Author Topic: Ultima Ratio Regum (0.8 released after five years!)  (Read 254431 times)

UltimaRatioRegum

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Re: Ultima Ratio Regum (v 0.7 released, 18th April!)
« Reply #105 on: November 01, 2015, 10:02:16 PM »
Wait,Im confused,did you removed those walls that block access to other districts just for these town screenshots or do towns no longer have them?

Towns have never had them! Only cities have their districts split up; towns are just a single map tile :).

King_of_Baboons

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Re: Ultima Ratio Regum (v 0.7 released, 18th April!)
« Reply #106 on: November 02, 2015, 12:48:09 PM »
Oh nevermind then  ;D

Aleksanderus

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Re: Ultima Ratio Regum (v 0.7 released, 18th April!)
« Reply #107 on: November 04, 2015, 04:48:01 PM »
Congratulations developer! I think that this game is going to be more revolutionary than dwarf fortress and will be major roguelike.
Here are the features that I love:
randomly generated history (like in dwarf fortress but much more upgraded)
randomly generated religions are awesome!
randomly generated EVERYTHING!!!

I hope that this roguelike won't waste its potential!

UltimaRatioRegum

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Re: Ultima Ratio Regum (v 0.7 released, 18th April!)
« Reply #108 on: November 05, 2015, 04:22:02 PM »
Congratulations developer! I think that this game is going to be more revolutionary than dwarf fortress and will be major roguelike.
Here are the features that I love:
randomly generated history (like in dwarf fortress but much more upgraded)
randomly generated religions are awesome!
randomly generated EVERYTHING!!!

I hope that this roguelike won't waste its potential!

Well thank you! And I've been developing it for 4 years, and it's somewhere around 50% complete (I think), so rest assured I intend to finish it and have it meet the potential I see :).

King_of_Baboons

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Re: Ultima Ratio Regum (v 0.7 released, 18th April!)
« Reply #109 on: November 05, 2015, 09:30:49 PM »
I've been thinking...how are religion and science going to affect the civilizations?

I know that religion affects pretty much how the citizens act and live and is basically a source of quests but what about science?The only scientific things that exists in the game right now are gunpowder and firearms.What kind of new science stuff are we going to see in the future?I am hoping that science plays a larger role in the future and that the "scientists" give us quests as well.Ex: "I'm in the verge of creating a new medicine!However,I need someone to collect a rare plant that grows in the forests outside the city.Will you help me?" or "I need you to deliver this weapon prototype to the workshop of a friend of mine.".I can imagine scientific cities full of Leonardo da Vinci kind of inventions.

I was also viewing the old NPC chart that you posted some time ago when I saw 2 NPCs that gave some ideas:the Explorer and the Mercenary.How often will explorers and mercenaries leave cities to complete quests/missions?This is interesting because there aren't many roguelikes where we see NPCs doing player stuff.The only exception being Dwarf Fortress,where you can meet actual adventurers roaming the world to kill beasts and looking for artifacts.I'd imagine that if you do enough bad stuff you would start to be hunted by mercenaries looking for your head's bounty.Some sort of anti-players that can do everything you can.

Also what's the deal with the other planets?Is there going to be a commemorative day when the planets align or something?

UltimaRatioRegum

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Re: Ultima Ratio Regum (v 0.7 released, 18th April!)
« Reply #110 on: November 06, 2015, 07:50:46 PM »
Excellent question! Quick answer: I'm honestly not sure, though I am interested in the Renaissance, the cusp of rationalism, the scientific revolution, etc, as this is the kind of era the game is set in. There will definitely be some nations a little more advanced than others, and possibly a little anachronistically so...

Heh, my inspiration was actually Dark Souls, not DF in that regard, since the other NPCs there spend a lot of time on "their own agendas" and only sometimes happen to intersect with the player. For the time being mercenaries don't actually move around the map, although explorers and inquisitors and one or two other classes will also not have "homes" and be in perpetual motion. And yes, definitely, I want how friendly/hostile you are with each nation/culture/religion to have a serious effect on you :)

Good question! Right now, they're just for detail. I intend to add a possibility for gods to be based on the planets, and possibly PCG constellations which have particular meanings in particular cultures?!

