New Game?

Hannibal: Rome and Carthage in the Second Punic War is a new and innovative turn-based strategy game that puts you in command of the Carthaginian military during a period of total war over land and sea with the young Roman Republic. With this military juggernaut of the ancient world at your disposal, you will vie for control over Italy, Carthage, Spain and the Mediterranean Sea using a combination of strategic political maneuvering and sheer tactical skill both on land and sea. Play consists of two layers; the first is a strategic layer where you must prudently steer your forces to the destruction of Rome’s army and the ultimate destruction of the Republic and city itself. At your disposal are a variety of unit types and historical commanders from which to form your armies. On the tactical scale, when meeting the enemy in battle, skilled leadership and a knack for war come into play as you use a simple but engaging battle system to best your opponents.

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Re: New Game?

Post by mercenarius »

Hey Orm, thanks for the input, and I am sorry for the delay in responding. Here is a screen shot of a revision for the Naves Department:

Naves Department Action Icons.jpg
Naves Department Action Icons.jpg (77.86 KiB) Viewed 1737 times

I had previously allowed a duplicate "Conscriptio" enactment button but that is somewhat confusing and uninspired. Instead the player will have the ability to upgrade his/her level of shipbuilding. This is what the first version of that enactment menu looks like:

Shipbuilding_Enactment.jpg
Shipbuilding_Enactment.jpg (220.73 KiB) Viewed 1737 times
This menu is actually taken from the Palmyrans in the 270 A.D. scenario. As you can see, their initial ship-building level is light warships (lemboi and liburnae). The Romans start at "Triremes" but also have an update path to quinqueremes if they want to try. This is probably only useful in the Grand Campaign scenario, and a few select scenarios such as this one, but I may refine that a little down the line.

I realize that the Romans learned how to build quinqueremes very quickly, but I don't know if that experience is applicable across the board in Late Antiquity. My understanding is that the Carthaginians used prefabricated parts with identifiers on them and those identifiers showed how the ship was put together. So, when the Romans captured that intact Carthaginian ship, they got quite a bit of information on how to duplicate the process.

I'll try to post some more screen shots and info after New Year's. :)
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Re: New Game?

Post by mercenarius »

So, here is some additional work on the Administrative Interface. I hadn't defined the enactments for the "Disciplina Militaris" choice in the Exercitus (Army) Department. Here are the enactment buttons, just as a reminder:

Exercitus Department.png
Exercitus Department.png (134.3 KiB) Viewed 1663 times

Here are the choices for "Disciplina Militaris":

Disciplina Militaris.png
Disciplina Militaris.png (436.83 KiB) Viewed 1663 times

These are mostly going to be rare choices for the player. Apart from the Grand Campaign, probably the only opportunities to change the organization will be in the Diocletian scenario or the Constantine scenario.

I don't think that players will change the Service Grade of units very often at all, but it does seem that it should be possible. I also want to allow the players the chance to change the names of Legions. Only Legions will have names in the game. I realize that other units in the Roman Army had names but...it's just too much to program or manage.

Yes, I know that there weren't any Roman units named "The Falcons" but the players could choose to use such a name.

As far as military punishments go, I do notice that in the Byzantine military manuals that I have read, there is no explicit reference to flogging or other forms of corporal punishment. The manuals very explicitly grant commanders the right - and the responsibility - to use capital punishment. Other punishments are referred to as "according to the law." This feature in the game is mostly chrome, but flogging was outlawed in the Scholae after some period. Perhaps the players can earn a few victory points for "Humanitarian Achievement" at the expense of some discipline.
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Re: New Game?

Post by mercenarius »

Here are a few new screenshots taken from the administrative interface. When the "Augustus" department is selected, these are the choices for Major Enactments:

Augustus Enactments.jpg
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When the "Securitas" button is clicked, this is the menu that will appear:

Securitas Menu.jpg
Securitas Menu.jpg (174.46 KiB) Viewed 1531 times

(Note: the enactments themselves I have shown before, I think. The icons for the pop-up menu here are new).

