Knights and Merchants.net Forum

The topic is 21 pages long so I didn't read everything. Anyways ideas:

1. there could be a checkbox in ingame menu at "settings", where you can turn the map terrain off. The terrain would be replaced with black background so only units and buildings are visible. The tiny unit dots could probably be surrounded by a inverted color circle, like in many games with lots of units.
(example http://media.arstechnica.com/articles/p ... a-1997.gif)

Or the unit dots could just be like 5x bigger and surrounded by inverted circle. I guess every unit is drawing a dot on the map. It could draw a 6x bigger inverted dot and then 4x bigger normal dot. So you actually see enemy units coming and find your own small scouting groups. Currently the minimap could just be static jpg image, you can't see anything anyway.

2. Maximum scroll speed could be 40. Two times faster than currently. The current maximum is really slow compared to what you get at maximum scroll speed in other games. I would defenitely use 40.

3. A setting to always show game clock, in multiplayer too. Like it is with F6 debug speedup. Havent tried F6 in multiplayer but I doupt it works.

KaM is KaM, not other games. <.<
And please give a reason for doing it.
Like, why do you want those negatives?
And why do you want the max to be 40?
Does it bring improvements?

And why would you want to speedup in multiplayer? xD

OK, let me try to draw the whole picture - how it looks from my point of view.

I perfectly agree with all of you that there is no need to implement every idea that comes along. And we agree, that an idea has to be mature before it is implemented. In fact - if you think back, Lewin - I also was one of the guys complaining that most ideas were only half-ready suggestions, that were thrown in withoug any coherence to kam. I badly want the ideas to fit to the kam universe and the gameplay. That's why I don't like walls and that's why I dislike the fog of war, because the first one does not fit the game and the second is not realistic and does not fit.

But - there is one point where the remake is not completely consistent with the things Lewin says. The remake is designed to be a modern TSK, but it requires that the user has TPR installed before using the remake. Why? I think, it is because it uses some material from TPR. And this material is the fishers hut and the TPR troops.

The fishers hut is implemented - why exactly? The finiteness of fish is realistic, but it does not fit the TSK food scheme. But it is implemented - and I like it. This just as a side note.

But more important are the TPR troopes. They are there. They are a part of the remake. It's not a fancy idea someone had. And it's not only that the sprites are there like for the walls. They are already a part of the remake and work well, so we have to find a solution how to deal with it.

Do you want them explicitly to be fighting-only? Like the barbarians? This would take the barabrians much of their specialty - and this goes contrary to other statements. So why they are there?

The point with the "we don't have to include every idea" is not valid in this case. It's an open question, and I am pretty sure, that Lewin or Krom won't close this question without thinking about it thoroughly.

The other TPR stuff was removed in the last release, but the TPR troops stayed. The barbarians are meant to be the special units, not the other TPR troops. So how to deal with them? Remove them and risking some old fighting maps to become unbalanced? Maybe this would be the easiest way, and it's the way it was dealt with the ballistae.

But as long as this decision isn't final, there's room for discussion. And I wanted to stress the point, that the fitting of an idea to kam is more important than a realism, which either way cannot be there. Think about the axe, where does the iron come from? This is not realistic and it was never meant to be realistic. It was meant to be simple, so that a game can be made.

And therefore I think an unrealistic simplification like a pike becoming a pitchfork is of less importance compared to an idea not fitting to kam gameplay.

Tell me that you don't like a pike being used as two different weapon type because all other weapon types are unique and I have to agree (this is in fact the weakest point of that idea). But please don't tell me that a pike becoming a pitchfork is unrealistic, because then I _have_ to say that a wooden board becoming an axe is the same level of unrealistic wonder, but it's reality in kam.

Thanks for reading

I Agree on that, no aeroplane who will shoot the plane down? A unit with a automatic crossbow like in the movie Van Helsing? (Idea maybe to counter the aeroplane?)

What about units who throw spears? (Is it called a ''Javelin''? My english is not that good ) 1 recruit + 1 spear. (Inspiration of Medieval Total War 2)
Spy units who can transform themselfs as an enemy unit to spy on enemy? (and using the same unit to reveal enemy spies?)

I got more ideas, but here just some of it.

@Siegfried:
The idea of fog of war is not realistic, I agree on that. But still, giving a chance to new players in the game, this would be a excellent sollution right?
Making the fog of war an option in the game would suit everyones interest, or am I wrong?

what about a voting option to pause the game??

ps.: i don't really know if people would pause the game, but sometimes i have to do something fast and the only solution is to leave a bunch of buildings to be built and then rush... and thats when its peacetime, otherwise i'm to wary to leave my base undefended

Like the market was suggested, I'd like to '(re-)introduce' the monastry/church.