Aleksanderus

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Re: Ultima Ratio Regum (v 0.7 released, 18th April!)
« Reply #111 on: November 07, 2015, 07:04:25 PM »
I have got features to suggest to you:
1. Ability to become leader of faction and i will tell you how this will work for some factions
Theocracies- when you will serve the ruler long enough he will give you the ultimate task- killing him
And when you will kill him then you are considered as leader of this theocracy and you will be also considered as a "god" of this religion

Uncivilised factions- you will just need to challenge the ruler and defeat him.

And also i wanted to suggest you reputation system and it will work like that:

Your reputation will be represented by (mainly) fame, alignment and proffesion

For example if you are evil but unfamous thug then noone will be scared of you becouse you are not famous but if you will be famous then peasants will run away from you, guards will try to kill you and things like that

And also fame will be:

Local- local people will know your name or not

Kingdom fame- your name will be known in the whole kingdom but it will be imcreasing slower

World fame- your name will be known everywhere but it will increase very slowly and won't increase from small actions

And that's all for now, i hope that this will be implemented

UltimaRatioRegum

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Re: Ultima Ratio Regum (v 0.7 released, 18th April!)
« Reply #112 on: November 08, 2015, 01:03:28 PM »
Thanks for the ideas! Some of these aren't really in the direction I'm going, but my responses are in bold:

I have got features to suggest to you:
1. Ability to become leader of faction and i will tell you how this will work for some factions
Theocracies- when you will serve the ruler long enough he will give you the ultimate task- killing him
And when you will kill him then you are considered as leader of this theocracy and you will be also considered as a "god" of this religion
I haven't yet decided if the player can wind up ruling factions, but if so, there would be many different methods!

Uncivilised factions- you will just need to challenge the ruler and defeat him.

And also i wanted to suggest you reputation system and it will work like that:

Your reputation will be represented by (mainly) fame, alignment and proffesion

For example if you are evil but unfamous thug then noone will be scared of you becouse you are not famous but if you will be famous then peasants will run away from you, guards will try to kill you and things like that
I certainly intend to have some kind of reputation system, but systems of this sort either tend to be extremely simple or so complex that one doesn't really keep track of them, and struggles to understand what it is that affects your reputation up or down. So I appreciate the suggestions, but I'm probably going to do something a little different!

And also fame will be:

Local- local people will know your name or not
I'm definitely going to program this idea soon!

Kingdom fame- your name will be known in the whole kingdom but it will be imcreasing slower

World fame- your name will be known everywhere but it will increase very slowly and won't increase from small actions
As above, this kind of global/national/local recognition is definitely something I do want to add - probably in a release or two from now?

And that's all for now, i hope that this will be implemented
Thanks for the ideas! There will be more detail on some of these on the blog in due time, but some (like becoming a leader) are probably a bit too sandbox-y for what I have in mind for URR :) 

UltimaRatioRegum

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Re: Ultima Ratio Regum (v 0.7 released, 18th April!)
« Reply #113 on: November 08, 2015, 02:27:42 PM »
For this week's blog update I did a write-up of the ProcJam opening talks, and normal URRpdates will resume next week...

http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/2015/11/08/procjam-2015-report/

Aleksanderus

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Re: Ultima Ratio Regum (v 0.7 released, 18th April!)
« Reply #114 on: November 08, 2015, 05:29:13 PM »
Thanks for reply. And also will be there magic in URR? If yes then i think that magic won't be something usuall among people in-game world and i think that it will be used only in the "endgame" (if there will be any) and it will be used not by wizards becouse it would be too easy but it will be used by for example cultists worshipping hell or true gods.

And also will be there avaliable to join factions?
If yes then will it be possible to join evil factions like bandits or cultists?

Another question: how will combat look like. Will it be classic and not complex hitting and missing mechanic or maybe complex and VERY FUN and brutal (which i hope it will look like that) dwarf fortress like combat system?

And last question: why you don't want to make this game very sandboxy? I personaly want this game to be sandboxy becouse i see that there aren't enough good sandbox games in the world.