Also, I finished adding the theoretical Heavy Warship unit type to the game. If you have upgraded your ship-building technology to "quinqueremes" then you'll have this extra type available when recruiting. Here is an example when the Operational Command for Naval Recruiting is used:

Recruit Naval Units.png
Recruit Naval Units.png (947.79 KiB) Viewed 1531 times

I realize that the number of banks of oars is somewhat off, due to artistic license. But it fits with the icons used in "Hannibal" so that is one good excuse, I hope. :D

I'll post some more screenshots next weekend. I also have to finish the patch for the Napoleon game that I promised people, and that is almost ready. So, it will be full-time on The Fall of Rome again after that. Mostly, anyway.

P.S. I am sorry that the attachments are so blurry. The icon for the "Heavy Warship" type actually looks fairly good, even at smaller sizes. But it doesn't look that great here in the browser. :oops:
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Re: New Game?

Post by Orm »

Thank you for the updates. :)

Will there be naval river forces? Naval river bases?

Maybe that has already been answered?
Have a bit more patience with newbies. Of course some of them act dumb -- they're often students, for heaven's sake. - Terry Pratchett

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Re: New Game?

Post by mercenarius »

Hi Orm,

Yes, there are river fleets and bases. They are kind of small, because space is so tight. The rules for naval movement on rivers are simplified/restricted on this account. River fleets are always kept in their bases, but they can move to and from an adjoining sea zone if there is one.

Here is example on the Rhine:

Rhine River Base.jpg
Rhine River Base.jpg (137.32 KiB) Viewed 1466 times

The selected tiles for that river base happen to look like this:

River Base Details.jpg
River Base Details.jpg (82.33 KiB) Viewed 1466 times

Note: the commander is not a historical personage. I don't know who commanded the Rhine river fleet during Trajan's reign. The name here was chosen randomly.

If there is more than one naval base on the same river, they can patrol and/or attack each other. But you won't position the fleet on the river itself. I just couldn't draw it in a way that I liked, so I created these simplified rules.

Just about every river which is navigable by ships has access to the sea or is a tributary to a river which has access to the sea. The only major exception that I can think of is the Upper Danube. Ships cannot travel beyond the Iron Gates, and that section of the Danube is landlocked.

P.S. Sorry for the delay in responding. I always seem to disappear for a few days when you decide to post something. :oops:
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Re: New Game?

Post by mercenarius »

I did want to add some new screen shots this weekend. Here are two new menus from the Administrative Interface. The first is used to set the state of Senators and military commands, in the fashion of the reforms of Gallienus:

Senatorial Commands.jpg
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I realize that the formality of Gallienus' action is disputed, and perhaps developed over time. For the game, we want to keep the matter simple if possible.

This menu will appear when the "Investigatio" enactment button from the Senatus Department is used:

Investigatio.jpg
Investigatio.jpg (213.21 KiB) Viewed 1440 times

I plan to program this in the next couple of weeks after I finish the patch for the Napoleon game and I will post some results as soon as I have it working. It's not going to be too complex, but I hope that it will be more than "chrome."
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Re: New Game?

Post by mercenarius »

I decided to finish some graphics before programming the "Investigatio" and here is a screen shot of the menu for the "Comitatus" action button which is part of the "Augustus" Department:

Comitatus Menu.jpg
Comitatus Menu.jpg (200.9 KiB) Viewed 1388 times

I will do the "Investigatio" next after I finish the patch for the "Napoleon" game, and I'll post something about that when it's working.

You know, I had tried to post a response with this information last night. I guess that I forgot to hit "Submit" - perils of working late, I guess.
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Re: New Game?

Post by CSSS »

I have been watching you develop the game for years! I cannot wait till it is released! Also where do I find your Napolean game?
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Re: New Game?

Post by mercenarius »

Thanks for your kind words!

