creat creatures. If build on uncontested space, counts as owning max land for a square of territory.
-Hive? Not sure if I should put this in, it would be an auto-production center for food.
-Gene pool.
This is like the home city, except it doesn't ship cards. It instead can increase things like max size, strength, efficiency, eyesight, scent, resistence to cold/heat, water retention, reflexes, longevity, intelligence etc. This is bought with DNA, and you can chance a random mutation for something, and it costs less but doesn't gaurantee a successful improvement.
Almost done here
Units are easier to control as you advance in age, though it does depend on intelligence. Controlling 10 guys in the second age will be difficult, as they ARE animals and some may wonder off, or stop to sniff this or that, but it is possible. This number increases with age. Different animals that you control will only attack each other if you command them or if food is scarce. In the last age, you are able to get different units to work together in great ways, such as one species trapping and immoblizing a large brute, and the other killing it.
Speciation is a type of evolution on a small scale, that doesn't change species but changes abilities of some in the species. Examples are tigers and lions, both are class Panthera, cats, but they are different. Another example could be bugs gaining resistence to pesticides.
In the game, speciation would mean that one type of animal moved to another area, and got a mutation that didn't affect all the animals. This can be carried over by moving and building new nests. Only 5 species (4 land 1 water) are allowed per player, but each species can have up to 4 different speciations, each unique. It's like having 20 unique units!
There are also generations, which take 5 minutes of game time, but represent a million years, and climates can change dramatically. At the beginning of each new generation, all new creatures created have new mutations that were collected. Units die after 2-3 minutes (up for change)
"Civs" (actually a combo of class, phylum, genera, and/or genus)
-Arthropods
A large bunch of stuff that includes insects and crustaceans.
Starter units: Big Spider-like thing, Smaller fly-like thing w/ temporary flight.
Good stuff: Great poison, good adaptation skills, easy flight mutations.
Bad stuff: Low max strength.
-Mammalia
The class that humans belong to (though no humans are in the game). Warm-blooded, feed young with milk.
Starting units: Fast horse-like animal, Strong cat-like animal.
Pros: Great adaptation to environments, Best intelligence.
Cons: Very high food consumption rate. Bad flight capabilities.
-Reptiles
Actually no longer an official classification, having been broken up into many smaller parts. Crocodiles, snakes, lizards, and even the dinosaurs were in this group.
Pros: Extremely low food consumption rate due to cold bloodedness. High strength/size max.
Cons: Bad in cold weather, low intelligence.
-Amphibians
Cold blooded and spend time in the water, animals such as frogs, salamanders and the ancient proterogyrinus belong in this grouping.
Pros: Good water species, fast speciation rate, lower cost of units.
Cons: Horrible intelligence, low water retention (bad for deserts/dry places.
A standard fighting creature:
HP: 1500 (normal)
Size: 1 (tons) (for arthropods, this represents a large amount of creatures)
Speed: 34 (medium slow)
Strength: 500 (strong)
Attacks: Melee strike (decent damage) bite (high damage, chance of missing)
Resistence (melee): 25%
Resistence (ranged attacks, such as thrown spikes) 35%
Reflexes (chance of taking no damage on an attack): 3 (the lower the better, represents parts of a second, so 4 parts is higher then 3)
LOS (or smell, or echolocation): 8 (decent)
Anything else you think I should add?
X-Pack The Sea Monsters
3 new types:
Avians (birds)
Chordates (Fish)
Amoebae(not sure if this should be in)
X-pack increases the ocean's importance, gives 3 aquatic species per player (compared to 1) and allows you to fight sea monsters!
If you would like to comment, feel free. Is it too long or hard? Any techs or suggestions? Biologists welcome.
Thank you
How the hell does this work?
I'm still figuring this out, and tips would be greatly appreciated.
Anyway, you control a "civ" (bunch of animals) and they are your main form of winning, however, there are major changes from traditional aoe games, among them:
-Three resources that are
Food: Actually two types of food, meat and non-meat. Non-meats are are collected from vegitation (plants, trees, berries, vegitation) and in some rare cases rocks or mineral deposits if a mutation is "researched". Meat comes from, well, meat (other animals). Your animals collect this and most types don't need a drop off point (possible exception for. Eating fruits can help increase size mutations and efficiency, while meats make for better fighting, LOS, and reflexes.
More on food later.
DNA: Like exp in aoe3, this is collected from doing things, however, some is lost when you lose creatures. This, along with food, buys new mutations.
Land: This is very important, you can actually "own" land instead of just have things on it. By owning land, you can build a nest and create creatures out of it, and building on certain land can lead to different mutation research possiblities. On top of this, climates and climate resistence will play a large role.
So what else is new?
-About food: Food is different because the players start out with food, and units don't cost too much in the way of food, even powerful ones. The catch is that all units slowly consume food, like an anti-trickle. They also lose HP with time (with a lower max, so a 400 would have a lower max of 50) and die. Food could be scavenged, and even cannibalized with a mutation.