UltimaRatioRegum

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Re: Ultima Ratio Regum (v 0.7 released, 18th April!)
« Reply #115 on: November 08, 2015, 08:49:48 PM »
Nope, no magic! That has been off the table for years. It's an entirely realistic renaissance world. Factions... well, part of what I'm going for is trying to stress the lack of clear loyalty on the side of the player, so you'll be able to act out belonging. I want to get away from this idea of people magically recognizing you as belonging to a faction, and instead what you wear, how you act, what you say, etc, will determine if people think you're "with them or against them". A lot of what you've asked (I don't mean this as a criticism) is very "traditional" RPG fare, and I'm trying hard to move away from that. Combat - think about a turn-based Dark Souls. Why not sandbox? It's hard to answer that succinctly, as I've been talking about it for years, but there's basically a particular story I want to tell, and a very specific set of themes i want to explore (see http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/info/), and those just don't match up with a sandbox, I'm afraid. It's a huge and expansive world, but with a directed player objective!

UltimaRatioRegum

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Re: Ultima Ratio Regum (v 0.7 released, 18th April!)
« Reply #116 on: November 14, 2015, 11:19:15 AM »
As I’ve mentioned a few times in recent entries, I’ve been working on how nations vary and how the game keeps track of the various beliefs of each nation. In the past we had a “policy” system, but that wasn’t really working how I wanted it to, and it was proving rather simplistic, so I’ve made a bunch of major changes, both to how the system works and defines itself, and also to the impact(s) which ideological choices have. Firstly, I decided to change them to “ideologies” instead of “policies” to move them a little bit away from the Civilization-esque model of a policy being something which affects a nation in an abstract way – greater taxation here, reduced freedoms there, etc – and rather use the term ideology to emphasize something which more structural, reproduced throughout the nation, and which has imprinted itself on many aspects of national life. So this week I’ve been working on updating these and in the process adding a huge amount of new variation to the nations in the world, and adjusting NPCs and their behaviour appropriately in the new nations. So, the impacts of ideologies on both the outside world, and the castle in the capital of that nation, are now as follows. I realize lists of this sort have appeared on the blog before, but I’m pretty confident now that this is the final system:

Religious
Collective Faith: churches spawn in towns, but not cities.
Organized Religion: churches spawn in lower- and middle-class city districts. Chapel spawns in castle.
Religious Freedom: capital city contains district housing all religious buildings; towns contain no religious buildings. Many small chapels for each religion spawn in castle.
Zealotry: churches spawn in every lower- and middle-class city district and every town. Chapel spawns in castle, and holy books spawn in many rooms.
Monastic: monasteries spawn outside cities. Monk quarters in castle.
 

Military
Conscription: barracks spawn in towns. Conscript training area in castle.
Standing Army: military bases (larger, and containing barracks and armouries spawn in all towns). Large garrison in castle.
Militia: many citizens carry weapons of some sort.
Pacifism: there is no military district in the capital city.
Vassalage: in towns there are manors instead of village halls, and there are a large number of lesser noble families (beyond those living in the city), each of which controls a town and its surrounding area. Hall filled with banners of lords/nobles spawns in castle.
 

Foreign
Exploration:
cartographer shop spawns in market district. Map room spawns in castle.
Isolationist: towns have walls around them. Extra defensive walls spawn around castle.
Internationalist: towns contain diasporic communities from other nations. Foreign tribute room spawns in castle.
Interventionist: Spies and informers spawn in other nations. Secret vault/room with espionage information spawns in castle.
Imperialist: colonies owned by the home nation appear on the world map. Trophy room of captured items from other nations spawns in castle.
 

Intellectual
Traditional:
biographer shop spawns in market district. Super-rare biographies spawn in castle.
Mathematical: architect shop spawns in market district.
Mechanical: mining shop spawns in market district.
Literary: bookseller shop spawns in market district. Super-rare books (of any sort) spawn in castle.
Antiquarian: historian shop spawns in market district. Super-rare histories spawn in castle.
 