A monk unit is easy to photoshop, I'll upload a quick sketch as a edit of this post soon.
The thing to discuss is what the monk's power should be, except for some poor fighting and walking around.
{Just don't give it magical powers. So something like healing battlewounds using a bandage? I wouldn't care creating the walking and fighting sprites, just we should agree on some sort of advantage that having a monk has. When you would even want to implant it.}
And what the monk would cost. And what the church would cost (for ex. 4 wood, 4 stone).
The church was about to be implented in KaM, but never made it to the final version, like some other buildings.
All sprites were made, like the icon that's being used in the buildmenu.

I know this would need a detailed plan like the market, but I'd like to see it in the game. Some more buildings would be nice I think, they just need to be useful.

(More old houses(German forum):http://www.knightsandmerchants.de/inclu ... &entries=0)

nice one mate. O.O

I didn't create the sprites, just that you know?

@Kridge
What about making him able to boost attack, speed or defense with 1 or 2 points.
The costs per monk, 3 or 4 gold chests or 1 wood and 2 or 3 gold chests.
20 seconds of production (training) time.
For the Monastery the costs could be equal to the castle, or 5x4 (SxW).

I made such suggestion in kamclub http://kamclub.ru/forum/2-52-829-16-1269011595 before era of remake. That was topic of suggestions to KaM2))) I had suggest to make special religious knights - Paladins, (not only monks) which have an ability of charge (the main thing of knights as war units in real). They would have lances which changing to swords in non-charging fights (like instruments of laborers/builders). But there were some troubles with a new buildings (such as monastery smith - smith makes armor for hourse and lance) so I suggested make such knights in mercenary house. I thought that they will looks like this However I think now that the origin KaM knights good (even with not lances for charge), so game do not need them. But it will be interesting to have them in army)

what is the problem with the fog of war, no realistic? COME ON, do you call realistic being able to see a place in wich you are not standing? are you god and you see all the world? fog of war IS realistic , because if makes that, if you want to know what is happening in osme place, you have to send explorers, something TOTALLY REALISTIC...

really man.. it should have been one of the first thing in be made.

wich is no reallistic, is that each units have diferent reach of shight, what happen, the labourers are blind? they need lents? and the soldiers have eagle watch?

every one should have same line sight, at lest for revealing fog of war.

I don't see a problem with making a church, or making monks, or making those paladins. I'm not sure about the monks going around blessing the army and increasing their attributes, but it doesn't seem like it would ruin the game and id do anything for better game-play and variety.

Q: Is there any sprite for these units???

Q: Would the monks be TRAINED in the church/monastery, or would the building be like all others in KaM, where you train the monk/priest (2gold) and he walks around your army blessing people automatically and increasing their morale (i prefer first option)... About the realism, it is pretty realistic. Increasing morale of your units would increase their fighting capabilities...

Q: The 'paladin' would be good against cavalry (as u suggested he uses a lance). I think that if he is implemented (i dont know how, if he has no sprites), he should require:
1) lance + horse + iron armament + long shield + recruit (and be like a knight with the attack possessed like a lance carrier
2) lance + horse + iron armament + long shield + priest/monk(costing 2 gold) (then maybe his attributes could be automatically boosted)

Each tile has a size of 2 meters at the very largest. This means, that the usual maps are 300 x 300 meters in size. Line of sight for each unit is 20m.

I hope that I am not the only not near-sighted on these forums - but come on, how realistic is it that you don't see what's happening in a neighbouring town that is 200 meters away?

But again this is a discussion about realism and again you can trivialize everything because it's a game. It's meant to be simpler than reality.
Hmm, I think that the cavalry was meant to counter range attacks. But of course you have to find a way around the enemy troops. You cannot find a way around if the entrances are too narrow. But for some reasons so many players want to play those maps, because it's easier too defend. But keep in mind: then it's easy to defend for your opponents, too.

Maybe the arrow predicition is also too good.

You're wrong Siegfried. If you think you should see the whole map at once, that means there is nothing to explore, so why leave the map black in the beginning??
Nevertheless, its not all about realism we are talking here. I think you are exaggerating when you talk like that about 'meters' and distances. If we were to be extramely realistic you would also not be able to see around mountains etc. and all this youre saying reduces gameplay.
thats not what we want