The Napoleon game is available through Matrix and from Steam:

https://www.matrixgames.com/game/victor ... y-napoleon

I don't have a Steam link handy. Of course, Steam doesn't support Win 7 or older in their desktop application, so that may affect your buying decision.
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Re: New Game?

Post by mercenarius »

Well, I got quite a bit done with graphics and completing the menus for many enactment buttons this last week.

I also added Imperial Mints to the game. I figured that they ought to be there, and I have a way to abstract their functioning, I think. So here are some screenshots of that for you:

Moneta Menu.png
Moneta Menu.png (547.55 KiB) Viewed 1226 times

The Imperial Mints are managed from the "Moneta" enactment button in the Economia Department:

Economia Enactments.png
Economia Enactments.png (136.82 KiB) Viewed 1226 times

I don't quite have the Investigatio fully programmed but I have almost finished the front end of the most difficult one: investigating a particular individual. Here is what that looks like:

Investigate Individual.jpg
Investigate Individual.jpg (627.08 KiB) Viewed 1226 times

Basically, you will get the choice to investigate any serving military officer, any of the predefined high-ranking officials such as Praetorian Prefect, and the pool of candidates with the same leaders that would be presented to you if you were going to appoint a new officer or official.

I am going to keep the number of non-military officials to a very small number. That is a great simplification, but I don't think very many players want to spend time debating who should be the official in charge of the Imperial Stables. Even if a (somewhat) famous guy named Vegetius filled that role at one time!

I will try to post more screenshots by the end of next week.
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Re: New Game?

Post by mercenarius »

I have done more work on "Investigatio" and "Intelligence" matters. The first point might be to show you why you would even want to do this. One example is trying to sift through candidates and find officers worthy of advancement. So a candidate in your pool of potential officers might show a dialog like this when you try to get more information:

First-Level Leader Information.png
First-Level Leader Information.png (595.3 KiB) Viewed 1055 times

So you can try to gain information with an investigation:

Investigate Leader.jpg
Investigate Leader.jpg (210.17 KiB) Viewed 1055 times

How to check the results? Well I have added two related mechanisms for that.

I have added some "Oversight" functions to the Imperium Department:

Oversight Buttons.jpg
Oversight Buttons.jpg (122.06 KiB) Viewed 1055 times

The other departments have Enactment buttons but I left this empty in the Imperium Department for future use and this occurs to me as a logic use for this space.

The "Sub Iudice" button gives you the chance to cancel any pending Major Enactments. You don't get your activation(s) back, but you can change your mind. You can get some unspent money back in certain circumstances.

The "Officium" button lets you see a roll of all current officers and officials. I have not programmed that as yet. That's (almost) next up on my to-do list.

The "Arcanum" button shows a pop-up menu with a list of completed Investigations and any other "Intel." Here is what that looks like right now:

Briefings.jpg
Briefings.jpg (182.99 KiB) Viewed 1055 times

In this case, the "Investigatio" failed but that can happen. I am going to add hot links to the two items which are marked with an ellipsis. You'll be able to click on the "target" and "location" to get more info. That is the next thing on my to-do list.

There is also a hot key on the strategy map to show these "Intel Briefings" in a dialog. It will work about the same as the pop-up menu in the Admin Dialog. It just saves you from havng to open the Admin Dialog and then navigate to the Imperium Department (if that was not the last department viewed).

Of course, this (vetting leaders for higher commands) is not the entire purpose of "Investigatio" but this is what I have to show right now. I'll try to show more screenshots next week and that will probably exhaust everyone's interest in this aspect of the game.
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Re: New Game?

Post by mercenarius »

So, to finish off the most recent topic in this thread, here are a few final screenshots pertaining to Intelligence Briefings. The strategy map will feature a report dialog that essentially runs in parallel with the Briefings pop-up menu in the Admin Interface. This is one of the few interface schemes in the game which will function like that.

