By PF2K on Sep 3, 2022 at 5:27 PM
  1. PF2K

    PF2K Lead Developer
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    [​IMG]
    Hello there Celeste players! Today we are continuing to reveal various Indian units and buildings as they roll off the conveyor belt.

    Ram
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    When we began building the Indians back in the Spring of 2021, we had already formed complete visions of nearly every unit and building. However, the Indian Ram was the lone exception. In designing a civ’s units, we always start with actual history and facts. Then we take those facts and try to express them into the normal gameplay constraints and Age of Empires Online design rules that we have discussed in these blogs for years.

    So the Indian Ram. To begin, remember that the game design essentially dictates that every civ in our game must have a Ram unit that is (1) an anti-Building (2) Siege unit that (3) does crush melee damage, and (4) becomes available in Age 3. Also, other than in the case of the Champion upgrade to the Norse Ram (the Farbjodr), every Ram (5) can attack only buildings.

    With that background, we hit the history books. The historical record can be a little tricky with siege weapons, since they don’t often survive through archeology and contemporary written descriptions of machines can get mangled through translation. Meanwhile, in India’s case, it appears that for all purposes, if an Indian army wanted to bust through a wall, they were using an elephant. As one secondary source summarized, “Regarding siege equipment, possibly, battering rams were used, but not much evidence is available here. However, the infantry while scaling the walls would have used ladders or ropes. When it came to assaulting city or fort walls, elephants were given a much more significant role.”

    That makes sense but since an elephant isn’t normally classified as a Siege unit, it doesn’t perfectly lend itself to our five-prong definition of a Ram. But certainly if the Farbjodr (giant dude swinging a ball and chain) can be a Siege unit, then so could some kind of elephant. And we certainly want to give the Indians lots of elephants.

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    But on the other hand, we already are giving the Indians lots of elephant units, and we need to be mindful of not oversaturating them with elephants. If we made too many, we’d cause visual overload and the entire screen would be filled with more elephants than anyone could easily identify. This caused us to think about some kind of mechanical Ram (like most civs) or a human powered one (like the Celts and Norse).

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    We touched on this in the last blog, but we ended up ruling out a traditional mechanical Ram because we need the unit to train from the Fortress and all mechanical Rams have so far trained from Siege Workshops (which the Indians do not have) and all human powered Rams train from Fortresses.

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    Over the months we went around and around on this. The historical pressure kept pushing us back towards some kind of elephant ram, and as a group we continued to brainstorm ways to visually distinguish it. Here are some of the highlights.

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    Here you can see Max’s first concept, which he made simply by plopping a Greek Battering Ram between two existing Elephant assets. He ran with that for a bit and got this far:

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    This double elephant was very tempting, but Max quickly realized that a unit that wide would have serious logistical issues turning around (especially turning around in place, which units frequently do in battles). There really would be no way to artfully pull that off – either the elephants would magically switch directions or they would need to walk around in a giant circle, which would be super awkward visually and super frustrating in gameplay.

    We again put the unit on ice for a number of months to work on other units. Ultimately we arrived at a human powered Ram. About three weeks ago, Eamon took a swing at him.

    As for the name, we are simply calling him a Ram, which mirrors the Celts human powered unit. We probably could have given it some kind of Indian-specific name in line with the Norse Farbjodr, but there wasn’t an obvious choice, the Indians already have a healthy dose of immersive names (Gada Warrior, Guru, Turanga, Juggernaut, Vimana) and there is no reason to shoehorn one into position here. Keep it simple. He’s a Ram.

    Sacred Cow
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    We first introduced the Sacred Cow back in November, and we return to it now that its model and icon are finished. As you may recall, starting in Age 2, the Indians can build a Shrine, which is a second religious themed building. When herdables are placed before it, the Shrine will generate resources and automatically spawn the Club Monkey and the Fire Monkey (though this is subject to change as we playtest). You can also train Sacred Cows at the Shrine, which act identically as herdables. Essentially, Sacred Cows are identical to regular Cows exactly as Sacred Deer are identical to regular Deer.

