Town hall in the remake?

[Danjb]

There are a lot of missions and campaigns on my mission site. Eventually we'll have a Campaigns screen where you can choose a campaign from a list and play it. (much like single missions at the moment)

Yeah, that's a cool idea.

Just been thinking some more about the Town Hall... Say we made the church use the town bell idea like you suggested, and made the Town Hall give you ability to buy upgrades instead, here are some ideas I had for upgrades:

Faster Building Construction (~20 Gold)
Laborer's build buildings faster.

Faster Road Building (~30 Gold)
Laborer's build roads faster.

Extra Goods (~50 Gold)
All buildings can hold one extra good.

Double Production (~100 Gold)
All buildings produce twice as many wares.

These are just ideas so take them with a pinch of salt, but I think with some tweaking it could be a really interesting building! Plus it still uses Gold, so it kind of fits the bill (you could still get the Town Hall after the Metallurgist).

[Ben]

I love the idea, but I am hesitant because it is not, I repeat, NOT anywhere near the KaM style.

Haha, I feel like an old man yelling about how one ought to "Preserve the tradition!"
I don't see any real reason to say no to this; though.

[Litude]

I don't want to sound too negative, but honestly I think adding the church would be a bad idea. Even in Age of Empires 2, only players new to the game actually use the town bell function since anyone who has played the game a bit online knows that you're screwed if you actually have to ring it (because of the horrible backslash it causes to your economy). And in Knights and Merchants the situation would be ways worse since you are totally dependent on your serfs constantly carrying wares about.

Also on another note, I don't get what the deal about the siege weapons moving by themselves is. From the top of my head I can't think of any game released at around the same time or before that actually had people pushing them forward. If someone actually went ahead and added people pushing the siege weapons, it would also be unrealistic if there was just a single person pushing them and adding several would mean the siege weapons would have to be bigger. As for the game having all details fine and dandy, what about the size of buildings compared to those of units? They certainly aren't 1:1.

Just throwing in my two cents.

[Lewin]

Danjb's ideas are interesting but I'm not sure they should be used as KaM has never had upgrades/research.
I agree with what Litude said about the church... The only time I can think of it being useful is in a multiplayer game where your allies arrive a few moments too late to save your last serf so you lose the game. If you could keep some serfs in hiding then you could rebuild after being attacked. But yeah I can't imagine someone placing a church in their village on the off chance that the might get to use it. It would have to have other primary functions too.

Just to be clear: We will never implement a feature just because there is some nice alpha sprite lying around that deserves to be used. The idea has to fit in the KaM universe.

Something about siege equipment just doesn't seem to fit KaM the way they are. I'd like to see Krom write his opinion here though.
But if we did eventually add them I'd still want to make them less like archers and more of a tactical unit for destroying towers and other buildings. Balistae are just one-shot-kill crossbowmen and that doesn't seem right.

[Yeti]

With regards to siege weapons I believe there should be a siege operator unit. Now potentially it'll fit the bill simply for a recruit to carry out this task, but each siege unit should be manned, if anything so the damn things have to eat. This could also mean that the Siege Workshop could work like the weapon and armour buildings, and supply parts to the Barracks.

I second Lewin's view that siege units should be used tactically rather than as additional archers. I worry though that Watch Towers would become essentially useless in the face of a siege attack. An awful lot to be thought out in regards to their implementation.

As a counter to Latude's points KaM might work with magic when it comes to the production of space, but it is fundamentally in contrast to the rest of the gameplay to have KaM work with magic for any kind of physics and the siege weapons are pumped with more physics magic than the brooms in Fantasia.

[krisdw]

In medieval times, the population relied heavily on their faith. Destroying a church was catastrophic to people's morale.

What if building a church would give your units and/or workers a small buff?

-Military units do a tiny bit of extra damage
-Workers build a little faster

I don't know what that would do to the game's balance and "authentic feel" though.

It's tough to come up with a good idea that doesn't ruin the classic mechanisms.

[T*AnTi-V!RuZz]

In medieval times, the population relied heavily on their faith. Destroying a church was catastrophic to people's morale.

What if building a church would give your units and/or workers a small buff?

-Military units do a tiny bit of extra damage
-Workers build a little faster

I don't know what that would do to the game's balance and "authentic feel" though.

It's tough to come up with a good idea that doesn't ruin the classic mechanisms.

Maybe this isn't such a bad idea

[Danjb]

If we go with that idea, maybe make it so that you have to choose a bonus, and you can only have one active at a time?

[GreatWhiteBear]

I'd say specialists should work faster.
Military units stronger? In that case I'd say make them harder to kill.
IMHO, determination in faith makes people tougher not stronger.(Gives them more will to live rather than give them the rage to kill.)

[Danjb]

I'd like to add that although this is an interesting idea, I don't think it's any more "KaM" than my Town Hall idea was :/

[Lewin]

Yeah I don't really like the idea of adding upgrades or research to KaM. That is one thing that every other RTS game has which KaM does not.

[Krom]

I kind of like upgrades idea, but make it more complex - 20 leather+40ore+10stone+30barrels for 1 upgrade. We don't want to be centering on gold

[GreatWhiteBear]

Sounds ok, BUT the host should be able to decide.
And I think we shouldn't use upgrades but boosts(temporarily).
And IF we will use upgrades then make different ones for different situations.
Like have one for increased leather production/processing speed and another one for increased ron melting/processing

[batoonike]

Adding stuff is super fun if you do it yourself, but it often results in random junk that is horrible to play for other people. How about make a proper remake of TsK and until that don't add anything?
Huge number of good old games are broken by "cool ideas" modders and remakers add. Soon you can't find the original game anywhere. And the ideas are 98% of time complite BS that ruins the game and only looks good on the paper. And were fun to add.

[The Dark Lord]

Well I don't think they will be adding random things. Personally I don't like the upgrades idea either.