Five new Screenshots showing national attributes, trade and battle reports!

[Adlercreutz]

There are ten screenshots in the gallery (five of them were already shown in the 1st developer diary):

http://www.gamestar.de/spiele/pride-of-nations/news/pride_of_nations,46377,2318291.html

Beware! It's a german site! Just click on "weiter" in the box at the bottom of the screen to view the next screenshot.

Click "Originalgröße anzeigen" to see them in full size.

The five new ones are quite interesting, I think...

[Queeg]

Very impressive!

[Slick Wilhelm]

I can't wait! Finally, a game that takes place in the era that most interests me. This is a day-one purchase for me.

[Anguille]

Ehm...i am really happy that i just skipped Victoria 2...this is just...so much better

[yoshino]

Looks promising,especially I like the economic view.
Really I can't wait for the release.

[Ex Mudder]

I was looking at the California Screenshot. The only natural resource I can see in California and Nevada are cattle in Sacramento. This seems off, as I recall gold being shipped to the US as late as the Civil War, and CA has always been a good source of foodstuffs. Is this just not an economic overlay map, or just an alpha screenshot?

Also, can you build cities, or have provinces add cities if their population rises sufficiently? Or are all cities set at game start?

[Pocus]

Cities emerge (and grow or shrink) in accordance with the population of the region yes.

As for the resources, it is still alpha work, but your input is very welcome on that!

[Ex Mudder]

Cities emerge (and grow or shrink) in accordance with the population of the region yes.

As for the resources, it is still alpha work, but your input is very welcome on that!

Didn't realize cities were of different sizes. Are there in game effects based on city size?

Are things like the transcontinental railroad and trans Siberia railroad implemented in the game? Or are railroads local in their effects. I'm trying to figure out how California (or Siberia) exports get to the national stockpile. Do we need merchant convoys all around the Americas?

And the gold rush started out here in 1848 and was in full swing by '49, so we should have some gold deposits already on the map in 1850. This does bring up a point though, when new resources (like oil) become important, do you need to prospect for them or do they appear on the map?

And are gold and diamonds actual trade goods or just a source of cash?

[Pocus]

You really want to pull a lot of information from us, do you?

Yes city size is used in many parts of the game, this is for example one of the parameter used to determine how many units you can recruit in a given region.
Railroads for the economy is local in effect, but for supply and military transportation, it is needed that each region is connected to another.
To simplify the game, once the merchandise touch upon one of your national region, it is added to your national stock ... so yes USA and Russia are rather advantaged here.
Resources must be prospected yes.

[Ex Mudder]

You really want to pull a lot of information from us, do you?

Yes city size is used in many parts of the game, this is for example one of the parameter used to determine how many units you can recruit in a given region.
Railroads for the economy is local in effect, but for supply and military transportation, it is needed that each region is connected to another.
To simplify the game, once the merchandise touch upon one of your national region, it is added to your national stock ... so yes USA and Russia are rather advantaged here.
Resources must be prospected yes.

Lol, yeah, gimme more gimme more!

Nah, I'm good, that answered my questions for now. I like what I am hearing about this game.

[marcusjm]

Ok, seems my last post was regarded as "report post on the above poster", that is not correct. Please disregard that.

What I mean't to write is this. I don't understand why external sites get tons of screens while this forum, the HQ of this game gets almost none. It would be much easier if someone not involved in coding posted screens here, then they could be spread in external sites instead of the other way around .

[Rafiki]

Please disregard that.

[color="Blue"]OK. Done [/color]

[nats]

Hmm I actually dont like these. Theyt seem to be very simialr to the style of Napoleons Campaigns and I didnt like the look of that game either. I much prefer the painterly look of your games like the last Russian Revolution one and ACW. These screens are too computerised. IMO the painterly look and impressive GUI interfaces are the main things that separated you from your competitors. These screens could be straight out of Victoria 2 (almost).

[McNaughton]

Hmm I actually dont like these. Theyt seem to be very simialr to the style of Napoleons Campaigns and I didnt like the look of that game either. I much prefer the painterly look of your games like the last Russian Revolution one and ACW. These screens are too computerised. IMO the painterly look and impressive GUI interfaces are the main things that separated you from your competitors. These screens could be straight out of Victoria 2 (almost).

Really? I thought that it was the impressive AI, the interesting take on leadership (stats + abilities + command system), the use of detailed orders of battles (units + elements), the economic systems, the feel of existing in that era's combat environment, and the other countless innovative under-the-hood aspects of AGEOD games that make the company producing innovative games, of themes and subjects not too much covered. I guess I was wrong, it is all about how pretty things look.

