A piece of paper and a pencil.
If you can't make it work as a board game using most basic tools, it means it's a shit idea anyway. And I'm not being snide or dismissive, but this is like 101 strategy game design: can you make it work with a sheet of paper and a pencil? If you can't, either you didn't strip down your idea enough to its core element(s) or you have no idea what you want to make your game in the first place.
I agree with this and am designing this way. If you have a finished game it's not even that hard at that point to just get an artist and programmer to work with you too.
I'm still trying to understand Unity, but from what I gather it works well hexagons.
Another thing you could do it, it dry run on /qst/.
I ran pic related there it was a lot of fun, it worked like a board game.
Players had gold and characters, every turn they had to decide if they attacked (which cost money) or reigned (giving them money and a chance of siring a child).
So kinda like extremely simplified Crusader Kings.
Despite its overall simplicity and reliance of rolls, I found it pretty relaxing.
https://www.redblobgames.com/grids/hexagons/
this is a good resource if you're doing hexagons for gamedev, there's a lot of sample code
The pages on pathfinding might also be interesting for you
I've been coding a turn-based games for over four years now and gotta say is full of shit.
A PnP design can be extremely simple but horrible to implement in code and prone to errors. Paper has two dimensions. Computer memory has one. It's very easy to enter the pitfall of setting up giant 2D array structures that make your shitty pixel graphics project hog as much memory as an AAA written by pajeets.
You need to think classes, not positioning for storing data and interactions per turn, not math complexity for solving attacks and such.
If you build over PnP mechanics prepare to keep your unit caps low, have 10 minute AI turns reading/writing from disk or prepare to learn a low-level language like Assembly.
How horrible are you at making complicated math work on the computer? I've done it before, and I can generate a map of over 1 million tiles with stuff in it in like 30 seconds on my toaster oven. Of course, once I add in pops, it starts to chug, but I did that mainly to flex on paradox, who somehow can't do pops anymore even though I did it in a week with very little effort.
frick, you got me to consider actually working on my TBG again, it was in development hell because I got a normal job, but it's sunday, so might as well. gonna have to go dig up the project and remember how I got the map working.
>to flex on paradox
Not a TW player: is there any chance for a non-Paradox game to bring in the TW audience, or will they stick to that company until the end?
Not OP but I'm also working on a RTS, and it will have kinda the same shtick of a bajillon soldiers on the field & troops-based controls that TW has - although afaik the resemblance will stop there.
Should I bother playing a few TWs and try to make my game at least vaguely familiars in controls/UI/etc to Paradox's audience, or will they not play something that isn't historical/warhammer anyway... and I should just do my stuff without bothering with that?
Paradox doesn't make Total War, did you mean CA?
There have been some other TW like games over the years but generally low budget offerings like XIVth century or whatever it's called. The best one I played was the first King Arthur wargame by Neocore but even they didn't attempt to directly compete with TW. They had a more boardgame overworld approach with a lot of RPG choices based gameplay.
TW fans are always divided and nitpicky about different aspects of each game. They aren't really loyal to TW itself but to the specific games that are their favorite. I wouldn't waste time trying to win them over.
Play a total war game if you feel like it so you understand what the audience sees in a total war game. If you want to play a shit total war game, play after shogun 2. If you want to play a good total war game, play before shogun 2. In other words, just try shogun 2 to see what a good total war game looks like.
What about Three Kingdow/RomeII/MedivalII/Empire?
Looking at Steam charts they have higher player count (with MedII having the highest rating).
I know popularity doesn't always correlate with quality, just asking.
This guy is bullshitting, he's saying stuff that sounds possible if you don't know anything about programming, but makes absolutely no sense if you do. Either that or he's a complete scrub at coding.
>Engine
Godot supports hextiles and probably has tutorials for it somewhere
for opensource code that's not really an "engine" but you can turn it into what you want you could look at Zetawar (browser), Jsettlers2, Battle for Wesnoth or ASC:Advanced Strategic Command
Carcassonne
A piece of paper and a pencil.
If you can't make it work as a board game using most basic tools, it means it's a shit idea anyway. And I'm not being snide or dismissive, but this is like 101 strategy game design: can you make it work with a sheet of paper and a pencil? If you can't, either you didn't strip down your idea enough to its core element(s) or you have no idea what you want to make your game in the first place.
Fair enough! Thank you. I’ll give it a shot pen and paper first.
I agree with this and am designing this way. If you have a finished game it's not even that hard at that point to just get an artist and programmer to work with you too.