I have added a couple of buttons in the briefing text to allow the player to easily access the biographical data of leaders that were targets of an investigation. Getting that increased information is the point of the investigations, of course. The "hot" buttons are stylized and indicated by using an ellipsis in their text. Here is the pop-menu in the Admin Dialog:

Briefings Menu.jpg
Briefings Menu.jpg (218.56 KiB) Viewed 952 times

This is what the equivalent on the Strategy Map looks like:

Briefings Dialog.jpg
Briefings Dialog.jpg (263.86 KiB) Viewed 952 times

If the leader's button is clicked, a small area in the menu or the dialog will appear to show that:

Menu with Leader Details.jpg
Menu with Leader Details.jpg (261.86 KiB) Viewed 952 times

You can close that sub-area with its close box or by simply clicking in empty space in the menu or dialog. Using tooltips will provide information on the attribute panels if the player needs a reminder what they stand for.

If the leader in question isn't on the strategy map, clicking on "Location" will provide some information about the leader's current occupation. This is particularly pertinent for leaders in the pool of candidates who could be appointed to a command. Here is an example of that in the Briefings Dialog:

Dialog with Other Details.jpg
Dialog with Other Details.jpg (271.5 KiB) Viewed 952 times

Naturally, if a leader IS on the map, then clicking on location will close the Briefings Dialog and select that area on the strategy map. If the same thing is done in the Admin Interface, the pop-up menu is closed and the area is selected in one of the overview maps in the Admin Dialog.

I have coded the "details" this way to avoid opening modal dialogs upon modal dialogs. Sometimes that is necessary, but it sure seems to be rather clumsy, and I am trying to avoid that where I can. Hopefully the use of things like pop-up menus will seem natural to the players.

I'll try to post more screenshots in a couple of weeks with what I hope will be the end of the work on completing any pop-up menus needed for the Major Enactments in the Administrative Interface. It's a somewhat pedestrian topic, to be sure.

P.S. Obviously, I will edit and improve this last type of text, since the use of "Education" twice is redundant and rather sing-song, as my High School English teacher might have said. :oops:
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Re: New Game?

Post by CSSS »

Because you used two different tenses of the word education, it would not be a qualifier for crucifixion. :)
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Re: New Game?

Post by mercenarius »

Well, I have completed almost all of the icons needed for the Major Enactments. I will next start to program those enactments and any interface elements used for them. And I will also start on the Diocletian scenario, particularly its order of battle. I'll try to post some screenshots in two or three weeks on both of these things.

In the meantime here are a few final screenshots of a couple of the menus used for choosing a Major Enactment to be ordered:

Humanitas Enactments.jpg
Humanitas Enactments.jpg (188.04 KiB) Viewed 778 times

This one is from the "Limites" department and allows the player to manage naval bases of all sorts:

Portus Militares Enactments.jpg
Portus Militares Enactments.jpg (197.14 KiB) Viewed 778 times

I do have a question for all of you: which do you think is more effective in this type of interface, the simpler, "functional" icons as were used in the first menu, or the more "realistic" icons in the second menu? They all have labels to explain what they do. I have a feeling that the more detailed icons may tend to cause eye fatigue in the long run. Or maybe I just have eye fatigue from doing icons for two weeks. :o
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Re: New Game?

Post by Nikel »

Both look good to me, each in its style :)

If it is too much work, more practical to choose the first!


Do you have any experience with AI generated graphics?

Alvaro Sousa (Warplan games) commented he was using it for his next game.
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Re: New Game?

Post by mercenarius »

Thanks for the feedback!
Do you have any experience with AI generated graphics?

Alvaro Sousa (Warplan games) commented he was using it for his next game.
No, I don't currently have any experience with AI-generated graphics. I don't like the idea of them too much, but that is an attitude that may have to change. As you point out, other people are already using them, presumably for competitive reasons.
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Re: New Game?

Post by Nikel »

The reason must have been the money, because he had to pay for an artist to create them.

But this not your case :)


This is a complicated topic, I think he also mentioned copyright issues.
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Re: New Game?

Post by mercenarius »

I have done some work on enactments dealing with constructon, and these screenshots will allow me to close out this subtopic, I think.

