Is Stardock making a Fantasy TBS game?

There was a thread a while back on the subject. From Brad's reply there:

It's not likely we're going to do a MOM2 due to the licensing issues with Atari at this stage. But we are working on an unnamed fantasy 4X strategy game.

For joy!

I can't wait for more details!

Oooo.

A year ago I had no idea who you guys were and now I'm avidly following your games. I've never visited a videogame companies website this much, well unless you count WoW.

Can't wait for it!

Branding crap is one of many reasons I despise the modern IP regime yet still admire Stardock for trying to make money from software. I think I might become a shameless Minion of Kryo if the Stardock devs manage a decent follow-up to MOM, whatever they call it.

Any chance of Stardock sharing some dev milestones, even quarterly or annual ones?

Out first milestone is to get more people off of Dark Avatar and onto the fantasy game

And while it is a bummer that we couldn't run with the already established "MoM" franchise (too much pesky lawyer intervention for our liking), it'll be a blast to come up with our own lore and world to run with, as well as being able to have full control of the game without Big Brother coming to make us redo major chunks of the game they may not agree with.

We're all very excited...can't wait to start working full-time on it so we have more to show off

Minion of Kryo

That would make a cool name for a monster type in the game!

Yes no MoM was a sad news indead. But you can make your own lore. Just one hint "NO SLIDERS" plz don't use any sliders in the game. Make it a game where you move stuff around, but in small quantities of like 5-10.

Also I played Age of Wonders, I think I got 3 games from the series. However all of them jsut didn't do it for me. Not nearly as good as MoM, and the AI cheating was too obvious. Atleast in MoM it was believable. in AoW the AI always had 3 times more units than you, it was jsut too obvious.

And while it is a bummer that we couldn't run with the already established "MoM" franchise (too much pesky lawyer intervention for our liking), it'll be a blast to come up with our own lore and world to run with, as well as being able to have full control of the game without Big Brother coming to make us redo major chunks of the game they may not agree with.

Sounds like it'll work out better in the long run, though I guess the name recognition would have helped boost sales a bit.

Oh well, I'm really looking forward to what you guys come up with. It's a part of the market that has been ignored way too much. I know several people who would love another fantasy 4X game (I don't count AoW or Dom3). I've tried to get them interested in GalCiv2, but there are so many 4X space games around that it's difficult to convince them that it stands out. On the other hand, I know they'd snap up a fantasy 4X game in a heartbeat.

If they make a modern Master of Magic then they only need to change some names of stuff to avoid lawsuits. You know, do a spirutual successor like Supreme Commander or Bioshock that really IS real sequels to Total Annihilation and System Shock but without the correct names.

People online know that Supreme Commander is TA 2 but with a different name. It's really easy to do the same with Master of Magic since just like Supreme Commander it will be so updated and improved that Atari would NEVER win in a court!

Out first milestone is to get more people off of Dark Avatar and onto the fantasy game And while it is a bummer that we couldn't run with the already established "MoM" franchise (too much pesky lawyer intervention for our liking), it'll be a blast to come up with our own lore and world to run with, as well as being able to have full control of the game without Big Brother coming to make us redo major chunks of the game they may not agree with. We're all very excited...can't wait to start working full-time on it so we have more to show off

After what I have seen with G C II Dark Avatar you would be better off doing it all
your way and I BET it will be one of the best out there when it is released So make us all proud.

Out first milestone is to get more people off of Dark Avatar and onto the fantasy game And while it is a bummer that we couldn't run with the already established "MoM" franchise (too much pesky lawyer intervention for our liking), it'll be a blast to come up with our own lore and world to run with, as well as being able to have full control of the game without Big Brother coming to make us redo major chunks of the game they may not agree with. We're all very excited...can't wait to start working full-time on it so we have more to show off

now that DA has gone gold, how much longer until we get some official news on the fantasy 4x?

thanks!

2nd markgil's question.

I read in a recent Dark Avator interview where Brad (aka "Draginol", "Frogboy", and "the guy who signs my paycheck" to the Stardock employees who show up on the forum) confirmed that they were working on a fantasy 4x game now.

I'm VERY stoked about that! The GalCiv experience has been nothing but first class--game design done for the sake of a great gaming experience. I love the design and development philosophy that Stardock emphasizes, and I think it runs counter to a lot of directions in which the industry is sadly running the wrong way these days.

I'd go so far as to ask... If Stardock is making a Fantasy 4X, and it's going to be turn-based, can I preorder it now??   