[Reverend Zombie]

Really? I thought that it was ...the feel of existing in that era's combat environment...

Ah, but a more historical looking map would be the very thing to increase the feel of being in the era.

I understand about trade-offs, limited resources, etc., but the more modern-looking map is less consistent with AGEOD's goal of period immersion, and is, I think, a fair criticism to make.

[marcusjm]

In that case this map is somewhat closer to historical maps of this period compared ot the Civil War map . I have seen plenty of 19th century maps and they were actually quite modern looking compared to older maps (certainly not full with cartoon graphics like that Civil War map).

If they get what McNaughton right then it is good enough for most serious strategy players. They have enough time to polish the map after they got those things right.

Personally I think they should have a broader beta period before release since this type of game needs much more fine tuning than other AGEOD games. Maybe release some kind of beta demo.

[Reverend Zombie]

In that case this map is somewhat closer to historical maps of this period compared to the Civil War map . I have seen plenty of 19th century maps and they were actually quite modern looking compared to older maps (certainly not full with cartoon graphics like that Civil War map).

I would have preferred something that looked a bit more stylized, like this old map of El Paso for PoN.

This one even has the same "3-D" profile that PoN uses, and I've found lots of examples of these.

My main issue with the PoN map is that it looks like it could be a map for any generic strategy game, and the historical units look out of place on it as a result.

[marcusjm]

Yes it's nice but I seriously doubt it would work on a global scale, some consideration has to be made for ease of use as well.

Take a look at the shots of Pax Britannica, the game that serves as the main inspiration for these type of games.

http://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/1209/pax-britannica

As you can see the graphics are fairly spartan and even simpler than PON and yet this boardgame is still the best game for this period.

Sure, this map can use some polish but they have time.

Might as well use the one from Red Dead Redemption .

[McNaughton]

[sarcasm]Hmm, this makes me think of another product out there. There is this really lame game that some people are talking about, because it has the poorest graphics I have ever seen (see link below). I don't think that I will buy this game because visually it should be better. I think that it was a big mistake to design the game with such poor graphics, it will never sell...[/sarcasm]

http://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/171/chess

[marcusjm]

I think we can find some compromise between Chess and Red Dead Redemption .

But you make a good point. Game mechanics is the main thing here, this will be hell to balance right and if they manage that then I really don't care if the map looks so so.

There was in fact one game, maybe no-one here played it. It was called Colonial Conquest and only available on Atari ST and C64 I think. When played together with friends it was fantastic. Yet the graphics even for that time was very spartan.

[scott1964]

Screenshots look great. Looking forward to getting this next year.

[Reverend Zombie]

Take a look at the shots of Pax Britannica, the game that serves as the main inspiration for these type of games.

http://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/1209/pax-britannica

Pax Britannica. One of my favorite games. But I hated the map.

[marcusjm]

Pax Britannica. One of my favorite games. But I hated the map.

Let's hope it isn't other way around this time . I think both are achieveable though and keep my fingers crossed.

[Reverend Zombie]

Let's hope it isn't other way around this time . I think both are achieveable though and keep my fingers crossed.

My gripes about the map notwithstanding, I am confident I will love PoN, given AGEOD's track record.

[Christophe.Barot]

I think we can find some compromise between Chess and Red Dead Redemption .

But you make a good point. Game mechanics is the main thing here, this will be hell to balance right and if they manage that then I really don't care if the map looks so so.

There was in fact one game, maybe no-one here played it. It was called Colonial Conquest and only available on Atari ST and C64 I think. When played together with friends it was fantastic. Yet the graphics even for that time was very spartan.

if it is the SSI colonial conquest I think about, it was also available on apple

I bought it, definitely stopped playing it the day where, suddenly, without any reason, without any warning, demand, hostility or what, without the least territorial contiguity both japan and USA simultaneously launched a surprise attack on east prussia, ending at war both with each other and with me

I retook it with ease, but it was last time I played this game - OK wasn't ever meant to be fully historical, but too much is too much ... du grand n'importe quoi

I think Philippe Thibaut had it too, not sure

[PhilThib]

I had - and played - Colonial Conquest but the game's was a pure random behavior when it comes to anything close to history. Very frustrating.

[Pocus]

Not a surprise, when you abandon the pink colored glasses of nostalgia, you see that many of the older games were not as good as we remember!

[marcusjm]

Well it has to be said that Colonial Conquest required a full set of human players to be fun. The fun part was the diplomatic negotiations and the general backstabbing.

One can compare with computer versions of Diplomacy, they generally suck due to AI not being able to emulate human interaction.

Pax Britannica also more or less required all human players and how easy was that to achieve .