Here are the options for the Portus Militarus menu in the Limites department:

Portus Militarus Menu.jpg
Portus Militarus Menu.jpg (200.2 KiB) Viewed 577 times

That menu will give you the construction options for military ports.

I see that it will be necessary to give the player an easy way to keep track of construction projects. Now, they are enactments, and (most) open major enactments can be cancelled. And there is already a button for that in the Admin dialog. But I think that some special attention for construction will be merited. So, I have filled out the "Oversight" buttons and that includes one specifically intended to review construction:

Imperial Oversight Buttons.jpg
Imperial Oversight Buttons.jpg (61.64 KiB) Viewed 577 times

If you click on the "Aedificium" button, you'll get a popup menu similar to this:

Open Construction.jpg
Open Construction.jpg (191.85 KiB) Viewed 577 times

I also decided that it would be a good idea to allow for quicker access to construction and intelligence matters, so I have updated the "Augustus" action menu on the strategy map.

This popup menu is used when nothing is selected on the map, and the player clicks on the button in the "tray" below. The player can also access this menu with the "G" hotkey. Here is the menu:

Augustus Actions Menu.jpg
Augustus Actions Menu.jpg (201.43 KiB) Viewed 577 times

The player can access any completed intelligence briefs or open construction projects by using the appropriate buttons. The results open up in a modal dialog, but with the same content that you'd get, as shown above, in the Admin dialog. In the admin dialog, I show most things like that in a popup menu because I have really grown to dislike model dialogs opening more modal dialogs unless it's really necessary to use another modal dialog.

OK, that may be more information than anyone needed. I intend to start on the Diocletian scenario this week, and I hope to have a screenshot or two of that in a couple of weeks.
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Re: New Game?

Post by mercenarius »

Well, I decided to finish some of the port-related enactments before starting on the Diocletian scenario. And in the process, I realized that it's actually rare to be able to build a new seaport. At the start of most (all?) scenarios, any city that can have a port is already going to have one. (Fortresses cannot have seaports unless the fortress is upgraded to a village or larger municipality).

So I decided to start to code the logic for natural disasters. Those are going to be in the game, and sometimes will be scripted and, for the grand campaign, need to be generated randomly. I started with earthquakes which affect ports. Part of this effort is to destroy a port so that I can test the code to build a port where one doesn't exist, of course.

Earthquakes will usually be shown with an animation as you are accustomed to seeing in 'Hannibal'. Here is an earthquake which has destroyed the port at Antioch:

Destroyed Message.jpg
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If the port is damaged the message is a little different:

Damaged Message.jpg
Damaged Message.jpg (84.52 KiB) Viewed 398 times

This is NOT very interesting, visually, of course. When it does happen, it will only be interesting because of the consequences for the game such as loss of trade and destruction or damage to existing "assets."

There'll be a notification to serve as a permanent reminder. Here is a preliminary version of one such:

Port Damaged Notification.jpg
Port Damaged Notification.jpg (261.69 KiB) Viewed 398 times

I have also changed the rule for selecting port and cities with no friendly forces in them. I had been using a message similar to what you see in 'Hannibal'. Those messages are logical and work well in that game. In the Fall of Rome you will see Attribute Panels when you select a city or a port which has no friendly force in it. Here is what those panels might look like after the port at Antioch was damaged by an earthquake:

Damaged Port Panels.jpg
Damaged Port Panels.jpg (90.7 KiB) Viewed 398 times

I will finish up dealing with earthquakes and their effects in the next week or so and then I will begin the promised work on the Diocletian scenario. I'll try to post some screenshots in a couple of weeks.
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Re: New Game?

Post by Nikel »

Thanks for the new update.

I was surprised by the tidal wave effects, but in fact they happen in the Mediterranean Sea. There is a database with historical occurrences.


https://ingv.maps.arcgis.com/apps/webap ... EMTC%202.0


An example.

https://tsunamiarchiveservices.ingv.it/ ... /report/16
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