Matrix Games Forums

The first campaign screenshots with the new UI are in. There are a few polish issues, but it's time we started unveiling what the game will look like.

A few things these shots reveal:

* Sovereignty is a world with cultures and history. This translates into gameplay with unique units, magic, diplomatic relations.
* Landmarks (like Farn's Lighthouse in Belport) provide unique bonuses to the owner.
* Units may have special abilities.
* There is a naval game...

Good Hunting!

Breca

Farn's Lighthouse

Orcish Raiders

Naval power of Ariselle

Dragoons

Very nice and very interesting!
What about the combat system?

As the new UI plugs in, we'll be releasing screenshots of the different game screens in stages. We'll also upload some screenshots of the Unit Purchase Screen and the Battlefield Screen in the next few weeks.

As a more general answer, we have two versions of the combat system, and this is done for game pacing:

1) Risk-style Auto-battle: Move your Stack into a province, and the game auto-resolves the battle. Units take losses, retreat, and a winner is declared. It's a bit more complex than Risk, since we have stats and abilities for each unit, but that's the general idea.

2) Panzer General-style Tactical Battlefield: A few Stacks per Realm may be led by Heroes, who function like generals of an army. Heroes have special powers, but their most significant impact is that they allow the player to zoom into a hex-based battlefield of that province. Move your units across a tactical battlefield to claim key objectives. Each province in the game is individually mapped as a zoomed-in version of the main campaign map.

In this way, Stacks without Heroes may be aimed toward less significant fronts, while Hero Stacks should be focused on hot spots.

Good Hunting!

Breca

Love the campaign map!

Just curious, would you guys ever consider adding a "manual' battle results option. IE the player basically inputs the results of a battle that he/she fights offline using some other method, be it another program, tabletop game etc? Empire in Arms has this ability, as an example
Cheers!

Manual results is an interesting idea, perhaps most fitting for a Napoleonic or WWII type game, where there are many alternative battle systems covering essentially the same units. Sovereignty is its own world with its own history. Each realm has its own unit types. Each unit has its own Purchase and Upkeep cost. It would be hard to find a way to simulate that in another combat system, and not break the balance in the Sovereignty economy.

What I could see as an option in Preferences is an option to auto-resolve all battles. Some players may wish to simply play the Campaign Game and not get into all the Tactical Battles. Total War had an option like that. I actually used it, since I personally don't enjoy RTS battles. We don't have an RTS, but players may wish to play a faster paced game on the campaign layer only. It wouldn't take much to give them that option.

Breca

Game looks great so far, look forward to its release. Only critique I have is the small font. My old eyes have to strain to read the text on the cards.

Can you upload a map/terrain key to explain some of the symbols we see on the map?

Jim

Breca thanks for the answer [:)]
Waiting for a battle screenshot!

All the symbols are tooltipped in the game, and those are some lower res images, due to forums image size limitations.

Here's a key...

Good Hunting!

Breca

Looks good. Reminds me of Dominions 3.

Sounds awesome. I really like the art style you guys went with as well. Has a very classic look to it.

the map looks very nice. But, as far as I know, there will be no random map generator (unlike to the dominions 1-4 series), so what about replayability? Are we supposed to hope for some modders to create additional custom maps?

Lovely artwork...reminds me of an old Amstrad fantasy wargame I played. I suppose FOW was off in those screenies? What could add replayability is random province economy points at the start of the game.

Give auto resolve some chrome though...maybe show the casualty go up for each side pr give some brief battle description, this will give the auto resolve abit of sparkle. Funny enough the Panzer Corps battle holds no interest for me..but I'd like something interesting added to the auto resolve to make it exciting still. I still feel Dom has the bets system for battles I've played..you script the battle pre fight then watch it play out.

If the game offers lots of decisions will be a winner.

Also would be cool if different races had different shape shield counters..

ORIGINAL: Breca


Manual results is an interesting idea, perhaps most fitting for a Napoleonic or WWII type game, where there are many alternative battle systems covering essentially the same units. Sovereignty is its own world with its own history. Each realm has its own unit types. Each unit has its own Purchase and Upkeep cost. It would be hard to find a way to simulate that in another combat system, and not break the balance in the Sovereignty economy.

What I could see as an option in Preferences is an option to auto-resolve all battles. Some players may wish to simply play the Campaign Game and not get into all the Tactical Battles. Total War had an option like that. I actually used it, since I personally don't enjoy RTS battles. We don't have an RTS, but players may wish to play a faster paced game on the campaign layer only. It wouldn't take much to give them that option.

Breca

I understand what you are saying yet the concept of allowing manual import of results would be something just assumed to be left to the players to devise a third party way of "fighting" the battle. If they "break" the balance of the campaign that's something they'd need to tackle on their own. Just looking at the vast amount of say TT miniatures gamers blogs and web sites, there is clearly a need for a computer strategy game that can allow them to put context into there miniatures battles. There are a few indie "computer moderated campaign builders" out there, but they are very limited in scope
Anyways, I'm no programmer so what from my perspective would be a simple thing to add as an option might be actually quite difficult and from a production standpoint, Im aware that something wont be added if there is no real indication that this is a must have from purchasers.

Hopefully save game files can be edited to adjust results from battles fought outside the system [;)]

A Campaign-only mode is on the to-do list. I don't know if it will make initial beta, but it will likely be added some time during beta. Auto-battles still have a few decision points, but are quickly resolved.

Good Hunting!

Breca

Looks great.How deep is the diplomacy systems and does the A.I roleplay it nation ideology.Can you enslave,vassalise and genocide other nations.