=== Battles of Antargis - Gameplay document ===

== Introduction ==
Battles of Antargis (BoA) was meant to be a Powermonger clone with a strong story line.
During development and some thinking it came appearant, that this was not good enough.
So some (more) changes to this very old gameplay shall be made.

= Basic Ideas =
a) Living world
The basic idea is a living world, that proceeds independently from your actions. There are animals
like fish,sheep, wolf and deer, that eat, walk and die. The normal population does its
occupations. A farmer grows crop and a craftsman builds tools.
b) Limited control
You have very limited control over your troops. You can only give your heroes direct commands, which then
command their minions automatically. If you have more than one hero, your main hero will send a carrier pigeon, 
that holds the command, to the selected one. So commands can be delayed.
c) Loyalty or morality
Each man has a morality value. If this goes to low, they desert. So you have to look after your people.
d) No unit building
As in a living world, you cannot create people out of nothing. You have to live to the people, animals and resources 
that are given to the level. Maybe at a later stage you will be able to build some new houses. But this is low priority.
e) Main goal
So the main goal of the game is creating weapons and tools and gathering people. But you have to hold the balance, so you'll
have food and resources for later times.

== User interface ==
The user interface shall be fairly easy. Everything is done in-context. The things you can done always depend on the things you've selected.
This has following advantages:
* the interface is minimal - the world-view should be as big as possible
* player has to discover the world to find out what's possible - player discovers other possibilities at a later stage of the game.
	example:
		- with torch and bow he's able to set something afire if aggression is high

In normal mode, there's only:
* the minimap in the screen's lower right corner
* the portraits of the current heroes
* (the inventory and properties of the selected entity)
* (the action-buttons of the current hero)
* some game-control buttons: pause,quit and options

== Control your hero ==
You have a primary, that is yourself. If he dies you have lost the game/level.

a) Aggressiveness
You can control your hero by setting his aggressiveness. The higher it is the stronger he tries to achieve his goal.
Sometimes too hard, so your people will suffer, desert or even die.

b) Recruiting, Dismissing
You can recruit troops from whatever building you own. For transfer of troops from one hero to another you can use this, too.
If you need some people in your buildings (e.g. for increasing population or gathering food), you can dismiss your people.
Both recruiting and dismissing are affected by selected aggressiveness.

c) Fighting
When attacking enemies, the aggression affects the hardness with which the enemies energy is hit. When aggression is high, it's
likely your enemies will die. That's not always good, as you might need them later. So it might be good to change the aggression while
fighting.
For giving you a better control over your men, different formations will be added. These would be "encircle","block" or "triangle".

d) Special-moves
- hide in forest (?)
- dig in if ground is soft
- spying
- bargain
- start fire on something
- help in building (let troops do the same as the inhabitants), help put out fire, rebuild

== Resources ==
Current resources are:
fruit,food,wood,stone,coal,ore,steel,sword,shield,bow,boat and maybe some more.
There is a simple tech-tree. Some houses can produce resources out of others:
Farm:
 fruit=>food
 =>crop
Workshop:
 ore,coal=>steel
 steel,wood=>sword
 wood=>bow
 wood=>boat
Mill:
 crop=>flour
Bakery:
 flour=>food

== Buildings ==
Buildings that can hold people are:
* Farm
	- produces food out of fruit, meat
	- produces crop
* Dwelling
	- produces men, when there are some
* Workshop
	- produces tools and maybe weapons
* Tower
	- does only gather everything, but cannot produce anything
* Mill
	- produces flour

Buildings without people:
* Well
	- produces water
* Mine
	- produces ore,coal

== Entities ==
For the first versions no pathfinding is needed or implemented. For later versions this can be included.
So that people enter buildings at the door and don't run through them. Collision detection between
moving entities can be excluded.

= Human entities=
* Hero
* Man (Woman)
* NPC

Humans have a loyalty, which is defined their morale. The morale is affected by whatever they are doing.
Negative effect is:
* fighting, inventing and starving
Positive effects have:
* resting, won a fight
* get new inventory-item (sword, bow, boat...)

When fighting humans gather experience. When experience is high enough a man can be raised to hero.
Maybe different levels with different hitpoints should be included.

= Animals =
* Wolf
  Wolves usually run with the pack. There is a leader that runs ahead; the others follow. They attack other animals and
	humans, if hungry.
* Sheep
* Fish
* Deer
* Horse
* Rabbit
* Birds
	Pigeons are used to carry commands and messages between heroes. Normal
	birds fly away when people come near.


= Non-moving entities =
* Stone
* Trees
	- fir
	- oak
	- whatever
* Bushes
* Crop
* Bag

== Level-types; Strategic moves the player must do ==
* flee
* resist enemy
* defeat enemy (standard)
* build boats and get to other island
* find person
* spy on enemy
* bargaining with goods/men

* burn the woods (the crop, the buildings) of an enemy or kill all sheep to take his resources
* enemy has to put out fire and fight enemy simultaneously

== Seasons ==
Seasons are NOT for visual effect only.
* For example winter effects the speed of humans. Animals get more hungry then.
* Need for tents and thicker cloth in winter.
* In summer you need water - from well or lake.

== Single map ==
Before playing a single map, you can set some parameters for the generated map:
* balance of water/land
* population
* vegetation level
* resource level

== Game-options ==
* Gamespeed
For single player games you should be able to set the game's speed.


== Fun aspects ==
There should be several fun aspects in the game. The player is able to do some "funny" things, that are not
really helpful in game (like destroying all the buildings in SimCity or like the disasters in Populous)

* burn down anything
	- burning people if they are in building
* kill anything
* discover new things while playing
* puzzles
* traps (for troops and animals)
	- make swamp by spilling a lot of water
	- hole with cover
* non-expected attacks from hills or out of forest
* build up defense-walls, that are not passable
	- out of wood
	- can be burnt

== Ideas ==
* Single hero should have some mobility advantage to hero with troops. For example a strong hero can alone defeat some small group of inexperienced warriors; esp. if he has a bow.

=== Multiplayer ===
== Special User Interface ==
* need master-server with chat
* need chat in-game:
	- normal chat (all hear)
	- email-system (optional: uses pigeons)
== Game Types ==
* capture the flag
* capture every building
* capture enemies
* reach some point first (e.g. island)

== Ideas ==
* ever-running game:
	- some players come online, others log off
	- whenever you come in, you will be brought to land by some boats, which go off after that
	- starting-count of troops depends on your last stats
	- must be very well balanced!
	- typical game should be, that some weak attack players join to fight a strong one
	- how shall such behavior be ensured???
