My map for the "ocean" mapping contest although there's a good chance I won't finish it before the deadline, so I'm posting a thread here.

(Yes, it's based off of Tradewinds/Taipan! if you have heard of them. Quite fun games, I must say. )

Tales of Antiga Prime
-In this parallel universe, the zerg was never contacted by the Xel'Naga; their temporary absence led to contact and assimilation between Terran and Protoss on one of the initial Terran homeworlds. The planet of Tarsonis soon emerged as the cultural and economic center of the Terran-Protoss alliance, and soon a collective colonization effort was established. Antiga Prime was soon found hospitable by one of the first fleets to depart.

In the boom of a growing economy, you take on the role of a trader attempting to rise up the social echelon, acting as a proxy for the flow of goods between the many colonies around the Sea of Aelis, a densely settled region attracting many colonists due to strong Psionic emanations in its proximity.

You may choose between six characters:

TERRANS:
-Hal the Blacksmith: A man of moderate beginnings, Hal's charisma has earned him the acquaintance of many. Starts with average funds and a weaker fleet, but will never need to pay to repair his ships.
-Kaitos the Rogue: Having stolen a science vessel from the Confederacy, Kaitos has become one of the most feared characters amongst the colonists. Starts with an extremely large fleet of small fighters and a large quantity of money, he will however frequently face Confederate bounty hunters eager to seize his head with their superior cruisers, and will be unable to repair his fleet at shipyards outside his home town.
-Tyreus the Navigator: The son of a very wealthy family, Tyreus sets off on an adventure with a top-of-the-line Galia IV Cruiser and zero money in his pocket. Starts with a single extremely powerful battlecruiser, but no funds to purchase merchandise. He will never get lost in a magnetic pulse, or be ambushed by enemies.

PROTOSS:
-Azuras the Merchant: An aspiring templar, Azuras takes pride in his custom-built merchant fleet and the rate at which he created his own trade empire. His fleet comprises entirely of his own ships, 2 times stronger than the cheap stargate counterparts.
-Endor the Assassin: A criminal zealot who illegally acquired the tools and methods of the Dark Templar, Endor is despised by the inhabitants of the Crescent Isle for murdering his leader. Endor leads a fleet of privateers that eliminate all on sight, but he will be unable to trade with the village of crescent isle... until it is conquered, that is.
-Ziel the Enforcer: A strict servant of the Conclave, Ziel patrols the borders of the world for any infringing actions that may taint the lawful atmosphere. Will not use the black market out of pride. He starts with a Dirac III carrier derived as a superior copy of the Gantrithor.

GAMEPLAY:
-Your character is represented either by the unit or the vessel associated with the unit. Your ship will automatically disembark on walkable land, and you can board it again by moving back. You cannot control the ship when your character is not in it. Your ship does not have to land at docks; in fact, it can land anywhere, as long as it is walkable. It cannot sail into fog, however.
-Your character may run into other characters who may have business with you... Watch your back if you picked the rogue characters.
-A calendar system is implemented. You can see the month/date by viewing the top-right corner of your game screen.
-Your character may purchase from a selection of 13 different merchandise, the prices of which fluctuate every month. Beware! Some items tend to be more expensive in certain months due to high demand, or cheaper due to higher supply. Watch for those times, for buying low and selling high is the core of profit!

-When sailing, you may randomly encounter enemies. They are often quite easy to defeat and yield income when defeated, but more may come to avenge their dead brethren...
-Carrying contraband such as melange or uranium may result in some... inconvenient encounters. Either dump your cargo and leave safely, or fight to your death against a superior fleet.
-Think your fleet is undefeatable? Try laying siege to the settlements. They may appear defenseless at first, but do not underestimate the speed of reinforcements...
-Enemy armor too tough? Upgrade your fleet at the armory.