Leadership
Representation: parliament spawns in city centre; delegates are assigned to an appropriate mathematical distribution across towns, monasteries, colonies, districts, families, religion, and the military (depending on other ideologies/factors). No throne room spawns, but rich quarters for current elected ruler spawn instead.
Stratocracy: barracks in every housing district. Military-focused throne room with heavy guard spawns in castle.
Monarchy: large graveyards with crypts spawn. Regal throne room spawns in castle.
Theocracy: crypt with archives spawns under cathedral. Throne room with altars and holy texts spawns in castle.
 

Trade
Free Trade: all city districts are free to enter. Well-guarded cache of foreign money spawns in castle.
Mercantilism: cities cost money to enter/exit (and towns if also with isolationist policy), but there is no cost for movement inside.
Planned Economy: each district in a city costs money to move through.
Protectionism: inferior prices for selling foreign goods; increased prices for selling domestic goods. Well-guarded cache of domestic money spawns in castle.
Barter: black markets spawn in lower-class districts and towns.
 

Cultural
Hegemony: racial background affects relations with NPCs and other nations.
Aesthetics: jeweller shop spawns in market district. Art gallery spawns in castle.
Venatic: fletcher, bowyer and crossbowyer shops spawn in market district. Hunting trophies are displayed in castle.
Wisdom: linguist shop spawns in market district. Super-rare philosophy books spawn in castle.
 

Justice:
Vigiliantism:
bounties for wanted individuals are listed on posters, and may be acquired from a central bounty office in the city centre. Heads on pikes spawn outside castle and/or in castle grounds.
Gladiatorial: arenas spawn, both for entertainment and punishment of criminals. Information about champions spawns in hallway in castle.
Frontier: pistolmaker, riflemaker and powdermaker shops spawn in market district. Rifle armoury spawns in castle.
Ordeal: punishment is by ordeal, the nature of which varies from nation to nation. Torture chamber spawns beneath castle.
Penitentiary: prisons spawn in lower-class districts. Dungeon spawns beneath castle.


The idea here being that these aren’t “abstract” changes, but physical and structural changes that the player should see in each nation they visit, and which in turn will be reflected in the kind of people you meet in each nation, how they behave and talk, and so on. Perhaps one can learn about the ideologies of distant nations in other ways – a book about a nation would only mention a famous fight in an arena if that nation has the gladiatorial ideology, for example, or a painting would only depict a nation invading another if they were (probably) imperialists – and perhaps plan out one’s path around the world, at least in part, based on this; at the same time the player should be able to have a decent idea of what they’ll find in a nation before they set foot there. Here are some examples – some of these already exist in 0.7’s world generation, but some of these variations are very new. We have here a town with walls and various military facilities and a mansion (and no town hall, since a town with a manor is ruled from there instead), a city centre with a parliament, a town with a diasporic community, and a new marketplace of a sort redesigned for the next release:









Many of the ideologies are however smaller in scale – certain shops spawn, or people behave in a certain way, and so forth – and are therefore not quite as easily represented in a nice blog entry screenshot. Equally, I’m also going to add a new set of variations which aren’t really “ideologies”, per se, but rather things like: regular statuary at junctions and alongside roads in cities, gardens in every district, writing everything on tablets instead of books, having developed gas lighting for their streets, and another two-dozen or so ideas I’ve got along these lines (using prayer mats instead of chairs in religious buildings falls into this category of non-ideological variation). Just more and more stuff to be developed slowly but surely in the background to further add to the variation and difference in each nation.

Next week we’ll have a big coding update. It has become apparent that I’ve stacked up quite an impressive list of bugs and issues and small things requiring fixing over the last few months, and I think it is wisest to deal with all of these in the coming week before starting anything new (i.e. getting NPCs moving around correctly according to their abstract schedules in the physical world). It is reaching the point where I just have too many things 95% finished in the next version to really keep track of, so the focus before next weekend is in clearing up and optimizing a huge number of things coded in the past couple of months, in order to free up a bit of cognitive space to then proceed with finishing off NPCs. Equally, apologies for two not-progress-heavy blog posts in a row; coding is going on in the background, but there’s so much on my plate at the moment (full-time research, book proposals, papers, etc) that I’ve been inevitably focusing on smaller coding tasks than larger ones which require serious focus for several days on end. Anyway – see you next week, at which point a bunch of papers and other tasks will have been concluded, and so coding should accelerate once again!

