Blitzkrieg I - General Discussion Thread

[olvie]

Good evening ladies and gents,

I thought it's about time we had one of these: a place for those questions, statements and screenshots that don't merit their own thread.

We do have the chat window at the bottom but I feel like it's not quite the same, especially for posting screenshots. 

Feel free to post anything BK related here that you feel like doesn't fit anywhere else.

______________________________________________________

I'll start:

I feel like BK could have benefited from having the fog of war completely blacked out at the beginning of the game (example below).

Many, if not most, real time strategy games use this mechanic: you can't see what lies ahead of you unless you've explored it before. This adds another element of uncertainty to the gameplay, as your trying to figure out the terrain that surrounds you in the early game.

In BK, the map design can give so much away. Sandbags, ammo boxes and other details can sometimes pinpoint exactly where an enemy unit is and allows you to shell it with artillery before you've ever seen it. This dilemma has been giving me some headaches, not to give away too much information while still making the map interesting and nice to look at. 

Knowing exactly where the enemy pillbox is, spotting suspiciously placed ravines beforehand, barbed wire, anti tank obstacles and all those items that give away an enemy position... right now, you're basically getting all the map knowledge for free and it's a bit of a missed opportunity in my eyes.

As with everything, you can always find excuses for this: it's the pre-battle aerial reconnaissance, it's your scouts or even locals providing you with map knowledge... but that's not really the point. I think the game could potentially be more interesting by giving the player less info to work with. It would make scouting and air recon more important, it would reduce the power of artillery a little bit and just convey the chaos and uncertainty of battle a little bit better.

Probably another thing that's hardcoded into the game, but a man can dream. What do you think?

Example:

[olvie]

Here's a map that's been on hold for more than a year while I work on Stalingrad... 

Started off as a generic France 44 project but then based it on the Battle for Brest.

I'm not sure I have another one of these in me after I hopefully soon finish the Stalingrad map, but it does seem like a waste letting it go...

[Stanenberg]

good work with the waves

[olvie]

Well, it's been more than a year since I announced my Stalingrad project and probably close to a year and a half since I started working on it. My initial prediction of late 2021 was looking to hold true until progress slowed down.

I've been working on it sometimes more, sometimes less, depending on weather, the current Covid situation and personal circumstances. Starting a full time job last summer slowed down progress even more.

Nonetheless, I sunk at least 200 hours into the map which is crazy considering it's a) not even done yet and b) wouldn't even be playable since there are no units, no scripts.

But I'm determined to finish this project. I somehow managed to pull through with my previous 32x32 map and I will again this time.

I'm probably spoiling too much of the map already, but what the hell.

Here are the two main factories, Red Barricades and Red October. All pics are WIP.







I'm feeling a bit like General Paulus - so damn close to victory yet so far.

[[BMG]Neutro]

Olvie you are a very talented map maker i admire your sense of detail and realism !

[Panzerkampfwagen]

Nov 4, 2021 18:09:46 GMT 1 olvie said:

Good evening ladies and gents,

I thought it's about time we had one of these: a place for those questions, statements and screenshots that don't merit their own thread.

We do have the chat window at the bottom but I feel like it's not quite the same, especially for posting screenshots. 

Feel free to post anything BK related here that you feel like doesn't fit anywhere else.

______________________________________________________

I'll start:

I feel like BK could have benefited from having the fog of war completely blacked out at the beginning of the game (example below).

Many, if not most, real time strategy games use this mechanic: you can't see what lies ahead of you unless you've explored it before. This adds another element of uncertainty to the gameplay, as your trying to figure out the terrain that surrounds you in the early game.

In BK, the map design can give so much away. Sandbags, ammo boxes and other details can sometimes pinpoint exactly where an enemy unit is and allows you to shell it with artillery before you've ever seen it. This dilemma has been giving me some headaches, not to give away too much information while still making the map interesting and nice to look at. 

Knowing exactly where the enemy pillbox is, spotting suspiciously placed ravines beforehand, barbed wire, anti tank obstacles and all those items that give away an enemy position... right now, you're basically getting all the map knowledge for free and it's a bit of a missed opportunity in my eyes.

As with everything, you can always find excuses for this: it's the pre-battle aerial reconnaissance, it's your scouts or even locals providing you with map knowledge... but that's not really the point. I think the game could potentially be more interesting by giving the player less info to work with. It would make scouting and air recon more important, it would reduce the power of artillery a little bit and just convey the chaos and uncertainty of battle a little bit better.

Probably another thing that's hardcoded into the game, but a man can dream. What do you think?

Example:

In fog topic... I use CTRL+SHIFT+Q hahah You will see everything xD (I tried it in GZM 9.0 and it works)

[olvie]

Feb 21, 2022 1:44:10 GMT 1 [BMG]Neutro said:

Olvie you are a very talented map maker i admire your sense of detail and realism !

Thanks for the kind and encouraging words, Neutro! 

