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Guest
Guest
Hello Leaders!
I’m Brad and I’m an Associate Designer at Big Huge Games. I previously worked on World War and, for the past few months, I’ve had the pleasure of working on the Global Age! Although the finished product is in your hands, I wanted to share some interesting tidbits about the work that went into this update.
One of the primary focuses of this update was on combat. We wanted to make both gameplay and performance improvements, which were accomplished by the addition of new troops and changes to battle progression saving, respectively. While the progress redesign was important for improving the overall experience on the battlefield, we think the addition of the Mortars, Bazookas, and Transports will provide many new opportunities to construct the perfect army for the way you want to do battle.
My personal favorite of the three new troops is definitely the Transport Mk1 and its fearless Paratroopers that deploy behind enemy lines. We initially wanted the Transport to behave like the Biplane and the Zeppelin: you could re-deploy it as soon as it returned to the troop tray. This proved to be problematic, however, as players could amass a large horde of Paratroopers by deploying the Transport to a position that significantly shortened its return flight. Our first solution for this issue was having the number of deployed Paratroopers be proportional to the number of destructible buildings in the area. Deploying Transports to the desolate forests on the outskirts of a town would be a low-risk, low-reward choice compared to flying your troops right over a populated (but well-defended) urban area. After some playtesting and debate, we opted for an alternative solution: introducing the cooldown as a much more simple constraint to sending three mighty Paratroopers anywhere they might be needed.
When we were playtesting the first iterations of the Mortar and the Bazooka, they ended up feeling too similar to each other. They required similar troop space amounts and both felt like average-ranged units that made things explode (don’t get me wrong, explosions will always be awesome!). To further distinguish these two units, we gave the Mortar the ability to fire over walls similar to the Ballista. This makes them excellent troops to donate to War Bases because they will safely pummel attacking forces from behind your walls. On the other hand, we believed that the Factory was long overdue for a more well-rounded troop that was good at destroying just about everything. The Gatling Gun, Guerilla, and Heavy Tank all fill specialized roles, so the Bazooka seemed like a good fit for having a really high damage bonus against multiple targets.
With the Global Age finished, we’ve already begun work on our newest features. However, we do take time to listen to your feedback, so keep it coming! It’s always exciting to hear your ideas for improvements to the game.
Regards,
Brad Fisher
I’m Brad and I’m an Associate Designer at Big Huge Games. I previously worked on World War and, for the past few months, I’ve had the pleasure of working on the Global Age! Although the finished product is in your hands, I wanted to share some interesting tidbits about the work that went into this update.
One of the primary focuses of this update was on combat. We wanted to make both gameplay and performance improvements, which were accomplished by the addition of new troops and changes to battle progression saving, respectively. While the progress redesign was important for improving the overall experience on the battlefield, we think the addition of the Mortars, Bazookas, and Transports will provide many new opportunities to construct the perfect army for the way you want to do battle.
My personal favorite of the three new troops is definitely the Transport Mk1 and its fearless Paratroopers that deploy behind enemy lines. We initially wanted the Transport to behave like the Biplane and the Zeppelin: you could re-deploy it as soon as it returned to the troop tray. This proved to be problematic, however, as players could amass a large horde of Paratroopers by deploying the Transport to a position that significantly shortened its return flight. Our first solution for this issue was having the number of deployed Paratroopers be proportional to the number of destructible buildings in the area. Deploying Transports to the desolate forests on the outskirts of a town would be a low-risk, low-reward choice compared to flying your troops right over a populated (but well-defended) urban area. After some playtesting and debate, we opted for an alternative solution: introducing the cooldown as a much more simple constraint to sending three mighty Paratroopers anywhere they might be needed.
When we were playtesting the first iterations of the Mortar and the Bazooka, they ended up feeling too similar to each other. They required similar troop space amounts and both felt like average-ranged units that made things explode (don’t get me wrong, explosions will always be awesome!). To further distinguish these two units, we gave the Mortar the ability to fire over walls similar to the Ballista. This makes them excellent troops to donate to War Bases because they will safely pummel attacking forces from behind your walls. On the other hand, we believed that the Factory was long overdue for a more well-rounded troop that was good at destroying just about everything. The Gatling Gun, Guerilla, and Heavy Tank all fill specialized roles, so the Bazooka seemed like a good fit for having a really high damage bonus against multiple targets.
With the Global Age finished, we’ve already begun work on our newest features. However, we do take time to listen to your feedback, so keep it coming! It’s always exciting to hear your ideas for improvements to the game.
Regards,
Brad Fisher
That was a happy day!!!