Second major difference: FOOD FIGHTS BACK! Food automatically respawns and regrows, and if you over-exploit something, it will come back with a vengence, either with higher HP, poison, new attacks and/or a vastly decreasing the efficiency of your animals eating it.
Fruits and other things, if eaten, will come back better and larger, with more food.
If you have too many units and not enough food, then your units will lose HP/die much faster.
-How the game works: Winning involves destroying your enemies species, or owning a large percentage of land.
There will be four to five ages (names not decided).
-The primitive age. Explore, build new territory, etc. Little fighting
-The Mutation age: Explore more, skirmish a little.
-The Speciation age: Vastly increases the amount of mutations, allows you to speciate (more on this later). Earliest that you can win the game (unless you're so damn good that you can do it in the mutation age)
-The expansion age: Large fights among different animals now very likely. Some teamwork among different species.
-Symbiosis age: "Tie breaker" age. Allows incredibly advanced interactions between your units that can lead you to a crushing victory.
Buildings: There are only two buildings at the moment, and they are;
-Great nest. Start with one and can build more only in the third age, dependant on how much land you have. Where general/major generic mutations are researched and the general types of animals are created.
-Small nest. Like a barracks, that when built can creat creatures. If build on uncontested space, counts as owning max land for a square of territory.
-Hive? Not sure if I should put this in, it would be an auto-production center for food.
-Gene pool.
This is like the home city, except it doesn't ship cards. It instead can increase things like max size, strength, efficiency, eyesight, scent, resistence to cold/heat, water retention, reflexes, longevity, intelligence etc. This is bought with DNA, and you can chance a random mutation for something, and it costs less but doesn't gaurantee a successful improvement.
Almost done here
Units are easier to control as you advance in age, though it does depend on intelligence. Controlling 10 guys in the second age will be difficult, as they ARE animals and some may wonder off, or stop to sniff this or that, but it is possible. This number increases with age. Different animals that you control will only attack each other if you command them or if food is scarce. In the last age, you are able to get different units to work together in great ways, such as one species trapping and immoblizing a large brute, and the other killing it.
Speciation is a type of evolution on a small scale, that doesn't change species but changes abilities of some in the species. Examples are tigers and lions, both are class Panthera, cats, but they are different. Another example could be bugs gaining resistence to pesticides.
In the game, speciation would mean that one type of animal moved to another area, and got a mutation that didn't affect all the animals. This can be carried over by moving and building new nests. Only 5 species (4 land 1 water) are allowed per player, but each species can have up to 4 different speciations, each unique. It's like having 20 unique units!
There are also generations, which take 5 minutes of game time, but represent a million years, and climates can change dramatically. At the beginning of each new generation, all new creatures created have new mutations that were collected. Units die after 2-3 minutes (up for change)
"Civs" (actually a combo of class, phylum, genera, and/or genus)
-Arthropods
A large bunch of stuff that includes insects and crustaceans.
Starter units: Big Spider-like thing, Smaller fly-like thing w/ temporary flight.
Good stuff: Great poison, good adaptation skills, easy flight mutations.
Bad stuff: Low max strength.
-Mammalia
The class that humans belong to (though no humans are in the game). Warm-blooded, feed young with milk.
Starting units: Fast horse-like animal, Strong cat-like animal.
Pros: Great adaptation to environments, Best intelligence.
Cons: Very high food consumption rate. Bad flight capabilities.
-Reptiles
Actually no longer an official classification, having been broken up into many smaller parts. Crocodiles, snakes, lizards, and even the dinosaurs were in this group.
Pros: Extremely low food consumption rate due to cold bloodedness. High strength/size max.
Cons: Bad in cold weather, low intelligence.
-Amphibians
Cold blooded and spend time in the water, animals such as frogs, salamanders and the ancient proterogyrinus belong in this grouping.
Pros: Good water species, fast speciation rate, lower cost of units.
Cons: Horrible intelligence, low water retention (bad for deserts/dry places.
A standard fighting creature:
HP: 1500 (normal)
Size: 1 (tons) (for arthropods, this represents a large amount of creatures)
Speed: 34 (medium slow)
Strength: 500 (strong)
Attacks: Melee strike (decent damage) bite (high damage, chance of missing)
Resistence (melee): 25%
Resistence (ranged attacks, such as thrown spikes) 35%
Reflexes (chance of taking no damage on an attack): 3 (the lower the better, represents parts of a second, so 4 parts is higher then 3)
LOS (or smell, or echolocation): 8 (decent)
Anything else you think I should add?
X-Pack The Sea Monsters
3 new types:
Avians (birds)
Chordates (Fish)
Amoebae(not sure if this should be in)
X-pack increases the ocean's importance, gives 3 aquatic species per player (compared to 1) and allows you to fight sea monsters!
If you would like to comment, feel free. Is it too long or hard? Any techs or suggestions? Biologists welcome.
Thank you
[This message has been edited by Dogbert (edited 04-19-2008 @ 07:47 PM).]
This project does look quite interesting, though.