I have a finished game and art assets but no programming skill. What’s the best place to go to find affordable help?
Discord
I'm still trying to understand Unity, but from what I gather it works well hexagons.
Another thing you could do it, it dry run on /qst/.
I ran pic related there it was a lot of fun, it worked like a board game.
Players had gold and characters, every turn they had to decide if they attacked (which cost money) or reigned (giving them money and a chance of siring a child).
So kinda like extremely simplified Crusader Kings.
Despite its overall simplicity and reliance of rolls, I found it pretty relaxing.
https://www.redblobgames.com/grids/hexagons/
this is a good resource if you're doing hexagons for gamedev, there's a lot of sample code
The pages on pathfinding might also be interesting for you
There's graph paper that makes grids but is there.... HEX paper?
yes
you can either buy it or print your own
if you're 'tistic enough to make a hex wargame you're also 'tistic enough to draw your own hex paper
le board game is precisely why strategy games have stagnated for decades, go frick yourself
>if you can't make it work with a stick and a stone, it means it's a shit idea anyways.
>wtf why are strategy games dead?
Amazing.
I've been coding a turn-based games for over four years now and gotta say is full of shit.
A PnP design can be extremely simple but horrible to implement in code and prone to errors. Paper has two dimensions. Computer memory has one. It's very easy to enter the pitfall of setting up giant 2D array structures that make your shitty pixel graphics project hog as much memory as an AAA written by pajeets.
You need to think classes, not positioning for storing data and interactions per turn, not math complexity for solving attacks and such.
If you build over PnP mechanics prepare to keep your unit caps low, have 10 minute AI turns reading/writing from disk or prepare to learn a low-level language like Assembly.
How horrible are you at making complicated math work on the computer? I've done it before, and I can generate a map of over 1 million tiles with stuff in it in like 30 seconds on my toaster oven. Of course, once I add in pops, it starts to chug, but I did that mainly to flex on paradox, who somehow can't do pops anymore even though I did it in a week with very little effort.
frick, you got me to consider actually working on my TBG again, it was in development hell because I got a normal job, but it's sunday, so might as well. gonna have to go dig up the project and remember how I got the map working.
>to flex on paradox
Not a TW player: is there any chance for a non-Paradox game to bring in the TW audience, or will they stick to that company until the end?
Not OP but I'm also working on a RTS, and it will have kinda the same shtick of a bajillon soldiers on the field & troops-based controls that TW has - although afaik the resemblance will stop there.
Should I bother playing a few TWs and try to make my game at least vaguely familiars in controls/UI/etc to Paradox's audience, or will they not play something that isn't historical/warhammer anyway... and I should just do my stuff without bothering with that?
Paradox doesn't make Total War, did you mean CA?
There have been some other TW like games over the years but generally low budget offerings like XIVth century or whatever it's called. The best one I played was the first King Arthur wargame by Neocore but even they didn't attempt to directly compete with TW. They had a more boardgame overworld approach with a lot of RPG choices based gameplay.
TW fans are always divided and nitpicky about different aspects of each game. They aren't really loyal to TW itself but to the specific games that are their favorite. I wouldn't waste time trying to win them over.
>Paradox doesn't make Total War, did you mean CA?
Ah yes my bad, I'm tired and moronic.
Play a total war game if you feel like it so you understand what the audience sees in a total war game. If you want to play a shit total war game, play after shogun 2. If you want to play a good total war game, play before shogun 2. In other words, just try shogun 2 to see what a good total war game looks like.
What about Three Kingdow/RomeII/MedivalII/Empire?
Looking at Steam charts they have higher player count (with MedII having the highest rating).
I know popularity doesn't always correlate with quality, just asking.
This guy is bullshitting, he's saying stuff that sounds possible if you don't know anything about programming, but makes absolutely no sense if you do. Either that or he's a complete scrub at coding.
>Either that or he's a complete scrub at coding.
Anon, you just described 99% of all professional codemonkey.
>Engine
Godot supports hextiles and probably has tutorials for it somewhere
for opensource code that's not really an "engine" but you can turn it into what you want you could look at Zetawar (browser), Jsettlers2, Battle for Wesnoth or ASC:Advanced Strategic Command
what picture / map is this? I love the ACW
GMT's The US Civil War
nice.. does this offer Solitaire play? anyway I'll look it up, I just ordered People Power, my first COIN style GMT game
There's a game that has solitaire play from GMT called Mr. President, it was tedious to set up, but I'm gonna play it eventually.
leftover cereal carton and a pen
battle for wesnoth
open-source innit anon