I'm happy that Dark Avatar is out now... it'll keep me busy until Stardock makes their announcement about this.

Let's face it: Stardock has revolutionized the space 4X game. Galciv2, in my mind, is going up there with Master of Orion. It has become the classic that 10 years from now strategy gamers will still be talking about.

Maybe my expectations are high, but I'm hoping Stardock's fantasy strategy game is something that I'll put in the same category of excellence as Heroes of Might and Magic III, Masters of Magic, and Age of Wonders: Shadow Magic

I have no clue what kind of thing they're looking at creating though, sooo I can't wait to see what they come up with.

I really don't consider "Heroes of Might and Magic" series a "4x" series... it's basically just a turn based strategy game, where all you do is manage a couple of towns and build up your hero. You don't really manage an EMPIRE that much.

The "Civilization" series is somewhat of a 4x game, but I'm not sure how much "Civilization" is going to inspire this game.

Basically, I can't wait for more details... but I'm very happy playing Dark Avatar for the time being.

It will be interesting to see what Stardock comes up with, especially in the area of different races such as; for example, evil frog folk that move easily and invisibly through and along the waterways and oceans of the realms to make surprise attacks upon enemy realms.

I will also be lookinig forward to seeing if they execute animated battles between opposing armies where each side can assign commanders and wizards; with special abilities, to their armies.

Example; Commander Sir Hedron might be skilled at ambushing enemy forces in forested or rough terrain while Prince Phillip De Blood might favor a mass charge at the enemy and be immune to the chance of being ambushed if accompanied by the scrying Wizard Stugymtae.

I mostly agree with this, and it's sort of why I was excited when the MoM2 by Stardock talk was happening.

Given how open the fantasy genre is, I almost pity the devs who are doing the initial brainstorming about what to do with map(s), how magic will work, and how they're going to design the faction-leading Mage-Emporers. Talk about a too-many-choices problem...

I just certainly hope Stardock understands the importance of tactical combat. In a MoM-like game, tactical combat would be one of the most important parts - if not THE most important part - in the entire game, since I would be ultimately disappointed by GalCiv 2 in a fantasy world (Don't like GalCiv....slow and boring with no action so I've gone back to my RTS games).

So now when DA is out it's enough with one man as postgame support for it so the rest can work on your fantasy TBS game

And talking about HoMM. Completely lost interest for it.

I can't wait for news on the game. MoM is probably my favorite game of all time. In fact I'd probably be playing it right now instead of DA, if it weren't for its horrible AI and diplomacy. Where can we get news about this game, I mean where will the news be announced? Sorry if I sound like a fanatic, I just want to be there as soon as anything becomes known.

This and the main site. Have been like that so far when it's about games.

But I think they're still in the brainstorming phase so they don't got anything to say yet. I'm sure they start talking as soon as the designdecisions have been made.

I'd second the comment on tactical combat being a must-have for a Fantasy TBS game.

In a game environment like Gal Civ, delegating combat decisionmaking to the AI is totally compatible with the gameplay--it fits fine with a "competing societies collide" kind of theme.

But not being able to issue orders to your heroes in fantasy combat? That'd just be too much of a departure for the genre. Ever since LoTR, fantasy has been about the individual characters.

One of the things that MoM did so well, that so few other games have done since, is to create a more dynamically hostile environment, as opposed to just a static environment where the only competition came from opponent players. I can remember beating off wave after wave of Phantom Warriors rampaging out from the unexplored Dungeon near my city, until I finally had enough troops to venture into their lair and clean them out myself!

That really helped to avoid the linear "Colony Rush" phase that handicaps most of those TBS 4x games, and made for interesting trade-off decisions early in the game.

I have enough confidence in the Stardock staff to where I don't worry that they'll just give us "GalCiv in Etheria" or somesuch. But, it's also obvious from the way Draginol talks about the design decisions in the GalCiv games that designing an AI-friendly game system in from the start will be a top priority.

There are a lot of flavors of tactical combat here, if they're interested. [Heroes of M&M and Age of Wonders both give us refinements of the original Master of Magic combat model, although I think most AI has difficulty modelling such open-ended conflicts. Disciples and Warlords IV both gave us flavors of a slightly different tactical combat model that didn't play out on a map per se, but seemed a bit easier for AI to handle.

Etherlords gave us an interesting example of a card-based tactical combat system, albeit if they wanted to head in that direction, I'd strongly encourage them to look to the recent board game release, Battlelore, for something that is a hybrid of board-based and card-based combat.