NOTABLE FEATURES:
-Calendar (Time passes when sailing)
-Dynamic item pricing for purchase and sale
-Random encounters

CONCEPTUAL PROGRESS:
-Terrain layout: 80%
-Quests: 20%
-Storyline: 50%
-Battle/random encounter system: 90%

IMPLEMENTATION PROGRESS:
-Terrain: 25%
-Movement and control functionality: 100%
-Core date/pricing/cargo space management functionality: 100%
-Trade functionality: 100%
-Character interaction: 0%
-Quests: 0%
-Storyline: 0%
-Battle/random encounter system: 60%
-Hard mode: 0%
-Secrets/Easter eggs: 0%

The game is unfortunately single-player, although I can expand it for multiplayer capabilities if demand is created.

I attached my extremely, extremely, EXTREMELY beta version. The only thing you can do is trade between the only 2 towns in the game and get a feel for the merchanting system. Since you have no shared vision with yourself, try not to run into fog as I didn't code triggers to prevent that yet.

Post has been edited 1 time(s), last time on Apr 7 2010, 12:06 am by Aristocrat.

Not going to download it right now, I'm too lazy and I don't feel like playing a 5 minute gameplay alpha, but It looks professional and fun, I am sure it is going to be a cool map.

I tried it out as Ziel the Enforcer and I couldn't do much because I had something like 400 supply for Protoss units but 1/1 for Terran units, so I could only buy Protoss merchandise. However, I couldn't sell that merchandise to the Terran town (the only one with a "sell" beacon?). I suppose you have it worked out for the Marine and the other Terran characters but not the Protoss characters.

I'm not sure how boarding/getting out of your ship is supposed to be, but I get out whenever I'm on land which is pretty annoying; you should make it so you have to move your actual character to a beacon or a location at the top right area of the map to get off. Getting on seemed smooth, though.

I don't really like how being in proximity of an island makes you get all of the useful buildings for fleet creation and merchandise purchases; most RPGs require the hero or character to be beside or inside the building before it is useable and this seems to work better in an RPG scenario so I suggest doing that instead of what you currently have set up.

Another change I would make is representing a hundred or a thousand of a certain merchandise with one unit rather than representing one thing with one unit as you currently have set up. This would allow you to make the top right inventory a little bit more cleaner by scaling it down in size. Also, get rid of the building walls in the inventory and use terrain walls instead to give it a more polished look.

The character descriptions you posted in this thread sound very interesting and detailed, but it'd be nice to get them in-game. I propose you add the descriptions in-game by triggering them when the player moves his civilian close to the beacon. Speaking of the selection area, the left most character/ship cannot be seen because of the fog.

Anyway, I wish you luck on finishing this map because it seems like a very interesting idea (I loved the merchant concept of Silkroad) for a map.

sounds redundant...

other than that.. looking forward to this

I added another town (Protoss) and improved functionality of many things. You now randomly encounter enemies when sailing and the difficulty grows as time passes. Ships can now be purchased (up to 24 in your fleet with a limit of 4 capital ships), upgraded, etc. Repairing your fleet is not available, but meanwhile you can heal your main ship by moving it on top of the Khaydarin crystal formation (TEMPORARY FIX).

You can now no longer buy every item in every town (although all items can still be sold). This encourages trading between two towns rather than just camping outside one town until a whole month passes.



Post has been edited 1 time(s), last time on Apr 7 2010, 12:20 am by Aristocrat.

Ahaha, for some reason I forgot that when you say "ship" you mean a ship in an ocean or a body of water and not an air or space ship. My bad on that one

This looks like a really fun, and well done map. I can't wait until it gets into it's more complete stages to try it out. I'll try out the version you have up right now sometime later this week.
I really like the idea of fluctuating prices, as well as the trading between cities. It's good to see a map that can effectively use both ideas.
One thing I think you could add is a drop system. When you kill the enemies they can drop goods (according to their difficulty) which you can sell back to the different towns.
As this is going to be a single-player game, I really hope that you have several good quests lined up, or else this map (otherwise a fun game) could get boring much too quickly.