Well, I am happy that my suggestion is at least getting some attention
PhilThib wrote:It is not Luca to convince (although some work should go into this) but his wife ... and I have never seen a foreign man convince a Sicilian lady
More seriously, it could be somewhat easier to "convert" the game on an AGEOD engine... map and artworks could be easily recycled, the existing construction module works and we have multifaction play available with VGN...
Well, Phil, of course I would like to see GI in a AGEOD engine. But I seem to have read somewhere that even the code language of the AGEOD engine and Calvinus's are different, so surely what you are referring must be a GI 2 or something similar. And you yourself implied more than once that this eventual project required some factors, namely financing, volunteer team, programmer team, etc, that simply were not available, so this at best is a long term "dream", no ?
Now, a "GI gold" seems a lot easier to achieve. Let's see if I can convince the Calvinus famiglia:
- Professional pride: It would be a way to at least come close to finally delivering the game that ought to have been delivered back in 2005 but wasn't.
- Financial reward: Calvinus has stated more than once his ongoing willness to correct some bugs in GI when/if he gets time (IIRC, some crashes, the diminishing population, faith points...). If the work involved was connected to the release of a gold version, at least some financial compensation would ensue.
- Ageod "prestige" and marketing: It would be a good strategy to rekindle interest in a game covering the dark ages and would attract more potential buyers, not only to future games but also for the current ones.
- It is not a lot of work
: Of this I am not that sure, as I do not understand nada about programming, but at least to me it seems so: The engine, map, rules, events, stratagems, units, etc, would be exactly the existing ones. Stability and compatibility problems could be trickier but the experience gained in WW1 could be used. The rest seem simple things: more options for issuing orders (stratagems, specially) while paused; AI taking care of all decisions of the nations not directly controlled by the player, if he so chooses (no more annoying decisions about Ostrogoths accepting peace or not while I wish to play just as Britons
); more feedback: more tooltips, specially on the tutorial, covering some obscure things (like the misterious ageing of hordes :bonk
, and if possible a better log. And you even have available a good and fat manual: you just have to remove the word beta and correct some minor mistakes
.
- It would be useful work: if GI 2 is undertaken, a revision of the manual, rules, events, stratagems etc of GI would have to be done anyway
- ... and everybody does it: even you
. After all, many of this arguments are probably the same ones that led to the decision of developing a WW1 "gold", after all...
Regards
(PS: Congratulations, Generalisimo :thumbsup