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Features of v3.1 |
The new features in version 3.1 of War on Lithon include: research & tech levels, scoring, new symbols for troops, exploration, city builds, and more statistics. Once this version is released you will find more detailed descriptions of these, and more, topics in the instructions. |
In War on Lithon 3.1 research and technology have been added to replace training of troops from version 3.0. There had been various problems concerned with training troops that sometimes froze or crashed the game. Rather than temporarily training your troops you now research technological improvements, and then apply them to your troops permanently by selecting it as a build in one of your cities (see City Builds). Research is accumulated for weapons and hit points (see Troops). You allocate your total research points, which is the sum of the research points from each of your cities, between weapons and hit points. At the end of each turn the research points allocated to each category are added to the totals. When the totals reach the goals indicated on the research window for that category you have made a technological advance and the "Cur. Tech" is increased by one. You start with tech level one in both of the categories. You can apply the new technology by selecting the appropriate project from the change build window (see City Builds). An example of a research window is shown below:
Another new feature in version 3.1 is scoring. Some people have commented that there isn't any point to this game. Well, now there is! You are awarded points each turn for territory, military, and science. The numbers shown in the display below are the average points awarded per turn. The points given for territory are 15 for a military base, 10 for a city, and 5 for undeveloped land. There are 5 military bases, 7 cities, and 18 undeveloped pieces of territory on Lithon. Military points are based on the number and type of troops you have. For a description of troop type see Troops. The more troops you have and the more advanced they are the more points you get. The science score is based on the number of technological advances you have made since the war began. You are given 10 points for each advance. The averages for each category are then totaled to give you your total War on Lithon score. Your top 10 scores in each of the five different difficulties are kept track of in the high scores area.
Troops are the backbone of any country's military, and you will need lots of them to succeed. In version 3.1, with tech levels comes applied tech. Applied tech refers to the tech levels that have been applied to your troops. Each troop (shown below) has two attributes, weapon type and hit points. The sum of these attributes are used in scoring, when building troops in a city, and can be referred to as troop type. For example, a troop with weapon type one and one hit point is a type 2 troop, and the default troop in this game.
In version 3.0 battles were calculated based the number of troops and land type. In version 3.1 weapons and hit points are added into the equation. The weapon type is multiplied by the number of troops each side has in a battle to calculate their strength. Land type is multiplied by the strength of the defending side. Land type is 1 for undeveloped, 2 for cities, and 3 for military bases. The strength of a side divided by the sum for the strengths is the probability of a side getting a hit in each turn of battle. Each hit subtracts one hit point from the side that is hit, and once a side has no hit points left it is defeated. The display below shows the result of a battle. All surviving troops retain all of their hit points for the next battle. A troop is either dead or alive after a battle. In the battle below Canada was in a military base so their defense strength, Def., is 1 x 3 x 3 (weapon type x troops x land type) or 9, and Lithon's attack strength, Att., is 1 x 1 (weapon type x troops) or 1. The probabilities are 1/10 or 10% for Lithon, and 9/10 or 90% for Canada. The probabilities change as troops are killed during a battle.
Many of you are probably wondering what I mean by exploration. If you have play games like Civilization II or Alpha Centauri you may know. In those games the map is generally almost completely black except for a small area when you start the game, but as you grow larger and move your units around the map becomes less obscured. This idea is exploration. Version 3.1 of War on Lithon has a similar idea in it. When you start the game the map is mostly covered by gray and as you start moving your troops around parts become uncovered. The following is an example of this at work.
Some of you might think this means building cities, sorry but that is not the case. City builds are what your cities build. They include troops, upgrade to build speed, upgrade to research, apply weapon tech, and apply hit points tech. These city builds are split into two categories, builds and projects. Builds are those that only apply to the city that is building them, and projects apply to the entire country. Projects have one nation wide goal, where as builds have separate goals for each city. When you start a project in a city it adds its build speed toward the project, but you can switch to a different goal or to a build at any time without it affecting the progress of the project. If you try to switch to something else in the middle of a build you will be informed that this will cost you half of your progress. If you decide to continue your progress will be halved, if you decide not to the window will close so you can select a different build.
Statistics probably doesn't sound like a very interesting topic and you may be right, but there are some new statistics in version 3.1 which makes it necessary to discuss. There are as before stats for territory, troops, wins, and losses. Wins and losses is now a single stat called record, and there is a new stat for casualties. As well as the introduction of these new stats, the stats display has received a makeover. The displays shown below are the different states of the Statistics window. You change its state by clicking on the buttons or by pressing the numbers 1, 2, 3, or 4 on the keyboard.
I could bore you with all of the difficulties encountered while making this game, but instead I'll describe the five difficulty levels in War on Lithon. The five difficulties are Very Easy, Easy, Normal, Hard, and Very Hard. The difficulty of version 3.0 was somewhere between Normal and Hard. The image you see below is part of the difficulty selection screen that you will see when starting a new game. These difficulty levels were added to accommodate a variety of skill levels in our players. Some commented that version 3.0 is too hard, those of you who feel that way may be more comfortable in easy or very easy. If you are like me and want more of a challenge try very hard. At some point I will be supplying tips & tricks you can use to mount a more effective war.
Last Modified: 09/04/02
New Features