Drohtin - a tribute to strategy games

Hey folk,

we would like to introduce you in a new game development project called Drohtin.
Drohtin is a new multiplayer strategy game using jme3 engine.

During studies a friend and I decided to make our own strategy game. We both are experienced java developer looking for the challage to dev such a game.

So Drohtin is a game where you can build villages, produce resources, develop your culture, trade and what ever comes next to our mind =D
In order to do that we created some 3D Models using Blender and writing some code. So we are not that artist guys, so don’t be rude about the models.

Status Quo:

Here you can see the mainmenu with different options.
You can already change some map options for singleplayer. In Options you can choose the language (englisch, german), the resolution and some other staff. In the right upper corner you see the online status. At the moment the server is not online. We are still developing the server. At the moment we are supporting message in main menu, start a multiplayer game and synchronise the map, the objects and there movements (more or less ). :wink:

After you click on Start Game the loading screen will guide you to the game.

There you will find a random generated map with some simple humans and a cart to found your city.

You can control the cart and move it to each place on the map. It will find the way by its own (based on the waypointsystem you see on the picture).

If you find the right spot for your village you can build the first building

The building shows up a little bit green. That means it is placed but the construction isn’t started.
The construction worker will level the ground and start to build the building.
After the center of your village is ready you are able to build more by using the build menu.

You can place all your buildings and the construction builder will transport resources (like bole or tent) to the places, level the places and build the building. Some buildings like the woodcutter produce resoureces like bole. After the building is ready a woodcutter human will walk to the building and start producing ressources. So he will look at a tree in the nearest forstest, cut the tree and so on.

That means we already have a working build system and a working resource production system.

We are still working on the whole resource production system to produce more kinds of resources in different building. But the foundation is there to expand this system.

So I hope Drohtin is an interessting project for you folk.

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Cool! Can’t wait to see this game progress. Keep us updated.

Yes, definitely keep us updated. It looks very cool.

btw. what do you think is the best way to showconstruction work at a building.
I mean a building animantion is no option.

At the moment we fade in the buildings. It is not bad, but for my opinion not the best.
So what do you think about showing the texture from bottom to the top. That looks more like construction from the ground to the roof.
Do you have an idea to do this or is there something in JME3 that already do this?

I use a construction box around the buildings, at least for the humans:

The blob buildings have a big blob that grows and pops.

The construction box is a batch node of quads. It looks at the dimensions of the structure that is going to be built and makes sure the box is larger than that. Then it wraps the boards around it at a rate depending on the build time of the structure.

Your fading in idea works well. Some games have a faded object but then fill it in vertically as the building progresses. I’m not really sure how they do that though.

The construction box works very well for your building.

I think we can not use that, because the construction worker need resources to build the building. Some other people bring the resources to the building ans store it there until the construction human will use it. By using a box it is not possible to see this resources. Furthermore if some resources are missing the construction stops and the construction box will be there for a long time… not so cool for our kind of buildings (medevil style).

But this vertical fill is exactly what I mean. I really want to know you this staff works!!
So I am open for a solution, probably a kind of shader can do this but I am not sure.

Just do a custom shader - if y height in the model is > P (where P is the current progress) then make the pixel transparent. If not then show it.

You could also do some simple stuff with scaffolding around the building etc.

Hey folk,

I uploaded the first video of Drohtin.

[video]Drohtin - the indie strategy game - YouTube

Check it out, comments are very welcome!

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Very nice! Are you using a particular method for AI, like GOAP?

Also, are you using the RTS camera? I think you would benefit from a more top-down perspective. Right now it’s at an awkward spot between bird’s view and freakishly-tall-person’s view :stuck_out_tongue:

We are not using a particular methode for AI. We have serveral “Low Level” AI methodes and some “High Level” AI methodes.
I try to make an example:
The player build a building at the map. That is equal to a build job (High Level). The build job orders the builder (there movement is Low Level, A Star algorithm), create the leveling part (low level), the resource ordering (high level) and the building part (low level).
Sure the goal of the build job is to build the building (so kind of GOAP).

What I try to say is that high level AI consist of low level AI methods. Low level methods does not consists of other methods. I hope this is clear. I you are interested in more detail just let me know.

The camera is totaly free to move. So you can rotate, zoom or change the angel like to prefer. At the moment we do not have any constraints at the cam movment, because personaly I hate cam restrictions.

@drothindev said: The camera is totaly free to move. So you can rotate, zoom or change the angel like to prefer. At the moment we do not have any constraints at the cam movment, because personaly I hate cam restrictions.
A fixed camera can do wonders for your asset budget, because you can safely use lower definition assets that won't look good up close or from different angles. Also greatly simplifies your interaction mechanics for building placement, unit selection etc.

That’s not critique on your art assets btw. They are well above the average programmer art, so job well done there :slight_smile:

If you want to retain a free-cam then by all means do so. But I would highly recommend fine-tuning an optional fixed-cam for those who don’t want to spend time on that and just play the game.

I know a fixed cam is quiet nice for the assets and often also for performance. I might add some default cam positions for that people who just want to play. Because at the moment I already have the flexibility and is should be easy to add a handfull of fixed-cam positions. I am also thinking about one player favourite position (player can save the position and use a hotkey to switch it). So let’s see.

But still a good point and I will take care of it (created a ticket for that ) =D

Hi folks,

here are some new Screenshots of Drohtin. We updates some of the 3D models and optimized the organisation of the mesh object.
We are also using normal maps for some object. For example the tree at the first picture…


The performance seems not to bad, even on my old machine (4 core AMD, Readeon HD 5850, 4GB RAM)
The second screenshots shows a large map. At the moment we have small, normal, large and very large maps. Each step in map size increase the map by 4 (that means the normal map is 4 times bigger that the small map and so on). We are still working on some more optimizations to keep the FPS as high as possible. 8)

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