Page 2 of 4

Re: A new crafting building for the units from the town hall

PostPosted: 09 Jul 2013, 14:10
by Siegfried
I don't like the building for the following reason:
Image

The red lines are emphases of the lines of that building. The two lines to the top right give the first vanishing point. The lines are totally inconsistent. Except for the vertical arbors, none of the other elements match. Look at the other buildings, you will find a clear design rule in all of them. This is not give in the present building. It fits perfect among the leaft out buildings but, well, that are the buildings that are left out. So I think the current building does not fit.

The next question concerns the needed resources. The axe is made entirely of iron, why the wood? If you think of the smithing process, you would rather need coal than wood. At least that would follow the intrinsic game logic.
2 iron bars is way to cheap, even 3 iron bars would be too cheap (remember, the already weaker swordman costs 3 iron bars plus some coal plus 2 buildings and workers). 4 iron bars and the building won't work efficient because after the worker has started, there have to be filled in at least 2 more iron bars until the next axe can be produced.

Re: A new crafting building for the units from the town hall

PostPosted: 09 Jul 2013, 15:43
by Dreamkiller
I don't like the building for the following reason:
Image

The red lines are emphases of the lines of that building. The two lines to the top right give the first vanishing point. The lines are totally inconsistent. Except for the vertical arbors, none of the other elements match. Look at the other buildings, you will find a clear design rule in all of them. This is not give in the present building. It fits perfect among the leaft out buildings but, well, that are the buildings that are left out. So I think the current building does not fit.

The next question concerns the needed resources. The axe is made entirely of iron, why the wood? If you think of the smithing process, you would rather need coal than wood. At least that would follow the intrinsic game logic.
2 iron bars is way to cheap, even 3 iron bars would be too cheap (remember, the already weaker swordman costs 3 iron bars plus some coal plus 2 buildings and workers). 4 iron bars and the building won't work efficient because after the worker has started, there have to be filled in at least 2 more iron bars until the next axe can be produced.
Thanks for explaining that problem! :)
It was only a first try. I made all the 99 sprites in one day. I can make a new building that works with the lines. ;)
And the recources were just an example. I am not good in balancing things. But I thought it would be a good idea to make this worker for a combination with wood and iron. And I know coal is a nicer fuel than wood, but then you have to bring three different recources in that building. :P
But sure I can make another place to store coal.

Because of the balancing thing, maybe we need a formula for it, because every one is saying something else.
We know the stats of the "normal" units and the stats of the town hall ones. We now the prices of the "normal" units, so we can work with the stats on one side and the needed recources on the other. So we can get a balanced system. And if you want more we can use the stats of the recources from the market to bring more detail to the formula.


Can you send me a picture how the lines should go?
And is there a problem with some colors in KaM or can I use all normal RGB colors in 8 Bit?

Re: A new crafting building for the units from the town hall

PostPosted: 09 Jul 2013, 16:12
by Siegfried
Image

Well, all lines that go into the depth have to end in either the left or right vanishing point. Those points can be far away, outside of that picture. That depends on the angle. Those are the red lines.
All lines parallel to the viewers point stay untouched by this. These are the yellow lines.

But I am a bit more concerned about the three houses that i've added to the bottom. The chimney and the stone wall seem to be copied, but the overall proportions are wrong, so the chimney is too tall. Also the laborer will be too big for that.
You can see the thing with the style also in this comparison, mainly with the roof. All included house have clear looks, which means the color shades are clearly different between pixels of different colors. Your house has all shades of brown, but they are too similar, which causes the smeared look. You miss the details then.

Re: A new crafting building for the units from the town hall

PostPosted: 09 Jul 2013, 17:07
by Dreamkiller
Image

Well, all lines that go into the depth have to end in either the left or right vanishing point. Those points can be far away, outside of that picture. That depends on the angle. Those are the red lines.
All lines parallel to the viewers point stay untouched by this. These are the yellow lines.

But I am a bit more concerned about the three houses that i've added to the bottom. The chimney and the stone wall seem to be copied, but the overall proportions are wrong, so the chimney is too tall. Also the laborer will be too big for that.
You can see the thing with the style also in this comparison, mainly with the roof. All included house have clear looks, which means the color shades are clearly different between pixels of different colors. Your house has all shades of brown, but they are too similar, which causes the smeared look. You miss the details then.
Okay. Yes i have used the stone wall, to try the storing out. I can change this and the chimney, too.

Re: A new crafting building for the units from the town hall

PostPosted: 09 Jul 2013, 17:20
by Ben
And the tarp from the quarry :D

Honestly; though, I think that you did a fine job with your "cookie cutter." The most obvious one for me is the stone wall from the weapon smithy. THe chimmeny doesn't look bad, neither does the tarp.

@Seigfried
very nice find there. I wouldn't have noticed that in 100 years. +1 for perception!

Re: A new crafting building for the units from the town hall

PostPosted: 09 Jul 2013, 17:25
by Bence791
The next question concerns the needed resources. The axe is made entirely of iron, why the wood? If you think of the smithing process, you would rather need coal than wood. At least that would follow the intrinsic game logic.
2 iron bars is way to cheap, even 3 iron bars would be too cheap (remember, the already weaker swordman costs 3 iron bars plus some coal plus 2 buildings and workers). 4 iron bars and the building won't work efficient because after the worker has started, there have to be filled in at least 2 more iron bars until the next axe can be produced.

I agree on the "coal instead of wood" point, but imo the rest is just invalid.

