Ancient Warfare 2 Devblog 5

Posted on 15 October 2016 by Jannik

More and better horses, improved AI and more...

Improved unit database

I improved the unit database and the custom battle editor capacities to add more troops.

Until now, there was a limit of 64 different units, which I might exceed next week.

Finished horses

As the title says, the horses are finished now and will attack other horses and ground units.

And the riders know which horse they are riding, so they won't kill their own horse.

I added some new variations of horses, too.

The following ones are currently in game:

  • Sword + Shield
  • Sword
  • Pike + Shield
  • Spear
  • Mace + Shield
  • Mace

Finally I adjusted the horserider attack animations

Now, horses are quite effective units, they are fast and they cause much damage!

Please note that some types, like the spear and pike horses are more effective against other horses and rest against ground units

Improved AI

I saw a youtube video which shows some beta gameplay and there was a problem with the unit behaviour.

They won't move if no enemy is in their follow range. This means that there might be 50 units on each side, but they won't attack each other because they are to far away.

I changed this behaviour and units will now slowly move towards far away units.

This behaviour is only for infantry units and catapults, but not for units without wheels like ballistas.

Units should now start their attack before they reach their target, this makes battles more attractive!

Finished Gladiator Arena

I finished the new gamemode 'Gladiator Arena'!

There is a crowd which will look at you, banners and confetti.

The crowd will react to kills with loud behaviour.

The last thing I have to decide is whether I use a LOD system or combine the meshes for the crowd. Both methods are implemented but I have to investigate which one provides better performance.

King of the hill mode and future game modes

As you can see, there are some game modes deactivated in the main menu.

I thought about all those modes and made a decision.

This is a list of all gamemodes which will definitely be in game:

  • Gladiator Arena
    • Already finished, fight to top your highscore, enemies will spawn until you die
  • Custom battle editor
    • Base is finished, I want to add more features like weather, unflat terrain, show range and stats of units
  • Campaign
    • I have big plans to make a good campaign story with much Ancient Warfare 1 gameplay
  • King of the hill
    • Started to work on this, different maps, 1 vs 1 to 32 vs 32, classic king of the hill gameplay
  • Siege
    • You will have to defend or capture an enemy castle
  • Conquest
    • You will have to capture and defend several points to win, I will try to make 64 vs 64 battles possible
  • Multiplayer
    • I haven't planned yet, will be the last thing I do in Ancient Warfare 2
    • I think it would be cool to add a lan mode to the arena, but I also want to add a real online mode with more than two players

 

Fixed lots of bugs

The beta had to much bugs.

Last week I decided to fix the main bugs, here is a small list of bugs I've fixed:

  • Music is away after changing back to custom battle editor
  • Music plays multiple times after changing back to main menu
  • Some negative spawn rate values causing endless spawning units
  • "Pick up shield" message won't hide
  • Can't pick up shield after a weapon
  • Can't pick up weapon after a shield
  • Horses are looking at the player after they got killed
  • Changing the shield would make the old one stick in the air
  • Weapons sometimes stick in the air after killing it's owner
  • Sound is away after killing some kind of units
  • Changing teamkill enabled in custom battle editor won't be reset in other gamemode
  • Weapon may start deactivated in some cases
  • Horse rider doesn't attack
  • Horse riders doesn't make any damage in some cases
  • Horse riders killed their own horse :D