I gotta be honest, ever since the war in Ukraine started, my motivation to continue this map has dropped to nearly zero. It hasn't felt right painting this war-torn urban landscape while watching similar events unfold in real-time.
I know I'm being hypocritical: all wars are real, all the human suffering is real, and the people fighting and dying now are no different to the ones who lived and died 80 years ago. Yet the current war hits a little bit too close to home.

I do plan to finish this project, and I apologise for the delay. There's no need to discuss the politics or ethics behind this, it's just how I feel at the moment and I wanted to give an explanation for why I've fallen so far behind schedule.

[Mat]

nice mappings olvie

[olvie]

I'm so damn close... "Empty" map 99% complete.

Haven't switched to GZM11 yet, because I am a little bit nervous about compatibility... Switching from 7 to 9 messed up some things.

[olvie]

How long would it realistically take for me to learn how to script a mission on this map?

I know there are some good resources on how to get started, but I'm a little bit worried about the size of the map (and by extend the amount of scripting needed to fill it with interesting events) as well as how long playtesting would take.

Giving the map to an experienced mapper like my 32x32 Russia map is of course an option, and in any case I will make the empty map available for download for everyone.

[Stanenberg]

Hi olvie 

great to see someone is willing to learn and script his maps! 

A good place to start is always kaoz' guide: www.blitzkrieg.be/helpz_bk/LuaScrptGuide/LuaScriptingGuide.htm
Alternatively and a bit more theoretical the starter guide by hitandrun: www.blitzkrieg.be/helpz_bk/BasicLuaLessons.pdf
The guide by Calvin does not really teach you how to actually construct a working script, but is extremely usefull to look up things, so treat it more like a library: www.blitzkrieg.be/helpz_bk/LuaScriptingGuide.pdf

I also found it very usefull to look at other maps' scripts and look how other scripters do things. Sometimes you can learn a thing or two 

The size could indeed be a concern, as you say it will take a while to make such a big map interesting. But if you have the motivation to make such a huge and detailed map, surely you have time and motivation for a script too.
It takes a while to get really fluent at lua and figure out the interesting tricks. So at the start your lua skills might not be on par with your highly detailed mapping. Maybe make one or two small simple test maps to practice a bit and get feedback from the community. 

Testing is always a hassle even with smaller and more simple maps. In my experience, scripting is 20 % actually scripting and 80 % testing and finding/fixing bugs.

Hope this helps 
Stanenberg

[kaoz]

Dec 2, 2022 14:10:26 GMT 1 Stanenberg said:

Testing is always a hassle even with smaller and more simple maps. In my experience, scripting is 20 % actually scripting and 80 % testing and finding/fixing bugs.

This is so true; i had to play and test my last map more than 20 times to get a perfect timing. Could be more, but i stopped counting. Took me more time than creating the map itself.

Start simple, i would say. You could go very complicated and that might work for you, but other players might do something unexpected and your complicated script suddenly doesn't work anymore. Always keep in mind: what if... (player goes left or right instead of ahead as instructed in a particular objective; players do not always follow objectives!)

Start with your objectives, if you get that working, means already a lot. Then, areas give you lots of options. Especially big maps, you should chop up your map into multiple blocks. You can then let specific things happen when a particular area is triggered. But the more triggers, the more testing will be needed. In the beginning, you can test in god mode to speed things up, but at some point you need testing without it as well of course.

With big maps and maybe lots of triggers, make notes using dashes (--) in lua. Makes (lua) life much easier.

Don't hesitate to ask questions, but yes, look at other lua scripts to learn.

[olvie]

Thank you for you detailed replies!

Guess I have a new project on my hands... Let's hope it doesn't take me another two years to finish it.


I will definitely keep it simple for this map. In essence, I don't really need more than

- Kill all units in zone to achieve objective
- Spawn counter attack when zone is cleared
- Spawn counter attack when player passes through an area
- Spawn reinforcements

And that's it, I think. My hope is that I can make each of these scenarios work, and then just copy & paste the script and change the parameters... but that's just me talking without any experience.

[olvie]

Currently downloading GZM 11... let's hope for a seamless port of the map...

edit: Switch from 9 to 11 seems to have gone without any bad surprises 

[olvie]

Well lads, at last the map is finished.

I have started learning to script and am currently making a mini test map to apply what I've learned. Many thanks to the resources you have posted here, they have been extremely helpful. I will send over the current "empty" unscripted map to the makers of GZM in case they wish to include it in the mod. Given the amount of great missions in GZM, I have no doubt one of their map makers can make a way better mission than I ever will.

_____________

To give you an idea of the attention to the real life location, I've made an overview comparing some of the landmarks with historical maps and photos.

This is just a fraction of the resources used for research and there are many more real-life areas that are represented on the BK map.

imgur.com/a/t0j6mOR

edit: Woops, #2 should be the Silicate Factory, not Chemical Factory. Apologies.