Empires on UE4: UE4 is FREE edition

Sorry, we actually talked about art design, but I didn't include it in that post because I wanted feedback on that 'lore' idea.

As for art design, we talked about the real world style that would best fit each faction. I'm posting images as a base to start looking at. I don't want the Jekotians to be running around with AKs.

The Jekotians would probably be Warsaw-Pact level technology. Their gear is well made and very mechanical (with exposed bolts and a slightly more rounded exterior).



Their guns would be more Rifle-y, made with wood and metals. The biggest change from Srcpires is that their weapons would NOT be hand made.









In contrast, the Brenodi use mostly metals and hard angles in their designs. Imagine them as being Modern America crossed with Nazi Germany in terms of design style. Very clean, Very angular, Grays, blacks, and blues.


(Surprise, the source of the BE Medium tank)





Their gear should be made slightly more futuristic (+15 years?) The idea is that the BE-JK war took place in 'modern' times (1980-2000), unlike srcpires where it was more WW2-ish era. So the types of gear that the Brenodi uses would be slightly more aged up.

 

It's not like srcpires was really any different. It was Space Russians vs Space Germans.

The difference is that it's not. The motivations are all different. While the art styles are grounded with real-world counterparts, they are still different. The Real World examples are simply there to make the world more believeable and to give a sense of familarity to the weapons. Like I said, I REALLY don't want the Jekotians to run around with AKs and the Brenodi to run around with M16/M4s... But I do want the style grounded in something familiar with people.

 

Well, it's 'Alternate Reality'. It should feel different enough that it's not a real world weapon but also grounded enough that you can see how the engineers simply made a different design choice when creating that weapon.

 

I just want to have custom 'legacy' nfar and p1

Warsaw pact huh? Rocket artillery for nf then?

 

Just make sure the tank barrels are still slightly exaggerated, and we're good.

 

I want to do cosmetic skins and models, so why not. I don't see why the Sourcemod assets can't be cleaned up, retextured, and released as comsetics (free for anyone who played the sourcemod? Why not).

Also, I fucking loved the rocket artillery in BF1942. Hell yes.

 

Not sure about the art direction. What I liked about Empires was it was vague enough that you could draw your own conclusions. So, for instance, I made my Jekotians with more of a bent towards being a 'highland' freedom fighter people.

I think the lore and backstory for Empires was always kind of messed up. Megel's stuff aside, the idea was interesting but was missing some key ideas to being fleshed out. At least regarding what happened before current events.

Apparently there was a war and the Brens got the upper hand managing to dominate and subdue the Jekotians. This led to the Jeks being second class citizens after peace fell and eventually gave rise to the NF resistance. Which somehow manages to become an actual problem for the entirety of Brenodia (or whatever) for some reason. And somehow manages to lead back to war.

In my view there's a key element there missing which explains how the Jeks were able to gather enough forces and hide them so they'd become a problem for the militaristic Brenodi. Without going all hunger-games style dystopia (which it never actually seemed to do) this seems a little difficult to reconcile.

Anyway, long story short, it's pretty complicated and doesn't really evolve properly. If someone actually can show the logical progression that would be cool, but I've never been able to get my head around that mess in the middle, and I don't think it actually has an explanation.

It's easier with lower tech societies, because you can have a rebellion somewhere in the north and have a slow encroachment without people really knowing. Have a slow rebellion build to something difficult to deal with and then have a war on your hands. But with more current tech, news flies much faster...so there has to be some kind of sanctuary, gathering, place to hide, or insane coordination where everything goes to pot pretty quickly.

 

I was thinking about that... How can Brenodi actually lose to a Jekotian Insurgency if they were already fucking huge and had most of the planet's resources? How can Jekotia hope to challenge the Empire?

I think the answer could be a combination of factors.

1) Jekotia would have to be fucking huge in it's own right.
2) Jekotia has to have a large population and a large amout of industrial capability
3) There needs to be a natural border between Jekotia and the rest of the Brenodi Empire
4) The Brenodi need to respect the Jekotians.

If all four factors come together, I can see a rebellion working and Jekotia regaining it's independence.

So, for the large amount of industrial capability, I want to reduce the time between 'The Last War' (as I'm calling it... BE invading the first time) to 10-15 years. This keeps the Jekotian population pretty high and their industrial capacity relatively untouched.

To solve the 3rd issue, My idea is that there would be a very large mountain range (The Glycen Mountains?) that cause a rain shadow, creating a large desert between Jekotian and Brenodi territory (where Duststorm could take place). This gives a very inhospitable environment bordering on a large natural defensive area. The Desert could have been a Jekotian province before the war. The 'Jekotian' side of the mountains (Glycen) would be a cold place in the winter, but a massive breadbasket in the summer months... capable of feeding the entire Jekotian territory while also cut off from the rest of the world.

