Shields, Spears, Seaxes and Warbands

Saxon Warband - you can tell they're Saxon because of that one guy with a Seaxe and the bad teeth

So after getting parrying work last month, it was time to work on shield guarding. Shield Guarding is the easier version of parrying, were you hold up a shield and let the other guy hit you, and the shield absorbs the damage but the defender loses Stamina. If the attack does more damage than the shield's defence rating, then the defender will lose even more Stamina, and if their Stamina reaches zero, their guard is broken and they are staggered - cue free hits. Shield Guarding also slows the player's movement speed.

 With shield guard added to dodge and parrying, the basics of combat are pretty much finished. I did some tinkering with the Ai and they now hunt their opponents on actual sight rather than the previous positioning system I had in place. This makes combat a lot more fluid, and here's a video to prove it, including a brief "look the Ai can now Shield Guard" at the beginning.

 I also noted that the Player themselves could only lock on and off of a target. The camera would then revert to whatever direction it had  before the lockOn occured, and this could be rather disorientating if the Player had done a lot of moving around. Now the Player can cycle through targets left and right by line of sight, and when they end lockOn, the camera stays where it is and just gives input control back to the Player.

 Next up is the crux of my game concept ... warbands!

Warbands are basically teams - and I've got 16 of them with full equipment lists -  that will trudge around the game world, looking for loot and combat. Whilst the main theme is warbands wandering around fighting each other and the Player scavenging equipment/coin/XP from the dead and dying, I am planning on letting the Player eventually being able to join or ally with one, probably for a Danegeld or something. So they'll be a friend/foe system based on previous encounters and the warbands won't always be in a rush to spill each others - or the Player's - blood until something kicks off and vendettas occur.

Norse warband - you can tell their Norse because of their armour stats which I don't currently have models for ...

 I am testing the warband system with just two teams at the moment, Saxon and Norse. This has meant a sudden influx of modelling, as for testing equipment I have needed, axe, longAxe, spears, seaxe and a variety of shields, Targe, Rond and Kite. And then there is the armour, cloth, leather, lamellar, chain, brigandine and plate. The armour is equipped fine and the defensive stats get set, it's just that I don't yet have any armour models so to show that the armour has been successfully equipped everyone has taken to wearing a box on their head.

I also only really have one handed sword animations at the moment, which tends to look a little odd when someone is holding a two handed Long Axe, and combat with a spear involves more thwacking than poking at the moment.

 Each warband has a list of ranks which, apart from equipment, basically detail the attributes and available XP for upgrading that character. Ranks are based on warband type, so the Saxon Fyrd is heavy on low quality levies for the shieldwall with a single Thegn (elite/Knight) and a couple of Huscrals (Men-At-Arms/Heavy Infantry) and no standard Soldiers, whilst the Norse are a more professional outfit of raiders, which make them much more expensive. Both side have few archers and I the datablocks and animations for projectile weapons are still very much on the todo list. For the moment I am concentrating purely on melee, and getting the warbands to move from one location to another as a vaguely cohesive force.

Rather like good old Warhammer, each warband will get the same amount of army build points, set to whoever is the most expensive for a basic force of 10 troops. All other warbands will then get the opportunity to deploy more men, so the largely peasant Saxon army will field 19 troops for every 10 Norse. Whilst the Fyrd's levies may have poor armour, and no bonuses to physical attributes, that is still a lot more spears to be sticking out of a shieldwall. 

Eventually I will get round to battle tactics, such as shieldwalls, but for the moment it's just charge at the enemy and start swinging like a madman.

Next up is getting the warbands to move around to certain points of interest which are just markers placed in the editor. Once I have an actual terrain map these points of interest will be a lot more interesting.

Once the warbands are fully up and running I will start on modelling armour so they finally begin to look the part. 

July is over and it's already August in Space Year 2025. Stop the world I want to get off!