King_of_Baboons

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Re: Ultima Ratio Regum (v 0.7 released, 18th April!)
« Reply #117 on: November 16, 2015, 03:18:46 PM »
I would love to do some Assassin's Creed action on that last pic.Looks  like a nice place to do parkour.

Are you planning to do something related with the city/town underground?Like catacombs and secret passages?No better place to hide a conspiracy than your secret basement.

UltimaRatioRegum

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Re: Ultima Ratio Regum (v 0.7 released, 18th April!)
« Reply #118 on: November 17, 2015, 04:56:35 PM »
I would love to do some Assassin's Creed action on that last pic.Looks  like a nice place to do parkour.

Haha, I know what you mean!

Are you planning to do something related with the city/town underground?Like catacombs and secret passages?No better place to hide a conspiracy than your secret basement.

OH YES.


UltimaRatioRegum

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Re: Ultima Ratio Regum (v 0.7 released, 18th April!)
« Reply #119 on: November 23, 2015, 01:52:16 PM »
Before I started work on anything important-NPC-related this week, I came to release that I had stacked up a rather worryingly massive list of small bugs, issues, errors to fix, and so forth, which I should really try to round off before developing new, and which I should test extensively to make sure everything is currently stable before I start adding the next section (getting important NPCs to respond to their schedules when spawned near the player, as well as when physically abstracted out). So this week has been a blitz of smaller jobs, and here’s a brief list of some of the changes, bug-fixes, and refinements, some of which are slightly more significant than others and might get slightly more mention in a later entry. Firstly, the actually new stuff, and then the fixes and improvements.

New Stuff

Firstly, in nations with the vassalage ideology, we will now find that towns no longer contain town halls, but instead contain manors, each of which belongs to a specific noble family which rules that town and its surrounding area. These are naturally different in shapes according to the nation, and have some pleasant gardens surrounding them akin to (but smaller than) the gardens in upper class districts. These have three floors just like their larger kin, and now all generate correctly across all three floors. Also, you’ll note that they have clear gardens but they can be a little tricky to see when the colour match – once I redo plant generation and ensure visual variation across the world, this should be much clearer (and the same goes for all other buildings with clear “garden” areas. Here are some examples with the exterior on the left, then the floors from highest (with bedroom) to lowest (for servants/slaves):



Next up, delegates now have identified houses in all possible map grids. What I mean this is that whether a delegate in a democratic nation represents a city district, or a town, or a monastery, or whatever, they will now always have somewhere appropriate to spawn and to live. These are generally houses that stand out from the rest, but are not ordinarily of a higher status than “middle-class” (of the sort shown below). In an upper-class district they get upper-class homes, but everywhere else special middle-class houses will spawn. The one shown below is in a city centre with the “cross” aesthetic preference, and three delegates from the district. I recognize this looks a little artificial, but I’m content with how they look here (given that delegates in various democratic nations in the real world are naturally given special statuses of various sorts). Similarly, everywhere else, houses of this size that stand out will belong to a delegate.



There are now a suitable number of priests in each cathedral, and they know that they sleep there, and so when we move onto getting NPCs to physically follow their abstract schedules (the next major task), they will be able to retreat to their quarters at night when appropriate. The number of priests in the cathedral varies per cathedral, but they will always be found moving around the space and talking to others, or worshiping at the altars, or working at a table, and so forth.



Town halls also now have an interior, and some quarters where the mayor lives (I decided to combine those two roles into one), but as above, in vassalage-y nations there is no town hall and towns are instead ruled by a noble from their manor. Here are a couple of town hall interiors (they are all this kind of “star” shape, since I try to make every building a noteworthy and distinctive shape, and those happen to be a shape I haven’t really used anywhere else yet, and certainly not in towns). The rooms on the ground floors with tables will be where town records spawn once I’ve implemented books/scrolls/tablets/etc.