As for making Jekotia huge and respected by the Brenodi... Why not make them allies in the past? Brenodi trying to become a worldwide empire wouldn't have been a overnight thing. It would have been a generational goal set hundreds of years ago by the first Emperor of the Bren. This calls into question... If the Brenodi were trying to expand rapidly, why didn't the whole world stop them? Well... Because the Brenodi had friends. One of these friends could have very easily been Jekotia. This means that the world was slowly being divided up between the two factions over time. Jekotia could have become huge by dividing up territory and other nations between them and the Brenodi. It creates a long time friendship between Bren and Jekotia and creating a very vicious fight between them when the Brenodi stabbed Jekotia in the back.

This then could lead to the downfall of Jekotia through Brenodi sabotage. The Brenodi could have worked with other groups the Jekotians had conquered to create rebellions in territory they used to own, offering them higher status under Brenodi rule if they took up arms against their Jekotian oppressors. When the Jekotians rebelled against the Brenodi Empire, they simply take a page out of the Brenodi playbook and arm other conquered territories against Brenodi rule, slowly breaking apart the empire.

This creates a situation where an insurgency in core Jekotian territory could have won.

 

Did you read the design document? What I wrote is that the Jekotian insurgency became a problem when they found a secret underground base that contained weapons and a sophisticated combat unit that had been placed in hibernation before the end of the war and forgotten about. Some rebels found it and woke the unit up. This unit took command of the insurgency and transformed it into a force that rivaled the NF army before their loss.

I never wrote more to the story than what is in the design document which was solely focused on giving an explanation for why the war started (finding of ruins that was linked to both sides' ancestors and both claiming ownership rights), how it ended (Brenodi used resource nodes behind enemy lines as a weapon to create earthquakes that destroyed the civilian population which paints them as evil), and why the Jekotians cannot integrate into Brenodi society (Jekotians pursued genetic engineering and organic enhancements while Brenodi pursued cybernetic enhancements; Jekotians have no implanted chips to buy food, etc and genetic engineering rejects such implants). The ICA is the Imperial Colonial Authority that subjugates the remaining Jekotian population without having to directly involve the Brenodi military.

I never read what Megel or anyone else wrote about the story, and so I don't know if it fits with my story or not.

 

I remember some of that. I was kinda wanting to do a bit of a reboot with some of my ideas (and many of yours).

In terms of making the Brenodi and Jekotians 'Evil', I was just going to make the insurgency very...messy. The ICA would have created concentration camps and kept political prisoners. The Northern Faction would have become increasingly closer to Terrorists instead of freedom fighters (IEDs, Suicide bombers, etc) which lead the ICA into becoming more and more repressive (Executing prisoners, rounding up civilians simply suspected of collaborating, etc). Eventually political pressure from the rest of the Empire would cause the ICA to be disbanded/recalled back into the empire leading to the reformation of a Jekotian state and the war between the two nations again... Linking back to the two 'Eras' idea that I had.

I'm not sure I like the Genetic Engineering vs Nanites theme. I think you can create enough justification for each other's atrocities and hatred without having to put an technological cause of pressure between them. It would also feel more human and grounded in reality if the biggest cause was 'The brenodi killed my family and took everything I had' vs 'The Jekotians killed my Husband/Brother/Father/etc when they were only there to bring peace'. It also feels a lot darker in it's themes as well.

 

I think you've got it right, and there definitely needs to be some hard to pass terrain. I was always partial to the idea that there were people scattered around that didn't really belong to any side until more recently when the Jekotians rebelled and formed the Northern Faction.

So, let me lay out an example here. Say the Brenodi Empire was a large force in the south and grew (perhaps in mutual cooperation with Jekotia as you've said), and then began to become a threat and managed to overpower Jekotia during the war - occupying the land and taking over etc. Now if Jekotia was actually a big part of a northern section of lands, those lands would get very nervous, but equally they wouldn't be able to do very much against the Brenodi encroachment.

But if, when the Jekotians started rebelling (sometime later, I assume after conditions deteriorated), those same countries/lands/peoples provided cover, assistance and perhaps arms to the large amount of Jekotians now putting up a fight, in a very short time you'd be able to have a powerful resistance army going, and a conglomerate to rival the powers of the south.

Edit:

Do you know I've waited 8 years to hear that explanation? No one could ever properly say what the cache was or what exactly happened. Just that the "Source" was part of it.

 

Like I said, I want to do a reboot. Srcpire's story wouldn't have any real place in this. The themes and the players would be the same or similar, but it'd be different.

 

In terms of taking this and turning it into gameplay, that would mean that most of the levels in the 'Insurgency' period would be set in Gylcen and neighboring territories.

Early maps in the Northern Faction period could be things like assaulting a concentration camp, taking control of key factory complexes or train stations, stuff like that. Later maps in the Northern Faction period would be things like securing Glycen City and driving the ICA out, and maybe 'DustStorm' could take place... a Northern Faction assault out of Jekotian territory that proves that the ICA has failed to keep the peace and that the Empire must do something.

 

Are you discussing Krenzo's story or mine?