    But wait, there's more! We are also adding a new type of Gaia Cow to some new Indian themed maps. As you all know, Age of Empires games are constantly expanding its Gaia biodiversity, and we are always on the lookout for new animals and plants to add to the game. This is a cherished, fairly understated part of good Age of Empires design.

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    More Capital City Buildings
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    As more capital city buildings are being built for the Indians, we reveal them to you one by one. There are several buildings that are shared amongst all civilizations, which include the Crafting Hall, Treasury, Trade Dock and Port. You can check the Indian version of these buildings here.

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    Gada Warrior Gear Progression
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    Being the main infantry unit of the Indians, we revealed the Gada Warrior in an earlier blog. But now we have all the different visual variations of the model ready, and here they are!

    Gatherer Elephant Gear Progression
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    Vimana Gear Progression
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    For the the next blog, we will be revealing the artwork of all Indian Advisors, as well as their Milestones. Stay tuned!
    Thanks for reading, and we look forward to revealing more of the Indians again shortly as we pick up the pace. Please let us know your thoughts and questions below!

    All current and future content will stay 100% free and accessible to everyone.

    ========
    Project Celeste Development Team

    What do you think about this week's blog? What would you like to see next? Let us know in the comments below!

    ========
    The Romans are here! Watch the Overview Trailer.

    Project Celeste is completely free and always will be. However, we gladly accept donations for our overhead costs, which are larger than we have budgeted. If you want to support us, you can do so HERE.

    Read every Romans related blog HERE.
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    ========
     
    #1 PF2K, Sep 3, 2022 at 5:27 PM
    Last edited: Sep 3, 2022
    KingJohn19, BOSAIF, AC/DC and 17 others like this.
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Comments

Discussion in 'Indians' started by PF2K, Sep 3, 2022.

    1. LusidPixel

      LusidPixel Villager

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      Looks great, just a nit pick, isn't green gear progression considered uncommon instead of common?
       
      happysmurf and ByFstugan like this.
    2. DiscordGod

      DiscordGod Villager

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      Hello, I am a new user on this forum. Well, there are questions I wanted to ask the developers.
      Will the fans have to wait long with all the update blogs? How much % of the Indian civ is done?
      Excuse me if I am being rude and bothering you with these questions which I have posted.
      I just wanna know if the civ will be completed and released soon or if we have to wait long.
      Seriously looking towards having the Indian culture added in this revived wondeful game.
      PS: also english isn't my primary language so apologies if I am hard at being understand.
       
      #3 DiscordGod, Sep 3, 2022 at 6:00 PM
      Last edited: Sep 4, 2022
      Andy P XIII and happysmurf like this.
    3. R. Jongeneel

      R. Jongeneel Villager

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      It looks very nice! It must be said, again and again: Thank you all for doing this for all of us!
       
      bbgambini, Andy P XIII and happysmurf like this.
    4. happysmurf

      happysmurf Game Developer

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      haha dont worry its more then clear and not rude at all. we ask that question ourselves all the time. its difficult for us as well to pin a date of the release. but we are aiming for the end of the year. we are making great progression but we still have a large section of the animations to do.
       
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    5. PF2K

      PF2K Lead Developer
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      You're right! I will fix this.
       
    6. CrimsonCantab

      CrimsonCantab Berserker

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      What about the game design dictates the Ram as a must-have? Would there be a problem with having a civ that just doesn't have a ram? Could potentially add some more flavor to Indians, if you can deal with Ram's absence.

      I can think of two issues with no-ram Indians:
      • Indians still need to have some "dedicated" way to take down buildings in age 3 - the most obvious way to do that would to have a melee Elephant train from the Mahout Camp that specializes vs buildings (too similar to Armored Elephant?). I don't think it needs to act exactly like a ram (i.e. have Siege typing - it could still be Cavalry), but it needs to be good enough at taking down buildings to fill the role. If you don't already have an age 3 melee Elly on the roster, then this becomes the same issue that you mentioned in the blog post: too many Ellies.
      • Non-civ-specific advisors or bonuses that affect rams (i.e. Siege Tactician Titus). Interestingly, Titus already has to reference 4 different units in his text. I think that's a record for any advisor. So would he be useless to Indians? Or could you add the aforementioned melee Elephant to the list? If you do the latter, that can introduce a lot of confusion, since everything else Titus benefits has those 4/5 "Ram" qualifications. So a bit of a dilemma for this specific advisor for sure. Not a deal-breaker, in my mind, but messy.
      Are there other good reasons why Indians "have to" have a ram?