Dominions and Legion:Arena are both interesting examples of game systems that emphasized scripted orders as a means of putting the AI and the player on a level playing field for tactical combat.

I'm intrigued to get more details on what this game might be about. In any event, I doubt we'll see it before 2009, so I guess I'll just content myself to wait for the first chance to pre-order!!

GalCiv works as a space game but its game mechancis would make a pretty poor fantasy game.

I wish that the game would be a cross between Civilization, Rome Total War and Heroes of Might and Magic 3. The tactical battle could be in 3D (as in Total War), but will allow spell casting as in Heroes. I also wish there was a huge technology tree. As you advance in the technology tree, your units/heroes gain new skills and abilities (like the secondary skills in Heroes 3). The technologies also enable you to learn more and more advanced magic. Depending on which magic technologies you research, you will learn different types of magic, similar to the air/water/earth/fire-magics in Heroes. You don´t get new units by building units, but you research the breeding of those as well.

Depending on which path you take in the technlogy tree, you could for example end up with knight-like heroes, with "good" magic and units like griffins and angels, or you could be a bad necromancer or warlock with evil units like zombies, devils and minotaurs.

You could make the new, innovative turn-based fantasy strategy game that Heroes 5 should have been.

I'd agree with FarAway on some excellent points he made, and emphasize them. As a strategy game, MOM lacked quite a bit of balance (flying invisible warships on one side, and...well...gnolls on the other). It made up for this by being amazing in a "PVE" perspective. The early game wasn't about city rush, it was about holding your one little city together and creeping forward while wave after wave of stuff came after you from the nearby dungeons/towers/nodes. Clearing the countryside of wandering monsters so that you COULD expand your civilization was a paramount importance, and made the strategic decisions really intense from turn one. More defense? Build that wall, or build the archer's hall for longbowmen? What do you need to go out and quell the countryside? Meanwhile, the opponents on Myrror were claiming all your nodes. On impossible, it was vital to get to those ultrahard nodes on Myrror, because you needed those extra spellbooks. That was another great point, the fact that you could add to your spellbook stock by taking over hard nodes, and added more strategic choices. Do I take this node, hoping for another spellbook, or do I commit my army to the more prosaic beating up of opponents with less spell power to back them up (because I didn't take the node). And don't get me started about taking adamantium mines in Myrror; that was just absolutely a requirement, and gave you another of those "crap, I gotta get going after that, too!" things to add to your list. It was bliss.

Finally, the two different tech trees made for really great strategic depth. Building your cities at the same time you were building your spellbook make for great synergies (like the aforementioned FIW). It was nigh unto impossible to design AI to balance against that type of variability in gameplay, so the designers resorted to out and out cheating by adding lots of gold, faster build times, and mana to the AI. No one really complained.

So, for me, the things that made MOM so memorable, and were captured by some F4X games afterword (like AoW and the like):

1) PVE environment to slow the initial city rush
2) Dual tech trees of city improvements (for better armies) and spells
3) Explorable terrain that can expand either of these trees (like more spellbooks, or adamantium for better weapons for your troops)
4) Tactical combat on a plane large enough to exersize tactics (AOW got this right, HOMM5 did not). It was at least 3 turns to close to melee in MOM, and that gave enough time to enact some pretty good strategies (Wrack, wrack, wrack...)
5) Stacks of units, but not stacks of hundreds of units (as Astax said). Having a group of 6 or 8 archers that lost units and therefore potency on the field was great, because you had to protect them. Having 150 archers on the field that can't be protected just makes them a two shot utility ranged weapon. Bleagh.

The one thing that MOM didn't really have that would be a nice addition (something that AOW did get right): Stealth for spying. Halfings may not have had much, but concealment meant that you had a ready made, cheap spy network ready to go from almost day one. And that is worth more than a few units.

Lastly, thanks to Stardock for even discussing doing this. As a 20+ year veteran of the genre, I had about given up hope, but with you folks at the helm, I'm very excited!

Winnihym (yes, THAT Winnihym)

Thanks, Winnihym, you did a better job of articulating my point than I could on the Player-vs-Environment theme! It's a good way to keep a game engaging and interactive early on, without forcing "same caliber opponents" into your backyard right away.

I guess we have it from the horse's mouth that they have no plans to use GalCiv's game mechanics for a fantasy game.

Did I mention that a huge variety of novel magic weapons makes fantasy games way cooler, too?

That is true, you need tactical combat in a fantasy game I think it's one of the commandments. Watching my archers and swords man slash a dragon is not as fun as telling them to do it.