Note that they will need an iron armor as well. 3 iron bars (lets say 2 iron + 1 coal for the axe), 2 coal and a recruit (since they need an iron armor). And they only have 2 defence (the swordfighter has 3, and 4 against arrows (!), double of barbs/warriors', don't forget). 2 iron bars is already much if we think of the working "efficiency", but it is needed for the balance. I wouldn't like it if it was 1 iron 1 coal as iron weapons and they'd need a shield. :D

Re: A new crafting building for the units from the town hall

PostPosted: 09 Jul 2013, 17:56
by Dreamkiller
I am normaly working without using other images. But in this case i was using something, to get a start. I wanted to replace this time by time. But it is hard to get into a graphic style of another game and artist. Sry when you see this as steeling or copying. I don't want to leave this image like that. It was just the first try to get a starting structure in the KaM Style. :(

At this moment it fits a bit better to the lines and i started to replace some graphics. ;)
And the color thing.
Here is a preview (not finished just started with the graphics and with the lines):
Image
Image

Re: A new crafting building for the units from the town hall

PostPosted: 09 Jul 2013, 17:59
by Ben
Dude, how in the world are you making these :O
It looks great, but it isn't KaM style. It's just too dark and moody looking.

Re: A new crafting building for the units from the town hall

PostPosted: 09 Jul 2013, 18:04
by Dreamkiller
Dude, how in the world are you making these :O
It looks great, but it isn't KaM style. It's just too dark and moody looking.
The only thing is hard for me is to get this style. :P
But I will work for it! ;)
Maybe I should make a own game(don't do that have not enouth time :P) :D :D

Re: A new crafting building for the units from the town hall

PostPosted: 09 Jul 2013, 18:06
by Ben
You must've studied graphic designs in school, because these look great, man. I am confident that you will get the KaM style eventually ;)

Re: A new crafting building for the units from the town hall

PostPosted: 09 Jul 2013, 18:14
by pawel95
Image
OHHH WOW, thats what my art teacher made my last 3 years everytime in my pictures about rooms, you must know sth more about art,looks like :D

BTW Dreamkilller: HAHA I didnĀ“t know that you are from germany, that will make our conversation way more easier :D

Re: A new crafting building for the units from the town hall

PostPosted: 09 Jul 2013, 22:33
by Vladimir
Dreamkiller good job with the building! Although it doesn't fit the KaM style yet I believe that you will manage to do it. ;) It would be great if we could have all the units from TPR, it will bring some variety and improve the gameplay. However I don't think that the barbarian should be trainabe, it just doesn't fit - training a barbarian in a civilized city. Another thing I was thinking about is that it doesn't make sense producing huge axes for warriors in a building that produces pitchforks. Maybe this building could be used only for producing the axes, thus it will be even more costly to train warriors and since they are quite powerful I think we should make them quite expensive. As regards the other units we could just hire/train them in the town hall in some way. Aftrer all when the peasants rebel they go to the town hall I guess :D or just express their dissatisfaction there :D Anyway, good job with the building ! (H)

Re: A new crafting building for the units from the town hall

PostPosted: 10 Jul 2013, 06:22
by Siegfried
Image
Now that's a building that pleases the eye. I like it.

But Ben is right with the style. My suggestion would be to try roof tiles instead of reed and be it only for a more cheerful color. Apart from that it's a very nice building.

@Bence:
ah, ok, so it's meant for the warrior, not the barbarian. I must have mixed that up.
Still you have to notice, that a warrior has roughly the same strength as a knight, so it must have the same cost. It must definately be more costly that a swordfighter, because it is stronger. The difference between swordfighter and knight is a horse, not iron bars. I guess you can try to balance that with wood.

Re: A new crafting building for the units from the town hall

PostPosted: 10 Jul 2013, 07:07
by thunder
I think Dreamkiller has some other buildings also in his pocket;)

Nice jobs! Really!
Can you create some girls into the game also?;P

Re: A new crafting building for the units from the town hall

PostPosted: 10 Jul 2013, 07:34
by Menszu
As for brighting it up. I think that tiles will brighten it up too much. Let's look at woodcutters and coal mine as perfect example of keeping the building KaM style and darker at the same time. The part I love about this one is roof, those skins look very flavourish. What you could change to brighten things up in my opinion is:
- Chimney, it's way to dark, you could try turning it almost light gray.
- The timber parts. How about making them more regular, squere or oval. And perhaps painted in some good toned down colour like green or wolfish-blue.

As for warrior topic.
Leaving the barbarian out from the picture to make him special and unique, the warrior's stats might be modified to fit rest of civilized KaM soldiers. As far as I know the barbarians and warriors have 1 hitpoint more, and this is what makes them really tought. How about giving him the HP of the rest of foot soldiers. This way with iron armour he requires he'll be easy(?) to kill as pikeman by arrowfire. If we want this unit clearly as counter to swordfighters, how about just giving him strength of a swordman when it comes to hiting, and add a bonus against infantry the way pikeman work against cavalry.
This way:
- Warrior has specialized role to fight melee infantry and is good at it, reducing an obvious melee spam.
- Warrior is wurnble to missle fire
- Warrior is wurnable to cavalry, his bonus don't aply to the horseman. The whole point of adding the bonus solution is - the warrior wont replace a role of a pikeman.

So he's basicly another player in rock-paper-scissors system.
considering those points I guess 2 iron and 1 wood is fair price. Since the unit I proposed is quite comparable to the pikeman.
Pikeman cost: 2 iron ore ,2 iron, 4 coal
Warrior cost: 3 iron ore, 3 iron, 3 coal, 1 timber

2 wood for pitchfork, and 2 wood for a sling and we have all the units. And the builing stays unique at middle ground between iron and wood production, operating on two types of wares.