      All that being said, you guys did a good job working through that tricky problem - just exploring another alternative. Sorry if I'm just adding more angst to an already touchy situation. That's not my intention.
       
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    7. CrimsonCantab

      CrimsonCantab Berserker

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      Oh and if you didn't have a ram, you could put the fortress in the Utility tab of the tech tree :D
       
    8. Taffetatree01

      Taffetatree01 Spearman

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      Thank you devs for sharing the making and progression of a wonderful civ addition.. Looking to more goodies. Thanks a lot once again!
       
      PF2K, bbgambini and Andy P XIII like this.
    9. RASPUTINPRIME

      RASPUTINPRIME Champion

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      As always, looks epic. This civ will be the best yet.
       
      PF2K likes this.
    10. Andy P XIII

      Andy P XIII Moderator
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      I don't believe it would mesh for a civ to have no siege weapon until the Palintonon.

      However, most of our design rules can have exceptions. I could definitely see some civ not having a ram for some historic/gameplay reason. But I think it’s safe to conclude that unless there’s a great reason, every civ gets a ram.
       
      #11 Andy P XIII, Sep 3, 2022 at 11:58 PM
      Last edited: Sep 4, 2022
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    11. Pikolo

      Pikolo Spearman

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      Sad with the ram design, would love more unique designs.
       
    12. PF2K

      PF2K Lead Developer
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      You have a better design in mind? Show us! :)
       
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    13. CrimsonCantab

      CrimsonCantab Berserker

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      The blogpost outlines the historic reason: they really used elephants for siege. Game design reason is the nastiness that comes from having 5 buildings on the military tab :p

      But I do agree, having only 1 siege unit, only in age 4, and that being the palin, does feel pretty weird.
       
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    14. Pikolo

      Pikolo Spearman

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      What I meant by that, that you guys had some interesting concept for rams but you don't want to use it, because too many elephants. Instead now we got a bit changed Celitc/Norse rams. And model also looks like a different variant of those civs.
       
    15. Unknown Maniac

      Unknown Maniac Berserker

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      I would love to see the one with the fists as rams, that would be interesting ancient indian secret martial arts move but I guess that can wait for some chinese karate man, anyway simple but effective design, maybe you could make him use both rams???
       
    16. Maki Evil Zero

      Maki Evil Zero Spearman

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      i love it, good work guys. ;)
       
    17. Donar

      Donar Berserker

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      I like the ram design with an elephant, should be as strong as babylon ram. Other rams a rarely used in pve
       
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    18. Lordgarmadon

      Lordgarmadon Spearman

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      They use elephants so why not make the elephant a siege unit not with a ram but similar to the LOTR Mumakil that the haradrim ride on add a few more tusks and spikes and they could be used as a siege unit and a bonus good against units too
       
    19. Kulcsos12

      Kulcsos12 Hippikon

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      Well, I'm not a big fan on the Indian Ram. As you said in the Palintonon devblog:
      . Then the Age III wall got some spikes as an anti-elephant defence. After this, some kind of armored siege elephant was in my imagination who slowly push forward and knock down walls with his massive forehead. And now you show us the Sapper with steroids and bigger stick. He doesn't feel like an Indian unit for me. Sorry. I know you didn't show us everything and we saw only 1 elephant in the Mahout Camp out of 3. You made an excellent work with the Romans and the Indians, its not a question, but this unit is feels like a filler to complete the tech tree rules. Yes, rules are important but exceptions make them stronger. We already have a Cavalry and and Infantry units with (short) ranged attack, Spearman in Age II, Ram-type unit with only 2x bonus vs building, ect. Why is not possible to add a siege elephant into the Mahout Camp in Age III as a siege unit?
      If you are an Indian General and you want to conquer a city, what would you send to knock down the city walls? Some massive elephants or some thick guys with hand-sized rams?
       
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