Training areas now spawn in city centre districts in nations which enjoy gladiatorial combat. This will be the standard “work location” for gladiators on days when there are no fights, and you’ll be able to watch them sparring once weapons get introduced. For the time being I’ll give them the same “meandering” code as NPCs get when they look around memorials or art galleries and the like. Doesn’t look super-exciting right now, I realize, but once it has gladiators training (and maybe things like training dummies?) it’ll be rather more noticeable. The shape of the layout is, of course, determined by the nation’s aesthetic preferences.



Improved/Fixed/Resolved Stuff

- Prevented market districts from spawning too many shops in nations with “forced shops” in their ideological preferences.
- Dealt with a bunch of issues involving sand, snow and ice terrain behaving oddly when certain structures are placed on them (since these are handled differently to “ordinary” land).
- Dealt with an interesting scheduling bug where monks really, really hated tending their vegetable gardens.
- Fixed an issue where guards for inside and outside mints became confused about their roles.
- Increased the colour contrast on prayer mats for certain religions to make them less painful to look at.
- Fixed a weird bug with segments being taken out of corner towers in certain districts.
- Fixed an issue with important guards (which is to say, all guards) not being corrected abstracted and returned when the player leaves their map grid.
- Random crowd NPCs will no longer go into a house that has been assigned as somebody’s home.
- Jailers, Mercenaries, Prisoners, Merchants, Innkeeps and other classes of NPC who generally wander around a given room/floor for most of their ordinary day no longer make a mad sprint for the exit the moment they spawn.
- The roads surrounding barracks, military bases and mansions do not override existing walls when spawned.
- Crowd NPCs in towns with foreign communities now only go into the appropriate houses from their culture when returning “home”, and NPCs from the other civilization present actually spawn and go about their day.
- Jail offices now contain, y’know… office stuff. Chairs and so forth.
- Roads in snow/ice/desert towns no longer sometimes appear at a strangely low z level.
- Towns in snow/ice with at least one edge of water no longer have edges that look strange and flat.
- The inside of monasteries always resembles the exterior, and are therefore no longer sometimes somewhat akin to the TARDIS.
- Houses in middle-class districts can no longer spawn, somewhat incongruously, in the middle of parks.
- Fortresses can no longer spawn on adjacent tiles to towns (I’ve only ever seen this ONCE, and should have been impossible already, but it is now doubly impossible).
- Fountains no longer look like delegates when they’re downhill. No, I don’t understand either.
- The quantum scheduling system no longer causes a crash at map edges.
- Fixed an issue that encouraged NPCs to run in circles in a particular form of middle-class district.
- The sex of NPCs is now chosen before they ever spawn – this allows them to spawn according to cultural preferences (only female priests, only male rulers, either in army, etc) and for people to talk about them with correct pronouns.
- Ensured that smaller upper class houses work again – since implementing something that assigns houses directly to families they had been riddled with bugs.
- Leaves are no longer made out water when they hang over tiles of water…

Next Week’s Stuff

At this point I’d say we’re at around… 80% completion on *everything* to do with NPCs and their AI behaviours (for now). We have crowds spawning, crowds pathfinding in every possible area, crowd demographics for nations and cultures, crowds entering/leaving buildings appropriately, important NPCs being spawned, important NPCs being tracked in the abstract, important NPCs being spawned when the player steps onto the appropriate map grid. All that remains is 1) to get important NPCs, when spawned, acting the same way they do when abstracted out, and therefore moving correctly around the physical maps, and 2) to add in the remaining important NPCs who don’t currently spawn (executioners, chiefs, and the like). Then I need to finish off the remaining clothing types (some of the lower-class clothing, and then all the clothing for nomadic/tribal nations), and finish adding in all the new ideological variation between nations, and then it will be onto castle generation and the conversation system! It’s hard to say what order this will be done in. Finishing off scheduled NPC movement is a very technical task and I like to leave myself clear periods of a day or two to work on that kind of thing – but I’m full-time employed now and I’m busy next weekend and the weekend after. As such, I’m probably going to focus on Everything Else for the next fortnight or so, and then come back to NPC scheduling to finish off the calendar year with. Therefore, I would guess that next week we’ll have my continued purging of the bugs and glitches I’ve stacked up (since only around 50% of the issues on the list have been resolved this week) and work on clothes, castles, or both. See you all then!