Devlog #2 - Enemy AI, Better World Generation & MORE V 0.2.0

General

This devlog and update comes a bit later than I expected, but I’m still quite happy with the result. Next to the many and quite diverse changes described later in this devlog, there also went a lot of work in background systems and reworking some of the old code. I also added more small features to make playing the game more enjoyable, like last time all changes are listed later in the devlog. But enough of that. Let’s get to the exciting parts.

New Enemies and Enemy AI

One of the bigger changes regards the enemy. I implemented an Enemy AI system to create more interesting enemies compared to the basic enemy from the older version. It’s a state based system and hopefully quite flexible, so that I can create other types of enemies quickly. If you are interested in this system leave a comment and I can help you out or describe the system in more detail in the next devlog :) This extends to pretty much each feature. So if you are interested in something tell me about it.

The soldier and knight take the place of the old enemy design. They patrol in an area around their spawn point and start to chase player units if they get too close. But if you build enough distance they will return back to their patrol. The blue knight is a stronger variant of the soldier that gets spawned by the castle.

The peasant travels from village to village and is an easy target for the player. The serve a vital role for the enemy, but that is part of the Migration System and is described in that segment.

Level Generation

The old level generation was quite messy and had a lot of bugs. So I reworked it to a more modular approach and changed the way the level gets generated. I did this because I got some weird constellations with the old system. The way I implemented it I can also quite easily modify it or add new stuff. This will make development and balancing easier and will allow to create some more interesting levels later in development. If people are interested, I can talk more about this feature. Procedural generation is one of my favourite topics regarding game development so I could talk quite a lot about it.

Migration System

Another interest of mine is simulations, which will show in this feature. In the old version of the game all enemy buildings slowly grew with time. Now only villages will naturally “grow”. The way the fortress and the castle are getting bigger with time is with the migration system. Villages will periodically spawn a peasant that will move to a random building in a certain distance. Once they reached their target they will merge with the building, increasing its unit count. Fortresses and the castle have a higher chance of being picked by a peasant.

I also changed the way spawning works. If a building spawns an enemy of any kind (peasant, soldier, knight) they will decrease in unit count according to the spawned enemy. In other words, the total count of units is conserved. 

Why did I implement these changes. For one It was quite interesting to do ^^ But more importantly, it adds some life to the level and allows for more dynamic gameplay situations. With these changes it is, for example possible to besiege the enemy by cutting off their peasant supply and killing of the spawned units. This also adds a more important function the villages, which I also quite like.

Preparation

The next feature I call the preparation system. It is quite simple, but serves an important function. It scales the enemy difficulty and adds a sense of urgency. Later is relevant because it adds an incentive to split your units, as you are faster that way. So how does it work?

Certain buildings (currently the fortress and castle) increase the preparation value shown in the top right corner of the game. If you destroy a fortress the value drops by a certain amount. And last but not least: all enemy units and buildings get a buff (or debuff) depending on the current value. Currently a preparation value of 50 for example is a +50% buff for attack and defence. A nice extra of this system is, that it adds a reason to destroy fortresses because it weakens the enemy and reduces their scaling. What do you think of it? 

Flanking & Movement

Another feature I added to incentive using multiple units is flanking. If multiple units attack the same target, they get an attack modifier. This is indicated above the attacked unit. This system works for the player and the enemy!

To make better use of this function I added some vector magic to the player units so that they form a sort of wall while moving and surround buildings. It’s hard to explain so better look at this gif ;)

Next Update

For the next update I will probably put the roguelike elements in the game. Concretely, this means that there will be an upgrade system and that the current difficulty “system” will be replaced by a proper run system. The way the difficulty between levels increases was a pretty rushed last second addition before the end of the game jam.

If you are curious about the new features, you can follow me to be notified, when the update arrives. I also have a twitter account now and will hopefully post some interesting things. But this social media and marketing stuff is quite new to me and a bit frightening, so I’m not sure what I will post there. If you are interested to see what happens you can follow me;)  As always, feedback and suggestions are very much appreciated and would mean a lot to me.

 Thanks for reading this far and I hope you have a great day :)

Changelog V. 0.2.0:

• Added Flanking
  
• Added damage numbers
• Added Migration System
• Added Peasant: weak unit that can merge into buildings
• Buildings consume their own size to spawn units
• Added Preparation System and Indicator
• Added Navigation System
• Reworked World Generation
• Changed Soldier Behaviour: It now patrols
• Added Knight Unit
• Added Unit Indicator: an indicator for offscreen player units. Shows their state and size
• Changed player unit movement when they have the same direction/goal: See Flanking & Movement
• Changed Unit GUI
• New Title screen
• Modified order of tutorial messages.