[New Mod] Super Koopa Wars

[jakobrogert]

After tinkering a bit with the (lovely) editor I've set out to make a war mod based upon the super mario universe (but without the plumber in question). And the scenario would be the 8-Bit Clan (Shyguys, Wart, SMB2) fighting with Bowser over the remains of Mushroom Kingdom.
The idea is to have all players start out with the possibility to choose a tech tree they want, representing a theme of the diegesis (such as "dreamland" - giving you shyguys and "desert", giving you desert denizens from different games). Bowser and other bosses will act like staff, but powerful in combat (as opposed to the measly staff found in the vanilla version.
For aircraft, we've got Paratrooping bob-ombs, winged Goombas and bullet bills. I'm also thinking about letting the players construct obstacles such as Pirahna Plants and the infamous nails that hurt you when you land on them.
I've seen that the roads needs some work and I haven't figured out if it's possible to make the mountains stack on top of the tile behind them (seems this is solved with the mountaintop png's).

I'd be happy for feedback, even though I understand I'm pulling this game towards abstraction, whereas the majority here seems to be looking for more simulation in one aspect or another. Even so, I believe it will be fun to play.

[Captain Cruft]

Great stuff!

There is plenty of room for all different types of scenarios.

[Vic]

this is a surprising turn of events
keep us posted and dont hesitate to ask questions if you have any!
 

[jakobrogert]

The mod's first set of Units is complete. This range is from Super Mario 2, sporting Shyguys, mice with bombs and bob-ombs to name a few of the 20+. It struck me that the nintendoesque universe has few things like tanks and lots of infantry, so they have two more infantry types: Fire-Resistant Infantry and Heavy Infantry (Fire is a huge factor with some monsters.). I also modified the rules for staff, making the Boss Monsters the only staff available until late in the tech tree, causing the staff in headquarters to usually also be the most powerful Units. On top of that, I'm trying out a rule variant where Boss Monsters can only be built in fortresses (since that's where boss monsters usually hang out in the games), which lends those circle-shaped defenses some more usefulness.

Quite difficult to try and make these units fit into the engine and with my non-existent scripting ability I wasn't able to do all the things I wanted.
However, testing is underway and I'll post the mod here for public testing once it's free of obvious faults.
I've run into an issue which I'd be happy to hear someone comment on:
Once I've saved the mod as a ptmaster file and created a scenario, then linked the scenario to my master file, the Research tree suddenly has a monster bunch of "level 2" research (i.e. staff 2) and I can't seem to pluck these out once I'm back in the editor editing the mod. I don't want tanks competing with my Koopas and Goombas.

[Vic]

Hi jako,

the masterfile overwrites the scenario data in question, but does not delete it first.

if you want to do what you want you must.

1. go to Settings -> select NEW
2. then link the masterfile

then it should go fine.

or select your masterfile as the [M]asterfile in the random game creator and then go to editor.

kind regards,
vic

[Vic]

looking forward to this mod. since it seems to be so different.

[jakobrogert]

Of course. Why didn't I think of that NEW-button. Thank you.

[machiavelli]

Any chance of making this compatible with random games (this may be easier at the early stages rather than the later).

[jakobrogert]

Yeah I definitely think it will work with random games since there are no magic tricks involved (like action cards or special events). Since it's a straightforward mod changing units, unit/terrain graphics and research tree, it should work. I actually tried to start a random game with this mod two days ago and it worked except for a graphics glitch.

I'm in the middle of testing unit strengths (for SMB2 Units) and a first playable scenario at the moment.